tel Stadt London, but, finding the charges
too high, they decamped and stayed at the hotel Goldenes Lamm till the
lodgings which they had taken were evacuated by the English admiral then
in possession of them. From Chopin's first letter after his arrival in
the Austrian capital his parents had the satisfaction of learning that
their son was in excellent spirits, and that his appetite left nothing
to be desired, especially when sharpened by good news from home. In his
perambulations he took particular note of the charming Viennese girls,
and at the Wilde Mann, where he was in the habit of dining, he enjoyed
immensely a dish of Strudeln. The only drawback to the blissfulness of
his then existence was a swollen nose, caused by the change of air, a
circumstance which interfered somewhat with his visiting operations. He
was generally well received by those on whom he called with letters
of introduction. In one of the two exceptional cases he let it be
understood that, having a letter of introduction from the Grand Duke
Constantine to the Russian Ambassador, he was not so insignificant a
person as to require the patronage of a banker; and in the other case
he comforted himself with the thought that a time would come when things
would be changed.

In the letter above alluded to (December 1, 1830) Chopin speaks of one
of the projected concerts as if it were to take place shortly; that is
to say, he is confident that, such being his pleasure, this will be
the natural course of events. His Warsaw acquaintance Orlowski, the
perpetrator of mazurkas on his concerto themes, was accompanying
the violinist Lafont on a concert-tour. Chopin does not envy him the
honour:--

Will the time come [he writes] when Lafont will accompany me?
Does this question sound arrogant? But, God willing, this may
come to pass some day.

Wurfel has conversations with him about the arrangements for a
concert, and Graff, the pianoforte-maker, advises him to give it in
the Landstandische Saal, the finest and most convenient hall in Vienna.
Chopin even asks his people which of his Concertos he should play, the
one in F or the one in E minor. But disappointments were not long in
coming. One of his first visits was to Haslinger, the publisher of the
Variations on "La ci darem la mano," to whom he had sent also a sonata
and another set of variations. Haslinger received him very kindly, but
would print neither the one nor the other work. No wonder the c