I can be amongst you in my thoughts.  Early in the morning the unbearably-stupid servant wakes me; I rise, get my coffee, and often drink it cold because I forget my breakfast over my playing.  Punctually at nine o’clock appears my German master; then I generally write; and after that, Hummel comes to work at my portrait, while Nidecki studies my concerto.  And all this time I remain in my comfortable dressing-gown, which I do not take off till twelve o’clock.  At that hour a very worthy German makes his appearance, Herr Leibenfrost, who works in the law-courts here.  If the weather is fine I take a walk with him on the Glacis, then we dine together at a restaurant, Zur bohmischen Kochin, which is frequented by all the university students; and finally we go (as is the custom here) to one of the best coffee-houses.  After this I make calls, return home in the twilight, throw myself into evening-dress, and must be off to some soiree:  to- day here, to-morrow there.  About eleven or twelve (but never later) I return home, play, laugh, read, lie down, put out the light, sleep, and dream of you, my dear ones.

If is evident that there was no occasion to fear that Chopin would kill himself with too hard work.  Indeed, the number of friends, or, not to misuse this sacred name, let us rather say acquaintances, he had, did not allow him much time for study and composition.  In his letters from Vienna are mentioned more than forty names of families and single individuals with whom he had personal intercourse.  I need hardly add that among them there was a considerable sprinkling of Poles.  Indeed, the majority of the houses where he was oftenest seen, and where he felt most happy, were those of his countrymen, or those in which there was at least some Polish member, or which had some Polish connection.  Already on December 1, 1830, he writes home that he had been several times at Count Hussarzewski’s, and purposes to pay a visit at Countess Rosalia Rzewuska’s, where he expects to meet Madame Cibbini, the daughter of Leopold Kozeluch and a pupil of Clementi, known as a pianist and composer, to whom Moscheles dedicated a sonata for four hands, and who at that time was first lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Austria.  Chopin had likewise called twice at Madame Weyberheim’s.  This lady, who was a sister of Madame Wolf and the wife of a rich banker, invited him to a soiree “en petit cercle des amateurs,” and some weeks later to a soiree dansante, on which occasion he saw “many young people, beautiful, but not antique [that is to say not of the Old Testament kind], “refused to play, although the lady of the house and her beautiful daughters had invited many musical personages, was forced to dance a cotillon, made some rounds, and then went home.  In the house of the family Beyer (where the husband was a Pole of Odessa, and the wife, likewise Polish, bore the fascinating Christian name Constantia—­the reader will remember her) Chopin felt soon at his