One day he expresses the wish that he and his friend should travel together.  But this was too commonplace a sentiment not to be refined upon.  Accordingly we read in a subsequent letter as follows:—­

   September 18th, 1830.—­I should not like to travel with you,
   for I look forward with the greatest delight to the moment
   when we shall meet abroad and embrace each other; it will be
   worth more than a thousand monotonous days passed with you on
   the journey. 
From another passage in one of these letters we get a good idea of the influence Titus Woyciechowski exercised on his friend.

April 10, 1830.—­Your advice is good.  I have already refused some invitations for the evening, as if I had had a presentiment of it—­for I think of you in almost everything I undertake.  I do not know whether it comes from my having learned from you how to feel and perceive; but when I compose anything I should much like to know whether it pleases you; and I believe that my second Concerto (E minor) will have no value for me until you have heard it and approved of it.

I quoted the above passage to show how Chopin felt that this friendship had been a kind of education to him, and how he valued his friend’s opinion of his compositions—­he is always anxious to make Titus acquainted with anything new he may have composed.  But in this passage there is another very characteristic touch, and it may easily be overlooked, or at least may not receive the attention which it deserves—­I allude to what Chopin says of having had “a presentiment.”  In superstitiousness he is a true child of his country, and all the enlightenment of France did not succeed in weaning him from his belief in dreams, presentiments, good and evil days, lucky and unlucky numbers, &c.  This is another romantic feature in the character of the composer; a dangerous one in the pursuit of science, but advantageous rather than otherwise in the pursuit of art.  Later on I shall have to return to this subject and relate some anecdotes, here I shall confine myself to quoting a short passage from one of his early letters.

April 17, 1830.—­If you are in Warsaw during the sitting of the Diet, you will come to my concert—­I have something like a presentiment, and when I also dream it, I shall firmly believe it.

And now, after these introductory explanations, we will begin the chapter in right earnest by taking up the thread of the story where we left it.  On his return to Warsaw Chopin was kept in a state of mental excitement by the criticisms on his Vienna performances that appeared in German papers.  He does not weary of telling his friend about them, transcribing portions of them, and complaining of Polish papers which had misrepresented the drift and mistranslated the words of them.  I do not wonder at the incorrectness of the Polish reports, for some of these criticisms are written in as uncouth, confused, and vague German