severe school of experience.  Unfortunately for Chopin, he had neither the stuff nor the stomach for fighting.  He shrank back at the slightest touch like a sensitive plant.  He could only thrive in the sunshine of prosperity and protected against all those inimical influences and obstacles that cause hardier natures to put forth their strength, and indeed are necessary for the full unfolding of all their capabilities.  Chopin and Titus Woyciechowski put up at the hotel 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 composer thought the cunning publisher wished