is the cause of the silence, just as Wagner's dislike for
Meyerbeer was the result of his obligations to the composer of
"Les Huguenots." He heard Aloys Schmitt play, and uttered the
very Heinesque witticism that "he is already over forty years
old, and composes eighty years old music." This in a letter to
Elsner. Our Chopin could be amazingly sarcastic on occasion. He
knew Slavik the violin virtuoso, Merk the 'cellist, and all the
music publishers. At a concert given by Madame Garzia-Vestris, in
April, 1831, he appeared, and in June gave a concert of his own,
at which he must have played the E minor concerto, because of a
passing mention in a musical paper. He studied much, and it was
July 20, 1831, before he left Vienna after a second, last, and
thoroughly discouraging visit.

Chopin got a passport vised for London, "passant par Paris &.
Londres," and had permission from the Russian Ambassador to go as
far as Munich. Then the cholera gave him some bother, as he had
to secure a clean bill of health, but he finally got away. The
romantic story of "I am only passing through Paris," which he is
reported to have said in after years, has been ruthlessly shorn
of its sentiment. At Munich he played his second concerto and
pleased greatly. But he did not remain in the Bavarian capital,
hastening to Stuttgart, where he heard of the capture of Warsaw
by the Russians, September 8, 1831. This news, it is said, was
the genesis of the great C minor etude in opus 10, sometimes
called the "Revolutionary." Chopin exclaimed in a letter dated
December 16, 1831, "All this caused me much pain--who could have
foreseen it!" and in another letter he wrote, "How glad my mamma
will be that I did not go back." Count Tarnowski in his
recollections prints some extracts from a diary said to have been