The favourable critiques in the Vienna newspapers of Chopinʼs playing awakened universal interest in Warsaw, and caused his father to take counsel with Elsner and other friends about Fredericʼs further training. All agreed on sending the young artist for a longer sojourn abroad. Warsaw offered, indeed, little artistic stimulus to Chopinʼs extraordinary abilities; he passed there for a perfect artist. His compositions, published in Warsaw, are among the best he ever wrote, and if his creative talent grew and matured in later years, his early works bear the true Chopin stamp. [Sidenote: PROPOSED TOUR TO PARIS AND ITALY.] Elsnerʼs advice was that Chopin should go to Italy first, then to Paris, and so be away two years in all. From letters to his friend, Titus Woyciechowski, who now resides at his estate Poturzyn, in Poland, and who very kindly furnished these letters, we learn from Frederic himself how he passed the next few years. It is most fortunate for us that his most intimate friend has religiously preserved, as sacred memorials, every line of the talented artist. _Warsaw, October 20th, 1829._ MY DEAREST TITUS, You wonʼt know how to make out why such a writing mania has suddenly seized me, and how it is that, in so short a time, I send you a third letter. I start at seven this evening, _per diligence_, for Wiesiowlowskiʼs, in Posen, and so write to you beforehand, not knowing how long I shall stay there, though I have only got a passport for a month. My idea is to return in about a fortnight. The object of my journey is to see Prince Radziwill, who is living at his estate not far from Kalitz. He wishes me to go to Berlin, and live as a guest in his house, &c.; but I cannot see that it would be of any real, that is to say, artistic use. “Mit grossen Herren ist nicht gut Kirschen essen.” My good father will not believe that these invitations are merely _des belles paroles_. Forgive me if I repeat myself. I easily forget what I have written, and often fancy I am giving you news which is really stale. Kessler gives a musical soirée every Friday; nearly all the artists here meet together, and play whatever is brought forward, _prima vista_; so, for example, there were performed, last Friday: Concerto in C sharp minor, by Ries, with quartet accompaniment; then Trio in E major, by Hummel; Beethovenʼs last Trio, which I thought magnificent and impressive; also a Quartet, by Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, _alias_ Dussek;[50] and singing to conclude with. Elsner has praised my Concerto Adagio. He says there is something new in it. As for the Rondo I do not want any opinion on that at present, for I am not satisfied with it myself. I wonder whether I shall finish it when I return.