In 1824 Glinka entered the Government service as a clerk in the Ministry of Ways and Communications. Here he found several amateurs as enthusiastic as himself, and was soon launched in a social circle where his musical gifts were greatly appreciated and he ran the risk of degenerating into a spoilt dilettante. From the beginning to the end of his career Glinka remained an amateur in that higher sense of the word which implies that he merely wrote what he liked and was exempt from the necessity of composing to order for the sake of a livelihood. He himself has related the circumstances of his first creative impulse. In the spring of 1822, when he was about nineteen, he made the acquaintance of a young lady "of fascinating appearance, who played the harp and had also a beautiful voice. This voice was not to be compared to any musical instrument; it was just a resonant silvery soprano, and she sang naturally and with extraordinary charm. Her attractive qualities and her kindness to me (she called me her nephew and I called her aunt) stirred my heart and my imagination." We see the rest of the picture: a Petersburg drawing room with its semi-French decoration, an amiable grandpapa reposing in his armchair, while Glinka played by the hour and the young lady joined in with her silvery soprano. So the first compositions were written--"to do her a service and laid at her feet"--variations upon her favourite theme from Weigel's "Swiss Family," an opera then all the vogue, variations for harp and piano on a theme by Mozart and an original Valse in F for piano. Of these only the variations for harp survive. At twenty Glinka took singing lessons from the Italian Belloli. This led to his first essays in song writing, and after one hopeless failure he succeeded in setting some words by Baratynsky, "Do not needlessly torment me." Henceforth Glinka began to be conscious of his powers, and between 1825 and 1830 he was constantly composing. Although the best of relations existed between himself and his father, he does not seem to have shown him anything of his deeper artistic nature, and Glinka's family accepted his music merely as an agreeable addition to his social qualities. Meanwhile he wrote many of the songs of his first period, and a few isolated dramatic scenas with orchestral accompaniment, including the Chorus on the Death of a Hero, in C minor, and an Aria for baritone, a part of which he used in the finale of the second act of his opera _Russlan and Liudmilla_. He also learnt Italian and received some instruction in theory from Zamboni. In 1829 he published an album containing most of his early compositions.