ces, fantasias, studies, &c.) are of no
importance. He is said to have published also two books, one on Polish
orthography in 1866 and one on popular astronomy in 1869. The above and
all the following letters of Chopin to Fontana are in the possession
of Madame Johanna Lilpop, of Warsaw, and are here translated from
Karasowski's Polish edition of his biography of Chopin. Many of the
letters are undated, and the dates suggested by Karasowski generally
wrong. There are, moreover, two letters which are given as if dated
by Chopin; but as the contents point to Nohant and 1841 rather than to
Majorca and 1838 and 1839, I shall place them in Chapter XXIV., where
also my reasons for doing so will be more particularly stated. A third
letter, supposed by Karasowski to be written at Valdemosa in February, I
hold to be written at Marseilles in April. It will be found in the next
chapter.]

My dear friend,--I am at Palma, among palms, cedars, cactuses,
aloes, and olive, orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees,
&c., which the Jardin des Plantes possesses only thanks to its
stoves. The sky is like a turquoise, the sea is like lazuli,
and the mountains are like emeralds. The air? The air is just
as in heaven. During the day there is sunshine, and
consequently it is warm--everybody wears summer clothes.
During the night guitars and songs are heard everywhere and at
all hours. Enormous balconies with vines overhead, Moorish
walls...The town, like everything here, looks towards
Africa...In one word, a charming life!

Dear Julius, go to Pleyel--the piano has not yet arrived--and
ask him by what route they have sent it.

The Preludes you shall have soon.

I shall probably take up my quarters in a delightful monastery
in one of the most beautiful sites in the world: sea,
mountains, palm trees, cemetery, church of the Knights of the
Cross, ruins of mosques, thousand-year-old olive trees!...Ah,
my dear friend, I am now enjoying life a little more; I am
near what is most beautiful--I am a better man.

Letters from my parents and whatever you have to send me give
to Grzymala; he knows the safest address.

Embrace Johnnie. [FOOTNOTE: The Johnnie so frequently
mentioned in the letters to Fontana is John Matuszynski.] How
soon he would recover here!

Tell Schlesinger that before long he will receive MS. To
acquaintances speak little of me. Should anybody ask, say that
I shall be b