Up to 1838 he had Stodart,
and from 1839 to 1845 Stapleton, as partner. He retired in
1860, Messrs. Edwin Ashdown and Henry Parry being his
successors. Since the retirement of Mr. Parry, in 1882, Mr.
Ashdown is the sole proprietor. Mr. Ashdown, whom I have to
thank for the latter part of this note, informs me that Wessel
died in 1885.]

In a few weeks you will receive a Ballade, a Polonaise, and a
Scherzo.

Until now I have not yet received any letters from my parents.

I embrace you.

Sometimes I have Arabian balls, African sun, and always before
my eyes the Mediterranean Sea.

I do not know when I shall be back, perhaps as late as May,
perhaps even later.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, January 15, 1839:--

...We inhabit the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, a really
sublime place, which I have hardly the time to admire, so many
occupations have I with my children, their lessons, and my work.

There are rains here of which one has elsewhere no idea: it is
a frightful deluge! The air is on account of it so relaxing,
so soft, that one cannot drag one's self along; one is really
ill. Happily, Maurice is in admirable health; his constitution
is only afraid of frost, a thing unknown here. But the little
Chopin [FOOTNOTE: Madame Marliani seems to have been in the
habit of calling Chopin "le petit." In another letter to her
(April 28, 1839) George Sand writes of Chopin as votre petit.
This reminds one of Mendelssohn's Chopinetto.] is very
depressed and always coughs much. For his sake I await with
impatience the return of fine weather, which will not be long
in coming. His piano has at last arrived at Palma; but it is
in the clutches of the custom-house officers, who demand from
five to six hundred francs duty, and show themselves
intractable.

...I am plunged with Maurice in Thucydides and company; with
Solange in the indirect object and the agreement of the
participle. Chopin plays on a poor Majorcan piano which reminds
me of that of Bouffe in "Pauvre Jacques." I pass my nights
generally in scrawling. When I raise my nose, it is to see
through the sky-light of my cell the moon which shines in the
midst of the rain on the orange trees, and I think no more of it
than she.

Madame Sand to M. A. M. Duteil; Valdemosa, January 20, 1839:--

...This [the slowness and irregularity of the post] is not the
only inco