Improvement of Chopinʼs position in Paris. Elsnerʼs letter. Moschelesʼs and Fieldʼs opinions of Chopin. Trip to Aix-la-Chapelle, Carlsbad, Marienbad, Dresden, and Leipsic. Visit to Mendelssohn and Schumann 241. CHAPTER XV. Chopinʼs Acquaintance with George Sand. His life among his friends. Winter sojourn in the Island of Majorca (1838-1839.) 259. CHAPTER XVI. Return to Paris. Moscheles and Liszt. Chopin as a Pianoforte Teacher 274. CHAPTER XVII. Domestic Sorrows. Two Letters of George Sand. Breach with George Sand. Journey to England. Return to Paris. Chopinʼs illness and death 295. CHAPTER XVIII. Chopin as a Man 323. CHAPTER XIX. Chopin as a Composer 334. Appendix 350. _To HERMANN SCHOLTZ._ _Our frequent conversations on Chopin have taught me to respect you as an admirer of this great master, and as a true and faithful interpreter of his glorious productions. It is to you, therefore, that I dedicate this work, which, without vanity, I may call a monument raised with care and devotion to his memory._ _Accept it as a proof of my sincere friendship and appreciative esteem for your talents._ MORITZ KARASOWSKI. _Dresden, January, 1877._ PREFACE. Several years of friendship with the family of Frederic Chopin have enabled me to become acquainted with his letters and to place them before the public. Just as I had finished transcribing the first series (letters of his youth) and was on the point of chronologically arranging the second (Paris correspondence) the insurrection of 1863 broke out in Poland, and the sympathy aroused by the political condition of the Fatherland weakened public interest in its literary and artistic productions. I therefore deemed it advisable to abstain from the publication of Chopinʼs letters. When I gave back to his family the original letters, I did not dream that in a few months they would be destroyed. How this happened I shall in the proper place explain. The loss is a great and irreparable one, for the number of letters from Paris, during a most brilliant and interesting epoch, was by no means inconsiderable. In compliance with the wishes of many of Chopinʼs friends and admirers, I have undertaken to sketch his career from the materials afforded me by his one surviving sister, from his letters which I published in Warsaw, and from some other letters to his friends.