he present biography. They may, I think, be called numerous, if we
consider the master's dislike to letter-writing. Ferdinand Hiller--whose
almost unique collection of letters addressed to him by his famous
friends in art and literature is now, and will be for years to come,
under lock and key among the municipal archives at Cologne--allowed
me to copy two letters by Chopin, one of them written conjointly with
Liszt. Franchomme, too, granted me the privilege of copying his friend's
epistolary communications. Besides a number of letters that have here
and there been published, I include, further, a translation of Chopin's
letters to Fontana, which in Karasowski's book (i.e., the Polish
edition) lose much of their value, owing to his inability to assign
approximately correct dates to them.

The space which I give to George Sand is, I think, justified by the part
she plays in the life of Chopin. To meet the objections of those who
may regard my opinion of her as too harsh, I will confess that I
entered upon the study of her character with the impression that she had
suffered much undeserved abuse, and that it would be incumbent upon a
Chopin biographer to defend her against his predecessors and the friends
of the composer. How entirely I changed my mind, the sequel will show.

In conclusion, a few hints as to the pronunciation of Polish words,
which otherwise might puzzle the reader uninitiated in the mysteries
of that rarely-learned language. Aiming more at simplicity than at
accuracy, one may say that the vowels are pronounced somewhat like this:
a as in "arm," aL like the nasal French "on," e as in "tell," e/ with
an approach to the French "e/" (or to the German "u [umlaut]" and "o
[umlaut]"), eL like the nasal French "in," i as in "pick," o as in
"not," o/ with an approach to the French "ou," u like the French ou, and
y with an approach to the German "i" and "u." The following consonants
are pronounced as in English: b, d, f, g (always hard), h, k, I, m, n,
p, s, t, and z. The following single and double consonants differ from
the English pronunciation: c like "ts," c/ softer than c, j like "y,"
l/ like "ll" with the tongue pressed against the upper row of teeth,
n/ like "ny" (i.e., n softened by i), r sharper than in English, w like
"v," z/ softer than z, z. and rz like the French "j," ch like the German
guttural "ch" in "lachen" (similar to "ch" in the Scotch "loch"), cz
like "ch" in "cherry," and sz like "sh" in "sh