happy as to meet here, will express to you, better than I can,
all the sympathy, all the admiring affection I have for you. I
have been such a nomad latterly that the pieces you were kind
enough to address to me at Milan only reached me on the eve of my
departure from Venice about a fortnight ago; and since then we
have been talking so much of you, day and night, that it hardly
occurred to me to write to you. Today, however, to my great
astonishment, I get a fresh token of your friendly remembrance,
and I certainly will not delay thanking you many times for it, so
I have just left a charming party of very pretty women in order
to write these few lines to you. But the truth is you need hardly
thank me for this little sacrifice, for it is a great pleasure to
me to be able to have a little chat with you.

The "Carneval" and the "Fantasiestucke" have interested me
excessively. I play them really with delight, and God knows that
I can't say as much of many things. To speak frankly and freely,
it is absolutely only Chopin's compositions and yours that have a
powerful interest for me.

The rest do not deserve the honor of being mentioned...at least,
with a few exceptions,--to be conciliatory, like Eusebius.

In six weeks to two months I shall send you my twelve Studies and
a half-dozen of "Fantasiestucke" ("Impressions et Poemes")--I
consider them less bad than others of my making. I shall be happy
to think that they do not displease you.

May I confess to you that I was not very much struck with
Henselt's Studies, and that I found them not up to their