[Note 24: _Sirens ... Sphinx Byronic ... Horatian ... Don Giovanni ... Beethoven_. The Sirens were the famous women of Greek mythology, who lured mariners to destruction by the overpowering sweetness of their songs. How Ulysses outwitted them is well-known to all readers of the _Odyssey_. One of Tennyson's earlier poems, _The Sea-Fairies_, deals with the same theme, and indeed it has appeared constantly in the literature of the world.... The _Sphinx_, a familiar subject in Egyptian art, had a lion's body, the head of some other animal (sometimes man) and wings. It was a symbolical figure. The most famous example is of course the gigantic Sphinx near the Pyramids in Egypt, which has proved to be an inexhaustible theme for speculation and for poetry.... The theatrically tragic mood of _Byron_ is contrasted with the easy-going, somewhat cynical epicureanism of Horace.... _Don Giovanni_ (1787) the greatest opera of the great composer Mozart (1756-1791), tells the same story told by Molière and so many others. The French composer, Gounod, said that Mozart's _Don Giovanni_ was the greatest musical composition that the world has ever seen.... _Beethoven_ (1770-1827) occupies in general estimation about the same place in the history of music that Shakspere fills in the history of literature.] [Note 25: _Purcel_. This stands for Mr. Edmund Gosse (born 1849), a poet and critic of some note, who writes pleasantly on many topics. Many of Stevenson's letters were addressed to him. The two friends first met in London in 1877, and the impression made by the novelist on the critic may be seen in Mr. Gosse's book of essays, _Critical Kitcats_ (1896).] [Note 26: _I know another person_. This is undoubtedly Stevenson's friend Charles Baxter. See the quotation from a letter to him in our introductory note to this essay. Compare what Stevenson elsewhere said of him: "I cannot characterise a personality so unusual in the little space that I can here afford. I have never known one of so mingled a strain.... He is the only man I ever heard of who could give and take in conversation with the wit and polish of style that we find in Congreve's comedies." (Balfour's _Life of Stevenson_, I, 105.)] [Note 27: _Restoration comedy ... Congreve_. Restoration comedy is a general name applied to the plays acted in England between 1660, the year of the restoration of Charles II to the throne, and 1700, the year of the death of Dryden. This comedy is as remarkable for the brilliant wit of its dialogue as for its gross licentiousness. Perhaps the wittiest dramatist of the whole group was William Congreve (1670-1729).]