To Bulthaupt he proposed as a subject Schiller's fragment of a play 'Demetrius,' which he esteemed very highly, and, in a long conversation with this gentleman at his house in Bremen, he explained with precision his ideas as to the desirable treatment even of the minutiæ of dramatic action, taking as the theme of his exposition the libretto, written by Bulthaupt, of Reinthaler's opera 'Kätchen von Heilbronn.' Some of the peculiarities of his views which created for him unnecessary difficulties must be attributed to his inveterately logical habit of mind, which made it repugnant to him to take certain things for granted for the sake of stage exigencies. He went too far in a desire that the minor details of the drama should be visibly developed. Pointing to a scene in 'Kätchen von Heilbronn,' in the course of which three soldiers go into a drinking cellar, not to reappear, he inquired: 'What becomes of them?' 'It is assumed that they go away,' replied Bulthaupt; 'do you mean to say that you wish actually to see them come out again on to the stage?' 'I should like to do so,' Brahms answered. A moment's reflection would, of course, have shown him that the scene in question was, in fact, realistic, since the soldiers might in actual life have left the cellar by a back-door, unseen by those who observed them enter through the front one. The anecdote is, however, illustrative of a mental habit which must have confronted Brahms with countless difficulties so long as he merely contemplated the composition of an opera. The work of composing one, had he ever settled down to it, might probably have solved many of them. The idea of 'Demetrius' fell through. Bulthaupt suggested to Brahms a consideration which, in no way applicable to Schiller's piece, seemed to him of importance in view of its adaptation as an opera. He thought that the necessity of introducing some amount of Russian colouring into the music of a drama having for its subject an episode of Russian history, not only might prove irksome to a composer so strongly imbued as Brahms with the sentiment of German nationality, but would be prejudicial to the tragic breadth of Schiller's play as it stands. Brahms, on thinking over the matter, probably felt the weight of his friend's remarks, for he did not return to his proposal.