Once, at Faido in the Val Leventina, in 1876 or 1877, when the engineers were there surveying for the tunnel, there was among them a rather fine-looking young German with wild, ginger hair that rang out to the wild sky like the bells in _In Memoriam_, and a strong Edmund Gurney cut, {263} who played Wagner and was great upon the overture to _Lohengrin_; as for Handel—he was not worth consideration, etc. Well, this young man rather took a fancy to me and I did not dislike him, but one day, to tease him, I told him that a little insignificant-looking engineer, the most commonplace mortal imaginable, who was sitting at the head of the table, was like Beethoven. He was very like him indeed, and Müller saw it, smiled and flushed at the same time. He was short, getting on in years and was a little thick, though not fat. A few days afterwards he went away and Müller and I happened to meet his box—an enormous cube of a trunk—coming down the stairs. “That’s Beethoven’s box,” said Müller to me. “Oh,” I said, and, looking at it curiously for a moment, asked gravely, “And is he inside it?” It seemed to fit him and to correspond so perfectly with him in every way that one felt as though if he were not inside it he ought to be. The second time was at Boulogne this spring. There were three Germans at the Hôtel de Paris who sat together, went in and out together, smoked together and did everything as though they were a unity in trinity and a trinity in unity. We settled that they must be the Heckmann Quartet, minus Heckmann: we had not the smallest reason for thinking this but we settled it at once. The middle one of these was like Beethoven also. On Easter Sunday, after dinner, when he was a little—well, it was after dinner and his hair went rather mad—Jones said to me: “Do you see that Beethoven has got into the posthumous quartet stage?” [1885.] Silvio _In the autumn of_ 1884, _Butler spent some time at Promontogno and Soglio in the Val Bregaglia_, _sketching and making notes_. _Among the children of the Italian families in the albergo was Silvio_, _a boy of ten or twelve_. _He knew a little English and was very fond of poetry_. _He could repeat_, “_How doth the little buzzy bee_.” _The poem which pleased him best_, _however_, _was_: _Hey diddle diddle_, _The Cat and the Fiddle_, _The Cow jumped over the Moon_. _They had nothing_, _he said_, _in Italian literature so good as this_. _Silvio used to talk to Butler while he was sketching_. “And you shall read Longfellow much in England?” “No,” I replied, “I don’t think we read him very much.” “But how is that? He is a very pretty poet.” “Oh yes, but I don’t greatly like poetry myself.” “Why don’t you like poetry?” “You see, poetry resembles metaphysics, one does not mind one’s own, but one does not like any one else’s.” “Oh! And what you call metaphysic?”