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.]
_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.”
“You see, poetry resembles metaphysics, one does not mind one’s own, but one does not like any one else’s.”
This was too much. It was like the lady who attributed the decline of the Italian opera to the fact that singers would no longer “podge” their voices.
“And what, pray, is ‘podging’?” enquired my informant of the lady.
“Why, don’t you understand what ‘podging’ is? Well, I don’t know that I can exactly tell you, but I am sure Edith and Blanche podge beautifully.”
However, I said that metaphysics were _la filosofia_ and this quieted him. He left poetry and turned to prose.
“Then you shall like much the works of Washington Irving?”
I was grieved to say that I did not; but I dislike Washington Irving so cordially that I determined to chance another “No.”
“Then you shall like better Fenimore Cooper?”