The Note Books Of Samuel Butler

122

Handel and Music

own child when it was all the time begotten of a barrel organ.
It is a wise tune that knows its own father and I like my music
to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents. Roughly,
however, as I have said over and over again, if I think some-
thing that I know and greatly like in music, no matter whose,
is appropriate, I appropriate it. I should say I was under
most obligations to Handel, Purcell and Beethoven.

For example, any one who looked at my song "Man in
Vain " in Ulysses might think it was taken from " Batti,
batti." I should like to say it was taken from, or suggested
by, a few bars in the opening of Beethoven's pianoforte
sonata op. 78, and a few bars in the accompaniment to the
duet " Hark how the Songsters " in Purcell's Timon of Athens.
I am not aware of having borrowed more in the song than
what follows as natural development of these two passages
which run thus :

Beethoven

From the pianoforte arrangement in The Beauties of Purcell
by John Clarke, Mus. Doc.

Honesty

Honesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing
where to stop in stealing, and how to make good use of what
one does steal. It is only great proprietors who can steal
well and wisely. A good stealer, a good user of what he takes,