The Note Books Of Samuel Butler

252 Written Sketches

Talking of Rockstro, he scolded me once and said he
wondered how I could have done such a thing as to call
Handel " one of the greatest of all musicians/3 referring to
the great chords in Erewhon. I said that if he would look again
at the passage he would find I had said not that Handel was
" one of the greatest" but that he was " the greatest of all
musicians," on which he apologised.

Pigs

We often walk from Rickmansworth across Moor Park to
Pinner. On getting out of Moor Park there is a public-house
just to the left where we generally have some shandy-gaff and
buy some eggs. The landlord had a noble sow which I
photographed for him ; some months afterwards I asked how
the sow was. She had been sold. The landlord knew she
ought to be killed and made into bacon, but he had been
intimate with her for three years and some one else must eat
her, not he.

" And what/' said I, " became of her daughter ? "

" Oh, we killed her and ate her. You see we had only
known her eighteen months/1

I wonder how he settled the exact line beyond which
intimacy with a pig must not go if the pig is to be eaten.

Mozart

An old Scotchman at Boulogne was holding forth on the
beauties of Mozart, which he exemplified by singing thus:

4 >^

Dih ... vi - e • ni al - la fe • • nes • tra

I maliciously assented, but said it was strange how strongly
that air always reminded me of " Voi che sapete."

Divorce

There was a man in the hotel at Harwich with an ugly
disagreeable woman who I supposed was his wife. I did not