_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?”
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?”
I was becoming reckless. I could not go on saying “No” after “No,” and
yet to ask me to be ever so little enthusiastic about Fenimore Cooper was
laying a burden upon me heavier than I could bear, so I said I did not
like him.
“Oh, I see,” said the boy; “then it is _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ that you shall
like?”
Here I gave in. More “Noes” I could not say, so, thinking I might as
well be hung for a sheep as for a mutton chop, I said that I thought
_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ one of the most wonderful and beautiful books that
ever were written.
Having got at a writer whom I admired, he was satisfied, but not for
long.
“And you think very much of the theories of Darwin in England, do you
not?”