tune than the shameless
piano it had been standing on. It was BETKOVEN, with every letter
distinctly legible through the thick silver paint with which it was
covered.

These foreign names are so puzzling. At an afternoon party in Palermo I
once had a conversation with a gentleman who told me that Bellini was the
king of opera-writers and the emperor of composers. To pass a few hours
with people who consider Bellini to have written the last note in music
is as restful and refreshing as to dream away an August afternoon in a
peaceful backwater, forgetting that there is a river running to the sea.
After Bellini, the gentleman mentioned Beethoven, who, it seems, studied
in Italy, and that is why his music is so melodious. The more accessible
writers on Beethoven know as little about this studying in Italy as they
know about the Palermitan spelling of his name, but it must be right,
because how otherwise could he have acquired his astonishing power of
producing the true Italian melody? And there is another German musician
who is even more melodious and more Italian in style than Beethoven and
therefore a greater musician.

"Did he also study in Italy?" I asked. "And what was his name?"

"They all come here to study, and his name was Sciupe."

I divined that this German melodist could only be either the Viennese
Schubert or the French Pole Chopin, but with my English pronunciation I
failed to make the distinction. Then a young lady, who had been sitting
near, proposed to clear the matter up by playing a piece composed by
Sciupe, and if I would listen attentively I should understand why he is
known as the German Bellini. By this time I had made up my mind that it
must be Schubert and was expecting one of the songs transcribed by Liszt,
but she played Chopin's Funeral March and told me that the composer had
written besides a number of operas and conducted them at Berlin. I
acquiesced in what appeared to be the will of heaven, saying:

"Oh! yes, of course. How stupid of me!"

The buffo has a fine voice and has got far beyond appearing to have
learnt his songs diligently and to be delivering them correctly. I
suspect, however, that he did not pass that way. He will soon have
assimilated all that can be taught about singing, and for the rest he is
naturally an actor, one of those few who are born with the strange power
of appearing to experience inwardly what they express outwardly, a power
that his life among th