waiter at Brissago on the Lago
Maggiore, only he is better-tempered-looking, and has a more
intellectual expression. He gave me his ideas upon beauty: "Tutto
ch' e vero e bello," he exclaimed, with all his old self-confidence.
I am not afraid of Dante. I know people by their friends, and he
went about with Virgil, so I said with some severity, "No, Dante, il
naso della Signora Robinson e vero, ma non e bello"; and he admitted
I was right. Beatrice's name is Towler; she is waitress at a small
inn in German Switzerland. I used to sit at my window and hear
people call "Towler, Towler, Towler," fifty times in a forenoon.
She was the exact antithesis to Abra; Abra, if I remember, used to
come before they called her name, but no matter how often they
called Towler, everyone came before she did. I suppose they spelt
her name Taula, but to me it sounded Towler; I never, however, met
anyone else with this name. She was a sweet, artless little hussy,
who made me play the piano to her, and she said it was lovely. Of
course I only played my own compositions; so I believed her, and it
all went off very nicely. I thought it might save trouble if I did
not tell her who she really was, so I said nothing about it.

I met Socrates once. He was my muleteer on an excursion which I
will not name, for fear it should identify the man. The moment I
saw my guide I knew he was somebody, but for the life of me I could
not remember who. All of a sudden it flashed across me that he was
Socrates. He talked enough for six, but it was all in dialetto, so
I could not understand him, nor, when I had discovered who he was,
did I much try to do so. He was a good creature, a trifle given to
stealing fruit and vegetables, but an amiable man enough. He had
had a long day with his mule and me, and he only asked me five
francs. I gave him ten, for I pitied his poor old patched boots,
and there was a meekness about him that touched me. "And now,
Socrates," said I at parting, "we go on our several ways, you to
steal tomatoes, I to filch ideas from other people; for the rest--
which of these two roads will be the better going, our father which
is in heaven knows, but we know not."

I have never seen Mendelssohn, but there is a fresco of him on the
terrace, or open-air dining-room, of an inn at Chiavenna. He is not
called Mendelssohn, but I knew him by his legs. He is in the
costume of a dandy of some five-and-forty years ago, is smoking a
ci