‘Butler playing Handel’, by James Ferguson
‘Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts’, Butler wrote in his notebook in 1883. ‘In fact, I should say he and his music have been the central fact in my life ever since I was old enough to know of the existence of either music or life. All day long – whether I am writing or painting or walking – but always – I have his music in my head, and if I lose sight of it and of him for an hour or two, as of course I sometimes do, this is as much as I do. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never been a day since I was 13 without having Handel in my mind many times over.’
James Ferguson was a fellow art school student with Butler.