Anecdote of Edward Lear

'How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!"
  Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
  But a few think him pleasant enough.

In pitch darkness, after a fifteen hours' journey in Greece, he went to sit on a rock but sat on a cow. He remarked cheerfully, "There was an old man who said / Now I'll sit down on the horns of that cow..."
     --Peter Levi, The Art of Poetry