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diff --git a/2993.txt b/2993.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..025e93e --- /dev/null +++ b/2993.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1642 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Samuel Butler: A Sketch, by Henry Festing +Jones + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Samuel Butler: A Sketch + + +Author: Henry Festing Jones + + + +Release Date: May 1, 2007 [eBook #2993] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMUEL BUTLER: A SKETCH*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1921 Jonathan Cape edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +SAMUEL BUTLER: +A Sketch, by Henry Festing Jones + + +Author of _Samuel Butler_: _A Memoir_ + +Jonathan Cape +Eleven Gower Street London + +_First published in_ "_The Humour of Homer & Other Essays_" _by Samuel +Butler_ 1913. _Reissued by Jonathan Cape_ 1921 + + + + +Samuel Butler: A Sketch + + +Samuel Butler was born on the 4th December, 1835, at the Rectory, Langar, +near Bingham, in Nottinghamshire. His father was the Rev. Thomas Butler, +then Rector of Langar, afterwards one of the canons of Lincoln Cathedral, +and his mother was Fanny Worsley, daughter of John Philip Worsley of +Arno's Vale, Bristol, sugar-refiner. His grandfather was Dr. Samuel +Butler, the famous headmaster of Shrewsbury School, afterwards Bishop of +Lichfield. The Butlers are not related either to the author of +_Hudibras_, or to the author of the _Analogy_, or to the present Master +of Trinity College, Cambridge. + +Butler's father, after being at school at Shrewsbury under Dr. Butler, +went up to St. John's College, Cambridge; he took his degree in 1829, +being seventh classic and twentieth senior optime; he was ordained and +returned to Shrewsbury, where he was for some time assistant master at +the school under Dr. Butler. He married in 1832 and left Shrewsbury for +Langar. He was a learned botanist, and made a collection of dried plants +which he gave to the Town Museum of Shrewsbury. + +Butler's childhood and early life were spent at Langar among the +surroundings of an English country rectory, and his education was begun +by his father. In 1843, when he was only eight years old, the first +great event in his life occurred; the family, consisting of his father +and mother, his two sisters, his brother and himself, went to Italy. The +South-Eastern Railway stopped at Ashford, whence they travelled to Dover +in their own carriage; the carnage was put on board the steamboat, they +crossed the Channel, and proceeded to Cologne, up the Rhine to Basle and +on through Switzerland into Italy, through Parma, where Napoleon's widow +was still reigning, Modena, Bologna, Florence, and so to Rome. They had +to drive where there was no railway, and there was then none in all Italy +except between Naples and Castellamare. They seemed to pass a fresh +custom-house every day, but, by tipping the searchers, generally got +through without inconvenience. The bread was sour and the Italian butter +rank and cheesy--often uneatable. Beggars ran after the carriage all day +long, and when they got nothing jeered at the travellers and called them +heretics. They spent half the winter in Rome, and the children were +taken up to the top of St. Peter's as a treat to celebrate their father's +birthday. In the Sistine Chapel they saw the cardinals kiss the toe of +Pope Gregory XVI., and in the Corso, in broad daylight, they saw a monk +come rolling down a staircase like a sack of potatoes, bundled into the +street by a man and his wife. The second half of the winter was spent in +Naples. This early introduction to the land which he always thought of +and often referred to as his second country made an ineffaceable +impression upon him. + +In January, 1846, he went to school at Allesley, near Coventry, under the +Rev. E. Gibson. He seldom referred to his life there, though sometimes +he would say something that showed he had not forgotten all about it. For +instance, in 1900, Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell, now the Director of the +Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, showed him a medieval missal, laboriously +illuminated. He found that it fatigued him to look at it, and said that +such books ought never to be made. Cockerell replied that such books +relieved the tedium of divine service, on which Butler made a note ending +thus: + + Give me rather a robin or a peripatetic cat like the one whose loss + the parishioners of St. Clement Danes are still deploring. When I was + at school at Allesley the boy who knelt opposite me at morning + prayers, with his face not more than a yard away from mine, used to + blow pretty little bubbles with his saliva which he would send sailing + off the tip of his tongue like miniature soap bubbles; they very soon + broke, but they had a career of a foot or two. I never saw anyone + else able to get saliva bubbles right away from him and, though I have + endeavoured for some fifty years and more to acquire the art, I never + yet could start the bubble off my tongue without its bursting. Now + things like this really do relieve the tedium of church, but no missal + that I have ever seen will do anything except increase it. + +In 1848 he left Allesley and went to Shrewsbury under the Rev. B. H. +Kennedy. Many of the recollections of his school life at Shrewsbury are +reproduced for the school life of Ernest Pontifex at Roughborough in _The +Way of All Flesh_, Dr. Skinner being Dr. Kennedy. + +During these years he first heard the music of Handel; it went straight +to his heart and satisfied a longing which the music of other composers +had only awakened and intensified. He became as one of the listening +brethren who stood around "when Jubal struck the chorded shell" in the +_Song for Saint Cecilia's Day_: + + Less than a god, they thought, there could not dwell + Within the hollow of that shell + That spoke so sweetly and so well. + +This was the second great event in his life, and henceforward Italy and +Handel were always present at the bottom of his mind as a kind of double +pedal to every thought, word, and deed. Almost the last thing he ever +asked me to do for him, within a few days of his death, was to bring +_Solomon_ that he might refresh his memory as to the harmonies of "With +thee th' unsheltered moor I'd trace." He often tried to like the music +of Bach and Beethoven, but found himself compelled to give them up--they +bored him too much. Nor was he more successful with the other great +composers; Haydn, for instance, was a sort of Horace, an agreeable, +facile man of the world, while Mozart, who must have loved Handel, for he +wrote additional accompaniments to the _Messiah_, failed to move him. It +was not that he disputed the greatness of these composers, but he was out +of sympathy with them, and never could forgive the last two for having +led music astray from the Handel tradition, and paved the road from Bach +to Beethoven. Everything connected with Handel interested him. He +remembered old Mr. Brooke, Rector of Gamston, North Notts, who had been +present at the Handel Commemoration in 1784, and his great-aunt, Miss +Susannah Apthorp, of Cambridge, had known a lady who had sat upon +Handel's knee. He often regretted that these were his only links with +"the greatest of all composers." + +Besides his love for Handel he had a strong liking for drawing, and, +during the winter of 1853-4, his family again took him to Italy, where, +being now eighteen, he looked on the works of the old masters with +intelligence. + +In October, 1854, he went into residence at St. John's College, +Cambridge. He showed no aptitude for any particular branch of academic +study, nevertheless he impressed his friends as being likely to make his +mark. Just as he used reminiscences of his own schooldays at Shrewsbury +for Ernest's life at Roughborough, so he used reminiscences of his own +Cambridge days for those of Ernest. When the Simeonites, in _The Way of +All Flesh_, "distributed tracts, dropping them at night in good men's +letter boxes while they slept, their tracts got burnt or met with even +worse contumely." Ernest Pontifex went so far as to parody one of these +tracts and to get a copy of the parody "dropped into each of the +Simeonites' boxes." Ernest did this in the novel because Butler had done +it in real life. Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, of the University Library, has +found, among the Cambridge papers of the late J. Willis Clark's +collection, three printed pieces belonging to the year 1855 bearing on +the subject. He speaks of them in an article headed "Samuel Butler and +the Simeonites," and signed A. T. B. in the _Cambridge Magazine_, 1st +March, 1913; the first is "a genuine Simeonite tract; the other two are +parodies. All three are anonymous. At the top of the second parody is +written 'By S. Butler, March 31.'" The article gives extracts from the +genuine tract and the whole of Butler's parody. + +Besides parodying Simeonite tracts, Butler wrote various other papers +during his undergraduate days, some of which, preserved by one of his +contemporaries, who remained a lifelong friend, the Rev. Canon Joseph +M'Cormick, now Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, are reproduced in _The +Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). + +He also steered the Lady Margaret first boat, and Canon M'Cormick told me +of a mishap that occurred on the last night of the races in 1857. Lady +Margaret had been head of the river since 1854, Canon M'Cormick was +rowing 5, Philip Pennant Pearson (afterwards P. Pennant) was 7, Canon +Kynaston, of Durham (whose name formerly was Snow), was stroke, and +Butler was cox. When the cox let go of the bung at starting, the rope +caught in his rudder lines, and Lady Margaret was nearly bumped by Second +Trinity. They escaped, however, and their pursuers were so much +exhausted by their efforts to catch them that they were themselves bumped +by First Trinity at the next corner. Butler wrote home about it: + + 11 March, 1857. Dear Mamma: My foreboding about steering was on the + last day nearly verified by an accident which was more deplorable than + culpable the effects of which would have been ruinous had not the + presence of mind of No. 7 in the boat rescued us from the very jaws of + defeat. The scene is one which never can fade from my remembrance and + will be connected always with the gentlemanly conduct of the crew in + neither using opprobrious language nor gesture towards your + unfortunate son but treating him with the most graceful forbearance; + for in most cases when an accident happens which in itself is but + slight, but is visited with serious consequences, most people get + carried away with the impression created by the last so as to entirely + forget the accidental nature of the cause and if we had been quite + bumped I should have been ruined, as it is I get praise for coolness + and good steering as much as and more than blame for my accident and + the crew are so delighted at having rowed a race such as never was + seen before that they are satisfied completely. All the spectators + saw the race and were delighted; another inch and I should never have + held up my head again. One thing is safe, it will never happen again. + +The _Eagle_, "a magazine supported by members of St. John's College," +issued its first number in the Lent term of 1858; it contains an article +by Butler "On English Composition and Other Matters," signed "Cellarius": + + Most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a man should + be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give it any kind of + utterance, and that, having made up his mind what to say, the less + thought he takes how to say it, more than briefly, pointedly and + plainly, the better. + +From this it appears that, when only just over twenty-two, Butler had +already discovered and adopted those principles of writing from which he +never departed. + +In the fifth number of the _Eagle_ is an article, "Our Tour," also signed +"Cellarius"; it is an account of a tour made in June, 1857, with a friend +whose name he Italianized into Giuseppe Verdi, through France into North +Italy, and was written, so he says, to show how they got so much into +three weeks and spent only 25 pounds; they did not, however, spend quite +so much, for the article goes on, after bringing them back to England, +"Next day came safely home to dear old St. John's, cash in hand 7d." {1} + +Butler worked hard with Shilleto, an old pupil of his grandfather, and +was bracketed 12th in the Classical Tripos of 1858. Canon M'Cormick told +me that he would no doubt have been higher but for the fact that he at +first intended to go out in mathematics; it was only during the last year +of his time that he returned to the classics, and his being so high as he +was spoke well for the classical education of Shrewsbury. + +It had always been an understood thing that he was to follow in the +footsteps of his father and grandfather and become a clergyman; +accordingly, after taking his degree, he went to London and began to +prepare for ordination, living and working among the poor as lay +assistant under the Rev. Philip Perring, Curate of St. James's, +Piccadilly, an old pupil of Dr. Butler at Shrewsbury. {2} Placed among +such surroundings, he felt bound to think out for himself many +theological questions which at this time were first presented to him, +and, the conclusion being forced upon him that he could not believe in +the efficacy of infant baptism, he declined to be ordained. + +It was now his desire to become an artist; this, however, did not meet +with the approval of his family, and he returned to Cambridge to try for +pupils and, if possible, to get a fellowship. He liked being at +Cambridge, but there were few pupils and, as there seemed to be little +chance of a fellowship, his father wished him to come down and adopt some +profession. A long correspondence took place in the course of which many +alternatives were considered. There are letters about his becoming a +farmer in England, a tutor, a homoepathic doctor, an artist, or a +publisher, and the possibilities of the army, the bar, and diplomacy. +Finally it was decided that he should emigrate to New Zealand. His +passage was paid, and he was to sail in the _Burmah_, but a cousin of his +received information about this vessel which caused him, much against his +will, to get back his passage money and take a berth in the _Roman +Emperor_, which sailed from Gravesend on one of the last days of +September, 1859. On that night, for the first time in his life, he did +not say his prayers. "I suppose the sense of change was so great that it +shook them quietly off. I was not then a sceptic; I had got as far as +disbelief in infant baptism, but no further. I felt no compunction of +conscience, however, about leaving off my morning and evening +prayers--simply I could no longer say them." + +The _Roman Emperor_, after a voyage every incident of which interested +him deeply, arrived outside Port Lyttelton. The captain shouted to the +pilot who came to take them in: + +"Has the _Robert Small_ arrived?" + +"No," replied the pilot, "nor yet the _Burmah_." + +And Butler, writing home to his people, adds the comment: "You may +imagine what I felt." + +The _Burmah_ was never heard of again. + +He spent some time looking round, considering what to do and how to +employ the money with which his father was ready to supply him, and +determined upon sheep-farming. He made several excursions looking for +country, and ultimately took up a run which is still called Mesopotamia, +the name he gave it because it is situated among the head-waters of the +Rangitata. + +It was necessary to have a horse, and he bought one for 55 pounds, which +was not considered dear. He wrote home that the horse's name was +"Doctor": "I hope he is a Homoeopathist." From this, and from the fact +that he had already contemplated becoming a homoeopathic doctor himself, +I conclude that he had made the acquaintance of Dr. Robert Ellis Dudgeon, +the eminent homoeopathist, while he was doing parish work in London. +After his return to England Dr. Dudgeon was his medical adviser, and +remained one of his most intimate friends until the end of his life. +Doctor, the horse, is introduced into _Erewhon Revisited_; the shepherd +in Chapter XXVI tells John Hicks that Doctor "would pick fords better +than that gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman fell off him he +would just stay stock still." + +Butler carried on his run for about four and a half years, and the open- +air life agreed with him; he ascribed to this the good health he +afterwards enjoyed. The following, taken from a notebook he kept in the +colony and destroyed, gives a glimpse of one side of his life there; he +preserved the note because it recalled New Zealand so vividly. + + April, 1861. It is Sunday. We rose later than usual. There are five + of us sleeping in the hut. I sleep in a bunk on one side of the fire; + Mr. Haast, {3} a German who is making a geological survey of the + province, sleeps upon the opposite one; my bullock-driver and + hut-keeper have two bunks at the far end of the hut, along the wall, + while my shepherd lies in the loft among the tea and sugar and flour. + It was a fine morning, and we turned out about seven o'clock. + + The usual mutton and bread for breakfast with a pudding made of flour + and water baked in the camp oven after a joint of meat--Yorkshire + pudding, but without eggs. While we were at breakfast a robin perched + on the table and sat there a good while pecking at the sugar. We went + on breakfasting with little heed to the robin, and the robin went on + pecking with little heed to us. After breakfast Pey, my + bullock-driver, went to fetch the horses up from a spot about two + miles down the river, where they often run; we wanted to go + pig-hunting. + + I go into the garden and gather a few peascods for seed till the + horses should come up. Then Cook, the shepherd, says that a fire has + sprung up on the other side of the river. Who could have lit it? + Probably someone who had intended coming to my place on the preceding + evening and has missed his way, for there is no track of any sort + between here and Phillips's. In a quarter of an hour he lit another + fire lower down, and by that time, the horses having come up, Haast + and myself--remembering how Dr. Sinclair had just been drowned so near + the same spot--think it safer to ride over to him and put him across + the river. The river was very low and so clear that we could see + every stone. On getting to the river-bed we lit a fire and did the + same on leaving it; our tracks would guide anyone over the intervening + ground. + +Besides his occupation with the sheep, he found time to play the piano, +to read and to write. In the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, +are two copies of the Greek Testament, very fully annotated by him at the +University and in the colony. He also read the _Origin of Species_, +which, as everyone knows, was published in 1859. He became "one of Mr. +Darwin's many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue +(the most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed +unknown countries, that even literature can assume) upon the _Origin of +Species_" (_Unconscious Memory_, close of Chapter I). This dialogue, +unsigned, was printed in the _Press_, Canterbury, New Zealand, on 20th +December, 1862. A copy of the paper was sent to Charles Darwin, who +forwarded it to a, presumably, English editor with a letter, now in the +Canterbury Museum, New Zealand, speaking of the dialogue as "remarkable +from its spirit and from giving so clear and accurate an account of Mr. +D's theory." It is possible that Butler himself sent the newspaper +containing his dialogue to Mr. Darwin; if so he did not disclose his +name, for Darwin says in his letter that he does not know who the author +was. Butler was closely connected with the _Press_, which was founded by +James Edward FitzGerald, the first Superintendent of the Province, in +May, 1861; he frequently contributed to its pages, and once, during +FitzGerald's absence, had charge of it for a short time, though he was +never its actual editor. The _Press_ reprinted the dialogue and the +correspondence which followed its original appearance on 8th June, 1912. + +On 13th June, 1863, the _Press_ printed a letter by Butler signed +"Cellarius" and headed "Darwin among the Machines," reprinted in _The +Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). The letter begins: + +"Sir: There are few things of which the present generation is more justly +proud than of the wonderful improvements which are daily taking place in +all sorts of mechanical appliances"; and goes on to say that, as the +vegetable kingdom was developed from the mineral, and as the animal +kingdom supervened upon the vegetable, "so now, in the last few ages, an +entirely new kingdom has sprung up of which we as yet have only seen what +will one day be considered the antediluvian types of the race." He then +speaks of the minute members which compose the beautiful and intelligent +little animal which we call the watch, and of how it has gradually been +evolved from the clumsy brass clocks of the thirteenth century. Then +comes the question: Who will be man's successor? To which the answer is: +We are ourselves creating our own successors. Man will become to the +machine what the horse and the dog are to man; the conclusion being that +machines are, or are becoming, animate. + +In 1863 Butler's family published in his name _A First Year in Canterbury +Settlement_, which, as the preface states, was compiled from his letters +home, his journal and extracts from two papers contributed to the +_Eagle_. These two papers had appeared in the _Eagle_ as three articles +entitled "Our Emigrant" and signed "Cellarius." The proof-sheets of the +book went out to New Zealand for correction and were sent back in the +Colombo, which was as unfortunate as the _Burmah_, for she was wrecked. +The proofs, however, were fished up, though so nearly washed out as to be +almost undecipherable. Butler would have been just as well pleased if +they had remained at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, for he never liked +the book and always spoke of it as being full of youthful priggishness; +but I think he was a little hard upon it. Years afterwards, in one of +his later books, after quoting two passages from Mr. Grant Allen and +pointing out why he considered the second to be a recantation of the +first, he wrote: "When Mr. Allen does make stepping-stones of his dead +selves he jumps upon them to some tune." And he was perhaps a little +inclined to treat his own dead self too much in the same spirit. + +Butler did very well with the sheep, sold out in 1864, and returned via +Callao to England. He travelled with three friends whose acquaintance he +had made in the colony; one was Charles Paine Pauli, to whom he dedicated +_Life and Habit_. He arrived in August, 1864, in London, where he took +chambers consisting of a sitting-room, a bedroom, a painting-room and a +pantry, at 15, Clifford's Inn, second floor (north). The net financial +result of the sheep-farming and the selling out was that he practically +doubled his capital, that is to say he had about 8,000 pounds. This he +left in New Zealand, invested on mortgage at 10 per cent., the then +current rate in the colony; it produced more than enough for him to live +upon in the very simple way that suited him best, and life in the Inns of +Court resembles life at Cambridge in that it reduces the cares of +housekeeping to a minimum; it suited him so well that he never changed +his rooms, remaining there thirty-eight years till his death. + +He was now his own master and able at last to turn to painting. He +studied at the art school in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury, which had +formerly been managed by Henry Sass, but, in Butler's time, was being +carried on by Francis Stephen Cary, son of the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, +who had been a school-fellow of Dr. Butler at Rugby, and is well known as +the translator of Dante and the friend of Charles Lamb. Among his fellow- +students was Mr. H. R. Robertson, who told me that the young artists got +hold of the legend, which is in some of the books about Lamb, that when +Francis Stephen Cary was a boy and there was a talk at his father's house +as to what profession he should take up, Lamb, who was present, said: + +"I should make him an apo-po-pothe-Cary." + +They used to repeat this story freely among themselves, being, no doubt, +amused by the Lamb-like pun, but also enjoying the malicious pleasure of +hinting that it might have been as well for their art education if the +advice of the gentle humorist had been followed. Anyone who wants to +know what kind of an artist F. S. Cary was can see his picture of Charles +and Mary Lamb in the National Portrait Gallery. + +In 1865 Butler sent from London to New Zealand an article entitled +"Lucubratio Ebria," which was published in the _Press_ of 29th July, +1865. It treated machines from a point of view different from that +adopted in "Darwin among the Machines," and was one of the steps that led +to _Erewhon_ and ultimately to _Life and Habit_. The article is +reproduced in _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). + +Butler also studied art at South Kensington, but by 1867 he had begun to +go to Heatherley's School of Art in Newman Street, where he continued +going for many years. He made a number of friends at Heatherley's, and +among them Miss Eliza Mary Anne Savage. There also he first met Charles +Gogin, who, in 1896, painted the portrait of Butler which is now in the +National Portrait Gallery. He described himself as an artist in the Post +Office Directory, and between 1868 and 1876 exhibited at the Royal +Academy about a dozen pictures, of which the most important was "Mr. +Heatherley's Holiday," hung on the line in 1874. He left it by his will +to his college friend Jason Smith, whose representatives, after his +death, in 1910, gave it to the nation, and it is now in the National +Gallery of British Art. Mr. Heatherley never went away for a holiday; he +once had to go out of town on business and did not return till the next +day; one of the students asked him how he had got on, saying no doubt he +had enjoyed the change and that he must have found it refreshing to sleep +for once out of London. + +"No," said Heatherley, "I did not like it. Country air has no body." + +The consequence was that, whenever there was a holiday and the school was +shut, Heatherley employed the time in mending the skeleton; Butler's +picture represents him so engaged in a corner of the studio. In this way +he got his model for nothing. Sometimes he hung up a looking-glass near +one of his windows and painted his own portrait. Many of these he +painted out, but after his death we found a little store of them in his +rooms, some of the early ones very curious. Of the best of them one is +now at Canterbury, New Zealand, one at St. John's College, Cambridge, and +one at the Schools, Shrewsbury. + +This is Butler's own account of himself, taken from a letter to Sir +Julius von Haast; although written in 1865 it is true of his mode of life +for many years: + + I have been taking lessons in painting ever since I arrived. I was + always very fond of it and mean to stick to it; it suits me and I am + not without hopes that I shall do well at it. I live almost the life + of a recluse, seeing very few people and going nowhere that I can + help--I mean in the way of parties and so forth; if my friends had + their way they would fritter away my time without any remorse; but I + made a regular stand against it from the beginning and so, having my + time pretty much in my own hands, work hard; I find, as I am sure you + must find, that it is next to impossible to combine what is commonly + called society and work. + +But the time saved from society was not all devoted to painting. He +modified his letter to the _Press_ about "Darwin among the Machines" and, +so modified, it appeared in 1865 as "The Mechanical Creation" in the +_Reasoner_, a paper then published in London by Mr. G. J. Holyoake. And +his mind returned to the considerations which had determined him to +decline to be ordained. In 1865 he printed anonymously a pamphlet which +he had begun in New Zealand, the result of his study of the Greek +Testament, entitled _The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as +given by the Four Evangelists critically examined_. After weighing this +evidence and comparing one account with another, he came to the +conclusion that Jesus Christ did not die upon the cross. It is +improbable that a man officially executed should escape death, but the +alternative, that a man actually dead should return to life, seemed to +Butler more improbable still and unsupported by such evidence as he found +in the gospels. From this evidence he concluded that Christ swooned and +recovered consciousness after his body had passed into the keeping of +Joseph of Arimathaea. He did not suppose fraud on the part of the first +preachers of Christianity; they sincerely believed that Christ died and +rose again. Joseph and Nicodemus probably knew the truth but kept +silence. The idea of what might follow from belief in one single +supposed miracle was never hereafter absent from Butler's mind. + +In 1869, having been working too hard, he went abroad for a long change. +On his way back, at the Albergo La Luna, in Venice, he met an elderly +Russian lady in whose company he spent most of his time there. She was +no doubt impressed by his versatility and charmed, as everyone always +was, by his conversation and original views on the many subjects that +interested him. We may be sure he told her all about himself and what he +had done and was intending to do. At the end of his stay, when he was +taking leave of her, she said: + +"Et maintenant, Monsieur, vous allez creer," meaning, as he understood +her, that he had been looking long enough at the work of others and +should now do something of his own. + +This sank into him and pained him. He was nearly thirty-five, and +hitherto all had been admiration, vague aspiration and despair; he had +produced in painting nothing but a few sketches and studies, and in +literature only a few ephemeral articles, a collection of youthful +letters and a pamphlet on the Resurrection; moreover, to none of his work +had anyone paid the slightest attention. This was a poor return for all +the money which had been spent upon his education, as Theobald would have +said in _The Way of All Flesh_. He returned home dejected, but resolved +that things should be different in the future. While in this frame of +mind he received a visit from one of his New Zealand friends, the late +Sir F. Napier Broome, afterwards Governor of Western Australia, who +incidentally suggested his rewriting his New Zealand articles. The idea +pleased him; it might not be creating, but at least it would be doing +something. So he set to work on Sundays and in the evenings, as +relaxation from his profession of painting, and, taking his New Zealand +article, "Darwin among the Machines," and another, "The World of the +Unborn," as a starting-point and helping himself with a few sentences +from _A First Year in Canterbury Settlement_, he gradually formed +_Erewhon_. He sent the MS. bit by bit, as it was written, to Miss Savage +for her criticism and approval. He had the usual difficulty about +finding a publisher. Chapman and Hall refused the book on the advice of +George Meredith, who was then their reader, and in the end he published +it at his own expense through Messrs. Trubner. + +Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell told me that in 1912 Mr. Bertram Dobell, second- +hand bookseller of Charing Cross Road, offered a copy of _Erewhon_ for 1 +pounds 10s.; it was thus described in his catalogue: "Unique copy with +the following note in the author's handwriting on the half-title: 'To +Miss E. M. A. Savage this first copy of _Erewhon_ with the author's best +thanks for many invaluable suggestions and corrections.'" When Mr. +Cockerell inquired for the book it was sold. After Miss Savage's death +in 1885 all Butler's letters to her were returned to him, including the +letter he wrote when he sent her this copy of _Erewhon_. He gave her the +first copy issued of all his books that were published in her lifetime, +and, no doubt, wrote an inscription in each. If the present possessors +of any of them should happen to read this sketch I hope they will +communicate with me, as I should like to see these books. I should also +like to see some numbers of the _Drawing-Room Gazette_, which about this +time belonged to or was edited by a Mrs. Briggs. Miss Savage wrote a +review of _Erewhon_, which appeared in the number for 8th June, 1872, and +Butler quoted a sentence from her review among the press notices in the +second edition. She persuaded him to write for Mrs. Briggs notices of +concerts at which Handel's music was performed. In 1901 he made a note +on one of his letters that he was thankful there were no copies of the +_Drawing-Room Gazette_ in the British Museum, meaning that he did not +want people to read his musical criticisms; nevertheless, I hope some day +to come across back numbers containing his articles. + +The opening of _Erewhon_ is based upon Butler's colonial experiences; +some of the descriptions remind one of passages in _A First Year in +Canterbury Settlement_, where he speaks of the excursions he made with +Doctor when looking for sheep-country. The walk over the range as far as +the statues is taken from the Upper Rangitata district, with some +alterations; but the walk down from the statues into Erewhon is +reminiscent of the Leventina Valley in the Canton Ticino. The great +chords, which are like the music moaned by the statues are from the +prelude to the first of Handel's _Trois Lecons_; he used to say: + +"One feels them in the diaphragm--they are, as it were, the groaning and +labouring of all creation travailing together until now." + +There is a place in New Zealand named Erewhon, after the book; it is +marked on the large maps, a township about fifty miles west of Napier in +the Hawke Bay Province (North Island). I am told that people in New +Zealand sometimes call their houses Erewhon and occasionally spell the +word Erehwon which Butler did not intend; he treated wh as a single +letter, as one would treat th. Among other traces of Erewhon now +existing in real life are Butler's Stones on the Hokitika Pass, so called +because of a legend that they were in his mind when he described the +statues. + +The book was translated into Dutch in 1873 and into German in 1897. + +Butler wrote to Charles Darwin to explain what he meant by the "Book of +the Machines": "I am sincerely sorry that some of the critics should have +thought I was laughing at your theory, a thing which I never meant to do +and should be shocked at having done." Soon after this Butler was +invited to Down and paid two visits to Mr. Darwin there; he thus became +acquainted with all the family and for some years was on intimate terms +with Mr. (now Sir) Francis Darwin. + +It is easy to see by the light of subsequent events that we should +probably have had something not unlike _Erewhon_ sooner or later, even +without the Russian lady and Sir F. N. Broome, to whose promptings, owing +to a certain diffidence which never left him, he was perhaps inclined to +attribute too much importance. But he would not have agreed with this +view at the time; he looked upon himself as a painter and upon _Erewhon_ +as an interruption. It had come, like one of those creatures from the +Land of the Unborn, pestering him and refusing to leave him at peace +until he consented to give it bodily shape. It was only a little one, +and he saw no likelihood of its having any successors. So he satisfied +its demands and then, supposing that he had written himself out, looked +forward to a future in which nothing should interfere with the painting. +Nevertheless, when another of the unborn came teasing him he yielded to +its importunities and allowed himself to become the author of _The Fair +Haven_, which is his pamphlet on the Resurrection, enlarged and preceded +by a realistic memoir of the pseudonymous author, John Pickard Owen. In +the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, are two copies of the +pamphlet with pages cut out; he used these pages in forming the MS. of +_The Fair Haven_. To have published this book as by the author of +_Erewhon_ would have been to give away the irony and satire. And he had +another reason for not disclosing his name; he remembered that as soon as +curiosity about the authorship of _Erewhon_ was satisfied, the weekly +sales fell from fifty down to only two or three. But, as he always +talked openly of whatever was in his mind, he soon let out the secret of +the authorship of _The Fair Haven_, and it became advisable to put his +name to a second edition. + +One result of his submitting the MS. of _Erewhon_ to Miss Savage was that +she thought he ought to write a novel, and urged him to do so. I have no +doubt that he wrote the memoir of John Pickard Owen with the idea of +quieting Miss Savage and also as an experiment to ascertain whether he +was likely to succeed with a novel. The result seems to have satisfied +him, for, not long after _The Fair Haven_, he began _The Way of All +Flesh_, sending the MS. to Miss Savage, as he did everything he wrote, +for her approval and putting her into the book as Ernest's Aunt Alethea. +He continued writing it in the intervals of other work until her death in +February, 1885, after which he did not touch it. It was published in +1903 by Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, his literary executor. + +Soon after _The Fair Haven_ Butler began to be aware that his letter in +the _Press_, "Darwin among the Machines," was descending with further +modifications and developing in his mind into a theory about evolution +which took shape as _Life and Habit_; but the writing of this very +remarkable and suggestive book was delayed and the painting interrupted +by absence from England on business in Canada. He had been persuaded by +a college friend, a member of one of the great banking families, to call +in his colonial mortgages and to put the money into several new +companies. He was going to make thirty or forty per cent, instead of +only ten. One of these companies was a Canadian undertaking, of which he +became a director; it was necessary for someone to go to headquarters and +investigate its affairs; he went, and was much occupied by the business +for two or three years. By the beginning of 1876 he had returned finally +to London, but most of his money was lost and his financial position for +the next ten years caused him very serious anxiety. His personal +expenditure was already so low that it was hardly possible to reduce it, +and he set to work at his profession more industriously than ever, hoping +to paint something that he could sell, his spare time being occupied with +_Life and Habit_, which was the subject that really interested him more +deeply than any other. + +Following his letter in the _Press_, wherein he had seen machines as in +process of becoming animate, he went on to regard them as living organs +and limbs which we had made outside ourselves. What would follow if we +reversed this and regarded our limbs and organs as machines which we had +manufactured as parts of our bodies? In the first place, how did we come +to make them without knowing anything about it? But then, how comes +anybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer usually would be: By +habit. But can a man be said to do a thing by habit when he has never +done it before? His ancestors have done it, but not he. Can the habit +have been acquired by them for his benefit? Not unless he and his +ancestors are the same person. Perhaps, then, they are the same person. + +In February, 1876, partly to clear his mind and partly to tell someone, +he wrote down his thoughts in a letter to his namesake, Thomas William +Gale Butler, a fellow art-student who was then in New Zealand; so much of +the letter as concerns the growth of his theory is given in _The Note- +Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). + +In September, 1877, when _Life and Habit_ was on the eve of publication, +Mr. Francis Darwin came to lunch with him in Clifford's Inn and, in +course of conversation, told him that Professor Ray Lankester had written +something in _Nature_ about a lecture by Dr. Ewald Hering of Prague, +delivered so long ago as 1870, "On Memory as a Universal Function of +Organized Matter." This rather alarmed Butler, but he deferred looking +up the reference until after December, 1877, when his book was out, and +then, to his relief, he found that Hering's theory was very similar to +his own, so that, instead of having something sprung upon him which would +have caused him to want to alter his book, he was supported. He at once +wrote to the _Athenaeum_, calling attention to Hering's lecture, and then +pursued his studies in evolution. + +_Life and Habit_ was followed in 1879 by _Evolution Old and New_, wherein +he compared the teleological or purposive view of evolution taken by +Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck with the view taken by Charles +Darwin, and came to the conclusion that the old was better. But while +agreeing with the earlier writers in thinking that the variations whose +accumulation results in species were originally due to intelligence, he +could not take the view that the intelligence resided in an external +personal God. He had done with all that when he gave up the Resurrection +of Jesus Christ from the dead. He proposed to place the intelligence +inside the creature ("The Deadlock in Darwinism," _post_). + +In 1880 he continued the subject by publishing _Unconscious Memory_. +Chapter IV of this book is concerned with a personal quarrel between +himself and Charles Darwin which arose out of the publication by Charles +Darwin of Dr. Krause's _Life of Erasmus Darwin_. We need not enter into +particulars here, the matter is fully dealt with in a pamphlet, _Charles +Darwin and Samuel Butler_: _A Step towards Reconciliation_, which I wrote +in 1911, the result of a correspondence between Mr. Francis Darwin and +myself. Before this correspondence took place Mr. Francis Darwin had +made several public allusions to _Life and Habit_; and in September, +1908, in his inaugural address to the British Association at Dublin, he +did Butler the posthumous honour of quoting from his translation of +Hering's lecture "On Memory," which is in _Unconscious Memory_, and of +mentioning Butler as having enunciated the theory contained in _Life and +Habit_. + +In 1886 Butler published his last book on evolution, _Luck or Cunning as +the Main Means of Organic Modification_? His other contributions to the +subject are some essays, written for the _Examiner_ in 1879, "God the +Known and God the Unknown," which were republished by Mr. Fifield in +1909, and the articles "The Deadlock in Darwinism" which appeared in the +_Universal Review_ in 1890 and some further notes on evolution will be +found in _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). + +It was while he was writing _Life and Habit_ that I first met him. For +several years he had been in the habit of spending six or eight weeks of +the summer in Italy and the Canton Ticino, generally making Faido his +headquarters. Many a page of his books was written while resting by the +fountain of some subalpine village or waiting in the shade of the +chestnuts till the light came so that he could continue a sketch. Every +year he returned home by a different route, and thus gradually became +acquainted with every part of the Canton and North Italy. There is +scarcely a town or village, a point of view, a building, statue or +picture in all this country with which he was not familiar. In 1878 he +happened to be on the Sacro Monte above Varese at the time I took my +holiday; there I joined him, and nearly every year afterwards we were in +Italy together. + +He was always a delightful companion, and perhaps at his gayest on these +occasions. "A man's holiday," he would say, "is his garden," and he set +out to enjoy himself and to make everyone about him enjoy themselves too. +I told him the old schoolboy muddle about Sir Walter Raleigh introducing +tobacco and saying: "We shall this day light up such a fire in England as +I trust shall never be put out." He had not heard it before and, though +amused, appeared preoccupied, and perhaps a little jealous, during the +rest of the evening. Next morning, while he was pouring out his coffee, +his eyes twinkled and he said, with assumed carelessness: + +"By the by, do you remember?--wasn't it Columbus who bashed the egg down +on the table and said 'Eppur non si muove'?" + +He was welcome wherever he went, full of fun and ready to play while +doing the honours of the country. Many of the peasants were old friends, +and every day we were sure to meet someone who remembered him. Perhaps +it would be an old woman labouring along under a burden; she would smile +and stop, take his hand and tell him how happy she was to meet him again +and repeat her thanks for the empty wine bottle he had given her after an +out-of-door luncheon in her neighbourhood four or five years before. +There was another who had rowed him many times across the Lago di Orta +and had never been in a train but once in her life, when she went to +Novara to her son's wedding. He always remembered all about these people +and asked how the potatoes were doing this year and whether the +grandchildren were growing up into fine boys and girls, and he never +forgot to inquire after the son who had gone to be a waiter in New York. +At Civiasco there is a restaurant which used to be kept by a jolly old +lady, known for miles round as La Martina; we always lunched with her on +our way over the Colma to and from Varallo-Sesia. On one occasion we +were accompanied by two English ladies and, one being a teetotaller, +Butler maliciously instructed La Martina to make the _sabbaglione_ so +that it should be _forte_ and _abbondante_, and to say that the Marsala, +with which it was more than flavoured, was nothing but vinegar. La +Martina never forgot that when she looked in to see how things were +going, he was pretending to lick the dish clean. These journeys provided +the material for a book which he thought of calling "Verdi Prati," after +one of Handel's most beautiful songs; but he changed his mind, and it +appeared at the end of 1881 as _Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the +Canton Ticino_ with more than eighty illustrations, nearly all by Butler. +Charles Gogin made an etching for the frontispiece, drew some of the +pictures, and put figures into others; half a dozen are mine. They were +all redrawn in ink from sketches made on the spot, in oil, water-colour, +and pencil. There were also many illustrations of another kind--extracts +from Handel's music, each chosen because Butler thought it suitable to +the spirit of the scene he wished to bring before the reader. The +introduction concludes with these words: "I have chosen Italy as my +second country, and would dedicate this book to her as a thank-offering +for the happiness she has afforded me." + +In the spring of 1883 he began to compose music, and in 1885 we published +together an album of minuets, gavottes, and fugues. This led to our +writing _Narcissus_, which is an Oratorio Buffo in the Handelian +manner--that is as nearly so as we could make it. It is a mistake to +suppose that all Handel's oratorios are upon sacred subjects; some of +them are secular. And not only so, but, whatever the subject, Handel was +never at a loss in treating anything that came into his words by way of +allusion or illustration. As Butler puts it in one of his sonnets: + + He who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound + All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above-- + From fire and hailstones running along the ground + To Galatea grieving for her love-- + He who could show to all unseeing eyes + Glad shepherds watching o'er their flocks by night, + Or Iphis angel-wafted to the skies, + Or Jordan standing as an heap upright-- + +And so on. But there is one subject which Handel never treated--I mean +the Money Market. Perhaps he avoided it intentionally; he was twice +bankrupt, and Mr. R. A. Streatfeild tells me that the British Museum +possesses a MS. letter from him giving instructions as to the payment of +the dividends on 500 pounds South Sea Stock. Let us hope he sold out +before the bubble burst; if so, he was more fortunate than Butler, who +was at this time of his life in great anxiety about his own financial +affairs. It seemed a pity that Dr. Morell had never offered Handel some +such words as these: + + The steadfast funds maintain their wonted state + While all the other markets fluctuate. + +Butler wondered whether Handel would have sent the steadfast funds up +above par and maintained them on an inverted pedal with all the other +markets fluctuating iniquitously round them like the sheep that turn +every one to his own way in the _Messiah_. He thought something of the +kind ought to have been done, and in the absence of Handel and Dr. Morell +we determined to write an oratorio that should attempt to supply the +want. In order to make our libretto as plausible as possible, we adopted +the dictum of Monsieur Jourdain's Maitre a danser: "Lorsqu'on a des +personnes a faire parler en musique, il faut bien que, pour la +vraisemblance, on donne dans la bergerie." Narcissus is accordingly a +shepherd in love with Amaryllis; they come to London with other shepherds +and lose their money in imprudent speculations on the Stock Exchange. In +the second part the aunt and godmother of Narcissus, having died at an +advanced age worth one hundred thousand pounds, all of which she has +bequeathed to her nephew and godson, the obstacle to his union with +Amaryllis is removed. The money is invested in consols and all ends +happily. + +In December, 1886, Butler's father died, and his financial difficulties +ceased. He engaged Alfred Emery Cathie as clerk, but made no other +change, except that he bought a pair of new hair brushes and a larger +wash-hand basin. Any change in his mode of life was an event. When in +London he got up at 6.30 in the summer and 7.30 in the winter, went into +his sitting-room, lighted the fire, put the kettle on and returned to +bed. In half an hour he got up again, fetched the kettle of hot water, +emptied it into the cold water that was already in his bath, refilled the +kettle and put it back on the fire. After dressing, he came into his +sitting-room, made tea and cooked, in his Dutch oven, something he had +bought the day before. His laundress was an elderly woman, and he could +not trouble her to come to his rooms so early in the morning; on the +other hand, he could not stay in bed until he thought it right for her to +go out; so it ended in his doing a great deal for himself. He then got +his breakfast and read the Times. At 9.30 Alfred came, with whom he +discussed anything requiring attention, and soon afterwards his laundress +arrived. Then he started to walk to the British Museum, where he arrived +about 10.30, every alternate morning calling at the butcher's in Fetter +Lane to order his meat. In the Reading Room at the Museum he sat at +Block B ("B for Butler") and spent an hour "posting his notes"--that is +reconsidering, rewriting, amplifying, shortening, and indexing the +contents of the little note-book he always carried in his pocket. After +the notes he went on till 1.30 with whatever book he happened to be +writing. + +On three days of the week he dined in a restaurant on his way home, and +on the other days he dined in his chambers where his laundress had cooked +his dinner. At two o'clock Alfred returned (having been home to dinner +with his wife and children) and got tea ready for him. He then wrote +letters and attended to his accounts till 3.45, when he smoked his first +cigarette. He used to smoke a great deal, but, believing it to be bad +for him, took to cigarettes instead of pipes, and gradually smoked less +and less, making it a rule not to begin till some particular hour, and +pushing this hour later and later in the day, till it settled itself at +3.45. There was no water laid on in his rooms, and every day he fetched +one can full from the tap in the court, Alfred fetching the rest. When +anyone expostulated with him about cooking his own breakfast and fetching +his own water, he replied that it was good for him to have a change of +occupation. This was partly the fact, but the real reason, which he +could not tell everyone, was that he shrank from inconveniencing anybody; +he always paid more than was necessary when anything was done for him, +and was not happy then unless he did some of the work himself. + +At 5.30 he got his evening meal, he called it his tea, and it was little +more than a facsimile of breakfast. Alfred left in time to post the +letters before six. Butler then wrote music till about 8, when he came +to see me in Staple Inn, returning to Clifford's Inn by about 10. After +a light supper, latterly not more than a piece of toast and a glass of +milk, he played one game of his own particular kind of Patience, prepared +his breakfast things and fire ready for the next morning, smoked his +seventh and last cigarette, and went to bed at eleven o'clock. + +He was fond of the theatre, but avoided serious pieces. He preferred to +take his Shakespeare from the book, finding that the spirit of the plays +rather evaporated under modern theatrical treatment. In one of his books +he brightens up the old illustration of _Hamlet_ without the Prince of +Denmark by putting it thus: "If the character of Hamlet be entirely +omitted, the play must suffer, even though Henry Irving himself be cast +for the title-role." Anyone going to the theatre in this spirit would be +likely to be less disappointed by performances that were comic or even +frankly farcical. Latterly, when he grew slightly deaf, listening to any +kind of piece became too much of an effort; nevertheless, he continued to +the last the habit of going to one pantomime every winter. + +There were about twenty houses where he visited, but he seldom accepted +an invitation to dinner--it upset the regularity of his life; besides, he +belonged to no club and had no means of returning hospitality. When two +colonial friends called unexpectedly about noon one day, soon after he +settled in London, he went to the nearest cook-shop in Fetter Lane and +returned carrying a dish of hot roast pork and greens. This was all very +well once in a way, but not the sort of thing to be repeated +indefinitely. + +On Thursdays, instead of going to the Museum, he often took a day off, +going into the country sketching or walking, and on Sundays, whatever the +weather, he nearly always went into the country walking; his map of the +district for thirty miles round London is covered all over with red lines +showing where he had been. He sometimes went out of town from Saturday +to Monday, and for over twenty years spent Christmas at Boulogne-sur-Mer. + +There is a Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia with many chapels, each +containing life-sized statues and frescoes illustrating the life of +Christ. Butler had visited this sanctuary repeatedly, and was a great +favourite with the townspeople, who knew that he was studying the statues +and frescoes in the chapels, and who remembered that in the preface to +_Alps and Sanctuaries_ he had declared his intention of writing about +them. In August, 1887, the Varallesi brought matters to a head by giving +him a civic dinner on the Mountain. Everyone was present, there were +several speeches and, when we were coming down the slippery mountain path +after it was all over, he said to me: + +"You know, there's nothing for it now but to write that book about the +Sacro Monte at once. It must be the next thing I do." + +Accordingly, on returning home, he took up photography and, immediately +after Christmas, went back to Varallo to photograph the statues and +collect material. Much research was necessary and many visits to out-of- +the-way sanctuaries which might have contained work by the sculptor +Tabachetti, whom he was rescuing from oblivion and identifying with the +Flemish Jean de Wespin. One of these visits, made after his book was +published, forms the subject of "The Sanctuary of Montrigone." _Ex +Voto_, the book about Varallo, appeared in 1888, and an Italian +translation by Cavaliere Angelo Rizzetti was published at Novara in 1894. + +"Quis Desiderio . . . ?" (_The Humour of Homer and Other Essays_) was +developed in 1888 from something in a letter from Miss Savage nearly ten +years earlier. On the 15th of December, 1878, in acknowledging this +letter, Butler wrote: + + I am sure that any tree or flower nursed by Miss Cobbe would be the + _very_ first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before + they ever came to know her _well_. The sight of the brass buttons on + her pea-jacket would settle them out of hand. + +There was an enclosure in Miss Savage's letter, but it is unfortunately +lost; I suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion to +Moore's poem and perhaps a portrait of Miss Frances Power +Cobbe--pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all. + +On the 10th November, 1879, Miss Savage, having been ill, wrote to +Butler: + + I have been dipping into the books of Moses, being sometimes at a loss + for something to read while shut up in my apartment. You know that I + have never read the Bible much, consequently there is generally + something of a novelty that I hit on. As you do know your Bible well, + perhaps you can tell me what became of Aaron. The account given of + his end in Numbers xx. is extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory. + Evidently he did not come by his death fairly, but whether he was + murdered secretly for the furtherance of some private ends, or + publicly in a State sacrifice, I can't make out. I myself rather + incline to the former opinion, but I should like to know what the + experts say about it. A very nice, exciting little tale might be made + out of it in the style of the police stories in _All the rear Round_ + called "The Mystery of Mount Hor or What became of Aaron?" Don't + forget to write to me. + +Butler's people had been suggesting that he should try to earn money by +writing in magazines, and Miss Savage was falling in with the idea and +offering a practical suggestion. I do not find that he had anything to +tell her about the death of Aaron. On 23rd March, 1880, she wrote: + + Dear Mr. Butler: Read the subjoined poem of Wordsworth and let me know + what you understand its meaning to be. Of course I have my opinion, + which I think of communicating to the Wordsworth Society. You can + belong to that Society for the small sum of 2/6 per annum. I think of + joining because it is cheap. + +"The subjoined poem" was the one beginning: "She dwelt among the +untrodden ways," and Butler made this note on the letter: + +To the foregoing letter I answered that I concluded Miss Savage meant to +imply that Wordsworth had murdered Lucy in order to escape a prosecution +for breach of promise. + + _Miss Savage to Butler_. + + 2nd April, 1880: My dear Mr. Butler: I don't think you see all that I + do in the poem, and I am afraid that the suggestion of a DARK SECRET + in the poet's life is not so very obvious after all. I was hoping you + would propose to devote yourself for a few months to reading the + _Excursion_, his letters, &c., with a view to following up the clue, + and I am disappointed though, to say the truth, the idea of a _crime_ + had not flashed upon me when I wrote to you. How well the works of + _great_ men repay attention and study! But you, who know your Bible + so well, how was it that you did not detect the plagiarism in the last + verse? Just refer to the account of the disappearance of Aaron (I + have not a Bible at hand, we want one sadly in the club) but I am sure + that the words are identical [I cannot see what Miss Savage meant. + 1901. S. B.] _Cassell's Magazine_ have offered a prize for setting + the poem to music, and I fell to thinking how it could be treated + musically, and so came to a right comprehension of it. + +Although Butler, when editing Miss Savage's letters in 1901, could not +see the resemblance between Wordsworth's poem and Numbers xx., he at once +saw a strong likeness between Lucy and Moore's heroine whom he had been +keeping in an accessible pigeon-hole of his memory ever since his letter +about Miss Frances Power Cobbe. He now sent Lucy to keep her company and +often spoke of the pair of them as probably the two most disagreeable +young women in English literature--an opinion which he must have +expressed to Miss Savage and with which I have no doubt she agreed. + +In the spring of 1888, on his return from photographing the statues at +Varallo, he found, to his disgust, that the authorities of the British +Museum had removed Frost's _Lives of Eminent Christians_ from its +accustomed shelf in the Reading Room. Soon afterwards Harry Quilter +asked him to write for the _Universal Review_ and he responded with "Quis +Desiderio . . . ?" In this essay he compares himself to Wordsworth and +dwells on the points of resemblance between Lucy and the book of whose +assistance he had now been deprived in a passage which echoes the opening +of Chapter V of _Ex Voto_, where he points out the resemblances between +Varallo and Jerusalem. + +Early in 1888 the leading members of the Shrewsbury Archaeological +Society asked Butler to write a memoir of his grandfather and of his +father for their Quarterly Journal. This he undertook to do when he +should have finished _Ex Voto_. In December, 1888, his sisters, with the +idea of helping him to write the memoir, gave him his grandfather's +correspondence, which extended from 1790 to 1839. On looking over these +very voluminous papers he became penetrated with an almost Chinese +reverence for his ancestor and, after getting the Archaeological Society +to absolve him from his promise to write the memoir, set about a full +life of Dr. Butler, which was not published till 1896. The delay was +caused partly by the immense quantity of documents he had to sift and +digest, the number of people he had to consult, and the many letters he +had to write, and partly by something that arose out of _Narcissus_, +which we published in June, 1888. + +Butler was not satisfied with having written only half of this work; he +wanted it to have a successor, so that by adding his two halves together, +he could say he had written a whole Handelian oratorio. While staying +with his sisters at Shrewsbury with this idea in his mind, he casually +took up a book by Alfred Ainger about Charles Lamb and therein stumbled +upon something about the _Odyssey_. It was years since he had looked at +the poem, but, from what he remembered, he thought it might provide a +suitable subject for musical treatment. He did not, however, want to put +Dr. Butler aside, so I undertook to investigate. It is stated on the +title-page of both _Narcissus_ and _Ulysses_ that the words were written +and the music composed by both of us. As to the music, each piece bears +the initials of the one who actually composed it. As to the words, it +was necessary first to settle some general scheme and this, in the case +of _Narcissus_, grew in the course of conversation. The scheme of +_Ulysses_ was constructed in a more formal way and Butler had perhaps +rather less to do with it. We were bound by the _Odyssey_, which is, of +course, too long to be treated fully, and I selected incidents that +attracted me and settled the order of the songs and choruses. For this +purpose, as I out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in the smallness of my Greek, I +used _The Adventures of Ulysses_ by Charles Lamb, which we should have +known nothing about but for Ainger's book. Butler acquiesced in my +proposals, but, when it came to the words themselves, he wrote +practically all the libretto, as he had done in the case of _Narcissus_; +I did no more than suggest a few phrases and a few lines here and there. + +We had sent _Narcissus_ for review to the papers, and, as a consequence, +about this time, made the acquaintance of Mr. J. A. Fuller Maitland, then +musical critic of the _Times_; he introduced us to that learned musician +William Smith Rockstro, under whom we studied medieval counterpoint while +composing _Ulysses_. We had already made some progress with it when it +occurred to Butler that it would not take long and might, perhaps, be +safer if he were to look at the original poem, just to make sure that +Lamb had not misled me. Not having forgotten all his Greek, he bought a +copy of the _Odyssey_ and was so fascinated by it that he could not put +it down. When he came to the Phoeacian episode of Ulysses at Scheria he +felt he must be reading the description of a real place and that +something in the personality of the author was eluding him. For months +he was puzzled, and, to help in clearing up the mystery, set about +translating the poem. In August, 1891, he had preceded me to Chiavenna, +and on a letter I wrote him, telling him when to expect me, he made this +note: + + It was during the few days that I was at Chiavenna (at the Hotel + Grotta Crimee) that I hit upon the feminine authorship of the + _Odyssey_. I did not find out its having been written at Trapani till + January, 1892. + +He suspected that the authoress in describing both Scheria and Ithaca was +drawing from her native country and searched on the Admiralty charts for +the features enumerated in the poem; this led him to the conclusion that +the country could only be Trapani, Mount Eryx, and the AEgadean Islands. +As soon as he could after this discovery he went to Sicily to study the +locality and found it in all respects suitable for his theory; indeed, it +was astonishing how things kept turning up to support his view. It is +all in his book _The Authoress of the Odyssey_, published in 1897 and +dedicated to his friend Cavaliere Biagio Ingroja of Calatafimi. + +His first visit to Sicily was in 1892, in August--a hot time of the year, +but it was his custom to go abroad in the autumn. He returned to Sicily +every year (except one), but latterly went in the spring. He made many +friends all over the island, and after his death the people of Calatafimi +called a street by his name, the Via Samuel Butler, "thus," as Ingroja +wrote when he announced the event to me, "honouring a great man's memory, +handing down his name to posterity, and doing homage to the friendly +English nation." Besides showing that the _Odyssey_ was written by a +woman in Sicily and translating the poem into English prose, he also +translated the _Iliad_, and, in March, 1895, went to Greece and the Troad +to see the country therein described, where he found nothing to cause him +to disagree with the received theories. + +It has been said of him in a general way that the fact of an opinion +being commonly held was enough to make him profess the opposite. It was +enough to make him examine the opinion for himself, when it affected any +of the many subjects which interested him, and if, after giving it his +best attention, he found it did not hold water, then no weight of +authority could make him say that it did. This matter of the geography +of the _Iliad_ is only one among many commonly received opinions which he +examined for himself and found no reason to dispute; on these he +considered it unnecessary to write. + +It is characteristic of his passion for doing things thoroughly that he +learnt nearly the whole of the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_ by heart. He +had a Pickering copy of each poem, which he carried in his pocket and +referred to in railway trains, both in England and Italy, when saying the +poems over to himself. These two little books are now in the library of +St. John's College, Cambridge. He was, however, disappointed to find +that he could not retain more than a book or two at a time and that, on +learning more, he forgot what he had learnt first; but he was about sixty +at the time. Shakespeare's Sonnets, on which he published a book in +1899, gave him less trouble in this respect; he knew them all by heart, +and also their order, and one consequence of this was that he wrote some +sonnets in the Shakespearian form. He found this intimate knowledge of +the poet's work more useful for his purpose than reading commentaries by +those who are less familiar with it. "A commentary on a poem," he would +say, "may be useful as material on which to form an estimate of the +commentator, but the poem itself is the most important document you can +consult, and it is impossible to know it too intimately if you want to +form an opinion about it and its author." + +It was always the author, the work of God, that interested him more than +the book--the work of man; the painter more than the picture; the +composer more than the music. "If a writer, a painter, or a musician +makes me feel that he held those things to be lovable which I myself hold +to be lovable I am satisfied; art is only interesting in so far as it +reveals the personality of the artist." Handel was, of course, "the +greatest of all musicians." Among the painters he chiefly loved Giovanni +Bellini, Carpaccio, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Rembrandt, Holbein, Velasquez, and +De Hooghe; in poetry Shakespeare, Homer, and the Authoress of the +_Odyssey_; and in architecture the man, whoever he was, who designed the +Temple of Neptune at Paestum. Life being short, he did not see why he +should waste any of it in the company of inferior people when he had +these. And he treated those he met in daily life in the same spirit: it +was what he found them to be that attracted or repelled him; what others +thought about them was of little or no consequence. + +And now, at the end of his life, his thoughts reverted to the two +subjects which had occupied him more than thirty years previously--namely, +_Erewhon_ and the evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus +Christ. The idea of what might follow from belief in one single supposed +miracle had been slumbering during all those years and at last rose again +in the form of a sequel to _Erewhon_. In _Erewhon Revisited_ Mr. Higgs +returns to find that the Erewhonians now believe in him as a god in +consequence of the supposed miracle of his going up in a balloon to +induce his heavenly father to send the rain. Mr. Higgs and the reader +know that there was no miracle in the case, but Butler wanted to show +that whether it was a miracle or not did not signify provided that the +people believed it be one. And so Mr. Higgs is present in the temple +which is being dedicated to him and his worship. + +The existence of his son George was an afterthought and gave occasion for +the second leading idea of the book--the story of a father trying to win +the love of a hitherto unknown son by risking his life in order to show +himself worthy of it--and succeeding. + +Butler's health had already begun to fail, and when he started for Sicily +on Good Friday, 1902, it was for the last time: he knew he was unfit to +travel, but was determined to go, and was looking forward to meeting Mr. +and Mrs. J. A. Fuller Maitland, whom he was to accompany over the +Odyssean scenes at Trapani and Mount Eryx. But he did not get beyond +Palermo; there he was so much worse that he could not leave his room. In +a few weeks he was well enough to be removed to Naples, and Alfred went +out and brought him home to London. He was taken to a nursing home in +St. John's Wood where he lay for a month, attended by his old friend Dr. +Dudgeon, and where he died on the 18th June, 1902. + +There was a great deal he still wanted to do. He had intended to revise +_The Way of All Flesh_, to write a book about Tabachetti, and to publish +a new edition of _Ex Voto_ with the mistakes corrected. Also he wished +to reconsider the articles reprinted in _The Humour of Homer_, and was +looking forward to painting more sketches and composing more music. While +lying ill and very feeble within a few days of the end, and not knowing +whether it was to be the end or not, he said to me: + +"I am much better to-day. I don't feel at all as though I were going to +die. Of course, it will be all wrong if I do get well, for there is my +literary position to be considered. First I write _Erewhon_--that is my +opening subject; then, after modulating freely through all my other books +and the music and so on, I return gracefully to my original key and write +_Erewhon Revisited_. Obviously, now is the proper moment to come to a +full close, make my bow and retire; but I believe I am getting well, +after all. It's very inartistic, but I cannot help it." + +Some of his readers complain that they often do not know whether he is +serious or jesting. He wrote of Lord Beaconsfield: "Earnestness was his +greatest danger, but if he did not quite overcome it (as indeed who can? +it is the last enemy that shall be subdued), he managed to veil it with a +fair amount of success." To veil his own earnestness he turned most +naturally to humour, employing it in a spirit of reverence, as all the +great humorists have done, to express his deepest and most serious +convictions. He was aware that he ran the risk of being misunderstood by +some, but he also knew that it is useless to try to please all, and, like +Mozart, he wrote to please himself and a few intimate friends. + +I cannot speak at length of his kindness, consideration, and sympathy; +nor of his generosity, the extent of which was very great and can never +be known--it was sometimes exercised in unexpected ways, as when he gave +my laundress a shilling because it was "such a beastly foggy morning"; +nor of his slightly archaic courtliness--unless among people he knew well +he usually left the room backwards, bowing to the company; nor of his +punctiliousness, industry, and painstaking attention to detail--he kept +accurate accounts not only of all his property by double entry but also +of his daily expenditure, which he balanced to a halfpenny every evening, +and his handwriting, always beautiful and legible, was more so at sixty- +six than at twenty-six; nor of his patience and cheerfulness during years +of anxiety when he had few to sympathize with him; nor of the strange +mixture of simplicity and shrewdness that caused one who knew him well to +say: "Il sait tout; il ne sait rien; il est poete." + +Epitaphs always fascinated him, and formerly he used to say he should +like to be buried at Langar and to have on his tombstone the subject of +the last of Handel's _Six Great Fugues_. He called this "The Old Man +Fugue," and said it was like an epitaph composed for himself by one who +was very old and tired and sorry for things; and he made young Ernest +Pontifex in _The Way of All Flesh_ offer it to Edward Overton as an +epitaph for his Aunt Alethea. Butler, however, left off wanting any +tombstone long before he died. In accordance with his wish his body was +cremated, and a week later Alfred and I returned to Woking and buried his +ashes under the shrubs in the garden of the crematorium, with nothing to +mark the spot. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} I am indebted to one of Butler's contemporaries at Cambridge, the +Rev. Dr. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., and also to Mr. John F. Harris, both of +St. John's College, for help in finding and dating Butler's youthful +contributions to the _Eagle_. + +{2} This gentleman, on the death of his father in 1866, became the Rev. +Sir Philip Perring, Bart. + +{3} The late Sir Julius von Haast, K.C.M.G., appointed Provincial +Geologist in 1860, was ennobled by the Austrian Government and knighted +by the British. He died in 1887. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMUEL BUTLER: A SKETCH*** + + +******* This file should be named 2993.txt or 2993.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/9/2993 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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