SAMUEL BUTLER:A Sketch, by Henry Festing Jones Author of _Samuel Butler_: _A Memoir_ Jonathan CapeEleven Gower Street London _First published in_ "_The Humour of Homer & Other Essays_" _by SamuelButler_ 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 ofArno's Vale, Bristol, sugar-refiner. His grandfather was Dr. SamuelButler, the famous headmaster of Shrewsbury School, afterwards Bishop ofLichfield. The Butlers are not related either to the author of_Hudibras_, or to the author of the _Analogy_, or to the present Masterof 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 andreturned to Shrewsbury, where he was for some time assistant master atthe school under Dr. Butler. He married in 1832 and left Shrewsbury forLangar. He was a learned botanist, and made a collection of dried plantswhich he gave to the Town Museum of Shrewsbury. Butler's childhood and early life were spent at Langar among thesurroundings of an English country rectory, and his education was begunby his father. In 1843, when he was only eight years old, the firstgreat event in his life occurred; the family, consisting of his fatherand mother, his two sisters, his brother and himself, went to Italy. TheSouth-Eastern Railway stopped at Ashford, whence they travelled to Doverin their own carriage; the carnage was put on board the steamboat, theycrossed the Channel, and proceeded to Cologne, up the Rhine to Basle andon through Switzerland into Italy, through Parma, where Napoleon's widowwas still reigning, Modena, Bologna, Florence, and so to Rome. They hadto drive where there was no railway, and there was then none in all Italyexcept between Naples and Castellamare. They seemed to pass a freshcustom-house every day, but, by tipping the searchers, generally gotthrough without inconvenience. The bread was sour and the Italian butterrank and cheesy--often uneatable. Beggars ran after the carriage all daylong, and when they got nothing jeered at the travellers and called themheretics. They spent half the winter in Rome, and the children weretaken up to the top of St. Peter's as a treat to celebrate their father'sbirthday. In the Sistine Chapel they saw the cardinals kiss the toe ofPope Gregory XVI. , and in the Corso, in broad daylight, they saw a monkcome rolling down a staircase like a sack of potatoes, bundled into thestreet by a man and his wife. The second half of the winter was spent inNaples. This early introduction to the land which he always thought ofand often referred to as his second country made an ineffaceableimpression upon him. In January, 1846, he went to school at Allesley, near Coventry, under theRev. E. Gibson. He seldom referred to his life there, though sometimeshe would say something that showed he had not forgotten all about it. Forinstance, in 1900, Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell, now the Director of theFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, showed him a medieval missal, laboriouslyilluminated. He found that it fatigued him to look at it, and said thatsuch books ought never to be made. Cockerell replied that such booksrelieved the tedium of divine service, on which Butler made a note endingthus: 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 arereproduced for the school life of Ernest Pontifex at Roughborough in _TheWay of All Flesh_, Dr. Skinner being Dr. Kennedy. During these years he first heard the music of Handel; it went straightto his heart and satisfied a longing which the music of other composershad only awakened and intensified. He became as one of the listeningbrethren 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 andHandel were always present at the bottom of his mind as a kind of doublepedal to every thought, word, and deed. Almost the last thing he everasked 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 "Withthee th' unsheltered moor I'd trace. " He often tried to like the musicof Bach and Beethoven, but found himself compelled to give them up--theybored him too much. Nor was he more successful with the other greatcomposers; Haydn, for instance, was a sort of Horace, an agreeable, facile man of the world, while Mozart, who must have loved Handel, for hewrote additional accompaniments to the _Messiah_, failed to move him. Itwas not that he disputed the greatness of these composers, but he was outof sympathy with them, and never could forgive the last two for havingled music astray from the Handel tradition, and paved the road from Bachto Beethoven. Everything connected with Handel interested him. Heremembered old Mr. Brooke, Rector of Gamston, North Notts, who had beenpresent at the Handel Commemoration in 1784, and his great-aunt, MissSusannah Apthorp, of Cambridge, had known a lady who had sat uponHandel'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 withintelligence. In October, 1854, he went into residence at St. John's College, Cambridge. He showed no aptitude for any particular branch of academicstudy, nevertheless he impressed his friends as being likely to make hismark. Just as he used reminiscences of his own schooldays at Shrewsburyfor Ernest's life at Roughborough, so he used reminiscences of his ownCambridge days for those of Ernest. When the Simeonites, in _The Way ofAll Flesh_, "distributed tracts, dropping them at night in good men'sletter boxes while they slept, their tracts got burnt or met with evenworse contumely. " Ernest Pontifex went so far as to parody one of thesetracts and to get a copy of the parody "dropped into each of theSimeonites' boxes. " Ernest did this in the novel because Butler had doneit in real life. Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, of the University Library, hasfound, among the Cambridge papers of the late J. Willis Clark'scollection, three printed pieces belonging to the year 1855 bearing onthe subject. He speaks of them in an article headed "Samuel Butler andthe Simeonites, " and signed A. T. B. In the _Cambridge Magazine_, 1stMarch, 1913; the first is "a genuine Simeonite tract; the other two areparodies. All three are anonymous. At the top of the second parody iswritten 'By S. Butler, March 31. '" The article gives extracts from thegenuine tract and the whole of Butler's parody. Besides parodying Simeonite tracts, Butler wrote various other papersduring his undergraduate days, some of which, preserved by one of hiscontemporaries, who remained a lifelong friend, the Rev. Canon JosephM'Cormick, now Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, are reproduced in _TheNote-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). He also steered the Lady Margaret first boat, and Canon M'Cormick told meof a mishap that occurred on the last night of the races in 1857. LadyMargaret had been head of the river since 1854, Canon M'Cormick wasrowing 5, Philip Pennant Pearson (afterwards P. Pennant) was 7, CanonKynaston, of Durham (whose name formerly was Snow), was stroke, andButler was cox. When the cox let go of the bung at starting, the ropecaught in his rudder lines, and Lady Margaret was nearly bumped by SecondTrinity. They escaped, however, and their pursuers were so muchexhausted by their efforts to catch them that they were themselves bumpedby 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 articleby 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 hadalready discovered and adopted those principles of writing from which henever 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 friendwhose name he Italianized into Giuseppe Verdi, through France into NorthItaly, and was written, so he says, to show how they got so much intothree weeks and spent only 25 pounds; they did not, however, spend quiteso 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, andwas bracketed 12th in the Classical Tripos of 1858. Canon M'Cormick toldme that he would no doubt have been higher but for the fact that he atfirst intended to go out in mathematics; it was only during the last yearof his time that he returned to the classics, and his being so high as hewas spoke well for the classical education of Shrewsbury. It had always been an understood thing that he was to follow in thefootsteps of his father and grandfather and become a clergyman;accordingly, after taking his degree, he went to London and began toprepare for ordination, living and working among the poor as layassistant under the Rev. Philip Perring, Curate of St. James's, Piccadilly, an old pupil of Dr. Butler at Shrewsbury. {2} Placed amongsuch surroundings, he felt bound to think out for himself manytheological questions which at this time were first presented to him, and, the conclusion being forced upon him that he could not believe inthe efficacy of infant baptism, he declined to be ordained. It was now his desire to become an artist; this, however, did not meetwith the approval of his family, and he returned to Cambridge to try forpupils and, if possible, to get a fellowship. He liked being atCambridge, but there were few pupils and, as there seemed to be littlechance of a fellowship, his father wished him to come down and adopt someprofession. A long correspondence took place in the course of which manyalternatives were considered. There are letters about his becoming afarmer in England, a tutor, a homoepathic doctor, an artist, or apublisher, and the possibilities of the army, the bar, and diplomacy. Finally it was decided that he should emigrate to New Zealand. Hispassage was paid, and he was to sail in the _Burmah_, but a cousin of hisreceived information about this vessel which caused him, much against hiswill, to get back his passage money and take a berth in the _RomanEmperor_, which sailed from Gravesend on one of the last days ofSeptember, 1859. On that night, for the first time in his life, he didnot say his prayers. "I suppose the sense of change was so great that itshook them quietly off. I was not then a sceptic; I had got as far asdisbelief in infant baptism, but no further. I felt no compunction ofconscience, however, about leaving off my morning and eveningprayers--simply I could no longer say them. " The _Roman Emperor_, after a voyage every incident of which interestedhim deeply, arrived outside Port Lyttelton. The captain shouted to thepilot 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 mayimagine what I felt. " The _Burmah_ was never heard of again. He spent some time looking round, considering what to do and how toemploy the money with which his father was ready to supply him, anddetermined upon sheep-farming. He made several excursions looking forcountry, 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 theRangitata. It was necessary to have a horse, and he bought one for 55 pounds, whichwas not considered dear. He wrote home that the horse's name was"Doctor": "I hope he is a Homoeopathist. " From this, and from the factthat 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, andremained one of his most intimate friends until the end of his life. Doctor, the horse, is introduced into _Erewhon Revisited_; the shepherdin Chapter XXVI tells John Hicks that Doctor "would pick fords betterthan that gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman fell off him hewould 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 heafterwards enjoyed. The following, taken from a notebook he kept in thecolony and destroyed, gives a glimpse of one side of his life there; hepreserved 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 theUniversity 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 supposedunknown countries, that even literature can assume) upon the _Origin ofSpecies_" (_Unconscious Memory_, close of Chapter I). This dialogue, unsigned, was printed in the _Press_, Canterbury, New Zealand, on 20thDecember, 1862. A copy of the paper was sent to Charles Darwin, whoforwarded it to a, presumably, English editor with a letter, now in theCanterbury Museum, New Zealand, speaking of the dialogue as "remarkablefrom its spirit and from giving so clear and accurate an account of Mr. D's theory. " It is possible that Butler himself sent the newspapercontaining his dialogue to Mr. Darwin; if so he did not disclose hisname, for Darwin says in his letter that he does not know who the authorwas. Butler was closely connected with the _Press_, which was founded byJames Edward FitzGerald, the first Superintendent of the Province, inMay, 1861; he frequently contributed to its pages, and once, duringFitzGerald's absence, had charge of it for a short time, though he wasnever its actual editor. The _Press_ reprinted the dialogue and thecorrespondence 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 _TheNote-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). The letter begins: "Sir: There are few things of which the present generation is more justlyproud than of the wonderful improvements which are daily taking place inall sorts of mechanical appliances"; and goes on to say that, as thevegetable kingdom was developed from the mineral, and as the animalkingdom supervened upon the vegetable, "so now, in the last few ages, anentirely new kingdom has sprung up of which we as yet have only seen whatwill one day be considered the antediluvian types of the race. " He thenspeaks of the minute members which compose the beautiful and intelligentlittle animal which we call the watch, and of how it has gradually beenevolved from the clumsy brass clocks of the thirteenth century. Thencomes the question: Who will be man's successor? To which the answer is:We are ourselves creating our own successors. Man will become to themachine what the horse and the dog are to man; the conclusion being thatmachines are, or are becoming, animate. In 1863 Butler's family published in his name _A First Year in CanterburySettlement_, which, as the preface states, was compiled from his lettershome, his journal and extracts from two papers contributed to the_Eagle_. These two papers had appeared in the _Eagle_ as three articlesentitled "Our Emigrant" and signed "Cellarius. " The proof-sheets of thebook went out to New Zealand for correction and were sent back in theColombo, which was as unfortunate as the _Burmah_, for she was wrecked. The proofs, however, were fished up, though so nearly washed out as to bealmost undecipherable. Butler would have been just as well pleased ifthey had remained at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, for he never likedthe 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 ofhis later books, after quoting two passages from Mr. Grant Allen andpointing out why he considered the second to be a recantation of thefirst, he wrote: "When Mr. Allen does make stepping-stones of his deadselves he jumps upon them to some tune. " And he was perhaps a littleinclined 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 viaCallao to England. He travelled with three friends whose acquaintance hehad 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 tookchambers consisting of a sitting-room, a bedroom, a painting-room and apantry, at 15, Clifford's Inn, second floor (north). The net financialresult of the sheep-farming and the selling out was that he practicallydoubled his capital, that is to say he had about 8, 000 pounds. This heleft in New Zealand, invested on mortgage at 10 per cent. , the thencurrent rate in the colony; it produced more than enough for him to liveupon in the very simple way that suited him best, and life in the Inns ofCourt resembles life at Cambridge in that it reduces the cares ofhousekeeping to a minimum; it suited him so well that he never changedhis rooms, remaining there thirty-eight years till his death. He was now his own master and able at last to turn to painting. Hestudied at the art school in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury, which hadformerly been managed by Henry Sass, but, in Butler's time, was beingcarried 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 asthe 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 gothold of the legend, which is in some of the books about Lamb, that whenFrancis Stephen Cary was a boy and there was a talk at his father's houseas 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 ofhinting that it might have been as well for their art education if theadvice of the gentle humorist had been followed. Anyone who wants toknow what kind of an artist F. S. Cary was can see his picture of Charlesand 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 thatadopted in "Darwin among the Machines, " and was one of the steps that ledto _Erewhon_ and ultimately to _Life and Habit_. The article isreproduced in _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). Butler also studied art at South Kensington, but by 1867 he had begun togo to Heatherley's School of Art in Newman Street, where he continuedgoing for many years. He made a number of friends at Heatherley's, andamong them Miss Eliza Mary Anne Savage. There also he first met CharlesGogin, who, in 1896, painted the portrait of Butler which is now in theNational Portrait Gallery. He described himself as an artist in the PostOffice Directory, and between 1868 and 1876 exhibited at the RoyalAcademy 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 willto his college friend Jason Smith, whose representatives, after hisdeath, in 1910, gave it to the nation, and it is now in the NationalGallery of British Art. Mr. Heatherley never went away for a holiday; heonce had to go out of town on business and did not return till the nextday; one of the students asked him how he had got on, saying no doubt hehad enjoyed the change and that he must have found it refreshing to sleepfor 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 wasshut, Heatherley employed the time in mending the skeleton; Butler'spicture represents him so engaged in a corner of the studio. In this wayhe got his model for nothing. Sometimes he hung up a looking-glass nearone of his windows and painted his own portrait. Many of these hepainted out, but after his death we found a little store of them in hisrooms, some of the early ones very curious. Of the best of them one isnow at Canterbury, New Zealand, one at St. John's College, Cambridge, andone at the Schools, Shrewsbury. This is Butler's own account of himself, taken from a letter to SirJulius von Haast; although written in 1865 it is true of his mode of lifefor 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. Hemodified 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. Andhis mind returned to the considerations which had determined him todecline to be ordained. In 1865 he printed anonymously a pamphlet whichhe had begun in New Zealand, the result of his study of the GreekTestament, entitled _The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ asgiven by the Four Evangelists critically examined_. After weighing thisevidence and comparing one account with another, he came to theconclusion that Jesus Christ did not die upon the cross. It isimprobable that a man officially executed should escape death, but thealternative, that a man actually dead should return to life, seemed toButler more improbable still and unsupported by such evidence as he foundin the gospels. From this evidence he concluded that Christ swooned andrecovered consciousness after his body had passed into the keeping ofJoseph of Arimathaea. He did not suppose fraud on the part of the firstpreachers of Christianity; they sincerely believed that Christ died androse again. Joseph and Nicodemus probably knew the truth but keptsilence. The idea of what might follow from belief in one singlesupposed 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 elderlyRussian lady in whose company he spent most of his time there. She wasno doubt impressed by his versatility and charmed, as everyone alwayswas, by his conversation and original views on the many subjects thatinterested him. We may be sure he told her all about himself and what hehad done and was intending to do. At the end of his stay, when he wastaking leave of her, she said: "Et maintenant, Monsieur, vous allez creer, " meaning, as he understoodher, that he had been looking long enough at the work of others andshould now do something of his own. This sank into him and pained him. He was nearly thirty-five, andhitherto all had been admiration, vague aspiration and despair; he hadproduced in painting nothing but a few sketches and studies, and inliterature only a few ephemeral articles, a collection of youthfulletters and a pamphlet on the Resurrection; moreover, to none of his workhad anyone paid the slightest attention. This was a poor return for allthe money which had been spent upon his education, as Theobald would havesaid in _The Way of All Flesh_. He returned home dejected, but resolvedthat things should be different in the future. While in this frame ofmind he received a visit from one of his New Zealand friends, the lateSir F. Napier Broome, afterwards Governor of Western Australia, whoincidentally suggested his rewriting his New Zealand articles. The ideapleased him; it might not be creating, but at least it would be doingsomething. So he set to work on Sundays and in the evenings, asrelaxation from his profession of painting, and, taking his New Zealandarticle, "Darwin among the Machines, " and another, "The World of theUnborn, " as a starting-point and helping himself with a few sentencesfrom _A First Year in Canterbury Settlement_, he gradually formed_Erewhon_. He sent the MS. Bit by bit, as it was written, to Miss Savagefor her criticism and approval. He had the usual difficulty aboutfinding a publisher. Chapman and Hall refused the book on the advice ofGeorge Meredith, who was then their reader, and in the end he publishedit 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 1pounds 10s. ; it was thus described in his catalogue: "Unique copy withthe following note in the author's handwriting on the half-title: 'ToMiss E. M. A. Savage this first copy of _Erewhon_ with the author's bestthanks for many invaluable suggestions and corrections. '" When Mr. Cockerell inquired for the book it was sold. After Miss Savage's deathin 1885 all Butler's letters to her were returned to him, including theletter he wrote when he sent her this copy of _Erewhon_. He gave her thefirst copy issued of all his books that were published in her lifetime, and, no doubt, wrote an inscription in each. If the present possessorsof any of them should happen to read this sketch I hope they willcommunicate with me, as I should like to see these books. I should alsolike to see some numbers of the _Drawing-Room Gazette_, which about thistime belonged to or was edited by a Mrs. Briggs. Miss Savage wrote areview of _Erewhon_, which appeared in the number for 8th June, 1872, andButler quoted a sentence from her review among the press notices in thesecond edition. She persuaded him to write for Mrs. Briggs notices ofconcerts at which Handel's music was performed. In 1901 he made a noteon 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 notwant people to read his musical criticisms; nevertheless, I hope some dayto 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 inCanterbury Settlement_, where he speaks of the excursions he made withDoctor when looking for sheep-country. The walk over the range as far asthe statues is taken from the Upper Rangitata district, with somealterations; but the walk down from the statues into Erewhon isreminiscent of the Leventina Valley in the Canton Ticino. The greatchords, which are like the music moaned by the statues are from theprelude 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 andlabouring of all creation travailing together until now. " There is a place in New Zealand named Erewhon, after the book; it ismarked on the large maps, a township about fifty miles west of Napier inthe Hawke Bay Province (North Island). I am told that people in NewZealand sometimes call their houses Erewhon and occasionally spell theword Erehwon which Butler did not intend; he treated wh as a singleletter, as one would treat th. Among other traces of Erewhon nowexisting in real life are Butler's Stones on the Hokitika Pass, so calledbecause of a legend that they were in his mind when he described thestatues. 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 ofthe Machines": "I am sincerely sorry that some of the critics should havethought I was laughing at your theory, a thing which I never meant to doand should be shocked at having done. " Soon after this Butler wasinvited to Down and paid two visits to Mr. Darwin there; he thus becameacquainted with all the family and for some years was on intimate termswith Mr. (now Sir) Francis Darwin. It is easy to see by the light of subsequent events that we shouldprobably have had something not unlike _Erewhon_ sooner or later, evenwithout the Russian lady and Sir F. N. Broome, to whose promptings, owingto a certain diffidence which never left him, he was perhaps inclined toattribute too much importance. But he would not have agreed with thisview 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 theLand of the Unborn, pestering him and refusing to leave him at peaceuntil 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 satisfiedits demands and then, supposing that he had written himself out, lookedforward to a future in which nothing should interfere with the painting. Nevertheless, when another of the unborn came teasing him he yielded toits importunities and allowed himself to become the author of _The FairHaven_, which is his pamphlet on the Resurrection, enlarged and precededby a realistic memoir of the pseudonymous author, John Pickard Owen. Inthe library of St. John's College, Cambridge, are two copies of thepamphlet 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 hadanother reason for not disclosing his name; he remembered that as soon ascuriosity about the authorship of _Erewhon_ was satisfied, the weeklysales fell from fifty down to only two or three. But, as he alwaystalked openly of whatever was in his mind, he soon let out the secret ofthe authorship of _The Fair Haven_, and it became advisable to put hisname to a second edition. One result of his submitting the MS. Of _Erewhon_ to Miss Savage was thatshe thought he ought to write a novel, and urged him to do so. I have nodoubt that he wrote the memoir of John Pickard Owen with the idea ofquieting Miss Savage and also as an experiment to ascertain whether hewas likely to succeed with a novel. The result seems to have satisfiedhim, for, not long after _The Fair Haven_, he began _The Way of AllFlesh_, 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 inFebruary, 1885, after which he did not touch it. It was published in1903 by Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, his literary executor. Soon after _The Fair Haven_ Butler began to be aware that his letter inthe _Press_, "Darwin among the Machines, " was descending with furthermodifications and developing in his mind into a theory about evolutionwhich took shape as _Life and Habit_; but the writing of this veryremarkable and suggestive book was delayed and the painting interruptedby absence from England on business in Canada. He had been persuaded bya college friend, a member of one of the great banking families, to callin his colonial mortgages and to put the money into several newcompanies. He was going to make thirty or forty per cent, instead ofonly ten. One of these companies was a Canadian undertaking, of which hebecame a director; it was necessary for someone to go to headquarters andinvestigate its affairs; he went, and was much occupied by the businessfor two or three years. By the beginning of 1876 he had returned finallyto London, but most of his money was lost and his financial position forthe next ten years caused him very serious anxiety. His personalexpenditure was already so low that it was hardly possible to reduce it, and he set to work at his profession more industriously than ever, hopingto paint something that he could sell, his spare time being occupied with_Life and Habit_, which was the subject that really interested him moredeeply than any other. Following his letter in the _Press_, wherein he had seen machines as inprocess of becoming animate, he went on to regard them as living organsand limbs which we had made outside ourselves. What would follow if wereversed this and regarded our limbs and organs as machines which we hadmanufactured as parts of our bodies? In the first place, how did we cometo make them without knowing anything about it? But then, how comesanybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer usually would be: Byhabit. But can a man be said to do a thing by habit when he has neverdone it before? His ancestors have done it, but not he. Can the habithave been acquired by them for his benefit? Not unless he and hisancestors 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 WilliamGale Butler, a fellow art-student who was then in New Zealand; so much ofthe 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, incourse of conversation, told him that Professor Ray Lankester had writtensomething in _Nature_ about a lecture by Dr. Ewald Hering of Prague, delivered so long ago as 1870, "On Memory as a Universal Function ofOrganized Matter. " This rather alarmed Butler, but he deferred lookingup the reference until after December, 1877, when his book was out, andthen, to his relief, he found that Hering's theory was very similar tohis own, so that, instead of having something sprung upon him which wouldhave caused him to want to alter his book, he was supported. He at oncewrote to the _Athenaeum_, calling attention to Hering's lecture, and thenpursued his studies in evolution. _Life and Habit_ was followed in 1879 by _Evolution Old and New_, whereinhe compared the teleological or purposive view of evolution taken byBuffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck with the view taken by CharlesDarwin, and came to the conclusion that the old was better. But whileagreeing with the earlier writers in thinking that the variations whoseaccumulation results in species were originally due to intelligence, hecould not take the view that the intelligence resided in an externalpersonal God. He had done with all that when he gave up the Resurrectionof Jesus Christ from the dead. He proposed to place the intelligenceinside 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 betweenhimself and Charles Darwin which arose out of the publication by CharlesDarwin of Dr. Krause's _Life of Erasmus Darwin_. We need not enter intoparticulars here, the matter is fully dealt with in a pamphlet, _CharlesDarwin and Samuel Butler_: _A Step towards Reconciliation_, which I wrotein 1911, the result of a correspondence between Mr. Francis Darwin andmyself. Before this correspondence took place Mr. Francis Darwin hadmade several public allusions to _Life and Habit_; and in September, 1908, in his inaugural address to the British Association at Dublin, hedid Butler the posthumous honour of quoting from his translation ofHering's lecture "On Memory, " which is in _Unconscious Memory_, and ofmentioning Butler as having enunciated the theory contained in _Life andHabit_. In 1886 Butler published his last book on evolution, _Luck or Cunning asthe Main Means of Organic Modification_? His other contributions to thesubject are some essays, written for the _Examiner_ in 1879, "God theKnown and God the Unknown, " which were republished by Mr. Fifield in1909, and the articles "The Deadlock in Darwinism" which appeared in the_Universal Review_ in 1890 and some further notes on evolution will befound in _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_ (1912). It was while he was writing _Life and Habit_ that I first met him. Forseveral years he had been in the habit of spending six or eight weeks ofthe summer in Italy and the Canton Ticino, generally making Faido hisheadquarters. Many a page of his books was written while resting by thefountain of some subalpine village or waiting in the shade of thechestnuts till the light came so that he could continue a sketch. Everyyear he returned home by a different route, and thus gradually becameacquainted with every part of the Canton and North Italy. There isscarcely a town or village, a point of view, a building, statue orpicture in all this country with which he was not familiar. In 1878 hehappened to be on the Sacro Monte above Varese at the time I took myholiday; there I joined him, and nearly every year afterwards we were inItaly together. He was always a delightful companion, and perhaps at his gayest on theseoccasions. "A man's holiday, " he would say, "is his garden, " and he setout to enjoy himself and to make everyone about him enjoy themselves too. I told him the old schoolboy muddle about Sir Walter Raleigh introducingtobacco and saying: "We shall this day light up such a fire in England asI trust shall never be put out. " He had not heard it before and, thoughamused, appeared preoccupied, and perhaps a little jealous, during therest 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 downon the table and said 'Eppur non si muove'?" He was welcome wherever he went, full of fun and ready to play whiledoing the honours of the country. Many of the peasants were old friends, and every day we were sure to meet someone who remembered him. Perhapsit would be an old woman labouring along under a burden; she would smileand stop, take his hand and tell him how happy she was to meet him againand repeat her thanks for the empty wine bottle he had given her after anout-of-door luncheon in her neighbourhood four or five years before. There was another who had rowed him many times across the Lago di Ortaand had never been in a train but once in her life, when she went toNovara to her son's wedding. He always remembered all about these peopleand asked how the potatoes were doing this year and whether thegrandchildren were growing up into fine boys and girls, and he neverforgot 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 oldlady, known for miles round as La Martina; we always lunched with her onour way over the Colma to and from Varallo-Sesia. On one occasion wewere accompanied by two English ladies and, one being a teetotaller, Butler maliciously instructed La Martina to make the _sabbaglione_ sothat it should be _forte_ and _abbondante_, and to say that the Marsala, with which it was more than flavoured, was nothing but vinegar. LaMartina never forgot that when she looked in to see how things weregoing, he was pretending to lick the dish clean. These journeys providedthe material for a book which he thought of calling "Verdi Prati, " afterone of Handel's most beautiful songs; but he changed his mind, and itappeared at the end of 1881 as _Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and theCanton Ticino_ with more than eighty illustrations, nearly all by Butler. Charles Gogin made an etching for the frontispiece, drew some of thepictures, and put figures into others; half a dozen are mine. They wereall redrawn in ink from sketches made on the spot, in oil, water-colour, and pencil. There were also many illustrations of another kind--extractsfrom Handel's music, each chosen because Butler thought it suitable tothe spirit of the scene he wished to bring before the reader. Theintroduction concludes with these words: "I have chosen Italy as mysecond country, and would dedicate this book to her as a thank-offeringfor the happiness she has afforded me. " In the spring of 1883 he began to compose music, and in 1885 we publishedtogether an album of minuets, gavottes, and fugues. This led to ourwriting _Narcissus_, which is an Oratorio Buffo in the Handelianmanner--that is as nearly so as we could make it. It is a mistake tosuppose that all Handel's oratorios are upon sacred subjects; some ofthem are secular. And not only so, but, whatever the subject, Handel wasnever at a loss in treating anything that came into his words by way ofallusion 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 meanthe Money Market. Perhaps he avoided it intentionally; he was twicebankrupt, and Mr. R. A. Streatfeild tells me that the British Museumpossesses a MS. Letter from him giving instructions as to the payment ofthe dividends on 500 pounds South Sea Stock. Let us hope he sold outbefore the bubble burst; if so, he was more fortunate than Butler, whowas at this time of his life in great anxiety about his own financialaffairs. It seemed a pity that Dr. Morell had never offered Handel somesuch 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 upabove par and maintained them on an inverted pedal with all the othermarkets fluctuating iniquitously round them like the sheep that turnevery one to his own way in the _Messiah_. He thought something of thekind ought to have been done, and in the absence of Handel and Dr. Morellwe determined to write an oratorio that should attempt to supply thewant. In order to make our libretto as plausible as possible, we adoptedthe dictum of Monsieur Jourdain's Maitre a danser: "Lorsqu'on a despersonnes a faire parler en musique, il faut bien que, pour lavraisemblance, on donne dans la bergerie. " Narcissus is accordingly ashepherd in love with Amaryllis; they come to London with other shepherdsand lose their money in imprudent speculations on the Stock Exchange. Inthe second part the aunt and godmother of Narcissus, having died at anadvanced age worth one hundred thousand pounds, all of which she hasbequeathed to her nephew and godson, the obstacle to his union withAmaryllis is removed. The money is invested in consols and all endshappily. In December, 1886, Butler's father died, and his financial difficultiesceased. He engaged Alfred Emery Cathie as clerk, but made no otherchange, except that he bought a pair of new hair brushes and a largerwash-hand basin. Any change in his mode of life was an event. When inLondon he got up at 6. 30 in the summer and 7. 30 in the winter, went intohis sitting-room, lighted the fire, put the kettle on and returned tobed. 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 thekettle and put it back on the fire. After dressing, he came into hissitting-room, made tea and cooked, in his Dutch oven, something he hadbought the day before. His laundress was an elderly woman, and he couldnot trouble her to come to his rooms so early in the morning; on theother hand, he could not stay in bed until he thought it right for her togo out; so it ended in his doing a great deal for himself. He then gothis breakfast and read the Times. At 9. 30 Alfred came, with whom hediscussed anything requiring attention, and soon afterwards his laundressarrived. Then he started to walk to the British Museum, where he arrivedabout 10. 30, every alternate morning calling at the butcher's in FetterLane to order his meat. In the Reading Room at the Museum he sat atBlock B ("B for Butler") and spent an hour "posting his notes"--that isreconsidering, rewriting, amplifying, shortening, and indexing thecontents of the little note-book he always carried in his pocket. Afterthe notes he went on till 1. 30 with whatever book he happened to bewriting. On three days of the week he dined in a restaurant on his way home, andon the other days he dined in his chambers where his laundress had cookedhis dinner. At two o'clock Alfred returned (having been home to dinnerwith his wife and children) and got tea ready for him. He then wroteletters and attended to his accounts till 3. 45, when he smoked his firstcigarette. He used to smoke a great deal, but, believing it to be badfor him, took to cigarettes instead of pipes, and gradually smoked lessand less, making it a rule not to begin till some particular hour, andpushing this hour later and later in the day, till it settled itself at3. 45. There was no water laid on in his rooms, and every day he fetchedone can full from the tap in the court, Alfred fetching the rest. Whenanyone expostulated with him about cooking his own breakfast and fetchinghis own water, he replied that it was good for him to have a change ofoccupation. This was partly the fact, but the real reason, which hecould 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 littlemore than a facsimile of breakfast. Alfred left in time to post theletters before six. Butler then wrote music till about 8, when he cameto see me in Staple Inn, returning to Clifford's Inn by about 10. Aftera light supper, latterly not more than a piece of toast and a glass ofmilk, he played one game of his own particular kind of Patience, preparedhis breakfast things and fire ready for the next morning, smoked hisseventh and last cigarette, and went to bed at eleven o'clock. He was fond of the theatre, but avoided serious pieces. He preferred totake his Shakespeare from the book, finding that the spirit of the playsrather evaporated under modern theatrical treatment. In one of his bookshe brightens up the old illustration of _Hamlet_ without the Prince ofDenmark by putting it thus: "If the character of Hamlet be entirelyomitted, the play must suffer, even though Henry Irving himself be castfor the title-role. " Anyone going to the theatre in this spirit would belikely to be less disappointed by performances that were comic or evenfrankly farcical. Latterly, when he grew slightly deaf, listening to anykind of piece became too much of an effort; nevertheless, he continued tothe last the habit of going to one pantomime every winter. There were about twenty houses where he visited, but he seldom acceptedan invitation to dinner--it upset the regularity of his life; besides, hebelonged to no club and had no means of returning hospitality. When twocolonial friends called unexpectedly about noon one day, soon after hesettled in London, he went to the nearest cook-shop in Fetter Lane andreturned carrying a dish of hot roast pork and greens. This was all verywell once in a way, but not the sort of thing to be repeatedindefinitely. 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 theweather, he nearly always went into the country walking; his map of thedistrict for thirty miles round London is covered all over with red linesshowing where he had been. He sometimes went out of town from Saturdayto Monday, and for over twenty years spent Christmas at Boulogne-sur-Mer. There is a Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia with many chapels, eachcontaining life-sized statues and frescoes illustrating the life ofChrist. Butler had visited this sanctuary repeatedly, and was a greatfavourite with the townspeople, who knew that he was studying the statuesand frescoes in the chapels, and who remembered that in the preface to_Alps and Sanctuaries_ he had declared his intention of writing aboutthem. In August, 1887, the Varallesi brought matters to a head by givinghim a civic dinner on the Mountain. Everyone was present, there wereseveral speeches and, when we were coming down the slippery mountain pathafter it was all over, he said to me: "You know, there's nothing for it now but to write that book about theSacro Monte at once. It must be the next thing I do. " Accordingly, on returning home, he took up photography and, immediatelyafter Christmas, went back to Varallo to photograph the statues andcollect material. Much research was necessary and many visits to out-of-the-way sanctuaries which might have contained work by the sculptorTabachetti, whom he was rescuing from oblivion and identifying with theFlemish Jean de Wespin. One of these visits, made after his book waspublished, forms the subject of "The Sanctuary of Montrigone. " _ExVoto_, the book about Varallo, appeared in 1888, and an Italiantranslation by Cavaliere Angelo Rizzetti was published at Novara in 1894. "Quis Desiderio . . . ?" (_The Humour of Homer and Other Essays_) wasdeveloped in 1888 from something in a letter from Miss Savage nearly tenyears earlier. On the 15th of December, 1878, in acknowledging thisletter, 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 unfortunatelylost; I suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion toMoore's poem and perhaps a portrait of Miss Frances PowerCobbe--pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all. On the 10th November, 1879, Miss Savage, having been ill, wrote toButler: 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 bywriting in magazines, and Miss Savage was falling in with the idea andoffering a practical suggestion. I do not find that he had anything totell 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 theuntrodden ways, " and Butler made this note on the letter: To the foregoing letter I answered that I concluded Miss Savage meant toimply that Wordsworth had murdered Lucy in order to escape a prosecutionfor 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 notsee the resemblance between Wordsworth's poem and Numbers xx. , he at oncesaw a strong likeness between Lucy and Moore's heroine whom he had beenkeeping in an accessible pigeon-hole of his memory ever since his letterabout Miss Frances Power Cobbe. He now sent Lucy to keep her company andoften spoke of the pair of them as probably the two most disagreeableyoung women in English literature--an opinion which he must haveexpressed to Miss Savage and with which I have no doubt she agreed. In the spring of 1888, on his return from photographing the statues atVarallo, he found, to his disgust, that the authorities of the BritishMuseum had removed Frost's _Lives of Eminent Christians_ from itsaccustomed shelf in the Reading Room. Soon afterwards Harry Quilterasked him to write for the _Universal Review_ and he responded with "QuisDesiderio . . . ?" In this essay he compares himself to Wordsworth anddwells on the points of resemblance between Lucy and the book of whoseassistance he had now been deprived in a passage which echoes the openingof Chapter V of _Ex Voto_, where he points out the resemblances betweenVarallo and Jerusalem. Early in 1888 the leading members of the Shrewsbury ArchaeologicalSociety asked Butler to write a memoir of his grandfather and of hisfather for their Quarterly Journal. This he undertook to do when heshould have finished _Ex Voto_. In December, 1888, his sisters, with theidea of helping him to write the memoir, gave him his grandfather'scorrespondence, which extended from 1790 to 1839. On looking over thesevery voluminous papers he became penetrated with an almost Chinesereverence for his ancestor and, after getting the Archaeological Societyto absolve him from his promise to write the memoir, set about a fulllife of Dr. Butler, which was not published till 1896. The delay wascaused partly by the immense quantity of documents he had to sift anddigest, the number of people he had to consult, and the many letters hehad 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; hewanted it to have a successor, so that by adding his two halves together, he could say he had written a whole Handelian oratorio. While stayingwith his sisters at Shrewsbury with this idea in his mind, he casuallytook up a book by Alfred Ainger about Charles Lamb and therein stumbledupon something about the _Odyssey_. It was years since he had looked atthe poem, but, from what he remembered, he thought it might provide asuitable subject for musical treatment. He did not, however, want to putDr. Butler aside, so I undertook to investigate. It is stated on thetitle-page of both _Narcissus_ and _Ulysses_ that the words were writtenand the music composed by both of us. As to the music, each piece bearsthe initials of the one who actually composed it. As to the words, itwas necessary first to settle some general scheme and this, in the caseof _Narcissus_, grew in the course of conversation. The scheme of_Ulysses_ was constructed in a more formal way and Butler had perhapsrather less to do with it. We were bound by the _Odyssey_, which is, ofcourse, too long to be treated fully, and I selected incidents thatattracted me and settled the order of the songs and choruses. For thispurpose, as I out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in the smallness of my Greek, Iused _The Adventures of Ulysses_ by Charles Lamb, which we should haveknown nothing about but for Ainger's book. Butler acquiesced in myproposals, but, when it came to the words themselves, he wrotepractically 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, thenmusical critic of the _Times_; he introduced us to that learned musicianWilliam Smith Rockstro, under whom we studied medieval counterpoint whilecomposing _Ulysses_. We had already made some progress with it when itoccurred to Butler that it would not take long and might, perhaps, besafer if he were to look at the original poem, just to make sure thatLamb had not misled me. Not having forgotten all his Greek, he bought acopy of the _Odyssey_ and was so fascinated by it that he could not putit down. When he came to the Phoeacian episode of Ulysses at Scheria hefelt he must be reading the description of a real place and thatsomething in the personality of the author was eluding him. For monthshe was puzzled, and, to help in clearing up the mystery, set abouttranslating 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 thisnote: 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 wasdrawing from her native country and searched on the Admiralty charts forthe features enumerated in the poem; this led him to the conclusion thatthe 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 thelocality and found it in all respects suitable for his theory; indeed, itwas astonishing how things kept turning up to support his view. It isall in his book _The Authoress of the Odyssey_, published in 1897 anddedicated 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 Sicilyevery year (except one), but latterly went in the spring. He made manyfriends all over the island, and after his death the people of Calatafimicalled a street by his name, the Via Samuel Butler, "thus, " as Ingrojawrote when he announced the event to me, "honouring a great man's memory, handing down his name to posterity, and doing homage to the friendlyEnglish nation. " Besides showing that the _Odyssey_ was written by awoman in Sicily and translating the poem into English prose, he alsotranslated the _Iliad_, and, in March, 1895, went to Greece and the Troadto see the country therein described, where he found nothing to cause himto disagree with the received theories. It has been said of him in a general way that the fact of an opinionbeing commonly held was enough to make him profess the opposite. It wasenough to make him examine the opinion for himself, when it affected anyof the many subjects which interested him, and if, after giving it hisbest attention, he found it did not hold water, then no weight ofauthority could make him say that it did. This matter of the geographyof the _Iliad_ is only one among many commonly received opinions which heexamined for himself and found no reason to dispute; on these heconsidered it unnecessary to write. It is characteristic of his passion for doing things thoroughly that helearnt nearly the whole of the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_ by heart. Hehad a Pickering copy of each poem, which he carried in his pocket andreferred to in railway trains, both in England and Italy, when saying thepoems over to himself. These two little books are now in the library ofSt. John's College, Cambridge. He was, however, disappointed to findthat he could not retain more than a book or two at a time and that, onlearning more, he forgot what he had learnt first; but he was about sixtyat the time. Shakespeare's Sonnets, on which he published a book in1899, 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 somesonnets in the Shakespearian form. He found this intimate knowledge ofthe poet's work more useful for his purpose than reading commentaries bythose who are less familiar with it. "A commentary on a poem, " he wouldsay, "may be useful as material on which to form an estimate of thecommentator, but the poem itself is the most important document you canconsult, and it is impossible to know it too intimately if you want toform an opinion about it and its author. " It was always the author, the work of God, that interested him more thanthe book--the work of man; the painter more than the picture; thecomposer more than the music. "If a writer, a painter, or a musicianmakes me feel that he held those things to be lovable which I myself holdto be lovable I am satisfied; art is only interesting in so far as itreveals the personality of the artist. " Handel was, of course, "thegreatest of all musicians. " Among the painters he chiefly loved GiovanniBellini, Carpaccio, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Rembrandt, Holbein, Velasquez, andDe Hooghe; in poetry Shakespeare, Homer, and the Authoress of the_Odyssey_; and in architecture the man, whoever he was, who designed theTemple of Neptune at Paestum. Life being short, he did not see why heshould waste any of it in the company of inferior people when he hadthese. And he treated those he met in daily life in the same spirit: itwas what he found them to be that attracted or repelled him; what othersthought about them was of little or no consequence. And now, at the end of his life, his thoughts reverted to the twosubjects which had occupied him more than thirty years previously--namely, _Erewhon_ and the evidence for the death and resurrection of JesusChrist. The idea of what might follow from belief in one single supposedmiracle had been slumbering during all those years and at last rose againin the form of a sequel to _Erewhon_. In _Erewhon Revisited_ Mr. Higgsreturns to find that the Erewhonians now believe in him as a god inconsequence of the supposed miracle of his going up in a balloon toinduce his heavenly father to send the rain. Mr. Higgs and the readerknow that there was no miracle in the case, but Butler wanted to showthat whether it was a miracle or not did not signify provided that thepeople believed it be one. And so Mr. Higgs is present in the templewhich is being dedicated to him and his worship. The existence of his son George was an afterthought and gave occasion forthe second leading idea of the book--the story of a father trying to winthe love of a hitherto unknown son by risking his life in order to showhimself worthy of it--and succeeding. Butler's health had already begun to fail, and when he started for Sicilyon Good Friday, 1902, it was for the last time: he knew he was unfit totravel, but was determined to go, and was looking forward to meeting Mr. And Mrs. J. A. Fuller Maitland, whom he was to accompany over theOdyssean scenes at Trapani and Mount Eryx. But he did not get beyondPalermo; there he was so much worse that he could not leave his room. Ina few weeks he was well enough to be removed to Naples, and Alfred wentout and brought him home to London. He was taken to a nursing home inSt. 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 publisha new edition of _Ex Voto_ with the mistakes corrected. Also he wishedto reconsider the articles reprinted in _The Humour of Homer_, and waslooking forward to painting more sketches and composing more music. Whilelying ill and very feeble within a few days of the end, and not knowingwhether 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 todie. Of course, it will be all wrong if I do get well, for there is myliterary position to be considered. First I write _Erewhon_--that is myopening subject; then, after modulating freely through all my other booksand 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 afull 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 isserious or jesting. He wrote of Lord Beaconsfield: "Earnestness was hisgreatest 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 afair amount of success. " To veil his own earnestness he turned mostnaturally to humour, employing it in a spirit of reverence, as all thegreat humorists have done, to express his deepest and most seriousconvictions. He was aware that he ran the risk of being misunderstood bysome, but he also knew that it is useless to try to please all, and, likeMozart, 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 neverbe known--it was sometimes exercised in unexpected ways, as when he gavemy laundress a shilling because it was "such a beastly foggy morning";nor of his slightly archaic courtliness--unless among people he knew wellhe usually left the room backwards, bowing to the company; nor of hispunctiliousness, industry, and painstaking attention to detail--he keptaccurate accounts not only of all his property by double entry but alsoof 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 yearsof anxiety when he had few to sympathize with him; nor of the strangemixture of simplicity and shrewdness that caused one who knew him well tosay: "Il sait tout; il ne sait rien; il est poete. " Epitaphs always fascinated him, and formerly he used to say he shouldlike to be buried at Langar and to have on his tombstone the subject ofthe last of Handel's _Six Great Fugues_. He called this "The Old ManFugue, " and said it was like an epitaph composed for himself by one whowas very old and tired and sorry for things; and he made young ErnestPontifex in _The Way of All Flesh_ offer it to Edward Overton as anepitaph for his Aunt Alethea. Butler, however, left off wanting anytombstone long before he died. In accordance with his wish his body wascremated, and a week later Alfred and I returned to Woking and buried hisashes under the shrubs in the garden of the crematorium, with nothing tomark the spot. Footnotes: {1} I am indebted to one of Butler's contemporaries at Cambridge, theRev. Dr. T. G. Bonney, F. R. S. , and also to Mr. John F. Harris, both ofSt. John's College, for help in finding and dating Butler's youthfulcontributions 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 ProvincialGeologist in 1860, was ennobled by the Austrian Government and knightedby the British. He died in 1887.