SAMUEL BUTLER AUTHOR OF EREWHON MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO C" /^/l G). A&t fram. hij own luuid ^ Abril i8J& fiajirta^ 21X1"] SAMUEL BUTLER AUTHOR OF EREWHON (1835-1902) BY HENRY FESTING JONES HANDEL, Fuga VI. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. TO 1885 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1919 COPYRIGHT PREFACE IN the preface to The Note- Books of Samuel Butler (1912) I wrote that in 1891 Butler attacked afresh the problem of dealing with his manuscript notes, and made it a rule to spend an hour every morning re-editing them and keeping his index up to date. "At his death in 1902 he left five bound volumes with the contents dated and indexed, about 225 pages of closely-written sermon paper to each volume, and more than enough unbound and unindexed sheets to make a sixth volume of equal size." There are many notes in the manuscript Note-Books which I purposely excluded from the published selection because I wanted them for this Memoir ; especially there are these five autobiographical items : (1) A skeleton Diary of his life from 1864, when he returned from New Zealand, until 1899. He entitled this " Memoranda from old account books preserved to refresh my own memory only/' He means that he preserved the memoranda ; he destroyed many of the account books, wherein he entered and balanced his personal expenditure every evening ; of those found after his death all were destroyed except two, one containing entries from 1897 to 1900, the other from 1900 to his death, the concluding entries being in the handwriting of his clerk, Alfred Emery Cathie. For the purpose of the Diary he also used the dates on his snapshot photographs. (2) A Statement, about 3000 words long, headed "Autobiographical Notes, written about 1883 at the request of Henry J. Nicholls, Free Kirk, Kelso, N.B." (3) Another Statement, about 1000 words long, also headed "Autobiographical Notes," dated 1896. vi PREFACE (4) A Narrative of his friendship with Charles Paine Pauli which began in New Zealand in 1863 and lasted until Pauli's death in 1897. (5) A Narrative of his friendship with myself which lasted from 1876 until Butler's death in 1902. The great clearing -up which resulted in the final editing of his Note-Books was extended to include his correspondence. He had been in the habit of keeping many of the letters he received, and also copies of many which he wrote, and these also were used in making the skeleton Diary. Soon after his father's death (1886) his sisters gave him Dr. Butler's papers, and he began to write his grandfather's Life. I suppose it must have been at the same time that he became repossessed of his own letters home written from school, from Cambridge, and from New Zealand ; but some of these may have been restored to him after his mother's death in 1873. There are notes among the correspondence showing that he destroyed freely. I found one specially interesting note, dated 1901, stating that he had destroyed his original letters home from the Colony, which formed the basis of A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement. After Miss Savage's death (1885) his letters to her were restored to him, and again his notes show that he destroyed freely. He says somewhere that he learnt more from writing The Life of Dr. Butler than from writing all his other books ; one of the things thus learnt was how to deal with an accumulation of literary lumber. While he was occupied with this business he might perhaps meet Garnett, or some other friend, who would say : " Well, Mr. Butler, and what abstruse subject is now engaging your attention? What new and paradoxical work may we be expecting from your ingenious pen ?" Then he would look demure and reply : " I am editing my remains. I wish to leave everything in order for my executors." Incidentally he left everything in order also for his grateful biographer the undestroyed notes in duplicate, edited, dated, and indexed ; the undestroyed correspondence edited, adnotated, and arranged in order of date. PREFACE vii It may appear as though all this labour of destroying, preserving, copying, editing, indexing, and dating was undertaken by Butler as a methodical preparation for his own biography. It was not so. Here is a passage from the published selection of Notes (p. 374) : People sometimes give me to understand that it is a piece of ridiculous conceit on my part to jot down so many notes about myself, since it implies a confidence that I shall one day be regarded as an interesting person. I answer that neither I nor they can form any idea as to whether I shall be wanted when I am gone or no. The chances are that I shall not. I am quite aware of it. So the chances are that I shall not live to be 85 ; but I have no right to settle it so .... I prefer the modest insurance of keeping up my notes which others may burn or no as they please. He was not contemplating publication ; but neither was he contemplating oblivion, as will appear from another passage which occurs in the preface to vol. II. of the manuscript Note-Books, and is reproduced on pp. 215 and 216 of the published selection. After saying that many of his notes ought to have been destroyed, he proceeds : I know it, and I know that many a one of those who look over this book for that it will be looked over by not a few I doubt not will think me to have been a greater fool than I probably was. I cannot help it. It was the same with his letters. He was naturally tidy, and liked feeling that he was not dependent upon some one else, possibly some one in whom he had no confidence, for knowing what he had written. There was also the possibility of fire. So he bought a copying press and acquired the habit of writing in copying ink and pressing copies of his notes and of any letters he thought he might want to refer to. He also pressed a copy of whatever book he happened to be writing, and these pressed copies he kept in my chambers until it appeared proper to destroy them. But he did not keep copies of his letters to Miss Savage or to intimate friends, unless in the exceptional case of a letter containing an account of something he was likely to want. Such a letter might never be wanted ; on the other hand it might, in which viii PREFACE case he could lay his hand upon it at any time. And if, after his death, any one looking over his correspondence should find therein a confirmation of the view which he thought might be derived from looking over his manu- script notes well, that again he could not help. I do not think it ever crossed Butler's mind that his biography might be written by me. The reception of his books in his lifetime was not such as to encourage him to expect that it would ever be written by any one. In the days when his relations with his father were causing him anxiety, he used to laugh and say that if any one ever took the trouble to write his life the following sentence might come in useful as an opening : " The subject of this Memoir was born of rich but dishonest parents." This, however, was intended as a gibe at his father rather than as a testamentary direction. It was not until within the last few months of his life that I ever heard him speak seriously of the possibility of his life being written, and even then we hardly discussed the subject ; it was referred to in the spirit of " unlikelier things have happened," and not as he used to speak of the publication of his auto- biographical novel, which he always contemplated as some- thing that must certainly be done. It had often crossed my mind that his life might have to be written, and I had often wondered who would be a suitable person to undertake it. The success of Erewhon Revisited, which preceded, and the still greater success of The Way of All Fleshy which followed his death, showed me that the neglect from which he had suffered was passing away, and that a biography of him would certainly be wanted ; and then I saw that I should have to write it. The book came to me, as he used to say his own books came to him, and insisted on being written. The publication in 1912 of The Note-Books of Samuel Butler was a by-product ; it was a clearing of the ground for this Memoir, and helped to solve the problem of dealing with the material. Many of the events of his life, the substance of many of the notes, and the contents of many of the letters are repeated several times for different purposes and in different ways, and sometimes again in his published PREFACE IX works. I do not mean that he contradicted himself, but the language differed, and he was not writing for publica- tion ; accordingly what he wrote, though it suited the purpose he had in hand, did not necessarily suit my purpose. I should have been glad if I could always have used his words, but, this not being possible, I was com- pelled to condense, to amplify, to omit, and sometimes to re-state entirely in language of my own. In determining the limits of permissible editing I found instructions for my guidance in his Note-Books : I I hope no one will publish my letters after I am dead ; they were always hasty, often insincere, and never intended for the public. II I hope no one will ever collect my letters and publish them. I don't believe I ever wrote a letter in my life which I would allow to be published if I could help it. Ill Cursed be not he who moves my bones but he who prints my letters which were never intended to be printed, and which should have been thrown into the fire as soon as read. These three notes were not encouraging for a bio- grapher, and if I had found nothing more I should not have proceeded with this Memoir. But in the course of writing the Life of his grandfather, Butler reconsidered the question and came to different conclusions, as will appear from these three further notes : IV Letters are like wine ; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he lays down a cellar of wine. V It is a mistake to think you are giving letters most faithfully by printing them as they were written without the smallest altera- tion ; for you do not give the letters unless you reproduce their environment, and this cannot be done. He who undertakes to x PREFACE edit letters undertakes to translate them from one set of surround- ings to other very different ones. It is the essence of a private letter that the audience should be few and known to the writer. It is the essence, generally, of a published letter that the audience should be large and unknown to the writer. Few readers as much as even attempt to make allowance for the fact that a published letter is no longer what it was when the writer wrote it ; nine out of every ten will regard pub- lished letters as things intended by the writer to be seen as the reader now sees them, whereas nothing was farther from his intention, and very little would have been allowed to stand with- out alteration if the writer had had any idea that his or her letter was going to be laid before the public. Granted that an editor should, like a translator, keep as religiously close to the original text as he reasonably can, and in every alteration should consider what the writer would have wished and done if he or she could be consulted, but subject to these limitations he should be free to alter according to his discretion or indiscretion. VI It may be said that in my Life of Dr. Butler I have published some letters indiscreetly, and others dishonourably, inasmuch as the writer desired they should be destroyed. Again, I have published letters that it was infra dignitatem on Dr. Butler's part to have written, as for example when he implored his son to read Parr's Preface to Bellenden for some hours before going in for the Latin Prose Composition paper of the Classical Tripos Examination. There are very few of these last, but if I had found, more I should have printed them. It is better that I should be indiscreet and dishonourable than that men's true minds should be concealed and turned again to falsehood, if we have a chance of getting at them. It is next to never that we can get at any man's genuine opinion on any subject, except the weather or eating and drinking ; and when we can do so directly or indirectly neither amour propre nor discretion should be allowed to veil it, for there is nothing in this world so precious nor is there any other stuff from which fresh genuine opinion can derive. And there is another note reproduced in the published Note-Books, which I have often borne in mind : When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence. So much for the material which is in manuscript. PREFACE xi The autobiographical material which is in his published books will be found chiefly in A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, in the opening of Erewhon, in the Preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon, in the Memoir of John Pickard Owen which precedes The Fair Haven, in Un- conscious Memory, in The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler, and in The Way of All Flesh. We may now pass to other sources which have con- tributed to the writing of this Memoir. I wrote an obituary notice of Butler which appeared in December 1902 in The Eagle, the magazine of St. John's College, Cambridge. It was included with other notices of him in " Samuel Butler : Records and Memorials," a pamphlet which Mr. Richard Alexander Streatfeild (his literary executor) had printed for private circulation in 1903. I revised my notice, and it appeared finally in 1913 prefixed to The Humour of Homer. In 1904 I had printed for private circulation a pamphlet : " Diary of a Journey through North Italy to Sicily in the Spring of 1903, undertaken for the purpose of leaving the MSS. of three books by Samuel Butler at Varallo-Sesia, Aci-Reale, and Trapani." In 1911 Mr. (now Sir) Francis Darwin and I published through Mr. Fifield a pamphlet : " Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler : a Step towards Reconciliation," the result of a correspondence which had then recently taken place between us. I have made free use of these three pamphlets, and have repeated whole passages out of them in this book. It may be thought that I have been loose in the spelling of Italian names, especially of places. There is no settled spelling for some of them ; for instance, in Sicily one can find Acireale, AciReale, and Aci-Reale ; Pantellaria and Pantelleria. It is not a matter of any consequence, but it seemed better to warn the reader that there is probably some authority for the spelling adopted. Mr. R. A. Streatfeild has placed all Butler's papers at my disposal, and has given me such absolute freedom that I have felt as though I, and not he, were Butler's literary executor. Sir Francis Darwin has given me permission VOL. i b xii PREFACE to print letters from his father and from himself, and has treated me in all our dealings with a friendliness and generosity which could not have been exceeded if there had never been any difference between Charles Darwin and Butler. I am indebted to Mrs. Creighton for per- mission to publish the letters of her late husband, the Bishop of London ; and to Mr. Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate, for permission to publish the extracts from his letters which are necessary to explain Butler's letters to him. Among others who have helped me in different ways I thank particularly Miss Annie Charlotte Catharine Aldrich, Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, the Rev. Dr. Bonney, F.R.S., Mr. Alfred Emery Cathie, Mr. Edward Clodd, the Rev. Cuthbert Creighton, Mr. E. J. Dent (of King's College, Cambridge), Mr. R. W. K. Edwards, Mrs. Fisher, Mr. Charles Gogin, the Hon. Mrs. Richard Cecil Grosvenor, Mr. John F. Harris, Mr. E. S. P. Haynes, Mr. Desmond MacCarthy, Mrs. Sydney Morse, Mr. George Butler Lloyd, M.P., Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Fuller Maitland, Mr. H. M. Paget, Mr. H. R. Robertson, Professor G. S. Sale, Mr. George Bernard Shaw, Mr. W. H. Triggs (Editor of The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand), Miss Colborne-Veel (whose father was Editor of The Press while Butler was writing in it), Mr. Emery Walker, and Mr. Philip Worsley. Also I thank Mrs. Allen, of the Metropolitan Typewriting Office, in Chancery Lane, and her staff of lady typists for the accuracy and business-like promptitude with which she and they have done all the copying with which I have entrusted them. There are many others to whom I am grateful ; in every case I have intended to express my obligation at the moment of using their help. If I have anywhere neglected to do so it is by inadvertence, for which I apologise. But I do not think any such inadvertence will be of much consequence. I know most of them person- ally, and I believe they all feel as the late Mr. Jason Smith felt about Butler. He lent me the picture, " Mr. Heatherley's Holiday," which Butler had bequeathed to him, and gave me permission to have it reproduced for this Memoir. At one of our interviews he expressed PREFACE xiii a desire to pay the expenses of reproduction. " If anything," he said, " is being done to preserve Sam's memory I should like to contribute." It would have been discourteous for me to refuse. Besides, it would not have been possible. He was entitled to make his own conditions as to the reproduction of his own picture. Accordingly, he paid Emery Walker's bill. 1 asked whether I might say that he had done so, and he desired me not to mention the fact. I battled with the tempta- tion to disobey him, but could not subdue it. We shall meet " on lips of living men," but Butler will be there also ; and if Jason Smith attacks me with vicarious dis- pleasure, Butler, I feel sure, will support me with vicarious approval. I also apologise for printing letters without having first obtained written permission. Whenever this has happened, permission had been given verbally or I con- sidered that the circumstances justified me in assuming it. But this does not apply to Miss Savage's letters, which I have printed on my own responsibility. I made all possible enquiries, and failed to hear of any one who could give permission. I searched at Somerset House and found no trace of any legal personal representative. She lived with her parents, and if, as was probably the case, she left no estate, there was no reason why any one should take out probate or letters of administration. Technically, no doubt, I am incurring a risk ; but I do not think it is great, for I cannot imagine that any relation of hers who may read her letters will experience any feelings other than pride and delight. Moreover, any risk would be slight in comparison with the honour of being associated with her memory. Soon after her death Butler wrote these words : I have it in my power, and I am thankful to think of this, to leave a memorial of her, traced chiefly by her own hand, which will show what manner of woman she was j but it is one which cannot possibly be made public till I have long followed her. He was alluding to her correspondence, of which he left a separate copy, edited, adnotated, and ready for xiv PREFACE publication one day in a volume by itself. Until that day shall arrive this Memoir contains enough to give the world some idea of the kindness, the wisdom, the humour, and the loveableness of her whose portrait he has pre- sented to us under the name of Alethea Pontifex. H. F. J. 1 20 MAIDA VALE, W., June 1916. POSTSCRIPT SOON after the date written above six copies of this Memoir, to be deposited in different places in case of fire, were struck off from the type ; moulds were taken and the type was distributed. It was not found practicable to print six sets of the illustrations to accompany these copies as, owing to the War, labour was scarce. The six copies were stitched into paper wrappers and disposed of as follows : one to the British Museum ; one to St. John's College, Cambridge ; one to Sir Frederick Macmillan ; one to Mr. A. T. Bartholomew ; one I kept for myself ; and the sixth I intended for Streatfeild, but about that time his health broke down and I postponed giving it to him until he should be better. Soon after his death I gave it to the Bodleian Library. The preliminary matter was kept standing in type ; I am thus able to make a few alterations and additions in the Bibliography and in the Lists of Illustrations, so as to bring the statements therein made into accordance with present facts ; and in this postscript, first to make a few corrections or amplifications ; and, secondly, to add a record of what has happened since the events recorded in Chapter xliii. First, as to the corrections and amplifications : The portrait of Butler which faces the opening of Chapter iii. was made by the Rev. Douglas Yeoman Blakiston. It was identified in 1917 by a young Cambridge friend, Morris Reynolds, to whom I was PREFACE xwa showing it; he had met the artist at Weimar in 1911, and told me that his son was President of Trinity College, Oxford. I took an early opportunity of calling on the President, to whom I showed the drawing ; he confirmed the attribution and gave permission for me to have it reproduced rather late, for I had already had it done, but he kindly overlooked that. He also gave me a cutting from The East Grinstead Observer of the I2th September 1914 an obituary notice of his father, which I have given, with other papers, to St. John's College, Cambridge. It appears from this notice that Douglas Yeoman Blakiston was born in 1832 at Lymington, Hants. He was a student at the Royal Academy Schools and studied especially under W. Dobson, R.A. ; from 1850 to 1865 he painted chiefly in London and St. Leonards and exhibited at the Royal Academy. It was during this period that he made the sketch of Butler, and I suppose it must have been in London that they met ; but the President could give me no information about this, never having heard his father mention Butler, just as I never heard Butler mention D. Y. Blakiston. In 1865 he entered at Downing College, Cambridge, was ordained in 1868, and in 1871 was presented to the living of East Grinstead. The President showed me an immense number of sketches of heads, men and women, made by his father ; he would have shown me, or would have been able to show me, an immense quantity more, for his father made a sketch of every one he met who would submit to the process, but many of them were lost in a fire which destroyed the vicarage house at East Grinstead in 1908. The President had no doubt that the words U D. Y. Blakiston fecit," which appear under the sketch, are in the handwriting of his father ; and I am certain that the words "Portrait of S. Butler, 1854" were added by Butler in his own handwriting. The fire at the vicarage brought about the retirement of the Rev. D. Y. Blakiston ; he made several visits to the Continent, and it was while he was acting as English Chaplain at Weimar that my friend Morris Reynolds met him. He died in 1914. PREFACE I regret that I have not succeeded in finding any further particulars about James Ferguson who did the sketch of Butler playing Handel which faces the opening of Chapter ix. In the note on the sketch Butler speaks of him as deceased, and it is possible that he did not live to attain distinction. In Chapter vi. (p. 75) occurs this passage : " the river Heathcote runs past Christchurch to the sea." In 1917 I made the acquaintance of a wounded New Zealand soldier, who told me that the river can no longer be said to run ; it ran in Butler's time, but it is now dried up. If I had written " used to run " there would have been no occasion to refer to the matter, for in other respects my account of Butler's journey from Lyttelton to Christchurch is correct. In Chapter xx. (p. 367) I speak of a framed reproduction of a sketch by Miss Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler), entitled " Missed," as hanging in the hall at Wilderhope. Butler's nephew, Harry Butler, assures me that his aunt, Mrs. Bridges, and Lady Butler knew each other at Ventnor, and that the picture which Lady Butler gave to Mrs. Bridges, and which I saw in the hall at Wilderhope, was not a reproduction of " Missed " ; it was the original sketch for a different picture called " Missing " which was hung in the Royal Academy in 1873, and was the first of Lady Butler's pictures to be exhibited there. And this sketch was given to Harry Butler by Mrs. Bridges in her lifetime. It is stated in Chapter xliii. (II. 434) that Butler's translation of Hesiod's Works and Days has not yet been published. This is still the fact, but I ought to add that in 1912, or thereabouts, the London County Council Technical Schools applied for permission to print Butler's " Seven Sonnets and a Psalm of Montreal," which Streat- feild had had privately printed. They only proposed to use Butler's work as material for printing lessons, not to publish the result ; but Streatfeild and I did not wish the sonnets to be printed under any other authority than his or mine just at that moment, because they were to be included in The Note- Books of Samuel Butler then about PREFACE xiv d. 1839 Apthorp. | Butler. t.f. (Mrs. Freer). t.f. t.p. Philip John Worsley = Sarah Savery. I Mary Harriet (Mrs. Bather). (Mrs. Lloyd). b. 1806, m. 1831, Rev. THOMAS BUTLER = Fanny Worsley. Philip. Other 'A d. 1886. I I I Rev. Archdeacon Mrs. Whately. William Lloyd. Thomas Lloyd. George Butler Lloyd. children. Philip. Reginald. Other children. Ill II Geo. L. = Harriet SAMUEL BUTLER, Thomas Butler = Henrietta Rigby. William. Mary. Bridges | Fanny. b. 1835, d. 1902. t.p. d. 1884. d. in infancy. Ada Wheeler = Henry Thomas Butler of The Stone House, Kenilworth. Charles S. Elizabeth = Richard Burton Phillipson. Mary. ! Joan. Patrick. Kathleen. 1 6 JOHN WORSLEY 1580-1835 There is little doubt that the Worsleys are descended from the old Lancashire family of Workedlegh, whose records go back to the time of King John. Butler's mother, Fanny Worsley, was one of a Unitarian branch, which may be considered as beginning with Thomas Worsley of Stevenage and Hitchin, husbandman, who died in 1685. His son John (1662-1736) is the first of whom there is any exact record that he was a nonconformist. He had a son, also John (1696-1767), who was educated for the nonconformist ministry, but did not enter it. He was a scholar and lived in The Tower House in the Castle of Hertford, where he kept a school. He must have been a man of some independence of thought, who liked to go to the root of things and would not put up with less than the best he could get. Having come to the conclusion that the authorised version of the New Testament was susceptible of improvement, he made a new translation himself. " The English translation of the Bible in the reign of King James I.," he writes in the author's advertisement, " is, no doubt, a very good one ; and justly so esteemed to this day, although it be a hundred and fifty years old." He goes on to say that he has attempted to bring his translation nearer to the original. More than a hundred and thirty years later his great-great-grandson, our Samuel Butler, in making his translations of the Iliad (1898) and of the Odyssey (1900), was actuated by similar motives. John Worsley married Grace, daughter of the Rev. George Hughes, an eminent nonconformist minister of Canterbury, and had six children, the youngest being Samuel Worsley (1740-1800), who was minister of Cross Brook Nonconformist Chapel, Cheshunt, Herts, and married Hannah, daughter of Philip Carter of Bishopsgate Street, London. In 1770 he and his brother- in-law, the Rev. M. Bradshaw, minister of Brentford, published, by subscription in London, John Worsley's i THE TAYLORS OF NORWICH 17 translation of the New Testament. Samuel Worsley had 1580-1835 many children, of whom only three survived childhood, and of these we are only concerned with Philip John Worsley (1769-1811), of Arno's Vale, near Bristol, sugar refiner. He married Sarah, the elder of the two daughters of John Savery of Butcombe Court, Somerset, of an old Devonshire family (the younger daughter being Mrs. Hutchings mentioned above). He had three sons, of whom the eldest was Philip Worsley (18021893) ; and five daughters, of whom the third was Fanny (1808-1873), w ^ * n I ^3 I married the Rev. Thomas Butler and became the mother of our Samuel Butler. I did not make Butler's acquaintance till after his mother's death, so I never saw her ; but I remember dining with her brother, Philip Worsley, at his house in Chester Terrace, Regent's Park. He married, in 1832, Annie (1806-1877), eldest daughter of John Taylor, F.R.S., of Bedford Row. This John Taylor was the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. John Taylor of Norwich, who gave Dr. Parr the silver cups mentioned above. An aunt of Florence Nightingale, talking of the excitement prevailing in Norwich when the news of the fall of the Bastille was first known, said to Henry Reeve (1813-1895), editor of The Edinburgh Review and a grandson of Mrs. John Taylor, "Don't I remember your glorious grandmother dancing round the Tree of Liberty with Dr. Parr? " l Mrs. Thomas Butler's brother, Philip Worsley, had five children, of whom the youngest, Reginald, was intimate with his cousin, our Samuel Butler, and his name will occur frequently in this memoir. The eldest son, Mr. Philip Worsley, of Rodney Lodge, Clifton, Bristol, has kindly allowed me to make use of the pedigree of his family, which he has prepared ; and also of a manuscript volume of interesting family reminiscences written by his father in 1877. 1 Three Generations of Englishwomen : Memoirs and Correspondence of Mrs, John Taylor, Mrs. Sarah Austin, and Lady Duff Gordon (new edition, 1893, P- 21 ) > 8ee a ^ 8 The Fourth Generation (1912, p. 23), both books by Mrs. Janet Ross. VOL. I C CHAPTER II 1835-1845 EARLY LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 1835-1845 IN the ordinary course Butler would have been baptized soon after his birth, but Dr. Butler was to stand godfather and also to perform the ceremony, and was too busy to go immediately to Langar. Further delay was occasioned by its becoming known, in April 1836, that he was to be made a bishop and by the consequent arrangements for his leaving Shrewsbury ; then came his farewell speech day, and on the 23rd June his wife, who had been to Langar, wrote to him : " You cannot think what a lovely grand- child you have ; he is only waiting for you to christen him after yourself" (Life of Dr. Butler, II. 168). On the 3rd July he was consecrated Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and it was not until the autumn that he was free to go to Langar and perform the ceremony. Butler used to say that this postponement was a very risky business, because during all these months the devil had the run of him. Among Dr. Butler's large circle of friends was a traveller who had given him a bottle of water from the Jordan. Dr. Butler himself had puzzled the custom- houses by bringing to England water from the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, and the Po to make " Punch aux quatre fleuves " (Life of Dr. Butler, I. 357), but the water from the Jordan he reserved and used for the baptism of his grandson. For the christening dinner he sent a turbot from Grove's, which was entrusted to the Langar cook and in due course brought to table. Dr. 18 ii HONEY AND BIRDS' EGGS 19 Butler was sitting on one side of his daughter-in-law and 1835-1845 old Mr. Brooke, Rector of Gamston, North Notts, on the other ; when the cover was removed and the bishop saw what had happened to the turbot he turned to his hostess and exclaimed : " Good God, Fanny ! it's skinned ! " These were his ipsissima verba as reported by Mr. Brooke, years afterwards, to Butler. Butler could just remember his grandfather I had a vision of myself before a nursery fire with Dr. Butler walking up and down the room watching my sister Harrie and myself. The nursery was not our Langar nursery. For a long time I thought this must be fancy, but on finding from Arch- deacon Lloyd [his cousin] that we were at Eccleshall [staying with Dr. Butler at the Bishop's Palace] at the end of 1838, I think it is probably true. My brother William died 4th Jan. 1839 when I was three years and one month old. This I can remember distinctly. My grandfather's death in 1839 (Dec. 4), I remember vividly. I was in the nursery [at Langar] which became afterwards my mother's room, i.e. the first-floor room of the Rectory that had one window looking east and two looking south. Mrs. Watchorn had given me a little pot of honey as a birthday present, it being my birthday, and a string of birds' eggs. My father came in, told us grand- papa was dead, and took away the honey saying it would not be good for us. In his Life of Dr. Butler we are told that both the honey and the birds' eggs were taken away " for a time," and that it was done " doubtless to impress the event " upon his memory. It may have been so ; but I suspect that these words which I have quoted were added by Butler to soften his father's conduct in the eyes of the public for whom he was writing. Whether it was so or not, certainly the childhood of Ernest Pontifex in The Way of All Flesh is drawn as faithfully as he could draw it from his own ; Theobald and Christina being portraits of his own father and mother as accurate as he could make them, with no softening and no exaggeration. He often said, as Ernest says in chap, xx., that with regard to his father he could remember no feeling during his childhood except fear and shrinking. Canon and Mrs. Butler, when their first children were born, no doubt 20 "BREAK YOUR CHILD'S WILL" n 1835-1845 considered that the bringing up of a family was an affair too serious to be undertaken lightly by inexperienced parents ; they accordingly sought assistance from a little book wherein, among other precepts, they read, " Break your child's will early, or he will break yours later on." I do not remember ever hearing that Butler, like Ernest, was late in being able to sound the hard c or k, but he very likely was ; and certainly one of the hymns of his childhood was " Come to the sunset tree." If he did not commit the particular crime ascribed to Ernest in connection with this hymn (chap, xxii.), he was so frequently flogged, ostensibly for trivial or imaginary delinquencies, but really, as it seemed to the victim, because his father was in an irritable mood, that the account of poor Ernest's punishment is only a fair sample of his father's ordinary practice. And from this he drew the general conclusion that, like the prophet Habakkuk, "Le pere de famille est capable de tout." At the same time he, of course, knew that there existed fathers of another kind. Edward Overton, in The Way of All Flesh, is not on bad terms with his father ; in the Memoir prefixed to The Fair Haven (1873), Mr. Owen is good to his boys and they are fond of him ; and it is the same with Mr. Higgs and his sons in Erewhon Revisited (1901). Indeed, I doubt whether Butler could have written about Mr. Higgs and George with such con- vincing tenderness unless he had been describing not something he had experienced and grown accustomed to, but something he had unconsciously yearned for and never known in his own childhood and youth. It is not a subject to be dwelt upon, and all that need be said further about it here is summed up in a note made in 1883 : MY FATHER AND MYSELF He never liked me, nor I him ; from my earliest recollections I can call to mind no time when I did not fear him and dislike him ; over and over again I have relented towards him and said to myself that he was a good fellow after all ; but I had hardly done so when he would go for me in some way or other which soured me again. I have no doubt I have made myself very disagreeable ; ii BUTLERS AND PONTIFEXES 21 certainly I have done many very silly and very wrong things ; I am 1835-1845 not at all sure that the fault is more his than mine. But no matter whose it is, the fact remains that for years and years I have never passed a day without thinking of him many times over as the man who was sure to be against me, and who would see the bad side rather than the good of everything I said and did. He used to say to his nurse, so my aunt, Mrs. Bather, said : " I'll keep you : you shan't leave : I'll keep you on purpose to torment you." And I have felt that he has always looked upon me as something which he could badger with impunity, or very like it, as he badgered his nurse. There can be no real peace and contentment for me until either he or I are where the wicked cease from troubling. An unkind fate never threw two men together who were more naturally uncongenial than my father and myself. It would be idle for any one to attempt to add to the description of Butler's early life as he has given it in the novel, and I shall assume that the reader is acquainted with that book. It was begun in 1873 and finished in 1884; "finished," however, is hardly the correct word, because during all the rest of his life he intended to reconsider and rewrite it ; but he never did anything to it after February 1885. It was published in 1903, a year after his death, by Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, his literary executor. From the internal chronology of the book it appears to have been written in 1867 by Edward Overton, born in 1802, son of the Rector of Paleham and an old friend and neighbour of the Pontifex family. Both Ernest Pontifex and Edward Overton are portraits of Butler, the narrator being Butler as a man of sixty-five, and the hero being also Butler as a child, a boy, a youth, and a man. By making the narrator an elderly man he was able to introduce reminiscences of Ernest's ancestors, imitated from what he had heard of his own, and thus to emphasise Ernest's pre-natal experience. Not only is Theobald Pontifex, the country clergyman, his own father, but George Pontifex, the successful publisher, was intended for Dr. Butler with his profession altered. Similarly John Pontifex, the village carpenter, is Butler's great-grandfather, by hearsay, with his trade altered. On the monument to John Pontifex in Paleham church (chap, iii.) occur the words : " They were unostentatious 22 ORGAN BUILDING 1835-1845 but exemplary in the discharge of their religious, moral, and social duties," which is a quotation from the inscrip- tion written by Dr. Butler for the monument of his father and mother in Kenilworth church (ante, p. 3). Again, the words from the epitaph on George Pontifex (chap, xviii., on which Edward Overton remarks, " I believe that it was the intention to convey that nothing short of the Day of Judgement could give any idea of how good a man Mr. Pontifex had been ") are taken not from Dr. Butler's own monument, but from that to his grandfather, William Butler II. (ante, p. 3). It is not probable that John Pontifex is much like Dr. Butler's father, William Butler III., who died in 1815 ; Butler can only have reproduced what he had heard of him. The points he was chiefly concerned to bring out were that he earned his own living and was a quiet sensible man whose son succeeded without any financial assistance. In comparing the two we must remember that for John Pontifex to become a carpenter was a rise in the social scale, because his father had been only a labourer ; whereas it was a fall for William Butler III. to become a linen-draper ; but he only fell paren- thetically in the family history. I think I know why John Pontifex was a carpenter and not a linen-draper or anything but a carpenter. Professor Sale, whose acquaintance Butler made in New Zealand, and who, as will appear presently, gave me many details of his colonial life, told me that he remembered being taken in the fifties to see an old village carpenter who lived with a friend, another carpenter, somewhere in Warwickshire, near Knowle. This old man wore knee- breeches and buckles to his shoes, and he had made an organ. He and his friend played on their instrument, but, not being able to play very well, they asked Professor Sale to play to them : they particularly wished to hear, and accordingly he played, " Before Jehovah's awful throne." In New Zealand Professor Sale told this anecdote to Butler, who, no doubt, appropriated it ; and, combining it with his own reminiscences of some old man at Langar who hobbled about in knee-breeches and woollen ii THEOBALD 23 stockings, elaborated John Pontifex. He would see the 1835-1845 value of a village carpenter making an organ as prepara- tion for Alethea's organ-building scheme in chap, xxxiv. which, with no preparation, might have struck some readers as too fantastic. Certainly George Pontifex is not a portrait of Dr. Butler ; he is but a reproduction of Butler's notion of his grandfather derived from what Canon Butler had told him. It is, however, like the bishop in this respect, that he was a man who knew how to get on in the world and amassed a considerable fortune ; and this was necessary for the scheme of the book. Miss Worsley and her sisters did not play cards for Canon Butler as Christina and her sisters did for Theobald ; but the incident is taken from life, though I do not now remember in what family it occurred. Nor were Canon Butler's sermons sold, like Theobald's, for ninepence a barrow-load. I do not know whose sermons were so sold ; but Butler got the episode from a letter written in 1835 by his great-aunt, Mrs. Paley of Easingwold, to Dr. Butler, an extract from which is quoted in an Appendix : Addenda for The Way of All Flesh. Theobald's irritability and neatness ; his hortus siccus ; the conviction with which he sums up how things are ; the " ready to believe " and " willing to hope," and the other tags and mannerisms are all photographed from Canon Butler, who actually did make his son go through the examination papers after he had been examined for his degree and reproduce all his answers. Here is a note about him which will help to throw light upon the original of Theobald : Archdeacon Bather and my aunt were staying at Langar and went for a drive to Colston ; my father was driving and my aunt and I were on the seat behind. The roads were in those days notoriously rough, indeed in winter they were almost impassable, but this was summer. Presently the Archdeacon, who was then nearly blind, said that after all he had heard about our roads, he was surprised not to be jolted ; on which my aunt explained that my father was driving in the ruts. The Archdeacon laughed and said : " Ha, ha ! let Tom Butler alone to drive in the ruts." 1 4 CHRISTINA 1835-1845 Christina's avoidance of black puddings and strangled fowls (chap, xvi.) is taken from Mrs. Butler ; and so are her reveries. Butler sometimes indulged in reveries himself and then called himself " Christina " in fun, so that it passed into a by-word with us ; and if I thought he was travelling a little far into the rosy future, I used to agree with him, saying, " Yes, Christina," whereon he would laugh. Christina's letter addressed to " My two dear boys" (chap, xxv.) is a copy of one his mother wrote before the birth of her younger daughter, Mary. It is dated " Langar, Feb. 6, 1841." She did not then die, as she feared she might ; but she kept the letter in her desk all the rest of her life, and Butler wrote on it : " Received by me, May nth, 1873, on my mother's death. It was evidently by her desire that the letter which she had so long preserved should be sent to my brother and myself." Butler was particular to insert in chap. Ixxxiv. Ernest's reason for wishing to have this letter reproduced, namely, his conviction that Christina would have desired its publi- cation ; he considered this as his own justification for pub- lishing his own mother's letter ; or rather he considered it as evidence that no justification was necessary. He used to tell me about some muddle-headed wandering of his mother's in which she exhorted him to " have his loins girt about with the breast-plate of purity " ; I thought it was in this letter or in some sofa-talk, but I cannot find it in the book. I suppose he cut it out as extravagant, for there is no intentional exaggeration in Christina as a portrait of his mother. Mrs. Owen in the Memoir pre- fixed to The Fair Haven is also drawn from his own mother. The family prayers ; the sofa-talks ; the dining-room with the picture of " Elijah (or Elisha whichever it was)," and the boy's attempt to assist the food to pass from the ravens' beaks to the prophet's mouth by tracing a greasy line with bread-and-butter right across the intervening space ; the prayers and hymns and sums and happy Sunday evenings, and the general atmosphere of Battersby are all, as faithfully as he could do it, reproduced from Langar. Paleham and Crampsford are also both drawn ii FIRST VISIT TO ITALY 25 from Langar, just as Scheria and Ithaca, in the Odyssey, 1835-1845 are both drawn from Trapani and Mount Eryx (The Authoress of the Odyssey}. As Theobald was Ernest's first schoolmaster, so Butler's father began his education. In chap. xx. we are told : Before Ernest [and it is true of Butler] could well crawl he was taught to kneel ; before he could well speak he was taught to lisp the Lord's prayer, and the general confession. How was it possible that these things could be taught too early ? If his attention flagged or his memory failed him, here was an ill weed which would grow apace unless it were plucked out immediately j and the only way to pluck it out was to whip him or shut him up in a cupboard or dock him of some of the small pleasures of child- hood. Before he was three years old he could read and, after a fashion, write. Before he was four he was learning Latin and could do rule-of-three sums. There is very little that Butler remembered of his own early life which is not reproduced in The Way of All Flesh, but in 1843 something happened to him which did not happen to Ernest. In that year the family, consisting of his father and mother, his elder sister, himself, his brother, and his younger sister (then a baby of two years old) went to Italy. The South-Eastern Railway stopped at Ashford, where they slept and whence they proceeded to Dover in their own carriage. The carriage was put on board the steamer, and they crossed the Channel. In Belgium there was railway as far as Liege. They stopped a week at Chaudfontaine. There was no rail to Cologne, but from Kehl to Basel the line was open. They travelled leisurely in their carriage through Switzerland and Italy and down to Rome. There was no railway in all Italy except from Naples to Castellamare. They drove through Parma, where the widow of Napoleon was still reigning, and on through Modena, Bologna, and Florence to Rome. 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 would run after the carriage all day long, and when they got 26 DISGRAZIA n 1835-1845 nothing would shout " Eretici ! " They spent half the winter in Rome, and saw Pope Gregory XVI. close at hand for an hour or more, taking part in some ceremony in the Sistine Chapel ; and they saw the cardinals kiss his slipper. They saw a monk come rolling down a staircase into the Corso like a sack of potatoes, bundled into the street by a man and his wife. So recently as 28th November 1898 he made a note referring to this early visit : MYSELF THIS DAY 55 YEARS AGO It was my father's birthday and we were all in Rome for the winter of 1843. To celebrate the day we children were taken up to the top of St. Peter's. I was then just a week under 8 years of age and have a vivid recollection of the event. They spent the second half of the winter in Naples, and both in Rome and Naples had lessons in Italian, for which Butler was always grateful. Signora Capocci (I think her name was), who used to teach us Italian at Naples, told us of a poor dear young friend of hers who had had a great misfortune. Her words impressed me : " Povero disgraziato ! " she exclaimed, " Ha ammazzato il suo zio e la sua zia " (Poor unfortunate fellow ! he has murdered his uncle and his aunt). In 1882 he wrote in Alps and Sanctuaries (chap, iv.) : " If an accident does happen, they [the Ticinesi] call it a * disgrazia,' thus confirming the soundness of a philosophy which I put forward in a previous work." In 1901, when he was preparing the new and revised edition of Erewhon, he interpolated Signora Capocci's remark into chap, x., " Current Opinions," and added an incident which had happened when we were together at Trapani in Sicily. On arriving at the station we saw the young coachman, Francesco Corona, with his cab ; and he accounted for our not having seen him on our recent visits to the town by telling us he had had " tre anni di militare e due anni di disgrazia " (three years of military service and two years of misfortune). The "disgrazia" was his way of saying that he had been in prison for shooting at his father with intent to murder him. ii MENDELSSOHN AND THE TAYLORS 27 Not only did the word disgrazia with its double 1835-1845 meaning dwell in Butler's memory from childhood to age, but the effect produced on him by his early visit to Italy remained ineffaceable. It cannot be said to have laid the foundations of his great love for Italy, because the roots of that love were already in him ; but it revealed to him that he was born sympathetic to Italy, just as he was born unsympathetic to his father ; and he liked to remember that at the age of eight he had fallen in love with Italy at first sight, and that he remained faithful to her for the rest of his life. While a boy, Butler had lessons on the piano from the governess, and, possibly, there was a little elementary thorough-bass ; but that, I suspect, was later, when he was at Cambridge. His father, like Theobald, knew two tunes, " God save the Queen," and " In my cottage near a wood," and I have been given to understand that people were not always sure which he was whistling ; that, how- ever, may have been the fault of the hearer. Links with the past always interested Butler, and he recorded many in his note-books. I give a few here with apologies for their being disconnected. It is stated at the end of the preceding chapter that Mrs. Philip Worsley's father, John Taylor of Bedford Row, was the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. John Taylor of Norwich. Their youngest child was Sarah, who became the wife of the celebrated jurist John Austin and the mother of Lady Duff Gordon, who was the mother of Mrs. Janet Ross, the author of Three Generations of Englishwomen referred to above (p. 17). John and Sarah Austin, when in Germany, made the acquaintance of Professor Mendelssohn, and gave him, for his cousin Felix, the composer, an introduction to Mrs. Austin's brother, John Taylor of Bedford Row. Felix Mendelssohn came to England in 1829 and visited John Taylor first in Bedford Row and afterwards at Coed-du, near Mold in Flintshire, where the family was then living. Mr. Taylor and his daughters were charmed by their guest, who composed a piece of music for each of the three young ladies ("Trois Caprices," Op. 16), and the Miss 28 STILTON CHEESE n 1835-1845 Taylor who afterwards became Mrs. Philip Worsley wrote a delightful early -Victorian account of the visit, which is reproduced in Grove's Dictionary of Music (art. Mendelssohn). Mendelssohn always visited the Taylors whenever he came to England, and Butler as a child frequently heard about him ; for the families constantly saw each other, the Worsleys staying with the Butlers at Langar and the Butlers visiting the Worsleys in London. Some echoes of the Elijah, produced at Birmingham in 1846 when Butler was about eleven, no doubt penetrated to Langar. And there was probably talk of Spohr, who was an intimate friend of another son of Mr. and Mrs. John Taylor of Norwich, namely Edward Taylor, Gresham Professor of Music. Old Mr. Brooke, who told Butler about the turbot at the christening dinner, saw Montgolfier's ascent in the first balloon that ever went up in England ; he was also present at the Handel Commemoration in 1784 where he may have seen both Haydn and Mozart. Butler's great-aunt, Miss Susannah Apthorp, remem- bered Porson ; and, better still, knew an old lady who had sat upon Handel's knee. The Rev. J. Bradshaw of Granby used to tell Butler that Stilton cheeses were made not at Stilton but at Langar, which was in the heart of the best Stilton country. Stilton was a stopping-place on the Great North Road where time was allowed for lunch. The landlady of the inn was a Vale of Belvoir woman and would always have a cheese from her own neighbourhood on the table, and D * so they obtained their fame, which, until her time, had been local only ; since then they have borne the name not of the place where they were made but of that where they were made known. Butler remembered the " old Duke of Rutland " coming to lunch at the Rectory, Langar, when out hunting. This must refer to John Henry, the fifth duke (1778-1857). No doubt he gazed on the local magnate with due respect ; but what interested him was to know that he was looking on one who as a child had sat to Sir ii OLD WINE 29 Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), and that the picture was 1835-1845 hanging in Belvoir Castle among the family portraits. There was an old farmer at Langar, Roger Harrison, who was born in the Old Style and died about 1841, aged over ninety. Dr. Butler in his travels had met a wine-merchant of Cologne who made a bet with him I do not know what it was about, probably some point of scholarship or philology, classical history or geography. The wine- merchant wagered a dozen of the oldest wine in his cellar, lost, and paid in Rhenish which might have been drunk by Shakespeare, for it was of the vintage of 1 6 1 1 . On the death of the bishop what was left of this came to Langar with the rest of his wine, and Butler as a boy tasted it. It was the oldest wine he ever drank, but it was no longer any good. There was also some Imperial Tokay of 1795, the last vintage reserved for the use of the Empress of Austria, which was excellent; and some Chateau Lafitte and old port. CLARET AND PORT As a boy I used sometimes to taste claret at my father's dinner-table when there was a party or guests in the house. I got the taste well into my head. I never tasted claret again for years but, when I did, I found it quite different : much more like weak port wine. I could not make it out and supposed my memory was at fault. But a few years ago I was dining with my old college friend Jason Smith [at the New University Club, St. James's Street], and after dinner there was some wine which I at once recognised as the claret of my infancy. There was no mistake about it. I asked Jason what the wine was. He said it was Chateau Lafitte and very fine. I have no doubt my father when I was a boy was finishing up my grandfather's cellar, for he has never had any Chateau Lafitte since at least he has never given me any. [1883.] And so I was brought up on 1834 port and never taste anything like port now. [1896.] THE INFIRMARY SERMON AT ST. CHAD'S, SHREWSBURY The sermon is annual and, till within the last three or four years, the plate was handed round by the last new bride, in her 30 LINKS WITH THE PAST 1835-1845 bridal dress, and the last young lady who had come out, in her ball dress. These two ladies still go round with the plate, but they wear morning dress. Also the front pews were occupied by people bandaged and with splints on their arms and legs, as though undergoing surgical treatment for severe injuries there being in fact nothing the matter with them, nor ever having been, and the whole thing being as big a sham as the Holy Communion itself. This I don't mean the Holy Communion but the fictitious bandaging has also been discontinued within the last three or four years. [1883.] BISHOP CARTWRIGHT He was one of the last, if not the actual last, of the non-juring Bishops arid kept a chemist's shop in Shrewsbury till his death in the early years of this century. Lord Cornwallis, while Bishop of Lichfield, once surprised people in Shrewsbury very much by declaring that Cartwright was every whit as much a bishop as he was himself. My friend Mr. Phillips, the tailor, told me that Dr. Butler was the means of his being reconciled to the Established Church, but no trace of this has been found by me in my grandfather's papers. [1893.] I <^S '' CHAPTER III 1846-1854 ALLESLEY AND SHREWSBURY IN January 1846 Butler was sent to school under the 1846 Reverend E. Gibson at Allesley, near Coventry. One of Aet - I0 his schoolfellows was Samuel Hawksley Burbury, who was afterwards at Shrewsbury School and at St. John's College, Cambridge, with him. They remained on friendly terms till Butler's death. Burbury, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the author of mathematical and scientific treatises, died in August 1911 at the age of eighty. Butler seldom referred to his school life at Allesley, though occasionally he would say something that showed he had not forgotten all about it. In December 1900 Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell showed him a medieval service- book, laboriously illuminated. 1 It fatigued him to look at it, and he said that such books never ought to have been made. Cockerell replied that such books were intended to relieve 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 1 In 1914 Mr. Cockerell told me that this MS. was one of which he had written an account, and he gave me a copy ; it is entitled, A Psalter and Hours executed before izyofor a lady connected -with St. Louis, probably kis sister, Isabelle of France, Founder of the Abbey of Longchamp, now in the collection of Henry Tates Thompson. Described by S. C. Cockerell in relation to the companion Psalter of St. Louis in Paris, imth photogravures of all the miniatures by Emery Walker (London : Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1905). 31 32 SALIVA BUBBLES m 1848 from mine, used to blow pretty little bubbles with his saliva which Act. 12 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 any one else able to get saliva bubbles right away from him ; and though I have endeavoured for some five and fifty years 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 but increase it. Butler's education had been begun by his father, and when he went to Allesley he had already made some progress. What he says of Ernest in The Way of All z, chap, xxvii., was true of himself : [Ernest] at twelve years old knew every page of his Latin and Greek grammars by heart. He had read the greater part of Virgil, Horace, and Livy ; he was proficient in arithmetic ; knew the first four books of Euclid thoroughly ; and had a fair know- ledge of French. It was now time he went to school, and to school he was accordingly to go under the famous Dr. Skinner of Roughborough. In 1848 he left Allesley and went to school at Shrews- bury under his grandfather's successor, Dr. Kennedy. On p. 207 of Ex Voto, speaking of the Crucifixion Chapel at Varallo and of one of the figures which he supposes to represent Stefano Scotto, under whom Gaudenzio Ferrari studied, he writes : I incline to think, then, that . . . Gaudenzio determined to introduce his master, just as I, if I were writing a novel, might be tempted to introduce a reminiscence of my old schoolmaster, and to make the portrait as faithful as I could. Ex Voto was published in 1888, and there was the MS. of The Way of All Flesh lying in his bureau with a reminiscence of his own old schoolmaster, Dr. Kennedy, under the name of Dr. Skinner, but in other respects as faithful as he could make it, all complete and ready for publication. Butler was fond of telling the story of the game of chess and the supper afterwards (The Way of All Flesh^ chap, xxvii.). All the boys imitated the Doctor's manner, and Haycock (with whom the Doctor played this game) in DR. BLOMFIELD 33 imitated him particularly well and promulgated the 1848 story. Aet - I2 Here are some notes about his school-days : When I first went to school at Shrewsbury there was no railway yet open. The first railway opened was to Chester in the autumn of 1848, but for a few years there was none other ; we used to post to Birmingham, a tedious journey of several hours, but came back to school always by the Wonder Coach which was still running. I remember the building of the present railway bridge from beginning to end. I remember that one of the boys in my bedroom wrote a poem on the opening either of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham or the Stafford line I forget which was first opened ; I do not think it was a very good poem, nor can I recall more than the last line, which enumerated the stations between Wellington and Shrewsbury ; it ran : Admaston, Walcot, Upton Magna, and then comes Shrewsbury which might almost seem to have been the model for the last line of the last chorus of Narcissus, which runs : Per cent annuities paid quarterly. One of the first events that happened in Shrewsbury after I went there was the death of Dr. Darwin, Charles Darwin's father. I never saw him, but remember that his death caused some sensation. [Dr. Robert Waring Darwin died in 1848.] DR. BLOMFIELD When I was quite a small boy at school, it must have been in the autumn of 1849, 1850 or 1851, for I was quite small, I saw an elderly gentleman in shovel-hat and gaiters coming down School Lane and going up to call on Dr. Kennedy. I waylaid Thomas, the Doctor's servant, and, on enquiry, learned that the visitor was the Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield. I knew nothing then of the long and bitter quarrel between him and my grandfather, and of their reconciliation and subsequent friendship ; but I knew that a bishop could get a half-holiday if he chose to ask for one, and I waited patiently till he came out. I was much afraid, but I summoned up my courage, went to him, touched my hat, and said : " Would you be so kind, Sir, as to ask for a half-holiday for the boys ? " He was a nice, benign-looking old thing and said with a smile : " But how do you know that I am able to get you one ? " VOL. i D 34 DR. KENNEDY m 1850 I was afraid to say that I had asked Thomas and replied : Act. 14 By your clothes, Sir." This made him laugh and he said : "Very well, I will write to Dr. Kennedy and ask for one." He did not inquire my name. If we were to meet now [1898] we should be more interested in one another, but I fear he would not be altogether pleased with my Life and Letters oj Dr. Butler. Years afterwards Butler again performed the feat of getting a half-holiday, and this time without the help of a bishop. He was staying at Shrewsbury with his father and sisters in 1883, and said at supper : "Well, I got a half-holiday for the boys out of Moss" [the head-master]. My father was surprised and displeased. " Why how did you do that ? " said he with astonishment. " Oh," said I, I asked for it." " Well," said my father forcibly, " I do call that a piece of effrontery." I laughed and said : " Moss is very well able to take care of himself," and the matter dropped ; but my father did not like it j it displeased him to see me able to do so much. One afternoon some five and forty years since, Kennedy called me up in a passage, I think of Thucydides, which contained the words OVK rjSvvrjOr). " Parse ^Sw^Orj^' said Kennedy. I knew very well that it meant " he was unable," but I was flurried by the initial 77 which it seemed to me should be e. With Kennedy I always was flurried and ill at ease, so I floundered into creating the very impossible verb agwarew. "Sit down," said Kennedy, "and take five common penals." I did the penals in due course, but I did not look out -^SwijOrj nor 8wa/iat, from which I, in reality, all the time knew that in some way or other ^SwrjOr) must come. Kennedy was quite satisfied with skipping me and giving me my 250 lines of Milton. He never said : "Look out 8vvap,ai, and bring me up all its inflexions next lesson." For many a long year since, the incident has from time to time recurred to me, and, though I always resolved that I would one day scotch ^Sw^, and understand why it was not in AUNT BATHER 35 I never bothered to do so and the word has always been a standing 1850 grievance with me ; not, heaven forbid ! because of Kennedy and Act. 14 the penals, but because of its beginning with 77 and not c. A very few days ago not a week one evening it flashed across me that I would scotch rj8vvit)Qr]. I got down Liddell and Scott, turned up Svva/*ai, and in less than half a minute I had laid the ghost of rjSvyrjOr) for ever. At last ! We were both of us very silly and very lazy ; but which of us was the sillier and lazier our Father which is in heaven knoweth, but I know not. By "us" I mean Kennedy and myself. [1895.] While Butler was at school his aunt, Mrs. Lloyd, was living at the Whitehall, which, as has been said (ante, p. 10), was hers for life under Dr. Butler's will. He used to go there to see her and her children, who were growing up. But I gather that he preferred going over to see his other aunt, Mrs. Bather, at Meole Brace, where Archdeacon Bather was incumbent (ante, p. 10). He made several notes about his aunt Bather which I have amalgamated into the following : I remember my aunt very well, for I was always going over to Meole when I was at school. She used (as all elderly aunts will do) to preach to me a good deal. One day she saw me eating bread and butter and honey. Brought up as she was during the early days of Dr. Butler's married life, while he was still poor, no doubt she had been allowed either bread and honey or bread and butter, but not bread and butter and honey. Such extravagance alarmed her ; and she said that it was not heard of in her youth, neither among the young people whom she knew, nor yet, as far as she could gather, in any class of society. "Why, my dear," she said, "don't you remember, c The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey '; she was not eating bread and butter and honey." To which I, being I suppose then about 14 or 15, replied that the Bible expressly enjoined us to eat butter with our honey. "Butter and honey," it said, "shalt thou eat." Whereon she dropped the subject. It was she who used to say to me : " Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," as I have said in The Authoress of the Odyssey without giving her name. A better, kinder soul never breathed ; however much she preached she was always kind to me, and I had great pleasure in giving her memory what tribute 36 THE MUSIC OF HANDEL m 1850 I could in my Life of Dr. Butler and in showing what an Act. 14 amiable woman she was and what charming letters she wrote. My great delight was to get her to play the overtures to Rodelinda and Atalanta, which were her stock pieces. She left me four volumes of Clarke's Handel which I treasured for many years till my cousin Reginald Worsley gave me the six volumes, whereon I gave him my four. I do not know under what circumstances he first heard the music of Handel ; I like to think it was when his aunt Bather played him the overtures to Rodelinda and Atalanta at Meole. Whatever the circumstances, Handel's music went straight to his heart and satisfied a longing which the music of other composers had only awakened and intensified ; and he became as one of the listening brethren who stood around " when Jubal struck the chorded shell," in the Ode on Saint Cecilia s Day. Adagio. E^Ezjr^ = g__g_ j *z^^r" r j: d& J 1 r - _ 1 r~> w~\ hr-f^ h | dwell With-in the =b==tr- hoi - low 3 ' 3E d of that shell & - 1 J . ~r~~- ( T p _., =|=j=: . "F^^ i^R-J-^ ^- 1 K ,,. =: PfT~p J -1 1 That spoke so sweet-ly, That spoke so sweet-ly _| | 1-^ and so well, etc. S *j ,_^LJ. j j. .j.ja j r , i F ' \~r~~ 1 -. i r i l-p ' 1 _ - j r : Hi THE MUSIC OF HANDEL 37 First hearing the music of Handel was the second 1850 'great event in Butler's life ; and thenceforward Italy and Aet - I Handel were always present with him as a double pedal to every thought, word, and deed. Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts. In fact, I should say that he and his music have been the central fact in my life ever since I was old enough to know of the existence of either music or life. All day long whether I am writing or painting or walking but always I have his music in my head ; and if I lose sight of it and of him for an hour or two, as of course I sometimes do, this is as much as I do. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never been a day since I was 13, without having Handel in my mind many times over. [1883.] He often tried to like the music of Bach and Beethoven, but had 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 been familar with Handel's music for he wrote additional accompaniments to the Messiah, failed to move him. It was not that he disputed the greatness of these others, 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 way from Bach to Beethoven. We now come to the first of Butler's letters which he preserved. The handwriting varies but the letters are all well-formed. I have reproduced his early spelling and punctuation because it seems to convey some of the impetuosity of boyhood ; but I have not gone on doing so after the first few letters because it looks too odd in print and might easily worry the reader ; besides which, both spelling and punctuation soon become conventional. Butler to his Mother. Wednesday \_Aug. 1850]. DEAR MAMMA I thought of you many times yesterday and hope that you are not more tired than may be reasonably be expected, and hope that there was no fulfillment of the prophecy 38 EXAMINATION PAPERS m 1851 concerning a disappointment connected with the arrival of some- Act. 15 one at the house, according to the sybylline leaves alias the pack of cards. Here is the geography and history paper that Papa may see the sort of things that are asked I hope the map may give me some advantage as I'm certain no one else did one. I got up most of the things the night before but forgot that cape Athos was Monte Santo and that Sinus Pelasgiacus was gulf of Volo. My fountain Pirene was wrong. I placed Acheron too in Bceotia But else I was correct. NB the scribbling was not done in school. I think I have done a good examination and shall know on Saturday We began regular work this morning and are getting into the routine of things now. Five boys are left and five come. I shall be a monitor this half year ; that is shall have in turn to call over in our hall (about every three weeks) and on the strength of that have a Exercise excused ; and to be allowed to go home a day earlier and sit up tall 10 o'clock and have a room with fire and gas of an evening to sit in. Which is not bad but the reverse. With love to yourself and everyone about the place. I remain Your affect 6 Son, S. BUTLER P.S. About the place means Tom, Harry, May, Miss Logic, Papa and in fact all within 10 miles round. S. B. Tom is Butler's brother ; Harry is his sister Harriet, usually written " Harrie " ; May is his sister Mary ; and Miss Logic, I suppose, is the governess. Butler to his Mother. [R.E THE SHREWSBURY SCHOOL TERCENTENARY.] [Feb. ? 1851.] MY DEAR MAMA Our last day is June 12 our first June 7. / should like of all things to go down though it will be a great squash most frightful. Many thanks for your practising, but I am really concerned that you should take so much trouble pray do not think of worriting yourself in that way. The Daffodils here have for a fortnight been in flower and the green is being sprinkled in the hedges. What a very lucky dog that Tom is I should like the measles to come to Shrewsbury, let him learn Syntaxis Minor in the Latin ; and not trouble much about anything else now that is the first thing. Then Prosody (which will be after Syntaxis Minor in the arrangement of the gramar). And then a part beginning with the Viri populi et Divi Menses montes atque rivi &c which is of very little importance. The in KENNEDY'S GRAMMARS 39 greek gramar let him learn the Syntax first and then begin at 1851 the begining and go on. But when he goes back to Warwick Act. 15 (nothing puts it out of one's head more than saying another gramar) he will be obliged to say the Eton or whatever they do there unless a line to Mr. Hill could save that. We are to have a fancy ball ; I am not coming out a la Mr. Tupman as a brigand with green velvet breeches well spangled though certainly not posessing either of the disadvantages which the aforesaid gentleman posessed namely being neither too old nor too fat. There is to be an oratorio got up with all the Manchester choir etc. (the first information is true the 2nd I hold to be slightly apocryphal but still there is a semblance of truth about it). With best love to Tom Papa and all I remain Your affect 6 Son, S. BUTLER The " gramar " that he knew by heart when he left Allesley was not the same as the one in use at Shrewsbury, and he had to begin again, which threw him back seriously. Here are two notes about Grammars. KENNEDY'S GRAMMARS As an example of the way in which everything affects everything, I would say that these grammars have presumably had a more powerful effect upon my life than probably any other books that I have had anything to do with. When I went to Shrewsbury at 12^ years old I knew the Eton Latin and Greek Grammars perfectly ; I had them at my fingers' ends and could repeat every rule without a moment's hesitation. I did not understand all the rules but I should have come to do this, and, such as the rule was, I had its words well at command. For I began Latin when only a few months over 4 years old, and my father thrashed it into me (I mean physically) day after day for years. I have no recollection of anything else. By the time I reached Shrewsbury the lesson was thoroughly learned ; but on reaching Shrewsbury I was told that all this was wrong and I must learn Kennedy's grammar. If my father had been there to keep on beating me, or if Kennedy had beaten me, I should no doubt have mastered Kennedy's grammar, but nothing short of this would suffice to make me do so. The consequence was that I forgot the Eton grammars and never learned Kennedy's, hence I never had a grammatical rule at command at all when I was 17 or 1 8. I don't suppose this made much difference ; yet I think I should probably have been three or four places higher in the tripos if I had had the grammar at my fingers' ends as I had when I was 12. If I had been higher 40 FRECK THE SHEPHERD m 1851 in the tripos I should have got a fellowship and stayed at Act. 15 Cambridge. Probably I should never have left Cambridge at all. I am very glad Kennedy wrote his grammars, and that it all turned out as it did. [1885.] PASTOR IGNAVUS DORMIT SUPINUS This was translated in the old Eton grammar "The idle shepherd sleeps with his face upwards." When I was a boy it used to puzzle me dreadfully why he should sleep with his face upwards rather than downwards or on one side. Neverthe- less I took it as an interesting fact in Natural History, and believed I could always now distinguish an idle from an industrious shepherd by observing whether he slept with his face downwards or upwards. I was sure that Freck, Mr. Vincent Hall's shepherd [see post, p. 231], always slept with his face downwards ; but if you really wanted to know about a shepherd you must watch. Butler to his Mother. [Sept. 25, 1851.] DEAR MAMMA I am glad you like your quarters : but can fancy how acceptable a letter must be. In the first place Tom and I think that a hamper at the end of November just before coming home is rather a paradox and therefore if it could be managed to be sent whilst Aunt Bather is at home she would see about it and it could come about a week after long holiday which begins next Tuesday it would be very pleasant provided it was convenient ; the inside would be left to Aunt Bather provided only that among other things it contains a veal pie. please tell Papa when next you see or write that I found the " Adiantum nigrum " (by the way you can't translate Adiantum therefore don't lie awake to think about it) growing on Haugh- mond hill and as it is almost exclusively a seaside fern it is a rather curious thing to find there ; I posess seven ferns in my case which really looks exceedingly pretty and thriving tho' it was some time before I could persuade the boys to believe in its existence without being watered ; and when they had vehemently spied to see that I didn't water it they became convinced but not half of them perceive the rationale of it I do flatter myself that I am improving slowly in my exercises ; in my theme the other day I talked of babies finding a great difficulty in walking the Dr. turned it to me and observed, "any Baby could find it easy to make such Latin as this ; why you cant saaoar " (spreading his arms as if he was going to fly) " you hop from twig to twig and seem afraid to venture two in SHREWSBURY MATHEMATICS 41 steps beyond the nest " this refers to my sentences being too 1851 short but still he gave me a better opinion of it and did not Aet - J 5 punish me (there being no absolute errors of commission). My verses too (tho' they had a false quantity) he said were rather more in " the spirit of the thing," so I begin to have a better hope. I get on very smoothly with Mr. Brown [Philip Browne of Shrewsbury, an excellent artist. S. B.] I really think him a very clever little man in other respects besides drawing his conversation is always very sensible. Tom has not been quite well he being very sick the other night but he was out of school for a day or two and came in to-day and I think he is better I do not think that he eats much trash on the whole but that day he had been eating some and I do not think he will eat much more for some time in consequence ; I am writing this while he is in topschools so he cannot add anything at present but I will tell him and prevail upon him to favour you with a private epistle on his own Account. I am very sorry to hear of Mr. Hall's indisposition and hope Mrs. Goodwin will be better I have just been interrupted in this letter to prove to the whole private room except More that when d = o, rad = o none of them being for some time able to comprehend the simple fact that 4 times o is o and all insisting that o times 4 is a very different thing from 4 times o ! ! ! ! and not above half believing that 5 times 6 = 6 times 5 ! ! ! ! so much for the mathematical education at Shrewsbury : it really has been a most animated argument. Well I will send Tom's love on speck and with my own I remain Your affectionate son, S. BUTLER MRS BUTLER 14 WESTOVER TERRACE BOURNEMOUTH POOLE DORSET. I suppose he means that if d equals nothing, then r multiplied by a multiplied by d equals nothing ; but I do not know why he should have employed these letters instead of the more usual x, y, z. Perhaps the unusualness of the letters helped to puzzle the boys. No doubt he had had lessons in drawing from the governess at Langar, just as he had lessons from her on the piano, and in Italy he had seen pictures in the galleries ; and no doubt his parents were urging him to " keep up " his music and his drawing, not foreseeing what the keeping up might lead to ; but this reference to Mr. Browne is the first allusion I have met with to his love for art. There are two allusions to Browne the drawing -master in Butler's Life of Dr. Butler. In the letter of 1851 Butler 42 MR. PHILIP BROWNE m 185* spells his name without the final "e," which he afterwards et- ' discovered should be there. " I once asked that excellent artist, the late Philip Browne of Shrewsbury, whether Dr. Butler had any taste for or knew anything about pictures. Mr. Browne's eyes twinkled shrewdly and he said, ' No man ever less ' " (I. 147). " Mr. Philip Browne told me he drove round the archdeaconry with my grandfather in two successive summers and sketched every church at his desire " (I. 259-260). Butler to his Mother. SHREWSBURY SCHOOL. Tuesday [Nov. 10, 1852] All is full of last night's earthquake ; Mr. Burley and his wife found their bed moved and both got up in alarm; Old Brown (the drawing master) did the same, some people even got out of bed and dressed and went into the streets, thinking that the founda- tions of their houses were going, altogether it seems to have been greater than such things usually are in England. Some crockery was knocked down and two or three boys awoke at the schools by it. Then the thunderstorm on Friday, and the eruption of Etna last month doubtless had something to do with it, and I think it is an evident sign of a particukrly hard winter. . . . Butler to his Sister Harriet. SHREWSBURY SCHOOL. Sunday. [May or June 1853. They were all going abroad for several months. I was told that I was not to go, but in the end I was taken. S. B.] MY DEAR HARRIE I received your letter this morning and was indeed glad to find how much better you seem to be ; I answer you soon for fear that you and Mama should think that I am weeping because I am not to go ; I agree with Papa that time cannot be spared, and I assure you I am making the most of it and working very hard ; don't think that I shouldnt like to go : but the fact is I cant and there an end of it ; dont think this is sham resignation for it isn't ; the thing I regret most is the lengthy separation from you all. I have got a very bad place on my hand and have been in an unmitigated state of cold cream all last night and today. In fact I am holding not at all after the orthodox fashion. We have got the May races, school races I mean coming on in SECOND ITALIAN TOUR 43 shortly. I am a steward but shall not run ; not that I not 1853 well enough or otherwise incapacitated but the stewards are not Aet - X 7 expected to run as they have the fixing of the ground and the height of the hurdles. About what time do you meditate starting, what route, and when return ? let me know all these as soon as you can ; likewise what is to become of me during next Christmas holidays. We are all revelling here today in the warm and lying down on the ball court hill by scores, vegetating certainly but it is only once a week and that Sunday ; of course you have not, but has either Papa or Mama been to the water-colour exhibition or whatever exhibition it is that is going on, or to Exeter Hall or to Sydenham to see the new building or to any of those places. I hope that while you are out no war will come and keep you there for that would be by no means a desirable consummation : I suppose you will get as far as Naples, pray give my respects to Zecchero. The post has gone without carrying this delectable epistle to the bag from which no traveller returns : I have shewn Auntie your letter and had tea there ; by which tho' I forgot it (I am happy to say) at the time I lost a great slice of rook pie ! ! which was waiting for me at the schools : since one of the posters has shot a lot lately j the day after tomorrow three weeks I expect to go home. There is to be a great scientific meeting and lunch here on Tuesday. Dr. Lyon Playfair and a lot of swells are coming, the mayor and corporation and the d's corporation and ever so many more are going to be taught to eat upon scientific principles which by the way the Dr. is a very capital proficient in already. The Dr. will make a fool of himself as sure as he's born. Farewell pray let Alice have the benefit of this I have used her very shabbily ; give her my benediction and a kiss of peace best love to Mama yourself &c. &c. I remain Your affectionate Bother, S. BUTLER P.S. While I am writing the rats are making an awful row and squealing under the wainscot. I think " the d's corporation " must mean " the Doctor's corporation." There was a good deal of dis- cussion as to whether or not Butler was to accompany his family on this journey to Italy : " the only thing worth consideration for a moment," he wrote, " is whether I should be fitter for a fellowship or pupils, &c. &c. only in writing to the Dr. have you plainly made out 44 WATER-COLOURS m 1854 how I should stop a year longer than was otherwise Act. i s intended? . . . Pray let me hear the result post haste.. I almost hope to have a line tomorrow so as to be either cured or killed at once." Finally it was settled, and he went with them, missing the half year at school from August 1853 to January 1854. They travelled through Switzerland to Rome and Naples. During this visit he continued his studies in Italian, and his early impressions of the country were intensified. He was also, of course, more intelligently interested in the pictures, being older and having made some progress with Mr. Browne. Among Butler's things which came to me after his death was a book containing eleven water-colour land- scapes. They were all painted by Butler in 1854, his last year at Shrewsbury, and he had written against them where most of them were. They are entirely different in style from anything he did after he was grown up, and I think I see the influence of Mr. Philip Browne in all of them. I do not mean that Mr. Browne actually painted on these pictures he may have done so I only mean that they seem to me to show the influence of his instruction. Three are views of Shrewsbury, six are views of Langar, and two are unnamed. I gave one of the garden of the Rectory at Langar to Butler's nephew, Harry Butler, because he remembered the place ; the other ten I gave to the head-master of Shrewsbury School, explaining to him that they should be looked upon as souvenirs of Mr. Browne as well as of Butler. CHAPTER IV 1854-1859 CAMBRIDGE IN 1854 Butler left Shrewsbury and went into residence 1854 at St. John's College, Cambridge. This is the first letter et ' l! in which his handwriting appears to be settled so that one can recognise it as his. Butler to his Father. ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Nov. 6, 1854 The scholarships have come out this morning and I nave got one j only five freshmen have ; how much mine is worth I do not know j but shall some day I suppose. . . . I go to Parkinson in Euclid on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings from 8 to 9. To Headlam on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays at the same hour ; to Mayor's voluntary composition lectures three times a week for two hours at a time ; and to Reyner, arithmetic, twice a week : Parkinson and Headlam and France are awfully jolly dons, far the nicest in the college : Reyner and Mayor are brutes. Bateson stopped me in the courts a day or two ago and let me dandle his two fat fingers which was very kind: I go to Aunt Susan's quite once a week and she has told me never to go on Saturdays. . . . Aunt Susan, I suppose, means Miss Susannah Apthorp, who knew the old lady who had sat upon Handel's knee ; correctly speaking she was Butler's great-aunt the sister of his grandmother. There is more about Mayor in a subsequent letter : For the first lecture we neither construed nor had any con- struing to us, but he simply told us "how to read," how he read. 45 46 LATIN DISPUTATIONS ,v 1854 and how other people read ; and I never heard a better lecture. No Act. 1 8 less than six out-of-college men have mentioned the lecture to me and asked me what it was ; it spread about the university in a most amusing way. And the upshot of it all was, " Don't cram." I dined in hall at St. John's College in November 1910, and was introduced to Professor Mayor. He told me that Butler was the last man who read a Latin oration in the college chapel. I ought to have asked him for particulars, but omitted to do so at the time. Perhaps I was a little distracted, for I was there to read a paper on Butler to the Historical Society of St. John's in the Combination Room. On my return to London I wrote to Professor Mayor asking him to tell me more about the Latin oration, but I received no reply ; he died suddenly a day or two after I sent my letter. I spoke to the present Master of St. John's (Mr. R. F. Scott) about it, and he kindly gave me some information which he had obtained from Professor Mayor, from Canon Kynaston of Durham (whose name formerly was Snow), and from the Reverend Henry Russell of Lay ham Rectory, Hadleigh, Suffolk. I give an extract from Mr. Russell's letter. It seems that disputations in Latin were held in the college chapel, and that Butler and Canon Kynaston were among the last, if not the last, to dispute : Rev. Henry Russell to Mr. R. F. Scott. 8 July 1902 In my time, those who had taken good places in their first May examination had to write in their second year, two at a time, Latin dissertations on a subject approved, if I remember rightly^ by the Father of the College. They had to take opposite sides and declare their dissertations in chapel . immediately after evening service. This went on for several weeks, the number of these dissertations depending on the number of students who could reasonably be supposed competent to com- pose in Latin. The disputants had to be ready in the ante-chapel in gown, and to ascend to the level of the fellows' stalls, one by the first gangway from the west on the Master's side, and the other by the opposite gangway on the President's side. They had their manuscript in their hand to refer to in case of need, but were expected not to require such aid. When one had iv THE SIMEONITES 47 finished the other followed. Each addressed the several con- 1855 stituents of his audience thus : Aet - *9 The Master as Magister Optime The President as Praeses Dignissime The Fellows asViri Reverendi etSpectatissimi The B.A.'s and Undergraduates as Juvenes Ingenui To a nervous person it was somewhat formidable. Readers of The Way of All Flesh will remember that "when the Simeonites 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 " ; and that Ernest went so far as to parody one of their tracts and to get it " 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, found, among the Cambridge papers in the late J. Willis Clark's collection, three printed pieces bearing on the subject and belonging to the year 1855. The first is a genuine Simeonite tract and has a note on it saying it was written by Ynyr Lamb of St. John's College (B.A. 1862); the other two are parodies. All three are anonymous. At the top of the second parody is written, " March 3ist, by S. Butler." Mr. Bartholomew contributed an article, headed " Samuel Butler and the Simeonites," to The Cambridge Magazine for I March 1913, wherein he gave extracts from a genuine tract and the whole of Butler's parody. This article is repro- duced in A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, with other Early Essays, by Samuel Butler (London : Fifield, 1914). Butler to his Father. 22 March 1856 My plans for the summer are with (say) j3 interest from my drawer (and from what Harrie tells me I gather that the interest since December will amount to about that), ^5 you promised to lay by for me kst October, and another ^5 which has been accumulating at the bottom of my spill-case since that period, to take a walking trip among the Norman Churches for 3 weeks or a fortnight between the end of May and the commencement of the Long. I shall then have a vacation of about 4^ weeks and would come home for a week or so and 48 PROPOSED SWISS TOUR iv 1856 then proceed at once on my tour and back to Cambridge. The Act. 20 funds are ample for my purpose for, in the first place, first class from London to Caen, including everything, is one pound (I am not joking) and I would stop as long as my money lasted, but I have a pressing and hearty invitation from a friend who lives at Caen to stay with him. I told him that I wanted to go about seeing the churches but he has urged me so that I think of spending a day or two with him. He is also thinking of accompanying me after I leave him if I will not stop longer with him or to go for as long a time and as far as our money holds out. There are excursion tickets from London to Lucerne in the summer (railroad all the way every inch of it) at a very low price indeed, and from London to Paris is but 28/- first class (via Dieppe) and we might find ourselves cutting the churches if we got loose on the spree : it is about 24 hours work from Paris to Lucerne, and about 80 francs more travelling expenses ; of course we should travel night and day to Lucerne, take one day's rest there, spend perhaps 10 days in Switzerland and be back again : that however is but a castle in air, the churches would quite satisfy me and would be a cheaper trip than one in England : it would take less money than to travel an equal time at the Lakes or North Wales and the sound of a foreign tongue in one's ears, tho' for practical purposes not nearly so good as one's own, is yet a pleasurable one. How- ever all this had better wait till we meet. My friend, Marriott by name, and I are anxious to find ourselves roaming on the loose somewhere, but like Lord Bateman are comparatively in- different as to the precise locality. I do not know whether Butler went on this trip. The Marriott mentioned in the foregoing letter after- wards became Sir William Thackeray Marriott, K.C., M.P. for Brighton, 1880-93; ne was J U( % e Advocate General and died 2jth July 1903. "Tom" mentioned in the succeeding letter was Butler's brother, who had also come up to St. John's College from Shrewsbury. Some one (I have forgotten who it was) who remembered Tom Butler at Cambridge, told me that he had inherited his father's taste for botany and used to botanise while he was an undergraduate. Butler to his Father. [CAMBRIDGE UNION SOCIETY] Nov. 26, 1856. JOH. COLL. Supposing that this will reach you on your birthday I write to iv WALMISLEY 49 wish you many happy returns of it as well as to thank you for 1856 your letter to me. I am happy to say that my health is excellent Aet z and that I actually was able to extract praise from old Shilleto for a bit of Greek prose the other day : I told him I thought he'd better not say so again, whereat we both laughed. I and Tom are let in for a tea-party there tonight ; this bitterly cold thaw is not certainly tempting weather to stir out in, much less at night and on such an errand ; but nevertheless it must be done. Tom has never been there before, and I don't fancy he'll want to go again. The Harvey Goodwins asked me to an evening party on Wednesday. I went as I could not help myself: it, too, was exquisitely dull. We had a great treat in Sterndale Bennett's playing at the University concert. He behaved most handsomely and gentlemanly, accompanying the worst singers in the greatest trash and keeping his playing in the background most gracefully ; in fact he took the place by storm. . . . I shall have no visible result to show on the pianoforte and have scarcely played a dozen hours the whole term, Sundays included. He may have begun to learn a little thorough-bass at Cambridge, but he does not speak of it in his letters ; it would appear that his musical studies at this time were confined to practising the piano, learning pieces by Bach and Schubert, and finding out that Beethoven had written sonatas. I suppose that Ernest's friendship with the organist of St. Martin's at Roughborough, is founded on Butler's having known Walmisley. Here are a few notes about his attitude towards music about this time. The first was made in 1889 after a visit to Cambridge, where he dined in hall with the Master of Trinity, Dr. Montagu Butler. WALMISLEY I remember Walmisley very well. I have often watched him play ; no man's face could be more emotionless and no player's action could be more quiet and free from affectation than his. I was too young to be able to judge intelligently nor can I remember one single bar of the many slow movements which I have heard him, and seen him, improvise ; nevertheless, an abiding impression remains with me that he was the finest extemporiser upon the organ that I have ever heard. He used to improvise always before the anthem when there was music, VOL. I E 50 BEETHOVEN IV 1856 which, on an average, was, I suppose, about three times a week. Act. 20 j never saw him drunk, but it used to be said that he sat upon the keys of the organ one night at Trinity. The Master of Trinity told me that this was true, but I must have better authority than Dr. Butler's before I believe one word of it. Returning to my remarks on Walmisley let me repeat that my opinion of his merits is absolutely worthless ; all I know is that he left a deep impression on me, whereas Sterndale Bennett, whom I also met at Cambridge, at a wine at Sykes's, did not please me. BEETHOVEN Beethoven was a terra incognita to me till I went up to Cambridge ; I knew and liked a few of his waltzes, but did not so much as know that he had written any sonatas or symphonies. At Cambridge Sykes tried to teach me Beethoven but I disliked his music and would go away as soon as Sykes began with any of his sonatas. After a long while I began to like some of the slow movements and then some entire sonatas, several of which I could play once fairly well without notes. I do not know whether I really liked them or found myself carried away by the strength of the Beethoven current which surrounded me ; at any rate I spent a great deal of time on Beethoven for some ten or a dozen years : but from the night (some 20 years since) on which I heard old Smalley (Rector, I think, of Bayswater) say that Handel was the greatest of musicians, Beethoven began to go back ; and now I feel towards him much as I did when I first heard his work, except, of course, that I see a yi/oxris in him of which as a young man I knew nothing. But I do not greatly care about yvokris, I want d-yam/ ; and Beethoven's ayaTTT/ is not the healthy robust tenderness of Handel, but a sickly maudlin thing in comparison. Anyhow I do not like him. I like Mozart and Haydn better, but not so much better as I should like to like them. [1886.] HANDEL As a boy from 12 years or so I always worshipped Handel. At Cambridge when Sykes began to play Beethoven I would leave the room ; gradually I began to like him, and then I played him and Bach and Mendelssohn's Songs without Words and thought them lovely ; but I always liked Handel best. Little by little, however, I was talked over into placing Handel and Bach and Beethoven on a par as the greatest, and I did not know which was the best man. One night, when I was almost IV HANDEL 51 30, I was at an evening party at Mrs. Longden's and met an 1857 old West End clergyman of the name of Smalley. I said I did Act. 21 not know which was greatest Handel, Bach, or Beethoven. He said, " I am surprised at that ; I should have thought you would have known." "Which," said I, is the greatest ? " "Handel." I knew he was right and have never wavered since. I sup- pose I was really of this opinion already, but it was not till I got a little touch from outside that I knew it. HANDEL AND ERNEST PONTIFEX It cost me a great deal to make Ernest play Beethoven and Mendelssohn : I did it simply ad captandum. As a matter of fact, he played only the music of Handel and of the early Italian and old English composers but Handel most of all. This means that Ernest was less easily humbugged than Butler, but that his creator thought it better not to overdo the robust side of his hero's temperament it might have led him too far away from his model who, as will appear later, played Bach's fugues in New Zealand. In a letter of April 28, 1857, thanking his father for making up his funds, there are projects for another tour on the continent and a postscript referring to his brother Tom : " Have you heard of our near relative's declension of ' quivis ' in the little-go ? It was sheer nervousness or I would not say it, but it was grand : ' Quivolo, quivis, quivult.' ' Ernest's Cambridge life is taken from Butler's own life. One of his friends and contemporaries, the Rev. Canon Joseph M'Cormick, D.D. (18341914), whose acquaintance I made after Butler's death, when he was Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, told me that Butler was considered to be a reading man ; yet he would occasionally look on at a cricket match by way of recreation. But he never took any interest in games of any kind. The only game I ever saw him play was patience, and he did not really care for that ; he only played it because it was a change of occupation before going to bed. As he was carried away by the Beethoven current, so probably he 52 LADY MARGARET IV 1857 was carried away by the athletic current, and, like Ernest, Act. 21 ne j o i nec i the boat club ; he even coached and steered his college boat. Canon M'Cormick told me of a mishap that occurred on the last night of the Lent races in 1857 to the Lady Margaret first boat which had been head of the river since 1854. Canon M'Cormick was rowing 5 ; Canon Kynaston of Durham (whose name, as I have said above, was formerly Snow) was stroke ; P. P. Pearson (after- wards P. Pennant) was 7 ; and the coxswain was Butler. I quote from a letter written by Canon Kynaston, 8 July 1902 : He [Butler] dropped the starting rope across the rudder lines so that the bows were turned sharply to the left towards the Ditton shore, and just below First Post Corner we were close to the bank and Second Trinity's bows almost level with our rudder. I said to P. P. P., "You must back" at the same moment as he said, " I suppose I must back." So we got straight and had to turn the corner outside our pursuers, escaping by a hair's breadth. Again at Grassy they made a desperate attempt to bump, but failed ; and after that we were safe. If P. P. and I had not kept our heads we should have been bumped, and we could not have returned the compliment next night. But it was an unforgettable incident. Butler to his Mother. JOH. COLL. ii March 1857. DEAR MAMA 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 can never fade from my remembrance, and will be connected always with the gentlemanly conduct of the crew, in neither using opprobrious language nor gestures towards your unfortunate son, but treating him with the most graceful forbearance j 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 STEERING 53 good steering as much as, and more than, blame for my accident ; 1857 and the crew are so delighted at having rowed a race such as Act. 21 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. Love to Harrie and May. Your affectionate son, S. BUTLER. Butler to his Mother. May 6, 1857 L i s gd enough himself, he is only gawky and uncouth ; but he is never a man that I could ever become in any way intimate with ; and so, I suppose, considering me a " bloated aristocrat," in company with all the rest of the Lady Margaret boat club, he has determined, to have none of us, in which case his spirit is to be admired tho' his judgement and appreciation are very reprehensible. , . . With good luck we shall remain easily head of the river, to the great chagrin of the First Trinity boat club, who have been speculating immensely on the success of their boat and talking as if the place would not hold them ; just when matters were looking rather lugubrious for us some beautiful freshmen got ripe under my assiduous coaching, and we now do the course in less time than any other boat. As we go over the course day by day there are plenty of gigs and traps running by our sides, and men, too, timing us and noticing every stroke ; one feels very big and very responsible with the knowledge that if you steer a foot too wide round a corner or don't keep the boat's head quite straight, , but budge a little bit to the one hand or the other, your misdeed is looked upon with untellable satisfaction or the contrary by heaps of foes or friends of the boat. One thing is noticeable, namely, that the men on the bank always time us in shorter time than we do ourselves ; they say we do the course in 8.30 minutes, we say in 8.45, which shows that we don't cheat ourselves into the idea that we are going better than we are. Still, First Trinity have a very strong crew and may improve and beat us ; the races commence on the I2th. There are many letters from Butler to his father full of details about his reading and the chances of the candidates for the various examinations, the Bell Scholar- ship and the Craven. These letters are not of any general interest ; they were written, I suppose, chiefly to please his father, who was interested in such news. 54 CANON M'CORMICK iv Butler to his Father. 1857 Oct. 23, 1857 Day-light reading does not in the least affect Act. 21 them [his eyes], so I have been out of bed by a quarter past 5 every morning lately and into bed by 10 at night, get a cup of tea by 6 in the morning and read till 9, breakfast and amusement till 10, read from 10 to i, go to Shilleto ^ past 6 to i past 7 (I don't care about that at all). Well, then there is music from i to 2 and exercise from 2 to 4 and music from 4 to 5 and dinner at 5 ; so when I come back from Shilleto I am pretty glad to have done the day's work. Of course drawing goes to the dogs. I am exceedingly well in every respect but my eyes, and they are mending. This is all about myself, but I can think of no more agreeable topic (!). It is pouring wet, the river flooded, and Snow says I am to steer at 2 o'clock which hour is just on the point of approaching. I shall not steer for Snow or anybody else. Soon after Butler's death Canon M'Cormick wrote a letter of reminiscences to The Times. I give part of it here because it shows in a charming way the effect produced by Butler upon one who, in spite of differences of opinion, retained an affectionate remembrance of him till the end of his life. It might have been thought that The Fair Haven and Erewhon Revisited, to say nothing of various passages in Butler's other books, would have shaken their friendship ; but I have had many talks with Canon M'Cormick about Butler and he invariably spoke of him in the spirit of this letter. The Rev. Canon Joseph M'Cormick, D.D., to the Editor of The Times. 27 June 1902 The friends of Mr. Samuel Butler must have read your biographical sketch of him with deep interest. He certainly was no common man. He was too versatile a genius ever to be in the front rank of one particular line, and he had too much fun about him to be really serious when he ought to have been. No one hated shams, when he thought he detected them, more than he did ; and he could not restrain his ridicule and biting sarcasm when an opportunity presented itself of using them. At one time he was a musician ; at another an artist ; at a third he was a theologian at least he took upon himself to criticize what he imagined was theology. For about iv FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS 55 two years he read for mathematical honours, and then, according ^59 to his tendency, he turned his attention to classics ; and such Act. 23 was his ability, and so valuable was his Shrewsbury training, that he came out first class in the classical tripos. . . . Samuel Butler, I fancy, lived too much alone. He had no corrective influence. He went his own way, which was a bit eccentric, according to his own sweet will. We must not altogether judge him as we would other men. But, say the best or the worst of him, I am myself satisfied that he was far better than what might be called his creed ; and, coupled with unique intellectual powers, there was childlike simplicity and a heart full of the warmest and most constant affection for his friends. Canon M'Cormick showed me two old Cambridge note -books in which he had copied "Elegies, Plays, Satires, etc., written by College friends." In speaking of Butler's contributions to these note-books he always called them " skits," and the part omitted from the foregoing letter refers to them and quotes one. I have omitted this part of the letter because these " skits," together with information concerning them, are now collected in A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, with other Early Essays, by Samuel Butler. Edited by R. A. Streatfeild (London : Fifield, 1914). The one quoted by Canon M'Cormick in his letter to The Times appears in the book as "The Two Deans I." The Canon sent some of the others to The Eagle after Butler's death, and some appeared in The Eagle in Butler's youth. The Eagle, " a magazine supported by members of St. John's College," was started in the Lent term 1858, and in the Lent term 1889 celebrated the attainment of "thirty years and more " by issuing a number containing a retrospective article by the Rev. J. M. Wilson (afterwards Canon of Worcester). This article states that Butler was at one time a senior editor of the magazine. Butler kept a copy of this article and made a note on it saying that he never was an editor of The Eagle. He wrote in it, and an article by him, " On English Composition and Other Matters," signed " Cellarius," appeared in the first number and is given in A First Tear (1914). From this article I take these sentences : 56 "OUR TOUR" IV 1859 Most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a Act. 23 m an should be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give to it any kind of utterance j 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. . . . There is no shame in being obliged to others for opinions ; the shame is not being honest enough to acknowledge it. I would have no one omit to put down a useful thought because it was not his own, provided it tended to the better expression of his matter and he did not conceal its source ; let him, however, set out the borrowed capital to interest. These extracts from what was probably the first composition by Butler that ever appeared in print show that when he was about twenty -two he had already discovered and adopted the principles of writing from which he never departed. Another article by Butler, also signed " Cellarius," appeared in the fifth number of The Eagle in 1859. It is also included in A First Tear (19 14) and is entitled " Our Tour." This tour was made by Butler in June 1857 with Joseph Green (whose name he Italianised into Giuseppe Verdi). They went to Grenoble and from there through the Dauphine by diligence and on foot one day walking forty-two miles to Turin and thence to Arona ; they rowed over to the other side of the lake, which was then Austrian territory, and saw the Castle of Angera where S. Carlo Borromeo was born (cf. Alps and Sanctuaries). They went up the Lago Maggiore, crossed the Simplon, and returned by Grindelwald, Meiringen, the Furca, Hospenthal, Amsteg, Lucerne, Basel, Strasburg, Paris, Dieppe, London. The article professes to be written to show how they got so much into three weeks and spent only 25. They really did not spend so much, for after reaching London he concludes thus : Next day came safely home to dear old St. John's, cash in hand 7d. From my window in the cool of the summer twilight I look on the umbrageous chestnuts that droop into the river ; Trinity library rears its stately proportions on the left opposite is the bridge over that, on the right, the thick dark foliage is blackening iv ROOMS AT ST. JOHN'S 57 almost into sombreness as the night draws on. Immediately 1859 beneath are the arched cloisters resounding with the solitary foot- Aet - ^3 fall of meditative student, and suggesting grateful retirement. I say to myself, then, as I sit in my open window, that for a con- tinuance I would rather have this than any scene I have visited during the whole of our most enjoyed tour and fetch down a Thucydides, for I must go to Shilleto at nine o'clock tomorrow. This description of the view from his windows agrees with the fact that his rooms at St. John's were at D, New Court, across the river, top storey but one ; not in the third court as stated in error in A First Year (1914). I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., who was at St. John's with Butler, and to Mr. John F. Harris, also of St. John's, for assistance in identifying Butler's contributions to The Eagle^ and also in identifying his rooms. CHAPTER V 1858-1859 HERESY i$5g " ORDINATION was the road which Theobald knew and Act. 22 understood, and indeed the only road about which he knew anything at all, so not unnaturally it was the one he chose for Ernest" (The Way of all Flesh, chapter xlv.). Similarly it had always been taken for granted by Canon and Mrs. Butler that their eldest son was to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and become a clergyman. In common with all his friends and companions Butler had been taught to accept the Christian miracles as self-evident propositions and to believe in a personal anthropomorphic God. He had, at this time, never met any one who entertained a doubt on the matter. If he or any of his undergraduate friends had met such a doubter they would have cut him. None of his masters at school, none of his tutors at Cambridge had ever hinted that there was another side to the question of Christian evidences. This may seem strange now, but it should be remembered that between 1844, when The Vestiges of Creation was published, and 1859 1860, when The Origin of Species and Essays and Reviews appeared, nothing happened that could give serious uneasiness to orthodoxy. On 1 5th February 1879 Butler opened a correspondence in The Examiner on " A Clergyman's Doubts." From the first letter, signed "An Earnest Clergyman," I take this passage which is similar to a passage at the opening of chapter xlvii. of The Way of All Flesh. 58 u bhctcyrnfA m-fifif. at, Cj v GOSPEL DISCORD 59 When I was at Cambridge the Evangelical movement had 1858 become a matter of ancient history ; Tractarianism had spent Aet - 22 its force and had subsided into a nine days' wonder ; The Vestiges of Creation had long since ceased to be talked about j the Catholic aggression scare had lost its terrors ; Ritualism was still unnoticed by the general public ; the Gorham and Hampden controversies were hull-down beneath Time's horizon; Dissent was not spreading ; the Crimean war was the engrossing subject in men's thoughts, and there was no enemy to the faith which could secure even a languid interest ; at no time, probably, in the century could an ordinary observer have detected less sign of coming disturbance than at the date of which I am writing. Butler began to reflect that all he knew about what he should be called upon to teach had been picked up, as it were, second-hand ; and before taking such a momentous step as being ofttaitied it seemed to him that he ought to clear his mind, start fresh, and consider the matter for himself. He read Dean Alford's notes on the Gospels, and, no doubt, other commentaries ; but he did not consider himself bound by any one else's opinions ; it was interesting to know what others thought and their reasons for thinking as they did, but his business in preparing himself for his high calling was to find what reasons he himself had for holding the Christian faith. Consequently Ernest does much the same thing. When he [Ernest] had finished Dean Alford's notes he found them come to this, namely, that no one yet had succeeded in bringing the four accounts into tolerable harmony with each other, and that the Dean, seeing no chance of succeeding better than his predecessors had done, recommended that the whole story would be taken on trust ; and this Ernest was not prepared to do (chapter lx.). Butler did not get quite so far as this until later. He naturally had a passion for doing things thoroughly, and set to work to make a close study of the Greek Testament; there, if anywhere, he should find all that was known about the origin of the Christian faith ; to read only commentaries would be a lazy way of shifting the re- sponsibility on to other shoulders, unless he merely wanted to know what other people had written upon the subject ; the book itself was the fountain-head, and from it he 60 PARISH WORK v 1858 ought to be able to get materials for forming his own Act. 22 O p ln io n . He had no interest in proving to himself or others that the Christian religion was, or was not, the true faith ; but he had a very strong desire to find some ground for forming an opinion as to whether it were true or not. He did not actually retranslate it, as his great-great- grandfather John Worsley had done, but he read it and re-read it with all the care and attention of a particularly careful and attentive nature. St. John's College, Cam- bridge, possesses two copies of the Greek Testament which belonged to Butler, and in which he made marginal notes. I imagine that he wanted more than one copy for convenience in travelling, keeping one at Cambridge and the other at Langar, for instance. The notes do not extend over the whole of the two books ; and I think he must have had a third copy, now lost, with notes covering the parts un-adnotated in these two copies. He was bracketed I2th in the Classical Tripos of 1858, and then went to London and began to prepare for ordination, living and working among the poor as an amateur lay assistant under the Rev. Philip Perring, who had been an old pupil of Dr. Butler at Shrewsbury, and was at that time curate in the parish of St. James's, Piccadilly. On the death of his father in 1866 he became the Rev. Sir Philip Perring, 4th Baronet. Canon M'Cormick told me that when one of the young men in the night school asked Butler why a good and all- powerful God should have permitted the existence of evil, Butler replied : a My good man, don't you see ? If Adam had not eaten the apple you would now be in the Garden of Eden ; whereas, things being as they are, you have a chance of Heaven, which is a much better place." He lodged in Heddon Street, Regent Street, and his life there is faithfully presented as Ernest's life in Ashpit Place, except that he was never ordained as Ernest was ; nor did he then lose any money he had then no money to lose ; nor did he ever go to prison ; nor was there anything in Butler's life to correspond with the Miss Maitland incident ; on the contrary, there had already v RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 61 been incidents which would have disqualified him from 1859 deserving the reproach addressed by the magistrate to Aet> 2 Ernest, that, in spite of his education, he had not even the common sense to be able to distinguish between a respectable girl and one of a different sort (chapter Ixii.). During his Heddon Street days he continued his study of the Greek Testament ; and, while doing his parish work, accidentally discovered that one of the boys in his evening class had not been baptized. Thereupon he made enquiries as to which of the boys had, and which had not, been baptized ; and was seriously and painfully shocked to find, first, that a large proportion of them were still unbaptized ; and, secondly, that no one, merely judging by their conduct and character, would ever have been able to separate the sheep from the goats. The immediate effect of this was that his faith in the efficacy of infant baptism was shaken if he can be said to have had any faith in a matter which he had not till then considered. He declined to be ordained and this raised the question of what he was to do instead. In the_meantime he returned to Cambridge, intending to try for pupils, and, if possible, get a fellowship later on. His father was dismayed not unnaturally, perhaps and there was a long and painful correspondence. In The Way of All Flesh Ernest does not refuse to be ordained ; this was because Butler wanted him to take orders before finding out that he did not believe. It seemed, however, a pity to waste all this correspondence ; he therefore stiffened Theobald's back for the occasion, and made the kicking at ordination come from him instead of from Ernest, so that George Pontifex might write Canon Butler's letters, or letters as like them as the alteration of circumstances allowed (ch. viii.). Theobald was not a good kicker ; but Butler thought that what he made him do would not appear incompatible with his character since it was done in his youth it would pass as a kind of wild oat. And as for the character of George Pontifex, the letters helped materially to show him as a bullying, irritable, stupid old turkey-cock, which is what he had gathered from hearsay that his own grandfather, Dr. 62 PROSPECTS IN LIFE v 1859 Butler, was. This misrepresentation of the bishop was Act. 23 one O f {-kg cn i e f reasons why he wanted to rewrite the George Pontifex part of the book. I do not give here Canon Butler's letters because I have not applied to his legal personal representatives for permission to reproduce them. I reflected that permission would probably be refused, and Butler would not have liked me to court a snub ; on the other hand it might be granted, and Butler would not have liked me to put myself under an obligation. In The Way of All Flesh the letters are fewer and shorter than they were in real life, partly because Theobald was easily subdued, and partly because the episode, affecting only Theobald and not Ernest, was not of prime importance. Butler to his Father. JOH. COLL. Mar. 10, 1859 I hope that you will reconsider your wish that I should leave the university. At Torquay it was settled that I should come up here, try for pupils, and if possible get a fellowship at another college. [If I had remained at St. John's I should have probably got a fellowship. Stanwell of my year, also a Johnian, got one ; he was only 2Oth in the first class whereas I was bracketed I2th. I cannot doubt that the fellowship he got would have been given to me. I am very glad it never was^ for like enough I should have stuck on at Cambridge till now ! July I5th 1901, S. B.] I have had no chance of a fellowship at another college yet. . . . Neither for pupils have I had a fair chance no one knowing that I was to be up this term save one or two just at the very end of it. ... If, however, you still desire me to leave this place I really know nothing in this country to which I could turn my hand. A person when once he adopts ideas out of the common way, whether he be right or whether he be wrong he is done for here. I see that very plainly. The thing I would most gladly do is emigrate. I have long wished to do so, but said nothing about it because Tom has already gone ; but upon my word, if you bid me suggest anything, it is the only thing I can think of which would be at once congenial to my feelings and likely to fill my pocket. . . . And he concluded with a suggestion that the place should be Liberia and the employment cotton-growing. v DRAWING LESSONS 63 On the same day, or the next, he wrote to his mother 1859 hoping that his letter to his father of the loth March Aet - 2 3 was not calculated to annoy him " though I fear it was not very sane," but it had to be written in a hurry. He continues : Had he said to me : " I give you this allowance till you can make something of your own, and then, when you can find your own living, it will cease," I could readily understand his feeling hurt and vexed that I should be spunging on him and not finding something to do as speedily as possible, which of course any gentleman would do. But when he said that he would give it me over and above anything else I could make, you, I know, will understand how galling it must be to a person to have the threat of " docking one's allowance " (as if I had done something scandalous) offered on so short a notice. You cannot imagine how cut up I have been about it, and how thoroughly undeserved I feel such language to be. ... There is a Cambridge School of Art established here, and I have joined it and am receiving first-rate drawing lessons which I enjoy exceedingly. Tamplin superintends my music. Unfortunately for Liberia, Canon Butler, having been inoculated by Charles Darwin with a taste for botany, was in a position to speak with authority about cotton, and that "not very sane" scheme had to be given up. This led to a compromise that he was to stay on at Cambridge for the present which may have been rendered acceptable to his parents by the fact of his having two pupils. It must have been at this time that he was sent to examine a school at Bolton : I was to have my travelling expenses paid and was going to charge 2nd class fare when Mr. Jacques, the head-master, hearing of my intention, said to me rather sternly : " Young man, there are two classes of people in this world : there are those who prey and those who are preyed upon : never you belong to the latter." So I charged first class fare and travelled 2nd. On 5th April 1859 he writes home a cheerful, breezy letter about his progress in art, perhaps injudicious, certainly not calculated to mollify his father. I am getting on very nicely with my drawing : I go twice a week from n till I to the Art School. I commenced with 64 A MODERN PELAGIAN v j859 curved symmetrical lines very difficult indeed to copy accurately. Act. 23 I then went through a course of hands and am now going through a course of feet ; I have just blocked out the Venus de Medici's toes. There comes a man down from London to examine the drawings of the pupils every now and then, and if they are not accurate he sits on the master here ; so you may depend upon it that we have to be uncommonly exact ; but as Harrie knows I always was an advocate for that ; but this fellow makes us far more exact than I should have been. I am next to draw a figure or two from the flat and then from the plaster ; the more accurately we draw the faster he lets us proceed. Having got this great advantage I draw in my own rooms for an hour after hall, and really hope to be able to draw some day. Butler to his Father. JOH. COLL. May yth, 1859. DEAR PAPA . . . You bid me state the portion of the Articles that I specially object to. I do not like doing so, for I fear it will pain both you and my mother considerably ; but the opinion I have formed is one which I am ready to resign if fairly beaten. At the same time I must fairly confess that I believe the mass of evidence would make far more strongly with me than against me. The passage in the Articles is this : Art. xv. " But all we the rest, although baptised, and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things" (James iii. 2) ; "and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (i John i. 8) believing for my own part that a man can, by making use of the ordinary means of grace, attain a condition in which he can say, " I do not offend knowingly in any one thing either habitually or otherwise, and believe that whereas once on a time I was full of sin I have now been cleansed from all sin and am holy even as Christ was holy upon earth." [This comes of reading More's Mystery of Godliness^ and other like works. S. B. 1901.] Nay more, that unless a man can at some time before his death say such words as these he is not incorporate with Christ and cannot be saved. I know not how to put my thoughts in less strong language and yet express them fairly and fully : I grant that to beings of finite intelligence like ourselves there will be, it may be, certain sins of ignorance which we could not be fairly chargeable for having committed, many of us having been educated to such a belief and never [having] had the means of discovering the v "FOLLY AND WICKEDNESS" 65 falsehood thereof: but that no sin that is known to be sin will 1859 appear in him that is incorporate with Christ. Act. 23 I will certainly go in for my Voluntary in October if you wish it : I am sorry to say I have no additional pupil this term ; it is so very short a one that I could hardly expect it : of course I have at present no means of knowing what I may have in the Long. Love to May. Your affectionate son, S. BUTLER. Here follows a note, thirty-six words long, in Canon Butler's handwriting. I regret that I am not authorized to reproduce it ; I may, however, say that it refers to Pelagius, in what sense the reader can guess. It is followed by this further note in Butler's handwriting : I do not know which is the more comic in its own melancholy way my letter or my father's note. S. B. 1901. Then there came a letter from Canon Butler, dated 9th May, the same day as Butler's letter, about which there must be some error ; but perhaps it was an answer to some other letter. Butler shortened it into the letter from George Pontifex to Theobald at the end of chapter viii. of The Way of All Flesh. There is not much to choose between the two, and I give the version from The Way of all Flesh : DEAR THEOBALD I have received yours. I am at a loss to conceive its motive, but am very clear as to its effect. You shall not receive a single sixpence from me till you come to your senses. Should you persist in your folly and wickedness, I am happy to remember that I have yet other children whose conduct I can depend upon to be a source of credit and happiness to me. Your affectionate but troubled father, G. PONTIFEX. Butler was distressed to receive the original of this letter, and wrote to his mother who, as I understand, was at the moment away from home. The letter is long but I give it in full because it seems to me to be remark- ably mature for a young man of twenty-three years and five months. Butler to his Mother. JOH. COLL. CAMB. May 10, 1859. DEAR MAMMA I was in hopes that my visit to Langar had been productive of good effects, but I fear it has not ; for on my VOL. I F 66 CHOICE OF A PROFESSION v 1859 sending a letter from my friend Hayllar to Langar I have Act. 23 received one in return of purport which has not astonished me though I need not say it has perturbed me. If I am the pig-headed fool you think me the best school for me is adversity. If, then, it so turns out that my refusal to turn lawyer or farmer brings considerable adversity on my head it is good for me ; when I would fain fill myself with the husks, I shall be brought humble enough back again, and, if rejected, shall feel that I cannot greatly wonder. Most fathers on hearing my case, even as I should state it, would say : " Serve him right." Most sons would say that I was unfeelingly treated altogether with unwise and unnecessary pressure. I would emigrate, learn to farm in England, turn homoeopathic doctor, or learn to paint, in which last I have strong reason to believe I should succeed. But " No " from my father. To the other two courses, namely the law or a schoolmaster's life, I say " No " not less decidedly. You would, with the best intentions in the world, make me a bed that I know very well would not fit me. I know that when I am in, escape is impossible ; and, knowing that I have duties to myself to perform even more binding on me than those to my parents, with all respect adopt the alternative of rejecting the pounds, shillings, and pence and going in search of my own bread my own way. No man has any right to undertake any profession, for which he does not honestly believe himself well qualified, to please any other person. I should be preferring the hollow peace that would be patched up by my submission (for you could never forget that this submission had been obtained by money pressure), and the enjoyment of more money, to undergoing the great risk and trial which I see before me. I am old enough by this time to know my own mind and deliberately accede to my father's proposal that I should receive no more from him if I refuse to do what he wishes ; it is fair play ; I don't question his right to do what he likes with his own I question his wisdom greatly, but neither his motives nor his determination to stick to them. One thing I trust that is that I shall be allowed to correspond with Langar ; for, though I am not in the least un- easy about my right to choose my own profession at my age, I know that I have no right to either write insulting letters to you or to cease informing you and hearing from you how we are mutually faring, unless compelled to do so by one or both of you. I should be very sorry to think that any connection other than the money connection should cease. That I regard as ceased already. My father said that after the Michaelmas quarter it should cease. I am not proud enough to say " Let it cease now," v FINANCIAL OUTLOOK 67 though I would I were in a position to say so ; but can scarcely 1859 expect that he will continue to support me till then as soon as he Act. 23 knows that I have made up my mind to reject either the law or a schoolmaster's life and either to emigrate or turn artist. I have some ^58 in hand, no debts ; France has, or rather will have at Midsummer, more than enough money of mine to pay my bill at the end of this term over and above this ^58. My pupil pays me jio at the beginning of June. I have a matter of ^200 ; altogether at the end of this term I stand possessed of ^270. If, after a full statement of my affairs to Hayllar, he is of opinion that I may venture on the profession with a probability at the end of four or five years of making my living by it, I shall embark on it ; make my ^270 (with the aid of a little pupil work for which I must spare an hour a day) (I mean in London not here) last me three years ; and then borrow from two friends up here who have promised to assist me, or if the worst comes to the worst but this would not be till the wolf was actually at the door borrow on my reversion of the Whitehall property, which I believe to amount to some ^7000. I shall continue to reside here till October because I shall have to pay for these rooms and attendance anyhow, and cannot afford to pay for others in London at the same time ; moreover my scholarship continues to pay me while I am in residence and the long vacation is the best paying time. I shall not try for pupils but devote myself entirely to the profession I intend to embark on I have no time to lose. I should not either read for the Voluntary for which I see I should get plucked ; there were many questions for which I should have been plucked this time if I had answered them as I believe they should be answered, and have not sufficient control over myself to write the received explanation when I do not believe it. If I fail, and at the end of a year I should know whether or not I was going to succeed, I should either then make the best of a bad business and go off to New Zealand with whatever money I could raise, or go in for the civil service examinations, and try for an appointment under govern- ment or whatever else might then seem best but be sure I shall come down for no money from Langar. One thing in my father's letter struck me as either an additional proof that he is perfectly unaware of my real disposi- tion and character or else as a most undeserved and ungenerous taunt. He said : " Neither am I disposed to sacrifice the other children to you." Either he supposes that I would see one penny taken from them to supply me withal, in which case he betrays great ignorance of my disposition, or else by such remarks as these he is completing the estrangement between us. I never asked him for an allowance. What he gave I took and have employed 68 THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE v 1859 well; for that capital so laid out I can show good interest Act. 23 especially during the six months I was in Heddon Street ; true, I fear the interest is not such as you like, but it is such as I feel all precious to me, though I see that this storm has been brought about by no other means. But for this I should have been quietly ordained and none of this sad business would ever have come about. But I say deliberately, it is better as it is for you and for my father and for me. For you, in that you will have peace in me eventually, though not now, which, had I been ordained, you never would, for all these doubts would have come about then, and I should have had my pounds, shillings, and pence, and been a fettered, miserable man. For me it is better that, at the cost of any present distress, I should have been saved such anguish as I know would then have been my lot. The like applies to the bar and to the schoolmaster in a less degree ; you would never, have had any real peace and pleasure in me ; but when I have succeeded, and succeed I must and will eventually, you will both be happy enough to receive me back, and have real pleasure and comfort in me then, if not now. I am not petulantly in a huff, imagining that you will come round when you see I won't give in. I don't expect anything of the kind, don't expect to receive a penny from my father now or at his death, which I heartily desire may be long averted. But I say : Rather than give up my Christian liberty to choose a profession [in] which I honestly believe I can succeed, should be able to speak the truth in and get my living by rather than give up this I give up the money which my father has allowed me till now. I remain, dear Mamma, your affectionate son, S. BUTLER. It seems that Butler, at this time, did not understand that his reversion to the Whitehall property, being only contingent, was not as saleable as it would have been had it been absolute. He wrote a similar but shorter letter to his father, formally renouncing the money. This, however, was not nearly the end. There are letters discussing farming in England ; others about the refusal to be a tutor and the alternatives of becoming a publisher, a homoeopathic doctor, or an artist ; about original sin standing or standing not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk) ; and the possibilities of diplomacy, the army, and the bar. It is unnecessary to v EMIGRATION DECIDED ON 69 reproduce any more details, especially since, as usually 1859 happens in a quarrel between people who are by tempera- Aetg 2 ment thoroughly unsympathetic, the main issue was obscured by misunderstandings and by those tedious explanations, which, instead of explaining, merely deepen the misunderstanding. In August emigration was agreed upon, Canon Butler consenting to continue the allowance for twelve months and to advance capital if needful ; but it was not yet settled what country was to be chosen, New Zealand, the Cape, or Columbia. On 3rd August 1859 Canon Butler wrote a letter which it is difficult to believe was not written by Theobald and sent from Battersby. It was from this letter that Butler took some phrases for chapter xlv. of The Way of all Flesh when showing why Ernest had to go into the church. For " medicine " in the case of Ernest we must substitute " art " in Butler's case. Medicine was a profession which subjected its students to ordeals and temptations which these fond parents shrank from on behalf of their boy ; he would be thrown among companions and familiarized with details which might sully him ; and, though he might stand, it was only too possible that he would fall. Finally it was decided that New Zealand should be the country and sheep-farming the occupation. CHAPTER VI 1859-1860 A FIRST YEAR IN CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT 1859 A FEW years before the date at which we have now Act. 23 arr i vec i several men of high standing, well known in clerical circles, had founded the Canterbury Association with the object of starting a colony in New Zealand upon Church of England principles. Their plan was to acquire waste land in the middle island, sell it to colonists and apply the purchase money partly in repaying the Association and starting the Settlement, partly in making roads, and partly in forming a Religious and Educational Fund. In December 1850, the historic Four Ships with the first colonists, known as The Canterbury Pilgrims, entered Lyttelton Harbour, and by the following December three thousand emigrants had arrived, the Canterbury Settlement was started, and the town of Christchurch was being built. No doubt the expressed desire of the founders that theirs should be a Church of England colony, and the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury was himself President, helped to advertise the scheme among the clergy and to recommend it to such parents as Canon and Mrs. Butler. Their son had no objection to a clerical atmosphere in the abstract ; it had not oppressed him at Cambridge, partly, perhaps, because Cambridge was not Langar ; why should it oppress him in New Zealand which was still less Langar ? And so it came about that on one of the last days of September, 1859, nearly a hundred years after James Butler had embarked 70 vi BUTLER ESCAPES SHIPWRECK 71 in the Vansittart from Gravesend for the East Indies in 1859 consequence of having got into some undefined scrape, Aet> 23 his great-great-nephew, Samuel Butler, embarked in the Roman Emperor from the same place for New Zealand ^in consequence of having entertained doubts as to the \ efficacy of infant baptism. On that night, for the first time in his life, he did not say his prayers; he^was^ riot,, /a then a sceptic, but he felt no compunction-^' the sense of change was so great that he simply shed them and never returned to them. (See The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, 1912, p. 213.) During the voyage he did as Uncle James had done and wrote down his impressions in letters to his people. He also contributed two articles, printed as " Our Emi- grant," to The Eagle. The letters home formed the basis of a book published by Canon Butler and entitled A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, by Samuel Butler (London: Longmans, 1863). A new edition has now appeared, A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, with other Early Essays, by Samuel Butler, edited by R. A. Streatfeild (London : A. C. Fifield, 1914). This new edition is referred to in the preceding chapter as reproducing some of Butler's Cambridge writings. Although the New Zealand letters are thus accessible, I shall not apologise for giving extracts from them here, because there is no better way of telling the story of Butler's colonial experiences. The preface to A First Tear, dated Langar Rectory, June 29, 1863, and written by Canon Butler, tells how the emigrant's passage had been taken ... in the ill-fated ship Burmah which never reached her destina- tion and is believed to have perished with all on board. His berth was chosen and the passage -money paid, when important alterations were made in the arrangements of the vessel in order to make room for some stock which was being sent out to the Canterbury Settlement. The space left for the accommodation of the passengers being thus curtailed, and the comforts of the voyage seeming likely to be much diminished, the writer was most providentially induced to change his ship, and, a few weeks later, secured a berth in another vessel. 72 THE WAYS OF PROVIDENCE vi 1859 So that within a hundred years Providence saved Act. 23 three members of the family from shipwreck. It is true that Uncle James's escape was only " providential almost," some of the credit being given to " good Luck " ; also that Dr. Butler was at first inclined to attribute his escape to accident ; but in the case of our New Zealand traveller the whcJe credit is given unhesitatingly to Providence alone. The instrument employed by Provi- dence was Butler's cousin, Richard Worsley, who had means of ascertaining details and took some trouble to do so ; he persuaded Butler, sorely against his will, to get back his passage -money and to sail in the Roman Emperor. The preface further states that the MS. of the book " having been sent out to New Zealand for revision, was, on its return, lost in the Colombo and was fished up from the Indian Ocean so nearly washed out as to have been with some difficulty deciphered." Miss Butler told me that the difficulty was overcome by the ingenuity of her mother to whom it occurred as an inspiration to try holding the backs of the worst pages up to a looking- glass, and in this way the writing was read. The preface says nothing about Providence in the case of the MS., perhaps thinking it would be irreverent to attribute to that power a deliverance that was carried out in so unworkmanlike a manner as to occasion difficulty. It would have been equivalent to assuming that Providence, by reason, perhaps, of the strain imposed by these repeated shipwrecks, had become as clumsy as " good Luck " or mere accident. May we not, however, suppose that Providence intervened expressly in order to give an opportunity for the original of Christina to display her ingenuity ? Butler himself would have been as well pleased if his MS. had been entirely obliterated, or, better still, entirely lost. He made a note about it which concludes : " I wish it had been left where it was. My people revised it and very much transformed it. I daresay they improved it." As to whether the letters were improved by his people any one can now form his own opinion to a certain VI LETTERS HOME 73 extent, Mr. Streatfeild having included in the 1914 1859 edition of A First Tear an account of " Crossing the Aetl 23 Rangitata " taken from the articles " Our Emigrant " in The Eagle ; this was not revised by Canon Butler and was not included in the original edition of A First Tear. Butler only consented to the publication of his letters at the earnest entreaty of his family, and always spoke of the book as being " deeply tainted with Langar." In 1879, when he began to number his works, he published his fifth book, Evolution Old and New, as Op. IV., thereby intentionally excluding the New Zealand book and count- ing Erewhon as Op. I. His letters home were not intended for the public, nor were they what they would have been if he had been writing to please himself ; they were written to please his family a difficult task in which he seems to have succeeded for once. Moreover, he was at the time growing rapidly and no doubt com- mitted faults, which, though not serious in the eyes of an ordinary reader, appeared to him, in his maturer years, to be almost intolerable. He once wrote of Mr. Grant Allen, whom he thought he had detected contradicting himself rather violently : " Truly, when Mr. Grant Allen makes stepping-stones of his dead selves he jumps upon them to some tune " ; * and he was a little apt to subject his own dead selves to similar treatment. The book contains vivid descriptions of the country and of life in the early days of the colony, and the account of the voyage is particularly interesting to read just after reading Uncle James's letters. Both the travellers observe and mention the various strange birds and fishes which were seen and caught, the flight of the albatrosses (which Uncle James spells " Albutrasses "), the weather, the gales, the hurricanes, and the cyclones. They both encountered flying-fish ; Butler writes : These are usually in flocks, and are seen in greatest abundance in the morning ; they fly a great way and very well, not with the kind of jump which a fish takes when springing out of the water, but with a bona fide flight, sometimes close to the water, 1 Selections from Previous Works by Samuel Butler (London : TrUbner, 1884), p. 252 ; Luck or Cunning? by Samuel Butler (TrUbner, 1887), p. 257. 74 THE SOUTHERN CROSS vi 1859 sometimes some feet above it. One flew on board, and measured, Act. 23 roughly, 18 inches between the tips of its wings. [Uncle James had written] We picked up a live flying Fish this Morning which had flown into the Main Chains ; it is a small slender white fish, much like a Dace and its two fins behind its Gills are remarkably long and serve it as Wings, with which I have seen them fly in great Shoals (when chased by Dolphins, Bonitas or other fish) about 2 or 3 yards high out of the water for 4 or 500 yards together. Uncle James frequently says : " A fine day, almost a calm." The Roman Emperor encountered a calm in the gloomy region about the Line and one of the passengers, a consumptive girl, was so much affected by the vaporous atmosphere that she died and was buried at sea. Several of Uncle James's soldiers died and were buried at sea. Butler had been told that the southern constellations were more impressive than our own, and accordingly was prepared to find them so ; but when they were spread out before his eyes, and he had an opportunity of considering them, he found that, as with the Greek Testament, he was unable to agree with all he had heard. The Southern Cross especially he found ... a very great delusion. It isn't a cross. It is a kite, a kite upside down, an irregular kite upside down, with only three respectable stars and one very poor and very much out of place. Near it, however, is a truly mysterious and interesting object called the coal sack : it is a black patch in the sky distinctly darker than all the rest of the heavens. No star shines through it. The proper name for it is the black Magellan cloud. His time on board passed very pleasantly ; he read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^ and Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry, and took lessons on the concertina from one of his fellow-passengers. Besides this, I have had the getting up and management of our choir. We practise three or four times a week ; we chant the Venite, Glorias, and Te Deums, and sing one hymn. I have two basses, two tenors, one alto, and lots of girls, and the singing certainly is better than you would hear in nine country places out of ten. I have been glad by this means to form the acquaintance of many of the poorer passengers. My health has been very good all the voyage. I have not had a day's sea- sickness. vi THE STORMY PETRELS 75 One day, as Butler was contemplating the stormy 1860 petrels, the Captain came up and joined him. Aet> 24 " Now Captain," said Butler, " can you tell me ? Where do those birds lay their eggs ? " And the Captain replied : "God in heaven alone bloody knows." Butler liked the absence of swagger in the rough seaman's straightforward reply, and stowed the words away in his memory for future use. Towards the end of January, 1860, the Roman Emperor neared Lyttelton Harbour. Presently we saw a light ahead from a ship : we drew slowly near, and as we passed you might have heard a pin drop. "What ship's that ? " said a strange voice. " The Roman Emperor" said the Captain. " Are you all well ? " All well." Then the Captain asked, " Has the Robert Small arrived ? " " No," was the answer, " nor yet the Burmah" You may imagine what I felt. Then a rocket was sent up, and the pilot came on board. Port Lyttelton lies in the crater of an extinct volcano, the sides of which rise round it on the land side as a range of hills ; behind the hills are the Canterbury Plains, and through the plains the river Heathcote runs to the sea ; beyond it runs the Avon with Christchurch upon its banks. In Butler's time the way from Lyttelton to Christchurch was by bridle-path over the hills to the ferry across the Heathcote, and from there by a good road to Christchurch. It was possible also to go by sea in a boat round the headland to the estuary of the river and proceed from there ; but Butler, who was always ready for a walk, and especially a walk over hills with a view, chose the bridle-path. The scenery he found beautiful, but the view down upon the Canterbury Plains disappointed him, being rather of the " long stare " description, with few objects for the eye to rest upon, and the distant range of mountains " not broken up into fine forms like the Carnarvonshire mountains, but rather a long, blue, lofty, even line like the Jura from Geneva or 76 BUYING A HORSE vi 1860 the Berwyn from Shrewsbury." As to the road between Aet< 24 Heathcote Ferry and Christchurch ; if it were . . . through an avenue of mulberry trees, and the fields on either side were cultivated with Indian corn and vineyards, and if through these you could catch an occasional glimpse of a distant cathedral of pure white marble, you might well imagine yourself nearing Milan. As it is, the country is a sort of cross between the plains of Lombardy and the fens of North Cambridgeshire. . . . [At Christchurch] I put up at Mr. Rowland Davis's ; and as no one during the evening seemed inclined to talk to me, I listened to the conversation . . . [which was all about] sheep, horses, dogs, cattle, English grasses, paddocks, bush and so forth. ... I was rather startled at hearing one gentleman ask another whether he meant to wash this year, and receive the answer, " No." I soon discovered that a person's sheep are himself. If his sheep are clean, he is clean. [He bought a horse] by name Doctor. I hope he is a homoeopathist. He is in colour bay, distinctly branded P.C. on the near shoulder. I am glad the brand is clear ; for, as you well know, all horses are alike to me unless there is some violent dis- tinction in their colour. Doctor cost j55, which was not considered dear, as he was strong and accustomed to fording the rivers, and a horse was a necessity. He is introduced into Erewhon Revisited : the shepherd tells John Higgs in chapter xxvi. 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." At night a lot of Nelson and Wellington men came to the club. I was amused at dinner by a certain sailor and others who maintained that the end of the world was likely to arrive shortly ; the principal argument appearing to be that there was no more sheep country to be found in Canterbury. This fact is, I fear, only too true. Whether all the country that is, sheep country had been taken up or not was a matter of considerable importance to Butler. His father had already supplied him with some capital, and it had to be employed in a remunerative way. The alternatives were : (i) To buy sheep and put them out in charge of some established squatter, receiving the wool money as interest ; (2) to vi PROSPECTING FOR COUNTRY 77 buy the goodwill of an established sheep run ; (3) to buy 1860 land and lay it down in English grass ; (4) to take up Aet * 2 land, if he could find any, and start a run of his own. The last plan was the one he ultimately followed, and it necessitated his making excursions into the interior in search of country. Being such a bad horseman, he was unhappy on these expeditions, especially when Doctor, in jumping the little swampy places and small creeks, always took what appeared to be a jump about three times greater than was necessary. He found the people all very hospitable ; and at one of the stations where he put up for the night was, at first sight, at some little distance, mistaken for a Maori on account of his dark hair and complexion. He made his first important expedition in company with a sheep-farmer who owned a run in the back country and was going into the remoter valleys, also looking for land. They put up for the night at one of the stations. His account shows the manner of his own life after he was settled on his own run : At night, and by a lovely, clear, cold moonlight we arrived at our destination, heartily glad to hear the dogs barking and to know that we were at our journey's end. Here we were bona fide beyond the pale of civilization ; no boarded floors, no chairs, nor any similar luxuries ; everything was of the very simplest description. Four men inhabited the hut, and their life appears a kind of mixture of that of a dog and that of an emperor, with a considerable predominance of the latter. They have no cook, and take it turn and turn to cook and wash up, two one week and two the next. They have a good garden, and gave us a capital feed of potatoes and peas, both fried together, an excellent com- bination. Their culinary apparatus and plate?, cups, knives and forks are very limited in number. The men are all gentlemen and sons of gentlemen, and one of them is a Cambridge man who took a high second-class a year or two before my time. Every now and then he leaves his up-country avocations and becomes a great gun at the College in Christchurch, examining the boys ; he then returns to his shepherding, cooking, bullock- driving, etc., etc., as the case may be. I am informed that the having faithfully learned the ingenuous arts has so far mollified his morals that he is an exceedingly humane and judicious bullock-driver. He regarded me as a somewhat despicable new- 78 WILLIAM ROLLESTON vi 1860 comer (at least so I imagined) and when, next morning, I asked Act. 24 where I should wash, gave rather a French shrug of the shoulders, and said, "The lake" [i.e. Lake Coleridge]. I felt the rebuke to be well-merited, and that, with the lake in front of the house, I should have been at no loss for the means of performing my ablutions. So I retired abashed and cleansed myself therein. Under his bed I found Tennyson's Idylls of the King. So you will see that even in these out-of-the-world places people do care a little for something besides sheep. I was told an amusing story of an Oxford man shepherding down in Otago. Someone came into his hut, and, taking up a book, found it in a strange tongue and enquired what it was. The Oxonian (who was baking at the time) answered that it was Machiavellian Discourses upon the First Decade of Livy. The wonder-stricken visitor laid down the book and took up another, which was, at any rate, written in English. This he found to be Bishop Butler's ^Analogy. Putting it down speedily as something not in his line, he laid his hands upon a third. This proved to be Patrum Apostolicorum Opera^ on which he saddled his horse and went right away, leaving the Oxonian to his baking. This man must certainly be considered a rare exception. New Zealand seems far better adapted to develop and maintain in health the physical than the intellectual nature. The fact is, people here are busy making money ; that is the inducement which led them to come in the first instance, and they show their sense by devoting their energies to the work. Yet, after all, it may be questioned whether the intellect is not as well schooled here as at home, though in a very different manner. Men are as shrewd and sensible, as alive to the humorous, and as hard-headed. Moreover, there is much non- sense in the old country from which people here are free. There is little conventionalism, little formality, and much liberality of sentiment ; very little sectarianism, and, as a general rule, a healthy, sensible tone in conversation, which I like much. But it does not do to speak about John Sebastian Bach's Fugues or pre-Raphaelite pictures. After Butler's death I made the acquaintance of Professor George S. Sale who knew him in New Zealand. Professor Sale kindly allowed me to read to him the chapters in this book which relate to the colony. When I came to the part about the Cambridge man being " an exceedingly humane and judicious bullock- driver " Professor Sale exclaimed, " He was." I asked for particulars, and he told me he was William Rolleston, brother of George Rolleston the Oxford professor. vi MORE EXCURSIONS 79 William Rolleston afterwards became fourth Superintend- 1860 ent of the Provincial Council of Canterbury, and there is Aet> 2 a statue to him at Christchurch. He was in London in 1900. The passage about morals becoming mollified by the faithful learning of the ingenuous arts is, of course, an echo of an example in the old Latin grammar sometimes used in this way by Thackeray. I suspect that in thus referring to it Butler was consciously imitating that writer whom he had not at this time " found out." This is probably an instance of what he considered his youthful priggishness. " How many years, I wonder, was it before I learned to dislike Thackeray and Tennyson as much as I now do ? For how many years did I not almost worship them ? " (The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, 1 9 1 2, p. 1 8 8 .) At the stations where he stopped on these excursions he found that every one washed his own clothes and no one used sheets. At the station where he met Rolleston he saw a sheep killed for the first time in his life. He found it unpleasant ; but, before he left New Zealand, he became an expert at the business and as indifferent to its unpleasantness as any one. The knife that killed the sheep carved the mutton for dinner. Next day they went on up the Harper river, a tributary of the Rakaia, in the hope of finding at the head of it a saddle leading into new country on the other side of the main range ; and that night he had his first experience of camping out. Probably after another year or two I shall regard camping out as the nuisance which it really is, instead of writing about sombre forests and so forth. Well, well, that night I thought it very fine ; and so, in good truth, it was. Next morning they looked for gold in the shingly beds of all the little streams, but found none. Then they got above the water into a wood full of little glossy green paroquets, and by degrees came high enough to see the saddle ; but it was far off and covered with snow, and they had no provisions or blankets. They also made up their minds, first, that it was not on the main range, and 8o "TANGLED SILVER RIBBONS" vi 1860 secondly, that it would certainly only lead them over to Act. 24 ^ \\r a imakiriri, the next river to the north of the Rakaia. So they returned to where they had left the horses and camped out again. Next morning, at early dawn, the scene was most magnificent. The mountains were pale as ghosts and almost sickening from their death-like whiteness. We gazed at them for a moment or two, and then turned to making a fire, which in the cold frosty morning was not unpleasant. Shortly afterwards we were again en route for the station from which we had started. We burnt the flats as we rode down, and made a smoke which was noticed between 50 and 60 miles off. I have seen no grander sight than the fire upon a country which has never before been burnt, and on which there is a large quantity of Irishman [the name given to a thorny shrub which, in the back country, attains to a considerable size]. The sun soon loses all brightness, and looks as though seen through smoked glass. The volumes of smoke are something that must be seen to be appreciated. The flames roar and the grass crackles and every now and then a glorious lurid flare marks the ignition of an Irishman ; his dry thorns blaze fiercely for a minute or so, and then the fire leaves him, charred and blackened for ever. A year or two hence a stiff nor'wester will blow him over, and he will lie there and rot and fatten the surrounding grass ; often, however, he shoots out again from the roots, and then he is a considerable nuisance. Another time he went alone up the Waimakiriri looking unsuccessfully for a run. He crossed the river just after a fresh when the water was thick. " From the top of the terrace I had surveyed it carefully as it lay beneath, wandering capriciously in the wasteful shingle- bed and looking like a maze of tangled silver ribbons " a simile which he afterwards used in Erewhon (opening of chapter iii.) Then follows an account of his crossing the river, though it would be more correct to call it an account of Doctor's crossing the river ; for the operation was entrusted to the horse, who knew much better than Butler did how to pick fords. On their first few experiences of these New Zealand rivers people dislike them extremely ; then they become very callous to them and are as unreasonably foolhardy as they were before timorous ; then they generally get an escape from drowning or VI MOUNT COOK 8 1 two, or else they get drowned in earnest. After one or two 1860 escapes their original respect for the rivers returns and for ever Aet - 2 after they learn not to play any unnecessary tricks with them. Not a year passes but what each of them sends one or more to his grave ; yet as long as they are at their ordinary level and crossed with due care there is no real danger in them whatever. Not having found any land that would do, he next went with a companion up the Rangitata, and this time found a small piece which he afterwards took up. But though he found country, which was of course the chief thing, something else happened which he enjoyed much more he saw Mount Cook. They rested on the shingle bed at the top of the range and looked over, hoping to discover suitable land on the other side, but could only make out the Mackenzie Plains. Seeing that he could get a better view from the top of a peak a few feet higher he went up it alone, first arranging to call his companion if there was country to be seen. I saw snowy peak after snowy peak come in view as the summit in front of me narrowed, but no mountains were visible higher or grander than what I had already seen. Suddenly as my eyes got on a level with the top, so that I could see over, I was struck almost breathless by the wonderful mountain that burst upon my sight. The effect was startling. It rose towering in a massy parallelogram disclosed from top to bottom in the cloudless sky, far above all the others. It was exactly opposite to me and about the nearest in the whole range. So you may imagine that it was indeed a splendid spectacle. Though Mount Cook was not country, he called up his companion, who agreed that he had never seen anything so wonderful. He made another expedition up the Hurunui but found nothing better than the small run on the Rangitata, which he had lighted on the day he saw Mount Cook, and had taken up ; so he determined to hibernate there to see what the place was like, and, if it turned out satisfactorily, there was some good country in the immediate vicinity which he hoped to be able to take. By June 1860, he had built a V hut on the small run and was living in it with his man and two cadets, five-and-twenty miles from VOL. I G 82 LOADING THE DRAY VI 1860 the nearest human habitation. " A cadet is a young fellow Aet< 24 who receives his food and lodging gratis and works (or is supposed to work) in order to learn." The winter's experience showed him that the country with the V hut would not do for sheep unless worked with other land that would be clear of snow ; so, having made up his mind that the adjacent land was safe in this respect, he took it up and in October set out from Christchurch for the new run with a loaded dray drawn by a team of six bullocks. I give a list of what he took up ; it relates to some other occasion, but it shows the kind of things with which the dray must have been loaded : THINGS FOR THE DRAY TO BRING UP ABOUT 1863 Flour, i ton 10 cwt. 24 O o Woolbales Tea, 2 chest 22 o o Sewing twine Sugar, 15 cwt. 39 o o Grave stone * Coffee, 28 Ib. 2 9 Cattle brand Tobacco, 40 Ibs. 18 o Mortising axe i case brandy 3 IO o Nails Grog, 5 gallons 5 IO o Screws Furniture Glasses Writing-paper Pattisson's boxes and cheque Billhook Paling knife salmon, lobsters Vinegar, 2 gallons / oysters 4 2 o Pipes Delicacies sa y dines 2 6 8 Matches raisins String dried apples 2 o 9 Soap .2 doz. [illegible] I 16 Pig Two axes, six handles Mattress One adze Hops Files, for crosscut and Ink handsaw One pickaxe Slops Teapot Blankets Rope i cask ale, pints Two shovels Ducks Calico for roof Rabbits Dishcloths Box from home Milktins Candle wick, 20 Ibs. 2 o o Crockery Pitch, i cwt. cask 2 5 o Cooking utensils Pitch twine, 4 coils i bucket Pepper Nest of tubs Salt, i bag 10 o Ashmore's box No. 2 Worcester sauce Lanthorn English grass seeds Pens 1 Probably for the grave of Dr. Sinclair (see post, p. vr BULLOCKS 83 The bullocks were a trouble at night. Unless they 1860 were yarded they strayed, and had to be found in the Aet ' 2 morning. Were they up the river or down the river, across the river or gone back ? You are at Cambridge and have lost your bullocks. They were bred in Yorkshire but have been used a good deal in the neighbourhood of Dorchester and may have consequently made in either direction ; they may, however, have worked down the Cam and be in full feed for Lynn ; or, again, they may be snugly stowed away in a gully half-way between the Fitzwilliam Museum and Trumpington. You saw a mob of cattle feeding quietly about Madingley on the preceding evening, and they may have joined in with these ; or were they attracted by the fine feed in the neighbourhood of Cherryhinton ? Where shall you go to look for them ? They were always recovered, but the waste of time was considerable and annoying : he used to say that when he died the word " Bullocks " would be found written on his heart. Then there came a snowstorm which continued for nearly three days and three nights, which they spent in an unfinished hut, reading novels, hemming towels, and smoking. But at last they reached the V hut and found that their country was safe, and that the snow on the new run, which lay considerably lower, had not been deeper than four inches. A man whom he calls G had an application for 5000 acres in the same block, but until the land had been surveyed the boundaries were uncertain, and G had built a hut upon a spot that eventually turned out to be on Butler's land and on the site where he wished to build. He went and saw G and tried to arrange the difficulty, offering compensation for the loss of his hut ; but G would not listen. There was nothing for it but to go to the Land Office in Christchurch and make an application to buy from the Government the freehold of the land on which the hut stood and twenty acres round it ; this was possible under the Government regulations and, as Butler knew that G intended to make a similar application, it was important to start at once, which 84 SIR J. S. WILLIAMS vi 1860 he did. He had difficulty in crossing the Ashburton Aet< 24 which was heavily freshed ; he camped out for the night lying in the tussocks with his horse's bridle in his hand ; next day he was overtaken by G , who was on his way to put his own name down ; they travelled together for some time, treating each other politely, and G went on ahead while Butler was getting breakfast in a station. Then Butler's horse knocked up and he borrowed another at another station. He forded the Rakaia which was low ; " a few hours afterwards, down it came." They both arrived in Christchurch after the office was closed. Next morning Butler found that his name had been entered by his solicitor on another matter of business the previous day, but it stood next below G 's name, which had been inserted unfairly out of due order before office hours the same morning. In the end Butler, allowing G for his hut and yard, bought him out entirely. In 1912 Mr. Triggs, Editor of The Press, New Zealand, wrote to me that Sir Joshua Strange Williams, of Dunedin, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, re- membered Butler in New Zealand and also remembered G , whose real name began with a different letter, but we may as well go on calling him G . The judge wrote me on I9th August 19123 letter of reminiscences in which, speaking of G , he says : He was by trade a cattle-dealer and drover. I knew him well enough. In fact he did me the honour to consult me on one or two occasions when I was in practice. He was a well-built, fairly powerful man and a rough customer. It was towards the end of 1875 or in 1876 after I had ceased to live in Christchurch that he was engaged by a well-known Christchurch man ... to drive cattle from Canterbury to Otago and sell them there. G drove them there and sold them. The Waitaki, a broad and dangerous unbridged river, separated Otago and Canterbury ; crossing this, coming back, the notes, the proceeds of the sale, G said were washed out of his pocket. They were discovered in his boots. He was tried and convicted, and got, I think, five years. The judge was at Trinity when Butler was at St. John's, but they did not know each other at Cambridge. He continues his letter to me thus : VI BACH'S FUGUES 85 I saw a good deal of him [Butler], however, in 1862 and 1860 1863 at the Christchurch Club, where he used to put up when he Aet - 24 came to town. His talk was always stimulating ... I shall never forget the small dark man with the penetrating eyes who took up a run at the back of beyond, carted a piano up there on a bullock dray, and passed his solitary evenings playing Bach's fugues ; and who, when he emerged from his solitude and came down to Christchurch, was the most fascinating of companions. CHAPTER VII 1861-1864 MESOPOTAMIA 1 86 1 IN 1913 Mr. Fifield showed me a book, Five Tears in *- z s New Zealand (1859 to 1864), by Robert B. Booth, M.Inst.C.E. (London : J. G. Hammond & Co., Ltd., Fleet Lane, Old Bailey, E.C., 1912). Mr. Booth, as a young man, emigrated to New Zealand ; at Christchurch he met Butler, who offered him a post on his run at 60 per annum with all expenses paid, an offer which Mr. Booth accepted. In chapter xiv. of his book he writes thus of Butler : Immediately he landed he made himself acquainted with the maps and districts taken up, and rode many hundreds of miles prospecting for new country. His energy was rewarded by the discovery of the unclaimed piece of mountain land he now occupied near the upper gorge of the Rangitata. The run, which comprised about 8000 acres, formed a series of spurs and slopes leading from the foot of the great range and ending in a broad strip of flat land bounded by the Rangitata. Upon two other sides were smaller streams, tributaries of the latter hence the name Mesopotamia (Between the Rivers) given to it by its energetic possessor. Mr. Butler had been established upon the run about a year, and had already about 3000 sheep on it. The homestead was built upon a little plateau on the edge of the downs, approached by a cutting from the flat, and was most comfortably situated and well sheltered, as it needed to be, the weather being often exceedingly severe in that elevated locality. Butler was a literary man, and his snug sitting-room was fitted with books and easy chairs a piano, also, upon which he was no mean performer. The station hands comprised a shepherd, bullock -driver, 86 VII COLONIAL LIFE 87 hut- keeper, and two station hands employed in fencing -in 1861 paddocks, which with Cook, the overseer, Butler, and myself Aet - 2 5 made up the total. At daybreak we all assembled in the common kitchen for breakfast, after which we separated for our different employments. At 12 noon we met again for dinner, and again about 7 P.M. for supper, which meal being over, Butler, Cook, and I would repair to the sitting-room, and round a glorious fire smoked or read or listened to Butler's piano. It was the most civilised experience I had had of up-country life since I left Highfield, and was very enjoyable. Butler's run is still called Mesopotamia and is so marked on the maps. Here is another glimpse of his life there a note which he preserved because it recalled New Zealand so vividly. April 1 86 1. It is Sunday. We rose later than usual. There are five men sleeping in the hut. I sleep in a bunk on one side of the fire ; Mr. Haast, 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 j 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 some one 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 88 DR. SINCLAIR VII 1861 same on leaving it j our tracks would guide anyone over the Act. 25 intervening ground. Julius Haast was a German who had been appointed Provincial Geologist in 1860. His scientific work and discoveries were of great value to New Zealand ; he named the mountains and glaciers of the Southern Alps and discovered the pass now called after him which leads through the mountains to the west coast. He founded and was director of the Museum in Christchurch. He was ennobled by the Austrian Government and knighted by the British, so that he became Sir Julius von Haast. The friendship between him and Butler lasted until his death in 1887. In 1879 he published Geology of the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland, New Zealand: a Report comprising the Results of Official Explorations (printed at The Times office, Christchurch). From this it appears that he went up the Rangitata accompanied by Dr. Sinclair, who was to assist in the botanical researches ; on the 26th February 1861 they reached the broad opening by which the valleys of the Rangitata, the Ashburton, and the Rakaia are united. We followed this opening to the Rangitata, having the snow-covered peaks of the central range before us ; and, after descending several hundred feet into the bed of the river Potts where it joins the Rangitata, we crossed that river and reached Mesopotamia, then the sheep-station of Mr. Samuel Butler, where I established my head-quarters (p. 4). A little further on (pp. n and 12) is an account of the drowning of Dr. Sinclair, and of how his body was found, brought to Mesopotamia, and buried there. There is another account of the drowning of Dr. Sinclair in Mr. Booth's book. Mr. J. D. Enys told me that when he was a member of the Provincial Council of Canterbury he had twenty acres reserved round the grave on which is a flat stone in memory of Dr. Sinclair. The danger of crossing New Zealand rivers is often referred to in A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement and also in the following passage from Butler's MS. Note-Books : vii CROSSING THE RANGITATA 89 I was once compared to an albatross. I was crossing a mob 1861 of sheep over the Rangitata on to my own run ; the sheep Aet - 2 5 were tired with driving, there was an awful nor' wester on the riverbed, and a fresh was evidently about to come down ; the sheep would not cross ; nothing that we could all do would get them to face the river. I rode over, therefore, to my own hut to get the assistance of two men who were putting up my second hut or, I suppose I should almost call it, my house. The river was still low, but I sent them down with my horse that they might cross it at once while I got a mouthful of something to eat. Having got this I went down to the river on foot and found these men by the side of the river, funking. There was no excuse, seeing they had a horse, so I went straight into the river on foot and forded the first stream. Old Darky describing it to someone else said, "... and he went in he went in like an albatross." Butler's chief occupation, of course, was the sheep and all that concerned their welfare. The following letter to his father will show his financial position, and will give an idea of how assiduously he attended to the business side of his colonial life. The letter was written at Christ- church during an absence from Mesopotamia, which he speaks of as " home " : Butler to his Father. XT. CHURCH, May 31, 1861. MY DEAR FATHER I have come down to Xt. Church to meet this mail and find the sum of ^500 unexpectedly come out. I am very sorry indeed that you have troubled yourself to borrow it, as I was in no way pressed for money, and had not expected it out before next mail. I am very much obliged to you for it. I had come down this mail, rather than next, because after the middle of next month travelling will be very bad, and I intended letting Messrs. Johnstone and Williams, my solicitors, receive the money and place it to my credit at the bank giving Mr. Palmer, the manager, notice of my intention. I did this once before. As it has come out I have placed it to my credit at Dalgety, Buckley & Co.'s and they give me 10 per cent till the money has to be paid. This, however, will not enable me to meet Caton, nor nearly do so. I think you must be aware of this from my previous letters. It is exceedingly distasteful to me to keep hammering at 90 FINANCIAL POSITION vn 1 86 1 you for the remaining ^1000, but I am absolutely compelled to Act. 25 do so. My mother, too, begs me not ; and I can see clearly that I am urging you to do something that you do not like. I have very little remembrance of what I wrote the letter before last, but I fear I may have let fall expressions that 1 should decidedly repent of at leisure. I really forget what I said ; if I said any- thing unbecoming, pray forgive it and bear with me while I urge my case in the best manner that I can. I have a letter of yours by me which I cannot help thinking you must somewhat have forgotten, I mean one which arrived about this time last year or a little later (I have the letter and will send it if its existence be forgotten). In that letter I was promised that I might have the sum of ^3000, over and above ^2000 already sent out, by giving you three months' notice; that you would prefer capitalising by instalments (at what intervals was not stated), but that I was to " take carte blanche " and act as I thought best. Subsequently there appeared a decided change in the tone of your intentions ; ^2000 was to be reserved in your keeping until the affair had been tried -till I was certain I was on safe ground still the reserve was not destined to be the means of a fresh start, but to be invested in the concern upon its being definitely approved of and answering. One of the intended reserve thousands has been sent out, but the period for the receipt of the other is deferred to the indefinite time of a great crisis. Let me respectfully urge that this is not giving me fair play. Until I knew your intentions towards me I asked for nothing. I should have been prepared to receive, and felt the justice of my receiving, little or nothing. You had been to great expense with my education ; the results of that appeared to end in an unsatis- factory rejection of that purpose for which it had been more especially intended. I gave you a great deal of anxiety before I left home, and did so, if not contrary to your desire, at any rate contrary to your wishes. I should have felt the justice of my not doing so at your expense, i.e. should have felt that I had no right to claim any assistance, and, indeed, was fully determined to ask no aid and only take what was freely offered. It was this feeling which prevented me from even enquiring your intentions towards me when I left a very unwise and false pride, for I now see plainly that had I arrived here and had only my own 220 I must have immediately fallen back upon my education for my livelihood and been little better off than in England certainly not commensurably better off with the disadvantages attendant on self-expatriation. However, let that pass. 1 never made an engagement for a penny beyond what you vii FINANCIAL POSITION 91 actually sent me until I had received permission from you to take 1861 carte blanche, and had reason given me to believe that I should Act. 25 have ^3000 more in my own hands. Then, not at once, but restrained by feeling that you would prefer instalments to an immediate outlay of the whole, I have taken you at your word and have, little and little, made engagements up to within ^200 of the whole amount. I did not at first understand your letters to imply that the whole ^3000, after the ^2000 already sent out, was not to be at my own disposal as soon as I was perfectly clear of my ground j neither do I think that the letters will bear any other construction than that which I put upon them. I regret that I have lost one or two letters from home upon money matters ; I have the one containing the original offer, and I have quite sufficient of subse- quent ones to support what I am here stating; but I have not the whole connected chain, link by link. Now, I do not mean to say that I cannot meet my engage- ments without further aid from you, but that I shall only be able to do so by borrowing money at fully 10 per cent very possibly more, if disturbances continue in America, and if the depression in the money market continues ; or else I must sell sheep, which would be far worse. I shall endeavour to meet your arguments against sending it as best I can ; but the plea I put in is this : "that having once received a definite offer of a definite sum to be paid within a definite time, if required, and a permission to use my own dis- cretion and take carte blanche, any subsequent change is not the less injurious to me from the excellence of the intentions which dictate it : that I have made engagements in consequence of that permission, deferring the payment of the last /iooo until nearly two years after the receipt of this, to me, all-important letter in deference to your wish to capitalise by instalment : that the result of my deference is that I am left in great uncertainty, great anxiety and uneasiness of mind, because I see plainly that your mind has changed and that I do not know what to depend upon." Surely I explained that I should have to make a hole in the last jiooo if I purchased Caton ; search my letters and I think you will find this, indeed I am sure you will. Had you never made the offer I should never have made the engagements ; having made the engagements I cannot forego the offer without heavy expense and great anxiety. Now let us descend to the arguments themselves not that I put in my plea upon them ; I enter into them " without prejudice " to use a legal phrase. Your reservation is precautionary. 92 SHEEP VII 1 86 1 Let me show you a few among many precautions which will Act. 25 be utterly neglected by your present determination. The scab is our great enemy and of that we are in constant alarm. If my flock were to break out scabby (and I am happy to say I am in no fear still it might happen at any time) I have to declare myself, to find securities for jiOO, and to dip within three months and thoroughly clean myself, or forfeit my jTiOO and a similar fine for every 3 months during which I continue scabby. Now at this present time if I were, on my return home [i.e. to Mesopotamia from Christchurch], to be told by my shepherd that he had seen a spot of scab in the flock, I have to erect a dip, to send down to Xt. Church for boilers and tobacco, and make all my preparations for dipping ; in the meantime my sheep are getting worse and worse every day, and consequently twice as difficult to clean as if taken at once and immediately ; in addition to the jioo which I have to pay for my dip, my boilers, their carriage, the tobacco and its carriage, I might be fined twice over ; whereas if I had the materials by me I might dip within twenty-four hours of the discovery and be in perfect security. Until, however, I know that I can have the remaining 1000 this outlay is one which I am unable to make. It is true that I am not likely to be scabby ; sheep on a healthy run do not break out scabby of themselves ; some people say that they do, but, though I have made a very great number of enquiries, I have not succeeded in finding a single instance in which a flock has broken out of itself. The Rangitata, Forest Creek, and the Butler (so named, not by myself, but by consent of the neighbourhood) surround me by impassable boundaries from all but King and Stace, and they will never work their run at least I think they will not. Therefore no sheep can join with mine, an advantage which in other ways, which it would far exceed my limits to enter into, is very great ; it is the greatest advantage a run can have a poorly grassed run with good boundaries being better than a well grassed run with bad, if each are the same size. Mine, however, is as well grassed as bounded. I shall never get a better. I say, then, that my sheep are not likely to be scabby ; still the precaution of erecting a dip and getting boilers up at my leisure would be a very wise one. Now for another : Good rams are all important. In a depression of the wool- market it is the inferior wools that suffer, not the superior quality. Good rams cost from ^5-^10 a head, some as much as twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and a hundred pounds ; these are all VII RAMS 93 prices which have been given since I have been in the Settlement. 1861 Mr. Rich, the man who changed some sheep with the Emperor Act. 2 5 Louis Napoleon, showed me a lamb not six weeks old which he had just sold for ^90, and it was worth it. These prices are given by those who devote their attention to breeding rams, but the offspring of these fine rams are not purchasable under from ^5-^10 a head. I have been obliged to purchase at ^3 a head ; the rams I have are really very good and have thrown very fine lambs, but they are not calculated to place my flock among the picked and choice ones of the Settlement, and I am contented with nothing short. Rams should be changed at least every two years, or else they breed with their own young stock, which is highly injurious. The usual custom is to exchange with your neighbours ; if I had first-class rams I could exchange for first-class, having only good second-class I shall only get first-class by additional outlay. Had I felt perfectly confident of getting the whole amount you reserve for me at my own disposal I should have searched far and wide for the tip top rams I could find, utterly regardless of price, provided I was sure that I was getting as good an article as could be had in the market, of course not trusting to my own judgement in the selection. As it is, my flock is a very fair one, perhaps rather above than under the average, and the rams I have are calculated to improve it ; but it is a much easier and cheaper task to improve a small flock than a large one, and, had I been able to command ten pound rams instead of three pound rams, my present lambing would be worth a great deal more than it is. Do not misunderstand me as having got inferior rams ; all I am saying is that it would have paid me better to get not only good rams but the best I could get, short of fancy prices. In case of depression in the wool-market the advantage of having tip top wool would be far more valuable to me than any reserve of ^1000 in your hands. Supposing in seven or eight years I have twenty thousand sheep, as indeed is not by any means impossible, the difference might, in case of great depression, be upwards of jiooo to me every year. As for woolshed, which is a far less important matter, it is no use at all putting up a bad one. I have sent you word of the outcry against the manner in which we get up our wool ; yet without good wash pools and a good woolshed the wool can never be well got up. It is true I can wash well enough and can manage to stave over next shearing with my present shed, when my wool money will be something considerable as all the expenses of my station, 94 SECURING THE RUN vn 1861 save such wages as are due between this and then, are paid Aet - 2 5 already ; still I would do it now if I could. You can have no idea of the expenses attendant upon starting a sheep run if things are really to be done well, and not after the slatternly fashion in vogue here. And, on the other hand, the returns are magnificent. If you send me out the remaining ^1000, as I earnestly request you to do, my entire outlay will have been 5200. In eight or nine years' time the net income from my sheep should be ^4000 per annum. Every year from date income rapidly increases while expenses remain nearly stationary. In 1870 what is to be done with a run like mine? It is fit for nothing but what it is used for ; and, though there is no doubt that the rent will be greatly augmented, there is no reason to suppose that the government should take our runs from us here more than in Australia ; those in possession stand a better chance of keeping possession than any one else does of getting possession. Not but what we are more likely to arrange the matter with government after this fashion : Long before our lease expires the government will want money to pay interest on the loan for the railway ; we may come forward and say: " Double, treble, quadruple our rent and give us a longer lease." A com- promise of this kind is highly probable by and by, but at present there is peace and quietness unspeakable. And, suppose that in four or five years' time the government lower the prices of land and pay the railway, I for my part should raise every halfpenny I could get and buy at the low rate every spot on my run on which a man could put his hut ; with land at los. an acre I could defy any man to work my run by an outlay of ^1000, or say ^2000, nay say ^4000. You can hardly realise the strategical talent and ingenuity with which I have heard a neighbour of mine point out how best to secure oneself from intrusion ; and, were you to see the country, you would see that in the mountains it is much easier than you would suppose. I have much to add indeed I have not begun to enter into your arguments as yet but Mr. Sinclair, nephew to the Dr. who was drowned at my place, has arrived and is waiting for me to take him up to my place ; his leave of absence is very short and I am anxious to shew him every consideration. My arguments and full vindication of my policy must wait till I return home and be written thence ; you understand that I am in no immediate want of money, if it arrive in nine months from date that is soon enough, nay if I could be certain of its arriving at any definite time I should regard the interest of the loan which I shall be compelled to contract as a light matter ; but let me beg you to put an end to my uncertainty definitely one vii OTHER INTERESTS 95 way or the other. As long as you give arguments you leave me 1861 at liberty to counter-argue, and imply no intention of not sending Aet * 2 5 the money should .my arguments counter-balance yours ; and, though I must urge that I rest my plea upon no arguments but upon your own offer, nevertheless I would far rather receive the money with your conviction than without it. Still, if you have definitely made up your mind not to send it, the kindest thing you can do is to certify me of the fact with all speed ; for I shall know how to make my arrangements accordingly, and be able to do so far better by knowing shortly than immediately before the money falls due. I might find a good partner or make a more advantageous loan than if jammed for time. I heartily trust that you will not misunderstand this letter. I am well aware that any reserve on your part is only dictated by the best wishes for my own welfare ; had that reserve been made from the commencement it would have been all well and good however I might have regretted it now it is a widely different case. Your affectionate son, S. BUTLER. Probably Mrs. Butler intervened and patched up -the quarrel between father and son ; nevertheless Canon Butler did not send the ^1000. It appears as though Butler received in all 4200, that is the 5200 mentioned in the letter minus the ^1000 he was asking for. A passage from the account of his friendship with Pauli is quoted at the end of this chapter, speaking of the amount as 4400. Whatever the exact sum, it was not to be repaid it was considered as advancement in life. In addition Canon Butler sent 600 as a loan, which was intended to be, and no doubt was, repaid. The sheep and their welfare did not, however, occupy all Butler's thoughts. He continued meditating on Christianity, and this letter to his cousin, Philip J. Worsley, shows how far he had been led by the beginning of 1 86 1. He kept no copy of the letter but Mr. Worsley kindly lent me the original to use as I might think fit. The reader should perhaps be reminded that the Worsleys were Unitarians, and it should be mentioned that Mr. Philip Worsley was at this time living with his parents in Taviton Street. 96 RELIGIOUS OPINIONS Butler to Mr. Philip J. Worsley. \ojan. 1861. Not private. 1861 MY DEAR PHIL Thank you for your note. I embrace the Act. 25 opportunity of answering it to resume a communication through you with all at Taviton Street. I have been so excessively and un- intermittently busy that I have found it hard work enough to write home the long letters that I have sent. Now, however, dawns the commencement of what I hope will turn out a long period of repose repose that will afford me leisure for a prosecution of those studies which I am most deeply interested in, and for that mental exercise which I delight in. First, let me congratulate you upon your own happy prospect. I am not in love myself nor ever have been since certain spooney intervals as a boy. I have my ideal and should I fall in with her shall recognise her at a glance, but as yet I have never done so. Still I can sympathise with those who have found the haven wherein their hearts can rest. My enemies doubt whether I am possessed of such an inconvenient piece of lumber at all. I believe, however, that it exists. Let me recant many religious opinions propounded by me to yourself. A wider circle of ideas has resulted from travel, and an entire uprooting of all past habits has been accompanied with a hardly less entire change of opinions upon many subjects. Firstly, I have lost all desire of making other people think the same as myself. If any one wishes to know my opinions upon a subject I can now content myself with stating them as clearly as I can, but I have ceased to regard it as a matter of personal consideration to myself whether he agrees with me or no ; for I consider no man has a right to demand from another that what appears satisfactory to himself should also appear so to that other. This is a very simple thing to have come so far to learn ; but it is one of the many simple things that I have never learnt before. There are many no less simple things that I have yet to learn. I do not believe that there is a particle of important difference between your creed and mine ; I utterly refuse to enter into minute disquisitions concerning the nature of the Trinity, and damn all who differ from me ; and, without going so far as the Archbishop of Constantinople, who affirmed the Athanasian Creed to be the composition of a drunken man, I will not hesitate to avow my belief that it deserves no more attention than if it were. True, I believe Jesus Christ to have been the Son of God as much now as ever ; but exactly how or exactly in what degree I don't care to enquire, for I feel that the enquiry only leads me into vii "A CONFIRMED GRAZIER" 97 paths which human intelligence cannot tread that is if I follow 1861 the enquiry as I should investigate a scientific subject, and do not Act. 25 content myself with a refuge behind formulae and cant phrases of whose meaning, if meaning they really have, I am entirely ignorant. I feel this last paragraph to be severe. It is on my own past self that I would have the severity fall ; not upon those who still honourably and in good truth believe that which I also once believed or professed myself to believe, thinking that I did believe it, and that I should be condemned eternally if I did not. My commonplace book is full of notes upon religious subjects, and in them I can trace the gradual change from my old narrow bigoted tenets to my far happier present latitudinarianism ; but it is impossible to transcribe them in a letter, and they would not interest you as they interest me. From Gibbon, whom I read very carefully on my voyage out and whom I continue constantly to snatch at, I fancy that I am imbibing a calm and philosophic spirit of impartial and critical investigation. Much as there is in Gibbon which we should alike condemn for, however we may admire his sarcasms, it is impossible not at times to feel that he would have acted more nobly in suppressing them he is a grand historian and the impress of a mighty intellect is upon his work. January 23. Cannot finish this. Cannot let another mail pass without writing. Thank Dick for his letter. Best love to Uncle and Aunt, Alice, Nora, and you all. Your aff. cousin, S. BUTLER. Butler wrote many letters from New Zealand to his college friend Marriott, who, in 1882 or thereabouts, at Butler's request, returned them to him ; he burnt them after making a few extracts, some of which he used in The Way of all Flesh for letters written by Ernest when he was doing parish work and his religious views were rapidly altering. In one of these letters to Marriott, 8th August 1 86 1, he writes, in a state of dejection about himself and his prospects : I am now a confirmed grazier : little enough, is it not, for all one's high aspirations to end in ? ... I think I am a Unitarian now, but don't know and won't say ; as for the Trinity I cannot make head or tail of it, and feel inclined to agree with a negro who was heard in church here the other day repeating the Athanasian creed : " The Father impossible, the Son impossible, and the Holy Ghost impossible. And yet there are not three impossibles, but one impossible." VOL. I H 98 RENOUNCING CHRISTIANITY vn 1862 Professor Sale, when I read him this in MS., told me Act. 26 j t was not q u i te accurate ; he was present in church and heard the nigger say " uncomfortable," not " impossible." He was reading from his prayer-book and " uncomfort- able " was as near as he could get to " incomprehensible," which was the word under his eyes. In another letter, I4th August 1862, Butler writes : I do not mean half the arrogance which I express. Hoare [Henry Hoare, another college friend] gave me rather a sharp wigging for a letter I wrote him not long since just a few days before I came to see that the death of Jesus Christ was not real. He says I swore at the Articles. This, certainly, I should not have done : but please think that I am not so conceited as some of my friends suppose. I feel strongly and write as I feel ; but I am open to conviction, and that I can take in more sides of a question than one is proved by the many changes my opinions have undergone. or the present I renounce Christianity altogether. You say people must have something to believe in. I can only say that I have not found my digestion impeded since I have left off believing in what does not appear to be supported by sufficient evidence. As for going to church, I have left it off this twelvemonth and more not because I think it wrong to go to church, but because I do not like going and do not feel any good effects from having gone. When I went last I made a few notes and on returning wrote a short account of what I had heard and felt ; I wrote it without either humour or exaggeration, but tried to put down bona fide what passed within and without me. From this last extract we see that it was not until 1862 that his studies in the Greek Testament at last forced him to the conclusion that Jesus Christ did not die upon the Cross. This was the conclusion at which Ernest also arrived in Ashpit Place, and, as it was the most important event in Ernest's mental development, so it was in that of Butler. The more Butler and Ernest studied the dogmas of Christianity, the less they liked them. I suppose Butler intentionally made Ernest take orders first and find out afterwards that he could not believe all he was expected to teach, because he wanted to put him in a worse fix than he had been in himself; for, however bad it may be to do as Butler did to contemplate becoming a clergyman and then refuse it must be worse in the eyes VII THE PRESS 99 of the Theobalds to do as Ernest did and, after actually 1862 turning up a few furrows, to draw back. Aet z6 Having arrived at his conclusion, Butler began to place on record an apologia for his conduct. Feeling strongly, he wrote as he felt, and stated as clearly as he could his reasons for disbelieving in the alleged death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It took him some time to get all he wanted to say down on paper ; and, after he returned to England, it was printed as the pamphlet which is dealt with more fully in the succeeding chapter : The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as given by the Four Evangelists critically examined (1865). On the 25th May 1861 appeared the first number of The Press, a newspaper founded by James Edward Fitz- Gerald, the first Superintendent of the Province. Butler was an intimate friend of FitzGerald, was closely associated with the paper, and frequently wrote for it ; at one time during FitzGerald's absence he was in charge of it for some months, but he was never its regular editor. Professor Sale was the editor during the first six months of its existence. He was four years Butler's senior and had been educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge; he arrived in the colony in 1861 and, after being in Christchurch for some time, was for thirty years Professor of Classics in the University of Dunedin (Otago). He returned to England recently and gave me many particulars about Butler's life in New Zealand. The Origin of Species, as every one knows, was pub- lished in the autumn of 1859. Copies soon arrived in the colony and Butler read it. In 1880 he wrote in the Introduction to Unconscious Memory : I became one of Mr. Darwin's many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophical 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. This production appeared in The Press, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1 86 1 or 1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had. The Press celebrated its jubilee on 25th May 1911 ioo "DIALOGUE ON SPECIES" vn 1863 and reprinted two of Butler's early contributions, but not Act. 27 t ki s Dialogue. I wrote to Mr. Triggs, the editor, about it, and he searched the files of the paper but could not find it. I gave it up for lost until one day, in 1912, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Butler's literary executor, showed me an entry in a catalogue of Mr. Tregaskis, of Holborn, stating that he had for sale an autograph letter by Charles Darwin to the editor of some, presumably, English news- paper enclosing a Dialogue on Species from a New Zealand newspaper. Both Streatfeild and I thought this could only relate to Butler's Dialogue. I called in Holborn, saw and bought the letter, which runs thus : DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT, S.E. March 24. Mr. Darwin takes the liberty to send by this post to the Editor a New Zealand newspaper for the very improbable chance of the Editor having some time spare space to print a Dialogue upon Species. This Dialogue, written by someone quite unknown to Mr. Darwin, is remarkable from its spirit and from giving so clear and accurate a view of Mr. D.'s theory. It is also remarkable from being published in a Colony exactly 12 years old, in which it might have been thought only material interests would have been regarded. It will be observed that this letter is dated only " March 24." There can, however, be no doubt that it refers to Butler's Dialogue and that it was written in 1863. I presented it to the Canterbury Museum, Christ- church, and sent with it a long letter telling all I could ascertain about the Dialogue. My letter appeared in The Press, 1st June 1912 ; its publication, together with the presentation of Darwin's autograph, stimulated further search, and in The Press of 2Oth December 1862 the Dia- logue was found by Miss Colborne-Veel, whose father succeeded Professor Sale and was editor of the paper at . the time Butler was writing for it. The Press reprinted the Dialogue, 8th June 1912. When the Dialogue first appeared it excited a great deal of discussion in the colony. Dr. Abraham, Bishop of Wellington, N.Z., wrote to The Press an article which O * * Butler in a letter to Darwin (1865 post, p. 124) calls/' a vii "DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES" 101 contemptuous rejoinder." This was entitled " Barrel- 1863 Organs," the idea being that there was nothing new in Aet< 27 The Origin of Species ; it was only a grinding-out of old tunes with which we were all familiar. To this Butler replied with a letter signed " A. M.," and there was more correspondence. The Bishop's article and the resulting letters were reprinted by The Press, i$th June 1912. Copies of those numbers of The Press of 1912 which contain my letter, the reprint of the Dialogue, and the correspondence that followed are in the British Museum. Mr. Streatfeild reprinted the Dialogue and most of the correspondence in the 1914 edition of A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement. In The Press of Saturday, I3th June 1863, among the correspondence, appeared a letter headed u Darwin among the Machines." It opens: " 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 appli- ances," and goes on to say that as the vegetable king- dom was developed from the mineral, and as the animal kingdom supervened upon the vegetable, " so now in these last few ages an entirely new kingdom has sprung up, of which we as yet have only seen what will be one day considered the antediluvian prototypes of the race." The writer 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 have become O to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man." The letter, which ends in the usual way, " I am, Sir, etc.," and is signed " Cellarius," was written by Butler and was one of the results of his reading The Origin of Species. He gave a cutting from The Press, including the whole letter, to the British Museum, and it is indexed under his works there. The letter was reprinted in the jubilee number of The Press, 25th May 1911, and is 102 "NOTE ON THE TEMPEST" vn 1864 included in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912) and in Aet 28 the 1914 edition of A First Year. In March 1864 a small volume (vii. + 73 pp.) was published at Christchurch, printed at The Times office, entitled Literary Foundlings. It consists of pieces in prose and verse by Canterbury writers, and was to be sold at a bazaar held on behalf of the Christchurch Orphan Asylum. The names of the authors are not given in the index, but Mr. Alexander H. Turnbull of Wellington, New Zealand, most kindly sent me a copy of the volume, in which he has pencilled the real names from a list supplied to him by Dr. T. M. Hocken, author of A Bibliography relating to New Zealand Litera- ture (Wellington, 1909) ; and I have given the book to the British Museum, which had no copy. The names include, among others, Canon Cottrell, Dean Jacobs, James Edward FitzGerald, Archdeacon Harper, C. C. Bowen, Mrs. Pauli, and Samuel Butler, whose name is given, I have no doubt correctly, as the author of the article headed "Note on The Tempest, Act III. Sc. i." The passage in The Tempest is the speech of Miranda begging Ferdinand not to work so hard piling logs : My father Is hard at study ; pray now rest yourself; He's safe for these three hours. On this Butler comments : " Safe. If she had only said that ' papa was safe ' the sentence would have been purely modern, and have suited Thackeray as well as Shakspeare. See how quickly she has learned to regard her father as one to be watched and probably kept in a good humour for the sake of Ferdinand." The whole article is repro- duced in the 1914 edition of A First Tear. Butler made many friends in New Zealand. Mr. John H. Baker, Government Surveyor, accompanied him on the journey which formed the basis of the entry into Erewhon. Mr. Baker came to the second Erewhon dinner in London in July 1909, and made a speech giving an account of this journey. vii NEW ZEALAND FRIENDS 103 Frederick Napier Broome had a sheep-station in 1861-1864, Canterbury. In 1865 he married the widow of Captain George R. Barker, Royal Artillery, who was made K.C.B. for his services in the Indian Mutiny. She continued to call herself Lady Barker, and accompanied Broome back to his run. They returned to England in 1869, and in 1870 Lady Barker published her colonial experiences as Station Life in New Zealand. In 1882 Broome was made Governor of Western Australia, and in 1884 a K.C.M.G., after which his wife called herself Lady Broome. Butler occasionally saw them when they were in England. Edward Wingfield Humphries helped Butler to improve his run by lending him, on no security, a con- siderable sum of money at a time when he wanted it very badly ; probably he was expecting money from his father and it had not arrived. Another friend was Alexander Lean, who had a run on the Rakaia river near Mount Hutt. He gave up his run and lived in Christchurch, where he practised as an architect and became Colonel of Volunteers. Butler used to meet him at the club. Professor Sale, writing to me, said of him, " He was a pleasant witty fellow, and took a prominent part in music amongst them." In 1893 Butler received two letters from Colonel Lean, from which extracts are given post, and he wrote in reply a characteristic letter, also given post (II. p. 171). Butler knew in the colony Mr. J. D. Enys, of Enys, Penryn, Cornwall, whom I met once or twice at Butler's rooms in London. The photograph of the hut referred to in the next letter is that from which I made the sketch at the opening of this chapter. I ought to apologise for my sketch ; I did the best I could, but the photograph, besides being faded, is a mere smudge for about an inch and a half all along the left side ; Enys did not take it himself. Mr. J. D. Enys to H. F. Jones. 9 March 1904 My first acquaintance with S. Butler was in March 1862 when he came, with a flock of sheep he was io 4 MR. J. D. ENYS VII 1861-1864 driving to Mesopotamia, to Mr. J. B. Acland's sheep-run on the Rangitata just below where the river leaves the mountains. I went with him to help him, and camped out one night, without a tent, on the way up to his house. Got to Mesopotamia late, and remember saying that some things in the loft over the bed- room looked like casts of hands in the half light of the fire, and was astonished to hear they were casts one of the last things I expected to see in the mountains. There were two huts, one for himself and partner, John Brabazon, who joined him while I was there, and the other the kitchen and men's hut. You are right in saying he had a piano in the hut and often played fugues, and chaffed me for not know- ing one tune from another, and saying what I lost by this. I lent Butler a photo of the hut, which he had copied ; it was built of mud or cob, and thatched with the long grass known as snow grass, a species of Danthonia. On one occasion I rode up to Mesopotamia, and Butler took me to see the place he had chosen for a pig-sty, which he said he thought a good one ; but when I said I thought it a perfect place as the whole drainage went into the drinking water, he remarked that I was dreadfully practical. On another occasion I said I had been to the top of a mountain near, and said I had suggested it should be named after the Scotch shepherd [McLeod] who was the first to ascend it, and who took me up on the second occasion. To my amusement he said he would not have me coming up and giving foreign names to the hills. The answer was self-evident, as I asked him what language Mesopotamia was. When leaving Mesopotamia he took lodgings in Christ- church, and devoted himself to work on the newspaper called The Press. In another letter Mr. Enys wrote : " I never remember Butler drawing or sketching in New Zealand, and I do not think he ever painted. He studied his Greek Testament and read and wrote a great deal. Music was, of course, one of his great delights." From another letter it appears that Butler gave the name of the Two Thumbs Peak to a part of the mountains showing up the Rangitata valley, and was indignant with Enys for the practical suggestion of calling it simply the Split Peak. In the colony Butler knew Dr. Fisher, who afterwards married Miss Arabella Buckley. He also knew Miss Buckley after his return to London. I wrote to her vn CAPTAIN SIMEON 105 asking for particulars of the friendship between her 1861-1864 husband and Butler, and she replied i2th March 1911 : Yes, Dr. Fisher had a sheep-run called "The Grampian Hills " about 20 miles, I think, below Mr. Butler, who used to ride over occasionally and play whist. Dr. Fisher went out in 1854 and made a large practice in Christchurch. He invested money in this sheep-run with a Mr. Wynn Williams, a lawyer, and after he gave away his practice lived a good deal on the run. He sold the run in 1882 and came home. I had known him the greater part of my life, and when engaged to him in 1883 we were walking through the rooms of the Tinworth Exhibition and met Mr. Butler. I shall never forget his look of amazement as he said : " Good Lord ! How did you two come together ? " One of Butler's most intimate friends in New Zealand was William Sefton Moorhouse, the second Superintendent of the Province, whose " brother, Dr. Ben Moorhouse, had a run next but one to Mesopotamia on the plains, some twenty miles off, a near distance in New Zealand " [J. D. Enys]. It was Moorhouse who invited Sir Julius von Haast to come to Canterbury to examine the geological formation of the hill through which, by Moorhouse's exertions, the tunnel was pierced the tunnel of a mile and a quarter which connected Port Lyttelton with the Canterbury Plains and brought the markets of the world within reach of the farmers of the province. The tunnel an enormous work to be undertaken and completed by a small town such as Christchurch then was was opened in 1867. A statue of Moorhouse stands in the public gardens as a tribute to his statesmanship. Here is a note of Butler's about CAPTAIN SIMEON Simeon was leaving the Canterbury Settlement without pay- ing the rent for a house he had taken from Templer of the Waimakiriri. In point of fact the rent was not due ; never- theless Templer attacked him, in words, with some violence just as he was about to embark. Simeon explained that his agent would pay the rent in due course when quarter-day came, and the matter ended. On this a certain man, named Wright, wrote : 106 W. S. MOORHOUSE vn 1861-1864 He was leaving the Settlement, half broken-hearted, For his friends to his going would hardly consent ; But he came to a settlement ere he departed, And the last tie which bound the poor pilgrim was rent. This man, Wright, was seriously ill at Lyttelton, and Moorhouse went over the hills from Christchurch to see him for the last time. After Moorhouse had stayed a little while, Wright said to him, quite naturally : " Be pleased to leave the room ; I wish to die." Moorhouse did as he was told, and in a few minutes all was over. Moorhouse took Butler on the first locomotive engine that ever ran in New Zealand, on its first run between Christchurch and the Heathcote. Moorhouse once said to Butler, " Very handsome, well- dressed men are seldom very good men." On this Butler wrote : I liked Moorhouse very much, and, being young, listened deferentially to all he said. I did not like to hear him say this, for I knew I liked men to be handsome and well-dressed. I have thought about it a great deal during the more than twenty years that have passed since Moorhouse's words were spoken, and even now I do not know what to say. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not. [1882.] Butler, with these words of Moorhouse in his mind, used often to warn me that men with charming manners are seldom to be trusted. But it is open to doubt whether such a warning was ever useful as a prophylactic. One other New Zealand friend of Butler's remains to be mentioned Charles Paine Pauli. He was educated at Winchester and Pembroke College, Oxford, and was about 2^- years younger than Butler. He had a brother in New Zealand whom Butler knew as Resident Magistrate at Kaiapoi. I suppose it was the wife of the resident magistrate who contributed to Literary Foundlings men- tioned above, for Charles Pauli never married. He probably went to the colony because his brother was established there, and he found employment as sub-editor of The Press at a salary of 1 50 a year. Butler met him once or twice in the early months of 1863 at the club, vn CHARLES PAINE PAULI 107 but they never spoke till they were thrown into contact 1863 at the office of the paper. Pauli was a great favourite Aet- 2? with Mr. and Mrs. FitzGerald and with all their children and indeed with every one, for they all admired him and thought highly of him : wherever he went, it was always the same, high and low, everyone was taken with the charm of his manners and appearance. Butler was always nervous and diffident about his own manners and appear- ance unless he was interested in the company or the conversation, and then he forgot everything else. This wore off to a certain extent as he got older, but to the last he used to make bread pills at a dinner-party. After Pauli's death in 1897, Butler wrote in the account of their friendship : I have a high opinion of Winchester men now, but I had a higher then. We Johnians looked on Oxford men as being a good deal above ourselves, at any rate in outward appearance and address. I knew. myself utterly unable to get a suit of clothes that would fit me. Redfarn & Banham's clothes never fitted me when I was at Cambridge, much less did those made for me by Hobbs at Christchurch ; while on my run I generally wore slop clothes ready made. Pauli's clothes must have cost at least twice as much as mine did. Everything that he had was good, and he was such a fine handsome fellow, with such an attractive manner, that to me he seemed everything I should like myself to be, but knew very well that I was not. I knew myself to be plebeian in appearance and believed myself to be more plebeian in tastes than I probably in reality was ; at any rate I knew that I was far from being all that I should wish myself either in body or mind. . . . When I first met Pauli I was younger than my years, and would catch at anyone who I thought was stronger than myself. How it happened that the ^4400 I had had from my father had become ^8000 in between 4 and 5 years, though it had reached me piecemeal, and some of it not till near the end of the time I was in New Zealand, I cannot conceive j the marvel is that I had not lost every penny of it but so it was. My sheep had bred ; wool had kept high and so had sheep ; runs which were pretty cheap when I reached New Zealand had gone up greatly in value. I had got hold of mine bit by bit and had pieced it into a compact, large, well-bounded, and, in all respects, desirable property ; but I was heavily involved with my merchants ; I saw that if things fell as they presently did I might easily be io8 SELLING OUT VII 1863 cornered. I felt moreover that the life was utterly uncongenial Act. 27 to me ; and I thought it wiser to sell and go home, leaving my money in New Zealand at io/, which was the rate of interest then current. In September 1863 Butler was staying at the Carlton Hotel on the Papanui Road making arrangements with this object when one evening Pauli called upon him and stayed talking till midnight. His visit was unexpected ; I had not called on him and had no intention of doing so : I was surprised at his calling on me, but he was doing his best to please, and when he left I was suddenly aware that I had become intimate with a personality quite different from that of anyone whom I had ever known. Butler's affairs took some months to be settled, and during all the time he and Pauli were constantly together. It seems to have been one of those one-sided friendships sometimes met with in real life, as well as in books, when the diffident, poetical, shy man becomes devoted to the confident, showy, worldly man, as a dog to his master. Pauli was not happy in New Zealand ; moreover he was thoroughly out of health and kept getting worse and worse, bearing great pain with that fortitude which he continued to show during many years of ill-health. Butler was fully persuaded that if he remained longer in the colony he would die, and determined to do what he could to avert such a calamity. He was rather apt to take a gloomy view as to the health of any one he liked. Pauli's wish was to go home, recover his health under English doctors, get called to the Bar, return to New Zealand and practise there. The only drawback was that he had no money nothing in fact beyond a reversion to some ^4000 or ^5000 on the death of his father and mother, which was already in part anticipated. I believed myself worth not less than j8oo a year. What could be simpler than for me to say I would lend him ^100 to take him home and (say) 200 a year for three years till he could get called and go out to New Zealand again ? He was to repay me when he came into his reversion, and if more was wanted his father and mother might be relied upon to do it. To me, in those days, this seemed perfectly easy ; and Pauli, I have not the vn THE VOYAGE HOME 109 smallest doubt, intended and fully believed for his temperament 1864 was always sanguine that he" should be able to repay me. Aet - z The plan was agreed upon and they came to England, travelling with James Selfe, a son of the London Stipendiary Magistrate, and Mr. William Aubrey Willes of Astrop, Northamptonshire, who kindly wrote to me on 6th December 1912 with this account of the voyage : We sailed from Lyttelton, the port of Canterbury, N.Z. on June 15, 1864, in mid-winter and in a southerly gale wjiich increased during the first night out to a hurricane ; and we were nearly driven on the coast of the North Island, which was then involved in a war between the settlers and the Maoris, the latter being half cannibals at that period ; and, had we been driven ashore, nothing could have prevented us from being eaten up by the natives. The wind was so high that it broke our main yard clean in half, and I well recollect the noise which the disaster made ; the shock to the little vessel was so great that everyone on board thought we had struck a rock. The vessel was only 400 tons, a sailing bark of American build and ownership, and a Captain Lunt commanded her no steam in those days. Losing the use of our main sail prolonged our voyage very much. We arrived in Callao harbour on the 2fth July. The early morning of the first day in harbour was memorable for the occurrence of a severe earthquake. We were awoke in our bunks at 5 A.M. by the vessel giving a great lurch and every timber in the ship sounded as though it was going to fall to pieces. We stayed at Lima for a few days, and saw the Peruvian army being reviewed upon the occasion of the anniversary of their In- dependence. I well recollect the cavalry were mounted on mules ; and I have a photograph of the scene, as well as other views of Lima which I brought away with me, still in my possession. We steamed up the coast to Panama, which was then a hot-bed of yellow fever. No big steamer could get nearer than about nine miles from Panama in consequence of the shallowness of the Bay, so we were put into flat-bottomed steam tenders which landed us at the town. Whilst being conveyed up the Bay we were followed by immense shoals of sharks swimming after us, looking out for a meal. I think we stayed two nights at Panama, the prevailing occupation of the inhabitants being to look on at various cock-fights going on in the principal streets. We went across the Isthmus of Panama by train of a miniature type, and, as the ticket for the journey of 45 miles cost ^5, and one was charged at the rate of 2|d. per Ib. for luggage, it was a costly no ENGLAND AGAIN VII 1864 journey. I left several nice books, which I was bringing home, Act. 28 a t Panama, not considering they were worth such a high charge. We left Colon, the port on this side of the Isthmus, in a small steamer for S. Thomas where the large steamer started from for Southampton. We touched at Jamaica, en route, reaching S. Thomas Island where we changed steamers. Yellow fever was so bad at S. Thomas that none of us landed there. Our homeward steamer was one of the finest boats of the Royal Mail Company, and was worked by huge paddles. Our captain succumbed to fever soon after leaving S. Thomas, and many of the lady passengers were refugees from the Southern States of America (U.S.), for the war between North and South was in full swing at that time. Our voyage ended at Southampton on the 29th August 1864, and we parted never to meet again. I knew Pauli intimately in N.Z. He was helping on a sheep station about 40 miles N. of Christchurch. I fancy after arriving in England he took up law. Butler wrote the address of his home at his father's rectory in my note-book on landing with a view to corresponding, but our tastes differed and no correspondence passed between us. In Butler's note of his friendship with Pauli it is stated that the name of the ship on which they travelled from S. Thomas was the Shannon, and that they carried j 3, 000,000 in silver ingots, which they saw being brought on board without packing ; they were told it was the largest amount that had ever crossed the Atlantic at one time. Pauli was very ill all the voyage, but no one except Butler suspected any suffering on his part ; it was not until long after he reached England that his health began to improve. And whereas the climate of New Zealand had disagreed with Pauli, it had done Butler good. He had hitherto been considered to be of a feeble constitution, but his open-air life in the colony set him up, and until near the end of his days he seldom had any illness. It is true that in some of his letters, which are given later on, he speaks of being ill ; but after his return from New Zealand until his health began to fail, these illnesses were merely temporary indispositions. Occasionally he would take the view that he was not robust, contending that he was too easily upset for a really strong man. I would then admit that I had known him to pass a day in his rooms, VII HEALTH 1 1 1 and even part of a day in bed. But there was usually a 1864 reason. Once, I remember, it was a bad lobster. The Aet - z consequences were violent, but of short duration ; and he treated the occurrence as a mauvaise plaisanterie on the part of God or the Devil to pay him out for something he had done, or left undone. This, however, did not affect his original point ; it rather provided an illustration in confirmation of the view that a man whose stomach is not equal to dealing with rotten fish cannot with propriety be considered robust. I suppose he was then getting to an age when even those with strong digestions must be careful. CHAPTER VIII 1864-1870 LONDON AND THE EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION 1864 BUTLER and Pauli arrived in London in the autumn of Act. 28 j864, and by September were settled in Clifford's Inn, Fleet Street, in two sets of chambers which Pauli found. The set occupied by Pauli was at the top of No. 3 and the rent was 12 per annum. The set occupied by Butler was at No. 15, on the second floor, the north side of the staircase, and consisted of a sitting-room, a bed- room, a painting-room, a pantry, and a passage with cupboards in it. The bed -room and painting-room looked east over Fetter Lane ; the sitting-room and pantry looked west over the garden of Clifford's Inn. The sitting-room was very hot on summer afternoons ; it had two windows and an iron balcony which is shown in a water-colour by Philip Norman now in the London Museum. Butler lived here all the rest of his life. At first the rent was 23 ; by 1898 it had been raised to ,28, or about 36 in all, including rates and taxes. Water was not laid on and had to be fetched from below in the court. An old woman came in the morning to clean up, make his bed, etc. He and Pauli breakfasted and generally spent the evening together. But Pauli did not stay in Clifford's Inn more than about a year ; he said it was intolerable and he must have a more airy situation, so he went into lodgings in the West End. He was in Clifford's Inn in February 1866, staying in Butler's chambers, with a mild attack of typhoid 112 vm BUTLER AND PAUL1 113 fever through which Butler nursed him. They occasion- 1864 ally went out of town together, and in the autumn of Aet ' z8 1866 spent a month at Dieppe ; at the end of the month Pauli said that, though he believed Butler had been pretty happy, he himself had never been so miserable in his life. So they never went away together again, nor to any theatre or place of amusement, and soon only met for an hour or less every day when Pauli came to lunch at Butler's early dinner. When Pauli changed his lodgings he left off telling Butler his new address unless Butler asked him, so he soon left off asking him. The following is taken from Butler's account of the relations between himself and Pauli : I had felt from the very beginning that my intimacy with Pauli was only superficial, and I also perceived more and more that I bored him. I have not the least doubt that I did so, and I am afraid he is not the only one of my friends who has had to put up with much from me on the same score. He cared little for literature and nothing for philosophy, music, or the arts. I studied art and he law. Law interested him whereas it was nothing to me. He liked society and I hated it. Moreover, he was at times very irritable and would find continual fault with me ; often, I have no doubt, justly, but often, as it seemed to me, unreasonably. Devoted to him as I continued to be for many years, those years were very unhappy as well as very happy ones. I set down a great deal to his ill-health, no doubt truly ; a great deal more, I was sure, was my own fault and I am so still ; I excused much on the score of his poverty and his dependence on myself for his father and mother, when it came to the point, could do nothing for him j I was his host and was bound to forbear on that ground if on no other. I always hoped that, as time went on, and he saw how absolutely devoted to him I was, and what unbounded confidence I had in him, and how I forgave him over and over again for treatment that I should not have stood for a moment from any one else I always hoped that he would soften and deal as frankly and unreservedly with me as I with him ; but, though for some fifteen years I hoped this, in the end I gave it up, and settled down into a resolve from which I never departed to do all I could for him, to avoid friction of any kind, and to make the best of things for him and for myself that circumstances would allow. For the last fifteen years or so not an angry or an unkind word has ever passed between us. VOL. I I ii4 ART AND LAW VIII 1864 But I am anticipating. I have no means of ascertaining Act. 28 now much Pauli had from me between the years 1864 and 1880 or 1 88 1. I kept no accounts ; I took no receipts from him ; the understanding was that he would repay me when he came into his reversion ; but there was no formal document until, about the year 1872 or 1873, he gave me, whether at my instance or his I cannot remember, an assignment of his interest in his reversion to the extent of /22OO. I see from the letter I wrote to my father 4th Nov. 1879 [post, p. 313] that I only admitted having helped Pauli from time to time ; the fact was I had done everything that was necessary to get him called books, fees, etc. and to live. I had more than shared every penny I had with him, but I believed myself to be doing it out of income and to have a right to do it. After he was called, FitzGerald wrote to him pressing him to come out to New Zealand. He showed me this letter, and I said I thought he ought to go. To my unbounded surprise he burst into tears a thing I had never seen him do, though I had done it often enough myself. That, from him, at that time, was enough to settle the matter; but I was alarmed, for I had begun to be uneasy, as well I might, about money matters. [1898.] Pauli was called to the bar in 1867, and took chambers in Lincoln's Inn for his work. He told Butler where they were, so that he could write if he had any communi- cation to make to him that would not wait till they met, but Butler was not to go there. Of course he could have gone, but he did not ; he could have found out in a hundred ways where Pauli lived if he had set about it ; but, knowing that Pauli did not wish it, he did nothing. Butler studied art at the well-known school in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury ; the house is no longer a school of art, but there is a bust of Minerva still (1916) over the portico. The school was formerly managed by Mr. Henry Sass ; in Butler's time it had been taken over by Mr. Francis Stephen Gary, son of Dr. Butler's schoolfellow, the Rev. Henry Francis Gary, the friend of Charles Lamb and translator of Dante. Among Butler's fellow students at Streatham Street was Mr. H. R. Robertson, who told me that the students had got hold of the legend which is in some of the books about Lamb, that when F. S. Gary was a boy, and there was vni "FAMILY PRAYERS" 115 talk about what profession he should take up, Lamb, 1864 who was present, said : "I should make him an apo- Aet * 28 po-pothe-Cary." The students used to repeat this story freely, 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. Any one who wishes to form an opinion on F. S. Gary's ability as an artist can see in the National Portrait Gallery his picture of Charles and Mary Lamb. FAMILY PRAYERS In 1864, immediately upon my return from New Zealand, 1 began a picture which I called " Family Prayers," and which is certainly one of the very funniest things I have seen outside Italian votive pictures. I never finished it, but have kept it and hope it will not be destroyed after my death. The picture is now in my possession and I have no intention of destroying it ; on the contrary I have had it reproduced as the frontispiece to vol. II. of this Memoir. The figures are not intended to be portraits, but the room is the drawing-room at Langar, and the copies of the Carlo Dolce and the Sassoferrato which Dr. Butler brought back from Italy (and so did George Pontifex) are hanging on the wall ; I have seen them at Wilderhope, the house of Butler's sisters at Shrewsbury. The piano is his own piano in Clifford's Inn. The carpet appears to be of an impossible shape, but that is because it is unfinished ; he grew tired of putting in the little touches which represent the pattern. The shadows require explanation. The light falls on the picture-frames from the spectator's right, and on the servants' heads from the left. Many years after painting this picture he wrote in pencil, on the ceiling, the words which appear under the title in the reproduction : " I did this in 1864 and if I had gone on doing things out of my own head instead of making copies I should have been all right." The idea underlying these words that one should learn to draw by drawing and by trying to please one's self, and not by going to an academy n6 DR. HAAST VIII 1864 and trying to please other people is developed in Alps Act. 28 an j Sanctuaries, chapter xiii. " Considerations on the Decline of Italian Art." Dr. Haast, in New Zealand, had been sending plants to Dr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Hooker who, in the preface to his Handbook of the New Zealand Flora (1864), acknowledged his indebtedness to his correspondent ; and later, on page 733, speaks of Dr. Julius Haast, F.L.S. and F.G.S., " whose botanical discoveries have so greatly en- riched this volume." There is a statement among Butler's letters that the publication of Hooker's book was delayed so that it might include plants sent from New Zealand by Dr. Haast. In 1864 Dr. Haast, at Butler's instigation, sent a quantity of New Zealand plants also to Langar, and Canon Butler made out the greater part of them in Dr. Hooker's Handbook. In 1864 Canon Butler was occupied in rebuilding Langar Church, " a fine antient structure " of about 1200. This is why Theobald restored Battersby Church ; and Butler intended to give an idea of the manner in which it was done by including in The Way of All Flesh a reproduction of a careful outline he made of the church at Knockholt, in Kent, that being the most suitably restored church he knew within an easy distance of London ; but it seemed impracticable to publish a novel with only one illustration. Butler wrote many letters to Dr. Haast, whose son, Mr. Heinrich von Haast of Wellington, New Zealand, kindly lent them to me when he was in London. Butler to Dr. Haast. 14 Feb. 1865 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 will 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 vin FOREIGN TOUR 117 it is next to impossible to combine what is commonly called 1865 Society and work. Here are two good titles for mock scientific ^ et: - 2 9 papers "The Dynamical Theory of Grief" and "The Molecular Action of Thought." Might not some good nonsense with half sense be written on the subject ? The time Butler saved by not going to parties was not entirely devoted to painting. He rewrote and enlarged his letter to the New Zealand Press, " Darwin among the Machines," and it was republished as " The Mechanical Creation," signed " S. B.," on ist July 1865 in The Reasoner, a paper then published in London by Mr. G. J. Holyoake. There is a copy in the British Museum. He also wrote other articles (see post, p. 133). In this year (1865) he was twice at Langar with his people. He was abroad from iyth August to 2ist September ; his route, arranged with a view to seeing pictures, took him through Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Paris, Macon, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Leghorn, thence by steamer to Genoa, and back via Turin, Macon, Paris and London. The captain of the steamer was Giovanni Gianni, and Butler used him for the captain of the ship in which Mr. Higgs and Arowhena were picked up in chapter xxv. of Erewhon. In 1865 he printed the pamphlet, which he had begun to write in New Zealand, entitled The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as given by the Four Evangelists critically examined (London, 1865). The author's name does not appear, nor does that of Williams & Norgate, who had it printed for him. It is a buff paper-covered brochure, 7^x5 inches, of viii + 48 pp. and must be very scarce. I believe I never saw it during his lifetime, though he often spoke of it ; after his death we found a few copies in his rooms. There are now three in the British Museum, with MS. notes by Butler. In the preface he says : I have no doubt that the line of argument taken in the following pages is a very old one, and familiar to all who have extended their reading on the subject of Christianity beyond the common English books. ... I may be asked, then, why I have printed my MS. at all. I would answer, because I knew u8 THE RESURRECTION vm 1865 of no English work in which my remarks were embodied Act. 29 and because I am sure that comparatively few, even among educated Englishmen, are aware how conflicting the accounts of the Resurrection are, or how easily they afford their own < explanation if they are at all closely examined. I have asked people over and over again to tell me the difference between St. \ Matthew's account of the Resurrection and St. John's, and they could not do it without the book. Clergymen are just as ignorant upon the subject as laymen. I generally endeavour accidentally to ascertain from any clergyman whether he has a distinct conception of the circumstances of the Resurrection : the result I have found to be so uniform as to assure me that I am quite justified in printing the following pages. . . . My chief regret is that no publisher of position will publish heresy so rank as mine. ... It stands just thus. A man has remarks to make on certain discrepancies of the four Evangelists, remarks which must occur to anyone who has tried to put the four narratives together, and which, even if they be erroneous, should be published in order that their error may be publicly exposed instead of being latently held by hundreds ; and yet no publisher of position can make them public, even if he would, without doing himself a greater injury than he would be warranted in doing. I will endeavour to state shortly the line taken in the pamphlet. We have to consider the evidence for the alleged miracle of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Other miracles are recorded in the gospels but they need not detain us because (i) if Christ actually died and rose from the dead, they become dwarfed into in- significance ; and (2) if he did not die on the Cross, or if, having died on the Cross, he did not return to life, they will be insufficient alone to provide a miraculous basis for Christianity. Let us, then, confine our attention to the evidence for the crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. This is contained in the gospel narratives. They differ one from another in some particulars, but the evidence to be gathered from them is sufficient to support the following statements : Christ and two thieves were crucified ; the bodies were not left on the crosses the full time because it was the eve of the Passover ; the soldiers who came to take the bodies down found that the thieves were still living and vin THE RESURRECTION 119 accelerated their death by breaking their legs ; they were 1865 of opinion that Christ was already dead and did not break Aet- 29 his legs ; one of the soldiers, however, wounded him with a spear, and there came out blood and water ; Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man and a friend, came to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus ; Pilate marvelled if he were already dead, but, having resolved his doubts by asking the centurion, gave the body to Joseph ; Joseph took it down, laid it in a rock-hewn tomb belonging to himself, and rolled a stone to the mouth of the tomb ; the chief priests and Pharisees, with the permission of Pilate, sealed the stone and set a watch ; about thirty-six hours later the tomb was found to be empty and Christ was seen alive. There is no statement that the body was examined to ascertain whether death had actually occurred ; it is not always easy to determine whether a person supposed to be dead really is so ; people have been thought to be dead and have been actually buried, even under the supervision of expert medical men, and yet they have been not dead but in a swoon ; the soldiers and the centurion may have been mistaken. There is evidence that the disciples and also Joseph of Arimathea, when he begged the body, were of the same opinion as the soldiers and the centurion they all believed Christ to be dead ; but this is not evidence that he was dead. There is no evidence as to when Christ left the tomb or as to any one having seen him leaving it. Butler came to the conclusion that Christ did not die upon the cross, but that he swooned and recovered con- sciousness after his body had passed into the keeping of Joseph of Arimathea. " It is not probable that a man officially executed should escape death, but that a dead man should escape from it is more improbable still" (The Fair Haven, chapter viii., rewritten from the pamphlet). The pamphlet concludes : It will be seen in the above pages that I have rejected all idea of fraud on the part of the first founders of Christianity. Joseph and Nicodemus probably knew the truth, but they were placed in a very difficult position : they had no intention of 120 EREWHON REVISITED vm 1865 deceiving in the first instance ; and could hardly help continuing Act. 29 to deceive if they had done what I suppose they did. I need not say with what satisfaction I retain my belief in the perfect sincerity of those who lived and died for the religion which they founded. It has been too common to suppose that there is no alternative between regarding the Apostles as almost superhuman beings or as consummate villains. To me it appears that if they be taken simply as honest but uneducated men, subjected to a very unusual course of exciting incidents in an enthusiastic age and country, we shall find that no fraud should be imputed to them, and that nothing less than the foundation of Christianity could well have come about. The Apostles are generally supposed to have been sceptical beyond all conceivable scepticism ; their hearts were so steeled against belief that they would not be con- vinced by evidence more powerful, if possible, than that of their own senses ; but if I have realised to myself rightly the effect which a well-proved miracle would have upon such men as the Apostles in such times as those they lived in, I think I am justified in saying that the single supposed miracle of the Resur- rection is sufficient to account for all that followed. This idea of what might follow from belief in one single supposed miracle was never hereafter entirely absent from Butler's mind ; it slumbered while he occupied himself with other things, but at the end of his life it woke up and reappeared in great vigour as the chief motive of his last book, Erewhon Revisited, published only a few months before his death. Some of my readers, who are not interested in what goes on in clerical circles, may think that all this about the Resurrection is flogging a dead horse ; they may say that few now seriously accept literally any of the miraculous element in the teaching of the Church, and that many clergymen even, whatever they may say in the pulpit, admit freely in private conversation that they do not believe in the miracles. It is true that we are not now where we were when the question was agitating Butler and exercising such a powerful influence upon his career ; nevertheless the Resurrection cannot yet be included in any category of dead horses. In 1911 a book was published entitled Miracles in the New Testament, by the Rev. J. M. Thompson, Fellow and Dean of Divinity, St. Mary Magdalen College, vni THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES 121 Oxford (London: Edward Arnold). In July 1911 the 1865 Bishop of Winchester wrote Mr. Thompson a letter Aet- 29 which was reproduced in The Church Times of I5th September 1911; the following extracts from it will show the line taken by the author of the book, and also the view taken by the bishop. But you deal with two matters which are part of the Creed of the Church, as that has been, within all our knowledge of it, believed. The Church which witnesses to the great and saving truth of the Incarnation of the Son of God, in which you are yourself a devout believer, has always believed as part of that truth that He was "born of the Virgin Mary," and that He was raised, and " rose from the dead the third day " in the body which had suffered death upon the Cross. You have taken upon yourself, after very few years' inquiry, to teach in popular and lucid form, and with great explicitness, that these parts of the Creed are not essential to it, and to do so in such a way as to suggest that they are indeed false, and harmful to truth and faith. . . . But these things have a wider than personal bearing. I should fail in my duty if I did not declare that in my judgment your teachings are (unless subjectively for individuals) incompatible with the faith of the Church, and if I did not plainly say that they ought not to be issued by one who holds, as you do, a responsible pastoral position under licence from Church authority. Here the bishop states the regulations by which deans of Magdalen give religious instruction to the under- graduates under a licence granted by the Bishop of Winchester. The requirement is, I think, plainly intended to obtain from the responsible trustee of Church authority a certificate to the College that the person in question is, in his official judgment, qualified to discharge, on behalf of the Church, the duties of the office. That certificate is what I am now constrained to withdraw. Perhaps the full significance of some of the bishop's phrases, e.g. " a wider than personal bearing," " unless subjectively for individuals," and " in his official judg- ment " may have escaped me, but I do not think I am wrong in understanding the letter to mean that, with regard to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, 122 APOLOGIA VIII 1865 the Church, in 1911, was still requiring its officers to Aet- 29 teach that which Butler had found himself unable to accept. The story of Christ's resurrection in the body in which he had suffered death upon the cross had not been presented to Butler as in any sense allegorical ; nor as a re-statement of a pagan myth a new version of the disappearance followed by the reappearance of the god, as sunset is followed by sunrise and winter by summer ; those were not the days of the study of comparative religion. The story was offered to him as a sober statement of an event that had actually occurred ; more- over, being a miracle, the laws of nature, which control the motions of the sun and the seasons, had had nothing to do with it ; they had been suspended in order that the event might occur. It was not possible for Butler to say he believed in this while making a mental reservation that he understood the words in some other sense, as that Christ died physically on the cross and rose again spiritually in our hearts. He would not have thought it playing fair, even if the idea had been presented to him. We shall see when we come to his letters on " A Clergy- man's Doubts" in The Examiner that by that time (1879) he had learnt the wisdom of the phrase " surtout point de zele," and was able to contemplate the possibility of a thing being false for a man in his private capacity and true for him in his official capacity ; so that a case may be made out for saying one thing and believing another for the moral rectitude of lying. But his pamphlet on the Evidence for the Resurrection was Butler's apologia for declining to become a clergyman; he was not, in 1865, looking at the matter from an outsider's point of view ; and there is a difference between writing letters signed " One who thinks he knows a thing or two about Ethics " and entering a profession which turns a man's life into a continuous deception, more especially when the man is a clergyman, a teacher of morality, whose life should be an example of straightforwardness for the guidance of others. The difference is that between the advocate and the criminal. vni CHARLES DARWIN 123 Butler sent a copy of his pamphlet to Charles Darwin 1865 and the following correspondence took place : Aet- 29 / Charles Darwin to Butler. DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT. September 30. MY DEAR SIR I am much obliged to you for so kindly sending me your Evidence^ etc. We have read it with much interest. It seems to me written with much force, vigour, and clearness : and the main argument is to me quite new. I particularly agree with all you say in your preface. I do not know whether you intend to return to New Zealand, and if you are inclined to write. I should much like to know what your future plans are. My health has been so bad during the last five months that I have been confined to my bedroom. Had it been otherwise, I would have asked you if you could spare the time to have paid us a visit ; but this at present is impossible, and I fear will be so for some time. With my best thanks for your present, I remain, My dear Sir, Yours very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN. Butler to Charles Darwin. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. Oct. i, 1865. DEAR SIR I knew you were ill, and I never meant to give you the fatigue of writing to me. Please do not trouble yourself to do so again. As you kindly ask my plans I may say that, though I very probably may return to New Zealand in three or four years, I have no intention of doing so before that time. My study is art, and anything else I may indulge in is only by-play ; it may cause you some little wonder that at my age I should have started as an art student, and I may perhaps be permitted to explain that this was always my wish for years, that I had begun six years ago, as soon as ever I found that I could not con- scientiously take orders ; my father so strongly disapproved of the idea that I gave it up and went out to New Zealand, stayed there for five years, worked like a common servant, though on a run of my own, and sold out little more than a year ago, thinking that prices were going to fall which they have since done. Being then rather at a loss what to do, and my capital being all locked i2 4 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES via 1865 up, I took the opportunity to return to my old plan, and have been Act. 29 studying for the last 12 months unremittingly. I hope that in three or four years more I shall be able to go very well by myself, and then I may go back to N.Z. or no as circumstances shall seem to render advisable. I must apologise for so much detail, but hardly knew how to explain myself without it. I always delighted in your Origin of Species as soon as I saw it out in N.Z. not as knowing anything whatsoever of natural history, but it enters into so many deeply interesting questions, or rather it suggests so many, that it thoroughly fascinated me. I therefore feel all the greater pleasure that my pamphlet should please you, however full of errors it may be. The first dialogue on the Origin which I wrote in The Press called forth a contemptuous rejoinder from (I believe) the Bishop of Wellington (please do not mention the name, though I think that at this distance of space and time I might mention it to yourself) I answered it with the enclosed, which may amuse you. I assumed another character because my dialogue was, in my hearing, very severely criticised by two or three whose opinion I thought worth having, and I deferred to their judgement in my next. I do not think I should do so now. I fear you will be shocked at an appeal to the periodicals mentioned in my letter, but they form a very staple article of bush diet, and we used to get a good deal of superficial knowledge out of them. I feared to go in too heavy on the side of the Origin because I thought that, having said my say as well as I could, I had better now take a less impassioned tone : but I was really exceedingly angry. Please do not trouble yourself to answer this, and believe me, Yours most sincerely, S. BUTLER. Butler did not keep a copy of the foregoing letter, and I should never have known of it but for the kindness of Sir Francis Darwin, who found it among his father's papers and lent it to me in 1910. But he kept Darwin's reply, and made two notes on it. If he had kept a copy of his letter he need not have made the note at the head of the reply, for it would have shown that Darwin's letter ought to be dated 6th October 1865. This is Darwin's reply with Butler's two notes : [I cannot make out whether the following letter should be dated 1863 or 1864. It seems to have been written after I had left N.Z., in which case the date should be 1864, but it refers to vin "DIALOGUE ON SPECIES" 125 a controversy that was going on in The Press newspaper of 1865 Christchurch, N.Z., between myself and Bishop Abraham, then Aet - 2 9 Bishop of Wellington, N.Z. On the whole I should think the date ought to be October 6th 1864. October igth 1901. S. B.] Charles Darwin to Butler. DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT, S.E. Oct. 6. MY DEAR SIR I thank you sincerely for your kind and frank letter which has interested me greatly. What a singular and varied career you have already run. Did you keep any journal or notes in New Zealand ? For it strikes me that with your rare powers of writing you might make a very interesting work descriptive of a colonist's life in New Zealand. I return your printed letter, which you might like to keep. It has amused me, especially the part in which you criticise your- self. To appreciate the latter part fully I ought to have read the Bishop's letter, which seems to have been very rich. You tell me not to answer your note, but I could not resist the wish to thank you for your letter. With every good wish, believe me, My dear Sir, Yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN. [I forget what my " printed letter " was about, and have no copy ; but I remember answering an attack (in The Press, New Zealand) on me by Bishop Abraham (of Wellington) as though I were someone else, and, to keep up the deception, attacking myself also. But it was all very young and silly together. 1901. S. B.] This refers to Butler's " Dialogue on Species " men- tioned in the preceding chapter as having appeared in The Press m 1862. In his letter of ist October 1865 Butler says, " I answered it with the enclosed, which may amuse you " ; Darwin in his reply says, " I return your printed letter " ; and Butler in his note thereon says, " I forget what my ' printed letter ' was about, and have no copy." There can be no doubt that Butler sent Darwin a cutting from The Press containing his letter, signed "A. M.," of 2 1 st February 1863. This letter appears among the correspondence following the Dialogue in the 1914 edition of A First Tear. The periodicals mentioned by Butler, out of which the colonists got a good deal of superficial information, were 126 CRABB ROBINSON vm 1865 The Saturday Review, The Cornhill Magazine, Once a Act. 29 w ee ^ an d Macmillans Magazine. In spite of what Butler says in his account of the relations between himself and Pauli, and in his letter to Dr. Haast about his dislike of society, he did occasionally go to other people's houses ; though his friends were not Pauli's friends. I used often to go on Sunday evenings to the house of my uncle Philip Worsley in Taviton Street when I first returned from New Zealand, and Crabb Robinson went there, too, every third Sunday for a dozen years and more, till he was 90 or over. I often used to meet him there and he talked incessantly, telling the same old stories and swaggering as rich, stupid, vain old men do. I was asked to one of his breakfasts once, but I was not a success. I forget who was there except my cousin Richard Worsley, George Scharf, J. Pattisson, and Street, the architect. When the old man died, he left my uncle a copy of Rogers's Italy ; and I fancy that my uncle and aunt, considering how many years they had put up with his boredom, thought it was rather shabby of him. Butler to Dr. Haast. 14 Nov. 1865 I am painting very steadily, and I believe making as much progress as the most sanguine could expect. I mean beginning chiefly with portraits, but feeling my way on to historical subjects as soon as I find the ground pretty firm beneath my feet. No man can work more sedulously than I do, and I cannot but hope that a good measure of success will reward me if I have life and health for some few years longer. I will say this much, that if my hopes are founded on a good basis, and I do ultimately succeed, I shall be the very first painter that ever owned a sheep-run in the Upper Rangitata district. Butler to Dr. Haast. 25 *July 1866 I had already discovered that the photograph I sent you was not Darwin, and I can tell you how. About 3 months after I sent you that photo, which was sold me for Darwin and which I firmly believed was Darwin, Marshman asked me to an evening at his house, and I went. I was to meet a Mr. Wallis [sic, meaning Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace] the gentleman mentioned by Darwin in his preface as having arrived at con- clusions very similar to his own. Lo and behold ! who should vni SPIRITUAL SEANCE 127 this Mr. Wallis be but the very gentleman whose photograph I 1867 had sent you ! I had meant writing to tell you, but put it off. I Aet - 3 Z tried several times to get a photo of the true Darwin as soon as I found how I had been deceived but I never succeeded. I am very glad, however, that you have got one now ; you will readily understand that it never entered into my head to doubt that the photo I sent you was genuine when I saw Darwin written on the back ; neither should I have been undeceived until I got your letter unless I had accidentally met Wallis. However, all's well that ends well. Marshman was Agent-General for New Zealand and this meeting is referred to post, p. 316. It is mentioned in Wallace's book My Life (1905). This is Butler's note about it made at the time and copied into his diary with the spelling of Wallace's name corrected. 1865 Dec. 8 Spiritual stance at Marshman's. Transparent humbug. A. R. Wallace and Dr. Carpenter both there : the former swallowing everything, the latter contemptuous as well he might be. Butler to his Father. 17 Dec. 1867 I wish that next time you are in London you would call at Heatherley's and ask old Heatherley what he thinks of me. He never flatters, and will, I am sure, say very little and commit himself to nothing, but I think he will say enough to satisfy you that he sees no reason why I should not arrive at excellence ; he looks very absurd and at first I thought him very affected in his manner and dress his get-up being dishevelled and what he thinks "artistic " but the more I see of him the better I like him. It is a funny place, too, and would amuse you. This is the first mention I have found in the papers of Heatherley who kept the School of Art at 79 Newman Street, where many artists studied. He died in 1914 aged 89. Butler also studied at South Kensington as well as at Gary's, but after he began to go to Heatherley's he did not go anywhere else. It is unlikely that Canon Butler ever called at 79 Newman Street, but he and his son seem to have been on good terms just at this time, for ten days later Butler was staying at Langar, and wrote to Dr. Haast : 128 THOMAS CASS vin Butler to Dr. Haast. 1867 Now, my dear Doctor, I will give you my bond to paint your Act. 32 portrait for you, if you will sit to me, if you will send my father another cargo of plants. I can do it perfectly well, and you are safe to be in London ere so very long. Also I will influence my father to leave you a very large legacy in his will (Proh ! Pudor !), nay I will do anything you may command (in tolerable reason) if you will only send the old boy some more plants. If you will pay anyone (say) jiO to make a collection any shepherd you may know of I would gladly reimburse you, giving you a cheque on my agent. I say you remember old Darby at my place, don't you ? I'm afraid he did burn that house down ? What do you think ? I should so like to have a gossip with you. I was telling them at the school I go to but the other day about your man and his [mate] saying "bloody" 72 times in 10 minutes ; only I did not mention names. Through the partition in the hut they could hear the shepherds talking, and made a bet as to how often the word in question would be used. He sent to William Sefton Moorhouse, in New Zealand, a study of a woman's head as a sample of his work. Dr. Haast was to see this, I suppose, to encourage him, next time he came to England, to let Butler try and turn out something resembling the portrait of the sculptor Andrea Ordini, by Lorenzo Lotto, at Hampton Court, of which he wrote to Dr. Haast : " It is a very fine picture and really exceedingly like you." Mr. O. T. J. Alpers, writing from New Zealand, nth April 1903, told me that at Christchurch. there is a portrait of Thomas Cass, painted by Butler in 1868, and presented by the sitter to the Art Gallery. Dr. Haast named a river, which joins Lake Tekapo, the Cass " in honour of the chief Surveyor of the Province" (Geology of Canterbury and Westlana, pp. 25-6). Mr. Alpers continues : Cass, apparently, was on a visit to London in '68, acting as Emigration Agent for the Province. He probably amused Butler. He was an extraordinary crank, a survival in the igth century of a crank common enough in the lyth. He believed the viii WORKING TOO HARD 129 earth to be flat and delivered very diverting lectures to prove it : 1868 and yet he was, of all callings, a surveyor ! He came out as Aet - 3 Z Surveyor to the Canterbury Association. A man who refused to believe the evidence of his own theodolite must have been a queer fish. Cass told Butler that in the early days of the colony the Maoris burnt a town in the North Island called Russell. During a truce a Maori said to him that he would shoot no more soldiers. Cass said he was glad to hear it, but asked, " Why ? " The Maori replied that it did not pay : the powder cost him thirteen shillings a pound, and if he did shoot a soldier the Queen could get another for a shilling. " Now," he continued, " it takes three years and a great deal of money to make a surveyor like you ; and, considering the price of powder, you are the kind of person whom I intend to shoot in future." Inuring these years Butler was working seven hours a day at painting, and in addition was writing and practising the piano. He painted at home as well as at Heatherley's and, by way of a cheap model, hung up a looking-glass near the window of his painting-room and made many studies of his own head. He gave some of them away and destroyed and painted over others, but after his death we found a number in his rooms some of the earlier ones very curious. All this incessant using of his eyes, and much of his work was done close to white paper, brought on congestion for which he consulted Bowman in 1868 and again in 1869. In after life he was never quite free from it, though it was hardly more than an inconvenience. When out sketching or walking in Italy or Switzerland, if we came to a fountain he used to take off his hat and hold his forehead and eyes under the cold running water. In February 1869, Cator and Campbell from New Zealand called upon him. It was on some such occasion as this that, having nothing in Clifford's Inn that he could offer his guests, he went to the nearest cook-shop in Fetter Lane and returned carrying through the street a dish of hot roast pork and greens. And they probably drank tea ; as it was an occasion they may have drunk whisky, but during these years the teapot was always on VOL. I K 130 A FIVE MONTHS' TOUR vm 1869 the hob and he seldom drank anything else. He had no Aet - 34 other way of entertaining his friends ; he never belonged to any club except the Hogarth and the Century, and he had dropped them both by about 1880. In November 1869 Butler went abroad, travelling via Antwerp, Brussels, Luxemburg, Basel, Fluelen, Airolo, Giornico, Bellinzona, Como, Villa d'Este, Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Desenzano, Genoa, and San Remo to Mentone, where he arrived about the middle of December. He stayed there painting till March, but did not like the country so well as North Italy : he found too many olives and not enough grass. He went from Mentone to Sospello, Giandola, Tenda, on foot : thence by diligence to Cuneo, Turin, Parma, Modena, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Turin, Macon, Paris, and returned home, March 31, 1870. He stayed so long because of the continued growth of a tumour at the back of his neck, and because of the increase of loud noises in his head when on the point of going to sleep, as though a violent discharge were being made suddenly outside. The first few times the noise came, he got out of bed and went into his sitting-room to investigate, thinking that the crash had taken place there. Both these symptoms began in 1866 and had so increased that Dudgeon strongly urged four or five months' change. I shpwed the tumour to Sir James Paget who said it would be ripe for operating on in five years. Thank heaven it is now (December, 1899) hardly noticeable and the noises in my head have long subsided, often disappearing entirely for months together. Both the tumour and the noises are my storm-signals. When they show signs of returning I know it to be time for me to slacken off work. Neither symptoms became materially better until the death of my father, and some time afterwards. This is the first reference to Dr. Robert Ellis Dudgeon, the eminent homoeopathist, translator into English of the works of Hahnemann, editor for 40 years of The British Journal of Homoeopathy, and inventor of the pocket sphygmograph which bears his name. He died in October 1904, aged 84. I do not know when they first met probably it was when Butler was doing parish work vin DR. R. E. DUDGEON 131 in London before he went to New Zealand ; and, if so, it 1870 was no doubt because of Dudgeon that he contemplated Aet- 3 being a homoeopathic doctor, and hoped that Doctor, his horse in New Zealand, was a homoeopathist. He con- tinued to consult Dudgeon to the end of his life : they were close friends and had a very high opinion of one another. CHAPTER IX 1870-1871 STUDYING ART 1870 ON his way back from his prolonged tour Butler stayed Act. 34 j n Venice, where he met a Russian lady with whom he spent most of his time there. She was, no doubt, impressed by his versatility, and charmed, as every one always was, by his conversation and original views on everything that interested him. We may be sure he told her all about himself, what he had done, and what he was intending to do. As to the former, there was not much to be told ; for 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 any one paid the slightest attention. This is his note about her : THE RUSSIAN LADY AND MYSELF Many years ago (the spring of 1870) I met an elderly Russian lady at the Hotel la Luna. I think I saw she was a Baroness and her name was Von Btilow. She was plain, quiet, and not, at first sight, attractive ; but she took a fancy to me, and we went about together more than once. When I was going away she said to me : "Et maintenant, Monsieur, vous allez crer," meaning that I had been looking long enough at other people's work and should now do something of my own. This sank into me and pained me ; for I knew I had done nothing as yet, nor had I any definite notion of what I wanted to do. All was vague aspiration, admiration, and despair ; nor 132 ix SIR F. N. BROOME 133 did I yet know, though I was fully 34 years old, that the study i% 70 of other men's works except by the way is the surest manner Act. 34 of killing the power to do things for oneself. " Vous allez. crer." Yes, but how to create ? and what ? I had not yet, for all my education, got to know that doing is the sole parent of doing, and creating a little the only way of learning how to create more j still, I went home resolved to do at any rate something in literature, if not in painting. So I began tinkering.up the old magazine articles I had written in New Zealand, and they strung themselves together into Erewhon. It was a long time before I saw my way to a second effort. I thought I was quite used up and done for ; but by and by the idea of doing The Fair Haven occurred to me, and I did it. Ever since then I have had no more difficulty in creating ; my trouble is to find time enough to create what I want to create, and not to ruin myself in publishing it when I have created it. I have often wished I could thank the Baroness (if she was a Baroness) Von Btllow (if her name was Von Billow). Anyhow she was a Russian. But Broome gave me the final shove into Erewhon. Broome was Sir Frederick Napier Broome, who, as I have said above, had a run in New Zealand. He was in England about this time, before being appointed Governor of Western Australia, and called on Butler. They talked over old times together, Butler's New Zealand articles were mentioned, and Broome incidentally suggested their being rewritten. The idea was attractive ; it might not be exactly creating, but at least it would be doing something. So Butler set to work on Sundays and in the evenings. He took for a starting-point the letter about " Darwin among the Machines," which he had rewritten as " The Mechanical Creation," and again rewrote it as "The Book of the Machines." He also rewrote " The World of the Unborn " from an article that had originally appeared in The Reasoner or some other paper, but he did not keep a copy ; and turned the substance of two articles, written about 1865, into "The Musical Banks" and " An Erewhonian Trial." These passages, with a few sentences which he took from memory out of A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement^ were all of Erewhon that was written before 1870, and in this way the book began to grow. 134 HEATHERLEY'S ix 1870 All the time he was writing Erewhon he considered Aet< 34 it only as parergon, subsidiary to the real business of his life which was painting. He made many friends among the art students at Heatherley's. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Johnston Forbes-Robertson, the actor, was one, but he was of a younger generation ; so were Henry Marriott Paget, Thomas Cooper Gotch, and Henry Scott Tuke, R.A., who are referred to later in this Memoir. One of his principal friends was Thomas William Gale Butler, of whom he often spoke as being, perhaps, the most brilliant man he ever knew. Of course there was something wrong with him ; he began to show signs of insanity on leaving England for New Zealand, where he became a dangerous lunatic and shot a policeman near the Rakaia river. The policeman's belt saved his life, and T. W. G. Butler returned home partially restored ; but soon it was necessary to shut him up again, and he died in the asylum of some workhouse. He and Butler were not related though they used to fancy they could detect a family resemblance. Butler always talked in the most open way of whatever was in his mind; and, when writing and thinking about the evidence for the Resurrection, talked at Heatherley's of the Christian religion in a manner that would have confirmed Theobald in his view of the deteriorating influence of the atmosphere of Bohemia. He was once understood to say that the greater number of those who profess and call themselves Christians are really wor- shippers of Mrs. Grundy, whose name can often be substituted for that of the Founder of Christianity, and that no progress will be made until this is generally recognised. " The fact is," he said, " Mrs. Grundy 's carriage stops the way." A remark of this kind would be repeated, sometimes inaccurately, sometimes, perhaps, the other name would be openly substituted for that of Mrs. Grundy ; nor was it always remembered with which Butler the remark had originated. T. W. G. Butler was once taxed with having spoken disrespectfully of the three Persons of the Trinity. IX T. W. G. BUTLER 135 He had not even been present when the words were 1870 spoken, but he gravely considered the accusation and Aet - 3 replied : " No. That wasn't me. There must be some mistake. I cannot have said that because I don't know any of them." "Which of us," Butler used to say, "which of us, I wonder, ought to be in the workhouse asylum ? " Neither Butler nor his namesake at this time had ever heard the famous lines : Qu\ giace 1' Aretin, poeta tosco, Di tutti disse mal, fuorche di Cristo, Scusandosi col dir : Non lo conosco. I am sure about Butler's not having heard of these lines, because I remember his coming upon them for the first time when we were at Pisa many years afterwards ; and I do not think it possible that T. W. G. Butler had heard of them, because when his fellow -students at Heatherley's used to revile him for never reading any poetry he justified himself thus : " 1 don't know what you mean by saying I never read any poetry. I take in The Daily Telegraph and in the spring I study the Royal Academy Catalogue ; what more do you want? Surely that is as much poetical pabulum as a healthy man can digest ! " Then there was Gaetano who, as a boy, had come to London with his younger brother from their native village in the Basilicata in South Italy. Gaetano carried a harp, which I have seen ; it is about the size of the one which Tannhauser brings to the Tournament of Song at Covent Garden. They walked most of the way and paid for their food and lodging by making music Gaetano on his harp and Luigi on the violin. In London they earned money by sitting as models ; afterwards Luigi gave violin lessons and Gaetano became a painter. Butler went to see Gaetano one day in the spring, and found him with a picture finished and ready for the Academy all but the frame, and there was no money to pay for that ; so the picture could not be sent in, and 136 GAETANO IX 1870 must, if possible, be sold privately. Butler offered to Act. 34 j enc | tne money for the frame, but Gaetano was too proud to take it. Butler saw he had made a mistake, but was not going to acquiesce in defeat. In a day or two he called again, and said that a few months ago he had lent some money to a friend, never expecting to see it again, and to his surprise the friend had just repaid him ; as he had had no expectation of this he had arranged to do without it, and therefore did not really want it. It was more than a frame would cost, and he begged Gaetano to take part of it. He told his story with such apparent conviction, overruling every objection with such energy the picture was admirable and would certainly be hung ; to see it on the walls of the Academy would be worth more to him than the value of the frame ; there could be no doubt it would sell, and he could be repaid out of the purchase money ; and so on that poor Gaetano, if only to stop the torrent of eloquence, was forced into accepting the loan, which of course was never repaid. Gaetano assured me, in 1910, that he had believed this story at the time ; but that afterwards, when he came to know Butler better, he realised that it was invented in order to induce him to take the money. And there was Miss Ross, whose brother was an engineer making a railway somewhere in Central America in sole command of about 500 black men, only half- civilised. One of the men announced that he was going to marry the cook, who was one of the few women in the . camp. Ross thought that it would tend to preserve decency and order if the union were not allowed to take place without a ceremony of some kind ; and he, of course, would have to perform it, as there was no parson. He had but one book, which happened to be Tristram Shandy. The people, however, only spoke Spanish, so that did not much matter ; at any rate he determined to marry them out of it. A Sunday was fixed for the wedding, and proclaimed a high holiday. Ross put an old, but clean, night-shirt over all his clothes, and, looking as solemn as he could, read to the assembled people, and to the bride and bridegroom in particular, a chapter of Tristram ix LIONEL SMYTHE 13? Shandy ; after which he declared them, and they were 1870 considered to be, duly married. I have often wondered Aet ' 34 which chapter he read. Lionel Smythe (afterwards R.A.) was another friend Butler made at Heatherley's. He and his two half- brothers, the well-known painters, W. L. Wyllie and Charles Wyllie, had lived for years at Wimereux. In 1869 Smythe and W. L. Wyllie distinguished themselves by saving life at sea. The Illustrated London News (4th December 1869) apropos of a picture, "A Thick Night off the Goodwins," by Lionel Smythe, then on view at the Dudley Gallery, gave this account of one of their exploits taken from The Times : While the two young artists were studying the sea on the French coast near Boulogne, an English coaster was stranded in heavy weather with her boats stove in or washed adrift. The fishermen were unwilling to venture their lives to bring off the crew. The two English painters, after trying their best to get four natives to complete the crew of one of the six-oared fishing- boats, swam off together with lines round them to the stranded vessel. Wading the surf-washed sands, diving under the heavy surf, and swimming the smoother water, they succeeded, at the peril of their lives, in reaching the ship ; and the lines they carried were the means of establishing a communication with the shore and of saving the crew. It is this same vessel which is repre- sented in Wyllie's " Wreck of the Wheatsheaf" also in the Dudley Gallery ; but there is nothing in picture or catalogue to indicate the share which the painter had in the rescue of the fffyeatsheafs crew. Lionel Smythe told me that Butler used to call the time at Heatherley's ; that is, he used to announce when the model was to rest. In other respects, he said, Butler was usually rather silent in the school ; but when he did speak what he said was always worth hearing, though, on the whole, Smythe was inclined to be rather afraid of him, for which, I am sure, there was no reason. Butler pre- served in his notes this story of LIONEL SMYTHE A man heard a certain painter showing a dealer his pictures : 138 THOMAS BALLARD ix 1870 "Ah," he said, "you'd better take that picture while you can Act. 34 g e t it you may have it for a hundred pounds now. It will be two hundred next year. I'll do a little more to the background if you like ; but, if I do, it will be guineas," and so forth. The same man saw Lionel Smythe show a picture he had painted on commission to the dealer who had ordered it. Smythe looked gloomily on the picture for a moment, and then said : "Isn't it a beast ? " and the dealer knocked him off jioo on the spot. I know Smythe very well, admire his work greatly, and think extremely highly of him in every way. The story told above is just like him. Another artist friend of whom Butler had a very high opinion was Ballard. Mr. H. R. Robertson, who knew them both, has kindly written for me this account of THOMAS BALLARD Ballard was one of the best men I ever knew, certainly the most charitable : very poor, but always ready to share his last shilling with any artist or model who was hard up. Sir James D. Linton once said of him that if he were asked in the street for a shirt, he would say, " Wait a minute," would retire to the nearest suitable place and come out of it adjusting his dress, and while buttoning his coat up to the chin would hand over his shirt to the necessitous one. He was very tall and thin, with aquiline features, clear grey eyes, and straggling beard and moustache some front teeth missing. He was an able painter, but quite without ambition. I think he only sent one picture to the R.A. He called it " Spain." It consisted of two separately painted studies of models posed at Heatherley's school and harmonized into one picture by a suitable background. It was well hung in the principal room and sold at once. Fred Barnard made an amusing caricature on the occasion : the old Ballard disappearing in the sky with slouched hat, ancient Inverness cape, and cracked boots, and the new Ballard coming forward with a bow, dressed in the height of the fashion, with shiny hat, patent-leather boots, etc. He chiefly worked for the theatres, painting groups of figures on drop scenes, etc. ; but he priced his work so modestly that it was almost a starvation wage. I remember once when he did a set of panels of Cupids on a blue ground going all round the theatre (Drury Lane or Covent Garden) he contracted to do IX CHARLES GOGIN 139 them at such a low price that when he had paid for the cobalt 1870 used there was nothing left. Act. 34 He was extraordinarily well read indeed he was always reading in the streets, and by long practice he steered in and out among the passengers on the pavement in a most skilful manner. He knew more about the old masters than any expert I ever met. Butler would have endorsed all this. I remember Ballard quite well. I have seen him with a model at Veglio's restaurant, which used to be in the Euston Road, not far from his studio. If, after a day's work, he thought that his model had not had enough to eat lately, he would bring her with him to supper. Appearances might be against him he did not care. He often came to see Butler, and had apples in his pockets which he munched as he walked along the streets. He had them sent to him from Ledbury, his home in Gloucestershire. He always came when there was an exhibition of Old Masters. And then when Butler came to my rooms in the evening he would generally say something of this kind : " You know that Rembrandt at the Old Masters that thing they call a Rembrandt, I mean in the third room ? " And I would reply, " Yes." " Well, Ballard has been this afternoon ; says he is convinced they are right. I don't believe a word of it. Why it hasn't any of the " Here would follow all the reasons for the attribution being absurd ; and it would seem to me that there must have been something like a row between Butler and Ballard. Next evening Butler would say : " I've been to the Old Masters again to see that Rembrandt, and, do you know, I believe Ballard is quite right. What I took for " Here would follow all the reasons for changing his opinion and agreeing with Ballard after all. He nearly always came round to agreeing with Ballard in the end ; he always told him so, and they never really quarrelled. Another of the Heatherley students was Charles Gogin, who, in 1896, painted Butler's portrait. Gogin was one of the very few men who really understood Butler ; 1 4 o REGINALD WORSLEY ix 1870 and the friendship between them lasted till Butler's death, Act. 34 although it was a little shaken for a moment or so when Gogin married Miss Broadbridge, who also had been a student at Heatherley's. Butler always spoke of marriage as Edward Overton speaks of it in The Way of all Flesh, so that at Heatherley's the ladies called him " The Incarnate Bachelor " ; but, of course, in real life exceptional cases arose, and he was unable to put his theories strictly into practice. And so with his cousin Reginald Worsley, whose marriage interrupted their intercourse ; but the married life did not last long, and on its termination the friendship between the two cousins was resumed. Butler made this note of a conversation between Reginald Worsley and his father, Philip Worsley, Butler's uncle. The reader will observe how inevitably the son's few questions shattered the father's position. Reggie Worsley's temperament was uncompromisingly robust, and when he made up his mind on a subject it was not easy to shake him. He had made up his mind about marriage. DR. PARKES Dr. Parkes wrote a book on health, and said that physiology proved the Bible to be right in all it said about marriage which was the natural condition of man. My uncle said : " What a fine man Parkes must have been ! How I wish I had known him ! " My cousin Reggie asked, " Is he dead ? " Yes." " How old was he ? " " Forty." "What did he die of?" Decline." " Had he any children ? " "No." Worsley played the viola, and, as this instrument is, or used to be, neglected, he was in request at gatherings of amateur musicians. " And do you go to St. Luke's, Mr. Worsley ? " in- quired a lady during supper one evening after the quartets. ix ROSE 141 " No," replied Worsley. 1870 "Then perhaps you go to St. Paul's Cathedral?" Aet> 34 suggested the lady. " I have not been inside St. Paul's for some years," replied Worsley. " Or there is Westminster Abbey," pursued the lady. " There is," agreed Worsley. " Well, I can't make out what church you do go to," said the lady. " No," replied Worsley, " but you are having a pretty good try." Another of the students was George M'Culloch, an . admirable draughtsman, but often in financial difficulties. Reginald Worsley had lent him money and had not been repaid. M'Culloch came again with a picture or a mezzotint which he wanted to rafHe, and Worsley was to take a ticket. "No, M'Culloch," said Worsley, "I shall not take a ticket. I cannot afford it. And, besides, I am buying a grand piano." This is the M'Culloch mentioned in the following note about Rose ; and the Ferguson also mentioned was a fellow art- student, James Ferguson, who made the drawing of Butler playing Handel which faces the opening of this chapter. ROSE Rose, the model, had the finest torso I ever saw. He was the model used by Poynter for his well-known picture " Israel in Egypt " ; all the Jews in that picture are Rose. He was sitting to the life class at Gary's when George M'Culloch, Ferguson, and I were working there ; and it was proposed that Rose should be photographed by me, as I had a camera. M'Culloch and Ferguson accordingly came to my rooms, and we took the negative which I now have. A very few weeks later Rose was drowned while bathing at Southampton. His torso was not only the finest I ever saw but I never saw anything in the least like it. All the markings which we see in the antique and accept, though we never see them in real life, were not only there but in as full development as I ever saw in the antique ; with the exception, of course, of the obviously exaggerated Hercules. 142 MISS SAVAGE ix 1870 The head and lower limbs were not remarkable. I understood Aet - 34 Rose got this wonderful development of arms and torso through turning a sausage machine, from which he seems to have ground beauty into his own body. I suppose he ground his sausages to the Lord. Of all the friends Butler made at Heatherley's, the one who entered most deeply into his life, who, with some reservations, understood him best, and who influenced him most, was Miss Eliza Mary Ann Savage. She was of about his own age, daughter of an architect, Humphrey Basker- ville Savage, who was the son of another architect, James Savage (17791852). According to the Dictionary of National Biography, James Savage in 1819 designed the new church of St. Luke, Chelsea ; he also competed for the building of London Bridge and succeeded Henry Hakewell as architect to the Society of the Middle Temple. Miss Savage, as far as I have been able to ascertain, was an only child. From 1862 to 1866 she was resident governess at Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, and at other places in the family of the Rev. John Sumner, a son of the Archbishop of Canterbury and uncle of Butler's friend, Miss Bertha Thomas, who is mentioned later in this Memoir, and to whom I am indebted for some of the particulars here given. After 1866 Miss Savage lived with her father and mother at 22 Beaumont Street. During the early part of the years 1866 and 1867, when the Sumners were in London, she went daily to their house as governess, and introduced one of her pupils to a drawing-class directed by Miss Johnson, who was also a student at Heatherley's, where, I suppose, Miss Savage had made her acquaintance. Miss Savage had probably no serious intention of taking up art as a profession, and I have been told that she made little progress with her artistic studies. When we come to her letters the reader will agree that her sympathies were with literature rather than with painting ; and he will also then agree with a remark made by her pupil, Miss Sumner, in a note written to give me informa- tion about Miss Savage : " She was certainly a most unusual governess." a HANDEL'S ORATORIOS 143 Butler destroyed her first letters to him, I suppose 1871 from a quixotic feeling of delicacy, or perhaps fearing Aet- 35 they might fall into other hands ; but afterwards he kept her letters, and she kept all his, which, on her death in 1885, were restored to him. In editing his remains he preserved those of his letters that threw light on hers to him or that he thought interesting, and also adnotated the whole correspondence. Only a part of it is reproduced here, and when a letter has on it a note by Butler I have preserved his note with the date and his initials in square brackets. The first of his letters to her is undated ; it was written early in 1871 and the note that precedes it thirty years later. Butler to Miss Savage. [Mrs. Briggs was then editing The Drawing Room Gazette^ of which I am happy to see there are no copies in the British Museum, and Miss Savage persuaded me into writing a few articles for it. 1901. S. B.J DEAR Miss SAVAGE I did not understand that I was to have tickets for Jephtha^ and bought my own yesterday. I certainly was not promised them ; however, if Mrs. Briggs likes to strike the bargain with me, I'm ready enough ; I'll write her half a column of criticism for every concert that I go to for which she gives me a ticket ; but I only want Handel's Oratorios I would have added "and things of that sort," but there are no " things of that sort " except Handel's. I send you your Taine. I cannot sympathise with all this eulogy of the Brownings ; I have dipped into bits of Aurora Leigh , and have been exhausted after ten lines j I detest it ; as for the passages quoted in the P.M.G. translation, the first is revolting, the second trite. " The Letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" of our old friend Paul is quite enough for practical purposes, and it is not amplified with advantage. When it comes to saying " Art is life " I give it up ; it is rubbish. I do not like that woman, so I fought shy of Taine, who, too for I did read some of him rapidly seemed to me to be much cry and little wool. Nettleship brought an unpleasant picture of a black beast against a tapestry background (he said it was moonlight, but that was absurd) and two skins of snakes hard by and wanted me to admire it the other day : I disliked it very much, but I liked it better than Mrs. Browning, or Mr. either, for the matter of that. . . . Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. IX I 4 4 EREWHON Butler to Miss Savage. 1871 [Early in 1871] I have nearly finished my book [Erewhon] Act. 35 and am rewriting and correcting the whole : will you read the MS. by small instalments, each about the size of a good long letter, at a time? If so, I will send you some at once. It is meant to be entertaining and is not more than 200 printed pages. I am not at all sure that I shall publish it, and you may save me from committing a grave indiscretion. Will you or will you not ? I should very much like your opinion. Evidently Miss Savage agreed, for about two days later he sent her some of the MS. asking her to make a pencil cross wherever she disapproved. The passage I like best is my reflection on my attempted conversion of Chowbok. [And now, July 2jth, 1901, this is one of those which I dislike most and would most willingly cancel. S. B.] From this time until her death, in 1885, Butler submitted to Miss Savage everything he wrote, and remodelled it in accordance with her criticisms and suggestions. It must have been while she was reading the MS. of Erewhon that she said to him : " I can't help thinking how stupid I have been to have known you all these years and never to have found you out," meaning that during all the time since they had first met he had never impressed her as being other than an ordinary person. Butler to Miss Savage. [End of April or beginning of May^ 1871] Can you name a time and place when and where I can trespass on your good nature further ? And yet I cannot call it trespassing, for one can only trespass on things that have bounds, and your good nature has none. I have condensed, cut out, transposed, amended, emended, and otherwise improved the MS., but there are a few points about which I am still in doubt and should be very thankful for a little further advice. . . . They have hung one picture for me at the Academy [called in the catalogue " A Reverie," probably a girl's head]; it does not ix VARALLO-SESIA 145 look well but that is not their fault. I was there all yesterday ; 1871 it is a capital exhibition. This morning I have been to the Inter- Act. 35 national, which is also a capital exhibition, much better than I expected and in such pretty galleries. . . . As regards the World of the Unborn, I have seized on what you said about our having come here to avoid the prosing of the didactic old parties in the World of the Unborn, and have made it, so far as it will go, an apology for having been so didactic. The next chapter opens with it. In 1871 Butler went abroad early in May, travelling via Antwerp, Cologne, Mayence, Carlsruhe, Basel, Gersau, Altdorf, Amsteg, Wasen, Hospenthal, and Bellinzona to Arona, on the Lago Maggiore, where he stayed some time, crossing over the lake nearly every day to Angera and the Rocca Borromeo where he sketched. From Arona he went to Varallo-Sesia, and stayed there some weeks at the Albergo d' Italia. He was led to go there by the accounts he had heard of the Sacro Monte, and of its frescoed chapels full of life-size, terra-cotta, painted figures representing scenes from the life of Christ. The first thing to be done was to find some one to show him round ; and Carlo Topini, who afterwards became landlord of the Albergo della Posta, but who was then at the Italia, introduced him to Dionigi Negri, the Town-Clerk of Varallo. Dionigi became his cicerone, and the friendship thus begun lasted till Butler's death. He visited Fobello and Arona, whence he wrote Miss Savage the letter that follows ; then he spent a day or two at Bergamo, crossed the Splttgen, and returned home in September. Miss Savage had business that took her to Crane Court ; perhaps the office of The Drawing Room Gazette was there. In going down Fetter Lane she must have been trying to locate the windows of Butler's rooms : Butler to Miss Savage. HOTEL D' ITALIE, ARONA, Sund. Sep. u, 1871. DEAR Miss SAVAGE Yes, the window with the canvas in it that you can see from Fetter Lane is my window. [Sampson VOL. I L 146 MUSICAL CRITICISM 1871 Low & Co.'s house has been built since before then my back ct- 35 room looked out on to an open space and then on to Fetter Lane. 1901. S. B.] Will you and Miss Johnson come some day and see my rooms ? . . . I liked Fobello. Ask me about the offertory when I come back, and the selling the wax arms and legs ; and the pictures (votive) of the women, in leggings and short blue petticoats trimmed with scarlet, falling from the tops of high ash trees when gathering leaves for the cattle, and the saints with very large gridirons who appeared underneath them and broke their fell ; and the woman who was tossed by a cow, and the outrushing of the whole family to see what the matter was ; and the dreadful little fat man in a blue tail coat and brass buttons, who stood in the middle of the picture and broke a blood-vessel at the saint till the blood on the ground stood upright as an heap, and he points reproachfully to it and implores his patron saint's assistance ; and the woman who was dug out of the avalanche ; and the gentleman who built a chapel and then brought his wife and all the servants to see how beautiful it was so there they stand in every attitude of ecstasy. Yours, S. BUTLER. In November 1871, Miss Savage wrote to him about A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement^ and taxed him with having concealed it from her. Butler to Miss Savage. I fancied myself pretty safe from detection. The Heather leys detected me some two years ago, and I implored their silence. They both read it. I hate the book, but there it is ; I have never summoned up courage to read it. On its being sent out to me when I was in N.Z. I opened two or three pages and was so disgusted that I never touched it from that day to this, but I cribbed a few sentences here and there from recollection (not more than two or three) for my MS. [Erewhon"]. I am afraid my criticism of "Jephtha was too flippant. I wrote it and Mrs. Briggs seized it at once and put it in with all its faults. I never can see my own folly till some days after I have committed it. I am not to be trusted to write three lines unless I can keep them three weeks. Shall I write a short criticism of Israel in Egypt for this week ? If so, drop a post-card at once. Did you notice the bit of naughtiness in my review ofjephtha about Handel's having evidently had Polyphemus in view when he wrote the overture ? If, as they say, whether truly or not for I doubt it he wrote his overture last with a view to summing up ix A FOBELLO CHRISTENING 147 the spirit of the whole work, it is noticeable that he should have 1871 reverted so nearly to " the monster Polyphe-heme " for his overture Act. 35 to Jephtha. Was it unconsciously present to his mind that God's treatment of Jephtha was something like that of Polyphemus in respect of Acis ? I am crawling on with the re- writing of my MS. [Erew hon], but can only write on Sundays. Also I have begun my picture of the Fobello christening. [I forget whether this picture ever got finished yes, it did I sent it to the Academy and it was rejected, quite rightly. I know I gave it to somebody, but I forget who. I wish I had destroyed it. 1901. S. B.] I possess a water-colour sketch for this picture ; the people are standing in the church porch, the women wearing the costume of the country with short skirts showing their leggings ; the father is holding the baby up to the priest, who has just come out of the church. The priest's house is seen to the left through the columns of the porch ; and to the right on sloping green fields are the trees which are stripped by the women who wear the leggings and short petticoats and fall off the trees and get put into the votive pictures, and the leaves are mixed with the mown grass to increase the hay. Probably Butler gave the picture to Gaetano ; he often gave him his old pictures and Gaetano sometimes sold them with Butler's knowledge ; it was a way of helping Gaetano and at the same time of getting out of his sight an object that had begun to bore him. These two extracts will show what he means by " the monster Polyphe-heme " ; the first is from the alto part of the great chorus " Wretched lovers " in Acis and Galatea : the mon-ster Po-ly - phe-heme the mon-ster Po-ly-phe-heme the mon-ster Po-ly - phe-heme The second is the opening of the fugue in the overture to Jephtha : Butler was constantly noting similarities between 148 EREPTHON CONDEMNED ix 1871 different passages in Handel, e.g. between " The goodly Aet - 3 6 fellowship of the Prophets " (Dfttingen Te Deum) and the Muses singing round Jove's altar (L' Allegro and II Penseroso] ; and again between " Thou by God and man detested " in " Envy, eldest born of Hell " (Saul) and "A Man of Sorrows" in "He was despised" (Messiah). Sometimes he noted similarities between the music and what he thought it was describing, e.g. " The overture to Alexander's Feast is full of the hurry and bustle of servants going to and fro with plates and dishes." Near the end of 1871 Erewhon was finished, and Butler was looking for a publisher. He sent the MS. to Chapman & Hall, whose reader, George Meredith, condemned it, and Butler made this note : This is not strange, for I should probably have condemned his Diana of the Crossways, or indeed any other of his books, had it been submitted to myself. No wonder if his work repels me that mine should repel him. [1899. $. B.] He then tried Triibner & Co. who ultimately pub- lished the book, though not at their own risk. Butter to Miss Savage. Dec. i8M, 1871 Trflbner & Co. have my book again. They never so much as looked at it before, and said they supposed it was something to do with the Contagious Diseases Act. Now I am to pay their reader a guinea for reading it and giving an opinion ; I shall then have the right to bully him and tell him he is a fool if he does not like it. I toned down that description of the organ which I read you the other day and which you did not like. [She was quite right ; if I could tone it down more, or tone it out of the book, I would do so. 1901. S. B.] CHAPTER X 1872 EJLEWHON Butler to Miss Savage. 1872 [probably January'] I write a line to say that I have 1872 just had from Triibner & Co. a very favourable report of my Aet - 3 6 MS. I could wish nothing handsomer. Still, Trttbner does not say whether he will take the risk or no. When and where shall I meet you and show you the letter ? I daresay it is all humbug and you will see through it directly, but I have bolted it whole. If Triibner won't take the risk I'll get the money from some- where or other. [Henry Hoare lent me the money to do it with, otherwise I do not know what I should have done. 1901. S. B.] Butler to Miss Savage. [About February 1872] Three lines to say that the first proof has reached me ; only about 12 pages to the end of the scene with Chowbok in the woolshed ; I am not in doubt or I would send the proof. It reads very well, and the type is excellent ; even Pauli, who has been the most freezing critic hitherto (in so far as he could be got to listen to a passage here and there), thawed a little as he read ; the fact is he is frightened out of his wits about it, and expects my father to cut me off with a shilling ; but he dares not say this because he knows I should fly at him if he advised me to let my father's will enter into the matter at all. Butler to Miss Savage. March 1872 I know you are ill. I knew you were ill yesterday, and yet I plagued you with my book. I thought at times how selfish I was nevertheless I did it. I think you had 149 150 UNIQUE COPY OF EREWHON x 1872 better tell me about your "presumptuous resolution." 'Twill Act. 36 d o no harm. My impression is that I shall not think it presumptuous. I strongly suspect that your people plague you very strongly ; it is a wicked world, and there are few who fail to make them- selves unpleasant if they have the power to do so. Butler to Miss Savage. Mar. 29, 1872. DEAR Miss SAVAGE Erewhon is out and will be advertised to-morrow. I have your copy the sample copy, i.e. the first issued. I have written your name in it to make sure; also an inscription in which there is bad grammar and bad writing. Shall you be coming down to Crane Court ? If so please to call and you shall have it ; otherwise I will take it to Miss Johnson's. Yours, S. BUTLER. This copy of Erewhon was sold in 1914 by Bertram Dobell, second-hand bookseller, Charing Cross Road. Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell told me he had seen this entry in Dobell's catalogue : " Unique copy with the following note in the author's handwriting : * To Miss E. M. A. Savage this first copy of Erewhon with the author's best thanks for many invaluable suggestions and corrections,' i : 10 : o." When Mr. Cockerell inquired for the book it was already sold. I saw Mr. Dobell and got him to follow the purchaser, who unfortunately had already parted with the book. Butler to Miss Savage. [Early April 1872] 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. DEAR Miss SAVAGE I have been meaning to write or call or both for days, but the Academy [sending-in day] is too near and I have been at my stupidest as soon as the day's work was done. Thank you for your letter of which the sarcastic part was delightful and the praising, if possible, more so. I know I shall become one of the most tedious bores in England if I only get the chance. . . . I have heard nothing more about the book except the verdict of one or two friends' friends ; on the whole I think their reports sound well, but am always sceptical about what my friends say unless it is by way of scolding. Mr. Heatherley said it did not drag and that it interested him throughout. I lay great stress on Gogin's liking it; he would not stand being bored beyond 1872 reasonable limits. A friend of Pauli's, one of the proctors this Act. 36 year, read it and satisfied Pauli of his approval handsomely. Giles, who has brains, read it through, from end to end, twice beginning again as soon as he had done ; he told me it had not fetched him up anywhere for want of interest, and I think from his manner that he meant it. I fancy I see my way to getting some reviews, but it is rather early yet. I have got to finish my pictures and send them in to-day, so no more from Yours, S. BUTLER. The opening chapters of Erewhon might almost have come out of A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, so like are the descriptions of New Zealand to the accounts of his excursions looking for country. The statues, of course, he invented ; he used to say of the great Handelian chords which they moan : " One feels them in the diaphragm they are, as it were, the groaning and labouring of all creation travailing together until now." The only passage cribbed from the Canterbury book which I have found in Erewhon is that in which he speaks of the New Zealand rivers forking and re-uniting " like tangled skeins of silver ribbons." But there is another parallel passage in chapter iv. of Erewhon, after Chowbok has left him and he is in difficulties alone in the gorge. " I had indeed a narrow escape ; but, as luck would have it, Providence was on my side." This may be taken to be a hit at his father's preface to A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement, and his being providentially induced to change his ship. THE GEOGRAPHY OF EREWHON Up as far as the top of the pass, where the statues are, keeps to the actual geography of the Upper Rangitata district, except that I have doubled the gorge. There was no gorge up above my place [Mesopotamia] and I wanted one, so I took the gorge some ten or a dozen miles lower down and repeated it, and then came upon my own country again, but made it bare of grass and useless instead of (as it actually was) excellent country. Baker and I went up the last saddle we tried, and thought it was a pass to the West Coast, but found it looked down on to the headwaters of the Rakaia ; however, we saw a true pass opposite, just as I have described in Erewhon^ only that there were no clouds and we never 152 HERBERT EDWIN CLARKE x 1872 went straight down as I said I did, but took two days going round Act. 36 by Lake Heron. And there is no lake at the top of the true pass. This is the pass over which, in consequence of our report, Whitcombe was sent and got drowned on the other side. We went up to the top of the pass, but found it too rough to go down without more help than we had ; I rather think I have told this in my N.Z. book, but am so much ashamed of that book that I dare not look to see. I don't mean to say that the later books are much better ; still they are better. They show a lot of stones on the Hokitika Pass, so Mr. Slade told me, which they call mine, and say I intended them in Erewhon [for the statues]. I never saw them and knew nothing about them. [1884. S. B.] The view of the plains of Erewhon is the view of the plains of Lombardy from some such point as the Campo dei Fiori above the Sacro Monte di Varese, and the going down into Erewhon is the going down through the Leventina Valley in the Canton Ticino. The people he first meets with are drawn from North Italian peasants, who are dark, and, as he had to differ from them, he said he was himself fair ; but really he was also dark, or he would not have been taken for a Maori. Erewhon at once took its place in the front rank among works of satire and imagination. It describes an undiscovered country where ill-health is punished as a crime and those who commit what we should call crimes are treated in hospitals ; it also contains The Book of the Machines, The Musical Banks, and much else that is original and interesting. For instance, there is the trial of a man found guilty of suffering from pulmonary con- sumption ; Butler took the judge's summing up from a newspaper report of a trial of a man found guilty of, if I remember rightly, theft, with scarcely more alteration than the name of the offence. I first made Butler's acquaintance, as will be related hereafter (post, p. 231), partly through one of my college friends, John Alexander Elder, who was a son of Alexander Elder of the firm of A. L. Elder & Co. of St. Helen's Place, Bishopsgate. Through John Elder I also made the acquaintance of one of the clerks of the firm, Herbert Edwin Clarke (1852-1912), who became well known as x LION-HOOD 153 a poet and literary man. The firm of A. L. Elder & Co. 1872 had dealings with New Zealand ; they were agents, among Aet- 3 others, for Butler's friend Mr. J. D. Enys, and received his wool. Clarke told me that in the course of business he often saw bales of wool branded " Erewhon," which came from a township some 50 miles west of Napier in the Hawke Bay province, North Island, named after Butler's book ; it will be found marked on the maps. One of my New Zealand correspondents has since told me that not only is there a township called Erewhon, but that people sometimes call their houses after Butler's book, and sometimes spell it " Erehwon," which is not what the author intended. In reversing the letters of " Nowhere " he treated " wh " as a single irreversible symbol, as one would treat " th " or " qu." Erewhon was translated into Dutch in 1873 and into German in 1879. The sensation created by Erewhon led to Butler's having to undergo a period of lion-hood. He was never a very lionisable kind of man, and his view of the matter will appear from this note made in June 1887 and revised in 1898 : JOHN MORLEY, SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN, AND MYSELF When I was at Cambridge I met [Sir George] Trevelyan once or twice at Raikes's rooms. I was told he was a genius ; and feeling myself still weak, formless, and all uncertain of my ground, I was overawed by one who I thought really did know things of which I well knew that I was myself mainly intent on trying to conceal my ignorance. I had neither strength nor imagination to suspect that Trevelyan might be just as weak, formless, and intent on concealing ignorance as I was j besides he played his part better and took in a good many people, whereas I took in but few. Henry Hoare and [Sir W. T.] Marriott used to tell me I should try and be like Trevelyan, and I believed them ; never- theless, it never got beyond a sense of duty j I knew I did not want to be like Trevelyan, and could not, even though I tried. When I met him I expected to be dazzled as well as overawed j I was overawed, but not dazzled, for Trevelyan said hardly any- thing, and this, while making me uncomfortable, frightened me ; for it made me think he must know himself to be so strong. 154 JOHN MORLEY x 1872 I came away with a sense that I had been uncomfortable, but still Act. 36 too weak to venture on rebellion even in my thoughts, and always spoke of Trevelyan as the genius my friends and neighbours said he was. At that time I used still to echo my poor mother who called that old fool Professor Kennedy a genius. 1 I have since found that this silence trick is common with people who would get reputation cheaply. Rossetti, the painter, played it when I met him in Wallis's rooms shortly after Erewhon appeared ; he sat still, moody, impenetrable ; but this was the best part of twenty years later, and though still very ignorant and timid I was beginning to feel my feet, and to be more rebellious in my own mind. Now, I am free to confess, I feel fairly strong, though whether I really am so or not is a matter on which I know that my opinion goes for little. To return, however, to Trevelyan, or rather to John Morley, who was the other man whom Hoare and Marriott used to hold up to me as one whom I ought to attempt to follow in all humility, no matter at how great a distance. When Erewhon came out Hoare and Marriott kept urging me to try and imitate John Morley's style, so I got his Voltaire and disliked it very much. Then I was to meet Morley. Marriott was to give a dinner and Morley and I were to be brought together. This came off; Marriott gave a splendid feed, which I regret to say I have never to this day returned, and Morley and I were put to sit in the middle of the table side by side, and there was to be a feast of reason and a flow of soul a part of the programme which did not come off. Morley talked a great deal, and so, I have no doubt, did I ; but I cannot, happily, remember one syllable that was said by either of us ; all I remember is that I disliked and distrusted Morley. In those days I was even more intolerant of Liberals than I am now, and I knew him to be a Liberal, as was Marriott, who had not yet got into Parlia- ment, much less joined the Conservative party. I met Morley again a year or two later at Marriott's, and again we did not like each other ; but by this time my short-lived laurels had begun to fade, and Erewhon was passing for a book of which a good deal too much had been made. I may say in passing that I do not wonder at people's saying that Erewhon had been made too much of. I believe Erewhon to be all very well as a beginning, but nothing more. Of my later books I think to the full as well as any one else does. I do not doubt that Erewhon owed its success in great measure to its having appeared anonymously ; my Uncle Philip [Worsley] to this day is fond of telling me that this was so. I do not like my 1 This is why Christina calls Dr. Skinner a genius in The Way of all Flesh. x LANGAR AND EREWHON 155 Uncle Philip, but believe him to be right in saying what he does. 1872 The reviewers did not know but what the book might have been Act. 36 written by a somebody whom it might not turn out well to have cut up, and whom it might turn out very well to have praised. In writing the concluding sentence of this note Butler was thinking of The Coming Race (1871). The Diction- ary of National Biography, speaking of the author, Lord Lytton, says, that the book " made a great success although he kept the authorship secret until his death," which occurred in January 1873, which was after Butler had announced that he was the author of Erewhon. Never- theless it is quite likely that Butler was right in supposing that the reviewers of Erewhon had Lord Lytton in their minds, for there must have been rumours as to who had written The Coming Race long before January 1873. At all events, as soon as The Athenaeum announced that Erewhon was by a nobody the demand fell 90 per cent. Probably Butler's reason for having his name announced was that he had confided in so many of his friends that it was not of much use to make a pretence of preserving secrecy. He was aware, however, that the announcement would be copied by other papers, and, not wishing his people to hear the news first from a public source, he wrote to Langar on the 28th of May and confessed at some length, saying how well the book had been received. " This," as he wrote to Miss Savage, " was injudicious." The situation can be reconstituted by any reader of The Way of all Flesh, who imagines Ernest confessing to Battersby that he was the author of such a book as TLrewhon. Theobald would not greatly care whether Ernest's name appeared or no ; he would be willing to believe that it had been withheld in the first instance in order not to cause pain to his family, but that would not lessen his grief that Ernest should have written such a book ; as to his feeling any satisfaction in Ernest's success, Theobald would, on the contrary, rejoice to find it as ephemeral as he was disposed to hope and believe it might turn out to be ; and there would perhaps be some edifying reference to the golden calf or the house of Rimmon ; and since, for the present, Ernest's visits could 156 THE MACHINES x 1872 only be distressing, he was not to come to Battersby. Act. 36 ^ n j Christina would write that everything tending to confirm her in the knowledge of how far apart were their views and feelings and hopes was a blow to her ; but she would have no right to be surprised, having had little hope that it would be otherwise ; and then she would put away her own selfish sorrow, and force herself to conclude her letter by writing cheerily on general topics. And there would be a little letter, also, from Charlotte, saying that she thought perhaps he did not quite realise how sad and disturbed they all were at home, and she would think to tell him a little about it, and to ask him to send a little word of sympathy, just to show that he understood a little how hard it must be for them all not that she thought he did not quite realise, but that . . ., and so on ; wherein the abundance of "little's" and "thought's" would compensate for the absence of " bright," a word which her artistic instinct would prompt her not to use on an occasion of such deep sorrow. Butler to Charles Darwin. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, FLEET STREET, E.C. May n, 1872. DEAR SIR I venture upon the liberty of writing to you about a portion of the little book Erewhon which I have lately published, and which I am afraid has been a good deal misunder- stood. I refer to the chapter upon Machines in which I have developed and worked out the obviously absurd theory that they are about to supplant the human race and be developed into a higher kind of life. When I first got hold of the idea, I developed it for mere fun and because it amused me and I thought would amuse others, but without a particle of serious meaning ; but I developed it and introduced it into Erewhon with the intention of implying : " See how easy it is to be plausible, and what absurd propositions can be defended by a little ingenuity and distortion and departure from strictly scientific methods," and I had Butler's Analogy in my head as the book at which it should be aimed, but preferred to conceal my aim for many reasons. Firstly, the book was already as heavily weighted with heterodoxy as it would bear, and I dared not give another half ounce lest it should break the camel's back ; secondly, it would have interfered with the plausibility of the argument, and I looked x FIRST VISIT TO DOWN 157 to this plausibility as a valuable aid to the general acceptation of i8j 2 the book ; thirdly, it is more amusing without any sort of Aet - 3 6 explanation, and I thought the drier part that had gone before wanted a little relieving ; and also the more enigmatic a thing of this sort is, the more people think for themselves about it, on the principle that advertisers ask "Where's Eliza?" and " Who's Griffiths ? " I therefore thought it unnecessary to give any disclaimer of an intention of being disrespectful to The Origin of Species^ a book for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, though I am well aware how utterly incapable I am of forming any opinion on a scientific subject which is worth a moment's consideration. However, you have a position which nothing can shake ; and I knew very well that any appearance of ridicule would do your theories no harm whatever, and that they could afford a far more serious satire than anything in Erewhon the only question was how far / could afford to be misrepresented as disbelieving in things which I believe most firmly. On thinking it over, I determined to say nothing in the preface, but to wait for a second edition before explaining that is, if a second edition was called for. On the whole I think I did wisely, though I am sincerely sorry that some of the critics should have thought that I was laughing at your theory, a thing which I never meant to do, and should be shocked at having done. I am, Sir, Yours respectfully, S. BUTLER. P.S. Let me beg of you not to trouble to answer this letter. I do not find any reply to the foregoing letter, but there must have been a reply ; and it, or some subsequent letter, must have contained an invitation from Mr. Darwin for Butler to visit him at Down from a Saturday to Monday. He went, and met Woolner the sculptor. His host was very civil and complimentary about Erewhon^ and the visit seems to have gone off quite pleasantly. On the 3 s Savage gave as her greatest faults " Lying and covetous- ness." And he adds: "The company was a good deal scandalised." In November, on the invitation of Mr. Francis Darwin, Butler paid another visit to Down. He thought he was received by Charles Darwin with a certain amount of coldness ; if this was the case it may have been due to Mr. Darwin's health, but it may equally well have been nothing but Butler's fancy. On the Sunday after lunch he read to the sons in the smoking-room some of the Memoir which precedes The Fair Haven. Whether or not it was the effect of this reading he could not determine ; he came away, however, with the impression that the father's coldness had worn off towards the end of the visit. But he was never invited again. He met Charles Darwin later on at the house of his brother, Erasmus Darwin, with whom he was invited to lunch. Either on one of the visits to Down or at the luncheon party the conversation turned on the expense of making corrections after a book was in type, and, according to a note made by Butler, Charles Darwin said he had paid about 150 for the corrections in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Butler as a young author was much interested in this. Here is another note about Darwin : I remember hearing Charles Darwin say that when he began to write on evolution he did not find a single man who accepted it ; he spoke emphatically : " There was not one " he said u of my friends who accepted it." All I can say is that he must have been very unfortunate in his friends ; with seven or eight editions of the Prestiges sold already, there were plenty of believers in evolution, if he had chosen to look for them. True, the doctrine was generally rejected, but, if the public had not been ripe to receive it, The Times would never have backed him from the outset as it did. If The Times and a few other leading papers had not backed him, he might have written till now and made very little impression. Dr. Butler's Whitehall estate, referred to in chapter i., 1 66 SALE OF THE WHITEHALL x i8?z consisted of about twenty -eight acres of land in the Act. 36 Abbey Foregate, on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, on part of which stood a fine old Elizabethan mansion-house, circa 1575. By his will he left this property to his daughter, Mrs. Lloyd, for life ; then to his son, Canon Butler, for life ; then to the eldest son of Canon Butler as tenant in tail. The contingent interests of possible remaindermen were duly considered, but nothing need be said about them here, because, in the events which happened, they did not become vested. Some part of the land had already been bought compulsorily by railway companies and the purchase money settled on the trusts of Dr. Butler's will. Mrs. Lloyd occupied the mansion-house, the remainder being let as grazing land at ^90 per annum. That was the state of affairs in 1857 when, Butler being still an undergraduate at Cambridge, his cousin, the Rev. Thomas Lloyd, son of Mrs. Lloyd, proposed to buy the mansion-house and about six acres of land ; Mrs. Lloyd and Canon Butler were both willing to sell, but the consent of Butler as tenant in tail was necessary, he being Canon Butler's eldest son. His interest in 1857 was not likely to become vested for some years, and by that time the land would probably have become ripe for building ; so that his aunt and father were entitled to life interests in a property not bringing in much rent, while his reversion, though contingent on his surviving them, was to building land a prospective property of much greater value. The idea of his being advised by a separate solicitor does not appear to have occurred to any one, although he was only just of age and quite unversed in business matters. He did as he was told, joined in cutting off the entail, in selling the house and six acres of land to his cousin, and then in resettling the remainder of the land, the Whitehall fields, together with the purchase-money, on terms similar to those on which the property had originally been settled by Dr. Butler's will. In a long note about " Fathers and Sons " made in 1887, about six months after his father's death, Butler wrote : x THE WHITEHALL FIELDS 167 I believe, however, that what rankled most with my father 1872 about me was that I had a reversionary interest in the Whitehall Act. 36 fields, and, being unmarried, should be able to rub along fairly well although he never left me a penny. He was robbed of the consolation of knowing that by a few strokes of the pen he could at any moment arrange that on his death I should not have any shoes or stockings. He knew that I was keenly alive to this fact myself and that to be alive to it meant that I should, and did, take all action with a view to it. Nevertheless, the fact that I had this modest competency prevented him, I imagine, from putting out all his strength against me ; for there was no fun in doing his worst when that worst was so inadequate. Not that he wanted me to go without shoes and stockings ; I do not believe he wanted this for one moment ; what he wanted was that the power to settle whether or no I was to have shoes and stockings should be vested in himself and not in me. It was probably from jealousy of my having a voice in the matter at all that my father did as much as he could to render that voice nugatory by getting me in 1857 to se ^ t ^ ie Whitehall (I mean the house) to my cousin without receiving any quid pro quo myself. There was obvious gain in the transaction to both the tenants for life; they got a certain income of jioo a year, without deduction for repairs, instead of an uncertain one ; but there was no conceivable gain to me. I did not get the entail cut off, it was cut off with one hand in order to be put on again with the other by way of resettlement. I got no advantage direct or indirect ; some of the land was valued as garden land, but Burd appended a note to his valuation that this would have been valued at a much higher figure if it had been valued as building land. There was no reason why it should not have been valued as building land, but it was sold as garden land. I never knew this until I came across Burd's valuation in one of my father's tin boxes after his death ; what else there may have been I knew not, for I only came across this paper by accident in looking for a map of Watford Gap ; I pounced upon it, copied it, and returned it to my cousin as executor with a note saying what I had done. I suppose it [the valuation] is my own property, but I am not very likely to see or hear of it again nor should I have done so then but for an accident. And in " editing his remains " he wrote on one of the letters dealing with the transaction : " How they bam- boozled me ! " Chapter xi. of Erewhon, " An Erewhonian Trial," originally included the trial of a young man for having 1 68 THE WHITEHALL QUARREL x been so inexperienced as to part with a valuable property Act. 36 to j^ g uar di an for an insufficient sum without independent professional advice. He was convicted ; and the judge in sentencing him said that young men have no business to be young, inexperienced, greatly in awe of their guardians, heirs to nice houses, and without independent professional advice. Pauli made him cut this out as being likely to be taken for an allusion to the sale of the Whitehall, which of course it was ; and Pauli, as a man of the world, saw no advantage in irritating Canon Butler unnecessarily. Butler copied the passage for me and pasted it into my copy of Erewhon. I lent this copy to a friend who omitted to return it, and I could not dun him for it because I forgot which friend it was. I hope, should he happen to read this, that his conscience will smite him and that he will send me back the book. When Butler made the revised edition of Erewhon in 1901 he added to this particular chapter, calling it " Some Erewhonian Trials," and among the additions will be found this passage restored. In the autumn of 1872 there was talk in Shrewsbury of moving the schools ; the Whitehall fields was one of the proposed new sites, and, in view of the possibility of its being chosen, Butler was asked to join with his aunt and father in selling. He was no longer under twenty-two ; he was now thirty-six and had acquired some experience. He went to Shrewsbury, and, avoiding his father's solicitor, con- sulted a solicitor on his own account an old schoolfellow. He told him all about the sale of 1 857, and was advised that he ought to take proceedings to have it upset, which he was assured could be done. Proceedings were accordingly threatened, and a long and angry correspondence with his father ensued. His point was that the Whitehall with its adjoining land had been sold in 1857 for a sum that had been arrived at without taking into account his prospective interest in the property as building land, and that he had been made to resettle the remaining property and the proceeds of sale upon terms which left his interest as it had been before, that is contingent upon his surviving his aunt x THE NEW ZEALAND MONEY 169 and father ; whereas if the resettlement had enlarged his 1872 interest into an absolute reversion, subject to the life Aet - 3 interests of his aunt and father, he would have received some sort of quid pro quo. He complained that advantage had been taken of his youth and that his being separately advised had not even been suggested. He asked that, as the price of his consent to the present proposed sale to the schools, his interest under his grandfather's will should be enlarged so as to become an absolute and no longer a con- tingent reversion. His aunt and father refused to agree to this, and he accordingly refused to join in the sale. Nothing came of all this at the time, because, in the first place, another site for the schools was decided upon, and, in the second place, his mother's health was such that she was seen to be dying, and on that account he dropped the threatened proceedings. He was the more anxious about his interest in the Whitehall fields because he had begun to grow uneasy about his money which was invested in the colony. It took too long to get a reply to a letter ; he had had bad accounts of his New Zealand agent, had changed him and did not like his new one ; he had left the colony some years and did not know who might have taken to drinking and become untrustworthy ; he was continually on the point of being dragged out to New Zealand to look after things. He therefore determined to have his money over in England ; it was about 8000, and although he saw no prospect of getting in England anything like 10 per cent, the current rate of interest in the colony, he thought that 4^- or 5 per cent would provide enough for himself and Pauli ; that is, to supplement what Pauli ought soon to be making at the Bar, and what he himself ought soon to be making by selling pictures. He therefore called in his money. In 1898, in the account of the friendship between himself and Pauli, he wrote : All this is a story that haunts me and will haunt me to my dying day ; for it was my great friend, William Sefton Moorhouse, who was my mortgagee one of the very finest and best men whom it was ever my lot to cross a man who had shewn me infinite kindness and whom I never can think of without remorse ; i yo REMORSE x 1872 whether I could have avoided it or no, I do not, and did not, see Act. 36 how I could without breaking faith with Pauli. If it was a trespass to call in the money, may I be forgiven, as from the bottom of my heart I forgive Pauli, for whose sake I did it. However, let it pass j it makes me sick to think of it. A curious thing about this is that Moorhouse was not the kind of man to feel that Butler had ill-treated him by calling in the money. In 1912 I wrote to Sir Joshua Strange Williams, who knew both Butler and Moorhouse in New Zealand, asking if he could remember or think of any reason why Butler should be so full of remorse about what he did. In his reply, 6th January 1913, he says : Moorhouse I knew very well. I don't think there was any necessity for Butler to have blamed himself for calling in his money. You might call in money from Moorhouse as you might call spirits from the vasty deep, but the response in either case would be doubtful. Moorhouse was the best of good fellows, and absolutely straight in money matters as in everything else. But money was to him as dross and he was normally impecunious. He was always cheerful, and I don't suppose Butler's calling in the money affected him in the least. Moorhouse never let money or the want of it worry him. Butler often referred to this subject, and I tried to get him to tell me why Moorhouse should be so seriously inconvenienced by the calling in of the money. I did not then know that Moorhouse was so unbusinesslike and happy-go-lucky ; but I was in a solicitor's office, and I knew, and pointed out, that, the security being good, Moorhouse probably had no difficulty in borrowing from some one else, and that to transfer a mortgage is a simple proceeding. Butler gave no reason ; he thought he had done a high-handed and shabby action in calling in his money without consulting Moorhouse, whose good opinion he thought he must have forfeited by behaving in such an overbearing manner. When he suspected people of attempting to browbeat him he hit back fiercely. But Moorhouse did not hit back and this was like coals of fire on his head. He may have had some reason which he would not tell me, but I think not ; for, as I saw over and over again, if any one was kind to him he could never do x THE MONEY COMES 171 enough in return, and if he thought he had neglected an 1872 opportunity it made him miserable. Aet- 3 37 he passed through various theological and spiritual experiences, including a period of infidelity, and, after a stormy voyage on the sea of reason, anchored at last in the Fair Haven of a faith that through trial and suffering has learnt not to fear to admit the possibility of doubt. In this state he began to write the book ; but he went out of his mind before he could complete it, and died leaving the fragment to be edited and published by his brother, William Bickersteth Owen, who is supposed to write the Memoir of the author. Old Mr. Owen, the father of the brothers in the Memoir, is Butler's own father by contraries ; that is, he is just what Canon Butler was not. Mrs. Owen is Mrs. Butler as like as he could get her, occasionally perhaps exaggerated. As a portrait it is not so complete as Christina ; in the Memoir there was no room for more than a sketch. If it be thought that in doing this he was not treating his parents with due respect, it must be remembered that he was treating his own past self in precisely the same way ; for he drew John Pickard Owen's character, childhood, and youth from his own. He was, as a boy, much outraged when he discovered that " the petticoats and clothes which envelop the female form were not ... all solid woman, and that women were not in reality any more substantially built than men, and had legs as much as he had a fact which he had never yet realised." And when he first saw a fowl being prepared for roasting, his own irritation, like John Pickard Owen's, " had been extreme on discovering that fowls were not all solid flesh, but that their insides and these formed, as it appeared, to him, an enormous percentage of the bird were perfectly useless." u Truly a prosaic young gentleman enough," as William Bickersteth Owen says of his brother ; but not more prosaic than the author, who thought he could tell whether a shepherd was idle or industrious by watching him asleep (ante, p. 40). In the following passage from the Memoir of John Pickard Owen he is describing himself VOL. I N 1 78 CHRIST'S DEATH XI 1873 Everything with him was to be exactly in all its parts what it Act. 37 appeared on the face of it, and everything was to go on doing exactly what it had been doing hitherto. If a thing looked solid, it was to be very solid ; if hollow, very hollow ; nothing was to be half-and-half and nothing was to change unless he had himself already become accustomed to its times and manners of changing j there were to be no exceptions and no contradictions ; all things were to be perfectly consistent, and all premises to be carried with extremest rigour to their legitimate conclusions. Heaven was to be very neat (for he was always tidy himself), and free from sudden shocks to the nervous system, such as those caused by dogs barking at him, or cows driven in the streets. God was to resemble my father, and the Holy Spirit to bear some sort of indistinct analogy to my mother. The discovery that some of the boys had never been baptized and the effect that this had upon John Pickard Owen's religious development are both reproduced from his own experience ; but Butler stopped short of joining the Baptists and was never " immersed in a pond near Dorking." After the Memoir comes an Introduction in which a parade is made of the author's intention to put the case for infidelity as strongly as possible ; but the reader need be under no apprehension, for there is also a promise that a sufficient answer will be forthcoming at the proper time. " He who would cure a disease must first know what it is." " No one knows what they [the unbeliever's arguments] are better than I do. No one was at one time more firmly persuaded that they were sound. May it be found that no one has so well known how to refute them." He then considers the theory of Strauss, who, while admitting that Christ died upon the cross, does not admit that he came to life again, but considers his subsequent appearances to have been due to hallucination ; his followers not really seeing him but only thinking they saw him. This hallucination theory is shown to be untenable ; but that does not interfere with the death on the cross, which may be considered established because Strauss did not deny it ; and, as he was a noted infidel, he assuredly would have denied it if he had seen his way to do so. xi THE CHRIST-IDEAL 179 Then we have a chapter on "Certain Ill-judged 1873 Methods of Defence " a consideration of Dean Alford's Aet> 37 notes on the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion and sub- sequent events. This is taken, with acknowledgements, "from an anonymous pamphlet dated 1865, but without a publisher's name, so that I presume it must have been printed for private circulation only " an allusion to his own pamphlet. Then comes a chapter headed " More Disingenuous- ness," followed by two chapters on " Difficulties Felt by Our Opponents," in which the rest of his pamphlet is reproduced ; because, as he says, he knows of no other English work in which whatever can be said against the orthodox belief in the resurrection and the completeness of the death has been put forward. The next chapter, " The Christ-Ideal," contains such passages as this : Suppose we were driven to admit that nothing in the life of our Lord can be certainly depended upon beyond the facts that He was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary ; that He worked many miracles upon earth, and delivered St. Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount and most of the parables as we now have them ; finally, that He was crucified, dead, and buried ; that He rose again from the dead upon the third day and ascended unto Heaven. Granting, for the sake of argument, that we could rely on no other facts, what would follow ? Nothing which could in any way impair the living power of Christianity. The last chapter is headed " Conclusion " ; here we expect at last to meet with the fulfilment of the promise that a sufficient answer shall be provided to all that can be said against the orthodox view, and this is what we get : It is not probable that Strauss would have taken refuge in the hallucination theory if he had felt that there was the remotest chance of successfully denying our Lord's death : for the difficulties of his present position are overwhelming as was fully pointed out in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chapters of this work. I regret, however, to say that I can nowhere find any detailed account of the reasons which have led him to feel so positively about our Lord's death. Such reasons must undoubtedly be at his command, or he would indisputably have referred the resurrection to natural causes. i8o FAITH AND REASON xi 1873 Strauss's opinion that Christ died on the cross, there- Act. 37 ore ^ turns out to De of less consequence than we had been led to suppose ; nevertheless it is all we have left in opposi- tion to the arguments of the pamphlet. And so much for Reason. We now turn to Faith, shifting from the black squares to the white : " How many thousands are there in the world at this moment who have known Christ as a personal friend and comforter and who can testify to the work which He has wrought in them ! I cannot pass over such testimony as this in silence." And there is the fact that for nearly two thousand years Christianity has flourished. But we must not dwell upon these views ; let us return to the crucifixion and resurrection. " What, then, let me ask of free-thinkers, became of Christ eventually ? " and, after considering and rejecting several answers, " What remains as the most reasonable view to be taken concerning His disappearance ? Surely the one that was taken ; the view which commended itself to those best able to judge namely, that He had ascended bodily into Heaven and was sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Where else could He be ? " It must not be supposed that in this Butler was jeering at John Pickard Owen for believing that Jesus Christ died and rose again. If any one could believe such a thing, and especially if he could derive any comfort and satisfaction from believing it, Butler had no desire to laugh at him. His attitude, however, towards the muddleheadedness which thinks to find in the emotions a satisfactory solution of difficulties raised by the intellect was different. Reason lunges in quarte ; Faith parries in tierce, and blandly claims a victory. And this is why William Bickersteth Owen does not omit to tell us of his brother : " Hardly had the fragment which follows this Memoir received its present shape, when his over- worked brain gave way and he fell into a state little better than idiocy." Butler thought that this admission ought to have been enough to open people's eyes to his intention, or at least to put readers on their guard. I believe he seriously hoped that The Fair Haven xi OPINIONS WORTH HOLDING 181 would induce people to reconsider the Gospel accounts 1873 of the crucifixion and resurrection. He thought that Aet- 37 the book would be read by some who would never open a professedly unorthodox book ; he hoped that such readers would come to think the matter over for them- selves instead of taking their opinions second-hand. He intended it to be a help to all who, like Ernest, wished to find out, not that the Gospel accounts were all accurate or were all inaccurate, but whether they were accurate or not ; and who did not care which result they should arrive at, but were resolved to reach one or the other (The Way of All Flesh, opening of chapter lx.). He was puzzled when The Fair Haven fell flat. It was not a mere pamphlet ; it was a whole book dealing with what was alleged to be the most tremendous event in the history of the world ; and, in investigating and consider- ing the only evidence about this event, namely the earliest known accounts of it, he had proceeded in a spirit of sincerity, pursuing truth wherever he could discern it, and seriously acting in accordance with what he had been taught to believe were Christ's own precepts ; and yet people in general passed it by, or, if they paid any attention, either misunderstood him or chuckled at the ingenuity of his irony an irony which he was driven to adopt to veil his purpose from his father. It was a long time before he realised that people in general are, in the main, good sensible fellows, like the farmers at Battersby in The Way of All Flesh (ch. xv.) u equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practised." This, to a certain extent, explained matters ; for in The Fair Haven he had been both practising and doubting with all his soul and with all his strength. But he was not really at ease about it until, like Ernest (ch. Ixxxvi.), he reached the further point of realising that " no man's opinions can be worth holding unless he knows how to deny them easily and gracefully, upon occasion, in the cause of Charity." He wrote to Miss Savage (i8th March 1873) tnat Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. considered the scheme of the book unjustifiable. " And yet," he wrote a few years 1 82 REV. E. A. ABBOTT xi 1873 later, "what did I do in this book other than what the Act. 37 Qmj-ch does? She attacks reasonable conclusions under the guise of defending them, with,; a view to impose on those who have not wit enough to find her out." As an instance of how the book struck people, here is a note made in 1885 about the Rev. Edwin A. Abbott. The substance of the note is repeated almost in the same words in 1896, but the ending is a little fuller. Abbott, of the City of London School, and I were at St. John's together ; he was junior to me, nevertheless I knew him a little. Then we did not meet till my Erewhon days when we ran across one another at Henry Hoare's. He was very civil and friendly. By and by he asked me to dinner and I went. I found him a dull fellow. I am very sorry ; but this is what he was, and a dull, pedagogic fellow into the bargain. There was a man named Seeley there, who had written Ecce Homo trash which Mr. Gladstone had had a fit over, as of course he would ; and I was out of my element. Then I wrote The Fair Haven and was asked again. Abbott was a good deal pained, and would not believe I did not really mean all I had said in the Christ- Ideal chapters. He said to me : " And did you really mean none of that part seriously ? " I said : " Certainly not ; I intended it as an example of the kind of rubbish which would go down with The Spectator.' 11 Abbott said : " Well, I can only say you would have found a great many to sympathise with you, if you had meant it seriously." I said, rather drily : " That, I think, is exceedingly probable," meaning that there was no lack of silly insincere gushers. Abbott did not see what I meant, and we parted genially. I did not see him again for some years, and then we met in Oxford Street. We looked at each other to see if we should greet or no ; but there was a common, mutual instinct which made us equally settle the question in the negative, so we passed ; the blame, if any, being, I should say, as nearly equal as possible. After we had passed we each turned round and caught the other doing so, but again we each immediately went on in opposite directions. Now we always cut each other. [The second note ends thus :] We cut each other now by mutual consent, but it is years since I even met him in the street. I do not know who began the cutting, but I should say it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Every now and then I see him announced as publishing some book with an unpleasant title. There is one as follows in this morning's Times, and it is this that has led to this note : xi WHEAT AND TARES 183 "Messrs. Macmillan have in the press and will shortly publish 1873 a work by the Rev. Edwin A. Abbott entitled The Spirit upon A et. 37 the Waters^ or the Evolution of the Divine from the Human. It endeavours to show that a believer in evolution may remain a believer in natural Christianity unassailable by science ; and that one who may be unable to accept the miracles of the Bible as historical may nevertheless retain his faith in the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Spiritual Resurrection of Christ, and the Doctrine of the Trinity." Times, Nov. 6, 1896, p. 4. It saves trouble to both of us that we should not speak, for we cannot understand one another. Butler recognised in later life that Christianity is not necessarily all bad merely because Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead. Mixed up with the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the Trinity, none of which was of any use to him, there are eternal truths, as there are in all religions, however much they may contain that is false. Young John Pickard Owen and young Ernest Pontifex did not understand that nothing can exist at all unless it contains some of its opposite. Later, they came to realise that the enemy sows tares in every wheat-field, and we must have patience. Butler's youthful attitude towards professional religion appears in a " quotation from memory " which he sometimes used : " Resist God and he will fly from you." We shall see when we come to the Appendix to the second edition of Evolution Old and New, to his dealings with the Rosminian fathers in 1882, and to his correspondence with Professor Mivart in 1884, that he seriously hoped for, and attempted to bring about, a reconciliation between the Church and those who deny the miraculous element in her teaching. His attitude was then changed, and is best shown by another " quotation from memory," " Jesus ! with all thy faults I love thee still." But nothing came of this desire for reconciliation perhaps because there is no possibility of any agreement as to which is wheat and which tares ; or the difficulty may lie in the hearts of the disputants and not in the nature of the crops. After 1892, when the problem of the Odyssey began to engross his mind, the religious difficulty ceased to worry him, except in so 1 84 SMALL MISERIES 1873 far as appears in his later books, especially in Erewhon Aet - 37 Revisited. The Fair Haven being published, Butler now turned his attention to writing a novel and consulted Miss Savage about it. He read Middlemarch, which had been published the year before, and I have no doubt he did this at Miss Savage's suggestion ; she probably thought he might pick up hints from it, and anyhow it would do him no harm to know the kind of novel that was meeting with success. Butler to Miss Savage. 1 8 March 1873 ^ am rea ding Middlemarch and have got through two-thirds. I call it bad and not interesting : there is no sweetness in the whole book, and, though it is stuffed full of epigrams, one feels that they are lugged in to show the writer off. The book seems to me to be a long-winded piece of studied brag, clever enough I daresay, but to me at any rate singularly unattractive. Miss Savage to Butler. 24 March 1873 When am I to have my Fair Haven ? I have a commission to write some tracts, not religious ones, Dieu merci ! but almost as bad, about the Medical Act and the registration of births. I am supplied with pamphlets and speeches on the subject ; but reading them makes me so very stupid that by the time I know all about it I shall not be in a condition to write anything. I daresay you will never have another letter from me. . . . My life was full of small miseries last week. I was very late in the morning, so took a cab to catch the train. Then I forgot to get out at the right station and had to come back again. So I spent a shilling and was later than if I had walked slowly to the train. That happened on Monday, and I was cheated out of sixpence on Tuesday, and lost a glove on Wednesday. These are the things that turn one's hair grey before the time. But that is enough of my woes. Having lost sixpence I must economise. Butler to Miss Savage. March 25, 1873 I had become ashamed of that silly plot even before I got your letter of yesterday. I will have no XI COLTMBIA 185 sensation and no mechanically constructed plot at all only such 1873 incidents as naturally grow out of the initial conditions ; but I Aet - 35 will try to make the incidents interesting. All else is humbug. Thank you for the trouble you took. . . . I am more a prisoner than ever completely laid up, but quite well ; and I do not find the time hang particularly heavy. You can have your Fair Haven whenever you like to call for it, or I can send it either to Crane Court or to the Women's Club. Do not come, if you call here, before 4.30. What do you mean by pretending that your letter was possibly the last I should ever receive from you ? You frighten me. My mother is ill very ill. It is not likely that she will recover. I had rather It had been my father, etc. I am pained about it. She is at Mentone, and, though my father writes as if he had no hope, they clearly do not want me to come, which is as well ; for, though in such a case I should travel, yet the less I am on my feet the better. I ought to keep them up. What pains me is that I cannot begin to regain the affection now which, alas ! I have long ceased to feel. . . . I have finished Middlemarch ; it is very bad indeed. I am sorry for your little troubles ; I wish I could think that you have none others but it is a bad world. Why don't you write a story ? In 1873 (or possibly at the close of 1872) Messrs. Trilbner published Colymbia another Utopia. The author, whose name was not given on the title-page, was Dr. Robert Ellis Dudgeon} who, however, said nothing to Butler about the book while he was writing it. Colymbia was got up to look as much like Erewhon as possible the page and type being identical evidently in order to make people think that it was by the same author ; but Dudgeon had nothing to do with this. I do not under- stand how any one can have been deceived, but they were. Colymbia, the country discovered by the hero, is under the sea in the lagoon of a coral island on the equator ; the people breathe through pipes, which bring air down and distribute it about the inhabited area, and see clearly under water by using suitable spectacles. The eye was Dudgeon's special subject, and he published a book on it ; he was also a great swimmer and diver and invented subaqueous spectacles. In Colymbia there are 1 86 MRS. GELSTONE xi 1873 Seminaries of Useless Knowledge, but very little is said Act. 37 a b ou t them. There is, however, a whole chapter on Transcendental Geography (ch. iv.) : There exists somewhere but as no one has ever been there, so no one affected to know where a vast country whither all Colymbians would some day go, provided they had accurate views respecting the said country. ' It is quite likely that the Seminaries of Useless Knowledge and the Transcendental Geography were due to conversations with Butler ; but there is nothing else in the book that puts me in mind of Erewhon. Miss Savage to Butler. Mar. 31, 1873 I have done wrong, and lent Colymbia to a friend without your permission ; but I hope that you will forgive me in consideration of the reason for it. At the club last Friday at lunch time the Miss L 's proclaimed, "We know who the author of Colymbia is." Whereupon Mrs. Gelstone promptly cried out, " Oh, so do I. I know who is the author of Colymbia" In the evening she told the story and I naturally asked who he was. Then she said that she had not the faintest idea who wrote it, but that she could not stand the Miss L 's airs. I was so pleased with her that I lent her Colymbia on the spot. . . . Send a copy of The Fair Haven to The Literary World. They will be sure to believe in it and it will be great fun. It has an immense circulation ; all the dissenters read it. May I lend mine to old Granville ? If he asks more questions about Bickersteth I can say he has gone back to America. Charles Darwin to Butler. 1 6 MONTAGUE ST., PORTMAN SQ. April ist [187 3]. MY DEAR MR. BUTLER I have delayed thanking you for your present [a copy of The Fair Haven\ until I had read it through, which I have now done. It has interested me greatly and is extremely curious. If I had not known that you had written it I should not even have suspected that the author was not orthodox, within the wide stated limits. I should have thought that he was a conscientious man like Blanco White, whose autobiography you no doubt know. xi VERY NICE AND KIND " 187 It will be a curious problem whether the orthodox will have 1873 so good a scent as to detect your heresy. I have just seen G. R. Aet - 37 Greg and told him of the book (but not of course who wrote it), and he will read it. He remarked that the orthodox will read almost anything, if not purposely made offensive to them ; and no one can say that you have done this. But you will soon be universally known. Leslie Stephen, a regular reviewer, who was lunching here, knew you were the author. What has struck me much in your book is your dramatic power that is to [say] the way in which you earnestly and thoroughly assume the character and think the thoughts of the man you pretend to be. Hence I conclude that you could write a really good novel. I have been surprised at the strength of the case which you make for Jesus not having died upon the cross ; but I do not know whether to be convinced. In the way of small criticisms there seems too much reiteration about the middle of the book. It would, I think, be well when long and many passages are in inverted commas, to repeat who is speaking I got sometimes confused. Your book must have cost you much labour, and I heartily hope it will be widely distributed ; but it is not light reading. I have been very sorry to hear of your strain if you could have come here we should have been very glad to have seen you at luncheon or dinner. Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. In a note made in 1880, Butler, referring to this letter, says, " Very nice and kind. He told me he thought I should do well to turn my attention to novel -writing. All scientific people recommend me to do this." But he did not consult Mr. Darwin about his proposed novel. He probably had an instinct that the eminent naturalist would be less likely than Miss Savage to enter sympa- thetically into his scheme. I took a recent opportunity of asking Sir Francis Darwin if he knew who G. R. Greg was ; he thought it must be a mistake for W. R. Greg, that is William Rathbone Greg, author of Enigmas of Life, who would naturally be as much interested in The Fair Haven as Leslie Stephen. We shall probably never know whether Charles Darwin showed or mentioned the book to any others of his friends ; he cannot have said anything about it to Professor Huxley ; at least we may be certain that 1 88 DEATH OF MRS. BUTLER xi 1873 Huxley had not read either The Fair Haven or Butler's ' 37 pamphlet on the Resurrection when he wrote " Agnos- ticism : a Rejoinder." l In that essay will be found an admirably lucid statement of his reasons for holding that the evidence contained in the Gospels is insufficient to support the view that Christ died and rose again ; and, as they are similar to those contained in the pamphlet and The Fair Haven, if he had been even slightly indebted to Butler, of course his essay would have contained some prominent statement to that effect. It is gratifying to know that so acute a thinker as Professor Huxley con- sidered the matter independently, and arrived by much the same paths at much the same conclusion. At the beginning of April Butler went to Mentone ; his mother died there on 9th April and was buried the following day. His father gave him to understand that her death was caused by his having published Erewhon. Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, and Butler naturally resented being treated as a dog ; nevertheless he could afford to laugh at his father for beating him with such a preposterous stick as this. One of the doctors who attended the patient suspected the existence of an internal tumour ; and there was some talk of a post-mortem examination, the result of which, though it might have supported the doctor's view, might, on the other hand, have disclosed a cause of death less unsatis^ factory to one of her descendants who had views of his own about heredity. Canon Butler, however, was not a descendant, and declined to allow any examination to be made ; thus, incidentally, keeping himself free to indulge a belief in the correctness of his own diagnosis. On his journey to his mother's death-bed Butler made the acquaintance of Mr. E. Seymer Thompson, of Christ's College, Cambridge, with whom he travelled from Calais to Mentone. Mr. Thompson wrote to The Morning Post (June 29, 1909) apropos of the celebration of the Darwin centenary at Cambridge, with an anec- dote about Darwin and Dr. Butler which he said Butler had told him. In consequence of this letter I made the 1 Nineteenth Century, April 1889. Collected Essays, vol. v. 1894. xi THANKING DARWIN 189 acquaintance of Mr. Thompson ; he told me that he never 1873 saw Butler again, but he had followed his career and Aet< 37 read his books. This is one of many instances I have met with of people coming across Butler for a few hours and never forgetting the impression he made on them. Butler to Charles Darwin. 15- 4- 73- DEAR MR. DARWIN Your very kind letter concerning The Fair Haven was forwarded to me at Mentone, from which place I returned on Sunday morning early. You will doubtless have seen the cause of my journey in The Times obituary list. Had I known how ill my poor mother was, I could not have brought out or even written my book at such a time ; but her recovery was confidently expected till within a fortnight of her death, and it was not until I actually arrived at Mentone that I knew how long she must have been ill and suffering. I must own that I feel there is something peculiarly unsuitable in the time of my book's appearing ; but it was actually published before I was aware of the circumstances. I am thankful that she can never know. Of course, it remains to be seen what the verdict of the public will be ; but I am greatly encouraged by the letter received from yourself and Mr. [Leslie] Stephen. There is also a very good review in last week's National Reformer. The writer is evidently puzzled. Of course, all I really want is to force on the fight and help towards compelling an attitude of fixed attention in the place of cowardly shrinking from examination. I shall try a novel pure and simple with little "purpose" next ; but it remains to be seen whether I can do it. I would say that I would have no " purpose " in my novel at all ; but I am still in the flesh, and, however much the spirit may be willing, I fear that the cloven hoof will shew itself ever and anon. My strain is better. Again thanking you very sincerely for all the kindness you have shewn me, believe me, with kind regards to Mrs. Darwin, Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. Miss Savage managed to extract amusement out of the pseudonymity of The Fair Haven. She wanted every one to read it, but had to resort to a little mild deceit lest any one should guess it was by a friend of hers. 190 A NOVELIST'S EDUCATION Miss Savage to Butler. l8 73 10 April 1873 ^ ou should have heard me discoursing Aett 37 about it yesterday. I said it was a sweet book (so it is), and most convincing ; it had been lent to me by a religious friend in hopes that it would do me good, and it had done me good. My friend (the one whom Miss Collingridge so longs to know) declined to borrow it, but is going to tell his clergy-people friends what an excellent work it is, and how efficacious in removing doubts. I said I did not know the author ; the book had been lent me by an earnest friend. I was enchanted with myself, but longed for an appreciative audience. Miss Collingridge came on Sunday. She said she had been told that your book would shortly be published. I said you were not writing a book at all at least not that I was aware of. She was evidently pleased at being better informed than I was. Butler probably received the foregoing letter on his return from Mentone ; there is a note saying that he wrote a short letter to Miss Savage on his return and destroyed it in going through his correspondence. After which she seems to have called upon him. The allusion to Balzac in the next letter confirms me in my suspicion that he read Middlemarch on Miss Savage's recommendation. Miss Savage to Butler. April 19, 1873 I s h a M senc ^ 7 OU some Balzac. ... I shall find something for you. Not that I want you to write novels like Balzac, heaven forbid ! But then, I don't think you could if you tried ; and if you could, I am sure you wouldn't, so it doesn't matter ; but he was a great novelist and you should see what his work was like. Good-bye. I was very glad to find you so much better than I expected. P.S. By all means let your friend Mr. Hoare make you go more into society ; but if he hopes thereby to get more Bulwer, I flatter myself that he will be disappointed. I haven't been dunning you for novel this twelvemonth past for that. [I forget whether Miss Savage ever sent me any Balzac, but if she did I will undertake to say that I never read any. I destroyed a letter I sent on 29 April saying that my pictures were rejected xi MILD DECEIT 191 for the Academy, that I was now quite well, and working at 1873 Heatherley's. 315! July 1901. S. B.J Act. 37 Miss Savage to Butler. 28 April 1873 Your friend Mr. M'Cormick is going to have a bazaar of ladies' work by way of getting his church out of debt. 1 My mother is busy knitting muffetees for it. I have not been asked to contribute, but I have a sweet little pincushion which was given me in 1857 and has remained done up in tissue paper ever since, so I shall send that ; it will probably realise sixpence which Mr. M'Cormick shall be very welcome to have. You might send a few copies of The Fair Haven to be raffled for, on the second day, for I cannot encourage you to hope that they would be bought up on the first day. . . . I am going to lend my copy to old Miss Andrews just to see what she will make of it. I shall tell her that Mrs. Gammell's son, the clergyman, lent it to me. I shall write "James Gammell, Oatwood Parsonage " on the fly-leaf. She has seen the old lady and will believe my romance. She begged me last night to apologise to you for never having thanked you for your present of Erewhon. She means to do so as soon as she has time. She thinks you would do a great deal of good by writing short things in the style of Erewhon. Miss Savage to Butler. 29 April 1873 I like your notions for the novel very much. I am sure it will be good. But there is no hurry. I don't feel in any hurry because I don't want you to write yourself out before I die ; and I would rather wait now than want in fifty years' time. I perceive that what I have said is un- complimentary ; please forgive me. I don't think you will write yourself out in fifty years and spoke unreflectingly. This must refer to his first settled scheme for the novel which ultimately grew into The Way of All Flesh. Miss Savage to Butler. [yd May 1873] " Eh bien ! il existe par milliers en Europe et en Amerique des chrtiens qui lui donneront [a Strauss] 1 The Rev. Canon Joseph M'Cormick, D.D., was from 1867 to 1875 Perpetual Curate of St. Peter's, Deptford, S.E. 192 CROMWELL'S DESCENDANT xi 1873 a chaque instant raison en detail^ et qui pourtant persisteront a se Act. 37 dire chretiens, par la raison toute simple que la plupart de ces critiques de detail passent par-dessus le christianisme qu'ils professent." Revue des Deux Mondes^ I5th March [I873]. 1 You see, my dear Mr. Bickersteth, that les beaux esprits se rencontrent and that there are " milliers " of persons who have found their representative man in your late lamented brother Pickard. To say nothing of Miss Andrews who declares that Pickard's arguments always have been hers. It was really delightful the easy way in which elle s'est donnee dans le piege. It will not be delightful for me when she finds out how she has been tricked, however. Nothing short of my expulsion from the club will satisfy the descendant of Cromwell. I hope you will stand my friend with Mr. Hoare when the crisis comes, and in the meantime put off connecting The Fair Haven with Erewhon as long as you can. The old woman is in a most vindictive frame of mind just now because of the resolution that I am going to propose to-morrow night, which is to let one of the club rooms. Most of the members say that it will be impossible for the club to exist if we have only two rooms and Miss Andrews continues a member. I retort by saying that if one is to indulge one's antipathies the club ought to consist of as many cells as a county gaol. Poor old Miss Andrews ! I am still fond of her. I told her the most tremendous lies about The Fair Haven. I wrote first of all on the fly-leaf I. B. SURGEY Brading, Ap. ist, 1873. Then I asked if she would like to look through it, but said that I could only let her have it till Monday. She accepted, and I must say I quaked a little lest she would see your hand in it. However, on Monday she gave it back, telling me that it was most interesting and asking for a longer loan of it, as a friend of hers was greatly delighted with it and would like to finish it. But, of course, my friend had lent it to me for a week only and was going back to the Isle of Wight, so I couldn't. She said she had been most interested in the Memoir. " That is the part I have not yet read," said I. So then she began to tell me all about Pickard and Bickersteth and the events of their childhood and spoke with strong reprobation of their mother, expressing surprise that the sons should have continued to feel so much reverence for her. She also told me the anecdote of the 1 This is taken from a review by Albert Reville of Strauss's Der alte und der neut Glaubc (1872). The italics are Miss Savage's. XI MORE DECEIT 193 lady-visitor [which happened to Miss Savage herself as a child ; 1873 she gave it me. S. B. 1901 J. 1 Act. 37 I then asked her opinion of the rest of the book ; declaring that, though the arguments used might be very convincing to those who believed already, those who did not believe would scarcely be influenced by them. She said she had not had time to read it thoroughly, but enough to understand the scope ; and then she began to talk quite learnedly about the gospels and their authenticity and said that the arguments used by Pickard were those she had always used. But she spoke slightingly of poor Pickard ; I am sorry to say she called him " half-educated " ; but she deeply commiserated his unhappy end. " It was most sad to think of," she said. She then enquired about the person who lent me the book ; and I described him as anxious about my soul and gave her full particulars concerning him which are quite authentic, all except the lending me the book and the interest in my soul. By the by, I lent him Erewhon not long ago, and on Saturday last I had a note from him in which he says : " How can I ever thank you enough for lending me that glorious book Erewhon ? " However, I send you his letter, for his raptures are quite lyrical. I did as he requested about the R.A. catalogue and actually went on Monday, though I have not a new bonnet, and scarcely dare look my friends in the face when my old one is on my head. I tell you this because I made the sacrifice not for him but for Erewhon. Such devotion is of a kind not often met with, and I don't expect you will ever appreciate the magnitude of my sacrifice ; for as the Working Man said the other night at the Suffrage Meeting in the Hall of Eleusis : "The depths of a woman's feelings can only be fathomed by a woman herself" (which, if not a very good reason for giving women votes, is at all events the best I have heard). However, as you are going to be a great novelist you will have to begin the fathoming process as soon as possible, and it would not be a bad exercise for you to try and fathom my feelings under the circumstances I have described. . . . I must conclude ; not because I want to leave off, but because I am bent upon making you grateful to me, as I want to ask you a great favour. But I shall wait till sufficient gratitude is accumulated in your heart for that. Yours truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. As nothing is so dreadful as an unexplained threat, and for 1 This refers to the lady who said her prayers when she thought the children were awake and did not say them when she thought they were asleep, introduced by Butler into the Memoir of John Pickard Owen. It would be more correct to say that he took the anecdote from Miss Savage than that she gave it to him. See his letter July 1872, ante, p. 163. VOL. I O i 9 4 ODD SCRAPS XI fear you should be nervous, I just tell you that the favour I Act. 37 mean to ask some day is to let me lend my Fair Haven to Mrs. Gelstone. This is not the end of this " monstrous long letter," as Uncle James would have called it ; there is another scrap of paper with some criticism of a novel by Henry Kingsley. Miss Savage's letters were frequently written on odd scraps of paper ; and if Butler had not dated the different pieces it would have been sometimes impossible to say which of them, and how many, came in the same envelope. CHAPTER XII 1873 PART II "O, SPECULATION! HORRID FIEND" BY this time Butler had received his money from New 1873 Zealand, and the problem was how to invest it safely in Aet - 37 England. Four-and-a-half or five per cent on ^8000, with what he hoped to make by painting and writing, would be enough ; and, had it been only ( himself, more than enough. But there was Pauli who must be provided for until he was able to keep himself, and how long this might be Butler could not judge ; for he had failed in his attempt to ascertain how long Pauli was likely to con- tinue to want assistance. He used to say that Pauli was possessed by a dumb devil. The wrongness of Pauli's silence wounded me. I told him that I thought it wrong, but he said he would tell me if he could it was so difficult to say exactly what he was earning people did not pay him, etc. and I, still believing him to be much as I was myself in the matter of good faith, accepted his excuses, and made no doubt that if he had been able to ease me off he would have done so. Butler had sold a few pictures from the Academy, and saw no reason why he should not get on as his fellow-students were doing ; moreover the reception of Erewhon encouraged him to hope that he might soon be able to increase his income by writing as well as by paint- ing. He talked the situation over with Henry Hoare, who laughed at the idea of being content with 4^- or 5 per cent, assuring him that much more could be made by 196 HO ARE'S COMPANIES xn 1873 investing his money in various companies he was then Aet< 37 starting. There was a patent steam-engine company ; a patent gas- meter company ; a company for pressing jute in India ; and one for making extract from hemlock bark in Canada, which was to pay at least 60 / Q and revolutionise the leather trade. Pauli, who was a barrister, and Jason Smith, another barrister [a college friend], were infatuated with this last as much as I was ; and Pauli borrowed what little money he could on a reversion due to him on the death of his father and mother. This reversion was already pledged to myself, indeed I had advanced him more than its whole amount ; but so confident were we all, that I released his reversion that he might borrow /iooo and invest it in the O f^s Canada Tanning Extract Company, Limited, of which Hoare made both Pauli and myself directors. I can plead no excuse for any of us but the confidence that Hoare's Bank would not countenance any such schemes without having had the best advice concerning them. . . . No one was morally very guilty, and I should not say anything about it unless it were necessary. [1901 S. B.] If the Whitehall land, or, supposing it to have been sold to the governing body of the Schools, its equivalent in money, had been resettled in the way Butler wished, so as to give him an absolute reversion, there can be little doubt that he would have mortgaged that reversion, added the money so raised to his New Zealand money, and put it all together into Hoare's companies. So that his father's action, though he considered it against his interest at the time, had results which, in the end, operated to his advantage. Miss Savage to Butler. 13 May 1873 ^ r u w ^ ^ nc ^ pl ent y f amusement in your new occupation. Inventors are an odd race, judging from the one or two that I have seen. I daresay you will be ruined ; but then, you know, experience cannot be bought too dearly. Besides, who knows but you may be drawn to Christianity in the hour of your affliction and poverty (v. The Fair Haven] and may come to see the genuineness of Matthew's gospel and to appreciate the parable of Dives and Lazarus ; and The Rock would say that that would be cheap at the price. But then, on the other hand, you may become rich, very rich, a millionaire, a great capitalist and be knighted for having made a gigantic fortune XII THE POSITIVISTS 197 with your patent steam-engine. Well ! I have no objection. I should like to know a Rich Man ; but while you are making Act. 37 yourself rich you will be doing nothing for me I mean you will not be writing books that delight me more than anything else. So, on the whole, I think I would rather you were not rich. . . . Another descendant of Cromwell has turned up [at the clubj and she is a most offensive person. Fancy ! she presumed to say that the members ought not to drink beer or wine ! Of all the characters in the whole range of history, from the creation of the world to the present time, Cromwell is to me the most detestable. Perhaps in prehistoric times among the gorillas there may have been some as bad, but let us hope not. . . . Talking of descendants, I have had a little alarm to-day ; we have been applied to by a certain Samuel Redgrave, who is making a Biographical Dictionary, for particulars concerning my grandfather ; and I was led to look in the catalogue of the British Museum, and there I found two whole pages devoted to the biography of a certain Thomas Savage who murdered his master's maidservant. I have been feeling very murderous, particularly towards our maidservants, which is probably a family characteristic. I daresay Thomas is an uncle a few degrees removed. This is the more likely as I never heard of any of our family being called Thomas. . . . Good-bye, Dives, and good luck to your companies. Miss Savage to Butler. 22 BEAUMONT ST., W. May i<)th t 1873. DEAR MR. BUTLER ... I was disappointed at the Positivists last night. No worship or ceremony at all something like a Mechanics' Institution, only more dismal and joyless. The male Positivists are, to put it mildly, very plain ; the females were such frights and so hideously dressed that Mrs. Gelstone and I decided that in common kindnesss to them we ought not to go there again. The males might leave the positive and take to making comparisons, which, modesty apart, could not fail to be fatal to the other females. At the top of the room there is written up an injunction that we are to live for others. St. Paul is the favourite hero with the sect ; there are three portraits of him on the walls ; all the other great men have only one. The lecture was good but dull ; the lecturer was tall and handsome, and is the first Englishman whom I have heard pronounce the French names Guizot and Broglie properly (Gwizot and Bry, in case you don't know). The audience were emotionless and solemn j judging from slight 198 HO ARE'S PARTY XII 1873 indications I should say that the working-man is the object of Act. 37 their supreme adoration, and that the present ministry figure in their imagination as a sort of substitute for the devil. There was a notice on the wall inviting the faithful to pay subscriptions of not less than three shillings a year to the " Sacerdotal Fund." There was also a calendar on the wall. Moses gives his name to the first month and Frederick the Great to the eleventh. I think that's all. Good-bye. Thanks for your visit yesterday ; it did me good. . . I am reeling cross and worried and ill, but I hope to go to Brighton next week for a few days. My mother has just come back from Chislehurst. My aunt has a passion for having all the doors and all the windows of the house always open. You can imagine how pleasant that is with this biting north-east wind. We don't make our visits too long there. My aunt has always a cold or neuralgia or rheumatism sometimes all at once but they are caused by anything except draughts. As for me I get bored there, although my aunt is extremely sharp and clever. Her dog, Prince, is the be-all and end-all of her affections, and one has always to be bowing down and worshipping him. I take my revenge by telling her anecdotes of my cat, which bore her. But I am boring you^ which I don't want to do ; so no more. Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. Butler to Miss Savage. [About May 2O//z, 1873] I have been painting all day. I paint very badly and am beginning to fear that between two stools, etc. and yet I don't know. [If I had had any sense I might, at any rate, have guessed. Aug. 8th 1901. S. B.] I went to an evening party at Hoare's the other night and stood for an hour cheek by jowl with the Archbishop of York (Thomson) and the Bishop of Bath and Wells ; but neither of them knew who I was. Mrs. Charles Hoare is delighted with The Fair Haven and says that Henry Hoare "ought to read it." She is going to show it to the Bishop. . . . You say the Positivists were ugly. You should have seen the people at Hoare's the other night. They were hideous, but there were all sorts of great guns among them. I think clever people always are ugly. Miss Savage to Butler. [About June 3 or 4, 1873.] MY DEAR MR. BUTLER Your little study in the R.A. is lovely . . . XII AUNT BATHER 199 I return the letter from your synthetic friend. [This refers 1873 to a letter written to me by the late Rev. Archer Gurney re Act. 37 The Fair Haven, He pricked my conscience by taking the book au srieux and expressing warm sympathy with many of the writer's views ; he wrote so nicely and kindly, that, for fear I should show the letter about, I tore it up as soon as I had got it back from Miss Savage.-^S. B. 8 Aug. 1901.] It is lovely, so artless ! I hope you will read his words of faith and cheer, and please lend the book to me. Have you answered the letter ? What could you say ? I am afraid whatever you did say would take the bloom off the peach of his sympathetic admiration. What a horrible handwriting ! If, instead of wasting his time trying to find out whether his mind is analytic or synthetic, he had tried to improve his handwriting, it would be better for his correspondents. He is not the only one completely deceived by the book. Mr. Ainger, the Reader of the Temple, sent it to a friend of a friend of mine whom he wished to convert. Yours sincerely, E. M. A. SAVAGE. ' Miss Savage was staying with her friends the Bertrams in Adelaide Road, and wrote to Butler, 24 June 1873 : I wish you could come and see me, and that you would if you could. Come and have tea with the dear old Granny and me. She has a great affection for you as the nephew of her old schoolfellow. [My aunt, Mrs. Bather, a very nice woman : see her charming letters in my Life of Dr. Butler. 1901 S. B.] She did not like your other aunt I am sure, for, though I put rather insidious questions to her, all she says is, " She was good-looking and afterwards she married Mr. Lloyd ; " whereas if she had liked her she would have talked about her for an hour. [From a letter of mine, dated June 25, I see that I said I would go and have tea with her at Beaumont Street on the following Sunday, but would not go to Adelaide Road. I am sorry, chiefly because it now pains me to have refused Miss Savage anything that would have been a pleasure to her ; but also, to a less extent, because I should like to have heard more about my aunt, Mrs. Bather. I remember her as a kind good soul as much so as any woman who ever lived but I had no idea how charming a personality she was till I came to read her letters many a long year later than 1873. My letter to Miss Savage wound up ... "I am getting very much interested with my novel " i.e. Ernest Pontifex shortly to be rewritten. S. B. Aug. loth 1901.] 200 RICH DIVES Miss Savage to Butler. jg_ 3 14 July 1873 I send you a little bouquet of leaves from my Act. 37 note book and other religious scraps. I don't think they can be of use to you, but the two miraculous conversions may amuse you. The prayer is a confidential document distributed among the congregation of All Saints to be used secretly. I stole it from one of the faithful for you. I send you the two verses : 1 As it fell out upon a day Rich Dives sickened and died ; There came two serpents out of Hell His soul therein to guide. Rise up, rise up, Brother Dives, And come along with me ; There's a place in Hell prepared for you To sit upon a serpent's knee because you are to be a rich man, you know, and it may interest you to hear exactly what will become of you. The information in Scripture is less explicit. Besides, considered Darwiniacally, the verses are interesting. ... Of course I shall like the novel if you like it. I am jealous horribly of Mr. Gogin and Mr. M'Culloch who know all about it already. . . . In the course of the summer, Butler, who never could keep a secret on any subject that interested him, found that so many people had now come to know he was the author of The Fair Haven that it seemed better to issue a new edition disclosing his name. For this second edition he wrote a preface reproducing some of the remarks made by The Rock, which was so pleased with the book that it departed from its custom of reviewing with brevity works entrusted to it, and devoted two articles to The Fair Haven. The following is an extract from one of the articles : Mr. Owen's exposition and refutation of the hallucination and mythical theories of Strauss and his followers is most admir- able, and all should read it who desire to know exactly what excuses men make for their incredulity. The work also contains many beautiful passages on the discomfort of unbelief and the holy pleasure of a settled faith which cannot fail to benefit the reader. 1 The other enclosures are, unfortunately, not with the papers. xii THE NOVEL BEGUN 201 The Scotsman spoke of the writer as being " throughout 1873 in downright, almost pathetic earnest ;" which was perfectly Aet< 37 true, though not in the sense intended by The Scotsman. Some of his readers, however, had understood his meaning ; the preface as finally settled quotes from a pamphlet, Jesus versus Christianity : If the reader can once fully grasp the intention of the style and its affectation of the tone of indignant orthodoxy, and perceive also how utterly destructive are its " candid admissions " to the whole fabric of supernaturalism, he will enjoy a rare treat. Butler to Miss Savage. 1 6 Aug. 1873 I send you the first 15 pp. of the novel [The Way of All Flesh~\ and will send as many more in about a week. I see my main purpose and plot quite clearly, but am in a good deal of fog as regards detail. However, it will all clear itself up. I have given up my music [practising the piano], and write an hour in the evenings instead. I am painting an " important " picture. A man mending old Heatherley's skeleton and a child looking on background, all the pots and pans and knicknacks in the corner opposite the washing-stand, with the Discobolus and half the Ilyssus. I think it will come very well, but I am only just beginning it. Old Tom can't make it out. Please at your leisure return the pamphlet Jesus v. Christianity. I send you a rough idea for a preface to the second edition of The Fair Haven, but I fear it is too hot. The " important " picture was originally called " Tinkering a Skeleton ; " it underwent a good many changes before it was exhibited in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1874 as " Mr. Heatherley's Holiday." The school skeleton was always getting knocked about, and no wonder ; the students used to dress it up in the costumes and dance with it. Mr. Heatherley never went away for a holiday ; he employed the time at home repairing the skeleton, and Butler's picture ultimately became a portrait of him so engaged. Mr. Heatherley disliked the country ; he much preferred London. Once when he had to go into the country on business he was obliged to sleep out of town ; on his return one of the students asked him how he had 202 SORTES VIRGILIANAE xn 1873 liked it, saying that no doubt he felt refreshed by sleeping Act. 37 j n country air. " No," said old Heatherley, " country air has no body in it." Miss Savage to Butler. [Probably Aug. 18, 1873.] MY DEAR MR. BUTLER "Never have I been so calm, so soothed, so happy, so filled with a blessed peace" etc. as this morning when the first instalment of your novel came. I was delighted to have it and still more delighted to read it, and I am delighted that you should have written it and not anybody else. If it goes on as it begins, it will be a perfect novel or as nearly so as may be. [Then followed some very sensible criticism, all of which I very gratefully attended to. 1901, S. B.] I send the tract [Jesus v. Christianity], Is it not funny that these men should see through the argumentative chapters [of The Fair Haven] but not through the Christ-Ideal chapter ? but perhaps it was wilful. It is not very entertaining, but I read it all through. I can't say I understand what it is about, and I feel no more inclined to worship "The Verifiable Everywhere" than I did, in my young days, to worship God Almighty. In fact, I prefer the latter, as there was more to be got out of him than there is out of the Everywhere. Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. [The following to a lady, a member of Miss Savage's club, was sent me by mistake, but Miss Savage gave me leave to keep it. S. B. 1901.] I thank you very much for the books. The Lundis are delightful, but I tied up the Virgil and redirected it to you. I know nothing whatever about Virgil, so why read 5 pages of criticism about him ? Montaigne I know, and Renan I know, and Flaubert, and Bossuet, and La Belle Cavaliere, and Madame de Boufflers, and my mind concerning most of them is tolerably well settled, therefore I shall enjoy Sainte Beuve ; but Virgil is quite a different thing. Besides Sainte Beuve didn't mean me to read it or he would have translated the quotations. I should have come round to see you last night, but it was 8 o'clock when I got to the club. My feelings bade me go, but my body, which was very tired, wanted me to stay j so at last, to put an end to the debate, I referred to Virgil to decide the point, and, opening the book at random, my eye lighted on " levat ipse tridentem," which clearly signified supper. So I called down the xii PYRAMIDS 203 tube to them to take their three-pronged fork and make me some ig 73 buttered toast. Act. 37 Miss Savage to Butler. 30 Aug. 1873 I have just found a letter written to you last Friday week which should have gone to you with the MS. I suppose, with the usual perversity of " things," it hid itself. I am glad it was not the MS. that took that freak ; but you have, I daresay, a much greater controlling influence than I have, and, though away from you, your property behaves better than mine. Well, you have not had much of a loss ; but you must have thought me rude. I hope you will forgive me, but indeed it was not my fault. When am I to have more MS. ? You said in about a week j it is now a fortnight. I read the novel two more times once to find fault and once for complete enjoyment. As far as it goes it is perfect (at least it is so to my mind) and if you go on as you have begun (and I daresay you will) it will be a beautiful book. Of course, one of the grandsons is to resemble old Pontifex it is very clever of you to suggest the hero's character by minutely describing the grandfather ; it will save the ticketing and labelling that novelists are given to and that bore one so dreadfully ; and then the characters are so perverse, in spite of all the ticketing and labelling they manage to make themselves out as something quite different. Is the slight discrepancy in the dates accidental ? I like the preface also [the " rough idea " for a preface to the new edition of The Fair Haven] ; but it does not seem to me to attain quite to the perfection we expect from you however, as, though I read it carefully two or three times, I couldn't lay my finger on anything, I came to the conclusion that the fault was in myself. Even if you never finished the novel you might make a very nice finished sketch for a magazine of the part you sent me. I am glad to hear that you are painting a picture. I wish I could see it. I am going one day to give you some more painting rags they only want tearing up ; but I have been so much disinclined to exertion this last week or two that I think I must have a tumour in my brain. I have been reading Maudsley, and he says that people who have a tumour in the brain are disinclined to exertion j their intellects remain as clear as ever, and the only symptom is what their friends call laziness ; but Maudsley says that when they are dead (they always die in the most unexpected manner) and their brains taken out and " the hemispheres sliced " arid a tumour found at the " base of the pyramids," then the friends are very sorry for their unkindness (I daresay they are not ; but of course they say so to Maudsley). If there is a tumour at the CRITICISM OF THE NOVEL xn 1873 base of my pyramids I believe it is the accumulation of hard Act. 37 words that Maudsley uses, and that I can't understand, and which have been haunting about my brain for the last three weeks. I have been thinking of sending to you for explanation, for I am sure they must be Erewhonian as they have no analogy to any known language. Many thanks for promising to ask Mr. Hoare for the votes. No : he did not give a vote before ; it was your father who gave one for a clergyman's orphan. Apropos of clergymen, I send you a little extract 1 which would be useful for a heading of a chapter in your biography, which will have to be written, even if, as I wish could be the case, you were to live for ever. I have some more delicious bits, but on account of the state of the pyramids in my brain I cannot exert myself to write them out neatly for you. Don't trouble about the autographs I don't care enough about the people who want them to bother either myself or any- body else. Good-bye : this letter is nearly as long and quite as tiresome as the one I have just been thinking you were so lucky to escape having. I hope you are very well. Some day perhaps I may have the pleasure of seeing you again. I have been away from home the last few Sundays, or I would have tried to have that pleasure. Miss Savage to Butler. 3 Sept. 1873 This chapter is quite as delightful as the first, though in a different way of course. I like it, I think, the best of the two, but you must soigner the composition a little more near about the middle there is quite a constellation of sentences beginning " but " and " yet " which, coming one after the other, are not pretty ; and on the page that you have numbered 7 there is a sentence which is, to say the least, clumsy. . . . And I don't like " reflex reflection." I think you have been caught by the jingle of the words ; would not "reflex thought" mean the same thing, and sound better ? Or do you mean " reflex reflection " for a " sotiltee " (as the cookery book I have been studying calls complicated and curious dishes), which my brain is too dull to penetrate ? And leave off writing as soon as you are tired ; it is when we are tired, and thus enfeebled, that the wee bit of exaggeration (such as, on reading your MS. again, you will see I have pencilled) becomes too strong for us. Is the narrator of the story to be an impartial historian or a special pleader ? The inconvenience of special pleading in a 1 This extract is, unfortunately, not with the papers. xii CRITICISM OF THE NOVEL 205 story is that one's sympathies are apt to go over to the other 1873 side. One's sympathies do not go over to Pontifex as yet, but Act. 37 there might be danger later on. You (I mean the teller of the story) are too severe upon people who say "if I were you." When people say that, they only mean " if I were in your place, surrounded by the same circumstances, but with my own physique, moral, and intellect." I don't think people ever mean anything else, but I don't object to your saying this in a story ; it is not in reference to the MS. that I have remarked upon it, so I don't think I need have said anything about it ; and as I am giving way to unnecessary remarks, I will say good-bye. Miss Savage to Butler. 9 Sept. 1873 I do not think you have specially pleaded as yet. Of course you must have a personality, and a decided one, or you would choose some other form for your story. If the narrator is one of the dramatis personae he is bound to give his own version of the story ; I am sure that you will be easily able to show that he in no wise distorts facts or motives. Thus the faintest hint that you have not been one of Fortune's victims would prove fast enough that you are speaking generally in the Fortune passage (The Way of all Flesh^ chapter v.). I think you must also remember that, though you adopt pretty much your own character and speak your own feelings and convictions, yet that you have chosen the disguise of an old man of seventy-three, and must speak and act as such. An old man of seventy-three would scarcely talk as you do, unless he were constantly in your company, and were a very docile old man indeed and I don't think the old man who is telling the story is at all docile. . . . Please excuse this long letter. I can only say I did not mean it it is the result of a reflex action of the muscles over which I have no control. I must also ask you to excuse these scraps of paper to which my poverty, but not my will, consents I have no more. This is my last scrap, so you will have no more letters from me yet awhile. With this piece of good news I say farewell. Miss Savage to Butler. [About October 1873] We want to establish a club on a self-supporting system and have shares. We have had some nibbles from co-operative managers, but of course cannot settle anything till we know what this club is going to do. If we do have a company you shall be one of the directors as you seem so 206 MOLlkRE'S HOUSEMAID xn 1873 fond of the sort of thing. It will probably cost you a trifle like Act. 37 a hundred a year or so ; but you will be having so many other sources of wealth that you won't mind that. We will cook our food on the plan of your new steam-engine, and economise fuel by having the fire in the middle of the boiler. Miss Savage to Butler. 3 Nov. 1873 I saw yesterday in The Times that His Grace the Archbishop would pontificate and preach to-night in Islington ; and I suppose there he is pontificating at this very moment. What is to pontificate ? I appeal to you for information. As you are the historian of all the Pontifexes to say nothing of your being a successor of the Apostles once removed I should think you would be able to tell me. If you can't, I shall write to His Grace the Archbishop himself, and enclose a halfpenny postcard for a reply. If Mrs. Gelstone were in London she would march straight off to Islington, and find out ; but I have not half energy enough for such an enterprise. I like better to trouble you. I am not asking out of mere idle curiosity, but because I have sixpence at stake ; so please forgive yours very truly. The next letter from Miss Savage was evidently written in reply to one from Butler sending her a sample chapter or so in which he had adopted another manner, no doubt in consequence of her criticisms. This other manner, I gather, would have abolished Edward Overton, who tells the story, and all his personal reminiscences. Miss Savage was to say which she preferred. Miss Savage to Butler. 10 Nov. 1873 The most embarrassing thing in the world is the embarrassment of riches. Why will you embarrass me so ? I shall be obliged soon to give up being your Moliere's housemaid if you don't become less versatile. I like what you sent me on Monday immensely. It is very clever, and I know you would be able to carry it on through a long book most successfully but it would be a tremendous tour de force. Upon the whole I think I like the direct method best. We should all be astonished by your genius if you used the indirect method, but I think we should like the book better if you used the direct way. (I speak for myself and the other housemaids, not for the creme de la creme of intellectual society.) In this chapter, too, the special pleading is XII DODGING 207 quite apparent though the pleader is more of an abstraction. But 1873 I prefer an advocate of flesh and blood. Especially if he is to be Aet - 37 an actor in the story. Then, if you used this way, you would have to modify greatly, or perhaps sacrifice, the beautiful first chapter ; and that would grieve me dreadfully. There is no reason why the narrator of the story (you have never told me his name) should not occasionally indulge in irony. He could do so very effectively from time to time. So, really, I think you could com- bine the advantages of both ways. Is that what you mean by " dodging " ? If so, by all means dodge. What I mean is that he should be like a man who, when he does not find his ordinary tool sharp enough for the occasion, takes up a keener one for the moment. I don't think by the direct way you will necessarily turn the reader's sympathies into the wrong channel. That is the danger of special pleading, and, as I said before, there is as much (more perhaps) of special pleading in this chapter as in the others at least to those who see through it ; and in a novel it will scarcely be a gain that simple and literal-minded people should be taken in. A novel is not a book like The Fair Haven. As regards the hero, if his first appearance is in this chapter, he is scarcely introduced to us favourably ; he does not quite make a good impression. There are some delicious bits. What the young people fail to see is good, and so is the concluding bit about the church. Please forgive me for not writing before. As you are not a Christian perhaps you will. I was going out to dinner on Monday and was busy with my toilette. About two months ago I sold all my clothes (except what I stood upright in) and the consequence thereof is that when I do go out I have to work like half a dozen seamstresses. [I will undertake to say she sold her clothes to help some poor friend who was in difficulties. 1901 S. B.] I did not come home till Tuesday night, and yesterday and to-day have both been very busy ones. I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon in playing bzique with an old lady who came to spend the day. I was obliged to go to the club on important business in the evening, but when I got there I was so tired that I was incapable of writing to you then. I met Mr. Heatherley last Monday. He told me about your picture. Are you going to keep it for the R.A. or are you going to send it to the B. A. ? I hope you are better than when I saw you last. Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. P. S. Do you know, I don't think the last time or two I have seen you that you seemed so happy as you used to be. I am afraid your relations with your family trouble you more than you choose to allow, or what is it ? [No doubt by this time I was 208 ALETHEA'S EYES xn 1873 waking up to the fact that Hoare's companies, which were to Aet - 37 make our fortunes, would be more likely to do what they in fact did. 1901 S. B.] P. S. Agreeable is spelt with two e's : I mention this because you never will put more than one. I saw in a shop window the other day an Alpine book written by Rev. Leslie Stephen. Is that your Mr. Leslie Stephen ? Miss Savage to Butler. 24 Nov. 1873 I do not mind Alethea having blue eyes much, as she is not the heroine ; but I like people with dark eyes best. Best of all pale hazel, clear and bright warmed by golden specks. I saw a beautiful Jewess with just such eyes about two months ago. Her hair was a beautiful red, but harsh in texture and wanting gloss, and the lower part of her face was decidedly coarse ; but her eyes and nose and the setting of her eyes were seraphic. However, in your first novel you should not try to make your people interesting by anything unusual in their personal appear- ance. In your fourth or fifth novel you may give us a heroine with golden eyes. I can wait for her. . . . P.S. I shall come to-morrow at half-past five, but not punctually. I am not a punctual person, thank heaven ! and I wish nobody else was. Ah ! I could tell you a pitiful story of my sufferings last Friday in consequence of the vicious desire that some people have "to be in time," as they complacently call it. But I won't lacerate your feelings, as I know you have a tender heart that bleeds for others' woes. However I did get a feverish attack, and could hardly hold my head up. I am better to-day. To-morrow I shall be quite well. . . . Alethea Pontifex in The Way of all Flesh is drawn from Miss Savage not as to her personal appearance, and in other respects not precisely as she actually was, but as Butler thought she might have been, had she been placed in Alethea's circumstances. Nearly all the things given to Alethea were said by Miss Savage ; and when he gave her things said by other people, he did so because he thought they were in Miss Savage's manner. But, beyond her mere sayings, the description of a cheerful, humorous, sensible woman of the world is as true a description of Miss Savage as he could make. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Leslie Stephen was ordained XII LESLIE STEPHEN 209 in 1855, and was fellow and tutor of Trinity Hall, 1873 Cambridge. In 1864 he left Cambridge for London, Aet - 3 where he engaged in literary pursuits, and we hear no more of him as a clergyman. In 1873 ^ e published Free- thinking and Plain-speaking, and in a letter to Charles Eliot Norton, 29th December 1873, about this book wrote : " Our friend Butler (of The Fair Haven] wrote a review for The Examiner. They told him to be reticent, and yet when he * reticed ' (or whatever the word should be) they still protected themselves by publishing his name contrary to his request. As The Examiner is almost avowedly atheistical or Millite, this rather surprises me." * In 1888 Butler made this note : I never write reviews ; it is much easier to write a book than to review one, so I have drifted into the ranks of the reviewed, not of the reviewers. I have only written two little colourless reviews in the whole course of my literary life ; both were innocence itself; one of Mr. Leslie Stephen's essays some dozen or more years ago in The Examiner ; the other of a philosophical work by Rosmini whose very title I have forgotten. I am sorry I have done even this much, and will never write another review j unless, of course, I get a chance of giving some kind of undue preference to a personal friend. I have read Butler's review in The Examiner and it is, as he says, " innocence itself." The line taken is that, whether or not we agree with the author, the significance of the book is in the fact that it should have been written by Leslie Stephen, a man "sufficiently well known to make it notorious that he is not one to outrage public feeling." The review concludes, " If it does not greatly enlarge the domain of human thought, it assuredly extends the boundaries of one that is hardly less important licensed utterance." About the end of December 1873, Butler wrote to von Haast with a copy of The Fair Haven. " It is more subtle than Erewhon, but not so entertaining. I find such men as Darwin like it the best of the two books, but the general public prefer Erewhon. The book I have now on 1 The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen, by Frederic William Maitland (London : Duckworth & Co. 1906), p. 238. VOL. T P 210 BUSINESS XII 1873 hand will be purely entertaining or rather is intended to Aet - 3 8 be so." Besides writing The Way of All Flesh, Butler was also much occupied in attending meetings in the city and looking after his and Pauli's interests in Hoare's new companies. When Pauli came over from Lincoln's Inn to lunch at Butler's one o'clock dinner in Clifford's Inn, they must have had plenty to talk about in these days. Painting, I suppose, was put rather into the background, with the piano-playing, after December 1873, about which time " Mr. Heatherley's Holiday " was finished. - ///', '//,'ff/-/,,-t'/r 4 Soon after my father's death my mother gave up her house in London and travelled on the Continent with my two sisters, only occasionally coming to England. She ultimately settled at Nice, where she died in January 1900. When my mother left London I went into lodgings and during the winter of 1875-6 was living in Cork Street, Bond Street, and going to the city every day. It is mentioned in chapter x. (ante, p. 152) that I made Butler's acquaintance partly through John Elder who was at Trinity Hall with me. Another Hall man whom I knew was Edward Algernon Hall, whose people lived at Whatton, near Langar, and knew the Butlers intimately. I suppose that Vincent Hall, who is mentioned in chapter iii. (ante, p. 40) as the master of Freck the shepherd, was one of the Halls of Whatton. Edward A. Hall and John Elder lodged in the same house at Cambridge, and we all rowed in the same races. I was in Hall's rooms in Green Street, Cambridge, one evening early in 1872 when Erewhon was passing through the press, and some proofs came from Butler for Hall to read. The proofs included the great chords moaned by the statues, and I remember our verify- ing the printed page by comparing it with the prelude to the first of Handel's "Trois Lecons." While I was living in Cork Street, Hall was lodging at 20 Clarges Street, Piccadilly. We used to meet at the Monday Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall and after- wards go to his rooms. Butler also went to the concerts, for he had not then " completely broken with high-class modern music," and he frequently turned into Hall's rooms afterwards. There I first met him on the loth January 1876. Hall had been at Winchester with Henry Gurney who sometimes came after the concert, bringing his brother Edmund. This is from Butler's account of the friendship between him and myself : I used to go to Hall's rooms because I had known him ever since he was a baby. . . . There was still a reminiscence about both him and Harry Gurney of the time when they were at Winchester and used to come to my rooms in their holidays, and I would play 232 IN HALL'S ROOMS xiv 1876 Handel, to whom they then were devoted. As long as they Act. 40 worshipped Handel I liked them ; but when they began to turn up their noses at him, and say that they really could not go back to Handel after having known Lecocq and Madame Angot^ I began to drop them. At the meetings in Hall's rooms the conversation was about the concert, John Farmer and the Music School at Harrow, and music in general, whence it would branch off to other subjects, especially the burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre. Edmund Gurney said one evening, and Butler said he believed he meant it seriously, and saw no fun in it, that the world had produced four great un-self-conscious artists, viz. Homer, Raphael, Wordsworth, and Nellie Farren. Gurney afterwards wrote a book on music, The Power of Sound (1880), and associated himself with Frederick W. H. Myers as Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research. Butler would sit on the sofa in Hall's rooms with a piece of newspaper spread on his knees, eating his supper of bacon and bread, which had been in his pocket all through the concert, and talking about painting, as became an artist ; but his mind was full of his writing. If fewer people had been present I am sure he would have talked about Life and Habit, which was at this time descending with modifications from the machines in Erewhon. On one of these evenings he told us that he had recently said to a lady that he was thinking of giving up art, returning to literature, and writing a satire upon Christianity. The lady, who was Miss Savage, said, as Alethea says in The Way of all Flesh (chap, xxxii.) : " Oh ! no : don't waste your time on those people. Have they not Moses and the Prophets ? Let them hear them." Miss Savage also went to the concerts ; she wrote to Butler, 9th February 1876 : I saw you in the orchestra. I was far away in the dark place under the gallery, where I always like to be. Next Monday I shall have to go to the orchestra, for Miss Scott wants to go, and I shall never dare confess to her that I am afraid. [She was afraid the organ would come down on her. August 2jth, 1901. S. B.] X iv THE GROWTH OF A THEORY 233 But wasn't it delightful? I am sure even you must have liked 1876 the Schumann quartet. Aet - + Butler to Miss Savage. [About 15 Jan. 1876] I will come and see you about 8 to- morrow Thursday evening. I have still got a heavy cold, but am painting and writing better. I have got a very dry but exceedingly (to me) interesting subject something like the machines in Erewhon on which I am now working steadily ; but what it will come to I do not know. At any rate it has the merit of not being aimed directly or indirectly at Christianity, and not being satirical save incidentally. It is on the force of habit. I have never been so taken with a subject since I wrote The Fair Haven. [Then I was not sure that my Life and Habit theory was more than ingenious paradox ; but by February I4th I had gripped my meaning, and knew it to be sound. See my book Unconscious Memory, p. 30, and my letter to T. W. G. Butler of Feb. 1 8th, 18768. B. 1901.] An account of the course of the development of Life and Habit is given in chapter ii. of Unconscious Memory, " How I came to write Life and Habit." Butler had first assumed that man is a mechanism, whence followed the inference about machines becoming animate. He next took the view that machines were limbs which we had made outside our bodies and carried about with us. This was put forward in " Lucubratio Ebria " published in The Press, New Zealand, 29th July 1865, and reprinted in The Note- Books of Samuel Butler. In The Reasoner (ist July 1865) appeared an extension of the first view. The next step in the development of the idea was " The Book of the Machines " in Erewhon. Then came an interruption, caused by writing The Fair Haven, after which he returned to the machines, and proposed not only to see them as limbs but also to see limbs as machines. What would follow if we regarded our limbs and organs as machines we had manufactured for our convenience? How did we come to make them unconsciously ? How do we do any- thing unconsciously ? By habit ? Can a man be said to do by habit a thing which he has never done before ? But the thing has been done by his ancestors. That will 234 ORGANS AND MACHINES xiv 1876 not help unless the man and his ancestors are the same Act. 40 p erson< Perhaps they are ? What is sameness ? Then came the interruption caused by his going to Canada ; but he continued to think about identity and habit and to make notes. On finally returning to London he put his notes in order, and by February found he had got hold of a theory which he thought must be sound. On 1 8th February 1876, partly to clear his mind and partly to announce his discovery to some one, he wrote an account of the theory to T. W. G. Butler who was then in New Zealand. An imperfect copy of the letter is in the British Museum (Department of MSS.), and an extract from it is given in The Note- Books of Samuel Butler. A summary of the letter is given in an Appendix to the present work. Miss Savage to Butler. "THE WOMAN'S GAZETTE." [About March \oth, 1876.] MY DEAR MR. BUTLER How unkind of you to come the very minute after I went out ; I should not have minded half so much if you had not come at all if you had come half an hour later, even, it would not have been so bad (why is it always more disagreeable just to miss a pleasure than to miss it by a great deal ?) Will you come and see me this week ? I shall ask my little fiddler [Gabrielle Vaillant] to come and play to you. I did not ask her the last time you came because I had heard nothing of you or your affairs for so long ; and if she had been here you would have listened, and I wanted you to talk. She will very likely come to-day to have something to eat before going to the concert so I shall ask her to come. What a lovely concert last Monday ! I saw you there, as I did the Monday before, in the orchestra. Last Monday I was under the gallery, having nearly lost my life three times the Monday before in the orchestra. It would not have been so bad if I had quite lost it ; but just to miss, as I said just now, is disagreeable. I was reading a lecture of Helmholtz yesterday : it seems that we have in our ears little microscopic keyboards with keys and cords and dampers all complete in fact, it seems as if the Lord had tried to imitate Broad wood and Erard. The only difference is that the black keys are not black, so there is yet room for improvement ; the same peculiarity is observable in many of the old harpsichords and spinets. It is quite comfortable to think xiv JONES VISITS BUTLER 235 that we are fitted up with things so familiar to us as the common 1876 domestic piano ; but it is rather droll to think that when we are Aet - 4 playing upon the piano, the piano is playing upon us in exactly the same way. I should think that in time we might play upon ourselves without the clumsy mediums that we now employ. An orchestra, now what an expensive troublesome thing it is ! But I am forgetting that I am very busy to-day. So no more from yours truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. While Erewhon was being written, painting was put in the background but not given up ; while the companies demanded attention it had to be practically given up ; after the smash of the last company Butler took to painting again, and did not give it up to write Life and Habit. So far as I can remember, I first went to Butler's rooms with John Elder ; the first time I went there alone was on an afternoon towards the end of March 1876 on my way back from the city. Butler was in and showed me the two pictures he was painting for the Academy. His sitting-room was about half as long again as it was broad, with the fire-place at one end ; and at the other two windows which looked west over the grass plot and trees of Clifford's Inn. The door was in the middle of one side wall, and against the opposite wall was the piano. The room was panelled, painted a dirty white, and hung with his own sketches and photographs of Italian pictures. The pictures I had come to see were in his painting-room which looked out upon Fetter Lane. The more im- portant one was in oils ; he called it " Don Quixote," but admitted that it was only a study from a costume model at Heatherley's, and no more like one's notion of Don Quixote than it was like any other man in armour ; but he was obliged to give it a title, otherwise, he said, the Academy would not look at it. He probably said much the same to Miss Savage, for when she went to the exhibition and saw the second picture, which was a water- colour of a girl's head, she wrote that, if it did not sell, he must call it " Mignon " and send it to a provincial show. He told Miss Savage that " Don Quixote " had found a purchaser who paid 15 : 155. for it. "I never liked the picture till now, but now I like it very much." 236 RIGHT AND WRONG xiv 1876 This was the last time the Academy accepted any t- 4 picture by Butler ; the following list of all his pictures exhibited in the Royal Academy was kindly made for me by his fellow-student, Mr. H. R. Robertson : 1869 Miss Atcheson. 1871 A Reverie. 1874 (i) A Child's head. (2) Mr. Heatherley's Holiday : an incident in studio life. 1876 (i) Don Quixote. (2) A Girl's head. Miss Savage to Butler. 22 BEAUMONT STREET. [About April jth, 1876.] DEAR MR. BUTLER I am glad to know that the Company is in extremis j perhaps, indeed, by this time it may be no more. Mind you let me know as soon as it is quite dead. It will be a great burden off your shoulders. ... I wish you did not know right from wrong. I am so sorry that our little concert did not come off. Mdlle. Vaillant is going to play to Joachim to-day, or rather has played to him. I am longing to know all about it. ... I went to the Popular Concert last night. I did not see you. The quintet took 45 minutes to play. I think they ought to allow ten minutes for refreshments in such a case, or at all events an interval for letting pins drop ; the person next me sneezed twice, which was a blessing to those in our immediate neighbour- hood ; for they all looked round, ostensibly to express severe dis- approbation, but really to give themselves a little relief, and change of ideas and position. I daresay they were longing to sneeze too. . . . Excuse my not having sent this before ; but I am bothered with my accounts, and everything went out of my head yesterday except my day-book and ledger, which have, I think, taken up their abode in my brain, and are very angular and uncomfortable. I shall lose nine and elevenpence. I can't get the entries in the ledger to correspond with the day-book. I am elevenpence wrong in the receipts too much, and is. 8d. in the expenditure too little. When I say I shall lose 95. nd., I suppose I must have appropriated those monies and so must refund. Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. Butler did not keep the original of the foregoing letter ; he copied it, but only in part, and the dots represent passages which he himself cut out. I suppose xiv COLLABORATION 237 * that when Miss Savage wrote, " I wish you did not know 1876 right from wrong " in this letter she was referring to his Aet> + scrupulousness in matters of business, as she says in her letter to him of 1 5th October 1874 (ante, p. 215) : " You told me what you had been doing buying back other people's shares in the Company." He did buy back the snares of those friends whom he had induced to speculate, or in some way he acted so that they did not lose money through following his advice ; and it would be quite in her manner, while admiring him for doing this, to chaff him for being so quixotic. But when, in 1901, he was " editing his remains " and reviewing his past life he showed that he supposed Miss Savage to have used these words about his not knowing right from wrong in a different sense, as we shall see later. Miss Savage to Butler. [From the following letter I see I must have proposed that Miss Savage and I should write a book, probably a novel, together ; I had quite forgotten this. 1901. S. B. After saying how much she wished the Canada Tanning Extract Co. would finally smash she continues, April 19, 1876 :] With regard to your proposal to me, I decline it ; not but that I like it very much, but please remember that I have a conscience or rather, I should say (for my conscience is a very manageable one) some regard for you. Do what you may with anything I can produce, and you will have something immeasur- ably inferior to what you can do all alone. And why should you gain the reputation of doing common work, when you can so easily do the best ? [I copy this out for Miss Savage's sake ; but, as a matter of fact, I felt very unsound and weak as a writer for many a long year still. It is only during the last six or seven years that I have felt strong. I think my Life of Dr. Butler taught me more than anything else did. S. B. Sept. 6, 1901.] I know you over-estimate my powers ; and so long as your delusion is harmless I should certainly encourage it (indeed, I am not sure that I don't share it) "but when a lunatic becomes dangerous to himself or others he must be restrained." Such a partnership could not do you anything but harm. Besides our respective shares could never be calculated. You bring capital, credit, and do the work and then we divide the 238 "THE RIGHTEOUS MAN" xiv 1876 profits? Not that I should object to having more than my Act. 40 share, for I am naturally greedy, and would plunder anyone else with pleasure ; but my first objection to the plan is conclusive, and so no more need be said, except that I thank you very much. Miss Savage to Butler. 29 April 1876 I have just earned 6s. by doing needlework, and am therefore justly proud. I only wish the demand were equal to the supply ; but though there are 30 millions of people within these realms I more than suffice to supply them. Some day, when I have very much improved in the art, I may perhaps embroider you a kettle-holder. In the same letter she asks, " Has your f Righteous Man ' appeared yet ? " This is all I have found to date the composition of "The Righteous Man." Butler made a note on the letter saying he supposed the poem must have been refused by The Examiner in 1876, and concluding, " On reading it again, I think it very good. S. B., Nov. 1st, 1901." He sent it to The Examiner later, when the paper was under other management, and it appeared on 5th April 1879 as P art f a correspondence "A Clergy- man's Doubts" (post, p. 295). Although given in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, it may properly be repeated here. THE RIGHTEOUS MAN The righteous man will rob none but the defenceless, Whatsoever can reckon with him he will neither plunder nor kill ; He will steal an egg from a hen or a lamb from an ewe ; For his sheep and his hens cannot reckon with him hereafter They live not in any odour of defencefulness ; Therefore right is with the righteous man, and he taketh advantage righteously, Praising God and plundering. The righteous man will enslave his horse and his dog, Making them serve him for their bare keep and for nothing further, Shooting them, selling them for vivisection when they can no longer profit him, Backbiting them and beating them if they fail to please him ; For his horse and his dog can bring no action for damages, Wherefore, then, should he not enslave them, shoot them, sell them for vivisection ? xrv GRACE AND THE LAW 239 But the righteous man will not plunder the defenceful lg7 g Not if he be alone and unarmed for his conscience will smite him ; Act. 40 He will not rob a she-bear of her cub, nor an eagle of her eaglets Unless he have a rifle to purge him from the fear of sin ; Then may he shoot rejoicing in innocency from ambush or a safe distance ; Or he will beguile them, lay poison for them, keep no faith with them ; For what faith is there with that which cannot reckon hereafter, Neither by itself, nor by another, nor by any residuum of ill con- sequences ? Surely, where weakness is utter, honour ceaseth. Nay, I will do what is right in the eyes of him who can harm me, And not in those of him who cannot call me to account. Therefore yield me up thy pretty wings, O humming-bird ! Sing for me in a prison, O lark ! Pay me thy rent, O widow ! for it is mine. Where there is reckoning there is sin, And where there is no reckoning sin is not. He was abroad alone from the middle of May till the beginning of August, all the time making sketches and writing Life and Habit. He stayed for three weeks at Faido and for nearly a month at Mendrisio. He went to Fusio, where he met and made friends with Spartaco Vela, son of the eminent sculptor, and some other Italian painters. When he left Fusio he went over the Sassello Grande to Airolo and his guide was Guglielmoni who conies into Alps and Sanctuaries, chapter xxvi., " Fusio " ; and in the chapter " Fusio Revisited," which is added to the second edition (1913), he comes again and takes Butler and me for the same walk. From Airolo Butler went into Piora. I do not know when he first went there, nor do I know when he saw, or suspected, in Piora things which inspired him to write the passage about grace and the law and St. Paul near the end of chapter ii. of Life and Habit : And grace is best ; for where grace is, love is not distant. Grace ! the old Pagan ideal whose charm even unlovely Paul could not withstand ; but, as the legend tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgave him, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he troubled deaf heaven with his bootless cries, his thin voice pleading for grace after the flesh. 2 4 o ST. PAUL XIV 1876 The waves came in one after another, the sea-gulls cried et.^o together after their kind, the wind rustled among the dried canes upon the sandbanks, and there came a voice from heaven saying, " Let My grace be sufficient for thee." Whereon, failing of the thing itself, he stole the word and strove to crush its meaning to the measure of his own limitations. But the true grace, with her groves and high places, and troops of young men and maidens crowned with flowers, and singing of love and youth and wine the true grace he drove out into the wilderness high up, it may be, into Piora, and into such-like places. Happy they who harboured her in her ill report. This passage was connected in his mind with that other passage about the bells which he heard when he was on Montreal Mountain, quoted in the preceding chapter. It was a result of comparing the kind of people he met in Canada and elsewhere, who were under the law, with the kind of people he met in North Italy, who were under grace. The passage from Life and Habit was written, and left intentionally, as a piece of fine prose ; and it is one of the few passages in Butler's books that were so written and left. But it is not ornament ; it forms an integral part of the structure of what he is saying ; finely placed and finely led up to, it leads finely into this paragraph, close to the end of the chapter : Above all things, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in me. In that I write at all I am among the damned. If he must believe in anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Here is St. Paul again, but what a different St. Paul ! I remember being puzzled, and asking Butler how it was that unlovely Paul, who missed the true grace, neverthe- less came to write the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. In reply to my question Butler quoted the words which the sea-captain had used in reply to his question about the stormy petrels (ante, p. 75). Butler was very fond of Piora. In chapter vi. of Alps and Sanctuaries he has a dream there a dream that was an amplification of the one he has when approaching xiv DREAM-MUSIC 241 Erewhon. In chapter ii. of Erewhon Chowbok prepares 1876 the statues and their music by imitating their appearance Aet> 4 and by moaning. In chapter iii. Chowbok leaves him. In chapter iv. he dreams of the organ in the wool-shed with pipes like Fingal's cave and Handel playing on the key-board ; but the music does not come till he wakes, and then it is faint and distant. In chapter v. he reaches the statues and hears the music properly. He had no doubt he had chosen the best piece of music that could be found for the statues, but he was a long time making up his mind what music to give to the dream-people in the mountainous orchestra of Piora. Of course it must be Handel. He thought of " Bid the maids the youths provoke " from " Crown with festal pomp " in Hercules ; but it seemed too obvious. It was not till after much thoughtful searching that he found what he wanted : " Then presently they rose and sang ' Venus laughing from the skies.' ' While abroad he wrote to Miss Savage, 4th June 1876 : I don't think I was ever so fairly done up before ; but then I have had the worst 3 years I ever had since the horrors of childhood and boyhood. I am sure that there is nothing seriously amiss with me and all's well that ends well. How are you, who I fear have far more serious ground for complaining ? [I omit a silly sanguine page about the studies I was making and what I should do with them when I came back. It makes me sick to see what a fool I was for it all came to nothing, save to Alps and Sanctuaries years afterwards. Sep. 1901, Wassen, S. B.J I made a study of a church porch a day or two since. Going out to lunch at the back of the church in the shade I came upon a peasant woman, weeding corn, with whom I conversed. Presently, wishing to make myself agreeable, I showed her my study which I thought rather good. She looked at me imploringly, threw out the palms of her hands as she knelt among the corn and said : " Signore mio, son pratica far la contadina ma per la geografia non son capace." I hear the Company is to smash on the 8th. It does not matter to me when it smashes for smash it certainly will. I have had to pay for my experience, but I believe I have bought an article which will last me my lifetime. VOL. I R 242 MISS SAVAGE'S BOOK xiv Miss Savage to Butler. 1876 6 June 1876 I am very much puffed up, having just this Act. 40 m inute received a P.O. for I5/- for an article for which I only expected io/-. I have also a commission to write a book for 10 ! It is to be called The Home Help to Ornamental Embroidery. By the by, I have not yet made your kettle-holder, but when you come home will give you a copy of my book, and then you will be able to make kettle-holders for yourself after one perusal. This is warranted. Please write to me very soon about your pictures, but do not trouble to write a letter unless you are very well, and have less to do than I know you have. Do you know that writing machines will soon be used by everybody ? But how stupid our letters will look all printed in capitals thus YOURS TRULY, E. M. A. SAVAGE. Miss Savage wrote the book, Art Needlework : a guide to embroidery in crewels, silks, applique ; and a short history of the art of embroidery . It was published by Ward, Lock, & Tyler in 1877, and formed a volume of the Home Help Series. The author's name is given as E. Mase, a pseudonym constructed out of her initials with the r final e of her surname added and accented, thus E. M.A.S.E., and Butler took care that the book was entered in the catalogue of the British Museum under both Savage and Mas. I believe it is the only published work by her except the (probably anonymous) articles she wrote for The Drawing Room Gazette, The Woman s Gazette, and perhaps other papers. Of course Butler congratulated Miss Savage upon her book : . . . but still more do I congratulate the person who buys it. I shall have to look to my laurels. I don't know whether to wish that it may be long, so that I may have the more pleasure in reading it, or short, so that you may be the less poorly paid. Butler to Miss Savage. August 1876 I am writing at my book [Life and Habit] regularly, but it is all rough and notes and will want re-writing and re-arranging ; but I am getting a good deal of material together. The theory frightens me it is so far-reaching and subversive it oppresses me and I take panics that there cannot really be xiv PAINTING OR WRITING? 243 any solid truth in it; but I have been putting down anything 1876 that it seems to me can be urged against it with as much force Aet - 4 as if I were a hostile reviewer, and really cannot see that I have a leg to stand upon when I pose as an objector. Still, do what I can, I am oppressed and frightened. I have had to read a sermon of Bishop Butler's again [author of The Analogy']. And here again I am oppressed and frightened when I reflect on the fact that such a poor creature as he should have achieved so great and so lasting an influence. However, as my cousin's laundress says, " It will all come right in the wash." " My cousin " was Reginald Worsley, and his laundress was Mrs. Boss, the old woman who looked after him in his chambers, the original of Mrs. Jupp in The Way of All Flesh (cf. chapter xxiv. post). Butler still considered himself a painter and hoped to make money by selling pictures, but the book was different ; money might come from the book, but the book had to be done, money or no money. For the writing interested him far more deeply than the painting, and, as a consequence, the painting suffered. It had been so before when he was writing Erewhon ; and now, again, although he had done what he considered to be some very decent water-colours while abroad, on his return to London Life and Habit took possession of him, and with regard to the painting he " drifted back to the fatal self- deception of Heatherley's." Painting from the model in the school was easy work compared with the com- position and invention of a picture, and his creative faculties were fully occupied with Life and Habit. Prob- ably Heatherley's operated beneficially by taking him off his literary work and providing a place of quiet rest and meditation. But he would not have allowed himself to use it in this way consciously ; he was still under the impression that painting at Heatherley's helped him in his profession as an artist. In this August Butler went to Langar for the last time. In the autumn Canon Butler gave up the living and retired with his younger daughter, Miss Butler, to Shrewsbury. Mrs. Bridges, his elder daughter, was living at Ventnor, and moved to Shrewsbury and joined 244 LOSSES XIV 1876 her father and sister a few years later. When the Butlers Act. 40 j e f t L an g ar the rooks deserted the rookery in the plantation behind the house where they had been ever since I could remember anything." The following letter was preliminary to Butler's first visit to his people at Wilderhope House, Shrewsbury. In giving Miss Savage his address there, he wrote : " They have gone to a house with a mocking name, but it is quite innocent. Wilderhope is a village near Shrewsbury ; several Shropshire villages end in < hope.' ' Butler to his Father. 20 Nov. 1876 As regards your other question, namely what I have lost in the Canada Tanning Extract Co. I have lost ^3560 ; but your question suggests that you might be intending to make some proposal to me which might do something towards making it up to me, and this I should wish to say frankly I could not allow. I have always felt that, no matter who might say what, I have made what you originally gave me do me and do me handsomely without further burdening my friends, and it is so strongly my wish that this should continue to be the case that I am sure you will not again allude to the matter. I made no secret of my losses being very heavy, but I fancied there would have been always something in my manner which would suggest that I was not going to allow myself to be helped, and that I did not mention them with that view. Besides I could not allow myself to be helped without a full disclosure of my position and of the circumstances that have led to it for many years past ; these are such as I have no reason to regret or be ashamed of but they are such as I should not wish to disclose, though the day will come when I shall not have the smallest objection to their being known. This much, however, I may say : I owe nothing, no one has any lien of any kind over any- thing I have ; I have not insured my life and borrowed money on my reversion ; I am under no sort of money obligation to any one except yourself in the first instance ; I do not in the least anticipate that I shall have occasion to do any of these things ; I have long ago submitted my position to my friend Jason Smith who knows all that has happened and who considers that I am now doing what is on the whole the wisest thing. If the worst comes to the worst I may have some day or other to insure my life and anticipate my reversion to a small extent, but I do not in the least believe that I shall ever have to do so, and I shall xiv EXPLANATIONS 245 make no secret of it if it should ever come to be necessary. 1876 What I must really look after is my health ; given that, and I Aet - 4 am under no anxiety, but if that fails me the position would be more serious. My doctor tells me I am not strong but that there is nothing wrong with me and I believe he is quite right. I have said the above because I did not wish to pass over your question in silence nor without thanking you for your supposed object in asking ; at the same time my writing will avoid mistake and prevent the necessity for a verbal answer. In the foregoing letter Butler is putting the best face he can on his financial position. The mysterious reference to a possible disclosure of the circumstances that led to his position means that Pauli's anticipated success at the Bar, by justifying his action, would enable him to prove that, though wrong about the companies, he had not been wrong about everything. I doubt whether it was judicious to refer to the matter ; I should think it alarmed his father and made him suspicious ; but there is nothing to show that any immediate harm came of it. CHAPTER XV 1877 LIFE AND HABIT 1877 Miss SAVAGE'S letters at this time were written with Act. 41 ^e intention of diverting Butler from his troubles. In January 1877 he was complaining of the results of overwork. Miss Savage to Butler. [Late January 1877] "Tea and toast !" Nothing but tea and toast for a feverish attack ! I wish you were as gourmand as I am. I wish you could have had some of the delicious white soup I made, or rather caused to be made, for the club last week. I shall not tell you anything about it. I am sure I should not make your mouth water if I did. I believe you could read Francatelli right through from beginning to end without being moved in the smallest degree. Thank you for writing to me ; but, as I said, I am sure you are not kind to yourself. Why do you paint in your dreams ? Because you are vexed and angry with yourself for not being able to paint in the daytime ? " What a nonsense ! " as dear Miss Karstens used to say. In the first place, nobody can paint in the darkness we have been having, and, in the second place, it is time you had a week's idleness ; in fact, I think it is rather a lucky thing for you to be ill, if you would only take the matter in the right spirit, and look upon it not as an affliction but as a privilege to be forced to do nothing. Let those who like it work and slave, For 'tis their nature to ; But the only boon that in life I crave Is to have little or nothing to do. I have been much annoyed and bothered at the club, and am sorry to say that on one occasion I lost my temper. I mean that 246 xv MISS SAVAGE AND ALETHEA 247 I showed I lost it. I often do lose my temper, but can generally l8 77 hide the fact ; which, as regards the general public, is of course t- 4I the same as not losing it at all. However, I soon recovered myself; and, since I said of my enemy that she combined the harmlessness of the serpent with the wisdom of the dove, I have been quite in charity with her and with all women. This is one of the things he took from Miss Savage and gave to Alethea. Here are three scraps from letters written about this time : I had a little accident the other day, being upset in a cab as I was going out to dine. No harm done except to my best gown, which suffered from my having to put my arms round the neck of a damp policeman who helped to pull me out. At first they tried to pull me out by the hair of my head, but I did not like that ; so the dye of the policeman's coat has come off on one of the sleeves of my best gown and all the fallings and grillings round my arms being made of tulle (a material, as you know, principally composed of starch) hung down in sticky lumps. My little misfortune seemed to put everyone into good spirits ; and as the accident happened at the very door of the house I was going to, the thing could not have been better managed if it had been planned beforehand. . . . Do read Harriet Martineau's Life. It is such fun. . . . Here is a story told by Mr. Meiklejohn, one of the Army examiners. He was putting a young man through a viva voce examination in Hamlet, and asked : " What was the custom that was more honoured in the breach than in the observance ? " "Matrimony" was the prompt reply. Butler to Miss Savage. [u or 12 Feb. 1877] No communication has passed between us since I found the mysterious scrap of paper in my box a fortnight ago. I could not have come, for I was engaged to some people who are cottoning on to me and whom I do not like. They are very rich and wanted me to go down into the country with them ; and when I would not they sent a man-servant with a beautiful narcissus growing and in full bloom, and are generally boring me and I have to go to them to-night. I shall tell the man who let me in for them to take them away. There ought to be some form of social separation as simple and void of offence as introduction. If ever I go to Erewhon again (which I do not suppose I ever shall, for I could never fill another volume or even 2 4 B ADVERTISEMENT PICTURE xv 1877 Haifa volume) I shall introduce such a form, as one of the things Act. 41 j f or g O t to mention. I am very well seldom better in health but getting more and more anxious about the future. If Life and Habit fails as The Fair Haven did, I do not know what will happen ; and I have a great and ever present source of oppression of which I cannot tell you or any one else. Pray do not allude to this ; I wish I had not written it. [This must allude to Pauli, who had treated me for many years very badly, and continued to do so till his death on Dec. 29, 1897. I knew I was being cruelly treated, but how cruelly I never knew till after his death when I could not even forgive him, as I would have done. 1901. S. B.J To turn to Life and Habit ', it gets on but slowly. I have to rewrite so much ; but it shall be published before Xmas. I think the first 100 pp. are pretty well done. I am also at work on my advertisement picture. I was three mornings studying in the street itself from 8 to 9, and shall do so again this week. I have also got on with the water-colour at Thames Ditton. I remember seeing the " advertisement picture " in Butler's painting-room. It represented a group of coster- mongers having tea on a barrow at 5 o'clock in the morning in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn, with a background of advertisements on a hoarding that cut the picture horizontally, and hid the building of the new Law Courts. Above the hoarding appeared the steeple of St. Clement Danes against a sky lit up by the rising sun. An odd and unlikely subject ; yet something might have been made of it if he had not been depressed and overworked. The picture was rejected by the Academy. In a note made on the foregoing letter he wrote of this picture : The figures were bad. I painted much of it out when I got it back got it into a thorough mess and in the end gave it to Gogin, who I trust may have destroyed it. The Thames Ditton water-colour I gave to Mrs. Danvers, some ten years later. [Sep. 12, 1901. Wassen. S. B.J Butler to Miss Savage. 19 March 1877 When will you come and see my picture? It is still very unfinished, but is advancing pretty fast, and I think I shall be able to send it in. I shall have the frame on Friday j but come whenever you like. xv WRITING OR PAINTING ? 249 I have made "The Messiah" the central advertisement 1877 between "Nabob Pickles" and "Three Millions of Money," Act. 4 i with " The Messiah " much smaller than " Mr. Sims Reeves " and "Signer Foli." It does not seem in the least pointed, and of course I copied the advts from nature. Note by Butler on a letter from Miss Savage ^c^th March 1877. As regards this picture, which it plagues me even to think of I ought to have known that it was no good ; and I did know, but I was too jaded even to admit it to myself. What with Pauli, whom I believed to be even more in difficulties than myself and who let me share and share down to the dregs of the capital which I was now eating, nay, he had the lion's share I have written this story elsewhere, so say no more what with seeing ruin approaching and finding both literature and painting to be broken reeds so far as selling was concerned ; what with the relations between myself and my father and the really great anxiety that Life and Habit was to me, I was not myself; and, though I could write, I could not paint. Yet if I had been contented with simple water-colour subjects, each drawing to take a fortnight's work, instead of fagging at an ambitious picture for months, I might have done fairly well. But, after all, I suppose the truth was that I felt literature to be a more tempting field, and one better worth trying to excel in, than painting ; nor, in spite of the very great distress and difficulties of the years 18771886, do I think I was mistaken. I do not think that anything I could have done as a painter could have been as well worth doing as what I have done in writing ; so finis coronat opus. All's well that ends well, [i 3th Sept. 1901. S. B.] Butler to Miss Savage. 27 April 1877 Your letter was forwarded to me down at Shrewsbury hence my delay in answering it. I am better ; but have been working very hard since my return, and the three days I had in Shrewsbury were poor in quality and not enough in quantity ; however, I will attend to myself, and get all right again. All my pictures are rejected ; so are all M'Culloch's, which last, I am sure, will be better than a great deal that will be hung. I am working at my book again regularly, and go to the Brit. Mus. Reading Room every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from ten till one. I like it immensely, and wonder why I never went there before. I sit at letter B (B for Butler), or, if I cannot get there, at letter C. 250 BRITISH MUSEUM xv 1877 I hope I am painting better and that I have made a fresh Act. 41 start ; but I have hoped this many times already and nothing seems to come of it. Miss Savage replied sympathising about the rejected pictures and, after abusing the Academy, continued : Nevertheless I hope you got into a passion and swore. I am glad you like the Museum ; I always told you it was delightful j I shall begin to go there again next week because it is open till 6 o'clock. I never hardly go till the afternoon, so, as you go away early, I shall get you to leave your place for me only you must sit at letter G I am miserable anywhere else and facing the south-west. I chose letter G when I first went to the Museum because it was at an equal distance from Miss Karstens and Miss Andrews, and the furthest pole apart from Miss Pearson (Miss Pearson is going to nurse the wounded Russians ; she went to nurse the wounded Servians, which was the reason why Servia so promptly made peace with Turkey) and my heart clings fondly to the place ; but as I go late I often have to sit somewhere else and sometimes can't find a place at all. So how glad I shall be, and how grateful to you, if you give me the reversion of your place. You can leave an old hat on the desk No, an old hat won't do : I should accumulate old hats. Well, I shall think of something else. You must let me come some day and see your picture now that it is finished. I am not well in fact I am ill and should go to the doctor, only he always jeers at me in an unfeeling way. [I should fear that the malignant cancer, of which she died, had already made itself apparent, for it was external, not internal ; but she never gave me so much as a hint that there was anything beyond general indisposition the matter with her. She never from the first had looked a healthy woman, but I set that down to the hip disease that had so lamed her. Wassen, 14 Sept. 1901. S. B.] He was in the Canton Ticino again from the middle of May to the end of July, and must have been pretty well in his physical health, for he thought nothing of walking in a day from Mendrisio to the top of Monte Bisbino and back via Sagno. Some of his time he gave to Life and Habit, but most of it to sketching and painting. xv FAIDO 251 Butler to Miss Savage. HOTEL DELL' ANGELO, FAIDO, CANTON TICINO, SWITZERLAND. Sund. June 10, 1877. DEAR Miss SAVAGE A few lines to ask how you are, and to 1877 say I am a hundred times better than when I left England. Aet - 4- 1 [I do not believe I should have lived through the next nine and a half years if I had not insisted on giving myself a two months' holiday abroad every summer, and as many smaller outings as I could get. I had to borrow money on every penny of security I could command in order to do this, but I do not believe I could have acted more wisely. Of course I paid interest punctually to the day and repaid the principal immediately on the death of my father. Thus I rubbed through a long and very depressing time, which I do not believe I could have done without periods of long and complete change of environment. Sep. 14-th, 1901. S. B.] On wet days I paint in the monastery not a very nice subject, but the nicest I could see on the spur of the moment. I see the last monks, like the last wolves and bears in a country, are a degenerate lot. These monks, except the guardiano, are more stupid and ignorant than I should have supposed possible. The novice is a great creature ; he attacks me bitterly about my religion and I assure him that protestantism is as dear to me as Catholicism is to him. When he learned that I took the sacra- ment without salt he wrung his hands and said : " O poveretto, poveretto, quanto e sbagliato ! " The guardiano is better he gives me kirschen wasser. At Prato, in the church porch, I have to undergo a heavy fire from the curato ; but one day a happy thought occurred to me, and I said that the only form of religion which struck me as wholly monstrous was Old Catholicism. Since then we have been friends. Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. Butler to Miss Savage. 14 Aug. 1877 I came back on Saturday evening very well. I wrote once, but did not hear at all. I should have written again, but I assure you I was working very hard, and put off letter-writing as much as I could. I am well aware that I am a bad lot but I know what my friends do not know, and what I cannot tell them and am such as I am. When shalL I see you ? [I never had such a good chance of seeing my past self, not vaguely, but with the documentary evidence of my own hand- 252 REMORSE XV 1877 writing ; and I am shocked at the selfishness which pervades all Act. 41 my letters, and the marvellous unselfishness which pervades all Miss Savage's. How patient under suffering she was I never knew till after her death ; but what pains me most as I edit this correspondence the only thing that I can do to express the remorse I feel as strongly now as I did when she died nearly twenty years ago what pains me most is to see the way in which, all through, I was thinking of myself and my own doings, while taking no heed, letter after letter, of things she had told me about her own. I cannot think how she stood me so long and with such unshaken fidelity. Why, again, did she not scold me and tell me I was the selfish conceited brute which I certainly was, and probably am still ? It would have done me a great deal of good for I cannot think Miss Savage would have stuck to me as she did unless I was capable of being convinced of sin. However, in the following letter I was more crassly, crudely selfish and clumsy than in any I have yet come to ; and poor Miss Savage was hurt. I should suppress my own offence ; but, if I did, I should have to suppress her admirable, at once, rebuke and pardon. As penance I give as much of my letter as will explain Miss Savage's. I4th Sept. 1901. S. B.] Butler to Miss Savage. BRIT. Mus. 14 Sept. 1877 [Strange coincidence, exactly 24 years ago. S. B. 14 Sep., 1901. After writing nonsense about my book and painting I said to my shame :] I fear I have frightened you from writing as frequently as you once did, by telling you, as I did not long since, that I kept your letters. You were once, some years ago, decidedly hurt with me when I told you I had burned your letters. Your letters are far the best I have ever read, much less [should have been " more " S. B.] received ; how I could ever have burnt one of them I cannot conceive, but alas ! I did. Perhaps it is because I have lost them that I imagine that they were written with greater care than any that I have received since j but now that I have told you I keep them, you hardly write at all. I will compromise. I will keep your letters, but put them together and address them to yourself so that on my death they may be returned to you. xv WRITING "WITH CARE" 253 Miss Savage to Butler. WITH CARE ! THIS SIDE UP. 22 BEAUMONT STREET, W. Sep. 15, 1877. DEAR MR. BUTLER It must be confessed that I am a most 1877 unreasonable person. What ! I leave off writing " with care " Aet - 4 1 when I hear that you don't keep my letters, and I don't write at all when you tell me that you do ! Well, it only shows that I am a true Erewhonian, and have studied in the schools to good purpose. But you are mistaken when you talk about my being hurt when you told me you burned my letters. On the contrary, I felt relieved ; and I am sure you can have only a very hazy recollection of the matter, or you would not have recalled a very unpleasant moment of my existence. [I did not understand at the time and have often since vainly wondered what this means. I remember nothing but telling her that I burned her letters. There must have been something that led up to this which pained her in a manner that I did not perceive. I have no recollection beyond the mere fact of saying that I burned her letters. Sep. 14, 1901. S. B.] And now, my dear Mr. Butler, let me give you a little good advice. If you wish to make yourself agreeable to the female sex, never hint to a woman that she writes or has written " with care." Nothing enrages her so much ; and it is only the exceptional sweetness of my disposition that enables me (with some effort, I confess) to forgive this little blunder on your part. As a matter of fact, I don't care what becomes of my letters. Keep them or burn them as you please ; only for goodness sake don't label them to be returned to me at your death. If you do, I shall never write to you without thinking of your death and that I cannot bear to think of. Besides, you assume that I shall live the longest, which is flattering to my vital forces, but suppose I die first ? What will become of my letters then ? Pray let every contingency be prepared for and provided against while we are arranging the matter. But I must go. I have to meet Mr. Barton at 3 o'clock to go to Greenwich with him. Lucky man ! he has had a legacy of old china left him ; and, as he is in the matter of pottery and porcelain the most misinformed man I know, I am going to see it and instruct him as to its value. I am longing dreadfully to read some more of your book. When may I have some ? Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. 254 "STUPID AND CLUMSY" xv Butler to Miss Savage. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. Sep. 20, 1877. 1877 DEAR Miss SAVAGE I have been stupid and clumsy, and am Act. 41 very sorry for it. It is very good of you to have forgiven me so generously. I did not write sooner lest I should be stupid again I mean more stupid than usual in some attempt quite vain to show that I had not been stupid. You ask after the book [Life and Habit] . . . By the end of next week I shall have 120 pp. quite finished. I shall run it down at the rate of about 15 pp. a week, allowing for re-writing and corrections, as I go every day to the Museum now till one. When I have 150 pp. done, i.e. about October 20, I shall go to press. I believe the book will succeed and am now thoroughly absorbed in it. I suspect, now that I have found out the Museum, I shall never be long without a new book on hand and shall get them off pretty rapidly. . . . Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. [Here my life as an art-student, for I never was more, may be said to end. It fizzled out ; but I shall paint from time to time, chiefly in water-colours. I have three on hand here now. -Wassen, Sep. 14, 1901. S. B.] He was no longer an artist with a taste for literature ; he had become a literary man with a taste for art ; and his discovery of the British Museum Reading Room may have had something to do with his acquiescing in the change. Formerly it had been his practice to go to Heatherley's in the morning, unless he worked in his painting-room, finding that at home, whether painting or writing, he was subject to too frequent interruptions. He now spent his mornings writing in peace in the Museum, surrounded by all the books he wanted for reference ; and he never gave up the habit. Miss Savage to Butler. Sep. 26, 1877 [I omit a page of criticism on some of the MS. of Life and Habit always sensible. S. B.] I am very busy with the club just now ; we are coming back to Berners Street immediately in fact we are back there, but the club will xv NERVES 255 not be open till next Wednesday. Please give me a Fair Haven 1877 and an Erewhon for it. We mean to take in The Church Times Aet - 4- 1 and The Jewish Chronicle ; and, therefore, having provided for the pious, they cannot complain if we provide for ourselves too. I hope you are quite well you write as if you were. I went to the Promenade Concert last Wednesday to see the little candles blown out. As there was to be some Handel, I looked about for you ; but only succeeded in seeing Zerbini, who seemed as much delighted with the little candles as I was. I have not been well. I don't sleep. I have a clock in my room that ticks very loud, and gets quite frantic when it strikes the hour. But I mean to be like the old lady who would eat lobster in Erewhon^ and whom you ruthlessly cut out of the book. I mean to see which is the strongest, I or my nerves. At present my nerves seem to be getting the best of it, and I very nearly stopped the creature last night j but I do not mean to give in yet. Blowing out the little candles means, no doubt, that the programme included Haydn's Symphony, The Farewell, which comes to an end gradually by the performers, one after the other, blowing out their candles and leaving the orchestra. Miss Savage to Butler. BERNERS CLUB, 64 BERNERS STREET. Oct. 6tA (Sat.), 1877. MY DEAR MR. BUTLER Many thanks for your letter just received. It is very kind of you to write [I cannot find this letter, but may do so later. S. B. Wassen, Sep. 16, 1901], and very, very unkind of you not to let me have some more book. I went to the Museum the other day with the intention of carrying off some MS. by main force, to say nothing of persuasion ; but like some other foolish persons, renowned in story, I found the door locked and Messrs. Garnett, Bullen, Granville, etc., all away at a Congress. It is a very extraordinary fact that when- ever I particularly want to go to the Museum it shuts up. So then I determined that I would seek you in your own stronghold, and wrote yesterday to announce a visit this afternoon. It was afterwards arranged, however, that I must stay here, to receive a furniture broker, so I did not send the letter. You are quite right when you are sanguine about the book and quite wrong when you are despondent. [No, my dear Miss Savage, the book failed ; it has not even now quite paid its expenses ; it was allowed to pass sub silentio. 256 SUCCESS AND FAILURE 1877 There was no attempt to meet it, but abundant attempts to Act. 41 adopt its conclusions without acknowledgment. When I say the book failed, I mean only commercially ; and at that time com- mercial success was of the highest importance to me. In all other respects I consider it to have been a great success ; and with all its many faults that I can now see, as well as those which as yet I do not see, I rejoice at having had it vouchsafed me to write it. S. B., Sep. i6th, 1901.] / have no doubt whatever about its success. Success is cumulative. Erewhon would make this successful even if it were not successful on its own account I mean, of course, com- mercially successful. [So we all thought and hoped, and the fact that almost any one in my place would have thought and hoped the same must be my excuse for going on eating up the dregs of my capital, and continuing to write. It was plain that writing was my strongest card ; and I had not yet realised either Mr. Darwin's character, or his irresistible hold on the public. I have since found out that if success is cumulative, failure is cumulative also ; and for the last twenty years each one of my books has failed of course I only mean commercially, for I admit no failure in any other respect more completely than its predecessor. S. B., Sep. 16, 1901.] As to literary success I hope you don't think I believe you when you say you are despondent, because I don't. I am certain you think it will be successful in that sense, and I am certain you are quite right. If you don't think so, more shame for you. [I don't think I ever said or wrote anything that implied doubt in my own mind as to the substantial merits of the book but I may have said something in some lost letter that looked like this. S. B.] Thanks for your enquiries after my nerves. They are quite well and victorious. The clock belonged to the club and has now come back to it. But the night before it left I had the sweetest nine hours of sleep that ever any mortal enjoyed. I must confess, though, that I swathed the creature in flannel, so that the row it made was somewhat subdued. Good-bye Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. Since Butler's two visits to Mr. Darwin at Down in 1872, although he was never invited again, he continued to be on friendly terms with Mr. Francis Darwin ; they often met in London, sometimes dining together and going to a concert. On 26th September 1877, Mr. Francis Darwin called on Butler and lunched with him in Clifford's FRANCIS DARWIN 257 Inn, afterwards writing him a letter, "September or 1877 October 1877," on which Butler made a note ; it is not Aet 41 necessary to reproduce the letter, but this is the note : He had called on me on Sep. 26, only a few days before I got the above, and had said that the theory that had pleased him more than any he had lately met with was one referring all the phenomena of life or heredity I forget the exact words to memory. I said that this was precisely what I was doing. He then said that Prof. Ray Lankester had written a letter to Nature on the subject, but he could not remember exactly when. I said I should not read it as my book was too far advanced and it might unsettle me. I wrote, however, afterwards and asked if he could give me some idea when Ray Lankester's letter had appeared. The above is his answer, but he never sent the reference. I did not look at the indices to Nature ; though I was daily at the Brit. Mus. I was too much frightened to do so. But when Life and Habit had been published some 5 or 6 weeks I looked it up, and at once called attention to it in The Athenaeum. ["S. B. Oct. 19, 1901.] Butler to Francis Darwin. 1 [I have written this in copying ink, and press a copy because I am sure I shall never again be at the pains of writing the steps by which my book came to be what it is, but am not sorry to have a record of them. S. B.] 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, FLEET STREET, E.G. Nov. 25, 1877. DEAR DARWIN I am going down home this week, but expect that before I return my book will be out ; it has been vexatiously delayed by printers, but should leave the binders on Thursday or Friday, and I have left instructions that two copies shall be at once sent you one of which, if you think fit after reading it, you will perhaps be kind enough to give to your father. I confess that I do not like the thought either of his seeing it, or of your doing so ; for it has resolved itself into a downright attack upon your father's view of evolution, and a defence of what I conceive to be Lamarck's. I neither intended nor wished this, but was simply driven into it. I should like, if you will pardon me, to state how and why I did not say more to you on this head when I saw you last. 1 The references to The Origin of Species in this letter are to the Sixth Edition, with Additions and Corrections to 1872 (Eighteenth thousand) : John Murray, 1876. VOL. I S 258 MIVART XV 1877 Two or three days before I saw you a man had insisted on Act. 41 my reading Mivart's book [The Genesis of Species^ and sent me a copy. I read it, and, when I saw you, had got through about a quarter of it. I at once felt that something was wanted to give an aim to variations, and, if you remember, I said I felt this. I then got your father's last edition of the Origin^ which I had not looked at for some years, having lent my own copy to some one who had not returned it. I read the answers to Mivart, some of which were convincing but others did not seem to me to be so. Then I read on and came to the chapter on instinct. On p. 206 I was horrified to read, "It would be a serious error, etc." This cut at the very root of what I was doing, and I felt as though I had better burn my MS. at once. I finished the chapter, and was, I need not say, even more sure than before that I must have blundered ; the conclusion on p. 233, "I am surprised, etc.," knocked me out of time I can assure you. This was the first I had ever heard of the doctrine of inherited habit which I had conceived! was the new feature of my own book and now to find that it was a stale old theory of the exploded Lamarck, and that it was demonstrably impossible, when my book was three parts done, was, I can assure you, no small blow. On thinking it over, however, I was again met with the weight of evidence in favour of structure and habit being mainly due to memory, and, accordingly, gathered what I could from encyclopedias of what Lamarck had said. Also I read as much about bees and ants as I could lay my hands on, and in a little time saw my way again. I had no time to read Lamarck, but shall do so at once, and, I think, translate him unless I find that he has been translated already, but let that pass. Then, reading your father more closely, and, I may add, more sceptically, the full antagonism between him and Lamarck came for the first time before me ; and I saw plainly that there was no possibility of compromise between the two views. Then I fell to analysing your father's answers to miscellaneous objections more closely, and was met (and this time brought up) by the passage on p. 171, "In the earlier editions, etc.," on which I have been very severe in my own book but simply from the necessities of my own position ; for either your father or Lamarck and, hence, I, is or am on a very mistaken track, and the matter must be fought out according to the rules of the game. Then I went through the earlier part of my book, and cut out all support of natural selection and made it square with a teleological view for such, I take it, Lamarck's is, and only different from Paley's in so far as the design with Paley is from without, and with Lamarck from within. Feeling, therefore, X v LAMARCK 259 that if I was in for a penny I might as well be in for a pound, 1877 I wrote about your father's book exactly as I should have done Aet - 4 1 about any one else's, bearing in mind his immense services and his age as compared with my own. In one passage only have I been disrespectful that is when I say that "domestic produc- tions" may mean anything from a baby to an apple dumpling; but I could not resist, and can only say that it was not I that did it, but sin that was working in me. In the other passages I have been exceedingly, I hardly like to say "severe," but this is the word I should have used if I were your father's equal in age and knowledge. Nevertheless, I have always admitted, and in such way as to leave no sense of arriere pens^e, the inestimable service which he has conferred upon us by teaching us to believe in evolution ; though maintaining that he has led us to believe in it on grounds which I, for my own part, cannot accept. What I imagine that I have added to Lamarck (though I make no shadow of doubt that, if it is true, either Lamarck will be found to have said it, or else that some one else will have done so still I do not know where to find it) is that I have pointed out the bona fide character of the continued personality between successive generations, and the bona fide character of the memory on the part of the offspring of its past existences in the persons of its forefathers ; and have connected this with the vanishing tendency of consciousness, and the phenomena of the abeyance and recurrence of memory. With these additions (if they are additions) I cannot see that Lamarck's system is wrong. As for " natural selection," frankly, it now seems to me a rope of sand as in any way accounting for the origin of species. Of course I am strengthened in my opinion by seeing that it [Life and Habit\ reduces to a common source the sterility of hybrids ; the sterility of many wild animals under domestication ; all variation (as being only a phase of sterility itself or rather the only alternative left to a creature under greatly changed conditions if the changes are not great enough to induce sterility) ; the phenomena of growth and metagenesis ; the phenomena of old age ; and a lot more which I see at present too uncertainly to venture to commit myself to paper concerning them. I was obliged to leave the pangenesis chapters out, as I was anxious to keep my book as short as possible, and it grew very rapidly on my hands towards the end. Moreover, what you told me about the review in Nature determined me to " hurry up." Well, I hope you will forgive the inordinate length of this letter. If you remember, a few days after seeing you I wrote that I was afraid I should have to differ from your father, not a little only, but seriously and fundamentally. I had finished 26o THE RIGHT SIDE XV 1877 Mivart's book between your visit and my letter. As I went on I Act. 41 f e lt that I hardly need again write and say, " I am differing more fundamentally " ; in fact, there was nothing for it but to go ahead the only thing would be to explain to you that, when I saw you, I had not yet begun to write the last five chapters of my book, and had only just begun to see that I might have to fall foul of natural selection. Also I should like to assure you, and your father through you, that I have been, and am, a good deal exercised in mind about the whole matter. Nothing would surprise me less than to see something sprung upon me in reviews and answers which cuts the ground com- pletely from under me ; and, of course, I neither expect nor give quarter in a philosophical argument. We want to get on to the right side ; and neither your father, I take it, nor I care two straws how we get on to the right side so long as we get there. Neither do we want half refutations nor beatings about the bush. We want to come to an understanding as to what is true and what false as soon as possible ; and we know well that we score more by retracting after we have been deeply committed, than by keeping on to our original course when a new light has been presented to us. So you must not be surprised if I am myself among the first to turn upon my new book and rend it, as I shall assuredly do, if I find, as I probably shall, that it is naught. [Then followed an erasure of over four lines.] Please excuse this erasure. Its purport was to say how sorry 'I was that your rather should have been at school under my grand- father, inasmuch as I myself should dislike an attack from a son or grandson of Kennedy s, when I should not care twopence about it from any one else. Believe me, yours very truly, S. BUTLER. Francis Darwin to Butler. [Undated, but received by me about Nov. 28, 1877.] DEAR BUTLER Many thanks for your interesting letter ; I am very glad to hear a history of the evolution of your book, and I shall be very eager to see it. It will, at least, differ from Mivart, and, I imagine, from Lamarck, in having some fun in it ! I confess to feeling lost in astonishment at your saying that you have cut out all support to natural selection, and also that you consider it a rope of sand. I suppose from this that you deny any effect to natural selection ? If so, you must find it rather a hard position to hold, I should guess. Because, of course, you have to deny that such a thing as variations occur. For if you allow that variations occur you must allow that heredity is the rule, variations being only occasional lapses in perfect heredity. XV LIFE AND HABIT 261 I suppose I am stereotyped from my education and association ; 1877 but it does seem to me that if you grant this, it is logically Act. 4 impossible to say that natural selection has no effect. As to natural selection not being able to act on minute beginnings of things, I think the falseness of Mivart's argument (Genesis of Sp. chapter ii.) is shown by applying it to man's selection which we see before our eyes at work. He might argue, " Variations are infinitely small by Mr. Darwin's own showing but man cannot distinguish organisms differing by infinitely small degrees ; therefore, man's selection cannot take place." I think if Mivart had been more of a naturalist instead of an anatomist he would not have dared to think that he could gauge natural selection's power of discrimination. I hope I am only setting up nine-pins and trying to knock them down again, and that you are not so desperate in your denials as I fear. Anyhow, I am sure I shall enjoy your book very much ; even if you are severe it will be sure to be a pleasant severity. Yours sincerely, FRANCIS DARWIN. Life and Habit was published on Butler's birthday, 4th December 1877, and the dedication runs thus : This book is inscribed to Charles Paine Pauli, Esq., Barrister- at-Law, in acknowledgment of his invaluable criticism of the proof-sheets of this and of my previous books and in recognition of an old and well-tried friendship. Miss Savage, to whom he sent a copy of the book, at once wrote a long letter, of which I give only the con- clusion : 5 Dec. 1877 I was unpunctual this morning because I was kept by an old lady at the club, who came to the place, and I could no more leave it than a spider can leave her web before the fly is well secured [see Appendix, p. 262]. I did secure my fly ; she has sent her subscription since ; she was so eager to join that I had not much trouble in coiling my web about her but her eagerness was not quite complimentary. " I like this place," she said, " it is so homely," and then she looked at me and said it was "so homely," meaning, alas! shabby, and I felt shabby. She was dressed in sables and rich velvet (by the by how sleek and new you looked this morning ! such a beautiful new coat ! ). Then she looked at a very much worn spot in the carpet, and said it was "homely." I think she is only going to join that she may tell us we are " homely." Then she said, "Now I must tell you about myself: I am the first cousin of Sir Eardley Wilmot." Here I assumed such 262 "ST. LEWIS" XV 1877 a religious expression of face that a member of the club who was Act. 42 present had to rush out of the room ; and I have not been able to convince her since that if I did look religious it was because I felt so. Next to a lord I revere a baronet particularly one with large estates in Warwickshire, which, it seems, Sir E. W. has. I really get a good deal of fun out of the club ; my time and trouble are not all for nothing. Some of the letters of recom- mendation are very amusing. One lady was described by her referee as "a lady of genius combined with unimpeachable respectability." My curiosity to see this lady was, as you may imagine, great ; but I have since seen her frequently, and have been unable to find anything remarkable about her except that she invariably drops her h's. Whether this is due to the genius or the respectability I have not yet made out. Another referee says he hopes that if he says that the lady is a dear sister of his, it will be a sufficient guarantee. You will not be surprised to hear that this gentleman is an assistant-master in a public school. Thursday. I began this letter at 10 P.M. last night ; it is now 2 P.M. and I have done nothing else but it. I hope you will consider that it is written with sufficient care for posterity. I may never be able again to give 14 hours to a composition, so good-bye. P.S. Who is St. Lewis mentioned on page 292 ? Do you mean St. Louis ? Take heed, or you will be talking soon of the Empress Eugenia, or John James Rousseau. APPENDIX If you keep this letter for posterity, please correct the natural history, and please scratch out " secured " and write " enmeshed " or " enwebbed " ; either of these words will give an air of distinction to the phrase. Salts of lemon will take out the smudge of ink. I have read the book from cover to cover. It is too, too, too delicious. Tell me of the reviews, which of course I should like to read. I see the Times, Telegraph, Evening Standard, Athenaeum, White- hall^ John Bull, Church Times, and National Reformer ; I only read the Times regularly, but see all these papers. We have no Bible in the club. Do you know any one who would give us one ? We have the Koran, and selections from the Talmud, and a book of Lives of the Saints, but no Bible. I think of writing to a Society, saying that our reference library is incomplete without one, and asking for one as a gift. Don't you think that such a letter would make a pleasing impression on the committee of a Bible Society ? xv F. DARWIN'S CRITICISM 263 I am not sure that Miss Savage is not being just a 1877 shade pedantic about St. Louis and St. Lewis. We speak Aet< 42 freely of Joan of Arc in English, to say nothing of St. John, St. James, and plenty more. I have an Italian calendar wherein the 25th August is given to "S. Luigi Re," and I suppose the Germans translate his name into Ludwig. Whether pedantic or not, however, I am glad she wrote as she did, because Butler, accepting the criticism, replied characteristically : " That blunder about St. Lewis is awful ; and yet perhaps, after all, it is as well not to know how a saint's name should be spelt." Francis Darwin to Butler. DOWN, BECKENHAM. Dec. 28, 1877. MY DEAR BUTLER I have been a long time in writing to thank you for your book, which I have read with great pleasure. I think all the analogy or identity between memory and heredity is very well worked out. Have you ever read Huxley's article or articles on " Animal Automatism," two or three years ago in the Contemporary ? He tried to show that consciousness was some- thing superadded to nervous mechanism, like the striking of a clock is added to the ordinary going parts. I mean that the consciousness as we know it has nothing to do with the act, which is a mere question of nerve-machinery. You seem to me to have gone on the reverse tack instead of reducing consciousness to a passive looker-on you have, I think, made consciousness into an active cause, a producer of energy. I should have agreed with you more if you had said that memory and reproduction (or growth) are both consequences of the same property of matter the property which makes a series of molecular states follow each other in a certain order because they have done so before. Applied to nervous or centralising power it becomes memory or habit ; applied to a growing cell it is heredity or growth. As to a particular form I quite think that memory or hereditary growth becomes indistinguishable, but I shouldn't call one by the name of the other ; one does not say that the me of to-day inherits its power of winding up its watch from the me of yesterday. I don't think I quite understand what your objection to natural selection is. I don't see how intelligent variation will help you, for instance, to make the beginnings of limbs grow out of a limbless animal. The animal wouldn't be such a fool as to want more papillae if they are no good but if they are of any good, natural selection can act on them. It seems 264 DIGESTING CRITICISM xv 1877 to me that being personally identical with all the people you Act. 4.2 have been is a different thing from being identical with all those you are going to be. The inventor of the telephone may be a lineal descendant of, and therefore personally identical with, the man (Thales ?) who rubbed a bit of amber and attracted a bit of pith ; but no one supposes that he investigated amber and pith in the hopes of making a telephone. He couldn't have wishes so utterly beyond his private (own + ancestral) experience. Perhaps I have been taking your meaning too literally, but it looks to me as if you thought that a fish consciously desired lungs when its air-bladder began to turn into one. I have written this rather at random ; and if I have pitched into you it isn't that I don't like your book, because I do, very much. There is a great deal of excellent fun, like the " body of the late frog," and the acetic acid, about Wiltshire and the corn being eaten by the hen, which is especially good. My father hasn't read it yet. Don't trouble yourself to answer this. Yours ever, FRANCIS DARWIN. P.S. Why do you call Animals and Plants^ Plants and Animals ? and the Origin, Natural Selection ? [I did this simply from haste and brain fag. S. B.] Butler to Francis Darwin. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. Dec. 29, 1877. DEAR DARWIN One line to thank you for yours of this morning, which I confess was rather a relief to" me, as I was afraid you might have considered Life and Habit unpardonable. Pitch into it and into me by all means. You cannot do me a greater service than to bundle me neck and crop out of my present position ; this is what I try to do to those from whom I differ, and this is what I wish them to do if they think it worth while. I have not yet thoroughly digested your remarks this morning received, but shall do so with every desire to assimilate nutriment therefrom. I will say nothing, therefore, anent them now. Of course, when I wrote, I knew that much of what I was writing was crude, and would require alteration [I wrote this because F. D.'s letter had fogged and frightened me, and I did not know what else might not be coming. I was oppressed and scared by the far-reachingness and daring of what I had done, but I see nothing that I need care to alter, except that here and there I should like to shorten. S. B. Oct. 23, 1901], but I did not see my way further then ; and felt that, such as the book xv RESUME OF LIFE AND HABIT 265 was, it must stand or fall for the present. Reviews and criticisms 1877 would guide me as to my subsequent course. There have been Act. 42 no notices yet, but the book is selling well, and has given a fillip to The Fair Haven (a very small one), which has surprised and pleased me. Erewhon has always sold more or less, but does not seem to have received the same fillip that The Fair Haven has. I have nearly finished Lamarck, and am to write a review and quasi-digest of his Philosophie Zoologique for the Contemporary. [This never came off. S. B.] I am sorry I called Animals and Plants, Plants and Animals. It was a slip. I did not know I had called the Origin, Natural Selection. It was very stupid ; I will look out for the place and correct it. Thank you for calling my attention to it. I hope I have not misquoted any passage. With many thanks for your letter, I am, yours very truly, S. BUTLER. RESUME OF LIFE AND HABIT, WRITTEN BY BUTLER IN 1883 The theory contained in this work turns upon four main propositions : Firstly, that there is a bona fide oneness of person- ality existing between parents and offspring up to the time that the offspring leaves the parent's body. Secondly, that in virtue of this oneness of personality the offspring will remember what has happened to the parent so long as the two were united in one person, subject, of course, to the limitations common to all memory. Thirdly, that the memory so obtained will, like all other memory, lie dormant until the return of the associated ideas. Fourthly, that the structures and instincts which are due to the possession of this memory will, like every other power of manufacture or habit due to memory, come in the course of time to be developed and acted upon without self-consciousness. The phenomena of heredity with its exceptions (such as reversion to a remote ancestor, and sports) j the principle under- lying longevity ; the infecundity of hybrids ; the phenomena of old age ; the resumption of feral characteristics j and the fact that the reproductive system is generally the last thing to be developed are then connected and shown to be explicable and, indeed, to follow as matters of course, under the joint operation of the four principles contended for. There has been no attempt to meet this work ; and I observe the theory it contains to be frequently, but always tacitly, adopted by men of science. But no resume can convey an idea of the close reason- ing, the suggestivcness, the acute thinking, the perspicuity, 266 SERIOUS OR IRONICAL ? xv 1877 the profound philosophy, and the humour which pervade Aet> 42 the book. The leaders of the scientific world, however, are seldom hasty in accepting from an outsider any new and far-reaching theory ; especially if it be presented amid a sparkle of originality and humour. Their more usual course is, as Butler says in one of his notes, to wait till they are forced to accept it, and then to say that they found it out themselves. Besides, it was fairly well known that the author of Life and Habit had been brought up for the Church ; it was better known that he had written Erewhon^ professedly " A Work of Satire and Imagina- tion " ; and what was to be thought about The Fair Haven ? Who could tell whether Life and Habit was written seriously or ironically ? The problem was not really a very difficult one ; but the safest course seemed to be to take anything that was wanted from the book, fling " fantastic " and " paradoxical " at the author, and pass on. Just as his experience with Hoare's companies was valuable by showing him something of the ways of business men, so the reception of his book was valuable as showing him something of the ways of men of science, and he made this note : One object of Life and Habit was to place the distrust of science upon a scientific basis. CHAPTER XVI 1878 INVESTIGATING EVOLUTION Miss Savage to Butler. NEW BERNERS CLUB, 64. BERNERS STREET, W. Jan. tfh 1878. MY DEAR MR. BUTLER You are a very unkind friend to 1878 give me a disappointment for my 6trennes. You said in your Act. 42 last letter that I was not to expect to hear of you and the book till Monday week. Accordingly, last Monday I expected to hear, and have been expecting ever since. And I want so much to hear ; and it was very unkind of you not to tell me sooner that you were going away, so that I could not get my other copy ; and, as I had promised to lend it, and have quite a foolish respect for my word, I was obliged to deprive myself of my own copy in the very honeymoon. Fortunately for my happiness, however, I had got it from Mudie's for the club to read, and, when I thought I was going to be distracted with toothache, I stole it and took it home to comfort me in the night. I committed this crime several times, and it is all your fault that my high moral "tone" (as Mrs. Kingsley would say) is being lowered. I have had a dreadful cold for the last fortnight ; it was so bad that one day I thought I should be obliged to stay at home all day, and it is not much better now. I send you the Examiner review "at my leisure," as you told me though I am afraid I have kept it long. I wish you a happy new year, and I hope you will understand that I am very much offended with you. Yours very truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. P. S. There are a great many hard words in the book ; but I don't mind them, for I have a dictionary which I bought two years ago as I wished to read Daniel Deronda in the original. 267 268 LITERARY EDUCATION Miss Savage to Butler. 1878 10 'Jan, 1878 I shall come for my book to-morrow at Act. 42 twenty-five minutes past four o'clock, or thereabouts, unless I hear from you to the contrary. I am angry with the reviewers, very ; but they will have their reward ! When they find the book read by the public, they will pretend to just discover it ! Then they will write notices, and you will be able to dispense with being grateful, which will be comfortable for you. [All very pretty, my dear Miss Savage, but the public did not read the book, and the reviewers, as a whole, were very cold. S. B. Sep. 21, 1901.] Send a card here. Post it any time before i o'clock, and I shall get it, but only in case I am not to come ; and you needn't trouble about sending it at all, as I have important business near Clare Market, where there is a broker's shop, so I shall be obliged to come into your neighbourhood, and it will not put me out if I find your door shut. P.S. This was written yesterday, but Providence would not allow it to be posted (why I don't know). (God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.) My arrangements are the same. To-morrow is Saturday now only I shall not come till nearly five o'clock, which I will do punctually. Also, I am about to have a severe cold, owing to Providence sending me out to dinner last night, and letting the cab-horse fall down in a lonely spot in St. John's Wood ; and I had to stand at a windy corner, where four roads meet, waiting for another cab, not exactly equipped for such an adventure ; so I will come to the door if I have a cold but I cannot pass another Sunday without my book. You can hand it to me by Mrs. Corry ; I suppose you will not mind if she catches my cold. Mrs. Corry (or Corrie) was Butler's laundress. Butler was trying to get back to the writing of his novel, and Miss Savage, not having been discouraged by her failure with Middlemarch, proposed to carry on his literary education with Voltaire. Then she wrote, i4th Jan. 1878, that perhaps Diderot would serve his turn better. Nobody reads Diderot's stories, et pour cause j so authors crib from him without any fear of being found out. Not that you require to crib from anybody, and indeed I am ashamed of you for wanting to do so. However, I send you the vol. XVI REVIEWS 269 Butler to Miss Savage. 26 January 1878 What is the matter? I hope nothing ^78 serious ; but I do not reckon you among the complainers, and am Act. 42 afraid there is something amiss with you. Nothing ever goes right for long together with any friend of mine. Other people lose their nearest relations, but neither I nor my friends ever do so. I am not amiss myself. There is a review of Life and Habit in to-day's Saturday Review, very much the same kind of review as the Athenaeum review. However, both are calculated to make the book read and to strengthen my position. I have heard nothing from the Contemporary^ and, as you give them a bad name, will keep an eye upon them. I am to meet young Darwin [/.*. Frank Darwin] on the 5th at the rooms of a common friend [Charles Crawley] : I am sure he means to try and come round me in some way. Let me have a line to say what your misfortunes have been. P. S. Was Diderot's name Jean Paul Courier? You sent me a book by Jean Paul Courier, but I can find no story in it. I don't believe it is by Diderot at all. [I remember the meeting with Frank Darwin. He was evidently a good deal upset with me, but quite civil. Speaking of attacks on established reputations he said that George Eliot had said to him a few days before : " If this sort of thing is to be allowed, w ho is safe ? " j but whether or no this was aimed at my attack on his father I could not determine. He wanted to know what the true reading of the song, " Some breeds do and some breeds don't," was ; and did not look approvingly when I told him. 1901 S. B.] This is a reference to p. 201 of Life and Habit : Every man and every race is capable of education up to a certain point, but not to the extent of being made from a sow's ear into a silk purse. The proximate cause of the limitation seems to lie in the absence of the wish to go further ; the presence or absence of the wish will depend upon the nature and surroundings of the individual, which is simply a way of saying that one can get no further, but that as the song (with a slight alteration) says : Some breeds do, and some breeds don't, Some breeds will, but this breed won't ; I tried very often to see if it would, But it said it really couldn't, and I don't think it could. 2 yo " SOME GIRLS DO " xvi 1878 If we alter "breeds" into "girls" and "it" into Act. 42 c< s k e " we gh^i res tore the original reading. There was another variation of this song made by combining with it the refrain of another song I forget where we picked it up probably we heard it in some pantomime at the Grecian Theatre in the City Road. Butler often quoted it, but is not likely to have done so in Crawley's rooms ; it went thus : Some girls do, and some girls don't, Some girls will, but this girl won't ; I tried very often to see if she would, Buc she said she was living with mother now. I reproduce the following post-card from Butler, because it is the first communication I ever received from him. 1 must have sent him a review of Life and Habit, but I have forgotten all about it : Butler to H. F. Jones. January 1878 A hundred thanks. The review is distinctly and wilfully hostile ; but what could I expect from a writer who spells Pythagorean with an "i"? They never allude to Darwin or Lamarck. It is, I suspect, by one of the clique but unless one had made up one's mind for this sort of thing one had better have not written. 1 dreamt last night that Handel played me, for a whole hour, from two new operas which he had just com- posed, and which were called Andratina and Passina. S. B. Miss Savage to Butler. I Feb. 1878 It was very stupid of me to send you Courier (though he is not bad reading) instead of Diderot. However, upon reflection, perhaps I had better not send Diderot at all ; his tales not being the kind of literature one should place in the hands of young persons. As for my misfortunes, dear Mr. Butler, I am afraid you will think I have been committing a fraud upon your sympathies. I do not think you could at all comprehend some of them. For instance, I woke up one morning with a rash all over my throat and shoulders ; and, as I was going out to dinner that same evening, I had suddenly to make a change in my dress, which, besides being ugly, kept me at work all the xvi MISS SAVAGE'S ANCESTORS 271 morning. I don't expect a man to sympathize with me in such 1878 troubles as this. The rash, no doubt, arose from my having Act. 4 2 subsisted principally on buns during several weeks. It was provoking that my old doctor has retired j else it would quite have consoled me to be able to go to him with a malady which he could not declare to be unreal. It could be seen, so he could not have derided me as was his wont. I am quite well now. Another misfortune was losing some money belonging to the club, which I had no immediate means of replacing ; so I was obliged to have recourse to my nearest relations, which was unpleasant, and so will be for many a year. It is not my fault, however, that I am careless about money. My ancestors have always had so little coin to take care of that I have not inherited the power of taking care of it myself without much conscious effort ; and I cannot always keep up to the necessary watchful- ness. I never have lost an umbrella. It is not so very long ago that my forefathers were running about in the woods, of course armed with sticks, so it comes quite natural to me to take care of my umbrella, which is so like a stick in form and use. . . . I have read the notice in The Saturday Review. It is better than The Athenaeum, but still curiously reticent about Lamarck and Darwin. Be sure you let me know when there are more notices. I am at this present moment quite distraught, and should go into a lunatic asylum, only I am afraid Mrs. Lowe would so soon get me out again. We are going to have a concert for the benefit of the club, so you can imagine the state of mind I am in. The progress of the Pontifex novel was interrupted by the necessity for looking up Ray Lankester's article in Nature (i3th July 1876) ; and this disclosed that Professor Hering, in his lecture, had set forth a theory closely resembling that propounded in Life and Habit so closely that, as Butler said, it sprang nothing on him. He wrote to The Athenaeum (9th February 1878) calling further attention to the lecture. It was then necessary to re-read The Origin of Species, and in the third edition he found a " brief but imperfect " sketch of the progress of opinion on the subject of the origin of species prior to the publication of the first edition. This led him on to read each of the writers mentioned in the sketch ; and he was astonished at the completeness of the theory of 272 AN UNINTELLIGENT UNIVERSE xvi 1878 evolution contained in the works of BufFon (between Act. 42 jy^ an d -1788); in the Zoonomia of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1794) ; and in the writings of Lamarck (between 1 80 1 and 1831). He was more astonished when he remembered that The Origin of Species had left him under the impression that evolution and natural selection were practically the same thing. It now appeared that Mr. Darwin was not the first to announce a theory of descent with modification. Moreover, by treating as accidental the variations whose accumulation results in species, Mr. Darwin was doing his best to drive intelligence out of the universe ; whereas the earlier evolutionists had recognised the presence of design and intelligence, though they had made the mistake, as Butler thought, of placing these qualities not in the creature itself but in an external deity. Why did Mr. Darwin want the universe to be mindless ? Why had he told us so little about the earlier evolutionists ? Why had he put nearly all he did tell us about his predecessors into a " brief but imperfect " sketch, which did not make its appearance until the third edition of his book, after 6000 copies had been sold? Butler felt he had been taken in. It was John Pickard Owen and the chickens over again ; it was the alleged death and resurrection of Jesus Christ over again ; it was his own education over again ; and there was nothing for it but to investigate the whole subject and write a book about it. This book was Evolution Old and New, published in 1879. Miss Savage to Butler. 7 March 1878 You must not use such bad language when you write to me. [She must have destroyed this letter, for I did not find it among those returned to me. S. B.] What will posterity, for whom I carefully preserve your letters, think of a person who takes such liberties ? Not but what Professor Clifford quite deserves that or any other epithet of a like intensity that you choose to bestow upon him. I should very much like to know what you said to your sister about pessimism ? I do not know what pessimism is ; and, indeed, I don't believe there is such a thing, for it is not in my xvi CANON BUTLER AND EREWHON 273 dictionary, which is quite a new one; but I should like to know 1878 what you said. Act. 42 Butler to Miss Savage. 13 March 1878 I only told my sister that pessimism was all right, and, when she seemed sceptical, I said that it was not in any way improper. I agree with you in not knowing what it is ; and, I have no doubt, also in not wanting to know more about it, if, as I suppose, it only means exaggerating the evil that is in the world, which is quite bad enough without exaggeration. I sent the Standard notice to my father, and the one from Truth) with a civil note, exceedingly carefully worded, so as to be in every way nice and proper which I assure you took me a great deal of trouble. I send enclosed reply, which gives me the pleasure of feeling that I had done him no injustice in anticipating something very like what I got. For goodness' sake don't lose it, but return it at once, as it is a continual pleasure to me. . . . I went to La Belle Helene last night and enjoyed it extremely. Independently of much else, it always soothes me to hear these old Greek heroes made fun of. [And to think that in my old age I should have become so infocolato with the Iliad and Odyssey as to do what I have done for them ! Still, I should like to see La Belle Helene again. Oct. 1901. S. B.] It appears from Canon Butler's letter that he had made a point of not reading any of his son's books except A First Tear in Canterbury Settlement. He repeated this on other occasions as though it were a thing to be proud of. He seems to have felt that success in this kind of literature was even more to be deprecated than success in any kind of painting. And yet, how can he have known what the books were like? And how can his repeated declaration that he had not read any of them be reconciled with the idea that Erewhon had caused the death of Mrs. Butler ? We can hardly suppose that Canon Butler forced her to read it as an experiment, and, observing the conse- quences to be fatal, prudently determined to abstain from reading it himself, and to avoid every subsequent emana- tion from so poisonous a source. The probability is that neither of them knew more of Erewhon than they gathered VOL. I T 274 MR. CHAMBERLAIN xvi 1878 from reviews and the reports of good-natured friends ; Act. 42 ^is would be enough to convince them that it was a book unfit to be seen upon the drawing-room table of any " happy, united, God-fearing family " ; and all its suc- cessors would naturally follow it on to the Langar index. Miss Savage to Butler. 15 March 1878 The letter [from Canon Butler] is perfect, and you are quite right to take the greatest care of it. I am acting as secretary to this Society [The Society of Lady Artists] paid assistant secretary I mean. The real secretary is hon. If I behave well I may be engaged for the season, which will be a stroke of good luck. The former secretary, a man, obligingly died of bronchitis a fortnight ago. Providence, you see, is good sometimes even to me. Come and see me here ; one of my duties is to make myself agreeable, so it will be my duty to make myself agreeable to you. I shall say that you are a millionaire, and entreat you to buy Miss Collingridge's picture. That is the best way I know of making myself agreeable. I shall come and see you in a fortnight, or rather your picture. Butler to Miss Butler. 27 March 1878 I send in four things to the Academy two portraits, an oil landscape, and a water-colour landscape but I am not very sanguine ; indeed, I am distinctly depressed about my work at present, and wonder whether I ever shall paint ; on the other hand, I have had these depressions very often, and know that they come more from being able to see what I could not see before than from anything else. . . . I dined out the other day and took in a very pretty young lady to dinner, and sat opposite a very nice, quiet, gentlemanly man to whom I vented now and again Conservative opinions which I imagined were well received. When the others were gone, I asked my hostess who it was that I had taken in to dinner, and was told it was Miss Cobden (Cobden's daughter). I then asked who had sat opposite me. "Mr. Chamberlain, M.P. for Birming- ham," was the reply. Really people should not introduce one in a perfectly inaudible voice. I am sorry you should think my sending those reviews to my father was "forcing differences upon him." That was not my intention, but rather to show him that disinterested third parties considered me as in more substantial agreement [with him] than XVI LADY BEALE 275 he was perhaps aware of. And this I believe to be true ; indeed 1878 I am more and more sure of it every year. However, I sincerely Aet - 4 2 hope this bitter weather is doing no harm either to him or you. This dinner was at the house of Mr. William Phipson Beale, who afterwards became Sir W. P. Beale, Bart. Butler made his acquaintance on one of his voyages to Canada (see ante, p. 212). I was talking to Lady Beale recently, and asked her if she remembered the dinner- party. She remembered all about it, and made no secret of having enjoyed the incident. She added that when she told Butler the names of the " pretty young lady " and the " very nice, quiet, gentlemanly man," he turned upon her and exclaimed : " O you wicked woman ! I'll never dine with you again." Miss Savage to Butler. 5 May 1878 By this time, I suppose, you have returned from your country trip well and strong, I hope, and having enjoyed the change. I have not been well. Just before Easter I had an attack of influenza a sickness which, as you know, includes many disorders, and some of them have not yet quite left me ; however, I shall be all right in a day or two. My exhibition is nearly over, for which I am sorry, as I find it very amusing ; and, besides, the occupation suits me by giving my natural propensity for lying legitimate exercise. I greatly enjoy telling people who have just purchased a hideous fright of a picture that it is the "gem of the exhibition," and seeing them go away with a smirk of delight on their countenances. The people who buy the better pictures go away rather sadly and depressed. They are people with more knowledge, and there- fore they are inclined to doubt, and their doubts torment them. It is my duty to console and sustain these persons, and I hope I do my duty. At the same time, I like to feel that it is in my power to make them much more miserable than they actually are. I am longing to know how you are getting on with the Pontifexes. It wanted curtailing, no doubt ; but I hope you will not be too eager to cut it down. And don't hurry with it. How I wish you had never gone to Canada ! The novel was progress- ing so well then, and you would have written two or three others by this time. And now you take up your novel again, and say it isn't good which is treating it unfairly. I am sure it is good. Your judgment has changed ; possibly it has not improved. Have 276 OLIVIA PRIMROSE xvi 1878 you done anything to that other novel you talked about, or does Act. 42 the idea remain an idea only ? I want to know these particulars, and that is why I am writing to you ; so answer my letter soon, please, and do not forget to tell me how you are. P.S. I see from the R.A. Catalogue yesterday that your pictures are not hung. This is vexatious, but a very small mis- fortune, and one you share with hundreds. It is, in fact, so small that it can hardly even give much pleasure to your friends. " That other novel " did remain " an idea only." It was a proposal for " a novelette supposed to be written by Olivia Primrose, partly giving her version of the events recorded by Goldsmith, and partly her ulterior history." Butler had been complaining of sleeping badly, and Miss Savage wrote : ii May 1878 Don't be rude to Royal Academicians ; that exercise will not promote your slumbers. [I suspect I must have flown at Henry Stacy Marks for using contemptuous language about Lord Beaconsfield ; but Marks and I remained very good friends till he died. 1901. S. B.J Butler to Miss Savage. 1 8 May 1878 The Pontifexes grow apace. I want to cover the whole ground and will then rewrite carefully. I am now just beginning vol. ii. My " Psalm of Montreal "is in to-day's Spectator^ and reads well enough ; but I think it is the most disreputable thing I ever saw in a respectable paper. I wonder at The Spectator putting it in. I am better, and not feeling overworked, though I am at full swing. The week after next I go home, which I shall enjoy in a curious sort of a way, and shall finish the fortnight painting out of doors near Shrewsbury. I shall not touch the novel that fort- night, but shall go in for it again on my return. Butler was told later that The Spectator had got into hot water with some of its readers for having published his " Psalm of Montreal." I wrote to Mr. Edward Clodd, who, I knew, had had something to do with this appearance of the poem, asking him to tell me what he remembered of it. He knew nothing of the hot water, xvi EDWARD CLODD 277 and it is possible it was not so hot as Butler's sensitiveness 1878 led him to believe. Mr. Clodd to H. F. Jones. 29 Oct. 1915 The "Psalm" was recited to me at the Century Club by Butler. He gave me a copy of it which I read to the late Charles Anderson, Vicar of St. John's, Lewisham, who lent it to Matthew Arnold (when inspecting Anderson's schools), who lent it to Richard Holt Hutton, who (with Butler's consent) printed it in The Spectator of 18 May 1878. Butler to Miss Savage. [End of May 1878] I am better j my new cold is nearly gone ; the old one, caught last January, is beginning to show through like old, dirty snow when the new has been melted from the top of it j but I am really in all respects much better, and my breathing is nearly well. I cannot part with any Darwin MS. [Evolution Old and New"] ; it is going ahead fast, and will be done by the middle or end of January. It gets more and more telling, and I shall get it quieter also. A friend accused me the other day of liking a row. I am afraid he is right ; but I only like it when I am quite sure that I have the right end of the stick. I am going down to Shrewsbury this week and shall find out how my aunt is ; my sister has not mentioned her for nearly three months. I asked point blank how she was a fortnight ago, but my sister answered my letter without telling me. I was pleased to find that she used the word " bright " four times in this letter, and "pleasant" twice, one "hopefully," and one "happy little time," from all which I was assured that she was in a towering passion. She had written two letters without a single " bright," and I was getting quite uneasy about her. I have been a long walk in the country and am rather tired, so I will add no more. Miss Savage to Butler. 27 June 1878 I enjoyed the three chapters immensely [MS. of The Way of All Flesh] ; I like Theobald and Christina Christina especially. She is particularly delightful when she allows her imagination to soar, as, for example, in the theatre scene. But, if you cut out anything, the paragraph that succeeds her famous flight of fancy might go ; it rather weakens the effect. 278 PAWNBROKERS xvi 1878 I want the preceding chapters dreadfully. Do be kind and let Act. 42 me nave them. P.S. Pawnbrokers are bound by law to put objects pawned into an iron box, so Christian's watch would not be hanging in the window, unless it had been sold outright at first. Your MS. will come by an early post to-morrow. I had an accident, and smudged the address on the only strong envelope I possessed ; then I put it into a flimsy one, but, at the P.O., I was seized with fright at sending it so insecurely. Now it is stamp- bound. But you will have it to-morrow. At first the name of the hero in The Way of All Flesh was Christian, but, on reconsideration, it seemed better to alter it, especially as his mother was Christina. George Pontifex, as a publisher, might be supposed to know what influences were at work in the literary world, and that the word "earnest" was coming into fashion, so he decided that his godson should be christened Ernest (chap, xviii.). At first, also, Ellen pawned the watch, and Theobald saw it hanging in the window for sale, and bought it ; but after Miss Savage pointed out the illegality of the pro- ceeding, Ellen had to leave it with the shopman for sale (chap. xli.). Butler now prepared to start for his summer holiday. Butler to Miss Savage. 2 July 1878 You see I wrote the greater part of Life and Habit since my last holiday, and put it through the press, and have written two volumes of the Pontifex novel (some of it old, but it was all rewritten) besides painting, and have been worried incessantly about money and with my people, and I don't think I need grumble at wanting a spell now. At any rate, whether I ought or ought not, I shall go, and chance it. Butler to his Father. FAIDO, 14 Aug. 1878 I send dried specimens of Alterni- folium as many, I imagine, as you are likely to want ; but have found a place now where it is abundant in every size from half an inch to about 4 or 5 inches. I bring you back living examples of different sizes and growths. I put a little Septentrionale in along with the Alternifolium, XVI WOODSIAS 279 but gather that you want a live plant or two, which shall be 1878 brought. I have half-a-dozen plants of the Woodsia Ilvensis Aet - 4 which I will bring. They are quite well and healthy ; but if you want dried specimens, please let me know at once. I suppose from this letter that while at Shrewsbury Butler had had some conversation with his father about these ferns and promised to send him some from the Ticino. The Woodsias, however, were not properly treated at Shrewsbury, and Butler made this note about them in 1882. MY FATHER'S WOODSIAS When I was a boy we used to get Woodsia on Snowdon and Glyder Fawr. There were four plants left on Glyder still when I was young, and William Williams 1 swore that there were none others. My father would get a plant, take it home, and put it in the greenhouse. Of course it died ; but his other ferns were kept in the greenhouse, so this must be kept there too. I had a plant which I found in a hitherto unsuspected place where there were many plants. I brought its own stones and its own earth, enough to fill a pot ; knowing that the Woodsia likes growing where water can flow on it in heavy wet weather from some swollen rill, I made a little syphon, and occasionally let the water run on to it for two or three hours as from a miniature waterfall. My Woodsia lived for years. I remonstrated with my father about keeping this high mountain fern all the summer in the greenhouse ; but it was no use. Years afterwards, I brought him some very fine Woodsias from Canton Ticino ; and I brought their own stones and earth, and planted them where they would occasionally be dripped on by water from a gutter ; but it was no use. Next time I went to Shrewsbury there they were in the hot bed with the other ferns. This is my father all over. Since my first visit to Butler I had sometimes called on him on my way home from the city. After being admitted a solicitor in November 1876, I remained in the office of Messrs. Paine, where I had been articled, till early in 1878, when I went to be managing clerk in an office at Westminster. Butler's rooms did not lie in my way as I went home from Westminster, but I 1 He was a servant of the family and spoken of as "William Williams, the Butlers' butler." 28o PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF xvi 1878 continued to call oft him sometimes on Saturday after- Aet ' 42 noons. He was generally painting, and I used to sit and look on. In the early part of 1878 he was painting a portrait of himself, which he afterwards gave me, and which our friend Mr. Emery Walker has reproduced as the frontispiece to vol. I. of this Memoir. The picture now (1916) hangs in the hall of St. John's College, Cambridge. Once I showed him three or four songs I had tried to set to music, and he did not like them. I afterwards wrote one that was just passable because it had what he called a Handelian bass. I had also been trying to write poetry, but he did not like poetry. " Shakespeare wrote poetry," I pointed out. " Yes," he admitted, " but Shakespeare's poetry is as good as prose." I felt the implication that this could not be said of mine, and was silent. Sometimes I would call on him in the evening, and he would read me anything he was writing ; or we would talk about books, music, or painting, or go to a theatre. At that time he belonged to the Century Club, where he took me two or three times ; but he soon resigned his membership. THE NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB There is a letter in this morning's Times (6 Nov. 1884) about the foundation of this Club in which the names of the committee from whom the whole thing emanated are given. 1 I claim the honour, if honour it be, of having been one of the committee at the Century Club when the project was first mooted by Arthur Williams, who certainly was the originator of the whole thing ; Hope Moncrieff was another. I think Evans Williams, Dillwyn, Arthur Williams, Clodd, Hope Moncrieff and myself were all who were present at the two or three meetings which preceded the appointment of the committee named in The Times of this morning. Then I, seeing that the Century was becoming more and more a political club (which it was distinctly not when I joined it, as an avowed Conservative, in 1872 or 3), and was 1 The names are these : W. L. Bright, H. Dillwyn, J. J. Tylor, Evans WMliams, Arthur Williams, and Walter Wren. xvi A MEETING IN ITALY 281 likely, as I thought, to merge into this new National Liberal 1878 Club, withdrew my name and left the Club. Aet - 4 Something had been said during the summer about our meeting in- the Canton Ticino if it should be convenient ; but nothing definite was settled, and in the middle of August I went for my holiday to the Black Forest. I soon began to feel solitary, walking alone with a knap- sack ; and, after some hesitation, sent Butler a telegram asking whether I might join him, and, if so, where, and giving him my address at Zurich, where I had friends. He replied from Faido that he was just off to the Sacro Monte, above Varese, and that I should find him at the Albergo Riposo. I was a little uneasy at what I had done, for I was not at all sure he would put up with me ; and he felt the same as soon as he had sent his reply. He was sixteen years my senior, and we had seen very little of one another ; still, I liked being with him, and reflected that, if anything went wrong, we ought to be able to separate without much harm being done. I had been once to Italy for a few days nine years before, but I was alone then and knew no Italian. This time I was to be with one as familiar with the country and the language as I was with Oxford Street and English. I went from Zurich to Lucerne, then by boat to Fluelen, and up the S. Gottardo by diligence. I got out at GOschenen, and walked to Andermatt in the moonlight, through the gorge, in which I stayed about thirty seconds to admire the Devil's Bridge. " I daresay Mendelssohn would have stayed at least two hours at the Devil's Bridge, but then he did stay such a long while before things " {Alps and Sanctuaries^ chapter ii.). Next morning the diligence started at 5 and took me over the pass to Biasca ; on the way I particularly noticed Faido, and all the little villages on the sides of the mountains of which I had heard Butler speak. At Biasca I took train to Locarno, and I went on by steamer to Luino, where I arrived rather late ; but there was a return carriage in which I drove across country through the gathering darkness, and the coachman talked to me about the new King Umberto, who had come to the throne on the death 282 VARESE XVI 1878 of his father the preceding January. Presently we reached Act. 42 tne Prinia Cappella on the Sacro Monte, above Varese ; and there was Butler waiting for me at the door of the Albergo Riposo. I was too late for the hotel dinner, so I had supper, and he sat and talked to me. " I should eat all the peaches if I were you," said he. When I had done so (and they were very good), we sat out on the terrace, smoking in the moonlight, and watching the lamps down in Varese, and the lightning that played incessantly over the plain below. Nothing had gone wrong as yet. Presently I pointed out a particular star and asked if he knew its name. Now Butler, though I was unaware of it at the time, con- sidered that he resembled the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in that he was thankful to say he had never troubled himself about the appearance of things in the heavens. He therefore replied with some asperity : " I do not know anything about astronomy." Nor did I, for the matter of that. I felt rebuked, and was silent. After a pause, he said, in a conciliatory tone, as though he had, perhaps, gone too far : " I know the moon." And there the matter dropped. The next morning he took me up the Sacro Monte, and showed me the Chapels of the Mysteries of Joy, of Sorrow, and of Glory, and the town on the top ; and 1 soon perceived that he enjoyed showing me these things as much as I enjoyed seeing them. Next day we drove to Angera, and, on the way, passed a new mausoleum, bristling with architectural features, which seemed to me a thing to be noticed ; but Butler would have nothing to do with it. He said it was all yvwa-is and no aydTri). I said that an artist must master his technique before he could express what he wished to say. But it seemed that by devoting his energies to gain- ing this power he would lose the desire to say anything ; and then would come the temptation, which generally proved too strong, to glory in merely displaying the ability he had acquired. I must wait till he could show me the porch of Rossura church in the Leventina valley. xvi ARONA 283 He was very kind about it, but it was all new and strange 1878 to me ; nevertheless, I felt that he understood what he Aet- 42 was talking about, and, though puzzled, was intensely interested. We went all through the Castle of Angera, where S. Carlo Borromeo was born, and when we saw the crowned " Humilitas," the badge of the family, Butler quoted : And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility. I was introduced to the custode of the Castle and to his family, who welcomed Butler as an old friend. He had made their acquaintance in 1871, when the old boat- man, Giovannino, used to row him over the Jake from Arena, and he would spend all day sketching in the castle. Then we went down to the inn and had lunch in the garden ; and there were tame sparrows who hopped about us and ate the crumbs. And there was a poodle " who," the waiter told us, " although he was a truly hunting dog, was too well-bred to molest the sparrows." Then we found Giovannino's son, Tonio, now old enough to be trusted with a boat of his own ; and he rowed us over the lake to Arona. In 1871 the hotel at Arona had been so attractive to Butler that he stayed there till he had made a great number of sketches of the Borromean castle. The hotel was kept by a family, and one of the daughters, Isabella, was a magnificently beautiful woman of whom he had often spoken to me, and after whom Tonio had named his boat. " Her lips were full and restful, with something of an Egyptian Sphinx-like character about them." This is from the description of Ellen in The Way of all Flesh (chapter xxxviii.), and I have no doubt that in writing it he was thinking of Isabella, who looked as though she could never move quickly except to do a kindness. But Ellen's moral character was not taken from Isabella ; it was necessary for the plot and had to be obtained from other sources. Butler made this note about 284 FUSIO XVI ISABELLA 1878 I have never seen any woman comparable to her, and kept Act. 42 out of her way on purpose after leaving Arona [in 1871] as the only thing to be done, for we had become thick. I kept away from Arona for years ; but at last returned with Jones, for I wanted to show her to him and to see her again, which I might now safely do. She was at the hotel door, leaning against the side of the house, as we came up from the quay, looking much older, and, as usual, very sad, when her face was in repose. It made me feel unhappy ; but I went on, and she woke up from her dream- ing when she saw strangers approaching. She recognised him, and he began his apologies as soon as we were near enough for her to hear : "I do not know what to say to you ; I have been behaving very badly ; I ought to have been to see you before ; every year I have intended to come, and this " " And this year," she interrupted, " you have come, and I am very glad to see you." She smiled as she held out her hand and came down the steps to meet him, like Elizabeth greeting Mary in the Salutation Chapel on the Sacro Monte. Of course I fell in love with Isabella on the spot. We went next day by steamer to Locarno ; and then in the post to Bignasco, and so to Fusio, where he wanted to introduce me to Signer Dazio, who kept the inn there, and was a Member of Parliament ; and to show me the lovely peacefulness of the Valle di Sambucco. From Fusio we walked over the mountains to Faido, the town in the Ticino Valley which had been his principal headquarters for so many years. He took me up to the little villages on both sides of the valley and showed me his favourite sketching places, and especially the porch of Rossura church (Alps and Sanctuaries, chapter iv.). The church is built on a slope ; and the porch, whose entrance is at a lower level than that of the floor of the church, contains a flight of steps leading up to the church door. The porch is there to shelter the steps, on and around which the people congregate and gossip before and after xvi ROSSURA PORCH 285 service, especially in bad weather. They also sometimes 1878 overflow picturesquely, and kneel praying on the steps Aet ' 42 while service is going on inside. It rather disappointed me ; it was so very plain and could not well have been otherwise, as it seemed to me. Even admitting that it was pleasing, the architect deserved no credit for what could ha,ve cost him no labour or thought. Whereas, in the case of the mausoleum He said I was like Mr. Darwin, who could see no design in the organic kingdom, and thought it all rested on accident. There could be no doubt that the architect had made the porch, and made it as he wanted it to be ; accident was present, if you like, but it was accident of which the architect had designedly taken advantage ; moreover, he had avoided all the crimes and flaunting affectation of the swaggering architect of the mausoleum. We are all responsible for our actions, and must be praised or blamed according to the results we produce. The impression that the porch could not be otherwise, that feeling of inevitableness, was just one of its charms. It was like Handel's music a diatonic melody harmon- ised with common chords over a walking bass. There were no cross rhythms in the porch of Rossura church ; no shifty diminished sevenths, saying one thing and mean- ing another ; no passionate augmented sixths, tearing their hair ; no extravagant modulations to remote keys. Unlike the mausoleum, it was all 07^77 and only as much yv&ai^ as was necessary ; it was a background for Giovanni Bellini, not for Michael Angelo. Most of this was a quiverful of arrows aimed at a morbid tendency he thought he had detected in me to forsake the music that he loved best and to go a-hankering after the songs of Schubert and Brahms. Long before we returned to Faido I was a confirmed Lamarckian, seeing design in the porch and in everything else. Then I remembered that I had had drawing lessons at school, and began to wonder whether I had acquired enough yv&a-i^ to support any aydTry I might possess. So he gave me some paper and a pencil and set me to draw a cMlet. There was not time to carry the experiment 286 SINCERITY XVI 1878 far, because I had to return to my Zurich friends and get Act. 42 b ac k to the office. We were together only a week ; but we had seen enough of one another to be sure that nothing need ever go wrong between us. What impressed me most about him was, first, his kindness, courtesy, and consideration, not only towards me, but towards every one we had anything to do with the other guests in the hotels, the landlords and their families, the waiters, drivers, boatmen, porters, and peasants. Next I was struck by his uncompromising sincerity. If a subject interested him, he took infinite pains to find out all he could about it first hand ; thought it over ; and formed an opinion of his own, without reference to what any one else thought or said. And he treated me as though, of course, I acted in the same way, which some- times put me into a difficulty. If Butler resembled Marcus Aurelius, I was like Candide, " qui avait t eleve a ne jamais juger de rien par lui-me'me." We talked about Charlotte Bronte ; Butler did not like her ; I said, as though taking the odd trick with the ace of trumps, " Well, at all events, she wrote three splendid novels." He replied in a low voice, reluctantly but decidedly : " They are not splendid." These four words shifted the subject under discussion from the splendour or otherwise of Charlotte Bronte's novels to the sincerity or otherwise of my opinion. In spite of his love of diatonic harmonies he had destroyed the tonality of our conversation by a sudden enharmonic modulation into a remote key. And I had the conviction of sin upon me ; for I felt certain he had taken pains to form his opinion, whereas I had been jauntily offering him as my own something I had picked up from a magazine article by Swinburne, which I had lately read. On the other hand, if a subject did not interest him for instance, astronomy he wasted no time over it, and retailed no opinion, but said he knew nothing about it. Next, I was struck by his gaiety ; he was perhaps at his gayest when travelling. " A man's holiday," he would say, " is his garden " ; xvi RALEIGH AND COLUMBUS 287 and he set out to enjoy himself, and to make all about 1878 him enjoy themselves too. Aet> 42 Once at Faido 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." Next morning, as he was pouring out his coffee, his eyes twinkled, and he said, with apparent 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 ' ? " Miss Savage to Butler. I Sept. 1878 It was unkind of you not to have written to me again, when you know that I wanted to hear from you, being anxious about your health. You do not always stand upon the ceremony of receiving answers ; in fact, you never have done so ; [Yes, but I had, and been scolded for it too. But not more than I deserved. S. B., Oct. 12, 1901] so why this innovation on the part of a good Conservative ? If I had known that you would be so formal, however, I would have written long ago ; and now I write only a few lines to ask you to let me hear of you as soon as you can. . . . I had not a mouchoir worthy of Lord Beaconsfield one sufficiently embroidered and belaced or I would have gone to wave it at him when he came back from Berlin. When you come home you must lend me some of his novels ; I have read nearly all of them, but so long ago that I quite forget them Coningsby and Sybil and Vivian Grey^ that is to say. The others I have read more recently. On Bank Holiday I was delighted to see nine policemen in Mr. Gladstone's division of Harley Street ; generally there is not one in half a square mile of that neighbour- hood. It showed that he was expecting popular demonstrations, or frightened. I have no news ; but I want to hear how you are, and how the Pontifexes are, but more especially how you are. So I will say good-bye now. Butler was back in London by the end of September and at work again on Evolution Old and New. But he first finished three of his sketches and sent them to the Dudley Gallery in November ; I have not been able to ascertain whether they were hung because the British Museum does not contain a set of Dudley Gallery 288 THE ITALIAN PAINTERS xvi 1878 Catalogues. Also he was interrupted by Spartaco Vela, Aet - 4- 2 whom he had met at Fusio in 1878, and who came to London with three artist friends Gignous (who had also been at Fusio in 1876), Hohenstein, and Angelo Morbelli. I never saw Gignous, but I remember the other three. Morbelli is a well-known artist, a follower of Segantini, and I see him whenever I go to Milan, where he lives with his wife and family. Hohenstein used to design posters and to work for the theatres. I remember seeing in his studio in Milan his drawings for the scenery for Verdi's Fahtaff, when that work was being mounted at the Scala. Spartaco Vela died young. These three occur in Alps and Sanctuaries (chapter xxii.), " A Day at the Cantine." Butler to Miss Savage. 26 September 1878 I have had some Italian painters to show over London, to whom I have had to attend all day and every day, as they could not speak a word of English. They are gone, and I am not sorry, though they were very good people. I am better but I am still pumping for breath more than I like. [Writing Life and Habit literally took my breath away. I kept wanting to take a long breath, and was quite unable to do so. Every now and then great mental or nervous exertion has the same effect on me still, but it is very rare and transitory ; whereas as soon as I had got well into Life and Habit^ what an old Italian woman once described to me as a "gran mancamento di spirito " was almost continuous, and very both distressing and alarming. It was a full year after Lip and Habit was published before I righted myself. Sep. 16, 1901.] Let me know when and where we can meet not Saturday or Sunday. My sister amuses me with a tag which she repeats in every letter, "Aunt Lloyd is wonderful." Never more and never less. She knows that when my aunt dies, my father comes into posses- sion of the Whitehall reversion which is ultimately to be mine, under my grandfather's will ; and she knows I cannot help casting a wistful eye on my aunt, for I think my father, who is very well off, may perhaps do something for me when he comes into it. If my sister would not mention my aunt, I should not care ; but she ostentatiously flings her " Aunt Lloyd is wonderful " at me, letter after letter, knowing perfectly well that I shall note xvi SUNDAY WALKS 289 the iteration and read it, as I do : i.e. "If you think I am going 1878 to tell you anything about Aunt Lloyd you are very much Aet - 4 mistaken, so put that in your pipe and smoke it." In four letters running she has added the word " pleasant " to " bright " about things or people ; so, as she has added " pleasant," I hope to see her vocabulary still further enriched if we live long enough. She is at present studying Smiles's Life of George Moore^ the philanthropist, and considers him " the perfection of an energetic and unselfish character." He was unselfish to the tune of ^400,000 before he died. May I tell her so ? A prig who does not know me, told a friend of mine [H. F. Jones] the other day, that he did not think it at all a good thing for him that he should see so much of me ; he would get nothing but harm from me. I told my friend to tell him that I thought he might see as much of him as he liked, as I was quite sure he would get no harm from him whatever. This friend of mine was afraid lest Butler should undermine my " spiritual and moral nature." Perhaps he did. It is curious to be reminded now that such a suggestion was then considered worth laughing at. In her reply Miss Savage wrote, " I think ' bright ' the most odious word in the English language. I took a hatred to it when I was in contact with Miss Hubbard's philanthropic set." Soon after the publication of Erewhon^ Butler went one Sunday in May to Haslemere and, after a walk in the country, returned the same day. This was the beginning of a habit he kept up till nearly the end of his life. He used to take something to eat in a sandwich box and get his beer in a public-house. He had an ordnance map of the country thirty miles round London, one inch to the mile, on which he marked his walks with red ink ; and there is hardly a road within that limit with which he was not familiar. His cousin Reginald Worsley generally accompanied him, and, when the Italian painters had gone, I joined in the walks and started an ordnance map of my own. Other friends occasionally came, such as my brother Edward, Gogin, and J. B. Clark. Sometimes we wanted our lunch before the law permitted us to be served with beer ; if we were near a public-house we waited till it was open, or, if there VOL. i u 290 SUNFLOWERS xvi 1878 was no public-house, we walked on hoping to find what Act. 42 we wan t e d. One is not at one's best when waiting for lunch. On some such occasion Butler called our attention to a nonconformist chapel built of corrugated iron, with pointed window frames and sloping eaves of stained wood ; Worsley who, as an architect, admired Renaissance, startled us by exclaiming in a tone of irritation, " I do hate Gothic." On another of these occasions we were at Sompting, and Butler tried to cheer us up by calling our attention to the church : " Now, here is an example of a fine old Saxon place of worship." " What I want," said Worsley, " is a fine old Saxon public-house." AT BLETCHINGLY One Sunday, when we were getting our lunch, we fell to discussing a song, formerly very popular, " Oh no, we never mention her, Her name is never heard," and, as usual, blew upon it. My cousin said he did not know it, and, speaking of it later on in the day, called it, " We pass her by, we don't speak to her now," which made us all laugh a good deal. Gogin said my cousin could be trusted to suck all the sentiment out of anything as a piece of blotting-paper sucks the oil out of paint. " One step further," he continued, "and the words would ha^jp become, 4 We used to speak to her, but we never do so now ; she has lost her nose.' " Another time, it was autumn, and as we passed along somewhere near Westerham in Kent, there were sun- flowers in the cottage gardens, some of them with blossoms of enormous size. I had never seen any so large, and remarked upon them. " Yes," said Butler, " they are immoral." Whereupon Worsley and I began to imagine a hell in which the sunflowers, in an eternity of torment, should expiate the wickedness of their lives ; but Butler said they had done nothing to deserve such treatment. " Moral is from the Latin word mos, which means custom. The sunflowers are only immoral because they xvi GAZELLES 291 shock our sense of what is customary ; and, as Hamlet 1878 says, there is nothing either good or bad but thinking Aet> 43 makes it so." Many miles on our ordnance maps were qualified for being marked in red before we had done talking about what followed from this view of the immorality of the sunflowers. Butler to Miss Savage. 15 Dei, 1878 Yours was forwarded to me down at Shrews- bury [I have not found this letter. S. B. Oct. 14, 1901] with the enclosure which made me sick [I forget all about this. S. B.] 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. My father was horribly rude at first ; his manner was : " If you choose to insist on coming down here, I don't see how I can well stop you, but you must not expect me to behave as if I liked it." He was a good deal more gracious before I left. I can always mollify him after I have been with him a day or two to a certain extent but it goes down again directly, the moment my back is turned. I cannot spare my MS. [Evolution Old and New]. There is not a day but I tinker it in one place or another. However, I am going to Kenilworth for a couple of days on Tuesday morning, and will send it by book-post to-morrow evening. I am about two-thirds through with the book and shall have it done by the end of January. The greater part is translation from Lamarck and Buffbn, or transcription, with a few running comments, from the elder Darwin and others. So far as I can see, Charles Darwin is being a good deal discredited ; and if I do not bring my book out soon it may easily be too late to be effective. Someone in the Contemporary a year or so ago declared Lamarck to be preferable to Darwin, and quoted Mivart as calling Darwin's theory "puerile," which is too good a name for it. I have had a sharp feverish attack since my return, and had to lie absolutely by for a couple of days ; but it did me good, and I am now very well. I have not done a stroke of painting for some weeks, and can think of nothing till my book is done. The next thing will be to finish the Pontifex novel, which should be done by the end of April. And then I must think what J will do next. 292 MISS COBBE XVI 1878 I shall be at home Thursday or Saturday at 4.30 if you will Act. 43 come and have a cup of tea, but not Friday. I do not know what Miss Frances Power Cobbe had been doing, but I suppose the enclosure may have been a picture of her brass buttons and all. As for the original young lady whose gazelles could not survive an intimate acquaintance with their mistress, Butler stowed her away in a pigeon-hole of his memory to wait till some suitable opportunity for leading her forth and making use of her should occur. CHAPTER XVII 1879 EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW Miss Savage to Butler. 22 BEAUMONT STREET, W. 3 Feb. 1879. MY DEAR MR. BUTLER Why did you write on mourning 1879 paper ? [I fancy I must have found some old mourning paper Aet - 43 and used it, having none other handy. S. B.] Of course I thought your aunt was dead. Do you indulge in black edges as a pleasant exercise of the fancy, or are you officially mourning for somebody ? Do not be too much cast down by the advt. in the Pall Mall. It is an immense time since I saw the death of a Mrs. Lloyd in any paper, so that if your aunt be saved as Harriet Butler she may be translated as Mrs. Lloyd. [So far as I remember, I had seen the death of a Harriet Butler in the Pall Mall yes, it was 24 Jan. 1879 and said that, as my aunt's maiden name was Harriet Butler, it was not probable that she would be " translated " for ever so long. My reason for desiring her u translation " (she was nearly 80) was that I fondly hoped my father would, on her death, do something for me out of the considerable addition to his income which would accrue to him, and which I, on his death, should inherit under my grandfather's will. S. B.] This is one of the disadvantages of being a married woman (see Beamish, Qutelet, or any probabilitarian). I wonder the women's rights people have not made this double liability to death one of their grievances. Besides, fifty or sixty years ago the name Harriet was much more in fashion than it has ever been since ; consequently a large crop of Harriets should drop in about this time. I hope you are not working too hard. It seems to me that 293 294 ELECTRIC LIGHT xvn 1879 you will never rest. You know I always disbelieved in Trilbner's, Aet - 43 so I am glad that you have nothing more to do with them. [Trubner, finding that he should not be able to make Life and Habit (in which he had a half interest) pay, insulted me so grossly that I offered to pay for the whole myself and take it away at once. He jumped at this, and I, after trying sundry publishers in vain, left the frying-pan of Trubner for the fire of David Bogue. Before long Trubner apologised, and, when Bogue failed, begged me, almost with tears in his eyes, to come back to him, which I did, remaining with that firm till it became a limited liability company whereon I moved to Longmans. S. B.] Do not forget that in your last letter you promised me some more MS. [This must have been of Evolution Old and New. S. B.] And you are going to re-write what I have read, so it will be as good as two books to me by the time it is done. How glad I am that I am not one of the general public ! I should not get half the pleasure out of your writings. I shall come and see you soon, but when does not depend upon my will. The fact is, I have a swelled face and I shall come and see you when it has subsided a little ; for, besides my appearance (which is the most important consideration) my speech is inarticulate and the pain at times severe. It has been as big as the Albert Hall ; now it is no bigger than a house ; when it has shrunk to the size of a cottage then I will pay you a visit. I have been greatly worried of late. O for the soothing influence of religion ! Why has my faith been destroyed ? If I could only believe in the eternity of punishment ! If I could only think there was a place in Hell prepared for landlords where they will sit upon a serpent's knee, how happy I should be ! I send you a tract, and remain yours truly, E. M. A. SAVAGE. Butler to Miss Butler. 14 March 1879 I went the other night to see the British Museum lit with the electric light, the superintendent of the Reading Room having offered me a ticket ; it looked very well ; and I also went last night to the Albert Hall to hear the Dettingen Te Deum (which is magnificent), and there I found more electric light, but not so good as at the British Museum. The chorus "To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry " was wonderful. I have counted the " continually's " and find the word repeated exactly 51 times. If you will say the word " continually " ten times on each of your five fingers, you will find it gives you an idea of the fine effect produced. I heard xvn " A CLERGYMAN'S DOUBTS " 295 it some years ago, and for some reason or other liked it less than 1879 most of Handel's works ; but last night quite changed me. Did Aet - 43 I tell you that some time ago I went to Elijah, determined to like it, and with another man, too [H. F. Jones] we having both resolved to keep our minds open and to look out for the good and not the bad ? Well, of course we saw some good, but on the whole we hated it. I never mean to go and hear it again if I can help doing so. I don't know anything about Sydney Dobell but will look him up upon your recommendation. As a general rule I distrust "energetic joyous temperaments," and, as you know, I am no lover of poetry ; however I will have a look at him. A few years later we were writing and composing Narcissus, the words of the last chorus of which are : How blest the prudent man, the maiden pure, Whose income is both ample and secure, Arising from consolidated Three Per Cent Annuities, paid quarterly. We remembered Handel's treatment of "continually," and thought we could not do better than imitate it for our words " paid quarterly." Early in 1879, or at the close of 1878, Butler had made the acquaintance of Mr. D'Avigdor, then editor of The Examiner, in which paper appeared a correspondence, nearly all written by Butler, and headed " A Clergyman's Doubts." The first two letters were signed " An Earnest Clergyman." He says that he was born about 1835, the year in which both Butler and Ernest Pontifex were born ; he was brought up by an Evangelical aunt in the country ; he went to school and to Cambridge, and, in 1857, partly to please his aunt, took orders. He soon married and was presented to a country living. Up to this time, like Butler and Ernest, he had never heard that there was any other side to the question of Christian evidences ; nor had he ever met any one either at home, at school, or at college, either among his friends, his masters, or his tutors, who had ever hinted to him that there was any other side. Then he read Essays and Reviews, The Origin of Species, and Bishop Colenso's writings on the Pentateuch. When he laid down The Origin of Species " it had become plain to me that the Christ-idea, like every living form of faith 296 DOUBTS XVII 1879 or living faith of form, had descended with modification, Act. 43 anc ^ wna t was worse, that, through insufficient breeding, it had reverted to a remote ancestor and had resumed feral characteristics." Now that his eyes were open he found an omnipresent spirit of scepticism abroad in the world, declaring the fundamental propositions of the Christian religion to rest upon nothing worthy of the name of evidence. He examined for himself the grounds of this scepticism and found it justified. The Earnest Clergyman was now (i.e. 1879) nearly 45, with a wife and five children, a living worth ^400 a year and a house, but no private means. The doctrines he was paid to teach were, if true, the most solemn of all truths, and, if not true, the most heartless of all mockeries. He believed them to be the latter ; and yet he must either continue to insist upon them or give up his living and plunge his wife and children into penury and want ; for he had been educated for the Church, and had no prospect of succeed- ing in any other walk of life. In the next letter " Cantab " writes comfortingly : there does not exist one only standard of morality ; we need not all be martyrs and heroes ; no moral blame attaches to one who prefers dissembling his convictions to abandoning his means of subsistence ; there is much that can be done by a free-thinking clergyman who remains within the Church probably more than if he left it. The Earnest Clergyman then confesses that he has already settled the question for himself on these lines ; but matters are not where they were twenty years ago, and he is doubtful whether what he then found sufficient ought to be so found now that the teaching of the Church has been distanced by modern learning. The question is, has not the time arrived for plain speaking ? May we not now leave ofF pretending that the emperor has any clothes on ? " Oxoniensis " is up in arms against a middle course. " No condemnation can be too great for the man who enters or remains in the Church while rejecting in his own mind all belief in the dogmas of Christianity." On this followed a letter signed, " One who thinks he knows a thing or two about Ethics," which could have XVII ETHICS 297 been written by no one except Butler. He used parts 1879 of it for the Dissertation on Lying in chapter v. of Alps et ' 43 and Sanctuaries^ and the whole will be found reprinted in The Note- Books of Samuel Butler (1912). " Cantab " administers more comfort " If Christianity does not contain all truth, must we conclude that it con- tains no truth ? " counselling the Earnest Clergyman to remain in the Church and do his best. " Oxoniensis " is still unsatisfied : " That which is of God cannot, assuredly, be false in any even the smallest particular." " Of all frauds, religious fraud is the worst, and the true man will have nothing to do with it." He sees that " One who thinks he knows a thing or two about Ethics " does not deny the existence of truth, that he recognises truth as present in an ever-varying dis- guise, and that she cannot be chained down to religious, political, or ethical dogma ; but he considers the views of the Earnest Clergyman to be " far in advance of the philosophy of * Cantab ' and ' Ethics ' because, believing he has found the truth, he is unable to reconcile himself to, and is unhappy in, a passive connivance with that which he holds as falsehood." In the remaining letters a distinction is drawn between the man who enters the Church as a sceptic and the man who becomes a sceptic after having entered it ; and there is much more about truth and expediency and the Articles of the Christian creed, and as to the existence of any moral teaching of the Church apart from the law of the land and the common conscience of the country. Here are the dates and the signatures of the letters : 1879. 15 Feb. An Earnest Clergyman. 22 Feb. An Earnest Clergyman. 22 Feb. Cantab. i March. An Earnest Clergyman. I March. Oxoniensis. 8 March, (a) One who thinks he knows a thing or two about Ethics ; (b] Cantab. 15 March. Oxoniensis. 22 March. Cantab. 22 March. Ethics. XVII 298 ATOMS 1879 22 March. Lewis Wright. Act. 43 29 March. Oxoniensis. 5 April. X. Y. Z. (including " The Righteous Man "). 19 April. An Earnest Clergyman. 10 May. E. D. 17 May. Sollicitus. 14 June. M. C. Hime, Foyle College, Londonderry. I know that all the communications signed "An Earnest Clergyman," " Cantab," " Oxoniensis," " Ethics," and " X. Y. Z." were written by Butler ; I believe that those signed " Lewis Wright " and " E. D." were written by him ; I am doubtful about the one signed " Sollicitus," not because of any internal evidence, but because he did not keep a copy of it with the others ; and I am satisfied that he did not write the letter signed M. C. Hime. He wished to raise a real correspondence on the subject, and I remember dimly that some one else was drawn into it ; but whether or not more than one I cannot now say. The communication signed " X. Y. Z." is Butler's poem, " The Righteous Man," which is included in The Note- Books of Samuel Butler (1912), and is given ante, p. 238. In order to connect it with the discussion he prefaced it with a few words comparing it to " the last six inches of a line of railway. There is no part of the road so ugly, so little travelled over, or so useless generally ; but they are the end, at any rate, of a very long thing." And so the matter dropped, no one's opinions being much shaken by anything said by any one else. It was, perhaps, a subject not suited for discussion in a newspaper, in that respect somewhat resembling atoms, of which he said in a note : " We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms." The idea of writing these letters came into his head because he was then re-writing that part of The Way of All Flesh which deals with Ernest's mental development when he was troubled by religious doubt, and this made him wish to re-state the difficulties with which he had himself struggled. EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW 299 Miss Savage to Butler. 22 May 1879 I like none of your letters so well as "Ethics," 1879 which ought to have been an article, not a letter. It is perfectly Act. 43 lovely. I suppose you are " Cantab " too ? I hope you have been well paid for them. " Ethics " is worth any money ; but I am afraid, being only among the correspondence, it may have been passed over by many readers. On the 1st May 1879, Butler received the first copy of Evolution Old and New, or the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. For his purpose he had found it necessary to include a memoir of each of the three earlier evolutionists and to state the theories of all four with sufficient fullness to bring out the points of resemblance and difference between them. "Can we," asks Butler in the first chapter of his book, " or can we not see signs in the structure of animals and plants of something which carries with it the idea of contrivance so strongly that it is impossible for us to think of the structure without at the same time thinking of contrivance or design in connection with it ? " It is shown that the fundamental difference between the earlier writers and Mr. Charles Darwin is that the former gave a definite purpose to the variations whose accumulation, results in species, whereas the latter considered the varia- tions to be mainly accidental. Before the publication of The Origin of Species the popular notion was that each different species of plants and animals was the result of a special act of creation. Mr. Darwin's writings substituted for this the notion of descent with modification, which, though not a new idea, had not hitherto been accepted by the public. The full title of Mr. Darwin's book is On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. It will be observed that the race has to be favoured before natural selection can act, just as with artificial selection, some favourable variation must arise before the breeder can 300 A MINDLESS UNIVERSE xvn 1879 select it ; therefore it cannot fairly be said that natural Aet> 43 selection originates species, though it may foster varia- tions into species. Butler saw that the cause of the variations ought, if possible, to be ascertained. He thought the work of the nurse of less interest than that of the parent, and wanted to know how the races became favoured before selection, i.e. why the variations arose. He wanted, in short, to know something about the subject of Mr. Darwin's book -the origin of species. To me it seems that the origin of variations, whatever it is, is the true origin of species, and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked for in the needs and experiences of the creatures varying. (Life and Habit, chapter xiii.) WThe fact that one in a brood or litter is born fitter for the itions of its existence than its brothers and sisters, and, again, the causes that have led to this one's being born fitter which last is what the older evolutionists justly dwelt upon as the most interesting consideration in connection with the whole subject are more noteworthy factors of modification than the factor that an animal, if born fitter for its conditions, will commonly survive longer in the struggle for existence. (Evolution Old and New, chapter xx.) Butler's whole nature revolted against the idea that the universe was without intelligence, just as it had revolted against the idea that Rossura porch had not been designed. But where was the architect of the universe ? He could not return to the Jewish and Christian idea of a God designing his creatures from out- side ; he saw, however, no reason why the intelligence should not be inside ; and then it would no longer be building, it would be growth with the intelligent God incorporated in the creatures. On the 24th May 1879, The Examiner published the first of eight articles entitled God the Known and God the Unknown, an Eirenicon. By Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon. These articles were republished by Mr. A. C. Fifield, in book form, in 1909, with a prefatory note by R. A. Streatfeild. He searches for God first in Pantheism with its " God is everything and everything is God," and fails to find THE TREE OF LIFE 301 him. We can see three gold-fish in a bowl of water as l8 ?9 one family united through the persons of their parents, iet ' * but we cannot in any sense see the bowl and the water as part of the gold-fish. We associate the idea of God with that of an organic living person, but the bowl and the water, being inorganic, cannot be associated with a living person. What Pantheists believe in is not a per- sonal God who governs and directs, but an impersonal unconscious principle of life. Pantheists are really Atheists. He next turns to orthodox Theism, which offers us a God of a spiritual nature only and therefore impersonal a God that is not a God. Theism is merely Atheism over again. There is a third possibility to conceive of God as we conceive of Hope, which we personify without meaning that it has a real body. This will not do, because no conception of God can have any meaning for us unless it involves his existence as an independent material living person. In Life and Habit he had put forward the idea that we are one person with our ancestors. It follows from this that all living animals and vegetables being as appears likely, if the theory of evolution is accepted descended from a common ancestor, are in reality one person and united to form a body corporate of whose existence, however, they are unconscious. There is an obvious analogy between this and the manner in which the component cells of our bodies unite to form one single individuality, of which it is not likely they have a conception, and with which they have probably only the same partial and imperfect sympathy as we, the body corporate, have with them. (Unconscious Memory ', chapter v.) This one person, this one single individuality, this vast Being is the real Tree of Life. " It is in this Person that we may see the Body of God, and in the evolution of this Person, the mystery of his Incarnation." (God the Known and God the Unknown, chapter vi.) I am told that something like this conception of God the Known is to be found in the writings of Fechner (1801-1887), with which Butler was not acquainted; it 302 GOD AND EVOLUTION xvn 1879 ma y possibly be found also in other and earlier writers ; Act. 43 b ut no thing like it can have been generally grasped and held as a literal fact until the idea of evolution had been generally accepted, and this acceptance of the idea of evolution we owe to Mr. Darwin who " found the world believing in fixity of species and left it believ- ing in spite of his own doctrine in descent with modification." (JLuck or Cunning? chapter xviii.) Nor, since it places inside the organism an intelligence that governs development, can this conception of God be, even now, held by any who believe that the modification of species is mainly due to the accumulation of variations that are accidental. Furthermore, it involves the percep- tion of the oneness of personality between parents and offspring, the persistence of memory through all genera- tions, the latency of this memory until rekindled by the recurrence of the associated ideas, and the unconsciousness with which repeated acts come to be performed. (Life and Habit, chapter v. "Personal Identity," and passim.) In other words, to agree entirely with Butler one must first accept evolution as modified by the theory of Life and Habit. Returning for a moment to the view that the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a nature myth, we find in this notion of God and man another form of the old myth. The God is inside the creature, and, the personality being continuous from parents to offspring, does literally both die with the parents and also rise again with new life in the offspring. For God the Unknown and much else bearing upon the subject the reader is referred to the articles them- selves. My friend Herbert Edwin Clarke (see ante, p. 152) was much interested in the articles as they appeared in The Examiner^ and, on discussing them with an opponent, was met by the objection that the distinction between the organic and inorganic was merely arbitrary. He did not know how to reply and appealed to Butler for help in his discomfiture. Butler had already come to see that we cannot deny life to the inorganic, and that the position xvn 'A MODEST PANTHEISM" 303 about Pantheism which he held when he wrote the 1879 articles would have to be abandoned. He replied : Aet- 43 " Yes, I know ; there's a mess, and I'm in it. Stones must be our relations poor relations, no doubt, but still relations." He returned to the subject more than once in Unconscious Memory (1880), and in the Appendix added to the second edition (1882) of Evolution Old and New, wrote : The articles I intend re-casting and re-writing as they go upon a false assumption ; but subsequent reflection has only confirmed me in the general result arrived at namely, the omnipresence of mind in the universe. He often spoke of his religion as "a modest Pantheism," and, if he had re-written the articles, I think the re-casting would have been confined to showing in what way his idea of Pantheism differed from that usually underlying the word ; and to his pointing out that, although we cannot see the bowl and the water as part of the gold- fish, yet that their material is not without intelligence, and that God, who is Life, is in everything. And he went further than seeing the organic and the inorganic as undivided; in 1893 ^ e ma d e this note which is reproduced in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912) : THE SUPER-ORGANIC KINGDOM As the solid inorganic kingdom supervened upon the gaseous (vestiges of the old being, nevertheless, carried over into and still persisting in the new), and as the organic kingdom supervened upon the inorganic (vestiges of the old being, again, carried over into and still persisting in the new), so a third kingdom is now in process of development, the super-organic, of which we see the germs in the less practical and more emotional side of our nature. Man, for example, is the only creature that interests himself in his own past, or forecasts his future to any considerable extent. This tendency I would see as the monad of a new regime a regime that will be no more governed by the ideas and habits now prevailing among ourselves than we are by those still obtaining among stones or water. Nevertheless, if a man be shot out of a cannon, or fall from a great height, he is, to all 304 EXHIBITIONS XVII 1879 intents and purposes, a mere stone. Place anything in circum- Aet - 43 stances entirely foreign to its immediate antecedents and those antecedents become non-existent to it ; it returns to what it was before they existed, to the last stage that it can recollect as at all analogous to its present. The first two reviews of Evolution Old and New both appeared on lyth May. One was in The Academy, signed by Grant Allen, and the other in The Examiner, unsigned, but Mr. D'Avigdor told Butler that it was also by Grant Allen. Miss Savage, of course, had to see both, and neither was complimentary. The intimate friends of a sensitive writer who is much abused by reviewers find themselves in a difficult position if he writes many books. The obvious commonplaces are soon exhausted, and the sympathetic friends wish to avoid repeating themselves. A difficulty of this kind was not beyond the resources of Miss Savage. She wrote : " That flippant creature Allen Grant was soon ready with his notice : I suppose he is what they call a ready writer." Her quiet assumption of an inability to remember correctly the name of so insignificant a person as Grant Allen amused Butler more than the reviews annoyed him. In addition to her work at her club Miss Savage was at this time busy attending to the Lady Artists' Exhibi- tion and afterwards to a one-man show. While engaged at the latter she wrote (22nd May) asking Butler to come and give her his opinion on some of the pictures, as it would be perfectly dreadful if she became attached to anything she ought to look down upon. My principal duty in the Ladies' Exhibition, which was to smile and smile and be a villain, devolves upon the artist's wife ; however, I daresay I shall be able to exercise my faculty for lying. I was not, indeed, called upon to show how supremely gifted I am in that respect during the last exhibition, for nobody wanted to buy either the Moons or Mrs. X's picture ; in fact I observed that most people, as soon as they set eyes on the latter, immediately walked away from it. They looked more curiously into the Moons, but I believe that half the people never arrived at making out what they were. They set them down as attempts at Whistlerism. . . . I had very hard work during all the last fortnight of the xvn MRS. WARREN 305 [Ladies'] Exhibition and don't know how I should have got 1879 through it without the consolation and refreshment of the book Act. 43 \_Evolution Old and New\. It cured my relaxed throat and my ulcerated sore throat and alleviated the pains in my bones and assisted me in my arithmetic and sweetened my temper and did as much for me as if it had been the relic of a saint. . . . A Mr. and Miss Lloyd whom I know slightly came to the gallery to-day. They looked so extraordinarily well and floiyish- ing that I am sure there must be a corresponding depression in the health of the other Lloyds, or that there very soon will be. Miss Savage to Butler. 12 June 1879 I have been enquiring about the Ladies' Guild from Miss Collingridge. There seem to be a good many formalities to go through. I think the whole thing detestable and should wait till I was nearly starving before I applied ; but other people don't always think as I do. I don't think these sort of institutions should be much encouraged ; the real use of them is to enable the " Benevolent " to do with a flourish of trumpets what should be done as a simple matter of business by people of business. I have always found that the " Benevolent " expect work done for themselves to be done for nothing, or next to nothing, and I think the tendency of these societies is to make prices go down. . , . Do come and say good-bye before you go. Mrs. Warren is more and more amusing. She said the other day with a little sentimental sigh : " How pictures of the places one has seen drors your thoughts back to them." So I said, " Yes ; that is why they are called c drorings.' " I delight in hearing her read the newspapers. She was reading the account of some art sale or other : " the prices raging from /2OO to thousands." The word " raging " so exactly expressing the thing. Mrs. Warren, I suppose, must have been caretaker or charwoman at the Exhibition. Butler made this note about her. Mrs. Warren told Miss Savage that she criticised everything. " I criticised Disraeli's novels," she said, " to his face, but I didn't know it was 'im." She also said her husband, walking one evening at dusk in the Rosherville Gardens, overheard two people talking, one of whom he recognised by his voice as the Archbishop of York. VOL. I X 306 EDWARD LEAR XVII 1879 "What was there," he asked, "before Creation ? " Act. 43 Miss Savage said she was hardly surprised at the Archbishop's asking this question, " for," she said, " I don't know that myself." "Lor! don't you?" exclaimed Mrs. Warren, "why my husband shouted out from the other side of the walk, c Providence, to be sure,' and the Archbishop came over and shook hands with him and said he should preach upon it next Sunday at West- minster Abbey. And he did, too." About the middle of June Butler went to Faido, where he stayed painting and writing till the beginning of August. He then went to Mesocco, in the Val Mesolcina, which comes down to Bellinzona from the San Bernardino, and there I joined him. After a few days we moved to Mendrisio, and one Sunday morning went over to Ligornetto, to the house of Signer Vela, the eminent sculptor. Morbelli and Hohenstein, two of the friends of Spartaco Vela who had been in London, came to Ligornetto from Milan for the day, and, after colazione, we went for a walk in the country, " very romantic and slippery " as Morbelli said. A description of the walk and of the gaiety of the party and of the wine we drank will be found in " A Day at the Cantine," chapter xxii. of Alps and Sanctuaries (1882). On leaving Mendrisio, Butler and I went to the Albergo Riposo on the Sacro Monte, above Varese, where we met Edward Lear, the artist, author of The Book of Nonsense. He is " the old Englishman" at the end of chapter xxiii. of Alps and Sanctuaries, who told us that at a recent festa on the Sacro Monte he had seen a drunken Englishman " who kept abusing everything and crying out ' Manchester's the place for me.' ' I do not remember that Edward Lear told us anything else particularly amusing, but then neither did we tell him anything particularly amusing. Butler was seldom at his best when with a celebrated man. He was not successful himself, and had a sub-aggressive feeling that a celebrated man probably did not deserve his celebrity ; if he did deserve it, let him prove it. Possibly the celebrated man felt, as I did, that Butler was not merely waiting for the production of the proofs, but was more than half prepared XVII LA MARTINA 307 to find them unconvincing. If so, it is easy to under- 1879 stand why these meetings were usually somewhat chilly. Aet- 43 From Varese we drove to Angera, as we had done the year before, and so to Arona, where we were joined by Henry M. Paget, the young artist whom Butler had met at Heatherley's, and who was abroad with his wife on his wedding tour. They came with us to Orta, and Butler showed them the chapels on the Sacro Monte there. The next day we went to Varallo. The Pagets drove, but we were rowed over the lake to Pella by an old lady who had often rowed Butler across, and who had never been in a train in her life except once when she went to Novara and back for her son's wedding. Walking over the Colma from Pella to Varallo we met another old friend of his, a peasant woman bent under a burden ; she stopped and shook hands with us, and smiled as she thanked him for the empty wine bottle he had given her some years before, after an al fresco luncheon in her neighbourhood. At Civiasco we lunched at the trattoria kept by La Martina, a jolly old lady, with the reputation of having been generosa in her youth. She had bees on her verandah and gave us some of the honey. Intending us to under- stand that it was not adulterated and not imitation honey, she declared that it was " legittimo." Butler, who sym- pathised with those who were under grace, rather than with those who were under the law, caught at her word and replied : '* Well, I cannot help that. Anyhow it is very good." La Martina laughed and said " Coraggio." We ate all her honey and she took it as a personal compliment to herself. When I was at Varallo in 1909 they told me that La Martina had died the year before, and the trattoria was being kept on by her daughter. At Varallo we found the Pagets, and Butler introduced us to Dionigi Negri and his other friends in the town, and showed us the frescoes and pictures by Gaudenzio, and took us up the mountain and round the chapels, and pointed out the best of the figures. The next day we all four went to Fobello where we left the Pagets. We walked over the Baranca in the rain to Ponte Grande, and 308 CAPTAIN CAREY XVII 1879 down to Vogogna where we heard the bells playing the Act 43 merr y jj tt i e tune given in chapter xxiv. of Alps and Sanctuaries, which they did " because a baby had just died, but we were told it was nothing to what they would have played if it had been a grown-up person." So we went down to Baveno, and by steamer to Locarno, then by train to Biasca and over the Lukmanier to Dissentis, Coire, Zurich, Basel, and returned to London, having been abroad together for three weeks. The reader will not be in a position to appreciate Miss Savage's next letter (24th September) until he has been re- minded or informed of the circumstances attending the death of the Prince Imperial in Zululand on ist June 1 879. He had volunteered for service with the British army sent out to fight the Zulus ; and on the day of his death assisted in a reconnaissance, which was virtually under the command of Captain Carey. They were surprised by the enemy. Captain Carey and the small party which had accom- panied the Prince galloped off, and the Prince, whose horse bolted, was surrounded and killed. We are not here concerned to decide exactly how much blame attached to Captain Carey in the matter; it is enough to say that, at the time, his conduct was viewed by most people in the light in which Miss Savage views it. She speaks of " Carey's letter ; " this refers to a letter which Carey wrote to The Christian,-aj\& which subsequently appeared in The Times. Miss Savage is not likely to have seen The Christian, and what she sent to Butler was probably this extract from The Times of 28th August 1879: CAPTAIN CAREY We have received from The Christian the following letter as having been written by Captain Carey : SOUTHSEA, Aug. 25. MY DEAR SIR May I ask you to kindly insert a request for praise on my behalf in the next number of your journal ? Since the first moment of my arrest I took the whole matter to my heavenly Father. I left it in His hands, reminding Him constantly of His promise to help. He has borne my burden for me. He has sustained me, my wife, and family, in our distress ; and He XVII CAREY'S PLAN 309 has finally wiped away tears from our eyes. There were 1879 certain circumstances at first that it seemed, owing to the Act. 43 bewildered statement of the survivors, difficult to explain ; but though my faith wavered his promises endured, and He, in his good time, brought me to the haven where I would be. I feel that it would be wrong to keep from my fellow-believers such a wonderful example of God's goodness and power in influencing the hearts of men ; and, though I hate publicity, I feel compelled to add my testimony to the power of prayer. Believe me, dear Sir, yours very faithfully, BRENTON CAREY, Captain^ <)8th Regiment. Miss Savage to Butler. 24 Sept. 1879 I hope you are at home again ; you said you should be back on the 2Oth, and if I don't hear from you soon I shall place the matter in the hands of the Lord, according to Carey's plan, and then you will see if you don't have to come home, whether you will or no. I enclose Carey's letter, in case you may not have seen it, and can assure you that I have proved the efficacy of his method. Only last Friday, being in despair about ways and means for carrying on the club, I cried out in my anguish that there was nothing to be done but to place the matter in the hands of the Lord. He gave Carey grace to show a clean pair of heels to the foe ; He might help us to escape from our creditors. When the committee (which had met at the house of one of the members) was over, we started on our way back to the club, and, as I went along Tottenham Court Road and Goodge Street, I took care to remind the Lord that I expected Him to dry the tears from my eyes ; and, on arrival at the club, we found that our faith had saved us and that there was a letter for me containing ^5, which sum, though not quite so large as we should have liked, will nevertheless be our salvation, and perhaps the Lord will send us some more. I should have said " peradventure," but one can't get up the technical expressions all at once. Since Friday, therefore, we have all become altered beings ; and that is thanks to Carey, without whose sublime example I should never have thought of having recourse to the Lord. If I can only persuade you to do likewise, the Prince Imperial will not have died in vain. Thank you for your last letter. It seems that Grant Allen has a little circle of admirers. How is it that one never hears of these geniuses ? I saw a man on Sunday who said that he (Grant Allen) was " grand " ; but he also admired Theophrastus Such^ which I could not read, not could anybody in the club, though we 3 io MISS SAVAGE AND ISABELLA xv.i 1879 kept the book four weeks and everybody made a show of Act. 43 beginning to read it. The only bit in the least readable is a crib from Erewhon a most barefaced crib. I have been reading Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters to Imlay. What an odious woman she was ! It is quite horrible that she should have been so good- looking, but I daresay the portraits are flattered. Fancy a woman close on forty always speaking of herself as a " girl " ! I hope you are really quite well now why did you not write to me again ? I suppose you saw that Buffon has been patronised and made much of at the British Association ; that is thanks to you, of course. So you see that you have done some good after all ; for I suppose that Mr. Mivart would not have taken Buffon under his fostering care if you had not written Evolution [Old and New'] ; and you have afforded George Eliot an opportunity for helping herself, greatly to the advantage of her readers. And yet I daresay you want more than this did I not always tell you that you were most unreasonable ? One Saturday afternoon during this autumn I went to tea with Butler and met Miss Savage. Here let me recall to the reader Edward Overton's words about Alethea in chapter xviii. of The Way of All Flesh, when they meet at Ernest's christening : u Each time I saw her I admired her more and more, as the best, kindest, wittiest, most lovable, and, to my mind, hand- somest woman whom I had ever seen." Except for the words " lovable " and " handsomest," this accurately conveys Butler's idea of Miss Savage ; and the word "lovable" may stand if it be understood as one would use it in speaking of an aunt or a sister, but if as one would use it in speaking of the love which leads to marriage between man and woman, it is as inapplicable to Miss Savage as is the other word, " handsomest." I knew this ; Butler had so prepared me that I did not expect another Isabella ; nevertheless, her appearance was a shock and a disappointment. I was not prepared for her differing in appearance so violently as she did from his description of Alethea. For there was about Miss Savage that kind of dowdiness whidh I used to associate with ladies who had been at school with my mother. On the other hand, there was about her something which I never MISS RYDER 311 remarked in any of my mother's schoolfellows a most 1879 attractive expression of friendliness and good humour. Aet- 43 When one hears a great deal of a person one involuntarily forms a mental image which usually has to undergo modification after one sees the original. The only part of my preconceived portrait of Miss Savage that was of any use to me in forming a truer mental image of her appearance was this expression of friendliness and good- humour. I regret to say that I did not see her oftener than three or four times in all. Here are two notes about her which Butler made at various times : THE BERNERS STREET REFUGE It was Miss Savage who got the refuge put up in the middle of the street where Berners Street debouches into Oxford Street. She wrote to the authorities that it was in the direct route from Berners Street to the Houses of Parliament. She really wanted it because her club was in Berners Street. A friend of hers could see a certain tall telegraph post from her window, so Miss Savage wrote to the right people telling them it would be proper for them to put a weathercock on the top of it, and they did so. Miss RYDER At Miss Savage's club Miss Ryder said she should never marry it was so degrading ; and she tossed her Httle button of a nose. " But what will you do," said Miss Savage, " when some one falls in love with you ?" (" I took care," she said to me, "not to say, //"some one, etc. "). " He will never presume to tell me that he has fallen in love with me," said Miss Ryder. " But suppose you have fallen in love with him ? " " How dare you say such a thing to me ? " Enter old JVliss Andrews and others who are appealed to. Miss Andrews flies into a passion on hearing love abused, and says she only wishes some one had fallen in love with her. The others chime in, and Miss Ryder, finding she was getting the worst of it, called them a parcel of old maids. Whereon the melee became general. 312 A MAN OF THE WORLD Miss Savage to Butler. 1879 5 Nov. 1879 My poor foot is not badly sprained, but quite Act. 43 sufficiently. I fell in my own familiar Goodge Street [in which, it will be remembered, John Pickard Owen was born], and was not hurt by the fall but by the picking of me up, which was suddenly accomplished by three young men of extraordinary strength and energy. They meant well, but I wish they had been taught that " point de zele " is the best rule of conduct on all occasions, especially for persons of great physical force. She also told him she had been to the Sunday Social Union Soire. " The Society seems to have been founded for the purpose of enabling the irreligious to spend their Sundays sadly, and I am sure, if that was the intention, it has achieved its purpose." This same autumn or winter I also made Pauli's acquaintance. There had been a suggestion, I forget who made it, that I should go to Shanghai as a solicitor, and Butler recommended my talking the matter over with Pauli, who, he said, was a man of the world, and of whose opinion he thought very highly. So I called on him in his chambers and did not go to Shanghai, probably less in consequence of Pauli's advice than because I had no intention of going there. I saw Pauli frequently after this, but only on business, for he would have nothing to do with any of Butler's friends in any other way. Butler had this story about him in proof of his being a man of the world. Pauli met some one who asked him to dine : " Quite quietly, you know," said the host, genially, " only myself and my wife that is well, of course, she's not really my wife." " No, no, naturally," replied Pauli. Butler always spoke of Pauli as being good to animals. He instructed his clerk not to kill any mice caught in his chambers ; he was to make them wards in Chancery ; that is, he was to let them loose in the court of Vice- Chancellor Malins ; under the guardianship of that amiable old gentleman they would be sure to be kindly treated. xvn FINANCIAL TROUBLES 313 If Pauli saw a cat or a dog sitting on a doorstep he 1879 would ring the bell, so that the owners might take the Aet> 43 poor beast in. Butler was delighted with this, and tried it himself, but made the mistake of politely waiting till the servant opened the door ; then he explained why he had rung, and it appeared that the poor beast did not belong to those people, and they had been doing all they could to get rid of it. Late in 1879 Butler found himself at the end of his financial tether. He and Pauli had been living on the money that was left after the crash of the companies, a crisis was imminent, and he had no alternative but to ask his father for help. He did it in the form of consult- ing a Shrewsbury solicitor as to the possibility of raising money upon his reversion to the Whitehall property, knowing that a contingent reversion is not a very market- able commodity but intending that his action should come to his father's ears. A voluminous and painful correspondence ensued, the father insisting on knowing all about the son's position, and especially about Pauli, who, he had been informed as the result of private enquiries, was making 1000 a year. Butler showed his father's letter with this statement to Pauli who indignantly denied that his income was more than enough to cover his expenses he had to make a certain show to get business, he would certainly get none if he did not, and so on. Butler remembered his father's saying that in New Zealand Pauli had made j8oo a year as editor of a newspaper there ; he looked upon the two statements as of a piece, and accepted Pauli's account of the matter. Also he had absolute confidence that Pauli would not have taken money from him unless he had been on his beam ends and in imminent danger of sinking. He wrote to his father a letter 20 pages long (4th Nov. 1879) telling him, as well as he could, how much he had brought back with him from New Zealand, how much he had given Pauli, how much he had invested in Hoare's companies, how much he had induced various friends, including Pauli, to invest, how much had been lost, how much was left over, and how he and Pauli had 3 14 EXPLANATIONS xvn 1879 spent it. He could not tell all these sums exactly Act. 43 b ecause ne na d not kept exact accounts, and, especially, he could not tell how much he had given Pauli. He contended that so long as he had helped Pauli out of income there was nothing to complain of; and that as to his helping him out of capital, which he had done since the smash, his reason was that he was responsible for Pauli's having put all the money he could raise into the companies. He had induced Mr. Heatherley to put 400, and two other friends to put ^200 each, into one of the companies. He repaid these three friends their losses in lump sums, and considered that what he was doing for Pauli amounted to repaying him by instalments. He asked his father to join with his aunt and himself in cutting off the entail of the Whitehall property and in resettling it so that, after the determination of their life interests, his reversion should be absolute and not merely contingent upon his surviving them. This would cost his father nothing, and would give Butler an interest on which he could raise money ; thus he would get the quid pro quo which he contended ought to have been given him when he was induced, for no consideration, to agree to the sale of the house. Cutting off the entail and giving Butler an absolute interest could only have been done at the expense of those remaindermen who had, or would have had, an interest in the property in the event of Butler's predeceasing his father. Canon Butler might have given them some equivalent, but it would have required consideration and probably a complete readjustment of his testamentary dis- positions which he was not disposed to undertake. It was scarcely to be expected that he should agree to put his eldest son in a position to go on helping Pauli. Canon Butler, however, appeared satisfied with the explanation of why Butler had helped him, so long as it was done out of income. A great many letters passed and led to two results ; the first was an agreement that Canon Butler should allow ^300 a year to his son, who undertook to give credit for anything he made by writing in magazines or otherwise, and who also undertook to do no more XVII WILL-SHAKING 315 for Pauli. The other result will appear from this 1879 letter : Aet - Butler to his Father. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. 10 Nov. 1879. MY DEAR FATHER It is impossible for me to pretend that I am indifferent to your decision to give me only a life interest in the greater part of what you had intended to leave me ; on the contrary, I regard it as almost the heaviest and most far-reaching blow which a father can inflict upon a son, and feel it accordingly. Nor yet can you expect me to acquiesce in the sufficiency of the reason you have given for your decision. At the same time, the matter is one which is so entirely within your own control that it is impossible for me to argue with you concerning it. I am Your affte Son, S. BUTLER. Readers of The Way of All Flesh will now understand why Theobald shakes his will at Ernest. Butler sent all the correspondence to Miss Savage, but she said it rather bewildered her ; and I am afraid he did not get much direct sympathy out of her. She did her best, however, and even suggested a subject for a magazine story. Miss Savage to Butler. 10 Nov. 1879 Your father reminds me of Jehovah in the desert. I hope you are as "son-like" to him as you can be. I am sure he is very " father-like " to you ! I shall remember him in my maledictions. He is quite right about the magazines. Why don't you write twaddle ? Why don't you be common- place ? I am not sure that I should not like you a great deal better myself if you were. If I were your near relation I am sure I should not like you at all. I can only just put up with your superiority as it is. I hope that by this time your worry is all over and that your father has become reasonable again. I am much better and went to the club on Friday and Saturday, Mrs. Lowe taking me in a carriage ; today I am so much recovered that I intend to go thither in an omnibus, and expect to be able to walk about as usual in another week or ten days. I have been dipping into the Books of Moses, being some- times at a loss for something to read while shut up in my apart- ment. You know that I have never read the Bible much, consequently there is generally something of a novelty that I hit upon. As you do know your Bible well, perhaps you can 316 MISS ARABELLA BUCKLEY xvn 1879 tell me what became of Aaron. The account given of his end Act. 43 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 written on the subject, in the style of the police stories in All the Tear Round^ called " The Mystery of Mount Hor, or What Became of Aaron ? " Don't forget to write to me soon. Miss Savage to Butler. 24 Dec. 1879 I am amused by your father. He thought it would be an act of folly if you raised money on your reversion. It seems to me that that is precisely what you are doing by the present arrangement. [He had intimated that he should deduct any monies I now had from him from what he should leave me. S. B.] You should send him a Christmas card, one of Miss Colling- ridge's with a text but perhaps he might like it, so better leave it alone. My cat has taken to mulled port and rum punch. Poor old dear ! he is all the better for it. Dr. W. B. Richardson says that the lower animals always refuse alcoholic drinks, and gives that as a reason why humans should do so too. A very pretty reason, is it not ? I do not know when Butler made the acquaintance of Miss Arabella Buckley, who, as has been stated (ante, p. 104), afterwards married Dr. Fisher. She was the daughter of the Rev. John Wall Buckley, Vicar of St. Mary's, Paddington, and was well known as a scientific lady, secretary to Sir Charles Lyell, and author of The Fairy- Land of Science y and other works. On the 25th November 1879, at Paddington Vicarage, Butler met Alfred Russel Wallace. He had met him and Dr. Carpenter at Marsh- man's in 1865 (ante, p. 127), and Wallace had recently written the review of Life and Habit which appeared in Nature at the end of March 1879, about sixteen months after the publication of the book. In My Life, by Alfred Russel Wallace (Chapman & Hall, 1905), the author, speaking of spiritualism, on which subject he published a book in 1879, says (vol. II. p. 296) : ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 317 Among the friends with whom I investigated the subject was 1879 Mr. Marshman, at that time Agent-General for New Zealand, Act. 43 and Miss Buckley. Both were friends of Samuel Butler, the author of those remarkable works Erewhon and Life and Habit. Mr. Marshman invited him [1865] to a seance at his house with myself and several other friends, but he thought it all trickery. I sent him [1879] a copy of my book and he wrote me three letters in a week, chiefly to explain that the whole subject bored him. In his first letter he says that Mr. Marshman and Miss Buckley are two of the clearest-headed people he knows, and therefore he cannot help believing there must be something in it. " But," he says, " what I saw at the Marshmans' was impudent humbug." In the second he gives a curious revelation of the state of his mind in a personal anecdote. He writes : " Granted that wonderful spirit-forms have been seen and touched and then disappeared, and that there has been no delusion, no trickery well, / don't care. I get along quite nicely as I am. I don't want them to meddle with me. I had a very dear friend once, whom I believed to be dying, and so did she. We discussed the question whether she could communicate with me after death. 'Promise,' I said, and very solemnly, 'that if you find there are means of visiting me here on earth that if you can send a message to me you will never avail yourself of the means, nor let me hear from you when you are once departed? Unfortunately she recovered, and never forgave me. If she had died, she would have come back if she could j of that I am certain by her subsequent behaviour to me. I believe my instinct was perfectly right ; and I will go farther : if ever a spirit- form takes to coming near me, I shall not be content with trying to grasp it, but, in the interests of science, / will shoot it" The third is a very nice letter, and is a kind of apology for what he thought I might consider rather unreasonable in the others ; and I will therefore give it, in order that my readers may not, through me, get a wrong idea of this remarkably gifted, though eccentric, writer. Accordingly Wallace reproduces the letter, which is interesting as an example of Butler's scrupulousness in matters of common courtesy, but not otherwise ; for it was written merely to apologise for any rudeness he might have been guilty of. I was puzzled by Wallace giving the date of the letter as 1859, and wrote to inquire whether there was not some mistake. Wallace replied that it should be 1879, and, that being fourteen years after the event, he concluded that the impression of 318 DARWIN'S PREDECESSORS X vn 1879 the seance, if it made any, had by that time died away. Act. 43 g ut t k e i m pression na d no t died away ; Butler remembered the meeting very clearly and often spoke of the contrast between the way in which Wallace was taken in by the trickery and Carpenter saw through it. His note about it is given ante, p. 127. I did not tell Wallace about this note, nor did I tell him that the personal anecdote, though it correctly revealed the state of Butler's mind on the subject of spiritualism, had nevertheless been invented, and probably expressly for him. Butler thought that any one capable of swallowing the humbug of the seance would easily swallow the humbug about the lady who recovered ; and the quotation from Wallace's book shows that he was justified. He would not have written such a story to Dr. Carpenter. Evolution Olid and New was not well received by the reviewers. It may, however, be said that one of the author's objects in writing it, to show that the idea of descent with modification did not originate with Mr. Darwin, is now in a fair way to be accomplished. A writer in The Times Literary Supplement , 24th June 1909, reviewing The Foundations of The Origin of Species, edited by Francis Darwin ; Darwin and Modern Science, edited by A. C. Seward ; and Mendel 's Principles of Heredity, by W. Bateson, wrote : Of these three books, the first two are published in connection with the celebrations which are taking place in Cambridge this week to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. . . . It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that Darwin was not the originator of the idea of evolution. It is just necessary, because misapprehension on this point is widely distributed and finds frequent expression in current literature and in the press, and consists, in its most insidious form, in the use of the terms "Darwinism" and "evolution" as if they were synonymous terms. How this curious mistake arose it is difficult to imagine. But it is possible that the boycott of Samuel Butler (whose Evolution Old and New leaves no doubt on the point) by the men of science who were contemporary with him may have had something to do with it. Professor H. F. Osborn's From the MIND IN THE UNIVERSE 319 Greeks to Darwin had orthodox science as a chaperon ; but it 1879 probably has not been sufficiently widely read to influence those Aet - 43 who reach public opinion. A happy omen that the day of this fallacy is over is seen in the fact that the first essay in Darwin and Modern Science entitled " Darwin's Predecessors," from the pen of Professor J. Arthur Thomson, deals with the evolutionists before Darwin. These sentences give the impression that the writer (I do not know who he was) had some special reason for thinking that Butler's scientific books were boycotted by the scientific men of the time. Butler certainly thought so himself, but beyond straws showing the direction of the wind he had nothing definite to go upon. Another object of the book, to restore mind to the universe, is also finding more popular favour than it met with until recently. If Butler had not written, some one else would have had to do his work before Lamarck would have been treated with the respect which we now find paid to him. Among the straws showing which way the wind was blowing in 1879 was what Butler speaks of as "the manner in which Mr. Darwin met Evolution Old and New." In February 1879 a German scientific journal called Kosmos published an article by Dr. Ernst Krause devoted to the life and works of Dr. Erasmus Darwin. On the 22nd of the same February The Examiner contained the first announcement of the approaching publication of Evolution Old and New, and this was followed by other announcements in other literary journals describing the book as " a comparison of the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck with that of Mr. Charles Darwin, with copious extracts from the works of the three first-named writers." From these announcements, any one who had read Life and Habit and was familiar with the writings of Mr. Charles Darwin and of his grandfather, Erasmus, would have known what sort of book to expect. In May Evolution Old and New was advertised and published. In November 1879 Murray published Erasmus Darwin, by Ernst Krause. Translated from the German 320 FOOT-NOTES XVII 1879 h W- $ Da/las, with a preliminary notice by Charles Act. 43 f)arwi. It appears from the preface that Dr. Krause's part of the book consisted of his article in Kosmos, of which he had allowed Charles Darwin and his brother, Erasmus, to have a translation made. There is a foot- note to this : Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his scientific reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for its accuracy. The preface goes on to say that Charles Darwin, having private materials for adding to the knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's character, had written a preliminary notice. Particulars are given, two books (Miss Seward's Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin and Dr. Dowson's lecture, Erasmus Darwin: Philosopher, Poet, and Physician] are mentioned, and at the end of the preface is this second footnote : Since the publication of Dr. Krause's article, Mr. Butler's work Evolution Old and New, 1879, has appeared, and this includes an account of Dr. Darwin's life, compiled from the two books just mentioned, and of his views on evolution. Butler accordingly read Erasmus Darwin under the impression that it was an accurate translation of Dr. Krause's article as it had appeared in Kosmos the pre- ceding February. When he came to the last sentence it pulled him up : Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significant first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us ; but the wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy. It seemed to Butler that this sentence might, or rather must, have been written by some one who had read Evolution Old and New published in May, in which case it could not have appeared in Kosmos published in the preceding February ; and yet the accuracy of Mr. Dallas's translation of the February article was expressly guaranteed by "liis scientific reputation together with his knowledge of German." He sent to Germany for xvn PUZZLED 321 Kosmos, and began to learn German. By the time the 1879 magazine came he knew enough of the language to see Aet> 43 that the original article did not contain any of the last six pages of the translation, and that there were other points of difference which snowed, as it seemed to him, that the article must have been altered in the light of, and with a view to, Evolution Old and New. He was puzzled and uncertain how to act. VOL. I CHAPTER XVIII 1880 UNCONSCIOUS MEMORT 1880 WE have now arrived at the opening of what developed Act. 44 j nto a p ersona l quarrel between Charles Darwin and Butler a quarrel that has nothing to do with the differ- ences between the two men on the subject of evolution, though, no doubt, those differences affected the way in which each viewed the conduct of the other. I am able to tell the story of the personal quarrel from both sides, because, in 1910, Mr. (now Sir) Francis Darwin sent to me, as Butler's biographer, a number of letters which throw light upon it. Mr. F. Darwin and I, in the course of a long correspondence on these letters, agreed that, in justice both to his father and to Butler, the explanation of what really occurred should be made public as soon as possible ; and, accordingly, I used the letters he sent, and also our correspondence, in writing a pamphlet, Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler: A Step towards Reconcilia- tion, which was published by Mr. Fifield in 1911, the expenses of publication being shared equally by Mr. Francis Darwin and myself, at his request. The reader will please bear in mind that Butler never knew anything about these letters, and died without having any idea of the true explanation of Mr. Darwin's treatment of him. Whenever Butler was puzzled he considered all the facts he could collect relating to the matter and con- structed a working hypothesis. On obtaining more facts, he reconsidered and modified his hypothesis. He was very much puzzled by Erasmus Darwin. Why should 322 ' ^A , ^ o / ^ $u^-, +3 A n /K* tf^^f / A . ^rX ^ xa ^ . " 1 , xvm A WORKING HYPOTHESIS 323 Charles Darwin go out of his way to put those two 1880 notes into his preface ? He had practically told the Aet- 44 reader that if the translated article contained any passage which appeared to condemn Evolution Old and New, such passage must have been written without reference to Evolution Old and New, because that book was not published until after the original German article had appeared ; and the translation of the article was stated to be accurate. And Butler could not believe that the passages interpolated into the English version really had been written without reference to Evolution Old and New. According to his custom he constructed a working hypothesis, and it was a very unsatisfactory one ; but that was no reason why it should not be modified if Mr. Darwin could supply more facts. He accordingly wrote to him (2nd January 1880) asking for an explanation " an explanation which," as he says in chapter iv. of Unconscious Memory, " I would have gladly strained a good many points to have accepted." Mr. Darwin replied the next day, and the two letters, together with other documents relating to this controversy, are given in full in an Appendix (post). In his reply Mr. Darwin admitted that the article had been altered before trans- lation, and added : This is so common a practice that it never occurred to me to state that the article had been modified ; but now I much regret that I did not do so. He also promised that if there should be a reprint of the English version of Erasmus Darwin, he would state that the original article had been modified before transla- tion ; but he said nothing about why he had apparently gone out of his way to state that the article had not been modified. Butler was not satisfied. He was ready to strain points, but no amount of straining would turn this into an explanation which he could accept. It was admitted that in the evolution of Dr. Krause's article from the German magazine to the English book variations had arisen, but the question as to their cause and origin was 3 2 4 DARWIN'S SILENCE xvm 1880 left untouched. Butler took the teleological view that Act. 44 ^ey haj been put there on purpose, and thought it ought to have occurred to Mr. Darwin to mention them ; especially as it did occur to him to mention that Evolution Old and New had appeared since the original article, of which he was giving a translation guaranteed to be accurate. Butler could do very little ; he was like the sheep and the hens of the Righteous Man, and lived " not in any odour of defencefulness." As for the working hypothesis, he saw nothing for it but to suppose that he was right, and that Mr. Darwin had undertaken the publication of the English translation of Erasmus Darwin as a reply to Evolution Old and New. The dates would allow of this, because, as I have stated at the close of the preceding chapter, the Kosmos article appeared in February 1879 an ^ on tne 22n d f tne same month the approach- ing publication of Evolution Old and New was announced. Butler informed Mr. Darwin that he should lay the matter before the public and wrote to The Athenaeum a letter which appeared 3ist January 1880. The letter concludes with these words : It is doubtless a common practice for writers to take an opportunity of revising their works ; but it is not common when a covert condemnation of an opponent has been interpolated into a revised edition, the revision of which has been concealed, to declare with every circumstance of distinctness that the con- demnation was written prior to the book which might appear to have called it forth, and thus lead readers to suppose that it must be an unbiassed opinion. Charles Darwin did not reply, and Butler was con- firmed in his supposition that his working hypothesis was correct. In this supposition he was mistaken ; for, although Charles Darwin did not publish any reply in The Athenaeum or elsewhere, he might have done so. On reading Butler's letter, he looked up his papers and found that he had forgotten something. He had written to Butler, 3rd January 1880, that the alteration of articles on republication was so common a practice that it never XVIII FOOT-NOTES 325 occurred to him to mention that Dr. Krause's article had 1880 been modified ; nevertheless it had, in fact, occurred to Aet " 44 him to mention this. I do not mean that he had intention- ally written to Butler something which he knew to be untrue. What had happened was that the preface to Erasmus Darwin (the book which contained the English version of Dr. Krause's article) originally included these words : Dr. Krause has taken great pains and has largely added to his essay since it appeared in Kosmos. This sentence formed the opening of a paragraph containing matter which subsequently became irrelevant and was struck out in the proof ; but, unhappily, Darwin did not observe that he was striking out more than he intended ; for, besides striking out the irrelevant part of the paragraph, he also struck out these opening words, and, when he wrote to Butler, 3rd January 1880, he had forgotten that they had ever been written. So long as the words stating that Dr. Krause had altered his article between February and November were in the preface, the first foot-note guaranteed the accuracy of the translation of the modified article ; and the second foot- note explained how it had been possible for Dr. Krause to make the modifications with Butler's book before him. But when the words were struck out, the unforeseen and unintended result followed that the meaning of both the foot-notes became altered. The first foot-note about Mr. Dallas now referred to the unmodified article, and practically declared that it had been translated as it originally appeared in Kosmos ; and the second note, that Evolution Old and New had appeared since Kosmos, con- firmed this meaning by implying particularly that nothing in the translated article could possibly have got there in consequence of Evolution Old and New. It appears, moreover, from the correspondence sent me by Mr. F. Darwin, that Charles Darwin sent to Dr. Krause a copy of Butler's book, Evolution Old and New, when that book was published in May 1879. It was, of course, quite right of him to do so, if only because it contained 326 PROPOSED LETTERS xvm 1880 the most recently published account of Erasmus Darwin, Aet - 44 and he knew that Krause was modifying his article. In sending it, he hoped that Dr. Krause would " not expend much powder and shot on Mr. Butler, for he really is not worthy of it. His book is merely ephemeral." When Darwin realised that in writing to Butler he had made a mistake, his instinct was to write to The Athenaeum in explanation, and he prepared a letter printed in the Appendix as " Proposed letter I." I cannot say why this proposed letter is dated 24th January 1880. Butler's letter certainly did not appear till 3ist January. It is possible it may have been ready for, and crowded out of, the preceding number of The Athenaeum (24th January), and that Darwin had seen it in proof, but this seems unlikely. Nothing, however, turns upon the point. The letter was not sent to The Athenaeum because it was " disapproved by everyone " that is to say by every member of Mr. Darwin's family. He accordingly pre- pared a second letter, " Proposed letter II." February ist, 1880. Both these letters state that Darwin had originally written the words, " Dr. Krause has added largely to his essay as it appeared in Kosmos" and that these words were accidentally omitted ; and the second letter concludes thus : As Mr. Butler evidently does not believe my deliberate asser- tion that the above omission was unintentional, I must decline any further discussion with him. This letter did not meet with the approval of all the Darwin family, and it was decided that it should be submitted to Professor Huxley, to whom Darwin accordingly sent it with a letter dated 2nd February 1880. In this letter to Huxley he says : I should rather like to show that I had intended to state that Krause had enlarged his article. On the other hand a clever and unscrupulous man like Mr. Butler would be sure to twist whatever I may say against me ; and the longer the controversy lasts the more degrading it is to me. Professor Huxley's opinion was that the second letter xvm HUXLEY'S ADVICE 327 should not be sent ; he thought that a note in a future 1880 edition of Erasmus Darwin would meet the case. Aet- 44 "Proposed letter II." was accordingly rejected. It appears from the papers sent me by Mr. F. Darwin that something else weighed with Charles Darwin and his advisers besides Professor Huxley's opinion ; namely, that Butler's letter to The Athenaeum was " so un- gentlemanlike as not to deserve an answer," as to which the reader has the material for forming his own opinion. On receiving Huxley's reply Darwin wrote him a letter of thanks (see Appendix). Mr. Francis Darwin and some of his brothers disagreed with Huxley, and thought that their father ought to write. It is, of course, idle to say so now, but I wish Darwin had followed his sons' advice and neglected that of Huxley. Butler would not have had to strain any point to accept his statement that he had written the words, and that they had been struck out inadvertently. He would not, and, even if he had been, as Darwin supposed, an " unscrupulous man," he could not have twisted it against him ; though he might have had something to say about his not believing Darwin's " deliberate assertion that the omission of any statement that Dr. Krause had altered his article before sending it for translation was un- intentional," because he found no such " deliberate assertion " in Darwin's letter to him of 3rd January 1880. What he found there was an assertion that to alter an article on republication is so common a practice that it never occurred to Darwin to mention it. He took this to mean that Darwin had done what he did on purpose. He would have had to know more than he was ever told before he could have understood in what way any such words as " unintentional " or " accidental " could be properly applied to what had happened. We can now see that there was inadvertence, and that it consisted in Darwin's not noticing that he was striking out of his preface more than he intended. Butler gave to the British Museum a copy of Kosmos for February 1879 and a copy of Erasmus Darwin, so 328 WHIST XVIII 1880 marked as to show what passages not in the German had Aet - 44 been interpolated into the English version. Miss Savage to Butler. 8 Jan. 1880. We are anxious to get more members [for the Ladies' Club], for we want money awfully. I shall take to high- way robbery, for it seems no use to lay the matter before the Lord. He led me on four months ago and made me think that he seriously meant to dry the tears from my eyes ; but I suppose he thought he had caught me by the paltry advance of ^5. Please write to me soon about this. Miss Savage to Butler. 2 Feb. 1880. I am vexed I did not see it first [The Athenaeum with Butler's letter of 31 Jan.], but on Friday evening I fell a victim to Mrs. Lowe's rapacity for whist and did not get a chance of seeing The Athenaeum at the club. It must have been my prophetic soul that made me wish to shirk Mrs. Lowe that night. I said I had to go to Mudie's, and went out with the books strapped up ; but I did not go far, and wandered round and round the block of buildings between Wells Street and Berners Street until somebody coming out of the club told me she was gone. But I had no sooner settled down to read after my tea and toast than she reappeared like Fate, and I felt that there was no resistance to be made. You may resist the Devil and (so I have been told) he will flee from you, but that cannot be said of Mrs. Lowe when she wants a fourth for whist. Butler to Henry M. Paget. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. Feb. 3, 1880. DEAR PAGET a I should have written sooner but was uncertain where to find you. While I remember, you do not mention having been to Fiesole. It is an afternoon's walk from where you are and I think the old Etruscan walls will fetch you. Mind you go and see them. I am so very glad you took to Giotto. I hoped you would. You do not say how you liked the piazza and duomo in the upper town at Bergamo, and, of course, you- saw the Moroni's. "The Last Supper" [Leonardo's, at Milan] is not worth going to see any old wall will do just as well. No good pictures that I know of ever came out of Bologna. I don't 1 Paget was travelling in Italy. XVIII NOBLENESS 329 like even Francia, not at all. Academies were first started at 1880 Bologna, and since then well, I suppose we differ on that point. Aet - 44 I see [Thomas Cooper] Gotch now and again, and to-morrow he and [Henry Scott] Tuke and [Joseph Benwell] Clark are to come up to me for a little Handel. I don't know Tuke and Clark yet, and am to make acquaintance with them. I am sure they are nice. Jones has been very ill, but is now all right again. Quinsy, sore throat, and rheumatism. He lives in lodgings now in New Ormond Street, and I think it suits him. Sid [Paget's brother] I have not seen for an age. Sienna is a place to see, if you can manage it but I hardly remember it, it is so many years ago (over 30) since I was there. Cortona is fine, and Perugia, if not too far. I am sure your picture will be very good and I shall like seeing your picture in the Grosvenor. Ah ! I don't know what nobleness is any more than you do ; but I imagine that to be noble a man must be strong in body and position, handsome, amorous, and kind ; with a contempt for all the vices of meanness and the meannesses of virtue. I have so much nobility about me as to be in a great rage with old Darwin. Enclosed letter from last Friday's Athenaeum will tell the story sufficiently. I suppose he will have to answer it : if he doesn't I shall go for him again somehow. I am writing much clearing my mind preparatory to a work of the Life and Habit kind. I have some good things for it. Also I have been painting out of doors not unfrequently this winter but I paint worse and worse. Still, it rests me, and I couldn't write if I didn't go out into the country and walk and paint. I am glad of any Italians liking Erewhon. Is Madame Villari Italian ? Pray say how pleased I am. With all best of best of wishes to Mrs. Paget and yourself. Yrs., S. BUTLER. Early in March Butler's aunt, Mrs. Lloyd, died at the Whitehall, Shrewsbury, and Miss Butler duly informed her brother. Soon afterwards she wrote and told him about the spring flowers in a letter written on what he used to call " her daffodil pedal." He sent a quotation from it to Miss Savage, who replied, i7th March 1880: I hope you hastened to assure your sister that daffodils are abundant in the London streets. Miss Johnson had a lot the other day. I said, " You don't let us forget that we are in the month of roaring daffodil." So she said, "I wonder why Tennyson called them roaring." And everybody else wondered too ; but nobody could suggest a reason why, and seemed quite satisfied that the epithet was eminently Tennysonian as in fact it is. - 330 LUCY xvm 1880 [I hope that many a long year before these letters or selections Act. 44 from them can ever be published it will be necessary to tell the reader that what Tennyson really wrote, as Miss Savage very well knew, was . . . Here in this roaring moon Of daffodil and crocus. See the Introduction to Vol. I. of The Nineteenth Century. S. B., 9 Nov. 1901.] Miss Savage to Butler. NEW BER.NERS CLUB. iyd March 1880 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. I hope you have enjoyed your holiday. I forgot to tell you to beware of the adders on Dartmoor. They swarm there, like "violets by a mossy stone, half-hidden from the eye," and pounce out upon unwary travellers. She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove ; A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love. A violet by a mossy stone Half-hidden from the eye ! Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be ; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me ! [To the foregoing letter I replied that I concluded Miss Savage meant to imply that Wordsworth had murdered Lucy in order to escape a prosecution for breach of promise of marriage. S. B.j XVHI AARON 331 Miss Savage to Butler. April 2nd 1880 I don't think you see all that I do in 1880 the poem, and I am afraid that the suggestion of a DARK Aet - 44 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, etc. 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. S. B.] GasselPs 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 by degrees to a right comprehension of it. Miss Savage may merely have meant that there was mystery about the deaths of both Aaron and Lucy. She was no doubt thinking of her letter of November 1879 in which she asked Butler what became of Aaron. What- ever she meant her letter had the effect of directing Butler's attention to Wordsworth's poem ; he meditated on Lucy and settled that she must have been a very disagreeable person ; he therefore sent her to dwell in that pigeon-hole of his memory which since December 1878 (ante, p. 292) had been tenanted by Moore's young lady whose trees and flowers faded away ; and he frequently alluded to the pair of them as probably the two most disagreeable young women in English literature, all the time waiting for an opportunity to point out in public how much they must have had in common. The writing of Evolution Old and New, and the publication by Charles Darwin of Erasmus Darwin, led Butler to the writing of his next book, Unconscious Memory, in which he included a translation of Professor Ewald Hering's lecture on memory. This is an extract from a letter he wrote to Professor Hering asking for his consent to publish the translation. 332 THE NEXT BOOK xvm Butler to Professor Ewald Hering. 1880 15 April 1880 In December 1877 ^ published a book, Act. 44 Life an d Habit) in which the existing differentiations of habit and structure were referred, as in your lecture, to the accumulated memory of successive generations ; and I made this the key to the phenomena of old age, the principle underlying longevity, the sterility of hybrids and of 'certain animals under domestication, as well as to other observed facts of heredity ; but I had not heard of your lecture till I was already in the press with Life and Habit) and, being afraid of finding something which would necessitate serious alterations, I purposely avoided it. After I had published Life and Habit^ but not before, I read the account of your lecture given by Professor Ray Lankester in Nature, ]u\y I3th, 1876. I then at once wrote to The Athenaeum calling attention to the extracts given by Prof. Ray Lankester, and also to a passage by Dr. Erasmus Darwin in which a similar conclusion was hinted at. Butler to H. M. Paget. 20 May 1880 What a beast I am for not having written sooner and now I don't know where to address to but Sid will tell me, and it will be an excuse for seeing him which I have not done for months. The Academy : I don't quite know what to say about this. Condole, of course but I hear that Paget sent a large unfinished picture into which he had not put all the work that Paget could put into it Humph. I don't think I need say any more after that. Gotch as you know was out. I did not see his picture at the last, nor yet Gogin's, whose rejection is a matter which I regret more than I can say. I am painting a little out of doors again, now that the weather will let me ; I take great pains, but it comes to nothing ; yet I cannot stop. I have pretty well learnt German now ; sufficiently for practical purposes, for I never mean to go there, and don't care about speaking it. My new book is, I may say, half done. It will give translations from two German writers [Hering and von Hartmann], cap Life and Habit, and give old Darwin the best warming that I can manage to give him and I think I shall manage a pretty hot one. I have seen Gotch several times lately ; between you and me I can do nothing with him. He is nice and loveable, but he has a screw loose somewhere and he is beyond my art to manage him. Do you know Tuke ? Jones and I are delighted with CYCLOPEAN WALLS 333 him and think him almost as good as Tonio [the son of the 1880 boatman at Arona] ; and he likes Handel too, and we give him Aet - 44 a dose now and again. I think of going to Italy in July, as soon as I have got my book well forward, so that I shall not have much to do on my return. Erewhon has sold well lately. I have raised the price to 5/- and it seems to sell better in consequence more than 100 copies have gone since Xmas, but it is all eaten up by the expenses of Evolution Old and New, which was badly managed. When I go, I mean going near Turin ; there is a Monastery on the top of a mountain there [Sammichele ; see Alps and Sanctuaries] which haunts me, and I must go and lay it. I hear you have been seeing some Cyclopean walls. Cyclopean walls always fetch me ; aren't they fine ? No. I don't like Mr. Spartali at all. 1 The plain business American is often a capital fellow, but your Aesthetic American thinks to fly from the wrath to come by trying to imitate The Saturday Review. (This is because he called Erewhon " intellectual gymnastics." What nonsense ! Erewhon may be a stupid book, and parts of it certainly are so. The scheme a journey to another world is old and essentially a bad and cheap one. I wish I had done it some other way, but it doesn't matter, and as the tree falls so let it lie.) Talking of Cyclopean walls, I went to Maidstone the other day and saw Kit's Coty House ; it is really very good a druidical monument, not a house at all. I daresay you know it and Maidstone isy?*, full of beautiful bits. I must try and do some this summer. After I have done my present book, I go on to the " Organic and Inorganic." I have finally made up my mind that there is no hard and fast line to be drawn, and that every molecule of matter is full of will and consciousness, and that the motion of the stars in space is voluntary and of design on their parts. I find a passage in Walt Whitman which will serve for my title- page ; it runs : "I do not doubt that the orbs and systems of orbs play their swift sports through the air on purpose." It is so ; and I think I can make it pretty clear, too. As for the Newtonian system, there is a horrible screw loose in it. I did not find it out, but, when I came across it, it was a very clear case ; and Jones and my cousin see it too, and so will you when I show it you j and nothing but volition will get it straight. It is very nice. With all best of best wishes to Mrs. Paget and yourself. . . . My aunt is dead and I have too many and too deep envelopes and must use them up. 1 He means Mr. W. J. Stillman who married Miss Spartali. Paget was travelling with the Stillmans in Greece when this letter was written. 334 THE ITALIAN BOOK xvm 1880 I remember something about there being a screw Act. 44 ] oose j n tne Newtonian system, but I am sorry to say that I have entirely forgotten what it was ; the reason probably being that Butler never returned to it, and so I heard no more about it. Butler had published Evolution Old and New with David Bogue, and was to publish Unconscious Memory with him, paying the expenses himself; now, to his surprise, Bogue offered him 100 for a book of Italian travel, with illustrations, which ultimately grew into dips and Sanctuaries. But when it was written Bogue declined to take it, and Butler published it in November 1 8 8 1 , at his own expense. Miss Savage to Butler. 22 June 1880 I admire your coolness in trying to pass off the idea of your Italian book as your own. Why, I suggested it to you years ago ! It may be a poor thing, but it is not your own. I should have written to you much sooner, but I have had hard work writing poetry. Inspiration comes quickly, but the finishing and polishing take long. However, here are the verses. They are for a preface to your Italian book. I present them to you : When Jones was tired of trampling on his mother, (Occupation so congenial to a son), " Devolve," said I, " that duty on another, Or her lot will be a much too easy one. " I, too, am tired of goading Darwin into madness, So we two innocents abroad will gaily go, Bribed to intensify the public sadness, By the writing of a volume for a hundred pounds or so." However, seriously, the scheme is a delightful one ; we shall have a delightful book, and you will have a nice little sum of money which your father could not possibly dream of asking for. He could not be so mean. [Miss Savage did not know him. S. B.] I have been leading a very dissipated life lately, but it is the season, and society has its duties. I mean that it is a duty to profit by the chances of amendment that fall in one's way but there are such a lot of people around me, all talking, that the little poem has exhausted my mental powers, and I had better leave off at once. FINANCIAL POSITION 335 Had Miss Savage taken longer in finishing and 1880 polishing her imitation of a famous chorus in The Pirates Aet - * of Penzance, she would, no doubt, have got nearer the original by accusing me of "jumping on" instead of " trampling on " my mother. But in any case I desire to register a protest against being accused of having ever done either. We two innocents abroad did gaily go, but not together; Butler started alone in July for S. Ambrogio and S. Pietro in the valley of Susa, and after laying the monastery of Sammichele, as he had written to Paget, remained in the neighbourhood of Lanzo, Viu, Fucine, and Groscavallo till he moved to Faido, where I joined him in August ; and we were together for a fortnight, correcting the proofs of Unconscious Memory and making notes and sketches for dips and Sanctuaries. The reader will probably not be surprised to hear that the arrangement between Butler and his father about the ,300 a year did not work smoothly. The difficulty was due, I imagine, to the impossibility of any arrangement working smoothly between such a father and such a son. While Butler was abroad there was, partly in consequence of the death of Mrs. Lloyd, an interchange of letters about alterations of investment, succession duty, the true effect of the various deeds that had been executed vary- ing the original provisions of Dr. Butler's will, and so on. The correspondence did not tend to improve the relations between the two. Butler was perhaps over- sensitive. He assumed that the having to pay the allowance rankled with his father, who, he thought, took pleasure in worrying him and writing unnecessary letters. We need not go into it all, but I will give extracts from a NOTE ON MY FINANCIAL POSITION I have already explained [in a previous note] that I would bate nothing of this [allowance], both because it was the least I could manage to live upon in the style which people expected of me, and also because I could not keep myself in reasonable health for any less sum. I was then [1880] 44 years old and could no longer live on what I could have lived on, and very well did live 336 WISHING PEOPLE DEAD xvm on, as a young man. Every man who is not an idiot will, if he is Act. 44 unmarried, have expenses which, let him be as moderate as a man can be, will make a large hole in ^300 a year. When my aunt died, some four months after the allowance to me began, my father came in to about the sum which he was allowing me, and, knowing that he was very well off before, I was quite easy in my mind that he would never feel what he was doing for me. I had always hoped that when my aunt died he would do something for me out of his accession of income ; unfortunately he had already begun to do this, so that, of course, my aunt's death could do nothing for me except relieve me of any uneasy feeling lest my father should be forgoing anything he had been accustomed to on my account. [1901.] Miss Savage to Butler. II Aug. 1880 I was not elated by any false hopes about Mr. Gladstone. Of course they made the most of his illness. How could the session ever have come to an end if he were well enough to attend to his parliamentary duties ? It was the greatest stroke of luck his being ill, and they made the most of it. As for Tom Taylor, I haven't any feeling about him one way or the other ; but if you rejoice at his being dead I will rejoice too. Miss Savage to Butler. 26 Aug. 1880 Many thanks for your letter which I was very glad to have. No, it wasn't your wishing so many people dead that made me think you had the spleen ; that shows a quite natural and healthy state of mind. In fact, the more people we wish dead, the healthier in mind and body we are likely to be. A little while ago I was so unenergetic that I was quite incapable of wishing anybody dead, even the landlord of the club ; and when I met him on the stairs one day I was too utterly strength- less to do anything but smile benignly upon him. So I was obliged to have recourse to tonics, and a few doses of steel have wonderfully restored me; and now I am hating just as well as ever. No, I think it was your wishing yourself back in Clifford's Inn that made me uneasy about you. You must have been in low spirits to want to be in London when your holiday was only half over. A merciful providence has interposed on your behalf and saved you from the long letter I was going to write you. Now I have barely time to catch the post, which I must catch as I am afraid if I don't write to-day you may not get my letter before the 3Oth, XVIII DRURY LANE 337 and I want you to know that I should like to hear from you 1880 again tolerably soon. Aet. 44 Miss Savage to Butler. 12 Sept. 1880 I will come on Friday. I did not know that Mr. Jones was an artist too. I am not well, but I daresay I shall be all right in a day or two. I think I have been taking too much iron, or I have a dumb cold. What is a dumb ague like ? I think very possibly I may be suffering from that. I think it must be a dumb malady of some kind because there are no symptoms to lay hold of. I am very glad you are at home again ; when you are away I have not a soul to speak to I mean with perfect unreserve. I am glad you are so well ; if you have not quite got rid of the spleen you must go and see The World at Drury Lane. I went last week. It is a wonderful play. The hero is a delightful man j who could help being charmed with a young man who, for the sake of making the voyage with the girl he loves, starts from the Cape of Good Hope at a moment's notice without any other baggage than a bouquet of artificial flowers ? But he is a man of astonishing resource, for, in the second scene, he appears dressed in a beautiful suit of flannels which he could not have borrowed, as the passengers and crew are all under- sized, meagre, little men, whereas the hero is a fine fellow standing about 5 ft. ii in. and measuring at least 45 in. round the waist. Later on he escapes from a lunatic asylum, knocking down a dozen or so of keepers as if they were rag dolls. The asylum is indeed admirably planned for escaping from the principal entrance being about 2 ft. from the river's brink, and there is a punt kept quite handy into which the hero springs. This scene is greatly applauded, and well it may be ; for I never before saw a punt going at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and it is a sight I am glad to have seen. In the last scene but one the hero shows himself to be of exceeding subtlety, for he goes to the three arch-villains, who are carousing together, and makes them confess, having taken the precaution to bring two shorthand-writers with him. They are hidden behind the door, and the audience see them taking notes of all the villains say. The third scene is rather an Uncomfortable one four men on a raft in mid-ocean ; one of them dies of starvation, and sticks out his arms and legs in a really ghastly manner. The survivors fall to fighting and every minute we expect the portly hero to go plump upon the dead man who will, of course, jump up with a yell and spoil the tragedy of the scene, for the raft is only 10 ft. VOL. I Z 338 "A WICKED ANACHRONISM" xvm 1880 square, if that. However, they keep clear of the corpse in the Act. 44. most skilful manner ; it is like dancing on eggs. Do go and see this play ; there are ever so many more scenes, all equally good. I suppose you have not been seeing The Times^ so I send you the narrative of Mr. Gladstone's excursion. I cannot make up my mind whether it is written by Mr. Gladstone himself or by Mrs. Gladstone's maid. Tell me what you think. I am looking forward to your book [ Unconscious Memory] very much. It is the only thing that will do me any good. 1 shall come on Friday between four and five o'clock. Miss Savage to Butler. 2 Nov. 1880 You are indeed a wicked anachronism when even a poor feeble monthly is aroused and turns upon you. Sixteen-and-a-half pages in Temple Bar [Nov. 1880] are written to introduce the famous passage from a work by the "latest of Dr. Darwin's admirers " in which your " weakness of thought," etc., is denounced "a weakness of thought and mental ana- chronism which no one can envy." Some people's weakness of thought and mental anachronisms can, no doubt, be envied, but, unfortunate man ! no one can envy yours. ... I am going there [the British Museum] this week. I want to learn some games of patience. I suppose I must not take a pack of cards with me ; the authorities might think I wanted to entice the readers into gambling transactions. Mrs. Lowe is one of our creditors and I appease her with puzzles and patience. I am like the woman in Browning's poem who was pursued by wolves and who escaped by tossing out a child every now and then. I have tossed out all the patience I know to Mrs. Lowe, and now I must go to the Museum and get more. The fifteen puzzle was as good as two children. Farewell, you bad anachronism. Unconscious Memory appeared in November and was " inscribed to Richard Garnett, Esq. (of the British Museum), in grateful acknowledgement of the unwearying kindness with which he has so often placed at my dis- posal his varied stores of information." The full title of the book is Unconscious Memory : a Comparison between the Theory of Dr. Ewald Her ing, Professor of Physiology at the University of Prague, and The Philosophy of the Unconscious of Dr. Edward von Hartmann ; with transla- tions from these authors and preliminary chapters bearing on xvm THE WORKING HYPOTHESIS 339 Life and Habit \ Evolution Old and New, and Mr. Charles 1880 Darwin 's edition of Dr. Krause's Erasmus Darwin. Aet 4 The first chapter is introductory, and deals with the general confusion between descent with modification and natural selection. Chapter ii. is headed : " How I came to write Life and Habit and the circumstances of its completion." Chapter iii. is headed : " How I came to write Evolution Old and New. Mr. Darwin's ' brief but imperfect ' sketch of the opinions of the writers on evolu- tion who had preceded him. The reception which Evolu- tion Old and New met with." Chapter iv. is headed : " The manner in which Mr. Darwin met Evolution Old and New" and tells again the story which has been told earlier in this chapter, but only Butler's side of it because, as I have said before, he did not know anything about Charles Darwin's reasons for maintaining silence. The reader may perhaps ask : Why could not Butler leave it alone ? What could it matter to him ? How was he damnified by what had been done ? And it may be conceded that if he had issued a writ claiming damages and Darwin had paid into Court one shilling, no jury would have awarded him more. But Butler was not thinking of shillings or pounds. He shows in chapter iv. of Unconscious Memory that the personal damage he considered himself to have sustained consisted in Darwin's having made it appear that if anything condemnatory of Evolution Old and New was to be found in Dr. Krause's translated article, " it was an undesigned coincidence and would show how little worthy I must be to consideration when my opinions were refuted in advance by one who could have no bias in regard to them." And he goes on with a passage beginning : " By far the most important notice of, Evolution Old and New was that taken by Mr. Darwin,'* given in the Appendix. If the reader will turn to it he will recognise that it opens with a statement of what I have spoken of as Butler's working hypothesis which was constructed in ignorance of there being more facts beyond those within his knowledge ; this hypothesis he would certainly have modified if he had known of the 340 HERING AND VON HARTMANN xvm 1880 letters which Mr. Francis Darwin sent me in 1910. In Act. 44. tne continuation of the extract Butler uses the personal quarrel as an occasion for referring to Charles Darwin's treatment of BurFon, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and the author of The Vestiges of Creation, in order to show that his indignation was aroused on behalf of these writers, "to all of whom," he considered, "Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which he was now dealing to myself." Chapter v. is introductory to chapter vi., which contains a translation of the lecture delivered by Dr. Ewald Hering at the University Meeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna, 3Oth May 1870, "On Memory as a Universal Function of Organised Matter." It was by design that Butler included his account of the dispute with Darwin and his translation of Hering's lecture in the same book, or if not by design ab initio, it was the result of an accident of which he designedly took advantage. Looking upon Charles Darwin's treatment of himself as of a piece with his treatment of his pre- decessors, he intended the book, which showed his own treatment of Hering, to be an object-lesson for the world in general, and for Darwin and scientific men in particular, in the art of how to treat a predecessor, even though you may be under no obligation to him. Chapters vii., viii., and ix. are devoted to a transla- tion of the chapter on Instinct in von Hartmann's Philosophy of the Unconscious, which Butler thought it necessary to give because he had been so often told that the views concerning unconscious action contained in Professor Hering's lecture and in Life and Habit were only the fallacy of von Hartmann over again ; and he wished to show that this was not so. The book concludes with the statement and refutation of objections, from which these two quotations are taken : Lastly, I may predict with some certainty that before long we shall find the original Darwinism of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (with an infusion of Professor Hering into the bargain) generally accepted instead of the neo-Darwinism of to-day ; and that the variations whose accumulation results in species will be recognised xvm LESLIE STEPHEN'S OPINION 341 as due to the wants and endeavours of the living forms in which 1880 they appear, instead of being ascribed to chance, or, in other Aet - 44 words, to unknown causes, as by Mr. Charles Darwin's system. (Pp. 280-81.) The battle is one of greater importance than appears at first sight. It is a battle between teleology and non-teleology, between the purposiveness and the non-purposiveness of the organs in animal and vegetable bodies. (P. 287.) When Unconscious Memory was published, the question arose in the Darwin family as to what was to be done with regard to Butler's repetition of his accusation, and again there was disagreement. Mr. Francis Darwin and some of his brothers wished " that a fly-sheet should be inserted in the unsold copies of the Life of Erasmus Darwin, stating as an erratum on p. i, ten lines from top, that Krause's article in Kosmos was altered and enlarged before it was sent to Mr. Dallas for translation." The other members of the family did not agree, and Unconscious Memory was sent to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Leslie Stephen for his opinion. He advised that nothing should be done, and this advice was adopted. I do not know why Huxley and Leslie Stephen should have advised Darwin to keep silence. But if it comes to that, neither do I know why he should have consulted them, nor why he should have followed their advice instead of that of his sons. I have sometimes wondered whether Huxley and Leslie Stephen clearly understood Butler's point. Darwin himself professed not to under- stand it, and it is difficult to explain to others a thing one does not oneself understand. They perhaps wished to avert a correspondence which might have been too worry- ing for an old man, though it is not easy to see in what way the admission of a mistake could lead to a controversy nor how it could possibly be " degrading.'* Butler, not knowing that Huxley or Leslie Stephen was concerned, drew the conclusion that Darwin, in the high-handed, overbearing manner which he associated with successful men of science, was using his position to ignore him as a person of no influence and of no consequence. He made these notes about his book and about his 342 AN UNFORGIVEABLE OFFENCE xvm 1880 difference with Darwin ; I give the second out of its order Act. 44 Q f j ate b ecause ^ j s i n the nature of a postscript to the first. UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY 5th Nov. 1880 My book Unconscious Memory has gone round the press to reviewers this day. I do not know whether it will help me to get the Life and Habit theory ventilated, but if I do get a hearing it will be almost solely due to Mr. Darwin's blunder- ing. If he had not done what he did in Erasmus Darwin, I might have written all my life to no purpose. 6 Nov. 1894 I have let this note stand exactly as I found it ; but, it being now 14 years and a day since I wrote it, I cannot help wondering whether or not Unconscious Memory was or was not a wise move as regards the getting a hearing for Life and Habit the thing about which I was, and still am, most anxious. I do not know. But policy or no policy, Mr. Darwin having done what he did, and having made no amende when his atten- tion was called to it in The Athenaeum, Unconscious Memory was inevitable. Such an attempt to ride roughshod over me by a man who was by way of being such a preux chevalier as Mr. Darwin set my back up, and I determined to place the whole story on more permanent record. I do not think it added much to the odium in which I already was ; nothing could well do this ; to have written Life and Habit at all was an unforgiveable offence, and Evolution Old and New, though it could hardly make things worse, assuredly did not mend them. I was in for a penny and might as well be in for a pound. This is what I suppose I felt, for it is now so long ago that I cannot say for certain how much of what I see now I did or did not see then. Anyhow, take it all round, I should do the same again if the occasion arose and, though I cannot see that Life and Habit has made much overt progress, I certainly see more and more signs of its becoming quietly, I might almost say, taken for granted. At any rate, whether Unconscious Memory has helped Life and Habit or no, there can be no doubt that it and my other books on evolution have had a large share in making Huxley execute a volte-face, to use his own words. 1 Oct. 1880 Miss Buckley had been to dine and sleep at Down and I saw her in the Museum afterwards. She said Mr. Darwin had no idea that the last sentence of Dr. Krause's Erasmus Darwin was what it was. He knew nothing of what Dr. Krause 1 This refers to an article by Huxley in Nature for I Nov. 1894, in celebration of the paper's having been established 25 years. Cf. a report in The Times of I Dec. 1894 of a speech by Huxley delivered at the Royal Society. MISS BUCKLEY AT DOWN 343 had written, and was not responsible for it; he was just asked 1880 to write a preface, and that was all he had to do with the Act. 44 matter. My answer to this was : " Then why did not Mr. Darwin say this in his letter to me, and why did he not write to The Athenaeum and say so when I wrote to The Athenaeum in Jan. 1880 ? If he had done this neither I nor anyone else would have believed him, but we should have been bound to say we did, and I should have said no more." Her second plea was that Mr. Darwin was at a complete loss to understand what my indignation was all about. " I am sure," said he, " that I must have done something very dreadful, for he seems very angry, and if I only knew what it was I should be, etc." She quoted these as his words, imitating a plaintive tone as of an injured innocent. Plea 3 was the nobleness and beauty of Mr. Darwin's character. He was not as other men are. Plea 4 was that it was all a piece of personal pique on my part. "If," said she, "there is one thing which I detest and despise more than another it is a merely personal dispute. You cannot put up with anything that wounds your self-esteem." What she meant by this last I do not know. She gave me the impression of wishing to go as far as she dared in the direction of saying that I had taken some private personal offence with Mr. Darwin of a nature quite different from that which I pretended in public, and that it was something to do with some wound my vanity had received. She did not say this outright, but her manner was extremely angry ; and the impression left upon my mind was that she was accusing me of private personal malice. I said : " Why, Miss Buckley, it is not a private matter, it is a public one." " Who cares two straws about it ? " said she fiercely as though plea 5 were about to consist in the contention that Mr. Darwin was so strong, and I so insignificant, that it did not matter what he did. Then she went on to say that I had to thank Mr. Darwin for having saved me from some very rough treatment at Dr. Krause's hands, inasmuch as Dr. Krause had sent back his revised article to Mr. Darwin with open attacks upon me of a very severe character (Crawley had already told me this), and that Mr. Darwin had interfered, and had said, " No, this is not the place for an attack upon Mr. Butler " j so all these passages were cut out, and I ought to be very grateful, but unfortunately the last paragraph was left. This last constitutes plea 6. How it is reconcileable with 344 CHEATING AT PATIENCE xvm 1880 plea I that Mr. Darwin did not know anything about what Act. 44 )r. Krause had written I do not quite see. I was beginning to lose my own temper now, so I closed the conversation. I met her again not long afterwards and tackled her. She was then more reasonable, and said nothing but " H'm, h'm " to all I said. A few days later Miss Savage met her and Mr. Garnett flirting down Berners Street (quite innocently, but good, square flirting). The postman was taking letters out of a pillar box, and as soon as the two had passed, he put his thumb over his shoulder and winked at Miss Savage who told me this herself. Miss Savage to Butler. 9 Nov. 1880 When am I to have my book? [Unconscious Memory] If I do not have it soon I shall come down upon you like a wolf on the fold ; and that will be a pity, for when you are taken unawares you rush into your coat with such unreasoning violence that some day, I know, you will dislocate your collar bone. And I am afraid 1 should be utterly useless in such an emergency besides, you cannot reduce a dislocation without a jack towel, and possibly you do not even know what a jack towel is, much less possess one. . . . The man who cheats at patience shows a weakness of thought and a moral obliquity that no one can envy. [I suppose I had told her that when my nightly game of patience goes amiss, after I have got three rows well set out, I sometimes help a lame dog over a style by a little cheating rather than waste the game. 1901. S. B.] The illustration facing chapter xxxix. shows Butler without his coat, as he always was when alone in his rooms. Butler to the Bishop of Carlisle. 1 1 8 Nov. 1880. MY LORD I must thank you for your kindness in acknow- ledging the receipt of Unconscious Memory. I ventured to send it because I believe that a purposive theory of evolution may help to bring the two main opposing currents of English thought into a more complete harmony than has for some time past seemed likely, and a rapprochement between them must be desired by every well-wisher of his country. 1 Dr. Harvey Goodwin (1818-1891). THE MAMMON OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 345 If, for example, those who start with an all-pervading supreme 1880 intelligence can yet find nothing out of harmony with their Act. 44 initial assumption in a theory of evolution which is attended at each step by mind, purpose, and the exercise of the moral qualities ; and if, again, those who, like myself, start with tabulae rasae and, working up from the first thing they can lay hold of, find themselves driven first to evolution, then to purposive evolution, and, through this, to the action of a supreme, all- pervading mind or purpose in both organic and inorganic matter ; then, surely, we may be upon the eve of the removal of other misunderstandings, and it is well that those who most heartily desire such a consummation should put anything they think may tend, however little, towards it in the way of those whom they hope it may concern. I did read your article on "The Unity of Nature" about a year ago [The Nineteenth Century^ Nov. 1879], but I am no mathematician and I remember being aware that I had not quite caught the point. I will read it again, and the reply in Modern Thought^ which I have not yet seen. As regards the last one [" The Philosophy of Crayfishes " in The Nineteenth Century^ Oct. 1880, also by the bishop], I have found several of my most intimate friends just as much delighted with it as I was myself. I am, your Lordship's very obedient servant, S. BUTLER. Butler sent the bishop's letter to Miss Savage and she replied, 23rd November 1880 : By all means make friends of the Mammon of Righteousness, and if you exploit that dear bishop I am sure you will do it kindly. In The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (p. 59) there is a note about a man at the Century Club falling foul of him for his " use of the word * memory.' There was no such thing, he said, as ' unconscious memory ' memory was always conscious, and so forth." Several people fell foul of him for this, and the following letter, which, although it belongs to 1881, had, perhaps, better come here, will show how he dealt with them and also how tender he was ready to be in the case of a lapse of memory. 346 MEMORY AND HABIT xvm Butler to Walter Scott, Esq., Merton Coll: Oxford. 15 March 1881. 1 88 1 DEAR SIR Your letter is not a very easy one to answer, but Aet - 45 I must endeavour to thank you for it. I have not yet seen the passage in Sir A. Helps's Friends in Council to which you call my attention, but will see it and am very glad to know of it. Of course, if I had known of it, I should have been only too glad to back myself up by quoting it. Instinct and not only instinct but bodily growth, which, after all, is only a phase of instinct, are certainly according to me and Professor Hering or rather, according to Professor Hering and myself due to, and manifestations of, inherited memory. They are habits contracted during past generations and done, as it were, by rote in any present one in respect of all that is purely instinctive. If you have seen Life and Habit^ my earlier book on this subject, you will have seen that, in the very title, " Habit " is put forward as the aptest word by which to express the vastly preponderating number of the phenomena of life. Having used " Habit " in one title I could hardly use it again, and was thrown back on " Unconscious Memory " through the difficulty of finding a better title. But really I do not know that it is wrong. Habit is founded on memory ; the existence of a memory is a sine qua non for the formation of a habit. You, I rather gather, deny that there can be such a thing as " unconscious memory " ; but how, for example, if I were to write to you that I had never seen Sir A. Helps's remarks, to which you have called my attention, and then find from an old note- book that I certainly had done so, and had been probably led to the theory I put forward in Life and Habit by a recollection of this very passage though not conscious of having recollected it ? Is not this a case which arises frequently in one shape or another ? and could it be described better than in the phrase " unconscious memory " ? Moreover I think there is such a thing as unconscious thought thought, I mean, too rapid and too subtle for conscious analysis and unconscious malaise. Did I say that memory is vibration ? I do not think I have done this and if you can find me the passage I shall be very much obliged ; it must have been by a slip. What you say is quite just on this head. Proceeding with your letter, I find you say : " If I am not conscious of any memory of what went on in those times I have no memory of it." Answer as above : " If I was not conscious of remembering Sir A. Helps's passage I should not remember it, however clearly xviii UNCONSCIOUS ACTION 347 it may be shown by forgotten note-books to have been the source 1881 from which I borrowed." I don't think that will hold. Aet - 45 You say : "... If so, the particles which compose my body are not me^ but simply so many other people" The illustration of a body politic will, I think, help here. The individuals individually certainly are not the state ; they are something other than the state and, at times, may be in antagonism to it ; but the collection of all the individual members of the state is the state. I imagine that there is a concerted action between the particles of our bodies not wholly incomparable to the concert of a corporation or body politic but I dwelt on this more fully in Life and Habit. No. I certainly cannot suppose the chicken to say consciously to itself, " I remember that I grew a horny tip and I will now grow one again." I imagine all this to be done without any conscious recollection whatever still I believe it to be an act of memory or rather to be due to whatever memory is due to. I believe it to be done in practice in a way analogous to that in which our own habitual unconscious actions are performed, such as reading and walking, the details of which absolutely escape us, yet memory is at the foundation of them all. Believe me, Yours faithfully, s BUTLER< On the 8th December 1880 a letter from Butler, given in the Appendix, appeared in The St. James's Gazette in reply to a review in that paper of Unconscious Memory. It contains the substance of his letter to The Athenaeum of 3ist January 1880 and a resume of his position ; and it quotes, among other passages, that passage from the English translation of Dr. Krause's modified article which took Miss Savage's fancy the passage about the wish to revive Erasmus Darwin's system showing " a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy." Butler sent Unconscious Memory to his old school- master, Dr. Kennedy, who was then Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, and with whom he had recently renewed his acquaintance by taking Reginald Worsley and me to luncheon with him when we were up at Cambridge from a Saturday to Monday in October 1880. During luncheon I sat next one of the daughters of the professor, and there occurred between us the conversation about music and the " simple chord of Beethoven " which 348 ODIOUS CREATURES xvm 1 88 1 Butler reproduced in The Way of all Flesh (chapter Act. 45 Ixxxvi.) as having taken place between Miss Skinner and Ernest. Dr. Kennedy in acknowledging Unconscious Memory wrote Butler a letter, 2nd December 1880, applying to his critics the three Greek words which Dr. Skinner applied to Ernest's critics. " Ernest remembered ot, and knew that the other words were something of like nature, so it was all right " (chapter Ixxxvi.). Miss Savage to Butler. 4 Dec. 1880 Apropos of odious creatures, I saw Mr. Gladstone last week. He came out of Lord Selborne's house in Portland Place. He was looking dreadfully cross and very yellow. He seemed undecided as to where he should cross the street, and he stared at me in a helpless sort of way as if he expected me to offer him some advice on the matter ; but, as there was no possibility of putting him in the way of being run over, I refrained from giving an opinion. The crossings about Portland Place are so stupidly safe. The stormy autumnal correspondence between Butler and his father gave way to a quite friendly exchange of letters about "The Ballad of Wednesbury Cocking." The poem used to be repeated to Canon Butler, when he was a child, by his nurse ; and he wondered whether the Bony Eye had any connection with Bonaparte. The name is printed Barney Hyde in the poem as it appears in the Appendix to Alps and Sanctuaries. Mr. Garnett wanted to get hold of a translation of the poem into Greek hexameters of which Canon Butler had spoken as having been made by Dr. Kennedy, Gretton, Price, or some other Shrewsbury scholar ; but it seems it was not obtainable. CHAPTER XIX 1881 ALPS AND SANCTUARIES Miss Savage to Butler. 28 Jan. 1881 Did you see the account of the marriage of 1881 Mr. Leopold Rothschild last week ? I was particularly delighted Aet - 45 with the bridegroom's speech, which was very short ; but he managed to convey a great deal in a few words. He concluded by saying : " I have enjoyed until now a happy life. I am sure, Sir, (to the Prince of Wales) you will excuse my saying anything more." . . . I often thought of you during the bad weather, and envied you ! How has your father borne this bitter weather ? I do not know why I should have inflicted this long letter upon you when I began by congratulating you on escaping a much shorter one. . . . The little bear in the pantomime at Covent Garden is adorable. . . . Please do send me the reviews ; I should like to know what the wretches say. Romanes signed a review of Unconscious Memory in Nature (2yth January 1881), and in the same issue appeared a letter from Dr. Krause. Butler replied to both with a letter from which this is an extract : Mr. Romanes says that I published Evolution Old and New "in the hope of gaining some notoriety by deserving, and perhaps receiving, a contemptuous refutation " from Mr. Darwin. I will not characterise this accusation in the terms which it merits. The editor of Nature at first declined to insert Butler's letter unless he modified it so as not to make it " a 349 35 o ABOVE SUSPICION 1881 vehicle for attacking Mr. Darwin." Butler wrote to Act. 45 Messrs. Macmillan & Co., the publishers, threatening proceedings unless his letter, unaltered, "the only reply which will set my case adequately before the public," was printed ; whereupon it appeared, 3rd February. It is given in the Appendix, preceded by his letter to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., ist February 1881. Here was an accumulation of straws all tending to confirm Butler's suspicions. First, Dr. Krause's article, modified into an attack upon him for the English market, and Darwin's statement that he was giving a translation of the original German ; secondly, Romanes's review and Dr. Krause's letter in Nature ; thirdly, the difficulty raised by the editor of Nature and Messrs. Macmillan & Co. before his reply was allowed to appear. He did not suppose that Charles Darwin was actively at the bottom of all this, melodramatically prompting Krause, Romanes, Macmillan, and the editor of Nature ; he supposed those persons to have done what they did on their own responsibility, with the double intention of giving offence to him and of giving pleasure to Darwin. I am not saying he was right I have no means of forming an opinion I am only saying what he supposed. He thought he had got into The Country of the People who are Above Suspicion. Readers of The Way of All Flesh will remember occasional appropriate and profitable fairy tales which Butler inserted in that work. There was another which he never actually wrote down, but he used to speak it ; and in his Note-Books I found several fragments of it which I have patched together into the following : THE COUNTRY OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ABOVE SUSPICION Once upon a time there was a youth whose fairy godmother had given him a sword ; on the blade, near the hilt, was damascened the word Fairplay, and this was the name of the weapon. She told him to keep it bright and use it well and it would never fail him. Being a simple, straightforward boy he believed her, put all his faith in his sword, and learnt how to sharpen it, to polish it, and to use it. When the time came for xix KING LOGOMACHY 351 him to leave his father's roof, he girded it on and went forth to 1881 seek his fortune in the world. And it was as his fairy godmother A =t. 45 had predicted. He slew all the dragons, entered all the enchanted castles, and restored all the bewitched princesses to their parents. He swam the great river that turns the mill that grinds the winds of the world, and did it as easily as an ordinary man jumps over a ditch. He had no idea that there was anything unusual about him. He succeeded in all he attempted and his progress was as the march of an ever-victorious army until he came to The Country of the People who are Above Suspicion. And the ruler of that land is King Logomachy the (n + i) th and the name of his queen is Aringa Rossa. No sooner had the youth crossed the frontier than he became powerless ; for it is a property of the climate of that country to corrode the metal of which his sword was made, so that he could not draw it from its scabbard. Miss Savage to Butler. 12 February 1881 You are treating me /'//. I want to know about your letter to Nature. I ordered Nature for last week, but the deceitful woman has not sent it. I am busy at the Lady Artists, and have worries of every sort and size. I have had to evolve the rent out of my inner consciousness, and the club attendant has been taken ill. I should like to know about your letter before I die, which I shall do in a few days unless the conditions of life become more agreeable. However I shall stay in bed all to-morrow. My only comfort is in going to bed. I often think of Cowper (who was a true poet). He evidently found comfort in bed. He makes Alexander Selkirk say : But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, The beast is laid down in his lair j Even here is a season of rest, And I to my cabin repair. There's mercy in every place I quoted these sweet lines to Mr. Garnett the other day, but he didn't seem to think they were poetry. . . . Be sure you let me know about your letter. In February 1881 Butler, being at Shrewsbury, wrote to Miss Savage : I saw the land in which I am interested, and it is being built all up to on the farther side from the town. It is valuable land, and my father cannot take this from me. Altogether, my 352 AN ACT OF JUSTICE xix 1881 ultimate prospects are not so bad ; but I should like a little more Act. 45 now and a little less later on, for I never can be sure of living to the later on. I should be much more likely to do so if I had the little more now. About this time, for reasons not connected with his son Samuel, Canon Butler thought it right to alter the limitations affecting the property. Butler, as contingent remainder-man, was wanted to join in a deed, and a correspondence took place. To his surprise the draft deed sent for his approval was so drawn as to give him all he had ever asked for ; that is to say, it resettled the property in such a way as to make his reversion absolute, instead of contingent on his surviving his father. His attention was not specially called to this in the letter sending the draft, and it might have escaped his notice, but Pauli and Jason Smith, who were both conveyancers and to whom he showed the draft, pointed it out to him. He asked the solicitor who sent the draft whether his father knew the effect of the document. The solicitor replied that he did, and that he (the solicitor) had recommended this course to Canon Butler. Butler said : " But what made my father, who had so repeatedly and peremptorily refused, suddenly turn round and do it without saying a syllable to myself, when I had asked for nothing of the kind ? " The solicitor replied : "I recommended it as an act of justice." Butler said nothing ; and we never knew whether the father had acceded to the son's wishes as compensa- tion for having by his will tied up the greater part of his expectancy (see Butler's letter to his father, loth November 1879, ante > P- 3 J 5) or whether (and Butler thought this more probable) his father had grown tired of having to pay the allowance, and had at last cut off the entail in the hope that his son, by dealing with what had now become an absolute reversion, would manage in some way for himself. Butler at once gave up the allowance, borrowed money at 4^- per cent on the reversion, invested the borrowed money in the purchase of small weekly property, chiefly leasehold, in the neighbourhood of xix HOUSE PROPERTY 353 London to pay a clear 8 per cent, and in this way hoped 1881 to keep himself and Pauli going. The difficulty was not Aet 45 likely to last for many years owing to Canon Butler's age, and, in the meantime, some money might come in from his books. He was always sanguine, and of his own accord began to help Pauli again, having given him nothing during the year and a half he had been receiving his father's allowance. The scheme did not work as well as we had hoped, and financial troubles soon began again ; but he weathered the various storms that assailed him between this time and the death of his father in December 1886 by borrowing money from Jason Smith and other friends, who were all glad to have an opportunity to help him. In December 1901 he made a long note on the situation which ends thus : Nevertheless, in spite of all mistakes and mismanagement, and in spite of all the very wearing anxieties of the next few years, what I did saved me from having to ask my father for another 6d. at any subsequent time, and thus saved me from 1 another quarrel which would probably have ended in his disinheriting me altogether . . . for, though he hated me before I threw up the allowance, he hated me still worse for being again independent of him and yet, if I had again become dependent on him, his fury would have known no bounds. Moreover the houses, almost all of which I still hold, have by this time pretty well recouped my errors. I have, bit by bit, freeholded the greater part of them, all of which, except two properties that I weeded out a few years ago as hopeless, have increased greatly in value. I attend to them, so does Alfred [his clerk, who came in January 1887 on his father's death] ; so does my agent, who is a capable and reliable man ; but Alfred and I go round frequently, and the interruption from my literary work does me more good than harm. I get few arrears and few empties. If I make ^20 a year bad debts out of a gross income of ^2000, it is as much as I do ; and we never press a tenant harshly. In fact, now that I have abundance, these houses do very well ; but at first, when I wanted every penny I could get, they did not do so. Nevertheless, what I did was, I do not doubt, the saving of me ; and the present satisfactory state of the property shows how much can be done by merely sticking to and attending to any property that is not too bad to hold. VOL. I 2 A 354 MISS SAVAGE'S WORRIES xix 1881 This giving up the allowance was not carried through Aet - 45 without a more than usually serious quarrel between the father and son, and quantities of letters passed, of which Butler only kept a few. Things quieted down by degrees, but it was an agitating summer ; and Butler, besides being too much occupied to go abroad, neglected to write to Miss Savage. Miss Savage to Butler. 28 July 1 88 1 This comes hoping to find you alive as it leaves me at present. I want to know if you are well and why you have forgotten to write to me so long. And will you please tell me about the book [Alps and Sanctuaries^ and whether there is any more of it to be seen. Please also to say that you are very sorry that you have not written to me, and make some very sufficient excuse for not having done so. It need not be a true excuse, but it must be a sufficient one. I am rather better. I have been ill both in body and soul, but more especially in soul. [I fear that she was indeed this, but for far graver reasons than those which she proceeds to give. S. B.] I have been disquieted, troubled, and cast down. I have had nothing but worries since I saw you. Worries of such diverse and opposite kinds that they present themselves to my mind, not as single worries, but in a mass a sort of plum-pudding- stone of worries. And there is nothing so bad for the soul as for it to be flattened day and night by the weight of a conglomerate of worries. There are a few that are distinctly disagreeable in my recollection for instance, the frizzling off of my eyelashes and eyebrows as I was extinguishing a Japanese umbrella, the ornament of our fire -stove. Then one fine morning all the articles of electro-plate belonging to the club were stolen, and we were left without so much as a fork to eat our dinners with ; so we had to use our fingers, and to stir our tea with the feather end of our quill pens, just like our forefathers in the middle ages. However, these were minor troubles compared with having to go to the Police Station, and receiving the visit of two detectives and promising to prosecute if they found the thief. I now believe it was Lefroy who stole our spoons. [Lefroy was, I imagine, being searched for by the police on a charge of murder, for which he was eventually hanged. S. B. 1901.] He also took Lamb's Essays and Carlyle's French Revolution^ so you see, as Mrs. Henry Kingsley used to say, " even in the face of this misfortune there is a bright side." The occasion of my being in Chancery Lane on Sunday was xix LAMB AND AINGER 355 a luncheon at Mr. Mozley's. Mr. Mozley is a man whom I adore, 1881 but I never flattered myself that he in the least reciprocated my Act. 45 feelings. However, on Sunday he helped me to three-quarters of a pound of ham. Don't you think I may conclude that he is favorably disposed towards me ? From the foregoing letter it is evident that Miss Savage and Butler had discussed Lamb and Carlyle, and had settled that they did not like either of them. I suppose Carlyle offended by his German tendencies, his crabbed English, and his want of sympathy with the " surtout point de zele " attitude. As for Lamb, Butler used to say he did not like him. He became aware, after some repetitions of this, that it might appear unreasonable, and sought to regularise his position. Circumstances provided him with what he was in search of. Then he took to saying : " No, I don't like Lamb. You see, Canon Ainger writes about him, and Canon Ainger goes to tea with my sisters." Ainger used to be taken to tea with Butler's sisters by the Rev. Henry Bather, who was vicar of Meole Brace, near Shrewsbury, and with whom he occasionally stayed. Butler and Ainger had been undergraduates at Cambridge at the same time. They may have met, they must have known one another by sight ; but they can never have had much, or, indeed, anything, in common. Butler used to say that he expected to see announced, among forthcoming volumes, The Expurgated Wordsworth^ edited by the Rev. Canon Ainger ; or Footsteps to Mrs. Trimmer's " History of the Robins" by the Rev. Canon Ainger. Miss Savage's next letter refers to Alps and Sanctuaries. In the MS. of chapter v. Butler had inadvertently spoken of Sir Benjamin West, and the " Sir " had to be dropped after Miss Savage's criticism ; the primrose with a yellow brim is in chapters iii. and xii. ; the Dissertation upon Lying in chapter v. reproduces part of the letter signed " One who thinks he knows a thing or two about Ethics " in The Examiner ; and the cherry-eating scene is at the opening of chapter iii. 356 SCHOOL PRIZES XIX Miss Savage to Butler. ,38! 2 Aug. 1881 I sent back your MS. this afternoon and hope Act. 45 it will reach you safely. It reads delightfully, and I don't think it can be improved in any way except by print and pictures. I see you are not " weaned from the scorner's ways," and am afraid the book is not exactly adapted for a school prize, which is a pity, as books adapted for school prizes make the fortunes of those who write them. I know of a case in point. A friend of Mrs. Gelstone's wrote a book on Palestine, Palmyra, etc., and it was profusely illustrated with bad woodcuts. Nobody, not even the author, ever read the book through, but the reviewers were all delighted with it ; it was so excellently adapted for a school prize. Of course it was, for if nobody could read it, it must be harmless ; and so about twice a year the book has quite a tidy sale. Now if I were a true friend to you I should advise you to turn your Italian book into just such another as Mrs. Gelstone's friend's but I daresay you could not if you tried, so my conscience may be clear. [No schoolmaster, after Erewhon and The Fair Haven^ to say nothing of my other books, would have dared to give any book of mine as a prize. Why, even to this day, the head- master of Shrewsbury, Moss, has never given a copy of my Life of Dr. Butler as a prize to any of his pupils, I believe solely because The Fair Haven is advertised at the end among my works. Besides the reviewers had got their knife well into me, and my quarrel with Darwin was as yet unforgiven and unforgiveable. But let this pass. S. B. 1901.] You never told me you had given up your allowance. The last I heard was that your father was going to reduce your income on a gradually diminishing scale ; but why did you give it up ? I have no doubt you were quite right in doing so, but I am afraid you gratified your father, and I don't like him to be gratified at your expense. Besides I am afraid you will be worried with your speculations as for rents, the only rents you will know anything about are the ground rents, payment of which will be exacted with the utmost regularity. The sort of man to make money out of houses (except he be a great proprietor like the Duke of Portland or the Duke of Westminster) is such a one as our landlord, who is a second-hand furniture dealer in a back street. He comes looking at our furniture in such a way that we know he is calculating how much it will fetch when we are sold up. If he sees anything chipped or scratched he looks quite displeased, and is always dreadfully disappointed when his rent is paid. The hope of better luck next time alone consoles xix CHERRY-EATING 357 him. If you were such a man as that I should be quite pleased 1881 to hear that you had been investing in houses. Aet - 45 But I must not write any more. I began with a half sheet on purpose only to write a very little note. You must be so busy that it is wicked of me to write long letters believing that you will read them. Please don't forget not to call Benjamin West "Sir." The minute reviewers would be sure to make a crime out of the mistake, and pretend that it arose from your not knowing better. Not that it would matter if it did to sensible people, but the critics are not always such. 1 like the primrose with a yellow brim, and the Dissertation on Lying, and the bloater illustration is delightful, and the scenery descriptions just what they ought to be, not elaborate but complete a delightful contrast to the interminable word-pictures that have been the fashion lately. I am sure the book will be a great success. I like the cherry-eating scene, too, because it reminded me of your eating cherries when first I knew you. One day when I was going to the gallery, a very hot day I remember, I met you on the shady side of Berners Street, eating cherries out of a basket. Like your Italian friends, you were perfectly silent with content, and you handed the basket to me as I was passing, without saying a word. I pulled out a handful and went on my way rejoicing, without saying a word either. I had not before perceived you to be different from anyone else. I was like Peter Bell and the primrose with the yellow brim. As I went away to France a day or two after that, and did not see you again for months, the recollection of you as you were eating cherries in Berners Street abode with me and pleased me greatly, and now it pleases me greatly to have that incident brought to my recollection again. I shall hear from you some day soon, n'est-ce pas ? [I hope no one will imagine that I could have copied the foregoing passage without emotion far deeper and far more varied than so trivial an incident on the face of it appears to warrant. How I wish I could say this to Miss Savage herself! S. B. 1901.] Miss Savage to Butler. 8 August 1 88 1 Shall I come to see you next Wednesday? I am curious to know where your houses are, as I mean to remove the club to one of them. I am sick of paying rent four times a year, and I shall join a Land League unless I find a landlord easy to defraud. I don't believe your cousin is any 358 MISS SAVAGE'S BONNET xix 1 88 1 more to be feared than you are. Let me know if I am not to Aet - 45 come on Wednesday about 4.30. [With regard to the cherry-eating incident I should have added that Miss Savage and I had known each other at Heatherley's for some few years before she took to liking me. She never used to miss an opportunity of snubbing me. I remember soon after Erewhon came out she said to me : " And to think that I should have known you all these years and never found you out." S. B. Nov. 27th, 1901.] The substance of this note has been already given from Butler's Note-Books ; the reader will pardon its occurring again. It reads here as though Butler had forgotten that Miss Savage read Erewhon in MS. But I suppose he means that she found him out before it was published and made the remark afterwards. Miss Savage to Butler. Aug. 13, 1881. DEAR MR. BUTLER You gave me the enclosed sweet little sketch many years ago. If it would be of any use to you now I don't mind lending it to you [for reproduction in Alps and Sanctuaries] if you will take very great care of it and return it to me and not give it to another, as you did that beautiful picture you said you burned. [I forget all about it, but if I said I had burned it, I probably burned it. S. B. 1901.] I was so glad I went to see you on Wednesday. Coming home I saw a bonnet in a shop window and bought it, price I : o|d. This is the "consolation" mentioned in my fortune; but I will not be overjoyed at it for no doubt it will " turn to evil," inasmuch as I expect a good hard rain will dissolve it into the Ewigkeit. All the same, I am pleased to have such a bargain and it is all thanks to you ; no doubt you exist that I might have that bonnet. I used your misquotation the other night as if it were my own. A clergyman was declaring that there could be no true faith without previous doubt ; so I said, "There lives more doubt in honest faith, etc." ["There lives more doubt in honest faith, believe me, than in half the systems of philosophy," Alps and Sanctuaries, chap, v.] He very gravely corrected me. I said I liked my version best, whereon he pondered and then agreed with me ; so we settled it that faith to be firm must be built on a sub-structure of doubt. ("Sub-structure" is my word j don't you think it much better than "foundation"?) I think I must xix A COURSE OF STUDY 359 lend him The Fair Haven. Do not forget you promised to let 1881 me have some more of the Italian book. Yours truly, Aet - 45 E. M. A. SAVAGE. P.S. I enclose some scraps of conversation at the club. Mrs. A., widow of an Irish clergyman, is entertaining the wife of an Irish clergyman, who is in London for a spree to buy mourning, etc. She asks after a Mrs. S. The visitor replies : " She is dead. When she was in London she contracted typhus fever, and the remnants and relics of it so hung about her that she died within three months. But she was so truly pious that one could only be glad when she died." I had occasion to buy mourning a few weeks ago j so I said : " Blessed are they that mourn, for crape bonnets are the cheapest." Miss Savage, after writing (2nd September 1881) that she had been ill, and that the iron she had been taking had given her so much strength of body and mind that she had coerced the club landlord into whitewashing the ceiling of the club room, continued : I can believe that your tenants have paid their rents, poor wretches, but when you expect me to believe that they have paid without a murmur you ask too much of my credulity. Of course they murmur. I am sorry I am to see no more of the MS., but the pleasure of reading the book will be all the greater. I am intending to go seriously to the Museum for the purpose of improving my mind. I have neglected it too long. When I have been before it has been from interested motives for the sake of lucre. Now I shall go there from perfectly disinterested motives. Fortunately, my mind being a small one, the cultivation of it will not be very hard or expensive work, just as in small farms and spade industry very little capital is required. My course of study is settled, but if you or anybody else has any advice to give me I will hear what you have to say. My present intention is to go very late to the Museum and to read the books my predecessor has left on the desk. Formerly I got a great deal of very curious and interesting reading in that way, though from having real work to do I was never able to make the most of my advantages. Butler to Miss Savage. 4 Sep. 1 88 1 Please excuse me for not writing sooner and for sending no more MS. The printers are clamouring for it 360 A SPARRING MATCH xix 1 88 1 faster than I can do it. They have already sent me all you have Aet - 45 seen in type, and what with the illustrations I have as much on hand as my brains can manage ; but it is all going on quite nicely, and I get some plums in almost daily. . . . The illustra- tions are going on capitally, and we are going to get Gogin to do a full plate etching for the frontispiece. I always like hearing from you, so pray don't stop writing ; but don't be too hard upon me (not that you are !) if I write little in answer. Is Miss Johnson in town ? Do arrange a meeting for me at her place some afternoon and yet I don't know how I can manage it as I draw in the afternoon, and have promised all the drawings to leave my hands in a month and have still 25 to do. Butler and Miss Arabella Buckley continued to meet from time to time in the British Museum, and generally had a few words together. As often as not, Butler said things just to tease her, and sometimes he burnt his fingers ; here is an instance : I said to Miss Arabella Buckley that I was glad Dean Stanley was dead ; I disliked his works and also he was by way of being lovable whereas when I have been sketching in the Abbey I have seen him going round with smaller people and behaving very rudely to them ; his expression was odious. Miss Buckley bridled up and said she was not at all glad. I said : " Why, I never knew such a person ! You are never glad when anyone dies. You were not glad when Tom Taylor died, nor when George Eliot died, nor when Carlyle died." She bridled up still more : " I was glad," she said, " when Lord Beaconsfield died." She said this because she knew how greatly I admired him. On the whole it was a very pretty little spar. This note was made in the autumn of 1881, the year in which Lord Beaconsfield, Carlyle, and Dean Stanley died. Tom Taylor and George Eliot both died in 1880. Here is a note of another sparring match with Miss Buckley in which Butler came off rather better ; it may as well be given here although it belongs to 1883 : I came upon Miss Buckley talking to Mr. Garnett in the British Museum, and joined them. Miss Buckley told me I ought to read the Life of Lord Lawrence he was such a grand man, and so on. I said I would never forgive him for having opposed Lord Beaconsfield's Afghanistan policy (I think he did, but it doesn't matter) anyway I was not going to have him. XIX A BROKEN RIB 361 Miss Buckley would not have nay ; so I screwed up my face and 1881 said that my Aunt Sarah had known him, as though that was Aet - 45 final. I knew very well that neither she nor Mr. Garnett knew who my Aunt Sarah was ; but it made Garnett laugh, and the mystery of the thing staunched Miss Buckley. In the beginning of November, Butler and I went with Reginald Worsley for a few 'days to Midhurst and Pulborough, and afterwards to Littlehampton. I had been living in New Ormond Street since 1879, and while we were away my furniture and belongings were moved from there to Barnard's Inn, where I began to live on our return from Littlehampton. The first thing I did in Barnard's Inn was to develop scarlet-fever, which I prob- ably caught at Midhurst or Pulborough. I was ill for weeks, and Butler sat up with me every night when I was at my worst ; it was particularly inconvenient for him to spend the night in an arm-chair just then, because in one of our recent Sunday walks he had met with a curious accident. We always took with us something to eat in sandwich boxes, and on this occasion he had a homoeo- pathic medicine bottle full of Worcester sauce in his watch-pocket. In getting over a stile he slipped and fell so that the bottle cracked one of his ribs, and it was a long time before he was able to breathe freely. Miss Savage took much interest in the broken rib and also in my illness, and gave us both good and sensible advice. She wrote : The great secret of getting well is not to exert yourself. . . . There is a beautiful poem of Trench's (I think) on the subject of exertion. u I will lie still " is the burden of the verses, which, though meant to have only a spiritual significance, might be usefully applied to material life. So we lay as still as we could in my rooms in Barnard's Inn, he in the arm-chair and I in bed, and heard Tom, the watchman, going his rounds and calling the hours : " Past three o'clock and a stormy morning." When I was well I made the old man's acquaint- ance, and he told me that between midnight and six A.M. he did not call very loud for fear of disturbing the gentlemen. 362 A PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHER xix 1881 I was reminded of this in 1911 while arranging for Aet - *5 the fourth Erewhon dinner. Mr. Fifield, the publisher of Butler's books, came to the second dinner and did not come to the third ; I pointed out to him that his absence was a slight, and begged him to take a more proper view of his responsibilities. His excuse was that he had no dress clothes. I said he could easily get some. He replied that he did not wear dress clothes, and did not care to go to functions where they were necessary. I said : " Then why not embrace the opportunity of protesting against the bloated capitalist by appearing among us in ordinary clothes ? " That was his difficulty. He would not feel comfort- able unless he conformed to the customs of those about him. He was a progressive publisher. He resembled Tom in this, that he had made it his business to move with the times, to call the hours, to insist on the progress of the world ; but he was reluctant to attempt to convert those who preferred to be left undisturbed. I prevailed in the end ; he reconsidered his objection to dress clothes, got himself a suit, and came to all the subsequent dinners. On the 22nd November we were much cheered by receiving the first copy of Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino. The Introduction concludes thus: " 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." The question of the 100, and whether or no Canon Butler would have been mean enough to ask for it, did not arise, because when Bogue saw the MS. he declined to take the risk or pay anything, and " I had to publish it at my own expense with the usual result ; I am still 110 to the bad with the book, and have only sold 344 copies in all these years. S. B. 1901." Alps and Sanctuaries is not confined to any one journey, but contains a resume of our wanderings in Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Canton Ticino, except that Varallo and its Sacro Monte were reserved for a separate book Ex Voto^ 1888. Frequent quotations from Handel xix "YAWNING JAWS" 363 are introduced to illustrate places, as pictures are intro- 1881 duced to illustrate stories. Mr. R. A. Streatfeild in Aett 45 an article, " Samuel Butler," in The Monthly Review for September 1902, writes, "He deserves the credit due to a pioneer for the happy audacity of his discovery, often exemplified in his books, that scenery can be described in terms of music." The illustrations are made from our sketches, into which Gogin, who had never been in Italy or in Switzerland, introduced the figures. Gogin also made, from one of Butler's sketches, the etching which forms the frontispiece ; and, from Butler's instructions, the drawing of the Madonna della Neve on the title-page. He also made, from Butler's sketches, the two drawings of the Terrace at the Castle of Angera. In 1906 I stumbled upon an interesting echo of Erewhon in Alps and Sanctuaries. I bought for four shillings and sixpence, at a second-hand book shop, a copy of the second edition (1872) of Erewhon. It contains a few notes in pencil in Butler's handwriting* I suppose it is a copy he gave to someone for whom he made the notes ; and the bookseller did not know whose hand- writing it was, or I should not have got it so cheap. " The Book of the Machines " is in three chapters, and the second of these chapters contains a passage about looking down from a high place upon crowded thoroughfares and being reminded by the moving people of the blood corpuscles travelling through our veins. " No mention shall be made of sewers . . . nor of the yawning jaws of the railway stations, whereby the circulation is carried directly into the heart, which receive the venous lines and disgorge the arterial, with an eternal pulse of people.'* In the copy I bought Butler has underlined the words "yawning jaws " and written in the margin : "See Cannon Street and Charing Cross railway stations from the bridges or the Embankment." I do not know when he made the notes, but I at once remembered this passage in the Introduction to Alps and Sanctuaries : " When, again, I think of Waterloo Bridge, and the huge, wide-opened jaws of those two Behemoths, the Cannon Street and Charing Cross railway stations, I 364 THE HUMBUGS OF CHRISTENDOM xix 1881 am not sure that the prospect here is not even finer than 45 from Fleet Street. . . . How like it all is to some great bodily mechanism of which the people are the blood." Butler to Miss Butler. 17 Dec. 1 88 1 Mr. Garnett of the Museum is much pleased with the book \_Alps and Sanctuaries], and the fathers at S. Michele are delighted with it. I sent them a copy, and they are evidently very much pleased. One man, a barrister, complained to me, quite seriously, that the book was written in a very sympathetic spirit towards the Roman Catholic Church, and said he hoped I was not thinking of joining. Absurd nonsense ! I hope, however, the Romanists in England may think what my barrister friend thought, for they will buy my book if they do and my own impression was that they would not think it one that was likely to do them much good. There is a sentence in chapter xiii. of Alps and Sanctuaries ^ " Considerations on the Decline of Italian Art," which in the MS. originally ran thus : " As for the old masters, the better plan would be never even to look at one of them, and to consign RafFaelle, along with Socrates, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Goethe, Beethoven, and another, to limbo, as the Seven Humbugs of Christendom." Butler struck out Socrates and Virgil and substituted Plato and Dante. He also struck out " Beethoven, and another " and substituted " and two others, neither of them Englishmen." He wrote in his Note-Book that he found it much harder to get seven good humbugs than seven good champions. " There are scores of men whom all Christendom delights in justly, but there are few whom it agrees after a long while in admiring un- deservedly." He did not dare retain Beethoven. " I think I ought to have stuck to him. He has done some splendid things, so has Plato ; still, take him all round, he is a fraud, and he is the musician by whom all the modern musical frauds swear." He tried having Beethoven's name printed in very small type at the bottom of the page, like a note, but with no reference to connect it with the text, intending that the sensitive reader should x.x THE SEVENTH HUMBUG 365 welcome the occurrence of it just there as a happy 1881 accident. My impression was that some copies of the Aet -4-5 book were issued with this page. 1 remember the page with the word perfectly well, but I have recently looked at a great many copies and cannot find it ; I think, there- fore, that he may have only tried it in some revise, and that he cut it out before publication. He inserted the words " neither of them Englishmen " in order to negative the supposition that he intended a reference to Charles Darwin. As for the name of the Seventh Humbug of Christendom, he omitted it because he did not wish to give offence to any worthy reader of the Theobald type who might get so far in the book at least I suppose so ; at all events that is why I omit it here. A friend, to whom I read the foregoing, objected that in the last sentence I had, in effect, disclosed the name. If so, I apologise for having bungled the passage, and will say no more lest I should make matters worse. CHAPTER XX 1882 NEW EDITION OF EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW 1882 BY the middle of January, 1882, Butler's rib was giving Act. 46 i e ss trouble, and I was sufficiently recovered to go away. We went first to Kingsdown, near Walmer, travelling from London with Lionel Smythe, the painter, who was on his way home to Honvault, near Boulogne. We found such a fog at Kingsdown that, in a day or two, we followed Lionel Smythe over to Boulogne where we stayed till nearly the end of the month. After this we went to Boulogne nearly every Christmas until 1901, which was Butler's last ; and we always saw Smythe and his family in their beautiful old chateau. Butler to Miss Savage. 28 Jan. 1882 It is a long time since I heard anything of you. I hope nursing your mother has not made you ill. I have been out of town with Jones, who at last got well enough to go and is now pretty well all right again. I came back on Monday last. There were sneering reviews of Alps and Sanctuaries in The St. James's Gazette and in The Academy, both just like the Athenaeum one ; these are all I know of. In the meantime the book does not sell, and must, I am afraid, be set down as no less a failure than its predecessors ; or rather worse financially, inasmuch as it has cost more to get up. I don't exactly see what it is that will bring about a reaction in my favour, but I feel pretty sure it will come some day. The review in The Academy is by Douglas Freshfield ; and considering that he is rich, and has written a book about Italian Valleys himself, I think he might have held his tongue. I daresay I shall find a little something for him some day. 366 xx MISS ELIZABETH THOMPSON 367 Butler to Miss Savage. 31 Jan. 1882 Please come on Saturday, for I gather from 1882 the earlier part of your letter that the " next " week is a slip for Aet - 46 this." I have had a very good notice short but most friendly in CasselFs Magazine of Art ^ and I hear that Colonel Butler (Mr. and Miss Thompson) is reviewing me for the Roman Catholic Register. I think we know what we shall get from him, some- thing in the sneering, patronising line. The Tablet is also, I believe, going to review me. Bogue says his traveller cannot get on with it [Alps and Sanctuaries'] at all, nor with any of my books. I suspect I am about at my lowest ebb now. The Darwin literary and scientific clique have done their utmost ; they have no more cards to play ; all that they can say or do is now done, and I think a gradual reaction may be hoped for with some confidence. I am sure you have had awful times with your mother. Melchisedec, who, as Jones says, was a born orphan, was the only really happy man ; he was, you may remember, without father, without mother, and without descent. I am very fairly well, but Jones's illness took it out of me a good deal. A passage in the foregoing letter requires elucidation. Butler had been told, probably by the Rosminian fathers, that Major-General Sir William Francis Butler, K.C.B., was to write a review of his book for the Roman Catholic Weekly Register. His words " Colonel Butler (Mr. and Miss Thompson) " must be taken to be words of identifi- cation and not of accurate description. He puts it like this to impress upon Miss Savage that the Butler he is speaking of is the soldier who married Miss Elizabeth Thompson, the painter of " The Roll-Call " and other well-known pictures. " Mr. and Miss Thompson " stand for " Miss Thompson and her husband," and very likely he is referring to something that had passed between him- self and Miss Savage verbally, for Lady Butler was being much talked of at this time. Her fame as a painter had penetrated even to Wilderhope, where I remember seeing in the hall a framed reproduction of a sketch by her of an Indian soldier, entitled "Missed" (if I remember right), which had appeared in one of the illustrated papers. By this means Mrs. Bridges provided herself 3 68 CROSSES AND CROSSING xx 1882 with a peg whereon to hang a few apt words, addressed to Aet - * 6 parting friends, showing them how intelligently she kept pace with the artistic movement of the time. Neverthe- less, Theobald, it will be remembered, felt pretty certain that the atmosphere of Bohemia would exercise a deterior- ating influence on the morals of his son. The two atti- tudes are not really incompatible, for Lady Butler had received the approval of Royalty, and was an established success. I think Mrs. Bridges must have heard of, and perhaps met, her at Ventnor, where the Thompsons lived for some time, and where Mrs. Bridges also lived before she joined her father and sister at Shrewsbury. Miss Savage probably knew these details and was to understand that Canon Butler would feel uncomfortable at seeing his son noticed at all by anyone of sufficient celebrity to have been heard of at Wilderhope. Besides the review in The Weekly Register there was one in The Tablet which I hope, for the sake of General Butler's reputation, was not also written by him. It amused us by saying that Alps and Sanctuaries was " a book that Wordsworth would have gloated over with delight." This raised in our minds an image of Words- worth gloating over the passage about the primrose with the yellow brim. Mr. Streatfeild calls attention to this in his Introduction to the 1913 edition of the book and proceeds : On the other hand the compliment paid to his little discourse on the "wondrous efficacy of crosses and crossing," which the pious Tablet read in a devotional rather than a biological sense, and characterised as " so very suggestive and moral that it might form part of a sermon," must have pleased him almost as much as the Rock's naKf acceptance of The Fair Haven as a defence of Protestant orthodoxy. Butler to Miss Savage. 7 Feb. 1882 How did you get home last Saturday? I did not know what a fog it was or I should have come with you. I hope nothing serious happened. If anything did happen I shall say it was a judgement upon you, sent because you were trying to curry favour with God by praising his days when no one knew xx A THICK FOG 369 better than he that he ought to be ashamed of them. You 1882 remember you stuck out to me that it was a very fine day when I Act. 46 told you it was nothing of the kind. I don't want to be flattered, but, on the other hand, I can brook no contradiction. But seriously, I shall be very glad to hear that you got home without mishap. Something went up against a good piece of the granite coping of Waterloo Bridge, and knocked it clean over into the river. I saw the gap next morning, so the fog must have been pretty thick there. I don't think you were very well on Saturday, and I don't think I asked after you enough. I hope you are better. Miss Savage to Butler. 8 Feb. 1882 Thanks for your kind enquiries. You will be glad to hear that I did no damage to anybody or anything on my way home last Saturday. It was not, as you seem to imply, I who knocked that great piece out of Waterloo Bridge. In fact there was no fog at all where I went on that day, so that whatever I did by way of propitiation was successful. * Butler to Miss Savage. 24 Feb. 1882 I send some reviews, three good ones and a notice of me generally in the Saturday^ which I think shows that I am beginning to be taken more at my own estimate of myself! ... I don't know anything about Mr. Shorthouse {John Inglesant\ except that Mudie has 1,000 copies of his book in circulation. I don't think you need be afraid of my becoming more unbearable than I am. . . . My Roman Catholic friends [the Rosminians in Ely Place. S. B.] and I are flirting hard. 1 remember you once advised me to make friends of the Mammon of Righteousness, so you see I am doing it ; but how they can have made that mistake about the crossing beats me. [I forget all about this. S. B.] The review in the Register is by Colonel Butler. I think I told you. Butler to his Father. 4 March 1882. ... I have been reading John Inglesant^ and do not like it. I read it because The Saturday Review a week or two ago bracketed my name with that of the author of John Inglesant, and I wanted to see what sort of company I was in. It was nothing to be proud of. VOL. I 2 B 370 DEATH OF CHARLES DARWIN Miss Savage to Butler. 48 GREAT MARYBOROUGH STREET. 1882 23 March 1882 No trace of the umbrella here. I am sorry Act. 46 for you, but I daresay you will get it back. My umbrellas always come back persistently. I have never been able to lose one ; and when one, by reason of its infirmities, has become unbearable, I have to cast it loose upon Society at dead of night, or pitch it into the river. There is one of my umbrellas floating to this day in the Bay of Biscay. I set it floating down the Vilaine in the year 1867. It was seen only the year before last. Butler was at this time busy with a new edition of Evolution Old and New, to which he added an Appendix consisting of two chapters : the first " Reviews of Evolu- tion Old and New" and the second " Rome and Pantheism." The book was just ready when, on the I9th April, Charles Darwin died. Butler thereupon wrote this pre- face, dated 2ist April 1882 ; as it is given here I do not repeat it in the Appendix, though to make the Appendix complete it should also be given there. Since the proof sheets of the Appendix to this book left my hands, finally corrected, and too late for me to be able to re-cast the first of the two chapters that compose it, I hear, with the most profound regret, of the death of Mr. Charles Darwin. It being still possible for me to refer to this event in a preface, I hasten to say how much it grates upon me to appear to renew my attack upon Mr. Darwin under present circumstances. I have insisted in each of my three books on evolution upon the immensity of the service which Mr. Darwin rendered to that transcendently important theory. In Life and Habit I said : "To the end of time, if the question be asked, 'Who taught people to believe in evolution ? ' the answer must be that it was Mr. Darwin." This is true ; and it is hard to see what palm of higher praise can be awarded to any philosopher. I have always admitted myself to be under the deepest obli- gations to Mr. Darwin's works ; and it was with the greatest reluctance, not to say repugnance, that I became one of his opponents. I have partaken of his hospitality, and have had too much experience of the charming simplicity of his manner not to be among the readiest to at once admire and envy it. It is unfortunately true that I believe Mr. Darwin to have behaved badly to me ; this is too notorious to be denied ; but at the same time I cannot be blind to the fact that no man can be judge in xx BUTLER'S FOREHEAD 371 his own case, and that, after all, Mr. Darwin may have been 1882 right and I wrong. Act. 46 At the present moment, let me impress this latter alternative upon my mind as far as possible, and dwell only upon that side of Mr. Darwin's work and character about which there is no differ- ence of opinion among either his admirers or his opponents. Butler ought, perhaps, to have sent a copy of this book to Francis Darwin. He did not do so, I suppose because he shrank from intruding upon him with his own affairs at such a moment ; and no doubt he also trusted to its coming to his notice in the ordinary course. But Francis Darwin did not see the book, and knew nothing about this preface till I read it to him in his house at Cambridge in November 1910. In the first chapter of his Appendix Butler dealt with some of the more hostile reviews. Grant Allen, for instance, had declared in The Examiner, iyth May 1879, that Butler was a man of genius " with the unmistakeable signet mark upon his forehead " ; upon which Butler com- mented thus : I have been subjected to a good deal of obloquy and mis- representation at one time or another, but this passage by Mr. Allen is the only one I have seen that has made me seriously uneasy about the prospects of my literary reputation. Before Evolution Old and New appeared, Huxley had written in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1878) that BufFon " contributed nothing to the general doctrine of evolution " and that Erasmus Darwin could " hardly be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors." Butler had shown in the body of his book that Haeckel knew little of Erasmus Darwin and less, apparently, of BufFon. Professor Tyndall in 1878 had spoken of evolution as " Darwin's theory," and Mr. Grant Allen had said that evolutionism is an almost exclusively English impulse. After the appearance of Evolution Old and New, Butler observed several of the so-called men of science among them Professor Huxley and Mr. Romanes airing BufFon, but I never observed any of them do this till within the last three years. 372 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 1882 I maintain that " men of science " were, and still are, very ignorant Act. 46 concerning the history of evolution. The chapter proceeds with an allusion to what I have called Butler's " working hypothesis," which he would have altered if he had had more facts to go upon : The way in which Mr. Charles Darwin met Evolution Old and New has been so fully dealt with in my book Unconscious Memory ; in The Athenaeum, January 31, 1880 ; the St. James's Gazette, Dec. 8, 1880 ; and Nature, Feb. 3, 1881, that I need not return to it here, more especially as Mr. Darwin has, by his silence, admitted that he has no defence to make. In chapter ii. of his Appendix, " Rome and Pan- theism," Butler writes : " If the Church of Rome would only develop some doctrine or, I know not how, provide some means by which men like myself, who cannot pre- tend to believe in the miraculous element of Christianity, could yet join her as a conservative stronghold, I for one should do so." The man of science, as Butler wrote to the Bishop of Carlisle (ante, p. 345), begins with tabulae rasae, gropes his way to evolution, thence to purposive evolution, thence to the omnipresence of mind and design in the universe. What is this but God ? The theologian begins with God and is driven to evolution. " Par divers moyens on arrive a pareille fin." Butler had called his articles " God the Known and God the Unknown," an " Eirenicon," because he wished to emphasise this idea of a rapprochement between Science and the Church, an idea which his intercourse with the Rosminian fathers had fostered. Miss Savage read the two chapters of Butler's Appendix before the book appeared, and this is what she thought of them : Miss Savage to Butler. 1 8 April 1882 Thank you for sending me the Appendix [i.e. to Evolution Old and New. S. B.] which I enclose. I ought to have returned it before, but I stupidly left it at home yesterday morning, and I could not go out to post it last night, nor catch a friendly policeman as I sometimes do. I like both chapters. I rather think the first is unnecessary xx JOHN INGLESANT 373 from a dramatic point of view, but as it pleases you and me 1882 [I must look and see what it was, I have no recollection of it. Act. 46 S. B. Dec. nth, 1901] and hurts your reviewers I am glad it is to be published. As for the second talk of olive branches, why it is a whole grove of trees. The Rock and The Literary World will be sure to denounce you as a Jesuit. In fact many people will think you are trying to entrap the unwary into friendliness with Rome as it is, by dazzling them with visions of Rome as it will be in a future too remote to hamper your prophecies. My only objection to this chapter is that you might have expanded your ideas into a book. Most religions accommodate themselves to circumstances, do they not ? Christianity seems to have accommodated itself by making piratical cruises into other religions. I send you a little present j the leaves tear out, so that when you leave your note-book at the "Food of Health" [I don't remember ever going to the " Food of Health." I do not know the place. S. B.] or elsewhere, as you sometimes have done, you will not lose so much ; and then you can put the torn leaves into one of the little drawers in your cabinet, which is just made for such documents. I had two little books for you, and meant to give them to you when you came to see me ; but on Friday they slipped my memory, and now I have only one for you. But you shall have another some day. Butler to Mrs. Bridges. 8 June 1882 Did you read (you say you have been reading lately) John Inglesant ? I have done it and am free to confess that I seldom was more displeased with any book. I think it deserves to be classed with Wilheltn Meister^ Undine^ Sintram^ Sartor Resartus and a few others that I cannot call to mind at this moment. Butler to his Father. 23 June 1882 I am still uncertain whether I shall get away this summer or no. I cannot tell till I have balanced my accounts from January I to July I. I hope, however, that I shall be able to manage it. I had no outing last year and shall be none the worse for a change. I had a curious invitation a few days ago to dine with the English representatives of one of the Italian Sanctuaries described in my last book. They were very much pleased with my description of their house, and asked me to dinner by way of 374 THE ROSMINIAN FATHERS xx 1882 doing the civil thing. I dined in the refectory with the fathers, Act. 46 there being only two laymen besides myself and only one of these a Protestant. They gave me a very good dinner, and were agreeable, not to say charming, people ; but I was rather glad when it was time to go away. This Italian Sanctuary was Sammichele, near Turin, and the English representatives were the Rosminian fathers in Ely Place, Holborn, who have been alluded to more than once. Butler often went to see them. He thought they agreed with the barrister, mentioned in his letter to his sister at the end of the preceding chapter, who found that Alps and Sanctuaries was written in a spirit sympathetic to the Church of Rome. If they really thought so they were less cautious than those readers who complain that they never can tell whether Butler is serious or jesting. He even suspected the fathers of having some idea that he might be induced to write on their side. One of them in a conversation in Ely Place had been trying to show that the distinction between men and animals was not arbitrary, but founded on something essential, immutable, etc. " Thus the Bible says that the soul of a man goeth upward and the spirit of a beast goeth downward." "No," said Butler, "let us have the whole passage." So the father turned to the Vulgate (Ecclesiastes, iii. 21) and found: " Quis novit si spiritus filiorum Adam ascendat sursum, et si spiritus jumentorum descendat deorsum ? " (Who can say that the soul of a man goeth upward and the spirit of a beast downward ?) Our English version is wrong: it has, "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ? " The context shows that the Vulgate is right in rendering the question as one involving scepticism concerning our knowledge on these points. The father was much scandalised. He said he did not think he had ever read the passage before. And I do not think he had. There is however the alternative that he knew all about it as well as Butler, but had picked up from Alps and Sanctuaries the dangerous habit of quoting from memory. xx SAMMICHELE AND FENIS 375 Butler went abroad in August to S. Pietro in the 1882 valley of Susa, near Turin, where he stayed for some Aet - * time sketching in the Sanctuary of Sammichele. In the train with him from Paris to Turin were two English officers, on their way to Alexandria, and he wrote to me (6th August 1882) : If we send many such, Arabi had better look out. ... I think the officers thought I was rather dirty all round, but they soon got used to it, and the nicer-looking of the two borrowed my dirty old knapsack for a pillow, seeing I did not want it, and took to it quite kindly. My bag was very shabby, as you know, and I was in my second-best clothes, but they did not care. When they took off their boots, their stockings were lovely ; and all their clothes were like mine the day after I have had new ones, supposing I had got everything new all at once. I said I was going painting, and they suggested I should come on to Alexandria. I believe I might have gone with them if I had had a mind, but I hadn't. Perhaps they were not officers at all but card-playing sharpers ; perhaps they thought I had money but they can hardly have thought that. However, they were very nice. I called on the rector of the Sanctuary this morning ; he was dirty if you like I did not care for him. I joined him in September at Aosta and we went up and down the valley, sketching the castles ; he was specially pleased with the Castle of Fnis, " which," he wrote to Miss Butler (3 47 velvet coat with his pale face and his straggling beard, stood over us like a medieval necromancer. Of course I liked the minuet very much and, having had an object lesson in what he wanted, set to work to do something in the same manner. For nearly two years we were occupied in composing the pieces which formed the album published by Novello in 1885 as Gavottes, Minuets, Fugues, and other short pieces for the piano ; the minuet he played me at Heatherley's being either the one in G, No. 15 or the one in F, No. 8. I find it referred to in the papers sometimes as one and sometimes as the other. Butler to Miss Butler. 29 March 1883 Thank you for telling me about Bishop Tozer's speaking warmly of Alps and Sanctuaries. It is not the bishops and archbishops I am afraid of. Men like Huxley and Tyndall are my natural enemies, and I am always glad when I find church people recognising that the differences between them and me are, as I believe myself, more of words than of things. Miss Savage to Butler. 22 March 1883 ^h 6 Ladies' Exhibition is now open, and I hope you will come and see me. I must warn you that you do so at the peril of your life, as the cold is so intense. But if you do die after paying me a visit, you will have the consolation of knowing that I highly appreciated the attention. I suppose your father could not be induced to come ? there is one spot, just under the ventilator (which is providentially stuck fast), where if he could be placed for one single moment, it would be enough. You have been neglecting me shamefully considering that I have not written to you, nor thanked you in any way, you ought to have supposed that I was ill, or dead, and enquired accordingly. I think you have been exceedingly unkind. However, I will not reproach you, but let bygones be bygones. My friend Mr. X. is going to be married next week. I agree with the proverb that says that a man who marries again does not deserve to have lost his first wife in the case of my friend, how- ever, there are certainly extenuating circumstances. His good cook left him, his housekeeper is going to get married, and he felt VOL. I 2 C 3 86 MISS SAVAGE'S GALLERY xxi 1883 himself unequal to the management of flippant parlour-maids and Act. 47 rapacious cooks, so he would have had to give up housekeeping or get married at least that is what he says himself. I consider myself aggrieved, as his was the only house I liked staying at ; there being no missis, it was very comfortable, and one was made much of. The intended bride is a cousin of his late wife and is somewhat advanced in life being in fact nearer sixty than fifty ; and I presume is very well to do, as all the brothers-in-law and cousins are furious, which they would not be if they did not think that property was being diverted from them. I hope you are very well. I am afraid this weather has put a stop to your country excursions. What have you been doing ? Do come and see me very soon you will not be going away for Easter this year, I suppose, as the weather is so bad. However I wish you a Merry Good Friday and a Happy Easter. Miss Savage to Butler. 8 May 1883 Thank you so much for the paper [a notice of my books in a French paper by James Darmesteter. S. B.] which almost consoled me for having missed you in such a vexatious manner, the only day that I have been late. It was too provoking ! I return it immediately, as the paper is so flimsy it will soon be worn out if you don't back it with some bank post paper. I shall get one for myself to keep. Are you not pleased with it ? Do you know the writer ? The French people might have found you out before, but better late than never. [If they found me out they did not like me. I never have had another French review. S. B.] I have been leaving Alps and Sanctuaries on my table at the Gallery, by way of letting it be seen. I hope you do not object. I found people liked looking at The Magazine of Art, and thought they might look at your book. Do come and see me soon again, but not after Saturday week as the Gallery closes for good on that day. I am very unhappy, but will tell you why when we meet. It is a pity we could not have your father to visit the Gallery last week there was the additional danger of the roof falling in now it is propped up. P. S. A lady the other day at the Gallery was telling me about her cat ; he is a most intelligent creature, and she recounted various instances of his sagacity, winding up with, "and when I begin to play the piano, he always goes out of the room." In May, Butler was at Shrewsbury and read that part of his grandfather's journal which includes the Italian xxi SHELLEY'S STORM 387 tour of 1822, referred to ante, p. 10. The reader will 1883 perhaps remember that Dr. Butler, intending to embark Aet- 47 at Lerici, " an accidental or I may rather say a providential delay " in signing his bill of health for Genoa saved him from a hurricane that must have been fatal if he had been out at sea. Just about this time Mr. Garnett gave Butler a volume of Shelley, and in reading about Shelley's death it seemed to Butler that it would be interesting to know whether Providence had used the same storm for saving Dr. Butler and for wrecking Shelley. He wrote to his father asking for a copy of the portion of Dr. Butler's journal which dealt with the event. I am sure Mr. Garnett would be interested to know that my grandfather (who was a friend of his father's) was in any way connected with that occasion, and would like to see the few lines he wrote about it, though evidently in ignorance of the event which was to make it so memorable. Canon Butler sent the portion of the journal, and it turned out that Providence had treated the poet and the pedagogue to separate storms. Altogether there were three storms in one week. Butler to his Father. 29 May 1883 Thank you very much. I have worried it out, I think, by the help of an 1822 almanack at the British Museum. Shelley was lost after having set sail from Lerici on Monday, July 8, 1822. This was the first storm. Then came another on the night of Thursday, July 1 1, which washed away the road. My grandfather arrived probably on the morning of the 1 2th, found the road gone, and, with characteristic prompti- tude, at once engaged a felucca and had his carriage put on board. Then came a few hours' delay while his bill of health was being examined, and during this a third violent storm broke which made the master of the felucca refuse to put to sea. Under ordinary circumstances my grandfather would probably have waited till the storm was over and then gone on his way by sea j but he evidently thought it well not to do this and, though pressed for time, preferred to go all the way round by Florence and Bologna, in a way which would not be characteristic without good reason. This, I suppose, was that there had been, 3 88 RICHARD GARNETT xxi 1883 to his knowledge, three furiously dangerous hurricanes in a week Act. 47 or SOj and there were probably rumours that an Englishman had been lost a few days before, though Shelley's name and position might not be known ; altogether, therefore, the risk at that season was greater than he thought it right to incur. Writing on Saturday evening, which can only have been July 13, he says the storm was "the night before last," so that this cannot have been Shelley's storm, which took place on Mond. the 8th ; but the Mediterranean gets rough and smooth again very rapidly. Butler to his Father. 28 June 1883 You will confer a great favour upon me if you will kindly tell me on enclosed post-card (which I send to save trouble) whether I was born in the early part of the day of December 4th, 1835, or in the latter part. If you can tell me that I was born in the early part you will increase the favour. My reason for asking is this. My friend Mr. Garnett of the British Museum has, or pretends to have, a craze about astrology. I suppose he is not serious, but I really do not know what to think. I saw him this morning and said I was not well ; I caught a cold from getting wet two or three days ago and was yesterday laid up, but am out and about as usual to-day. He said : " How curious ! I was afraid you might be ill and was thinking of writing to enquire." I asked why. He rather hummed and ha'd, and at length explained that, if I was born in the latter part of December 4th, 1835, I should be suffering from the transit (I think he said transit) of Saturn, as the Queen and two or three more people were. If, however, I was born in the early part of the day it would not affect me. I do not suppose he is serious, but I should be very glad to be able to tell him that I was born in the first part of the day ; not that I suppose it is much good, for I have no doubt he will find that I am suffering from some other planet whose influence he had forgotten when he told me about Saturn. If, however, you happen to remember, please let me know. I have heard a nice child's story. A little girl was shown a picture of Apollyon waiting for Christian and Hopeful in an illustrated edition of the Pilgrim's Progress. Next day she said : " It so frightened me that I nearly dreamed about it, and if you please may I take my pink doll to bed with me to-night to protect me ? " I do not know that, after all, there is more to laugh at in this than in a flirtation with astrology. XXI ASTROLOGY 389 Canon Butler and his son seem to have got on quite 1883 well when it was a question of this kind, or Shelley's et 47 storm, or " Wednesbury Cocking," or the flora of New Zealand. The father replied quite amiably that he could not remember at what hour the son was born. Butler to his Father. 4 July 1883 I never can understand why Mr. Garnett flirts with astrology. He is superintendent of the Reading Room of the British Museum and is certainly the best informed man I ever met. He is being consulted all day long by readers upon every conceivable subject, and in the course of his many years' experience has been initiated into the mysteries of every difficulty experienced by any student. He has unrivalled facilities for learning and is as patient as he is learned ; his memory is singularly retentive j in fact, he is perhaps the most extraordinary man as far as knowledge of all sorts goes that I ever met. I suspect he must have taken astrology up as a mere toy, and then got startled by one or two lucky coincidences. I am afraid astrology is the one point in which he is vulnerable ; for that he has a hankering after a bona fide belief that "it has, at any rate, a foundation in science " is indisputable. Butler to Miss Savage. II July 1883 Mr. Garnett has read the two first volumes \The Way of All Flesh\ and I do not think he much likes them : he evidently found the first move too slowly ; the second he liked better. I shall finish it and put it all by, and then, if the first volume strikes me as too slow after I have not seen it for some time, I must do the best I can to improve it, but I won't go on to anything else till I have done this. Miss Savage and Mr. Garnett were not the only people who read The Way of All Flesh in MS. I read it three distinct times ; first, soon after I knew Butler, and the end was not settled ; secondly, after it had been re-written ; and thirdly, after it had been re-written again. Mr. Heatherley also read it. Mr. Heatherley said I had taken all the tenderest feelings of our nature and, having spread them carefully over the floor, stamped upon them till I had reduced them to an indistinguishable 390 A PERIODICAL MESS xxi 1883 mass of filth and then handed them round for inspection. I do Act. 4.7 n ot take this view of the matter myself. Butler to his Father. 19 July 1883 I have balanced my books (after a very long chase after a shilling and a half-penny) and am afraid I ought not to go abroad this summer. The properties, take them all round, have done well. I have received in actual cash ^2038, but the margin of profit from midsummer 1882 to midsummer 1883 (my first clear working year) proves to be less than I hoped. I am very sorry, but under these circumstances of course I shall stay at home. Butler to Miss Savage. 19 July 1883 Thank you very much. It is poor 1 as you say still it is an advertisement of Erewhon and can do me nothing but good. I don't like Erewhon^ still it is good for me. I cannot go abroad. I am sorry, but I cannot help it. I may be able to manage it later on, but at present it looks rather bad. I am in one of my periodical messes. I shall pull through. But I am in a rather bad way for the moment but then I always think I am in a much worse way than I am. By the way, I think you think I like my novel better than I do. I am more doubtful about it in reality than about any book I have ever done. I never wrote a book yet about which I felt so uncertain whether it was good or not. I have no doubt about The Fair Haven^ Life and Habit, and Alps and Sanctuaries being good but this may, for aught I feel clearly about it, be very good or very bad. Some good things I know are in it, but I think it very likely it will want cutting down to two volumes ; and if I find people think so generally, I shall certainly cut it down. Miss Savage to Butler. 2O July 1883 I am very angry with you. I am furious ! You don't like Erewhon \ I never could have believed you were so utterly devoid of good taste so rude of you too, when you know that I like Erewhon that I love it you are asserting by implication that I am devoid of good taste. Don't dare say such a thing to me again. I should like to hurl at you a few of those adjectives that I heard hurled the other evening at a man in an 1 This refers to an enclosure about Ereivkon which Miss Savage had sent to Butler : it is not with the papers. xxi HOLIDAY IN FRANCE 391 outrigger an idiot who, in spite of the whistle, the oaths and the 1883 fists shaken at him, persisted in rowing across the course of the Act. 47 steamboat I was on, evidently for the pleasure of making us back and stop. One man sitting by me said : - his eyes ; if he wants to cut hisself in two, why don't he do it hisself? " There are many other reasons why I should like to hurl adjectives at you. In spite, however, of my displeasure I am sorry that you cannot go away. I suppose those complications of t mortgages, loans, etc., that you said were so " pretty " (that was your own expression), are giving you trouble. I wish I had said long ago that they would do so, because now I could say " I told you so ! " which would aggravate you, I am sure and I should like to aggravate you. I am beginning not to like you at all. I wish you were like a man I once knew who, when he unexpectedly had a holiday, could not make up his mind as to whether he should do nothing or go and lie on his back in the park. I hope you will write to me soon and that you will be able to say you have spent some portion of each day in absolute idleness or utter frivolity. I daresay the novel will want no cutting down all that I have read is delightful but I wish you would leave it alone for a few weeks. Butler got out of his mess and did go abroad, but not to Italy. I was not able to get away in August, so he went alone, starting from London Bridge and crossing to Honfleur. He stayed at Caen, Bayeux, Mont St. Michel, Lisieux, and returned by sea from Havre to London. He brought back many more sketches than usual because he drew with the camera lucida, but it distorted the perspective and had to be given up. Butler to Miss Butler. 12 Sept. 1883 I am very sorry you do not gain ground faster. My own experience is that one is not aware of gaining ground much while one is gaining it, but suddenly one day one finds oneself pretty well. This is how it has been with my head this time, and how it always is every year when I go abroad. It was not till I was at Verona last year after I had been five weeks out and did not feel to have gained at all that it stole upon me that I was all right again ; but change^ if you can stand it and if you can get it, is the best restorer. A change is to a person's life what a cross with fresh blood is to an animal or 392 CROSSING xxi X 883 plant ; but of course one must be strong enough to stand it. It Act 47 rests by giving the mind other objects and, therefore, even though it fatigues, there is a gain. Pardon this preaching. This letter will remind the reader of the review in The Tablet of Alps and Sanctuaries (ante, p. 368). It will also remind readers of The Way of All Flesh of how in chapter Ixix. Edward Overton takes Ernest to consult one of the most eminent doctors in London. " Cross him," said the doctor at once. ..." People are always coming to me who want crossing, or change, if you prefer it. ... I have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many of my patients. I should prescribe for Mr. Pontifex a course of the larger mammals." In October I was able to get away and went abroad by myself for about three weeks. I stayed at Milan, Verona, Venice, Padua, and Bergamo. Butler wrote to me telling me what pictures I was to see at all these places. I give extracts from one of his letters, and I have chosen this particular letter because the account of Butler at Wilderhope will remind the reader of Ernest at Battersby. He must have taken with him a picture he had been painting. No apology is needed for the repetition of how he offended his father by getting a half- holiday for the boys out of Moss (ante, p. 34) ; nor need the reader be reminded that Boss, the old woman who acted as servant to his cousin, Reggie Worsley, was the original of Mrs. Jupp. Butler to H. F. Jones. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, LONDON, E.G. Oct. 14, 1883. DEAR JONES I returned last night and found yours from Zurich waiting me. I was very glad to get it. You say nothing about your lumbago : I hope it is better. I showed your letter to my cousin. We went to-day from Elstree via East Barnet to Enfield a nice walk and had lovely weather till we got back to London, ever since which time it has been pouring. Boss has been distinguishing herself. . . . She has uttered a few other sweet little morsels as " Lor, Mr. Worsley, when you holler at me like that it makes my heart jump out of its socket xxi WILDERHOPE 393 and back again." And she can't abear anyone as whitelivered in 1883 the face as Bell. However. Act. 47 I had no row with my people. I think I told you I got a half-holiday for the boys out of Moss. My father did not like it. He blurted out, " Well I do call that a piece of effrontery." I laughed and said Moss was very well able to take care of himself. The picture was received as a schoolboy's exercise, and allowed to stand on a chair in the drawing-room till I went ; there was no enthusiasm about it, and I was told that Dr. Burd had called during my absence and had liked the background, from which I gather that he had not liked the face and that they agreed with him. I told them about my head, and how it had got nearly well and had come on again. " Ah ! " said May, " you wanted another fortnight." But there was nothing added to the effect, " Cannot you manage to go out again and set yourself well up before the winter, or will you not even stay here a few days longer ?" It was a physiological fact that I had wanted another fortnight, but that being established it was enough, and they never asked after my head any more. I said three times over that I had enjoyed my visit very much and that it had done me a great deal of good (it has done me good, for I made an excursion each day, and am better for it), but they neither of them said they had been glad to see me and hoped I would always come down when I wanted a few days' change. They received my expressions with the utmost coldness that was compatible with bare civility. I repeated my expressions three times, and each time did the thing handsomely to give them a chance, but they would not take it. ... My father appeared well, but I noticed that he hardly walked at all except about the house. He takes a cab to go into the town and do things which he would have walked to do even in May last. As for his walking 9 miles (as per one of May's recent letters) I suspect he did walk some miles and brought on a slight return of paralysis, from which he recovered almost immediately, but which has made Dr. Burd insist on his being very careful, for it is clear he will do nothing of the kind now. I said to May I thought he was walking firmly and that I saw no trace of unsteadiness. She said hastily but significantly, " Yes, but when he is tired he is unsteady." I suspect he got tired and there was one slight return. May dropped it at once and I asked no more. The only thing I see for certain is that he now hardly walks at all, except about the house, and that he does much less than when I was down in May. I was out each of the three days Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 394 ITALIAN GALLERIES xxi 1883 9 to 5, so I could not observe as closely as if I had been more ct. 47 about the house ; and they were running very dark, and putting their best foot foremost. I do not think, however, that there would be so great an additional caution unless there had been a slight, but unmistakeable, intermediate warning. And now for my few notes. You will soon find out the Belli nis in the Accademia at Venice. I think they have all been repainted, or most of them. See the Tintorettos in the Scuola di San Rocco. I think he is at his best here. See the Carpaccios, of which I spoke to you, in the church of S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni. See the two Titians side by side in the Accademia at Venice, one painted when he was 14 years old and the other 86 years after, when he was nearly 100 all sloppy with glaze and perfectly worthless. I have no Venetian notes, so cannot help you much, but you should see a picture ascribed to Sebastian del Piombo, in the church of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, of which one of the figures was painted by Giorgione a female Saint of great beauty ; but, though I have looked through my Murray to try and spot it, I cannot do so, and I only saw the picture once for five minutes a dozen years ago, and might not like it now. My recollection is that there is not much of Bellini's best work at Venice. If you can reach Pesaro, I am told there is a fine one there. At Padua you will see the Arena chapel, of course. Make a few notes there. If you go to Modena you will like the Duomo and the crypt. There are not many good pictures in the gallery nothing in fact very noticeable. No. 56, a small Nativity by Don Lorenzo Monaco, beautiful colour ; 47, Masolino j 320, called a Luca di Leyde, may well be Van Eyck ; 52, Top of a box by Spinello Aretino ; 46, very fine in colour j 390, portrait of a priest by Murillo ; 35 and 145 both very good. This is all, or nearly all, I have in my notes and does not come to much. At Parma see the Correggios, that you may hate the man more intelligently. There is a Christ led to crucifixion by Lionello Spada at the further end of the big long room on the left hand side as you advance from the door, hung rather high ; the Christ puts me in mind of Gotch. Nos. 370, 371 : two lovely little Cimas one of them, King Midas taken by a satyr to hear Apollo play, is worth a long detour to see. It is exquisite. There are also two fine large Cimas. There is a small landscape sketch numbered 382 by Titian at Parma in a room near the Cimas if not in the same room. Do not miss it. See also a series of lovely serio-comic, tempera pictures representing events in the life of S. Peter Martyr, wherein everything goes wrong very wrong till the saint xxi THE FISHERIES 395 comes and sets it right. Please make a few notes in front of 1883 these pictures if you go to Parma. Act. 47 Above all at Parma see the old ruined theatre under the same roof as the Accademia. There, my dear old man, what a letter I have sent you I mean for length, and treasonable parricidal vileness but I cannot help it. Take great care of yourself. Your S. BUTLER. I press a copy as it will save my writing notes of my visit to Wilderhope. On my way back I wrote to Butler from the Hotel dell' Angelo, Faido : The signora has given me No. 4, the room into which you came one morning, more than five years ago, and said : " Oh, you've been reading that damned Republic again ! " When I came upon this letter among Butler's papers I remembered the incident. " That damned Republic " was a translation of Plato which someone had persuaded me that I ought to read, and Butler saw the book by the side of my bed. Miss Savage to Butler. 31 Oct. 1883 I am anxious to know how your poor dear cat is, and how you are, so if you are not very busy I shall be glad to hear from you. I send you Pusley* as I promised, and hope you will like it. I do, so if you don't you had better not tell me, as I cannot endure people whose opinions are different from mine. ... I went to the Fisheries exhibition last week and spent a rather pleasant day. I was by myself for one thing and, for another, took great delight in gazing at a life-size model of a sea-captain clad in yellow oil-skins and a sou'wester. It was executed in that style of art that you so greatly admire in the Italian churches, and was so good a likeness of you that I think you must have sat for it. The serious occupations of my day were having dinner and tea, and the relaxations, buying shrimps in the fishmarket and then giving them to the seagulls and cormorants. My most exalted pleasure was to look at your effigy which I should like to be able to buy, though as I have not a private chapel in my castle I hardly know where I could put it if I had it. Upon the whole I enjoyed myself, but I am glad to hear that the exhibition is to be closed today, so that I cannot by any possibility go there again. 1 Pusley, or my Summer in a Garden, by Charles Dudley Warner. London (1873). 396 GOING TO CHURCH xx. 1883 Do not forget that you promised I should have some MS. soon Act. 47 [77* Way of All Flesh]. . . . My mother is particularly well and cheerful today, for our servant went to the Fisheries yesterday, and having in obedience to orders come home early, she just escaped the explosion, and so my mother has been pointing a moral all day long. " Let this be a warning to you, Ellen, always to come home punctually ; you would most likely have been killed if you had been dis- obedient " etc., etc. It isn't often that she gets such a chance. Ellen really was frightened when she heard that she had so nearly been in an accident, but seems to think the "warning" is directed against the Underground Railway, and not against unpunctuality. . . . If you do not like Pus/ey I shall set you down as a " chill " person who cannot " appreciate the luminous side of things " and is "unaccustomed to moral thought." (See opinions of the press herewith enclosed.) Butler to Miss Savage. 5 Nov. 1883 I like Pusley very much, and have read it all which I very seldom do with any book but it wasn't half such nice reading as your letter was. I believe I am very like a sea- captain.- Jones began a likeness of me not long since which I will show you next time you come and see me which is also very like a portrait of a sea-captain. . . . Mr. Garnett has got my third vol. [ The Way of All Flesh], but will let me have it back in a few days. Then you shall have it. AT MRS. SALTER'S. Last week (Oct. 27, 1883) I went to Basingstoke and met Mrs. Thiselton Dyer. She is a daughter of Sir Joseph Hooker and is very advanced. I said I should go to church in the evening. I said this, partly because I knew she would not like it, and partly to please Miss Burd, who I knew would. Mrs. Dyer did her best to dissuade me. " Didn't it bore me ? And, holding my opinions, ought I not to let people see what I thought ? " etc. I said that, having given up Christianity, I was not going to be hampered by its principles. It was the substance of Christianity, and not its accessories of external worship, that I so objected to ; and I would be unprincipled whenever and in whatever way I thought convenient. So I went to church out of pure cussedness. She could not make it out at all. But I won't go again, not just yet awhile if I can xxi UMBRELLAS 397 help it, for it did bore me. I had not been for more than 1883 seven years. Aet - 47 Mrs. Salter had been Miss Fanny Haycock, the sister of Butler's schoolfellow who imitated Dr. Kennedy, and who was the hero of the story of the game of chess and the glass of cold water and the small piece of bread and butter (ante, p. 32). Her husband, Mr. Salter, was a dentist interested in scientific subjects. The Miss Burd who was at Basingstoke was a daughter of Dr. Burd, the doctor at Shrewsbury. In the following letters the MS. referred to is The Way of All Flesh. Butler was rewriting it and sending it to Miss Savage, but he was not doing it straight through ; sometimes he sends part of what he calls the third volume and sometimes, later, part of the first volume. Miss Savage to Butler. 15 Nov. 1883- It is very kind of you to take so much trouble, but if you could leave the MS. at the British Museum in charge of the man who takes the umbrellas close to the Reading Room door, I should get it safely and you would be saved a walk. The men know me very well, for I always leave my things there in preference to mounting up to the ladies' room. A lady I know was quite shocked when she saw me one day getting my umbrella there, and said the authorities would not like my doing so. I told her that although, no doubt, the indiscriminate association of male and female umbrellas might, in a general way, be productive of evil, yet my umbrella, having become imbued with my personal qualities, might be trusted to conduct herself with the most perfect propriety. At all events I should wait for the authorities or the male umbrellas to compkin of her before altering my ways. Perhaps if they hear of my basket eloping with your MS. I may receive a reprimand j but I do not think it likely. Miss Savage to Butler. 17 Nov. 1883 I read all the manuscript last night after I went to bed, so you may be sure I found it interesting. My eyes smart dreadfully this morning, therefore I am in an evil temper and take advantage of my condition to grumble. I still 398 PRIGGISH" xxi 1883 think the grand catastrophe wants vraisemblance. Miss Maitland Act. 47 may be a respectable young woman if you like, but she must be an artful and designing one whose aim is to get money. She and her father refuse to be bribed in the hope that there will be a remand, and that they will be able to screw more money out of Ernest, in which expectation they are, of course, dis- appointed. She might have made some slight advances towards acquaintance with Ernest which might lead up to the catastrophe, and Ernest's brain fever might be already in the incipient stage which would account for much. As I told you before, a respectable young woman would not have made an esclandre, and Ernest, poor fellow, according to the impression I receive of him, couldn't have frightened a mouse. Your Towneley, too, must be toned down a coarse creature with vicious propensities which he indulges in a slum such as you describe Ashpit Place ! You see I am in a dreadful temper, so I may as well tell you that Ernest gets tant soit peu priggish in fact very much so towards the end, and especially in the treatment of his children, which is ultra-priggish. There are no end of delightful little bits, but you must not convey the idea that Ernest is only a peg on which to hang your theories and fancies. In his marrying and unmarrying he is perfectly natural and life-like. And now, my spleen being over, I have nothing more to say at present except that I greatly enjoyed my first reading, and am going to read it again for greater pleasure. It is a very great treat to have had it to read, and I quite forgive you for keeping me awake till 4.45 A.M. I will bring it back on Wednesday, and hope I shall find you well as this leaves me at present. Butler to Miss Savage. 19 Nov. 1883 I have no doubt Ernest becomes priggish, for, as I have told you, I am very priggish myself; everyone is more or less. For the rest, we can talk about it when we meet. Miss Savage to Butler. ind December 1883 I am afraid you will be thinking that I have lost or destroyed your MS. It is quite safe however and I have enjoyed it immensely. I think it is almost perfect this time. It is lovely for Christina to pray that Theobald might be beheaded " Grant that he may be beheaded ! " and I liked your calling a clergyman a kind of human Sunday. I was pleased with the people who would not face an eternity of torture with indifference. Also that there is no decrepitude so awful as child- xxi A CHURCH ORCHESTRA 399 hood in a happy, united, God-fearing family. It was very nicely 1883 put, too, where you say that as a man has to run his chance for Act. 47 parents, so parents ought not to grumble at having to run their chance for children. But I shall go on for ever if I do not take care. All the characters are good, old Pontifex particularly. You know there is a good deal that I have never seen before, and all the first part is very much cut down and altered since I saw it long ago. The style is delightful, and it reads as smooth as cream. The water of the Jordan episode is also delicious and told with great effect. So is Dr. Skinner and the glass of cold water and small piece of bread and butter. One part that Miss Savage had not seen before was that about Ernest's Cambridge days at least she now objected for the first time to his taking so literal a view of the Christian miracles. She had known men who were at Cambridge about the same time Mr. Sutton, and her father's eldest brother, and his friend, Mr. Henry Southern, " the first editor of The Westminster Review, and I should think ' many, many more ' as Christina would say " and she could not believe that they had been then of Ernest's way of thinking. But Butler assured her that he had passed through the University without coming into contact with scepticism in any way. In reply to her doubting his having ever heard a trombone in church (The Way of All Flesh, chap, xiv.) he wrote that certainly he had, there used to be one at Langar " a trombone, a clarinet, a violoncello were the three instruments, and such an assortment was the normal thing in small out-of-the-way village churches forty years ago." Miss Savage replied : I should very much like to have heard a trombone in a church. I have heard bassoons and oboes and, I think, serpents and once I heard a bugle but a trombone never. If anything would make me go to church it would be to hear a trombone. Was it a bass trombone ? Some people are born to good luck, and you are one of them. Butler to Miss Savage. yd December 1883 [After asking her to leave the MS. at the Museum with the umbrella people he continues :] I always give them 5/- at Christmas which no one else does, so they are 400 KUm^KI UUINUAbil^K xxi 1883 very ready to do any little thing for me. . . . My own idea is Act. 47 that the first vol. is the best of the three, the second the next best, and the third the worst but then they have been re-written just in this order, the first having been ten years in hand, the second five, and the third only one. But I don't suppose I shall be able to do very much more to it, at any rate not until I have put it by and forgotten it for some time ; then I must begin with the third volume. Miss Savage had offered to bring the MS. back, and supposed that she could leave it with his laundress, Mrs. Corrie, if he was out. There was no objection to her doing so, but Mrs. Corrie is not Mrs. Corrie ; she is Mrs. Doncaster. We believe Mr. Corrie is still alive, but we do not know. At any rate, he disappeared so many years ago that she considered herself justified in marrying again. And so she had married Robert Doncaster, a feeble, half-witted old man, who used to clean Butler's boots and windows and run errands and help his laundress. He was useful also in another way. Butler resembled the animals in Walt Whitman in that he was " not demented with the mania of owning things." His plan was to give any books or other articles that he had done with to Robert, and never to inquire into their subsequent history. Thus his rooms, which were not large, did not get lumbered up, and he was able to find what he wanted. To understand Miss Savage's next letter the reader must know that she had taken to speaking of Butler's old friend, the Rev. Joseph M'Cormick, as " Mr. M'Dermott." Perhaps she did this to signify that she did not understand how the author of The Fair Haven could have a clergy- man among his friends. Of course, " M'Cormack " is an intentional mistake for " M'Cormick " to emphasise her stupidity about names. And it only commits her to what was the mere fact, that " Mr. M'Dermott's name was not M'Cormack." Miss Savage to Butler. 4 Dec. 1883 I humbly beg Mrs. Doncaster's pardon. Of course I knew her name was no longer Corrie, but I am so stupid xxi MISS SAVAGE AND ALETHEA 401 about names sometimes. Do you remember that I was ever so 1883 long before I could remember that Mr. M'Dermott's name was Aet 4-8 not M'Cormack ? A clergyman was examining the children of a village school in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and after explaining that " priest " meant " clergyman " asked, " Why did the priest go by on the other side ? " " Please, sir," said one boy, " because the man had been robbed already." Butler asked Miss Savage if she would object to tell this story to his father. She replied, 6th December 1883: Not in the least, but I should prefer to tell it of him and, unless I hear to the contrary from you, I shall for the future begin by saying, "The Rev. Thomas Butler was once examining some school children," etc. I like the second volume very much and think you have immensely improved it, or it improves of itself on second reading. I think you make the aunt a little ridiculous when you say that she preferred encouraging others to painting or writing herself. When people do not do things themselves, it is either because they could not if they tried, or because they are lazy, or because they have something else to do, or because they are morbidly vain. But Aunt Alethea was perfect. You make her like that most odious of women Mrs. John Stuart Mill who, though capable of surpassing Shelley, preferred to efface herself for the greater comfort of Mr. John Stuart Mill ! At least that is what he was so extraordinarily simple - minded as to be taught to believe. By the by I see in his Autobiography that Mr. Southern was not the first editor of the Westminster^ and that he was only the literary editor. "Above all," as Miss Helen Taylor said, when she wanted verbatim reports of the School Board Meetings published, " Above all, let us be historical." I never could make up my mind whether Miss Savage knew that Butler was thinking of her when drawing Alethea ; she writes as though she did not ; she also writes as though she did not know how great was the debt he owed her for her sympathy and encouragement. Early in December Butler was telegraphed for to go to Shrewsbury, his father being seriously ill with bronchitis. Miss Savage wrote : I was distressed to receive your letter last night, for I know exactly what you must be feeling. I have been through the VOL. I 2 D 402 MISS SAVAGE'S CHRISTMAS CARD X xi 1883 same experience myself when my mother has been dangerously Aet. 48 ill ; only it is worse for you, because you are more kindly- natured than I am and your feelings are more acute. I am grieved that you should ever have a painful moment. I hope you will take care and keep well and not allow yourself to be depressed by any failure in kindly feeling on the part of your relations towards you. I wish I had not written that flippant note just at that moment. Canon Butler recovered, and before Christmas Butler was back from Shrewsbury with a voluminous note of all that had happened during the illness a note which he used for Christina's death-bed in revising The Way of All Flesh. He did not see his way to using for Alethea, or for any one else, a card which Miss Savage sent him this Christmas. She was quoting from memory and wrote : God bless you, merry gentleman, May nothing you dismay, Though Jesus Christ, the Jjord of all, Was born upon this day. CHAPTER XXII 1884 PART I SELECTIONS FROM PREVIOUS WORKS Butler to Miss Butler. 9 Jan. 1884 Some thirteen or fourteen years ago I gave a 1884 couple of pounds for a picture, purporting to be by Reynolds, at Act. 48 an auction in Oxford Street. I thought it was one, and so did Heatherley, whom I got to come and look at it before I bought it. I have had it ever since, and in the autumn, seeing there was to be a Reynolds Exhibition, I determined to send it in on loan. They have accepted it as, so writes their secretary [Mr. C. E. Hall] "an indisputable Reynolds," and hung it; so I now figure in the catalogue as having lent them a Reynolds. It is not in a very good state, but it can be restored ; and, if ever I want to- sell it, now that I can give it a character and appeal to its having been in the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition, I think it should be worth something, so I am rather pleased. The Reynolds was a portrait of the Countess of Egremont. Butler kept it all his life and left it by will to his solicitor, Russell Cooke. About this time Romanes published Mental Evolution in Animals. Butler was preparing a book of Selections from Op. i to Op. 6, i.e. from Erewhon to Alps and Sanctuaries, and took the opportunity of adding to it some " Remarks " upon Romanes' book, in which occurs the statement about Kingsley referred to in the following letter. Butler to Miss Butler. i Feb. 1884 I am very sorry for the black cat. I am sure animals feel very jealous of a new inmate when they have had everything their own way for some years. I hope, however, that 403 4 o 4 " ME " XXII 1884. her age and experience will make her able to hold her own, and Act. 48 shall be glad to hear that the two have found a modus vivendi. I should think the old black cat carried as many guns as most cats do, and will find ways of saying nice little nasty things if the new one does not fall into her proper place. I see advertised a book, The Sagacity and Morality of Plants?- It is to appear shortly. What are we coming to ? And what will the vegetarians do ? You know, perhaps, that Mr. Darwin in his later years edged strongly towards giving intelligence to plants, though he never went so far as to say so point blank. I shall be very curious to see this book. I wonder whether the writer will say that carrots are passionate because they have such a red root. I saw this advertised in last week's (or the week before) Athenaeum. In last week's I had a letter challenging Mr. Romanes for having given a wrong reference. He said Canon Kingsley first advanced the theory connecting heredity and memory, and did so in Nature^ Jan. i8th 1867. I went to Nature to see what Canon Kingsley had said, and found that Nature did not begin to appear at all till nearly three years after this date, and that there was nothing from Kingsley in any way bearing upon the subject. So I wrote in The Athenaeum asking for the correct reference, very civilly, assuming that Mr. Romanes had made a slip. Romanes has not replied, and I could see by the smile on the editor's face when we discussed the matter that he did not expect him to. I should have thought he would have done so. The editor of The Athenaeum announced my book of Selections very prominently in the preceding week. I thought he had done it by chance, but it was not so for he said : " I gave your announcement an exceptionally good place." When I was so unpopular after writing Evolution Old and New, the Athenaeum and Academy both declined to announce my two next books Unconscious Memory and Alps and Sanctuaries. As they have both given prominence to my new announcement I flatter myself that I am making way. I think that Mr. Darwin's being no longer alive will make a great difference to me. What a lot I have written about my books ! But then, my books are to me much the most important thing in life. They are, in fact, " me " much more than anything else. Butler to Miss Savage. 19 Feb. 1884 I am well have had one of my bad colds, but am through it and am now none the worse, but God does not do 1 By Dr. John Ellor Taylor. NASTY REMARKS 405 all for me that I should like him to do "as soon as possible." 1 1884 I have been very busy with my book of Selections which will be Aet - 4 out in about a fortnight. I have touched them up and they read very well. The three chapters of " Remarks " upon Romanes are as nasty as anything can well be, and the preface is also very nasty. I cannot send them as I have only one copy ; as soon as I get more I will do so. You saw, perhaps, my letter in The Athenaeum four weeks ago re Romanes. . . . His [Romanes'] new book adopts the Life and Habit theory, but, of course, never mentions me. This I have pointed out sufficiently and quoted the passages in which he scoffed at this theory three years ago. I have had a good square go in at old Darwin, G. H. Lewes, Romanes, Grant Allen, and Herbert Spencer, much in the same key as the opening chapters of Unconscious Memory. As soon as this is done I shall take vol. iii. of the novel and rewrite it and stick in some bits that have got to go in. Also I mean to take out about forty weak pages from Erewhon and stick in about forty stronger ones among them the trial of a middle-aged man "for not having lost his father at a suitable age." . . . My father remains much in statu quo ; he comes down about 10 and keeps entirely to the house ; remains weak and never, I should think, likely to recover fully, but may hang on for months or go off with the N.E. winds which we are sure to get later on. I am well enough, but low and, as usual, clinging to ledges of precipices with bright green slopes of easy pasture always well in sight and always eluding me, especially when I think I am closest to them. However, if there is anything of devil in my books it is this which has in great measure put it into them. Miss Savage to Butler. Feb. 21, 1884 I was intending to write to you the very day I received your letter. I was afraid you were ill. I am quite well, thank you. This beautiful weather, which is so good for your father, is also good for me ; but I am busy and have been staying at the gallery sometimes till 6 o'clock and past. . . . I am sorry to hear that you have a bad cold. I daresay you caught it sketching out of doors, or doing something just as imprudent, so you have only had what you deserved to have. But I, who look forward to a long life and wish for as much pleasure as possible, have a right, I think, to feel injured when 1 " Mr. Spurgeon was reported as having recently asked the Almighty ' to change our rulers as soon as possible ' " (Life and Habit, chapter ii.). 4 o6 PROFESSOR MIVART xxn 1884 an author whose books delight me is so culpably careless about Act. 4 8 his health. I had not seen your letter in The Athenaeum^ but I have got it now, and am much obliged to you for telling me of it. I am longing to see your chapter of " Remarks." When may I have it ? I meant all I said about the Selections [No doubt we had met. I find nothing that will fit in with this in the letters. S. B. 1901] and I am sure the volume will be a delightful one. . . . Don't forget to let me have your "Remarks " [on Romanes] soon. I was going to say "as soon as possible," but that con- ditional phrase has become so sanctified that it is not appropriate for use between two such sinners as ourselves. But I do want them soon, as a little pleasure would be good for me just now ; the making of catalogues is wearying and worrying, and I am very stupid and want something to waken up my wits. Besides I am going to hear Mr. Romanes lecture next Sunday and I should like to read the "Remarks" before then. Are you going to hear him ? You can hear him for a penny. I daresay he is dear at that, so I am not going to pay a penny but have asked for a ticket. I hope you will come round to the gallery soon after the opening. Not the first two days, please, but soon after. I hope your dear cat is well. Butler's publisher, Trtibner, had been dining with Professor St. George Mivart who, he told Butler, had spoken very warmly of his books. "But," said Trubner, "though he likes your books he is very much offended with you. He sent you a letter and a review of your books by himself and you never replied." Butler accordingly wrote and explained that he had received neither letter nor review, and this led to a correspondence. Mivart lent Butler his own copy of the review, which was entitled " The Soul and Evolution," and had appeared in an American periodical, The Catholic Quarterly Review, for 1881. In a letter to his sister Butler wrote : It is very vexatious, for Professor Mivart is one of the few men I can look to in the scientific world for anything like an alliance and support ; and when he had made an advance to be supposed to be rude enough to take no notice of it is a piece of pure bad luck. However it is all right now. In acknowledging the review he wrote to Mivart STILL FLIRTING WITH ROME 407 (2yth February 1884) that he found his article most sym- 1884 pathetic, and continued with an attempt to minimise the et ' 4 difference between his own views on religion for religion, as he wrote, cannot be kept out of evolution and those of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Professor Mivart was a member : I see the action of God throughout the universe. It is the universe itself which assures me that there is intelligent action present throughout it. When a man says defiantly that he does not care whether this is so or not, it means that he cares a great deal and has pretty well made up his mind what he is going to think. I grant I had better not have said these words ; it is however five years since I did so and I have virtually retracted them more than once since then. 1 I imagine you to see God as something apart from the universe which he has taken and moulded, as it were, in the hollow of his hand, and into which he has breathed the breath of life. I see him as animating the universe he in us, and we in him ; so that the union between God and his creatures seems closer, more indissoluble, and, at the same time, more literal and bona fide, than I can imagine it to be as seen from any other standpoint; but, in the first place, I should be very sorry to say I was not mistaken ; and, in the next, admitting design, as I cordially do, is it such a very great matter, after all, whether the designer is within the organism or without it ? Surely this is a detail in comparison with getting people to see that there is design at all. I acknowledge with pleasure the obligation I am under to you for having shown me the fallacy of natural selection. I walked through it all till I read your Genesis of Species. It is also a pleasure to think that I lost no time in attacking natural selection myself when I saw how I had been humbugged (for really there is no other word that will do as well) by it. This much, at any rate, we have in common, and, though we do not approach more nearly, it is much to have approached so near. Professor Mivart's reply was such as to confirm Butler's hope of alliance and support, but nothing more came of the correspondence than had come of the flirtation with the Rosminian Fathers. Professor Mivart sent the proof of another paper he was about to publish and Butler replied, 29th February 1884 : 1 " These words " are, I suppose, words used by Butler and quoted by Mivart in the review of Butler's books. 4 o8 ROMANES XXII 1884 I know you wish me to speak without reserve, and therefore, Act. 48 though very unwillingly, say it does not convince me or even move me. As an exposition of the vast superiority of man's powers I admit its force ; still I have so long and so often approached this subject with no other desire than to think what the balance of evidence requires of me, and have found the balance so decidedly in favour of regarding man and the lower animals as descended from a common ancestor, that I fear I am now incapable of adopting any other conclusion. If I could except Handel, Giovanni Bellini, and others whom I revere, and put them in some other category from Mr. Darwin, Professor Huxley, Mr. Romanes, and their like, I would do so in a moment, but, though they stand morally, if not intellectually, very far asunder, I cannot class these people as even specifically different. Selections from Previous Works^ with Remarks on Romanes" 1 " Mental Evolution in Animals" and A Psalm of Montreal was published in March. The fact that Romanes was looked upon as the executor of Mr. Darwin in the matter of evolution gave his book on mental evolution considerable prominence. Butler points out. that such phrases as " the lifetime of the species," " hereditary experience," " hereditary memory " had been freely used but, until Professor Hering's address and Life and Habit^ no writer had shown a comprehension of the fact that they are unexplained so long as heredity is unexplained. The theory of Hering and Life and Habit " reduces life from an equation of, say, 100 unknown quantities to one of 99 by showing that heredity and memory, two of the original 100 unknown quantities, are in reality one and the same thing." Romanes in reviewing Unconscious Memory in Nature (2yth January 1 8 8 1) had spoken of the theory of Life and Habit as " interesting if advanced merely as an illustration, but to imagine that it maintains any truth of profound significance or that it can possibly be fraught with any benefit to science is simply absurd." Nevertheless in Mental Evolution in Animals he adopted the theory. Butler, however, did not look upon him as a desirable supporter. In the course of his " Remarks " he says : It will take years to get the evolution theory out of the mess MERMAN AND GRAMPUS 409 in which Mr. Darwin has left it. He was heir to a discredited 1884 truth j he left behind him an accredited fallacy. Mr. Romanes, if Aet - 48 he is not stopped in time, will get the theory connecting heredity and memory into just such another muddle as Mr. Darwin has got evolution. . . . I gather that in the end the late Mr. Darwin himself admitted the soundness of the view [connecting heredity and memory]. Mr. Romanes quotes a letter written by Mr. Darwin in the last year of his life, in which he speaks of an intelligent action gradually becoming "instinctive, i.e. memory transmitted from one generation to another." Grant Allen also had come to much the same conclusion after having attacked Butler, though not so fiercely as Romanes. On the ist March, just before Butler's book appeared, The Athenaeum contained a review of Romanes' book, Mental Evolution in Animals, by a writer who understood the situation and stated it clearly. Butler did not know who he was, nor do I. " The phrase ' hereditary memory ' is due to Mr. S. Butler. . . . And yet Mr. Butler's name is studiously avoided throughout Mr. Romanes's discussion." The review goes on to refer to " How we encourage Research " in The Impressions of Theophrastus Such, by George Eliot, and contains this passage : Merman, in this amusing sketch, finds some flaws in the theories of the great Grampus, "whose book is cried up as a revelation," and ventures on publishing his refutation. He is scoffed at by the initiated and becomes a bore to his friends, but has finally the doubtful satisfaction of seeing his modification silently adopted by the great Grampus. Mr. Butler would seem to have suffered some such fate at the hands of Mr. Darwin's literary executor, as Mr. Romanes is to all intents and purposes in the question of instinct. This led to a correspondence, consisting of three letters from Romanes and three from the reviewer, one from Professor Ray Lankester, and one from Butler and closing on the 5th April with one from Herbert Spencer giving extracts from his Principles ofPsychology, published nearly twenty years previously, the chief of which Butler had quoted in his " Remarks " on Romanes' book. Herbert Spencer concludes his letter with these words : 4 io . HERBERT SPENCER 1884 As it is, I have ascribed the entire process of mental evolution Act. 48 in all its forms and degrees to the inheritance of accumulated modifications of structure consequent upon modifications of function ; successively higher grades of conscious actions passing, by constant repetitions, into unconscious or automatic actions, and so forming organized faculty. I still hold that inheritance of functionally-produced modifications is the chief factor throughout the higher stages of organic evolution, bodily as well as mental (see Principles of Biology^ 166), while I recognize the truth that throughout the lower stages survival of the fittest is the chief factor, and in the lowest the almost exclusive factor. Butler to Miss Butler. 9 April 1884 Herbert Spencer's letter is, to my mind, the most important thing in the whole controversy. It assures me that I was already aware of and had not missed his most important passages and those he gives do not enable him to claim more, even himself, than to have done the thing "by implication." As a matter of fact no one understood him to mean what he now implies that he did mean. The editor thought his letter (to use the editor's own words) " without definite aim " so that I need not reply, and I was very glad not to do so \ so the matter will drop, but in an Appendix to Life and Habit [this became Luck or Cunning ? 1886], I will say what I think advisable. Butler to Canon Butler. 2 April 1884 I went on Sunday, by invitation, with Mr. and Mrs. Phipson Beale to some people at Carshalton of the name of Tylor. One of their daughters married a son of John Bright's not long ago, and another is married to a son of Canon Morse's, who was there (I mean the son, not the canon) with his wife, and I thought them nice people. Mr. Tylor asked the Beales to bring me because of Life and Habit and, knowing him to be a man well up in the scientific world, I went. Mr. Alfred Tylor was elder brother of Sir Edward B. Tylor, the well-known anthropologist. He was a metal manufacturer and colliery owner in South Wales ; he was also interested in technical education and in many scientific subjects, including, particularly, geology and evolution. In a paper read before the Anthro- TYLOR'S EXPERIMENTS 411 pological Institute in 1879, O H a New Method of Express- 1884 ing the Law of Specific Change, Mr. Tylor had advocated Aet- 4 ideas about the physical continuity of parents and off- spring similar to those set forth in Life and Habit, and formed before he had read that book. He was about ten years Butler's senior ; they became interested in one another at once, met often, and took great pleasure in each other's society. In his garden at Carshalton Mr. Tylor had been carry- ing out experiments to determine the nature of the move- ments of the growing parts of plants, other researches having led him to suspect that the plants " would show a certain degree of power of adaptation or a low class of intelligence." I accompanied Butler to see him in May 1884, and he took us round his shrubbery and showed us how he had tied up the branches of the horse-chestnut trees in such a way that the leaves, on bursting from the buds, ought to have touched one another, yet they always managed to avoid touching anything. Butler to Miss Butler. 13 May 1884 Mr. Salter last night told me a delightful piece of scientific scandal against Mr. Ray Lankester how he mis- behaved about a medusa found in a water-tank at the Botanical Gardens. I was so pleased. This is the Mr. Salter, the dentist, mentioned in the preceding chapter, p. 397. I suppose that Butler must have met him on the 1 2th May, and that he afterwards lent Butler a letter from Professor George J. Allman, F.R.S., which Butler returned to him in the following letter. Butler kept no copy of Professor Allman's letter, but, no doubt, it mentioned the fresh-water medusa, as to which the reader is referred to Nature from June to August 1880, where he will find letters both from Ray Lankester and Professor Allman on the subject. We need not go into the details here. Butler made the returning of Allman's letter an occasion to explain his position to Mr. Salter. 412 RAY LANKESTER xxn Butler to Mr. Salter. 1884 13 June 1884 Again I thank you and return Professor Act. 48 Allman's letter. I won't stir up old mud and had better perhaps explain my views more fully. Ray Lankester attacked me \_Athenaeum, March 2Qth 1884] offensively and, among other things, spoke of my having " tardily recognised " Professor Hering as my predecessor in bringing forward the theory connecting heredity and memory. [Ray Lankester also wrote a little lower down : " Mr. Butler may claim originality as the only writer who has sought to gain notoriety for himself by offering personal insult to Mr. Darwin." I make no comment. S. B. Jan. 3151 1902.] As a matter of fact, I behaved very well towards Professor Hering, and Ray Lankester knew that I had done so. A few days after Life and Habit appeared I, for the first time, came to know what Professor Hering had said. I wrote a short time afterwards to The Athenaeum and called attention to all I knew. In Evolution Old and New I quoted all that Ray Lankester had given about Hering and gave him all the prominence I could, but knowing no German I could do no more. Then I learned German and translated Bering's Address and published the whole thing in Unconscious Memory ; and I always have spoken of the theory as Professor Hering's from the time that I became aware that he had forestalled me ; and yet, after all, Hering only said what he did in an Address of 30 pages long, published fourteen years ago, and has never touched the matter since. He drew not one. of the many inferences which wanted drawing, and did not succeed in interesting people in the subject ; whereas I, approaching the matter from a totally different side, have written book after book about it for some years past, and do now see my opinion generally adopted by those who ought to know and who were the first to try and jump upon myself. Nevertheless, as I have said, I never speak of the theory except as Professor Hering's and, in fact, have behaved in all ways as I should wish to have done as regards him. This Professor Ray Lankester perfectly well knows, but he knew it would be a long story and that I should probably not reply and that some mud might stick, so he flung his " tardy recognition " at me, and I do not think it well that this sort of thing should be done with absolute impunity. When, therefore, in my Appendix to Life and Habit 1 I deal with Romanes', Ray Lankester's, and Herbert Spencer's recent 1 This became Luck or Cunning? which, though dated 1887, actually appeared in November 1886. xxn IMITATING HANDEL 413 letters to The Athenaeum I shall allude to this and just say that 1884 there is no foundation for such a charge ; and then it is in my Aet - 4 8 mind to add that such charges come with an ill grace from the gentleman who described the freshwater medusa (see Nature^ vol. xxii. p. 316, and preceding numbers). It is all very well to say that one ought to be always quite good so, of course, one ought but then, science is infested by z lot of false prophets who do nothing but mischief and try to stamp out everything which does not emanate from themselves ; and I don't quite see how to meet this sort of thing and yet make things pleasant all round for everyone. I was very much pleased at what Mrs. Salter heard about Life and Habit. I really do not see that there is much the matter with the main theory it upholds. Ever since Butler had played me his minuet on Heatherley's piano, we had been giving all our spare time to the writing of short pieces of music ; we were even so ambitious as to attempt fugues. Of course all our music was to be as like Handel's as we could get it. The popular notion that Handel is a composer of sacred music exclusively is not correct ; he wrote many minuets, gigues, and bourrees which are dances ; and he wrote oratorios upon secular as well as upon sacred subjects. Moreover, even when writing a sacred oratorio, secular subjects are introduced, and he was never at a loss in treating any- thing that came into his words by allusion or as an illustration. As Butler puts it in one of his sonnets (The Note- Books of Samuel Butler, 1912) : He who gave eyes to ears could paint 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 with all his versatility there is one subject which Handel never treated I mean the money market. Butler's financial difficulties made him regret the omission, and we wondered what had occasioned it. Handel was twice bankrupt, and Mr. R. A. Streatfeild 4 i4 NARCISSUS BEGUN xxn 1884 tells me that the British Museum has recently acquired a Act. 48 fyjc^ letter of his (of which Butler knew nothing) giving directions as to the payment of some dividends on 500 South Sea Stock. Let us hope he was more fortunate than Butler and sold out before the Bubble burst. We thought it a pity that Handel and Dr. Morell had not turned out something of this kind : Pompow. ^^^^^j^TTl r r-r~5Tr = The stead -fast funds main - tain their wont - ed state. And if Dr. Morell had completed his couplet by adding " While all the other markets fluctuate," what would Handel have done with the words ? Would he have sent the funds up above par and left them steadfastly there on an inverted pedal, while all the other markets fluctuated iniquitously round them like the sheep that turn every one to his own way in the Messiah ? There was no answering such questions, and the only course seemed to be for us to attack the subject ourselves, and to treat it in a Handelian oratorio of our own. We remembered and adopted the opinion of Monsieur Jourdain's Maltre a Danser that " lorsqu'on a des personnes a faire parler en musique, il faut bien que, pour la vraisemblance, on donne dans la bergerie " ; and, accordingly, Narcissus is about shepherds who come to London and lose their money in imprudent speculations upon the Stock Exchange. A happy ending being indispensable, the aunt and god- mother of the hero dies at an advanced age, having by will bequeathed a legacy to her nephew and godson who, upon hearing the news, sings : I never knew her worth till now ; A hundred thousand pound ! Small is my loss indeed, I vow, Compared with what I've found. Oh ! had she known I'd lost so much Or ere her pulse was still, Her testament had not been such, She would have changed her will. This is the song Butler was struggling with when he xx,i "LA LANGUE TURQUE " 415 wrote Miss Savage the next letter, wherein he refers to 18 Narcissus as " the serenata." Aet - Butler to Miss Savage. 2 May 1884 I have very much improved vol. iii. [The Way of All Flesh] and put in a lot. I am developing Mrs. Jupp and have given her two more long rattles ; she will do as a good foi.1 to Christina. And I have put in many nice things and taken out much of the priggishness. Jones and I are going ahead fast with the serenata. It will be lovely. . . . I have got a beautiful symphony for my song, describing what the will would have been if she had changed it. The key is abruptly changed at this point and a few solemn ecclesiastical chords, concluding with a plagal cadence, express the testatrix's consciousness of her approaching end and the solemnity of the occasion. Then, in a few bustling bars, her servants go in haste to fetch the family solicitor who arrives and does all the common form of the will under the influence of a dominant pedal ; the motive already introduced as expressing the hundred thousand pounds earlier in the scene is now returned to, and you see that the main bequest is reached ; but the subject is augmented here to make it even more imposing. She then signs, and two hautbois witness it in a couple of bars. By a few modulating chords I return to the original key ; and the listener is made to understand that the will has not been really changed at all, the singer just repeating " I never knew her worth till now " to show how deeply he is impressed with his aunt's goodness in not having changed her will. The whole symphony is only three lines. I assure you we are doing it very nicely. Miss Savage, who knew her Bourgeois Gentilhomme, replied that this description reminded her of " la langue turque qui dit beaucoup en peu de paroles," and in fact it says more than Butler was able, in the end, to pack into his music. At one time he intended to treat the situation in a somewhat different manner about which I had for- gotten, and was reminded by finding this note of it with the MS. of Narcissus when I was arranging it for the binder : 4 i 6 IMITATING DR. MORELL x i PART II INTRODUCTORY SYMPHONY 1884 during which the audience is requested to think as follows : Aet> * 8 An aged lady, taken ill, Desires to reconstruct her will. I see her servants hurrying for The family solicitor ; Post-haste he comes and with him brings The usual necessary things ; With common form and driving quill He draws the first part of the will ; The more sustained aud solemn sounds Denote a hundred thousand pounds. This trifle is the main bequest, Old friends and servants take the rest. 'Tis done. I see her sign her name, I see the attestors do the same. Who is the happy legatee ? In the next numbers you will see. This opening was discarded I do not remember why, perhaps because it was thought, on further consideration, to be out of harmony with the Handelian tradition (though Handel does occasionally introduce descriptive symphonies), perhaps because Butler could not satisfy himself, perhaps because it appeared to be trying to beat Dr. Morell on his own ground. Butler to Miss Butler. 5 May 1884 We are writing our own words [to Narcissus] as well as the music, and imitating the style of Handel's librettist, Dr. Morell. We are surprised to find that the style is one which lends itself singularly well to music, and think that much better poetry would not have been half so well suited for the particular purpose that Handel had in view. We have to cover a sheet of foolscap with trial rhymes before we get the right thing, but what we have got so far will suit us very well. Butler to Mrs. Bridges. 15 June 1884 I went to an At Home at Mrs. Webster's one night last week and met all sorts of people most of them I xxn A CONSPIRACY OF ONE 417 thought odious, but there were some nice ones. Canon Morse's son 1 884 and his wife were there ; they are nice people and I like them well Act. 48 enough. But Miss Lydia Becker got hold of me and lectured me till I was nearly mad ; and the Moncure Conways said I must go and see them at their house at Bedford Park, and I said I would not ; and Lewis Morris, the poet, and I (who know each other perfectly well and used to meet continually at the Century) cut each other by mutual consent. He likes to get me to nod to him first and then give me the smallest recognition he can ; and he is so insufferably conceited that I determined not to play at this any longer, so I looked at the top of his head as long as was in the least proper and never nodded. . . . Mrs. Webster is Augusta Webster who writes poems and is always mentioned when people are naming a few women of real genius, so of course she must be a genius. I do not think I much like this sort of thing. It kept me up very late, and I cannot stand late hours ; I am fit for nothing all next day. CLODD, GRANT ALLEN, AND MYSELF I forgot to say that when I met Edward Clodd at Webster's about a year ago, Clodd, under the pretext of wishing to be frank, told me that Grant Allen had said it was a pity I ha 4 part of my holiday. Owing to the cholera no one was allowed to enter Italy without undergoing quarantine, so Butler remained in Switzerland and presently joined us, coming over the Bernina Pass from Le Prese and Poschiavo. My poor mother disapproved of Butler and matters were a little strained at first, but in the evening he came up to her sitting-room by invitation and did his best. He knew that she had been to school at Miss Stone's at Blackheath, and when he told her that his elder sister, Mrs. Bridges, who was only five or six years younger than my mother, had also been to school at Miss Stone's, my mother collapsed like the walls of Jericho and they got along famously for the rest of the evening. Two ladies and a gentleman used to dine at the next table to us ; it was known that one of the ladies, who was the hostess, was Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, an American poetess, but no one knew who her guests were. At last an English lady whom we knew ascertained from Caspar Badrutt that the gentleman was an English poet. We none of us had an extensive acquaintance among pro- fessional poets, but I had seen photographs of most of the English ones in shop windows, and diagnosed Browning. The English lady would not have it : 419 420 RISTORI AND HARRY NICHOLLS xxm 1884 " No," she said, " Mr. Browning has a far grander Aet - 48 head and is altogether a finer-looking man." But it turned out to be Browning, and the other guest was his sister. The English lady made the acquaintance of the American poetess who lent her a volume of her works, and we had the advantage of perusing it. One of the press notices quoted at the end of the book said, " They are nearly as good as the poems of Mrs. Hemans." Butler said that the criticism might be just but, excepting " Casabianca," he had forgotten all he had ever known of the poems of Mrs. Hemans. He was reminded of her when writing the Life of Dr. Butler by finding a letter from her to his grandfather, which he reproduced in his book (I. 341). If I remember right, her son was at school at Shrewsbury. Butler was naturally interested in sampling poetry composed by a friend of Browning, but we did not find much in her book in the style of " Casabianca." This poetess was too apt to have " a graveyard heart " and her spirit was " ever on the wing." One poem was about a king who had placed the roses in his garden under the care of the authoress who, when the pilgrim came and wanted them, said, " Take the lilies, take the lilacs, take, in effect, everything except the roses " ; so the pilgrim ravished a rose, contrary to instructions, and the serpent came out. I have forgotten the moral, but there was one. Ristori also was at St. Moritz " a nice, kind, good face," said Butler and we remembered how we had seen her at Drury Lane as Queen Elizabeth, and how in her magnificent manner she had asked her secretary : " What have you there ? " And the secretary, who was Harry Nicholls, made the whole house laugh by replying : " Mary Stuart's death-warrant, Your Majesty." We laughed because we recognised his voice, and it reminded us of the last time we had seen him, when he was the mother of Sindbad the Sailor, shipwrecked on a desert island in a pantomime, and we had heard him exclaim : " Oh ! I could do with a kidney now, just to stay my stomach till we get back to Europe." * PARROTS 421 It was not fair to cast him for the part, but the 1884 majesty of Ristori triumphed over the absurdity. Aet- 4 Butler went by the Maloja pass down to Promontogno, in the Val Bregaglia, and remained some time there, and at Soglio where our friends Miss Bertha Thomas and Miss Helen Zimmern were staying. I came down and spent a couple of days with him. At Promontogno we met the lady who kept the parrots in " Ramblings in Cheapside " (Essays on Life, Art, and Science, 1904; re- issued in The Humour of Homer and other Essays, 1913). These parrots were well known to English tourists in the neighbourhood of the Italian lakes. There were fifteen or sixteen of them, and they were fond of tea. There was a story that once, at Cadenabbia, their owners went for an excursion for the day, taking with them the key of their room in which they had locked the parrots. They did not return till late, having missed the steamer. At 4.30 the waiter heard the bell ring, went up to their room and found the door locked ; he went downstairs thinking he must have made a mistake, but in a few minutes the bell rang again, and again the waiter found the door locked. This appeared to him so mysterious that he got a ladder, climbed up to the window, and looked in. As soon as the parrots saw him they exclaimed : " Bring tea, if you please." Butler to Miss Savage. 22 Sep. 1884 I got back on Saturday evening, better decidedly for my outing, but 1 have done a great many sketches and should be better still if I had not done so many ; still I am feeling better a good deal and shall take it easy now that I am back. My people are all extremely well, thank you. The summer has been a very favourable one for them. How are your people ? My cat is better, and though he looks old and battered is not otherwise amiss. I am extremely sorry to hear of your bereavement. Shall you cat again ? . . . May I say of myself somewhere that I am like the precious oil of gladness with which somebody anointed someone above his fellows, inasmuch as I am certainly " without money," but unlike it inasmuch as I am not " without price," being saleable, if anyone would buy 422 SOCKS XXIII 1884 me, at a very reasonable figure but the passage I am referring Act. 48 to is in the Bible and you won't know it. Come and see me next week. I am busy I think every day with one thing or another. Miss Savage to Butler. 27 Sept. 1884 I will come and see you any day next week except Monday. Why do you do so many sketches ? You should take care of yourself and let your sketches take care of themselves. This I say for conscience' sake, not because I imagine that you will take my advice you never do, else I might suggest that, as " you have your price " and are ready to be sold, you might go over to the Darwins ; for a consideration you might write a book a Memoir of the late Mr. Darwin which should satisfy them and yourself, too, a la Fair Haven. By the by, apropos of Darwin, did you know that Diderot was an evolutionist ? If you did, why have you never mentioned him ? I have found in Diderot most curious things and I think you should look him up. More when I see you. Butler to Miss Savage. 28 Sep. 1884 Let us say that on Wednesday afternoon you do me the pleasure of a visit. Thank you about Diderot. I know nothing about him but, being a post-Buffonian writer, it is no great wonder that he accepted evolution. Any pre-Buffonian evolutionist would con- cern me more nearly ; of course, if he has anything about memory and continued personality I ought to know. I will get the books for which you have so kindly written me a ticket and see. Miss Savage to Butler. 23 October 1884 With this letter I send a little present for yt)u. I have lately developed an extraordinary talent for knitting stockings, and I was so enchanted with the success of the first one I made that I immediately began to wear it, regardless of the fact that it was of a lightish blue in colour and my other stocking was black. You should be thankful that I have not required you to do likewise. I can knit much better now, and I mean always to make your stockings for the future. The next pair are to be thicker and softer and looser in texture. These are very harsh and unelastic. I shall not, however, begin them till I have heard how these do. If they don't fit (and I daresay they won't) you MORE SOCKS 423 can give them to Mr. Jones with my kind regards. If you think 1884 it would be more polite you can say that I made them on purpose Aet - 4 8 for him. If he does not have them, you can give them to any- body you please, without my kind regards s'entend, to Mrs. Doncaster's husband, or to your father, if you like. You can tell him (your father) that they are a tribute of respect from an admirer of your literary genius, which is exactly the truth. Popular authors, curates, etc. are always receiving these little attentions. I am told that Mr. Irving is deluged with knitted knee-caps from his female admirers, it being only too evident which of his articulations stands especially in need of comfort. You will be pleased to hear that these socks were made entirely on the Sabbath. On Sunday afternoons I retired into my closet and shut the door (as we are told to do in the Bible) and knitted, so that they represent a religious service and are sanctified. I think you had better let me have an old sock that fits you as a pattern to do the next by. Butler to Miss Savage. 24 Oct. 1884 Thank you very much for your magnificent present. I will write and thank you more particularly by this evening's post, by which time I may perhaps have been able to hit upon words adequate to express my gratitude. Butler to Miss Savage. 24 October 1884. DEAR Miss SAVAGE Now I have tried your socks on and I do not quite know whether they fit me or not. They are long enough in the foot well, just long enough now, but I shall wear them through at the toe after they have been washed if they get smaller. But the main difficulty is in getting them on, I mean in getting them to come round the heel and up the calf. They were beautiful when once on, and I do not doubt will give and stretch with wear ; however, we shall see. As for doing me any more, I flatly forbid it. I believe you don't like my books, and want to make me say I won't give you any more if you make me any more socks ; and then you will make me some more in order not to get the books. No, I will let you read my stupid books in manuscript and help me that way. If you like to make me a kettle-holder, you may, for I only have one just now, and I like to have two because I always mislay one ; but I won't have people working their fingers out to knit me stockings. This one pair I accept gratefully, and if it does not wear right I will get 4 2 4 PAINTING AT WESTMINSTER z 1884 you to enlarge it a little at the top, if it can be enlarged. You Act. 48 shall hear from me again later on. I have announced Jones's and my Album of short pianoforte pieces and our cantata in this week's Athenaeum. I said the subject of the libretto was some shepherds and shepherdesses who had lost their money through imprudent speculations on the Stock Exchange, and then went on to say that the music was in the style of Handel. The editor has cut out the bit about the libretto, presumably as too much savouring of levity, and left me announ- cing a cantata in the style of Handel, which is rather a stronger measure than I like, but it doesn't matter. Also I sold my picture of Dean's Yard, Westminster, the other day (the little one I did a year and a half ago) for jCio to Dunthorne and Walker, the etching publishers in Vigo Street, and they are going to have it etched and it will be in the shop- windows. So I am painting again, and mean to do an etching myself. They gave me my price at once and seemed glad to get the picture. I am therefore painting at Westminster again and getting on fairly well. I think I shall catch a master or two with something, now I can tell them I sold the other ; they all say they wanted it now, or, at any rate, some of them do. I looked through Diderot and made a dozen pages of extracts and notes on the later work of the two books to which you referred me which was written in 1775. In one or two places he does come rather near Life and Habit, but only on the surface. I have done him very carefully, and he certainly does not come so close as Erasmus Darwin does, and of course nothing like so close as Hering. Still, he says so many fine things that I was very glad to have been referred to him and to make extracts from him. The earlier work, written in 1754, I have only glanced at as yet and shall not be able to do more for some time, as painting and the cantata take all my brains and more. My father has been ill again with a heavy cold which does not leave him and he will go out. He is better but he has no idea of taking the care of himself that he ought to take, and is afraid of coddling himself. How is your Mamma ? Again thank you very much for the socks, and Believe me, yours very truly, S. BUTLER. Miss Savage to Butler. 27 Oct. 1884 Here is a kettle-holder. And I can only say that a man who is equal to the control of two kettle-holders fills me with awe, and I shall begin to be afraid of you. The vagaries of one drive me nearly mad two would send me straight into a Lunatic Asylum. Apropos of L. Asylums Mrs. Lowe, fired by THE KETTLE-HOLDER 425 the noble example of Mrs. Weldon, is going to bring an action 1884 for restitution against her poor old husband. She has brought an Act. 48 action for assault against her eldest son. I persuaded her not to bring an action for assault against him some time ago. This is another. However, I know no particulars as she keeps out of my way. The closing of our club was a great misfortune for Mrs. Lowe. We exercised a great restraining influence over her indeed she gave me as much trouble as a kettle-holder. I am delighted to hear about the etching. I remember the beautiful drawing perfectly and shall be anxiously looking into the shops to see it appear. They will be more delightful than ever now there is a chance of seeing you in them. I saw the stately announce- ment in The Athenaeum [i.e. of Jones's and my Gavottes^ etc. and of Narcissus. S. B.]. I am sure the Album will be a great success. It ought to be at all events. The kettle-holder is very clumsy and ugly, but please to remember that I am not a many-sided genius, and to expect me to excel in kettle-holders and stockings is unreasonable. I take credit to myself, however, for affixing a fetter to it, so that you may chain it up if it is too much disposed to wander. My expectation is that it is too thick for you to grasp the kettle with, and the kettle will slip out of your hand and scald you frightfully. I shall be sorry for you, but you would have it, so upon your own head be it. Butler to Miss Savage. 28 Oct. 1884 The kettle-holder is beautiful it is like a filleted sole, and I am very fond of filleted sole. It is not at all too thick and fits my kettle to perfection. I have been lifting my kettle on and off the fire with it and then hanging the kettle-holder on its nail again all day ever since I got it this morning, and I like it better and better continually only you never made it. You bought it at a bazaar and that little touch about the affixing a fetter to it is just like one of my own lies very circumstantial, and like where the subject comes in again in a chorus, as a counterpoint to some other subject, as though it were quite an accident, when all the time it was tried on another piece of paper beforehand to see whether it would or no. You hadn't time to think it all out and invent so much and do all that work since you got my letter. I won't say that I don't think you could have done the knitting, because you can do any- thing you like still, I don't believe you did do it. I am wearing the socks. They fit very well and come on and off quite easily still, when the toes begin to wear out, which perhaps they won't, I will get you to add a little to the 426 MISS SAVAGE'S TRUTH xxm 1884 length, and will carefully keep the wool you sent against this Act. 48 contingency. I have lost my spectacles and have used my eyes as much as I can without them to-day already. I think I know where I left them, so rub on without them till I can go and see ; therefore I will add no more. I heard from Miss Johnson this very day. She wants me to go and stay with her at Leigh. I can't go. P.S. If you did knit that kettle-holder I shall think you even cleverer than I did before. If you did not knit it I shall think that you are just as clever as I have always thought you. This kettle-holder is shown in the illustration which faces chap, xxxix. It is now in my possession. He had lost his spectacles sketching the old houses at Westminster ; he returned next day and found them where he had been sitting, but they were broken and " looked as though they had been on the batter all night." The picture bought by Dunthorne represented Turle's old house in Dean's Yard. It was never etched. Mr. Emery Walker, Dunthorne's brother-in-law, bought it from Dunthorne after Butler's death, giving him for it the amount he had originally paid 10. Butler did make some experiments in etching ; Gogin showed him what to do, but nothing much came of it. Miss Savage to Butler. November ist [1884]. DEAR MR. BUTLER No doubt your powers of lying are great, but when you assert that my Truth is like your lies you considerably over-estimate their value, and some day you will get into a scrape from your over-confidence. It is entirely in your interests, therefore, that I have procured the enclosed affidavits not on my own account, for my character for veracity is spot/ess. Besides, I never lie with a circumstance ; I have not done so for many years, having found the inconvenience, and I recommend you to follow my example. Affidavit No. I is from Miss Johnson's aunt, so you can easily verify her statement ; but I have not disclosed your name to either of the ladies I have called you simply "a person." If their testimony does not convince you, I can have two more for the asking I daresay. I could have three, but one of the witnesses is a man-hater, and calls men "vile Creech- Haughs " and "base Monst-Haughs " and she would triumph over me too much, because I take the XXIII "LIKE WHERE" 427 part of the poor men, and she would say, "Now you have i8S discovered the wickedness of men," and she would call you a Aet - villain^ which I should not like. Like many, perhaps I should say most, of the members of the Somerville Club, she does not like her husband, and the very first time I saw her she told me of his iniquities with details that are usually suppressed. There were many details and every time I have seen her since she has added more, till I begin to suspect that she sometimes borrows details from other people's husbands. In conclusion I can only say that if you repent you may have the forgiveness of Yours truly. E. M. A. SAVAGE. P.S. I daresay your accusation against me was only brought in in order to give you a pretext for exercising your contrapuntal illustration, and I can only say that it will want a good deal more exercising before it can appear in public. You say the touch about the fetter is like where the subject comes in again. How can it be like "where"? What is " where "? Where is " where" ? Please to improve it before airing it again. [I need hardly say that the kettle-holder hangs by its fetter on the wall beside my fire, and is not allowed to be used by any- one but myself. S. B., January 21, 1902.] Butler to Miss Savage. 3 Nov. 1884. DEAR Miss SAVAGE What penance shall I perform ? I know you are above trampling on a fallen man I should have said worm you don't like to hurt my feelings you don't wish to be like my sisters There ! I know that no member of the Somerville Club would forge a certificate (that is more correct, is it not ?) and, even if I didn't, if you tell me that you wish me to say I believe you really did make the kettle-holder, that is quite enough. I do believe firmly that you made that kettle- holder I know it my profoundest apologies my diffusest thanks and my expression of enhanced admiration for your great and versatile powers. Please forgive me if I don't write more, as I am working at a chorus [for Narcissus] which interests me very much, and I want to set a bit straight before I go up to Jones's: The words are : O Speculation ! horrid fiend, Full well we know thee now, The mask that erst thy features screened Has fallen from thy brow. Believe me, Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. 428 MISS SAVAGE'S DUET xxm Butler to Miss Savage. 1884 12 November 1884 You can do anything. Please write me Act. 48 a n j ce Juei- (i mean the words) for my cantata that is to say for our cantata. Will you write all the rest of the words for us ? Shall I send you what we have done ? Miss Savage to Butler. 13 Nov. 1884 I should very much like to have all your libretto to read, and if, in order to have it, it is necessary to say I will write a duet for you, why I will say so. Between friends such as you and me, what is one little lie more or less ? But you know I can't write verse, though I can make kettle-holders. Miss Savage to Butler. 1 8 Nov. 1884 I return the libretto with a great many thanks. It is delightful, and as the music I have heard is also delightful the next thing to wish for is a performance of it. Are there singers who will be able to render its peculiar humour ? I think I like Amaryllis's last song the best no, the introduction to the second part and the messenger's good advice in the first ; but they are all so nice it is not easy to have a preference. Miss Savage to Butler. 1 8 Nov. 1884 After several sleepless nights and catching a dreadful cold in my head I have written a duet for you which I enclose. [There was no duet enclosed.] It is not good enough for a composer who imitates Handel, but it may do for one who imitates Macfarren, we will say. If you know any such, you can give it to him. I hope you are better and are resting as much as you can. How is your dear cat ? Mine is so stupid. She does not even know how to catch rats and mice. Our servant says she catches them by the tail, instead of at the back of the neck. What is to be done with her ? P.S. What do you think I am being bothered about now ? A Concert for Christian Young Women. A young friend of mine who plays very nicely is the pianist and she has come to me to beseech me to try and get a violinist. Sir Andrew and xxm MR. AND MRS. CARLYLE 429 Lady Clark are the promoters of the concert j he is a man I 1884 don't like, for he might have killed Mr. Gladstone a dozen times Act. 48 over, and has not ; I can't hold him in any respect. [He was Mr. Gladstone's physician.] I have been reading the Queen's book. There are here and there some nice bits in it ; here is one. She is visiting at the Duke of Argyle's and goes into a room where, years ago, she had seen the Marquis of Lome as a child. " And now," she says, " I return to it, alas ! without my beloved husband, to find Lome my son-in-law ! " The unexpectedness of the blow must make it so much the worse to bear. Are you not glad that Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle were married to one another and not to other people ? They certainly were justly formed to meet by nature. I was provoked last night by the nonsense some people were talking about him, and, as they went on to excuse his bad temper on account of his bad diges- tion, I said that probably his bad digestion should be excused on account of his bad temper, as probably he had been born with a bad temper, but that bad digestions were generally made (I remember Erewhon you see). I did not mean to say anything against the Queen. She is a person absolutely without affectation. I was induced to read her book from reading extracts from it in the Paris Figaro ; but there is some difference between the French of a practised writer in the Figaro and the English of the poor Queen. Butler to Miss Savage. 21 Nov. 1884 Where is that duet ? It never came neither with your note nor with my MS., and Jones and I are pining for it. Yes, it was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four, besides being very amusing. My cat has disappeared this two days. He has disappeared before now, but rarely for so long, and I am getting anxious about him. . . . Don't offer me your cat. If my cat does not come back I don't mean to have a cat for some time. Jones has a real little love of a cat, and when my mice get bad I will fetch it down here for a day or two. Where is that duet ? My brother Edward was born in 1859. He matured mentally earlier than I did, so that the difference of eight years in our ages did not prevent our being intimate 430 EDWARD JAMES JONES xxm 1884 friends and companions. He often joined us in our Aet- 48 Sunday walks, and Butler had a high opinion of him. His interests were scientific ; he passed through the School of Mines, studied at Wiesbaden, Zurich, and Wilrzburg, and in November 1880 obtained an appointment on the Geological Survey of India. He died at Darjeeling in 1889. In 1884 he was in India, and Butler wrote him a long letter from which I give extracts. The principal omission I have made is an account of Butler's joining my family in the Engadine in the preceding August, and this I have used to refresh my memory in writing the opening of this chapter. Butler to Edward James Jones. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. Nov. 6th, 1884. DEAR TED At last I write, and I have been meaning to do so for a long time, but I am not what I used to be. Whether work or worry or increasing years is the chief offender, or whether it is all three combined I do not know, but I don't feel up to much ; my eyes are heavy and tire with very little. I get bad noises in my head on falling asleep if I do more than a very moderate amount of work ; altogether I am low, and though, if the luck were to turn, I should, I believe, get right again before very long, the luck is a long while in turning, and, in the mean time, I am keeping quiet and avoiding all writing that I can. I expect this music which I and your brother are doing has a good deal to do with it. I am rather old to start in a new line, and I daresay when this becomes less of a strain I shall feel better, but the great remedy I want is one prescribed by homoeopathists, " aurum " only I want it in larger doses. . . . In Unconscious Memory I said that we should start with life, not death, as we could never smuggle life in if we started without it. This was badly put, for we can no more smuggle death in than life, if we start without it. We must start with matter eternally both alive and dead at the same time. This will be very nice, will it not ? We must see life and death as we see heat and cold, never either of them absolute, but in the highest life still some death, and in the lowest death still some life. The greatest heat and cold we know of can always be imagined as becoming a little hotter and colder, which means that there is a little cold even in the highest heat we can deal with. There is XXIII LIFE AND DEATH 431 no such thing as either perfect life or perfect death. And the 1884 personal identity between the dying man and the corpse is quite as Act. 48 close as that between the embryo at a day old and the same embryo at three months. True, there is a great change, but every change is pro tanto a death, and death is only a very big change after which we change our ways of looking at things so completely that the new life has no more in common with the old than our present has with our embryonic. The change is, indeed, more sudden than most other changes ; but it is neither so sudden nor so complete as to admit of no sub- division whatever, and, if so, there is gradation, and the con- tinuation of identity between life and death (I mean between the dying man and the corpse) goes on all fours with all other changes j so that you must either deny personal identity, as we are accustomed to think of it, or else in the end deny, not death in a modified sense, but certainly death as the end of the individual. Strictly speaking, the individual is born and dies from moment to moment ; that is to say, he is never an individual at all except during the present moment which present moment has no logical existence, but lives on the sufferance of times past and present. Any change is a kind of death, and this is why it is so rude of our friends to notice changes in us. That life is closely connected with memory may be seen in the fact that death is so closely connected with forgetfulness. Hence the ancients called their river of death Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness. Also we know the closeness of the analogy between growth, the repair of wasted tissues, and reproduction j they are only phases of the same thing. It is curious that this analogy extends to the mental condition which precedes both eating and the act of generation ; in each case there is an appetite a strong desire to unify some foreign body with ourselves as closely as possible. Love involves an effort after identifying something with ourselves, which ends either in assimilation, by eating, or in connection and reproduction and, consequently, in assimilation after all. Even the desire to pat a horse or dog is a pro tanto effort after physical unification. When we love we desire to draw what we love as closely to us as we can ; when we hate we push what we hate away as far as we can. All affinity is a mode of loving, all dissolution a mode of hating. It is curious that we use the same words for the appetite of eating and for that of reproduction. We say we love roast beef and we should like to have roast beef. The residuous parts are also analogous in eating and reproduction in the one case, faeces ; in the other, afterbirth. Also unity and separateness are a puzzle. When is " a thing " a thing at all ? If you go down to your atoms and get them quite 432 MEMORY AND MISTAKES xxm 1884 separate, without a particle of unity with anything else, you can Act. 48 never afterwards get them to join with any other atom ; again, if you once get them perfectly united you can never disjoin them. In the most complete isolation there must be still a little union and linking on to something else. In the most complete union there must lurk a germ of disunion as with heat and cold and life and death. It is only by looking at it thus that we can see the universe either as one thing or as a number of things, and this is how we have got to see it. There ! so much for the present. I met an nice Italian boy this summer who talked English. He said he liked English literature very much ; but the thing which pleased him most was Hey diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon. They had nothing in Italian literature so good as this. By the way mind and matter ; we say an opinion touches us. When Shakespeare said, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," I suspect he was about right. Mind and matter, too, are like heat and cold. Mrs. Boss has a friend, a certain Mrs. Willie. The other day she said : " Willie, you've had three husbands, you ought to know the in's and out's of everything ; you've tackled three men. I've no patience with you ; you've been and sold your bed over in the Blackfriars Road for three shillings." As for memory and mistakes mistakes occur mainly in two ways. One, when the circumstances have changed, but not enough to make us recognise the fact (either through want of attention, or the hidden nature of the alteration, or through the importance of the alteration depending on relations which have escaped us, and which make an alteration, slight in itself, preg- nant with much difference), and the memory reverts to the old circumstances unmodified, being carried away by the number of the associated ideas that present themselves, and assuming the remainder ; and hence follows a want of harmony between action and circumstances, which gives trouble. Secondly, mistakes occur through the memory not returning in full force though the circumstances are unchanged. But in either case it is the memory that is at fault. I have no doubt I have written a great deal of rot in this letter, but I can't read it over again. Your brother is pretty well now. We are very much in- terested in the music we are writing. It is very funny. If I can live and work a few years longer, I expect. I shall write a good ALFRED TYLOR'S PAPER 433 deal of music henceforward. My father hangs on ; he never has 1884 fully recovered from his illness of a year ago, but he is not actively Act. 49 ill just now. Your brother went to church the other day, and the psalm was " The Lord is King, the earth may be glad thereof: yea, the multitude of the isles may be glad thereof." I was so angry that I had not seen this myself, but I don't think as much about the Psalms as perhaps I ought. Take great care of yourself. We think a lot of you and about you, and shall be very glad to have you back. Believe me, very truly yours, S. BUTLER. The reader may remember that the substance of part of this letter is reproduced in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912). He will also perhaps remember, in the Note-Books^ Silvio, the Italian boy at Soglio, who took such an intelligent interest in English literature. He will also recognise Mrs. Boss. I do not know, but I have a fancy that this Mrs. Willie was the old woman who lodged across the river, in the Old Kent Road, and was the only person living who knew Boss's age. Mr. Tylor was to read a paper on the 4th December 1884 before the Linnean Society "On the Growth of Trees and Protoplasmic Continuity," J and this paper was to embody the results of his experiments at Carshalton. He asked Butler to speak in the discussion which was expected to follow. Butler, of course, agreed, and they talked over what he was to say. Mr. Tylor was un- fortunately too ill to be present, and the paper was to be read by his friend, Mr. Sydney B. J. Skertchley. Butler took me with him to the meeting, and the following account of it is condensed from a note he made and from a letter to his father. AT THE LINNEAN SOCIETY In the Lecture Room we found Skertchley, and on the daYs sat Carruthers, the chairman, with Romanes, the zoological secretary, and Jackson, the botanical secretary, on his left and right hands respectively. Instead of letting Mr. Tylor have the whole evening, the proceedings began with some dry remarks by Mr. Thiselton Dyer. I did not understand, nor want to under- 1 It was published under the same title in book form by Stanford in 1886. VOL. I 2 F 434 AT THE LINNEAN SOCIETY xxm 1884 stand them, and they tired people, for they were dull and delivered Act. 49 in a dull way. Then followed a Dr. Day who read a paper about the distribution of fishes in India, very dull indeed and tiring. When he had done he rolled up his paper and put his hand impressively upon the table, saying : " And this, sir, is my Redistribution Bill." Which was a joke, for the Redistribution Bill was then before Parliament. A discussion followed, not long, but enough to help to tire. Then, at last, part of Tylor's paper was read, by the botanical secretary not by Skertchley, for this was at the last moment refused ; and moreover only the part dealing with the growth or trees was read all about protoplasmic continuity in the new wood of trees and throughout the cellular tissue of plants was cut out as being too speculative for the Linnean Society, which cannot even look through a microscope and say what it sees till some years after outsiders have told it what it ought to see so that all the backbone was taken out of the paper ; and so little was read that it took only seven minutes whereas it should have lasted an hour. Skertchley exhibited the illustrations with the magic lantern, wasting no time or words, and doing everything that could be done very well, but the audience were un- sympathetic. Tylor wanted me to be the first, or among the first, to speak in the discussion, because speakers are apt to follow suit, and if one begins to object another follows. So as soon as the paper was done I got up and said the little I had arranged to say which was mainly what I said in Alps and Sanctuaries (close of chapter xiii.) about the reason why life split up into the two great divisions of animals and vegetables. I suppose I spoke for about six minutes, introducing as much of the omitted protoplasmic continuity as time would allow and, of course, ascribing it all to Tylor. Soon after I had begun to speak Jackson whispered to Skertchley : "Who is this?" Skertchley wrote on a slip of paper, "S. Butler: Life and Habit" Jackson said : " Oh, good Lord ! my poor fellow-secretary ! " and nothing more except a little laugh and a look at his fellow-secretary as much as to say, " Won't Romanes be furious ! " After I had done, someone made a few remarks about John Hunter, but there was no discussion. Then Salter, the dentist (that was), who is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Linnean also, came up and said to me : " Every word you said was absolutely true, but you must not expect people here to pay attention to it." xxm TYLOR'S EXPERIMENTS 435 Also Seebohm, the birds' egg man, who is a member of the 1884 Council of the Linnean Society, came up, introduced himself Aet - 49 and said he had been much interested and would like to hear more. He had already made advances to me through a third person on the score of Life and Habit. He asked me to dinner, and I was very glad to accept the invitation. Then I went down to Carshalton to see Mr. Tylor who, I am afraid there is no doubt, is dying, but he wished to see me and to hear about the meeting. He is cut up because they burked him and, indeed, they did not use him fairly. However, I said for him the very thing they omitted from his paper, and did the very thing which Romanes was most anxious should not be done. Butler to Miss Savage. \\th December 1884 I think it was rather fun my going to the Linnean and propounding to them a theory of the reason why life split itself up into animal and vegetable. . . . There was a little notice of Tyler's lecture written by me in The Times of yesterday week. Tylor asked me to write and so I did, and he sent it to The Times man himself. From Butler s notice of Tylor s paper in The Times, 6th December 1884. Mr. Tylor's chief object was to show the principles that underlie the individuality of plants, and to prove that plants have a dim sort of intelligence and are not merely an aggregation of tissues responsive to the direct influence of light. Not only this, but that the tree, as a whole, knows more than its branches, just as the species knows more than the individual, and the community than the unit. The result of Mr. Tylor's experiments, which have extended over many years, has been to show that many plants and trees can adapt themselves to unfamiliar circumstances, such as avoiding obstacles artificially placed in their way by bending aside before touching, or by altering the leaf arrange- ments, so that at least as much voluntary power must be accorded to such plants as to certain lowly organised animals. Finally, Mr. Tylor contends that a connecting system, by means of which combined movements take place, is to be found in the threads of protoplasm which unite the various cells, and that this connecting system is found even in the new wood of trees. He has also observed that the new wood of nearly all trees points upward but that year after year it changes its direction, showing much mobility. 436 DRAIN-PIPES XXIII 1884 Butler went to dinner at Mr. Seebohm's where he met Act. 49 Skertchley, who told them about a rat-trap invented by Mr. Tylor's coachman. DUNKETT'S RAT-TRAP Mr. Dunkett found all his traps fail one after another, and was in such despair at the way the corn got eaten that he resolved to invent a rat-trap. He began by putting himself as nearly as possible in the rat's place. " Is there anything," he asked himself, " in which, if I were a rat, I should have such complete confidence that I could not suspect it without suspecting everything in the world and being unable henceforth to move fearlessly in any direction ? " He pondered for a while and had no answer, till one night the room seemed to become full of light and he heard a voice from heaven saying : " Drain-pipes." Then he saw his way. To suspect a common drain-pipe would be to cease to be a rat. Here Skertchley enlarged a little, explaining that a spring was to be concealed inside, but that the pipe was to be open at both ends ; if the pipe were closed at one end, a rat would naturally not like going into it, for he would not feel sure of being able to get out again j on which I interrupted and said : "Ah, it was just this which stopped me from going into the Church." When he told me this I knew what was in his mind, and that, if he had not been in such respectable company, he would have said : " It was just this which stopped me from getting married." Miss Savage to Butler. (Postcard). 22 BEAUMONT STREET. Monday, Dec. i$th, 1884. I write to inform you that I have made twelve kettle-holders for the Christian Young Women, and they are to be sold at their Bazaar tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday. I am not vindictive, but I wish you to know that I have made twelve Christian kettle-holders to be cast loose on society, like the twelve Apostles. MADOX BROWN 437 Butler to Miss Butler. 20 Dec. 1884 I have just come back from an At Home at the William Rossettis. I did not know them, but Mrs. Rossetti Act. 49 sent me an invitation and said her father, Madox Brown (the painter), would be there and would much like to see me. I used to know the Madox Browns, but found that, if they gave me a bun at all, they wanted me to climb my pole too much and too often before they would let me have it, and it was not a good bun when it came ; so on my return from America I did not call, but let the acquaintance drop. In the meantime Oliver Madox Brown had died, and I was supposed not to be so sorry as I ought to have been, the fact being that I hardly knew him at all beyond his calling on me sometimes and reading me his MS. novels, which bored me very much. I don't mind reading my own MSS. to people but I don't like being read to, and I did not like either young Brown or his novels ; besides, as soon as I began to read any of my MS. he used to go, and, indeed, this was the only way I had of getting rid of him. 1 Perhaps, then, I did not feel his loss so acutely as I ought to have done. However, two years or so ago old Madox Brown, the father, wrote me a letter asking if I had any letters of his son's as they wanted them for a biography. I don't know whether he ever wrote me a letter or no, at any rate I had none ; but I took the opportunity to write prettily about the loss literature had sustained, etc., and the old man wrote me back an answer which showed that my letter had pleased him, and said something about silent equivoques. I did not quite understand it, but he spelt the word with a k (equivokes), and it was rather touching, for I knew he had been very proud and hopeful about his son. So when Mrs. Rossetti wrote me thus, I thought I ought to go, and did. There was old Madox Brown, and I went up and said how glad I was to meet him, but he did not respond as I had expected ; in fact, he snubbed me ; he would not know who I was, and I had to tell him, and remind him of our correspondence. " Oh yes," said he, " I remember there was something but I forget how it all ended." And his manner was distinctly repellent, so I immediately left him. Either Mrs. Rossetti had never consulted her father about the matter, or he had had me sent for on purpose to be rude to me I should think the former. She probably wanted me to come to her At Home, and knew that what she said would be an appeal, as it 1 " Did she [Penelope] ever read them [the suitors] any of her grandfather's letters ? Did she sing them her own songs, or play them music of her own composition ? I have always found these courses successful when I wanted to get rid of people." The Authoress of the Odyssey, chap. v. p. 130. 438 DEATH OF ALFRED TYLOR x n 1884 were, to my feelings which I should not find it easy to resist, and et 49 so sa J(J ft without more ado. Then I found myself knowing no one in the room, introduced to no one, and accordingly very soon went. Before I did so, I had a few words with the painter Rossetti. I said how beautiful his pictures were ; in reality I hate them, but I did all as I should, and it was accepted as about what I ought to have said. There was a portrait of Professor Fawcett on the walls and I, referring to it, said something about the loss we had all sustained in his recent death. Rossetti did not quite catch that I was talk- ing about Professor Fawcett and immediately turned it on to Oliver Madox Brown, so I let it stand thus and listened to a sustained panegyric on the great " might have been." Then I went away bored and ruffled. I left a card a few days later, but did not go in, and have not been asked since. They belong to a set from which it is perfectly hopeless for me to think I shall get any good the ultra-aesthetic and cul- tured people, and I don't mean to follow this up ; the Tylors and Mr. Seebohm are their very opposites, and I will cultivate them to the best of my power. I saw Mr. Tylor last Sunday at Carshalton and Mrs. Tylor says he would like to see me again to-morrow, so I shall go. He is sinking fast and I fear cannot last long. I am extremely sorry. This is from Butler's Note-Book : MR. TYLOR Mr. Tylor died on the 3151 December 1884. We knew he was dying, and I promised to inscribe my next book to him, which seemed to give him great pleasure. Very few people have ever taken so warmly and instinctively to me as he did, and his death, though clearly enough foreseen, was a great blow to me. I remember the last time I saw him he was in bed at Carshalton and said, with tears in his eyes : " When I heard the wind blowing so hard in the night I said : c It will be a stormy day to-morrow and perhaps he will not come ' ; but it is a stormy day and you have come." Butler's brother, Thomas, was known to be travelling, but nothing had been heard from him for a considerable time, and his wife and family had become anxious, when news came towards the end of January 1885 that he had died in Corsica on the 3Oth November 1884. This entailed additional work for Butler, who was one of the trustees of his brother's marriage settlement. xxm DEATH OF MISS SAVAGE 439 Butler to Miss Savage. 15 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.G. 10 Feb. 1885. DEAR Miss SAVAGE How are you ? It is a long time since 1885 you wrote and it was your turn ; a letter from me crossed a post Act. 49 card from you, and I consider that I have been most patient in waiting so long before writing to protest against your continued silence. I have lost my brother, so you see some of us do die some- times. . . . My father remains much in statu quo, but he has never recovered the ground he lost last November ; still he gets driven to church in a fly, and is not acutely ill. How is your mamma ? I don't write on black edged paper because you would think that I had become an orphan ; but next time I write you will know, so I shall use black edged paper. I am overworked and low, my neck is full and troublesome, and this always means that I am doing too much, but then I have got too much to do. I cannot help it. I lost my friend Mr. Tylor at the end of December. Curious ! as soon as I got a really useful friend, able and willing to back me, he^ poor man, as soon as he came " to know me well " " was sure to die." Those people have died who ought not to have died, and those people who ought to have died have not died, and there is no sense of propriety in them. The same applies to you, only much more ; for you have ten times more cause to grumble than I have, and you don't grumble half so much. Indeed, you don't grumble at all. Jones's and my minuets and fugues, etc. will be out next week ; you must come and fetch your copy. The cantata, which, by the way, is not a cantata but an oratorio buffo, grows. I have written two beautiful choruses lately for it, and a sweet little air. My book [Luck or Cunning ?"] is going to be my best at least I think so, but I find it extremely difficult. No more at present. Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. To his dismay, Butler received in reply a letter from a doctor saying that Miss Savage was in St. Mary's Hospital, where she had undergone an operation ; she was cheerful and wished him to know that she was going on well. But on the 23rd February came another letter telling him that she had died the preceding night. 440 MISS SAVAGE'S FUNERAL , Butler to Mrs. Bridges. jgg. 24 February 1885 Thank you for your letter received Act. 49 yesterday evening. I send a few lines of answer but I received such a shock last night that I hardly know how to write. I have lost my friend Miss Savage, whom you have often heard me speak of, and no words of mine can express how great this loss is. I did not even know that she was ill till a week or so ago I heard that she had undergone an operation. I had thought it odd that I heard nothing and wrote to enquire, but I was not told that the operation was dangerous and now all is over. She died in the hospital whither she had been taken from her father's house for better treatment. When first I came to know her, nearly twenty years ago, she was lame and suffering from what I supposed to be hip-disease ; the lameness constantly increased and of late I had seen that she walked with great difficulty. I have no doubt that the operation was in connection with this. I never knew any woman to approach her at once for brilliancy and goodness. She was the most heroically uncomplaining sufferer I ever met, and the most unselfish. It is not that I saw much of her this I did not but we were in constant communication and, happily, for the last ten years I have preserved everything that she wrote and she wrote nothing that was not worth preserving. It is out of the question that I can ever replace her. I have it in my power, and am thankful to think of this, to leave a memorial of her, traced chiefly by her own hand, which will show what manner of woman she was ; but it is one which cannot possibly be made public till I have long followed her. I had rather that you none of you alluded to this letter. When I come down next I shall probably speak of her, if I do so at all, much as I have always done. But you none of you probably had any idea, and indeed cannot possibly have had any idea, how much I valued her. For the moment I am incapable of thinking of any other subject. Miss SAVAGE'S FUNERAL She was buried on Saturday, February 28th 1885, at Finchley, in the cemetery for the parish of Saint Marylebone. It was a lovely soft spring afternoon ; during the whole time of the funeral the sun was shining and the birds singing. Miss Collingridge was there, Mrs. Gaston, Miss Massey, Miss New- some, an old servant and myself. Her father, uncle, and the other gentlemen came in the undertaker's mourning carriage. ANOTHER GRAVE 441 These were all. I was not asked to attend ; I found out from 1885 Miss Collingridge when the funeral was to be, and went. There Act. 49 were few of us only ; but we were all of a mind that Miss Savage could never be replaced. I felt that I was attending the funeral of incomparably the best and most remarkable woman I have ever known. Happy she never was j but I will say more of this at another time. Immediately following this note comes another which begins : " There is one neglected grave with a grim, gaunt, mould-grown headstone, looking wicked all over, on which is written : ' Near this spot lies interred ' here follow particulars of a lady " cut off by a mysterious accident" in October 1867 ; her death having been thus established, the inscription concludes with these two texts : " Have mercy upon me O Lord, thou son of David." " Behold I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of Hell and of Death." Upon this Butler makes the following comment : If a corpse can drink, I am sure this one does, and am also sure that if she has the keys of Hell and of Death, she is not at all a fit person to be entrusted with them. Butler to Humphrey Baskerville Savage. i March 1885. DEAR SIR I venture to ask whether any letters of mine exist among Miss Savage's papers ; if so, I should be very glad if you would let me have them. I think it most likely that Miss Savage did not keep any letters of mine ; but, with her know- ledge and consent, I kept everything that she wrote me for many years past. I did this partly from the profound admiration I had for her and partly because I knew she was little likely to leave any record of her daily life other than what is to be found in her letters. Letters from me would serve to explain many an allusion in her own which would otherwise be unintelligible, and it is for this reason only that I am anxious, if she has preserved any, to have them so that I may place them among hers in proper order. The letters on either side contained nothing but the merest gossip, but I have thought and think she had a certain pleasure in 442 MISS SAVAGE'S LETTERS xxm knowing I should take good care that what she wrote me should Act. 49 not be lost. [I do not think this now, and doubt whether I ever really thought it. I believe she wrote for the mere pleasure of writing and also to give pleasure to me. I do not think it ever crossed her mind that I should edit her letters as I have now done. S. B. Jan. 2yth 1902.] Her letters form a collection the like of which I have never elsewhere seen, but I ought to explain that, although they will be carefully preserved, they will certainly not be published. With every expression of the deepest sympathy with Mrs. Savage and yourself, I am, yours faithfully, S. BUTLER. [A very few letters were returned to me at once. The rest were not returned till about two years later without note or comment of any kind. I read some and was pained to see how meagre and how egotistical they were. I tore them up whole- sale, but, when I had torn till I was tired, it struck me that I might want them when I came to edit Miss Savage's, so I let the others be. S. B. Jan. 2fth 1902.] It is evident from the way Butler wrote to his sisters about Miss Savage's letters, from the care with which he edited them, and from the manner in which he used to speak of them, that he looked forward to their being pub- lished some day. This being so, it is difficult to reconcile his words to her father, " her letters will certainly not be published," with his words to Mrs. Bridges (23 Feb. 1885) that they "cannot be made public till I have long followed her." I suppose he intended Mr. Savage to understand that he had no intention of publishing the letters in his own lifetime. As I have said elsewhere, I have made enquiries and, so far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no one now living who could or would object to the publication of the letters ; and I think most of my readers will agree with Butler's estimate of them. Butler to Miss Butler. 4 March 1885 I attended Miss Savage's funeral on Saturday a very sad business. I find she died of blood poisoning after an operation for cancer, and I am told also that she was suffering from creeping paralysis. She did not, happily, suffer during the short interval between the operation and her death, and made all those about her believe that she fully thought she was going to XXIII GHOSTS 443 recover but she would do this whatever she thought. The day 1885 before she died she said the first thing she should do when she Aet - 49 got out would be to support the School Board, for the noise the children had made had, she said, prolonged her illness for at least forty-eight hours, and she was determined to crush all the vitality out of them. This, which of course was playfully said, was the nearest thing to a complaint she made, and the sisters who attended her said it was a pleasure to have anything to do with her, she was always so cheerful and grateful. Towards the end she began to wander, became unconscious, and died most tran- quilly. For herself this is no doubt best, but to those who knew her as I did the loss is simply irreparable. I do everything just as if nothing had happened, but in reality I can think of nothing else. GHOSTS It is a mercy that the dead cannot come back and haunt us while we are alive not but what a good many dead people, as William Sefton Moorhouse and Miss Savage, not to mention others, haunt me every day of my life. I do not suppose a day ever passes but it comes up to me with a stab that these people were kinder and better friends to me than I to them however, let that be. [1895.] This reference to Moorhouse may remind the reader of a passage at the close of chapter x. (p. 1 70, ante) about the calling in by Butler of his New Zealand money, which was lent on mortgage to Moorhouse. From the point of view of the ordinary man of the world he had no more reason to reproach himself for his conduct towards Miss Savage than for his conduct towards Moorhouse. But his notions of honour were not identical with those of the ordinary man of the world. Soon after Miss Savage's death I asked him if he had ever proposed to her. He replied that he had not. His financial position, compli- cated by the claims which he considered Pauli to have on him, put marriage with anyone out of the question. I felt sure at the time that his answer would be in the negative, and since his death I have found this among his notes : It may almost appear as though I had been in love with her, but I never was and never pretended to be. I valued her, but she perfectly understood that I could do no more. I can never think of her without pain. 444 BOREDOM xxm 1885 His saying that she perfectly understood he could do Aet - 49 no more does not mean that they had talked the matter over ; it means that he took it for granted she under- stood. At least, I do not believe they ever spoke together openly upon the subject. I have, however, often wondered whether something may not have passed some word, glance, gesture the memory of which was in his mind when he made those notes on the letters of December 1875 (ante, pp. 224-227), and when he wrote that she perfectly understood. It was an irony of Fate that the author of Erewhon, a book which glorifies health and beauty, should be for so many years so closely allied with one who had no claim to either beauty or health. He admired her unselfishness, her goodness, her brilliancy ; he was deeply touched by her devotion to him ; he valued her more than any other woman ; her loss was irreparable nevertheless, as he says (ante, p. 227) in the note which follows her letter of 1 8th December 1875, sne b re cl him. In the matter of boredom, however, Butler had rather a facility ; he re- sembled his own potato in Alps and Sanctuaries, chap. iv. : " For the potato, so far as I have studied it, is a good- tempered, frivolous plant easily amused and easily bored, and one, moreover, which, if bored, yawns horribly." I fear that, even if Miss Savage had had the beauty of Isabella, intimate relations would still have led to boredom. Much as he delighted in her letters, they all had to be answered, and he wanted to get on with his own work. Again, Miss Savage was interested in her club and in her women friends, and he was not, except in so far as they were her interests. His primary interests, on the other hand, were only secondary interests to her. He wanted time and freedom from interruption for writing his books as he says in his letter of the ist February 1884 (ante, p. 404) to Miss Butler: "My books are to me much the most important thing in life. They are, in fact, ' me ' much more than anything else." The notes of exclamation which he interpolated after " My dear little Gabrielle Vaillant " and after " She shall play Beethoven's ' Romance in F * for you " in her letter xxm DISCONTENT AND REMORSE 445 of 1 5th December 1875 ( ante > P 22 5) are as eloquent as 1885 though he had written : " Fancy Miss Savage thinking et ' 49 she could catch me with Gabrielle Vaillant and Beethoven's ' Romance in F ' !" and betray an incompatibility of tastes that might have led through boredom to something more serious than yawning. He realised this. He had no doubt that Miss Savage would have accepted him if he had proposed marriage, but rather than marry her he would have preferred that all his troubles should be multiplied a hundredfold. True, there would have been fewer letters to answer, but there would have been even more serious interruptions. My own impression is that, if he had proposed marriage during the early years of their friendship, she would have accepted him ; but I doubt whether she would have done so later. He speaks of the cause of her lameness as hip-disease ; I do not think he ever knew for certain ; but she probably knew and, sooner or later, she must have been aware that she had cancer, if not that she was threatened with paralysis. She must in time have become convinced that he had no desire to marry her ; her common sense must have suggested the wisdom of accepting the situation ; it would also suggest com- pensations ; and it probably crossed her mind that Butler was not the sort of man to make an ideal husband for an invalid wife. There are some who ought not to marry for physical reasons ; there are others who ought not to marry for mental reasons. If, however, we are to see mind and matter never either of them absolute but each eternally permeated by the other, according to Butler's letter to my brother Edward, perhaps the dis- tinction is scarcely worth making. So their friendship drifted on, she offering him all she had to give, he taking all he wanted and making such return as he could, but despising himself, unhappy and discontented because he could not give the one thing which he believed her to be asking ; and all the time puzzled and wondering whether he was not misjudging her. Suddenly the strain was removed, and his discontent was changed into remorse which deepened as the years 446 MISS SAVAGE'S GRAVE xxm 1885 rolled on. Within a few months of his own death he Act. 49 ^tempted to express his regret and penitence in two sonnets and some scraps of verse, which are referred to more fully later ; among the scraps will be found this beautiful and pathetic line : Death bound me to her when he set me free. In November 1915 I spent a few melancholy hours journeying to Finchley and prowling among the tombs. I found the headstone of the lady who was cut off by a mysterious accident. It was still grim, gaunt, mould- grown, and looking wicked all over ; but during the intervening period of neglect it had added other qualities. It was sinking into the earth as though ashamed of itself ; nothing was visible below the top foot and a half or so, and I had to grope and probe among the grass with my umbrella before I could be certain of the last line of the inscription. In a few more years the keys of Hell and of Death will be interred under the surface ; and in time the whole stone will have gone below to join the corpse whose mouthpiece it has been for half a century. Miss Savage's tombstone is a plain upright slab ; it had begun to scale and the writing was in some parts difficult, in one part impossible, to read. This is what I made of it : IN LOVING MEMORY OF ELIZA MARY ANN DAUGHTER OF HUMPHREY AND ANN SAVAGE OF BEAUMONT STREET MARYLEBONE WHO DIED 22ND FEB. 1885 AGED 49 YEARS " SHE SOUGHT NOT HER OWN "... XII C 5* ALSO OF ANN MOTHER OF THE ABOVE AND THE BELOVED WIFE OF H. SAVAGE WHO DIED 8TH FEB. 1 886 AGED "JJ YEARS "AWAITING UNTIL THE DAY DAWN AND THB LIGHT APPEARETH." XXIII HER EPITAPH 447 It will be observed that Mr. Savage was not buried l88 5 with his wife and daughter ; Julius Bertram told me that he left London and ended his days in the country. I did not recognise the quotation, " She sought not her own," and what should have been the reference to some book of the Bible gave no help. I was puzzled, and carried my difficulty to Streatfeild, who made a suggestion which led to the solution. In the place where I have put three dots the stone shows nothing but a few scratches all that is now left of what must originally have been " i Cor." I returned to the cemetery to make sure about the XII C , fearing I might have copied it wrong. The stone just there is unbroken, and the XII C is as clear as can be ; but it must be a mistake for XIIP. The fifth verse of this chapter contains these words : " Seeketh not her own." It is the chapter about Charity ; and I thought of that passage in Life and Habit where Butler says : Above all things let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in me. In that I write at all I am among the damned. If he must believe in anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of Giovanni Bellini, and in the Thirteenth Chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. On the death of Alethea in The Way of All Flesh (ch. xxxvi.) Edward Overton asks Ernest if he can help him to find a few bars of music for " the plain upright slab " which he set up to her memory. Ernest replies that the best bit he can think of is the subject of the last of Handel's six grand fugues. It would do better for a man, especially for an old man who was very sorry for things, than for a woman, but I cannot think of anything better ; if you do not like it for Aunt Alethea, I shall keep it for myself. Butler used to call this fugue " The Old Man Fugue," and he wished to have the subject inscribed on his own grave. That is the reason why I have placed it upon the title-page of this Memoir. If the prototype of Ernest had been asked to suggest a few words from the Bible for the epitaph of the proto- 44 8 IN MEMORIAM E. M. A. S. XX m 1885 type of Alethea, we may assume that he would have taken Act. 49 care to g- ye jj^ re f erence correctly, and he would have avoided the awkwardness of conjugating the text. Also, nothing is more likely than that he would have sought for the words in that chapter which, notwithstanding its authorship, he considered worthy to be ranked with the music of Handel and the painting of Giovanni Bellini. We may be sure, however, that he was not consulted he was not even invited to the funeral. No doubt it was Mr. and Mrs. Savage who, while intending no more than to record the unselfishness of their daughter, unconsciously associated Butler with her memory. While they were composing the epitaph Butler was consciously planning to associate Miss Savage with his own work, that is with our album of Gavottes, Minuets, Fugues, etc., which we had been seeing through the press during the winter. He felt sure she would have been pleased, and would have approved of his desire that our music should contain some reference to her. There was nothing of his that had any feeling of sadness, so we chose what we used to call my " miserable fugue " in C. We never thought it worthy of her, but we wrote at the head of it " In Memoriam E. M. A. S.," and there was only just time to do so, for the book was all but ready for publication. END OF VOL. 1 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh* DATE DUE y\ MAY 1 "l MAY 3 72 7 1972 RECT YRLJUN OTB" PRINTED IN U.S.A. REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000664132 8