Samuel Butler—of England and N.Z.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 July 1927, Page 14

Samuel Butler —of England and N.Z.

Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Death of “Genial Old Savage”

1 QUARTER of a century ago, on June 18, that genial old savage, Samuel Butler, died. Most New Zealanders who read at all widely know something of him, and their interest is strengthened by the fact that he lived for about five years, and doubled his fortune of £4,000. on his sheep station, "M sopotamia,” in Canterbury. He was already in those early days an ardent admirer of Haiidel, his lifelong musical idol, and a student of evolutionary science, and when he returned to England in 1864, at the age of 29, he lost no time in getting to work on the series of books which were to make him the foremost intellectual outlaw of late Victorian England. Outlawed he certainly was: for though he swam strongiy on the rising tide of science,

and attacked bitterly anything in religious doctrine that looked irrational or smelt of obscurantism and superstition, he was at no pains to keep in favour with the evolutionists and scientists themselves In consequence he found himself condemned by both. "He first antagonised the theologians,” Mr. C. E. M. Joad says in his book on Butler “by making fund of their God as a priestly creation made by man in his own image to get him out of his scrapes, take his side in his quarrels, bear the responsibility for liis misdemeanours, and make things uncomfortable for his enemies, and then antagonised the men of science by refusing to accept the mechanical universe within which they sought to confine the variety and multiplicity of life. In an age when every man was on the side of the apes or the angels, Butler sided with neither.” He was fortunate in one particular. Tn all his records and writings there is hardly a line to show that he was even mildly interested in practical politics. Had he been, it is certain that he would have trod just as heavily on the corns of all parties concerned, as he did in the domain of science, and one hesitates to think what would have happened. There is good reason for believing that the attitude Butler came to adopt in regard to contemporary thought was not one which came naturallv to him. ‘‘l am,” he said, “the enfant terrible of literature and science. If

i j I cannot, and I know I cannot, get , the literary and scientific bigwigs to - give me a shilling, I can. and I know r I can, heave bricks into the middle of t them.” As he virtually admits, he ? tried orthodoxy first, and turned l against it because it turned against ) him. Mr. Joad sums the position up: - “The mischievous destructiveness for • which Butler is so famous to-day was, , in fact, a comparatively late and en- - tirely incidental development of liis i genius, and it was developed as the t crab develops its shell, for purposes of • defence rather than of offence. It ; was a kind of protective colouring, • designed to shelter a sensitive organ- - ism from the ill-usage of the world.” There is no question as to Butler’s i sensitiveness. 1-le hated adverse criti- , cism, and he received so much of it

doubt, after reading “The Way of Ail > j Flesh” and the "Notebooks.” and mak- - j ing all allowances, that if there was : • one man who should never have been » Samuel Butler's father, that man was [ Butler senior. They were by nature and temperament born to light like cat and dog; it would have been re- • markable had they not hated each other. Butler was never a happy man in ; spite of the fact that lie was a lifelong bachelor. It is difficult to believe that he could have had deep affection and trust for any man after his experiences with Charles Paine Pauli, yet what little happiness he did achieve came from his friendship witli i Mr. Henry Festing Jones. Mr. Jones, another bachelor, and a kindred spirit, ; who was the companion on many of

that he was driven to protect himself. The result was that much of his natural energy was wasted in snarling at the conventions of the day. Like most cynicism, it makes entertaining reading, but it subverted his mind to some extent and robbed aim of his creative gift. The world of letters is probably poorer than it might have been if this ingrowing intellectualism had not seized him before he reached the height of his powers. There were so many things that he came to disbelieve in that they carried him off his feet, and he ended by believing in nothing—except, perhaps, the music of Handel. “Each individual member (of the church)” says Ernest in- “The Way of All Flesh,” “should only be hot in striving to be as lukewarm as possible.” “The Way of All Flesh” is perhaps his most entertaining book, as well as his best. His claim to a place in literature rests solely on this and “Erewhon,” though his scientific reputation is on firmer foundations. In “The Way of All Flesh” we have the story of Butler’s upbringing, and the effect it had upon his later life. He speaks of his father as the man who, whatever he attempted to do, was sure to be against him. A book has just been published, I understand, which whitewashes the father, and seeks to show that Butler senior stood just about as much from his son as the son did from the father. There may be some truth in this, but there is nu

Butler’s Italian trips, and the closest friend of his later years, has written a two-volume memoir of him which is worth reading for its own sake, apart from its subject. The author, who knew and understod him better than anybody, has refrained from anything in the nature of fatuous adoration, and has given us a faithful picture of Butler. His death was characteristic. “He directed by his will that his body should be burnt, and the ashes not preserved,” says Mr. Jones. “Accordingly . . . we :ook them into the garden and watched the attendant dig a grave among *.he bushes. We dropped the ashes in. covered them over, and left nothing to mark the spot.” A continued course of Samuel Butler would make an archangel sceptical, and the literature of cynicism and unbelief is of sufficient proportions in these days to requite a very glutton for agnosticism Yet there are many writers to-day who, one feels, would benefit greatly if they rinsed their minds out now and again with a little neat Butler. And whatever may be the final judgment as to his place iri literature and science, it is to be remembered that if he left nothing surpassingly great himself, he prepared the way for Shaw, and contributed very largely to that writer’s philosophy, as G.B.S. is the first to admit. A. R. D. FAIRBURN. New Lynn.