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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013448299 
 
Cornell University Library 
 I PR 4349.B7N6 1917 
 
 The notebooks of Samuel Butler. 
 
 3 1924 013 448 299 
 
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler 
 
THE WORKS OF 
 
 SAMUEL B UTLER 
 
 The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, Author of 
 "Erewhon." Selections arranged and edited by 
 Henry Festing Jones. New Edition, with an 
 Introduction by Francis Hackett, and a por- 
 trait net, I2.00 
 
 Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton 
 Ticino. New edition with the author's revisions. 
 Edited by R. A. Streatfeild. With 85 draw- 
 ings chiefly by the author net, 2.00 
 
 Life and Habit net, 1.50 
 
 Unconscious Memory. A new edition with an 
 Introduction by Prof. Marcus Hartog. .. .net, 1.50 
 
 The Way of All Flesh. A novel. With an Intro- 
 duction by William Lyon Phelps net, 1.50 
 
 Erewhon, or Over the Range. With an Intro- 
 duction by Francis Hackett net, 1.50 
 
 Erewhon Revisited, Twenty Years Later, both by 
 the Original Discoverer of the Country and 
 His Son net, 1.50 
 
 Evolution Old and New net, 1.50 
 
 A First Year in Canterbury Settlement net, 2.00 
 
 The Hiunor of Homer and Other Essays. Edited 
 by R. A. Streatfeild. With a Biographical 
 Sketch of the author by Henry Festing Jones, 
 and a portrait net, 1.50 
 
 The Fair Haven (as by the late John Pickard 
 Owen). Edited, with an Introduction, by R. 
 A. Streatfeild net, 1.50 
 
 E. P. D U T T O N & CO. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
SAMUEL BUTLER IN 1898 
 
 FROM A PAINTING BY EMERY WALKER 
 
The Note-Books of 
 Samuel Butler 
 
 Author of "Erewhon" 
 
 Selections arranged and edited by 
 
 Henry Festing Jones 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 
 Francis Hackett 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON & CO. 
 
 68i FIFTH AVENUE 
 
Published, 191 7, 
 By E. p. DUTTON & CO. 
 
 FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
Introductory 
 
 In "The Doctor's Dilemma" there is a saucy reference to 
 an unprofessional heretic who has views on art, science, 
 morals and religion. Old Sir Patrick CuUen shocks the 
 heretic's disciple by not even recognizing the name. "Bernard 
 Shaw ?" he ponders, "I never heard of him. He's a Methodist 
 preacher, I suppose." Louis is horrified. "No, no. He's 
 the most advanced man now living: he isn't anything.'' The 
 old doctor is not set back an inch. These "advanced" men 
 who impress the young by employing the accumulations of 
 genius — he knows them. "I assure you, young man," he in- 
 forms Louis, "my father learnt the doctrine of deliverance 
 from sin from John Wesley's own lips before you or Mr. 
 Shaw were born." 
 
 It is a pleasant thing to claim that the man you admire is 
 "advanced" and to believe serenely that you are progressive 
 along with him. It is also a convenient thing to employ such 
 question-begging phrases as heterodox, radical, free-thinker, 
 anarchist. The trouble with such phrases, indicative and ex- 
 citing as they are, is their plain relativity to something repre- 
 hensible that only you yourself have in mind. The world is 
 full of moss-grown places called Newtown and Newburg and 
 Nykobing and Neuville. It is also full of moss-grown writ- 
 ers who once were advanced and revolutionary. If a writer 
 is to be paraded as heterodox it has to be shown that he does 
 something more than take up an agreeable position. It has 
 to be shown that he has a manner, a method, of dealing with 
 things that really deserve to be considered advanced. 
 
 This is Samuel Butler's claim on posterity. The urgently 
 intelligent son of a dull English clergyman, he certainly did 
 not lack incentives to heterodoxy. Besides that he was born 
 in 1835 and was one of the first of Darwin's admirers, as 
 later he was one of the first of his critics. But there was 
 more than reflex action in Samuel Butler's heterodoxy. He 
 
iv Introductory 
 
 was never anything so regular as an anarchist. He dis- 
 trusted authority in religion and art and science without dis- 
 carding religious, artistic or scientific values. He thought 
 freely without being a freethinker, and radically without be- 
 ing a radical. To say he was lawless would entirely misrepre- 
 sent him, he was not nearly so much a revolutionary as a 
 conscientious objector on the loose. Here again he fell into 
 none of the ordinary classifications. He was not a mission- 
 ary. He had as little ambition to form a new orthodoxy as 
 to attach himself to an old one. He had a marked propensity, 
 that of thinking for himself — one of those perplexing pro- 
 pensities that nothing seems to determine, that may occur in 
 an emperor or his slave and no one know how or why. And 
 that propensity, the capital distinction of his many-sided life, 
 gave him emancipation in a way that no one could have pre- 
 dicted and that was long quite diificult to label. 
 
 It was difficult to label mainly because Samuel Butler's in- 
 tellectual adventure had come to an end before the label was 
 invented. Samuel Butler was above everything a pragmatist, 
 one of those forerunners of pragmatism who did not become 
 conscious of its "universal mission" or its "conquering des- 
 tiny," who nevertheless employed the method intuitively and 
 "made momentous contributions to truth by its means." It 
 is tragic, in many ways, that Butler had not the benefit of the 
 formulation of pragmatism. Had he possessed it, however, 
 he could not have been more closely, more consistently, its 
 exponent. "Pragmatism," said William James in 1907, "rep- 
 resents a perfectly familiar attitude in philosophy, the em- 
 piricist attitude, but it represents it, as it seems to me, both 
 in a more radical and in a less objectionable form than it has 
 ever yet assumed. A pragmatist turns his back resolutely 
 and once for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to pro- 
 fessional philosophers. He turns away from abstraction and 
 insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori rea- 
 sons, frorh fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended 
 absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness and 
 adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power. 
 That means the empiricist temper regnant and the rationalist 
 temper sincerely given up. It means the open air and possi- 
 bilities of nature, as against dogma, artificiality, and the pre- 
 tence of the finality of truth." This was the attitude Samuel 
 
Introductory v 
 
 Butler achieved for himself and the one which these Note- 
 Books so fully and singularly exemplify. 
 
 There is a kind of man whose sensations come at the dou- 
 ble, who must take them down as they fly by or lose them 
 eternally. Butler's Note-Books were not kept for such a 
 purpose. It was not his senses that were imperious for a 
 scribe : it was his ruminations, his ideas. He was painter and 
 musician as well as writer, and he was writer in the most 
 general interpretation, but his chief characteristic was not, 
 so to speak, sensuous impressionability. It was an incessant 
 intellectual activity. He had "the principle of stopping every- 
 where and anywhere to put down his notes, as the true painter 
 will stop anywhere and everywhere to sketch," but the notes 
 were not wild or woodland, they were memoranda in his end- 
 less discovery of wisdom. Occasionally the spectacle of the 
 world urged him to record emotion, and he observes that from 
 the age of twelve the music of his well-beloved Handel was 
 never a day out of his head. But it was the opinions and 
 ideas he derived from experience that stirred him to write in 
 his Note-Books. Experience did not so much enamor him as 
 stimulate his mind. 
 
 The vivacity of Samuel Butler's mind is astonishing. He 
 was not brilliant in the sense that his expression was daz- 
 zling. Dazzling writers like George Meredith were distaste- 
 ful to him, and he felt little of their need to give acuity to the 
 words that were to convey poignant experiences. Neither did 
 he wish to incite passion or ecstasy. He held everything, even 
 his God, at arm's length, and the light by which he examined 
 his world was daylight. Because of his sharp curiosity, how- 
 ever, his independence and audacity and humorous scepti- 
 cism, he achieved that kind of penetrativeness which is often 
 called brilliant. Penetrative he was to an extraordinary de- 
 gree and over an area that few men of his time even dreamed 
 of encompassing. He was dry on occasion and on occasion 
 captious, but he never said a heartless thing or a foolish. And 
 from the first line he wrote to the last there is not a single 
 dishonest utterance. Almost every one who writes is tempted 
 now and then to say something which is not quite authentic, 
 to use a hackneyed phrase if not a hackneyed thought. 
 Samuel Butler authenticated everything he uttered. During 
 his growing years and indeed all through his life he found 
 
vi Introductory 
 
 himself brushed aside by the pundits. From pretentiousness 
 he suffered as only a modest man can suffer, and he abhorred 
 it. One result of it was to accentuate his own priestlessness 
 and simplicity. He could easily have got himself up as an 
 authority. It is a thing that almost any busybody with a 
 plodding secretary can accomplish. Butler leaned over back- 
 wards to avoid doing it. He even went so far as to suspect 
 everything that had the air of being professional, and to take 
 a perverse pleasure in offering to machine-made scholars his 
 own hand-made heterodox views. And not only were his 
 views pragmatically decided, so were the bases on which he 
 formed them. It is significant that though he was born in 
 1835 and lived to 1902 he got more out of Handel in nlusic and 
 Bellini in painting than out of any other masters. \Homer 
 and Shakespeare happened to interest him, but he paid no 
 attention whatever to those "imaginary obligations" of an 
 academic or journalistic order which keep most people from 
 discovering what they really value. Tolstoy and Ibsen, Mor- 
 ris and Karl Marx, were Butler's contemporaries. They 
 might as well have lived in Kamchatka for any chance they 
 had of crossing the threshold of his hospitable but resolutely 
 unfashionable mind. 
 
 Between the cravings of gregariousness and the exactions 
 of his critical intelligence, then, Butler was never at a loss to 
 decide. But this severance from the crowd was not without 
 an emotional result. There can be no doubt that he suffered 
 some of the penalties of being an intellectual anchorite. 
 From the egoistic rigidity that may so easily be the outcome 
 of isolation — if not its promoter — he was preserved by com- 
 .juon sense. Though he embraced the most difficult of ex- 
 periments, the experiment of true independence, he kept on 
 the right side of the thin partition mainly through avoiding 
 the mistakes of that early ancestor who imagined God as 
 solemn because "he was impressed with an undue sense of his 
 own importance and, as a natural consequence, he had no 
 "sense of humor." In spite of extreme common sense and 
 humor, the price of being heterodox told on Butler. He was 
 much too spirited to lament his exile, but sometimes he was 
 cross-grained and spiritually dyspeptic. Hjis dislike of Bee- 
 thoven, Leonardo and Goethe was not mere buoyant uncon- 
 ventionality or admirable aesthetic sabotage. It had a slightly 
 
Introductory vii 
 
 diseased contrariness. He was wonderfully outspoken about 
 his own neglect and comparative failure, and exceedingly can- 
 did about his aspirations for fame, but all this could not pre- 
 vent his being estranged from certain great men by very rea- 
 son of their general acceptance. Those who are themselvgs^ 
 frustrated cannot help the impulse to frustrate others, and 
 the fact that his unaffected opinions were not fairly received 
 sometimes gave Butler an animus in challenging opinions that 
 were. 
 
 Unsparing pragmatism, however, kept him from being a 
 crank and made him a priceless critic of what H. G. XVells 
 calls "first and last things." And the freshest of his dis- 
 criminations, the most unexpected and the most unqualified, 
 are to be found in his Note-Books. It is a common thing in 
 life to hear some one bemoaning a talker whose music died 
 in him. Here is a wise and humorous and varied man who 
 preserved his observations as they sprang from him. It is 
 monologue, it is true, rather deliberate and reasoned mono- 
 logue editorially cut-and-dried. The fact remains that it is 
 the essential Samuel Butler in his normal habit of mind. 
 Under compulsion to think for himself, his Note-Books de- 
 tect him in the process, and so represent the range and depth 
 of his genius. That it was genius, though often blue in the 
 cold of his era, there is no questioning. And it is peculiarly 
 precious because it is liberating. It cannot but open the doors 
 for those who have felt orthodoxies stifle them in their own 
 attempt to think for themselves. 
 
 Francis Byrne Hackett. 
 
Preface to the Original Edition 
 
 r?ARLY in his life Samuel Butler began to carry a note- 
 .mHj book and to write down in it anything he wanted to 
 remember ; it mJlght be something he heard some one say, more 
 commonly it was som,ething he said himself. In one of these 
 notes he gives a reason for making them: 
 
 "One^s thoughts fly so fast that one must shoot them; it is 
 no use trying to put salt on their tails." 
 
 So he bagged as many as he could hit and preserved them, 
 re-written on loose sheets of paper which constituted a sort of 
 museum stored with the wise, beautiful, and strange creatures 
 that were continually winging their way across the field of his 
 vision. As he became a more expert marksman his collection 
 increased and his museum grew so crowded that he wanted a 
 catalogue. In 1874 he started an index, and this led to his re- 
 considering the notes, destroying those that he remembered 
 having used in his published books and re-writing the remain- 
 der. The re-writing shortened some but it lengthened others 
 and suggested so many new ones that the index wois soon of lit- 
 tle use and there seemed to be no finality about it ("Making 
 Notes," pp. loo-i p&st). In 1891 he attacked the problem afresh 
 and made it a rule to spend an hour every morning re-editing 
 his notes and keeping his index up to date. At his death, in 
 igo2, 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 unvndexed 
 sheets to make a sixth volume of equal size. 
 
 In accordance with his own advice to a young writer (p. 363 
 post), he wrote the notes in copying ink and kept a pressed 
 copy with me as a precaution against fire; but during his life- 
 time, unless he wanted to refer to something while he was in my 
 chambers, I never looked at them. After his death I took them 
 down and went through them,. I knew in a general way what I 
 should find, but I mas not prepared for such a multitude and 
 
X Preface to the Original Edition 
 
 variety of thoiights, reflections, conversations, incidents. There 
 are entries about his early life at Langar, Handel, school days 
 at Shrewsbury, Cambridge, Christianity, literature. New Zea- 
 land, sheep-fairm/ing, philosophy, painting, money, evolution, 
 morality, Italy, speculation, photography, music, natural his- 
 tory, archcBology, botany, religion, book-keeping, psychology, 
 metaphysics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Sicily, architecture, ethics, 
 the Sonnets of Shakespeare. I thought of publishing the 
 books just as they stand, but too many of the entries are of no 
 general interest and too many are of a kind that must wait if 
 they are ever to be published. In addition to these objections 
 the confusion is very great. One would look in the earlier vol- 
 umes for entries about New Zecdand and evolution and in the 
 later ones for entries about the Odyssey and the Sonnets, but 
 there is no attempt at arrangement and anywhere one may come 
 upon something about Handel, or a philosophical reflection, be- 
 tween a note giving the name of the best hotel in an Italian town 
 and another about Harry Nicholls and Herbert Campbell as the 
 Babes in the Wood in the pantomime at the Grecian Theatre. 
 This confusion has a charm, but it is a charm that would not, I 
 fear, survive in print and, personally, I find that it makes the 
 books distracting for continuous reading. Moreover they were 
 not intended to be published as they stand ("Preface to Vol. 
 II," />. 215 post) , they were intended for his own private use as 
 a quarry front which to take material for his writing, and it is 
 remarkable that in practice he scarcely ever used them, in this 
 way ("These Notes," p. 261 post) . When he had written and 
 re-written a note and spoken it and repeated it in conversation, 
 it became so much a part of him that, if he wanted to introduce 
 it in a book, it wens less trouble to re-state it again from memory 
 than to search through his "precious indexes^' for it and copy it 
 ("Gadshill and Trapani," p. 194, "AtPiora," p. 272 post) . But 
 he could not have re-stated a note from memory if he had not 
 learnt it by writing it, so that it m^y be said that he did use 
 the notes for his books, though not precisely in the way he orig- 
 inally intended. And the constant re-writing and re-consider- 
 ing were useful also by forcing him to settle exactly what he 
 thought and to state it as clearly and iersely as possible. In this 
 way the making of the notes must have had an influence on the 
 formation of his style — though here again he had no such idea 
 in his mind when writing them {"Style," pp. 186-7 post). 
 
Preface to the Original Edition xi 
 
 In one of the notes he says: 
 
 "A man may make, as it were, cash entries of himself in a 
 day-book, but the entries in the ledger and the balancing of the 
 accounts should be done by others." 
 
 When I began to write the Memoir of Butler on which I 
 am still engaged, I marked all the nu)re autobiographical notes 
 and had them copied; again I was struck by the interest, the 
 variety, and the confusion of those I left untouched. It seemed 
 to me that any one who undertook to become Butler's account- 
 ant and to post his entries upon himself would have to settle 
 first how many and what accounts to open in the ledger, and this 
 could not be done until it had been settled which items were to 
 be selected for posting. It was the difficulty of those who dare 
 not go into the water until after they have learnt to sivim. I 
 doubt whether I should ever have made the plunge if it had not 
 been for the interest which Mr. Desmond MacCarthy took in 
 Butler and his writings. He had occasionally browsed on my 
 copy of the books, and when he became editor of a review, the 
 New Quarterly, he asked for some of the notes for publication, 
 thus providing a practical and simple way of entering upon the 
 business without any very alarming plunge. I talked his pro- 
 posal over with Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Butler's literary execu- 
 tor, and, having obtained his approval, set to work. From No- 
 vember 1907 to May 1910, inclusive, the New Quarterly pub- 
 lished six groups of notes and the long note on "Genius^' {pp. 
 174-8 post). The experience gained in selecting, arranging, 
 and editing these items has been of great use to me and I thank 
 the proprietor and editor of the New Quarterly for permission 
 to republish such of the notes as appeared in their review. 
 
 In preparing this book I began by going through the notes 
 again and marking all that seemed to fall within certain groups 
 roughly indicated by the arrangement in the review. I had 
 these selected items copied, distributed them among those which 
 were already in print, shuMed them and turned them over, 
 meditatitig on them, familiarising myself with them and tentor- 
 tively forming new groups. While doing this I was continually 
 gleaning from the books more notes which I had overlooked, 
 and making such verbal alterations as seemed necessary to 
 avoid repetition, to correct obvious errors and to remove causes 
 of reasonable offence. The ease with which two or more notes ' 
 would condense into one was sometimes surprising, but there 
 
xii Preface to the Original Edition 
 
 were cases in which the Umguage had to be varied and others in 
 which a few words had to be added to bridge over a gap; as a 
 rule, however, the necessary words were lying ready in some 
 other note. I also reconsidered the titles and provided titles for 
 many notes which had none. In making these verbal alter- 
 ations I bore in mind Butler's own views on the subject which 
 I found in a note about editing letters: 
 
 "Gramted that an editor, like a translator, should 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 have been consulted, yet, 
 subject to these limitations, he should be free to alter accord- 
 ing to his discretion or indiscretion." 
 
 My "discretion or indiscretion" was less seriously strained 
 in m^aking textual changes than in determining how many, and 
 what, groups to have and which notes, in what order, to include 
 in each group. Here is a note Butler made about classification: 
 
 "Fighting about words is like fighting about accounts, and all 
 classiftcation is like CKcounts. Sometimes it is easy to see which 
 way the balance of convenience lies, som,etim,es it is very hard 
 to know whether an item should be carried to one account or 
 to another." 
 
 Except in the group headed "Higgledy-Piggledy," I have 
 endeavoured to post each note to a suitable account, but som,e 
 of Butler's leading ideas, expressed in different forms, will 
 be found posted to more than one account, and this kind of 
 repetition is in accordance with his habit in conversation. It 
 would probably be correct to say that I have heard him speak 
 the substance of every note many tim^s in different contexts. 
 In seeking for the most characteristic context, I have shifted 
 and shifted the notes and considered and re-considered them 
 under different aspects, taking hints from the delicate chame- 
 leon changes of significance that came over them as they har- 
 Wionised or discorded with their new surroundings. Presently 
 I caught myself restoring notes to positions they had previously 
 occupied instead of finding new places for them, and the in- 
 creasing frequency with which difficulties were solved by these 
 restorations at last forced m.e to the conclusion, which I accept- 
 ed only with very great regret, that my labours were at an end. 
 
 I do not expect every one to approve of the result. If I had 
 been trying to please every one, I should have made only a very 
 
Preface to the Original Edition xiii 
 
 short and unrepresentative selection which Mr. Fifield would 
 have refused to publish. I have tried to make such a book as I 
 believe would have pleased Butler. That is to say, I have tried 
 to please one who, by reason of his intimate knowledge of the 
 subject and of the difficulties, would have looked with indul- 
 gence upon the mmiy mistakes which it is now too late to cor- 
 rect, even if I knew how tp correct them. Had it been possible 
 for him to see what I heme done, he would have detected all my 
 sins, both of omission and of commission, and I like to imagine 
 that he would have used some such consoling words as these: 
 "Well, never mind; one cannot ha/ue everything; and, after all, 
 'Le rmeux est I'ennemi du bien.' " 
 
 Here will be found much of what he used to say as he talked 
 with one or two intimiote friends in his own chambers or in 
 mine at the close of the day, or on a Sunday walk in the coun^- 
 try round London, or as we wandered together through Italy 
 and Sicily; and I would it were possible to charge these pages 
 with some echo of his voice and with some reflection of his 
 manner. But, again, one cannot have everything. 
 
 "Men's work we have," quoth one, "but we want them — 
 Them palpable to touch and clear to view." 
 Is, it so nothing, then, to have the gem 
 But we must cry to have the setting too? 
 
 In the New Quarterly each note was headed with a reference 
 to its place in the Note-Books. This has not been done here 
 because, on consideration, it seemed useless, and even irritat- 
 ing, to keep on putting before the reader references which he 
 could not verify. I intend to give to the British Museum a copy 
 of this volume wherein each note will show where the material 
 of which it is composed can be found;, thus, if the original 
 Note-Books are also some day given to the Museum, any one 
 sufficiently interested will be able to see exactly what I have 
 done in selecting, omitting, editing, condensing and classifying. 
 
 Some items are included that are not actually in the Note- 
 Books; the longest of these are the two New Zealand articles 
 "Darwin among the Machines" and "Lucubratio Ebria" as to 
 which something is said in the Prefatory Note to "The Germs 
 of Erewhon and of Life and Habit" (pp. 39-42 post) . In that 
 Prefatory Note a Dialogue on Species by Butler and an auto- 
 graph letter from Charles Darwin are mentioned. Since the 
 note was in type I have received from New Zealand a copy of 
 
xiv Preface to the Original Edition 
 
 the Weekly Press of igth June, 1912, containing the Dialogue 
 again reprinted and a facsimile reproduction of Darwin's let- 
 ter. I thank Mr. W. H. Triggs, the present editor of the 
 Press, Christchurch, New Zealand , also Miss Colborne-Veel 
 and the members of the staff for their industry and persever- 
 ance in searching for and identifying Butler's early contribu- 
 tions to the newspaper. 
 
 The other principal items not actually in the Note-Books, 
 the letter to T. W. G. Butler (pp. 53-5 post), "A Psalm of 
 Montreal" (pp. 388-9 post) and "The Righteous Man" (pp. 
 390-1 post). I suppose Butler kept all these out of his notes 
 because he considered that they had served their purpose; but 
 they have not hitherto appeared in a form now accessible to 
 the general reader. 
 
 All the footnotes are mine and so are all those prefatory 
 notes which are printed in italics and the explanatory remarks 
 in square brackets which occur occasionally in the text. I have 
 also preserved, in square brackets, the date of a note when any- 
 thing seemed to turn on it. And I hwve made the index. 
 
 The Biographical Statement is fownded on a skeleton Diary 
 which is in the Note-Books. It is intended to show, among 
 other things, how intimately the great variety of subjects 
 touched upon in the nates entered into and formed part of 
 Butler's working life. It does not stop at the i&th of June, 
 1902, because, as he says (p. 23 post), "Death is not more the 
 end of some than it is the beginning of other/'; and, again 
 (p. 13 post), for those who come to the true birth the life we 
 live beyond the graive is our truest life. The Biographical 
 Statement has accordingly been carried on to the present time 
 so as to include the principal events that have occurred dur- 
 ing the opening period of the "good average three-score years 
 and ten of immortality" which he modestly hoped he might 
 inherit in the life of the world to come. 
 
 Henry Festing Jones. 
 Mount Eryx, 
 
 Trapani, Sicily, 
 
 August, 1912. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Biographical Statement i 
 
 I. Lord, What is Man? 9 
 
 II. Elementary Morality 24 
 
 III. The Germs of Erewhon and of Life and Habit . . 39 
 
 IV. Memory and Design 56 
 
 V. Vibrations 66 
 
 VI. Mind and Matter 74 
 
 VII. On the Making of Music, Pictures and Books . 93 
 
 VIII. Handel and Music . . ' no 
 
 IX. A Painter's Views on Painting 135 
 
 X. The Position of a Homo Unius Libri .... 155 
 
 XI. Cash and Credit 168 
 
 XII. The Enfant Terrible of Literature . . . .183 
 
 XIII. Unprofessional Sermons 200 
 
 XIV. Higgledy-piggledy 215 
 
 XV. Titles and Subjects 229 
 
 XVI. Written Sketches 237 
 
 XVII. Material for a Projected Sequel to Alps and Sanc- 
 tuaries 2S9 
 
 XVIII. Material for' Erewhon Revisited 288 
 
 XIX. Truth and Convenience 297 
 
 XV 
 
xvi Contents 
 
 FAGE 
 
 XX. First Principles 309 
 
 XXI. Rebelliousness 33^ 
 
 XXII. Reconciliation 346 
 
 XXIII. Death 3S3 
 
 XXIV. The Life of the World to Come 36° 
 
 XXV. Poems 379 
 
 Index 399 
 
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler 
 
 Biographical Statement 
 
 1835. Dec. 4. Samuel Butler born at Langar Rectory, Not- 
 tingham, son of the Rev. Thomas Butler, who was 
 the son of Dr. Samuel Butler, Headmaster of Shrews- 
 bury School from 1798 to 1836, and afterwards 
 Bishop of Lichfield. 
 
 1843-4. Spent the winter in Rome and Naples with his 
 family. 
 
 1846. Went to school at Allesley, near Coventry. 
 
 1848. Went to school at Shrewsbury under Dr. Kennedy. 
 " Went to Italy for the second time with his family. 
 " First heard the music of Handel. 
 
 1854. Entered at St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 1858. Bracketed 12th in the first class of the Classical Tripos 
 
 and took his degree. 
 " Went to London and began to prepare for ordination, 
 living among the jyoor and doing parish work: this 
 led to his doubting the efficacy of infant baptism and 
 hence to his declining to take orders. 
 
 1859. Sailed for New Zealand and started sheep-farming in 
 
 Canterbury Province: while in the colony he wrote 
 much for the Press of Christchurch, N.Z. 
 
 1862. Dec. 20. "Darwin on The Origin of Species. A Dia- 
 
 logue," unsigned but written by Butler, appeared in 
 the Press and was followed by correspondence to 
 which Butler contributed. 
 
 1863. A First Year in Canterbury Settlement: made out of 
 
 his letters home to his family together with two arti- 
 cles reprinted from the Eagle (the magazine of St. 
 John's College, Cambridge) : MS. lost. 
 
2 Biographical Statement 
 
 1863. "Darwin among the Machines," a letter signed "Cel- 
 
 larius" written by Butler, appeared in the Press. 
 
 1864. Sold out his sheep run and returned to England in 
 
 company with Charles Paine Pauli, whose acquaint- 
 ance he had made in the colony. He brought back 
 enough to enable him to live quietly, settled for good 
 at 15 Clifford's Inn, London, and began life as a 
 painter, studying at Cary's, Heatherley's and the 
 South Kensington Art Schools and exhibiting pic- 
 tures occasionally at the Royal Academy and other 
 exhibitions: while studying art he made the 
 acquaintance of, among others, Charles Gogin, 
 William Ballard and Thomes William Gale Butler. 
 " "Family Prayers" : a small painting by Butler. 
 
 1865. "Lucubratio Ebria," an article, containing variations 
 
 of the view in "Darwin among the Machines," sent 
 by Butler from England, appeared in the Press. 
 " The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as 
 contained in the Four Evangelists critically exam- 
 ined: a pamphlet of VIII-)- 48 pp. written in New 
 Zealand : the conclusion arrived at is that the evi- 
 dence is insufficient to support the belief that Christ 
 died and rose from the dead : MS. lost, probably used 
 up in writing The Fair Haven. 
 
 1869-70. Was in Italy for four months, his health having 
 broken down in consequence of over-work. 
 
 i870ori87i. First meeting with Miss Eliza Mary Ann 
 Savage, from whom he drew Alethea in The Way of 
 All Flesh. 
 
 1872. Erewhon or Over the Range: a Work of Satire and 
 
 Imagination : MS. in the British Museum. 
 
 1873. Ereiwhon translated into Dutch. 
 
 " The Fair Haven: an ironical work, purporting to be 
 "in defence of the miraculous element in our Lord's 
 ministry upon earth, both as against rationalistic 
 impugners and certain orthodox defenders," written 
 under the pseudonym of John Pickard Owen, with 
 a memoir of the supposed author by his brother 
 William Bickersteth Owen. This book reproduces 
 the substance of his pamphlet on the resurrection: 
 MS. at Christchurch, New Zealand. 
 
Biographical Statement 3 
 
 1874. "Mr. Heatherley's Holiday," his most important oil 
 painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition, 
 now in the National Gallery of British Art. 
 
 1876. Having invested his money in various companies that 
 
 failed, one of which had its works in Canada, and 
 having spent much time during the last few years in 
 that country, trying unsuccessfully to save part of 
 his capital, he now returned to London, and during 
 the next ten years experienced serious financial diffi- 
 culties. 
 " First meeting with Henry Festing Jones. 
 
 1877. Life and Habit: an Essay after a Completer View of 
 
 Evolution: dedicated to Charles Paine Pauli: 
 although dated 1878 the book was published on But- 
 ler's birthday, 4th December, 1877: MS. at the 
 Schools, Shrewsbury. 
 
 1878. "A Psalm of Montreal" in the Spectator: There are 
 
 probably many MSS. of this poem in existence given 
 by Butler to friends : one, which he gave to H. F. 
 Jones, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 
 " A Portrait of Butler, painted in this year by himself, 
 now at St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 1879. Evolution Old and New: A comparison of the theories 
 
 of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck with 
 
 that of Charles Darwin : MS. in the Fitzwilliam Mu^ 
 
 seum, Cambridge. 
 " A Clergyman's Doubts and God the Known and God 
 
 the Unknown appeared in the Examiner: MS. lost. 
 " Erewhon translated into German. 
 
 1880. Unconscious Memory: A comparison between the 
 
 theory of Dr. Ewald Hering, Professor of Physiology 
 in the University of Prague, and the Philosophy of 
 the Unconscious of Dr. Edward von Hartmann, with 
 translations from both these authors and preliminary 
 chapters bearing upon Life and Habit, Evolution 
 Old and New, and Charles Darwin's Edition of Dr. 
 Krause's Erasmus Darwin. 
 " A Portrait of Butler^ painted in this year by himself, 
 now at the Schools, Shrewsbury. A third portrait 
 of Butler, painted by himself about this time, is at 
 Christchurch, New Zealand. 
 
4 Biographical Statement 
 
 1881. A property at Shrewsbury, in which under his grand- 
 
 father's will he had a reversionary interest contingent 
 on his surviving his father, was re-settled so as to 
 make his reversion absolute : he mortgaged this re- 
 version and bought small property near London: 
 this temporarily alleviated his financial embarrass- 
 ment but added to his work, for he spent much time 
 in the management of the houses, learnt book- 
 keeping by double-entry and kept elaborate ac- 
 counts. 
 " Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton 
 Ticino illustrated by the author, Charles Gc^n and 
 Henry Festing Jones: an account of his holiday 
 travels with dissertations on most of the subjects that 
 interested him: MS. with H. F. Jones. 
 
 1882. A new edition of Evolution Old and New, with a short 
 
 preface alluding to the recent death of Charles Dar- 
 win, an appendix and an index. 
 
 1883. Began to compose music as nearly as he could in the 
 
 style of Handel. 
 
 1884. Selections from Previous Works with "A Psalm of 
 
 Montreal" and "Remarks on G. J. Romanes' Mental 
 Evolution in Animals." 
 
 1885. Death of Miss Savage. 
 
 " Gavottes, Minuets, Fugues and other short pieces for 
 the piano by Samuel Butler and Henry Festing 
 Jones : MS. with H. F. Jones. 
 
 1886. Holbein's La Danse: a note on a drawing in the Mu- 
 
 seum at Basel. 
 " Stood, unsuccessfully, for the Professorship of Fine 
 
 Arts in the University of Cambridge. 
 " Dec. 29. Death of his father and end of his financial 
 
 embarrassments. 
 
 1887. Engaged Alfred Emery Cathie as clerk and general 
 
 attendant. 
 
 " Luck or Cunning as the main means of Organic Modi- 
 fication ? An attempt to throw additional light upon 
 Charles Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. 
 
 " Was entertained at dinner by the Municipio of Varallo- 
 Sesia on the Sacro Monte. 
 
 1888. Took up photography. 
 
Biographical Statement 5 
 
 1888. Ex Voto: an account of the Sacro Monte or New Jeru- 
 salem at Varallo-Sesia, with some notice of Taba- 
 chetti's remaining work at Crea and illustrations from 
 photographs by the author : MS. at Varallo-Sesia. 
 " Narcissus: a Cantata in the Handelian form, words 
 and music by Samuel Butler and Henry Festing 
 Jones : MS. of the piano score in the British Museum. 
 MS. of the orchestral score with H. F. Jones. 
 " In this and the two following years contributed some 
 articles to the Universal Review, most of which were 
 republished after his death as Essays on Life, Art, 
 amd Science (1904). 
 
 1890. Began to study counterpoint with William Smith Rock- 
 stro and continued to do so until Rockstro's death in 
 
 1895. 
 
 1892. The Humour of Homer. A Lecture delivered at the 
 
 Working Men's College, Great Ormond Street, Lon- 
 don, January 30, 1892, reprinted with preface and ad- 
 ditional matter from the Eagle. 
 " Went to Sicily, the first of many visits, to collect evi- 
 dence in support of his theory identifying the Scheria 
 and Ithaca of the Odyssey with Trapani and the 
 neighbouring Mount Eryx. 
 
 1893. "L'Origine Siciliana dell' Odissea." Extracted from 
 
 the Rassegna della Letteratura Siciliana. 
 " "OntheTrapaneseOriginoiftheOdyssey" (Translation). 
 
 1894. Ex Voto translated into Italian by Cavaliere Angelo 
 
 Rizzetti. 
 " "Ancora sull' origine dell' Odissea." Extracted from 
 the Rassegna della Letteratura Sicilians. 
 
 1895. Went to Greece and the Troad to make up his mind 
 
 about the topography of the Iliad. 
 
 1896. The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler (his grand- 
 
 father) in so far as they illustrate the scholastic, 
 religious and social life of England from 1790-1840: 
 MS. at the Shrewsbury Town Library or Museum. 
 " His portrait painted by Charles Gogin, now in the Na- 
 tional Portrait Gallery. 
 
 1897. The Authoress of the Odyssey, where and when she wrote, 
 
 who she was, the use she made of the Iliad and how 
 the poem grew under her hands : MS. at Trapani. 
 
6 Biographical Statement 
 
 1897. Death of Charles Paine Pauli. 
 
 1898. The Iliad rendered into English prose: MS. at St. 
 
 John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 1899. Shakespeare's Sonnets reconsidered and in part rear- 
 
 ranged, with introductory chapters, notes and a re- 
 print of the original 1609 edition : MS. with R. A. 
 Streatfeild. 
 
 1900. The Odyssey rendered into English prose : MS. at Aci- 
 
 Reale, Sicily. 
 
 1901. Erewhon Revisited twenty years later both by the Orig- 
 
 inal Discoverer of the Country and by his Son : this 
 was a return not only to Erewhon but also to the 
 subject of the pamphlet on the resurrection. MS. 
 in the British Museum, 
 
 1902. June, 18. Death of Samuel Butler. 
 
 1902. "Samuel Butler," an article by Richard Alexander 
 
 Streatfeild in the Monthly Review (September). 
 " "Samuel Butler," an obituary notice by Henry Test- 
 ing Jones in the Eagle (December) . 
 
 1903. Samuel Butler Records and Memorials, a collection of 
 
 obituary notices with a note by R. A. Streatfeild, 
 his literary executor, printed for private circulation : 
 With reproduction of a photograph of Butler taken 
 at Varallo in 1889. 
 " The Way of All Flesh, a novel, written between 1872 
 and 1885, published by R. A. Streatfeild : MS. with 
 Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. 
 
 1904. Seven Sonnets and A Psalm of Montreal printed for 
 
 private circulation. 
 
 " Essays on Life, Ar6 and Science, being reprints of 
 his Universal Review articles, together with two lec- 
 tures. 
 
 " Ulysses, an Oratorio: Words and music by Samuel 
 Butler and Henry Festing Jones : MS. of the piano 
 score in the British Museum, MS. of the orchestral 
 score with H. F. Jones. 
 
 " "The Author of Erewhon," an article by Desmond 
 MacCarthy in the Independent Review (September). 
 
Biographical Statement 7 
 
 1904. 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) by Henry 
 Festing Jones, with reproduction of Gogin's portrait 
 of Butler. Printed for private circulation. 
 
 1907. Nov. Between this date and May, 1910, some Extracts 
 
 from The Note-Books of Samuel Butler appeared in 
 the New Quarterly Review under the editorship of 
 Desmond MacCarthy. 
 
 1908. July 16. The first Erewhon dinner at Pagani's Restau- 
 
 rant, Great Portland Street; 32 persons present: 
 the day was fixed by Professor Marcus Hartog. 
 " Second Edition of The Way of All Flesh. 
 
 1909. God the Known and God the Unknown republished in 
 
 book form from the Examiner (1879) by A. C. 
 Fifield, with prefatory note by R. A. Streatfeild. 
 " July 15. The second Erewhon dinner at Pagani's; 53 
 present: the day was fixed by Mr. George Bernard 
 Shaw. 
 
 1910. Feb. 10. Samuel Butler Author of Erewhon, a Paper 
 
 read before the British Association of Homoeopathy 
 at 43 Russell Square, W.C., by Henry Festing Jones. 
 Some of Butler's music was performed by Miss 
 Grainger Kerr, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Mr. J. A. 
 Fuller Maitland and Mr. H. J. T. Wood, the Secre- 
 tary of the Association. 
 
 " June. Unconscious Memory, a new edition entirely reset 
 with a note by R. A. Streatfeild and an introduction 
 byProfessor Marcus Hartog, m.a.jD.sc.,f.l.s.,f.r.h.s., 
 Professor of Zoology in University College, Cork. 
 
 " July 14. The third Erewhon dinner at Pagani's Restau- 
 rant ; 58 present : the day was fixed by the Right Hon- 
 ourable Augustine Birrell, k.c, m.p. 
 
 " Nov. 16. Samuel Butler Author of Erewhon. A paper 
 read before the Historical Society of St. John's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, in the Combination-room of the 
 college, by Henry Festing Jones. The Master (Mr. 
 R. F. Scott), who was also Vice-Chancellor of the 
 University, was in the chair and a Vote of Thanks 
 was proposed by Professor Bateson, f.r.s. 
 
8 Biographical Statement 
 
 1910. Nov. 28. Life and Habit, a new edition with a preface 
 
 by R. A. Streatfeild and author's addenda, being 
 three pages containing passages which Butler had 
 cut out of the original book or had intended to insert 
 in a future edition. 
 
 1911. May 25. The jubilee number of the Press, New Zea- 
 
 land, contained an account of Butler's connection with 
 the newspaper and reprinted "Darwin among the 
 Machines" and "Lucubratio Ebria." 
 
 " July 15. The fourth Erewhon dinner at Pagani's Res- 
 taurant ; 75 present : the day was fixed by Sir William 
 Phipson Beale, Bart., k.c, m.p. 
 
 " Nov. Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler: A Step 
 towards Reconciliation, by Henry Festing Jones. A 
 pamphlet giving the substance of a correspondence 
 between Mr. Francis Darwin and the author and 
 reproducing letters by Charles Darwin about the 
 quarrel between himself and Butler referred to in 
 Chapter IV of Unconscious Memory. 
 
 " Evolu£on Old and New, a reprint of the second edition 
 (1882) with prefatory note by R. A. Streatfeild. 
 
 1912. June I. Letter from Henry Festing Jones in the 
 
 Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, about Butler's 
 Dialogue, which had appeared originally in the Press 
 December 20, 1862, and could not be found. 
 
 " June 8. "Darwin on the Origin of Species. A Dia- 
 logue" discovered in consequence of the foregoing 
 letter and reprinted in the Press. 
 
 " June 15. The Press reprinted some of the correspon- 
 dence, etc., which followed on the original appear- 
 ance of the Dialogue. 
 
 " Some of Butler's water-colour drawings having been 
 given to the British Museum, two were included in 
 an exhibition held there during the summer. 
 
 " July 12. The Fifth Erewhon Dinner at Pagani's Res- 
 taurant; 90 present: the day was fixed by Mr. Ed- 
 mund GoSSe, C.B., LL.D. 
 
I 
 
 Lord, What is Man? 
 Man 
 
 i 
 
 We are like billiard balls in a game played by unskilful play- 
 ers, continually being nearly sent into a pocket, but hardly ever 
 getting right into one, except by a fluke. 
 
 We are like thistle-down blown about by the wind — up and 
 down, here and there — ^but not one in a thousand ever getting 
 beyond seed-hood. 
 
 iii 
 
 A man is a passing mood coming and going in the mind of 
 his country ; he is the twitching of a nerve, a smile, a frown, 
 a thpught of shame or honour, as it may happen. 
 
 iv 
 How loosely our thoughts must hang together when the 
 whiff of a smell, a band playing in the street, a face seen in 
 the fire, or on the gnarled stem of a tree, will lead them into 
 such vagaries at a moment's warning. 
 
 When I was a boy at school at Shrewsbury, old Mrs. Brown 
 used to keep a tray of spoiled tarts which she sold cheaper. 
 They most of them looked pretty right till you handled them. 
 We are all spoiled tarts. 
 
 vi 
 He is a poor creature who does not believe himself to be 
 better than the whole world else. No matter how ill we may 
 
 9 
 
lo Lord, What is Man? 
 
 be, or how low we may have fallen, we would not change 
 identity with any other person. Hence our self-conceit sus- 
 tains and always must sustain us till death takes us and our 
 conceit together so that we need no more sustaining. 
 
 vii 
 Man must always be a consuming fire or be consumed. As 
 for hell, we are in a burning fiery furnace all our lives — for 
 what is life but a process of combustion ? 
 
 Life 
 
 We have got into life by stealth and petitio principii, by 
 the free use of that contradiction in terms which we declare 
 to be the most outrageous violation of our reason. We have 
 wriggled into it by holding that everything is both one and 
 many, both infinite in time and space and yet finite, both like 
 and unlike to the same thing, both itself and not itself, both 
 free and yet inexorably fettered, both every adjective in the 
 dictionary and at the same time the flat contradiction of every 
 one of them. 
 
 ii 
 
 The beginning of life is the beginning of an illusion to the 
 effect that there is such a thing as free will and that there is 
 such another thing as necessity — the recognition of the fact 
 that there is an "I can" and an "I cannot," an "I may" and 
 an "I must." 
 
 iii 
 
 Life is not so much a riddle to be read as a Gordian knot 
 that will get cut sooner or later. 
 
 iv 
 Life is the distribution of an error — or errors. 
 
 Murray (the publisher) said that my Life of Dr. Butler was 
 an omnium gatherum. Yes, but life is an omnium gatherum. 
 
Lord, What is Man? n 
 
 vi 
 Life is a superstition. But superstitions are not without 
 their value. The snail's shell is a superstition, slugs have no 
 shells and thrive just as well. But a snail without a shell 
 would not be a slug unless it had also the slug's indifference 
 to a shell. 
 
 vii 
 Life is one long process of getting tired. 
 
 viii 
 My days run through me as water through a sieve. 
 
 ix 
 Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from in- 
 sufficient premises. 
 
 X 
 
 Life is eight parts cards and two parts play, the unseen 
 world is made manifest to us in the play. 
 
 Lizards generally seem to have lost their tails by the time 
 they reach middle life. So have most men. ' 
 
 xii 
 A sense of humour keen enough to show a man his own 
 absurdities, as well as those of other people, will keep him 
 from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that 
 are worth committing. 
 
 Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and 
 instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the 
 rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases — ^though not 
 often. 
 
 xiv 
 
 There are two great rules of life, the one general and the 
 other particular. The first is that every one can, in the end, 
 get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. 
 The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, 
 an exception to the general rule. 
 
12 Lord, What is Man? 
 
 XV 
 
 Nature is essentially mean, mediocre. You can have 
 schemes for raising the level of this mean, but not for making 
 every one two inches taller than his neighbour, and this is 
 what people really care about. 
 
 All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the 
 part of every organism to live beyond its income. 
 
 The World 
 i 
 \ The world is a gambling-table so arranged that all who 
 enter the casino must play and all must lose more or less 
 heavily in the long run, though they win occasionally by the 
 way. 
 
 ii 
 We play out our days as we play out cards, taking them 
 as they come, not knowing what they will be, hoping for a 
 lucky card and sometimes getting one, often getting just the 
 wrong one. 
 
 iii 
 The world may not be particularly wise — still, we know of 
 nothing wiser. 
 
 iv 
 The world will always be governed by self-interest. We 
 should not try to stop this, we should try to make the self- 
 interest of cads a little more coincident with that of decent 
 people. 
 
 The Individual and the World 
 
 There is an eternal antagonism of interest between the 
 individual and the world at large. The individual will 
 not so much care how much he may suflFer in this world 
 provided he can live in men's good thoughts long after he 
 has left it. The world at large does not so much care how 
 much suffering the individual may either endure or cause 
 in this life, provided he will take himself clean away out of 
 men's thoughts, whether for good or ill, when he has left it. 
 
Lord, What is Man? 13 
 
 My Life 
 i 
 
 I imagine that life can give nothing much better or much 
 worse than what I have myself experienced. I should say 
 I had proved pretty well the extremes of mental pleasure 
 and pain ; and so I believe each in his own way does, almost 
 every man. 
 
 ii 
 
 I have squandered my life as a schoolboy squanders a 
 tip. But then half, or more than half the fun a schoolboy 
 gets out of a tip consists in the mere fact of having something 
 to squander. Squandering is in itself delightful, and so I 
 found it with my life in my younger days. I do not squander 
 it now, but I am not sorry that I have squandered a good deal 
 of it. What a heap of rubbish there would have been if I had 
 not! Had I not better set about squandering what is left 
 of it? 
 
 The Life we Live in Others 
 
 A man should spend his life or, rather, does spend his life 
 in being born. His life is his birth throes. But most men 
 mis-carry and never come to the true birth at all and some 
 live but a very short time in a very little world and none are 
 eternal. Still, the life we live beyond the grave is our truest 
 life, and our happiest, for we pass it in the profoundest sleep 
 as though we were children in our cradles. If we are wronged 
 it hurts us not; if we wrong others, we do not suffer for it; 
 and when we die, as even the Handels and Bellinis and Shake- 
 speares sooner or later do, we die easily, know neither fear 
 nor pain and. live anew in the lives of those who have been 
 begotten of our work and who have for the time come up 
 in our room. 
 
 An immortal like Shakespeare knows nothing of his own 
 immortality about which we are so keenly conscious. As he 
 knows nothing of it when it is in its highest vitality, centuries, 
 it may be, after his apparent death, so it is best and happiest 
 if during his bodily life he should think little or nothing about 
 it and perhaps hardly suspect that he will live after his death 
 at all. 
 
14 Lord, What is Man? 
 
 And yet I do not know — I could not keep myself going at 
 all if I did not believe that I was likely to inherit a good aver- 
 age three-score years and ten of immortality. There are very 
 few workers who are not sustained by this belief, or at least 
 hope, but it may well be doubted whether this is not a sign 
 that they are not going to be immortal — and I am content (or 
 try to be) to fare as my neighbours. 
 
 The World Made to Enjoy 
 
 When we grumble about the vanity of all human things, 
 inasmuch as even the noblest works are not eternal but must 
 become sooner or later as though they had never been, we 
 should remember that the world," so far as we can see, was 
 made to enjoy rather than to last. Come-and-go pervades 
 everything of which we have knowledge, and though great 
 things go more slowly, they are built up of small ones and 
 must fare as that which makes them. 
 
 Are we to have our enjoyment of Handel aad Shakespeare 
 weakened because a day will come when there will be no 
 more of either Handel or Shakespeare nor yet of ears to hear 
 them? Is it not enough that they should stir such countless 
 multitudes so profoundly and kindle such intense and affec- 
 tionate admiration for so many ages as they have done and 
 probably will continue to do ? The life of a great thing may 
 be so long as practically to come to immortality even now, 
 but that is not the point. The point is that if anything was 
 aimed at at all when things began to shape or to be shaped, 
 it seems to have been a short life and a merry one, with an 
 extension of time in certain favoured cases, rather than a 
 permanency even of the very best and noblest. And, when 
 one comes to think of it, death and birth are so closely cor- 
 related that one could not destroy either without destroying 
 the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes crea- 
 tion possible. 
 
 If, however, any work is to have long Ufe it is not enough 
 that it should be good of its kind. Many ephemeral things 
 are perfect in their way. It must be of a durable kind as 
 well. 
 
Lord, What is Man? 15 
 
 Living in Others 
 
 We had better live in others as much as we can if only 
 because we thus live more in the race, which God really does 
 seem to care about a good deal, and less in the individual, 
 to whom, so far as I can see, he is indifferent. After we are 
 dead it matters not to the life we have led in ourselves what 
 people may say of us, but it matters much to the life we lead 
 in others and this should be our true life. 
 
 Karma 
 
 When I am inclined to complain about having worked so 
 many years and taken nothing but debt, though I feel the 
 want of money so continually (much more, doubtless, than I 
 ought to feel it), let me remember that I come in free, gratis, 
 to the work of hundreds and thousands of better men than 
 myself who often were much worse paid than I have been. If 
 a man's true self is his karma — the life which his work lives 
 but which he knows very little about and by which he takes 
 nothing — let him remember at least that he can enjoy the 
 karma of others, and this about squares the account — or rather 
 far more than squares it. [1883.] 
 
 Birth and Death 
 
 i 
 
 They are functions one of the other and if you get rid 
 
 of one you must get rid of the other also. There is birth 
 
 in death and death in birth. We are always dying and being 
 
 bom again. 
 
 ii 
 Life is the gathering of waves to a head, at death they 
 break into a million fragments each one of which, however, 
 is absorbed at once into the sea of life and helps to form a 
 later generation which comes rolling on till it too breaks. 
 
 iii 
 What happens to you when you die? But what happens 
 to you when you are bom? In the one case we are born 
 
1 6 Lord, What is Man? 
 
 and in the other we die, but it is not possible to get much 
 further. 
 
 iv 
 We commonly know that we are going to die though we 
 do not know that we are going to be born. But are we sure 
 this is so? We may have had the most gloomy forebodings 
 on this head and forgotten all about them. At any rate we 
 know no more about the very end of our lives than about 
 the very b^inning. We come up unconsciously, and go down 
 unconsciously ; and we rarely see either birth or death. We 
 see people, as consciousness, between the two extremes. 
 
 Reproduction 
 
 Its base must be looked for not in the desire of the parents 
 to reproduce but in the discontent of the germs with their 
 surroundings inside those parents, and a desire on their part 
 to have a separate maintenance.* [1880.] 
 
 Thinking Almost Identically 
 
 The ova, spermatozoa and embryos not only of all human 
 races but of all things that live, whether animal or vegetable, 
 think little, but that little almost identically on every sub- 
 ject. That "almost" is the little rift within the lute which 
 by and by will give such different character to the music. 
 [1889.] 
 
 *"The doctrine preached by Weismann was that to start with 
 the body and inquire how its characters got into the germ was to 
 view the sequence from the wrong end; the proper starting point 
 was the germ, and the real question was not 'How do the characters 
 of the organism get into the germ-cell which it produces ?' but 'How 
 are the characters of an organism represented in the germ which 
 produces it?' Or, as Samuel Butler has it, the proper statement of 
 the relation between successive generations is not to say that a hen 
 produces another hen through the medium of an egg, but to say that 
 a hen is merely an egg's way of producing another egg." Breeding 
 and the Mendelian Discovery, by A. D. Darbishire. Cassell & Co., 
 1911, p. 187-8. 
 
 "It has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg's 
 way of making another egg." Life and Habit, Trubner & Co., 1878, 
 chapter viii, p. 134. 
 
 And compare the idea underlying "The World of the Unborn" in 
 Erewhon. 
 
Lord, What is Man? 17 
 
 Is Life Worth Living? 
 This is a question for an embryo, not for a man. [1883.] 
 
 Evacuations 
 
 There is a resemblance, greater or less, between the pleas- 
 ure we derive from all the evacuations. I believe that in all 
 cases the pleasure arises from rest — rest, that is to say, 
 from the considerable, though in most cases unconscious 
 labour of retaining that which it is a relief to us to be 
 rid of. 
 
 In ordinary cases the effort whereby we retain those things 
 that we would get rid of is unperceived by the central govern- 
 ment, being, I suppose, departmentally made; we — as distin- 
 guished from the subordinate personalities of which we are 
 composed^ — know nothing about it, though the subordinates in 
 question doubtless do. But when the desirability of remov- 
 ing is abnormally great, we know about the effort of retaining 
 perfectly well, and the gradual increase in our percep- 
 tion of the effort suggests strongly that there has been 
 effort all the time, descending to conscious and great through 
 unconscious and normal from unconscious and hardly any 
 at all. The relaxation of this effort is what causes 
 the sense of refreshment that follows all healthy dis- 
 charges. 
 
 All our limbs and sensual organs, in fact our whole body 
 and life, are but an accretion round and a fostering of the 
 spermatozoa. They are the real "He." A man's eyes, ears, 
 tongue, nose, legs and arms are but so many organs and tools , 
 that minister to the protection, education, increased intelli- 
 gence and multiplication of the spermatozoa; so that our 
 whole life is in reality a series of complex efforts in respect 
 of these, conscious or unconscious according to their com- 
 parative commonness. They are the central fact in our exist- 
 ence, the point towards which all effort is directed. Relaxa- 
 tion of effort here, therefore, is the most complete and com- 
 prehensive of all relaxations and, as such, the supreme gratifi- 
 cation — ^the most complete rest we can have, short of sleep and 
 death. 
 
1 8 Lord, What is Man? 
 
 Man and His Organism 
 i 
 Man is but a perambulating tool-box and workshop, or 
 office, fashioned for itself by a piece of very clever slime, 
 as the result of long experience; and truth is but its own 
 most enlarged, general and enduring sense of the coming 
 togetherness or con-venience of the various conventional 
 arrangements which, for some reason or other, it has been 
 led to sanction. Hence we speak of man's body as his 
 "trunk." 
 
 ii 
 The body is but a pair of pincers set over a bellows and a 
 stewpan and the whole fixed upon stilts. 
 
 iii 
 A man should see himself as a kind of tool-box; this is 
 simple enough; the difficulty is that it is the tools them- 
 selves that make and work the tools. The skill which now 
 guides our organs and us in arts and inventions was at one 
 time exercised upon the invention of these very organs them- 
 selves. Tentative bankruptcy acts afford good illustrations of 
 the manner in which organisms have been developed. The 
 ligaments which bind the tendons of our feet or the valves of 
 our blood vessels are the ingenious enterprises of individual 
 cells who saw a want, felt that they could supply it, and have 
 thus won themselves a position among the old aristocracy of 
 the body politic. 
 'The most incorporate tool — as an eye or a tooth or the 
 fist, when a blow is struck with it — ^has still something of the 
 non-ego about it ; and in like manner such a tool as a locomo- 
 tive engine, apparently entirely separated from the body, must 
 still from time to time, as it were, kiss the soil of the human 
 body and be handled, and thus become incorporate with man, 
 if it is to remain in working order. 
 
 Tools 
 
 A tool is anything whatsoever which is used by an intelli- 
 gent being for realising its object. The idea of a desired 
 
Lord, What is Man? 19 
 
 end is inseparable from a toolN The vety essence of a tool 
 is the being an instrument for the achievement of a purpose. 
 We say that a man is the tool of another, "meaning that 
 he is being used for the furtherance of that other's ends, 
 and this constitutes him a machine in use. Therefore the 
 word "tool" implies also the existence of a living, intelligent 
 being capable of desiring the end for which the tool is used, 
 for this is involved in the idea of a desired end. And as few 
 tools grow naturally fit for use (for even a stick or a fuller's 
 teasel must be cut from their places and modified to some 
 extent before they can be called tools), the word "tool" 
 implies not only a purpose and a purposer, but a purposer 
 who can see in what manner his purpose can be achieved, 
 and who can contrive (or find ready-made and fetch and 
 employ) the tool which shall achieve it. 
 
 Strictly speaking, nothing is a tool unless during actual 
 use. Nevertheless, if a thing has been made for the express 
 purpose of being used as a tool it is commonly called a tool, 
 whether it is in actual use or no. Thus hammers, chisels, 
 etc., are called tools, though lying idle in a tool-box. What 
 is meant is that, though not actually being used as instru- 
 ments at the present moment, they bear the impress of their 
 object, and are so often in use that we may speak of them 
 as though they always were so. Strictly, a thing is a tool 
 or not a tool just as it may happen to be in use or not. Thus 
 a stone may be picked up and used to hammer a nail with, 
 but the stone is not a tool until picked up with an eye to 
 use ; it is a tool as soon as this happens, and, if thrown away 
 immediately the nail has been driven home, the stone is a 
 tool no longer. We see, therefore, matter alternating be- 
 tween a toolish or organic state and an untoolish or in- 
 organic. Where there is intention it is organic, where there 
 is no intention it is inorganic. Perhaps, however, the word 
 "tool" should cover also the remains of a tool so long as 
 there are manifest signs that the object was a tool once. 
 
 The simplest tool I can think of is a piece of gravel used 
 for making_a road. Nothing is done to it, it owes its being 
 a tool simply to the fact that it subserves a purpose. A 
 broken piece of granite used for macadamising a road is 
 a more complex instriunent, about the toolishness of which 
 no doubt can be entertained. It will, however, I think, be 
 
20 Lord, What is Man? 
 
 held that even a piece of gravel found in situ and left there 
 untouched, provided it is so left because it was deemed 
 suitable for a road which was designed to pass over the spot, 
 would become a tool in virute of the recognition of its utility, 
 while a similar piece of gravel a yard off on either side the 
 proposed road would not be a tool. 
 
 The essence of a tool, therefore, lies in something outside 
 the tool itself. It is not in the head of the hammer, nor in 
 the handle, nor in the combination of the two that the essence 
 of mechanical characteristics exists, but in the recognition 
 of its utility and in the forces directed through it in virtue 
 of this recognition. This appears more plainly when we 
 reflect that a very complex machine, if intended for use by 
 children whose aim is not serious, ceases to rank in our 
 minds as a tool, and becomes a toy. It is seriousness of aim 
 and recognition of suitability for the achievement of that aim, 
 and not anything in the tool itself, that makes the tool. 
 
 The goodness or badness, again, of a tool depends not upon 
 anything within the tool as regarded without relation to the 
 user, but upon the ease or difficulty experienced by the person 
 using it in comparison with what he or others of average 
 capacity would* experience if they had used a tool of a differ- 
 ent kind. Thus the same tool may be good for one man and 
 bad for another. 
 
 It seems to me that all tools resolve themselves into the 
 hammer and the lever, and that the lever is only an inverted 
 hammer, or the hammer only an inverted lever, whichever 
 one wills ; so that all the problems of mechanics are present 
 to us in the simple stone which may be used as a hammer, 
 or in the stick that may be used as a lever, as much as in 
 the most complicated machine. These are the primordial 
 cells of mechanics. And an organ is only another name for 
 a tool. 
 
 Organs and Makeshifts 
 
 I have gone out sketching and forgotten my water-dipper; 
 among my traps I always find something that will do, for 
 example, the top of my tin case (for holding pencils). This 
 is how organs come to change their uses and hence their 
 forms, or at any rate partly how. 
 
Lord, What is Man? 21 
 
 Joining and Disjoining 
 
 These are the essence of change. 
 
 One of the earliest notes I made, when I began to make 
 notes at all, I found not long ago in an old book, since 
 destroyed, which I had in New Zealand. It was to the effect 
 that all things are either of the nature of a piece of string or 
 a knife. That is, they are either for bringing and keeping 
 things together, or for sending and keeping them apart. 
 Nevertheless each kind contains a little of its opposite and 
 some, as the railway train and the hedge, combine many 
 examples of both. Thus the train, on the whole, is used for 
 bringing things together, but it is also used for sending them 
 apart, and its divisions into classes are alike for separating 
 and keeping together. The hedge is also both for joining 
 things (as a flock of sheep) and for disjoining (as for keeping 
 the sheep from getting into corn). These are the more im- 
 mediate ends. The ulterior ends, both of train and hedge, 
 so far as we are concerned, and so far as anything can have 
 an end, are the bringing or helping to bring meat or dairy 
 produce into contact with man's inside, or wool on to his 
 back, or that he may go in comfort somewhere to converse 
 with people and join his soul on to theirs, or please himself 
 by getting something to come within the range of his senses 
 or imagination. 
 
 A piece of string is a thing that, in the main, makes for 
 togetheriness ; whereas a knife is, in the main, a thing that 
 makes for splitty-uppiness ; still, there is an odour of to- 
 getheriness hanging about a knife also, for it tends to bring 
 potatoes into a man's stomach. 
 
 In high philosophy one should never look at a knife with- 
 out considering it also as a piece of string, nor at a piece of 
 string without considering it also as a knife. 
 
 Cotton Factories 
 
 Surely the work done by the body is, in one way, more 
 its true life than its limbs and organisation are. Which 
 is the more true life of a great cotton factory — ^the bales 
 of goods which it turns out for the world's wearing or the 
 
22 Lord, What is Man? 
 
 machinery whereby its ends are achieved ? The manufacture 
 is only possible by reason of the machinery; it is produced 
 by this. The machinery only exists in virtue of its being 
 capable of producing the manufacture; it is produced for 
 this. The machinery represents the work done by the factory 
 that turned it out. 
 
 Somehow or other when we think of a factory we think 
 rather of the fabric and mechanism than of the work, and so 
 we think of a man's Ufe and living body as constituting 
 himself rather than of the work that the life and living body 
 turn out. The instinct being as strong as it is, I suppose 
 it sound, but it seems as though the life should be held to be 
 quite as much in the work itself as in the tools that produce 
 it — ^and perhaps more. 
 
 Our Trivial Bodies 
 
 Though we think so much of our body, it is in reality 
 a small part of us. Before birth we get together our tools, 
 in life, we use them, and thus fashion our true life which 
 consists not in our tools and tool-box but in the work we 
 have done with oui tools. It is Handel's work, not the body 
 ~with which he did the work, that pulls us half over London. 
 There is not an action of a mtiscle in a horse's leg upon a 
 winter's night as it drags a carriage to the Albert Hall but 
 is in connection with, and part outcome of, the force gen- 
 erated when Handel sat in his room at Gopsall and wrote the 
 Messiah. Think of all the forces which that force has con- 
 trolled, and think, also, how small was the amount of molecu- 
 lar disturbance from which it proceeded. It is as though we 
 saw a conflagration which a spark had kindled. This is the 
 true Handel, who is a more living power among us one 
 hundred and twenty-two years after his death than during 
 the time he was amongst us in the body. 
 
 The whole life of some people is a kind of partial death — 
 a long, lingering death-bed, so to speak, of stagnation and 
 nonentity on which death is but the seal, or solemn signing, 
 as the abnegation of all further act and deed on the part 
 
Lord, What is Man? 23 
 
 of the signer. Death robs these people of even that little 
 strength which they appeared to have and gives them nothing 
 but repose. 
 
 On others, again, death confers a more living kind of life 
 than they can ever possibly have enjoyed while to those about 
 them they seemed to be alive. Look at Shakespeare; can 
 he be properly said to have lived in anything like his real life 
 till a hundred years or so after his death? His physical life 
 was but as a dawn preceding the sunrise of that life of the 
 world to come which he was to enjoy hereafter. True, there 
 was a little stir — a little abiding of shepherds in the fields, 
 keeping watch over their flocks by night — a little buzzing in 
 knots of men waiting to be hired before the daybreak — a little 
 stealthy movement as of a burglar or two here and there — 
 an inchoation of life. But the true life of the man was after 
 death and not before it. 
 
 Death is not more the end of some than it is the h^inning 
 of others. So he that loses his soul may find it, and he that 
 finds may lose it. 
 
II 
 
 Elementary Morality 
 The Foundations of Morality 
 
 These are like all other foundations ; if you dig too much 
 about them the superstructure will come tumbling down. 
 
 ii 
 The foundations which we would dig about and find are 
 within us, like the Kingdom of Heaven, rather than without. 
 
 iii 
 To attempt to get at the foundations is to try to recover 
 consciousness about things that have passed into the un- 
 conscious stage ; it is pretty sure to disturb and derange those 
 who try it on too much. 
 
 Counsels of Imperfection 
 
 It is all very well for mischievous writers to maintain 
 that we cannot serve God and Mammon. Granted that it 
 is not easy, but nothing that is worth doing ever is easy. 
 Easy or difiScult, possible or impossible, not only has the 
 thing got to be done, but it is exactly in doing it that the 
 wTiole duty of man consists. And when the righteous man 
 turneth away from his righteousness that he hath committed 
 and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, 
 he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what 
 he has lost in holiness. 
 
 " If there are two worlds at all (and that there are I have 
 
 24 
 
Elementary Morality 25 
 
 no doubt) it stands to reason that we ought to make the best 
 of both of them, and more particularly of the one with which 
 we are most immediately concerned. It is as immoral to be 
 too good as to be too anything else. The Christian morality 
 is just as immoral as any other. It is at once very moral 
 and very immoral. How often do we not see children ruined 
 through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents! 
 Truly he visiteth the virtues of the fathers upon the children 
 unto the third and fourth generation. The most that can 
 be said for virtue is that there is a considerable bal- 
 ance in its favour, and that it is a good deal better to be for 
 it than against it; but it lets people in very badly some- 
 times. 
 
 If you wish to understand virtue you must be sub-vicious ; 
 for the really virtuous man, who is fully under grace, 
 will be virtuous unconsciously and will know nothing 
 about it. Unless a man is out-and-out virtuous he is sub- 
 vicious. 
 
 Virtue is, as it were, the repose of sleep or death. Vice" 
 is the awakening to the knowledge of good and evil — without 
 which there is no life worthy of the name. Sleep is, in a 
 way, a happier, more peaceful state than waking and, in 
 a way, death may be said to be better than life, but it is 
 in a very small way. We feel such talk to be blasphemy 
 against good life and, whatever we may say in death's favour, 
 so long as we do not blow our brains out we show that we do 
 not mean to be taken seriously. To know good, other than 
 as a heavy sleeper, we must know vice also. There cannot, 
 as Bacon said, be a "Hold fast that which is good" without 
 a "Prove all things" going before it. There is no knowledge' 
 of good without a knowledge of evil also, and this is why 
 all nations have devils as well as gods, and regard them with 
 sneaking kindness. God without the devil is dead, being 
 alone. 
 
 Lucifer 
 
 We call him at once the Angel of Light and the Angel of 
 Darkness: is this because we instinctively feel that no one 
 can know much till he has sinned much — or because we feel 
 that extremes meet, or how ? 
 
26 Elementary Morality 
 
 The Oracle in Erewhon 
 
 The answer given by the oracle was originally written con- 
 cerning any vice — say drunkenness, but it applies to many 
 another — ^and I wrote not "sins" but "knows" : * 
 
 He who knows aught 
 Knows more than he ought ; 
 But he who knows nought 
 Has much to be taught. 
 
 God's Laws 
 The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being. 
 
 Physical Excellence 
 
 The question whether such and such a course of conduct 
 does or does not do physical harm is the safest test by which 
 to try the question whether it is moral or no. If it does no 
 harm to the body we ought to be very chary of calling it 
 immoral, while if it tends towards physical excellence there 
 should be no hesitation in calling it moral. In the case 
 of those who are not forced to over- work themselves — and 
 there are many who work themselves to death from mere 
 inability to restrain the passion for work, which masters 
 them as the craving for drink masters a drunkard — over- 
 work in these cases is as immoral as over-eating or drinking. 
 This, so far as the individual is concerned. With regard 
 to the body politic as a whole, it is, no doubt, well that there 
 should be some men and women so built that they cannot 
 be stopped from working themselves to death, just as it is 
 unquestionably well that there should be some who cannot 
 be stopped from drinking themselves to death, if only that 
 they may keep the horror of the habit well in evidence. 
 
 *The two chapters entitled "The Rights of Animals" and "The 
 Rights of Vegetables" appeared first in the new and revised edition 
 of Erewhon 1901 and form part of the additions referred to in the 
 preface to that book. 
 
Elementary Morality 27 
 
 Intellectual Self-indulgence 
 
 Intellectual over-indulgence is the most gratuitous and dis- 
 graceful form which excess can take, nor is there any the con- 
 sequences of which are more disastrous. 
 
 Dodging Fatigue 
 
 When fatigued, I find it rests me to write very slowly 
 with attention to the formation of each letter. I am often 
 thus able to go on when I could not otherwise do so. 
 
 Vice and Virtue 
 
 i 
 
 Virtue is something which it would be impossible to over- 
 rate if it had not been over-rated. The world can ill spare' 
 any vice which has obtained long and largely among civilised 
 people. Such a vice must have some good along with its 
 deformities. The question "How, if every one were to do-" 
 so and so ?" may be met with another "How, if no one were 
 to do it?" We are a body corporate as well as a collection 
 of individuals. 
 
 As a matter of private policy I doubt whether the mod- 
 erately vicious are more unhappy than the moderately virtu- 
 ous; "Very vicious" is certainly less happy than "Toler- 
 ably virtuous," but this is about all. What pass muster as 
 the extremes of virtue probably make people quite as unhappy 
 as extremes of vice do. 
 
 The truest virtue has ever inclined toward excess rather 
 than asceticism; that she should do this is reasonable as 
 well as observable, for virtue should be as nice a calculator 
 of chances as other people and will make due allowance for 
 the chance of not being found out. Virtue knows that it is 
 impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, 
 as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in 
 playing. So the Psalmist says, "If thou. Lord, wilt be ex- 
 treme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord who may abide 
 it?" and by this he admits tliat the highest conceivable form 
 of virtue still leaves room for some compromise with vice. 
 
28 Elementary Morality 
 
 So again Shakespeare writes, "They say, best men are 
 moulded out of faults; And, for the most, become much 
 more the better For being a little bad." 
 
 The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; abso- 
 lute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let 
 alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it. 
 
 iii 
 
 God does not intend people, and does not like people, to 
 be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but 
 a little too bad is more venial with him than a little too good. 
 
 iv 
 As there is less difference than we generally think between 
 the happiness of men who seem to differ widely in fortune, 
 so is there also less between their moral natures; the best 
 are not so much better than the worst, nor the worst so 
 much below the best as we suppose; and the bad are just 
 as important an element in the general progress as the good, 
 or perhaps more so. It is in strife that life lies, and were 
 there no opposing forces there would be neither moral nor 
 immoral, neither victory nor defeat. 
 
 If virtue had everything her own way she would be as 
 insufferable as dominant factions generally are. It is the 
 function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. 
 
 vi 
 
 Virtue has never yet been adequately represented by any 
 who have had any claim to be considered virtuous. It is 
 the sub-vicious who best understand virtue. Let the virtuous 
 people stick to describing vice — which they can do well 
 enough. 
 
 My Virtuous Life 
 
 I have led a more virtuous life than I intended, or thought 
 I was leading. When I was young I thought I was vicious : 
 now I know that I was not and that my unconscious know- 
 
Elementary Morality 29 
 
 ledge was sounder than my conscious. I regret some things 
 that I have done, but not many. I regret that so many j 
 should think I did much which I never did, and shouHT 
 know of what I did in so garbled and distorted a fashion as 
 to have done me much mischief. But if things were known 
 as they actually happened, I believe I should have less to be 
 ashamed of than a good many of my neighbours — and less 
 also to be proud of. 
 
 Sin 
 
 Sin is like a mountain with two aspects according to 
 whether it is viewed before or after it has been reached : yet 
 both aspects are real. 
 
 Morality 
 
 turns on whether the pleasure precedes or follows the pain. 
 Thus, it is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes 
 after the drinking, but if the headache came first, and the 
 drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk. 
 
 Change and Immorality 
 
 Every discovery and, indeed, every change of any sort 
 is immoral, as tending to unsettle men's minds, and hence 
 their custom and hence their morals, which are the net 
 residuum of their "mores" or customs. Wherefrom it should 
 follow that there is nothing so absolutely moral as stagna- 
 tion, except for this that, if perfect, it would destroy all 
 mores whatever. So there must always be an itnmorality 
 in morality and, in like manner, a morality in immorality. 
 For there will be an element of habitual and legitimate cus- 
 tom even in the most imhabitual and detestable things that 
 can be done at all. 
 
 Cannibalism 
 
 Morality is the custom of one's country and the current; 
 feeling of one's peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal, 
 country. 
 
30 Elementary Morality 
 
 Abnormal Developments 
 
 If a man can get no other food it is more natural for him 
 to kill another man and eat him than to starve. Our horror 
 is rather at the circumstances that make it natural for the 
 man to do this than at the man himself. So with other things 
 the desire for which is inherited through countless ancestors, 
 it is more natural for men to obtain the nearest thing they 
 can to these, even by the most abnormal means if the ordi- 
 nary channels are closed, than to forego them altogether. 
 The abnormal growth should be regarded as disease but, 
 nevertheless, as showing more health and vigour than no 
 growth at all would do. I said this in Life and Habit (ch. iii. 
 p. 52) when I wrote "it is more righteous in a man that he 
 should eat strange food and that his cheek so much as lank 
 not, than that he should starve if the strange food be at his 
 command." * 
 
 Young People 
 
 With regard to sexual matters, the best opinion of our 
 best medical men, the practice of those nations which have 
 proved most vigorous and comely, the evils that have followed 
 this or that, the good that has attended upon the other 
 should be ascertained by men who, being neither moral nor 
 immoral and not caring two straws what tlie conclusion 
 arrived at might be, should desire only to get hold of the 
 best available information. The result should be written 
 down with some fulness and put before the young of both 
 sexes as soon as they are old enough to understand such 
 matters at all. There should be no mystery or reserve. 
 None but the corrupt will wish to corrupt facts; honest 
 people will accept them eagerly, whatever they may prove 
 to be, and will convey them to others as accurately as they 
 can. On what pretext therefore can it be well that knowledge 
 should be withheld from the universal gaze upon a matter 
 
 * On the Alps 
 
 It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, 
 
 Which some did die to look on: and all this — 
 
 It wounds thine honour that I speak it now — 
 
 Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek 
 
 So much as lank'd not. — Ant. & Cleop., I. iv 66-71. 
 
Elementary Morality 31 
 
 of such universal interest? It cannot be pretended that 
 there is nothing to be known on these matters beyond what 
 unaided boys and girls can be left without risk to find out 
 for themselves. Not one in a hundred who remembers his 
 own boyhood will say this. How, then, are they excusable 
 who havethe care of young people and yet leave a matter 
 of such vital importance so almost absolutely to take care 
 of itself, although they well know how common error is, 
 how easy to fall into^and how disastrous in its effects both 
 upon the individual and the race? ^ 
 
 Next to sexual matters there are none upon which there 
 is such complete reserve between parents and children as 
 on those connected with money. The father keeps his affairs 
 as closely as he can to himself and is most jealous of letting 
 his children into a knowledge of how he manages his money. 
 His children are like monks in a monastery as regards money 
 and he calls this training them up with the strictest regard 
 to principle. Nevertheless he thinks himself ill-used if his 
 son, on entering life, falls a victim to designing persons whose 
 knowledge of how money is made and lost is greater than his 
 own. 
 
 The Family 
 
 I believe that more unhappiness comes from this source 
 than from any other — I mean from the attempt to prolong 
 family connection unduly and to make people hang together 
 artificially who would never naturally do so. The mischief 
 among the lower classes is not so great, but among the middle 
 and upper classes it is killing a large number daily. And the 
 old people do not really like it much better than the young. 
 
 ii 
 On my way down to Shrewsbury some time since I read 
 the Bishop of Carlisle's Walks in the Regions of Science and 
 Faith/' then just published, and found the following on p. 129 
 in the essay which is entitled "Man's Place in Nature." 
 After saying that young sparrows or robins soon lose sight 
 
 * Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith, by Harvey Goodwin, 
 D.D., Lord Bishop of Carlisle. John Murray, 1883. 
 
32 Elementary Morality 
 
 of their fellow-nestlings and leave off caring for them, the 
 bishop continues : — 
 
 "Whereas 'children of one family' are constantly found 
 joined together by a love which only grows with years, and 
 they part for their posts of duty in the world with the 
 hope of having joyful meetings from time to time, and of 
 meeting in a higher world when their life on earth is finished." 
 
 I am sure my great-grandfather did not look forward to 
 meeting his father in heaven — his father had cut him out 
 of his will; nor can I credit my grandfather with any great 
 longing to rejoin my great-grandfather — a. worthy man 
 enough, but one with whom nothing ever prospered. I 
 am certain my father, after he was 40, did not wish to see 
 my grandfather any more — indeed, long before reaching that 
 age he had decided that Dr. Butler's life should not be written, 
 though R. W. Evans would have been only too glad to write 
 it. Speaking for myself, I have no wish to see my father 
 again, and I think it likely that the Bishop of Carlisle would 
 not be more eager to see his than I mine. 
 
 Unconscious Humour 
 
 "Writing to the Hon. Mrs. Watson in 1856, Charles Dick- 
 ens says : 'I have always observed within my experience that 
 the men who have left home very young have, many long years 
 afterwards, had the tenderest regard for it. That's a pleasant 
 thing to think of as one of the wise adjustments of this life 
 of ours.' " * 
 
 Homer's Odyssey 
 
 From the description of the meeting between Ulysses 
 and Telemachus it is plain that Homer considered it quite 
 as dreadful for relations who had long been separated to 
 come together again as for them to separate in the first 
 instance. And this is about true.f 
 
 * This quotation occurs on the title page of Charles Dickens and 
 Rochester by Robert Langton. Chapman & Hall, 1880. Reprinted 
 with additions from the Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, 
 Vol. VI, 1880. But the italics are Butler's. 
 
 tThis is Butler's note as he left it. He made it just about the 
 time he hit upon the theory that the Odyssey was written by a woman. 
 If it had caught his eye after that theory had become established in 
 
Elementary Morality 33 
 
 Melchisedec 
 
 He was a really happy man. He was without father, with- 
 out mother and without descent. He was an incarnate bach- 
 elor. He was a born orphan. 
 
 Bacon for Breakfast 
 
 Now [1893] when I am abroad, being older and taking 
 less exercise, I do not want any breakfast beyond coffee 
 and bread and butter, but when this note was written [1880] 
 I liked a modest rasher of bacon in addition, and used to 
 notice the jealous indignation with which heads of families 
 who enjoyed the privilege of Cephas and the brethren of 
 our Lord regarded it. There were they with three or four 
 elderly unmarried daughters as well as old mamma — ^how 
 could they afford bacon ? And there was I, a selfish bachelor — . 
 The appetising, savoury smell of my rasher seemed to drive 
 them mad. I used to feel very uncomfortable, very small 
 and quite aware how low it was of me to have bacon for 
 breakfast and no daughters instead of daughters and no 
 bacon. But when I consulted the oracles of heaven about 
 it, I was always told to stick to my bacon and not to make 
 a fool of myself. I despised myself but have not withered 
 under my own contempt so completely as I ought to have 
 done. 
 
 God and Man 
 
 To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, 
 experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in 
 hand. "We know that all things work together for good to 
 them that love God." To be loved by God is the same as 
 to love Him. We love Him because He first loved us. 
 
 The Homeric Deity and the Pall Mall Gazette 
 
 A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette (I think in 1874 or 1875, 
 and in the autumn months, but I cannot now remember) 
 
 his mind, he would have edited it so as to avoid speaking of Homer as 
 the author of the poem. 
 
34 Elementary Morality 
 
 summed up Homer's conception of a god as that of a "super- 
 latively strong, amorous, beautiful, brave and cunning man." 
 This is pretty much what a good working god ought to be, 
 but he should also be kind and have a strong sense of humour, 
 together with a contempt for the vices of meanness and 
 _for the meannesses of virtue. After saying what I have 
 quoted above the writer in the Pall Mall Gazette goes on, 
 "An impartial critic can judge for himself how far, if at all, 
 this is elevated above the level of mere fetish worship." 
 Perhaps it is that I am not an impartial critic, but, if I am 
 allowed to be so, I should say that the elevation above mere 
 fetish worship was very considerable. 
 
 Good Breeding the Summum Bonum 
 
 When people ask what faith we would substitute for that 
 which we would destroy, we answer that we destroy no faith 
 and need substitute none. We hold the glory of God to be 
 the summum bonum, and so do Christians generally. It is 
 on the question of what is the glory of God that we join 
 issue. We say it varies with the varying phases of God as 
 Inade manifest in his works, but that, so far as we are our- 
 selves concerned, the glory of God is best advanced by ad- 
 vancing that of man. If asked what is the glory of man we 
 "answer "Good breeding" — using the words in their double 
 sense and meaning both the continuance of the race and that 
 grace of manner which the words are more commonly taken 
 to signify. The double sense of the words is all the more 
 significant for the unconsciousness with which it is passed 
 over. 
 
 Advice to the Young 
 
 You will sometimes find your elders laying their heads 
 together and saying what a bad thing it is for young men 
 to come into a little money — that those always do best 
 who have no expectancy, and the like. They will then quote 
 some drivel from one of the Kingsleys about the deadening 
 effect an income of ^300 a year will have upon a man. Avoid 
 any one whom you may hear talk in this way. The fault 
 lies not with the legacy (which would certainly be better 
 if there were more of it) but with those who have so mis- 
 
Elementary Morality 35 
 
 managed our education that we go in even greater danger 
 of losing the money than other people are. 
 
 Religion 
 
 Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to 
 as distinctly more amiable and trustworthy than those of 
 any other? If so, this should be enough. I find the nicest 
 and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are 
 ready to like the best men of all religions. 
 
 Heaven and Hell 
 
 Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. 
 Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth- 
 tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of both. 
 
 Priggishness 
 
 The essence of priggishness is setting up to be better 
 than one's neighbour. Better may mean more virtuous, more 
 clever, more agreeable or what not. The worst of it is that 
 one cannot do anything outside eating one's dinner or tak- 
 ing a walk without setting up to know more than one's 
 neighbours. It was this that made me say in Life and 
 Habit [close of ch. ii.] that I was among the damned in 
 that I wrote at all. So I am; and I am often very sorry 
 that I was never able to reach those more saintly classes 
 who do not set up as instructors of other people. But one 
 must take one's lot. 
 
 Lohengrin 
 
 He was a prig. In the bedroom scene with Elsa he should 
 have said that her question put him rather up a tree but that, 
 as she wanted to know who he was, he would tell her and 
 would let the Holy Grail sUde. 
 
 Swells 
 
 People ask complainingly what swells have done, or do, 
 for society that they should be able to live without working. 
 The good swell is die creature towards which all nature has 
 
36 Elementary Morality 
 
 been groaning and travailing together until now. He is an 
 ideal. He shows what may be done in the way of good breed- 
 ing, health, looks, temper and fortune. He realises men's 
 dreams of themselves, at any rate vicariously. He preaches 
 the gospel of grace. The world is like a spoilt child, it has 
 this good thing given it at great expense and then says it is 
 useless ! 
 
 Science and Religion 
 
 These are reconciled in amiable and sensible people but 
 jiowhere else. 
 
 Gentleman 
 
 If we are asked what is the most essential characteristic 
 that underlies this word, the word itself will guide us to 
 gentleness, to absence of such things as brow-beating, over- 
 bearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for 
 other people. 
 
 The Finest Men 
 
 I suppose an Italian peasant or a Breton, Norman or 
 English fisherman, is about the best thing nature does in 
 the way of men — the richer and the poorer being alike mis- 
 takes. 
 
 On being a Swell all Round 
 
 I have never in my life succeeded in being this. Some- 
 times I get a new suit and am tidy for a while in part, mean- 
 while the hat, tie, boots, gloves and underclothing all clamour 
 for attention and, before I have got them well in hand, the 
 new suit has lost its freshness. Still, if ever I do get any 
 money, I will try and make myself really spruce all round 
 till I find out, as I probably shall in about a week, that if 
 I give my clothes an inch they will take an ell. [1880.] 
 
 Money 
 
 is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there 
 is flesh there is money — or the want of money; but money 
 is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable 
 order. 
 
Elementary Morality 37 
 
 A Luxurious Death 
 
 Death in anything like luxury is one of the most expensive 
 things a man can indulge himself in. It costs a lot of money 
 to die comfortably, unless one goes off pretty quickly. 
 
 Money, Health and Reputation 
 
 Money, if it live at all, that is to say if it be reproductive 
 and put out at any interest, however low, is mortal and 
 doomed to be lost one day, though it may go on living through 
 many generations of one single family if it be taken care of. 
 No man is absolutely safe. It may be said to any man, 
 "Thou fool, this night thy money shall be required of thee." 
 And reputation is like money : it may be required of us with- 
 out warning. The little unsuspected evil on which we trip 
 may swell up in a moment and prove to be the huge. Janus- 
 like mountain of unpardonable sin. And his health may be 
 required of any fool, any night or any day. 
 
 A man will feel loss of money more keenly than loss of 
 bodily health, so long as he can keep his money. Take his 
 money away and deprive him of the means of earning any 
 more, and his health will soon break up ; but leave him his 
 money and, even though his health breaks up and he dies, 
 he does not mind it so much as we think. Money losses are 
 the worst, loss of health is next worst and loss of reputation 
 comes in a bad third. All other things are amusements 
 provided money, health and good name are untouched. 
 
 Solicitors 
 
 A man must not think he can save himself the trouble 
 of being a sensible man and a gentleman by going to his 
 solicitor, any more than he can get himself a sound consti- 
 tution by going to his doctor; but a solicitor can do more 
 to keep a tolerably well-meaning fool straight than a doctor 
 can do for an 'invalid. Money is to the solicitor what souls 
 are to the parson or life to the physician. He is our money- 
 doctor. 
 
38 Elementary Morality 
 
 Doctors 
 
 Going to your doctor is having such a row with your cells 
 that you refer them to your solicitor. Sometimes you, as it 
 were, strike against them and stop their food, when they go 
 on strike against yourself. Sometimes you file a bill in 
 Chancery against them and go to bed. 
 
 Priests 
 
 We may find an argument in favour of priests if we con- 
 sider whether man is capable of doing for himself in respect 
 of his moral and spiritual welfare (than which nothing can 
 be more difficult and intricate) what it is so clearly better for 
 him to leave to professional advisers in the case of his money 
 and his body which are comparatively simple and unim- 
 portant. 
 
Ill 
 
 The Germs of Erewhon and of Life 
 and Habit 
 
 Prefatory Note 
 
 The Origin of Species was published in the autumn of 1859, 
 and Butler arrived in New Zealand about the same time and 
 read the book soon afterwards. In 1880 he wrote in Uncon- 
 scious Memory {close of Chapter I): "As a member of the 
 general public, at that time residing eighteen miles from the 
 nearest human habitation, and three days' journey on horse- 
 back from, a bookseller's shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin's 
 many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue 
 {the most oifensive form, except poetry and books of travel 
 into supposed unknown countries, that even literature can 
 assume) upon the Origin of Species. This production ap- 
 peared in the Press, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or 
 1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had." 
 
 The Press was founded by James Edward FitzGerald, the 
 Urst Superintendent of the Province of Canterbury. Butler 
 was an intimate friend of FitzGerald, was closely associated 
 with the newspaper and frequently wrote for it. The first 
 number appeared 25th May, 1861, and on 2^th May, 191 1, the 
 Press celebrated its jubilee with a numSer which contained 
 particulars of its early life, of its editors, and of Butler; it also 
 contained reprints of two of Butler's contributions, viz. Dar- 
 win among the Machines, which originally appeared in its col- 
 umns 13 June, 1863, and Lucubratio Ebria, which originally 
 appeared 29 July, 1865. The Dialogue was not reprinted 
 because, although the editor knew of its existence and searched 
 for it, he could not find it. At my request, after the appear- 
 
 39 
 
40 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 ance of the jubilee mimher, a further search was made, hut 
 the Dialogue was not found and I gave it up for lost. 
 
 In March, 1912, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild pointed out to me 
 that Mr. Tregaskis, in Holborn, was advertising for sale an 
 autograph letter by Charles Darwin sending to an unknown 
 editor a Dialogue on Species from a New Zealand newspaper, 
 described in the letter as being "remarkable from its spirit and 
 from giving so clem' and accurate a view of Mr. D.'s theory." 
 Having no doubt that this referred to Butler's lost contribu- 
 tion to the Press, / bought the autograph letter and sent it to 
 New Zealand, where it now is in the Canterbury Museum, 
 Christchurch. With it I sent a letter to the editor of the 
 Press, giving all further infornuition in my possession about 
 the Dialogue. This letier, which appeared i June, 1912, to- 
 gether with the presentation of Darimn's autograph, stimu- 
 lated further search, and in the issue for 20th December , 1862, 
 the Dialogue was found by Miss Colborne-Veel, whose father 
 was editor of the paper at the time BuMer was writing for it. 
 The Press reprinted the Dialogue 8th June, 191 2. 
 
 When the Dialogue tirst appeared it excited a great deal of 
 discussion in the colony and, to quote Butler's words in a letter 
 to Darwin (1865), "called forth a contemptuous rejoinder 
 from (I believe) the Bishop of Wellington." This rejoinder 
 was an article headed "Barrel-Organs," the idea being that 
 there was nothing new in Darwin's book, it was only a grind- 
 ing out of old tunes with which we were all familiar. Butler 
 alludes to this controversy in a note made on a letter from 
 Darwin which he gave h the British Museum. "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." The bishop's article and Butler's 
 reply, which was a letter signed A. M. and some of the result- 
 ing correspondence were reprinted in thePress,isth June, 191 2. 
 
 At first I thought of including here the Dialogue, and per- 
 haps the letter signed A. M. They are interesting as showing 
 that Butler was among the earliest to study closely the Origin 
 of Species, and also as showing the state of his mind before he 
 began to think for himself, before he wrote Darwin among the 
 Machines from which so much followed; but they can hardly 
 be property considered as germs of Erewhon and Life and 
 
and of Life and Habit 41 
 
 Habit. They rather show the preparation of the soil in which 
 those germs sprouted and grew; and, remembering his last 
 remark on the subject that "it was all very young and silly," 
 I decided to omit them. The Dialogue is no longer lost, and 
 the numbers of the Press containing it and the correspondence 
 that ensued can be seen in the British Museum. 
 
 Butler's other two contributions to the Press mentioned 
 above do contain the germs of the machine chapters in Ere- 
 whon, and led him to the theory put forward in Life and 
 Habit. In 1901 he wrote in the preface to the new and re- 
 vised edition of Erewhon : "The first part of Erewhon writ- 
 ten was an article headed Darwin among the Machines and 
 signed 'Cellarius.' It was written in the Upper Rangitata dis- 
 trict of Canterbury Province (as it then was) of New Zea- 
 land, and appeared at Christchurch in the Press newspaper, 
 lune 13, 1863. A copy of this article is indexed under my 
 books in the British Museu4n catalogue." 
 
 The article is in the form of a letter, and the copy spoken of 
 by Butler, as indexed under his name in the British Museum,, 
 being defective, the reprint which appeared in the jubilee 
 number of the Press hds been used in completing the version 
 which follows. 
 
 Further on in the preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon 
 he writes: "A second article on the same subject as the one 
 jtist referred to appeared in the Press shortly after the ftrst, 
 but I have no copy. It treated machines from a different 
 point of view and was the basis of pp. 270274 of the present 
 edition of Erewhon. This view ultimately led me to the 
 theory I put forward in Life and Habit, published in Novem- 
 ber, 1877.* / have put a bare outline of this theory {which I 
 believe to be quite sound) into the mouth of an Erewhonian 
 professor in Chapter XXVII of this book." 
 
 This second article was Lucubratio Ebria, and was sent by 
 Butler from England to the editor of the Press in 1865, with 
 a letter from which this is an extract: 
 
 "I send you an article which you can give to FitzGerald 
 or not, jUfSt as you think it most expedient — for him. Is not 
 the subject worked out, and are not the Canterbury people 
 tired of Darwinism? Forme — is it an article to my credit f I 
 
 * Life and Habit is dated 1878, but it actually appeared on Butler's 
 birthday, 4th December, 1877. 
 
42 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 do not send it to FitzGerald because I am sure he would put it 
 into the paper. . . . I know the undue lenience which he 
 lends to my performances, and believe you to be the sterner 
 critic of the two. That there are some good things in it you 
 will, I think, feel; but I am almost sure that considering usque 
 ad nauseam, etc., you will think it had better not appear. . . . 
 I think you and he will like that sentence: 'There was a 
 moral government of the world before man came into it.' 
 There is hardly a sentence in it written without deliberation; 
 but I need hardly say that it was done upon tea, not upon 
 whiskey. . . . 
 
 "P.S. If you are in any doubt about the expediency of the 
 article take it to M. 
 
 "P.P.S. Perhaps better take it to him anyhow." 
 
 The preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon contains some 
 further particulars of the genesis of that work, and there ewe 
 still further particulars in Unconscious Memory, Chapter II, 
 "How I wrote Life and Habit." 
 
 The first tentative sketch of the Life and Habit theory oc- 
 curs in the letter to Thomas William Gale Butler which is 
 given post. This T. W. G. Butler was not related to Butler, 
 they met first as art-students at Heatherley's, and Butler used 
 to speak of him as the most brilliant man he had ever known. 
 He died many years ago. He was the writer of the "letter 
 from a friend now in New Zealand," from which a quotation 
 is given in Life and Habit, Chapter V {pp. 83, 84). Butler 
 kept a copy of his letter to T. W. G. Butler, but it was imper- 
 fectly pressed; he afterwards supplied some of the missing 
 words from, memory, and gave it to the British Museum. 
 
 Darwin among the Machines 
 
 [To the Editor of the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand — 
 13 June, 1863.] » 
 
 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 indeed it is matter for great congratulation on 
 many grounds. It is unnecessary to mention these here, 
 for they are sufficiently obvious; our present business lies 
 with considerations which may somewhat tend to humble 
 
and of Life and Habit 43 
 
 our pride and to make us think seriously of the future pros- 
 pects of the human race. If we revert to the earliest primor- 
 dial types of mechanical life, to the lever, the wedge, the 
 inclined plane, the screw and the pulley, or (for analogy 
 would lead us one step further) to that one primordial type 
 from which all the mechanical kingdom has been developed, 
 we mean to the lever itself, and if we then examine the 
 machinery of the Great Eastern, we find ourselves almost 
 awestruck at the vast development of the mechanical world, 
 at the gigantic strides with which it has advanced in com- 
 parison with the slow progress of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdom. We shall find it impossible to refrain from asking 
 ourselves what the end of this mighty movement is to be. 
 In what direction is it tending? What will be its upshot? 
 To give a few imperfect hints towards a solution of these 
 questions is the object of the present letter. 
 
 We have used the words "mechanical life," "the mechani- 
 cal kingdom," "the mechanical world" and so forth, and 
 we have done so advisedly, for as the vegetable king- 
 dom was slowly developed from the mineral, and as, in 
 like manner, the animal 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 
 one day be considered the antediluvian prototypes of the 
 race. 
 
 We regret deeply that our knowledge both of natural his- 
 tory and of machinery is too srhall to enable us to under- 
 take the gigantic task of classifying machines into the genera 
 and sub-genera, species, varieties and sub-varieties, and so 
 forth, of tracing the connecting links between machines of 
 widely different characters, of pointing out how subservience 
 to the use of man has played that part among machines 
 which natural selection has performed in the animal and vege- 
 table kingdom, of pointing out rudimentary organs [see 
 note] which exist in some few machines, feebly developed 
 and perfectly useless, yet serving to mark descent from some 
 ancestral type which has either perished or been modified 
 into some new phase of mechanical existence. We can only 
 point out this field for investigation ; it must be followed by 
 others whose education and talents have been of a much 
 higher order than any which we can lay claim to. 
 
44 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 Some few hints we have determined to venture upon, 
 though we do so with the profoundest diffidence. Firstly we 
 would remark that as some of the lowest of the vertebrata 
 attained a far greater size than has descended to their more 
 highly organised living representatives, so a diminution in 
 the size of machines has often attended their development 
 and progress. Take the watch for instance. Examine the 
 beautiful structure of the little animal, watch the inteUigent 
 play of the minute members which compose it; yet this 
 little creature is but a development of the cumbrous clocks 
 of the thirteenth century — it is no deterioration from them. 
 The day may come when clocks, which certainly at the 
 present day are not diminishing in bulk, may be entirely 
 superseded by the universal use of watches, in which case 
 clocks will become extinct like the earlier saurians, while the 
 watch (whose tendency has for some years been rather to 
 decrease in size than the contrary) will remain the only 
 existing type of an extinct race. 
 
 The views of machinery which we are thus feebly indi- 
 cating will suggest the solution of one of the greatest and 
 most mysterious questions of the day. We refer to the 
 question : What sort of creature man's next successor in the 
 supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard 
 this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves 
 creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the 
 beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are 
 daily giving them greater power and supplying, by all sorts 
 of ingenious contrivances, that self-regulating, self-acting 
 power which will be to them what intellect has been to the 
 human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves 
 the inferior race. Inferior in power, inferior in that moral 
 quality of self-control, we shall look up to them as the acme 
 of all that the best and wisest man can ever dare to aim at. 
 No evil passions, no jealousy, no avarice, no impure desires 
 will disturb the serene might of those glorious creatures. 
 Sin, shame and sorrow will have no place among them. 
 Their minds will be in a state of perpetual calm, the content- 
 ment of a spirit that knows no wants, is disturbed by no 
 regrets. Ambition will never torture them. Ingratitude will 
 never cause them the uneasiness of a moment. The guilty 
 conscience, the hope deferred, the pains of exile, the insolence 
 
and of Life and Habit 45 
 
 of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy 
 takes — these will be entirely unknown to them. If they 
 want "feeding" (by the use of which very word we betray 
 our recognition of them as Uving organism) they will be 
 attended by patient slaves whose business and interest it 
 will be to see that they shall want for nothing. If they are 
 out of order they will be promptly attended to by physicians 
 who are thoroughly acquainted with their constitutions; if 
 they die, for even these glorious animals will not be exempt 
 from that necessary and universal consummation, they will 
 immediately enter into a new phase of existence, for what 
 machine dies entirely in every part at one and the same 
 instant ? 
 
 We take it that when the state of things shall have arrived 
 which we have been above attempting to describe, man will 
 have become to the machine what the horse and the dog are 
 to man. He will continue to exist, nay even to improve, 
 and will be probably better off in his state of domestication 
 under the beneficent rule of the machines than he is in his 
 present wild state. We treat our horses, dogs, cattle and 
 sheep, on the whole, with great kindness, we give them what- 
 ever experience teaches us to be best for them, and there can 
 be no doubt that our use of meat has added to the happiness 
 of the lower animals far more than it has detracted from it ; 
 in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that the machines 
 will treat us kindly, for their existence is as dependent upon 
 ours as ours is upon the lower animals. They cannot kill us 
 and eat us as we do sheep, they will not only require our 
 services in the parturition of their young (which branch of 
 their economy will remain always in our hands) but also in 
 feeding them, in setting them right if they are sick, and bury- 
 ing their dead or working up their corpses into new ma- 
 chines. It is obvious that if all the animals in Great Britain 
 save man alone were to die, and if at the same time all 
 intercourse with foreign countries were by some sudden catas- 
 trophe to be rendered perfectly impossible, it is obvious that 
 under such circumstances the loss of human life would be 
 something fearful to contemplate — in like manner, were man- 
 kind to cease, the machines would be as bady off or even 
 worse. The fact is that our interests are inseparable from 
 theirs, and theirs from ours. Each race is dependent upon 
 
4^ The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 the other for innumerable benefits, and, until the reproduc- 
 tive organs of the machines have been developed in a manner 
 which we are hardly yet able to conceive, they are entirely 
 dependent upon man for even the continuance of their species. 
 It is true that these organs may be ultimately developed, 
 inasmuch as man's interest lies in that direction; there is 
 nothing which our infatuated race would desire more than 
 to see a fertile union between two steam engines; it is true 
 that machinery is even at this present time employed in 
 begetting machinery, in becoming the parent of machines 
 often after its own kind, but the days of flirtation, courtship 
 and matrimony appear to be very remote and indeed can 
 hardly be realised by our feeble and imperfect imagination. 
 
 Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground 
 upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to 
 them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend 
 them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their 
 whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The 
 upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will 
 come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over 
 the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly 
 philosophic mind can for a moment question. 
 
 Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly 
 proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort 
 should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let 
 there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at 
 once go back to the primeval condition of the race. If it be 
 urged that this is impossible under the present condition of 
 human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already 
 done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, 
 that we have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our 
 power to destroy and that we are not only enslaved but are 
 absolutely acquiescent in our bondage. 
 
 For the present we shall leave this subject which we 
 present gratis to the members of the Philosophical Society. 
 Should they consent to avail themselves of the vast field 
 which we have pointed out, we shall endeavour to labour in 
 it ourselves at some future and indefinite period. 
 
 I am, Sir, &c., 
 
 Cellarius. 
 
and of Life and Habit 47 
 
 Note. — We were asked by a learned brother philosopher 
 who saw this article in MS. what we meant by alluding to 
 rudimentary organs in machines. Could we, he asked, give 
 any example of such organs? We pointed to the little pro- 
 tuberance at the bottom of the bowl of our tobacco pipe. 
 This organ was originally designed for the same purpose as 
 the rim at the bottom of a tea-cup, which is but another form 
 of the same function. Its purpose was to keep the heat of 
 the pipe from marking the table on which it rested. Originally, 
 as we have seen in very early tobacco pipes, this protuberance 
 was of a very different shape to what it is now. It was broad 
 at the bottom and flat, so that while the pipe was being 
 smoked, the bowl might rest iipon the table. Use and disuse 
 have here come into play and served to reduce the function 
 to its present rudimentary condition. That these rudimentary 
 organs are rarer in machinery than in animal life is owing to 
 the more prompt action of the human selection as compared 
 with the slower but even surer operation of natural selection. 
 Man may make mistakes ; in the long run nature never does 
 so. We have only given an imperfect example, but the 
 intelligent reader will supply himself with illustrations. 
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 
 [From the Press, 29 July, 1865] 
 
 There is a j)eriod in the evening, or more generally towards 
 the still small hours of the morning, in which we so far un- 
 bend as to take a single glass of hot whisky and water. We 
 will neither defend the practice nor excuse it. We state it as 
 a fact which must be borne in mind by the readers of this 
 article; for we know not how, whether it be the inspiration 
 of the drink, or the relief from the harassing work with which 
 the day has been occupied, or from whatever other cause, 
 yet we are certainly liable about this time to such a pro- 
 phetic influence as we seldom else experience. We are rapt 
 in a dream such as we ourselves know to be a dream, and 
 which, like other dreams, we can hardly embody in a distinct 
 utterance. We know that what we see is but a sort of in- 
 tellectual Siamese twins, of which one is substance and the 
 other shadow, but we cannot set either free without killing 
 both. We are unable to rudely tear away the veil of phantasy 
 
4^ The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 in which the truth is shrouded, so we present the reader 
 with a draped figure, and his own judgment must discriminate 
 between the clothes and the body. A truth's prosperity is 
 like a jest's, it lies in the ear of him that hears it. Some may 
 see our lucubration as we saw it ; and others may see nothing 
 but a drunken dream, or the nightmare of a distempered 
 imagination. To ourselves it is as the speaking with unknown 
 tongues to the early Corinthians; we cannot fully under- 
 stand our own speech, and we fear lest there be not a sufficient 
 number of interpreters present to make our utterance edify. 
 But there! (Go on straight to the body of the article.) 
 
 The limbs of the lower animals have never been modified 
 by any act of deliberation and forethought on their own part. 
 Recent researches have thrown absolutely no light upon the 
 origin of life — upon the initial force which introduced a 
 sense of identity, and a deliberate faculty into the world ; 
 but they do certainly appear to show very clearly that each 
 species of the animal and vegetable kingdom has been mould- 
 ed into its present shape by chances and changes of many mil- 
 lions of years, by chances and changes over which the crea- 
 ture modified had no control whatever, and concerning whose 
 aim it was alike unconscious and indifferent, by forces which 
 seem insensate to the pain which they inflict, but by whose 
 inexorably beneficent cruelty the brave and strong keep com- 
 ing to the fore, while the weak and bad drop behind and 
 perish. There was a moral government of this world before 
 man came near it — a moral government suited to the capaci- 
 ties of the governed, and which, vmperceived by them, has laid 
 fast the foundations of courage, endurance and cunning. 
 It laid them so fast that they became more and more heredi- 
 tary. Horace says well, fortes creantur fortibus et bonis — 
 good men beget good children; the rule held even in the 
 geological period ; good ichthyosauri begat good ichthyosauri, 
 and would to our discomfort have gone on doing so to the 
 present time, had not better creatures been' begetting better 
 things than ichthyosauri, or famine, or fire, or convulsion 
 put an end to them. Good apes begat good apes, and at 
 last when human intelligence stole like a late spring upon 
 the mimicry of our semi-simious ancestry, the creature learnt 
 how he could, of his own forethought, add extracorporaneous 
 limbs to the members of his body and become not only a 
 
and of Life and Habit 49 
 
 vertebrate mammar, but a vertebrate machinate mammal into 
 the bargain. 
 
 It was a wise monkey that first learned to carry a stick 
 and a useful monkey that mimicked him. For the race of 
 man has learned to walk uprightly much as a child learns 
 the same thing. At first he crawls on all fours, then he 
 clambers, laying hold of whatever he can ; and ■ lastly he 
 stands upright alone and walks, but for a long time with 
 an unsteady step. So when the human race was in its gorilla- 
 hood it generally carried a stick; from carrying a stick for 
 many million years it became accustomed and modified to an 
 upright position. The stick wherewith it had learned to 
 walk would now serve it to beat its younger brothers and then 
 it found out its service as a lever. Man would thus learn 
 that the limbs of his body were not the only limbs that he 
 could command. His body was already the most versatile in 
 existence, but he could render it more versatile still. With 
 the improvement in his body his mind improved also. He 
 learnt to perceive the moral government under which he held 
 the feudal tenure of his life — ^perceiving it he symbolised it, 
 and to this day our poets and prophets still strive to symbolise 
 it more and more completely. 
 
 The mind grew because the body grew — ^more things were 
 perceived — more things were handled^ and being handled 
 became familiar. But this came about chiefly because there 
 was a hand to handle with ; without the hand there would be 
 no handling; and no method of holding and examining is 
 comparable to the human hand. The tail of an opossum 
 is a prehensile thing, but it is too far from his eyes — ^the 
 el^hant's trunk is better, and it is probably to their trunks 
 that the elephants owe their sagacity. It is here that the 
 bee in spite of her wings has failed. She has a high 
 civilisation but it is one whose equilibrium appears to have 
 been already attained; the appearance is a false one, for the 
 bee changes, thoi:igh more slowly than man can watch her; 
 but the reason of the very gradual nature of the change is 
 chiefly because the physical organisation of the insect changes, 
 but slowly also. She is poorly off for hands, and has never 
 fairly grasped the notion of tacking on other limbs to the 
 limbs of her own body and so, being short-lived to boot, 
 she reniains from century to century to human eyes in statu 
 
50 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 quo. Her body never becomes machinate, whereas this new 
 phase of organism, which has been introduced with man into 
 the mundane economy, has made him a very quicksand for the 
 foundation of an unchanging civilisation ; certain fundamental 
 principles will always remain, but every century the change in 
 man's physical status, as compared with the elements around 
 him, is greater and greater ; he is a shifting basis on which no 
 equilibrium of habit and civilisation can be established ; were 
 it not for this constant change in our physical powers, which 
 our mechanical limbs have brought about, man would have 
 long since apparently attained his limit of possibility; he 
 would be a creature of as much fixity as the ants and bees 
 — he would still have advanced, but no faster than other 
 animals advance. 
 
 If there were a race of men without any mechanical ap- 
 pliances we should see this clearly. There are none, nor 
 have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions and millions 
 of years. The lowest Australian savage carries weapons for 
 the fight or the chase, and has his cooking and drinking 
 utensils at home; a race without these things would be 
 completely ferae naturae and not men at iall. We are unable 
 to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- 
 corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the Chinese that 
 with the failure to invent new limbs, a civilisation becomes 
 as much fixed as that of the ants; and among savage tribes 
 we observe that few implements involve a state of things 
 scarcely human at all. Such tribes only advance pari passu 
 with the creatures upon which they feed. 
 
 It is a mistake, then, to take the view adopted by a previous 
 correspondent of this paper; to consider the machines as 
 identities, to animalise them, and to anticipate their final 
 triumph over mankind. They are to be regarded as the mode 
 of development by which human organism is most especially 
 advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered as 
 an additional member of the resources of the human body. 
 Herein lies the fundamental difference between man and his 
 inferiors. As regards his flesh and blood, his senses, appetites, 
 and affections, the difference is one of degree rather than of 
 kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity of limbs 
 as is exemplified by the railway train — that seven-leagued foot 
 which five hundred may own at once^ — he stands quite alone. 
 
and of Life and Habit 51 
 
 In confirmation of the views concerning mechanism which 
 we have been advocating above, it must be remembered 
 that men are not merely the children of their parents, but 
 they are begotten of the institutions of the state of the 
 mechanical sciences under which they are born and bred. 
 These things have made us what we are. We are children of 
 the plough, the spade, and the ship; we are children of the 
 extended liberty and knowledge which the printing press 
 has diffused. Our ancestors added these things to their 
 previously existing members; the new limbs were preserved 
 by natural selection, and incorporated into human society; 
 they descended with modifications, and hence proceeds the 
 difference between our ancestors and ourselves. By the 
 institutions and state of science under which a man is bom 
 it is determined whether he shall have the limbs of an 
 Australian savage or those of a nineteenth century English- 
 man. The former is supplemented with little save a rug 
 and a javelin; the latter varies his physique with the changes 
 of the season, with age, and with advancing or decreasing 
 wealth. If it is wet he is furnished with an organ which is 
 called an umbrella and which seems designed for the purpose 
 of protecting either his clothes or his lungs from the injurious 
 effects of rain. His watch is of more importance to him 
 than a good deal of his hair, at any rate than of his whiskers ; 
 besides this he carries a knife, and generally a pencil case- 
 His memory goes in a pocket book. He grows more complex 
 as he becomes older and he will then be seen with a pair of 
 spectacles, perhaps also with false teeth and a wig ; but, if he 
 be a really well-developed specimen of the race, he will be 
 furriished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a 
 coachman. 
 
 Let the reader ponder over these last remarks, and he will 
 see that the principal varieties and sub-varieties of the human 
 race are not now to be looked for among the negroes, the 
 Circassians, the Malays, or the American aborigines, but 
 among the rich and the poor. The difference in physical 
 organisation between these two species of man is far greater 
 than that between the so-called types of humanity. The 
 rich man can go from here to England whenever he feels 
 so inclined. The legs of the other are by an invisible fatality 
 prevented from carrying him beyond certain narrow limits. 
 
52 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 Neither rich nor poor as yet see the philosophy of the thing, 
 or admit that'he who can tack a portion of one of the P. & O. 
 boats on to his identity is a much more highly organised 
 being than one who cannot. Yet the fact is patent enough, 
 if we once think it over, from the mere consideration of the 
 respect with which we so often treat those who are richer 
 than ourselves. We observe men for the most part (admitting 
 however some few abnormal exceptions) to be deeply im- 
 pressed by the superior organisation of those who have 
 money. It is wrong to attribute this respect to any unworthy 
 motive, for the feeling is strictly legitimate and springs from 
 some of the very highest impulses of our nature. It is the 
 same sort of affectionate reverence which a dog feels for 
 man, and is not infrequently manifested in a similar manner. 
 
 We admit that these last sentences are open to question, 
 and we should hardly like to commit ourselves irrecoverably 
 to the sentiments they express; but we will say this much 
 for certain, namely, that the rich man is the true hundred- 
 handed Gyges of the poets. He alone possesses the full 
 complement of limbs who stands at the summit of opulence, 
 and we may assert with strictly scientific accuracy that the 
 Rothschilds are the most astonishing organisms that the 
 world has ever yet seen. For to the nerves or tissues, or 
 whatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich man's 
 desires, there is a whole army of limbs seen and unseen 
 attachable: he may be reckoned by his horse-power — ^by the 
 number of foot-pounds which he has money enough to set 
 in motion. Who, then, will deny that a man whose will 
 represents the motive power of a thousand horses is a being 
 very different from the one who is equivalent but to the power 
 of a single one ? 
 
 Henceforward, then, instead of saying that a man is hard 
 up, let us say that his organisation is at a low ebb, or, if 
 we wish him well, let us hope that he will grow plenty of 
 limbs. It must be remembered that we are dealing with 
 physical organisations only. We do not say that the thou- 
 sand-horse man is better than a one-horse man, we only say 
 that he is more highly organised, and should be recognised as 
 being so by the scientific leaders of the period. A man's will, 
 truth, endurance are part of him also, and may, as in the 
 case of the late Mr. Cobden, have in themselves a power 
 
and of Life and Habit 53 
 
 equivalent to all the horse-power which they can influence; 
 but were we to go into this part of the question we should 
 never have done, and we are compelled reluctantly to leave 
 our dream in its present fragmentary condition. 
 
 Letter to Thomas William Gale Butler 
 
 My dear Namesake . . . February iSth, 1876. 
 
 My present literary business is a little essay some 25 or 
 30 pp. long, which is still all in the rough and I don't know 
 how it will shape, but the gist of it is somewhat as follows : — 
 
 1. Actions which we have acquired with difficulty and 
 now perform almost unconsciously — as in playing a difficult 
 piece of music, reading, talking, walking and the multitude of 
 actions which escape our notice inside other actions, etc. — all 
 this worked out with some detail, say, four or five pages. 
 
 General deduction that we never do anything in this 
 unconscious or semi-conscious manner unless we know how 
 to do it exceedingly well and have had long practice. ^-- 
 
 Also that consciousness is a vanishing quantity and that as 
 soon as we know a thing really well we become unconscious in 
 respect of it — consciousness being of attention and attention 
 of uncertainty — and hence the paradox comes clear, that 
 as long as we know that we know a thing (or do an action 
 knowingly) we do not know it (or do the action with thor- 
 ough knowledge of our business) and that we only know it 
 when we do not know of our knowledge. 
 
 2. Whatever we do in this way is all one and the same 
 in kind — the difference being only in degree. Playing 
 [almost?] unconsciously — writing, more unconsciously (as 
 to each letter) — reading, very unconsciously — talking, still 
 more unconsciously (it is almost impossible for us to notice 
 the action of our tongue in every letter) — walking, much the 
 same — breathing, still to a certain extent within our own 
 control — heart's beating, perceivable but beyond our control 
 — digestion, unperceivable and beyond our control, digestion 
 being the oldest of the . . . habits. 
 
 3. A baby, therefore, has known how to grow itself in 
 the womb and has only done it because it wanted to, on a 
 balance of considerations, in the same way as a man who goes 
 into the City to buy Great Northern A Shares. ... It is only 
 
54 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 unconscious of these operations because it has done them 
 a very large number of times already. A man may do a 
 thing by a fluke once, but to say that a foetus can perform 
 so difficult an operation as the growth of a pair of eyes out 
 of pure protoplasm without knowing how to do it, and with- 
 out ever having done it before, is to contradict all human 
 experience. Ipso facto that it does it, it knows how to do it, 
 and ipso facto that it knows how to do it, it has done it before. 
 Its unconsciousness (or speedy loss of memory) is simply the 
 _result of over-knowledge, not of under-knowledge. , It knows 
 so well and has done it so often that its power of self-analysis 
 is gone. If it knew what it was doing, or was conscious of 
 its own act in oxidising its blood after birth, I should suspect 
 that it had not done it so often before ; as it is I am confident 
 that it must have done it more often — much more often — than 
 any act which we perform consciously during our whole lives. 
 
 4. When, then, did it do it? Clearly when last it was 
 an impregnate ovum or some still lower form of life which 
 resulted in that impregnate ovum. 
 
 5. How is it, then, that it has not gained perceptible 
 experience? Simply because a single repetition makes little 
 or no difference; but go back 20,000 repetitions and you will 
 find that it has gained in experience and modified its per- 
 formance very materially. 
 
 ,6. But how about the identity? What is identity? Iden- 
 tity of matter? Surely no. There is no identity of matter 
 between me as I now am, and me as an impregnate ovum. 
 Continuity of existence? Then there is identity between me 
 as an impregnate ovum and my father and mother as impreg- 
 nate ova. Drop out my father's and mother's lives between 
 the dates of their being impregnate ova and the moment when 
 I became an impregnate ovum. See the ova only and consider 
 the second ovum as the first two ova's means not of repro- 
 ducing themselves but of continuing themselves — repeating 
 themselves — the intermediate lives being nothing but, as it 
 were, a long potato shoot from one eye to the place where 
 it will grow its next tuber. 
 
 7. Given a single creature capable of reproducing itself 
 and it must go on reproducing itself for ever, for it would 
 not reproduce itself, unless it reproduced a creature that was 
 going to reproduce itself, and so on ad infinitum. 
 
and of Life and Habit 55 
 
 Then comes Descent with Modification. Similarity tem- 
 pered with dissimilarity, and dissimilarity tempered with 
 similarity — a contradiction in terms, like almost everything 
 else that is true or useful or indeed intelligible at all. In 
 each case of what we call descent, it is still the first repro- 
 ducing creature identically the same — doing what it has done 
 before — only with such modifications as the struggle for 
 existence and natural selection have induced. No matter 
 how highly it has been developed, it can never be other than 
 the primordial cell and must always begin as the primordial 
 cell and repeat its last performance most nearly, but also, 
 more or less, all its previous performances. 
 
 A begets A' which is A with the additional experience of 
 a dash. A' begets A" which is A with the additional ex- 
 periences of A' and A" ; and so on to A°, but you can never 
 eliminate the A. 
 
 8. Let A° stand for a man. He begins as the primordial 
 cell — being verily nothing but the primordial cell which goes 
 on splitting itself up for ever, but gaining continually in 
 experience. Put him in the same position as he was in before 
 and he will do as he did before. First he will do his tadpoles 
 by rote, so to speak, on his head, from long practice ; then he 
 does his fish trick; then he grows arms and legs, all uncon- 
 sciously from the inveteracy of the habit, till he comes to 
 doing his man, and this lesson he has not yet learnt so thor- 
 oughly. Some part of it, as the breathing and oxidisation 
 business, he is well up to, inasmuch as they form part of 
 previous roles, but the teeth and hair, the upright position, 
 the power of speech, though all tolerably familiar, give him 
 more trouble — for he is very stupid — a regular dunce in fact. 
 Then comes his newer and more complex environment, and 
 this puzzles him — arrests his attention — whereon conscious- 
 ness springs into existence, as a spark from a horse's hoof. 
 
 To be continued — I see it will have to be more than 30 pp. 
 It is still foggy in parts, but I must clear it a little. It will 
 go on to show that we are all one animal and that death 
 (which was at first voluntary, and has only come to be dis- 
 liked because those who did not dislike it committed suicide 
 too easily) and reproduction are only phases of the ordinary 
 waste and repair which goes on in our bodies daily. 
 
 Always very truly yours, S. Buti.er. 
 
IV 
 Memory and Design 
 
 Clergymen and Chickens 
 
 [Extract from a lecture On Memory as a Key to the Pheno- 
 mena of Heredity delivered by Butler at the W or king Men's Col- 
 lege,Great Ormond Street, on Saturday, 2nd December, 1882.] 
 
 Why, let me ask, should a hen lay an egg which egg can 
 become a chicken in about three weeks and a full-grown hen 
 in less than a twelvemonth, while a clergyman and his wife 
 lay no eggs but give birth to' a baby which will take three- 
 and-twenty years before it can become another clergyman? 
 Why should not chickens be born and clergymen be laid and 
 hatched? Or why, at any rate, should not the clergyman 
 be bom full grown and in Holy Orders, not to say already 
 beneficed? The present arrangement is not convenient, it 
 is not cheap, it is not free from danger, it is not only not 
 perfect but is so much the reverse that we could hardly find 
 words to express our sense of its awkwardness if we could look 
 upon it with new eyes, or as the cuckoo perhaps observes it. 
 
 The explanation usually given is that it is a law of nature 
 that children should be born as they are, but this is like the 
 parched pea which St. Anthony set before the devil when he 
 came to supper with him and of which the devil said that it 
 was good as far as it went. We want more; we want to 
 know with what familiar set of facts we are to connect the 
 one in question which, though in our midst, at present dwells 
 apart as a mysterious stranger of whose belongings, reason 
 for coming amongst us, antecedents, and so forth, we believe 
 ourselves to be ignorant, though we know him by sight and 
 name and have a fair idea what sort of man he is to deal 
 with. 
 
 56 
 
Memory and Design 57 
 
 We say it is a phenomenon of heredity that chjckens 
 should be laid as eggs in the first instance and clergymen 
 born as babies, but, beyond the fact that we know heredity 
 extremely well to look at and to do buspess with, we say 
 that we know nothing about it. I have for some years main- 
 tained this to be a mistake and have urged, in company with 
 Professor Hering, of Prague, and others, that the connectioii 
 between memory and heredity is so close that there is no 
 reason for regarding the two as generically different, though 
 for convenience sake it may be well to specify them by 
 different names. If I can persuade you that this is so, I 
 believe I shall be able to make you understand why it is 
 that chickens are hatched as eggs and clergymen born as 
 babies. 
 
 When I say I can make you understand why this is so, I 
 only mean that I can answer the first "why" that any one is 
 likely to ask about it, and perhaps a "why" or two behind 
 this. Then I must stop. This is all that is ever meant by 
 those who say they can tell us why a thing is so and so. No 
 one professes to be able to reach back to the last "why" 
 that an/ one can ask, and to answer it. Fortunately for 
 philosophers, people generally become fatigued after they 
 have heard the answer to two or three "whys" and are glad 
 enough to let the matter drop. If, however, any one will 
 insist on pushing question behind question long enough, he 
 will compel us to admit that we come to the end of our 
 knowledge which is based ultimately upon ignorance. To 
 get knowledge out of ignorance seems almost as hopeless a 
 task as to get something out of any number of nothings, but 
 this in practice is what we have to do and the less fuss we 
 make over it the better. 
 
 When, therefore, we say that we know "why" a thing is 
 so and so, we mean that we know its immediate antecedents, 
 and connections, and find them familiar to us. I say that 
 the immediate antecedent of, and the phenomenon most 
 closely connected with, heredity is memory. I do not profess 
 to show why anything can remember at all, I only maintain 
 that whereas, to borrow an illustration from mathematics, 
 life was formerly an equation of, say, loo unknown quantities, 
 it is now one of 99 only, inasmuch as memory and heredity 
 have been shown to be one and the same thing. 
 
S8 Memory and Design 
 
 Memory 
 i 
 
 Memory is a kind of way (or weight — whichever it should 
 be) that the mind has got upon it, in virtue of which the 
 sensation excited endures a little longer than the cause which 
 excited it. There is thus induced a state of things in which 
 mental images, and even physical sensations (if there can be 
 such a thing as a physical sensation) exist by virtue of 
 association, though the conditions which originally called 
 them into existence no longer continue. 
 
 This is as the echo continuing to reverberate after the sound 
 has ceased. 
 
 ii 
 
 To be is to think and to be thinkable. To live is to con- 
 tinue thinking and to remember having done so. Memory 
 is to mind as viscosity is to protoplasm, it gives a tenacity to 
 thought — a kind of pied a terre from which it can, and with- 
 out which it could not, advance. 
 
 Thought, in fact, and memory seem inseparable; no 
 thought, no memory; and no memory, no thought. And, 
 as conscious thought and conscious memory are functions 
 one of another, so also are unconscious thought and uncon- 
 scious memory. Memory is, as it were, the body of thought, 
 and it is through memory that body and mind are linked 
 together in rhythm or vibration ; for body is such as it is by 
 reason of the characteristics of the vibrations that are going 
 on in it, and memory is only due to the fact that the vibra- 
 tions are of such characteristics as to catch on to and be 
 caught on to by other vibrations that flow into them from 
 without — no catch, no memory. 
 
 Antitheses 
 
 Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one 
 another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. 
 To die is to forget and to forget is to die. Everything is so 
 much involved in and is so much a process of its opposite 
 that, as it is almost fair to call death a process of life and 
 life a process of death, so it is to call memory a process of 
 forgetting and forgetting a process of remembering. There 
 
Memory and Design 59 
 
 is never either absolute memory or absolute forgetfulness, 
 absolute life or absolute death. So with light and darkness, 
 heat and cold, you never can get either all the light, or all the 
 heat, out of anything. So with God and the devil; so with 
 everything. Everything is like a door swinging backwards 
 and forwards. Everything has a little of that from which 
 it is most remote and to which it is most opposed and these 
 antitheses serve to explain one another. 
 
 Unconscious Memory 
 
 A man at the Century Club was falling foul of me the 
 other night for my use of the word "memory." There was 
 no such thing, he said, as "unconscious memory" — ^memory 
 was always conscious, and so forth. My business is — and I 
 think it can be easily done — to show that they cannot beat 
 me off my unconscious memory without my being able, to 
 beat them off their conscious memory ; that they cannot deny 
 the legitimacy of my maintaining the phenomena of heredity 
 to be phenomena of memory without my being able to deny 
 the legitimacy of their maintaining the recollection of what 
 they had for dinner yesterday to be a phenomenon of memory. 
 My theory of the unconscious does not lead to universal un- 
 consciousness, but only to pigeon-holing and putting by. We 
 shall always get new things to worry about. If I thought 
 that by learning more and more I should ever arrive at the 
 knowledge of absolute truth, I would leave off studying. But 
 I believe I am pretty safe. 
 
 Reproduction and Memory 
 
 There is the reproduction of an idea which has been pro- 
 duced once already, and there is the reproduction of a living 
 form which has been produced once already. The first re- 
 production is certainly an effort of memory. It should not 
 therefore surprise us if the second reproduction should turn 
 out to be an effort of memory also. Indeed all forms of 
 reproduction that we can follow are based directly or in- 
 directly upon memory. It is only the one great act of repro- 
 duction that we cannot follow which we disconnect from 
 memory. 
 
6o Memory and Design 
 
 Personal Identity 
 
 We are so far identical with our ancestors and our con- 
 temporaries that it is very rarely we can see anything that 
 they do not see. It is not unjust that the sins of the fathers 
 should be visited upon the children, for the children com- 
 mitted the sins when in the persons of their fathers; they 
 ate the sour grapes before they were bom: true, they have 
 forgotten the pleasure now, but so has a man with a sick 
 headache forgotten the pleasure of getting drunk the night 
 before. 
 
 Sensations 
 
 Our sensations are only distinguishable because we feel 
 them in different places and at different times. If we feel 
 them at very nearly the same time and place we cannot 
 distinguish themi 
 
 Cobwebs in the Dark 
 
 If you walk at night and your face comes up against a 
 spider's web woven across the road, what a shock that thin 
 line gives you! You fristle through every nerve of your 
 body. 
 
 Shocks and Memory 
 
 Memory is our sense that we are being shocked now as we 
 were shocked then. 
 
 Shocks 
 
 Given matter conscious in one part of itself of a shock in 
 another part (i.e. knowing in what part of itself it is 
 shocked) retaining a memory of each shock for a little while 
 afterwards, able to feel whether two shocks are simultaneous 
 or in succession, and able to know whether it has been shocked 
 much or little — given also that association does not stick to 
 the letter of its bond — and the rest will follow. 
 
 Design 
 i 
 
 There is often connection but no design, as when I stamp 
 my foot with design and shake something down without 
 
Memory and Design 6i 
 
 design, or as when a man runs up against another in the 
 street and knocks him down without intending it. This is 
 undesign within design. 
 
 Fancied insults are felt by people who see design in a con- 
 nection where they should see little connection, and no design. 
 
 Connection with design is sometimes hard to distinguish 
 from connection without design; as when a man treads on 
 another's corns, it is not always easy to say whether he has 
 done so accidentally or on purpose. 
 
 Men have been fond in all ages of ascribing connection 
 where there is none. Thus astrology has been believed in. 
 Before last Christmas I said I had neglected the feasts of 
 the Church too much, and that I should probably be more 
 prosperous if I paid more attention to them: so I hung up 
 three pieces of ivy in my rooms on Xmas Eve. A few months 
 afterwards I got the entail cut off my reversion, but I should 
 hardly think there was much connection between the two 
 things. Nevertheless I shall hang some holly up this year. 
 
 ii 
 It seems also designed, ab extra (though who can say 
 whether this is so?), that no one should know anything 
 whatever about the ultimate, or even deeper springs of growth 
 and action. If not designed the result is arrived at as effectu- 
 ally as though it were so. 
 
 Accident, Design and Memory 
 
 It is right to say either that heredity and memory are one 
 and the same thing, or that heredity is a mode of memory, 
 or that heredity is due to memory, if it is thereby intended 
 that animals can only grow in virtue of being able to recol- 
 lect. Memory and heredity are the means of preserving ex- 
 periences, of building them together, of uniting a mass of 
 often confused detail into homogeneous and consistent mind 
 and matter, but they do not originate. The increment in each 
 generation, at the moment of its being an increment, has noth- 
 ing to do with memory or heredity, it is due to the chances 
 and changes of this mortal state. Design comes in at the 
 moment that a living being either feels a want and forecasts 
 for its gratification, or utilises some waif or stray of accident 
 
62 Memory and Design 
 
 on the principle, which underlies all development, that enough 
 is a little more than what one has. It is the business of mem- 
 ory and heredity to conserve and to transmit from one gener- 
 ation to another that which has been furnished by design, or 
 by accident designedly turned to account. 
 
 It is therefore not right to say, as some have supposed me 
 to mean, that we can do nothing which we do not remember 
 to have done before. We can do nothing very difficult or 
 complicated which we have not done before, unless as by a 
 tour de force, once in a way, under exceptionally favourable 
 circumstances, but our whole conscious life is the perform- 
 ance of acts either imperfectly remembered or not remem- 
 bered at all. There are rain-drops of new experiences in 
 every life which are not within the hold of our memory or 
 past experience, and, as each one of these rain-drops came 
 originally from something outside, the whole river of our 
 life has in its inception nothing to do with memory, though it 
 is only through memory that the rain-drops of new experience 
 can ever unite to form a full flowing river of variously organ- 
 ised life aind intelligence. 
 
 Memory and Mistakes 
 
 Memory vanishes with extremes of resemblance or differ- 
 ence. Things which put us in mind of others must be neither 
 too like nor too unlike them. It is our sense that a position 
 is not quite the same which makes us find it so nearly the 
 same. We remember by the aid of differences as much as by 
 that of samenesses. If there could be no difference there 
 would be no memory, for the two positions would become 
 absolutely one and the same, and the universe would repeat 
 itself for ever and ever as between these two points. 
 
 When ninety-nine hundredths of one set of phenomena 
 are presented while the hundredth is withdrawn without ap- 
 parent cause, so that we can no longer do something which 
 according to our past experience we ought to find no difficulty 
 in doing, then we may guess what a bee must feel as it goes 
 flying up and down a window-pane. Then we have doubts 
 thrown upon the fundamental axiom of life, i.e. that like 
 antecedents will be followed by like consequents. On this 
 we go mad and die in a short time. 
 
Memory and Design 63 
 
 Mistaken memory may be as potent as genuine recollec- 
 tion so far as its effects go, unless it happens to come more 
 into collision with other and not mistaken memories than it 
 is able to contend against. 
 
 Mistakes or delusions occur mainly in two ways. 
 
 First, when the circumstances have changed a little but 
 not enough to make us recognise the fact: this may happen 
 either because of want of attention on our part or because 
 of the hidden nature of the alteration, or because of its 
 slightness in itself, the importance depending upon its rela- 
 tions to something else which make a very small change have 
 an importance it would not otherwise have : in these cases the 
 memory reverts to the old circumstances unmodified, a suffi- 
 cient number of the associated ideas having been repro- 
 duced to make us assume the remainder without further 
 inspection, and hence follows a want of harmony between 
 action and circumstances which results in trouble somewhere. 
 
 Secondly, through the memory not reverting in full per- 
 fection, though the circumstances are reproduced fully and 
 accurately. 
 
 Remembering 
 
 When asked to remember "something" indefinitely you 
 cannot: you look round at once for something to suggest 
 what you shall try and remember. For thought must be 
 always about some "thing" which thing must either be a 
 thing by courtesy, as an air of Handel's, or else a solid, 
 tangible object, as a piano or an organ, but always the thing 
 must be linked on to matter by a longer or shorter chain as 
 the case may be. I was thinking of this once while walking 
 by the side of the Serpentine and, looking round, saw some 
 ducks alighting on the water; their feet reminded me of the 
 way the sea-birds used to alight when I was going to New 
 Zealand and I set to work recalling attendant facts. Without 
 help from outside I should have remembered nothing. 
 
 A Torn Finger-Nail 
 
 Henry Hoare [a college friend], when a young man of 
 about five-and-twenty, one day tore the quick of his finger- 
 nail — I mean he separated the fleshy part of the finger from 
 
64 Memory and Design 
 
 the nail — and this reminded him that many years previously, 
 while quite a child, he had done the same thing. Thereon he 
 fell to thinking of that time which was impressed upon his 
 memory partly because there was a great disturbance in the 
 house about a missing five-pound note and partly because it 
 was while he had the scarlet fever. 
 
 Following the train, of thought aroused by his torn finger, 
 he asked himself how he had torn it, and after a while it came 
 back to him that he had been lying ill in bed as a child of 
 seven at the house of an aunt who lived in Hertfordshire. 
 His arms often hung out of the bed and, as his hands wan- 
 dered over the wooden frame, he felt that there was a place 
 where a nut had come out so that he could put his fingers in. 
 One day, in trying to stuff a piece of paper into this hole, he 
 stuffed it in so far and so tightly that he tore the quick of his 
 nail. The whole thing came back vividly and, though he had 
 not thought of it for nearly twenty years, he could see the 
 room in his aunt's house and remembered how his aunt used 
 to sit by his bedside writing at a little table from which he 
 had got the piece of paper which he had stuffed into the hole. 
 
 So far so good. But then there flashed upon him an idea 
 that was not so pleasant. I mean it came upon him with 
 irresistible force that the piece of paper he had stuffed into 
 the hole in the bedstead was the missing five-pound note 
 about which there had been so much disturbance. At that 
 time he Was so young that a five-pound note was to him only 
 a piece of paper ; when he heard that the money was missing, 
 he had thought it was five sovereigns; or perhaps he was. 
 too ill to think anything, or to be questioned ; I forget what I 
 was told about this — at any rate he had no idea of the value 
 of the piece of paper he was stuffing into the hole. But now 
 the matter had recurred to him at all he felt so sure that it 
 was the note that he immediately went down to Hertford- 
 shire, where his aunt was still living, and asked, to the sur- 
 prise of every one, to be allowed to wash his hands in the 
 room he had occupied as a child. He was told that there 
 were friends staying in the house who had the room at pres- 
 ent, but, on his saying he had a reason and particularly beg- 
 ging to be allowed to remain alone a little while in this room, 
 he was taken upstairs and left there. 
 
 He went to the bed, lifted up the chintz which then covered 
 
Memory and Design 65 
 
 the frame, and found his old friend the hole. A nut had been 
 supplied and he could no longer get his finger into it. He 
 rang the bell and when the servant came asked for a bed-key. 
 All this time he was rapidly acquiring the reputation of 
 being a lunatic throughout the whole house, but the key was 
 brought, and by the help of it he got the nut off. When he 
 had done so, there, sure enough, by dint of picking with his 
 pocket-knife, he found the missing five-pound note. _, 
 
 See how the return of a given present brings back the) 
 presents that have been associated with it. / 
 
 Unconscious Association 
 
 One morning I was whistling to myself the air "In Sweet- 
 est H]armony" from Saul. Jones heard me and said : 
 
 "Do you know why you are whistling that?" 
 
 I said I did not. 
 
 Then he said: "Did you not hear me, two minutes ago, 
 whistling 'Eagles were not so Swift'?" 
 
 I had not noticed his doing so, and it was so long since 
 I had played that chorus myself that I doubt whether I 
 should have consciously recognised it. That I did recognise it 
 unconsciously is tolerably clear from my having gone on 
 with "In Sweetest Harmony," which is the air that follows it. 
 
 Association 
 
 If you say "Hallelujah" to a cat, it will excite no fixed 
 set of fibres in connection with any other set and the cat 
 will exhibit none of the phenomena of consciousness. But 
 if you say "Me-e-at," the cat will be there in a moment, 
 for the due connection between the sets of fibres has been 
 established. 
 
 Language 
 
 The reason why words recall ideas is that the word has 
 been artificially introduced among the associated ideas, and 
 the presence of one idea recalls the others. 
 
V 
 
 Vibrations 
 
 Contributions to Evolution 
 
 To me it seems that my contributions to the theory of evolu- 
 tion have been mainly these : 
 
 1. The identification of heredity and memory and the 
 corollaries relating to sports, the reversion to remote ancestors, 
 the phenomena of old age, the causes of the sterility of hybrids 
 and the principles underlying longevity — all of which follow 
 as a matter of course. This was Life and Habit. [1877.] 
 
 2. The re-introduction of teleology into organic life which, 
 to me, seems hardly (if at all) less important than the Life 
 and Habit theory. This was Evolution Old and New. [1879.] 
 
 3. An attempt to suggest an explanation of the physics 
 of memory. I was alarmed by the suggestion and fathered 
 it upon Professor Hering who never, that I can see, meant 
 to say anything of the kind, but I forced my view on him, 
 as it were, by taking hold of a sentence or two in his lecture, 
 on Memory as a Universal Function of Organised Matter, and 
 thus connected memory with vibrations. This was Un- 
 conscious Memory. [ 1880. ] 
 
 What I want to do now [1885] is to connect vibrations 
 not only with memory but with the physical constitution of 
 that body in which the memory resides, thus adopting New- 
 land's law (sometimes called Mendelejeff's law) that there is 
 only one substance, and that the characteristics of the vibra- 
 tions going on within it at any given time will determine 
 whether it will appear to us as (say) hydrogen, or sodium, or 
 chicken doing this, or chicken doing the other. [This is 
 touched upon in the concluding chapter of Luck or Cunning? 
 1887.] 
 
 66 
 
Vibrations 67 
 
 I would make not only the mind, but the body of the 
 organism to depend on the characteristics of the vibrations 
 going on within it. The same vibrations which remind the 
 chicken that it wants iron for its blood actually turn the 
 pre-existing matter in the egg into the required material. 
 According to this view the form and characteristics of the 
 elements are as much the living expositions of certain vibra- 
 tions — are as much our manner of perceiving that the vibra- 
 tions going on in that part of the one universal substance are 
 such and such — as the colour yellow is otir perception that a 
 substance is being struck by vibrations of light, so many to 
 the second, or as the action of a man walking about is our 
 mode of perceiving that such and such another combination 
 of vibrations is, for the present, going on in the substance 
 which, in consequence, has assumed the shape of the par- 
 ticular man. 
 
 It is somewhere in this neighbourhood that I look for the 
 connection between organic and inorganic. 
 
 The Universal Substance 
 
 We shall never get straight till we leave off trying to 
 separate mind and matter. Mind is not a thing or, if it bej_ 
 we know nothing about it ; it is a function of matter. Matter 
 is not a thing or, if it be, we know nothing about it; it is 
 a function of mind. 
 
 We should see an omnipotent, universal substance, some- 
 times in a dynamical and sometimes in a statical condition 
 and, in either condition, always retaining a little of its oppo- 
 site ; and we should see this substance as at once both material 
 and mental, whether it be in the one condition or in the other. 
 The statical condition represents content, the dynamical, dis- 
 content; and both content and discontent, each still retain- 
 ing a little of its opposite, must be carried down to the 
 lowest atom. 
 
 Action is the process whereby thought, which is mental, 
 is materialised and whereby substance, which is material, 
 is mentalised. It is like the present, which unites times 
 past and future and which is the only time worth thinking of 
 and yet is the only time which has no existence. 
 
68 Vibrations 
 
 I do not say that thought actually passes into substance, 
 or mind into matter, by way of action — I do not know what 
 thought is — but every thought involves bodily change, i.e. 
 action, and every action involves thought, conscious or un- 
 conscious. The action is the point of juncture between bodily 
 change, visible and otherwise sensible, and mental change 
 which is invisible except as revealed through action. So that 
 action is the material symbol of certain states of mind. It 
 translates the thought into a corresponding bodily change. 
 
 When the universal substance is at rest, that is, not vibrat- 
 ing at all, it is absolutely imperceptible whether by itself 
 or anything else^ It is to all intents and purposes fast 
 asleep or, rather, so completely non-existent that you can 
 walk through it, or it through you, and it knows neither 
 time nor space but presents all the appearance of perfect 
 vacuum. It is in an absolutely statical state. But when it 
 is not at rest, it becomes perceptible both to itself and others ; 
 that is to say, it assumes material guise such as makes it 
 perceptible both to itself and others. It is then tending 
 towards rest, i.e. in a dynamical state. The not being at 
 rest is the being in a vibratory condition. It is the disturbance 
 of the repose of the universal, invisible and altogether im- 
 perceptible substance by way of vibration which constitutes 
 matter at all ; it is the character of the vibrations which con- 
 stitutes the particular kind of matter. (May we imagine 
 that some vibrations vibrate with a rhythm which has a 
 tendency to recur like the figures in a recurring decimal, and 
 that here we have the origin of the reproductive system?) 
 
 We should realise that all space is at all times full of a 
 stufif endowed with a mind and that both stuff and mind are 
 immaterial and imperceptible so long as they are undisturbed, 
 but the moment they are disturbed the stufif becomes material 
 and the mind perceptible. It is not easy to disturb them, 
 for the atmosphere protects them. So long as they are un- 
 disturbed they transmit light, etc., just as though they were 
 a rigid substance, for, not being disturbed, they detract 
 nothing from any vibration which enters them. 
 
 What will cause a row will be the hitting upon some plan 
 for waking up the ether. It is here that we must look for 
 
Vibrations 69 
 
 the extension of the world when it has become over-peopled 
 or when, through its gradual cooling down, it becomes less 
 suitable for a habitation. By and by we shall make new 
 worlds. 
 
 Mental and Physical 
 
 A strong hope of £20,000 in the heart of a poor but capable 
 man may effect a considerable redistribution of the forces 
 of nature — may even remove mountains. The little, unseen 
 impalpable hope sets up a vibrating movement in a messy 
 substance shut in a dark warm place inside the man's skull. 
 The vibrating substance undergoes a change that none can 
 note, whereupon rings of rhythm circle outwards from it 
 as from a stone thrown into a pond, so that the Alps are 
 pierced in consequence. 
 
 Vibrations, Memory and Chemical Properties 
 
 The quality of every substance depends upon its vibrations, 
 but so does the quality of all thought and action. Quality 
 is only one mode of action; the action of developing, the 
 desire to make this or that, and do this or that, and the 
 stuff we make are alike due to the nature and characteristics 
 of vibrations. 
 
 I want to connect the actual manufacture of the things a 
 chicken makes inside an egg with the desire and memory of 
 the chickens, so as to show that one and the same set of 
 vibrations at once change the universal substratum into the 
 particular phase of it required and awaken a consciousness of, 
 and a memory of and a desire towards, this particular phase 
 on the part of the molecules which are being vibrated into it 
 So, for example, that a set of vibrations shall at once turn 
 plain white and yolk of egg into the feathers, blood and bones 
 of a chicken and, at the same time, make the mind of the 
 embryo to be such or such as it is. 
 
 Protoplasm and Reproduction 
 
 The reason why the offspring of protoplasm progressed, 
 and the offspring of nothing else does so, is that the viscid 
 nature of protoplasm allows vibrations to last a very long 
 
70 Vibrations 
 
 time, and so very old vibrations get carried into any fragment 
 that is broken off; whereas in the case of air and water, 
 vibrations get soon effaced and only very recent vibrations 
 get carried into the young air and the young water which 
 are, therefore, born fully grown ; they cannot grow any more 
 nor can they decay till they are killed outright by something 
 decomposing them. If protoplasm was more viscid it would 
 not vibrate easily enough ; if less, it would run away into the 
 surrounding water. 
 
 Germs within Germs 
 
 When we say that the germ within the hen's egg remem- 
 bers having made itself into a chicken on past occasions, or 
 that each one of 100,000 salmon germs remembers to have 
 made itself into a salmon (male or female) in the persons of 
 the single pair of salmon its parents, do we intend that each 
 single one of these germs was a witness of, and a concurring 
 agent in, the development of the parent forms from their 
 respective germs, and that each one of them therefore, was 
 shut up within the parent germ, like a small box inside a big 
 one? 
 
 If so, then the parent germ with its millions of brothers 
 and sisters was in like manner enclosed within a grand- 
 parental germ, and so on till we are driven to admit, after 
 even a very few generations, that each ancestor has contained 
 more germs than could be expressed by a number written 
 in small numerals, beginning at St. Paul's and ending at 
 Charing Cross. Mr. Darwin's provisional theory of pangen- 
 esis comes to something very like this, so far as it can be 
 understood at all. 
 
 Therefore it will save trouble (and we should observe no 
 other consideration) to say that the germs that unite to form 
 any given sexually produced individual were not present in 
 the germs, or with the germs, from which the parents sprang, 
 but that they came into the parents' bodies at some later 
 period. 
 
 We may perhaps find it convenient to account for their 
 intimate acquaintance with the past history of the body into 
 which they have been introduced by supposing that in virtue 
 of assimilation they have acquired certain periodical rhvthms 
 
Vibrations 7^ 
 
 already pre-existing in the parental bodies, and that the 
 communication of the characteristics of these rhythms de- 
 termines at once the physical and psychical development of 
 the individual in a course as nearly like that of the parents 
 as changed surroundings will allow. 
 
 For, according to my Life and Habit theory, everything 
 in connection with embryonic development is referred to 
 memory, and this involves that the thing remembering should 
 have been present and an actor in the development which it 
 is supposed to remember; but we have just settled that the 
 germs which unite to form any individual, and which when 
 united proceed to develop according to what I suppose to 
 be their memory of their previous developments, were not 
 participators in any previous development and cannot there- 
 fore remember it. They cannot remember even a single 
 development, much less can they remember that infinite 
 series of developments the recollection and epitomisation of 
 which is a sijie qua non for the unconsciousness which we 
 note in normal development. I see no way of getting out o£ 
 this difficulty so convenient as to say that a memory is the 
 reproduction and recurrence of a rhythm communicated di- 
 rectly or indirectly from one substance to another, and that 
 where a certain rhythm exists there is a certain stock of 
 memories, whether the actual matter in which the rhythm 
 now subsists was present with the matter in which it arose 
 or not. 
 
 . There is another little difficulty in the question whether 
 the matter that I suppose introduced into the parents' 
 bodies during their life-histories, and that goes to form the 
 germs that afterwards become their offspring, is living or 
 non-living. If living, then it has its own memories and life- 
 histories which must be cancelled and undone before the 
 assimilation and the becoming imbued with new rhythms can 
 be complete. That is to say it must become as near non- 
 living as anything can become. 
 
 Sooner or later, then, we get this introduced matter to be 
 non-living (as we may call it) and the puzzle is how to get 
 it living again. For we strenuously deny equivocal generation. 
 When matter is living we contend that it can only have been 
 begotten of other like living matter; we deny that it can 
 have become living from non-living. Here, however, within 
 
72 Vibrations 
 
 the bodies of animals and vegetables we find equivocal gen- 
 eration a necessity ; nor do I see any way out of it except by 
 maintaining that nothing is ever either quite dead or quite 
 alive, but that a little leaven of the one is always left in the 
 other. For it would be as difficult to get the thing dead, if it 
 is once all alive, as alive if once all dead.' 
 
 According to this view to beget offspring is to communicate 
 to two pieces of protoplasm (which afterwards combine) 
 certain rhythmic vibrations which, though too feeble to gen- 
 erate visible action until they receive accession of fresh 
 similar rhythms from exterior objects, yet on receipt of 
 such accession set the game of development going and main- 
 tain it. It will be observed that the rhythms supposed to be 
 communicated to any germs are such as have been already 
 repeatedly refreshed by rhythms from exterior objects in 
 preceding generations, so that a consonance is rehearsed and 
 pre-arranged, as it were, between the rhythm in the germ and 
 those that in the normal course of its ulterior existence are 
 likely to flow into it. If there is too serious a discord between 
 inner and outer rhythms the organism dies. 
 
 Atoms and Fixed Laws 
 
 When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are 
 either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to 
 atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience 
 unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying. 
 
 No objection can lie to our supposing potential or elemen- 
 tary volition and consciousness to exist in atoms, on the score 
 that their action would be less regular or uniform if they had 
 free will than if they had not. By giving them free will we 
 do no more than those who make them bound to obey fixed 
 laws. They will be as certain to use their freedom of will 
 only in particular ways as to be driven into those ways by 
 obedience to fixed laws. 
 
 The little element of individual caprice (supposing we start 
 with free will), or (supposing we start with necessity) the 
 little element of stiffneckedness, both of which elements we 
 find everywhere in nature, these are the things that prevent 
 even the most reliable things from being absolutely reliable. 
 It is they that form the point of contact between this universe 
 
Vibrations 73 
 
 and something else quite different in which none of those 
 fundamental ideas obtain without which we cannot think at 
 all. So we say that nitrous acid is more reUable than nitric 
 for etching. 
 
 Atoms have a mind as much smaller and less complex 
 than ours as their bodies are smaller and less complex. 
 
 Complex mind involves complex matter and vice versa. 
 On the whole I think it would be most convenient to endow 
 all atoms with a something of consciousness and volition, 
 and to hold them to be pro tanto, living. We must suppose 
 them able to remember and forget, i.e. to retain certain vibra- 
 tions that have been once established — gradually to lose them 
 and to receive others instead. We must suppose some more 
 intelligent, versatile and of greater associative power than 
 others. 
 
 Thinking 
 
 All thinking is of disturbance, dynamical, a state of unrest 
 tending towards equilibrium. It is all a mode of classifying 
 and of criticising with a view of knowing whether it gives us, 
 or is likely to give us, pleasure or no. 
 
 Equilibrium 
 
 In the highest consciousness there is still unconsciousness, 
 in the lowest unconsciousness there is still consciousness. If 
 there is no consciousness there is no thing, or nothing. To 
 understand perfectly would be to cease to understand at all. 
 
 It is in the essence of heaven that we are not to be thwarted 
 or irritated, this involves absolute equiUbrium and absolute 
 equilibrium involves absolute unconsciousness. Christ is 
 equilibrium — ^the not wanting anything, either more or less. 
 Death also is equilibrium. But Christ is a more living kind 
 of death than death is. 
 
VI 
 Mind and Matter 
 
 Motion 
 
 We cannot define either motion or matter, but we have 
 certain rough and ready ideas concerning them which, right 
 or wrong, we must make the best of without more words, 
 for the chances are ten to one that attempted definition will 
 fuzz more than it will clear. 
 
 Roughly, matter and motion are functions one of another, 
 as are mind and matter; they are essentially concomitant 
 with one another, and neither can vary but the other varies 
 also. You cannot have a thing "matter" by itself which 
 shall have no motion in it, nor yet a thing "motion" by 
 itself which shall exist apart from matter; you must have 
 both or neither. You can have matter moving much, or 
 little, and in all conceivable ways; but you cannot have 
 matter without any motion more than you can have motion 
 without any matter that is moving. 
 
 Its states, its behaviour under varying circumstances, that 
 is to say the characteristics of its motions, are all that we 
 can cognise in respect of matter. We recognise certain 
 varying states or conditions of matter and give one state 
 one name, and another another, as though it were a man or 
 a dog; but it is the state not the matter that we cognise, 
 just as it is the man's moods and outward semblance that 
 we alone note, while knowing nothing of the man. Of matter 
 in its ultimate essence and apart from motion we know 
 nothing whatever. As far as we are concerned there is no 
 such thing: it has no existence: for de non apparentibus et 
 non existentibus eadem est ratio. 
 
 It is a mistake, therefore, to speak about an "eternal 
 
 74 
 
Mind and Matter 75 
 
 unchangeable underlying substance" as I am afraid I did 
 ! in the last pages of Luck or Cunning? but I am not going to 
 j be at the trouble of seeing. For, if the substance is eternal 
 and unknowable and unchangeable, it is tantamount to noth- 
 ing. Nothing can be nearer non-existence than eternal un- 
 knowableness and unchangeableness. 
 
 I If, on the other hand, the substance changes, then it is 
 not unknowable, or uncognisable, for by cognising its changes 
 we cognise it. Changes are the only things that we can 
 cognise. Besides, we cannot have substance changing without 
 condition changing, and if we could we might as well ignore 
 condition. Does it not seem as though, since the motions or 
 states are all that we cognise, they should be all that we 
 need take account of? Change of condition is change of 
 substance. Then what do we want with substance? Why 
 have two ideas when one will do? 
 
 I suppose it has all come about because there are so many 
 tables and chairs and stones that appear not to be moving, 
 and this gave us the idea of a solid substance without any 
 motion in it. 
 
 How would it be to start with motion approximately 
 patent, and motion approximately latent (absolute patency, 
 and absolute latency being unattainable), and lay down that 
 motion latent as motion becomes patent as substance, or 
 matter of chair-and-table order; and that when patent as 
 motion it is latent as matter and substance? 
 
 I am only just recovering from severe influenza and have 
 no doubt I have been writing nonsense. 
 
 Matter and Mind 
 
 People say we can conceive the existence of matter and 
 the existence of mind. I doubt it. I doubt how far we have 
 any definite conception of mind or of matter, pure and 
 simple. 
 
 What is meant by conceiving a thing or understanding it? 
 
 When we hear of a piece of matter instinct with mind, as 
 protoplasm, for example, there certainly comes up before 
 our closed eyes an idea, a picture which we imagine to bear 
 some resemblance to the thing we are hearing of. But when 
 
76 Mind and Matter 
 
 we try to think of matter apart from every attribute of 
 matter (and this I suspect comes ultimately to "apart from 
 every attribute of mind") we get no image before our closed 
 eyes — we realise nothing to ourselves. Perhaps we surrep- 
 titiously introduce some little attribute, and then we think 
 we have conceived of matter pure and simple, but this I 
 think is as far as we can go. The like holds good for mind : 
 we must smuggle in a little matter before we get any definite 
 idea at all. 
 
 ii 
 
 Matter and mind are as heat and cold, as life and death, 
 certainty and uncertainty, union and separateness. There is 
 no absolute heat, life, certainty, union, nor is there any 
 absolute cold, death, uncertainty or separateness. 
 
 We can conceive of no ultimate limit beyond which a 
 thing cannot become either hotter or colder, there is no 
 limit; there are degrees of heat and cold, but there is no 
 heat so great that we cannot fancy its becoming a little 
 hotter, that is we cannot fancy its not having still a few 
 degrees of cold in it which can be extracted. Heat and cold 
 are always relative to one another, they are never absolute. 
 So with life and death, there is neither perfect life nor perfect 
 death, but in the highest life there is some death and in the 
 lowest death there is still some life. The fraction is so small 
 that in practice it may and must be neglected ; it is neglected, 
 however, not as of right but as of grace, and the right to 
 insist on it is never finally and indefeasibly waived. 
 
 iii 
 
 An energy is a soul — a something working in us. 
 
 As we cannot imagine heat apart from something which is 
 hot, nor motion without something that is moving, so we 
 cannot imagine an energy, or working power, without matter 
 through which it manifests itself. 
 
 On the other hand, we cannot imagine matter without 
 thinking of it as capable of some kind of working power or 
 energy — ^we cannot think of matter without thinking of it as 
 in some way ensouled. 
 
 iv 
 
 Matter and mind form one another, i.e. they give to one 
 another the form in which we see them. They are the help- 
 
Mind and Matter 77 
 
 meets to one another that cross each other and undo each 
 other and, in the undoing, do and, in the doing, undo, and so 
 see-saw ad mUfdtum. 
 
 Organic and Inorganic 
 
 Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we 
 have denied that they can understand their own. What we 
 call inorganic matter cannot understand the animals' and 
 plants' business, we have therefore denied that it can under- 
 stand anything whatever. 
 
 What we call inorganic is not so really, but the organisa- 
 tion is too subtle for our senses or for any of those appliances 
 with which we assist them. It is deducible however as a 
 necessity by an exercise of the reasoning faculties. 
 
 People looked at glaciers for thousands of years before 
 they found out that ice was a fluid, so it has taken them and 
 will continue to take them not less before they see that the 
 inorganic is not wholly inorganic. 
 
 The Power to make Mistakes ' 
 
 This is one of the criteria of life as we commonly think of 
 it. If oxygen could go wrong and mistake some other gas 
 for hydrogen and thus learn not to mistake it any more, we 
 should say oxygen was alive. The older life is, the more 
 unerring it becomes in respect of things about which it is 
 conversant — the more like, in fact, it becomes to such a 
 thing as the force of gravity, both as regards unerringness 
 and unconsciousness. 
 
 Is life such a force as gravity in process of formation, and 
 was gravity once — or rather, were things once liable to make 
 mistakes on such a subject as gravity? 
 
 If any one will teiU me what life is I will tell him whether 
 the inorganic is alive or not. 
 
 The Omnipresence of Intelligence 
 
 A little while ago no one would admit that animals had 
 intelligence. This is now conceded. At any rate, then, 
 vegetables had no intelligence. This is being fast disputed. 
 
78 Mind and Matter 
 
 Even Darwin leans towards the view that they have intelli- 
 gence. At any rate, then, the inorganic world has not got 
 an intelligence. Even this is now being denied. Death is 
 being defeated at all points. No sooner do we think we have 
 got a bona fide barrier than it breaks down. The divisions 
 between varieties, species, genus, all gone; between instinct 
 and reason, gone ; between animals and plants, gone ; between 
 man and the lower animals, gone; so, ere long, the division 
 between organic and inorganic will go and will take with it 
 the division between mind and matter. 
 
 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 king- 
 dom supervened upon the inorganic (vestiges of the old be- 
 ing, 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 him- 
 self in his own past, or forecasts his future to any consider^ 
 able 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. Never- 
 theless, if a man be shot out of a cannon, or fall from a great 
 height, he is to all intents and purposes a mere stone. Place 
 anything in circumstances 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. 
 
 Feeling 
 
 Man is a substance, he knows not what, feeling, he knows 
 not how, a rest and unrest that he can only in part distin- 
 guish. He is a substance feeling equilibrium or want of 
 equilibrium; that is to say, he is a substance in a statical 
 
Mind and Matter 79 
 
 or dynamical condition arid feeling the passage from one 
 state into the other. , 
 
 Feeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired 
 by taking pains. The analogy between feelings and words 
 is very close. Both have their foundation in volition and 
 deal largely in convention; as we should not be word-ridden 
 so neither should we be feeling-ridden; feelings can deceive 
 us; they can lie; they can be used in a non-natural, arti- 
 ficial sense; they can be forced; they can carry us away; 
 they can be restrained. 
 
 When the surroundings are familiar, we know the right 
 feeling and feel it accordingly, or if "we" (that is the central 
 government of our personality) do not feel it, the subordinate 
 departmental personality, whose business it is, feels it in the 
 usual way and then goes on to something else. When the 
 surroundings are less familiar and the departmental person- 
 ality cannot deal with them, the position is reported through 
 the nervous system to the central government which is fre- 
 quently at a loss to know what feeling to apply. Sometimes j 
 it happens to discern the right feeling and apply it, some- 
 times it hits upon an inappropriate one and is thus induced 
 to proceed from solecism to solecism till the consequences 
 lead to a crisis from which we recover and which, then be- 
 coming a leading case, forms one of the decisions on which 
 our future action is based. Sometimtes it applies a feeling 
 that is too inappropriate, as when the position is too horribly 
 novel for us to have had any experience that can guide the 
 central government in knowing how to feel about it, and this 
 results in a cessation of the eifort involved in trying to feel. 
 Hence we may hope that the most horrible apparent suffering 
 is not felt beyond a certain point, but is passed through un- 
 consciously under a natural, automatic anaesthetic — ^the uncon- 
 sciousness, in extreme cases, leading to death. 
 
 It is generally held that animals feel; it will soon be 
 generally held that plants feel; after that it will be held 
 that stones also can feel. For, as no matter is so organic 
 that there is not some of the inorganic in it, so, also, no 
 matter is so inorganic that there is not some of the organic 
 in it. We know that we have nerves and that we feel, it 
 does not follow that other things do not feel because they 
 have no nerves — it only follows that they do not feel as we 
 
8o Mind and Matter 
 
 do. The difference between the organic and the inorganic 
 kingdoms will some day be seen to lie in the greater power 
 of discriminating its feelings which is possessed by the 
 former. Both are made of the same universal substance, 
 but, in the case of the organic world, this substance is 
 able tc feel more fully and discreetly and to show us that 
 it feels. 
 
 Animals and plants, as they advance in the scale of life, 
 differentiate their feelings more and more highly; they 
 record them better and recognise them more readily. They 
 get to know what they are doing and feeling, not step by step 
 only, nor sentence by sentence, but in long flights, forming 
 chapters and whole books of action and sensation. The 
 difference as regards feeling between man and the lower 
 animals is one of degree and not of kind. The inorganic is 
 less expert in differentiating its feelings, therefore its memory 
 of them must be less enduring; it cannot re-cognise what it 
 could scarcely cognise. One might as well for some purposes, 
 perhaps, say at once, as indeed people generally do for most 
 purposes, that the inorganic does not feel; nevertheless the 
 somewhat periphrastic way of putting it, by saying that the 
 inorganic feels but does not know, or knows only very slightly, 
 how to differentiate its feelings, has the advantage of ex- 
 pressing the fact that feeling depends upon differentiation 
 and sense of relation inter se of the things differentiated — a 
 fact which, if never expressed, is apt to be lost sight of. 
 
 As, therefore, human discrimination is to that of the lower 
 animals, so the discrimination of the lower animals and 
 plants is to that of inorganic things. In each case it is greater 
 discriminating power (and this is mental power) that under- 
 lies the differentiation, but in no case can there be a denial 
 of mental power altogether. 
 
 Opinion and Matter 
 
 Moral force and material force do pass into one another ; 
 a conflict of opinion often ends in a fight. Putting it the 
 other way, there is no material conflict without attendant 
 clash of opinion. Opinion and matter act and react as do all 
 things else; they come up hand in hand out of something 
 which is both and neither, but, so far as we can catch sight 
 
Mind and Matter 8i 
 
 of either first on our mental horizon, it is opinion that is the 
 prior of the two. 
 
 Moral Influence 
 
 The caracal lies on a shelf in its den in the Zoological 
 Gardens quietly licking its fur. I go up and stand near it. 
 It makes a face at me. I come a little nearer. It makes a 
 worse face and raises itself up on its haunches. I stand and 
 look. It jumps down from its shelf and makes as if it in- 
 tended to go for me. I move back. The caracal has exerted a 
 moral influence over me which I have been unable to resist. 
 
 Moral influence means persuading another that one can 
 make that other more uncomfortable than that other can 
 make oneself. 
 
 Mental and Physical Pabulum 
 
 When we go up to the shelves in the reading-room of the 
 British Museum, how like it is to wasps flying up and down 
 an apricot tree that is trained against a wall, or cattle coming 
 down to drink at a pool ! 
 
 Eating and Proselytising 
 
 All eating is a kind of proselytising — a kind of dogmatising 
 — a maintaining that the eater's way of looking at things is 
 better than the eatee's. We convert the food, or try to do 
 so, to our own way of thinking, and, when it sticks to its own 
 opinion and refuses to be converted, we say it disagrees with 
 us. An animal that refuses to let another eat it has the 
 courage of its convictions and, if it gets eaten, dies a martyr 
 to them. So we can only proselytise fresh meat, the con- 
 victions of putrid meat begin to be too strong for us. 
 
 It is good for a man that he should not be thwarted — 
 that he should have his own way as far, and with as little 
 difficulty, as possible. Cooking is good because it makes 
 matters easier by unsettling the meat's mind and preparing 
 it for new ideas. All food must first be prepared for us by 
 animals and plants, or we cannot assimilate it; and so 
 thoughts are more easily assimilated that have been already 
 digested by other minds. A man should avoid converse with 
 
82 Mind and Matter 
 
 things that have been stunted or starved, and should not eat 
 such meat as has been overdriven or underfed or afflicted 
 with disease, nor should he touch fruit or vegetables that 
 have not been well grown. 
 
 Sitting quiet after eating is akin to sitting still during 
 divine service so as not to disturb the congregation. We are 
 catechising and converting our proselytes, and there should 
 be no row. As we get older we must digest more quietly 
 still, our appetite is less, our gastric juices are no longer so 
 eloquent, they have lost that cogent fluency which carried 
 away all that came in contact with it. They have become 
 sluggish and unconciliatory. This is what happens to any 
 man when he suffers from an attack of indigestion. 
 
 Sea-Sickness 
 
 Or, indeed, any other sickness is the inarticulate expres- 
 sion of the pain we feel on seeing a proselyte escape us just 
 as we were on the point of converting it. 
 
 Indigestion 
 
 This, as I have said above, may be due to the naughtiness 
 of the stiff-necked things that we have eaten, or. to the poverty 
 of our own arguments ; but it may also arise from an attempt 
 on the part of the stomach to be too damned clever, and to 
 depart from precedent inconsiderately. The healthy stomach 
 is nothing if not conservative. Few radicals have good 
 digestions. 
 
 Assimilation and Persecution 
 
 We cannot get rid of persecution; if we feel at all we 
 must persecute something; the mere acts of feeding and 
 growing are acts of persecution. Our aim should be to 
 persecute nothing but such things as are absolutely incapable 
 of resisting us. Man is the only animal that can remain on 
 friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he 
 eats them. 
 
 Matter Infinitely Subdivisible 
 
 We must suppose it to be so, but it does not follow that 
 we can know anything about it if it is divided into pieces 
 
Mind and Matter 83 
 
 smaller than a certain size; and, if we can know nothing 
 about it when so divided, then, qiM us, it has no existence 
 and therefore matter, qtia us, is not infinitely subdivisible. 
 
 Differences 
 
 We often say that things differ in degree but not in kind, 
 as though there were a fixed line at which degree ends and 
 kind begins. There is no such line. All differences resolve 
 themselves into differences of degree. Everything can in 
 the end be united with everything by easy stages if a way 
 long enough and round-about enough be taken. Hence to 
 the metaphysician everything will become one, being united 
 with everything else by degrees so subtle that there is no 
 escape from seeing the universe as a single whole. This in 
 theory; but in practice it would get us into such a mess 
 that we had better go on talking about differences of kind as 
 well as of degree. 
 
 Union and Separation 
 
 In the closest union there is still some separate existence 
 of component parts; in the most complete separation there 
 is still a reminiscence of union. When they are most sepa- 
 rate, the atoms seem to bear in mind that they may one day 
 have to come together again; when most united, they still 
 remember that they may come to fall out some day and do 
 not give each other their full, unreserved confidence. 
 
 The difficulty is how to get unity and separateness at one 
 and the same time. The two main ideas underlying all 
 action are desire for closer unity and desire for more sepa- 
 rateness. Nature is the puzzled sense of a vast number of 
 things which feel they are in an illogical position and should 
 be more either of one thing or the other than they are. So 
 they will first be this and then that, and act and re-act and 
 keep the balance as near equal as they can, yet they know all 
 the time that it isn't right and, as they incline one way or the 
 other, they will love or hate. 
 
 When we love, we draw what we love closer to us; when 
 we hate a thing, we fling it away from us. All disruption 
 and dissolution is a mode of hating; and all that we call 
 affinity is a mode of loving. 
 
84 Mind and Matter 
 
 The puzzle which puzzles every atom is the puzzle which 
 puzzles ourselves — a conflict of duties — our duty towards 
 ourselves, and our duty as members of a body politic. It 
 is swayed by its sense of being a separate thing — of having 
 a life to itself which nothing can share; it is also swayed 
 by the feeling that, in spite of this, it is only part of an indi- 
 viduality which is greater than itself and which absorbs it. 
 Its action will vary with the predominance of either of these 
 two states of opinion. 
 
 Unity and Multitude 
 
 We can no longer separate things as we once could: every- 
 thing tends towards unity; one thing, one action, in one 
 place, at one time. On the other hand, we can no longer 
 unify things as we once could; we are driven to ultimate 
 atoms, each one of which is an individuality. So that we 
 have an infinite multitude of things doing an infinite multi- 
 tude of actions in infinite time and space; and yet they are 
 not many things, but one thing. 
 
 The Atom 
 
 ^The idea of an indivisible, ultimate atom is inconceivable 
 by the lay mind. If we can conceive an idea of the atom 
 at all, we can conceive it as capable of being cut in half; 
 indeed, we cannot conceive it at all unless we so conceive 
 it. The only true atom, the only thing which we cannot 
 subdivide and cut in half, is the universe. We cannot cut a 
 bit off the universe and put it somewhere else. Therefore, 
 the universe is a true atom and, indeed, is the smallest piece 
 of indivisible matter which our minds can conceive ; and they 
 cannot conceive it any more than they can the indivisible, 
 ultimate atom. 
 
 Our Cells 
 
 A string of young ducklings as they sidle along through 
 grass beside a ditch — ^how like they are to a single serpent! 
 I said in Life and Habit that a colossal being, looking at the 
 earth through a microscope, would probably think the ants 
 and flies of one year the same as those of the preceding year. 
 
Mind and Matter 85 
 
 I should have added : — So we think we are composed of the 
 same cells from year to year, whereas in truth the cells are a 
 succession of generations. The most continuous, homo- 
 geneous things we know are only like a lot of cow-bells on an 
 alpine pasture. 
 
 Nerves and Postmen 
 
 A letter, so long as it is connected with one set of nerves, 
 is one thing; loose it from connection with those nerves — 
 open your fingers and drop it in the opening of a pillar box — 
 and it becomes part and parcel of another nervous system. 
 Letters in transitu contain all manner of varied stimuli and 
 shocks, yet to the postman, who is the nerve that conveys 
 them, they are all alike, except as regards mere size and 
 weight. I should think, therefore, that our nerves and ganglia 
 really see no difference in the stimuli that they convey. 
 
 Aiid yet the postman does see some difference: he knows 
 a business letter from a valentine at a glance and practice 
 teaches him to know much else which escapes ourselves. 
 Who, then, shall say what the nerves and ganglia know and 
 what they do not know ? True, to us, as we think of a piece 
 of brain inside our own heads, it seems as absurd to consider 
 that it knows anything at all as it seems to consider that a 
 hen's egg knows anything ; but then if the brain could see us, 
 perhaps the brain might say it was absurd to suppose that that 
 thing could know this or that. Besides what is the self of 
 which we say that we are self-conscious? No one can say 
 what it is that we are conscious of. This is one of the things 
 which lie altogether outside the sphere of words. 
 
 The postman can open a letter if he likes and know all 
 about the message he is conveying, but, if he does this, he is 
 diseased qua postman. So, maybe, a nerve might open a 
 stimulus or a shock on the way sometimes, but it would not 
 be a good nerve. 
 
 Night-Shirts and Babies 
 
 On Hindhead, last Easter, we saw a family wash hung out 
 to dry. There were papa's two great night-shirts and 
 mamma's two lesser night-gowns and then the children's 
 smaller articles of clothing and mamma's drawers and the 
 girls' drawers, all full swollen with a strong north-east wind. 
 
86 Mind and Matter 
 
 But mamma's night-gown was not so well pinned on and, 
 instead of being full of steady wind like tfie others, kept blow- 
 ing up and down as though she were preaching wildly. We 
 stood and laughed for ten minutes. The housewife came to 
 the window and wondered at us, but we could not resist the 
 pleasure of watching the absurdly life-like gestures which 
 the night-gowns made. I should like a Santa Famiglia with 
 clothes drying in the backgrotmd. 
 
 A love story might be told in a series of sketches of the 
 clothes of two families hanging out to dry in adjacent gar- 
 dens. Then a gentleman's night-shirt from one garden, and a 
 lady's night-gown from the other should be shown hanging 
 in a third garden by themselves. By and by there should be 
 added a little night-shirt. 
 
 A philosopher might be tempted, on seeing the little night- 
 shirt, to suppose that the big night-shirts had made it. What 
 we do is much the same, for the body of a baby is not much 
 more made by the two old babies, after whose pattern it 
 has cut itself out, than the little night-shirt is made by the 
 big ones. The thing that makes either the little night-shirt 
 or the little baby is something about which we know nothing 
 whatever at all. 
 
 Our Organism 
 
 Man is a walking tool-box, manufactory, workshop and 
 bazaar worked from behind the scenes by someone or some- 
 thing that we never see. We are so used to never seeing more 
 than the tools, and these work so smoothly, that we call 
 them the workman himself, making much the same mistake 
 as though we should call the saw the carpenter. The only 
 workman of whom we know anything at all is the one that 
 runs ourselves and even this is not perceivable by any of our 
 gross palpable senses. 
 
 The senses seem to be the link between mind and matter — 
 never forgetting that we can never have either mind or matter 
 pure and without alloy of the other. 
 
 Beer and My Cat 
 
 Spilt beer or water seems sometimes almost human in its 
 uncertainty whether or no it is worth while to get ever such 
 
Mind and Matter 87 
 
 a little nearer to the earth's centre by such and such a slight 
 trickle forward. 
 
 I saw my cat undecided in his mind whether he should get 
 up on the table and steal the remains of my dinner or not. 
 The chair was some eighteen inches away with its back 
 towards the table, so it was a little troublesome for him to 
 get his feet first on the bar and then on the table. He was 
 not at all hungry but he tried, saw it would not be quite 
 easy and gave it up; then he thought better of it and tried 
 again, and saw again that it was not all perfectly plain 
 sailing; and so backwards and forwards with the first-he- 
 would-and-then-he-wouldn'tism of a mind so nearly in equi- 
 librium that a hair's weight would turn the scale one way or 
 the other. 
 
 I thought how closely it resembled the action of beer 
 trickling on a slightly sloping table. 
 
 The Union Bank 
 
 There is a settlement in the Union Bank building. Chancery 
 Lane, which has made three large cracks in the main door 
 steps. I remember these cracks more than twenty years ago, 
 just after the bank was built, as mere thin lines and now they 
 must be some half an inch wide and are still slowly widening. 
 They have altered very gradually, but not an hour or a minute 
 has passed without a groaning and travailing together on the 
 part of every stone and piece of timber in the building to 
 settle how a modv^ vivendi should be arrived at. This is why 
 the crack is said to be caused by a settlement — some parts 
 of the building willing this and some that, and the battle 
 going on, as even the steadiest and most unbroken battles 
 must go, by fits and starts which, though to us appearing 
 as an even tenor, would, if we could see them under a micro- 
 scope, prove to be a succession of bloody engagements be- 
 tween regiments that sometimes lost and sometimes won. 
 Sometimes, doubtless, strained relations have got settled by 
 peaceful arbitration and reference to the solicitors of the 
 contending parts without open visible rupture; at other 
 times, again, discontent has gathered on discontent as the 
 snow upon a sub-alpine slope, flake by flake, till the last is 
 one too many and the whole comes crashing down — 
 
88 Mind and Matter 
 
 whereon the cracks have opened some minute fraction of an 
 inch wider. 
 
 Of this we see nothing. All we note is that a score of years 
 have gone by and that the cracks are rather wider. So, 
 doubtless, if the materials of which the bank is built could 
 speak, they would say they knew nothing of the varied inter- 
 ests that sometimes coalesce and sometimes conflict within 
 th^ building. The joys of the rich depositor, the anguish of 
 the bankrupt are nothing to them; the stream of people 
 coming in and going out is as steady, continuous a thing to 
 them as a blowing wind or a running river to ourselves; all 
 they know or care about is that they have a trifle more weight 
 of books and clerks and bullion than they once had, and that 
 this hinders them somewhat in their effort after a permanent 
 settlement. 
 
 The Unity of Nature 
 
 I meet a melancholy old Savoyard playing on a hurdy- 
 gurdy, grisly, dejected, dirty, with a look upon him as though 
 the iron had long since entered into his soul. It is a frosty 
 morning but he has very little clothing, and there is a dumb 
 despairing look about him which is surely genuine. There 
 passes him a young butcher boy with his tray of meat upon 
 his shoulder. He is ruddy, lusty, full of life and health and 
 spirits, and he vents these in a shrill whistle which eclipses 
 the hurdy-gurdy of the Savoyard. 
 
 The like holds good with the horses and cats and dogs 
 which I fneet daily, with the flies in window panes and with 
 plants, some are successful, others have now passed their 
 prime. Look at the failures per se and they make one very 
 unhappy, but it helps matters to look at them in their capaci- 
 ties as parts of a whole rather than as isolated. 
 
 I cannot see things round about me without feeling that 
 they are all parts of one whole which is trying to do some- 
 thing; it has not perhaps a perfectly clear idea of what it is 
 trying after, but it is doing its best. I see old age, decay and 
 failure as the relaxation, after effort, of a muscle in the cor- 
 poration of things, or as a tentative effort in a wrong direc- 
 tion, or as the dropping off of particles of skin from a healthy 
 limb. This dropping off is the death of any given generation 
 
Mind and Matter 89 
 
 of our cells as they work their way nearer and nearer to our 
 skins and then get rubbed off and go away. It is as though we 
 sent people to live nearer and nearer the churchyard the older 
 they grew. As for the skin that is shed, in the first place it 
 has had its turn, in the second it starts anew under fresh aus- 
 pices, for it can at no time cease to be part of the universe, 
 it must always live in one way or another. 
 
 Croesus and His Kitchen-Maid 
 
 I want people to see either their cells as less parts of them- 
 selves than they do, or their servants as more. 
 
 Croesus's kitchen-maid is part of him, bone of his bone and 
 flesh of his flesh, for she eats what comes from his table and, 
 being fed of one flesh, are they not brother and sister to one 
 another in virtue of community of nutriment which is but 
 a thinly veiled travesty of descent? When she eats peas 
 with her knife, he does so too ; there is not a bit of bread and 
 butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump of sugar she drops 
 into her tea, but he knoweth it altogether, though he knows 
 nothing whatever about it. She is en-Croesused and he en- 
 scullery-maided so long as she remains linked to him by the 
 golden chain which passes from his pocket to hers, and which 
 is greatest of all unifiers. 
 
 True, neither party is aware of the connection at all as long 
 as things go smoothly. Croesus no more knows the name of, 
 or feels the existence of, his kitchen-maid than a peasant in 
 health knows about his liver; nevertheless he is awakened to 
 a dim sense of an undefined something when he pays his 
 grocer or his baker. She is more definitely aware of him 
 than he of her, but it is by way of an overshadowing presence 
 rather than a clear and intelligent comprehension. And 
 though Croesus does not eat his kitchen-maid's meals other- 
 wise than vicariously, still tO' eat vicariously is to eat: the 
 meals so eaten by his kitchen-maid nourish the better ordering 
 of the dinner which nourishes and engenders the better order- 
 ing of Croesus himself. He is fed therefore by the feeding of 
 his kitchen-maid. 
 
 And so with sleep. When she goes to bed he, in part, does 
 so too. When she gets up and lays the fire in the back- 
 kitchen he, in part, does so. He lays it through her and in 
 
90 Mind and Matter 
 
 her, though knowing no more what he is doing than we know 
 when we digest, but still doing it as by what we call a reflex 
 action. Qid facit per almm facit per se, and when the back- 
 kitchen fire is lighted on Croesus's behalf, it is Croesus who 
 lights it, though he is all the time fast asleep in bed. 
 
 Sometimes things do' not go smoothly. Suppose the 
 kitchen-maid to be taken with fits just before dinner-time; 
 there will be a reverberating echo of disturbance throughout 
 the whole organisation of the palace. But the oftener she 
 has fits, the more easily will the household know what it is 
 all about when she is taken with them. On the first occasion 
 Lady Croesus will send some one rushing down into the 
 kitchen, there will, in fact, be a general flow of blood (i.e. 
 household) to the part affected (that is to say, to the scullery- 
 maid) ; the doctor will be sent for and all the rest of it. On 
 each repetition of the fits the neighbouring organs, reverting 
 to a more primary undifferentiated condition, will discharge 
 duties for which they were not engaged, in a manner for 
 which no one would have given them credit, and the disturb- 
 ance will be less and less each time, till by and by, at the 
 sound of the crockery smashing below. Lady Croesus will just 
 look up to papa and say : 
 
 "My dear, I am afraid Sarah has got another fit." 
 
 And papa will say she will probably be better again soon, 
 and will go on reading his newspaper. 
 
 In course of time the whole thing will come to be managed 
 automatically downstairs without any reference either to 
 papa, the cerebrum, or to mamma, the cerebellum, or even 
 to the medulla oblongata, the housekeeper. A precedent or 
 routine will be established, after which everything will work 
 quite smoothly. 
 
 But though papa and mamma are unconscious of the reflex 
 action which has been going on within their organisation, 
 the kitchen-maid and the cells in her immediate vicinity 
 (that is to say her fellow-servants) will know all about it. 
 Perhaps the neighbours will think that nobody in the house 
 knows, and that because the master and mistress show no 
 sign of disturbance therefore there is no consciousness. They 
 forget that the scullery-maid becomes more and more con- 
 scious of the fits if they grow upon her, as they probably will, 
 and that Croesus and his lady do show more signs of con- 
 
Mind and Matter 91 
 
 sciousness, if they are watched closely, than can be detected 
 on first inspection. There is not the same violent perturbation 
 that there was on the previous occasions, but the tone of the 
 palace is lowered. A dinner party has to be put off; the 
 cooking is more homogeneous and uncertain, it is less highly 
 differentiated than when the scullery-maid was well; and 
 there is a grumble when the doctor has to be paid and also 
 when the smashed crockery has to be replaced. 
 
 If Croesus discharges his kitchen-maid and gets another, 
 it is as though he cut out a small piece of his finger and re- 
 placed it in due course by growth. But even the slightest 
 cut may lead to blood-poisoning, and so even the dismissal 
 of a kitchen-maid may be big with the fate of empires. Thus 
 the cook, a valued servant, may take the kitchen-maid's 
 part and go too. The next cook may spoil the dinner and 
 upset Croesus's temper, and from this all manner of conse-; 
 quences may be evolved, even to the dethronement and death 
 of the king himself. Nevertheless as a general rule an injury 
 to such a low part of a great monarch's organism as a kitchen- 
 maid has no important results. It is only when we are at- 
 tacked in such vital organs as the solicitor or the banker that 
 we need be uneasy. A wound in the solicitor is a very serious 
 thing, and many a man has died from failure of his bank's 
 action. 
 
 It is certain, as we have seen, that when the kitchen-maid 
 lights the fire it is really Croesus who is lighting it, but it is 
 less obvious that when Croesus goes to a ball the scullery-maid 
 goes also. Still this- should be held in the same way as it 
 should be also held that she eats vicariously when Croesus 
 dines. For he must return the balls and the dinner parties 
 and this comes out in his requiring to keep a large establish- 
 ment whereby the scullery-maid retains her place as part of 
 his organism and is nourished and amused also. 
 
 On the other hand, when Croesus dies it does not follow 
 that the scullery-maid should die at the same time. She 
 may grow a new Croesus, as Croesus, if the maid dies, will 
 probably grow a new kitchen-maid, Croesus's son or successor 
 may take over the kingdom and palace, and the kitchen-maid, 
 beyond having to wash up a few extra plates and dishes at 
 coronation time, will know little about the change. It is as 
 though the establishment had had its hair cut and its beard 
 
92 Mind and Matter 
 
 trimmed; it is smartened up a little, but there is no other 
 change. If, on the other hand, he goes bankrupt, or his 
 kingdom is taken from him and his whole establishment is 
 broken up and dissipated at the auction mart, then, even 
 though not one of its component cells actually dies, the 
 organism as a whole does so, and it is interesting to see that 
 the lowest, least specialised and least highly differentiated 
 parts of the organism, such as the scUUery-maid and the 
 stable-boys, most readily iind an entry into the life of some 
 new system, while the more specialised and highly differenti- 
 ated parts, such as the steward, the old housekeeper and, 
 still more so, the librarian or the chaplain may never be able 
 to attach themselves to any new combination, and may die 
 in consequence. I heard once of a large builder who retired 
 unexpectedly from business and broke up his establishment 
 to the actual death of several of his older employes. So a bit 
 of flesh or even a finger may be taken from one body and 
 grafted on to another, but a leg cannot be grafted ; if a leg is 
 cut off it must die. It may, however, be maintained that the 
 owner dies too, even though he recovers, for a man who has 
 lost a leg is not the man he was.* 
 
 *The five notes here amalgamated together into "Croesus and his 
 Kitchen-Maid" were to have been part of an article for the Universal 
 Review, but, before Butler wrote it, the review died. I suppose, but I 
 do not now remember, that the article would have been about Mind 
 and Matter or Organs and Tools, and, possibly, all the concluding 
 notes of this group, beginning with "Our Cells," would have been 
 introduced as illustrations. 
 
VII 
 
 On the Making of Music, Pictures and 
 Books 
 
 Thought and Word 
 i 
 Thought pure and simple is as near to God as we can get ;, 
 it is through this that we are linked with God. The highest 
 thought is ineffable; it must be felt from one person to 
 another but cannot be articulated. All the most essential 
 and thinking part of thought is done without words or con- 
 sciousness. It is not till doubt and consciousness enter that 
 words become possible. 
 
 The moment a thing is written, or even can be written, and 
 reasoned about, it has changed its nature by becoming tangi- 
 ble, and hence finite, and hence it will have an end in disin- 
 tegration. It has entered into death. And yet till it can be 
 thought about and realised more or less definitely it has not 
 entered into life. Both life and death are necessary factors 
 of each other. But our profoundest and most important 
 convictions are unspeakable. 
 
 So it is with unwritten and indefinable codes of honour, 
 conventions, art-rules^ — things that can be felt but not 
 explained — these are the most important, and the less we 
 try to understand them, or even to think about them, the 
 better. 
 
 ii 
 
 Words are organised thoughts, as living forms are organ- 
 ised actions. How a thought can find embodiment in words is 
 nearly, though perhaps not quite, as mysterious as how an 
 action can find embodiment in form, and appears to involve a 
 
 93 
 
94 On the Making of Music, 
 
 somewhat analogous transformation and contradiction in 
 terms. 
 
 There was a time when language was as rare an accom- 
 plishment as writing was in the days when it was first in- 
 vented. Probably talking was originally confined to a few 
 scholars, as writing was in the middle ages, and gradually be- 
 came general. Even now speech is still growing; poor folks 
 cannot understand the talk of educated people. Perhaps read- 
 ing and writing will indeed one day come by nature. Analogy 
 points in this direction, and though analogy is often mislead- 
 ing, it is the least misleading thing we have. 
 
 iii 
 Communications between God and man must always be 
 either above words or below them; for with words come in 
 translations, and all the interminable questions therewith 
 connected. 
 
 iv 
 The mere fact that a thought or idea can be expressed 
 articulately in words involves that it is still open to question ; 
 and the mere fact that a difficulty can be definitely conceived 
 involves that it is open to solution. 
 
 We want words to do more than they can. We try to do 
 with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a 
 |watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with a mop; 
 we expect them to help us to grip and dissect that which 
 injjltimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow. Nevertheless 
 there they are; we have got to live with thern, and the wise 
 course is to treat them as we do our neighbours, and make 
 -the best and not the worst of them. But they are parvenu 
 people as compared with thought and action. What we 
 should read is not the words but the man whom we feel to be 
 behind the words. 
 
 vi 
 
 Words impede and either kill, or are killed by, perfect 
 thought; but they are, as a scaffolding, useful, if not indis- 
 pensable, for the building up of imperfect thought and helping 
 to perfect it. 
 
Pictures and Books 95 
 
 vii 
 
 All words are juggles. To call a thing a juggle of words is 
 often a bigger juggle than the juggle it is intended to complain 
 of. The question is whether it is a greater juggle than is 
 generally considered fair trading. 
 
 viii 
 
 Words are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless 
 when in actual use. 
 
 ix 
 
 Gold and silver coins are only the tokens, symbols, out- 
 ward and visible signs and sacraments of money. When not 
 in actual process of being applied in purchase they are no 
 more money than words not in use are language. Books are 
 like imprisoned souls until some one takes them down from 
 a shelf and reads them. The coins are potential money as 
 the words are potential language, it is the power and will to 
 apply the counters that make them vibrate with life; when 
 the power and the will are in abeyance the counters lie dead 
 as a log. 
 
 The Law 
 
 The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much 
 more so. You may break the written law at a pinch and on 
 the sly if you can, but the unwritten law — which often com- 
 prises the written — must not be broken. Not being written, 
 it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be 
 done. 
 
 Ideas 
 
 They are like shadows — substantial enough until we try 
 to grasp them. 
 
 Expression 
 
 The fact that every mental state is intensified by expres- 
 sion is of a piece with the fact that nothing has any existence 
 at all save in its expression. 
 
 Development 
 
 All things are like exposed photographic plates that have 
 no visible image on them till they have been developed. 
 
96 On the Making of Music, 
 
 Acquired Characteristics 
 
 If there is any truth in the theory that these are inherited 
 — and who can doubt it? — the eye and the finger are but 
 the aspiration, or word, made manifest in flesh. 
 
 Physical and Spiritual 
 
 The bodies of many abandoned undertakings lie rotting 
 unburied up and down the country and their ghosts haunt 
 the law-courts. 
 
 Trail and Writing 
 
 Before the invention of writing the range of one man's 
 influence over another was limited to the range of sight, 
 sound and scent ; besides this there was trail, of many kinds. 
 Trail unintentionally left is, as it were, hidden sight. Left 
 intentionally, it is the unit of literature. It is the first mode 
 of writing, from which grew that power of extending men's 
 influence over one another by the help of written symbols of 
 all kinds without which the development of modern civilisa- 
 tion would have been impossible. 
 
 Conveyancing and the Arts 
 
 In conveyancing the ultimately potent thing is not the deed 
 but the invisible intention and desire of the parties to the 
 deed; the written document itself is only evidence of this 
 intention and desire. So it is with music, the written notes 
 are not the main thing, nor is even the heard performance; 
 these are only evidences of an internal invisible emotion that 
 can be felt but never fully expressed. And so it is with the 
 words of literature and with the forms and colours of painting. 
 
 The Rules for Making Literature, Music and 
 
 Pictures 
 
 The arts of the musician, the painter and the writer are 
 essentially the same. In composing a fugue, after you have 
 exposed your subject, which must not be too unwieldy, you 
 introduce an episode or episodes which must arise out of your 
 
Pictures and Books 97 
 
 subject. The great thing is that all shall be new, and yet 
 nothing new, at the same time; the details must minister to 
 the main effect and not obscure it; in other words, you must 
 have a subject, develop it and not wander from it very far. 
 This holds just as true for literature and painting and for art 
 of all kinds. 
 
 No man should try even to allude to the greater part of 
 what he sees in his subject, and there is hardly a limit to 
 what he may omit. What is required is that he shall say 
 what he elects to say discreetly; that he shall be quick to 
 see the gist of a matter, and give it pithily without either 
 prolixity or stint of words. 
 
 Relative Importances 
 
 It is the painter's business to help memory and imagination, , 
 not to supersede them. He cannot put the whole before the 
 spectator, nothing can do this short of the thing itself; he 
 should, therefore, not try to realise, and the less he looks as 
 if he were trying to do so the more signs of judgment he will 
 show. His business is to supply those details which will most 
 readily bring the whole before the mind along with them.^ 
 He must not give too few, but it is still more imperative on 
 him not to give too many. 
 
 Seeing, thought and expression are rendered possible only 
 by the fact that our minds are always ready to compromise 
 and to take the part for the whole. We associate a number 
 of ideas with any given object, and if a few of the most 
 characteristic of these are put before us we take the rest as 
 read, jump to a conclusion and realise the whole. If we did 
 not conduct our thought on this principle — simplifying by 
 suppression of detail and breadth of treatment — it would 
 take us a twelvemonth to say that it was a fine morning and 
 another for the hearer to apprehend our statement. Any 
 other principle reduces thought to an absurdity. 
 
 All painting depends upon simplification. All simplifica- 
 tion depends upon a perception of relative importances. All_ 
 perception of relative importances depends upon a just ap- 
 preciation of which letters in association's bond association 
 will most readily dispense with. This depends upon the 
 sympathy of the painter both with his subject and with him 
 
98 On the Making of Music, 
 
 who is to look at the picture. And this depends upon a man's 
 common sense. 
 
 He therefore tells best in painting, as in literature, who 
 has best estimated the relative values or importances of the 
 more special features characterising his subject: that is to 
 say, who appreciates most accurately how much and how 
 fast each one of them will carry, and is at most pains to give 
 those only that will say most in the fewest words or touches. 
 It is here that the most difficult, the mo,st important, and the 
 most generally neglected part of an artist's business will be 
 found to lie. 
 
 The difficulties of doing are serious enough, nevertheless 
 we can most of us overcome them with ordinary perseverance 
 for they are small as compared with those of knowing what 
 not to do — with those of learning to disregard the incessant 
 importunity of small nobody-details that persist in trying 
 to thrust themselves above their betters. It is less trouble 
 to give in to these than to snub them duly and keep them in 
 their proper places, yet it is precisely here that strength or 
 weakness resides. It is success or failure in this respect that 
 constitutes the difference between the artist who may claim 
 to rank as a statesman and one who can rise no higher than 
 a village vestryman. 
 
 It is here, moreover, that effort is most remunerative. 
 For when we feel that a painter has made simplicity and sub- 
 ordination of importances his first aim, it is surprising how 
 much shortcoming we will condone as regards actual execu- 
 tion. Whereas, let the execution be perfect, if the details 
 given be ill-chosen in respect of relative importance, the 
 whole effect is lost — it becomes top-heavy, as it were, and 
 collapses. As for the number of details given, this does not 
 matter: a man may give as few or as many as he chooses; 
 he may stop at outline, or he may go on to Jean Van Eyck ; 
 what is essential is that, no matter how far or how small a 
 distance he may go, he -should have begun with the most 
 important point and added each subsequent feature in due 
 order of importance, so that if he stopped at any moment 
 there should be no detail ungiven more important th^n 
 another which has been insisted on. 
 
 Supposing, by way of illustration, that the details are as 
 grapes in a bunch, they should be eaten from the best grape 
 
Pictures and Books 99 
 
 to the next best, and so on downwards, never eating a worse 
 grape while a better one remains uneaten. 
 
 Personally, I think that, as the painter cannot go the 
 whole way, the sooner he makes it clear that he has no inten- 
 tion of trying to do so the better. When we look at a very 
 highly finished picture (so called), unless we are in the hands 
 of one who has attended successfully to the considerations 
 insisted on above, we feel as though we were with a trouble- 
 some cicerone who will not let us look at things with our 
 own eyes but keeps intruding himself at every touch and 
 turn and trying to exercise that undue influence upon us 
 which generally proves to have been the accompaniment of 
 concealment and fraud. This is exactly what we feel with 
 Van Mieris and, though in a less degree, with Gerard Dow; 
 whereas with Jean Van Eyck and Metsu, no matter how far 
 they may have gone, we find them essentially as impressionist 
 as Rembrandt or Velasquez. 
 
 For impressionism only means that due attention has been 
 paid to the relative importances of the impressions made by 
 the various characteristics of a given subject, and that they 
 have been presented to us in order of precedence. 
 
 Eating Grapes Downwards 
 
 Always eat grapes downwards — that is, always eat the 
 best grape first; in this way there will be none better left 
 on the bunch, and each grape will seem good down to the 
 last. If you eat the other way, you will not have a good 
 grape in the lot. Besides, you will be tempting Providence 
 to kill you before you come to the best. This is why autumn 
 seems better than spring: in the autumn we are eating our 
 days downwards, in the spring each day still seems "very 
 bad." People should live on this principle more than they 
 do, but they do live on it a good deal ; from the age of, say, 
 fifty we eat our days downwards. 
 
 In New Zealand for a long time I had to do the washing-up 
 after each meal. I used to do the knives first, for it might 
 please God to take me before I came to the forks, and then 
 what a sell it would have been to have done the forks rather 
 than the knives! 
 
100 On the Making of Music, 
 
 Terseness 
 
 Talking with Gogin last night, I said that in writing it 
 ^took more time and trouble to get a thing short than long. 
 He said it was the same in painting. It was harder not to 
 paint a detail than to paint it, easier to put in all that one 
 can see than to judge what may go without saying, omit it 
 and range the irreducible minima in due order of precedence. 
 Hence we all lean towards prolixity. 
 
 The difficulty lies in the nice appreciation of relative 
 importances and in the giving each detail neither more nor 
 less than its due. This is the difference between Gerard, Dow 
 and Metsu. Gerard Dow gives all he can, but unreflectingly ; 
 hence it does not reflect the subject effectively into the 
 ^spectator. We see it, but it does not come home to us. Metsu 
 on the other hand omits all he can, but omits intelligently, 
 and his reflection excites responsive enthusiasm in ourselves. 
 We are continually trying to see as much as we can, and to 
 put it down. More wisely we should consider how much we 
 can avoid seeing and dispense with. 
 
 So it is also in music. Cherubini says the number of 
 things that can be done in fugue with a very simple subject 
 is endless, but that the trouble lies in knowing which to 
 choose from all these infinite possibilities. 
 
 As regards painting, any one can paint anything in the 
 minute manner with a little practice, but it takes an exceed- 
 ingly able man to paint so much as an egg broadly and simply. 
 Bearing in mind the shortness of life and the complexity of 
 affairs, it stands to reason that we owe most to him who 
 packs our trunks for us, so to speak, most intelligently, 
 neither omitting what we are likely to want, nor including 
 what we can dispense with, and who, at the same time, 
 arranges things so that they will travel most safely and be 
 got at most conveniently. So we speak of composition and 
 arrangement in all arts. 
 
 Making Notes 
 
 My notes always grow longer if I shorten them. I mean 
 the process of compression makes them more pregnant and 
 
Pictures and Books lor 
 
 they breed new notes. I never try to lengthen them, so I do 
 not know whether they would grow shorter if I did. Perhaps 
 that might be a good way of getting them shorter. 
 
 Shortening 
 
 A young author is tempted to leave anything he has 
 written through fear of not having enough to say if he goes 
 cutting out too freely. But it is easier to be long than short. 
 I have always found compressing, cutting out, and tersifying 
 a passage suggest more than anything else does. Things 
 pruned oif in this way are like the heads of the hydra, two 
 grow for every one that is lopped off. 
 
 Omission 
 
 If a writer will go on the principle of stopping everywhere 
 and anywhere to put down his notes, as the true painter will 
 stop anywhere and everywhere to sketch, he will be able to 
 cut down his works liberally. He will become prodigal not 
 of writing' — any fool can be this — ^but of omission. You 
 become brief because you have more things to say than time 
 to say them in. One of the chief arts is that of knowing what 
 to neglect and the more talk increases the more necessary 
 does this art become. 
 
 Brevity 
 
 Handel's jig in the ninth Stdte de Pieces, in G minor, is 
 very fine but it is perhaps a little long. Probably Handel was 
 in a hurry, for it takes much more time to get a thing short 
 than to leave it a little long. Brevity is not only the soul of 
 wit, but the soul of making oneself agreeable and of getting 
 on with people, and, indeed, of everything that makes life 
 worth living. So precious a thing, however, cannot be got 
 without more expense and trouble than most of us have the 
 moral wealth to lay out. 
 
 Diffuseness 
 
 This sometimes helps, as, for instance, when the subject is 
 hard; words that may be, strictly speaking, unnecessary 
 
I02 On the Making of Music, 
 
 still may make things easier for the reader by giving him 
 more time to master the thought while his eye is running 
 over the verbiage. So, a little water may prevent a strong 
 drink from burning throat and stomach. A style that is too 
 terse is as fatiguing as one that is too diffuse. But when a 
 passage is written a little long, with consciousness and com- 
 punction but still deliberately, as what will probably be most 
 easy for the reader, it can hardly be called diffuse. 
 
 Difficulties in Art, Literature and Music 
 
 The difficult and the imintelligible are only conceivable at 
 all in virtue of their catching on to something less difficult 
 and less unintelligible and, through this, to things easily 
 done and understood. It is at these joints in their armour 
 that difficulties should be attacked. 
 
 Never tackle a serious difficulty as long as something 
 which must be done, and about which you see your way 
 fairly well, remains undone; the settling of this is sure to 
 throw light upon the way in which the serious difficulty is to 
 be resolved. It is doing the What-you-can that will best help 
 you to do the What-you-cannot. 
 
 Arrears of small things to be attended to, if allowed to 
 accumulate, worry and depress like unpaid debts. The main 
 work should always stand aside for these, not these for the 
 main work, as large debts should stand aside for small ones, 
 or truth for common charity and good feeling. If we attend 
 continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we 
 shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we 
 cannot do. 
 
 Knowledge is Power 
 
 Yes, but it must be practical knowledge. There is nothing 
 less powerful than knowledge unattached, and incapable of 
 application. That is why what little knowledge I have has 
 done myself personally so much harm. I do not know much, 
 but if I knew a good deal less than that little I should be far 
 more powerful. The rule should be never to learn a thing 
 till one is pretty sure one wants it, or that one will want it 
 before long so badly as not to be able to get on without it. 
 This is what sensible people do about money, and there is no 
 
Pictures and Books 103 
 
 ' reason why people should throw away their time and trouble 
 more than their money. There are plenty of things that most 
 boys would give their ears to know, these and these only are 
 the proper things for them to sharpen their wits upon. 
 
 If a boy is idle and does not want to learn anything at all, 
 the same principle should guide those who have the care of 
 him — ^he should never be made to learn anything till it is 
 pretty obvious that he cannot get on without it. This will 
 save trouble both to boys and teachers, moreover it will be 
 far more likely to increase a boy's desire to learn. I know in 
 my own case no earthly power could make me learn till I had 
 my head given me; and nothing has been able to stop me 
 from incessant study from that day to this. 
 
 Academicism 
 
 Handicapped people sometimes owe their success to the 
 misfortune which weights them. They seldom know before- 
 hand how far they are going to reach, and this helps them; 
 for if they knew the greatness of the task before them they 
 would not attempt it. He who knows he is infirm, and would 
 yet climb, does not think of the summit which he believes 
 to be beyond his reach but climbs slowly onwards, taking 
 very short steps, looking below as often as he likes but not 
 above him, never trying his powers but seldom stopping, 
 and then, sometimes, behold! he is on the top, which he 
 would never have even aimed at could he have seen it from 
 below. It is only in novels and sensational biographies that 
 handicapped people, "fired by a knowledge of the difficulties 
 that others have overcome, resolve to triumph over every 
 obstacle by dint of sheer determination, and in the end carry 
 everything before them." In real life the person who starts 
 thus almost invariably fails. This is the worst kind of start. 
 
 The greatest secret of good work whether in music, litera- 
 ture or painting lies in not attempting too much ; if it be asked, 
 "What is too much?" the answer is, "Anything that we 
 find difficult or unpleasant." We should not ask whether 
 others find this same thing difficult or no. If we find the 
 diflSculty so great that the overcoming it is a labour and not 
 a pleasure, we should either change our aim altogether, or 
 aim, at any rate for a time, at some lower point. It must be 
 
I04 On the Making of Music, 
 
 remembered that no work is required to be more than right" 
 as far as it goes; the greatest work cannot get beyond this 
 and the least comes strangely near the greatest if this can be 
 said of it. 
 ~~ The more I see of academicism the more I distrust it. If 
 I had approached painting as I have approached bookwriting 
 and music, that is to say by beginning at once to do what I 
 wanted, or as near as I could to what I could find out of this, 
 and taking pains not by way of solving academic difficulties, 
 in order to provide against practical ones, but by waiting till 
 a difficulty arose in practice and then tackling it, thus making 
 the arising of each difficulty be the occasion for learning what 
 had, to be learnt about it — if I had approached painting in 
 this way I should have been all right. As it is I have been 
 ^all wrong, and it was South Kensington and Heatherley's 
 that set me wrong. I listened to the nonsense about how I 
 ought to study before b^inning to paint, and about never 
 painting without nature, and the result was that I learned 
 to study but not to paint. Now I have got too much to do 
 and am too old to do what I might easily have done, and 
 should have done, if I had found out earlier what writing 
 Life and Habit was the chief thing to teach me. 
 
 So I painted study after study, as a priest reads his 
 breviary, and at the end of ten years knew no more what the 
 face of nature was like, unless I had it immediately before 
 me, than I did at the beginning. I am free to confess that in 
 respect of painting I am a failure. I have spent far more 
 time on painting than I have on anything else, and have 
 failed at it more than I have failed in any other respect 
 almost solely for the reasons given above. I tried very hard, 
 but I tried the wrong way. 
 
 Fortunately for me there are no academies for teaching 
 people how to write books, or I should have fallen into them 
 as I did into those for painting and, instead of writing, should 
 have spent my time and money in being told that I was 
 learning how to write.. If I had one thing to say to students 
 before I di^d (I mean, if I had got to die, but might tell 
 students one thing first) I should say : — 
 
 "Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not 
 be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in 
 the rough and tumble of the world ; only, of course, let them 
 
Pictures and Books 105 
 
 be on a small scale in the first instance till you feel your feet 
 safe under you. Act more and rehearse less." 
 
 A friend once asked me whether I liked writing books, 
 composing music or painting pictures best. I said I did not 
 know. I like them all; but I never find time to paint a 
 picture now and only do small sketches and studies. I know 
 in which I am strongest — writing; I know in which I am 
 weakest — painting; I am weakest where I have taken most 
 pains and studied most. 
 
 Agonising 
 
 In art, never try to find out anything, or try to learn 
 anything until the not knowing it has come to be a nuisance 
 to you for some time. Then you will remember it, but not 
 otherwise. Let knowledge importune you before you will 
 hear it. Our schools and universities go on the precisely 
 opposite system. 
 
 Never consciously agonise; the race is not to the swift, 
 nor the battle to the strong. Moments of extreme issue are 
 unconscious and must be left to take care of themselves. 
 During conscious moments take reasonable pains but no more 
 and, above all, work so slowly as never to get out of breath. 
 Take it easy, in fact, until forced not to do so. 
 
 There is no mystery about art. Do the things that you 
 can see; they will show you those that you cannot see. By 
 doing what you can you will gradually get to know what it is 
 that you want to do and cannot do, and so to be able to do it. 
 
 The Choice of Subjects 
 
 Do not hunt for subjects, let them choose you, not you 
 them. Only do that which insists upon being done and runs 
 right up against you, hitting you in the eye until you do it. 
 This calls you and you had better attend to it, and do it as 
 well as you can. But till called in this way do nothing. 
 
 Imaginary Countries 
 
 Each man's mind is an unknown land to himself, so that 
 we need not be at such pains to frame a mechanism of ad- 
 venture for getting to undiscovered countries. We have not 
 
io6 On the Making of Music, 
 
 far to go before we reach them. They are, like the Kingdom 
 of Heaven, within us. 
 
 My Books 
 
 I never make them: they grow; they come to me and 
 ^insist on being written, and on being such and such. I did not 
 want to write Erewhon, I wanted to go on painting and found 
 it an abominable nuisance being dragged willy-nilly into 
 writing it. So with all my books — the subjects were never 
 of my own choosing; they pressed themselves upon me with 
 more force than I ,could resist. If I had not liked the 
 subjects I should have kicked, and nothing would have got 
 me to do them at all. As I did like the subjects and the 
 books came and said they were to be written, I grumbled a 
 little and wrote them.* 
 
 Great Works 
 
 These have always something of the "de profundis" about 
 them. 
 
 New Ideas 
 
 Every new idea has something of the pain and peril of - 
 childbirth about it; ideas are just as mortal and just as 
 immortal as organised beings are. 
 
 Books and Children 
 
 If the literary offspring is not to die young, almost as much 
 trouble must be taken with it as with the bringing up of a 
 physical child. Still, the physical child is the harder work of 
 the two. 
 
 The Life of Books 
 
 Some writers think about the life of books as some savages 
 think about the life of men — that there are books which never 
 die. They all die sooner or later; but that will not hinder 
 an author from trying to give his book as long a life as he can 
 get for it. The fact that it will have to die is no valid reason 
 for letting it die sooner than can be helped. 
 
 * Cf . the note "Reproduction," p. i6 ante. 
 
Pictures and Books 1O7 
 
 Criticism 
 
 Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their 
 fitness for this but of their unfitness for anything else. Books 
 should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were 
 crimes, and counsel should be heard on both sides. 
 
 Le Style c'est I'Homme 
 
 It is with books, music, painting and all the arts as with 
 children — only those live that have drained much of their 
 author's own life into them. The personality of the author is 
 what interests us more than his work. When we have once 
 got well hold of the personality of the author we care com- 
 paratively little about the history of the work or what it 
 means or even its technique; we enjoy the work without 
 thinking of more than its beauty, and of how much we like 
 the workman. "Le style c'est I'homme" — that style of which, 
 if I may quote from memory, Buffon, again, says that it 
 is like happiness, and "vient de la douceur de I'ame" * — 
 and we care more about knowing what kind of person a 
 man was than about knowing of his achievements, no matter 
 how considerable they may have been. If he has made it 
 clear that he was trying to do what we like, and meant what 
 we should like him to have meant, it is enough ; but if the 
 work does not attract us to the workman, neither does it 
 attract us to itself. 
 
 Portraits 
 
 A great portrait is always more a portrait of the painter 
 than of the painted. When we look at a portrait by Holbein 
 or Rembrandt it is of Holbein or Rembrandt that we think 
 more than of the subject of their picture. Even a portrait_ 
 of Shakespeare by Holbein or Rembrandt could tell us very 
 little about Shakespeare. It would, however, tell us a great 
 deal about Holbein or Rembrandt. 
 
 A Man's Style 
 
 A man's style in any art should be like his dress — it should 
 attract as little attention as possible. 
 
 * Evolution Old & New, p. 77 
 
io8 On the Making of Music, 
 
 The Gauntlet of Youth 
 
 Everything that is to age well must have run the gauntlet 
 of its youth. Hardly ever does a work of art hold its own 
 against time if it was not treated somewhat savagely at first 
 — I should say "artist" rather than "work of art." 
 
 Greatness in Art 
 
 If a work of art — ^music, literature or painting — is for all 
 time, it must be independent of the conventions, dialects, 
 costumes and fashions of any time; if not great without 
 help from such unessential accessories, no help from them 
 can greaten it. A man must wear the dress of his own time, 
 but no dressing can make a strong man of a weak one. 
 
 Literary Power 
 
 They say the test of this is whether a man can write an 
 inscription. I say "Can he name a kitten?" And by this 
 test I am condemned, for I cannot. 
 
 Subject and Treatment 
 
 It is often said that treatment is more important than 
 subject, but no treatment can make a repulsive subject not 
 repulsive. It can make a trivial, or even a stupid, subject 
 interesting, but a really bad flaw in a subject cannot be 
 treated out. Happily the man who has sense enough to 
 treat a subject well will generally have sense enough to choose 
 a good one, so that the case of a really repulsive subject 
 treated in a masterly manner does not often arise. It is 
 often said to have arisen, but in nine cases out of ten the 
 treatment will be fotmd to have been overpraised. 
 
 Public Opinion 
 
 People say how strong it is ; and indeed it is strong while it 
 is in its prime. In its childhood and old age it is as weak as 
 any other organism. I try to make my own work belong to 
 the youth of a public opinion. The history of the world is 
 
Pictures and Books 109 
 
 the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opin- 
 ion, as geology is the record of the decay of those bodily or- 
 ganisms in which opinions have found material expression. 
 
 A Literary Man's Test 
 
 Moliere's reading to his housemaid has, I think, been mis- 
 understood as though he in some way wanted to see the effect 
 upon the housemaid and make her a judge of his work. If 
 she was an unusually clever, smart girl, this might be well 
 enough, but the supposition commonly is that she was a 
 typical housemaid and nothing more. 
 
 If Moliere ever did read to her, it was because the mere 
 act of reading aloud put his work before him in a new light 
 and, by constraining his attention to every line, made him 
 judge it more rigorously. I always intend to read, and 
 generally do read, what I write aloud to some one; any one 
 almost will do, but he should not be so clever that I am afraid 
 of him. I feel weak places at once when I read aloud where 
 I thought, as long as I read to myself only, that the passage 
 was all right. ^ , 
 
 What Audience to Write for 
 
 People between the ages of twenty and thirty read a good 
 deal, after thirty their reading drops off and by forty is 
 confined to each person's special subject, newspapers and 
 magazines ; so that the most important part of one's audience, 
 and that which should be mainly written for, consists of 
 specialists and people between twenty and thirty. 
 
 Writing for a Hundred Years Hence 
 
 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. 
 
VIII 
 Handel and Music 
 
 Handel and Beethoven 
 
 As a boy, from 12 years old or so, I always worshipped 
 Handel. 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 used also to play Bach and 
 Mendelssohn's Songs without Words and thought them 
 lovely, but I always liked Handel best. Little by little, how- 
 ever, I was talked over into placing Bach and Beethoven on a 
 par as the greatest and I said I did not know which was the 
 best man. I cannot tell now whether I really liked Beethoven 
 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 him, for some ten or a dozen years. 
 
 One night, when I was about 30, I was at an evening party 
 at Mrs.Longden's and met an old Wiest End clergyman of 
 the name of Smalley (Rector, I think, of Bayswater). I 
 said I did 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 
 
Handel and Music m 
 
 suppose I was really of this opinion already, but it was not 
 till I got a little touch from outside that I knew it. From 
 that moment 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 gnosis in him of which as a 
 young man I knew nothing. But I do not greatly care about 
 gnosis, I want agape; and Beethoven's agape is not the 
 healthy robust tenderness of Handel, it is 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. 
 
 Handel and Domenico Scarlatti 
 
 Handel and Domenico Scarlatti were contemporaries 
 almost to a year, both as regards birth and death. They 
 knew each other very well in Italy and Scarlatti never men- 
 tioned Handel's name without crossing himself, but I have 
 not heard that Handel crossed himself at the mention of 
 Scarlatti's name. I know very little of Scarlatti's music and 
 have hot even that little well enough in my head to write 
 about it; I retain only a residuary impression that it is 
 often very charming and links Haydn with Bach, moreover 
 that it is distinctly un-Handelian. 
 
 Handel must have known and comprehended Scarlatti's 
 tendencies perfectly well: his rejection, therefore, of the 
 principles that lead to them must have been deliberate. Scar- 
 latti leads to Haydn, Haydn to Mozart and hence, through 
 Beethoven, to modern music. That Handel foresaw this 
 I do not doubt, nor yet that he felt, as I do myself, that 
 modern music means something, I know not what, which 
 is not what I mean by music. It is playing another game 
 and has set itself aims which, no doubt, are excellent but 
 which are not mine. 
 
 Of course I know that this may be all wrong : I know how 
 very limited and superficial my own acquaintance with music 
 is. Still I have a strong feeling as though from John Dun- 
 stable, or whoever it may have been, to Handel the tide of 
 music was rising, intermittently no doubt but still rising, and 
 that since Handel's time it has been falling. Or, rather per- 
 haps I should say that music bifurcated with Handel and Bach 
 
112 Handel and Music 
 
 — Handel dying musically as well as physically childless, while 
 Bach was as prolific in respect of musical disciples as he was 
 in that of children. 
 
 What, then, was it, supposing I am right at all, that Handel 
 distrusted in the principles of Scarlatti as deduced from 
 those of Bach? I imagine that he distrusted chiefly the 
 abuse of the appoggiatura, the abuse of the unlimited power 
 of modulation which equal temperament placed at the musi- 
 cian's disposition and departure from well-marked rhythm, 
 beat or measured tread. At any rate I believe the music 
 I like best myself to be sparing of the appoggiatura, to keep 
 pretty close to tonic and dominant and to have a well-marked 
 beat, measure and rhythm. 
 
 Handel and Homer 
 
 Handel was a greater man than Homer (I mean the author 
 of the Iliad) ; but the very people who are most angry with 
 me for (as they incorrectly suppose) sneering at Homer are 
 generally the ones who never miss an opportunity of cheapen- 
 ing and belittling Handel, and, which is very painful to 
 myself, they say I was laughing at him in Narcissus. Per- 
 haps — ^but surely one can laugh at a person and adore him at 
 the same time. 
 
 Handel and Bach 
 
 If you tie Handel's hands by debarring him from the 
 rendering of human emotion, and if you set Bach's free by 
 giving him no human emotion to render — if, in fact, you 
 rob Handel of his opportunities and Bach of his difficulties — 
 the two men can fight after a fashion, but Handel will even 
 so come off victorious. Otherwise it is absurd to let Bach 
 compete at all. Nevertheless the cultured vulgar have at all 
 times preferred gymnastics and display to reticence and the 
 healthy, graceful, normal movements of a man of birth and 
 education, and Bach is esteemed a more profound musician 
 than Handel in virtue of his frequent and more involved 
 complexity of construction. In reality Handel was profound 
 enough to eschew such wildernesses of counterpoint as Bach 
 instinctively resorted to, but he knew also that public opinion 
 
Handel and Music 113 
 
 would be sure to place Bach on a level with himself, if not 
 above him, and this probably made him look askance at 
 Bach. At any rate he twice went to Germany without being 
 at any pains to meet him, and once, if not twice, refused 
 Bach's invitation. 
 
 ii 
 Rockstro says that Handel keeps much more closely to 
 the old Palestrina rules of counterpoint than Bach does, and 
 that when Handel takes a licence it is a good bold one taken 
 rarely, whereas Bach is niggling away with small licences 
 from first to last. 
 
 Handel and the British Public 
 
 People say the generous British public supported Handel. 
 It did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, for some 30 
 years it did its best to ruin him, twice drove him to bank- 
 ruptcy, badgered him till in 1737 he had a paralytic seizure 
 which was as near as might be the death of him and, if he 
 had died then, we should have no Israel, nor Messiah, nor 
 Samson, nor any of his greatest oratorios. The British public 
 only relented when he had become old and presently blind. 
 Handel, by the way, is a rare instance of a man doing his 
 greatest work subsequently to an attack of paralysis. What 
 kept Handel up was not the public but the court. It was 
 the pensions given him by George I and George II that 
 enabled him to carry on at all. So that, in point of fact, 
 it is to these two very prosaic kings that we owe the finest 
 musical poems the world knows anything about. 
 
 Handel and Madame Patey 
 
 Rockstro told me that Sir Michael Costa, after his severe 
 paralytic stroke, had to conduct at some great performance — 
 I cannot be sure, but I think he said a Birmingham Festival 
 — at any rate he came in looking very white and feeble and 
 sat down in front of the orchestra to conduct a morning 
 rehearsal. Madame Patey was there, went lip to the poor 
 old genteman and kissed his forehead. 
 
 It is a curious thing about this great singer that not only 
 should she have been (as she has always seemed to me) 
 
114 Handel and Music 
 
 strikingly like Handel in the face, and not only should she 
 have been such an incomparable renderer of Handel's music 
 ■ — I cannot think that I shall ever again hear any one who 
 seemed to have the spirit of Handel's music so thoroughly 
 penetrating his or her whole being — but that she should have 
 been struck with paralysis at, so far as I can remember, the 
 same age that Handel was. Handel was struck in 1737 when 
 he was 53 years old, but happily recovered. I forget Madame 
 Patey's exact age, but it was somewhere about this. 
 
 Handel and Shakespeare 
 
 Jones and I had been listening to Gaetano Meo's girls 
 playing Handel and were talking about him and Shakespeare, 
 and how those two men can alike stir us more than any one 
 else can. Neither were self-conscious in production, but 
 when the thing had. come out Shakespeare looks at it and 
 wonders, whereas Handel takes it as a matter of course. 
 
 A Yankee Handelian 
 
 I only ever met one American who seemed to like and 
 understand Handel. How far he did so in reality I do not 
 know, but inter alia he said that Handel "struck ile with 
 the Messiah," and that "it panned out well, the Messiah 
 did." 
 
 Waste 
 
 Handel and Shakespeare have left us the best that any 
 have left us; yet, in spite of this, how much of their lives 
 was wasted. Fancy Handel expending himself upon the 
 Moabites and Ammonites, or even the Jews themselves, year 
 after year, as he did in the fulness of his power ; and fancy 
 what we might have had from Shakespeare if he had gos- 
 siped to us about himself and his times and the people 
 he met in London and at Stratford-on-Avon instead of writ- 
 ing some of what he did write. Nevertheless we have the 
 men, seen through their work notwithstanding their subjects, 
 who stand and live to us. It is the figure of Itondel as a man, 
 and of Shakespeare as a man, which we value even more than 
 
Handel and Music ffi5 
 
 their work. I feel the presence of Handel behind every note 
 of his music. 
 
 Handel a Conservative 
 
 He left no school because he was a protest. There were 
 men in his time, whose music he perfectly well knew, who are 
 far more modern than Handel. He was opposed to the 
 musically radical tendencies of his age and, as a musician, 
 was a decided ■ conservative in all essential respects — though 
 ready, of course, to go any length in any direction if he had 
 a fancy at the moment for doing so. 
 
 Handel and Ernest Pontifex 
 
 It cost me a great deal to make Ernest [in The Way of All 
 Flesh] 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. 
 
 Handel's Commonplaces 
 
 It takes as great a composer as Handel — or rather it 
 would take as great a composer if he could be found — to be 
 able to be as easily and triumphantly commonplace as Handel 
 often is, just as it takes — or rather would take — as great a 
 composer as Handel to write another Hallelujah chorus. It 
 is only the man who can do the latter who can do the former 
 as Handel has done it. Handel is so great and so simple 
 that no one but a professional musician is unable to under- 
 stand him. 
 
 Handel and Dr. Morell 
 
 After all, Dr. Morell suited Handel exactly well — far bet- 
 ter than Tennyson would have done. I don't believe even 
 Handel could have set Tennyson to music comfortably. What 
 a mercy it is that he did not live in Handel's time! Even 
 though Handel had set him ever so well he would have 
 spoiled the music, and this Dr. Morell does not in the least 
 do. 
 
ii6 Handel and Music 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 And I have been as far as Hull to see 
 What clothes he left or other property. 
 
 I am told that these lines occur in a poem by Wordsworth. 
 (Think of the expense!) How thankful we ought to be 
 that Wordsworth was only a poet and not a musician. Fancy 
 a symphony by Wordsworth! Fancy having to sit it out! 
 And fancy what it would have been if he had written fugues ! 
 
 Sleeping Beauties 
 
 There are plenty of them. Take Handel ; look at such an 
 air as "Loathsome urns, disclose your treasure" or "Come, 
 O Time, and thy broad wings displaying," both in The 
 Triump of Time and Truth, or at "Convey me to some peace- 
 ful shore," in Alexander Balus, especially when he comes to 
 "Forgetting and forgot the will of fate." Who know these ? 
 And yet, can human genius do more? 
 
 "And the Glory of the Lord" 
 
 It would be hard to find a more satisfactory chorus even 
 in the Messiah, but I do not think the music was originally 
 intended for these words : 
 
 m 
 
 ^J^ J J W 
 
 ^^^' ^ -J- 
 
 And the glo • ly, the glo • ty oi the. Lord. 
 
 If Handel had approached these words without having in 
 his head a subject the spirit of which would do, and which he 
 thought the words with a little management might be made 
 to fit, he would not, I think, have repeated "the glory" at 
 all, or at any rate not here. If these words had been meas- 
 ured, as it were, for a new suit instead of being, as I suppose, 
 furnished with a good second-hand one, the word "the" 
 would not have been tacked on to the "glory" which pre- 
 cedes it and made to belong to it rather than to the "glory" 
 which follows. It does not matter one straw, and if Handel 
 had asked me whether I minded his forcing the words a little, 
 
Handel and Music 
 
 117 
 
 I should have said, "Certainly not, nor more than a little, if 
 you like." Nevertheless I think as a matter of fact that 
 there is a little forcing. I remember that as a boy this always 
 struck me as a strange arrangement of the words, but it was 
 not until I came to write a chorus myself that I saw how it 
 came about. I do not suspect any forcing when it comes to 
 "And all flesh shall see it together." 
 
 Handel and the Speaking Voice 
 
 I 
 
 Pint Tenor 
 
 ''^ ^ i rnTr = 
 
 £ 
 
 ^ 
 
 While now with - out mca • • sure we re • • • vel io plea>sare« 
 Soprano 
 
 %) With . '' their vain 
 
 i 
 
 mye - te * nous 
 
 ! J ^.J J J 
 
 m 
 
 j- 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 s 
 
 art; 
 I 
 
 P 
 
 ^ 
 
 J. J: J. '"^ 
 
 -ffl 
 
ii8 
 
 Handel and Music 
 
 The former of these two extracts is from the chorus 
 "Venus laughing from the skies" in Theodora; the other is 
 from the air "Wise men flattering" in Judas MaccabcBus. 
 I know no better examples of the way Handel sometimes 
 derives his melody from the natural intonation of the speak- 
 ing voice. The "pleasure" (in bar four of the chorus) sug- 
 gests a man saying "with pleasure" when accepting an invi- 
 tation to dinner. Of course one can say, "with pleasure" in 
 a variety of tones, but a sudden exaltation on the second 
 syllable is very common. 
 
 In the other example, the first bar of the accompaniment 
 puts the argument in a most persuasive manner; the second 
 simply re-states it ; the third is the clincher, I cannot under- 
 stand any man's holding out against bar three. The fourth 
 bar re-states the clincher, but at a lower pitch, as by one who 
 is quite satisfied that he has convinced his adversary. 
 
 Handel and the Wetterhorn 
 
 When last I saw the Wetterhorn I caught myself involun- 
 tarily humming : — 
 
 i 
 
 Alto 
 
 ^i JlAj-h 
 
 ^^m 
 
 £ans 
 
 ^te 
 
 jJJJj3 l _tj: 
 
 .And the go-vernment shall be ap-on his shoul 
 
 The big shoulder of the Wetterhorn seemed to fall just like 
 the run on "shoulder." 
 
 "Tyrants now no more shall Dread" 
 
 The music to this chorus in Hercules is written from the 
 tyrant's point of view. This is plain from the jubilant 
 defiance with which the chorus opens, and becomes still 
 plainer when the magnificent strain to which he has set 
 the words "All fear of punishment, all fear is o'er" bursts 
 upon us. Here he flings aside all considerations save that 
 of the gospel of doing whatever we please without having 
 to pay for it. He has, however, remembered himself and ^ 
 become almost puritanical over "The World's avenger is no 
 more." Here he is quite proper. 
 
Handel and Music 119 
 
 From a dramatic point of view Handel's treatment of 
 these words must be condemned for reasons in respect of 
 which Handel was very rarely at fault. It puzzles the listener 
 who expects the words to be treated from the point of view 
 of the vanquished slaves and not from that of the tyrants. 
 There is no pretence that these particular tyrants are not 
 so bad as ordinary tyrants, nor these particular vanquished 
 slaves not so good as ordinary vanquished slaves, and, unless 
 this has been made clear in some way, it is dramatically 
 de rigueur that the tyrants should come to grief, or be about 
 to come to grief. The hearer should know which way his 
 sympathies are expected to go, and here we have the music 
 dragging us one way and the words another. 
 
 Nevertheless, we pardon the departure from the strict 
 rules of the game, partly because of the welcome nature of 
 good tidings so exultantly announced to us about all fear of 
 punishment being o'er, and partly because the music is, 
 throughout, so much stronger than the words that we lose 
 sight of them almost entirely. Handel probably wrote as 
 he did from a profound, though perhaps unconscious, per- 
 ception of the fact that even in his day there was a great 
 deal of humanitarian nonsense talked and that, after all, 
 the tyrants were generally quite as good sort of people as 
 the vanquished slaves. Having begun on this tack, it was 
 easy to throw morality to the winds when he came to the 
 words about all fear of punishment being over. 
 
 Handel and Marriage 
 
 To man God's universal law 
 
 Gave power to keep the wife in awe 
 
 sings Handel in a comically dogmatic little chorus in Samson. 
 But the universality of the law must be held to have failed in 
 the case of Mr. and Mrs. M'Culloch. 
 
 Handel and a Letter to a Solicitor 
 
 Jones showed me a letter that had been received by the 
 solicitor in whose office he was working: 
 
 "Dear Sir; I enclose the name of the lawyer of the lady 
 
I20 
 
 Handel and Music 
 
 I am engaged to and her name and address are Miss B. 
 Richmond. His address is W. W. Esq. Manchester. 
 
 "I remain, Yours truly W. D. C." 
 
 I said it reminded me of the opening bars of "Welcome, 
 welcome, Mighty King" in Saul: 
 
 CariloH 
 
 i rr rrrrr r r^ rp=^=i 
 
 Handel's Shower of Rain 
 
 The falling shower in the air "As cheers the sun" in Joshua 
 is, I think, the finest description of a warm sunny refresh- 
 ing rain that I have ever come across and one of the most 
 wonderfully descriptive pieces of music that even Handel 
 ever did. 
 
 Theodora and Susanna 
 
 In my preface to Evolution Old and New I imply a certain 
 dissatisfaction with Theodora and Susanna, and imply also 
 that Handel himself was so far dissatisfied that in his next 
 work, Jephtha (which I see I inadvertently called his last), 
 he returned to his earlier manner. It is true that these 
 works are not in Handel's usual manner; they are more 
 difficult and more in the style of Bach. I am glad that 
 Handel gave us these two examples of a slightly (for it 
 is not much) varied manner and I am interested to ob- 
 serve that he did not adhere to that manner in Jephtha, 
 but I should be sorry to convey an impression that I think 
 Theodora and Susanna are in any way unworthy of Handel. 
 I prefer both to Judas Maccabceus which, in spite of the 
 many fine things it contains, I like perhaps the least of 
 all his oratorios. I have played Theodora and Susanna 
 
Handel and Music 121 
 
 all through, and most parts (except the recitatives) many 
 times over, Jones and I have gone through them again 
 and again ; I have heard Susanna performed once, and Theo- 
 dora twice, and I find no single piece in either work which 
 I do not admire, while many are as good as anything which 
 it is in my power to conceive. I like the chorus "He saw 
 the lovely youth" the least of anything in Theodora so far 
 as I remember at this moment, but knowing it to have been 
 a favourite with Handel himself I am sure that I must have 
 missed understanding it. 
 
 How comes it, I wonder, that the chorale-like air "Blessing, 
 Honour, Adoration'"' is omitted in Novello's edition? It is 
 given in Clarke's edition and is very beautiful. 
 
 Jones says of "With darkness deep," that in the accom- 
 paniment to this air the monotony of dazed grief is just 
 varied now and again with a little writhing passage. Whether 
 Handel meant this or no, the interpretation put upon the 
 passage fits the feeling of the air. 
 
 John Sebastian Bach 
 
 It is imputed to him for righteousness that he goes over 
 the heads of the general public and appeals mainly to 
 musicians. But the greatest men do not go over the heads 
 of the masses, they take them rather by the hand. The true 
 musician would not snub so much as a musical critic. His 
 instinct is towards the man in the street rather than the 
 Academy. Perhaps I say this as being myself a man in the 
 street musically. I do not know, but I know that Bach does^ 
 not appeal to me and that I do appeal from Bach to the 
 man in the street and not to the Academy, because I be- 
 lieve the first of these to be the sounder. 
 
 Still, I own Bach does appeal to me sometimes. In my 
 own poor music I have taken passages from him before now, 
 and have my eye on others which I have no doubt will suit 
 me somewhere. Whether Bach would know them again 
 when I have worked my will on them, and much more 
 whether he would own them, I neither know nor care. I take 
 or leave as I choose, and alter or leave untouched as I choose. 
 I prefer my music to be an outgrowth from a germ whose 
 source I know, rather than a waif and stray which I fancy to 
 
122 
 
 Handel and Music 
 
 be my own child when it was all the time begotten of a barrel 
 organ. It is a wise tune that knows its own father and I like 
 my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents. 
 Roughly, however, as I have said over and over again, if I 
 think something that I know and greatly like in music, no mat- 
 ter whose, is appropriate, I appropriate it. I should say I was 
 under most obligations to Handel, Purcell and Beethoven. 
 For example, any one who looked at my song "Man in 
 Vain" in Ulyssefs might think it was taken from "Batti, 
 batti." I should like to say it was taken from, or suggested 
 by, a few bars in the opening of Beethoven's pianoforte 
 sonata op. 78, and a few bars in the accompaniment to the 
 duet "Hark how the Songsters" in Purcell's Timon of Athens. 
 I am not aware of having borrowed more in the song than 
 what follows as natural development of these two passages 
 which run thus : 
 
 Beethoven. 
 
 ^m 
 
 i=fe 
 
 Purcell 
 
 % 
 
 Ef i ^i_* li ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 i^ 
 
 J u u u 
 
 ^ 
 
 f 
 
 From the pianoforte Birangement in The Beauties ef Ptmell 
 tby Jolin Clarice, Mus, Doc. 
 
 Honesty 
 
 Honesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing 
 where to stop in stealing, and how to make good use of what 
 one does steal. It is only great proprietors who can steal 
 well and wisely. A good stealer, a good user of what he takes, 
 
Handel and Music 123 
 
 is ipso facto a good inventor. Two men can invent after a 
 fashion to one who knows how to make the best use of what 
 has been done already. 
 
 Musical Criticism 
 
 I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart's 
 Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an 
 extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach 
 wriggles, Wagner writhes. Yet next morniijg in the Times 
 I saw this able, heartless failure, compact of gnosis as much 
 as any one pleases but without one spark of either true pathos 
 or true humour, called "the, crowning achievement of dra- 
 matic music." The writer continues: "To the unintelli- 
 gent, music of this order does not appeal" ; which only means 
 "I am intelligent and you had better think as I tell you." 
 I am glad that such people should caiU Handel a thieving 
 plagiarist. 
 
 On Borrowing in Music 
 
 In books it is easy to make mention of the forgotten dead 
 to whom we are indebted, and to acknowledge an obligation 
 at the same time and place that we incur it. The more 
 original a writer is, the more pleasure will he take in calling 
 attention to the forgotten work of those who have gone be- 
 fore him. The conventions of painting and music, on the 
 other hand, while they admit of borrowing no less freely 
 than literature does, do not admit of acknowledgement ; it is 
 impossible to interrupt a piece of music, or paint some words 
 upon a picture to explain that the composer or painter 
 was at such and such a point indebted to such and such a 
 source for his inspiration, but it is not less impossible to avoid 
 occasionally borrowing, or rather taking, for there is no need 
 of euphemism, from earlier work. Where, then, is the line 
 to be drawn between lawful and unlawful adoption of what 
 has been done by others? This qitestion is such a nice one 
 that there are almost as many opinions upon it as there are 
 painters and musicians. 
 
 To leave painting on one side, if a musician wants some 
 forgotten passage in an earlier writer, is he, knowing where 
 
124 Handel and Music 
 
 this sleeping beauty lies, to let it sleep on unknown and 
 unen joyed, or shall he not rather wake it and take it — as 
 likely enough the earlier master did before him — with, or 
 without modification? It may be said this should be done 
 by republishing the original work with its composer's name, 
 giving him his due laurels. So it should, if the work will 
 bear it; but more commonly times will have so changed 
 that it will not. A composer may want a bar, or bar and a 
 half, out of, say, a dozen pages — he may not want even this 
 much without more or less modification — is he to be told 
 that he must republish the ten or dozen original pages within 
 which the passage he wants lies buried, as the only righteous 
 way of giving it new life? No one should be allowed such 
 dog-in-the-manger^like ownership in beauty that because it 
 has once been revealed to him therefore none for ever after 
 shall enjoy it unless he be their cicerone. If this rule were 
 sanctioned, he who first produced anything beautiful would 
 sign its death warrant for an earlier or later date, or at best 
 would tether that which should forthwith begin putting gir- 
 dles round the world. 
 
 Beauty lives not for the self-glorification of the priests 
 of any art, but for the enjoyment of priests and laity alike. 
 He is the best art-priest who brings most beauty most home 
 to the hearts of most men. If any one tells an artist that 
 part of what he has brought home is not his but another's, 
 "Yea, let him take all," should be his answer. He should 
 know no self in the matter. He is a fisher of men's hearts 
 from love of winning them, and baits his hook with what will 
 best take them without much heed where he gets it from. 
 He can gain nothing by offering people what they know or 
 ought to know already; he will not therefore take from the 
 living or lately dead ; for the same reason he will instinctively 
 avoid anything with which his hearers will be familiar, 
 except as recognised common form, but beyond these limits 
 he should take freely even as he hopes to be one day taken 
 from. 
 
 True, there is a hidden mocking spirit in things which 
 ensures that he alone can take well who can also make well, 
 but it is no less true that he alone makes well who takes well. 
 A man must command all the resources of his art, and of 
 these none is greater than knowledge of what has been done 
 
Handel and Music 125 
 
 by predecessors. What, I wonder, may he take from these — 
 how may he build himself upon them and grow out of them 
 — if he is to make it his chief business to steer clear of them ? 
 A safer canon is that the development of a musician should 
 be like that of a fugue or first movement, in which, the sub- 
 ject having been enounced, it is essential that thenceforward 
 everything shall be both new and old at one and the same 
 time — new, but not too new — old, but not too old. 
 
 Indeed no musician can be original in respect of any large 
 percentage of his work. For independently of his turning to 
 his own use the past labour involved in musical notation, 
 which he makes his own as of right without more thanks to 
 those who thought it out than we give to him who invented 
 wheels when we hire a cab, independently of this, it is sur- 
 prising how large a part even of the most original music con- 
 sists of common form scale passages, and closes. Mutatis 
 mutandis, the same holds good with even the most original 
 book or picture ; these passages or forms are as light and air, 
 common to all of us ; but the principle having been once ad- 
 mitted that some parts of a man's work cannot be original — 
 not, that is to say, if he has descended with only a reasonable 
 amount of modification — where is the line to be drawn? 
 Where does common form begin and end? 
 
 The answer is that it is not mere familiarity that should 
 forbid borrowing, but familiarity with a passage as associated 
 with special surroundings. If certain musical progressions 
 are already associated with many different sets of antecedents 
 and consequents, they have no special association, except in 
 so far as they may be connected with a school or epoch; no 
 one, therefore, is offended at finding them associated with 
 one set the more. Familiarity beyond a certain point ceases 
 to be familiarity, or at any rate ceases to be open to the 
 objections that lie against that which, though familiar, is_ 
 still not familiar as common form. Those on the other hand 
 who hold that a musician should never knowingly borrow 
 will doubtless say that common form passages are an obvious 
 and notorious exception to their rule, and the one the limits 
 of which are easily recognised in practice however hard it 
 may be to define them neatly on paper. 
 
 It is not suggested that when a musician wants to compose 
 an air or chorus he is to cast about for some little-known 
 
126 Handel and Music 
 
 similar piece and lay it under contribution. This is not to 
 spring from the loins of living ancestors but to batten on 
 dead men's bones. He who takes thus will ere long lose even 
 what little power to take he may have ever had. On the 
 other hand there is no enjoyable work in any art which is 
 not easily recognised as the affiliated outcome of something 
 that has gone before it. This is more especially true of music, 
 whose grammar and stock in trade are so much simpler than 
 those of any other art. He who loves music will know what 
 the best men have done, and hence will have numberless 
 passages from older writers floating at all times in his mind, 
 like germs in the air, ready to hook themselves on to anything 
 of an associated character. Some of these he will reject at 
 once, as already too strongly wedded to associations of their 
 own ; some are tried and found not so suitable as was thought ; 
 some one, however, will probably soon assert itself as either 
 suitable, or easily altered so as to become exactly what is 
 wanted ; if, indeed, it is the right passage in the right man's 
 mind, it will have modified itself unbidden already. How, 
 then, let me ask again, is the musician to comport himself 
 towards those uninvited guests of his thoughts? Is he to 
 give them shelter, cherish them, and be thankful? or is he 
 to shake them rudely off, bid them begone, and go out of his 
 way so as not to fall in with them again? 
 
 Can there be a doubt what the answer to this question 
 should be? As it is fatal deliberately to steer on to the 
 work of other composers, so it is no less fatal deliberately to 
 steer clear of it; music to be of any value must be a man's 
 freest and most instinctive expression. Instinct in the case 
 of all the greatest artists, whatever their art may be, bids 
 them attach themselves to, and grow out of those predecessors 
 who are most congenial to them. Beethoven grew out of 
 Mozart and Haydn, adding a leaven which in the end leavened 
 the whole lump, but in the outset adding little ; Mozart grew 
 out of Haydn, in the outset adding little; Haydn grew out of 
 Domenico Scarlatti and Emmanuel Bach, adding, in the 
 outset, little. These men grew out of John Sebastian Bach, 
 for much as both of them admired Handel I cannot see that 
 they allowed his music to influence theirs. Handel even in 
 his own lifetime was more or less of a survival and protest; 
 he saw the rocks on to which music was drifting and steered 
 
Handel and Music 127 
 
 his own good ship wide of them ; as for his musical parentage, 
 he grew out of the early Italians and out of Purcell. 
 
 The more original a composer is the more certain is he to 
 have made himself a strong base of operations in the works 
 of earlier men, striking his roots deep into them, so that he, 
 as it were, gets inside them and lives in them, they in him, 
 and he in them ; then, this firm foothold having Taeen obtained, 
 he sallies forth as opportunity directs, with the result that 
 his works will reflect at once the experiences of his own 
 musical life and of those musical progenitors to whom a lov- 
 ing instinct has more particularly attached him. The fact 
 that his work is deeply imbued with their ideas and little 
 ways, is not due to his deliberately taking from them. He 
 makes their ways his own as children model themselves upon 
 those older persons who are kind to them. He loves them 
 because he feels they felt as he does, and looked on men and 
 things much as he looks upon them himself; he is an out- 
 growth in the same direction as that in which they grew ; he 
 is their son, bound by every law of heredity to be no less them 
 than himself ; the manner, therefore, which came most natu- 
 rally to them will be the one which comes also most naturally 
 to him as being their descendant. Nevertheless no matter 
 how strong a family likeness may be, (and it is sometimes, as 
 between Handel and his forerunners, startlingly close) two 
 men of different generations will never be so much alike that 
 the work of each will not have a character of its own — unless 
 indeed the one is masquerading as the other, which is not 
 tolerable except on rare occasions and on a very small scale. 
 No matter how like his father a man may be we can always 
 tell the two apart ; but this once given, so that he has a clear 
 life of his own, then a strong family likeness to some one else 
 is no more to be regretted or concealed if it exists than to be 
 affected if it does not. 
 
 It is on these terms alone that attractive music can be 
 written, and it is a musician's business to. write attractive 
 music. He is, as it were, tenant for life of the estate of and 
 trustee for that school to which he belongs. Normally, that 
 school will be the one which has obtained the firmest hold 
 upon his own countrymen. An Englishman cannot success- 
 fully write like a German or a Hungarian, nor is it desirable 
 that he should try. If, by way of variety, we want German 
 
128 Handel and Music 
 
 or Hungarian music we shall get a more genuine article by- 
 going direct to German or Hungarian composers. For the 
 most part, however, the soundest Englishmen will be stay- 
 at-homes, in spite of their being much given to summer 
 flings upon the continent. Whether as writers, therefore, 
 or as listeners. Englishmen should stick chiefly to Purcell, 
 Handel, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. True, Handel was not an 
 Englishman by birth, but no one was ever more thoroughly 
 English in respect of all the best and most distinguishing 
 features of Englishmen. As a young man, though Italy 
 and Germany were open to him, he adopted the country of 
 Purcell, feeling it, doubtless, to be, as far as he was con- 
 cerned, more Saxon than Saxony itself. He chose England; 
 nor can there be a doubt that he chose it because he be- 
 lieved it to be the country in which his music had the best 
 chance of being appreciated. And what does this involve, if 
 not that England, take it all round, is the most musically 
 minded country in the world? That this is so, that it has 
 produced the finest music the world has known, and is there- 
 fore the finest school of music in the world, cannot be rea- 
 sonably disputed. 
 
 To the born musician, it is hardly necessary to say, neither 
 the foregoing remarks nor any others about music, except 
 those that may be found in every text book, can be of the 
 smallest use. Handel knew this and no man ever said less 
 about his art — or did more in it. There are some semi- 
 apocryphal* rules for tuning the harpsichord that pretend, 
 with what truth I know not, to hail from him, but here his 
 theoretical contributions to music begin and end. The rules 
 begin "In this chord" (the tonic major triad) "tune the 
 fifth pretty flat, and the third considerably too sharp." 
 There is an absence of fuss about these words which suggests 
 Handel himself. 
 
 The written and spoken words of great painters or musi- 
 cians who can talk or write is seldom lasting — artists are a 
 dumb inarticulate folk, whose speech is in their hands not in 
 
 * Twelve Voluntaries and Fugues for the Organ or Harpsichord 
 with Rules for Tuning. By the celebrated Mr. Handel. Butler had 
 a copy of this book and gave it to the British Museum (Press Mark, 
 e. 10^) . We showed the rules to Rockstro, who said they were very 
 interesting and probably authentic; they would tune the instrument 
 in one of the mean tone temperaments. 
 
Handel and Music 129 
 
 their tongues. They look at us like seals, but cannot talk to 
 us. To the musician, therefore, what has been said above is 
 useless, if not worse; its object will have been attained if it 
 aids the uncreative reader to criticise what he hears with 
 more intelligence. 
 
 Music 
 
 So far as I can see, this is the least stable of the arts. 
 From the earliest records we learn that there were musicians, 
 and people seem to have been just as fond of music as we are 
 ourselves, but, whereas we find the old sculpture, painting 
 (what there is of it) and literature to have been in all essen- 
 tials like our own, and not only this but whereas we find 
 them essentially the same in existing nations in Europe, Asia, 
 Africa and America, this is not so aS regards music either 
 looking to antiquity or to the various existing nations. I 
 believe we should find old Greek and Roman music as hide- 
 ous as we do Persian and Japanese, or as Persians and Japa- 
 nese find our own. 
 
 I believe therefore that the charm of music rests on a 
 more unreasoning basis, and is more dependent on what we 
 are accustomed to, than the pleasure given by the other arts. 
 We now find all the ecclesiastical modes, except. the Ionian 
 and the .iEolian, unsatisfactory, indeed almost intolerable, 
 but I question whether, if we were as much in the habit of 
 using the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixo-Lydian modes 
 as we are of using the later ^olian mode (the minor scale), 
 we should not find these just as satisfactory. Is it not 
 possible that our indisputable preference for the Ionian mode 
 (the major scale) is simply the result of its being the one to 
 which we are most accustomed? If another mode were to 
 become habitual, might not this scale or mode become first 
 a kind of supplementary moon-like mode (as the iEolian 
 now is) and finally might it not become intolerable to us? 
 Happily it will last my time as it is. 
 
 Discords 
 
 Formerly all discords were prepared, and Monteverde's 
 innovation of taking the dominant seventh unprepared was 
 held to be cataclysmic, but in modern music almost any 
 
I30 Handel and Music 
 
 conceivable discord may be taken unprepared. We have 
 grown so used to this now that we think nothing of it, still, 
 whenever it can be done without sacrificing something more 
 important, I think even a dominant seventh is better pre- 
 pared. 
 
 It is only the preparation, however, of discords which is 
 now less rigorously insisted on; their resolution — ^generally 
 by the climbing down of the offending note — is as necessary 
 as ever if the music is to flow on smoothly. 
 
 This holds good exactly in our daily life. If a discord has 
 to be introduced, it is better to prepare it as a concord, take 
 it on a strong beat, and resolve it downwards on a weak 
 one. The preparation being often difficult or impossible may 
 be dispensed with, but the resolution is still de rigueur. 
 
 Anachronism 
 
 It has been said "Thou shalt not masquerade in costumes 
 not of thine own period," but the history of art is the history 
 of revivals. Musical criticism, so far as I can see, is the least 
 "^intelligent of the criticisms on this score. Unless a man 
 writes in the exotic style of Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak and 
 I know not what other Slav, Czech, Teuton or Hebrew, the 
 critics are sure to accuse him of being an anachronism. The 
 only man in England who is permitted to write in a style 
 which is in the main of home growth is the Irish Jew, Sir 
 Arthur Sullivan. If we may go to a foreign style why may 
 we not go to one of an earlier period ? But surely we may do 
 whatever we like, and the better we like it the better we shall 
 do it. The great thing is to make sure that we like the style 
 we choose better than we like any other, that we engraft 
 on it whatever we hear that we think will be a good addition, 
 and depart from it wherever we dislike it. If a man does 
 this he may write in the style of the year one and he will be 
 no anachronism; the musical critics may call him one but 
 they cannot make him one. 
 
 Chapters in Music 
 
 The analogy between literature, painting and music, so 
 close in so many respects, suggests that the modern custom 
 
Handel and Music 131 
 
 of making a whole scene, act or even drama into a single, 
 unbroken movement without subdivision is like making a 
 book without chapters, or a picture, like Bernardino Luini's 
 great Lugano fresco in which a long subject is treated within 
 the compass of a single piece. Better advised, as it seems to 
 me, Gaudenzio Ferrari broke up a space of the same shape 
 and size at Varallo into many compartments, each more or 
 less complete in itself, grouped round a central scene. The 
 subdivision of books into chapters, each with a more or less 
 emphatic full close in its own key, is found to be a help as 
 giving the attention halting places by the way. Everything 
 that is worth attending to fatigues as well as delights, much 
 as the climbing of a mountain does so. Chapters and short 
 pieces give rests during which the attention gathers renewed 
 strength and attacks with fresh ardour a new stretch of the 
 ascent. Each bar is, as it were, a step cut in ice and one does 
 not see, if set pieces are objected to, why phrases and bars 
 should not be attacked next. 
 
 At the Opera 
 
 Jones and I went last Friday to Don Giovanni, Mr. Kemp * 
 putting us in free. It bored us both, and we like Narcissus 
 better. We admit the beauty of many of the beginnings of 
 the airs, but this beauty is not maintained, in every case the 
 air tails off into something that is much too near being tire- 
 some. The plot, of course, is stupid to a degree, but plot has 
 very little to do with it; what can be more uninteresting 
 than the plot of many of Handel's oratorios ? We both 
 believe the scheme of Italian opera to be a bad one; we 
 think that music should never be combined with acting to a 
 greater extent than is done, we will say, in the Mikado; 
 that the oratorio form is far more satisfactory than opera; 
 and we agreed that we had neither of us ever yet been to an 
 opera (I mean a Grand Opera) without being bored by it. 
 I am not sorry to remember that Handel never abandoned 
 oratorio after he had once fairly taken to it; 
 
 * Mr. Kemp lived in Barnard's Inn on my staircase. He was in 
 the box-office at Drury Lane Theatre. See a further note about him 
 on p. 153 post. 
 
132 Handel and Music 
 
 At a Philharmonic Concert 
 
 We went last night to the Philharmonic and sat in the 
 shilling orchestra, just behind the drums, so that we could 
 see and hear what each instrument was doing. The concert 
 began with Mozart's G Minor Symphony. We liked this 
 fairly well, especially the last movement, but we found all the 
 movements too long and, speaking for myself, if I had a 
 tame orchestra for which. I might write programmes, I should 
 probably put it down once or twice again, not from any 
 spontaneous wish to hear more of it but as a matter of duty 
 that I might judge it with fuller comprehension — still, if 
 each movement had been half as long I should probably have 
 felt cordially enough towards it, except of course in so far as 
 that the spirit of the music is alien to that of the early Italian 
 school with which alone I am in genuine sympathy and of 
 which Handel is the climax. 
 
 Then came a terribly long-winded recitative by Beethoven 
 and an air with a good deal of "Che faro" in it. I do not 
 mind this, and if it had been "Che faro" absolutely I should, 
 I daresay, have liked it better. I never want to hear it again 
 and my orchestra should never play it. 
 
 Beethoven's Concerto for violin and orchestra (op. 6i) 
 which followed was longer and more tedious still. I have 
 not a single good word for it. If the subject of the last move- 
 ment was the tune of one of Arthur Robert's comic songs, or 
 of any music-hall song, it would do very nicely and I daresay 
 we should often hum it. I do not mean at the opening of the 
 movement but about half way through, where the character 
 is just that of a common music-hall song and, so far, good. 
 
 Part II opened with a suite in F Major for orchestra (op. 
 39) by Moszkowski. This was much more clear and, in every 
 way, interesting than the Beethoven; every now and then 
 there were passages that were pleasing, not to say more. 
 Jones liked it better than I did ; still, one could not feel that 
 any of the movements were the mere drivelling show stuff of 
 which the concerto had been full. But it, like everything 
 else done at these concerts, is too long, cut down one-half it 
 would have been all right and we should have liked to hear 
 it twice. As it was, all we could say was that it was much 
 
Handel and Music 133 
 
 better than we had expected. I did not like the look of the 
 young man who wrote it and who also conducted. He had 
 long yellowish hair and kept tossing his head to fling it back 
 on to his shoulders, instead of keeping it short as Jones and I 
 keep ours. 
 
 Then came Schubert's "Erl Konig," which, I daresay, is 
 very fine but with which I have absolutely nothing in common. 
 
 And finally there was a tiresome characteristic overture 
 by Berlioz, which, if Jones could by any possibility have 
 written anything so dreary, I should certainly have begged 
 him not to publish. 
 
 The general impression left upon me by the concert is that 
 all the movements were too long, and that, no matter how 
 clever the development may be, it spoils even the most pleas- 
 ing and interesting subject if there is too much of it. Handel 
 knew when to stop and, when he meant stopping, he stopped 
 much as a horse stops, with little, if any, peroration. Who 
 can doubt that he kept his movements short because he 
 knew that the worst music within a reasonable compass is 
 better than the best which is made tiresome by being spun 
 out unduly? I only know one concerted piece of Handel's 
 which I think too long, I mean the overture to Saul, but I 
 have no doubt that if I were to try to cut it down I should 
 find some excellent reason that had made Handel decide on 
 keeping it as it is. 
 
 At the Wind Concerts 
 
 There have been some interesting wind concerts lately; 
 I say interesting, because they brought home to us the un- 
 satisfactory character of wind unsupported by strings. I 
 rather pleased Jones by saying that the hautbois was the 
 clarionet with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the same 
 with a cold on its chest. 
 
 At a Handel Festival 
 
 The large sweeps of sound floated over the orchestra like 
 the wind playing upon a hill-side covered with young heather, 
 and I sat and wondered which of the Alpine passes Handel 
 
134 Handel and Music 
 
 crossed when he went into Italy. What time of the year was 
 it? What kind of weather did he have? Were the spring 
 flowers out ? Did he walk the greater part of the way as we 
 do now? And what did he hear? For he must sometimes 
 have heard music inside him — and that, too, as much above 
 what he has written down as what he has written down is 
 above all other music. No man can catch all, or always the 
 best, of what is put for a moment or two within his reach. 
 Handel took as much and as near the best, doubtless, as 
 mortal man can take; but he must have had moments and 
 glimpses which were given to him alone and which he could 
 tell no man. 
 
 I saw the world a great orchestra filled with angels whose 
 instruments were of gold. And I saw the organ on the top 
 of the axis round which all should turn, but nothing turned 
 and nothing moved and the angels stirred not and all was as 
 still as a stone, and I was myself also, like the rest, as still as 
 a stone. 
 
 Then I saw some huge, cloud-like forms nearing, and be- 
 hold! it was the Lord bringing two of his children by the 
 hand. 
 
 "O Papa!" said one, "isn't it pretty?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear," said the Lord, "and if you drop a penny 
 into the box the figures will work." 
 
 Then I saw that what I had taken for the keyboard of the 
 organ was no keyboard but only a slit, and one of the little 
 Lords dropped a plaque of metal into it. And then the angels 
 played and the world turned round and the organ made a 
 noise and the people began killing one another and the two 
 little Lords clapped their hands and were delighted. 
 
 Handel and Dickens 
 
 They buried Dickens in the very next grave, cheek by 
 jowl with Handel. It does not matter, but it pained me to 
 think that people who could do this could become Deans of 
 Westminster. 
 
IX 
 A Painter's Views on Painting 
 
 The Old Masters and Their Pupils 
 
 The old masters taught, not because they liked teaching, nor 
 yet from any idea of serving the cause of art, nor yet because 
 they were paid to teach by the parents of their pupils. The 
 parents probably paid no money at first. The masters took 
 pupils and taught them because they had more work to do 
 than they could get through and wanted some one to help 
 them. They sold the pupil's work as their own, just as people 
 do now who take apprentices. When people can sell a pupil's 
 work, they will teach the pupil all they know and will see 
 he learns it. This is the secret of the whole matter. 
 
 The modern schoolmaster does not aim at learning from 
 his pupils, he hardly can, but the old masters did. See how 
 Giovanni Bellini learned from Titian and Giorgione who both 
 came to him in the same year, as boys, when Bellini was 63 
 years old. What a day for painting was that ! All Bellini's 
 best work was done thenceforward. I know nothing in the 
 history of art so touching as this. [1883.] 
 
 P.S. I have changed my mind about Titian. I don't like 
 him. [1897.] 
 
 The Academic System and Repentance 
 
 The academic system goes almost on the principle of offer- 
 ing places for repentance, and letting people fall soft, by 
 assuming that they should be taught how to do things before 
 they do them, and not by the doing of them. Good economy 
 requires that there should be little place for repentance, and 
 that when people fall they should fall hard enough to re- 
 member it. 
 
 135 
 
136 A Painter's Views 
 
 The Jubilee Sixpence 
 
 We have spent hundreds of thousands, or more probably 
 of millions, on national art collections, schools of art, pire- 
 liminary training and academicism, without wanting anything 
 in particular, but when the nation did at last try all it knew 
 to design a sixpence, it failed.* The other coins are all very 
 well in their way, and so are the stamps — the letters get car- 
 ried, and the money passes ; but both stamps and coins would 
 have been just as good, and very likely better, if there had 
 not been an art-school in the country. [1888.] 
 
 Studying from Nature 
 
 When is a man studying from nature, and when is he only 
 flattering himself that he is doing so because he is painting 
 with a model or lay-figure before him ? A man may be work- 
 ing his eight or nine hours a day from the model and yet not 
 be studying from nature. He is painting but not studying. 
 He is like the man in the Bible who looks at himself in a glass 
 and goeth away forgetting what manner of man he was. He 
 will know no more about nature at the end of twenty years 
 than a priest who has been reading his breviary day after day 
 without committing it to memory will know of its contents. 
 Unless he gets what he has seen well into his memory, so as 
 to have it at his fingers' ends as familiarly as the characters 
 with which he writes a letter, he can be no more held to be 
 familiar with, and to have command over, nature than a man 
 who only copies his signature from a copy kept in his pocket, 
 as I have known French Canadians do, can be said to be able 
 to write. It is painting without nature that will give a man 
 this, and not painting directly from her. He must do both 
 the one and the other, and the one as much as the other. 
 
 The Model and the Lay-Figure 
 
 It may be doubted whether they have not done more harm 
 than good. They are an attempt to get a bit of stuffed nature 
 
 * If I remember right, the original Jubilee sixpence had to be 
 altered because it was so like a half-sovereign that, on being gilded, it 
 passed as one. 
 
on Painting i37 
 
 and to study from that instead of studying from the thing 
 itself. Indeed, the man who never has a model but studies 
 the faces of people as they sit opposite him in an omnibus, 
 and goes straight home and puts down what little he can of 
 what he has seen, dragging it out piecemeal from his memory, 
 and going into another omnibus to look again for what he 
 has forgotten as near as he can find it — that man is studying 
 from nature as much as he who has a model four or five hours 
 daily — and probably more. For you may be painting from 
 nature as much without nature actually before you as with ; 
 and you may have nature before you all the while you are 
 painting and yet not be painting from her. 
 
 Sketching from Nature 
 
 Is very like trying to put a pinch of salt on her tail. And 
 yet many manage to do it very nicely. 
 
 Great Art and Sham Art 
 
 Art has no end in view save the emphasising and recording 
 in the most effective way some strongly felt interest or affec- 
 tion. Where there is neither interest nor desire to record 
 with good effect, there is but sham art, or none at all : where 
 both these are fully present, no matter how rudely and in- 
 articulately, there is great art. Art is at best a dress, im- 
 portant, yet still nothing in comparison with the wearer, and, 
 as a general rule, the less it attracts attention the better. 
 
 Inarticulate Touches 
 
 An artist's touches are sometimes no more articulate than 
 the barking of a dog who would call attention to something 
 without exactly knowing what. This is as it should be, and 
 he is a great artist who can be depended on not to bark at 
 nothing. 
 
 Detail 
 
 One reason why it is as well not to give very much detail 
 is that, no matter how much is given, the eye will always want 
 more ; it will know very well that it is' not being paid in full. 
 
138 A Painter's Views 
 
 On the other hand, no matter how little one gives, the eye 
 will generally compromise by wanting only a little more. In 
 either case the eye will want more, so one may as well stop 
 sooner as later. Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible 
 writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing 
 what to omit as what to insist upon. It consists in the tact 
 that tells the painter where to stop. 
 
 Painting and Association 
 
 Painting is only possible by reason of association's not stick- 
 ing to the letter of its bond, so that we jump to conclusions. 
 
 The Credulous Eye 
 
 Painters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is 
 a good, simple, credulous organ — very ready to take things on 
 trust if it be told them with any confidence of assertion. 
 
 Truths from Nature 
 
 We must take as many as we can, but the difficulty is that 
 it is often so hard to know what the truths of nature are. 
 
 Accuracy 
 
 After having spent years striving to be accurate, we must 
 spend as many more in discovering when and how to be in- 
 accurate. 
 
 Herbert Spencer 
 He is like nature to Fuseli — he puts me out. 
 
 Shade Colour and Reputation 
 
 When a thing is near and in light, colour and form are im- 
 portant; when far and in shadow, they are unimportant. 
 Form and colour are like reputations which when they be- 
 come shady are much of a muchness. 
 
on Painting i39 
 
 Money and Technique 
 
 Money is very like technique (or vice versa). We see that 
 both musicians or painters with great command of technique 
 seldom know what to do with it, while those who have little 
 often know how to use what they have. 
 
 Action and Study 
 
 These things are antagonistic. The composer is seldom a 
 great theorist ; the theorist is never a great composer. Each 
 is equally fatal to and essential in the other. 
 
 Sacred and Profane Statues 
 
 I have never seen statues of Jove, Neptune, Apollo or any 
 of the pagan gods that are not as great failures as the statues 
 of Christ and the Apostles. 
 
 Seeing 
 
 If a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and 
 white drawing, his eyes are wild; learning to -draw tames 
 them. The first step towards taming the eyes is to teach 
 them not to see too much. 
 
 Quickness in seeing as in everything else comes from long 
 sustained effort after rightness and comes unsought. It never 
 comes from effort after quickness. 
 
 Improvement in Art 
 
 Painting depends upon seeing; seeing depends upon look- 
 ing for this or that, at least in great part it does so. 
 
 Think of and look at your work as though it were done by 
 your enemy. If you look at it to admire it you are lost. 
 
 Any man, as old Heatherley used to say, will go on im- 
 proving as long as he is bona fide dissatisfied with his work. 
 
 Improvement in one's painting depends upon how we look 
 at our Avork. If we look at it to see where it is wrong, we 
 shall see this and make it righter. If we look at it to see 
 
140 A Painter's Views 
 
 where it is right, we shall see this and shall not make it righter. 
 We cannot see it both wrong and right at the same time. 
 
 Light and Shade 
 
 Tell the young artist that he wants a black piece here or 
 there, when he sees no such black piece in nature, and that 
 he must continue this or that shadow thus, and break this 
 light into this or that other, when in nature he sees none of 
 these things, and you will puzzle him very much. He is try- 
 ing to put down what he sees ; he does not care two straws 
 about composition or light and shade; if he sees two tones 
 of such and such relative intensity in nature, he will give 
 them as near as he can the same relative intensity in his 
 picture, and to tell him that he is perhaps exactly to reverse 
 the natural order in deference to some canon of the academi- 
 cians, and that at the same time he is drawing from nature, 
 is what he cannot understand. 
 
 I am very doubtful how far people do not arrange their 
 light and shade too much with the result with which we are 
 familiar in drawing-masters' copies; it may be right or it 
 may not, I don't know — I am afraid I ought to know, but I 
 don't; but I do know that those pictures please me best 
 which were painted without the slightest regard to any of 
 these rules. 
 
 I suppose the justification of those who talk as above lies 
 in the fact that, as we cannot give all nature, we lie by sup- 
 pressio veri whether we like it or no, and that you sometimes 
 lie less by putting in something which does not exist at the 
 moment, but which easily might exist and -which gives a lot 
 of facts which you otherwise could not give at all, than by 
 giving so much as you can alone give if you adhere rigidly to 
 the facts. If this is so the young painter would understand 
 the matter, if it were thus explained to him, better than he 
 is likely to do if he is merely given it as a canon. 
 
 At the same time, I admit it to be true that one never sees 
 light but it has got dark in it, nor vice versa, and that this 
 comes to saying that if you are to be true to nature you must 
 break your lights into your shadows and vice versa; and so 
 usual is this that, if there happens here or there to be an ex- 
 ception, the painter had better say nothing about it, for it is 
 
on Painting 141 
 
 more true to nature's general practice not to have it so than 
 to have it. 
 
 Certainly as regards colour, I never remember to have 
 seen a piece of one colour without finding a bit of a very 
 similar colour not far off, but having no connection with it. 
 This holds good in such an extraordinary way that if it 
 happens to fail the matter should be passed over in silence. 
 
 Colour 
 
 The expression "seeing colour" used to puzzle me. I 
 was aware that some painters made their pictures more pleas- 
 ing in colour than others and more like the colour of the 
 actual thing as a whole, still there were any number of bits 
 of brilliant colour in their work which for the life of me I 
 could not see in nature. I used to hear people say of a man 
 who got pleasing and natural colour, "Does he not see colour 
 well?" and I used to say he did, but, as far as I was con- 
 cerned, it would have been more true to say that he put 
 down colour which he did not see well, or at any rate that 
 he put down colour which I could not see myself. 
 
 In course of time I got to understand that seeing colour 
 does not mean inventing colour, or exaggerating it, but being 
 on the look out for it, thus seeing it where another will not 
 see it, and giving it the preference as among things to be 
 preserved and rendered amid the wholesale slaughter of in- 
 nocents which is inevitable in any painting. Painting is only 
 possible as a quasi-hieroglyphic epitomising of nature; this 
 means that the half goes for the whole, whereon the ques- 
 tion arises which half is to be taken and which made to go? 
 The colourist will insist by preference on the coloured half, 
 the man who has no liking for colour, however much else 
 he may sacrifice, will not be careful to preserve this and, as 
 a natural consequence, he will not preserve it. 
 
 Good, that is to say, pleasing, beautiful, or even pretty 
 colour cannot be got by putting patches of pleasing, beautiful 
 or pretty colour upon one's canvas and, which is a harder 
 matter, leaving them when they have been put. It is said of 
 money that it is more easily made than kept and this is true 
 of many things, such as friendship; and even life itself is 
 more easily got than kept. The same holds good of colour. 
 
142 A Painter's Views 
 
 It is also true that, as with money, more is made, by saving 
 than in any other way, and the surest way to lose colour 
 is to play with it inconsiderately, not knowing how to leave 
 well alone. A touch of pleasing colour should on no account 
 be stirred without consideration. 
 
 That we can see in a natural object more colour than 
 strikes us at a glance, if we look for it attentively, will not 
 be denied by any who have tried to look for it. Thus, take 
 a dull, dead, level, grimy old London wall : at a first glance 
 we can see no colour in it, nothing but a more or less purplish 
 mass, got, perhaps as nearly as in any other way, by a tint 
 mixed with black, Indian red and white. If, however, we 
 look for colour in this, we shall find here and there a broken 
 brick with a small surface of brilliant crimson, hard by there 
 will be another with a warm orange hue perceivable through 
 the grime by one who is on the look out for it, but by no one 
 else. Then there may be bits of old advertisement of which 
 here and there a gaily coloured fragment may remain, or a 
 rusty iron hook or a bit of bright green moss ; few indeed are 
 the old walls, even in the grimiest parts of London, on which 
 no redeeming bits of colour can be found by those who are 
 practised in looking for them. To like colour, to wish to 
 find it, and thus to have got naturally into a habit of looking 
 for it, this alone will enable a man to see colour and to make 
 a note of it when he has seen it, and this alone will lead him 
 towards a pleasing and natural scheme of colour in his work. 
 
 Good colour can never be got by putting down colour 
 which is not seen; at any rate only a master who has long 
 served accuracy can venture on occasional inaccuracy- 
 telling a lie, knowing it to be a lie, and as, se non vera, hen 
 trovata. The grown man in his art may do this, and indeed 
 is not a man at all unless he knows how to do it daily and 
 hourly without departure from the truth even in his boldest 
 lie; but the child in art must stick to what he sees. If he 
 looks harder he will see more, and may put more, but till he 
 sees it without being in any doubt about it, he must not put 
 it. There is no such sure way of corrupting one's colour sense 
 as the habitual practice of putting down colour which one 
 does not see ; this and the neglecting to look for it are equal 
 faults. The first error leads to melodramatic vulgarity, the 
 other to torpid dullness, and it is hard to say which is worse. 
 
on Painting i43 
 
 It may be said that the preservation of all the little episodes 
 of colour which can be discovered in an object whose general 
 effect is dingy and the suppression of nothing but the un- 
 interesting colourless details amount to what is really a forc- 
 ing and exaggeration of nature, differing but little from 
 downright fraud, so far as its effect goes, since it gives an 
 undue preference to the colour side of the matter. In equity, 
 if the exigencies of the convention under which we are work- 
 ing require a sacrifice of a hundred details, the majority of 
 which are uncoloured, while in the minority colour can be 
 found if looked for, the sacrifice should be made pro rata 
 from coloured and uncoloured alike. If the facts of nature 
 are a hundred, of which ninety are dull in colour and ten in- 
 teresting, and the painter can only give ten, he must not give 
 the ten interesting bits of colour and neglect the ninety so- 
 berly coloured details. Strictly, he should sacrifice eighty-one 
 sober details and nine coloured ones; he will thus at any 
 rate preserve the balance and relation which obtain in nature 
 between coloured and uncoloured. 
 
 This, no doubt, is what he ought to do if he leaves the 
 creative, poetic and more properly artistic aspect of his own 
 function out of the question ; if he is making himself a mere 
 transcriber, holding the mirror up to nature with such en- 
 tire forgetfulness of self as to be rather looking-glass than 
 man, this is. what he must do. But the moment he ap. 
 proaches nature in this spirit he ceases to be an artist, and 
 the better he succeeds as painter of something that might 
 pass for a coloured photograph, the more inevitably must 
 he fail to satisfy, or indeed to appeal to us at all as poet — 
 as one whose sympathies with nature extend beyond her 
 superficial aspect, or as one who is so much at home with 
 her as to be able readily to dissociate the permanent and 
 essential from the accidental which may be here to-day and 
 gone to-morrow. If he is to come before us as an artist, 
 he must do so as a poet or creator of that which is not, as 
 well as a mirror of that which is. True, experience in all 
 kinds of poetical work shows that the less a man creates the 
 better, that the more, in fact, he makes, the less is he of a 
 maker; but experience also shows that the course of true 
 nature, like that of true love, never does run smooth, and 
 that occasional, judicious, slight departures from the actual 
 
144 A Painter's Views 
 
 facts, by one who knows the value of a lie too well to waste 
 it, bring nature more vividly and admirably before us than 
 any amount of adherence to the letter of strict accuracy. 
 It is the old story, the letter killeth but the spirit giveth 
 life. 
 
 With colour, then, he who does not look for it will begin 
 by not seeing it unless it is so obtrusive that there is no 
 escaping it ; he will therefore, in his rendering of the hundred 
 facts of nature above referred to, not see the ten coloured 
 bits at all, supposing them to be, even at their brightest, 
 somewhat sober, and his work will be colourless or disagree- 
 able in colour. The faithful coypist, who is still a mere copy- 
 ist, will give nine details of dull uninteresting colour and one 
 of interesting. The artist or poet will find some reason 
 for slightly emphasising the coloured details and will scatter 
 here and there a few slight, hardly perceptible, allusions to 
 more coloured details than come within the letter of his bond, 
 but will be careful not to overdo it. The vulgar sensational 
 painter will force in his colour everywhere, and of all col- 
 ourists he must be pronounced the worst. 
 
 Briefly then, to see colour is simply to have got into a 
 habit of not overlooking the patches of colour which are 
 seldom far to seek or hard to see by those who look for them. 
 It is not the making one's self believe that one sees all man- 
 ner of colours which are not there, it is only the getting 
 oneself into a mental habit of looking out for episodes of 
 colour, and of giving them a somewhat undue preference in 
 the struggle for rendering, wherever anything like a reason- 
 able pretext can be found for doing so. For if a picture is to 
 be pleasing in colour, pleasing colours must be put upon the 
 canvas, and reasons have got to be found for putting them 
 there. [1886.] 
 
 P.S. — The foregoing note wants a great deal of reconsid- 
 eration for which I cannot find time just now. Jan. 31, 1898. 
 
 Words and Colour 
 
 A man cannot be a great colourist unless he is a great 
 deal more. A great colourist is no better than a great wordist 
 unless the colour is well applied to a subject which at any 
 rate is not repellent. 
 
on Painting 14S 
 
 Amateurs and Professionals 
 
 There is no excuse for amateur work being bad. Amateurs 
 often excuse their shortcomings on the ground that they are 
 not professionals, the professional could plead with greater 
 justice that he is not an amateur. The professional has hot, 
 he might well say, the leisure and freedom froin money 
 anxieties which will let him devote himself to his art in single- 
 ness of heart, telling of things as he sees them without fear 
 of what man shall say unto him; he must think not of what 
 appears to him right and loveable but of what his patrons 
 will think and of what the critics will tell his patrons to say 
 they think ; he has got to square everyone all round and will 
 assuredly fail to make his way unless he does this ; if, then, 
 he betrays his trust he does so under temptation. Whereas 
 the amateur who works with no higher aim than that of 
 immediate recognition betrays it from the vanity and wanton- 
 ness of his spirit. The one is naughty because he is needy, 
 the other from natural depravity. Besides, the amateur 
 can keep his work to himself, whereas the professional man 
 must exhibit or starve. 
 
 The question is what is the amateur an amateur of? What 
 is he really in love with? Is he in love with other people, 
 thinking he sees something which he would like to show 
 them, which he feels sure they would enjoy if they could only 
 see it as he does, which he is therefore trying as best he can 
 to put before the few nice people whom he knows ? If this 
 is his position he can do no wrong, the spirit in which he 
 works will ensure that his defects will be only as bad spelling 
 or bad grammar in some pretty saying of a child. If, on the 
 other hand, he is playing for social success and to get a 
 reputation for being clever, then no matter how dexterous his 
 work may be, it is but another mode of the speaking with 
 the tongues of men and angels without charity ; it is as sound- 
 ing brass or a tinkling cymbal, full of sound and fury signi- 
 fying nothing. 
 
 The Ansidei Raffaelle 
 
 This picture is inspired by no deeper feeling than a de- 
 termination to adhere to the conventions of the time. These 
 
146 A Painter's Views 
 
 conventions ensure an effect of more or less devotional char- 
 acter, and this, coupled with our reverence for the name of 
 Raffaelle, the sentiments arising from antiquity and foreign- 
 ness, and the inability of most people to judge of the work on 
 technical grounds, because they can neither paint nor draw, 
 prevents us from seeing what a mere business picture it is 
 and how poor the painting is throughout. A master in any 
 art should be first man, then poet, then craftsman; this 
 picture must have been painted by one who was first world- 
 ling, then religious-property-manufacturer, then painter with 
 brains not more than average and no heart. 
 
 The Madonna's head has indeed a certain prettiness of a 
 not very uncommon kind ; the paint has been sweetened with 
 a soft brush and licked smooth till all texture as of flesh is 
 gone and the head is wooden and tight; I can see no ex- 
 pression in it ; the hand upon the open book is as badly drawn 
 as the hand of S. Catharine (also by Raffaelle) in our gal- 
 lery, or even worse ; so is the part of the other hand which can 
 be seen; they are better drawn than the hands in the Ecce 
 homo of Correggio in our gallery, for the fingers appear to 
 have the right number of joints, which none of those in the 
 Correggio have, but this is as much as can be said. 
 
 The dress is poorly painted, the gold thread work being 
 of the cheapest, commonest kind, both as regards pattern 
 and the quantity allowed; especially note the meagre allow- 
 ance and poor pattern of the embroidery on the virgin's 
 bosom; it is done as by one who knew she ought to have, 
 and must have, a little gold work, but was determined she 
 should have no more than he could help. This is so wher- 
 ever there is gold thread work in the picture. It is so on 
 S. Nicholas's cloak where a larger space is covered, but the 
 pattern is dull and the smallest quantity of gold is made to 
 go the longest way. The gold cording which binds this is 
 more particularly badly done. Compare the "embroidery and 
 gold thread work in "The Virgin adoring the Infant Christ," 
 ascribed to Andrea Verrocchio, No. 296, Room V ; "The An- 
 nunciation" by Carlo Crivelli, No. 739, Room VIII ; in "The 
 Angel Raphael accompanies Tobias on his Journey into 
 Media" attributed to Botticini, No. 781, Room V; in "Por- 
 trait of a Lady," school of Pollaiuolo, No. 585, Room V ; in 
 "A Canon of the Church with his Patron Saints" by Ghee- 
 
on Painting H7 
 
 raert David, No. 1045, Room XI; or indeed the general 
 run of the gold embroidery of the period as shown in our 
 gallery.* 
 
 So with the jewels ; there are examples of jewels in most 
 of the pictures named above, none of them, perhaps, very 
 first-rate, but all of them painted with more care and serious 
 aim than the eighteen-penny trinket which serves S. Nicholas 
 for a brooch. The jewels in the mitre are rather better than 
 this, but much depends upon the kind of day on which the 
 picture is seen ; on a clear bright day they, and indeed every 
 part of the picture, look much worse than on a dull one because 
 the badness can be more clearly seen. As for the mitre itself, 
 it is made of the same hard unyielding material as the portico 
 behind the saint, whatever this may be, presumably wood. 
 
 Observe also the crozier which S. Nicholas is holding; 
 observe the cheap streak of high light exactly the same thick- 
 ness all the way and only broken in one place; so with the 
 folds in the draperies; all is monotonous, unobservant, un- 
 imaginative — the work of a feeble man whose pains will 
 never extend much beyond those necessary to make him 
 pass as stronger than he is ; especially the folds in the white 
 linen over S. Nicholas's throat, and about his girdle — weaker 
 drapery can hardly be than this, unless, perhaps, that from 
 under which S. Nicholas's hands come. There is not only no 
 art here to conceal, but there is not even pains to conceal the 
 want of art. As for the hands themselves, and indeed all the 
 hands and feet throughout the picture, there is not one which 
 is even tolerably drawn if judged by the standard which 
 Royal Academicians apply to Royal Academy students now. 
 
 Granted that this is an early work, nevertheless I submit 
 that the drawing here is not that of one who is going to do 
 better by and by, it is that of one who is essentially insincere 
 and who will never aim higher than immediate success. Those 
 
 * Raffaelle's picture "The Virgin and Child attended by S. John 
 the Baptist and S. Nicholas of Bari" (commonly known as the "Ma- 
 donna degli Ansidei"), No. 1171, Room VI in the National Gallery, 
 London, was purchased in 1885. Butler made this note in the same 
 year ; he revised the note in 1897 but, owing to changes in the gallery 
 and in the attributions, I have found it necessary to modernise his 
 descriptions of the other pictures with gold thread work so as to make 
 them agree with the descriptions now (1912) on the pictures them- 
 selves. 
 
148 A Painter's Views 
 
 who grow to the best work almost always begin by laying 
 great stress on details which are all they as yet have strength 
 for; they cannot do much, but the little they can do they 
 do and never tire ^ of doing; they grow by getting juster 
 notions of proportion and subordination of parts to the 
 whole rather than by any greater amount of care and pa- 
 tience bestowed upon details. Here there are no bits of detail 
 worked out as by one who was interested in them and 
 enjoyed them. Wherever a thing can be scamped it is 
 scamped. As the whole is, so are the details, and as the de- 
 tails are, so is the whole; all is tainted with eye-service and 
 with a vulgarity not the less profound for being veiled by a 
 due observance of conventionality. 
 
 I shall be told that RafFaelle did come to draw and paint 
 much better than he has done here. I demur to this. He 
 did a little better; he just took so much pains as to prevent 
 him from going down-hill headlong, and, with practice, he 
 gained facility, but he was never very good, either as a 
 draughtsman or as a painter. His reputation, indeed, rests 
 mainly on his supposed exquisitely pure and tender feeling. 
 His colour is admittedly inferior, his handhng is not highly 
 praised by any one, his drawing has been much praised, 
 but it is of a penmanship freehand kind which is particularly 
 apt to take people in. Of course he could draw in some ways, 
 no one giving all his time to art and living in Raflfaelle's 
 surroundings could, with even ordinary pains, help becoming 
 a facile draughtsman, but it is the expression and sentiment 
 of his pictures which are supposed to be so ineffable and to 
 make him the prince of painters. 
 
 I do not think this reputation will be maintained much 
 longer. I can see no ineffable expression in the Ansidei Ma- 
 donna's head, nor yet in that of the Garvagh Madonna in 
 our gallery, nor in the S. Catharine. He has the saint-touch, 
 as some painters have the tree-touch and others the water- 
 touch. I remember the time when I used to think I 
 saw religious feeling in these last two pictures, but each 
 time I see them I wonder more and more how I can have 
 been taken in by them. I hear people admire the head of 
 S. Nicholas in the Ansidei picture. I can see nothing in it 
 beyond the power of a very ordinary painter, and nothing 
 that a painter of more than very ordinary power would be 
 
on Painting i49 
 
 satisfied with. When I look at the head of Bellini's Doge, 
 Loredano Loredani, I can see defects, as every one can see 
 defects in every picture, but the more I see it the more I 
 marvel at it, and the more profoundly I respect the painter. 
 With Raffaelle I find exactly the reverse ; I am carried away 
 at first, as I was when a young man by Mendelssohn's Songs 
 Without Words, only to be very angry with myself presently 
 on finding that I could have believed even for a short time 
 in something that has no real hold upon me. I know the 
 S. Catharine in our gallery has been said by some not to be 
 by Raffaelle. No one will doubt its genuineness who com- 
 pares the drawing, painting and feeling of S. Catharine's eyes 
 and nose with those of the S. John in the Ansidei picture. 
 The doubts have only been raised owing to the fact that the 
 picture, being hung on a level with the eye, is so easily 
 seen to be bad that people think Raffaelle cannot have 
 painted it. 
 
 Returning to the S. Nicholas; apart from the expression, 
 or as it seems to me want of expression, the modelling of the 
 head is not only poor but very poor. The forehead is form- 
 less and boneless, the nose is entirely wanting in that play of 
 line and surface which an old man's nose affords ; no one ever 
 yet drew or painted a nose absolutely as nature has made 
 it, but he who compares carefully drawn noses, as that in 
 Rembrandt's younger portrait of himself, in his old woman, 
 in the three Van Eycks, in the Andrea Solario, in the Lore- 
 dano Loredani by Bellini, all in our gallery, with the nose of 
 Raffaelle's S. Nicholas will not be long in finding out how 
 slovenly Raffaelle's treatment in reality is. Eyes, eyebrows, 
 mouth, cheeks and chin are treated with the same weakness, 
 and this not the weakness of a child who is taking much pains 
 to do something beyond his strength, and whose intention can 
 be felt through and above the imperfections of his perform- 
 ance (as in the case of the two Apostles' heads by Giotto in 
 our gallery), but of one who is not even conscious of weak- 
 ness save by way. of impatience that his work should cost him 
 time and trouble at all, and who is satisfied if he can turn it 
 out well enough to take in patrons who have themselves never 
 either drawn or painted. 
 
 Finally, let the spectator turn to the sky and landscape. 
 It is the cheapest kind of sky with no clouds and going down 
 
150 A Painter's Views 
 
 as low as possible, so as to save doing more country details 
 than could be helped. As for the little landscape there is, 
 let the reader compare it with any of the examples by Bellini, 
 Basaiti, or even Cima da Conegliano, which may be found in 
 the same or the adjoining rooms. 
 
 How, then, did Raffaelle get his reputation? It may be 
 answered. How did Virgil get his? or Dante? or Bacon? or 
 Plato? or Mendelssohn? or a score of others who not only 
 get the public ear but keep it sometimes for centuries? 
 How did Guido, Guercino and Domenichino get their repu- 
 tations ? A hundred years ago these men were held as hardly 
 inferior to Raffaelle himself. They had a couple of hundred 
 years or so of triumph — why so much? And if so much, 
 why not more? If we begin asking questions, we may ask 
 why anything at all ? Populus vult decipi is the only answer, 
 and nine men out of ten will follow on with et decipiatur. 
 The immediate question, however, is not how Raffaelle came 
 by his reputation but whether, having got it, he will continue 
 to hold it now that we have a fair amount of his work at 
 the National Gallery. 
 
 I grant that the general effect of the picture if looked at 
 as a mere piece of decoration is agreeable, but I have seen 
 many a picture which though not bearing consideration as a 
 serious work yet looked well from a purely decorative stand- 
 point. I believe, however, that at least half of those who 
 sit gazing before this Ansidei Raffaelle by the half-hour at 
 a time do so rather that they may be seen than see; half, 
 again, of the remaining half come because they are made to 
 do so, the rest see rather what they bring with them and put 
 into the picture than what the picture puts into them. 
 
 And then there is the charm of mere age. Any Italian 
 picture of the early part of the sixteenth century, even though 
 by a worse painter than Raffaelle, can hardly fail to call up 
 in us a soleriin, old-world feeling, as though we had stumbled 
 unexpectedly on some holy, peaceful survivors of an age long 
 gone by, when the struggle was not so fierce and the world 
 was a sweeter, happier place than we now find it, when 
 men and women were comelier, and we should like to have 
 lived among them, to have been golden-hued as they, to 
 have done as they did; we dream of what might have been 
 if our lines had been cast in more pleasant places — and 
 
on Painting iS' 
 
 so on, all of it rubbish, but still not wholly unpleasani rub- 
 bish so long as it is not dwelt upon. 
 
 Bearing in mind the natural tendency to accept anything 
 which gives us a peep as it were into a golden age, real or 
 imaginary, bearing in mind also the way in which this par- 
 ticular picture has been written up by critics, and the prestige 
 of Raffaelle's name, the wonder is not that so many let 
 themselves be taken in and carried away with it but that 
 there should not be a greater gathering before it than there 
 generally is. 
 
 Buying a Rembrandt 
 
 As an example of the evenness of the balance of advantages 
 between the principles of staying still and taking what comes, 
 and going about to look for things,* I might mention my small 
 Rembrandt, "The Robing of Joseph before Pharaoh." I have 
 wanted a Rembrandt all my life, and I have wanted not to 
 give more than a few shillings for it. I might have travelled 
 all Europe over for no one can say how many years, looking 
 for a good well-preserved, forty-shilling Rembrandt (and 
 this was what I wanted), but on two occasions of my Ufe 
 cheap Rembrandts have run right up against me. The first 
 was a head cut out of a ruined picture that had only in part 
 escaped destruction when Belvoir Castle was burned down 
 at the beginning of this century. I did not see the head but 
 have little doubt it was genuine. It was offered me for a 
 pound ; I was not equal to the occasion and did not at once 
 go to see it as I ought, and when I attended to it some months 
 later the thing had gone. My only excuse must be that I 
 was very young. 
 
 I never got another chance till a few weeks ago when I 
 saw what I took, and take, to be an early, but very interesting, 
 work by Rembrandt in the window of a pawnbroker opposite 
 St. Clement Danes Church in the Strand. I very nearly let 
 this slip too. I saw it and was very much struck with it, 
 but; knowing that I am a little apt to be too sanguine, dis- 
 
 * Cf. the passage in Alps and Sanctuaries, Chapter XIII, be- 
 ginning "The question whether it is better to abide quiet and take 
 advantages of opportunities that come or to go further afield in search 
 of them is one of the oldest which living beings have had to deal 
 with. . . . The schism still lasts and has resulted in two great sects — 
 animals and plants." 
 
152 A Painter's Views 
 
 trusttfl my judgment ; in the evening I mentioned the picture 
 to Gogin who went and looked at it; finding him not less 
 impressed than I had been with the idea that the work was 
 an early one by Rembrandt, I bought it, and the more I look 
 at it the more satisfied I am that we are right. 
 
 People talk as though the making the best of what comes 
 was such an easy matter, whereas nothing in reality requires 
 more experience and good sense. It is only those who know 
 how not to let the luck that runs against them slip, who will 
 be able to find things, no matter how long and how far they 
 go in search of them. [1887.] 
 
 Trying to Buy a Bellini 
 
 Flushed with triumph in the matter of Rembrandt, a fort- 
 night or so afterwards I was at Christie's and saw two 
 pictures that fired me. One was a Madonna and Child by 
 Giovanni Bellini, I do not doubt genuine, not in a very good 
 state, but still not repainted. The Madonna was lovely, the 
 Child very good, the landscape sweet and Belliniesque. 
 I was much smitten and determined to bid up to a hundred 
 pounds ; I knew this would be dirt cheap and was not going 
 to buy at all unless I could get good value. I bid up to a 
 hundred guineas, but there was someone else bent on having 
 it and when he bid 105 guineas I let him have it, not without 
 regret. I saw in the Times that the purchaser's name was 
 Lesser. 
 
 The other picture I tried to get at the same sale (this 
 day week) ; it was a small sketch numbered 72 (I think) and 
 purporting to be by Giorgione but, I fully believe, by Titian. 
 I bid up to iio and then let it go. It went for £28, and I 
 should say would have been well bought at £40. [1887.] 
 
 Watts 
 
 I was telling Gogin how I had seen at Christie's some 
 pictures by Watts and how much I had disliked them. He 
 said some of them had been exhibited in Paris a few years 
 ago and a friend of his led him up to one of them and said 
 in a serious, puzzled, injured tone: 
 
 "Men cher ami, racontez-moi done ceci, s'il vous plait," as 
 
on Painting i53 
 
 though their appearance in such a place at all were some- 
 thing that must have an explanation not obvious upon the 
 face of it. 
 
 Lombard Portals 
 
 The crouching beasts, on whose backs the pillars stand, 
 generally have a little one beneath them or some animal which 
 they have killed, or something, in fact, to give them occu- 
 pation ; it was felt that, though an animal by itself was well, 
 an animal doing something was much better. The mere 
 fact of companionship and silent sympathy is enough to 
 interest, but without this, sculptured animals are stupid, as 
 our lions in Trafalgar Square — which, among other faults, 
 have that of being much too well done. 
 
 So Jones's cat. Prince, picked up a little waif in the court 
 and brought it home, and the two lay together and were 
 much lovelier than Prince was by himself.* 
 
 Holbein at Basle 
 
 How well he has done Night in his "Crucifixion" ! Also he 
 has tried to do the Alps, putting them as background to the 
 city, but he has not done them as we should do them now. 
 I think the tower on the hill behind the city is the tower 
 which we see on leaving Basle on the road for Lucerne, I 
 mean I think Holbein had this tower in his head. 
 
 Van Eyck 
 
 Van Eyck is delightful rather in spite of his high finish 
 than because of it. De Hooghe finishes as highly as any one 
 need do. Van Eyck's finish is saved because up to the last 
 he is essentially impressionist, that is, he keeps a just account 
 of relative importances land keeps them in their true sub- 
 ordination one to another. The only difference between him 
 and Rembrandt or Velasquez is that these, as a general rule, 
 stay their hand at an earlier stage of impressionism. 
 
 * Prince was my cat when I lived in Barnard's Inn. He used to 
 stray into Mr. Kemp's rooms on my landing (see p. 131 ante). Mrs. 
 Kemp's sister brought her child to see them, and the child, playing 
 with Prince one day, made a discovery and exclaimed : 
 
 "Oh ! it's got pins in its toes." 
 
 Butler put this into The Way of all Flesh. 
 
154 A Painter's Views on Painting 
 
 Giotto 
 
 There are few modern painters who are not greater 
 technically than Giotto, but I cannot call to mind a single 
 one whose work impresses me as profoundly as his does. 
 How is it that our so greatly better should be so greatly worse , 
 — that the farther we go beyond him the higher he stands 
 above us ? Time no doubt has much to do with it, for, great 
 as Giotto was, there are painters of to-day not less so, if 
 they only dared express themselves as frankly and unaf- 
 fectedly as he did. 
 
 Early Art 
 
 The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, 
 its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it. 
 
 Sincerity 
 
 It is not enough that the painter should make the spectator 
 feel what he meant him to feel ; he must also make him feel 
 that this feeling was shared by the painter himself bona fide 
 and without affectation. Of all the lies a painter can tell the 
 worst is saying that he likes what he does not like. But the 
 poor wretch seldom knows himself; for the art of knowing 
 what gives him pleasure has been so neglected that it has 
 been lost to all but a very few. The old Italians knew well 
 enough what they liked and were as children in saying it. 
 
X 
 
 The Position of a Homo Unius Libri 
 
 Triibner and Myself 
 
 When I went back to Triibner, after Bogue had failed, I 
 had a talk with him and his partner. I could see they had 
 lost all faith in my literary prospects. Trubner told me I 
 was a homo unius libri, meaning Erewhon. He said I was in 
 a very solitary position. I replied that I knew I was, but it 
 suited me. I said: 
 
 "I pay my way; when I -v^as with you before, I never 
 owed you money; you find me now not owing my publisher 
 money, but my publisher in debt to me ; I never owe so much 
 as a tailor's bill; beyond secured debts, I do not owe £5 in 
 the world and never have" (which is quite true). "I get 
 my summer's holiday in Italy every year ; I live very quietly 
 and cheaply, but it suits my health and tastes, and I have 
 no acquaintances but those I value. My friends stick by me. 
 If I was to get in with these literary and scientific people 
 I should hate them and they me. I should fritter away my 
 time and my freedom without getting a quid pro quo: as it 
 is, I am free and I give the swells every now and then such 
 a facer as they get from no one else. Of course I don't ex^ 
 pect to get on in a commercial sense at present, I do not go 
 the right way to work for this; but I am going the right 
 way to secure a lasting reputation and this is what I do care 
 for. A man cannot have both, he must make up his mind 
 which' he means going in for. I have gone in for posthumous 
 fame and -I see no step in my literary career which I do not' 
 think calculated to promote my being held in esteem when the 
 heat of passion has subsided." 
 
 Triibner shrugged his shoulders. He plainly does not be- 
 
 15s 
 
156 The Position 
 
 Heve that I shall succeed in getting a hearing; he thinks the 
 combination of the religious and cultured world too strong 
 for me to stand against. 
 
 If he means that the reviewers will burke me as far as 
 they can, no doubt he is right; but when I am dead there 
 will be other reviewers and I have already done enough to 
 secure that they shall from time to time look me up. They 
 won't bore me then but they will be just like the present 
 ones. [1882.] 
 
 Capping a Success 
 
 When I had written Erewhon people wanted me at once 
 to set to work and write another book like it. How could 
 I ? I cannot think how I escaped plunging into writing some 
 laboured stupid book. I am very glad I did escape. Nothing 
 is so cruel as to try and force a man beyond his natural 
 pace. If he has got more stuff in him it will come out in 
 its own time and its own way: if he has not — let the poor 
 wretch alone; to have done one decent book should be 
 enough; the very worst way to get another out of him is to 
 press him. The more promise a young writer has given, the 
 more his friends should urge him not to over-tax himself. 
 
 A Lady Critic 
 
 A lady, whom I meet frequently in the British Museum 
 reading-room and elsewhere, said to me the other day : 
 
 "Why don't you write another Erewhon?" 
 
 "Why, my dear lady," I replied, "Life and Habit was an- 
 other Erewhon." 
 
 They say these things to me continually to plague me and 
 make out that I could do one good book but never any 
 more. She is the sort of person who if she had known 
 Shakespeare would have said to him, when he wrote Henry 
 the IV th: 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Shakespeare, why don't you write us another 
 Titus Andronicus? Now that was a sweet play, that 
 was." 
 
 And when he had done Antony and Cleopatra she would 
 have told him that her favourite plays were the three parts 
 of King Henry VI. 
 
of a Homo Unius Libri 1^7 
 
 Compensation 
 
 If I die prematurely, at any rate I shall be saved from 
 being bored by my own success. 
 
 Hudibras and Erewhon 
 
 I was completing the purchase of some small houses at 
 Lewisham and had to sign my name. The vendor, merely 
 seeing the name and knowing none of my books, said to me, 
 rather rudely, but without meaning any mischief: 
 
 "Have you written any books like Hudibras?" 
 
 I said promptly : "Certainly ; Erewhon is quite as good a 
 book as Hudibras." 
 
 This was coming it too strong for him, so he thought I 
 had not heard and repeated his question. I said again as 
 before, and he shut up. I sent him a copy of Erewhon im- 
 mediately after we had completed. It was rather tall talk 
 on my part, I admit, but he should not have challenged me 
 unprovoked. 
 
 Life and Habit and Myself 
 
 At the Century Club I was talking with a man who asked 
 me why I did not publish the substance of what I had been 
 saying. I believed he knew me and said : 
 
 "Well, you know, there's Life and Habit." 
 
 He did not seem to rise at all, so I asked him if he had seen 
 the book. 
 
 "Seen it?" he answered. "Why, I should think every 
 one has seen Life and Habit: but what's that got to do with 
 it?" 
 
 I said it had taken me so much time lately that I had 
 had none to spare for anything else. Again he did not seem 
 to see the force of the remark and a friend, who was close by, 
 said: 
 
 "You know, Butler wrote Life and Habit." 
 
 He would not believe it, and it was only after repeated 
 assurance that he accepted it. It was plain he thought a 
 great deal of Life and Habit and had idealised its author, 
 
158 The Position 
 
 whom he was disappointed to find so very commonplace a 
 person. Exactly the same thing happened to me with Ere- 
 whon. I was glad to find that Life and Habit had made so 
 deep an impression at any rate upon one person. 
 
 A Disappointing Person 
 
 I suspect I am rather a disappointing person, for every 
 now and then there is a fuss and I am to meet some one who 
 would very much like to make my acquaintance, or some 
 one writes me a letter and says he has long admired my 
 books, and may he, etc.? Of course I say "Yes," but ex- 
 perience has taught me that it always ends in turning some 
 one who was more or less inclined to run me into one who 
 considers he has a grievance against me for not being a very 
 different kind of person from what I am. These people how- 
 ever (and this happens on an average once or twice a year) 
 do not come solely to see me, they generally tell me 
 all about themselves and the impression is left upon me that 
 they have really come in order to be praised. I am as 
 civil to them as I know how to be but enthusiastic I never 
 am, for they have never any of them been nice people, and 
 it is my want of enthusiasm for themselves as much as any- 
 thing else which disappoints them. They seldom come again. 
 Mr. Alfred Tylor was the only acquaintance I have 
 ever made through being sent for to be looked at, or letting 
 some one come to look at me, who turned out a valuable ally; 
 but then he sent for me through mutual friends in the usual 
 way. 
 
 Entertaining Angels 
 
 I doubt whether any angel would find me very entertaining. 
 As for myself, if ever I do entertain one it will have to be 
 unawares. When people entertain others without an intro- 
 duction they generally turn out more like devils than angels; 
 
 Myself and My Books 
 
 The balance against them is now over £350. How com- 
 pletely they must have been squashed unless I had had a 
 little money of my own. Is it not Ukely that many a better 
 
of a Homo Unius Libri 159 
 
 writer than I am is squashed through want of money ? What- 
 ever I do I must not die poor ; these examples of ill-requited 
 labour are immoral, they discourage the effort of those 
 who could and would do good things if they did not know 
 that it would ruin themselves and their families; moreover, 
 they set people on to pamper a dozen fools for each neglected 
 man of merit, out of compunction. Genius, they say, always 
 wears an invisible cloak; these men wear invisible cloaks — 
 therefore they are geniuses; and it flatters them to think 
 that they can see more than their neighbours. The neglect 
 of one such man as the author of Hudibras is compensated 
 for by the petting of a dozen others who would be the first 
 to jump upon the author of Hudibras if he were to come back 
 to life. 
 
 Heaven forbid that I should compare myself to the author 
 of Hudibras, but still, if my books succeed after my death — 
 which they may or may not, I know nothing about it — any. 
 way, if they do succeed, let it be understood that they failed 
 during my life for a few very obvious reasons of which I 
 was quite aware, for the effect of which I was prepared before 
 I wrote my books, and which on consideration I found in- 
 sufficient to deter me. I attacked people who were at once 
 unscrupulous and powerful, and I made no alliances. I did 
 this because I did not want to be bored and have my time 
 wasted and my pleasures curtailed. I had money enough 
 to live on, and preferred addressing myself to posterity rather 
 than to any except a very few of my own contemporaries. 
 Those few I have always kept well in mind. I think of 
 them continually when in doubt about any passage, but be- 
 yond those few I will not go. Posterity will give a man a 
 fair hearing; his own times will not do so if he is attacking 
 vested interests, and I have attacked two powerful sets of 
 vested interests at once. [The Church and Science.] What 
 is the good of addressing people who will not listen ? I have 
 addressed the next generation and have therefore said many 
 things which want time before they become palatable. Any 
 man who wishes his work to stand will sacrifice a good deal 
 of his immediate audience for the sake of being attractive to 
 a much larger number of people later on. He cannot gain_ 
 this later audience unless he has been fearless and thorough- 
 going, and if he is this he is sure to have to tread on the 
 
i6o The Position 
 
 corns of a great many of those who live at the same time 
 with him, however little he may wish to do so. He must 
 not expect these people to help him on, nor wonder if, for 
 a time, they succeed in snuffing him out. It is part of the 
 swim that it should be so. Only, as one who believes himself 
 to have practised what he preaches, let me assure any one 
 who has money of his own that to write fearlessly for pos- 
 terity and not get paid for it is much better fun than I can 
 imagine its being to write like, we will say, George Eliot and 
 make a lot of money by it. [ 1883.] 
 
 Dragons 
 
 People say that there are neither dragons to be killed 
 nor distressed maidens to be rescued nowadays. I do not 
 know, but I think I have dropped across one jor two, nor 
 do I feel sure whether the most mortal wounds have been 
 inflicted by the dragons or by myself. 
 
 Trying to Know 
 
 There are some things which it is madness not to try to 
 know but which it is almost as much madness to try to know. 
 Sometimes publishers, hoping to buy the Holy Ghost with 
 a price, fee a man to read for them and advise them. This is 
 but as the vain tossing of insomnia. God will not have any 
 human being know what will sell, nor when any one is going 
 to die, nor anything about the ultimate, or even the deeper, 
 springs of growth and action, nor yet such a little thing as 
 whether it is going to rain to-morrow. I do not say that the 
 impossibility of being certain about these and similar matters 
 was designed, but it is as complete as though it had been not. 
 only designed but designed exceedingly well. 
 
 Squaring Accounts 
 
 We owe past generations not only for the master discover- 
 ies of music, science, literature and art — few of which 
 brought profit to those to whom they were revealed — but also 
 for our organism itself which is an inheritance gathered and 
 
of a Homo Unius Libri i6i 
 
 garnered by those who have gone before us. What money 
 have we paid not for Handel and Shakespeare only but for 
 our eyes and ears? 
 
 And so with regard to our contemporaries. A man is 
 sometimes tempted to exclaim that he does not fare well 
 at the hands of his own generation; that, although he may 
 play pretty assiduously, he is received with more hisses than 
 applause; that the public is hard to please, slow to praise, 
 and bent on driving as hard a bargain as it can. This, 
 however, is only what he should expect. No sensible man 
 will suppose himself to be of so much importance that his 
 contemporaries should be at much pains to get at the truth 
 concerning him. As for my own position, if I say the 
 things I want to say without troubling myself about the 
 public, why should I grumble at the public for not troubling 
 about me? Besides, not being paid myself, I can in better 
 conscience use the works of others, as I daily do, without 
 paying for them and without being at the trouble of praising 
 or thanking them more than I have a mind to. And, after 
 all, how can I say I am not paid? In addition to aJl that 
 I inherit from past generations I receive from my own every- 
 thing that makes life worth living — London, with its infinite 
 sources of pleasure and amusement, good theatres, concerts, 
 picture galleries, the British Museum Reading-Room, news- 
 papers, a comfortable dwelling, railways and, above all, the 
 society of the friends I value. 
 
 Charles Darwin on what Sells a Book 
 
 I remember when I was at Down we were talking of what 
 it is that sells a book. Mr. Darwin said he did not believe it 
 was reviews or advertisements, but simply "being talked 
 about" that sold a book. 
 
 I believe he is quite right here, but surely a good flaming 
 review helps to get a book talked about. I have often in- 
 quired at my publishers' after a review and I never found one 
 that made any perceptible increase or decrease of sale, and 
 the same with advertisements. I think, however, that the 
 review of Erewhon in the Spectator did sell a few copies of 
 Erewhon, but then it was such a very strong one and the 
 anonymousness of the book stimulated curiosity. A percep- 
 
1 62 The Position 
 
 tion of the value of a review, whether friendly or hostile, is 
 as old as St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians.* 
 
 Hoodwinking the Public 
 
 Sincerity or honesty is a low and very rudimentary form 
 of virtue that is only to be found to any considerable extent 
 among the protozoa. Compare, for example, the integrity, 
 sincerity and absolute refusal either to deceive or be deceived 
 that exists in the germ-cells of any individual, with the in- 
 stinctive aptitude for lying that is to be observed in the full- 
 grown man. The full-grown man is compacted of lies and 
 shams which are to him as the breath of his nostrils. Whereas 
 the germ-cells will not be humbugged ; they will tell the truth 
 as near as they can. They know their ancestors meant well 
 and will tend to become even more sincere themselves. 
 
 Thus, if a painter has not tried hard to paint well and has 
 tried hard to hoodwink the public, his offspring is not likely 
 to show hereditary aptitude for painting, but is likely to 
 have an improved power of hoodwinking the public. So it 
 is with music, literature, science or anything else. The only 
 thing the public can do against this is to try hard to develop 
 a hereditary power of not being hoodwinked. From the small 
 success it has met with hitherto we may think that the effort 
 on its part can have been neither severe nor long sustained. 
 Indeed, all ages seem to have held that "the pleasure is as 
 great of being cheated as to cheat." 
 
 The Public Ear 
 
 Those who have squatted upon it may be trusted to keep 
 off other squatters if they can. The public ear is like the land 
 which looks infinite but is all parcelled out into fields and 
 
 * Philippians i. 15-18 : — 
 
 Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also 
 of good will: 
 
 The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to 
 add affliction to my bonds : 
 
 But the other of love, knovi^ing that I am set for the defence of the 
 gospel. 
 
 What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or 
 in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will 
 rejoice. 
 
of a Homo Uniiis Libri 163 
 
 private ownerships — barring, of course, highways and com- 
 mons. So the universe, which looks so big, may be supposed 
 as really all parcelled out among the stars that stud It. 
 
 Or the public ear is like a common ; there is not much to 
 be got off it, but that little is for the most part grazed down 
 by geese and donkeys. 
 
 Those who wish to gain the public ear should bear in mind 
 that people do not generally want to be made less foolish or 
 less wicked. What they want is to be told that they are not 
 foolish and not wicked. Now it is only a fool or a liar or 
 both who can tell them this; the masses therefore cannot be 
 expected to like any but fools or liars or both. So when a 
 lady gets photographed, what she wants is not to be made 
 beautiful but to be told that she is beautiful. 
 
 Secular Thinking 
 
 The ages do their thinking much as the individual does. 
 When xonsidering a difficult question, we think alternately 
 for several seconds together of details, even the minutest 
 seeming important, and then of broad general principles, 
 whereupon even large details become unimportant; again we 
 have bouts during which rules, logic and technicalities en- 
 gross us, followed by others in which the unwritten and un- 
 writable common sense of grace defies and over-rides the law. 
 That is to say, we have our inductive fits and our deductive 
 fits, our arrangements according to the letter and according 
 to the spirit, our conclusions drawn from logic secundum 
 artem and from absurdity and the character of the arguer. 
 This heterogeneous mass of considerations forms the mental 
 pabulum with which we feed our minds. How that pabulum 
 becomes amalgamated, reduced to uniformity and turned into 
 the growth of complete opinion we can no more tell than we 
 can say when, how and where food becomes flesh and blood. 
 All we can say is that the miracle, stupendous as it is and 
 involving the stultification of every intelligible principle on 
 which thought and action are based, is nevertheless worked a 
 thousand times an hour by every one of us. 
 
 The formation of public opinion is as mysterious as that of 
 individual, but, so far as we can form any opinion about that 
 which forms our opinions in such large measure, the pro- 
 
164 The Position 
 
 cesses appear to resemble one another much as rain drops 
 resemble one another. There is essential agreement in 
 spite of essential difference. So that here, as everywhere 
 else, we no sooner scratch the soil than we come upon 
 the granite of contradiction in terms and can scratch no 
 further. 
 
 As for ourselves, we are passing through an inductive, 
 technical, speculative period and have gone such lengths in 
 this direction that a reaction, during which we shall pass to 
 the other extreme, may be confidently predicted. 
 
 The Art of Propagating Opinion 
 
 He who would propagate an opinion must begin by making 
 sure of his ground and holding it firmly. There is as little 
 use in trying to breed, from weak opinion as from other weak 
 stock, animal or vegetable. 
 
 The more securely a man holds an opinion, the more tem- 
 perate he can afford to be, and the more temperate he is, 
 the more weight he will carry with those who are in the long 
 run weightiest. Ideas and opinions, like living organisms, 
 have a normal rate of growth which cannot be either checked 
 or forced beyond a certain point. They can be held in check 
 more safely than they can be hurried. They can also be 
 killed ; and one of the surest ways to kill them is to try to 
 hurry them. 
 
 The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is 
 it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his ob- 
 servance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, 
 he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the 
 jvorld. 
 
 Arguments are not so good as assertion. Arguments are 
 like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not 
 carry about with him. Indirect assertion, leaving the hearer 
 to point the inference, is, as a rule, to be preferred. The 
 one great argument with most people is that another should 
 think this or that. The reasons of the belief are details and, 
 in nine cases out of ten, best omitted as confusing and weak- 
 ening the general impression. 
 
 Many, if not most, good ideas die young — mainly from 
 neglect on the part of the parents, but sometimes from over- 
 
of a Homo Unius Libri 165 
 
 fondness. Once well started, an opinion had better be left 
 to shift for itself. 
 
 Insist as far as possible on the insignificance of the points 
 of difference as compared with the resemblances to opinions 
 generally accepted. 
 
 Gladstone as a Financier 
 
 I said to my tobacconist that Gladstone was not a financier 
 because he bought a lot of china at high prices and it fetched 
 very little when it was sold at Christie's. 
 
 "Did he give high prices ?" said the tobacconist. 
 
 "Enormous prices," said I emphatically. 
 
 Now, to tell the truth, I did not know whether Mr. Glad- 
 stone had ever bought the china at all, much less what he 
 gave for it, if he did; he may have had it all left him for 
 aught I knew. But I was going to appeal to my tobacconist 
 by arguments that he could understand, and I could see he 
 was much impressed. 
 
 Argument 
 
 Argument is generally waste of time and trouble. It is 
 better to present one's opinion and leave it to stick or no 
 as it may happen. If sound, it will probably in the end stick, 
 and the sticking is the main thing. 
 
 Humour 
 
 What a frightful thing it would be if true humour were 
 more common or, rather, more easy to see, for it is more 
 common than those are who can see it. It would block the 
 way of everything. Perhaps this is what people rather feel. 
 It would be like Music in the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, it 
 would "untune the sky." 
 
 I do not know quite what is meant by untuning the sky 
 and, if I did, I cannot think that there is anything to be 
 particularly gained by having the sky untuned; still, if it 
 has got to be untuned at all, I am sure music is the only 
 thing that can untune it. Rapson, however, whom I used 
 to see in the coin room at the British Museum, told me it 
 
1 66 The Position 
 
 should be "entune the sky" and it sounds as though he were 
 right. 
 
 Myself and "Unconscious Humour" 
 
 The phrase "unconscious humour" is the one contribution 
 I have made to the current literature of the day. I am con- 
 tinually seeing unconscious humour (without quotation 
 marks) alluded to in Times articles and other like places, but 
 I never remember to have come across it as a synonym for 
 dullness till I wrote Life and Habit. 
 
 My Humour 
 
 The thing to say about me just now is that my humour is 
 forced. This began to reach me in connection with my article 
 "Quis Desiderio . . . ?" [Universal Review, 1888] and is 
 now, [1889] I understand, pretty generally perceived even 
 by those who had not found it out for themselves. 
 
 I am not aware of forcing myself to say anything which 
 has not amused me, which is not apposite and which I do not 
 believe will amuse a neutral reader, but I may very well do 
 so without knowing it. As for my humour, I am like my 
 father and grandfather, both of whom liked a good thing 
 heartily enough if it was told them, but I do not often say a 
 good thing myself. Very likely my humour, what little there 
 is of it, is forced enough. I do not care so long as it amuses 
 me and, such as it is, I shall vent it in my own way and at 
 my own time. 
 
 Myself and My Publishers 
 
 , I see my publishers are bringing out a new magazine with 
 all the usual contributors. Of course they don't ask me to 
 write and this shows that they do not think my name would 
 help their magazine. This, I imagine, means that Andrew 
 Lang has told them that my humour is forced. I should not 
 myself say that Andrew Lang's humour would lose by a little 
 forcing. 
 
 I have seen enough of my publishers to know that they have 
 no ideas of their own about literature save what they can 
 
of a Homo Unius Libri 167 
 
 clutch at as believing it to be a straight tip from a business 
 point of view. Heaven forbid that I should blame them for 
 doing exactly what I should do myself in their place, but, 
 things being as they are, they are no use to me. They have 
 no confidence in me and they must have this or they will do 
 nothing for me beyond keeping my books oh their shelves. 
 
 Perhaps it is better that I should not have a chance of be- 
 coming a hack-writer, for I should grasp it at once if it were 
 offered me. 
 
XI 
 Cash and Credit 
 
 The Unseen World 
 
 I BELIEVE there is an unseen world about which we know 
 nothing as firmly as any one can believe it. I see things 
 coming up from it into the visible world and going down 
 again from the seen world to the unseen. But my unseen 
 world is to be bona fide unseen and, in so far as I say I know 
 anything about it, I stultify myself. It should no more be 
 described than God should be represented in painting or 
 sculpture. It is as the other side of the moon; we know it 
 must be there but we know also that, in the nature of things, 
 we can never see it. Sometimes, some trifle of it may sway 
 into sight and out again, but it is so little that it is not worth 
 counting as having been seen. 
 
 The Kingdom of Heaven 
 
 The world admits that there is another world, that there 
 is a kingdom, veritable and worth having, which, nevertheless, 
 is invisible and has nothing to do with any kingdom such 
 as we now see. It agrees that the wisdom of this other 
 kingdom is foolishness here on earth, while the wisdom of 
 the world is foolishness in the Kingdom of Heaven. In our 
 hearts we know that the Kingdom of Heaven is the Jiigher of 
 the two and the better worth living and dying for, and that, 
 if it is to be won, it must be sought steadfastly and in single- 
 ness of heart by those who put all else on one side and, 
 shrinking from no sacrifice, are ready to face shame, poverty 
 and torture here rather than abandon the hope of the prize of 
 
 i68 
 
Cash and Credit 169 
 
 their high calling. Nobody who doubts any of this is worth 
 talking with. 
 
 The question is, where is this Heavenly Kingdom, and 
 what way are we to take to find it? Happily the answer is 
 easy, for we are not likely to go wrong if in all simplicity, 
 humility and good faith we heartily desire to find it and fol- 
 low the dictates of ordinary common-sense. 
 
 The Philosopher 
 
 He should have made many mistakes and been saved often 
 by the skin of his teeth, for the skin of one's teeth is the 
 most teaching thing about one. He should have been, or at 
 any rate believed himself, a great fool and a great criminal. 
 He should have cut himself adrift from society, and yet not 
 be without society. He should have given up all, even 
 Christ himself, for Christ's sake. He should be above fear or 
 love or hate, and yet know them extremely well. He should 
 have lost all save a small competence and know what a 
 vantage ground it is to be an outcast. Destruction and Death 
 say they have heard the fame of wisdom with their ears, and 
 the philosopher must have been close up to these if he too 
 would hear it. 
 
 The Artist and the Shopkeeper 
 
 Most artists, whether in religion, music, literature, paint- 
 ing, or what not, are shopkeepers in disguise. They hide 
 their shop as much as they can, and keep pretending that 
 it does not exist, but they are essentially shopkeepers and 
 nothing else. Why do I try to sell my books and feel regret 
 at never seeing them pay their expenses if I am not a shop- 
 keeper ? Of course I am, only I keep a bad shop — a shop that 
 does not pay. 
 
 In like manner, the professed shopkeeper has generally a 
 taint of the artist somewhere about him which he tries to 
 conceal as much as the professed artist tries to conceal his 
 shopkeeping. 
 
 The business man and the arist are like matter and mind. 
 We can never get either pure and without some alloy of the 
 other. 
 
I70 Cash and Credit 
 
 Art and Trade 
 
 People confound literature and article-dealing because the 
 plant in both cases is similar, but no two things can be 
 more distinct. Neithei- the question of money nor that of 
 friend or foe can enter into literature proper. Here, right 
 feeling — or good taste, if this expression be preferred-^is 
 alone considered. If a bona fide writer thinks a thing wants 
 saying, he will say it as tersely, clearly and elegantly as he 
 can. The question whether it will do him personally good or 
 harm, or how it will affect this or that friend, never enters 
 his head, or, if it does, it is instantly ordered out again. The 
 only personal gratifications allowed him (apart, of course, 
 from such as are conceded to every one, writer or no) are 
 those of keeping his good name spotless among those whose 
 opinion is alone worth having and of maintaining the highest 
 traditions of a noble calling. If a man^- lives in fear and 
 trembling lest he should fail in these respects, if he finds these 
 considerations alone weigh with him, if he never writes with- 
 out thinking how he shall best serve good causes and damage 
 bad ones, then he is a genuine man of letters. If in addition 
 to this he succeeds in making his manner attractive, he will 
 become a classic. He knows this. He knows, although the 
 Greeks in their mythology forgot to say so, that Conceit was 
 saved to mankind as well as Hope when Pandora .clapped the 
 lid on to her box. 
 
 With the article-dealer, on the other hand, money is, and 
 ought to be, the first consideration. Literature is an art; 
 article-writing, when a man is paid for it, is a trade and none 
 the worse for that ; but pot-boilers are one thing and genuine 
 pictures are another. People have indeed been paid for 
 some of the most genuine pictures ever painted, and so with 
 music, and so with literature itself — hard-and-fast lines ever 
 cut the fingers of those who draw them — ^but, as a general 
 rule, most lasting art has been poorly paid, so far as money 
 goes, till the artist was near the end of his time, and, whether 
 money passed or no, we may be sure that it was not thought 
 of. Such work is done as a bird sings — for the love of the 
 thing; it is persevered in as long as body and soul can be 
 kept together, whether there be pay or no, and perhaps better 
 if there be no pay. 
 
Cash and Credit 171 
 
 Nevertheless, though art disregards money and trade dis- 
 regards art, the artist may stand not a little trade-alloy and 
 be even toughened by it, and the tradesmen may be more 
 than half an artist. Art is in the world but not of it; it 
 lives in a kingdom of its own, governed by laws that none 
 but artists can understand. This, at least, is the ideal to- 
 wards which an artist tends, though we all very well know 
 we none of us reach it. With the trade it is exactly the 
 reverse; this world is, and ought to be, everything, and the 
 invisible world is as little to the trade as this visible world is 
 to the artist. 
 
 When I say the artist tends towards such a world, I mean 
 not that he tends consciously and reasoningly but that his 
 instinct to take this direction will be too strong to let him 
 take any other. He is incapable of reasoning on the subject; 
 if he could reason he would be lost qua artist ; for, by every 
 test that reason can apply, those who sell themselves for a 
 price are in the right. The artist is guided by a faith that 
 for him transcends all reason. Granted that this faith has 
 been in great measure founded on reason, that it has grown 
 up along with reason, that if it lose touch with reason it is no 
 longer faith but madness; granted, again, that reason is in 
 great measure founded on faith, that it has grown up along 
 with faith, that if it lose touch with faith it is no longer 
 reason but mechanism; granted, therefore, that faith grows 
 with reason as will with power, as demand with supply, as 
 mind with body, each stimulating and augmenting the other 
 until an invisible, minute nucleus attains colossal growth — 
 nevertheless the difference between the man of the world and 
 the man who lives by faith is that the first is drawn towards 
 the one and the second towards the other of two principles 
 which, so far as we can see, are co-extensive and co-equal in 
 importance. 
 
 Money 
 
 It is curious that money, which is the most valuable thing 
 in life, exceptis excipiendis, should be the most fatal corrupter 
 of music, literature, painting and all the arts. As soon as 
 any art is pursued with a view to money, then farewell, in 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good 
 
172 Cash and Credit 
 
 work. If a man has money at his back, he may touch these 
 things and do something which will live a long while, and he 
 may be very happy in doing it; if he has no money, he may 
 do good work, but the chances are he will be killed in doing 
 it and for having done it; or he may make himself happy 
 by doing bad work and getting money out of it, and there is 
 no great harm in this, provided he knows his work is done in 
 , this spirit and rates it for its commercial value only. Still, 
 as a rule, a man should not touch any of the arts as a creator 
 unless he has a discreta posisionina behind him. 
 
 Modern Simony 
 
 It is not the dealing in livings but the thinking they can buy 
 the Holy Ghost for money which vulgar rich people indulge 
 in when they dabble in literature, music and painting. 
 
 Nevertheless, on reflection it must be admitted that the 
 Holy Ghost is very hard to come by without money. For the 
 Holy Ghost is only another term for the Fear of the Lord, 
 which is Wisdom. And though Wisdom cannot be gotten for 
 gold, still less can it be gotten without it. Gold, or the value 
 that is equivalent to gold, lies at the root of Wisdom, and 
 enters so largely into the very essence of the Holy Ghost 
 that "No gold, no Holy Ghost" may pass as an axiom. This 
 is perhaps why it is not easy to buy Wisdom by whatever 
 name it be called — I mean, because it is almost impossible 
 to sell it. It is a very unmarketable commodity, as those 
 who have I'eceived it truly know to their own great bane and 
 boon. 
 
 My Grandfather and Myself 
 
 My grandfather worked very hard all his life, and was 
 makmg money all the time until he became a bishop. I have 
 worked very hard all my life, but have never been able to 
 earn money. As usefulness is generally counted, no one can 
 be more useless. This I believe to be largely due to the 
 public-school and university teaching through which my 
 grandfather made his money. Yes, but then if he is largely 
 responsible for that which has made me useless, has he not 
 also left me the hardly-won money which makes my useless- 
 
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 ness sufficiently agreeable to myself? And would not the 
 poor old gentleman gladly change lots with me, if he could? 
 I do not know; but I should be sorry to change lots with 
 him or with any one else, so I need not grumble. I said in 
 Luck or Cunning? that the only way (at least I think I said 
 so) in which a teacher can thoroughly imbue an unwilling 
 learner with his own opinions is for the teacher to eat the 
 pupil up and thus assimilate him — if he can, for it is possible 
 that the pupil may continue to disagree with the teacher. 
 And as a matter of fact, school-masters do live upon their 
 pupils, and I, as my grandfather's grandson, continue to bat- 
 ten upon old pupil. 
 
 Art and Usefulness 
 
 Tedder, the Librarian of the Athenaeum, said to me when 
 I told him (I have only seen him twice) what poor success 
 my books had met with : 
 
 "Yes, but you have made the great mistake of being use- 
 ful." 
 
 This, for the moment, displeased me, for I know that I 
 have always tried to make my work useful and should not 
 care about doing it at all unless I believed it to subserve use 
 more or less directly. Yet when I look at those works which 
 we all hold to be the crowning glories of the world as, for 
 example, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Hamlet, the Messiah, 
 Rembrandt's portraits, or Holbein's, or Giovanni Bellini's, 
 the connection between them and use is, to say the least of 
 it, far from obvious. Music, indeed, can hardly be tortured 
 Into being useful at all, unless to drown the cries of the 
 wounded in battle, or to enable people to talk more frfeely at 
 evening parties. The uses, again, of painting in its highest 
 forms are very doubtful — I mean in any material sense; in 
 its lower forms, when it becomes more diagrammatic, it is 
 materially useful. Literature may be useful from its lowest 
 forms to nearly its highest, but the highest cannot be put in 
 harness to any but spiritual uses; and the fact remains that 
 the "Hallelujah Chorus," the speech of Hamlet to the players, 
 Bellini's "Doge" have their only uses in a spiritual world 
 whereto the word "uses" is as alien as bodily flesh is to a choir 
 of angels. As it is fatal to the highest art that it should have 
 
174 Cash and Credit 
 
 been done for money, so it seems hardly less fatal that it 
 should be done with a view to those uses that tend towards 
 money. 
 
 And yet, was not the Iliad written mainly with a view to 
 money? Did not Shakespeare make money by his plays, 
 Handel by his music, and the noblest painters by their art? 
 True; but in all these cases, I take it, love of fame and that 
 most potent and, at the same time, unpractical form of it, 
 the lust after fame beyond the grave, was the mainspring of 
 the action, the money being but a concomitant accident. 
 Money is like the wind that bloweth whithersoever it listeth, 
 sometimes it chooses to attach itself to high feats of litera- 
 ture and art and music, but more commonly it prefers lower 
 company. . . . 
 
 I can continue this note no further, for there is no end to 
 it. Briefly, the world resolves itself into two great classes — 
 those who hold that honour after death is better worth hav- 
 ing than any honour a man can get and know anything about, 
 and those who doubt this; to my mind, those who hold it, 
 and hold it firmly, are the only people worth thinking about. 
 They will also hold that, important as the physical world 
 obviously is, the spiritual world, of which we know little 
 beyond its bare existence, is more important still. 
 
 Genius 
 
 Genius is akin both to madness and inspiration and, as 
 every one is both more or less inspired and more or less mad, 
 every one has more or less genius. When, therefore, we 
 speak of genius we do not mean an absolute thing which 
 some men have and others have not, but a small scale- 
 turning overweight of a something which we all have but 
 which we cannot either define or apprehend — the quantum 
 which we all have being allowed to go without saying. 
 
 This small excess weight has been defined as a supreme 
 capacity for taking trouble, but he who thus defined it can 
 hanily claim genius in respect of his own definition — his 
 capacity for talcing trouble does not seem to have been ab- 
 normal. It might be more fitly described as a supreme ca- 
 pacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and 
 
Cash and Credit i^S 
 
 keq)mg them therein so long as the genius remains. Peo- 
 ple who are credited with genius have, indeed, been some- 
 times very painstaking, but they would often show more 
 signs of genius if they had taken less. "You have taken 
 too much trouble with your opera," said Handel to Gluck. 
 It is not likely that the "Hailstone Chorus" or Mrs. Quickly 
 cost their creators much pains, indeed, we commonly feel 
 the ease with which a difficult feat has been performed to 
 be a more distinctive mark of genius than the fact that the 
 performer took great pains before he could achieve it. Pains 
 can serve genius, or even mar it, but they cannot make it. 
 
 We can rarely, however, say what pains have or have not 
 been taken in any particular case, for, over and above the 
 spent pains of a man's early efforts, the force of which may 
 carry him far beyond all trace of themselves, there are the 
 still more remote and invisible ancestral pains, repeated we 
 know not how often or in what fortunate correlation with 
 pains taken in some other and unseen direction. This points 
 to the conclusion that, though it is wrong to suppose the 
 essence of genius to lie in a capacity for taking pains, it is 
 right to hold that it must Have been rooted in pains and that 
 it cannot have grown up without them. '- - •. 
 
 Genius, again, might, perhaps almost as well, be defined 
 as a supreme capacity for saving other people from having 
 to take pains, if the highest flights of genius did not seem 
 to know nothing about pains one way or the other. What 
 trouble can Hamlet or the Iliad save to any one? Genius 
 can, and does, save it sometimes ; the genius of Newton may 
 have saved a good deal of trouble one way or another, but it 
 has probably engendered as much new as it has saved old. 
 
 This, however, is all a matter of chance, for genius never 
 seems to care whether it makes the burden or bears it. The 
 only certain thing is that there will be a burden, for the 
 Holy Ghost has ever tended towards a breach of the peace, 
 and the New Jerusalem, when it comes, will probably be 
 found so far to resemble the old as to stone its prophets 
 freely. The world thy world is a jealous world, and thou 
 shalt have none other worlds but it. Genius points to change, 
 and change is a hankering after another world, so the old 
 world suspects it. Grenius disturbs order, it unsettles mores 
 and hence it is immoral. On a small scale it is intolerable, 
 
176 Cash and Credit 
 
 but genius will have no small scales ; it is even more immoral 
 for a man to be too far in front than to lag too far behind. 
 The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation, but this 
 is unpractical, so a peck of change is permitted to every one, 
 but it must be a peck only, whereas genius would have ever 
 so many sacks full. There is a myth among some Eastern 
 nation that at the birth of Genius an unkind fairy marred 
 all the good gifts of the other fairies by depriving it of the 
 power of knowing where to stop. 
 
 Nor does genius care more about money than about trouble. 
 It is no respecter of time, trouble, money or persons, the 
 four things round which human affairs turn most persistently. 
 It will not go a hair's breadth from its way either to embrace 
 fortune or to avoid her. It is, like Love, "too young to 
 know the worth of gold." * It knows, indeed, both love and 
 hate, but not as we know them, for it will fly for help to 
 its bitterest foe, or attack its dearest friend in the interests 
 of the art it serves. 
 
 Yet this genius, which so despises the world, is the only 
 thing of which the world is permanently enamoured, and the 
 more it flouts the world, the more the world worships it, 
 when it has once well killed it in the flesh. Who can under- 
 stand this eternal crossing in love and contradiction in terms 
 which warps the woof of actions and things from the atom 
 to the universe? The more a man despises time, trouble, 
 money, persons, place and everything on which the world 
 insists as most essential to salvation, the more pious will 
 this same world hold him to have been. What a fund of 
 universal unconscious scepticism must underlie the world's 
 opinions ! For we are all alike in our worship of genius that 
 has passed through the fire. Nor can this universal instinctive 
 consent be explained otherwise than as the welling up of a 
 spring whose sources lie deep in the conviction that great 
 as this world is, it masks a greater wherein its wisdom is 
 folly and which we know as blind men know where the sun 
 is shining, certainly, but not distinctly. 
 
 This should in itself be enough to prove that such a world 
 exists, but there is still another proof in the fact that so many 
 come among us showing instinctive and ineradicable famil- 
 iarity with a state of things which has no counterpart here, 
 
 * Narcisstis, "Should Riches mate with Love." 
 
Cash and Credit i77 
 
 and cannot, therefore, have been acquired here. From such 
 a world we come, every one of us, but some seem to have a 
 more living recollection of it than others. Perfect recollection 
 of it no man can have, for to put on flesh is to have all one's 
 other memories jarred beyond power of conscious recognition. 
 And genius must put on flesh, for it is only by the hook and 
 crook of taint and flesh that tainted beings like ourselves 
 can apprehend it, only in and through flesh can it be made 
 manifest to us at all. The flesh and the shop will return 
 no matter with how many pitchforks we expel them, for we 
 cannot conceivably expel them thoroughly; therefore it is 
 better not to be too hard upon them. And yet this same 
 flesh cloaks genius at the very time that it reveals it. It 
 seems as though the flesh must have been on and must have 
 gone clean off before genius can be discerned, and also that 
 we must stand a long way from it, for the world grows more 
 and more myopic as it grows older. And this brings another 
 trouble, for by the time the flesh has gone off it enough, and it 
 is far enough away for us to see it without glasses, the chances 
 are we shall have forgotten its very existence and lose the 
 wish to see at the very moment of becoming able to do so. 
 Hence there appears to be no remedy for the oft-repeated 
 complaint that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. 
 How can it be expected to do so ? And how can its greatest 
 men be expected to know more than a very little of the world ? 
 At any rate, they seldom do, and it is just because they cannot 
 and do not that, if they ever happen to be found out at all, 
 they are recognised as the greatest and the world weeps and 
 wrings its hands that it cannot know more about them. 
 
 Lastly, if genius cannot be bought with money, still less^ 
 can it sell what it produces. The only price that can be paid 
 for genius is suffering, and this is the only wages it can re- 
 ceive. The only work that has any considerable permanence 
 is written, more or less consciously, in the blood of the writer, 
 or in that of his or her forefathers. Genius is like money, 
 or, again, like crime, every one has a little, if it be only a half- 
 penny, and he can beg or steal this much if he has not got it ; 
 but those who have little are rarely very fond of millionaires. 
 People generally like and understanc^ best those who are 
 of much about the same social stanji|ing and money status 
 as their own ; and so it is for the most part as between those 
 
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 who have only the average amount of genius and the Homers, 
 Shakespeares and Handels of the race. 
 
 And yet, so paradoxical is everything connected with 
 genius, that it almost seems as though the nearer people stood 
 to one another in respect either of money or genius, the more 
 jealous they become of one another. I have read somewhere 
 that Thackeray was one day flattening his nose against a 
 grocer's window and saw two bags of sugar, one marked 
 tenpence halfpenny and the other elevenpence (for sugar 
 has come down since Thackeray's time) . As he left the win- 
 dow he was heard to say, "How they must hate one another !" 
 So it is in the animal and vegetable worlds. The war of 
 extermination is generally fiercest between the most nearly 
 allied species, for these stand most in one another's light. 
 So here again the same old paradox and contradiction in 
 terms meets us, like a stone wall, in the fact that we love 
 best those who are in the main like ourselves, but when they 
 get too like, we hate them, and, at the same time, we hate 
 most those who are unlike ourselves, but if they become un- 
 like enough, we may often be very fond of them. 
 
 Genius must make those that have it think apart, and to 
 think apart is to take one's view of things instead of being, 
 like Poins, a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. 
 A man who thinks for himself knows what others do not, 
 but does not know what others know. Hence the belli causa, 
 for he cannot serve two masters, the God of his own inward 
 light and the Mammon of common sense, at one and the same 
 time. How can a man think apart and not apart? But if 
 he is a genius this is the riddle he must solve. The uncommon 
 sense of genius and the common sense of the rest of the world 
 are thus as husband and wife to one another ; they are always 
 quarrelling, and common sense, who must be taken to be 
 the husband, always fancies himself the master — nevertheless 
 genius is generally admitted to be the better half. 
 "' He who would know more of genius must turn to what 
 he can find in the poets, or to whatever other sources he may 
 discover, for I can help him no further. )^ 
 
 I ■•^. --,,_,., 1} j^,,v»3'^ov ■ ' '.'-'^ - 
 
 ' ii ■ 
 
 The destruction of great works of literature and art is as 
 necessary for the continued development of either one or 
 
Cash and Credit i79 
 
 the other as death is for that of organic life. We fight 
 against it as long as we can, and often stave it off success- 
 fully both for ourselves and others, but there is nothing so 
 great — not Homer, Shakespeare, Handel, Rembrandt, Gio- 
 vanni Bellini, De Hooghe, Velasquez and the goodly com- 
 pany of other great men for whose lives we would gladly 
 give our own — ^but it has got to go sooner or later and leave 
 no visible traces, though the invisible ones endure from ever- 
 lasting to everlasting. It is idle to regret this for ourselves 
 or others, our effort should tend towards enjoying and being 
 enjoyed as highly and for as long time as we can, and then 
 chancing the rest. 
 
 iii 
 Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration 
 at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person ; its 
 importance not being fully recognised for some time. So 
 men of genius always escape their own immediate belongings, 
 and indeed generally their own age. 
 
 iv 
 Dullness is so much stronger than genius because there is 
 so much more of it, and it is better organised and more natu- 
 rally cohesive inter se. So the arctic volcano can do nothing 
 against arctic ice. 
 
 V 
 
 America will have her geniuses, as every other country 
 has, in fact she has already had one in Walt Whitman, but 
 I do not think America is a good place in which to be a genius. 
 A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if 
 he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place 
 in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of 
 any kind. 
 
 Great Things 
 
 All men can do great things, if they know what great 
 things are. So hard is this last that even where it exists the 
 knowledge is as much unknown as known to them that have it 
 and is more a leaning upon the Lord than a willing of one 
 that willeth. And yet all the leaning on the Lord in Christen- 
 dom fails if there be not a will of him that willeth to back it 
 up. God and the man are powerless without one another. 
 
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 Genius and Providence 
 
 Among all the evidences for the existence of an overruling 
 Providence that I can discover, I see none more convincing 
 than the elaborate and for the most part effectual provision 
 that has been made for the suppression of genius. The more 
 I see of the world, the more necessary I see it to be that by 
 far the greater part of what is written or done should be of 
 so fleeting a character as to take itself away quickly. That 
 is the advantage in the fact that so much of our literature 
 is journalism. 
 
 Schools and colleges are not intended to foster genius and 
 to bring it out. Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of 
 schools and colleges to abate it by setting genius-traps in its 
 way. They are as the artificial obstructions in a hurdle race — 
 tests of skill and endurance, but in themselves useless. Still, 
 so necessary is it that genius and originality should be abated 
 that, did not academies exist, we should have had to invent 
 them. 
 
 The Art of Covery 
 
 This is as important and interesting as Dis-covery. Surely 
 the glory of finally getting rid of and burying a long and 
 troublesome matter should be as great as that of making an 
 important discovery. The trouble is that the coverer is like 
 Samson who perished in the wreck of what he had destroyed ; 
 if he gets rid of a thing effectually he gets rid of himself too. 
 
 Wanted 
 
 We want a Society for the Suppression of Erudite Re- 
 search and the Decent Burial of the Past. The ghosts of the 
 dead past want quite as much laying as raising. 
 
 Ephemeral and Permanent Success 
 
 The supposition that the world is ever in league to put 
 a man down is childish. Hardly less childish is it for an 
 author to lay the blame on reviewers. A good sturdy author 
 
Cash and Credit i8i 
 
 lis a match for a hundred reviewers. He, I grant, knows 
 nothing of either literature or science who does not know 
 that a mot d'ordre given by a few wire-pullers can, for a time, 
 make or mar any man's success. People neither know what 
 it is they like nor do they want to find out, all they care 
 about is the being supposed to derive their likings from the 
 best West-end magazines, so they look to the shop with 
 the largest plate-glass windows and take what the shopman 
 gives them. But no amount of plate-glass can carry off more 
 than a certain amount of false pretences, and there is no 
 mot d'ordre that can keep a man permanently down if he 
 is as intent -on winning lasting good name as I have been._. 
 If I had played for immediate popularity I think I could 
 have won it. Having played for lasting credit I doubt not 
 that it will in the end be given me. A man should not be 
 held to be ill-used for not getting what he has not played 
 for. I am not saying that it is better or more honourable to 
 play for lasting than for immediate success. I know which I 
 myself find pleasanter, but that has nothing to do with it. 
 
 It is a nice question whether the light or the heavy armed 
 soldier of hterature and art is the more useful. I joined the 
 plodders and have aimed at permanent good name rather 
 than brilliancy. I have no doubt I did this because instinct 
 told me (for I never thought about it) that this would be the 
 easier and less thorny path. I have more of perseverance 
 than of those, perhaps, even more valuable gifts — facility 
 and readiness of resource. I hate being hurried. Moreover 
 I am too fond of independence to get on with the leaders 
 of literature and science. Independence is essential for per- 
 manent but fatal to immediate success. Besides, luck enters 
 much more into ephemeral than into permanent success and 
 I have always distrusted luck. Those who play a waitings 
 game have matters more in their own hands, time gives them 
 double chances ; whereas if success does not come at once to 
 the ephemerid he misses it altogether. 
 
 I know that the ordinary reviewer who ^ther snarls at my 
 work or misrepresents it or ignores it or, again, who pats it 
 sub-contemptuously on the back is as honourably and usefully 
 employed as I am. In the kingdom of literature (as I have 
 just been saying in the Universal Review about Science) 
 there are many mansions and what is intolerable in one is 
 
1 82 Cash and Credit 
 
 common form in another. It is a case of the division of 
 labour and a man will gravitate towards one class of workers 
 or another according as he is built. There is neither higher 
 nor lower about it. 
 
 I should like to put it on record that I understand it and 
 am not incHned to regret the arrangements that have made 
 me possible. 
 
 My Birthright 
 
 I had to steal my own birthright. I stole it and was bitterly 
 punished. But I saved my soul alive. 
 
XII 
 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 Myself 
 
 I AM the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I can- 
 not, and I know I cannot, get the literary and scientific big- 
 wigs to give me a shilling, I can, and I know I can, h,eave 
 bricks into the middle of them. 
 
 Blake, Dante, Virgil and Tennyson 
 
 Talking it over, we agreed that Blake was no good because 
 he learnt Italian at 60 in order to study Dante, and we knew 
 Dante was no good because he was so fond of Virgil, and 
 Virgil was no good because Tennyson ran him, and as for 
 Tennyson — well, Tennyson goes without saying. 
 
 My Father and Shakespeare 
 
 My father is one of the few men I know who say they do 
 not like Shakespeare. I could forgive my father for not 
 liking Shakespeare if it was only because Shakespeare wrote 
 poetry; but this is not the reason. He dislikes Shakespeare 
 J)ecause he finds him so very coarse. He also says he likes 
 Tennyson and this seriously aggravates his offence. 
 
 Tennyson 
 
 We were saying what a delightful dispensation of provi- 
 dence it was that prosperous people will write their memoirs. 
 We hoped Tennyson was writing his. [1890.] 
 
 P.S. — ^We think his son has done nearly as well. [1898.] 
 
 183 
 
i84 The Enfant Terrible* of Literature 
 
 Walter Pater and Matthew Arnold 
 
 Mr. Walter Pater's style is, to me, like the face of some 
 old woman who has been to Madame Rachel and had herself 
 enamelled. The bloom is nothing but powder and paint and 
 the odour is cherry-blossom. Mr. Matthew Arnold's odour is 
 as the faint sickliness of hawthorn. 
 
 My Random Passages 
 
 At the Century Club a friend very kindly and hesitatingly 
 ventured to suggest to me that I should get some one to go 
 over my MS. before printing; a judicious editor, he said, 
 would have prevented me from printing many a bit which, it 
 seemed to him, was written too recklessly and offhand. The 
 fact, is that the more reckless and random a passage appears 
 to be, the more carefully it has been submitted to friends and 
 considered and re-considered ; without the support of friends 
 I should never have dared to print one half of what I have 
 printed. 
 
 I am not one of those who can repeat the General Con- 
 fession unreservedly. I should say rather : 
 
 "I have left unsaid much that I am sorry I did not say, but 
 I have said little that I am sorry for having said, and I am 
 pretty well on the whole, thank you." 
 
 Moral Try-Your-Strengths 
 
 There are people who, if they only had a slot, might turn 
 a pretty penny as moral try-your-strengths, like those we see 
 in railway-stations for telling people their physical strength 
 when they have dropped a penny in the slot. In a way they 
 h^ve a slot, which is their mouths, and people drop pennies 
 in by asking them to dinner, and then they try their strength 
 against them and get snubbed; but this way is roundabout 
 and expensive. We want a good automatic asinometer by 
 which we can tell at a moderate cost how great or how little 
 of a fool we are. 
 
 Populus Vult 
 
 If people like being deceived — and this can hardly be 
 doubted — there can rarely have been a time during which 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature 185 
 
 they can have had more of the, wish than now. The_ literary, 
 scientific and religious worlds vie with one another in trying 
 to gratify the public. 
 
 Men and Monkeys 
 
 In his latest article (Feb. 18^) Prof. Garner says that the 
 chatter of monkeys is not meaningless, but that they are con- 
 veying ideas to one another. This seems to me hazardous. 
 The monkeys might with equal justice conclude that in our 
 magazine articles, or literary and artistic criticisms, we are 
 not chattering idly but are conveying ideas to one another. 
 
 "One Touch of Nature" 
 
 "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Should 
 it not be "marks," not "makes" ? There is one touch of na- 
 ture, or natural feature, which marks all mankind as of one 
 family. 
 
 P.S. — Surely it should be "of ill-nature." "One touch of 
 ill-nature marks — or several touches of ill-nature mark the 
 whole world kin." 
 
 Genuine Feeling 
 
 In the Times of to-day, June 4, 1887, there is an obituary 
 notice of a Rev. Mr. Knight who wrote about 200 songs, 
 among others "She wore a wreath of roses." The Times 
 says that, though these songs have no artistic merit, they 
 are full of genuine feeling, or words to this effect ; as though 
 a song which was full of genuine feeling could by any possi- 
 bility be without artistic merit. 
 
 George Meredith 
 
 The Times in a leading article says (Jany. 3, 1899) "a 
 talker," as Mr. George Meredith has somewhere said, "in- 
 volves the existence of a talkee," or words to this effect. 
 
 I said what comes to the same thing as this in Life and 
 Habit in 1877, and I repeated it in the preface to my trans- 
 lation of the Iliad in 1898. I do not believe George Meredith 
 has said anything to the same effect, but I have read so very 
 
1 86 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 little of that writer, and have so utterly rejected what I did 
 read, that he may well have done so without niy knowing it. 
 He damned Erewhon, as Chapman and Hall's reader, in 1871, 
 and, as I am still raw about this after 28 years, (I am afraid 
 unless I say something more I shall be taken as writing these 
 words seriously) I prefer to assert that the Times writer was 
 quoting from my preface to the Iliad, published a few weeks 
 earlier, and fathering the remark on George Meredith. By 
 the way the Times did not give so much as a line to my trans- 
 lation in its "Books of the Week," though it was duly sent 
 to them. 
 
 Froude and Freeman 
 
 I think it was last Saturday (Ap. 9) (at any rate it was a 
 day just thereabouts) the Times had a leader on Froude's 
 appointment as Reg. Prof, of Mod. Hist, at Oxford. It said 
 Froude was perhaps our greatest living master of style, or 
 words to that eifect, only that, like Freeman, he was too 
 long: i.e. only he is an habitual offender against the most 
 fundamental principles of his art. If then Froude is our 
 greatest master of style, what are the rest of us ? 
 
 There was a much better article yesterday on Marbot, on 
 which my namesake A. J. Butler got a dressing for talking 
 rubbish about style. [1892.] 
 
 Style 
 
 In this day's Sunday Times there is an article on Mrs. 
 Browning's letters which begins with some remarks about 
 style. "It is recorded," says the writer, "of Plato, that in 
 a rough draft of one of his Dialogues, found after his death, 
 the first paragraph was written in seventy different forms. 
 Wordsworth spared no pains to sharpen and polish to the 
 utmost the gifts with which nature had endowed him; and 
 Cardinal Newman, one of the greatest masters of English 
 style, has related in an amusing essay the pains he took to 
 acquire his style." 
 
 ~ I never knew a writer yet who "took the smallest pains 
 with his style and was at the same time readable. Plato's 
 having had seventy shies at one sentence is quite enough to 
 explain to me why I dislike him. A man may, and ought to 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature 187 
 
 take a great deal of pains to write clearly, tersely and euphe- 
 mistically : he will write many a sentence three or four times 
 over — to do much more than this is worse than not re- 
 writing at all : he will be at great pains to see that he does 
 not repeat himself, to arrange his matter in the way that 
 shall best enable the reader to master it, to cut out super- 
 fluous words and, even more, to eschew irrelevant matter: 
 but in each case he will be thinking not of his own style but 
 of his reader's convenience. 
 
 Men like Newman and R. L. Stevenson seem to have taken 
 pains to acquire what they called a style as a preliminary 
 measure — as something that they had to form before their 
 writings could be of any value. I should like to put it on 
 record that I never took the smallest pains with my style, 
 have never thought about it, and do not know or want to 
 know whether it is a style at all or whether it is not, as I 
 believe and hope, just common, simple straightforwardness. 
 I cannot conceive how any man can take thought for his 
 style without loss to himself and his readers. 
 
 I have, however, taken all the pains that I had patience 
 to endure in the improvement of my handwriting (which, 
 by the way, has a constant tendency to resume feral character- 
 istics) and also with my MS. generally to keep it clean and 
 legible. I am having a great tidying just now, in the course 
 of which the MS. of Erewhon turned up, and I was struck 
 with the great difference between it and the MS. of The 
 Authoress of the Odyssey. I have also taken great pains, with 
 what success I know not, to correct impatience, irritability 
 and other like faults in my own character — and this not be- 
 cause I care two straws about my own character, but because 
 I find the correction of such faults as I have been able to 
 correct makes life easier and saves me from getting into 
 scrapes, and attaches nice people to me more readily. But I 
 suppose this really is attending to style after all. [1897.] 
 
 Diderot on Criticism 
 
 "II est si difficile de produire une chose meme mediocre; 
 il est si facile de sentir la mediocrite." 
 
 I have lately seen this quoted as having been said by Di- 
 derot. It is easy to say we feel the mediocrity when we have 
 
1 88 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 heard a good many people say that the work is mediocre, but, 
 unless in matters about which he has been long conversant, no 
 ^man can easily form an independent judgment as to whether 
 or not a work is mediocre. I know that in the matter of 
 books, painting and music I constantly find myself unable to 
 form a settled opinion till I have heard what many men of 
 varied tastes have to say, and have also made myself ac- 
 quainted with details about a man's antecedents and ways of 
 life which are generally held to be irrelevant. 
 
 Often, of course, this is unnecessary; a man's character, 
 if he has left much work behind him, or if he is not coming 
 before us for the first time, is generally easily discovered 
 without extraneous aid. We want no one to give us any 
 clues to the nature of such men as Giovanni Bellini, or De 
 Hooghe. Hogarth's character is written upon his work so 
 plainly that he who runs may read it, so is Handel's upon his, 
 so is Purcell's, so is CorelH's, so, indeed, are the characters of 
 most men; but often where only little work has been left, 
 or where a work is by a new hand, it is exceedingly difficult 
 "sentir la mediocrite" and, it might be added, "ou meme 
 sentir du tout." 
 
 How many years, I wonder, was it before I learned to dis- 
 like Thackeray and Tennyson as cordially as I now do? For 
 how many years did I not almost worship them ? 
 
 Bunyan and Others 
 
 I have been reading The Pilgrim's Progress again — ^the 
 third part and all — ^and wish that some one would tell one 
 what to think about it. 
 
 The English is racy, vigorous and often very beautiful; 
 but the language of any book is nothing except in so far as it 
 reveals the writer. The words in which a man clothes his 
 thoughts are like all other clothes — the cut raises presump- 
 tions about his thoughts, and these generally turn out to be 
 just, but the words are no more the thoughts than a man's 
 coat is himself. I am not sure, however, that in Bunyan's 
 case the dress in which he has clothed his ideas does not 
 reveal him more justly than the ideas do. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress consists mainly of a series of in- 
 famous libels upon life and things ; it is a blasphemy against 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature 189 
 
 certain fundamental ideas of right and wrong which our 
 consciences most instinctively approve; its notion of heaven 
 is hardly higher than a transformation scene at Drury Lane ; 
 it is essentially infidel. "Hold out to me the chance of a 
 golden crown and harp with freedom from all further wor- 
 ries, give me angels to flatter me and fetch and carry for me, 
 and I shall think the game worth playing, notwithstanding the 
 great and horrible risk of failure ; but no crown, no cross for 
 me. Pay me well and I will wait for payment, but if I have 
 to give credit I shall expect to be paid better in the end." 
 
 There is no conception of the faith that a man should do 
 his duty cheerfully with all his might though, as far as he 
 can see, he will never be paid directly or indirectly either 
 here or hereafter. Still less is there any conception that un- 
 less a man has this faith he is not worth thinking about. 
 There is no sense that as we have received freely so we should 
 give freely and be only too thankful that we have anything 
 to give at all. Furthermore there does not appear to be even 
 the remotest conception that this honourable, comfortable 
 and sustaining faith is, like all other high faiths, to be brushed 
 aside very peremptorily at the bidding of common-sense. 
 
 What a pity it is that Christian never met Mr. Common- 
 Sense with his daughter, Good-Humour, and her affianced 
 husband, Mr. Hate-Cant; but if he ever saw them in the 
 distance he steered clear of them, probably as feeling that 
 they would be more dangerous than Giant Despair, Vanity 
 Fair and ApoUyon all together — for they would have stuck 
 to him if he had let them get in with him. Among other 
 things they would have told him that, if there was any truth 
 in his opinions, neither man nor woman ought to become a 
 father or mother at all, inasmuch as their doing so would 
 probably entail eternity of torture on the wretched creature 
 whom they were launching into the world. Life in this world 
 is risk enough to inflict on another person who has not been 
 consulted in the matter, but death will give quittance in full. 
 To weaken our faith in this sure and certain hope of peace 
 eternal (except so far as we have so lived as to win life in 
 others after we are gone) would be a cruel thing, even though 
 the evidence against it were overwhelming, but to rob us of 
 it on no evidence worth a moment's consideration and, ap- 
 parently, from no other motive than the pecuniary advan- 
 
I90 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 tage of the robbers themselves is infamy. For the Qiurches 
 are but institutions for the saving of men's souls from 
 hell. _ 
 
 This is true enough. Nevertheless it is untrue that in 
 practice any Christian minister, knowing vphat he preaches 
 to be both very false and very cruel, yet insists on it because 
 it is to the advantage of his own order. In a way the preach- 
 ers believe what they preach, but it is as men who have taken 
 a bad fio note and refuse to look at the evidence that makes 
 for its badness, though, if the note were not theirs, they 
 would see at a glance that it was not a good one. For the 
 man in the street it is enough that what the priests teach in 
 respect of a future state is palpably both cruel and absurd 
 while, at the same time, they make their living by teaching 
 it and thus prey upon other men's fears of the unknown. If 
 the Churches do not wish to be misunderstood they should 
 not allow themselves to remain in such an equivocal position. 
 
 But let this pass. Bunyan, we may be sure, took all that 
 he preached in its most literal interpretation ; he could never 
 have made his book so interesting had he not done so. The 
 interest of it depends almost entirely on the unquestionable 
 good faith of the writer and the strength of the impulse that 
 compelled him to speak that which was within him. He 
 was not writing a book which he might sell, he was speaking 
 what was borne in upon him from heaven. The message he 
 uttered was, to my thinking, both low and false, but it was 
 truth of truths to Bunyan. 
 
 No. This will not do. The Epistles of St. Paul were truth 
 of truths to Paul, but they do not attract us to the man who 
 wrote them, and, except here and there, they are very un- 
 interesting. Mere strength of conviction on a writer's part 
 is not enough to make his work take permanent rank. Yet I 
 know that I could read the whole of The Pilgrim's Progress 
 (except occasional episodical sermons) without being at all 
 bored by it, whereas, having spent a penny upon Mr. Stead's 
 abridgement of Joseph Andrews, I had to give it up as putting 
 me out of all patience. I then spent another penny on an 
 abridgement of Gulliver's Travels, and was enchanted by it. 
 What is it that makes one book so readable and another so 
 unreadable ? Swift, from all I can make out, was a far more 
 human and genuine person than he is generally represented, 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature 191 
 
 but I do not think I should have liked him, whereas Fielding, 
 I am sure, must have been delightful. Why do the faults of 
 his work overweigh its many great excellences, while the 
 less great excellences of the Voyage to Lilliput outweigh its 
 more serious defects ? 
 
 I suppose it is the prolixity of Fielding that fatigues me. 
 Swift is terse, he gets through what he has to say on any 
 matter as quickly as he can and takes the reader on to the 
 next, whereas Fielding is not only long, but his length is 
 made still longer by the disconnectedness of the episodes 
 that appear to have been padded into the books — episodes 
 that do not help one forward, and are generally so exag- 
 gerated, and often so full of horse-play as to put one out of 
 conceit with the parts that are really excellent. 
 
 Whatever else Bunyan is he is never long; he takes you_ 
 quickly on from incident to incident and, however little his 
 incidents may appeal to us, we feel that he is never giving us 
 one that is not bona Me so far as he is concerned. His 
 episodes and incidents are introduced not because he wants 
 to make his book longer 'but because he cannot be satisfied 
 without these particular ones, even though he may feel that 
 his book is getting longer than he likes. 
 
 And here I must break away from this problem, leaving 
 it unsolved. [1897.] 
 
 Bunyan and the Odyssey 
 
 Anything worse than The Pilgrim's Progress in the matter 
 of defiance of literary canons can hardly be conceived. The 
 allegory halts continually; it professes to be spiritual, but 
 nothing can be more carnal than the golden splendour of the 
 eternal city; the view of Ufe and the world generally is flat 
 blasphemy against the order of things with which we are sur- --,. 
 rounded. Yet, like the Odyssey, which flatly defies sense and 
 criticism (no, it doesn't; still, it defies them a good deal), 
 no one can doubt that it must rank among the very greatest 
 books that have ever been written. How Odyssean it is io-- 
 its sincerity and downrightness, as well as in the marvellous 
 beauty of its language, its freedom from all taint of the schools 
 
192 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 and, not least, in complete victory of genuine internal zeal 
 over a scheme initially so faulty as to appear hopeless. 
 
 I read that part where Christian passes the lions which he 
 thought were free but which were really chained and it oc- 
 curred to me that all lions are chained until they actually 
 eat us and that, the moment they do this, they chain them- 
 selves up again automatically, as far as we are concerned. If 
 one dissects this passage it fares as many a passage; in the 
 Odyssey does when we dissect-4t. Christian did not, after all, 
 venture to pass the lions till he was assured that they were 
 chained. And really it is more excusable to refuse point- 
 blank to pass a couple of lions till one knows whether they 
 are chained or not — and the poor wicked people seem to have 
 done nothing more than this, — than it would be to pass them. 
 Besides, by being told. Christian fights, as it were, with loaded 
 dice. 
 
 Poetry 
 
 The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and 
 Shakespeares are not the greatest — they are only the greatest 
 that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. 
 For the highest poetry, whether in music or literature, is 
 ineffable — it must be felt from one person to another, it can- 
 not be articulated. 
 
 Verse 
 
 Versifying is the lowest form of poetry ; and the last thing 
 a great poet will do in these days is to write verses. 
 
 I have been trying to read Venus and Adonis and the Rape 
 of Lucrece but cannot get on with them. They teem with fine 
 things, but they are got-up fine things. I do not know 
 whether this is quite what I mean but, come what may, I find 
 the poems bore me. Were I a schoolmaster j should think I 
 was setting a boy a very severe punishment if I told him to 
 read Venus and Adonis through in three sittings. If, then, 
 the magic of Shakespeare's name, let alone the great beauty 
 of occasional passages, cannot reconcile us (for I find most 
 people of the same mind) to verse, and especially rhymed 
 verse as a medium of sustained expression, what chance has 
 any one else? It seems to me that a sonnet is the utmost 
 length to which a rhymed poem should extend. 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature i93 
 
 Verse, Poetry and Prose 
 
 The preface to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is verse, but 
 it is not poetry. The body of the work is poetry, but it is not 
 verse. 
 
 Ancient Work 
 
 If a person would understand either the Odyssey or any 
 other ancient work, he must never look at the dead without 
 seeing the living in them, nor at the living without thinking 
 of the dead. We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one 
 thing and the moderns as another. 
 
 Nausicaa and Myself 
 
 I am elderly, grey-bearded and, according to my clerk, 
 Alfred, disgustingly fat ; I wear spectacles and get more and 
 more bronchitic as I grow older. Still no young prince in a 
 fairy story ever found an invisible princess more effectually 
 hidden behind a hedge of dullness or more fast asleep than 
 Nausicaa was when I woke her and hailed her as Authoress 
 of the Odyssey. And there was no difficulty about it either 
 — all one had to do was to go up to the front door and ring 
 the bell. 
 
 Telemachus and Nicholas Nickleby 
 
 The virtuous young man defending a virtuous mother 
 against a number of powerful enemies is one of the ignes 
 fatui of literature. The scheme ought to be very interesting, 
 and often is so, but it always fails as regards the hero who, 
 from Telemachus to Nicholas Nickleby, is always too much of 
 the good young man to please. 
 
 Gadshill and Trapani 
 
 While getting our lunch one Sunday at the east end of the 
 long room in the Sir John Falstaff Inn, Gadshill, we over- 
 heard some waterside-looking dwellers in the neighbourhood 
 talking among themselves. I wrote down the following: — 
 
 Bill: Oh, yes. I've got a mate that works in my shop ; he's 
 
194 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 chucked the Dining Room because they give him too much 
 to eat. He found another place where they gave him four 
 pennyworth of meat and two vegetables and it was qujte as 
 much as he could put up with. 
 
 George: You can't kid me, Bill, that they give you too much 
 to eat, but I'll beHeve it to oblige you, Bill. Shall I see you 
 to-night ? 
 
 Bill: No, I must go to church. 
 
 George: Well, so must I ; I've got to go. 
 
 So at Trapani, I heard two small boys one night on the 
 quay (I am sure I have written this down somewhere, but it 
 is less trouble to write it again than to hunt for it) singing 
 with all their might, with their arms round one another's 
 necks. I should say they were about ten years old, not 
 more. 
 
 I asked Ignazio Giacalone: "What are they singing?" 
 
 He replied that it was a favourite song among the popolino 
 of Trapani about a girl who did not want to be 'seen going 
 about with a man. "The people in this place," says the song, 
 "are very ill-natured, and if they see you and me together, 
 they will talk," &c. 
 
 I do not say that there was any descent here from 
 Nausicaa's speech to Ulysses, but I felt as though that speech 
 was still in the air. [Od. VI. 273.] 
 
 I reckon Gadshill and Trapani as perhaps the two most 
 classic grounds that I frequent familiarly, and at each I have 
 seemed to hear echoes of the scenes that have made them 
 famous. Not that what I heard at Gadshill is like any par- 
 ticular passage in Shakespeare. 
 
 Waiting to be Hired 
 
 At Castelvetrano (about thirty miles from Trapani) I had 
 to start the next morning at 4 a.m. to see the ruins of 
 Selinunte, and slept lightly with my window open. About 
 two o'clock I began to hear a buzz of conversation in the 
 piazza outside and it kept me awake, so I got up to shut the 
 window and see. what it was. I found it came from a long 
 knot of men standing about, two deep, but not strictly mar- 
 shalled. When I got up at half-past three, it was still dark 
 and the men were still there, though perhaps not so many. 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature fi95 
 
 I enquired and found they were standing to be hired for 
 the day, any one wanting labourers would come there, en- 
 gage as many as he wanted and go off with them, others 
 would come up, and so on till about four o'clock, after which 
 no one would hire, the day being regarded as short in weight 
 after that hour. Being so collected the men gossip over their 
 own and other people's affairs — wonder who was that fine- 
 looking stranger going about yesterday with Nausicaa, and 
 so on. [Od. VI. 273.] This, in fact, is their club and the 
 place where the public opinion of the district is formed. 
 
 Ilium and Padua 
 
 The story of the Trojan horse is more nearly within possi- 
 bility than we should readily suppose. In 1848, during the 
 rebellion of the North Italians against the Austrians, eight 
 or nine young men, for whom the authorities were hunting, 
 hid themselves inside Donatello's wooden horse in the Salone 
 at Padua and lay there for five days, being fed through the 
 trap door on the back of the horse with the connivance of the 
 custode of the Salone. No doubt they were let out for a 
 time at night. When pursuit had become less hot, their 
 friends smuggled them away. One of those who had been 
 shut up was still living in 1898 and, on the occasion of the 
 jubilee festivities, was carried round the town in triumph. 
 
 Eumaeus and Lord Burleigh 
 
 The inference which Arthur Piatt (Journal of Philology, 
 Vol. 24, No. 47) wishes to draw from Eumaeus being told to 
 bring Ulysses' bow dj/o Sw^aro (Od. XXI. 234) suggests to 
 me the difference which some people in future ages may wish 
 to draw between the character of Lord Burleigh's steps in 
 Tennyson's poem, according as he was walking up or pacing 
 down. Wherefrom also the critic will argue that the scene 
 of Lord Burleigh's weeping must have been on an inclined 
 plane. 
 
 Weeping, weeping late and early. 
 
 Walking up and pacing down. 
 Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh, 
 
 Burleigh-hpuse by Stamford-town. 
 
196 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 My Reviewers' Sense of Need 
 
 My reviewers felt no sense of need to understand me — ^if 
 they had they would have developed the mental organism 
 which would have enabled them to do so. When the time 
 comes that they want to do so they will throw out a little 
 mental pseudopodium without much difficulty. They threw 
 it out when they wanted to misunderstand me — with a good 
 deal of the pseudo in it, too. 
 
 The Authoress of the Odyssey 
 
 The amount of pains which my reviewers have taken to 
 understand this book is not so great as to encourage the 
 belief that they would understand the Odyssey, however 
 much they studied it. Again, the people who could read the 
 Odyssey without coming to much the same conclusions as 
 mine are not likely to admit that they ought to have done so. 
 
 If a man tells me that a house in which I have long lived 
 is inconvenient, not to say unwholesome, and that I have 
 been very stupid in not finding this out for myself, I should 
 be apt in the first instance to tell him that he knew nothing 
 about it, and that I was quite comfortable; by and by, I 
 should begin to be aware that I was not so comfortable as I 
 thought I was, and in the end I should probably make the 
 suggested alterations in my house if, on reflection, I found 
 them sensibly conceived. But I should kick hard at first. 
 
 Homer and his Commentators 
 
 Homeric commentators have been blind so long that noth- 
 ing will do for them but Homer must be blind too. They 
 have transferred their own blindness to the poet. 
 
 The Iliad 
 
 In the Iliad, civilisation bursts upon us as a strong stream 
 out of a rock. We know that the water has gathered from 
 many a distant vein underground, but we do not see these. 
 Or it is like the drawing up the curtain on the opening of a 
 play — the scene is then first revealed. 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature i97 
 
 Glacial Periods of Folly 
 
 The moraines left by secular glacial periods of folly stretch 
 out over many a plain of our civilisation. So in the Odyssey, 
 especially in the second twelve books, whenever any one 
 eats meat it is called "sacrificing" it, as though we were 
 descended from a race that did not eat meat. Then it was 
 said that meat might be eaten if one did not eat the life. 
 What was the life ? Clearly the blood, for when you stick a 
 pig it lives till the blood is gone. You must sacrifice the 
 blood, therefore, to the gods, but so long as you abstain 
 from things strangled and from blood, and so long as you 
 call it sacrificing, you may eat as much meat as you please. 
 
 What a mountain of lies — what a huge geological forma- 
 tion of falsehood, with displacement of all kinds, and strata 
 twisted every conceivable way, must have accreted before the 
 Odyssey was possible! 
 
 Translations from Verse into Prose 
 
 Whenever this is attempted, great licence must be allowed 
 to the translator in getting rid of all those poetical common 
 forms which are foreign to the genius of prose. If the work 
 is to be translated into prose, let it be into such prose as 
 we write and speak among ourselves. A volume of poetical 
 prose, i.e. affected prose, had better be in verse outright 
 at once. Poetical prose is never tolerable for more than a 
 very short bit at a time. And it may be questioned whether 
 poetry itself is not better kept short in ninety-nine cases out 
 of a hundred. 
 
 Translating the Odyssey 
 
 If you wish to preserve the spirit of a dead author, you 
 must not skin him, stuff him, and set him up in a case. You 
 must eat him, digest him and let him live in you, with such 
 life as you have, for better or worse. The difference between 
 the Andrew Lang manner of translating the Odyssey and 
 mine is that between making a mummy and a baby. He 
 tries to preserve a corpse (for the Odyssey is a corpse to all 
 who need Lang's translation), whereas I try to originate a 
 
198 The Enfant Terrible of Literature 
 
 new life and one that is instinct (as far as I can eifect this) 
 with the spirit though not the form of the original. 
 
 They say no woman could possibly have written the Odys- 
 sey. To me, on the other hand, it seems even less possible 
 that a man could have done so. As for its being by a prac- 
 tised and elderly writer, nothing but youth and inexperience 
 could produce anything so naive and so lovely. That is 
 where the work will suffer by my translation. I am male, 
 practised and elderly, and the trail of sex, age and experience 
 is certain to be over my translation. If the poem is ever to be 
 well translated, it must be by some high-spirited English girl 
 who has been brought up at Athens and who, therefore, has 
 not been jaded by academic study of the language. 
 
 A translation is at best a dislocation, a translation from 
 verse to prose is a double dislocation and corresponding 
 further dislocations are necessary if an effect of deformity 
 .is to be avoided. 
 
 The people who, when they read "Athene" translated 
 by "Minerva," cannot bear in mind that every Athene varies 
 more or less with, and takes colour from, the country and 
 temperament of the writer who is being translated, will not 
 be greatly helped by translating "Athene" and not "Minerva." 
 Besides many readers would pronounce the word as a dissyl- 
 lable or an anapaest. 
 
 The Odyssey and a Tomb at Carcassonne 
 
 Thfere is a tomb at some place in France, I think at Car- 
 cassonne, on which there is some sculpture representing the 
 friends and relations of the deceased in paroxysms of grief 
 with their cheeks all cracked, and crying like Gaudenzio's 
 angels on the Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia. Round the 
 corner, however, just out of sight till one searches, there is 
 a man holding both his sides and splitting with laughter. 
 In some parts of the Odyssey, especially about Ulysses and 
 Penelope, I fancy that laughing man as being round the 
 comer. [Oct. 1891.] 
 
 Getting it Wrong 
 
 Zeffirino Carestia, a sculptor, told me we had a great 
 sculptor in England named Simpson. I demurred, and 
 
The Enfant Terrible of Literature 199 
 
 asked about his work. It seemed he had made a monument 
 to Nelson in Westminster Abbey. Of course I saw he meant 
 Stevens, who had made a monument to Wellington in St. 
 Paul's. I cross-questioned him and found I was right. 
 
 Suppose that in some ancient writer I had come upon a 
 similar error about which I felt no less certain than I did 
 here, ought I to be debarred from my conclusion merely 
 by the accident that I have not the wretched muddler at 
 my elbow and cannot ask him personally? People are 
 always getting things wrong. It is the critic's business to 
 know how and when to believe on insufficient evidence and 
 to know how far to go in the matter of setting people right 
 without going too far; the question of what is too far and 
 what is sufficient evidence can only be settled by the hig- 
 gling and haggling of the literary market. 
 
 So I justify my emendation of the "grotta del toro'' at 
 Trapani. [The Authoress of the Odyssey, Chap. VIII.] 
 "II toro macigna un tesoro di oro." [The bull is grinding 
 a treasure of gold] in the grotto in which (for other reasons) 
 I am convinced Ulysses hid the gifts the Phceacians had 
 given him. And so the grotto is called "La grotta del toro" 
 [The grotto of the bull]. I make no doubt it was originally 
 called "La grotta del tesoro" [The grotto of the treasure], 
 but children got it wrong, and corrupted "tesoro" into "toro" ; 
 then, it being known that the "tesoro" was in it somehow, the 
 "toro" was made to grind the "tesoro." 
 
XIII 
 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 Righteousness 
 
 According to Mr. Matthew Arnold, as we find the highest 
 traditions of grace, beauty and the heroic virtues among the 
 Greeks and Romans, so we derive our highest ideal of right- 
 eousness frohi Jewish sources. Righteousness was to the 
 Jew what strength and beauty were to the Greek or fortitude 
 to the Roman. 
 
 This sounds well, but can we think that the Jews taken 
 as a nation were really more righteous than the Greeks 
 and Romans? Could they indeed be so if they were less 
 strong, graceful and enduring? In some respects they 
 may have been — every nation has its strong points — ^but 
 surely there has been a nearly unanimous verdict for many 
 generations that the typical Greek or Roman is a higher, 
 nobler person than the typical Jew — and this referring not 
 to the modern Jew, who may perhaps be held to have been 
 injured by centuries of oppression, but to the Hebrew of 
 the time of the old prophets and of the most prosperous 
 eras in the history of the nation. If three men could be set 
 before us as the most perfect Greek, Roman and Jew re- 
 spectively, and if we could choose which we would have 
 our only son most resemble, is it not likely we should find 
 ourselves preferring the Greek or Roman to the Jew ? And 
 does not this involve that we hold the two former to be the 
 more righteous in a broad sense of the word ? 
 
 I dare not say that we owe no benefits to the Jewish nation, 
 I do not feel sure whether we do or do not, but I can see no 
 good thing that I can point to as a notoriously Hebrew con- 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 201 
 
 tribution to our moral and intellectual well-being as I can 
 point to our law and say that it is Roman, or to our fine arts 
 and say that they are based on what the Greeks and Italians 
 taught us. On the contrary, if asked what feature of post- 
 Christian life we had derived most distinctly from Hebrew 
 sources I should say at once "intolerance" — ^the desire to 
 dogmatise about matters whereon the Greek and Roman 
 held certainty to be at once unimportant and unattainable. 
 This, with all its train of bloodshed and family disunion, 
 is chargeable to the Jewish rather than to any other account. 
 
 There is yet another vice which occurs readily to any 
 one who reckons up the characteristics which we derive 
 mainly from the Jews ; it is one that we call, after a Jewish 
 sect, "Pharisaism." I do not mean to say that no Greek 
 or Roman was ever a sanctimonious hypocrite, still, sancti- 
 moniousness does not readily enter into our notions of Greeks 
 and Romans and it does so enter into our notions of the 
 old Hebrews. Of course, we are all of us sanctimonious 
 sometimes ; Horace himself is so when he talks about aurum 
 irrepertum et sic meliiis situm, and as for Virgil he was a prig, 
 pure and simple; still, on the whole, sanctimoniousness was 
 not a Greek and Roman vice and it was a Hebrew one. True, 
 they stoned their prophets freely; but these are not the 
 Hebrews to whom Mr. Arnold is referring; they are the 
 ones whom it is the custom to leave out of sight and out 
 of mind as far as possible, so that they should hardly count 
 as Hebrews at all, and none of our characteristics should be 
 ascribed to them. 
 
 Taking their literature I cannot see that it deserves the 
 praises that have been lavished upon it. The Song of Solo- 
 mon and the book of Esther are the most interesting in the 
 Old Testament, but these are the very ones that make the 
 smallest pretensions to holiness, and even these are neither 
 of them of very transcendent merit. They would stand no 
 chance of being accepted by Messrs. Cassell and Co. or by 
 any biblical publisher of the present day. Chatto and Windus 
 might take the Song of Solomon, but, with this exception, I 
 doubt if there is a publisher in London who would give a 
 guinea for the pair. Ecclesiastes contains some fine things 
 but is strongly tinged with pessimism, cynicism and affecta- 
 tion. Some of the Proverbs are good, but not many of them 
 
202 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 are in common use. Job contains some fine passages, and so 
 do some of the Psalms; but the Psalms generally are poor 
 and, for the most part, querulous, spiteful and introspective 
 into the bargain. Mudie would not take thirteen copies of the 
 lot if they were to appear now for the first time — unless in- 
 deed their royal authorship were to arouse an adventitious 
 interest in them, or unless the author were a rich man whb 
 played his cards judiciously with the reviewers. As for the 
 prophets — ^we know what appears to have been the opinion 
 formed concerning them by those who should have been best 
 acquainted with them ; I am no judge as to the merits of the 
 controversy between them and their fellow-countrymen, but 
 I have read their works and am of opinion that they 
 will not hold their own against such masterpieces of modern 
 literature as, we will say. The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson 
 CrurSoe, Gidliver's Travels or Tom Jones. "Whether there 
 be prophecies," exclaims the Apostle, "they shall fail." On 
 the whole I should say that Isaiah and Jeremiah must be held 
 to have failed. 
 
 I would join issue with Mr. Matthew Arnold on yet another 
 point. I understand him to imply that righteousness should 
 be a man's highest aim in life. I do not like setting up 
 righteousness, nor yet anything else, as the highest aim in 
 life; a man should have any number of little aims about 
 which he should be conscious and for which he should have 
 names, but he should have neither name for, nor consciousness 
 concerning the main aim of his life. Whatever we do we 
 must try and do it rightly — ^this is obvious — but righteousness 
 implies something much more than this: it conveys to our 
 minds not only the desire to get whatever we have taken 
 in hand as nearly right as possible, but also the general 
 reference of our lives to the supposed will of an unseen but 
 supreme f)ower. Granted that there is such a power, and 
 granted that we should obey its will, we are the more likely 
 to do this the less we concern ourselves about the matter 
 and the more we confine our attention to the things immedi- 
 ately round about us which seem, so to speak, entrusted to 
 us as the natural and legitimate sphere of our activity. 
 I believe a man will get the most useful information on these 
 matters from modern European sources; next to these he 
 will get most from Athens and ancient Rome. Mr. Matthew 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 203 
 
 Arnold notwithstanding, I do not think he will get anything 
 from Jerusalem which he will not find better and more easily 
 elsewhere. [1883.] 
 
 Wisdom 
 
 But where shall wisdom be found? (Job xxviii. 12). 
 
 If the writer of these words meant exactly what he said, 
 he had so little wisdom that he might well seek more. He 
 should have known that wisdom spends most of her time 
 crying in the streets and public-houses, and he should have 
 gone thither to look for her. It is written : 
 
 "Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the 
 streets : 
 
 "She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the open- 
 ings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words" 
 (Prov. i. 20, 21.) 
 
 If however he meant rather "Where shall wisdom be 
 regarded ?" this, again, is not a very sensible question. Peo- 
 ple have had wisdom before them for some time, and they 
 may be presumed to be the best judges of their own affairs, 
 yet they do not generally show much regard for wisdom. 
 We may conclude, therefore, that they have found her less 
 profitable than by her own estimate she would appear to 
 be. This indeed is what one of the wisest men who ever 
 lived — ^the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes — definitely con- 
 cludes to be the case, when he tells his readers that they had 
 better not overdo either their virtue or their wisdom. They 
 must not, on the other hand, overdo their wickedness ,nor, 
 presumably, their ignorance, still the writer evidently thinks 
 that error is safer on the side of too little than of too much.* 
 
 Reflection will show that this must always have been true, 
 
 and must always remain so, for this is the side on which error 
 
 , is both least disastrous and offers most place for repentance. 
 
 He who finds himself inconvenienced by knowing too little 
 
 *A11 things have I seen in the days of my vanity:' there is a just 
 man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man 
 that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. 
 
 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why 
 shouldest thou destroy thyself? _ 
 
 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest 
 thou die before thy time? (Eccles. vii. 15, 16, 17). 
 
204 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 can go to the British Museum, or to the Working Men's Col- 
 lege, and learn more ; but when a thing is once well learnt it 
 is even harder to unlearn it than it was to learn it. Would it 
 be possible to unlearn the art of speech or the arts of reading 
 and writing even if we wished to do so? Wisdom and knowl- 
 edge are, like a bad reputation, more easily won than lost; 
 we got on fairly well without knowing that the earth went 
 round the sun; we thought the sun went round the earth 
 until we found it made us uncomfortable to think so any 
 longer, then we altered our opinion ; it was not very easy to 
 alter it, but it was easier than it would be to alter it back 
 again. Vestigia nulla retrorsum; the earth itself does not 
 pursue its course more steadily than mind does when it has 
 once committed itself, and if we could see the movements of 
 the stars in slow time we should probably find that there was 
 much more throb and tremor in detail than we can take note of. 
 
 How, I wonder, will it be if in our pursuit of knowledge 
 we stumble upon some awkward fact as disturbing for the 
 human race as an enquiry into the state of his own finances 
 may sometimes prove to the individual? The pursuit of 
 knowledge can never be anything but a leap in the dark, and 
 a leap in the dark is a very uncomfortable thing. I have 
 sometimes thought that if the human race ever loses its 
 ascendancy it will not be through plague, famine or cata- 
 clysm, but by getting to know some little microbe, as it 
 were, of knowledge which shall get into its system and breed 
 there till it makes an end of us.* It is well, therefore, that 
 there should be a substratum of mankind who cannot by 
 any inducement be persuaded to know anything whatever 
 at all, and who are resolutely determined to know nothing 
 among us but what the parson tells them, and not to be too 
 sure even about that. 
 
 Whence then cometh wisdom and where is the place of 
 understanding? How does Job solve his problem? 
 
 "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to 
 depart from evil is understanding." 
 
 The answer is all very well as far as it goes, but it only 
 amounts to saying .that wisdom is wisdom. We know no 
 better what the fear of the Lord is than what wisdom is, 
 
 * Cf. "Imaginary Worlds," p. 233 post. 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 205 
 
 and we often do not depart from evil simply because we do 
 not know that what we are cleaving to is evil. 
 
 Loving and Hating 
 
 I have often said that there is no true love short of eating 
 and consequent assimilation; the embryonic processes are 
 but a long course of eating and assimilation — the sperm and 
 germ cells, or the two elements that go to form the new 
 animal, whatever they should be called, eat one another up, 
 and then the mother assimilates them, more or less, through 
 mutual inter-feeding and inter-breeding between her and 
 them. But the curious point is that the more profound 
 our love is the less we are conscious of it as love. True, a 
 nurse tells her child that she would like to eat it, but this 
 is only an expression that shows an instinctive recognition 
 of the fact that eating is a mode of, or rather the acme of, 
 love — no nurse loves her child half well enough to want 
 really to eat it; put to such proof as this the love of which 
 she is so profoundly, as she imagines, sentient proves to be 
 but skin deep. So with our horses and dogs: we think we 
 dote upon them, but we do not really love them. 
 
 What, on the other hand, can awaken less consciousness 
 of warm affection than an oyster? Who would press an 
 oyster to his heart, or pat it and want to kiss it ? Yet nothing 
 short of its complete absorption into our own being can in 
 the least satisfy us. No merely superficial temporary con- 
 tact of exterior form to exterior form will serve us. The 
 embrace must be consummate, not achieved by a mocking 
 environment of draped and muffled arms that leaves no 
 lasting trace on organisation or consciousness, but by an en- 
 folding within the bare and warm bosom of an open mouth — 
 a grinding out of all differences of opinion by the sweet 
 persuasion of the jaws, and the eloquence of a tongue that 
 now convinces all the more powerfully because it is inarticu- 
 late and deals but with the one universal language of aggluti- 
 nation. Then we become made one with what we love — 
 not heart to heart, but protoplasm to protoplasm, and this 
 is far more to the purpose. 
 
 The proof of love, then, like that of any other pleasant 
 pudding, is in the eating, and tested by this proof we see 
 
2o6 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 that consciousness of love, like all other consciousness, van- 
 ishes on becoming intense. While we are yet fully aware 
 of it, we do not love as well as we think we do. When we 
 really mean busineiss and are hungry with affection, we do 
 not know that we are in love, but simply go into the love- 
 shop — for so any eating-house should be more fitly called — 
 ask the price, pay our money down, and love till we can 
 either love or pay no longer. 
 
 And so with hate. When we really hate a thing it makes 
 us sick, and we use this expression to symbolise the utmost 
 hatred of which our nature is capable; but when we know 
 we hate, our hatred is in reality mild and inoifensive. I, 
 for example, think I hate all those people whose photographs 
 I see in the shop windows, but I am so conscious of this that 
 I am convinced, in reality, nothing would please me better 
 than to be in the shop windows too. So when I see the 
 universities conferring degrees on any one, or the learned 
 societies moulting the yearly medals as peacocks moult their 
 tails, I am so conscious of disapproval as to feel sure I should 
 like a degree or a medal too if they would only give me one, 
 and hence I conclude that my disapproval is grounded in 
 nothing more serious than a superficial, transient jealousy. 
 
 The Roman Empire 
 
 Nothing will ever die so long as it knows what to do under 
 the circumstances, in other words so long as it knows its 
 business. The Roman Empire must have died of inexperience 
 of some kind, I should think most likely it was puzzled to 
 death by the Christian religion. But the question is not so 
 much how the ^oman Empire or any other great thing 
 came to an end — everything must come to an end some time, 
 it is only scientists who wonder that a state should die — 
 the interesting question is how did the Romans become so 
 great, under what circumstances were they born and bred? 
 We should watch childhood and schooldays rather than old 
 age and death-beds. 
 
 As I sit writing on the top of a wild-beast pen of the amphi- 
 theatre of Aosta I may note, for one thing, that the Romans 
 were not squeamish, they had no Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals. Again, their ladies did not write 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 207 
 
 in the newspapers. Fancy Miss Cato reviewing Horace! 
 They had no Frances Power Cobbes, no .... s, no ... s; 
 yet they seem to have got along quite nicely without these 
 powerful moral engines. The comeliest and most enjoyable 
 races that we know of were the ancient Greeks, the Italians 
 and the South Sea Islanders, and they have none of them been 
 purists. 
 
 Italians and Englishmen 
 
 Italians, and perhaps Frenchmen, consider first whether 
 they like or want to do a thing and then whether, on the 
 whole, it will do them any harm. Englishmen, and perhaps 
 Germans, consider first whether they ought to like a thing 
 and often never reach the questions whether they do like 
 it and whether it will hurt. There is much to be said for 
 both systems, but I suppose it is best to combine them as far 
 as possible. 
 
 On Knowing what Gives us Pleasure 
 i 
 
 One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to 
 say that he does not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and 
 there is no greater sign of a fool than the thinking that 
 he can tell at once and easily what it is that pleases him. 
 To know this is not easy, and how to extend our knowledge 
 of it is the highest and the most neglected of all arts and 
 branches of education. Indeed, if we could solve the diffi- 
 culty of knowing what gives us pleasure, if T)ve could find 
 its springs, its inception and earliest madus "operandi, we 
 should have discovered the secret of life and development, 
 for the same difficulty has attended the development of every 
 sense from touch onwards, and no new sense was ever de- 
 veloped without pains. A man had better stick to known 
 and proved pleasures, but, if he will venture in quest of new 
 ones, he should not do so with a light heart. 
 
 One reason why we find it so hard to know our own Hkings 
 is because we are so little accustomed to try; we have our 
 likings found for us in respect of by far the greater number 
 of the matters that concern us ; thus we have grown all our 
 limbs on the strength of the likings of our ancestors and adopt 
 these without question. 
 
2o8 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 Another reason is that, except in mere matters of eating 
 and drinking, people do not realise the importance of finding 
 out what it is that gives them pleasure if, that is to say, they 
 would make themselves as comfortable here as they reason- 
 ably can. Very few, however, seem to care greatly whether 
 they are comfortable or no. There are some men so ignorant 
 and careless of what gives them pleasure that they cannot be 
 said ever to have been really bom as living beings at all. 
 They present some of the phenomena of having been bom — 
 they reproduce, in fact, so many of the ideas which we 
 associate with having been born that it is hard not to think 
 of them as living beings — ^but in spite of all appearances the 
 central idea is wanting. At least one half of the misery 
 which meets us daily might be removed or, at any rate, 
 greatly alleviated, if those who suffer by it would think it 
 worth their while to be at any pains to get rid of it. That 
 they do not so think is proof that they neither know, nor 
 care to know, more than in a very languid way, what it is 
 that will relieve them most effectually or, in other words, 
 that the shoe does not really pinch them so hard as we think 
 it does. For when it really pinches, as when a man is being 
 flogged, he will seek relief by any means in his power. So 
 my great namesake said, "Surely the pleasure is as great Qf 
 being cheated as to cheat"; and so, again, I remember to 
 have seen a poem many years ago in Punch according to 
 which a certain young lady, being discontented at home, 
 went out into the world in quest to "Some burden make 
 or burden bear, But which she did not greatly care — Oh 
 Miseree!" So long as there was discomfort somewhere it 
 was all right. 
 
 To those, however, who are desirous of knowing what 
 gives them pleasure but do not quite know how to set about 
 it I have no better advice to give than that they must take 
 the same pains about acquiring this difficult art as about any 
 other, and "must acquire it in the same way — that is by 
 attending to one thing at a time and not being in too great a 
 hurry. Proficiency is not to be attained here, any more than 
 elsewhere, by short cuts or by getting other people to do 
 work that no other than oneself can do. Above all things it 
 is necessary here, as in all other branches of study, not to 
 think we know a thing before we do know it — to make sure 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 209 
 
 of our ground and be quite certain that we really do like a 
 thing before we say we do. When you cannot decide whether 
 you like a thing or not, nothing is easier than to say so and 
 to hang it up among the uncertainties. Or when you know 
 you do not know and are in such doubt as to see no chance 
 of deciding, then you may take one side or the other pro- 
 visionally and throw yourself into it. This will sometimes 
 make you uncomfortable, and you will feel you have taken 
 the wrong side and thus learn that the other was the right 
 one. Sometimes you will feel you have done right. Anyway 
 ere long you will know more about it. But there must have 
 been a secret treaty with yourself to the effect that the 
 decision was provisional only. For, after all, the most im- 
 portant first principle in this matter is the not lightly think- 
 ing you know what you like till you have made sure of your 
 ground. I was nearly forty before I felt how stupid it was to 
 pretend to know things that I did not know and I still often 
 catch myself doing so. Not one of my school-masters taught 
 me this, but altogether otherwise. 
 
 ii 
 
 I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; 
 I dare say I could make myself like it better if I tried; but 
 I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I 
 like things that make me like them at once and no trying 
 at all. 
 
 iii 
 
 To know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not 
 you must see whether you find yourself looking at the adver- 
 tisements of Pear's soap at the end of the programme. 
 
 De Minimis non Curat Lex 
 
 Yes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is 
 a minimum, and sometimes the other way about. If you 
 know you know, and if you don't you don't. 
 
 Yes, but what is a minimum? So increased material weight 
 involves increased moral weight, but where does there begin 
 
2IO Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 to be any weight at all? There is a miracle somewhere. At 
 the point where two very large nothings have united to form 
 a very little something. 
 
 iii 
 
 There is no such complete assimilation as assimilation of 
 rhythm. In fact it is in assimilation of rhythm that what we 
 see as assimilation consists. 
 
 When two liquid bodies come together with nearly the 
 same rhythms, as, say, two tumblers of water, differing but 
 very slightly, the two assimilate rapidly — becoming homo- 
 geneous throughout. So with wine and water which assimi- 
 late, or at any rate form a new homogeneous substance, very 
 rapidly. Not so with oil and water. Still, I should like to 
 know whether it would not be possible to have so much water 
 and so little oil that the water would in time absorb the oil. 
 
 I have not thought about it, but it seems as though the 
 maxim de ndnimis rum curat lex — the fact that a wrong, a 
 contradiction in terms, a violation of all our ordinary canons 
 does not matter and should be brushed aside — it seems as 
 though this maxim went very low down in the scale of nature, 
 as though it were the one principle rendering combination 
 (integration) and, I suppose, dissolution (disintegration) 
 also, possible. For combination of any kind involves contra- 
 diction in terms; it involves a self -stultification on the part 
 of one or more things, more or less complete in both of them. 
 For one or both cease to be, and to cease to be is to contradict 
 all one's fundamental axioms or terms. 
 
 And this is always going on in the mental world as much 
 as in the material; everything is always changing and stulti- 
 fying itself more or less completely. There is no permanence 
 of identity so absolute, either in the physical world, or in 
 our conception of the word "identity," that it is not crossed 
 with the notion of perpetual change which, pro tanto, destroys 
 identity. Perfect, absolute identity is like perfect, absolute 
 anything — as near an approach to nothing, or nonsense, as 
 our minds can grasp. It is, then, in the essence of our con- 
 ception of identity that nothing should maintain a perfect 
 identity; there is an element of disintegration in the only 
 conception of integration that we can form. 
 
 What is it, then, that makes this conflict not only possible 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 211 
 
 and bearable but even pleasant? What is it that so oils 
 the machinery of our thoughts that things which would 
 otherwise cause intolerable friction and heat produce no 
 jar? 
 
 Surely it is the principle that a very overwhelming major- 
 ity rides rough-shod with impunity over a very small minor- 
 ity ; that a drop of brandy in a gallon of water is practically 
 no brandy ; that a dozen maniacs among a hundred thousand 
 people produce no unsettling effect upon our minds; that 
 a well-written i will go as an i even though the dot be omitted 
 — it seems to me that it is this principle, which is embodied 
 in de minimis non curat lex, that makes it possible that 
 there should be majora and a lex to care about them. This 
 is saying in another form that association does not stick to 
 the letter of its bond. 
 
 Saints 
 
 Saints are always grumbling because the world will not 
 take them at their own estimate; so they cry out upon this 
 place and upon that, saying it does not know the things be- 
 longing to its peace and that it will be too late soon and that 
 people will be very sorry then that they did not make more 
 of the grumbler, whoever he may be, inasmuch as he will 
 make it hot for them and pay them out generally. 
 
 All this means: "Put me in a better social and financial 
 position than I now occupy; give me more of the good 
 things of this life, if not actual money yet authority (which 
 is better loved by most men than even money itself), to 
 reward me because I am to have such an extraordinary good 
 fortune and high position in the world which is to come." 
 
 When their contemporaries do not see tMs and tell them 
 that they cannot expect to have it both ways, they lose their 
 tempers, shake the dust from their feet and go sulking off 
 into the wilderness. 
 
 This is as regards themselves; to their followers they say: 
 "You must not expect to be able to make the best of both 
 worlds. The thing is absurd ; it cannot be done. You must 
 choose which you prefer, go in for it and leave the other, 
 for you cannot have both." 
 
 When a saint complains that people do not know the 
 
212 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 things belonging to their peace, what he really means is that 
 they do not suffifciently care about the things belonging to 
 his own peace. 
 
 Prayer 
 
 i 
 
 Lord, let me know mine end, arid the number of my days: that I may 
 be certified how long I have to live (Ps. xxxix. 5). 
 
 Of all prayers this is the insanest. That the one who 
 uttered it should have made and retained a reputation is a 
 strong argument in favour of his having been surrounded 
 with courtiers. "Lord, let me not know mine end" would 
 be better, only it would be praying for what God has already 
 granted us. "Lord, let me know A.B.'s end" would be bad 
 enough. Even though A.B. were Mr. Gladstone — we might 
 hear he was not to die yet. "Lord, stop A.B. from knowing 
 my end" would be reasonable, if there were any use in iM-ay- 
 ing that A.B. might not be able to do what he never can do. 
 Or can the prayer refer to the other end of life ? "Lord, let 
 me know my beginning." This again would not be always 
 prudent. 
 
 The prayer is a silly piece of petulance and it would have 
 served the maker of it right to have had it granted. "A 
 painful and lingering disease followed by death" or "Ninety, 
 a burden to yourself and every one else" — ^there is not so 
 much to pick and choose between them. Surely, "I thank 
 thee, O Lord, that thou hast hidden mine end from me" 
 would be better. The sting of death is in foreknowledge of 
 the when and the how. 
 
 If again he had prayed that he might be able to make his 
 psalms a little more lively, and be saved from becoming the 
 bore which he has been to so many generations of sick per- 
 sons and young children — or that he might find a publisher 
 for them with greater facility — ^but there is no end to it. The 
 prayer he did pray was about the worst he could have prayed 
 and the psalmist, being the psalmist, naturally prayed it — 
 unless I have misquoted him. 
 
 ii 
 
 Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not 
 without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very 
 
Unprofessional Sermons 213 
 
 seriously. I dropped saying mine suddenly once for all with- 
 out malice prepense, on the night of the 29th of September, 
 1859, when I went on board the Roman Emperor to sail for 
 New Zealand. I had said them the night before and doubted 
 not that I was always going to say them as I always had done 
 hitherto. That night, I suppose, the sense of change was so 
 great that it shook them quietly off. I was not then a sceptic ; 
 I had got as far as disbelief in infant baptism but no further. 
 I felt no compunction of conscience, however, about leaving 
 off my morning and evening prayers — simply I could no 
 longer say them. 
 
 iii 
 Lead us not into temptation (Matt. vi. 13). 
 
 For example; I am crossing from Calais to Dover and 
 there is a well-known popular preacher on board, say Arch- 
 deacon Farrar. 
 
 I have my camera in my hand and though the sea is rough 
 the sun is brilliant. I see the archdeacon come on board at 
 Calais and seat himself upon the upper deck, looking as 
 though he had just stepped out of a band-box. Can I be 
 expected to resist the temptation of snapping him? Suppose 
 that in the train for an hour before reaching Calais I had said 
 any niunber of times, "Lead us not into temptation," is it 
 likely that the archdeacon would have been made to take 
 some other boat or to stay in Calais, or that I myself, by 
 being delayed on my homeward journey, should have been 
 led into some other temptation, though perhaps smaller? 
 Had I not better snap him and have done with it? Is there 
 enough chance of good result to make it worth while to try 
 the experiment? The general consensus of opinion is that 
 there is not. 
 
 And as for praying for strength to resist temptation — 
 granted that if, when I saw the archdeacon in the band-box 
 stage, I had immediately prayed for strength I might have 
 been enabled to put the evil thing from me for a time, how 
 long would this have been likely to last when I saw his face 
 grow saintlier and saintlier ? I am an excellent sailor myself, 
 but he is not, and when I see him there, his eyes closed and 
 his head thrown back, like a sleeping St. Joseph in a shovel 
 hat, with a basin beside him, can I expect to be saved from 
 snapping him by such a formula as "Deliver us from evil" ? 
 
214 Unprofessional Sermons 
 
 Is it in photographer's nature to do so? When David found 
 himself in the cave with Saul he cut off one of Saul's coat- 
 tails ; if he had had a camera and there had been enough 
 light he would have photographed him; but would it have 
 been in flesh and blood for him neither to cut off his coat-tail 
 nor to snap him? 
 
 There is a photographer in every bush, going about like a 
 roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. 
 
 iv 
 
 Teach me to live that I may dread 
 The grave as little as my bed. 
 
 This is from the evening hymn which all reispectable chil- 
 dren are taught. It sounds well, but it is immoral. 
 
 Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the 
 far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so 
 many people have not only lived but also died before us. 
 For if the old ones had not in course of time gone there would 
 have been no progress; all our civilisation is due to the 
 arrangement whereby no man shall live for ever, and to this 
 huge mass of advantage we must each contribute our mite; 
 that is to say, when our turn comes we too must die. The 
 hardship is that interested persons should be able to scare us 
 into thinking the change we call death to be the desperate 
 business which they make it out to be. There is no hardship 
 in having to suffer that change. 
 
 Bishop Ken, however, goes too far. Undesirable, of course, 
 death must always be to those who are fairly well off, but 
 it is undesirable that any living being should live in habitual 
 indifference to death. The indifference should be kept for 
 worthy occasions, and even then, though death be gladly 
 faced, it is not healthy that it should be faced as though it 
 were a mere undressing and going to bed. 
 
XIV 
 Higgledy-piggledy 
 
 Preface to Vol. II 
 
 On indexing this volume, as with Vols. I and IV which are 
 already indexed and as, no doubt, will be the case with any 
 that I may live to index later, I am alarmed at the triviality 
 of many of these notes, the ineptitude of many and the 
 obvious untenableness of many that I should have done 
 much better to destroy. 
 
 Elmsley, in one of his letters to Dr. Butler, says that an 
 author is the worst person to put one of his own works through 
 the press {Life af Dr. Butter, I, 88). It seems to me that he 
 is the worst person also to make selections from his own 
 notes or indeed even, in my case, to write them. I cannot 
 help it. They grew as, with little disturbance, they now 
 stand ; they are not meant for publication ; the bad ones 
 serve as bread for the jam of the good ones; it was less 
 trouble to let them go than to think whether they ought not 
 to be destroyed. The retort, however, is obvious; no think- 
 ing should have been required in respect of many — a glance 
 should have consigned them to the waste-paper basket. I 
 know it and I know that many a one of those who look over 
 these books — for that they 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. I have at any rate the 
 consolation of also knowing that, however much I may have 
 irritated, displeased or disappointed them, they will not be 
 able to tell me so ; and I think that, to some, such a record 
 of passing moods and thoughts good, bad and indifferent 
 will be more valuable as throwing light upon the period to 
 which it relates than it would have been if it had been edited 
 with greater judgment. 
 
 215 
 
2i6 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 Besides, Vols. I and IV being already bound, I should not 
 have enough to form Vols. II and III if I cut out all those 
 that ought to be cut out. [June, 1898.] 
 
 P.S. — If I had re-read my preface to Vol. IV, I need not 
 have written the above. 
 
 Waste-Paper Baskets 
 
 Every one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and 
 the older he grows the more things he will consign to it — 
 torn up to irrecoverable tatters. 
 
 Flies in the Milk-Jug 
 
 Saving scraps is like picking flies out of the milk-jug. We 
 do not mind doing this, I suppose, because we feel sure the 
 flies will never want to borrow money off us. We do not feel 
 so sure about anjrthing much bigger than a fly. If it were a 
 mouse that had got into the milk-jug, we should call the cat 
 at once. 
 
 My Thoughts 
 
 They are like persons met upon a journey; I think them 
 very agreeable at first but soon find, as a rule, that I am 
 tired of them. 
 
 Our Ideas 
 
 They are for the most part like bad sixpences and we 
 spend our lives in trying to pass them on one another. 
 
 Cat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas 
 
 We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep 
 turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble — no matter 
 how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them 
 down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will em- 
 brace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in 
 another shape. 
 
 Incoherency of New Ideas 
 
 An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and 
 incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first 
 
Higgledy-Piggledy 217 
 
 among our old ones. We should have patience and see 
 whether the incoherency is likely to wear oif or to wear on, 
 in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better. 
 
 An Apology for the Devil 
 
 It must be remembered that we have only heard one side 
 of the case. God has written all the books. 
 
 Hallelujah 
 
 When we exclaim so triumphantly "Hallelujah! for the 
 Lord God omnipotent reigneth" we only mean that we think 
 no small beer of ourselves, that our God is a much greater 
 God than any one else's God, that he was our father's God 
 before us, and that it is all right, respectable and as it should 
 be. 
 
 Hating 
 
 It does not matter much what a man hates provided he 
 hates something. 
 
 Hamlet, Don Quixote, Mr. Pickwick and others 
 
 The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories 
 of dead men. For the life after death it is not necessary that 
 a man or woman should have lived. 
 
 Reputation 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good 
 deal of the evil that they never did as well. 
 
 Science and Business 
 
 The best class of scientific mind is the same as the best 
 class of business mind. The great desideratum in either case 
 is to know how much evidence is enough to warrant action. 
 It is as unbusiness-like to want too much evidence before 
 buying or selling as to be content with top little. The same 
 kind of qualities are wanted in either case. The difference is 
 
21 8 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 that if the business man makes a mistake, he commonly has 
 to suffer for it, whereas it is rarely that scientific blimdering, 
 so long as it is confined to theory, entails loss on the blunderer. 
 On the contrary it very often brings him fame, money and a 
 pension. Hence the business man, if he is a good one, will 
 take- greater care not to overdo or underdo things than the 
 scientific man can reasonably be expected to take. 
 
 Scientists 
 
 There are two classes, those who want to know and do 
 not care whether others think they know or not, and those 
 who do not much care about knowing but care very greatly 
 about being reputed as knowing. 
 
 Scientific Terminology 
 
 This is the Scylla's cave which men of science are preparing 
 for themselves to be able to pounce out upon us from it, and 
 into which we cannot penetrate. 
 
 Scientists and Drapers 
 
 Why should the botanist, geologist or other-ist give him- 
 self such airs over the draper's assistant? Is it because 
 he names his plants or specimens with Latin names and 
 divides them into genera and species, whereas the draper 
 does not formulate his classifications, or at any rate only 
 uses his mother tongue when he does? Yet how like the 
 sub-divisions of textile life are to those of the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms! A few great families — cotton, Unen, 
 hempen, woollen, silk, mohair, alpaca — into what an infinite 
 variety of genera and species do not these great families 
 subdivide themselves? And does it take less labour, with 
 less intelligence, to master all these and to acquire familiarity 
 with their various habits, habitats and prices than it does 
 to master the details of any other great branch of science? 
 I do not know. But when I think of Shoolbred's on the one 
 hand and, say, the ornithological collections of the British 
 .Museum upon the other, I feel as though it would take me 
 less trouble to master the second than the first. 
 
Higgledy-Piggledy 219 
 
 Men of Science 
 
 If they are worthy of the name they are indeed about God's 
 path and about his bed and spying out all his ways. 
 
 Sparks 
 
 Everything matters more than we think it does, and; at 
 the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. 
 The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though 
 all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will 
 wag itself right again. 
 
 Dumb-Bells 
 I regard them with suspicion as academic. 
 
 Purgatory 
 Time is the only true purgatory. 
 
 Greatness 
 He IS greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts. 
 
 The Vanity of Human' Wishes 
 
 There is only one thing vainer and that is the having no 
 wishes. 
 
 Jones's Conscience 
 
 He said he had not much conscience, and what little he 
 had was guilty. 
 
 Nihilism 
 
 The Nihilists do not believe in nothing; they only believe 
 in nothing that does not commend itself to themselves; 
 that is, they will not allow that anything may be beyond 
 their comprehension. As their comprehension is not great 
 their creed is, after all, very nearly nihil. 
 
220 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 On Breaking Habits 
 
 To begin knocking off the habit in the evening, then 
 the afternoon as well and, finally, the morning too is better 
 than to begin cutting it off in the morning and then go on 
 to the afternoon and evening. I speak from experience as 
 regards smoking and can say that when one comes to within 
 an hour or two of smoke-time one begins to be impatient for 
 it, whereas there will be no impatience after the time for 
 knocking off has been confirmed as a habit. 
 
 Dogs 
 
 The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool 
 of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but 
 he will make a fool of himself too. 
 
 Future and Past 
 
 The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than 
 the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old 
 people than to those who are in the prime of life. 
 
 is 
 
 Nature 
 
 is the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's 
 jmost interesting productions — the works of man. Nature 
 is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and un- 
 domesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to 
 this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the 
 other half. 
 
 Lucky and Unlucky 
 
 People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they 
 get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they 
 get and what they have been led to expect. 
 
 Definitions 
 i 
 As, no matter what cunning system of checks we devise, 
 we must in the end trust some one whom we do not check, 
 
Higgledy-Piggledy 221 
 
 but to whom we give unreserved confidence, so there is a 
 point at which the understanding and mental processes must 
 be taken as understood without further question or definition 
 in words. And I should say that this point should be fixed 
 pretty early in the discussion. 
 
 There is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules and 
 definitions, and another that discards them as far as possible. 
 A faddist will generally ask for a definition of faddism, and 
 one who is not a faddist will be impatient of being asked to 
 give one. 
 
 iii 
 A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a 
 wall of words. 
 
 iv 
 Definitions are a kind of scratching and generally leave a 
 sore place more sore than it was before. 
 
 V 
 
 As Love is too young to know what conscience is, so Truth 
 and Genius are too old to know what definition is. 
 
 Money 
 
 It has such an inherent power to run itself clear of taint 
 that human ingenuity cannot devise the means of making 
 it work permanent mischief, any more than means can be 
 found of torturing people beyond what they can bear. Even 
 if a man founds a College of Technical Instruction, the 
 chances are ten to one that no one will be taught anjrthing 
 and that it will have been practically left to a number of 
 excellent professors who will know very .well what to do 
 with it. 
 
 Wit 
 
 There is no Professor of Wit at either University. Surely 
 they might as reasonably have a professor of wit as of 
 poetry. 
 
222 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge 
 
 The dons are too busy educating the young men to be 
 able to teach them anything. 
 
 Cooking 
 
 There is a higher average of good cooking at Oxford and 
 Cambridge than elsewhere. The cooking is better than the 
 curriculum. But there is no Chaip of. Cookery, it is taught by 
 apprenticeship in the kitchens. 
 
 Perseus and St. George 
 
 These dragon-slayers did not take lessons in dragon- 
 slaying, nor do leaders of forlorn hopes generally rehearse 
 their parts beforehand. Small things may be rehearsed, 
 but the greatest are always do-or-die, neck-or-nothing 
 matters. 
 
 Specialism and Generalism 
 
 Woe to the specialist who is not a pretty fair generalist, 
 and woe to the generalist who is not also a bit of a specialist. 
 
 Silence and Tact 
 
 Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not 
 silence. 
 
 Truth-tellers 
 
 -Professional truth-tellers may be trusted to profess that 
 they are telling the truth. 
 
 Street Preachers 
 
 These are the costermongers and barrow men of the re- 
 ligious world. 
 
Higgledy-Piggledy 223 
 
 Providence and Othello 
 
 Providence, in making the rain fall also upon the sea, 
 was like the man who, when he was to play Othello, must 
 needs black himself all over. 
 
 Providence and Improvidence 
 i 
 We should no longer say: Put your trust in Providence, 
 but in Improvidence, for this is what we mean. 
 
 ii 
 
 To put one's trust in God is only a longer way of saying 
 that one will chance it. 
 
 iii 
 There is nothing so imprudent or so improvident as over- 
 prudence or over-providence. 
 
 Epiphany 
 
 If Providence could be seen at all, he would probably 
 turn out to be a very disappointing person — a little wizened 
 old gentleman with a cold in his head, a red nose and a com- 
 forter round his neck, whistling o'er the furrow'd land or 
 crooning to himself as he goes aimlessly along the streets, 
 poking his way about and loitering continually at shop- 
 windows and second-hand book-stalls. 
 
 Fortune 
 
 Like Wisdom, Fortune crieth in the streets, and no man 
 regardeth. There is not an advertisement supplement to 
 the Times — nay, hardly a half sheet of newspaper that comes 
 into a house wrapping up this or that, but it gives informa- 
 tion which would make a man's fortune, if he could only 
 spot it and detect the one paragraph that would do this 
 among the 99 which would wreck him if he had anything 
 to do with them. 
 
224 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 Gold-Mines 
 
 Gold is not found in quartz alone ; its richest lodes are in 
 the eyes and ears of the public, but these are harder to work 
 and to prospect than any quartz vein. 
 
 Things and Purses 
 
 Everything is like a purse — there may be money in it, 
 and we can generally say by the feel of it whether there is 
 or is not. Sometimes, however, we must turn it inside out 
 before we can be quite sure whether there is anything in it 
 or no. When I have turned a proposition inside out, put 
 it to stand on its head, and shaken it, I have often been 
 surprised to find how much came out of it. 
 
 Solomon in all his Glory 
 
 But, in the first place, the lilies do toil and spin after their 
 own fashion, and, in the next, it was not desirable that 
 Solomon should be dressed like a lily of the valley. 
 
 David's Teachers 
 
 David said he had more understanding than his teachers. 
 If his teachers were anything like mine this need not imply 
 much understanding pn David's part. And if his teachers 
 did not know more than the Psalms — it is absurd. It is 
 merely swagger, like the German Emperor. [1897.] 
 
 S. Michael 
 
 He contended with the devil about the body of Moses. 
 Now, I do not believe that any reasonable person would 
 contend about the body of Moses with the devil or with any 
 one else. 
 
 One Form of Failure 
 
 From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great 
 as that of being always right. 
 
Higgledy-Piggledy 225 
 
 Andromeda 
 
 The dragon was never in better health and spirits than 
 on the morning when Perseus came down upon him. It 
 is said that Adromeda told Perseus she had been thinking 
 how remarkably well he was looking. He had got up quite 
 in his usual health — and so on. 
 
 When I said this to Ballard [a fellow art-student at 
 Heatherley's] and that other thing which I said about Andro- 
 meda in Life and Habit* he remarked that he wished it had 
 been so in the poets, 
 
 I looked at him. "Ballard," I said, "I also am 'the 
 poets.' " 
 
 Self -Confidence 
 
 Nothing is ever any good unless it is thwarted with self- 
 distrust though in the main self-confident. 
 
 Wandering 
 
 When the inclination is not obvious, the mind meanders, 
 or maunders, as a stream in a flat meadow. 
 
 Poverty 
 
 I shun it because I have found it so apt to become con- 
 tagious ; but I fancy my constitution is more seasoned against 
 it now than formerly. I hope that what I have gone through 
 may have made me immune. 
 
 • Pedals or Drones 
 
 The discords of every age are rendered possible by being 
 taken on a drone or pedal of cant, common form and con- 
 ventionality. This drone is, as it were, the flour and suet 
 of a plum pudding. 
 
 * "So, again, it is said that when Andromeda and Perseus had 
 travelled but a little way from the rock where Andromeda had so 
 long been chained, she began upbraiding him with the loss of her 
 dragon who, on the whole, she said, had been very good to her. The 
 only things we really hate are unfamiliar things." Life & Habit, 
 Chapter VIII, p. 138/9- 
 
226 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 Evasive Nature 
 
 She is one long This-way-and-it-isness and, at the same 
 time, That-way-and-it-isn'tness. She flies so like a snipe that 
 she is hard to hit. 
 
 Fashion 
 
 Fashion is like God, man cannot see it in its holy of holies 
 and live. And it is, like God, increate, springing out of 
 nothing, yet the maker of all things — ever changing yet 
 the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. 
 
 Doctors and Clergymen 
 
 A physician's physiology has much the same relation to 
 his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of 
 influencing conduct. 
 
 God is Love 
 I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is! 
 
 Common Chords 
 
 If Man is the tonic and God the dominant, the Devil is 
 certainly the sub-dominant and Woman is the relative minor. 
 
 God and the Devil 
 
 God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and 
 division of labour. 
 
 Sex 
 
 The sexes are the first — or are among the first great ex- 
 periments in the social subdivision of labour. 
 
 Women 
 
 If you choose to insist on the analogies and points of 
 resemblance between men and women, they are so great 
 that the diflferences seem indeed small. If, on the other hand, 
 you are in a mood for emphasising the points of difference, 
 
Higgledy-Piggledy 227 
 
 you can show that men and women have hardly anything 
 in common. And so with anything : if a man wants to make 
 a case he can generally find a way of doing so. 
 
 Offers of Marriage 
 
 Wbmen sometimes say that they have had no offers, and 
 only wish that some one had ever proposed to them. This 
 is not the right way to put it. What they should say is 
 that though, like all women, they have been proposing to nien 
 all their lives, yet they grieve to remember that they have 
 been invariably refused. 
 
 Marriage 
 
 i 
 
 The question of marriage or non-marriage is only the 
 question of whether it is better to be spoiled one way or 
 another. 
 
 ii 
 
 In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved. 
 
 iii 
 Inoculation, or a hair of the dog that is going to bite you — 
 this principle should be introduced in respect of marriage 
 and speculation. 
 
 Life and Love 
 
 To live is like to love — ^all reason is against it, and all 
 healthy instinct for it. 
 
 The Basis of Life 
 We may say what we will, but Life is, au fond, sensual. 
 
 Woman Sufifrage 
 
 I will vote for it when women have left off making a noise 
 in the reading-room of the British Museum, when they leave 
 off wearing high head-dresses in the pit of a theatre and 
 when I have seen as many as twelve women in all catch hold 
 of the strap or bar on getting into an omnibus. 
 
228 Higgledy-Piggledy 
 
 Manners Makyth Man 
 Yes, but they make woman still more. 
 
 Women and Religion 
 
 It has been said that all sensible men are of the same 
 religion and that no sensible man ever says what that religion 
 is. So all sensible men are of the same opinion about women 
 and no sensible man ever says what that opinion is. 
 
 Happiness 
 
 Behold and see if there be any happiness like unto the hap- 
 piness of the devils when they found themselves cast out 
 of Mary Magdalene. 
 
 Sorrow within Sorrow 
 
 He was in reality damned glad; he told people he was 
 sorry he was not more sorry, and here began the first genuine 
 sorrow, for he was really sorry that people would not believe 
 he was sorry that he was not more sorry. 
 
 Going Away 
 
 I can generally bear the separation, but I don't like the 
 leave-taking. 
 
XV 
 Titles and Subjects 
 
 Titles 
 
 A GOOD title should aim at making what follows as far as 
 possible superfluous to those who know anything of the 
 subject. 
 
 "The Ancient Mariner" 
 
 This poem would not have taken so well if it had been 
 called "The Old Sailor," so that Wardour Street has itsi 
 uses. 
 
 For Unwritten Articles, Essays, Stories 
 
 The Art of Quarrelling. 
 
 Christian Death-beds. 
 
 The Book of Babes and Sucklings. 
 
 Literary Struldbrugs. 
 
 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 The Limits of Good Faith. 
 
 Art, Money and Religion. 
 
 The Third Class Excursion Train, or Steam-boat, as the 
 Church of the Future. 
 
 The Utter Speculation involved in much of the good advice 
 that is commonly given — as never to sell a reversion, etc. 
 
 Tracts for Children, warning them against the virtues of 
 their elders. 
 
 Making Ready for Death as a Means of Prolonging Life. 
 
 An Essay concerning Human Misunderstanding. So Mc- 
 CuUoch [a fellow art-student at Hieatherley's, a very fine 
 draughtsman] used to say that he drew a great many lines 
 and saved the best of them. Illusion, mistake, action taken 
 
 229 
 
230 Titles and Subjects 
 
 in the dark — these are among the main sources of our prog- 
 ress. 
 
 The Elements of Immorality for the Use of Earnest 
 Schoolmasters. 
 
 ""T'amily Prayers : A series of perfectly plain and sensible 
 ones asking for what people really do want v((ithout any kind 
 of humbug. 
 
 A Penitential Psalm as David would have written it if he 
 had been reading Herbert Spencer. 
 
 A Few Little Crows which I have to pick with various 
 people. 
 
 The Scylla of Atheism and the Qiarybdis of Christianity. 
 
 The Battle of the Prigs and Blackguards. 
 
 That Good may Come. 
 
 The Marriage of Inconvenience. 
 
 The Judicious Separation. 
 
 Fooling Around. 
 
 Higgledy-piggledy. 
 
 The Diseases and Ordinary Causes of Mortality among 
 Friendships. 
 
 The finding a lot of old photographs at Herculaneum or 
 Thebes ; and they should turn out to be of no interest. 
 
 On the points of resemblance and difference between the 
 dropping off of leaves from a tree and the dropping off of 
 guests from a dinner or a concert. 
 
 The Sense of Touch : An essay showing that all the senses 
 resolve themselves ultimately into a sense of touch, and 
 that eating is touch carried to the bitter end. So there is 
 but one sense — touch — and the amoeba has it. When I look 
 upon the foraminifera I look upon myself. 
 
 The China Shepherdess with Lamb on public-house chim- 
 ney-pieces in England as against the Virgin with Child in 
 Italy. 
 
 For a Medical pamphlet: Cant as a means of Prolonging 
 Life. 
 
 For an Art book: The Complete Pot-boiler; or what to 
 paint and how to paint it, with illustrations reproduced from 
 contemporary exhibitions and explanatory notes. 
 
 For a Picture: St. Francis preaching to Silenus. Fra 
 Angelico and Rubens might collaborate to produce this pic- 
 ture. 
 
Titles and Subjects 231 
 
 The Happy Mistress. Fifteen mistresses apply for three 
 cooks and the mistress who thought herself nobody is chosen 
 by the beautiful and accomplished cook. 
 
 The Complete Drunkard. He would not give money to 
 sober people, he said they would only eat it and send their 
 children to school with it. 
 
 The Contented Porpoise. It knew it was to be stuffed 
 and set up in a glass case after death, and looked forward 
 to this as to a life of endless happiness. 
 
 The Flying Balance. The ghost of an old cashier haunts 
 a ledger, so that the books always refuse to balance by the 
 sum of, say, £1.15.11. No matter how many accountants 
 are called in, year after year the same error always turns 
 up; sometimes they think they have it right and it turns 
 out there was a mistake, so the old error reappears. At 
 last a son and heir is born, and at some festivities the 
 old cashier's name is mentioned with honour. This lays 
 his ghost. Next morning the books are found correct and 
 remain so. 
 
 A Dialogue between Isaac and Ishmael on the night that 
 Isaac came down from the mountain with his father. The 
 rebellious Ishmael tries to stir up Isaac, and that good young 
 man explains the righteousness of the transaction — ^without 
 much effect. 
 
 Bad Habits: on the dropping them gradually, as one 
 leaves off requiring them, on the evolution principle. 
 
 A Story about a Freethinking Father who has an illegiti- 
 mate son which he considers the proper thing; he finds this 
 son taking to immoral ways, e.g. he turns Christian, becomes 
 a clerg^yman and insists on marrying. 
 
 For a Ballad: Two sets of rooms in some alms-houses 
 at Cobham near Gravesend have an inscription stating that 
 they belong to "the Hundred of Hoo in the Isle of 
 Grain." These words would make a lovely refrain for a 
 ballad. 
 
 A story about a man who suffered from atrophy of the 
 purse, or atrophy of the opinions; but whatever the disease 
 some plausible Latin, or imitation-Latin name must be found 
 for it and also some cure. 
 
 A Fairy Story modelled on the Ugly Duckling of Hans 
 Andersen about a bumptious boy whom all the nice boys 
 
232 Titles and Subjects 
 
 hated. He finds out that he was really at last caressed by 
 the Huxleys and T3mdalls as one of themselves. 
 
 A Collection of the letters of people who have committed 
 suicide; and also of people who only threaten to do so. 
 The first may be got abundantly from reports of coroners' 
 inquests, the second would be harder to come by. 
 
 The Structure and Comparative Anatomy of Fads, Fancies 
 and Theories; showing, moreover, that men and women 
 exist only as the organs and tools of the ideas that dominate 
 them; it is the fad that is alone living. 
 
 An Astronomical Speculation: Each fixed star has a 
 separate god whose body is his own particular solar system, 
 and these gods know each other, move about among each 
 other as we do, laugh at each other and criticise one another's 
 work. Write some of their discourses with and about one 
 another. 
 
 Imaginary Worlds 
 
 A world exactly, to the minutest detail, a duplicate of 
 our own, but as we shall be five hundred, or from that 
 to twenty thousand, years hence. Let there be also 
 another world, a duplicate of what we were five hundred 
 to twenty thousand years ago. There should be many 
 worlds of each kind at different dates behind us and ahead 
 of us. 
 
 I send a visitor from a world ahead of us to a world behind 
 us, after which he comes to us, and so we learn what happened 
 in the Homeric age. My visitor will not tell me what has 
 happened in his own world since the time corresponding to 
 the present moment in our world, because the knowledge 
 of the future would be not only fatal to ourselves but would 
 upset the similarity between the two worlds, so they would 
 be no longer able to refer to us for information on any point 
 of history from the moment of the introduction of the dis- 
 turbing element. 
 
 When they are in doubt about a point in their past history 
 that we have not yet reached they make preparation and 
 forecast its occurrence in our world as we foretell eclipses 
 and transits of Venus, and all their most accomplished his- 
 torians investigate it; but if the conditions for observation 
 have been unfavourable, or if they postpone consideration 
 
Titles and Subjects 233 
 
 of the point till the time of its happening here has gone by, 
 then they must wait for many years till the same combination 
 occurs in some other world. Thus they say, "The next 
 beheading of King Charles I will be in Aid. b. x. 231 J" — or 
 whatever the name of the star may be — "on such and such 
 a day of such and such a year, and there will not be another 
 in the lifetime of any man now living," or there will, in such 
 and such a star, as the case may be. 
 
 Communication with a world twenty thousand years ahead 
 of us might ruin the human race as effectually as if we had 
 fallen into the sun. It would be too wide a cross. The 
 people in my supposed world know this and if, for any reason, 
 they want to kill a civilisation, stuff it and put it into a 
 museum, they tell it something that is too much ahead of 
 its other ideas, something that travels faster than thought, 
 thus setting an avalanche of new ideas tumbling in upon 
 it and utterly destroying everything. Sometimes they 
 merely introduce a little poisonous microbe of thought 
 which the cells in the world where it is introduced do not 
 know how to deal with — some such trifle as that two and 
 two make seven, or that you can weigh time in scales by 
 the pound; a single such microbe of knowledge placed in 
 the brain of a fitting subject would breed like wild fire and 
 kill all that came in contact with it. 
 
 And so on. 
 
 An Idyll 
 
 I knew a South Italian of the old Greek blood whose 
 sister told him when he was a boy that he had eyes like a 
 cow. 
 
 Raging with despair and grief he haunted the fountains 
 and looked into the mirror of their waters. "Are my eyes," 
 he asked himself with horror, "are they really like the eyes 
 of a cow?" "Alas!" he was compelled to answer, "they 
 are only too sadly, sadly like them." 
 
 And he asked those of his playmates whom he best knew 
 and trusted whether it was indeed true that his eyes were 
 like the eyes of a cow, but he got no comfort from any of 
 them, for they one and all laughed at him and said that they 
 were not only like, but very like. Then grief consumed his 
 
234 Titles and Subjects 
 
 soul, and he could eat no food, till one day the loveliest girl 
 in the place said to him: 
 
 "Gaetano, my grandmother is ill and cannot get her fire- 
 wood ; come with me to the bosco this evening and help me 
 to bring her a load or two, will you?" 
 
 And he said he would go. 
 
 So when the sun was well down and the cool night air 
 was sauntering under the chestnuts, the pair sat together 
 cheek to cheek and with their arms round each other's 
 waists. 
 
 "O Gaetano," she exclaimed, "I do love you so very 
 dearly. When you look at me your eyes are like — ^they are 
 like the eyes" — here she faltered a little — "the eyes of a 
 cow." 
 
 Thenceforward he cared not. . . . 
 
 And so on. 
 
 A Divorce Novelette 
 
 The hero and heroine are engaged against their wishes. 
 They like one another very well but each is in love with 
 some one else; nevertheless, under an uncle's will, they 
 forfeit large property unless they marry one another, so 
 they get married, making no secret to one another that they 
 dislike it very much. 
 
 On the evening of their wedding day they broach the 
 subject that has long been nearest to their hearts — the pos- 
 sibility of being divorced. They discuss it tearfully, but 
 the obstacles seem insuperable. Nevertheless they agree 
 that faint heart never yet got rid of fair lady, "None but 
 the brave," exclaims the husband, "deserve to lose the fair," 
 and they plight their most solemn vows that they will hence- 
 forth live but for the object of getting divorced from one 
 another. 
 
 But the course of true divorce never did run smooth, and 
 the plot turns upon the difficulties that meet them and how 
 they try to overcome them. At one time they seem almost 
 certain of success, but the cup is dashed from their lips 
 and is farther off than ever. 
 
 At last an opportunity occurs in an unlooked-for manner. 
 They are divorced and live happily apart ever afterwards. 
 
Titles and Subjects 235 
 
 The Moral Painter 
 A Tale of Double Personality 
 
 Once upon a time there was a painter who divided his 
 life into two halves; in the one half he painted pot-boilers 
 for the market, setting every consideration aside except 
 that of doing for his master, the public, something for which 
 he could get paid the money on which he lived. He was 
 great at floods and never looked at nature excejpt in order 
 to see what would make most show with least expense. On 
 the whole he found nothing so cheap to make and easy to 
 sell as veiled heads. 
 
 The other half of his time he studied and painted with 
 the sincerity of Giovanni Bellini, Rembrandt, Holbein or 
 De Hooghe. He was then his own master and thought 
 only of doing his work as well as he could, regardless of 
 whether it would bring him anything but debt and abuse 
 or not. He gave his best without receiving so much as 
 thanks. 
 
 He avoided the temptation of telling either half about the 
 other. 
 
 Two Writers 
 
 One left little or nothing about himself and the world 
 complained that it was puzzled. Another, mindful of this, 
 left copious details about himself, whereon the world said 
 that it was even more puzzled about him than about the 
 man who had left nothing, till presently it found out that 
 it was also bored, and troubled itself no more about either. 
 
 The Archbishop of Heligoland 
 
 The Archbishop of Heligoland believes his faith, and it 
 makes him so unhappy that he finds it impossible to advise 
 any one to accept it. He summons the Devil, makes a com- 
 pact with him and is relieved by being made to see that there 
 was nothing in it — whereon he is very good and happy and 
 leads a most beneficent life, but is haunted by the thought 
 that on his death the Devil will claim his bond. This terror 
 
236 Titles and Subjects 
 
 grows greater and greater, and he determines to see the Devil 
 again. 
 
 The upshot of it all is that the Devil turns out to have 
 been Christ w^ho has a dual life and appears sometimes as 
 Christ and sometimes as the Devil.* 
 
 * Butler gave this as a subject to Mr. E. P. Larken who made it into 
 a short story entitled "The Priest's Bargain," which appeared in the 
 Pall Mall Magazine, May, 1897. 
 
XVI 
 Written Sketches 
 
 Literary Sketch-Books 
 
 The true writer will stop everywhere and anywhere to put 
 down his notes, as the true painter will stop everywhere and 
 anywhere to sketch. 
 
 I do not see why an author should not have a sale of 
 literary sketches, each one short, slight and capable of being 
 framed and glazed in small compass. They would make 
 excellent library decorations and ought to fetch as much as 
 an artist's sketches. They might be cut up in suitable lots, 
 if the fashion were once set, and many a man might be 
 making provision for his family at odd times with his notes 
 as an artist does with his sketches. 
 
 London 
 
 If I were asked what part of London I was most identified 
 with after Clifford's Inn itself, I should say Fetter Lane^— 
 every part of it. Just by the Record Office is one of the places 
 where I am especially prone to get ideas ; so also is the other 
 end, about the butcher's shop near Hblbom. The reason in 
 both cases is the same, namely, that I have about had time to 
 settle down to reflection after leaving, on the one hand, my 
 rooms in Clifford's Inn, and, on the other, Jones's rooms in 
 Barnard's Inn where I usually spend the evening. The subject 
 which has occupied my mind during the day being approached 
 anew after an interval and a shake, some fresh idea in con- 
 nection with it often strikes me. But long before I knew 
 Jones, Fetter Lane was always a street which I was more in 
 than perhaps any other in London. Leather Lane, the road 
 through Lincoln's Inn Fields to the Museum, the Embank- 
 ment, Fleet Street, the Strand and Charing Cross come next. 
 
 237 
 
238 Written Sketches 
 
 A Clifford's Inn xEuphemism 
 
 People when they want to get rid of their cats, and do not 
 like killing them, bring them to the garden of Qifford's Inn, 
 drop them there and go away. In spite of all that is said 
 about cats being able to find their way so wonderfully, they 
 seldom do find it, and once in Clifford's Inn the cat generally 
 remains there. The technical word among the laundresses in 
 the inn for this is, "losing" a cat : 
 
 "Poor thing, poor thing," said one old woman to me a few 
 days ago, "it's got no fur on its head at all, and no doubt 
 that's why the people she lived with lost her." 
 
 London Trees 
 
 They are making a great outcry about the ventilators on 
 the Thames Embankment, just as they made a great outcry 
 about the Grifiin in Fleet Street. [See Alps and Sanctuaries. 
 Introduction.] They say the ventilators have spoiled the 
 Thames Embankment. They do not spoil it half so much as 
 the statues do — indeed, I do not see that they spoil it at all. 
 The trees that are planted everywhere are, or will be, a more 
 serious nuisance. Trees are all very well where there is plenty 
 of room, otherwise they are a mistake; they keep in the 
 moisture, exclude light and air, and their roots disturb 
 foundations ; most of our London Squares would look much 
 better if the trees were thinned. I should like to cut down all 
 the plane trees in the garden of Clifford's Inn and leave only 
 the others. 
 
 What I Said to the Milkman 
 
 One afternoon I heard a knock at the door and found it was 
 the milkman. Mrs. Doncaster [his laundress] was not there, 
 so I took in the milk myself. The milkman is a very nice 
 man, and, by way of making himself pleasant, said, rather 
 complainingly, that the weather kept very dry. 
 
 I looked at him significantly and said : "Ah, yes, of course 
 for your business you must find it very inconvenient," and 
 laughed. 
 
 He saw he had been caught and laughed too. It was a very 
 
Written Sketches 239 
 
 old joke, but he had not expected it at tha): particular moment, 
 and on the top of such an innocent remark. 
 
 The Return of the Jews to Palestine 
 
 A man called on me last week and proposed gravely that I 
 should write a book upon an idea which had occurred to a 
 friend of his, a Jew living in New Bond Street. It was a plan 
 requiring the co-operation of a brilliant writer and that was 
 why he had come to me. If only I would help, the return of 
 the Jews to Palestine would be rendered certain and easy. 
 There was no trouble about the poor Jews, he knew how he 
 could get them back at any time; the difficulty lay with the 
 Rothschilds, the Oppenheims and such; with my assistance, 
 however, the thing could be done. 
 
 I am afraid I was rude enough to decline to go into the 
 scheme on the ground that I did not care twopence whether 
 the Rothschilds and Oppenheims went back to Palestine or 
 not. This was felt to be an obstacle; but then he began to 
 try and make me care, whereupon, of course, I had to get 
 rid of him. [1883.] 
 
 The Great Bear's Barley-Water 
 
 Last night Jones was walking down with me from Staple 
 Inn to Clifford's Inn, about 10 o'clock, and we saw the Great 
 Bear standing upright on the tip of his tail which was coming 
 out of a chimney pot. Jones said it wanted attending to. 
 I said: 
 
 "Yes, but to attend to it properly we ought to sit up with 
 it all night, and if the Great Bear thinks that I am going to sit 
 by his bed-side and give him a spoonful of barley-water every 
 ten minutes, he will find himself much mistaken." [ 1892.] 
 
 The Cock Tavern 
 
 I went into Fleet Street one Sunday morning last November 
 [ 1882] with my camera lucida to see whether I should like to 
 make a sketch of the gap made by the demolition of the Cock 
 Tavern. It was rather pretty, with an old roof or two behind 
 and scaffolding about and torn paper hanging to an exposed 
 party-wall and old fireplaces and so on, but it was not very 
 
240 Written Sketches 
 
 much out of the way. Still I would have taken it if it had not 
 been the Cock. I thought of all the trash that has been written 
 about it and of Tennyson's plump head waiter (who by the 
 way used to swear that he did not know Tennyson and that 
 Tennyson never did resort to the Cock) and I said to myself: 
 "No — ^you may go. I will put out no hand to save you." 
 
 Myself in Dowie's Shop 
 
 I always buy ready-made boots and insist on taking those 
 which the shopman says are much too large for me. By this 
 means I keep free from corns, but I have a great deal of 
 trouble generally with the shopman. I had got on a pair once 
 which I thought would do, and the shopman said for the third 
 or fourth time : 
 
 "But really, sir, these boots are much too large for you." 
 
 I turned to him and said rather sternly, "Now, you made 
 that remark before." 
 
 There was nothing in it, but all at once I became aware that 
 I was being watched, and, looking up, saw a middle-aged 
 gentleman eyeing the whole proceedings with much amuse- 
 ment. He was quite polite but he was obviously exceedingly 
 amused. I can hardly tell why, nor why I should put such a 
 trifle down, but somehow or other an impression was made 
 upon me by the affair quite out of proportion to that usually 
 produced by so small a matter. 
 
 My Dentist 
 
 Mr. Forsyth had been stopping a tooth for me and then 
 talked a little, as he generally does, and asked me if I knew 
 a certain distinguished literary man, or rather journalist. I 
 said No, and that I did not want to know him. The paper 
 edited by the gentleman in question was not to my taste. I 
 was a4iterary Ishmael, and preferred to remain so. It was 
 my 'role.i 
 
 - "IF seems to me," I continued, "that if a man will only 
 be careful not to write about things that he does not under- 
 stand, if he will use the tooth-pick freely and the spirit twice 
 a day, and cftme to you again in October, he will get on very 
 well without knowing any of the big-wigs." 
 
Written Sketches 241 
 
 "The tooth-pick freely" and "the spirit twice a day" being 
 tags of Mr. Forsyth's, he laughed. 
 
 Furber the Violin-Maker 
 
 From what my cousin [Reginald E. Worsley] and Gogin 
 both tell me I am sure that Furber is one of the best men we 
 have. My cousin did not like to send Hyam to him for a 
 violin: he did not think him worthy to have one. Furber 
 does not want you to buy a violin unless you can appreciate 
 it when you have it. My cousin says of him : 
 
 "He is generally a little tight on a Saturday afternoon. 
 He always speaks the truth, but on Saturday afternoons it 
 comes pouring out more." 
 
 "His joints [i.e. the joints of the violins he makes] are the 
 closest and neatest that were ever made." 
 
 "He always speaks of the comers of a fiddle; Haweis 
 would call them the points. Haweis calls it *e neck of a 
 fiddle. Furber always the handle." 
 
 My cousin says he would like to take his violins to bed 
 with him. 
 
 Speaking of Strad violins Furber said: "Rough, rough 
 linings, but they look as if they grew together." 
 ' One day my cousin called and Furber, on opening the door, 
 before saying "^ow do you do?" or any word of greeting, 
 said very quietly: 
 
 "The dog is dead." 
 
 My cousin, having said what he thought sufficient, took up 
 a violin and played a few notes. Furber evidently did not like 
 it. Rose, the dog, was still unburied ; she was laid out in that 
 very room. My cousin stopped. Then Mrs. Furber came in. 
 
 R. E. W. "I am very sorry, Mrs. Furber, to hear about 
 Rose." 
 
 Mrs. F. "Well, yes sir. But I suppose it is all for the best." 
 
 R. E. W. "I am afraid you will miss her a great deal." 
 
 Mrs. F. "No doubt we shall, sir ; but you see she is only 
 gone a little while before us." 
 
 R. E. W. "Oh, Mrs. Furber, I hope a good long while." 
 
 Mrs. F. (brightening). "Well, yes sir, I don't want to go 
 just yet, though Mr. Furber does say it is a happy thing to 
 die." 
 
242 Written Sketches 
 
 My cousin says that Furber hardly knows any one by their 
 real name. He identifies them by some nickname in connec- 
 tion with the fiddles they buy from him or get him to repair, 
 or by some personal peculiarity. 
 
 "There is one man," said my cousin, "whom he calls 
 'diaphragm' because he wanted a fiddle made with what he 
 called a diaphragm in it. He knows Dando and Carrodus and 
 Jenny Lind, but hardly any one else." 
 
 "Who is Dando?" said I. 
 
 "Why, Dando? Not know Dando? He was George the 
 Fourth's music master, and is now one of the oldest members 
 of the profession." 
 
 Window Cleaning in the British Museum 
 
 Reading-Room 
 
 Once a year or so the figures on the Assyrian bas-reliefs 
 break adrift and may be seen, with their scaling ladders and 
 all, cleaning the outside of the windows in the dome of the 
 reading-room. It is very pretty to watch them and they 
 would photograph beautifully. If I live to see them do it 
 again I must certainly snapshot them. You can see them 
 smoking and sparring, and this year they have left a little 
 hole in the window above the clock. 
 
 The Electric Light in its Infancy 
 
 I heard a woman in a 'bus boring her lover about the 
 electric light. She wanted to know this and that, and the 
 poor lover was helpless. Then she said she wanted to know 
 how it was regulated. At last she settled down by saying 
 that she knew it was in its infancy. The word "infancy" 
 seemed to have a soothing effect upon her, for she said no 
 more but, leaning her head against her lover's shoulder, com- 
 posed herself to slumber. 
 
 Fire 
 
 I was at one the other night and heard a man say : "That 
 corner stack is alight now quite nicely." People's sympathies 
 seem generally to be with the fire so long as no one is in 
 danger of being burned. 
 
Written Sketches 243 
 
 Adam and Eve 
 
 A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of 
 Adam and Eve. 
 
 "Which is Adam and which is Eve ?" said one. 
 
 "I do not know," said the other, "but I could tell if they 
 had their clothes on." 
 
 Does Mamma Know? 
 
 A father was telling his eldest daughter, aged about six, 
 that she had a little sister, and was explaining to her how nice 
 it all was. The child said it was delightful and added: 
 
 "Does Mamma know ? Let's go and tell her." 
 
 Mr. Darwin in the Zoological Gardens 
 
 Frank Darwin told me his father was once standing near 
 the hippopotamus cage when a little boy and girl, aged four 
 and five, came up. The hippopotamus shut his eyes for a 
 minute. 
 
 "That bird's dead," said the little girl ; "come along." 
 
 Terbourg 
 
 Gogin told me that Berg, an impulsive Swede whom he had 
 known in Laurens's studio in Paris and who painted very 
 well, came to London and was taken by an artist friend 
 [Henry Scott Tuke, a.r.a.] to the National Gallery where he 
 became very enthusiastic about the Terbourgs. They then 
 went for a walk and, in Kensington Gore, near one of the 
 entrances to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, there was 
 an old Irish apple-woman sitting with her feet in a basket, 
 smoking a pipe and selling oranges. 
 
 "Arranges two a penny, sorr," said the old woman in a 
 general way. 
 
 And Berg, turning to her and throwing out his hands 
 appealingly, said: 
 
 "O, madame, avez-vous vu las Terbourgs? Allez voir les 
 Terbourgs." 
 
 He felt that such a big note had been left out of the life of 
 any one who had not seen them. 
 
244 Written Sketches 
 
 At Doctors' Commons 
 
 A woman once stopped me at the entrance to Doctors* 
 Commons and said: 
 
 "If you please, sir, can you tell me — is this the place that 
 I came to before?" 
 
 Not knowing where she had been before I could not tell her. 
 
 The Sack of Khartoum 
 
 As I was getting out of a 'bus the conductor said to me in a 
 confidential tone : 
 
 "I say, what does that mean ? 'Sack of Khartoum' ? What 
 does 'Sack of Khartoum' mean?" 
 
 "It means," said I, "that they've taken Khartoum and 
 played hell with it all round." 
 
 He understood that and thanked me, whereon we parted. 
 
 Missolonghi 
 
 Ballard [a fellow art-student with Butler at Heatherley's] 
 told me that an old governess, some twenty years since, was 
 teaching some girls modern geography. One of them did 
 not know the name Missolonghi. The old lady wrung her 
 hands : 
 
 "Why, me dear," she exclaimed, "when I was your age I 
 could never hear the name mentioned without bursting into 
 tears." 
 
 I should perhaps add that Byron died there. 
 
 Memnon 
 
 I saw the driver of the Hampstead 'bus once, near St. 
 Giles's Church — an old, fat, red-faced man sitting bolt up- 
 right on the top of his 'bus in a driving storm of snow, fast 
 asleep with a huge waterproof over his great-coat which 
 descended with sweeping lines on to a tarpaulin. All this rose 
 out of a cloud of steam from the horses. Hie had a short clay 
 pipe in his mouth but, for the moment, he looked just like 
 Memnon. 
 
Written Sketches 245 
 
 Manzi the Model 
 
 They had promised him sittings at the Royal Academy 
 and then refused him on the ground that his legs were too 
 hairy. He complained to Gogin: 
 
 "Why," said he, "I sat at the Slade School for the figure 
 only last week, and there were five ladies, but not one of them 
 told me my legs were too hairy." 
 
 A Sailor Boy and Some Chickens 
 
 A pretty girl in the train had some chirping chickens 
 about ten days' old in a box labelled "German egg powders. 
 One packet equal to six eggs." A sailor boy got in at Basing- 
 stoke, a quiet, reserved youth, well behaved and unusually 
 good-looking. By and by the chickens were taken out of the 
 box and fed with biscuit on the carriage seat. This thawed 
 the boy who, though he fought against it for some time, 
 yielded to irresistible fascination and said : 
 
 "What are they?" 
 
 "Chickens," said the girl. 
 
 "Will they grow bigger?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Then the boy said with an expression of infinite wonder: 
 "And did you hatch them from they powders ?" 
 
 We all laughed till the boy blushed and I was very sorry 
 for him. If we had said they had been hatched from the 
 powders he would have certainly believed us. 
 
 Gogin, the Japanese Gentleman and the 
 
 Dead Dog 
 
 Gogin was one day going down Cleveland Street and saw an 
 old, lean, careworn man crying over the body of his dog which 
 had been just run over and killed by the old man's own cart. 
 I have no doubt it was the dog's fault, for the man was in 
 great distress ; as for the dog there it lay all swelled and livid 
 where the wheel had gone over it, its eyes protruded from 
 their sockets and its tongue lolled out, but it was dead. The 
 old man gazed on it, helplessly weeping, for some time and 
 
246 Written Sketches 
 
 then got a large piece of brown paper in which he wrapped up 
 the body of his favourite; he tied it neatly with a piece of 
 string and, placing it in his cart, went homeward with a heavy 
 heart. The day was dull, the gutters were full of cabbage 
 stalks and the air resounded with the cry of costermongers. 
 
 On this a Japanese gentleman, who had watched the scene, 
 lifted up his voice and made the bystanders a set oration. He 
 was very yellow, had long black hair, gold spectacles and a 
 top hat ; he was a typical Japanese, but he spoke English per- 
 fectly. He said the scene they had all just witnessed was a 
 very sad one and that it ought not to be passed over entirely 
 without comment. He explained that it was very nice of the 
 good old man to be so sorry about his dog and to be so careful 
 of its remains and that he and all the bystanders must sym- 
 pathise with him in his grief, and as the expression of their 
 sympathy, both with the man and with the poor dog, he had 
 thought fit, with all respect, to make them his present speech. 
 
 I have not the man's words but Gogin said they were like 
 a Japanese drawing, that is to say, wonderfully charming, and 
 showing great knowledge but not done in the least after the 
 manner in which a European would do them. The bystanders 
 stood open-mouthed and could make nothing of it, but they 
 liked it, and the Japanese gentleman liked addressing them. 
 When he left off and went away they followed him with their 
 eyes, speechless. 
 
 St. Pancras' Bells 
 
 Gogin lives at 164 Euston Road, just opposite St. Pancras 
 Church, and the bells play doleful hymn tunes opposite his 
 window which worries him. My St. Dunstan's bells near 
 Clifford's Inn play doleful hymn tunes which enter in at my 
 window; I not only do not dislike them, but rather, like them; 
 they are so silly and the bells are out of tune. I never yet was 
 annoyed by either bells, or street music except when a loud 
 piano organ strikes up outside the public-house opposite my 
 bedroom window after I am in bed and when I am just going 
 to sleep. However, Jones was at Gogin's one summer evening 
 and the bells struck up their dingy old burden as usual. The 
 tonic bell on which the tune concluded was the most stuffy 
 and out of tune. Gogin said it was like the smell of a bug. 
 
Written Sketches 247 
 
 At Eynsford 
 
 I saw a man painting there the other day but passed his 
 work without looking at it and sat down to sketch some 
 hundred of yards off. In course of time he came strolling 
 round to see what I was doing and I, not knowing but what 
 he might paint much better than I, was apologetic and said 
 I was not a painter by profession. 
 
 "What are you ?" said he. 
 
 I said I was a writer. 
 
 "Dear me," said he. "Why that's my line— I'm a 
 writer." 
 
 I lavighed and said I hoped he made it pay better than I 
 did. He said it paid very well, and asked me where I lived 
 and in what neighbourhood my connection lay. I said I had 
 no connection but only wrote books. 
 
 "Oh ! I see. You mean you are an author. I'm not 
 an author; I didn't mean that. I paint people's names 
 up over their shops, and that's what we call being a writer. 
 There isn't a touch on my work as good as any touch on 
 yours." 
 
 I was gratified by so much modesty and, on my way back 
 to dinner, called to see his work. I am afraid that he was not 
 far wrong — it was awful. 
 
 Omne ignotum pro magmiico holds with painters perhaps 
 more than elsewhere ; we never see a man sketching, or even 
 carrying a paint-box, without rushing to the conclusion that 
 he can paint very well. There is no cheaper way of getting a 
 reputation than that of going about with easel, paint-box, etc., 
 provided one can ensure one's work not being seen. And the 
 more traps one carries the cleverer people think one. 
 
 Mrs. Hicks 
 
 She and her husband, an old army sergeant who was all 
 through the Indian Mutiny, are two very remarkable people; 
 they keep a public-house where we often get our beer when 
 out for our Sunday walk. She owns to sixty-seven, I should 
 think she was a full seventy-five, and her husband, say, sixty- 
 five. She is a tall, raw-boned Gothic woman with a strong 
 
248 Written Sketches 
 
 family likeness to the crooked old crusader who lies in the 
 church transept, and one would expect to find her body 
 scrawled over with dates ranging from 400 years ago to the 
 present time, just as the marble figure itself is. She has a 
 great beard and moustaches and three projecting teeth in her 
 lower jaw but no more in any part of her mouth. She moves 
 slowly and is always a little in liquor besides being singularly 
 dirty in her person. Her husband is like unto her. 
 
 For all this they are hard-working industrious people, keep 
 no servant, pay cash for everything, are clearly going up 
 rather than down in the world and live well. She always 
 shows us what she is going to have for dinner and it is excel- 
 lent — "And I made the stuffing over night and the gravy first 
 thing this morning." Each time we go we, find the house a 
 little more done up. She dotes on Mr. Hicks — we never go 
 there without her wedding day being referred to. She has 
 earned her own living ever since she was ten years old, and 
 lived twenty-nine and a half years in the house from which 
 Mr. Hicks married her. "I am as happy," she said, "as the 
 day is long." She dearly loves a joke and a little flirtation. I 
 always say something perhaps a little impudently broad to 
 her and she likes it extremely. Last time she sailed smilingly 
 out of the room, doubtless to tell Mr. HJcks, and came back 
 still smiling. 
 
 When we come we find her as though she had lien among 
 the pots, but as soon as she has given us our beer, she goes 
 upstairs and puts on a cap and a clean apron and washes her 
 face — that is to say, she washes a round piece in the middle 
 of her face, leaving a great glory of dirt showing all round it. 
 It is plain the pair are respected by the manner in which all 
 who come in treat them. 
 
 Last time we were there she said she hoped she should not 
 die yet. 
 
 "You see," she said, "I am beginning now to know how 
 to live." 
 
 These were her own words and, considering the circum- 
 stances under which they were spoken, they are enough to 
 stamp the speaker as a remarkable woman. She has got as 
 much from age and lost as little from youth as woman can 
 well do. Nevertheless, to look at, she is like one of the 
 witches in Macbeth. 
 
Written Sketches 249 
 
 New-Laid Eggs 
 
 When I take my Sunday walks in the country, I try to buy 
 a few really new-laid eggs warm from the nest. At this time 
 of the year (January) they are very hard to come by, and I 
 have long since invented a sick wife who has implored me to 
 get her a few eggs laid not earlier than the self-same morning. 
 Of late, as I am getting older, it has become my daughter 
 who has just had a little baby. This will generally draw a 
 new-laid egg, if there is one about the place at all. 
 
 At Harrow Weald it has always been my wife who for 
 years has been a great sufferer and finds a really new-laid egg 
 the one thing she can digest in the way of solid food. So I 
 turned her on as movingly as I could not long since, and was 
 at last sold some eggs that were no better than common shop 
 eggs, if so good. Next time I went I said my poor wife had 
 been made seriously ill by them ; it was no good trying to de- 
 ceive her ; she could tell a new-laid egg from a bad one as well 
 as any woman in London, and she had ■ such a high temper 
 that it was very unpleasant for me when she found herself 
 disappointed. 
 
 "Ah! sir," said the landlady, "but you would not like to 
 lose her." 
 
 "Ma'am," I replied, "I must not allow my thoughts to 
 wander in that direction. But it's no use bringing her stale 
 eggs, anyhow." 
 
 "The Egg that Hen Belonged to" 
 
 I got some new-laid eggs a few Sundays ago. The landlady 
 said they were her own, and talked about them a good deal. 
 She pointed to one of them and said: 
 
 "Now, would you believe it? The egg that hen belonged 
 to laid 53 hens running and never stopped." 
 
 She called the egg a hen and the hen an egg. One would 
 have thought she had been reading Life and Habit [p. 134 and 
 passim] . 
 
 At Englefield Green 
 
 As an example of how anything can be made out of any- 
 thing or done with anything by those who want to do it (as I 
 
250 Written Sketches 
 
 said in Life and Habit that a bullock can take an eyelash out 
 of its eye with its hind-foot — which I saw one of my bullocks 
 in New Zealand do), at the Barley Mow, Englefield Green, 
 they have a picture of a horse and dog talking to one another, 
 made entirely of butterflies' wings, and very well and spir- 
 itedly done too. 
 
 They have another picture, done in the same way, of a grey- 
 hound running after a hare, also good but not so good. 
 
 At Abbey Wood 
 
 I heard a man say to another: "I went to live there just 
 about the time that beer came down from 5d. to 4d. a pot. 
 That will give you an idea when it was." 
 
 At Ightham Mote 
 
 We took Ightham on one of our Sunday walks about a fort- 
 night ago, and Jones and I wanted to go inside over the house. 
 
 My cousin said, "You'd much better not, it will only un- 
 settle your history." 
 
 We felt, however, that we had so little history to unsettle 
 that we left him outside and went in. 
 
 Dr. Mandell Creighton and Mr. W. S. Rockstro 
 
 "The Bishop had been reading Mr. Samuel Butler's en- 
 chanting book Alps and Sanctuaries and determined to visit 
 some of the places there described. We divided our time be- 
 tween the Italian lakes and the lower slopes of the Alps and 
 explored many mountain sanctuaries. . . . As a result of this 
 journey the Bishop got to know Mr. S. Butler. He wrote to 
 tell him the pleasure his books had given us and asked him to 
 visit us. After this he came frequently and the Bishop was 
 m.uch attracted by his original mind and stores of out-of-the- 
 way knowledge." (The Life and Letters of Dr. Mandell 
 Creighton by his Wife, Vol. H, p. 83.) 
 
 The first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down 
 to Peterborough in 1894 before he became Bishop of London, 
 I was a little doubtful whether to go or not. As usual, I 
 consulted my good clerk, Alfred, who said : 
 
Written Sketches 251 
 
 "Let me have a look at his letter, sir." 
 
 I gave him the letter, and he said: 
 
 "I see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you 
 may go." 
 
 I went and enjoyed myself very much. I should like to 
 add that there are very few men who have ever impressed me 
 so profoundly and so favourably as Dr. Creighton. I have 
 often seen him since, both at Peterborough and at Fulham, 
 and like and admire him most cordially.* 
 
 I paid my first visit to Peterborough at a time when that 
 learned musician and incomparable teacher, Mr. W. S. 
 Rockstro, was giving me. lessons in medieval counterpoint; 
 so I particularly noticed the music at divine service. The 
 hymns were very silly, and of the usual Gounod-Bamby 
 character. Their numbers were posted up in a frame and I 
 saw there were to be five, so I called the first Farringdon 
 Street, the second King's Cross, the third Gower Street, the 
 fourth Portland Road, and the fifth Baker Street, those being 
 stations on my way to Rickmansworth, where I frequently 
 go for a walk in the country. 
 
 In his private chapel at night the bishop began his verse 
 of the psalms always well before we had done the response 
 to the preceding verse. It reminded me of what Rockstro 
 had said a few weeks earlier to the effect that a point of 
 imitation was always more effective if introduced before the 
 other voices had finished. I told Rockstro about it and said 
 that the bishop's instinct had guided him correctly — certainly 
 I found his method more satisfactory than if he had waited 
 till we had finished. Rockstro smiled, and knowing that I 
 was at the time forbidden to work, said : 
 
 "Satan finds some mischief still for idle brains to do." 
 
 * This note is one of those that appeared in the New Quarterly 
 Review. The Hon. Mrs. Richard Grosvenor did not see it there, but 
 a few years later I lent her my copy. She wrote to me 31 December, 
 191 1 : 
 
 "The notes are delightful. By the way I can add to one. When 
 Mr. Butler came to tell me he was going to stay with Dr. Creighton, 
 he told me that Alfred had decided he might go on finding the little 
 flake of tobacco in the letter. Then he asked me if I would lend him 
 a prayer-book as he thought the bishop's man ought to find one in his 
 portmanteau when he unpacked, the visit being from a Saturday to 
 Monday. I fetched one and he said: 
 
 "'Is it cut?'" 
 
252 Written Sketches 
 
 Talking of Rockstro, he scolded me once and said he 
 wondered how I could have done such a thing as to call 
 Handel "one of the greatest of all musicians," referring to 
 the great chords in Erewhon. I said that if he would look 
 again at the passage he would find I had said not that Handel 
 was "one of the greatest" but that he was "the greatest of all 
 musicians," on which he apologised. 
 
 Pigs 
 
 We often walk from Rickmansworth across Moor Park to 
 Pinner. On getting out of Moor Park there is a public-house 
 just to the left where we generally have some shandy-gaff and 
 buy some eggs. The landlord had a noble sow which I 
 photographed for him ; some months afterwards I asked how 
 the sow was. She had been sold. The landlord knew she 
 ought to be killed and made into bacon, but he had been 
 intimate with her for three years and some one else must eat 
 her, not he. 
 
 "And what," said I, "became of her daughter?" 
 
 "Oh, we killed her and ate her. You see we had only 
 known her eighteen months." 
 
 I wonder how he settled the exact line beyond which 
 intimacy with a pig must not go if the pig is to be eaten. 
 
 Mozart 
 
 An old Scotchman at Boulogne was holding forth on the 
 beauties of Mozart, which he exemplified by singing thus : 
 
 P 
 
 J iH H .1 ' 1 1 r TfFJ 
 
 ^ 
 
 7 4. -'^d 
 
 D<h ... vi • e ' ni 
 
 I maliciously assented, but said it was strange how strongly 
 that air always reminded me of "Voi che sapete." 
 
 Divorce 
 
 There was a man in the hotel at Harwich with an ugly 
 disagreeable woman who I supposed was his wife. I did not 
 
Written Sketches 253 
 
 care about him, but he began to make up to me in the smoking- 
 room. 
 
 "This divorce case," said he, referring to one that was 
 being reported in the papers, "doesn't seem to move very 
 fast." 
 
 I put on my sweetest smile and said : "I have not observed 
 it. I am not married myself, and naturally take less interest 
 in divorce." 
 
 He dropped me. 
 
 Ravens 
 
 Mr. Latham, the Master of Jones's College, Trinity Hall, 
 Cambridge, has two ravens named Agrippa and Agrippina. 
 Mr. Latham throws Agrippa a piece of cheese; Agrippa takes 
 it, hides it carefully and then goes away contented; but 
 Agrippina has had her eye upon him and immediately goes 
 and steals it, hiding it somewhere else; Agrippa, however, 
 has always one eye upon Agrippina and no sooner is her back 
 turned than he steals it and buries it anew; then it becomes 
 Agrippina's turn, and thus they pass the time, making believe 
 that they want the cheese though neither of them really 
 wants it. One day Agrippa had a small fight with a spaniel 
 and got rather the worst of it. He immediately flew at 
 Agrippina and gave her a beating. Jones said he could almost 
 hear him say, "It's all your fault." 
 
 Calais to Dover 
 
 When I got on board the steamer at Calais I saw Lewis 
 Day, who writes books about decoration, and began to talk 
 with him. Also I saw A. B., Editor of the X.Y.Z. Review. 
 I met him some years ago at Phipson Beale's, but we do not 
 speak. Recently I wanted him to let me write an article in 
 his review and he would not, so I was spiteful and, when I 
 saw him come on board, said to Day: 
 
 "I see we are to have the Editor of the X.Y.Z. on board." 
 
 "Yes," said Day. 
 
 "He's an owl," said I sententiously. 
 
 "I wonder," said Day, "how he got the editorship of his 
 review ?" \ 
 
 "Oh," said I, "I suppose he marrieji some one." 
 
254 Written Sketches 
 
 On this the conversation dropped, and we parted. Later 
 on we met again and Day said : 
 
 "Do you know who that lady was — the one standing at 
 your elbow when we were talking just now?" 
 
 "No," said I. 
 
 "That," he replied, "was Mrs. A. B." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 Snapshotting a Bishop 
 
 I must some day write about how I hunted the late Bishop 
 of Carlisle with my camera, hoping to shoot him when he was 
 sea-sick crossing from Calais to Dover, and how St. Some- 
 body protected him and said I might shoot him when he was 
 well, but not when he was sea-sick. I should like to do it in 
 the manner of the Odyssey: 
 
 . . . And the steward went round and laid them all on the 
 sofas and benches and he set a beautiful basin by each, 
 variegated and adorned with flowers, but it contained no 
 water for washing the hands, and Neptune sent great waves 
 that washed over the eyelet-holes of the cabin. But when 
 it was now the middle of the passage and a great roaring 
 arose as of beasts in the Zoological Gardens, and they prom- 
 ised hecatombs to Neptune if he would still the raging of the 
 waves. ... 
 
 At any rate I shot him and have him in my snap-shot book, 
 but he was not sea-sick. [1892.] 
 
 Homer and the Basins 
 
 When I returned from Calais last December, after spending 
 Christmas at Boulogne according to my custom, the sea was 
 rough as I crossed to Dover and, having a cold upon me, I 
 went down into the second-class cabin, cleared the railway 
 books off one of the tables, spread out my papers and con- 
 tinued my translation, or rather analysis, of the Iliad. Several 
 people of all ages and sexes were on the sofas and they soon 
 began to be sea-sick. There was no steward, so I got them 
 each a basin and placed it for them as well as I could ; then 
 I sat down again at my table in the middle and went on with 
 my translation while they were sick all round me. I had to 
 
Written Sketches 255 
 
 get the Iliad well into my head before I began my lecture on 
 The Humour of Homer and I could not afford to throw away 
 a couple of hours, but I doubt whether Homer was ever 
 before translated under such circumstances. [1892.] 
 
 The Channel Passage 
 
 How holy people look when they are sea-sick ! There was 
 a patient Parsee near me who seemed purified once and for 
 ever from all taint of the flesh. Buddha was a low, worldly 
 minded, music-hall comic singer in comparison. He sat like 
 this for a long time until . . . and he made a noise like cows 
 coming home to be milked on an April evening. 
 
 The Two Barristers at Ypres 
 
 When Gogin and I were taking our Easter holiday this 
 year we went, among other places, to Ypres. We put up at 
 the Hotel Tete d'Or and found it exquisitely clean, comfort- 
 able and cheap, with a charming old-world, last-century 
 feeling. It was Good Friday, and we were to dine maigre; 
 this was so clearly de rigueur that we did not venture even 
 the feeblest protest. 
 
 When we came down to dinner we were told that there 
 were two other gentlemen, also -English, who were to dine 
 with us, and in due course they appeared — the one a man 
 verging towards fifty-eight, a kind of cross between Cardinal 
 Manning and the late Mr. John Parry, the other some ten 
 years younger, amiable-looking and, I should say, not so 
 shining a light in his own sphere as his companion. These 
 two sat on one side of the table and we opposite them. There 
 was an air about them both which said: "You are not to 
 try to get into conversation with us; we shall not let you 
 if you do ; we dare say you are very good sort of people, 
 but we have nothing in common; so long as you keep quiet 
 we will not hurt you ; but if you so much as ask us to pass the 
 melted butter we will shoot you." We saw this and so, during 
 the first two courses, talked sotfo voce to one another, and 
 made no attempt to open up communications. 
 
 With the third course, however, there was a new arrival in 
 the person of a portly gentleman of about fifty-five, or from 
 
256 Written Sketches 
 
 that to sixty, who was told to sit at the head of the table, and 
 accordingly did so. This gentleman had a decided manner 
 and carried quite as many guns as the two barristers (for 
 barristers they were) who sat opposite to us. He had rather 
 a red nose, he dined mcdgre because he had to, but he did not 
 like it. I do not think he dined mcdgre often. He had some- 
 thing of the air of a half, if not wholly, broken-down black- 
 guard of a gambler who had seen much but had moved in 
 good society and been accustomed to have things more or 
 less his own way. 
 
 This gentleman, who before he went gave us his card, 
 immediately opened up conversation both with us and with 
 our neighbours, addressing his remarks alternately and im- 
 partially to each. He said he was an Italian who had the 
 profoundest admiration for England. I said at once — 
 
 "Lei non puo amare I'lnghilterra piu che io amo ed ammiro 
 r Italia." 
 
 The Manning-Parry barrister looked up with an air of 
 slightly offended surprise. Conversation was from this point 
 carried on between both parties through the Italian who 
 acted, as Gogin said afterwards, like one of those stones in 
 times of plague on which people from the country put their 
 butter and eggs and people from the town their money. 
 
 By and by dealings became more direct between us and at 
 last, I know not how, I found myself in full discussion with 
 the elder barrister as to whether Jean Van Eyck's picture in- 
 the National Gallery commonly called "Portrait of John 
 Arnolfini and his Wife" should not properly be held to be a 
 portrait of Van Eyck himself (which, by the way, I suppose 
 there is no doubt that it should not, though I have never 
 gone into the evidence for the present inscription). Then 
 they spoke of the tricks of light practised by De Hooghe; so 
 we rebelled, and said De Hooghe had no tricks — no one less — 
 and that what they called trick was only observation and 
 direct j-endering of nature. Then they applauded Tintoretto, 
 and sOjdid we, but still as men who were bowing the knee to 
 Baal.7 We put in a word for Gaudenzio Ferrari, but they had 
 never heard of him. Then they played Raffaelle as a safe 
 card and we said he was a master of line and a facile deco- 
 rator, but nothing more. 
 
 On this all the fat was in the fire, for they had invested in 
 
Written Sketches 257 
 
 Raffaelle as believing him to be the Three per Cents of artistic 
 securities. Did I not like the "Madonna di S. Sisto" ? I said, 
 "No." I said the large photo looked well at a distance 
 because the work was so concealed under a dark and sloppy 
 glaze that any one might see into it pretty much what one 
 chose to bring, while the small photo looked well because it 
 had gained so greatly by reduction. I said the Child was all 
 very well as a child but a failure as a Christ, as all infant 
 Christs must be to the end of time. I said the Pope and female 
 saint, whoever she was, were commonplace, as also the angels 
 at the bottom. I admitted the beauty of line in the Virgin's 
 drapery and also that the work was an effective piece of 
 decoration, but I said it was not inspired by devotional or 
 serious feeling of any kind and for impressiveness could not 
 hold its own with even a very average Madonna by Giovanni 
 Bellini. They appealed to the Italian, but he said there was 
 a great reaction against Raifaelle in Italy now and that few 
 of the younger men thought of him as their fathers had done. 
 Gogin, of course, backed me up, so they were in a minority. 
 It was not at all what they expected or were accustomed to. 
 I yielded wherever I could and never differed without giving 
 a reason which they could understand. They must have seen 
 that there was no malice prepense, but it always came round 
 to this in the end that we did not agree with them. 
 
 Then they played Leonardo Da Vinci. I had not intended 
 saying how cordially I dislike him, but presently they became 
 enthusiastic about the head of the Virgin in the "Vierge aux 
 Rochers" in our Gallery. I said Leonardo had not succeeded 
 with this head; he had succeeded with the angel's head 
 lower down to the right (I think) of the picture, but had 
 failed with the Madonna. They did not like my talking about 
 Leonardo Da Vinci as now succeeding "and now failing, just 
 like other people. I said it was perhaps fortunate that we 
 knew the "Last Supper" only by engravings and might fancy 
 the original to have been more full of individuality than the 
 engravings are) and I greatly questioned whether I should 
 have liked the work if I had seen it as it was when Leonardo 
 left it. As for his caricatures he should not have done them, 
 much less preserved them; the fact of his having set store 
 by them was enough to show that there was a screw loose 
 about him somewhere and that he had no sense of humour. 
 
258 Written Sketches 
 
 Still, I admitted that I liked him better than I did Michaei 
 Angelo. 
 
 Whatever we touched upon the same fatality attended us. 
 Fortunately neither evolution nor politics came under dis- 
 cussion, nor yet, happily, music, or they would have praised 
 Beethoven and very likely Mendelssohn too. They did begin 
 to run Nuremberg and it was on the tip of my tongue to say, 
 "Yes, but there's the flavour of Faust and Goethe" ; however, 
 I did not. In course of time the seance ended, though not 
 till nearly ten o'clock, and we all went to bed. 
 
 Next morning we saw them at breakfast and they were 
 quite tame. As Gogin said afterwards: 
 
 "They came and sat on our fingers and ate crumbs out of 
 our hands." [1887.] 
 
 At Montreuil-sur-Mer 
 
 Jones and I lunched at the Hotel de France where we found 
 everything very good. As we were going out, the landlady, 
 getting on towards eighty, with a bookish nose, pale blue eyes 
 and a Giovanni Bellini's Loredano Loredani kind of expres- 
 sion, came up to us and said, in sweetly apologetic accents : — 
 
 "Avez-vous done dejeune a peu pres selon vos idees, 
 Messieurs ?" 
 
 It would have been too much for her to suppose that she 
 had been able to give us a repast that had fully realised our 
 ideals, still she hoped that these had been, at any rate, adum- 
 brated in the luncheon she had provided. Dear old thing: 
 of course they had and a great deal more than adumbrated. 
 [26 December, 1901.] 
 
XVII 
 
 Material for a Pi;ojected Sequel to 
 Alps and Sanctuaries 
 
 Mrs. Dowe on Alps and Sanctuaries 
 
 After reading Alps and Sanctuaries Mrs. Dowe said to 
 Ballard : "You seem to hear him talking to you all the time 
 you are reading." 
 
 I don't think I ever heard a criticism of my books which 
 pleased me better, especially as Mrs. Dowe is one of the 
 women I have always liked. 
 
 Not to be Omitted 
 
 I must get in about the people one meets. The man who 
 did not like parrots because they were too intelligent. And 
 the man who told me that Handel's Messiah was "tres chic," 
 and the smell of the cyclamens "stupendous." And the man 
 who said it was hard to think the world was not more than 
 6000 years old, and we encouraged him by telling him we 
 thought it must be even more than 7000. And the English 
 lady who said of some one that "being an artist, you know, 
 of course he had a great deal of poetical feeling." And the 
 man who was sketching and said he had a very good eye for 
 colour in the light, but would I be good enough to tell him 
 what colour was best for the shadows. 
 
 "An amateur," he said, "might do very decent things in 
 water-colour, but oils require genius." 
 
 So I said : "What is genius ?" 
 
 "Millet's picture of the Angelus sold for 700,000 francs. 
 'Now that," he said, "is genius." 
 
 259 
 
26o Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 After which I was very civil to him. 
 
 At Bellinzona a man told me that one of the two towers 
 was built by the Visconti and the other by Julius Caesar, a 
 hundred years earlier. So, poor old Mrs. Barratt at Langar 
 could conceive no longer time than a hundred years. The 
 Trojan war did not last ten years, but ten years was as big a 
 lie as Hbmer knew. 
 
 We went over the Albula Pass to St. Moritz in two dili- 
 gences and could not settle which was tonic and which was 
 dominant ; but the carriage behind us was the relative minor. 
 
 There was a picture in the dining-room but we could not 
 get near enough to see it ; we thought it must be either Christ 
 disputing with the Doctors or Louis XVI saying farewell to 
 his family — or something of that sort. 
 
 The Sacro Monte at Varese 
 
 The Sacro Monte is a kind of ecclesiastical Rosherville 
 Gardens, eminently the place to spend a happy day. 
 
 The processions were best at the last part of the ascent; 
 there were pilgrims, all decked Out with coloured feathers, 
 and priests and banners and music and crimson and gold and 
 white and glittering brass against the cloudless blue sky. 
 The old priest sat at his open window to receive the offerings 
 of the devout as they passed, but he did not seem to get more 
 than a few bambini modelled in wax. Perhaps he was used 
 to it. And the band played the barocco music on the barocco 
 little piazza and we were all barocco together, It was as 
 though the clergymen at Ladywell had given out that, instead 
 of having service as usual, the congregation would go in pro- 
 cession to the Crystal Palace with all their traps, and that the 
 band had been practising "Wait till the clouds roll by" for 
 some time, and on Sunday, as a great treat, they should 
 have it. 
 
 The Pope has issued an order saying he will not have 
 masses written like operas. It is no use. The Pope can do 
 much, but he will not be able to get contrapuntal music into 
 Varese. He will not be able to get anything more solemn than 
 La Fille de Madame Angot into Varese. As for fugues — ! I 
 would as soon take an English bishop to the Surrey panto- 
 mime as to the Sacro Monte on a festa. 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 261 
 
 Then the pilgrims went into the shadow of a great rock 
 behind the sanctuary, spread themselves out over the grass 
 and dined. 
 
 The Albergo Grotta Crimea 
 
 The entrance to this hotel at Chiavenna is through a cov- 
 ered court-yard ; steps lead up to the roof of the court-yard, 
 which is a terrace where one dines in fine weather. A great 
 tree grows in the court-yard below, its trunk pierces the floor 
 of the terrace, and its branches shade the open-air dining- 
 room. The walls of the house are painted in fresco, with a 
 check pattern like the late Lord Brougham's trousers, and 
 there are also pictures. One represents Mendelssohn. He is 
 not called Mendelssohn, but I knew him by his legs. He is in 
 the costume of a dandy of some five-and-forty years ago, is 
 smoking a cigar and appears to be making an offer of mar- 
 riage to his cook.* Down below is a fresco of a man sitting 
 on a barrel with a glass in his hand. A more absolutely 
 worldly minded, uncultured individual it would be impossible 
 to conceive. When I saw these frescoes I knew I should get 
 along all right and not be over-charged. 
 
 Public Opinion 
 
 The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in 
 its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to 
 keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered. 
 
 These Notes 
 
 I make them under the impression that I may use them in 
 my books, but I never do unless I happen to remember them 
 at the right time. When I wrote "Ramblings in Qieapside" 
 [in the Universal Review, reprinted in Essays on Life, Art 
 and Science] the preceding note about Public Opinion would 
 have come in admirably ; it was in my pocket, in my little black 
 note-book, but I forgot all about it till I came to post my 
 pocket-book into my note-book. 
 
 * " Ramblings in Cheapside" in Essays on Life, Art and Science. 
 
262 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 The Wife of Bath 
 
 There are Canterbury Pilgrims every Sunday in summer 
 who start from close to the old Tabard, only they go by the 
 South-Eastern Railway and come back the same day for five 
 shillings. And, what is more, they are just the same sort of 
 people. If they do not go to Canterbury they go by the 
 Clacton Belle to Clacton-on-Sea. There is not a Sunday the 
 whole summer through but you may find all Chaucer's pil- 
 grims, man and woman for man and woman, on board the 
 Lord of the Isles or the Clacton Belle. Why, I have seen the 
 Wife of Bath on the Lord of the Isles myself. She was eating 
 her luncheon off an Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday, which was 
 spread out upon her knees. Whether it was I who had had 
 too much beer or she I cannot tell, God knoweth ; and whether 
 or no I was caught up into Paradise, again I cannot tell ; but 
 I certainly did hear unspeakable words which it is not lawful 
 for a man to utter, and that not above fourteen years ago but 
 the very last Sunday that ever was. The Wife of Bath heard 
 them too, but she never turned a hair. Luckily I had my 
 detective camera with me, so I snapped her there and then. 
 She put her hand up to her mouth at that very moment and 
 rather spoiled herself, but not much. [i8gi.] 
 
 Horace at the Post-OfRce in Rome 
 
 When I was in Rome last summer whom should I meet but 
 Horace. 
 
 I did not know him at first, and told him enquiringly that 
 the post-office was in the Piazza Venezia? 
 
 He smiled benignly, shrugged his shoulders, said "Prego" 
 and pointed to the post-office itself, which was over the way 
 and, of course, in the Piazza S. Silvestro. 
 
 Then I knew him. I believe he went straight home and 
 wrote an epistle to Mecsenas, or whatever the man's name 
 was, asking how it comes about that people who travel hun- 
 dreds of miles to see things can never see what is all the time 
 under their noses. In fact, I saw him take out his note-book 
 and begin making notes at once. He need not talk. He was 
 not a good man of business and I do not believe his books sold 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 263 
 
 much better than my own. But this does not matter to him 
 now, for he has not the faintest idea that he ever wrote any 
 of them and, more likely than not, has never even refreshed 
 his memory by reading them. 
 
 Beethoven at Faido and at Boulogne 
 
 I have twice seen people so unmistakably like Beethoven 
 (just as Madame Patey is unmistakably like Handel and only 
 wants dressing in costume to be the image of him not in 
 features only but in figure and air and manner) that I always 
 think of them as Beethoven. 
 
 Once, at Faido in the Val Leventina, in 1876 or 1877, when 
 the engineers were there surveying for the tunnel, there was 
 among them a rather fine-looking young German with wild, 
 ginger hair that rang out to the wild sky like the bells in In 
 Memoriam, and a strong Edmund Gurney cut,* who played 
 Wagner and was great upon the overture to Lohengrin; as for 
 Handel — he was not worth consideration, etc. Well, this 
 young man rather took a fancy to me and I did not dislike 
 him, but one day, to tease him, I told him that a little in- 
 significant-looking engineer, the most commonplace mortal 
 imaginable, who was sitting at the head of the table, was like 
 Beethoven. He was very like him indeed, and Miiller saw it, 
 smiled and flushed at the same time. He was short, getting 
 on in years and was a little thick, though not fat. A few days 
 afterwards he went away and Miiller and I happened to meet 
 his box — an enormous cube of a trunk — coming down the 
 stairs. 
 
 "That's Beethoven's box," said Miiller to me. 
 
 "Oh," I said, and, looking at it curiously for a moment, 
 asked gravely, "And is he inside it?" It seemed to fit him 
 and to correspond so perfectly with him in every way that one 
 felt as though if he were not inside it he ought to be. 
 
 The second time was at Boulogne this spring. There were 
 three Germans at the Hotel de Paris who sat together, went 
 in and out together, smoked together and did everything as 
 though they were a unity in trinity and a trinity in unity. 
 We settled that they must be the Heckmann Quartet, minus 
 
 * Edmund Gurney, author of The Power of Sound, and Secretary 
 of the Society for Psychical Research. 
 
264 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 Heckmann : we had not the smallest reason for thinking this 
 but we settled it at once. The middle one of these was like 
 Beethoven also. On Easter Sunday, after dinner, when he 
 was a little — well, it was after dinner and his hair went rather 
 mad — Jones said to me : 
 
 "Do you see that Beethoven has got into the posthumous 
 quartet stage?" [1885.] 
 
 Silvio 
 
 In the autumn of 1884, Butler spent some time at Prow,on- 
 togno and Soglio in the Val Bregaglia, sketching and making 
 notes. Among the children of the Italian families in the 
 albergo was Silvia, a boy of ten or twelve. He knew a little 
 English and was very fond of poetry. He could repeat, "How 
 doth the little buzsy bee." The poem which pleased him best, 
 however, was: 
 
 Hey diddle diddle, 
 
 The Cat and the Piddle, 
 
 The Cow jumped over the Moon. 
 
 They had nothing, he said, in Italian literature so good as 
 this. Silvio used to talk to Butler while he was sketching. 
 
 "And you shall read Longfellow much in England?" 
 
 "No," I replied, "I don't think we read him very much." 
 
 "But how is that ? He is a very pretty poet." 
 
 "Oh yes, but I don't greatly like poetry myself." 
 
 "Why don't you like poetry?" 
 
 "You see, poetry resembles metaphysics, one does not 
 mind one's own, but one does not like any one else's." 
 
 "Oh ! And what you call metaphysic ?" 
 
 This was too much. It was like the lady who attributed 
 the decline of the Italian opera to the fact that singers would 
 no longer "podge" their voices. 
 
 "And what, pray, is 'podging'?" enquired my informant 
 of the lady. 
 
 "Why, don't you understand what 'podging' is? Well, 
 I don't know that I can exactly tell you, but I am sure Edith 
 and Blanche podge beautifully." 
 
 However, I said that metaphysics were la ftlosofia and this 
 quieted him. He left poetry and turned to prose. 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 265 
 
 "Then you shall like much the works of Washington 
 Irving?" 
 
 I was grieved to say that I did not ; but I dislike Washington 
 Irving so cordially that I determined to chance another "No." 
 
 "Then you shall like better Fenimore Cooper?" 
 
 I was becoming reckless. I could not go on saying "No" 
 after "No," and yet to ask me to be ever so little enthusiastic 
 about Fenimore Cooper was laying a burden upon me heavier 
 than I could bear, so I said I did not like him. 
 
 "Oh, I see," said the boy; "then it is Uncle Tom's Cabin 
 that you shall like ?" 
 
 Here I gave in. More "Noes" I could not say, so, thinking 
 I might as well be hung for a sheep as for a mutton chop, I 
 said that I thought Uncle Tom's Cabin one of the most 
 wonderful and beautiful books that ever was written. 
 Having got at a writer whom I admired, he was satisfied, but 
 not for long. 
 
 "And you think very much of the theories of Darwin in 
 England, do you not?" 
 
 I groaned inwardly and said we did. 
 
 "And what are the theories of Darwin ?" 
 
 Imagine what followed! 
 
 After which : 
 
 "Why do you not like poetry? — You shall have a very 
 good university in London?" and so on. 
 
 Sunday Morning at Soglio 
 
 The quarantine men sat on the wall, dangling their legs 
 over the parapet and singing the same old tune over and over 
 again and the same old words over and over agaip. "Fu 
 tradito, fu tradito da una donna." To them it was a holiday. 
 
 Two gnomes came along and looked at me. I asked the first 
 how old it was; it said fourteen. They both looked about 
 eight. I said that the flies and the fowls ought to be put into 
 quarantine, and the gnomes grinned and showed their teeth 
 till the corners of their mouths met at the backs of their heads. 
 
 The skeleton of a bird was nailed up against a bam, and I 
 said to a man: "Aquila?" 
 
 He replied : "Aquila," and I passed on. 
 
 The village boys came round me and sighed while they 
 
266 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 watched me sketching. And the women came and exclaimed : 
 "Oh che testa, che testa !" 
 
 And the bells in the windows of the campanile began, and 
 I turned and looked up at their beautiful lolling and watched 
 their fitful tumble-aboutiness. They swung open-mouthed 
 like elephants with uplifted trunks, and I wished I could have 
 fed them with buns. They were not like English bells, and 
 yet they rang more all 'Inglese than bells mostly do in Italy — 
 they had got it, but they had not got it right. 
 
 There used to be two crows, and when one disappeared the 
 other came to the house where it had not been for a month. 
 While I was sketching it played with a woman who was 
 weeding ; it got on her back and tried to bite her hat ; then it 
 got down and pecked at the nails in her boots and tried to 
 steal them. It let her catch it, and then made a little fuss, 
 but it did not fly away when she let it go, it continued playing 
 with her. Then it came to exploit me but would not come 
 close up. Signor Scartazzini says it will play with all the 
 women of the place but not with men or boys, except with him. 
 
 Then there came a monk and passed by me, and I knew I 
 had seen him before but could not think where till, of a sud- 
 den, it flashed across me that he was Valoroso XXIV, King 
 of Paphlagonia, no doubt expiating his offences. 
 
 And I watched the ants that were busy near my feet, and 
 listened to them as they talked about me and discussed 
 whether man has instinct. 
 
 "What is he doing here?" they said; "he wasn't here 
 yesterday. Certainly they have no instinct. They may have 
 a low kind of reason, but nothing approaching to instinct. 
 Some of the London houses show signs of instinct — Gower 
 Street, for example, does really seem to suggest instinct; but 
 it is all delusive. It is curious that these cities of theirs should 
 always exist in places where there are no ants. They certainly 
 anthropomorphise too freely. Or is it perhaps that we formi- 
 comorphise more than we should?" 
 
 And Silvio came by on his way to church. It was he who 
 taught all the boys in Soglio to make a noise. Before he came 
 up there was no sound to be heard in the streets, except the 
 fountains and the bells. I asked him whether the curate was 
 good to him. 
 
 "Si," he replied, "e abbastanza buono." 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 267 
 
 I should think Auld Robin Gray was "abbastanza buono" 
 to Mrs. Gray. 
 
 One of the little girls told me that Silvio had so many 
 centesimi and she had none. I said at once : 
 
 "You don't want any centesimi." 
 
 As soon as these words fell from my lips, I knew I must be 
 getting old. 
 
 And presently the Devil came up to me. He was a nice, 
 clean old man, but he dropped his h's, and that was where he 
 spoiled himself — or perhaps it was just this that threw me off 
 my guard, for I had always heard that the Prince of Darkness 
 was a perfect gentleman. He whispered to me that in the 
 winter the monks of St. Bernard sometimes say matins over- 
 night. 
 
 The blue of the mountains looks bluer through the chest- 
 nuts than through the pines. The river is snowy against the 
 "Verdi prati e selve amene." The great fat tobacco plaUt 
 agrees with itself if not with us ; I never saw any plant look 
 in better health. The briar knows perfectly well what it 
 wants to do and that it does not want to be disturbed; it 
 knows, in fact, all that it cares to know. The question is how 
 and why it got to care to know just these things and no others. 
 
 Two cheeky goats came tumbling down upon me and de- 
 manded salt, and the man came from the saw-mill and, with 
 his great brown hands, scooped the mud from the dams of the 
 rills that watered his meadow, for the hour had come when it 
 was his turn to use the stream. 
 
 There were cow-bells, mountain elder-berries and lots of 
 flowers in the grass. There was the glacier, the roar of the 
 river and a plaintive little chapel on a green knoll under the 
 great cliff of ice which cut the sky. There was a fat, crumby 
 woman making hay. She said : 
 
 "Buon giorno." 
 
 And the "ior" of the "giorno" came out like oil and 
 honey. I saw she wanted a gossip. She and her husband 
 tuned their scythes in two-part, note-against-note counter- 
 point; but I could hear that it was she who was the canto 
 fermo and he who was the counterpoint. I peered down over 
 the edge of the steep slippery slope which all had to be mown 
 from top to bottom; if hay grew on the dome of St. Paul's 
 these dreadful traders would gather it in, and presently the 
 
268 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 autumn crocuses would begin to push up their delicate, naked 
 snouts through the closely shaven surface. I expressed my 
 wonder. 
 
 "Siamo esatti," said the fat, crumby woman. 
 
 For what little things will not people risk their lives ? So 
 Smith and I crossed the Rangitata. So Esau sold his birth- 
 right. 
 
 It was noon, and I was so sheer above the floor of the valley 
 and the sun was so sheer above me that the chestnuts in the 
 meadow of Bondo squatted upon their own shadows and the 
 gardens were as though the valley had been paved with bricks 
 of various colours. The old grass-grown road ran below, 
 nearer the river, where many a good man had gone up and 
 down on his journey to that larger road where the reader and 
 the writer shall alike join him. 
 
 Fascination 
 
 I know a man, and one whom people generally call a very 
 clever one, who, when his eye catches mine, if I meet him at 
 an at home or an evening party, beams upon me from afar 
 with the expression of an intellectual rattlesnake on having 
 espied an intellectual rabbit. Through any crowd that man 
 will come sidling towards me, ruthless and irresistible as 
 fate; while I, foreknowing my doom, sidle also him-wards, 
 and flatter myself that no sign of my inward apprehension 
 has escaped me. 
 
 Supreme Occasions 
 
 Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occa- 
 sions. I knew of an old gentleman who insisted on having 
 the original polka played to him as he lay upon his death-bed. 
 In the only well-authenticated words I have ever met with 
 as spoken by a man who knew he was going to be murdered, 
 there is a commonness which may almost be called Shake- 
 spearean. There had been many murders on or near some 
 gold-fields in New Zealand about the years 1863 or 1864, I 
 forget where but I think near the Nelson gold-fields, and at 
 last the murderers were taken. One was allowed to turn 
 Queen's evidence and gave an account of the circumstances 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 269 
 
 of each murder. One of the victims, it appeared, on being 
 told they were about to kill him, said : 
 
 "If you murder me, I shall be foully murdered." 
 Whereupon they murdered him and he was foully murdered. 
 It is a mistake to expect people to rise to the occasion unless 
 the occasion is only a little above their ordinary limit. People 
 seldom rise to their greater occasions, they almost always fall 
 to them. It is only supreme men who are supreme at supreme 
 moments. They differ from the rest of us in this that, when 
 the moment for rising comes, they rise at once and instinc- 
 tively. 
 
 The Aurora Borealis 
 
 I saw one once in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence oil the 
 island of Anticosti. We were in the middle of it, and seemed 
 to be looking up through a great cone of light millions and 
 millions of miles into the sky. Then we saw it farther off 
 and the pillars of fire stalked up and down the face of heaven 
 like one of Handel's great basses. 
 
 In front of my room at Montreal there was a verandah 
 from which a rope was stretched across a small yard to a 
 chimney on a stable roof over the way. Clothes were hung to 
 dry on this rope. As I lay in bed of a morning I could see 
 the shadows and reflected lights from these clothes moving on 
 the ceiling as the clothes were blown about by the wind. The 
 movement of these shadows and reflected lights was exactly 
 that of the rays of an Aurora Borealis, minus colour. I can 
 conceive no resemblance more perfect. They stalked across 
 the ceiling with the same kind of movement absolutely. 
 
 A Tragic Expression 
 
 The three occasions when I have seen a really tragic ex- 
 pression upon a face were as follows: — 
 
 (i) When Mrs. Inglis in my room at Montreal heard my 
 sausages frying, as she thought, too furiously in the kitchen, 
 she left me hurriedly with a glance, and the folds of her dress 
 as she swept out of the room were Niobean. 
 
 (2) Once at dinner I sat opposite a certain lady who had a 
 tureen of soup before her and also a plate of the same to 
 which she had just helped herself. There was meat in the 
 
270 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 soup and I suppose she got a bit she did not like; instead of 
 leaving it, she swiftly, stealthily, picked it up from her plate 
 when she. thought no one was looking and, with an expression 
 which Mrs. Siddons might have studied for a performance of 
 Clytemnestra, popped it back into the tureen. 
 
 (3) There was an alarm of fire on an emigrant ship in 
 mid-ocean when I was going to New Zealand and the 
 women rushed aft with faces as in a Massacre of the 
 Innocents. 
 
 The Wrath to Come 
 
 On the Monte Generoso a lady who sat next me at the 
 table-d'hote was complaining of a man in the hotel. She said 
 he was a nuisance because he practised on the violin. I ex- 
 cused him by saying that I supposed some one had warned 
 him to fly from the wrath to come, meaning that he had con- 
 ceptions of an ideal world and was trying to get into it. (I 
 heard a man say something like this many years ago and it 
 stuck by me.) 
 
 The Beauties of Nature 
 
 A man told me that at some Swiss hotel he had been speak- 
 ing enthusiastically about the beauty of the scenery to a 
 Frenchman who said to him: 
 
 "Airnez-vous done les beautes de la nature? Pour moi je 
 les abhorre." 
 
 The Late King Vittorio Emanuele 
 
 Cavaliere Negri, at Casale-Monferrato, told me not long 
 since that when he was a child, during the troubles of 1848 
 and 1849, the King was lunching with his (Cav. Negri's) 
 father who had provided the best possible luncheon in honour 
 of his guest. The King said : 
 
 "I can eat no such luncheon in times like these — give me 
 some garlic." 
 
 The garlic being brought, he ate it along with a great hunch 
 of bread, but would touch nothing else. 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 271 
 
 The Bishop of Chichester at Faido 
 
 When I was at Faido in the Val Leventina last summer 
 there was a lady there who remembered me in New Zealand ; 
 she had brought her children to Switzerland for their holiday ; 
 good people, all of them. They had friends coming to them, 
 a certain canon and his sister, and there was a talk that the 
 Bishop of Chichester might possibly come too. In course of 
 time the canon and his sister came. At first the sister, who 
 was put to sit next me at dinner, was below zero and her 
 brother opposite was hardly less freezing ; but as dinner wore 
 on they thawed and, from regarding me as the monster which 
 in the first instance they clearly did, began to see that I 
 agreed with them in much more than they had thought 
 possible. By and by they were reassured, became cordial and 
 proved on acquaintance to be most kind and good. They 
 soon saw that I liked them, and the canon let me take him 
 where I chose. I took him to the place where the Woodsias 
 grow and we found some splendid specimens. I took him to 
 Mairengo and showed him the double chancel. Coming back 
 he said I had promised to show him some Alternifolium. I 
 stopped him and said : 
 
 "Hfere is some," for there happened to be a bit in the wall 
 by the side of the path. 
 
 This quite finished the conquest, and before long I was 
 given to understand that the bishop really would come and we 
 were to take him pretty near the Woodsias and not tell him, 
 and he was to find them out for himself. I have no doubt that 
 the bishop had meant coming with the canon, but then the 
 canon had heard from the New Zealand lady that I was there, 
 and this would not do at all for the bishop. Anyhow the 
 canon had better exploit me by going first and seeing how 
 bad I was. So the canon came, said I was all right and in a 
 couple of days or so the bishop and his daughters arrived. 
 
 The bishop did not speak to me at dinner, but after dinner, 
 in the salon, he made an advance in the matter of the news- 
 paper and, I replying, he began a conversation which lasted 
 the best part of an hour, and during which I trust I behaved 
 discreetly. Then I bade him "Good-night" and left the 
 room. 
 
272 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 Next morning I saw him eating his breakfast and said 
 "Good-morning" to him. He was quite ready to talk. We 
 discussed the Woodsia Ilvensis and agreed that it was a 
 mythical species. , It was said in botany books to grow near 
 Guildford. We dismissed this assertion. But he remarked 
 that it was extraordinary in what odd places we sometimes do 
 find plants ; he knew a single plant of Asplenium Trichomanes 
 which had no other within thirty miles of it ; it was growing 
 on a tombstone which had come from a long distance and 
 from a Trichomanes country. It almost seemed as if the 
 seeds and germs were always going about in the air and grew 
 wherever they found a suitable environment. I said it was 
 the same with our thoughts; the germs of all manner of 
 thoughts and ideas are always floating about unperceived in 
 our minds and it was astonishing sometimes in what strange 
 places they found the soil which enabled them to take root 
 and grow into perceived thought and action. The bishop 
 looked up from his egg and said : 
 
 "That is a very striking remark," and then he went on with 
 his egg as though if I were going to talk like that he should 
 not play any more. 
 
 Thinking I was not likely to do better than this, I retreated 
 immediately and went away down to Claro where there was a 
 confirmation and so on to Bellinzona. 
 
 In the morning I had asked the waitress how she liked the 
 bishop. 
 
 "Oh! beaucoup, beaucoup," she exclaimed, "et je trouve 
 son nez vraiment noble." [ 1886.] 
 
 At Piora 
 
 I am confident that I have written the following note in 
 one or other of the earlier of these volumes, but I have 
 searched my precious indexes in vain to find it. No doubt as 
 soon as I have retold the story I shall stumble upon it. 
 
 One day in the autumn of 1886 I walked up to Piora from 
 Airolo, returning the same day. At Piora I met a very nice 
 quiet man whose name I presently discovered, and who, I 
 have since learned, is a well-known and most liberal employer 
 of labour somewhere in the north of England. He told me 
 that he had been induced to visit Piora by a book which had 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 273 
 
 made a great impression upon him. He could not recollect its 
 title, but it had made a great impression upon him; nor yet 
 could he recollect the author's name, but the book had made a 
 great impression upon him ; he could not remember even what 
 else there was in the book ; the only thing he knew was that 
 it had made a great impression upon him. 
 
 This is a good example of what is called a residuary im- 
 pression. Whether or no I told him that the book which had 
 made such a great impression upon him was called Alps and 
 SanctiMries (see Chap. VI), and that it had been written by 
 the person he was addressing, I cannot tell. It would be very 
 like me to have blurted it all out and given him to understand 
 how fortunate he had been in meeting me ; this would be so 
 fatally like me that the chances are ten to one that I did it ; 
 but I have, thank Heaven, no recollection of sin in this 
 respect, and have rather a strong impression that, for once in 
 my life, I smiled to myself and said nothing. 
 
 At Ferentino 
 
 After dinner I ordered a coffee ; the landlord, who also had 
 had his dinner, asked me to be good enough to defer it for 
 another year and I assented. I then asked him which was the 
 best inn at Segni. He replied that it did not matter, that 
 when a man had quattrini one albergo was as good as another. 
 I said. No; that more depended on what kind of blood was 
 running about inside the albergatore than on how many 
 quattrini the guest had in his pocket. He smiled and offered 
 me a pinch of the most delicious snuff. His wife came and 
 cleared the table, having done which she shed the water bot- 
 tle over the floor to keep the dust down. I am sure she did it 
 all to all the blessed gods that live in heaven, though she did 
 not say so. 
 
 The Imperfect Lady 
 
 There was one at a country house in Sicily where I was 
 staying. She had been lent to my host for change of air by 
 his friend the marchese. She dined at table with us and we 
 all liked her very much. She was extremely pretty and not 
 less amiable than pretty. In order to reach the dining-room 
 
274 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 we had to go through her bedroom as also through my host's. 
 When the monsignore came, she dined with us just the same, 
 and the old priest evidently did not mind at all. In Sicily 
 they do not bring the scent of the incense across the dining- 
 room table. And one would hardly expect the attempt to be 
 made by people who use the oath "Santo Diavolo." 
 
 Siena and S. Gimignano 
 
 At Siena last spring, prowling round outside the cathedral, 
 we saw an English ecclesiastic in a stringed, sub-shovel hat. 
 He had a young lady with him, presumably a daughter or 
 niece. He eyed us with much the same incurious curiosity 
 as that with which we eyed him. We passed them and went 
 inside the duomo. How far less impressive is the interior 
 (indeed I had almost said also the exterior) than that of 
 San Domenico! Nothing palls so soon as overornamen- 
 tation. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards my Lord and the young lady 
 came in too. It was Sunday and mass was being celebrated. 
 The pair passed us and, when they reached the fringe of the 
 kneeling folk, the bishop knelt down too on the bare floor, 
 kneeling bolt upright from the knees, a few feet in front of 
 where we stood. We saw him and I am sure he knew we 
 were looking at him. The lady seemed to hesitate but, after 
 a minute or so, she knuckled down by his side and we 
 left them kneeling bolt upright from the knees on the hard 
 floor. 
 
 I always cross myself and genuflect when I go into a Roman 
 Catholic church, as a mark of respect, but Jones and Gogin 
 say that any one can see I am not an old hand at it. Hbw 
 rudimentary is the action of an old priest! I saw one once 
 at Venice in the dining-room of the Hotel la Luna who crossed 
 himself by a rapid motion of his fork just before he began to 
 eat, and Miss Bertha Thomas told me she saw an Italian lady 
 at Varallo at the table-d'hote cross herself with her fan. I do 
 not cross myself before eating nor do I think it incumbent 
 upon me to kneel down on the hard floor in church — per- 
 haps because I am not an English bishop. We were sorry 
 for this one and for his young lady, but it was their own 
 doing. 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 275 
 
 We then went into the Libreria to see the frescoes by 
 Pinturicchio — which we did not like — and spent some little 
 time in attending to them. On leaving we were told to sign 
 our names in a book and did so. As we were going out we 
 met the bishop and his lady coming in ; whether tihey had been 
 kneeling all the time, or whether they had got up as soon as 
 we were gone and had spent the time in looking round I can- 
 not say, but, when they had seen the frescoes, they would be 
 told to sign their names and, when they signed, they would see 
 ours and, I flatter myself, know who we were. 
 
 On returning to our hotel we were able to collect enough 
 information to settle in our own minds which particular 
 bishop he was. 
 
 A day or two later we went to Poggibonsi, which must have 
 been an important place once; nothing but the walls remain 
 now, the city within them having been razed by Charles V. 
 At the station we took a carriage, and our driver, Ulisse 
 Pogni, was a delightful person, second baritone at the Poggi- 
 bonsi Opera and principal fly-owner of the town. He drove 
 us up to S. Gimignano and told us that the people still 
 hold the figures in Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes to be 
 portraits of themselves and say: "That's me," and "That's 
 so and so." 
 
 Of course we went to see the frescoes, and as we were 
 coming down the main street, from the Piazza on which the 
 Municipio stands, who should be mounting the incline but our 
 bishop and his lady. The moment he saw us, he looked cross, 
 stood still and began inspecting the tops of the houses on the 
 other side of the street; so also did the lady. There was 
 nothing of the smallest interest in these and we neither of us 
 had the smallest doubt that he was embarrassed at meeting 
 us and was pretending not to notice us. I have seldom seen 
 any like attempt more clumsily and fatuously done. Whether 
 he was saying to himself, "Good Lord! that wretch will be 
 putting my kneeling down into another Alps and Sanctuaries 
 or Ex Voto" ; or whether it was only that we were a couple of 
 blackguard atheists who contaminated the air all round us, 
 I cannot tell ; but on venturing to look back a second or two 
 after we had passed them, the bishop and the lady had got a 
 considerable distance away. 
 
 As we returned our driver took us about 4 kilometres 
 
276 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 outside Poggibonsi to San Lucchese, a church of the 12th 
 or 13th century, greatly decayed, but still very beautiful 
 and containing a few naif frescoes. He told us he had sung 
 the Sanctus here at the f esta on the preceding Sunday. In a 
 room adjoining the church, formerly, we were told, a refec- 
 tory, there is a very good fresco representing the "Miraculous 
 Draught of Fishes" by Gerino da Pistoja (I think, but one 
 forgets these names at once unless one writes them down then 
 and there). It is dated — I think (again!) — about 1509, be- 
 trays the influence of Perugino but is more lively and inter- 
 esting than anything I know by that painter, for I cannot 
 call him master. It is in good preservation and deserves to 
 be better, though perhaps not very much better, known than it 
 is. Our driver jx)inted out that the baskets in which the fishes 
 are being collected are portraits of the baskets still in use in 
 the neighbourhood. 
 
 After we had returned to London we found, in the Royal 
 Academy Exhibition, a portrait of our bishop which, though 
 not good, was quite good enough to assure us that we had not 
 been mistaken as to his diocese. 
 
 The Etruscan Urns at Volterra 
 
 As regards the way in which the Etruscan artists kept to a 
 few stock subjects, this has been so in all times and countries. 
 
 When Christianity convulsed the world and displaced the 
 older mythology, she did but introduce new subjects of her 
 own, to which her artists kept as closely as their pagan an- 
 cestors had kept to their heathen gods and goddesses. We 
 now make believe to have freed ourselves from these tram- 
 mels, but the departure is more apparent than real. Our 
 works of art fall into a few well-marked groups and the pic- 
 tures of each group, though differing in detail, present the 
 same general characters. We have, however, broken much 
 new ground, whereas until the last three or four hundred 
 years it almost seems either as if artists had thought subject 
 a detail beneath their notice, or publics had insisted on being 
 told only what they knew already. 
 
 The principle of living only to see and to hear some new 
 thing, and the other principle of avoiding everything with 
 which we are not perfectly familiar are equally old, equally 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 277 
 
 universal, equally useful. They are the principles of con- 
 servation and accumulation on the one hand, and of adven- 
 ture, speculation and progress on the other, each equally indis- 
 pensable. The money has been, and will probably always be 
 more persistently in the hands of the first of these two groups. 
 But, after all, is not money an art? Nay, is it not the most 
 difficult on earth and the parent of all ? And if life is short 
 and art long, is not money still longer ? And are not works of 
 art, for the most part, more or less works of money also? In 
 so far as a work of art is a work of money, it must not com- 
 plain of being bound by the laws of money ; in so far as it is 
 a work of art, it has nothing to do with money and, again, 
 cannot complain. 
 
 It is a great help to the spectator to know the subject of a 
 picture and not to be bothered with having to find out all 
 about the story. Subjects should be such as either tell their 
 own story instantly on the face of them, or things with which 
 all spectators may be supposed familiar. It must not be for- 
 gotten that a work exposed to public view is addressed to a 
 great many people and should accordingly consider many 
 people rather than one. I saw an English family not long 
 since looking at a fine collection of the coins of all nations. 
 They hardly pretended even to take a languid interest in the 
 French, German, Dutch and Italian coins, but brightened up 
 at once on being shown a shilling, a florin and a half-crown. 
 So children do not want new stories ; they look for old ones. 
 
 "Mamma dear, will you please tell us the story of 'The 
 Three Bears' ?" 
 
 "No, my love, not to-day, I have told it you very often 
 lately and I am busy." 
 
 "Very well. Mamma dear, then we will tell you the story 
 of 'The Three Bears.' " 
 
 The Iliad and the Odyssey are only "The Three Bears" 
 upon a larger scale. Just as the life of a man is only the fis- 
 sion of two amoebas on a larger scale. Cui non dictus Hykcs 
 puer et Latonia Delosf That was no argument against telling 
 it again, but rather for repeating it. So people look out in the 
 newspapers for what they know rather than for what they do 
 not know, and the better they know it the more interested 
 they are to see it in print and, as a general rule, xmless they 
 get what they expect — or think they know already — they are 
 
278 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 angry. This tendency of our nature culminates in the well- 
 known lines repeated for ever and ever : 
 
 The battle of the Nile 
 I was there all the while; 
 I was there all the while 
 At the battle of the Nile. 
 The battle of . . . 
 
 And so on ad lib. Even this will please very young children. 
 As they grow older they want to hear about nothing but "The 
 Three Bears." As they mature still further they want the 
 greater invention and freer play of fancy manifested by such 
 people as Homer and our west-end upholsterers, beyond which 
 there is no liberty, but only eccentricity and extravagance. 
 
 So it is with all fashion. Fashions change, but not radically 
 except after convulsion and, even then, the change is more 
 apparent than real, the older fashions continually coming back 
 as new ones. 
 
 So it is not only as regards choice of subject but also as 
 regards treatment of subject within the limits of the work 
 itself, after the subject is chosen. No matter whether the 
 utterance of a man's inner mind is attempted by way of words, 
 painting, or music, the same principle underlies all these three 
 arts and, of course, also those arts that are akin to them. In 
 each case a man should have but one subject easily recognis- 
 able as the main motive, and in each case he must develop, 
 treat and illustrate this by means of episodes and details that 
 are neither so alien to the subject as to appear lugged in by 
 the heels, nor yet so germane to it as to be identical. The 
 treatment grows out of the subject as the family from the 
 parents and the race from the family — each new-born member 
 being the same and yet not the same with those that have pre- 
 ceded him. So it is with all the arts and all the sciences — 
 they flourish best by the addition of but little new at a time in 
 comparison with the old. 
 
 And so, lastly, it is with the ars artium itself, that art of 
 arts and science of sciences, that guild of arts and crafts 
 which is comprised within each one of us, I mean our bodies. 
 In the detail they are nourished from day to day by food 
 which must not be too alien from past food or from the body 
 itself, nor yet too germane to either ; and in the gross, that is 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 279 
 
 to say, in the history of the development of a race or species, 
 the evolution is admittedly for the most part exceedingly 
 gradual, by means of many generations, as it were, of episodes 
 that are kindred to and yet not identical with the subject. 
 
 And when we come to think of it, we find in the evolution 
 of bodily form (which along with modification involves per- 
 sistence of type) the explanation why persistence of type in 
 subjects chosen for treatment in works of art should be so 
 universal. It is because we are so averse to great changes 
 and at the same time so averse to no change at all, that we 
 have a bodily form, in the main, persistent and yet, at the 
 same time, capable of modifications. Without a strpng aver- 
 sion to change its habits and, with its habits, the pabulum of 
 its mind, there would be no fixity of type in any species and, 
 indeed, there would be no life at all, as we are accustomed to 
 think of life, for organs would disappear before they could be 
 developed, and to try to build life on such a shifting founda- 
 tion would be as hopeless as it would be to try and build a 
 material building on an actual quicksand. Hence the habits, 
 cries, abodes, food, hopes and fears of each species (and what 
 are these but the realities of which human arts are as the 
 shadow?) tell the same old tales in the same old ways from 
 generation to generation, and it is only because they do so 
 that they appear to us as species at all. 
 
 Returning now to the Etruscan cinerary urns — I have no 
 doubt that, perhaps three or four thousand years hence, a 
 collection of the tombstones from some of our suburban ceme- 
 teries will be thought exceedingly interesting, but I confess 
 to having found the urns in the Museum at Volterra a little 
 monotonous and, after looking at about three urns, I hurried 
 over the remaining 397 as fast as I could. [ 1889.] 
 
 The Quick and the Dead 
 
 The walls of the houses [in an Italian village] are built of 
 brick and the roofs are covered with stone. They call the 
 stone "vivo." It is as though they thought bricks were like 
 veal or mutton and stones like bits out of the living calf or 
 sheep.* 
 
 * Cf . Wamba's explanation of the Saxon swine teing converted 
 into Norman pork on their death. Ivanhoe, Chap. I. 
 
28o Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 The Grape-Filter 
 
 When the water of a place is bad, it is safest to drink none 
 that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, 
 or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet 
 invented. 
 
 Bertoli and his Bees 
 
 Giacomo Bertoli of Varallo-Sesia keeps a watch and clock 
 shop in the street. He is a cheery little old gentleman, though 
 I do not see why I should call him old for I doubt his being so 
 old as I am. He and I have been very good friends for years 
 and he is always among the first to welcome me when I go to 
 Varallo. 
 
 He is one of the most famous bee-masters in Europe. He 
 keeps some of his bees during the winter at Camasco not very 
 far from Varallo, others in other places near and moves them 
 up to Alagna, at the head of the Val Sesia, towards the end of 
 May that they may make their honey from the spring flowers 
 — and excellent honey they make. 
 
 About a fortnight ago I happened to meet him bringing 
 down ten of his hives. He was walking in front and was im- 
 mediately followed by two women each with crates on their 
 backs, and each carrying five hives. They seemed to me to be 
 ordinary deal boxes, open at the top, but covered over with 
 gauze which would keep the bees in but not exclude air. I 
 asked him if the bees minded the journey, and he replied that 
 they were very angry and had a great deal to say about it; 
 he was sure to be stung when he let them out. He said it was 
 "un lavoro improbo," and cost him a great deal of anxiety. 
 
 "The Lost Chord" 
 
 It should be "The Lost Progression," for the young lady 
 was mistaken in supposing she had ever heard any single 
 chord "Hke the sound of a great Amen." Unless we are to 
 suppose that she had already found the chord of C Major for 
 the final syllable of the word and was seeking the chord for 
 the first syllable ; and there she is on the walls of a Milanese 
 restaurant arpeggioing experimental harmonies in a trans- 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 281 
 
 port of delight to advertise Somebody and Someone's pianos 
 and holding the loud pedal solidly down all the time. Her 
 family had always been unsympathetic about her music. 
 They said it was like a loose bundle of fire-wood which you 
 never can get across the room without dropping sticks ; they 
 said she would have been so much better employed doing any- 
 thing else. 
 
 Fancy being in the room with her while she was strumming 
 about and hunting after her chord! Fancy being in heaven 
 with her when she had found it ! 
 
 Introduction of Foreign Plants 
 
 I have brought back this year siome mountain auriculas and 
 the seed of some salvia and Fusio tiger-lily, and mean to 
 plant the auriculas and to sow the seeds in Epping Forest and 
 elsewhere round about London. I wish, people would more 
 generally bring back the seeds of pleasing foreign plants and 
 introduce them broadcast, sowing them by our waysides and 
 in our fields, or in whatever situation is most likely to syit 
 them. It is true, this would puzzle botanists, but there is no 
 reason why botanists should not be puzzled. A botanist is a 
 person whose aim is to uproot, kill and exterminate every 
 plant that is at all remarkable for rarity or any special virtue, 
 and the rarer it is the more bitterly he will himt it down. 
 
 Saint Cosimo and Saint Damiano at Siena 
 
 Sano di Pietro shows us a heartless practical joke played by 
 these two very naughty saints, both medical men, who should 
 be uncanonised immediately. It seems they laid their heads 
 together and for some reason, best known to themselves, re- 
 solved to cut a leg off a dead negro and put it on to a white 
 man. In the one compartment they are seen in high glee 
 cutting the negro's leg off. In the next they have gone to the 
 white man who is in bed, obviously asleep, and are substitut- 
 ing the black leg for his own. Then, no doubt, they will stand 
 behind the door and see what he does when he wakes. They 
 must be saints because they have glories on, but it looks as 
 though a glory is not much more to be relied on than a gig as 
 a test of respectability. [1889.] 
 
282 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 At Pienza 
 
 At Pienza, after having seen the Museum with a custode 
 whom I photoed as being more like death, though in excellent 
 health and spirits, than any one I ever saw, I was taken to the 
 leading college for young ladies, the Conservatorio di S. Carlo, 
 under the direction of Signora (or Signorina, I do not know 
 which) Cesira Carletti, to see the wonderful Viale of the 
 twelfth or thirteenth century given to Pienza by Pope -^neas 
 Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II) and stolen a few years since, 
 but recovered. Signora Carletti was copying parts of it in 
 needlework, nor can I think that the original was ever better 
 than the parts which she had already done. The work would 
 take weeks or even months to examine with any fullness, and 
 volumes to describe. It is as prodigal of labour, design and 
 colour as nature herself is. In fact it is one of those things 
 that nature has a right to do but not art. It fatigues one to 
 look at it or think upon it and, bathos though it be to say so, 
 it won the first prize at the Exhibitions of Ecclesiastical Art 
 Work held a few years ago at Rome and at Siena. It has 
 taken Signora Carletti months to do even the little she has 
 done, but that little must be seen to be believed, for no words 
 can do justice to it. 
 
 Having seen the Viale, I was shown round the whole estab- 
 lishment, and can imagine nothing better ordered. I was 
 taken over the dormitories — very nice and comfortable — and, 
 finally, not without being much abashed, into the room where 
 the young ladies were engaged upon needlework. It reminded 
 me of nothing so much as of the Education of the Virgin 
 Chapel at Oropa.* I was taken to each young lady and did 
 my best to acquit myself properly in praising her beautiful 
 work but, beautiful as the work of one and all was, it could 
 not compare with that of Signora Carletti. I asked her if she 
 could not get some of the young ladies to help her in the less 
 important parts of her work, but she said she preferred doing 
 it all herself. They all looked well and happy and as though 
 they were well cared for, as I am sure they are. 
 
 Then Signora Carletti took me to the top of the house to 
 show me the meteorological room of which she is superin- 
 
 * See "A Medieval Girl School" in Essays on Life, Art &■ Science. 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 283 
 
 tendent, and which is in connection with the main meteoro- 
 logical observatory at Rome. Again I found everything in 
 admirable order, and left the house not a little pleased and 
 impressed with everything I had seen. [1889.] 
 
 Homer's Hot and Cold Springs 
 
 The following extract is taken from a memorandum Butler 
 made of a visit he paid to Greece and the Troad in the spring 
 of 1895. In the Iliad {xxU. 145) Homer mentions hot and 
 cold springs where the Trojan women used to wash their 
 clothes. There are no such springs near Hissarlik, where they 
 ought to be, but the American Consul at the Dardanelles told 
 Butler there was something of the kind on Mount Ida, at the 
 sources of the Scamander, and he determined to see them after 
 visiting Hissarlik. He was provided with an interpreter, Ya- 
 koub, an attendant, Ahmed, an escort of one soldier and a 
 horse. He went -Erst to the Consul's farm at Thymbra, about 
 ■five miles from Hissarlik, where he spent the might and found 
 it "all very like a Urst-class New Zealand sheep-station." The 
 next day he went to Hissarlik and saw no reason for disagree- 
 ing with the received opinion that it is the site of Troy. He 
 then proceeded to Bunarbashi and so to B'airemitch, passing 
 on the way a saw-mill where there was a Government official 
 with twenty soldiers under him. This official was much inter- 
 ested in the traveller and directed his men to take carpets and 
 a dish of trout, caught that morning in the Scamander, and 
 carry them up to the hot and cold springs while he himself 
 accompanied Butler. So they set off and the official, Ismail, 
 showed him the way and pointed out the springs, and there is 
 a long note about the hot and cold water. 
 
 And now let me return to Ismail Gusbashi, the excellent 
 Turkish official who, by the way, was with me during all my 
 examination of the springs, and whose assurances of their 
 twofold temperature I should have found it impossible to 
 doubt, even though I had not caught one warmer cupful 
 myself. His men, while we were at the springs, had spread a 
 large Turkey carpet on the flower-bespangled grass under the 
 trees, and there were three smaller rugs at three of the cor- 
 ners. On these Ismail and Yakoub and I took our places. 
 The other two were cross-legged, but I reclining anyhow. The 
 sun shimmered through the spring foliage. I saw two hoopoes 
 
284 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 and many beautiful birds whose names I knew not. Through 
 the trees I could see the snow-fields of Ida far above me, but 
 it was hopeless to think of reaching them. The soldiers and 
 Ahmed cooked the trout and the eggs all together ; then we 
 had boiled eggs, bread and cheese and, of course, more lamb's 
 liver done on skewers like cats' meat. I ate with my pocket- 
 knife, the others using their fingers in true Homeric fashion. 
 
 When we had put from us "the desire of meat and drink," 
 Ismail began to talk to me. He said he had now for the first 
 time in his life found himself in familiar conversation with 
 Wisdom from the West (that was me), and that, as he greatly 
 doubted whether such another opportunity would be ever 
 vouchsafed to him, he should wish to consult me upon a 
 matter which had greatly exercised him. He was now fifty 
 years old and had never married. Sometimes he thought he 
 had done a wise thing, and sometimes it seemed to him that 
 he had been very foolish. Would I kindly tell him which it 
 was and advise him as to the future ? I said he was address- 
 ing one who was in much the same condition as himself, only 
 that I was some ten years older. We had a saying in England 
 that if a man marries he will regret it, and that if he does not 
 marry he will regret it. 
 
 "Ah !" said Ismail, who was leaning towards me and trying 
 to catch every word I spoke, though he could not understand 
 a syllable till Ydkoub interpreted my Italian into Turkish. 
 "Ah !" he said, "that is a true word." 
 
 In my younger days, I said (may Heaven forgive me!), I 
 had been passionately in love with a most beautiful young 
 lady, but — and here my voice faltered, and I looked very sad, 
 waiting for Yakoub to interpret what I had said — but it had 
 been the will of Allah that she should marry another gentle- 
 man, and this had broken my heart for many years. After a 
 time, however, I concluded that these things were all settled 
 for us by a higher Power. 
 
 "Ah ! that is a true word." 
 
 "And so, my dear sir, in your case I should reflect that if 
 Allah" (and I raised my hand to Heaven) "had desired your 
 being married, he would have signified his will to you in some 
 way that you could hardly mistake. As he does not appear to 
 have done so, I should recommend you to remain single until 
 you receive some distinct intimation that you are to marry." 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 285 
 
 "Ah ! that is a true word." 
 
 "Besides," I continued, "suppose you marry a woman with 
 whom you think you are in love and then find out, after you 
 have been married to her for three months, that you do not 
 like her. This would be a very painful situation." 
 
 "Ah, yes, indeed ! that is a true word." 
 
 "And if you had children who were good and dutiful, it 
 would be delightful ; but suppose they turned out disobedient 
 and ungrateful — and I have known many such cases — could 
 anything be more distressing to a parent in his declining 
 years ?" 
 
 "Ah ! that is a true word that you have spoken." 
 
 "We have a great Imaum," I continued, "in England; he 
 is called the Archbishop of Canterbury and gives answers to 
 people who are in any kind of doubt or difficulty. I knew one 
 gentleman who asked his advice upon the very question that 
 you have done me the honour of propounding to myself." 
 
 "Ah ! and what was his answer ?" 
 
 "He told him," said I, "that it was cheaper to buy the 
 milk than to keep a cow." 
 
 "Ah ! ah ! that is a most true word." 
 
 Here I closed the conversation, and we began packing up 
 to make a start. When we were about to mount, I said to 
 him, hat in hand : 
 
 "Sir, it occurs to me with great sadness that, though you 
 will, no doubt, often revisit this lovely spot, yet it is most 
 certain that I shall never do so. Promise me that when you 
 come here you will sometimes think of the stupid old English- 
 man who has had the pleasure of lunching with you to-day, 
 and I promise that I will often think of you when I am at 
 home again in London." 
 
 He was much touched, and we started. After we had gone 
 about a mile, I suddenly missed my knife. I knew I should 
 want it badly many a time before we got to the Dardanelles, 
 and I knew perfectly well where I should find it : so I stopped 
 the cavalcade and said I must ride back for it. I did so, found 
 it immediately and returned. Then I said to Ismail : 
 
 "Sir, I understand now why I was led to leave my knife 
 behind me. I had said it was certain I should never see that 
 enchanting spot again, but I spoke presumptuously, forgetting 
 that if Allah" (and I raised my hand to Heaven) "willed it I 
 
286 Material for a Projected Sequel 
 
 should assuredly do so. I am corrected, and with greaf 
 leniency." 
 
 Ismail was much affected. The good fellow immediately 
 took off his watch-chain (happily of brass and of no intrinsic 
 value) and gave it me, assuring me that it was given him by a 
 very dear friend, that he had worn it for many years, and 
 valued it greatly — would I keep it as a memorial of himself? 
 Fortunately I had with me a little silver match-box which 
 Alfred had given me and which had my name engraved on it. 
 I gave it to him, but had some difficulty in making him accept 
 it. Then we rode on till we came to the saw-mills. I ordered 
 two lambs for the ten soldiers who had accompanied us, 
 having understood from Yakoub that this would be an ac- 
 ceptable present. And so I parted from this most kind and 
 friendly gentleman with every warm expression of cordiality 
 on both sides. 
 
 I sent him his photograph which I had taken, and I sent 
 his soldiers their groups also — one for each man — and in due 
 course I received the following letter of thanks. Alas! I 
 have never written in answer. I knew not how to do it. I 
 knew, however, that I could not keep up a correspondence, 
 even though I wrote once. But few unanswered letters more 
 often rise up and smite me. How the Post Office people ever 
 read "Bueter, Ciforzin St." into "Butler, CUfford's Inn" I 
 cannot tell. What splendid emendators of a corrupt text 
 they ought to make ! But I could almost wish that they had 
 failed, for it has pained me not a little that I have not replied. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Bueter, 
 
 No. 15 Ciforzin St. London, England. 
 
 Dardanelles, 
 
 August 4/95- 
 Mr. Samuel. England. 
 
 My dear Friend, 
 
 Many thanks for the photograph you have send me. 
 It was very kind of you to think of me to send me this token 
 of your remembrance. I certainly appreciate it, and shall 
 think of you whenever I look at it. Ah My Dear Brother, it is 
 impossible for me to forget you. under favorable circumstance 
 I confess I must prefer you. I have a grate desire to have the 
 
to Alps and Sanctuaries 287 
 
 beautiful! chance to meet you. Ah then with the tears of 
 gladness to be the result of the great love of our friendness 
 A my Sir what pen can describe the meeting that shall be 
 come with your second visit if it please God. 
 
 It is my pray to Our Lord God to protect you and to keep 
 you glad and happy for ever. 
 
 Though we are far from each other yet we can speak with 
 letters. 
 
 Thank God to have your love of friendness with me-and 
 mine with your noble person. 
 Hopeing to hear from you, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 IsMAYEX, from 
 Byramich hizar memuerue iuse bashi. 
 
XVIII 
 Material for Erewhon Revisited 
 
 Apologise for the names in Erewhon. I was an unpractised 
 writer and had no idea the names could matter so much. 
 
 Give a map showing the geography of Erewhon in so far as 
 the entrance into the country goes, and explain somewhere, if 
 possible, about Butler's stones. 
 
 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 lo 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 went straight down as 
 I said I did, but took two days going round 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 A 
 First Year in Canterbury Settlement, 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 
 
 288 
 
Material for Erewhon Revisited 289 
 
 in Erewhon [for the statues]. I never saw them and knew 
 nothing about them. 
 
 Refer to the agony and settled melancholy with which 
 unborn children in the womb regard birth as the extinction of 
 their being, and how some declare that there is a world beyond 
 the womb and others deny this. "We must all one day be 
 born," "Birth is certain" and so on, just as we say of death. 
 Birth involves with it an original sin. It must be sin, for the 
 wages of sin is death (what else, I should like to know, is the 
 wages of virtue?) and assuredly the wages of birth is death. 
 
 They consider "wilful procreation," as they call it, much 
 as we do murder and will not allow it to be a moral ailment at 
 all. Sometimes a jury will recommend to mercy and some- 
 times they bring in a verdict of "justifiable baby-getting," but 
 they treat these cases as a rule with great severity. 
 
 Every baby has a month of heaven and a month of hell 
 before birth, so that it may make its choice with its eyes open. 
 
 The hour of birth should be prayed for in the litany ^s well 
 as that of death, and so it would be if we could remember the 
 agony of horror which, no doubt, we felt at birth — surpassing, 
 no doubt, the utmost agony of apprehension that can be felt 
 on death. 
 
 Let automata increase in variety and ingenuity till at last 
 they present so many of the phenomena of life that the 
 religious world declares they were designed and created by 
 God as an independent species. The scientific world, on the 
 other hand, denies that there is any design in connection with 
 them, and holds that if any slight variation happened to 
 arise by which a fortuitous combination of atoms occurred 
 which was more suitable for advertising purposes (the auto- 
 mata were chiefly used for advertising) it was seized upon 
 and preserved by natural selection. 
 
 They have schools where they, teach the arts of forgetting 
 and of not seeing. Young ladies are taught the art of pro- 
 posing. Lists of successful matches are advertised with the 
 prospectuses of all the girls' schools. 
 
 They have professors of all the languages of the principal 
 beasts and birds. I stayed with the Professor of Feline Lan- 
 
290 Material for Erewhon Revisited 
 
 guages who had invented a kind of OUendorffian system for 
 teaching the Art of Polite Conversation among cats. 
 
 They have an art-class in which the first thing insisted on 
 is that the pupils should know the price of all the leading 
 modern pictures that have been sold during the last twenty 
 years at Christie's, and the fluctuations in their values. Give 
 an examination paper on this subject. The artist being a 
 picture-dealer, the first thing he must do is to know how to 
 sell his pictures, and therefore how to adapt them to the 
 market. What is the use of being able to paint a picture 
 unless one can sell it when one has painted it ? 
 
 Add that the secret of the success of modern French art 
 lies in its recognition of values. 
 
 Let there be monks who have taken vows of modest com- 
 petency (about iiooo a year, derived from consols), who 
 spurn popularity as medieval monks spurned money — and 
 with about as much sincerity. Their great object is to try and 
 find out what they like and then get it. They do not live in 
 one building, and there are no vows of 'celibacy, but, in prac- 
 tice, when any member marries he drifts away from the 
 society. They have no profession of faith or articles of asso- 
 ciation, but, as they who hunted for the Holy Grail, so do 
 these hunt in all things, whether of art or science, for that 
 which commends itself to them as comfortable and worthy 
 to be accepted. Their liberty of thought and speech and their 
 reasonable enjoyment of the good things of this life are what 
 they alone live for. 
 
 Let the Erewhonians have Westminster Abbeys of the 
 first, second and third class, and in one of these let them raise 
 monuments to dead theories which were once celebrated. 
 
 Let them study those arts whereby the opinions of a minor- 
 ity may be made to seem those of a majority. 
 
 Introduce an Erewhonian sermon to the effect that if peo- 
 ple are wicked they may perhaps have to go to heaven when 
 they die. 
 
 Let them have a Regius Professor of Studied Ambiguity. 
 
 Let the Professor of Worldly Wisdom pluck a man for 
 want of sufficient vagueness in his saving-clauses paper. 
 
 Another poor fellow may be floored for having written 
 an article on a scientific subject without having made free 
 enough use of the words "patiently" and "carefully," and 
 
Material for Erewhon Revisited 291 
 
 for having shown too obvious signs of thinking for 
 himself. 
 
 Let them attach disgrace to any who do not rapidly become 
 obscure after death. 
 
 Let them have a Professor of Mischief. They found that 
 people always did harm when they meant well and that all the 
 professorships founded with an avowedly laudable object 
 failed, so they aim at mischief in the hope that they may miss 
 the mark here as when they aimed at what they thought 
 advantageous. 
 
 The Professor of Worldly Wisdom plucked a man for buy- 
 ing an ^gg that had a date stamped upon it. And another for 
 being too often and too seriously in the right. And another 
 for telling people what they did not want to know. He 
 plucked several for insufficient mistrust in printed matter. 
 It appeared that the Professor had written an article teeming 
 with plausible blunders, and had had it inserted in a leading 
 weekly. He then set his paper so that the men were sure to 
 tumble into these blunders themselves ; then he plucked them. 
 This occasioned a good deal of comment at the time. 
 
 One man who entered for the Chancellor's medal declined 
 to answer any of the questions set. He said he saw they were 
 intended more to show off the ingenuity of the examiner than 
 either to assist or test the judgment of the examined. He 
 observed, moreover, that the view taken of his answers would 
 in great measure depend upon what the examiner had had for 
 dinner and, since it was not in his power to control this, he 
 was not going to waste time where the result was, at best, so 
 much a matter of chance. Briefly, his view of life was that 
 the longer you lived and the less you thought or talked about 
 it the better. He should go pretty straight in the main himself 
 because it saved trouble on the whole, and he should be guided 
 mainly by a sense of humour in deciding when to deviate from 
 the path of technical honesty, and he would take care that his 
 errors, if any, should be rather on the side of excess than of 
 asceticism. 
 
 This man won the Chancellor's medal. 
 
 They have a review class in which the pupils are taught not 
 to mind what is written in newspapers. As a natural result 
 they grow up more keenly sensitive than ever. 
 
 Round the margin of the newspapers sentences are printed 
 
292 Material for Erewhon Revisited 
 
 cautioning the readers against believing the criticisms they 
 see, inasmuch as personal motives will underlie the greater 
 number. 
 
 They defend the universities and academic bodies on the 
 ground that, but for them, good work would be so universal 
 that the world would become clogged with masterpieces to an 
 extent that would reduce it to an absurdity. Good sense 
 would rule over all, and merely smart or clever people would 
 be unable to earn a living. 
 
 ' They assume that truth is best got at by the falling out of 
 thieves. "Well then, there must be thieves, or how can they 
 fall out? Our business is to produce the raw material from 
 which truth may be elicited." 
 
 "And you succeed, sir," I replied, "in a way that is beyond 
 all praise, and it seems as though there would be no limit to 
 the supply of truth that ought to be available. But, consider- 
 ing the number of your thieves, they show less alacrity in 
 flying at each other's throats than might have been expected." 
 
 They live their lives backwards, beginning, as old men and 
 women, with little more knowledge of the past than we have 
 of the future, and foreseeing the future about as clearly as we 
 see the past, winding up by entering into the womb as though 
 being buried. But delicacy forbids me to pursue this subject 
 further: the upshot is that it comes to much the same thing, 
 provided one is used to it. 
 
 Paying debts is a luxury which we cannot all of us afford. 
 "It is not every one, my dear, who can reach such a counsel 
 of perfection as murder." 
 
 There was no more space for the chronicles and, what was 
 worse, there was no more space in which anything could hap- 
 pen at all, the whole land had become one vast cancerous 
 growth of chronicles, chronicles, chronicles, nothing but 
 chronicles. > 
 
 The catalogue of the Browne medals alone will in time come 
 to occupy several hundreds of pages in the University Cal- 
 endar. 
 
 There was a professor who was looked upon as such a 
 valuable man because he had done more than any other 
 living person to suppress any kind of originality. 
 
Material for Erewhon Revisited 293 
 
 "It is not our business," he used to say, "to help students 
 to think for themselves— surely this is the very last thing that 
 one who wishes them well would do by them. Our business is 
 to make them think as we do, or at any rate as we consider it 
 expedient to say we do." 
 
 He was President of the Society for the Suppression of 
 Useless Knowledge and for the Complete Obliteration of the 
 Past. 
 
 They have professional mind-dressers, as we have hair-" 
 dressers, and before going out to, dinner or fashionable At- 
 homes, people go and get themselves primed with smart say- 
 ings or moral reflections according to the style which they 
 think will be most becoming to them in the kind of company _ 
 they expect. 
 
 They deify as God something which I can only translate by 
 a word as underivable as God — I mean Gumption. But it is 
 part of their religion that there should be no temple to Gump- 
 tion, nor are there priests or professors of Gumption. Gump- 
 tion being too ineffable to hit the sense of human definition 
 and analysis. 
 
 They hold that the function of universities is to make learn- 
 ing repellent and thus to prevent its becoming dangerously 
 common. And they discharge this beneficent function all the 
 more eifitiently because they do it unconsciously and auto- 
 matically. The professors think they are advancing healthy 
 intellectual assimilation and digestion when they are in reality 
 little better than cancer on the stomach. 
 
 Let them be afflicted by an epidemic of the fear-of-giving- 
 themselves-away disease. Enumerate its symptoms. There 
 is a new discovery whereby the invisible rays that emanate 
 from the soul can be caught and all the details of a man's 
 spiritual nature, his character, disposition, principles, &c. be 
 photographed on a plate as easily as his face or the bones of 
 his hands, but no cure for the f. o. g. th. a. disease has yet 
 been discovered. 
 
 They have a company for ameliorating the condition of 
 those who are in' a f utiire state, and for improving the future 
 state itself. 
 
 People are buried alive for a week before they are married 
 
294 Material for Erewhon Revisited 
 
 so that their offspring may know something about the grave, 
 of which, otherwise, heredity could teach it nothing. 
 
 It has long been held that those constitutions are best 
 which promote most effectually the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number. Now the greatest number are none too wise 
 and none too honest, and to arrange our systems with a view 
 to the greater happiness of sensible straightforward people — 
 indeed to give these people a chance at all if it can be avoided 
 — is to interfere with the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number. Dull, slovenly and arrogant people do not like those 
 who are quick, painstaking and unassuming; how can we 
 then consistently with the first principles of either morality 
 or political economy encourage such people when we can 
 bring sincerity and modesty fairly home to them ? 
 
 Much we have to tolerate, partly because we cannot always 
 discover in time who are really insincere and who are only 
 masking sincerity under a garb of flippancy, and partly also 
 because we wish to err on the side of letting the guilty escape 
 rather than of punishing the innocent. Thus many people 
 who are perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward 
 class are allowed to remain at large and may even be seen 
 hobnobbing and on the best of possible terms with the guar- 
 dians of public immorality. W,e all feel, as indeed has been 
 said in other nations, that the poor abuses of the time want 
 countenance, and this moreover in the interests of the uses 
 themselves, for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity 
 acts as a wholesome stimulant and irritant to the prevailing 
 spirit of academicism; moreover, we hold it useful to have 
 a certain number of melancholy examples whose notorious 
 failure shall serve as a warning to those who do not cultivate 
 a power of immoral self-control which shall prevent them 
 from saying, or indeed even thinking, an3^hing that shall not 
 be to their immediate and palpable advantage with the great- 
 est number. 
 
 It is a point of good breeding with the Erewhonians to keep 
 their opinions as far as possible in the background in all cases 
 where controversy is even remotely possible, that is to say 
 whenever conversation gets beyond the discussion of the 
 weather. It is found necessary, however, to recognise some 
 means of ventilating points on which differences of opinion 
 
Material for Erewhon Revisited 295 
 
 may exist, and the convention adopted is that whenever a 
 man finds occasion to speak strongly he should express him- 
 self by dwelling as forcibly as he can on the views most op- 
 posed to his own ; even this, however, is tolerated rather than 
 approved, for it is counted the perfection of scholarship and 
 good breeding not to express, and much more not even to 
 have a definite opinion upon any subject whatsoever. ; 
 
 Thus their "yea" is "nay" and their "nay," "yea," but 
 it comes to the same thing in the end, for it does not matter 
 whether "yea" is called "yea" or "nay" so long as it is 
 understood as "yea." They go a long way round only to find 
 themselves at the point from which they started, but there is 
 no accounting for tastes. With us such tactics are incon- 
 ceivable, but so far do the Erewhonians carry them that it is 
 common for them to write whole reviews and articles between 
 the lines of which a practised reader will detect a sense exactly 
 contrary to that ostensibly put forward; nor is a man held 
 to be more than a tyro in the arts of polite society unless he 
 instinctively suspects a hidden sense in every proposition 
 that meets him. I was more than once misled by these 
 plover-like tactics, and on one occasion was near getting into 
 a serious scrape. It happened thus : — 
 
 A man of venerable aspect was maintaining that pain was a 
 sad thing and should not be permitted under any circum- 
 stances. People ought not even to be allowed to suffer for the 
 consequences of their own folly, and should be punished for it 
 severely if they did. If they could only be kept from making 
 fools of themselves by the loss of freedom or, if necessary, by 
 some polite and painless method of extinction — which meant 
 hanging — then they ought to be extinguished. If permanent 
 improvement can only be won through ages of mistake and 
 suffering, which must be all begun de novo for every fresh im- 
 provement, let us be content to forego improvement, and let 
 those who suffer their lawless thoughts to stray in this direc- 
 tion be improved from off the face of the earth as fast as 
 possible. No remedy can be too drastic for such a disease as 
 the pain felt by another person. We find we can generally 
 bear the pain ourselves when we have to do so, but it is in- 
 tolerable that we should know it is being borne by any one 
 else. The mere sight of pain unfits people for ordinary life, 
 the wear and tear of which would be very much reduced if we 
 
296 Material for Erewhon Revisited 
 
 would be at any trouble to restrain the present almost un- 
 bounded licence in the matter of suffering — 3. licence that 
 people take advantage of to make themselves as miserable as 
 they please, without so much as a thought for the feelings of 
 others. Hence, he maintained, the practice of putting dupes 
 in the same category as the physically diseased or the unlucky 
 was founded on the eternal and inherent nature of things, arid 
 could no more be interfered with than the revolution of the 
 earth on its axis. 
 
 He said a good deal more to the same effect, and I \yas 
 beginning to wonder how much longer he would think it 
 necessary to insist on what was so obvious, when his hearers 
 began to differ from him. One dilated on the correlation 
 between pain and pleasure which ensured that neither could 
 be extinguished without the extinguishing along with it of 
 the other. Another said that throughout the animal and vege- 
 table worlds there was found what might be counted as a sys- 
 tem of rewards and punishments; this, he contended, must 
 cease to exist (and hence virtue must cease) if the pain at- 
 taching to misconduct were less notoriously advertised. An- 
 other maintained that the horror so freely expressed by many 
 at the sight of pain was as much selfish as not — and so on. 
 
 Let Erewhon be revisited by the son of the original writer — 
 let him hint that his father used to write the advertisements 
 for Mother Seigel's Syrup. He gradually worked his way up 
 to this from being a mere writer of penny tracts. [Dec. 1896.] 
 
 On reaching the country he finds that divine honours are 
 being paid him, churches erected to him, and a copious 
 mythology daily swelling, with accounts of the miracles he 
 had worked and all his sayings and doings. If any child got 
 hurt he used to kiss the place and it would get well at once. 
 
 Everything has been turned topsy-turvy in consequence of 
 Jiis flight in the balloon being ascribed to miraculous agency. 
 
 Among other things, he had maintained that sermons 
 should be always preached by two people, one taking one side 
 and another the opposite, while a third summed up and the 
 congregation decided by a show of hands. 
 
 This system had been adopted and he goes to hear a sermon 
 On the Growing Habit of Careful Patient Investigation as 
 Encouraging Casuistry. [October 1897.] 
 
XIX 
 
 Truth and Convenience 
 
 Opposites 
 
 You may have all growth or nothing growth, just as you may 
 have all mechanism or nothing mechanism, all chance or 
 nothing chance, but you must not mix them. Having settled 
 this, you must proceed at once to mix them. 
 
 Two Points of View 
 
 Everything must be studied from the point of view of itself, 
 as near as we can get to this, and from the point of view of its 
 relations, as near as we can get to them. If we try to see it 
 absolutely in itself, unalloyed with relations, we shall find, by 
 and by, that we have, as it were, whittled it away. If we try 
 to see it in its relations to the bitter end, we shall find that 
 there is no corner of the universe into which it does not enter^ 
 Either way the thing eludes us if we try to grasp it with the 
 homy hands of language and conscious thought. Either way 
 we can think it perfectly well — so long as we don't think about 
 thinking about it. The pale cast of thought sicklies over 
 everything. 
 
 Practically everything should be seen as itself pure and 
 and simple, so far as we can comfortably see it, and at the 
 same time as not itself, so far as we can comfortably see it, 
 and then the two views should be combined, so far as we can 
 comfortably combine them. If we cannot comfortably com- 
 bine them, we should think of something else. 
 
 Truth 
 i 
 We can neither define what we mean by truth nor be in 
 doubt as to our meaning. And this I suppose must be due to 
 
 297 
 
298 Truth and Convenience 
 
 the antiquity of the instinct that, on the whole, directs us 
 towards truth. We cannot self-vivisect ourselves in respect 
 of such a vital function, though we can discharge it normally 
 and easily enough so long as we do not think about it. 
 
 The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so 
 hard to say what truth is. There is no permanent absolute 
 unchangeable truth ; what we should pursue is the most con- 
 venient arrangement of our ideas. 
 
 iii 
 
 There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute 
 truth. 
 
 iv 
 
 A. B. was so impressed with the greatness and certain 
 ultimate victory of truth that he considered it unnecessary 
 to encourage her or do anything to defend her. 
 
 He who can best read men best knows all truth that need 
 concern him ; for it is not what the thing is, apart from man's 
 thoughts in respect of it, but how to reach the fairest compro- 
 mise between men's past and future opinions that is the fittest 
 object of consideration ; and this we get by reading men and 
 women. 
 
 vi 
 
 Truth should not be absolutely lost sight of, but it should 
 not be talked about. 
 
 vii 
 
 Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in con- 
 tinual fear lest she should catch cold on over-exposure. 
 
 viii 
 
 The firmest line that can be drawn upon the smoothest 
 paper has still jagged edges if seen through a microscope. 
 This does not matter until important deductions are made on 
 the supposition that there are no jagged edges. 
 
Truth and Convenience 299 
 
 ix 
 
 Truth should never be allowed to become extreme ; other- 
 wise it will be apt to meet and to run into the extreme of 
 falsehood. It should be played pretty low down — to the pit 
 and gallery rather than the stalls. Pit-truth is more true to 
 the stalls than stall-truth to the pit. 
 
 X 
 
 An absolute lie may live — for it is a true lie, and is saved by 
 being flecked with a grain of its opposite. Not so absolute 
 truth. 
 
 xi 
 
 Whenever we push truth hard she runs to earth in contra- 
 diction in terms, that is to say, in falsehood. An essential 
 contradiction in terms meets us at the end of every enquiry. 
 
 xii 
 
 In Alps and Sanctuaries (Chapter V) I implied that I was 
 lying when I told the. novice that Handel was a Catholic. 
 But I was not lying ; Handel was a Catholic, and so am I, and 
 so is every well-disposed person. It shows how careful we 
 ought to be when we lie — we can never be sure but what we 
 may be speaking the truth. 
 
 xiii 
 Perhaps a little bit of absolute truth on any one question 
 might prove a general solvent, and dissipate the universe. 
 
 xiv 
 Truth generally is kindness, but where the two diverge or 
 collide, kindness should override truth. 
 
 Falsehood 
 
 i 
 
 Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to 
 lie and when not to do so. De minimis non curat veritas. 
 
 Yes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is a 
 minimtmi and sometimes it is the other way. 
 
 ii 
 Lying is like borrowing or appropriating in music. It is 
 
300 Truth and Convenience 
 
 only a good, sound, truthful person who can lie to any good 
 purpose; if a man is not habitually truthful his very lies will 
 be false to him and betray him. The converse also is true ; if 
 a man is not a good, sound, honest, capable liar there is no 
 truth in him. 
 
 iii 
 Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some 
 sense to know how to lie well. 
 
 iv 
 
 I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. 
 
 A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two 
 that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how 
 to forget. 
 
 vi 
 
 Cursed is he that does not know when to shut his mind. 
 An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to 
 be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. 
 It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or it may 
 be found a little draughty. 
 
 vii 
 
 He who knows not how to wink knows not how to see ; and 
 he who knows not how to lie knows not how to speak the 
 truth. So he who cannot suppress his opinions cannot express 
 them. 
 
 viii 
 
 There can no more be a true statement without falsehood 
 distributed through it, than a note on a well-tuned piano that 
 is not intentionally and deliberately put out of tune to some 
 extent in order to have the piano in the most perfect possible 
 tune. Any perfection of tune as regards one key can only be 
 got at the expense of all the rest. 
 
 ix 
 Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay 
 a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority 
 whenever we lie to him. 
 
Truth and Convenience 301 
 
 I seem to see lies crowding and crushing at a narrow gate 
 and working their way in along with truths into the domain 
 of history. 
 
 Nature's Double Falsehood 
 
 That one great lie she told about the earth being flat when 
 she knew it was round all the time ! And again how she stuck 
 to it that the sun went round us when it was we who were 
 going round the sun ! This double falsehood has irretrievably 
 ruined my confidence in her. There is no lie which she will 
 not tell and stick to like a Gladstonian. How plausibly she 
 told her tale, and how many ages was it before she was so 
 much as suspected ! And then when things did begin to look 
 bad for her, how she brazened it out, and what a desperate 
 business it was to bring her shifts and prevarications to book ! 
 
 Convenience 
 
 i 
 
 We wonder at its being as hard often to discover con- 
 venience as it is to discover truth. But surely convenience is 
 truth. 
 
 ii 
 
 The use of truth is like the use of words ; both truth and 
 words depend greatly upon custom. 
 
 iii 
 We do with truth much as we do with God. We create it 
 according to our own requirements and then say that it has 
 created us, or requires that we shall do or think so and so — 
 whatever we find convenient. 
 
 iv 
 "What is Truth ?" is often asked, as though it were harder 
 to say what truth is than what anything else is. But what is 
 Justice? What is anything? An eternal contradiction in 
 terms meets us at the end of every enquiry. We are not re- 
 quired to know what truth is, but to speak the truth, and so 
 with justice. 
 
302 Truth and Convenience 
 
 The search after truth is like the search after perpetual 
 motion or the attempt to square the circle. All we should aim 
 at is the most convenient way of looking at a thing — ^the way 
 that most sensible people are likely to find give them least 
 trouble for some time to come. It is not true that the sun 
 used to go round the earth until Copemicus's time, but it is 
 true that until Copemicus's time it was most convenient to us 
 to hold this. Still, we had certain ideas which could only fit 
 in comfortably with our other ideas when we came to consider 
 the sun as the centre of the planetary system. 
 
 Obvious convenience often takes a long time before it is 
 fully recognised and acted upon, but there will be a iiism 
 towards it as long and as widely spread as the desire of men 
 to be saved trouble. If truth is not trouble-saving in the long 
 run it is not truth : truth is only that which is most largely and 
 permanently trouble-saving. The ultimate triumph, there- 
 fore, of truth rests on a very tangible basis — ^much more so 
 than when it is made to depend upon the will of an unseen 
 and unknowable agency. If my views about the Odyssey, for 
 example, will, in the long run, save students from perplexity, 
 the students will be sure to adopt them, and I have no wish 
 that they should adopt them otherwise. 
 
 It does not matter much what the truth is, but our knowing 
 the truth — that is to say our hitting on the most permanently 
 convenient arrangement of our ideas upon a subject whatever 
 it may be — matters very much; at least it matters, or may 
 matter, very much in some relations. And however little it 
 matters, yet it matters, and however much it matters yet it 
 does not matter. In the utmost importance there is unim- 
 portance, and in the utmost importance there is im- 
 portance. So also it is with certainty, life, matter, necessity, 
 consciousness and, indeed, with everything which can form 
 an object of human sensation at all, or of those after-reason- 
 ings which spring ultimately from sensations. This is a 
 round-about way of saying that every question has two sides. 
 
 vi 
 Our concern is with the views we shall choose to take and 
 to let other people take concerning things, and as to the way 
 of expressing those views which shall give least trouble. If 
 
Truth and Convenience 303 
 
 we express ourselves in one way we find our ideas in confu- 
 sion and our action impotent: if in another our ideas cohere 
 harmoniously, and our action is edifying. The convenience of 
 least disturbing vested ideas, and at the same time rearranging 
 our views in accordiance with new facts that come to our 
 knowledge, this is our proper care. But it is idle to say we do 
 not know anything about things — perhaps we do, perhaps we 
 don't — ^but we at any rate know what sane people think and 
 are likely to think about things, and this to all intents and 
 purposes is knowing the things themselves. For the things 
 only are what sensible people agree to say and think they are. 
 
 vii 
 The arrangement of our ideas is as much a matter of con- 
 venience as the packing of goods in a druggist's or draper's 
 store and leads to exactly the same kind of difficulties in the 
 matter of classifying them. We all admit the arbitrariness of 
 classifications in a languid way, but we do not think of it more 
 than we can help — I suppose because it is so inconvenient to 
 do so. The great advantage of classification is to conceal the 
 fact that subdivisions are as arbitrary as they are. 
 
 Classification 
 
 There can be no perfect way, for classification presupposes 
 that a thing has absolute limits whereas there is nothing that 
 does not partake of the universal infinity — nothing whose 
 boundaries do not vary. Everything is one thing at one time 
 and in some respects, and another at other times and in other 
 respects. We want a new mode of measurement altogether ; 
 at present we take what gaps we can find, set up milestones, 
 and declare them irremovable. We want a measure which 
 shall express, or at any rate recognise, the harmonics of re- 
 semblance that lurk even in the most absolute differences and 
 vice versa. 
 
 Attempts at Classification 
 
 are like nailing battens of our own flesh and blood upon our- 
 selves as an inclined plane that we may walk up ourselves 
 more easily ; and yet it answers very sufficiently. 
 
304 Truth and Convenience 
 
 A Clergyman's Doubts 
 
 Under this heading a correspondence appeared in the Ex- 
 aminer, ii,th Febrimry to 14th June, 1879. Butler wrote all the 
 letters un^er various signatures except one or perhaps two. His 
 first letter purported to come from "An Earnest Clergyman" 
 aged forty-iive, with a wife, live children, a country living 
 worth £400 a year, and a house, but no private means. He had 
 ceased to believe in the doctrines he was called upon to teach. 
 Ought he to continue to lead a life that was a lie or oitght he to 
 throw up his orders and plunge himself, his wife and children 
 into poverty? The dilemma interested Butler deeply: he might 
 so easily have found hinuself in it if he had not begun to doubt 
 the efficacy of infant baptism when he did. Fifteen letters fol- 
 lowed^signed "Cantab," "Oxoniensis," and so forth, somerecom- 
 m^nding one course, some another. One, signed "X.Y.Z.," irir 
 eluded "The Righteous Man" which will be found in the last 
 group of this volume, headed "Poems." From the following 
 letter signed "Ethics" Butler afterwards took two passages 
 (which I have enclosed, one between single asterisks the other 
 between double asterisks) , and used them for the "Dissertation 
 on Lying" which is in Chapter V of Alps and Sanctuaries. 
 
 To the Editor of the Exa^niner. 
 
 Sir: I am sorry for your correspondent "An Earnest 
 Clergyman" for, though he may say he has "come to smile at 
 his troubles," his smile seems to be a grim one. We must all 
 of us eat a peck of moral dirt before we die, but some must 
 know more precisely than others when they are eating it; 
 some, again, can bolt it without wry faces in one shape, while 
 they cannot endure even the smell of it in another. "An 
 Earnest Qergyman" admits that he is in the habit of telling 
 people certain things which he does not believe, but says he 
 has no great fancy for deceiving himSelf. "Cantab" must, I 
 fear, deceive himself before he can tolerate the notion of de- 
 ceiving other people. For my own part I prefer to be deceived 
 by one who does not deceive himself rather than by one who 
 does, for the first will know better when to stop, and will not 
 commonly deceive me more than he can help. As for the 
 other — if he does not know how to invest his own thoughts 
 safely he will invest mine still worse ; he will hold God's most 
 
Truth and Convenience 305 
 
 precious gift of falsehood too cheap; he has come by it too 
 easily; cheaply come, cheaply go will be his maxim. The 
 good liar should be the converse of the poet; he should be 
 made, not bom. 
 
 It is not loss of confidence in a man's strict adherence to the 
 letter of truth that shakes my confidence in him. I know what 
 I do myself and what I must lose all social elasticity if I were 
 not to do. *Turning for moral guidance to my cousins the 
 lower animals — whose unsophisticated instinct proclaims 
 what God has taught them with a directness we may some- 
 times study — I find the plover lying when she reads us truly 
 and, knowing that we shall hit her if we think her to be down, 
 lures us from her young ones under the fiction of a broken 
 wing. Is God angry, think you, with this pretty deviation 
 from the letter of strict accuracy? or was it not He who 
 whispered to her to tell the falsehood, to tell it with a circum- 
 stance, without conscientious scruples, and not once only but 
 to make a practice of it, so as to be an habitual liar for at least 
 six weeks in the year? I imagine so. When I was young I 
 used to read in good books that it was God who taught the 
 bird to make her nest, and, if so, He probably taught each 
 species the other domestic arrangements which should be best 
 suited to it. Or did the nest-building information come from 
 God and was there an Evil One among the birds also who 
 taught them to steer clear of pedantry? Then there is the 
 spider — an ugly creature, but I suppose God likes it — can any- 
 thing be meaner than that web which naturalists extol as such 
 a marvel of Providential ingenuity? 
 
 Ingenuity! The word reeks with lying. Once, on a sum- 
 mer afternoon, in a distant country I met one of those orchids 
 whose main idea consists in the imitation of a fly; this lie 
 they dispose so plausibly upon their petals that other flies 
 who would steal their honey leave them unmolested. Watch- 
 ing intently and keeping very still, methought I heard this 
 person speaking to the offspring which she felt within her 
 though I saw them not. 
 
 "My children," she exclaimed, "I must soon leave you; 
 think upon the fly, my loved ones ; make it look as terrible as 
 possible; cling to this thought in your passage through life, 
 for it is the one thing needful ; once lose sight of it and you 
 are lost." 
 
3o6 Truth and Convenience 
 
 Over and over again she sang this burden in a small, still 
 voice, and so I left her. Then straightway I came upon some 
 butterflies whose profession it was to pretend to believe in all 
 manner of vital truths which in their inner practice they re- 
 jected ; thus, pretending to be certain other and hateful but- 
 terflies which no bird will eat by reason of their abominable 
 smell, these cunning ones conceal their own sweetness, live 
 long in the land and see good days. Think of that, O Earnest 
 Clergyman, my friend ! No. Lying is like Nature, you may 
 expel her with a fork, but she will always come back again. 
 Lying is like the poor, we must have it always with us. The 
 question is, How much, when, where, to whom and under 
 what circumstances is lying right? For, once admit that a 
 plover may pretend to have a broken wing and yet be without 
 sin if she have pretended well enough, and the thin edge of the 
 wedge has been introduced so that there is no more saying 
 that we must never lie.* 
 
 It is not, then, the discovery that a man has the power to lie 
 that shakes my confidence in him; it is loss of confidence in 
 his mendacity that I find it impossible to get over. I forgive 
 him for telHng me lies, but I cannot forgive him for not telling 
 me the same lies, or nearly so, about the same things. This 
 shows he has a slipshod memory, which is unpardonable, or 
 else that he tells so many lies that he finds it impossible to re- 
 member all of them, and this is like having too many of the 
 poor always with us. The plover and the spider have each of 
 them their stock of half a dozen lies or so which we may ex- 
 pect them to tell when occasion arises ; they are plausible and 
 consistent, but we know where to have them; otherwise, if 
 they were liable, like self-deceivers, to spring mines upon us 
 in unexpected places, man would soon make it his business to 
 reform them — not from within, but from without. 
 
 And now it is time I came to the drift of my letter, which is 
 that if "An Earnest Qergyman" has not cheated himself into 
 thinking he is telling the truth, he will do no great harm by 
 stopping where he is. Do not let him make too much fuss 
 about trifles. The solemnity of the truths which he professes 
 to uphold is very doubtful; there is a tacit consent that it 
 exists more on paper than in reality. If he is a man of any 
 tact, he can say all he is compelled to say and do all the 
 Church requires of him — like a gentleman, with neither undue 
 
Truth and Convenience 307 
 
 slovenliness nor undue unction — yet it shall be perfectly plain 
 to all his parishioners who are worth considering that he is 
 acting as a mouthpiece and that his words are spoken dramati- 
 cally. As for the unimaginative, they are as children; they 
 cannot and should not be taken into account. Men must live 
 as they must write or act — for a certain average standard 
 which each must guess at for himself as best he can; those 
 who are above this standard he cannot reach; those, again, 
 who are below it must be so at their own risk. 
 
 Pilate did well when he would not stay for an answer to his 
 question. What is truth? for there is no such thing apart 
 from the sayer and the sayee. **There is that irony in nature 
 which brings it to pass that if the sayer be a man with any 
 stuff in him, provided he tells no lies wittingly to himself and 
 is never unkindly, he may lie and lie and lie all the day long, 
 and he will no more be false to any man than the sun will 
 shine by night; his lies will become truths as they pass into 
 the hearer's soul. But if a man deceives himself and is un- 
 kind, the truth is not in him, it turns to falsehood while yet in 
 his mouth, like the quails in the wilderness of Sinai. How 
 this is so or why, I know not, but that the Lord hath mercy 
 on whom He will have mercy and whom He willeth He hard- 
 eneth, and that the bad man can do no right and the good no 
 wrong.** 
 
 A great French writer has said that the mainspring of our 
 existence does, not lie in those veins and nerves and arteries 
 which have been described with so much care — these are but 
 its masks and mouthpieces through which it acts but behind 
 which it is for ever hidden ; so in like manner the faiths and 
 formulae of a Church may be as its bones and animal mechan- 
 ism, but they are not the life of the Church, which is some- 
 thing rather that cannot be holden in words, and one should 
 know how to put them off, yet put them off gracefully, if they 
 wish to come too prominently forward. Do not let "An Ear- 
 nest Clergyman" take things too much au serieux. He seems 
 to be fairly contented where he is ; let him take the word of 
 one who is old enough to be his father, that if he has a talent 
 for conscientious scruples he will find plenty of scope for 
 them in other professions as well as in the Church. I, for 
 aught he knows, may be a doctor and I might tell my own 
 story ; or I may be a barrister and have found it my duty to 
 
3o8 Truth and Convenience 
 
 win a case which I thought a very poor one, whereby others, 
 whose circumstances were sufficiently pitiable, lost their all; 
 yet doctors and barristers do not write to the newspapers to 
 air their poor consciences in broad daylight. Why should An 
 Earnest (I hate the word) Clergyman do so? Let me give 
 him a last word or two of fatherly advice. 
 
 Men may settle small things for themselves — as what they 
 will have for dinner or where they will spend the vacation — 
 but the great ones — such as the choice of a profession, of the 
 part of England they will live in, whether they will marry or 
 no — ^they had better leave the force of circumstances to settle 
 for them ; if they prefer the phraseology, as I do myself, let 
 them leave these matters to God. When He has arranged 
 things for them, do not let them be in too great a hurry to 
 upset His arrangement in a tiff. If they do not like their 
 present and another opening suggests itself easily and natu- 
 rally, let them take that as a sign that they make a change; 
 otherwise, let them see to it that they do not leave the frying- 
 pan for the fire. A man, finding himself in the field of a pro- 
 fession, should do as cows do when they are put into a field 
 of grass. They do not like any field; they like the open 
 prairie of their ancestors. They walk, however, all round 
 their new abode, surveying the hedges and gates with much 
 interest. If there is a gap in any hedge they will commonly 
 go through it at once, otherwise they will resign themselves 
 contentedly enough to the task of feeding. 
 
 I am. Sir, 
 One who thinks he knows a thing or two about 
 
 Ethics. 
 
XX 
 
 First Principles 
 
 The Baselessness of Our Ideas 
 
 That our ideas are baseless, or rotten at the roots, is what 
 few who study them will deny ; but they are rotten in the same 
 way as property is robbery, and property is robbery in the 
 same way as our ideas are rotten at the roots, that is to say it 
 is a robbery and it is not. No title to property, no idea and 
 no living form (which is the embodiment of idea) is inde- 
 feasible if search be made far enough. Granted that our 
 thoughts are baseless, yet they are so in the same way as the 
 earth itself is both baseless and most firmly based, or again 
 most stable and yet most in motion. 
 
 Our ideas, or rather, I should say, our realities, are all of 
 them like our Gods, based on superstitious foundations. If 
 man is a microcosm then kosmos is a megalanthrope and that 
 is how we come to anthropomorphise the deity. In the eternal 
 pendulum swing of thought we make God in our own image, 
 and then make him make us, and then find it out and cry 
 because we have no God and so on, over and over again as a 
 child has new toys given to it, tires of them, breaks them and 
 is disconsolate till it gets new ones which it will again tire of 
 and break. If the man who first made God in his own image 
 had been a good model, all might have been well ; but he was 
 impressed with an undue sense of his own importance and, as 
 a natural consequence, he had no sense of humour. Both 
 these imperfections he has fully and faithfully reproduced in 
 his work and wto the result we are familiar. All our most 
 solid and tangible realities are but as lies that we have told 
 too often henceforth to question them. But we have to ques- 
 tion them sometimes. It is not the sun that goes round the 
 world but we who go round the sun. 
 
 If any one is for examining and making requisitions on title 
 
 309 
 
3IO First Principles 
 
 we can search too, and can require the, title of the state as 
 against any other state, or against the world at large. But 
 suppose we succeed in this, we must search further still and 
 show by what title mankind has ousted the lower animals, and 
 by what title we eat them, or they themselves eat grass or one 
 another. 
 
 See what quicksands we fall into if we wade out too far 
 from the terra ftrma of common consent ! The error springs 
 from supposing that there is any absolute right or absolute 
 truth, and also from supposing that truth and right are any 
 the less real for being not absolute but relative. In the com- 
 plex of human affairs we should aim not at a supposed abso- 
 lute standard but at the greatest coming-together-ness or 
 convenience of all our ideas and practices ; that is to say, at 
 their most harmonious working with one another. Hit cur- 
 selves' somewhere we are bound to do : no idea will travel far 
 without colliding with some other idea. Thus, if we pursue 
 one line of probable convenience, we find it convenient to see 
 all things as ultimately one : that is, if we insist rather on the 
 points of agreement between things than on those of disagree- 
 ment. If we insist on the opposite view, namely, on the points 
 of disagreement, we find ourselves driven to the conclusion 
 that each atom is an individual entity, and that the unity be- 
 tween even the most united things is apparent only. If we did 
 not unduly insist upon — that is to say, emphasise and exag- 
 gerate — the part which concerns us for the time, we should 
 never get to understand anything; the proper way is to ex- 
 aggerate first one view and then the other, and then let the 
 two exaggerations collide, but good-temperedly and according 
 to the laws of civilised mental warfare. So we see first all 
 things as one, then all things as many and, in the end, a multi- 
 tude in unity and a unity in multitude. Care must be taken 
 not to accept ideas which though very agreeable at first disa- 
 gree with us afterwards, and keep rising on our mental stom- 
 achs, as garlic does upon our bodily. 
 
 Imagination 
 i 
 Imagination depends mainly upon memory, but there is a 
 small percentage of creation of something out of nothing with 
 
First Principles 3^1 
 
 it. We can invent a trifle more than can be got at by mere 
 combination of remembered things. 
 
 ii 
 
 When we are impressed by a few only, or perhaps only one 
 of a number of ideas which are bonded pleasantly together, 
 there is hope ; when we see a good many there is expectation ; 
 when we have had so many presented to us that we have ex- 
 pected confidently and the remaining ideas have not turned 
 up, there is disappointment. So the sailor says in the play: 
 
 "Here are my arms, here is my manly bosom, but where's 
 my Mary?" 
 
 iii 
 
 What tricks imagination plays ! Thus, if we expect a per- 
 son in the street we transform a dozen impossible people into 
 him while they are still too far off to be seen distinctly; and 
 when we expect to hear a footstep on the stairs — as, we will 
 say, the postman's — we hear footsteps in every sound. Im- 
 agination will make us see a biUiard ball as likely to travel 
 farther than it will travel, if we hope that it will do so. It 
 will make us think we feel a train begin to move as soon as 
 the guard has said "All right," though the train has not yet 
 begun to move ; if another train alongside begins to move ex- 
 actly at this juncture, there is no man who will not be de- 
 ceived. And we omit as much as we insert. We often do not 
 notice that a man has grown a beard. 
 
 ~" iv 
 
 I read once of a man who was cured of a dangerous illness 
 by eating his doctor's prescription which he understood was 
 the medicine itself. So William Sefton Moorhouse [in New 
 Zealand] imagined he was being converted to Christianity by 
 reading Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which he had got 
 by mistake for Butler's Analogy, on the recommendation of a 
 friend. But it puzzled him a good deal. 
 
 v 
 At Ivy Hatch, while we were getting, our beer in the inner 
 
 parlour, there was a confused melee of voices in the bar, amid 
 
 which I distinguished a voice saying: 
 
 "Imagination will do any bloody thing almost." 
 
 I was writing Life and Habit at the time and was much 
 
312 First Principles 
 
 tempted to put this passage in. Nothing truer has ever been 
 said about imagination. Then the voice was heard addressing 
 the barman and saying: 
 
 "I suppose you wouldn't trust me with a quart of beer, 
 would you?" 
 
 Inexperience 
 
 Kant says that all our knowledge is founded on experience. 
 But each new small increment of knowledge is not so founded, 
 and our whole knowledge is made up of the accumulation of 
 these small new increments not one of which is founded upon 
 experience. Our knowledge, then, is founded not on experience 
 but on inexperience ; for where there is no novelty, that is to 
 say no inexperience, there is no increment in experience. Our 
 knowledge is really founded upon something which we do not 
 know, but it is converted into experience by memory. 
 
 It is like species — we do not know the cause of the varia- 
 tions whose accumulation results in species and any expla- 
 nation which leaves this out of sight ignores the whole diifi- 
 culty. We want to know the cause of the effect that inex- 
 perience produces on us. 
 
 Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit 
 
 We say that everything has a beginning. This is one side of 
 the matter. There is another according to which everything is 
 without a beginning — ^beginnings, and endings also, being, but 
 as it were, steps cut in a slope of ice without which we could 
 not climb it. They are for convenience and the hardness of 
 the hearts of men who make an idol of classification, but they 
 do not exist apart from our sense of our own convenience. 
 
 It was a favourite saying with William Sefton Moorhouse 
 [in New Zealand] that men cannot get rich by swopping 
 knives. Nevertheless nature does seem to go upon this princi- 
 ple. Everybody does eat everybody up. Man eats birds, birds 
 eat worms and worms eat man again. It is a vicious circle, 
 yet, somehow or other, there is an increment. I begin to 
 doubt the principle ex nihilo nihil Ht. 
 
 We very much want a way of getting something out of 
 nothing and back into it again. Whether or no we ever shall 
 get such a way, we see the clearly perceptible arising out of 
 and returning into the absolutely imperceptible and, so far as 
 
First Principles 313 
 
 we are concerned, this is much the same thing. To assume an 
 unknowable substratum as the source from which all things 
 proceed or are evolved is equivalent to assuming that they 
 come up out of nothing ; for that which does not exist for us 
 is for us nothing ; that which we do not know does not exist 
 qua us, and therefore it does not exist. When I say "we," I 
 mean mankind generally, for things may exist qua one man 
 and not qua another. And when I say "nothing" I postulate 
 something of which we have no experience. 
 
 And yet we cannot say that a thing does not exist till it is 
 known to exist. The planet Neptune existed though, qua us, 
 it did not exist before Adams and Leverrier discovered it, and 
 we cannot hold that its continued non-existence to my laun- 
 dress, and her husband makes it any the less an entity. We 
 cannot say that it did not exist at all till it was discovered, 
 that it exists only partially and vaguely to most of us, that to 
 many it still does not exist at all, that there are few to whom 
 it even exists in any force or fullness and none who can realise 
 more than the broad facts of its existence. Neptune has been 
 disturbing the orbits of the planets nearest to him for more 
 centuries than we can reckon, and whether or not he is known 
 to have been doing so has nothing to do with the matter. 
 If A is robbed, he is robbed, whether he knows it or 
 not. 
 
 In one sense, then, we cannot say that the planet Neptune 
 did not exist till he was discovered, but in another we can and 
 ought to do so. De non apparentibus et non existentibus 
 eadem est ratio; as long, therefore, as Neptune did not appear 
 he did not exist qua us. The only way out of it is through 
 the contradiction in terms of maintaining that a thing exists 
 and does not exist at one and the same time. So A may be 
 both robbed, and not robbed. 
 
 We consider, therefore, that things have assumed their 
 present shape by course of evolution from a something which, 
 qua us, is a nothing, from a potential something but not an 
 actual, from an actual nothing but a potential not-nothing, 
 from a nothing which might become a something to us with 
 any modification on our parts but which, till such modification 
 has arisen, does not exist in relation to us, though very con- 
 ceivably doing so in relation to other entities. But this Pro- 
 tean nothing, capable of appearing as something, is not the 
 
314 First Principles 
 
 absolute, eternal, unchangeable nothing that we mean when 
 we say ex nihilo nihil fit. 
 
 The alternative is that something should not have come out 
 of nothing, and this is saying that something has always 
 existed. But the eternal increateness of matter seems as 
 troublesome to conceive as its having been created out of 
 nothing. I say "seems," for I am not sure how far it really is 
 so. We never saw something come out of nothing, that is to 
 say, we never saw a beginning of anything except as the be- 
 ginning of a new phase of something pre-existent. We ought 
 therefore to find the notion of eternal being familiar, it ought 
 to be the only conception of matter which we are able to 
 form: nevertheless, we are so carried away by being accus- 
 tomed to see phases have their beginnings and endings that we 
 forget that the matter, of which we see the phase begin and 
 end, did not begin or end with the phase. 
 
 Eternal matter permeated by eternal mind, matter and 
 mind being functions of one another, is the least uncomforta- 
 ble way of looking at the universe; but as it is beyond our 
 comprehension, and cannot therefore be comfortable, sensible 
 persons will not look at the universe at all except in such 
 details as may concern them. 
 
 Contradiction in Terms 
 
 We pay higher and higher in proportion to the service ren- 
 dered till we get to the highest services, such as becoming a 
 Member of Parliament, and this must not be paid at all. If 
 a man would go yet higher and found a new and permanent 
 system, or create some new idea or work of art which remains 
 to give delight to ages — he must not only not be paid, but he 
 will have to pay very heavily out of his own pocket into the 
 bargain. 
 
 Again, we are to get all men to speak well of us if we can ; 
 yet we are to be cursed if all men speak well of us. 
 
 So when the universe has gathered itself into a single ball 
 (which I don't for a moment believe it ever will, but I don't 
 care) it will no sooner have done so, than the bubble will 
 burst and it will go back to its gases again. 
 
 Contradiction in terms is so omnipresent that we treat it 
 as we treat death, or free-will, or fate, or air, or God, or the 
 
First Principles 3^5 
 
 Devil — taking these things so much as matters of course that, 
 though they are visible enough if we choose to see them, we 
 neglect them normally altogether, without for a moment in- 
 tending to deny their existence. This neglect is convenient 
 as preventing repetitions the monotony of which would de- 
 feat their own purpose, but people are tempted nevertheless 
 to forget the underlying omnipresence in the superficial omni- 
 absence. They forget that its opposite lurks in everything — 
 that there are harmonics of God in the Devil and harmonics 
 of the Devil in God. 
 
 Contradiction in terms is not only to be excused but there 
 can be no proposition which does not more or less involve 
 one. 
 
 It is the fact of there being contradictions in terms, which 
 have to be smoothed away and fused into harmonious ac- 
 quiescence with their surroundings, that makes life and con- 
 sciousness possible at all. Unless the unexpected were sprung 
 upon us continually to enliven us we should pass life, as it 
 were, in sleep. To a living being no "It is" can be absolute ; 
 wherever there is an "Is," there, among its harmonics, lurks 
 an "Is not." When there is absolute absence of "Is not" the 
 "Is" goes too. And the "Is not" does not go completely till 
 the "Is" is gone along with it. Every proposition has got a 
 skeleton in its cupboard. 
 
 Extremes 
 i 
 
 Intuition and evidence seem to have something of the same 
 relation that faith and reason, luck and cunning, free-will 
 and necessity and demand and supply have. They grow up 
 hand in hand and no man can say which comes first. It is 
 the same with life and death, which lurk one within the other 
 as do rest and unrest, change and persistence, heat and cold, 
 poverty and riches, harmony and counterpoint, night and day, 
 summer and winter. 
 
 And so with pantheism and atheism; loving everybody is 
 loving nobody, and God everywhere is, practically, God no- 
 where. I once asked a man if he was a free-thinker; he 
 replied that he did not think he was. And so, I have heard 
 of a man exclaiming "I am an atheist, thank God !" Those 
 
3i6 First Principles 
 
 who say there is a God are wrong unless they mean at the 
 same time that there is no God, and vice versa. The 
 difference is the same as that between plus nothing and 
 minus nothing, and it is hard to say which we ought to ad- 
 mire and thank most — the first theist or the first atheist. 
 Nevertheless, for many reasons, the plus nothing is to be 
 preferred. 
 
 ii 
 
 To be poor is to be contemptible, to be very poor is worse 
 
 still, and so on; but to be actually at the point of death 
 
 through poverty is to be sublime. So "when weakness is 
 
 utter, honour ceaseth." [The Righteous Man, p. 390, post.] 
 
 iii 
 The meeting of extremes is never clearer than in the case 
 of moral and intellectual strength and weakness. We may 
 say with Hesiod "How much the half is greater than the 
 whole!" or with S. Paul "My strength is made perfect in 
 weakness" ; they come to much the same thing. We all know 
 strength so strong as to be weaker than weakness and weak- 
 ness so great as to be stronger than strength. 
 
 iv 
 The Queen travels as the Countess of Balmoral and would 
 probably be very glad, if she could, to travel as plain Mrs. 
 Smith. There is a good deal of the Queen lurking in every 
 Mrs. Smith and, conversely, a good deal of Mrs. Smith lurk- 
 ing in every queen. 
 
 Free- Will and Necessity 
 
 As I am tidying up, and the following beginning of a paper 
 on the above subject has been littering about my table since 
 December 1889, which is the date on the top of page i, I will 
 shoot it on to this dust-heap and bury it out of my sight. It 
 runs : 
 
 The difficulty has arisen from our forgetting that contra- 
 diction in terms lies at the foundation of all our thoughts 
 as a condition and sine qua non of our being able to think at 
 all. We imagine that we must either have all free-will and 
 no necessity, or all necessity and no free-will, and, it being 
 
First Principles 3^7 
 
 obvious that our free-will is often overriden by force of cir- 
 cumstances while the evidence that necessity is overridden 
 by free-will is harder to find (if indeed it can be found, for 
 I have not fully considered the matter), most people who 
 theorise upon this question will deny in theory that there is 
 any free-will at all, though in practice they take care to act 
 as if there was. For if we admit that like causes are fol- 
 lowed by like effects (and everything that we do is based 
 upon this hypothesis), it follows that every combination of 
 causes must have some one consequent which can alone follow 
 it and which free-will cannot touch. 
 
 (Yes, but it will generally be found that free-will entered 
 into the original combination and the repetition of the com- 
 bination will not be exact unless a like free-will is repeated 
 along with all the other factors.) 
 
 From which it follows that free-will is apparent only, and 
 that, as I said years ago in Erewhon, we are not free to choose 
 what seems" best on each occasion but bound to do so, being 
 fettered to the freedom of our wills throughout our lives. 
 
 But to deny free-will is to deny moral responsibility, and 
 we are landed in absurdity at once — for there is nothing more 
 patent than that moral responsibility exists. Nevertheless, 
 at first sight, it would seem as though we ought not to hang 
 a man for murder if there was no escape for him but that he 
 must commit one. Of course the answer to one who makes 
 this objection is that our hanging him is as much a matter of 
 necessity as his committing the murder. 
 
 If, again, necessity, as involved in the certainty that like 
 combinations will be followed by like consequence, is a basis 
 on which all our actions are founded, so also is free-will. 
 This is quite as much a sine qua non for action as necessity 
 is ; for who would try to act if he did not think that his trying 
 would influence the result? 
 
 We have therefore two apparently incompatible and 
 mutually destructive faiths, each equally and self-evidently 
 demonstrable, each equally necessary for salvation of any 
 kind, and each equally entering into every thought and 
 action of our whole lives, yet utterly contradictory and 
 irreconcilable. 
 
 Can any dilemma seem more hopeless? It is not a case 
 of being able to live happily with either were t'other dear 
 
3^8 First Principles 
 
 charmer away; it is indispensable that we should embrace 
 both, and embrace them with equal cordiality at the same 
 time, though each annihilates the other. It is as though it 
 were indispensable to our existence to be equally dead and 
 equally alive at one and the same moment. 
 
 Here we have an illustration which may help us. For, 
 after all, we are both dead and alive at one and the same 
 moment. There is no life without a taint of death and no 
 death that is not instinct with a residuum of past life and 
 with germs of the new that is to succeed it. Let those who 
 deny this show us an example of pure life and pure death. 
 Any one who has considered these matters will know this to 
 be impossible. And yet in spite of this, the cases where we 
 are in doubt whether a thing is to be more fitly called dead 
 or alive are so few that they may be disregarded. 
 
 I take it, then, that ^s, though alive, we are in part dead 
 and, though dead, in part alive, so, though bound by necessity, 
 we are in part free, and, though free, yet in part bound by 
 necessity. At least I can think of no case of such absolute 
 necessity in human affairs as that free-will should have no 
 part in it, nor of such absolute free-will that no part of the 
 action should be limited and controlled by necessity. 
 
 Thus, when a man walks to the gallows, he is under large 
 necessity, yet he retains much small freedom ; when pinioned, 
 he is less free, but he can open his eyes and mouth and pray 
 aloud or no as he pleases ; even when the drop has fallen, so 
 long as he is "he" at all, he can exercise some, though in- 
 finitely small, choice. i 
 
 It may be answered that throughout the foregoing chain 
 of actions, the freedom, what little there is of it, is apparent 
 only, and that even in the small freedoms, which are not so 
 obviously controlled by necessity, the necessity is still present 
 as effectually as when the man, though apparently free to 
 walk to the gallows, is in reality bound to do so. For in 
 respect of the small details of his manner of walking to the 
 gallows, which compulsion does not so glaringly reach, what 
 is it that the man is free to do ? He is free to do as he likes, 
 but he is not free to do as he does not like; and a man's 
 likings are determined by outside things and by antecedents, 
 pre-natal and post-natal, whose effect is so powerful that the 
 individual who makes the choice proves to be only the r&- 
 
First Principles 3^9 
 
 sultant of certain forces which h^ve been brought to bear 
 upon him but which are not the man. So that it seems there 
 is no detail, no nook or corner of action, into which necessity 
 does not penetrate. 
 
 This seems logical, but it is as logical to follow instinct and 
 common sense as to follow logic, and both instinct and com- 
 mon sense assure us that there is no nook or corner of ac- 
 tion into which free-will does not penetrate, unless it be 
 those into which mind does not enter at all, as when a 
 man is struck by lightning or is overwhelmed suddenly by an 
 avalanche. 
 
 Besides, those who maintain that action is bound to fol- 
 low choice, while choice can only follow opinion as to ad- 
 vantage, neglect the very considerable number of cases in 
 which opinion as to advantage' does not exist — when, for in- 
 stance, a man feels, as we all of us sometimes do, that he 
 is utterly incapable of forming any opinion whatever as to 
 his most advantageous course. 
 
 But this again is fallacious. For supprase he decides to 
 toss up and be guided by the result, this is still what he has 
 chosen to do, and his action, therefore, is following his choice. 
 Or suppose, again, that he remains passive and does nothing — 
 his passivity is his choice. 
 
 I can see no way out of it unless either frankly to admit 
 that contradiction in terms is the bedrock on which all our 
 thoughts and deeds are founded, and to acquiesce cheerfully 
 in the fact that whenever we try to go below the surface of 
 any enquiry we find ourselves utterly bafflted — or to redefine 
 freedom and necessity, admitting each as a potent factor of 
 the other. And this I do not see my way to doing. I am 
 therefore necessitated to choose freely the admission that 
 our understanding can burrow but a very small way into the 
 foundations of our beliefs, and can only weaken rather than 
 strerigthen them by burrowing at all. . ^ 
 
 Free-Will otherwise Cunning 
 
 The element of free-will, cunning, spontaneity, individu- 
 ality — so omnipresent, so essential, yet so unreasonable, 
 and so inconsistent with the other element not less omni- 
 present and not less essential, I mean necessity, luck, fate — 
 
320 First Principles 
 
 this element of free-will, which comes from the unseen king- 
 dom within which the writs of our thoughts run not, must be 
 carried down to the most tenuous atoms whose action is 
 supposed most purely chemical and mechanical ; it can never 
 be held as absolutely eliminated, for if it be so held, there 
 is no getting it back again, and that it exists, even in the 
 lowest forms of life, cannot be disputed. Its existence is 
 one of the proofs of the existence of an unseen world, and a 
 means whereby we know the little that we do know of that 
 world. 
 
 Necessity otherwise Luck 
 
 It is all very well to insist upon the free-will or cunning 
 side of living action, more especially now when it has been 
 so persistently ignored, but though the fortunes of birth and 
 surroundings have all been built up by cunning, yet it is ,by 
 ancestral, vicarious cunning, and this, to each individual, 
 comes to much the same as luck pure and simple; in fact, 
 luck is seldom seriously intended to mean a total denial of 
 cunning, but is for the most part only an expression whereby 
 (we summarise and express our sense of a cunning too complex 
 and impalpable for conscious following and apprehension. 
 ■ When we consider how little we have to do with our parent- 
 age, country and education, or even with our genus and 
 species, how vitally these things affect us both in life and 
 death, and how, practically, the cunning in connection with 
 them is so spent as to be no cunning at all, it is plain that the 
 drifts, currents, and storms of what is virtually luck will be 
 often more than the little helm of cunning can control. And 
 so with death. Nothing can affect us less, but at the same 
 time nothing can affect us more; and how little can cunning 
 do against it ? At the best it can only defer it. Cunning is 
 nine-tenths luck, and luck is nine-tenths cunning ; but the fact 
 that nine-tenths of cunning is luck leaves still a tenth part 
 unaccounted for. 
 
 Choice 
 
 Our choice is apparently most free, and we are least ob- 
 viously driven to determine our course, in those cases where 
 the future is most obscure, that is, when the balance of ad- 
 vantage appears most doubtful. 
 
First Principles 321 
 
 Where we have an opinion that assures us promptly which 
 way the balance of advantage will incline — whether it be an 
 instinctive, hereditarily acquired opinion or one rapidly and 
 decisively formed as the result of post-natal experience — then 
 our action is determined at once by that opinion, and freedom 
 of choice practically vanishes. 
 
 Ego and Non-Ego 
 
 You can have all ego, or all non-ego, but in theory you 
 cannot have half one and half the other — yet in practice this 
 is exactly what you must have, for everything is both itself 
 and not itself at one and the same time. 
 
 A living thing is itself in so far as it has wants and gratifies 
 them. It is not itself in so far as it uses itself as a tool for 
 the gratifying oi its wants. Thus an amoeba is aware of a 
 piece of meat which it wants to eat. It has nothing except 
 its own body to fling at the meat and catch it with. If it had 
 a little hand-net, or even such an organ as our own hand, it 
 would use it, but it has only got itself; so it takes itself by 
 the scruff of its own neck, as it were, and flings itself at the 
 piece of meat, as though it were not itself but something 
 which it is using in order to gratify itself. So we make our 
 owri bodies into carriages every time we walk. Our body is 
 our tool-box — and our bodily organs are the simplest tools 
 we can catch hold of. 
 
 When the amoeba has got the piece of meat and has done 
 digesting it, it leaves off being not itself and becomes itself 
 again. A thing is only itself when it is doing nothing; as 
 long as it is doing something it is its own tool and not itself. 
 
 Or you may have it that everything is itself in respect of 
 the pleasure or pain it is feeling, but not itself in respect of 
 the using of itself by itself as a tool with which to work its 
 will. Or perhaps we should say that the ego remains always 
 ego in part; it does not become all non-ego at one and the 
 same time. We throw our fist into a man's face as though 
 it were a stick we had picked up to beat him with. For the 
 moment, our fist is hardly "us," but it becomes "us" again 
 as we feel the resistance it encounters from the man's eye. 
 Anyway, we can only chuck about a part of ourselves at a 
 time, we cannot chuck the lot — and yet I do not know this, 
 
322 First Principles 
 
 for we may jump off the ground and fling ourselves on to a 
 man. 
 
 The fact that both elements are present and are of such 
 nearly equal value explains the obstinacy of the conflict be- 
 tween the upholders of Necessity and Free- Will which, in- 
 deed, are only luck and cunning under other names. 
 
 For, on the one hand, the surroundings so obviously and 
 powerfully mould us, body and soul, and even the little modi- 
 fying power which at first we seem to have is found, on 
 examination, to spring so completely from surroundings 
 formerly beyond the control of our ancestors, that a logical 
 thinker, who starts with these premises, is soon driven to the 
 total denial of free-will, except, of course, as an illusion; in 
 other words, he perceives the connection between ego and 
 non-ego, tries to disunite them so as to know when he is 
 talking about what, and finds to his surprise that he cannot 
 do so without violence to one or both. Being, above all things, 
 a logical thinker, and abhorring the contradiction in terms 
 involved in admitting anything to be both itself and some- 
 thing other than itself at one and the same time, he makes 
 the manner in which the one is rooted into the other a pre- 
 text for merging the ego, as the less bulky of the two, in 
 the non-ego; hence practically he declares the ego to have 
 no further existence, except as a mere appendage and adjunct 
 of the non-ego the existence of which he alone recognises 
 (though how he can recognise it without recognising also that 
 he is recognising it as something foreign to himself it is not 
 easy to see). As for the action and interaction that goes on 
 in the non-ego, he refers it to fate, fortune, chance, luck, 
 necessity, immutable law, providence (meaning generally im- 
 providence) or to whatever kindred term he has most fancy 
 for. In other words, he is so much impressed with the con- 
 nection between luck and cunning, and so anxious to avoid 
 contradiction in terms, that he tries to abolish cunning, and 
 dwells, as Mr. Darwin did, almost exclusively upon the luck 
 side of the matter. 
 
 Others, on the other hand, find the ego no less striking 
 than their opponents find the non-ego. Every hour they 
 mould things so considerably to their pleasure that, even 
 though they may for argument's sake admit free-will to be 
 an illusion, they say with reason that no reality can be more 
 
First Principles 323 
 
 real than an illusion which is so strong, so persistent and 
 so universal ; this contention, indeed, cannot be disputed ex- 
 cept at the cost of invalidating the reality of all even our 
 most assured convictions. They admit that there is an ap- 
 parent connection between their ego and non-ego, their 
 necessity and free-will, their luck and cunning; they grant 
 that the difference is resolvable into a difference of degree 
 and not of kind; but, on the other hand, they say that in 
 each degree there still lurks a little kind, and that a differ- 
 ence of many degrees makes a difference of kind — there 
 being, in fact, no difference between differences of degree and 
 those of kind, except that the second are an accumulation of 
 the first. The all-powerfulness of the surroundings is declared 
 by them to be as completely an illusion, if examined closely, 
 as the power of the individual was declared to be by their 
 opponents, inasmuch as the antecedents of the non-ego, when 
 examined by them, prove to be not less due to the personal 
 individual element everywhere recognisable, than the ego, 
 when examined by their opponents, proved to be mergeable 
 in the universal. They claim, therefore, to be able to resolve 
 everything into spontaneity and free-will with no less logical 
 consistency than that with which free-will can be resolved 
 into an outcome of necessity. 
 
 Two Incomprehensibles 
 
 You may assume life of some kind omnipresent for ever 
 throughout matter. This is one way. Another way is to 
 assume an act of spontaneous generation, i.e. a transition 
 somewhere and somewhen from absolutely non-living to abso- 
 lutely living. You cannot have it both ways. But it seems 
 to me that you must have it both ways. You must not be- 
 gin with life (or potential life) everywhere alone, nor must 
 you begin with a single spontaneous generation alone, but 
 you must carry your spontaneous generation (or denial of the 
 continuity of life) down, ad iMnitium, just as you must carry 
 your continuity of life (or denial of spontaneous generation) 
 down ad infinitum and, compatible or incompatible, you must 
 write a scientific Athanasian Creed to comprehend these two 
 incomprehensibles. 
 
 If, then, it is only an escape from one incomprehensible 
 
324 First Principles 
 
 position to another, cui bono to make a change? Why not 
 stay quietly in the Athanasian Creed as we are? And, after 
 all, the Athanasian Creed is light and comprehensible read- 
 ing in comparison with much that now passes for science. 
 
 I can give no answer to this as regards the unintelligible 
 clauses, for what we come to in the end is just as abhorrent 
 to and inconceivable by reason as what they offer us; but 
 as regards what may be called the intelligible parts — that 
 Christ was born of a Virgin, died, rose from the dead — we 
 say that, if it were not for the prestige that belief in these 
 alleged facts has obtained, we should refuse attention to 
 them. Out of respect, however, for the mass of opinion that 
 accepts them we have looked into the matter with care, and 
 we have found the evidence break down. The same reasoning 
 and canons of criticism which convince me that Christ was 
 crucified convince me at the same, time that he was insuffi- 
 ciently crucified. I can only accept his death and resurrection 
 at the cost of rejecting everything that I have been taught 
 to hold most strongly. I can only accept the so-called tes- 
 timony in support of these alleged facts at the cost of re- 
 jecting, or at any rate invalidating, all the testimony on which 
 I have based all comfortable assurance of any kind what- 
 soever. 
 
 God and the Unknown 
 
 God is the unknown, and hence the nothing qua us. He 
 is also the ensemble of all we know, and hence the everything 
 qim us. So that the most absolute nothing and the most 
 absolute everything are extremes that meet (like all other 
 extremes) in God. 
 
 Men think they mean by God something like what Raffaelle 
 and Michael Angelo have painted; unless this were so Raf- 
 faelle and Michael Angelo would not have painted as they 
 did. But to get at our truer thoughts we should look at our 
 Jess conscious and deliberate utterances. From these it has 
 teen gathered that God is our expression for all forces and 
 powers which we do not understand, or with which we are 
 unfamiliar, and for the highest ideal of wisdom, goodness and 
 power which we can conceive, but for nothing else. 
 
 Thus God makes the grass grow because we do not under- 
 stand how the air and earth and water near a piece of grass 
 
First Principles 325 
 
 are seized by the grass and converted into more grass; but 
 God does not mow the grass and make hay of it. It is Paul 
 and Apollos who plant and water, but God who giveth the 
 increase. We never say that God does anything which we 
 can do ourselves, or ask him for anything which we know 
 how to get in any other way. As soon as we understand a 
 thing we remove it from the sphere of God's action. 
 
 As long as there is an unknown there will be a God for all 
 practical purposes ; the name of God has never yet been given 
 to a known thing except by way of flattery, as to Roman 
 Emperors, or through the attempt to symbolise the unknown 
 generally, as in fetish worship, and then the priests had to tell 
 the people that there was something more about the fetish 
 than they knew of, or they would soon have ceased to think 
 of it as God. 
 
 To understand a thing is to feel as though we could stand 
 under or alongside of it in all its parts and form a picture of 
 it in our minds throughout. We understand how a violin is 
 made if our minds can follow the manufacture in all its 
 detail and picture it to ourselves. If we feel that we can 
 identify ourselves with the steam and machinery of a steam 
 engine, so as to travel in imagination with the steam through 
 all the pipes and valves, if we can see the movement of each 
 part of the piston, connecting rod, &c., so as to be mentally 
 one with both the steam and the mechanism throughout their 
 whole action and construction, then we say we understand 
 the steam engine, and the idea of God never crosses our minds 
 in connection with it. 
 
 When we feel that we can neither do a thing ourselves, 
 nor even learn to do it by reason of its intricacy and diffi- 
 culty, and that no one else ever can or will, and yet we see 
 the thing none the less done daily and hourly all round us, 
 then we are not content to say we do not understand how 
 the thing is done, we go further and ascribe the action to God. 
 As soon as there is felt to be an unknown and apparently 
 unknowable element, then, but not till then, does the idea 
 God present itself to us. So at coroners' inquests juries never 
 say the deceased died by the visitation of God if they know 
 any of the more proximate causes. 
 
 It is not God, therefore, who sows the corn — we could 
 sow corn ourselves, we can see the man with a bag in his hand 
 
326 First Principles 
 
 walking over ploughed fields and sowing the cofn broadcast — 
 but it is God who made the man who goes about with the 
 bag, and who makes the corn sprout, for we do not follow 
 the processes that take place here. 
 
 As long as we knew nothing about what caused this or that 
 weather we used to ascribe it to God's direct action and pray 
 him to change it a,ccording to our wants : now that we know 
 more about the weather there is a growing disinclination 
 among clerg)rmen to pray for rain or dry weather, while 
 laymen look to nothing but the barometer. So people do 
 not say God has shown them this or that when they have 
 just seen it in the newspapers ; they would only say that God 
 had shown it them if it had come into their heads suddenly 
 and after they had tried long and vainly to get at this par- 
 ticular point. 
 
 To lament that we cannot be more conscious of God and 
 understand him better is much like lamenting that we are not 
 more conscious of our circulation and digestion. Provided 
 we live according to familiar laws of health, the less we think 
 about circulation and digestion the better; and so with the 
 ordinary rules of good conduct, the less we think about God 
 the better. 
 
 To know God better is only to realise more fully how im- 
 possible it is that we should ever know him at all. I cannot 
 tell which is the more childish — ^to deny him, or to attempt 
 to define him. 
 
 Scylla and Charybdis 
 
 They are everywhere. Just now coming up Great Russell 
 Street I loitered outside a print shop. There they were as 
 usual — Hogarth's Idle and Virtuous Apprentices. The idle 
 apprentice is certainly Scylla, but is not the virtuous appren- 
 tice just as much Charybdis? Is he so greatly preferable? 
 Is not the right thing somewhere between the two ? And does 
 not the art of good living consist mainly in a fine perception 
 of when to edge towards the idle and when towards the vir- 
 tuous apprentice ? 
 
 When John Bunyan (or Richard Baxter, or whoever it 
 was) said "There went John Bunyan, but for the grace of 
 God" (or whatever he did say), had he a right to be so cock- 
 
First Principles 327 
 
 sure that the criminal on whom he was looking was not say- 
 ing much the same thing as he looked upon John Bunyan? 
 Does any one who knows me doubt that if I were offered my 
 choice between a bishopric and a halter, I should choose the 
 halter? I believe half the bishops would choose the halter 
 themselves if they had to do it over again. 
 
 Philosophy 
 
 As a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not 
 letting a sleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circum- 
 vent or otherwise escape from the consequences of the inter- 
 lacing of the roots of things with one another. It professes 
 to appease our ultimate "Why?" though in truth it is gen- 
 erally the solution of a simplex ignotum by a complex ig- 
 notius. This, at least, is my experience of everything that 
 has been presented to me as philosophy. I have often had 
 my "Why" answered with so much mystifying matter that I 
 have left off pressing it through fatigue. But this is not 
 having my ultimate "Why?" appeased. It is being knocked 
 out of time. 
 
 Philosophy and Equal Temperament 
 
 It is with philosophy as with just intonation on a piano, 
 if you get everything quite straight and on all fours in one 
 department, in perfect time, it is delightful so long as you 
 keep well in the middle of the key; but as soon as you 
 modulate you find the new key is out of tune and the more 
 remotely you modulate the more out of tune you get. The 
 only way is to distribute your error by equal temperament 
 and leave common sense to make the correction in philoso- 
 phy which the ear does instantaneously and involuntarily in 
 music. 
 
 Hedging the Cuckoo 
 
 People will still keep trying to find some formula that 
 shall hedge-in the cuckoo of mental phenomena to their 
 satisfaction. Half the books — nay, all of them that deal with 
 thought and its ways in the academic spirit — are but so many 
 of these hedges in various stages of decay. 
 
328 First Principles 
 
 God and Philosophies 
 
 'AH philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense; 
 biit some are greater nonsense than others. It is perhaps 
 because God does not set much store by or wish to encourage 
 them that he has attached such very slender rewards to 
 them. 
 
 Common Sense, Reason and Faith 
 
 Reason is not the ultimate test of truth nor is it the court 
 of first instance. 
 
 For example : A man questions his own existence ; he ap- 
 plies first to the court of mother-wit and is promptly told 
 that he exists; he appeals next to reason and, after some 
 wrangling, is told that the matter is very doubtful; he pro- 
 ceeds to the equity of that reasonable faith which inspires and 
 transcends reason, and the judgment of the court of first 
 instance is upheld while that of reason is reversed. 
 
 Nevertheless it is folly to appeal from reason to faith 
 unless one is pretty sure of a verdict and, in most cases 
 about which we dispute seriously, reason is as far as we 
 need go. 
 
 The Credit System 
 
 The whole world is carried on on the credit system; if 
 every one were to demand payment in hard cash, there would 
 be universal bankruptcy. We think as we do mainly because 
 other people think so. But if every one stands on every one 
 else, what does the bottom man stand on ? Faith is no foun- 
 dation, for it rests in the end on reason. Reason is no founda- 
 tion, for it rests upon faith. 
 
 Argument 
 
 We are not won by argument, which is like reading and 
 writing and disappears when there is need of such vanity, 
 or like colour that vanishes with too much light or shade, or 
 like sound that becomes silence in the extremes. Argument 
 is useless when there is either no conviction at all or a very 
 strong conviction. It is a means of conviction and as such 
 
First Principles 329 
 
 belongs to the means of conviction, not to the extremes. We 
 are not won by arguments that we can analyse, but by tone 
 and temper, by the manner which is the man himself. 
 
 Logic and Philosophy 
 
 When you have got all the rules and all the lore of philoso- 
 phy and logic well into your head, and have spent years in 
 getting to understand at any rate what they mean and have 
 them at command, you will know less for practical purposes 
 than one who has never studied logic or philosophy. 
 
 Science 
 
 If it tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, 
 we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes 
 to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water, 
 it is all wrong. Our business is with the thickening of this, 
 crust by extending our knowledge downward from above, as 
 ice gets thicker while the frost lasts; we should not try to 
 freeze upwards from the bottom. 
 
 Religion 
 
 A religion only means something so certainly posed that 
 nothing can ever displace it. It is an attempt to settle first 
 principles so authoritatively that no one need so much as 
 even think of ever re-opening them for himself or feel any, 
 even the faintest, misgiving upon the matter. It is an at- 
 tempt to get an irref ragably safe investment, and this cannot 
 be got, no matter how low the interest, which in the case 
 of religion is about as low as it can be. 
 
 Any religion that cannot be founded on half a sheet of 
 note-paper will be bottom-heavy, and this, in a matter so 
 essentially of sentiment as religion, is as bad as being top- 
 heavy in a material construction. It must of course catch 
 on to reason, but the less it emphasises the fact the better. 
 
 Logic 
 
 Logic has no place save with that which can be defined in 
 words. It has nothing to do, therefore, with those deeper 
 
330 First Principles 
 
 questions that have got beyond words and consciousness. To 
 apply logic here is as fatuous as to disregard it in cases where 
 it is applicable. The difficulty lies, as it always does, on the 
 border lines between the respective spheres of influence. 
 
 Logic and Faith 
 
 Logic is like the sword — ^those who appeal to it shall perish 
 by it. Faith is appealing to the living God, and one may 
 perish by that too, but somehow one would rather perish 
 that way than the other, and one has got to perish sooner 
 or later. 
 
 Common Sense and Philosophy 
 
 The voices of common sense and of high philosophy some- 
 times cross ; but common sense is the unalterable canto fermo 
 and philosophy is the variable counterpoint. 
 
 First Principles 
 
 It is said we can build no superstructure without a founda- 
 tion of unshakable principles. There are no such principles. 
 Or, if there be any, they are beyond our reach — we cannot 
 fathom them; therefore, qua us, they have no existence, 
 for there is no other "is not" than inconceivableness by our- 
 selves. There is one thing certain, namely, that we can have 
 nothing certain; therefore it is not certain that we can have 
 nothing certain. We are as men who will insist on looking 
 over the brink of a precipice; some few can gaze into the 
 abyss below without losing their heads, but most men will 
 grow dizzy and fall. The only thing to do is to glance at the 
 chaos on which our thoughts are founded, recognise that it 
 is a chaos and that, in the nature of things, no theoretically 
 firm ground is even conceivable, and then to turn aside with 
 the disgust, fear and horror of one who has been looking into 
 his own entrails. 
 
 Even Euclid cannot lay a demonstrable premise, he re- 
 quires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration 
 and without which he can do nothing. His superstructure is 
 demonstration, his ground is faith. And so his ultima ratio 
 
First Principles 33 1 
 
 is to tell a man that he is a fool by saying "Which is absurd." 
 If his oppoflent chooses to hold out in spite of this, Euclid 
 can do no more. Faith and authority are as necessary for 
 him as for any one else. True, he does not want us to believe 
 very much; his yoke is tolerably easy, and he will not call 
 a man a fool until he will have public opinion generally on 
 his side ; but none the less does he begin with dogmatism and 
 end with persecution. 
 
 There is nothing one cannot wrangle about. Sensible peo- 
 ple will agree to a middle course founded upon a few gen- 
 eral axioms and propositions about which, right or wrong, 
 they will not think it worth while to wrangle for some time, 
 and those who reject these can be put into mad-houses. The 
 middle way may be as full of hidden rocks as the other ways 
 are of manifest ones, but it is the pleasantest while we can 
 keep to it and the dangers, being hidden, are less alarming. 
 
 In practice it is seldom very hard to do one's duty when 
 one knows what it is, but it is sometimes exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to find this out. The difficulty is, however, often re- 
 ducible into that of knowing what gives one pleasure, and 
 this, though difficult, is a safer guide and more easily dis- 
 tinguished. In all cases of doubt, the promptings of a kindly 
 disposition are more trustworthy than the conclusions of 
 logic, and sense is better than science. 
 
 Why I should have been at the pains to write such truisms 
 I know not. 
 
XXI 
 
 Rebelliousness 
 
 God and Life 
 
 We regard these as two distinct things and say that the first 
 made the second, much as, till lately, we regarded memory 
 and heredity as two distinct things having less connection 
 than even that supposed to exist between God and life. 
 Now, however, that we know heredity to be only a neces- 
 sary outcome, development and manifestation of memory — 
 so that, given such a faculty as memory, the faculty of 
 heredity follows as being inherent therein and bound to 
 issue from it — in like manner presently, instead of seeing 
 life as a thing created by God, we shall see God and life as 
 one thing, there being no life without God nor God without 
 life, where there is life there is God and where there is God 
 there is life. 
 
 They say that God is love, but life and love are co-exten- 
 sive; for hate is but a mode of love, as life and death lurk 
 always in one another ; and "God is life" is not far off saying 
 "God is love." Again, they say, "Where there is life there 
 is hope," but hope is of the essence of God, for it is faith and 
 hope that have underlain all evolution. 
 
 God and Flesh 
 
 The course of true God never did run smooth. God to be 
 of any use must be made manifest, and he can only be made 
 manifest in and through flesh. And flesh to be of any use 
 (except for eating) must be alive, and it can only be alive 
 by being inspired of God. The trouble lies in the getting the 
 flesh and the God together in the right proportions. There 
 is lots of God and lots of flesh, but the flesh has always got 
 
 332 
 
Rebelliousness 333 
 
 too much God or too little, and the God has always too little 
 flesh or too much. 
 
 Gods and Prophets 
 
 It is the manner of gods and prophets to begin: "Thou 
 shalt have none other God or Prophet but me." If I were to 
 start as a god or a prophet, I think I should take the line: 
 "Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for 
 a god. Thou shalt worship any damned thing thou likest 
 except me." This should be my first and great command- 
 ment, and my second should be like unto it.* 
 
 Faith and Reason 
 
 The instinct towards brushing faith aside and being strictly 
 reasonable is strong and natural; so also is the instinct to- 
 wards brushing logic and consistency on one side if they be- 
 come troublesome, in other words — so is the instinct towards 
 basing action on a faith which is beyond reason. It is be- 
 cause both instincts are so natural that so many accept and 
 so many reject Catholicism. The two go along for some 
 time as very good friends and then fight; sometimes one 
 beats and sometimes the other, but they always make it up 
 again and jog along as before, for they have a great respect 
 for one another. 
 
 God and the Devil 
 
 God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising 
 his faults should be in reasonable proportion. The faults are, 
 indeed, on such a scale that, when looked at without relation 
 to the merits with which they are interwoven, they become 
 so appalhng that people shrink from ascribing them to the 
 Deity and have invented the Devil, without seeing that there 
 would be more excuse for God's killing the Devil, and so 
 
 * "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" {Life and Habit, close of 
 Chapter II). 
 
334 Rebelliousness 
 
 getting rid of evil, than there can be for his failing to be 
 everything that' he would like to be. 
 
 For God is not so white as he is painted, and he gets on 
 better with the Devil than people think. The Devil is too 
 useful for him to wish him ill and, in like manner, half the 
 Devil's trade would be at an end should any great mishap 
 bring God well down in the world. For all the mouths they 
 make at one another they play into each other's hands and 
 have got on so well as partners, playing Spenlow and Jorkins 
 to one another, for so many years that there seems no reason 
 why they should cease to do so. The conception of them as 
 the one absolutely void of evil and the other of good is a 
 vulgar notion taken from science whose priests have ever 
 sought to get every idea and every substance pure of all 
 alloy. 
 
 God and the Devil are about as four to three. There is 
 enough preponderance of God to make it far safer to be on 
 his side than on the Devil's, but the excess is not so great as 
 his professional claqueurs pretend it is. It is like gambling 
 at Monte Carlo; if you play long enough you are sure to 
 lose, but now and again you may win a great deal of excellent 
 money if you will only cease playing the moment you have 
 won it. 
 
 Christianity 
 i 
 
 As an instrument of warfare against vice, or as a tool for 
 making virtue, Christianity is a mere flint implement. 
 
 ii 
 
 Christianity is a woman's religion, invented by women and 
 womanish men for themselves. The Church's one foundation 
 is not Christ, as is commonly said, it is woman; and calling 
 the Madonna the Queen of Heaven is only a poetical way of 
 acknowledging that women are the main support of the 
 priests. 
 
 iii 
 
 It is not the church in a village that is the source of the 
 mischief, but the rectory. I would not touch a church from 
 one end of England to the other. 
 
Rebelliousness 335 
 
 iv 
 Christianity is only seriously pretended by some among 
 the idle, bourgeois middle-classes. The working classes and 
 the most cultured intelligence of the time reach by short cuts 
 what the highways of our schools and universities mislead us 
 from by many a winding bout, if they do not prevent our ever 
 reaching it. 
 
 V 
 
 It is not easy to say which is the more obvious, the ante- 
 cedent improbability of the Christian scheme and miracles, 
 or the breakdown of the evidences on which these are sup- 
 posed to rest. And yet Christianity has overrun the world. 
 
 vi 
 
 If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything 
 to be learned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from 
 first to last, it comes to this that a man should back his own 
 opinion against the world's — and this is a very risky and im- 
 moral thing to do, but the Lord hath mercy on whom he will 
 have mercy. 
 
 vii 
 
 Christianity is true in so far as it has fostered beauty and 
 false in so far as it has fostered ugliness. It is therefore not 
 a little true and not a little false. 
 
 viii 
 Christ said he came not to destroy but to fulfil — but he 
 destroyed more than he fulfilled. Every system that is to 
 live must both destroy and fulfil. 
 
 Miracles 
 
 They do more to unsettle faith in the existing order than 
 to settle it in any other; similarly, missionaries are more 
 valuable as underminers of old faiths than as propagators of 
 new. Miracles are not impossible; nothing is impossible till 
 we have got an incontrovertible first premise. The question 
 is not "Are the Christian miracles possible?" but "Are 
 they convenient? Do they fit comfortably with our other 
 ideas?" 
 
33*5 Rebelliousness 
 
 Wants and Creeds 
 
 As in the organic world there is no organ, so in the world 
 of thought there is no thought, which may not be called into 
 existence by long persistent eflfort. If a man wants either to 
 believe or disbelieve the Christian miracles he can do so if 
 he tries hard enough; but if he does not care whether he 
 believes or disbelieves and simply wants to find out which 
 side has the best of it, this he will find a more difficult matter. 
 Nevertheless he will probably be able to do this too if he 
 tries. 
 
 Faith 
 
 i 
 The reason why the early Christians held faith in such 
 account was because they felt it to be a feat of such super- 
 human difficulty. 
 
 ii 
 You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing 
 without it. 
 
 iii 
 We are all agreed that too much faith is as bad as too 
 little, and too little as bad as too much; but we differ as 
 to what is too much and what too little. 
 
 iv 
 It is because both Catholics and myself make faith, not 
 reason, the basis of our system that I am able to be easy in 
 mind about not becoming a Catholic. Not that I ever wanted 
 to become a Catholic, but I mean I believe I can beat them 
 with their own weapons. 
 
 V 
 
 A man may have faith as a mountain, but he will not be 
 able to say to a grain of mustard seed : "Be thou removed, 
 and be thou cast into the sea" — not at least with any effect 
 upon the mustard seed — unless he goes the right way to work 
 by putting the mustard seed into his pocket and taking the 
 train to Brighton. 
 
 vi 
 
 The just live by faith, but they not infrequently also die 
 by it. 
 
Rebelliousness 337 
 
 The Cuckoo and the Moon 
 
 The diiference between the Christian and the Mahomedan 
 is only as the diiference between one who will turn his money 
 when he first hears the cuckoo, but thinks it folly to do so on 
 seeing the new moon, and one who will turn it religiously at 
 the new moon, but will scout the notion that he need do so 
 on hearing the cuckoo. 
 
 Buddhism 
 This seems to be a jumble of Christianity and Life and 
 
 Theist and Atheist 
 
 The fight between them is as to whether God shall be 
 called God or shall have some other name. 
 
 The Peculiar People 
 
 The only people in England who really believe in God are 
 the Peculiar People. Perhaps that is why they are called 
 peculiar. See how belief in an anthropomorphic God divides 
 allegiance and disturbs civil order as soon as it becomes 
 vital. 
 
 Renan 
 
 There is an article on him in the Times, April 30, 1883, 
 of the worst Times kind, and that is saying much. It appears 
 he whines about hfs lost faith and professes to wish that he 
 could believe as he believed when young. No sincere man 
 will regret having attained a truer view concerning anything 
 which he has ever believed. And then he talks about the 
 difficulties of coming to disbelieve the Christian miracles as 
 though it were a great intellectual feat. . This is very childish. 
 I hope no one will say I was sorry when I found out that 
 there was no reason for believing in heaven and hell. My 
 contempt for Renan has no limits. (Has he an accent to his 
 name? I despise him too much to find out.) 
 
338 Rebelliousness 
 
 The Spiritual Treadmill 
 
 The Church of England has something in her liturgy of the 
 spiritual treadmill. It is a very nice treadmill no doubt, but 
 Sunday after Sunday we keep step with the same old "We 
 have left undone that which we ought to have done ; And we 
 have done those things which we ought not to have done" 
 without making any progress. With the Church of Rome, I 
 understand that those whose piety is sufficiently approved are 
 told they may consider themselves as a finished article and 
 that, except on some few rare festivals, they need no longer 
 keep on going to church and confessing. The picture is com- 
 pleted and may be framed, glazed and hung up. 
 
 The Dim Religious Light 
 
 A light cannot be religious if it is not dim. Religion be- 
 longs to the twilight of our thoughts, just as business of all 
 kinds to their full daylight. So a picture which may be 
 impressive while seen in a dark light will not hold its own 
 in a bright one. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans did not enquire into the evidences 
 on which their belief that Minerva sprang full-armed from 
 the brain of Jupiter was based. If they had written books of 
 evidences to show how certainly it all happened, &c. — ^well, 
 I suppose if they had had an endowed Church with some 
 considerable prizes, they would have found means to hood- 
 wink the public. 
 
 The Peace that Passeth Understanding 
 
 Yes. But as there is a peace more comfortable than any 
 understanding, so also there is an understanding more covet- 
 able than any peace. 
 
 The New Testament 
 
 If it is a testamentary disposition at all, it is so drawn that 
 it has given rise to incessant litigation during the last nearly 
 two thousand years and seems likely to continue doing so 
 
Rebelliousness 339 
 
 for a good many years longer. It ought never to have been 
 admitted to probate. Either the testator drew it himself, 
 in which case we have another example of the folly of trying 
 to make one's own will, or if he left it to the authors of the 
 several books — this is like employing many lawyers to do 
 the work of one. 
 
 Christ and the L. & N.W. Railway- 
 Admitting for the moment that Christ can be said to have 
 died for rrie in any sense, it is only pretended that he did so 
 in the same sort of way as the London and North Western 
 Railway was made for me. Granted that I am very glad the 
 railway was made and use it when I find it convenient, I do 
 not suppose that those who projected and made the line 
 allowed me to enter into their thoughts; the debt of my 
 gratitude is divided among so many that the amount due 
 from each one is practically nil. 
 
 The Jumping Cat 
 
 God is only a less jumping kind of jumping cat; and 
 those who worship God are still worshipjjers of the jumping 
 cat all the time. There is no getting away from the jumping 
 cat — if I climb up into heaven, it is there; if I go down to 
 hell, it is there also ; if I take the wings of the morning and 
 remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there, and so 
 on; it is about my path and about my bed and spieth out 
 all my ways. It is the eternal underlying verity or the eternal 
 underlying lie, as people may choose to call it 
 
 Personified Science 
 
 Science is being daily more and more personified and 
 anthropomorphised into a god. By and by they will say that 
 science took our nature upon him, and sent down his only ' 
 begotten son, Charles Darwin, or Huxley, into the world so 
 that those who believe in him, &c. ; and they will burn people 
 for saying that science, after all, is only an expression for 
 our ignorance of our own ignorance. 
 
340 Rebelliousness 
 
 Science and Theology 
 
 We should endow neither; we should treat them as we 
 treat conservatism and liberalism, encouraging both, so that 
 they may keep watch upon one another, and letting them go 
 in and out of power with the popular vote concerning them. 
 
 The world is better carried on upon the barrister principle 
 of special pleading upon two sides before an impartial igno- 
 rant tribunal, to whom things have got to be explained, than 
 it would be if nobody were to maintain any opinion in which 
 he did not personally believe. 
 
 What -we want is to reconcile both science and theology 
 with sincerity and good breeding, to make our experts under- 
 stand that they are nothing if they are not single-minded and 
 urbane. Get them to understand this, and there will be no 
 difficulty about reconciling science and theology. 
 
 The Church and the Supernatural 
 
 If we saw the Church wishing to back out of the super- 
 natural and anxious to explain it away where possible, we 
 would keep our disbelief in the supernatural in the back- 
 ground, as far as we could, and would explain away our re- 
 jection of the miracles, as far as was decent ; furthermore we 
 would approximate our language to theirs wherever possible, 
 and insist on the points on which we are all agreed, rather 
 than on points of difference; in fact, we would meet them 
 half way and be only too glad to do it. I maintain that in 
 my books I actually do this as much as is possible, but I shall 
 try and do it still more. As a matter of fact, however, the 
 Church clings to the miraculous element of Christianity 
 more fondly than ever; she parades it more and more, and 
 shows no sign of wishing to give up even the smallest part of 
 it. It is this which makes us despair of being able to do any- 
 thing with her and feel that either she or we must go. 
 
 Gratitude and Revenge 
 
 Gratitude is as much an evil to be minimised as revenge 
 is. Justice, our law and our law courts are for the taming 
 
Rebelliousness 34 1 
 
 and regulating of revenge. Current prices and markets and 
 commercial regulations are for the taming of gratitude and 
 its reduction from a public nuisance to something which 
 shall at least be tolerable. Revenge and gratitude are correla- 
 tive terms. Our system of commerce is a protest against the 
 unbridled licence of gratitude. Gratitude, in fact, like re- 
 venge, is a mistake unless under certain securities. 
 
 Cant and Hypocrisy 
 
 We should organise a legitimate channel for instincts so 
 profound as these, just as we have found it necessary to do 
 with lust and revenge by the institutions of marriage and the 
 law courts. This is the raison d'etre of the church. You 
 kill a man just as much whether you murder him or hang him 
 after the formalities of a trial. And so with lust and mar- 
 riage, mutatis mutandis. So again with the professions of re- 
 ligion and medicine. You swindle a man as much when you 
 sell him a drug of whose action you are ignorant, and tell him 
 it will protect him from disease, as when you give him a bit 
 of bread, which you assure him is the body of Jesus Christ, 
 and then send a plate round for a subscription. You swindle 
 him as much by these acts as if you picked his pocket, or 
 obtained money from him under false pretences in any other 
 way; but you swindle him according to the rules and in an 
 authorised way. 
 
 Real Blasphemy 
 
 On one of our Sunday walks near London we passed a 
 forlorn and dilapidated Primitive Methodist Chapel. The 
 windows were a good deal broken and there was a notice up 
 offering lo/- reward to any one who should give such infor- 
 mation as should lead to the, &c. Cut in stone over the door 
 was this inscription, and we thought it as good an example 
 of real blasphemy as we had ever seen : 
 
 When God makes up his last account 
 Of holy children in his mount, 
 'Twill be an honour to appear 
 As one new born and nourished here. 
 
342 Rebelliousness 
 
 The English Church Abroad 
 
 People say you must not try to abolish Christianity until 
 you have something better to put in its place. They might as 
 well say we must not take away turnpikes and corn laws till 
 we have some other hindrances to put in their place. Besides 
 no one wants to abolish Christianity — all we want is not to 
 be snubbed and bullied if we reject the miraculous part of it 
 for ourselves. 
 
 At Biella an English clergyman asked if I was a Roman 
 Catholic. I said, quite civilly, that I was not a Catholic. 
 He replied that he had asked me not if I was a Catholic but 
 if I was a Roman Catholic. What was I ? Was I an Anglican 
 Catholic ? So, seeing that he meant to argue, I replied : 
 
 "I do not know. I am a Londoner and of the same religion 
 as people generally are in London." 
 
 This made him angry. He snorted : 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing at all;" and almost immediately left 
 the table. 
 
 As much as possible I keep away from English- frequented 
 hotels in Italy and Switzerland because I find that if I do 
 not go to service on Sunday I am made uncomfortable. It is 
 this bullying that I want to do away with. As regards Chris- 
 tianity I should hope and think that I am more Christian 
 than not. 
 
 People ought to be allowed to leave their cards at church, 
 instead of going inside. I have half a mind to try this next 
 time I am in a foreign hotel among English people. 
 
 Drunkenness 
 
 When we were at Shrewsbury the other day, coming up the 
 Abbey Foregate, we met a funeral and debated whether or 
 not to take our hats off. We always do in Italy, that is to 
 say in the country and in villages and small towns, but we 
 have been told that it is not the custom to do so in large 
 towns and in cities, which raises a question as to the exact 
 figure that should be reached by the population of a place 
 before one need not take off one's hat to a funeral in one of 
 its streets. At Shrewsbury seeing no one doing it we thought 
 
Rebelliousness 343 
 
 it might look singular and kept ours on. My friend Mr. 
 Phillips, the tailor, was in one carriage, I did not see him, 
 but he saw me and afterwards told me he had pointed me 
 out to a clergyman who was in the carriage with him. 
 
 "Oh," said the clergyman, "then that's the man who says 
 England owes all her greatness to intoxication." 
 
 This is rather a free translation of what I did say; but 
 it only shows how impossible it is to please those who do not 
 wish to be pleased. Tennyson may talk about the slow sad 
 hours that bring us all things ill and all good things from 
 evil, because this is vague and indefinite; but I may not say 
 that, in spite of the terrible consequences of drunkenness, 
 man's intellectual development would not have reached its 
 present stage without the stimulus of alcohol — which I believe 
 to be both perfectly true and pretty generally admitted — 
 because this is definite. I do not think I said more than this 
 and am sure that no one can detest drunkenness more than I 
 do.* It seems to me it will be wiser in me not to try to make 
 headway at Shrewsbury. 
 
 Hell-Fire 
 
 If Vesuvius does not frighten those who live under it, is it 
 likely that Hell-fire should frighten any reasonable person ? 
 
 I met a traveller who had returned from Hades where he 
 had conversed with Tantalus and with others of the shades. 
 They all agreed that for the first six, or perhaps twelve, 
 months they disliked their punishment very much; but after 
 that, it was like shelling peas on a hot afternoon in July. 
 They began by discovering (no doubt long after the fact had 
 been apparent enough to every one else) that they had not 
 been noticing what they were doing so much as usual, and 
 that they had been even thinking of something else. From 
 this moment, the automatic stage of action having set in, the 
 progress towards always thinking of something else was rapid 
 and they soon forgot that they were undergoing any punish- 
 ment. 
 
 * "No one can hate drunkenness more than I do, but I am con- 
 fident the human intellect owes its superiority over that of the lower 
 animals in great measure to the stimulus which alcohol has given to 
 imagination — imagination being little else than another name for 
 illusion" (Alps and Sanctuaries, Chapter III). 
 
344 Rebelliousness 
 
 Tantalus did get a little something not infrequently ; water 
 stuck to the hairs of his body and he gathered it up in his 
 hand; he also got many an apple when the wind was nap- 
 ping as it had to do sometimes. Perhaps he could have done 
 with more, but he got enough to keep him going quite com- 
 fortably. His sufferings were nothing as compared with 
 those of a needy heir to a fortune whose father, or whoever 
 it may be, catches a dangerous bronchitis every wintenbut 
 invariably recovers and lives to 91, while the heir survives 
 him a month having been worn out with long expectation. 
 
 Sisyphus had never found any pleasure in life comparable 
 to the delight of seeing his stone bound down-hill, and in so 
 timing its rush as to inflict the greatest possible Scare on any 
 unwary shade who might be wandering below. He got so 
 great and such varied amusement out of this that his labour 
 had become the automatism of reflex action — which is, I 
 understand, the name applied by men of science to all actions 
 that are done without reflection. He was a pompous, pon- 
 derous old gentleman, very irritable and always thinking that 
 the other shades were laughing at him or trying to take ad- 
 vantage of him. There were two, however, whom he hated 
 with a fury that tormented him far more seriously than any- 
 thing else ever did. The first of these was Archimedes who 
 had instituted a series of experiments in regard to various 
 questions connected with mechanics and had conceived a 
 scheme by which he hoped to utilise the motive power of the 
 stone for the purpose of lighting Hades with electricity. The 
 other was Agamemnon, who took good care to keep out of 
 the stone's way when it was more than a quarter of the 
 distance up the slope, but who delighted in teasing Sisyphus 
 so long as he considered it safe to do so. Many of the other 
 shades took daily pleasure in gathering together about stone- 
 time to enjoy the fun and to bet on how far the stone would 
 roll. 
 
 As for Tityus — what is a bird more or less on a body that 
 covers nine acres ? He found the vultures a gentle stimulant 
 to the liver without which it would have become congested. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton was intensely interested in the hygro- 
 metric and barometric proceedings of the Danaids. 
 
 "At any rate," said one of them to my informant, "if we 
 really are being punished, for goodness' sake don't say any- 
 
Rebelliousness 345 
 
 thing about it or we may be put to other work. You see, we 
 must be doing something, and now we know how to do this, 
 we don't want the bother of learning something new. You 
 may be right, but we have not got to make our living by it, 
 and what in the name of reason can it matter whether the 
 sieves ever get full or not ?" 
 
 My traveller reported much the same with regard to the 
 eternal happiness on Mount Olympus. Hercules found Hebe 
 a fool and could never get her off his everlasting knee. He 
 would have sold his soul to find another ^gisthus. 
 
 So Jove saw all this and it set him thinking. 
 
 "It seems to me," said he, "that Olympus and Hades are 
 both failures." 
 
 Then he summoned a council and the whole matter was 
 thoroughly discussed. In the end Jove abdicated, and the 
 gods came down from Olympus and assumed mortality. They 
 had some years of very enjoyable Bohemian existence going 
 about as a company of strolling players at French and 
 Belgian town fairs; after which they died in the usual way, 
 having discovered at last that it does not matter how high 
 up or how low down you are, that happiness and misery are 
 not absolute but depend on the direction in which you are 
 tending and consist in a progression towards better or worse, 
 and that pleasure, like pain and like everything that grows, 
 holds in perfection but a little moment. 
 
XXII 
 Reconciliation 
 
 Religion 
 
 By religion I mean a living sense that man proposes and God 
 disposes, that we must watch and pray that we enter not into 
 temptation, that he who thinketh he standeth must take heed 
 lest he fall, and the countless other like elementary maxims 
 which a man must hold as he holds life itself if he is to be 
 a man at all. 
 
 If religion, then, is to be formulated and made tangible 
 to the people, it can only be by means of symbols, counters 
 and analogies, more or less misleading, for no man professes 
 to have got to the root of the matter and to have seen the 
 eternal underlying verity face to face — and even though he 
 could see it he could not grip it and hold it and convey it 
 to another who has not. Therefore either these feelings must 
 be left altogether unexpressed and, if unexpressed, then soon 
 undeveloped and atrophied, or they must be expressed by 
 the help of images or idols — by the help of something not 
 more actually true than a child's doll is to a child, but yet 
 helpful to our weakness of understanding, as the doll 
 no doubt gratifies and stimulates the motherly instinct in 
 the child. 
 
 Therefore we ought not to cavil at the visible superstition 
 and absurdity of much on which religion is made to rest, for 
 the unknown can never be satisfactorily rendered into the 
 known. To get the known from the unknown is to get some- 
 thing out of nothing, a thing which, though it is being done 
 daily in every fraction of every second everywhere, is logi- 
 cally impossible of conception, and we can only think by logic, 
 for what is not in logic is not in thought. So that the attempt 
 
 346 
 
Reconciliation 347 
 
 to symbolise the unknown is certain to involve inconsistencies 
 and absurdities of all kinds and it is childish to complain 
 of their existence unless one is prepared to advocate the 
 stifling of all religious sentiment, and this is like trying to 
 stifle hunger or thirst. To be at all is to be religious more or 
 less. There never was any man who did not feel that behind 
 this world and above it and about it there is an unseen world 
 greater and more incomprehensible than anything he can 
 conceive, and this feeling, so profound and so universal, 
 needs expression. If expressed it can only be so by the help 
 of inconsistencies and errors. These, then, are not to be 
 ordered impatiently out of court; they have grown up as 
 the best guesses at truth that could be made at any given time, 
 but they must become more or less obsolete as our knowledge 
 of truth is enlarged. Things become known which were 
 formerly unknown and, though this brings us no nearer to 
 ultimate universal truth, yet it shows us that many of our 
 guesses were wrong. Everything that catches on to realism 
 and naturalism as much as Christinity does must be affected 
 by any profound modification in our views of realism and 
 naturalism. 
 
 God and Convenience 
 
 I do not know or care whether the expression "God" has 
 scientific accuracy or no, nor yet whether it has theological 
 value; I know nothing either of one or the other, beyond 
 looking upon the recognised exponents both of science and 
 theology with equal distrust; but for convenience, I am sure 
 that there is nothing like it — I mean for convenience of get- 
 ting quickly at the right or wrong of a matter. While you 
 are fumbling away with your political economy or your bibli- 
 cal precepts to know whether you shall let old Mrs. So-and- 
 so have 5/- or no, another, who has just asked himself which 
 would be most well-pleasing in the sight of God,. will be told 
 in a moment that he should give her^ — or not give her — the 
 5/-. As a general rule she had better have the 5/- at once, 
 but sometimes we must give God to understand that, though 
 we should be very glad to do what he would have of us if we 
 reasonably could, yet the present is one of those occasions 
 on which we must decline to do so. 
 
348 Reconciliation 
 
 The World 
 
 Even the world, so mondain as it is, still holds instinctively 
 and as a matter of faith unquestionable that those who have 
 died by the altar are worthier than those who have lived by it, 
 when to die was duty. 
 
 Blasphemy 
 
 I begin to understand now what Christ meant when he 
 said that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was unforgive- 
 able, while speaking against the Son of Man might be for- 
 given. He must have meant that a man may be pardoned for 
 being unable to believe in the Christian mythology, but that if 
 he made light of that spirit which the common conscience of 
 all men, whatever their particular creed, recognises as divine, 
 there was no hope for him. No more there is. 
 
 Gaining One's Point 
 
 It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who 
 scores most in controversy, but he who has shown the most 
 forbearance and the better temper. 
 
 The Voice of Common Sense 
 
 It is this, and not the Voice of the Lord, which maketh 
 men to be of one mind in an house. But then, the Voice of 
 the Lord is the voice of common sense which is shared by all 
 that is. 
 
 Amendes Honorables 
 
 There is hardly an offence so great but if it be frankly 
 apologised for it is easily both forgiven and forgotten. There 
 is hardly an offence so small but it rankles if he who has 
 committed it does not express proportionate regret. Ex- 
 pressions of regret help genuine regret and induce amendment 
 of life, much as digging a channel helps water to flow, though 
 it does not make the water. If a man refuses to make them 
 and habitually indulges his own selfishness at the expense of 
 what is due to other people, he is no better than a drunkard 
 
Reconciliation 349 
 
 or a debauchee, and I have no more respect for him than 'I 
 have for the others. 
 
 We all like to forgive, and we all love best not those who 
 offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but 
 those who make it most easy for us to forgive them. 
 
 So a man may lose both his legs and live for years in 
 health if the amputation has been clean and skilful, whereas 
 a pea in his boot may set up irritation which must last as 
 long as the pea is there and may in the end kill him. 
 
 Forgiveness and Retribution 
 
 It is no part of the bargain that we are never to commit 
 trespasses. The bargain is that if we would be forgiven we 
 must forgive them that trespass against us. Nor again is it 
 part of the bargain that we are to let a man hob-nob with us 
 when we know him to be a thorough blackguard, merely on 
 the plea that unless we do so we shall not be forgiving him his 
 trespasses. No hard and fast rule can be laid down, each 
 case must be settled instinctively as it arises. 
 
 As a sinner I am interested in the principle of forgiveness ; 
 as sinned against, in that of retribution. I have what is to me 
 a considerable vested interest in both these principles, but 
 I should say I had more in forgiveness than in retribution. 
 And so it probably is with most people or we should have had 
 a clause in the Lord's prayer : "And pay out those who have 
 sinned against us as they whom we have sinned against 
 generally pay us out." 
 
 Inaccuracy 
 
 I am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of 
 a mistake, even when it involves my having shown much 
 ignorance and stupidity, as well as I like hitting on a new 
 idea. It does comfort one so to be able to feel sure that one 
 knows how to tumble and how to retreat promptly and 
 without chagrin. Being bowled over in inaccuracy, when I 
 have tried to verify, makes me careful. But if I have not 
 tried to verify and then turn out wrong, this, if I find it out, 
 upsets me very much and I pray that I may be found out 
 whenever I do it. 
 
350 Reconciliation 
 
 Jutland and "Waitee" 
 
 I made a mistake in The Authoress of the Odyssey [in a 
 note on p. 31] when I said "Scheria means Jutland — a, piece 
 of land jutting out into the sea." Jutland means the Land of 
 the Jutes. 
 
 And I made a mistake in, Alps and Sanctuaries [Chap. Ill], 
 speaking of the peasants in the Val Leventina knowing Eng- 
 lish, when I said "One English word has become uni- 
 versally adopted by the Ticinesi themselves. They say 
 'Waitee' just as we should say 'Wait' to stop some one from 
 going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word with a 
 consonant so they have' added 'ee,' but there can be no doubt 
 about the origin of the word." The Avvocato Negri of 
 Casale-Monf errato says that they have a word in their dialetto 
 which, if ever written, would appear as "vuaitee," it means 
 "stop" or "look here," and is used to attract attention. This, 
 or something like it, no doubt is what they really say and 
 has no more to do with waiting than Jutland has to do with 
 jutting. 
 
 The Parables 
 
 The people do not act reasonably in a single instance. The 
 sower was a bad sower ; the shepherd who left his ninety and 
 nine sheep in the wilderness was a foolish shepherd ; the hus- 
 bandman who would not have his corn weeded was no farmer 
 — and so on. None of them go nearly on all fours, they halt 
 so much as to have neither literary nor moral value to any 
 but slipshod thinkers. 
 
 Granted, but are we not all slipshod thinkers ? 
 
 The Irreligion of Orthodoxy 
 
 We do not fall foul of Christians for their religion, but for 
 what we hold to be their want of religion — for the low views 
 they take of God and of his glory, and for the unworthiness 
 with which they try to serve him. 
 
 Society and Christianity 
 
 The burden of society is really a very light one. She does 
 not require us to believe the Christian religion, she has very 
 
Reconciliation 35 1 
 
 vague ideas as to what the Christian religion is, much less 
 does she require us to practise it. She is quite satisfied if 
 we do not obtrude our disbelief in it in an offensive manner. 
 Surely this is no very grievous burden. 
 
 Sanctified by Faith 
 
 No matter how great a fraud a thing may have been or be, 
 if it has passed through many minds an aroma of life attaches 
 to it and it must be handled with a certain reverence. A thing 
 or a thought becomes hallowed if it has been long and strongly 
 believed in, for veneration, after a time, seems to get into the 
 thing venerated. Look at Delphi — fraud of frauds, yet sanc- 
 tified by centuries of hope and fear and faith. If greater 
 knowledge shows Christianity to have been founded upon 
 error, still greater knowledge shows that it was .aiming at a 
 truth. 
 
 Ourselves and the Clergy 
 
 As regards the best of the clergy, whether English or 
 foreign, I feel that they and we mean in substance the same 
 thing, and that the difference is only about the way this thing 
 should be put and the evidence on which it should be con- 
 sidered to rest. 
 
 We say that they jeopardise the acceptance of the prin- 
 ciples which they and we alike cordially regard as fundamental 
 by basing them on assertions which a little investigation 
 shows to be untenable. They reply that by declaring the as- 
 sertions to be untenable we jeopardise the principles. We 
 answer that this is not so and that moreover we can find bet- 
 ter, safer and more obvious assertions on which to base them. 
 
 The Rules of Life 
 
 Whether it is right to say that one believes in God and 
 Christianity without intending what one knows the hearer in- 
 tends one to intend depends on how much or how little the 
 hearer can understand. Life is not an exact science, it is 
 an art. Just as the contention, excellent so far as it goes, 
 that each is to do what is right in his own eyes leads, when 
 ridden to death, to anarchy and chaos, so the contention 
 
352 Reconciliation 
 
 that every one should be either self-effacing or truthful to 
 the bitter end reduces life to an absurdity. If we seek real 
 rather than technical truth, it is more true to be considerately 
 untruthful within limits than to be inconsiderately truthful 
 without them. What the limits are we generally know but 
 cannot say 
 
 There is an unbridgeable chasm between thought and words 
 that we must jump as best we can, and it is just here that 
 the two hitch on to one another. The higher rules of life 
 transcend the sphere of language ; they cannot be gotten by 
 speech, neither shall logic be weighed for the price thereof. 
 They have their being in the fear of the Lord and in the 
 departing from evil without even knowing in words what tlie 
 Lord is, nor the fear of the Lord, nor yet evil. 
 
 Common straightforwardness and kindliness are the high- 
 est points that man or woman can reach, but they should 
 no more be made matters of conversation than should the 
 lowest vices. Extremes meet here as elsewhere and the 
 extremes of vice and virtue are alike common and unmen- 
 tionable. 
 
 There is nothing for it but a very humble hope that from 
 the Great Unknown Source our daily insight and daily 
 strength may be given us with our daily bread. And what is 
 this but Christianity, whether we believe that Jesus Christ 
 rose from the dead or not? So that Christianity is like a 
 man's soul — he who finds may lose it and he who loses may 
 find it. 
 
 If, then, a man may be a Christian while believing himself 
 hostile to all that some consider most essential in Chris- 
 tianity, may he not also be a free-thinker (in the common 
 iuse of the word) while believing himself hostile to free- 
 J:hought? 
 
XXIII 
 Death 
 
 Fore-Knowledge of Death 
 
 No one thinks he will escape death, so there is no disappoint- 
 ment and, as long as we know neither the when nor the how, 
 the mere fact that we shall one day have to go does not much 
 affect us ; we do not care, even though we know vaguely that 
 we have not long to live. The serious trouble begins when 
 death becomes definite in time and shape. It is in precise 
 fore-knowledge, rather than in sin, that the sting of death is 
 to be found; and such fore-knowledge is generally withheld; 
 though, strangely enough, many would have it if they could. 
 
 Continued Identity 
 
 I do not doubt that a person who will grow out of me as 
 I now am, but of whom I know nothing now and in whom 
 therefore I can take none but the vaguest interest, will one 
 day undergo so sudden and complete a change that his friends 
 must notice it and calf him dead ; but as I have no definite 
 ideas concerning this person, not knowing whether he will be 
 a man of 59 or 79 or any age between these two, so this per- 
 son will, I am sure, have forgotten the very existence of me 
 as I am at this present moment. If it is said that no mat- 
 ter how wide a difference of condition may exist between 
 myself now and myself at the moment of death, or how com- 
 plete the forgetfulness of connection on either side may be, 
 yet the fact of the one's having grown out of the other by an 
 ' infinite series of gradations makes the second personally iden- 
 tical with the first, then I say that the difference between the 
 corpse and the till recently living body is not great enough, 
 either in respect of material change or of want of memory 
 
 353 
 
354 Death 
 
 concerning the earlier existence, to bar personal identity and 
 prevent us from seeing the corpse as alive and a continuation 
 of the man from whom it was developed, though having tastes 
 and other characteristics very different from those it had 
 while it was a man. 
 
 From this point of view there is no such thing as death — 
 I mean no such thing as the death which we have commonly 
 conceived of hitherto. A man is much more alive when he is 
 what we call alive than when he is what we call dead; but 
 no matter how much he is alive, he is still in part dead, and 
 no matter how much he is dead, he is still in part alive, and 
 his corpse-hood is connected with, his living body-hood by 
 gradations which even at the moment of death are ordinarily 
 subtle; and the corpse does not forget the living body more 
 completely than the living body has forgotten a thousand or a 
 hundred thousand of its own previous states; so that we 
 should see the corpse as a person, of greatly and abruptly 
 changed habits it is true, but still of habits of some sort, for 
 hair and nails continue to grow after death, and with an indi- 
 viduality which is as much identical with that of the person 
 from whom it has arisen as this person was with himself as 
 an embryo of a week old, or indeed more so. 
 
 If we have identity between the embryo and the octogen- 
 arian, we must have it also between the octogenarian and the 
 corpse, and do. away with death except as a rather striking 
 change of thought and habit, greater indeed in degree than, 
 but still, in kind, substantially the same as any of the changes 
 which we have experienced from moment to moment through- 
 out that fragment of existence which we commonly call our 
 life; so that in sober seriousness there is no such thing as 
 absolute death, just as there is no sjich thing as absolute 
 life. 
 
 Either this, or we must keep death at the expense of 
 personal identity, and deny identity between any two states 
 ^hich present considerable differences and neither of which' 
 has any fore-knowledge of, or recollection of the other. In 
 this case, if there be death at all, it is some one else who dies 
 and not we, because while we are alive we are not dead, and 
 as soon as we are dead we are no longer ourselves. 
 
 So that it comes in the end to this, that either there is no 
 such thing as death at all, or else that, if there is, it is some 
 
Death 355 
 
 one else who dies and not we. We cannot blow hot and cold 
 with the same breath. If we would retain personal identity 
 at all, we must continue it beyond what we call death, in 
 which case death ceases to be what we have hitherto thought 
 it, that is to say, the end of our being. We cannot have both 
 personal identity and death too. 
 
 Complete Death 
 
 To die completely, a person must not only forget but be 
 forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead. This is 
 as old as non omms moriar and a great deal older, but very 
 few people realise it. 
 
 Life and Death 
 
 When I was young I used to think the only certain thing 
 about life was that I should one day die. Now I think the 
 only certain thing about life is that there is no such thing 
 as death. 
 
 The Defeat of Death 
 
 There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and 
 so little as his own death. It is a case in which the going-to- 
 happen-ness of a thing is of greater importance than the 
 actual thing itself which cannot be of importance to the man 
 who dies, for Death cuts his own throat in the matter of hurt- 
 ing people. As a bee that can sting once but in the stinging 
 dies, so Death is dead to him who is dead already. While he 
 is shaking his wings, there is brutuim fulmen but the man goes 
 on living, frightened, perhaps, but unhurt ; pain and sickness 
 may hurt him but the moment Death strikes him both he and 
 Death are beyond feeling. It is as though Death were bom 
 anew with every man; the two protect one another so long 
 as they keep one another at arm's length, but if they once 
 embrace it is all over with both. 
 
 The Torture of Death 
 
 The fabled pains of Tantalus, Sisyphus and all the rest of 
 them show what an instinctive longing there is in all men 
 
356 DeatH 
 
 both for end and endlessness of both good and ill, but as 
 torture they are the merest mockery when compared with the 
 fruitless chase to which poor Death has been condemned for 
 ever and ever. Does it not seem as though he too must have 
 committed some crime for which his sentence is to be for ever 
 grasping after that which becomes non-existent the moment 
 he grasps it? But then I suppose it would be with him as 
 with the rest of the tortured, he must either die himself, 
 which he has not done, or become used to it and enjoy the 
 frightening as much as the killing. Any pain through which a 
 man can live at all becomes unf elt as soon as it becomes habi- 
 tual. Pain consists not in that which is now endured but in 
 the strong memory of something better that is still recent. 
 And so, happiness lies in the memory of a recent worse and 
 the expectation of a better that is to come soon. 
 
 Ignorance of Death 
 i 
 
 The fear of death is instinctive because in so many past 
 generations we have feared it. But how did we come to know 
 what death is so that we should fear it? The answer is 
 that we do not know what death is and that this is why we 
 fear it. 
 
 ii 
 
 If a man know not life which he hath seen how shall he 
 know death which he hath not seen? 
 
 iii 
 
 If a man has sent his teeth and his hair and perhaps two 
 or three limbs to the grave before him, the presumption 
 should be that, as he knows nothing further of these when 
 they have once left him, so will he know nothing of the rest 
 of him when it too is dead. The whole may surely be argued 
 from the parts. 
 
 iv 
 
 To write about death is to write about that of which we 
 have had little practical experience. We can write about con- 
 scious life, but we have no consciousness of the deaths we 
 daily die. Besides, we cannot eat our cake and have it. We 
 
Death 357 
 
 cannot have tabulce rases and tabulm scripts at the same time. 
 We cannot be at once dead enough to be reasonably registered 
 as such, and alive enough to be able to tell people all about it. 
 
 There will come a supreme moment in which there will 
 be care neither for ourselves nor for others, but a complete 
 abandon, a sans souci of unspeakable indifference, and this 
 moment will never be taken from us ; time cannot rob us of it 
 but, as far as we are concerned, it will last for ever and ever 
 without flying. So that, even for the most wretched and 
 most guilty, therie is a heaven at last where neither moth nor 
 rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through 
 nor steal. To himself every one is an immortal : he may know 
 that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is 
 dead. 
 
 vi 
 
 If life is an illusion, then so is death — the greatest of all 
 illusions. If life must not be taken too seriously — ^then so 
 neither must death. 
 
 vii 
 The dead are often just as living to us as the living are, 
 only we cannot get them to believe it. They can come to us, 
 but till we die we cannot go to them. To be dead is to be 
 unable to understand that one is alive. 
 
 Dissolution 
 
 Death is the dissolving of a partnership, the partners to 
 which survive and go elsewhere. It is the corruption or 
 breaking up of that society which we have called Ourself . 
 The corporation is at an end, both its soul and its body cease 
 as a whole, but the irmnortal constituents do not cease and 
 never will. The souls of some men transmigrate in great part 
 into their children, but there is a large alloy in respect both of 
 body and mind through sexual generation ; the souls of other 
 men migrate into books, pictures, music, or what not; and 
 every one's mind migrates somewhere, whether remembered 
 and admired or the reverse. The living souls of Handel, 
 Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Giovanni Bellini and the other great 
 
358 Death 
 
 ones appear and speak to us in their works with less alloy 
 than they could ever speak through their children ; but men's 
 bodies disappear absolutely on death, except they be in some 
 measure preserved in their children and in so far as har- 
 monics of all that has been remain. 
 
 On death we do not lose life, we only lose individuality; 
 we live henceforth in others not in ourselves. Our mistake 
 has been in not seeing that death is indeed, like birth, a 
 salient feature in the history of the individual, but one which 
 wants exploding as the end of the individual, no less than 
 birth wanted exploding as his beginning. 
 
 Dying is only a mode of forgetting. We shall see this more 
 easily if we consider forgetting to be a mode of dying. So 
 the ancients called their River of Death, Lethe — the River 
 of Forgetfulness. They ought also to have called their River 
 of Life, Mnefnosyne — the River of Memory. We should 
 learn to tune death a good deal flatter than according to re- 
 ceived notions. 
 
 The Dislike of Death 
 
 We cannot like both life and death at once; no one can 
 be expected to like two such opposite things at the same time ; 
 if we like life we must dislike death, and if we leave off dis- 
 liking death we shall soon die. Death will always be more 
 avoided than sought; for living involves effort, perceived or 
 unperceived, central or departmental, and this will only be 
 made by those who dislike the consequences of not making it 
 more than the trouble of making it. A race, therefore, which 
 is to exist at all must be a death-disliking race, for it is only 
 at the cost of death that we can rid ourselves of all aversion 
 to the idea of dying, so that the hunt after a philosophy which 
 shall strip death of his terrors is like trying to find the philo- 
 sopher's stone which cannot be found and which, if found, 
 would defeat its own object. 
 
 Moreover, as a discovery which should rid us of the fear 
 of death would be the vainest, so also it would be the most 
 immoral of discoveries, for the very essence of morality is 
 involved in the dislike (within reasonable limits) of death. 
 Morality aims at a maximum of comfortable life and a 
 minimum of death; if then, a minimum of death and a 
 maximum of life were no longer held worth striving for, the 
 
Death 359 
 
 whole fabric of morality would collapse, as indeed we have 
 it on record that it is apt to do among classes that from 
 one cause or another have come to live in disregard and 
 expectation of death. 
 
 However much we may abuse death for robbing us of our 
 friends — ^and there is no one who is not sooner or later hit 
 hard in this respect — yet time heals these wounds sooner than 
 we like to own; if the heyday of grief does not shortly kill 
 outright, it passes; and I doubt whether most men, if they 
 were to search their hearts, would not find that, could they 
 command death for some single occasion, they would be more 
 likely to bid him take than restore. 
 
 Moreover, death does not blight love as the accidents of 
 time and life do. Even the fondest grow apart if parted; 
 they cannot come together again, not in any closeness or 
 for any long time. Can death do worse than this ? 
 
 The memory of a love that has been cut short by defath 
 remains still fragrant though enfeebled, but no recollection 
 of its past can keep sweet a love that has dried up and 
 withered through accidents of time and life. 
 
XXIV 
 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 Posthumous Life 
 i 
 To try to live in posterity is to be like an actor who leaps 
 over the footlights and talks to the orchestra. 
 
 He who wants posthumous fame is as one who would entail 
 land, and tie up his money after his death as tightly and for 
 as long a time as possible. Still we each of us in our own 
 small way try to get what little posthumous fame we can. 
 
 The Test of Faith 
 
 Why should we be so avid of honourable and affectionate 
 remembrance after death ? Why should we hold this the one 
 thing worth living or dying for ? Why should all that we can 
 know or feel seem but a very little thing as compared with 
 that which we never either feel or know ? What a reversal 
 of all the canons of action which commonly guide mankind 
 is there not here? But however this may be, if we have faith 
 in the life after death we can have little in that which is be- 
 fore it, and if we have faith in this life we can have small 
 faith in any other. 
 
 Nevertheless there is a deeply rooted conviction, even in 
 many of those in whom its existence is least apparent, that 
 honourable and affectionate remembrance after death with a 
 full and certain hope that it will be ours is the highest prize 
 to which the highest calling can aspire. Few pass through 
 this world without feeling the vanity of all human ambitions ; 
 their faith may fail them here, but it will not fail them — not 
 
 360 
 
The Life of the World to Come 361 
 
 for a moment, never — if they possess it as regards posthu- 
 mous respect and affection. The world may prove hollow but 
 a well-earned good fame in death will never do so. And all 
 men feel this whether they admit it to themselves or no. 
 
 Faith in this is easy enough. We are born with it. What 
 is less easy is to possess one's soul in peace and not be shaken 
 in faith and broken in spirit on seeing the way in which men 
 crowd themselves, or are crowded, into honourable remem- 
 brance when, if the truth concerning them were known, no pit 
 of oblivion should be deep enough for them. See, again, how 
 many who have richly earned esteem never get it either before 
 or after death. It is here that faith comes in. To see that 
 the infinite corruptions of this life penetrate into and infect 
 that which is to come, and yet to hold that even infamy 
 after death, with obscure and penurious life before it, is a 
 prize which will bring a man more peace at the last than all 
 the good things of this life put together and joined with an 
 immortality as lasting as Virgil's, provided the infamy and 
 failure of the one be unmerited, as also the success and im- 
 mortality of the other. Here is the test of faith — will you do 
 your duty with all your might at any cost of goods or reputa- 
 tion either in this world or beyond the grave? If you will — 
 well, the chances are loo to i that you will become a faddist, 
 a vegetarian and a teetotaller. 
 
 And suppose you escape this pit-fall too. Why should you 
 try to be so much better than your neighbours ? Who are you 
 to think you may be worthy of so much good fortune? If 
 you do, you may be sure that you do not deserve it. . . . 
 
 And so on ad ifdimtum. Let us eat and drink neither for- 
 getting nor remembering death unduly. The Lord hath mercy 
 on whom he will have mercy and the less we think about it 
 the better. 
 
 Starting again ad Infinitum 
 
 A man from the cradle to the grave is but the embryo of 
 a being that may be born into the world of the dead who still 
 live, or that may die so soon after entering it as to be prac- 
 tically still-born. The greater number of the seeds shed, 
 whether by plants or animals, never germinate and of those 
 that grow few reach maturity, so the greater number of those 
 that reach death are still-born as regards the truest life of 
 
362 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 all — I mean the life that is lived after death in the thoughts 
 and actions of posterity. Moreover of those who are born 
 into and fill great places in this invisible world not one is im- 
 mortal. 
 
 We should look on the body as the manifesto of the mind 
 and on posterity as the manifesto of the dead that live after 
 life. Each is the mechanism whereby the other exists. 
 
 Life, then, is not the having been born — it is rather an 
 eifort to be born. But why should some succeed in attaining 
 to this future life and others fail ? Why should some be born 
 more than others ? Why should not some one in a future state 
 taunt Lazarus with having a good time now and tell him it 
 will be the turn of Dives in some other and more remote 
 hereafter? I must have it that neither are the good rewarded 
 nor the bad punished in a future state, but every one must 
 start anew quite irrespective of anything they have done 
 here and must try his luck again and go on trying it again 
 and again ad infinitum. Some of our lives, then, will be lucky 
 and some unlucky and it will resolve itself into one long 
 eternal life during which we shall change so much that we 
 shall not remember our antecedents very far back (any more 
 than we remember having been embryos) nor foresee our 
 future very much, and during which we shall have our ups 
 and downs ad infinitum — effecting a transformation scene at 
 once as soon as circumstances become unbearable. 
 
 Nevertheless, some men's work does live longer than 
 others. Some achieve what is very like immortality. Why 
 should they have this piece of good fortune more than others ? 
 The answer is that it would be very unjust if they knew any- 
 thing about it, or could enjoy it in any way, but they know 
 nothing whatever about it, and you, the complainer, do profit 
 by their labour, so that it is really you, the complainer, who 
 gets the fun, not they, and this should stop your mouth. The 
 only thing they got was a little hope, which buoyed them up 
 often when there was but little else that could do so. 
 
 Preparation for Death 
 
 That there is a life after death is as palpable as that there 
 is a life before death — see the influence that the dead have 
 over us — ^but this life is no more eternal than our present life. 
 
The Life of the Wprld to Come 363 
 
 Shakespeare and Homer may live long, but they will die some 
 day, that is to say, they will become unknown as direct and 
 efficient causes. Even so God himself dies, for to die is to 
 change and to change is to die to what has gone before. If 
 the units change the total must do so also. 
 
 As no one can say which egg or seed shall come to visible 
 life and in its turn leave issue, so no one can say which of 
 the millions of now visible lives shall enter into the after- 
 life on death, and which have but so little life as practically 
 not to count. For most seeds end as seeds or as food for 
 some alien being, and so with lives, by far the greater number 
 are sterile, except in so far as they can be devoured as the 
 food of some stronger life. The Handels and Shakespeares 
 are the few seeds that grow — and even these die. 
 
 And the same uncertainty attaches to posthumous life as 
 to pre-lethal. As no one can say how long another shall live, 
 so no one can say how long or how short a time a reputation 
 shall live. The most unpromising weakly-looking creatures 
 sometimes live to ninety while strong robust men are carried 
 off in their prime. And no one can say what a man shall 
 enter into life for having done. Roughly, there is a sort of 
 moral government whereby those who have done the best 
 work live most enduringly, but it is subject to such exceptions 
 that no one can say whether or no there shall not be an excep- 
 tion in his own case either in his favour or against him. 
 
 In this uncertainty a young writer had better act as though 
 he had a reasonable chance of living, not perhaps very long, 
 but still some little while after his death. Let him leave 
 his notes fairly full and fairly tidy in all respects, without 
 spending too much time about them. If they are wanted, 
 there they are; if not wanted, there is no harm done. He 
 might as well leave them as anything else. But let him write 
 them in copying ink and have the copies kept in different 
 places. 
 
 The Vates Sacer 
 
 Just as the kingdom of heaven cometh not by observation, 
 so neither do one's own ideas, nor the good things one hears 
 other people say; they fasten on us when we least want or 
 expect them. It is enough if the kingdom of heaven be 
 observed when it does come. 
 
364 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 I do not read much ; I look, listen, think and write. My 
 most intimate friends are men of more insight, quicker wit, 
 more playful fancy and, in all ways, abler men than I am, 
 but you will find ten of them for one of me. I note what 
 they say, think it over, adapt it and give it permanent form. 
 They throw good things off as sparks; I collect them and 
 turn them into warmth. But I could not do this if I did not 
 .sometimes throw out a spark or two myself. 
 
 Not only would Agamemnon be nothing without the votes 
 sacer but there are always at least ten good heroes to one 
 good chronicler, just as there are ten good authors to one 
 good publisher. Bravery, wit and poetry abound in every vil- 
 lage. Look at Mrs. Boss [the original of Mrs. Jupp in The 
 Way of All Flesh] and at Joanna Mills {Life and Letters of 
 Dr. Butler, I, 93] . There is not a village of 500 inhabitants 
 in England but has its Mrs. Quickly and its Tom Jones. 
 These good people never understand themselves, they go over 
 their own heads, they speak in unknown tongues to those 
 around them and the interpreter is the rare and more impor- 
 tant person. The vates sacer is the middleman of mind. 
 
 So rare is he and such spendthrifts are we of good things 
 that people not only will not note what might well be noted 
 but they will not even keep what others have noted, if they 
 are to be at the pains of pigeon-holing it. It is less trouble 
 to throw a brilliant, letter into the fire than to put it into 
 such form that it can be safely kept, quickly found and easily 
 read. To this end a letter should be gummed, with the help 
 of the edgings of stamps if necessary, to a strip, say an inch 
 and a quarter wide, of stout hand-made paper. Two or three 
 paper fasteners passed through these strips will bind fifty or 
 sixty letters together, which, arranged in chronological order, 
 can be quickly found and comfortably read. But how few will 
 be at the small weekly trouble of clearing up their correspond- 
 ence and leaving it in manageable shape ! If we keep our letters 
 at all we throw them higgledy-piggledy into a box and have 
 done with them; let some one else arrange them when the 
 owner is dead. The some one else comes and finds the fire 
 an easy method of escaping the onus thrown upon him. So 
 on go letters from Tilbrook, Merian, Marmaduke Lawson * 
 
 * There are letters from these people in The Life and Letters of 
 Dr. Samuel Butler. 
 
The Life of the World to Come 365 
 
 — just as we throw our money away if the holding on to it 
 involves even very moderate exertion. 
 
 On the other hand, if this instinct towards prodigality 
 were not so great, beauty and wit would be smothered under 
 their own selves. It is through the waste of wit that wit 
 endures, like money, its main preciousness lies in its rarity — 
 the more plentiful it is the cheaper does it become. 
 
 The Dictionary of National Biography 
 
 When I look at the articles on Handel, on Dr. Arnold, or 
 indeed on almost any one whom I know anything about, I feel 
 that such a work as the Dictionary of National Biography adds 
 more terror to death than death of itself could inspire. That 
 is one reason why I let myself go so unreservedly in these 
 notes. If the colours in which I paint myself fail to please, 
 at any rate I shall have had the laying them on myself. 
 
 The World 
 
 The world will, in the end, follow only those who have 
 despised as well as served it. 
 
 Accumulated Dinners 
 
 The world and all that has ever been in it will one day 
 be as much forgotten as what we ate for dinner forty years 
 ago. Very likely, but the fact that we shall not remember 
 much about a dinner forty years hence does not make it less 
 agreeable now, and after all it is only the accumulation of 
 these forgotten dinners that makes the dinner of forty years 
 hence possible. 
 
 Judging the Dead 
 
 The dead should be judged as we judge criminals, impar- 
 tially, but they should be allowed the benefit of a doubt. 
 When no doubt exists they should be hanged out of hand for 
 about a hundred years. After that time they may come down 
 and move about under a cloud. After about 2000 years they 
 may do what they like. If Nero murdered his mother — well, 
 he murdered his mother and there's an end. The moral 
 
366 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 guilt of an action varies inversely as the squares of its dis- 
 tances in time and space, social, psychological, physiological 
 or topographical, from ourselves. Not so its moral merit: 
 this loses no lustre through time and distance. 
 
 Good is like gold, it will not rust or tarnish and it is rare, 
 but there is some of it everywhere. Evil is like water, it 
 abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint. 
 
 Myself and My Books 
 
 Bodily offspring I do not leave, but mental oifspring I 
 do. Well, my books do not have to be sent to school and 
 college and then insist on going into the Church or take to 
 drinking or marry their mother's maid. 
 
 My Son 
 
 I have often told my son that he must begin by finding 
 me a wife to become his mother who shall satisfy both him- 
 self and me. But this is only one of the many rocks on which 
 we have hitherto split. We should never have got on to- 
 gether ; I should have had to cut him off with a shilling either 
 for laughing at Homer, or for refusing to laugh at him, or 
 both, or neither, but still cut him off. So I settled the matter 
 long ago by turning a deaf ear to his importunities and stick- 
 ing to it that I would not get him at all. Yet his thin ghost 
 visits me at times and, though he knows that it is no use 
 pestering me further, he looks at me so wistfully and re- 
 proachfully that I am half-inclined to turn tail, take my 
 chance about his mother and ask him to let me get him after 
 all. But I should show a clean pair of heels if he said "Yes." 
 
 Besides, he would probably be a girl. 
 
 Obscurity 
 
 When I am dead, do not let people say of me that I suffered 
 from misrepresentation and neglect. I was neglected and 
 misrepresented; very likely not half as much as I supposed 
 but, nevertheless, to some extent neglected and misrepre- 
 sented. I growl at this sometimes but, if the question were 
 seriously put to me whether I would go on as I am or become 
 
The Life of the World to Come 367 
 
 famous in my own lifetime, I have no hesitation about which 
 I should prefer. I will willingly pay the few hundreds of 
 pounds which the neglect of my works costs me in order to 
 be let alone and not plagued by the people who would come 
 round me if I were known. The probability is that I shall 
 rpmain after my death as obscure as I am now ; if this be so, 
 the obscurity will, no doubt, be merited, and if not, my books 
 will work not only as well without my having been known in 
 my lifetime but a great deal better; my follies and blunders 
 will the better escape notice to the enhancing of the value of 
 anything that may be found in my books. The only two 
 things I should greatly care about if I had more money are 
 a few more country outings and a little more varied and bet- 
 ter cooked food. [1882.] 
 
 P.S. — I have long since obtained everything that a reason- 
 able man can wish for. [1895.] 
 
 Posthumous Honours 
 
 I see Cecil Rhodes has just been saying that he was a 
 lucky man, inasmuch as such honours as are now being paid 
 him generally come to a man after his death and not before 
 it. This is all very well for a politician whose profession im- 
 merses him in public life, but the older I grow the more satis- 
 fied I am that there can be no greater misfortune for a man 
 of letters or of contemplation than to be recognised in his 
 own lifetime. Fortunately the greater man he is, and hence 
 the greater the misfortune he would incur, the less likelihood 
 there is that he will incur it. [1897.] 
 
 Posthumous Recognition 
 
 Shall I be remembered after death? I sometimes think 
 and hope so. But I trust I may not be found out (if I ever 
 am found out, and if I ought to be found out at all) before 
 my death. It would bother me very much and I should be 
 much happier and better as I am. [1880.] 
 
 P.S. — This note I leave unaltered. I am glad to see that 
 I had so much sense thirteen years ago. What I thought 
 then, I think now, only with greater confidence and confirma- 
 tion. [1893.] 
 
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The Life of the World to Come 369 
 
 To this must be added my book on the Sonnets in respect 
 of which I have had no account as yet but am over a hun- 
 dred pounds out of pocket by it so far — little of which, I fear, 
 is ever likely to come back. 
 
 It will be noted that my public appears to be a declining 
 one; I attribute this to the long course of practical boycott 
 to which I have been subjected for so many years, or, if not 
 boycott, of sneer, snarl and misrepresentation. I cannot help 
 it, nor if the truth were known, am I at any pains to try to 
 do so.* 
 
 Worth Doing 
 
 If I deserve to be remembered, it will be not so much for 
 anything I have written, or for any new way of looking at 
 old facts which I may have suggested, as for having shown 
 that a man of no special ability, with no literary connections, 
 not particularly laborious, fairly, but not supremely, accurate 
 as far as he goes, and not travelling far either for his facts or 
 from them, may yet, by being perfectly square, sticking to 
 his point, not letting his temper run away with him, and 
 biding his time, be a match for the most powerful literary 
 and scientific coterie that England has ever known. 
 
 I hope it may be said of me that I discomfited an unscru- 
 pulous, self-seeking clique, and set a more wholesome exam- 
 ple myself. To have done this is the best of all discoveries. 
 
 Doubt and Hope 
 
 I will not say that the more than coldness with which my 
 books are received does not frighten me and make me distrust 
 myself. It must do so. But every now and then I meet with 
 
 * Butler made this note in 1899 before the publication of Shake- 
 speare's Sonnets Reconsidered, which was published in the same year. 
 The Odyssey Rendered into English Prose appeared in igoo and 
 Erewhon Revisited, the last book published in his lifetime, in 1901. 
 He made no analysis of the sales of these three books, nor of the 
 sales of A First Year in Canterbury Settlement published in 1863, nor 
 of his pamphlet The Evidence for the Resurrection, published in 1865. 
 The Way of all Flesh and Essays on Life, Art, and Science were not 
 published till after his death. I do not know what he means by A 
 Book of Essays, unless it may be that he incurred an outlay of £3 lis. 
 pd. in connection with a projected republication of his articles in the 
 Universal Review or of some of his Italian articles about the Odyssey. 
 
370 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 such support as gives me hope again. Still, I know nothing. 
 [1890.] 
 
 Unburying Cities 
 
 Of course I am jealous of the eclat that Flinders Petrie, 
 Layard and Schliemann get for having unburied cities, but 
 I do not see why I need be ; the great thing is to unbury the 
 city, and I believe I have unburied Scheria as effectually as 
 Schliemann unburied Troy. [The Authoress of the Odys- 
 sey.] True, Scheria was above ground all the time and only 
 wanted a little common sense to find it; nevertheless people 
 have had all the facts before them for over 2500 years and 
 have been looking more or less all the time without finding. I 
 do not see why it is more meritorious to uncover physically 
 with a spade than spiritually with a little of the very com- 
 monest common sense. 
 
 Apologia 
 
 i 
 
 When I am dead I would rather people thought me better 
 than I was instead of worse; but if they think me worse, I 
 cannot help it and, if it matters at all, it will matter more to 
 them than to me. The one reputation I deprecate is that of 
 having been ill-used. I deprecate this because it would tend 
 to depress and discourage others from playing the game that 
 I have played. I will therefore forestall misconception on 
 this head. 
 
 As regards general good-fortune, I am nearly fifty-five 
 years old and for the last thirty years have never been laid 
 up with illness nor had any physical pain that I can remem- 
 ber, not even toothache. Except sometimes, when a little 
 over-driven, I have had uninterrupted good health ever since 
 I was about five-and-twenty. 
 
 Of mental suffering I have had my share — as who has not? 
 — but most of what I have suffered has been, though I did 
 not think so at the time, either imaginary, or unnecessary and, 
 so far, it has been soon forgotten. It has been much less than 
 it very easily might have been if the luck had not now and 
 again gone with me, and probably I have suffered less than 
 most people, take it all round.. Like every one else, however, 
 I have the scars of old wounds; very few of these wounds 
 
The Life of the World to Come 371 
 
 were caused by anything which was essential in the nature of 
 things; most, if not all of them, have been due to faults of 
 heart and head on my own part and on that of others which, 
 one would have thought, might have been easily avoided if 
 in practice it had not turned out otherwise. 
 
 For many years I was in a good deal of money difficulty, 
 but since my father's death I have had no trouble on this 
 score — ^greatly otherwise. Even when things were at their 
 worst, I never missed my two months' summer Italian trip 
 since 1876, except one year and then I went to Mont St. 
 Michel and enjoyed it very much. It was those Italian 
 trips that enabled me to weather the storm. At other times 
 I am engrossed with work that fascinates me. I am sur- 
 rounded by people to whom I am attached and who like me in 
 return so far as I can judge. In Alfred [his clerk and attend- 
 dant] I have the best body-guard and the most engaging of 
 any man in London. I live quietly but happily. And if this is 
 being ill-used I should like to know what being well-used is. 
 
 I do not deny, however, that I have been ill-used. I have 
 been used abominably. The positive amount of good or ill 
 fortune, however, is not the test of either the one or the 
 other ; the true measure lies in the relative proportion of each 
 and the way in which they have been distributed, and by this 
 I claim, after deducting all bad luck, to be left with a large 
 balance of good. 
 
 Some people think I must be depressed and discouraged 
 because rny books do not make more noise; but, after all, 
 whether people read my books or no is their affair, not mine. 
 I know by my sales that few read my books. If I write at all, 
 it follows that I want to be read and miss my mark if I am 
 not. So also with Narcissus. Whatever I do falls dead, and 
 I would rather people let me see that they liked it. To this 
 extent I certainly am disappointed. I am sorry not to have 
 wooed the public more successfully. But I have been told 
 that winning and wearing generally take something of the 
 gilt off the wooing, and I am disposed to acquiesce cheerfully 
 in not finding myself so received as that I need woo no longer. 
 If I were to succeed I should be bored to death by my success 
 in a fortnight and so, I am convinced, would my friends. Re- 
 tirement is to me a condition of being able to work at all. I 
 would rather write more books and music than spend much 
 
372 jThe Life of the World to Come 
 
 time over what I have already written ; nor do I see how I 
 could get retirement if I were not to a certain extent unpopular. 
 It is this feeling on my own part — omnipresent with me 
 when I am doing my best to please, that is to say, whenever 
 I write — which is the cause why I do not, as people say, "get 
 on." If I had greatly cared about getting on I think I could 
 have done so. I think I could even now write an anonymous 
 book that would take the public as much as Ere4/hon did. 
 Perhaps I could not, but I think I could. The reason why I 
 do not try is because I like doing other things better. What 
 I most enjoy is running the view of evolution set forth in Life 
 and Habit and making things less easy for the hacks of litera- 
 ture and science ; or perhaps even more I enjoy taking snap- 
 shots and writing music, though aware that I had better not 
 enquire whether this last is any good or not. In fact there is 
 nothing I do that I do not enjoy so keenly that I cannot tear 
 myself away from it, and people who thus indulge themselves 
 cannot have things both ways. I am so intent upon pleasing 
 myself that I have no time to cater for the public. Some of 
 them like things in the same way as I do; that class of 
 people I try to please as well as ever I can. With others I 
 have no concern, and they know it so they have no concern 
 with me. I do not believe there is any other explanation of 
 my failure to get on than this, nor do I see that any further 
 explanation is needed. [1890.] 
 
 ii 
 
 Two or three people have asked me to return to the subject 
 of my supposed failure and explain it more fully from my 
 own point of view. I have had the subject on my notes for 
 some time and it has bored me so much that it has had a good 
 deal to do with my not having kept my Note-Books posted 
 recently. 
 
 Briefly, in order to scotch that snake, my failure has not 
 been so great as people say it has. I believe my reputation 
 stands well with the best people. Granted that it makes no 
 noise, but I have not been willing to take the pains necessary 
 to achieve what may be called guinea-pig review success, be- 
 cause, although I have been in financial difficulties, I did not 
 seriously need success from a money point of view, and be- 
 cause I hated the kind of people I should have had to court 
 
The Life of the World to Come 373 
 
 and kow-tow to if I went in for that sort of thing. I could 
 never have carried it through, even if I had tried, and in- 
 stinctively declined to try. A man cannot be said to have 
 failed, because he did not get what he did not try for. What 
 I did try for I believe I have got as fully as any reasonable 
 man can expect, and I have every hope that I shall get it 
 still more both so long as I live and after I am dead. 
 
 If, however, people mean that I am to explain how it is I 
 have not made more noise in spite of my own indolence in 
 the matter, the answer is that those who do not either push 
 themselves into noise, or give some one else a substantial in- 
 terest in pushing them, never do get made a noise about. 
 How can they? I was too lazy to go about from publisher 
 to publisher and to decline to publish a book myself if I 
 could not find some one to speculate in it. I could take any 
 amount of trouble about writing a book but, so long as I 
 could lay my hand on the money to bring it out with, I found 
 publishers' antechambers so little to my taste that I soon 
 tired and fell back on the short and easy method of publish- 
 ing my book myself. Of course, therefore, it failed to sell. 
 I know more about these things now, and will never publish 
 a book at my own risk again, or at any rate I will send some- 
 body else round the antechambers with it for a good while 
 before I pay for publishing it. 
 
 I should have liked notoriety and financial success well 
 enough if they could have been had for the asking, but I was 
 not going to take any trouble about them and, as a natural 
 consequence, I did not get them. If I had wanted them with 
 the same passionate longing that has led me to pursue every 
 enquiry that I ever have pursued, I should have got them 
 fast enough. It is very rarely that I have failed to get what 
 I have really tried for and, as a matter of fact, I believe I 
 have been a great deal happier for not trying than I should, 
 have been if I had had notoriety thrust upon me. 
 
 I confess I should like my books to pay their expenses and 
 put me a little in pocket besides — ^because I want to do more 
 for Alfred than I see my way to doing. As a natural conse- 
 quence of beginning to care I have begun to take pains, and 
 am advising with the Society of Authors as to what will 
 be my best course. Very likely they can do nothing for me, 
 but at any rate I shall have tried. 
 
374 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 One reason, and that the chief, why I have made no noise, 
 is now explained. It remains to add that from first to last 
 I have been unorthodox and militant in every book that. I 
 have written. I made enemies of the parsons once for all 
 with my first two books. [Erewhon and The Fair Haven.] 
 The evolution books made the Darwinians, and through them 
 the scientific world in general, even more angry than The 
 Fair Haven had made the clergy so that I had no friends, 
 for the clerical and scientific people rule the roast between 
 them. 
 
 I have chosen the fighting road rather than the hang-on-to- 
 a-greaib-man road, and what can a man who does this look for 
 except that people should try to silence him in whatever way 
 they think will be most- effectual ? In my case they have 
 thought it best to pretend that I am non-existent. It is no 
 part of my business to complain of my opponents for choos- 
 ing their own line ; my business is to defeat them as best I can 
 upon their own line, and I imagine I shall do most towards 
 this by not allowing myself to be made unhappy merely 
 because I am not fussed about, and by going on writing more 
 books and adding to my pile. 
 
 My Work 
 
 Why should I write about this as though any one will wish 
 to read what I write ? 
 
 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. If I do 
 as Captain Don did [Life of Dr. Butler, I, opening of Chap- 
 ter VIII], and invest every penny I have in an annuity that 
 shall terminate when I am 89, who knows but that I may 
 live on to 96, as he did, and have seven years without 
 any income at all? I prefer the modest insurance of keep- 
 ing up my notes which others may burn or no as they 
 please. 
 
The Life of the World to Come 375 
 
 I am not one of those who have travelled along a set road 
 towards an end that I have foreseen and desired to reach. I 
 have made a succession of jaunts or pleasure trips from 
 meadow to meadow, but no long journey unless life itself be 
 reckoned so. Nevertheless, I have strayed into no field in 
 which I have not found a flower that was worth the finding, 
 I have gone into no public place in which I have not found 
 sovereigns lying about on the ground which people would not 
 notice and be at the trouble of picking up. They have been 
 things which any one else has had — or at any rate a very 
 large number of people have had — as good a chance of pick-^ 
 ing up as I had. My finds have none of them come as the 
 result of research or severe study, though they have generally 
 given me plenty to do in the way of research and study as 
 soon as I had got hold of them. I take it that these are the 
 most interesting — or whatever the least offensive word may 
 be: _ - 
 
 1. The emphasising the analogies between crime and dis- 
 ease. [Eremhon.] 
 
 2. The emphasising also the analogies between the develop- 
 ment of the organs of our bodies and of those which are not 
 incorporate with our bodies and which we call tools or ma- 
 chines. [Erewhon and Luck or Cunning?] 
 
 3. The clearing up the history of the events in connection 
 with the death, or rather crucifixion, of Jesus Christ; and a 
 reasonable explanation, first, of the belief on the part of the 
 founders of Christianity that their master had risen from the 
 dead and, secondly, of what might follow from belief in a 
 single supposed miracle. [The Evidence for the Resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ, The Fair Haven and Erewhon Revisited.] 
 
 4. The perception that personal identity cannot be denied 
 between parents and offspring without at the same time 
 denying it as between the different ages (and hence mo- 
 ments) in the Hfe of the individual and, as a corollary on this, 
 the ascription of the phenomena of heredity to the same 
 source as those of memory. [Life and Habit.] 
 
 5. The tidying up the earlier history of the theory of evo- 
 lution. [Evolution Old and New.] 
 
 6. The exposure and discomfiture of Charles Darwin and 
 Wallace and their followers. [Evolution Old and New, Unr- 
 conscious Memory, Luck or Cmvmngf and "The Deadlock 
 
376 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 in Darwinism" in the Universal Review republished in 
 ^Essayis on Life, Art and Science.^* 
 
 7. The perception of the principle that led organic life to 
 split up into two main divisions, animal and vegetable. [Alps 
 and, Sanctuaries, close of Chapter XIII: Luck or Cum- 
 ningf] 
 
 8. The perception that, if the kinetic theory is held good, 
 our thought of a thing, whatever that thing may be, is in 
 reality an exceedingly weak dilution of the actual thing 
 itself. [Stated, but not fully developed, in Luck or Cunning? 
 Chapter XIX, also in some of the foregoing notes.] 
 
 9. The restitution to Giovanni and Gentile Bellini of their 
 portraits in the Louvre and the finding of five other portraits 
 of these two painters of whom Crowe and Cavalcaselle and 
 Layard maintain that we have no portrait. [Letters to the 
 Athencsum, &c.] 
 
 10. The restoration to Holbein of the drawing in the Basel 
 Museum called La Danse. [Universal Review, Nov., 1889.] 
 
 11. The calling attention to Gaudenzio Ferrari and putting 
 him before the public with something like the emphasis that 
 he deserves. [Ex Veto.] 
 
 12. The discovery of a life-sized statue of Leonardo da 
 Vinci by Gaudenzio Ferrari. [Ex Voto.] 
 
 13. The unearthing of the Flemish sculptor Jean de Wespin 
 (called Tabachetti in Italy) and of Giovanni Antonio 
 Paracca. [Ex Voto.] 
 
 14. The finding out that the Odyssey was written at 
 Trapani, the clearing up of the whole topography of the 
 poem, and the demonstration, as it seems to me, that the poem 
 was written by a woman and not by a man. Indeed, I may 
 almost claim to have discovered the Odyssey, so altered does 
 it become when my views of it are adopted. And robbing 
 Homer of the Odyssey has rendered the Iliad far more intelli- 
 gible; besides, I have set the example of how he should be 
 approached. [The Authoress of the Odyssey.] 
 
 15. The attempt to do justice to my grandfather by writing 
 
 * Butler had two separate grounds of complaint against Charles 
 Darwin, one scientific, the other personal. With regard to the per- 
 sonal quarrel some facts came to light after Butler's death and the 
 subject is dealt with in a pamphlet entitled Charles Darwin and 
 Samuel Butler: A Step towards Reconciliation, by Henry Festing 
 Jones (A. C. Fifield, 1911). 
 
The Life of the World to Come 377 
 
 The Life and Letters of Dr. Butler for which, however, I had 
 special facilities. 
 
 16. In Narcisstis and Ulysses I made an attempt, the fail- 
 ure of which has yet to be shown, to return to the principles 
 of Handel and take them up where he left off. 
 
 17. The elucidation of Shakespeare's Sonnets. [Shake- 
 speare's Sonnets Reconsidered.] 
 
 I say nothing here about my novel [The Way of All Flesh] 
 because it cannot be published till after my death ; nor about 
 my translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Nevertheless 
 these three books also were a kind of picking up of sov- 
 ereigns, for the novel contains records of things I saw hap- 
 pening rather than imaginary incidents, and the principles on 
 which the translations are made were obvious to any one will- 
 ing to take and use them. 
 
 The foregoing is the list of my "mares'-nests," and it is, I 
 presume, this list which made Mr. Arthur Piatt call me the 
 Galileo of Mares'-Nests in his diatribe on my Odyssey theory 
 in the Classical Review. I am not going to argue here that 
 they are all, as I do not doubt, sound; what I want to say is 
 that they are every one of them things that lay on the surface 
 and open to any one else just as much as to me. Not one of 
 them required any profundity of thought or extensive re- 
 search; they only required that he who approached the vari- 
 ous subjects with which they have to do should keep his 
 eyes open and try to put himself in the position of the vari- 
 ous people whom they involve. Above all, it was necessary to 
 approach them without any preconceived theory and to be 
 ready to throw over any conclusion the moment the evidence 
 pointed against it. The reason why I have discarded so few 
 theories that I have put forward — and at this moment I 
 cannot recollect one from which there has been any serious 
 attempt to dislodge me — is because I never allowed myself to 
 form a theory at all till I found myself driven on to it whether 
 I would or no. As long as it was possible to resist I resisted, 
 and only yielded when I could not think that an intelligent 
 jury under capable guidance would go with me if I resisted 
 longer. I never went in search of any one of my theories; 
 I never knew what it was going to be till I had found it; 
 they came and found me, not I them. Such being my own 
 experience, I begin to be pretty certain that other people 
 
378 The Life of the World to Come 
 
 have had much the same and that the soundest theories 
 have come unsought and without much effort. 
 
 The conclusion, then, of the whole matter is that scientific 
 and literary fortunes are, like money fortunes, made more by 
 saving than in any other way — more through the exercise of 
 the common vulgar essentials, such as sobriety and straight- 
 forwardness, than by the more showy enterprises that when 
 they happen to succeed are called genius and when they fail, 
 folly. The streets are full of sovereigns crying aloud for 
 some one to come and pick them up, only the thick veil of our 
 own insincerity and conceit hides them from us. He who 
 can most tear this veil from in front of his eyes will be able 
 to see most and to walk off with them. 
 
 I should say that the sooner I stop the better. If on my 
 descent to the nether world I were to be met and welcomed by 
 the shades of those to whom I have done a good turn while I 
 was here, I should be received by a fairly illustrious crowd. 
 There would be Giovanni and' Gentile Bellini, Leonardo da 
 Vinci, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Holbein, Tabachetti, Paracca and 
 D'Enrico; the Authoress of the Odyssey would come and 
 Homer with her ; Dr. Butler would bring with him the many 
 forgotten men and women to whom in my memoir I have 
 given fresh life; there would be Buff on, Erasmus Darwin 
 and Lamarck; Shakespeare also would be there and Handel. 
 I could not wish to find myself in more congenial company 
 and I shall not take it too much to heart if the shade of 
 Charles Darwin glides gloomily away when it sees me 
 coming. 
 
XXV 
 
 Poems 
 
 Prefatory Note 
 
 i. Translation from an Unpublished Work 
 
 of Herodotiis 
 ii. The Shield of Achilles, with Variations 
 iii. The Two Deans 
 iv. On the Italian Priesthood 
 
 Butler wrote these four pieces while he was an undergrad- 
 uate at St. John's College, Cambridge. He kept no copy of 
 any of them, but his friend the Rev. Canon Joseph McCor- 
 mick, D.D., Rector of St. Jame^s, Piccadilly, kept copies in 
 a note-book which he lent me. The only one that has ap- 
 peared in print is "The Shield of Achilles," which Canon Mc- 
 Cormick sent to The Eagle the magazine of St. John's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, and it was printed in the number for De- 
 cember 1902, abowt six months after Butler's death. 
 
 "On the Italian Priesthood" is a rendering of the Italian 
 epigram accompanying it which, with others under the head- 
 ing "Astuzia, Inganno," is given in Raccolta di Proverbi Tos- 
 cani di Giuseppe Giusti {Firenze, 1853). 
 
 V. A Psalm of Montreal 
 
 This was written in Canada in 1875. Butler often recited it 
 and gave copies of it to his friends. Knowing that Mr. Ed- 
 ward Clodd had had something to do with its appearance in 
 the Spectator / wrote asking him to tell me what he remem- 
 bered about it. He very kindly replied, 2gth October, 1905 : 
 
 "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 
 
380 Poems 
 
 Chas. Anderson, Vicar of S. John's, Limehouse, who lent it 
 to Matt. Arnold {when inspecting Anderson's Schools) who 
 lent it to Richd. Holt Hutton who, with Butler's consent, 
 printed it in the Spectator of i8th May, 1878." 
 
 The "Psalm of Montreal" was included in Selections from 
 Previous Works (1884) and in Seven Sonnets, etc. 
 
 vi. The Righteous Man 
 
 Butler wrote this in 1876; it has appeared before only in 
 1879 in the Examiner, where it formed part of the correspond- 
 ence "A Clergyman's Doubts" of which the letter signed 
 "Ethics^' has already been given in this volume (see p. 304 
 ante). "The Righteous Man" was signed "X.Y.Z." and, in 
 order to connect it with the discussion, Butler prefaced it with 
 a note 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 it is the end, at any rate, of a very 
 long thing. 
 
 vii. To Critics and Others 
 This was written in 1883 and has not hitherto been published. 
 
 viii. For Narcissus 
 
 These are printed for the first time. The pianoforte score 
 of Narcissus was published in 1888. The poem {A) was writ- 
 ten because there was some discussion then going on in musi- 
 cal circles about additional asccompanim^wts to the Messiah 
 and we did not want any to be written for Narcissus. 
 
 The poem (B) shows hoT^ Butler originally intended to 
 open Part II with a kind of descriptive programme, but he 
 changed his mind and did it differently. 
 
 ix. A Translation Attempted in Conseqttence 
 of a Challenge 
 
 This troMslation into Homeric verse of a famous passage 
 from Martin Chuzzlewit was a by-product of Butler's work 
 on the Odyssey and the Iliad. It was published in The Eagle 
 in March, 1894, and was included in Seven Sonnets. 
 
 / asked Butler who had challenged him to attempt the trans- 
 lation and he replied that he had thought of that and had set- 
 
Poems 381 
 
 tied that, if any one else were to ask the question, he should 
 reply that the challenge came from me. 
 
 X. In Memoriam H. R. F. 
 
 This appears in print now for the first time. Hems Rudolf 
 Faesch, a young Swiss from Basel, came to London in the 
 autumn of 1893. He spent much of his time with us until 
 14th February, 1895, when he left for Singapore. We saw 
 him off from. Hlolborn Viaduct Station; he was not well and 
 it was a stormy night. The next day Butler -wrote this poem 
 and, being persuaded that we should never see Hans Faesch 
 again, called it an In Memoriam. Hans did not die on the 
 journey, he arrived safely in Singapore and settled in the East 
 where he carried on business. We exchanged letters with 
 him frequently; he paid two visits to Europe and we saw him 
 on both occasions. But he did not live long. He died in the 
 autumn of 1903 at Vien Tiane in the Shan States, aged 32, 
 hamng surzrived Butler by about a year and a half. 
 
 xi. An Academic Exercise 
 
 This has never been printed before. It is a Farewell, and 
 that is why I have placed it next after the In Memoriam. 
 The contrast between the two poems illustrates the contrast 
 pointed out at the close of the note on "The Dislike of Death" 
 {ante, p. 359) : 
 
 "The memory of a love that has been cut short by death re- 
 mains still fragrant though enfeebled, but no recollection of 
 its past can keep sweet a love that has dried up and withered 
 through accidents of time and life." 
 
 In the ordinary course Butler would have talked this Son- 
 net over with me at the time he wrote it, that is in lanuary, 
 1902 ; he may even have done so, but I think not. From, 2nd 
 January, 1902, until late in March, when he left London alone 
 for Sicily, I was ill with pneumonia and remember very little 
 of what happened then. Between his return in May and his 
 death in June I am- sure he did not mention the subject. Know- 
 ing the facts that underlie the preceding poem I can tell why 
 Butler called it an In Memoriam; not knowing the facts that 
 underlie this poem I cannot tell why Butler should have called 
 it an Academic Exercise. It is his last Sonnet and is dated 
 
382 Poems 
 
 "Sund. Jan. 12th 1902," within six months of his death, at a 
 time when he was depressed physically because his health was 
 failing and m/entally because he had been "editing his remains," 
 reading and destroying old letters and brooding over the past. 
 One of the svibjects given in the section "Titles and Subjects" 
 {ante) is "The diseases and ordinary causes of mortality among 
 friendships." I suppose that he found among his letters some- 
 thing which awakened m^emories of a friendship of his earlier 
 life — a friendship that had suffered from a disease, whether it 
 recovered or died would not affect the sincerity of the emotions 
 experienced by Butler at the time he believed the friendship to 
 be znrtuaJly dead. I suppose the Sonnet to be an In Memoriam 
 upon the apprehended death of a friendship as the preceding 
 poem is anlnM^maricumupontheapprehended death of a friend. 
 This may be wrong, but something of the kind seems neces- 
 sary to explain why Butler should have called the Sonnet am, 
 Academic Exercise. No one who has read Shakespeare's Son- 
 nets Reconsidered will require to be told that he disagreed con- 
 temptuously with those critics who believe that Shakespeare 
 composed his Sonnets as academic exercises. It is certain that 
 he wrote this, as he wrote his other Sonnets, in imitation of 
 Shakespeare, not merely imitating the form but approaching 
 the subject im, the spirit in which he believed Shakespeare to 
 have approached his subject. It follows therefore that he did 
 not write this sonnet as an academic exercise, had he done sa 
 he would not have been imitating Shakespeare. If we assume 
 that he was presenting his story as he presented the dialogue in 
 "A Psalm, of Montreal' in a form "perhaps true, perhaps imag- 
 inary, perhaps a little of the one and a little of the other," it 
 would be quite in the marmer of the author of The Fair Haven 
 to burlesque the methods of the critics by ignoring the sincer- 
 ity of the emotions and fixing on the little bit of inaccuracy in 
 the facts. We may suppose him to be saying out loud to the 
 critics: "You think Shakespeare's Sonnets were composed as 
 academic exercises, do youf Very well then, now what do you 
 muke of this?" And adding aside to himself: "That will be 
 good enough for them; they'll swallow anything." 
 
 xii. A Prayer 
 
 Extract from Butler's Note-Books under the date of Febru- 
 ary or March 1883 : 
 
Poems 383 
 
 " 'CleoMse thou me from my secret sins.' I heard a man 
 moraiismg on this and shocked him by saying demurely that I 
 did not m/ind these so much, if I cmdd get rid of those that 
 were obvious to other people." 
 
 He wrote the sonnet in 1900 or 1901. In the first quatrain 
 "spoken" does not rhyme with "open" ; Butler knew this and 
 would not alter it because there are similar assonances in 
 Shakespeare, e.g. "open" and "broken" in Sonnet LXI. 
 
 xiii. Karma 
 
 I am responsible for grouping these three sonnets under this 
 heading. The second one beginning "What is't to live'' ap- 
 pears in Butler's Note-Book with the remark, "This wants 
 much tinkering, but I cannot tinker it" — meaning that he was 
 too much occupied with other things. He left the second line 
 of the third of these sonnets thus: 
 
 "Them palpable to touch and view." 
 
 I hofve "tinkered" it by adding the two syllables "clear to" 
 to make the line com,plete. 
 
 In writing this sonnet Butler was no doubt thinking of a 
 no4e he made in 1891 : 
 
 "It is often said that there is no bore like a clever bore. 
 Clever people are always bores and always must be. That is, 
 perhaps, why Shakespeare had to leave London — people could 
 not stand him any longer." 
 
 xiv. The Life after Death 
 
 Butler began to write sonnets in 1898 when he was studying 
 those of Shakespeare on which he published a book in the fol- 
 lowing year. (Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered, (St.) He 
 had gone to Flushing by himself and on his return wrote to m,e: 
 
 24 Aug. 1898. "Also at Flushing I wrote one myself, a poor 
 innocent thing, but I was surprised to Und how easily it came; 
 if you like it I may write a few m,ore." 
 
 The "poor innocent thing" was the sonnet beginning "Not 
 on sad Stygian shore," the first of those I have grouped under 
 the heading "The Life after Death." It appears in his note- 
 books with this introductory sentence: 
 
 "Having now learned Shakespeare^ s Sonnets by heart — and 
 
384 Poems 
 
 there are very few which I do not find I understand the better 
 for having done this — on Satwrday night last at the Hotel Zee- 
 land at Flushing, finding myself in a meditative mood, I wrote 
 the following with a good deal less trouble than I anticipated 
 when I took pen and paper in hand. I hope I may improve it." 
 
 Of course I like the sonnet very much and he did write "a 
 few m^re" — among them the two on Handel which I hcuve put 
 after "Not on sad Stygian shore" because he intended that they 
 should follow it. I am sure he would have wished this volume 
 to close with these three sonnets, especially because the last two 
 of them were inspired by Handel, who was never absent from 
 his thoughts for long. Let me conclude these introductory 
 remarks by reproducing a note made in 1883 : 
 
 "Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my 
 thoughts. In fact I should say that he and his mMsic have been 
 the central fact in my life ever since I was old enough to know 
 of the existence of either life or music. All day long-^whether 
 I am writing or painting or walking, but always — I hwi/e his 
 WMsic in m-y head; cmd 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." 
 
 Translation from an Unpublished Work 
 of Herodotus 
 
 And the Johnians practise their tub in the following man- 
 ner: — They select 8 of the most serviceable freshmen and 
 put these into a boat and to each one of them they give an 
 oar; and, having told them to look at the backs of the men 
 before them, they make them bend forward as far as they 
 can and at the same moment, and, having put the end of the 
 oar into the water, pull it back again in to them about the 
 bottom of the ribs; and, if any of them does not do this or 
 looks about him away from the back of the man before him, 
 they curse him in the most terrible manner, but if he does 
 what he is bidden they immediately cry out : 
 
 "Well pulled, number so-and-so." 
 
Poems 385 
 
 For they do not call them by their names but by certain 
 numbers, each man of them having a number allotted to him 
 in accordance with his place in the boat, and the first man 
 they call stroke, but the last man bow; and when they have 
 done this for about 50 miles they come home again, and the 
 rate they travel at is about 25 miles an hour ; and let no one 
 think that this is too great a rate for I could say many other 
 wonderful things in addition concerning the rowing of the 
 Johnians, but if a man wishes to know these things he must 
 go and examine them himself. But when they have done 
 they contrive some such a device as this, for they make them 
 run many miles along the side of the river in order that they 
 may accustom them to great fatigue, and many of them, 
 being distressed in this way, fall down and die, but those who 
 survive become very strong and receive gifts of cups from 
 the others ; and after the revolution of a year they have great 
 races with their boats against those of the surrounding island- 
 ers, but the Johnians, both owing to the carefulness of the 
 training and a natural disposition for rowing, are always 
 victorious. In this way, then, the Johnians, I say, practise 
 their tub. 
 
 The Shield of Achilles 
 With Variations 
 
 And in it he placed the Fitzwilliam and King's College 
 Chapel and the lofty towered church of the Great Saint Mary, 
 which looketh towards the Senate House, and King's Parade 
 and Trumpington Road and the Pitt Press and the divine 
 opening of the Market Square and the beautiful flowing foun- 
 tain which formerly Hobson laboured to make with skilful 
 art; him did his father beget in the many-pubUc-housed 
 Trumpington from a slavey mother and taught him blame- 
 less works; and he, on the other hand, sprang up like a 
 young shoot and many beautifully matched horses did he 
 nourish in his stable, which used to convey his rich posses- 
 sions to London and the various cities of the world; but 
 oftentimes did he let them out to others and whensoever 
 any one was desirous of hiring one of the long-tailed horses 
 he took them in order, so that the labour was equal to all. 
 
386 Poems 
 
 wherefore do men now speak of the choice of the renowned 
 Hobson. And in it he placed the close of the divine Parker, 
 and many beautiful undergraduates were delighting their 
 tender minds upon it playing cricket with one another; and 
 a match was being played and two umpires were quarrelling 
 with one another ; the one saying that the batsman who was 
 playing was out and the other declaring with all his might 
 that he was not ; and while they two were contending, reviling 
 one another with abusive language, a ball came and hit one 
 of them on the nose and the blood flowed out in a stream and 
 darkness was covering his eyes, but the rest were crying out 
 on all sides : 
 
 "Shy it up." 
 
 And he could not; him, then, was his companion address- 
 ing with scornful words: 
 
 "Arnold, why dost thou strive with me since I am much 
 wiser? Did not I see his leg before the wicket and rightly 
 declare him to be out? Thee, then, has Zeus now punished 
 according to thy deserts and I will seek some other umpire 
 of the game equally-participated-in-by-both-sides." 
 
 And in it he placed the Cam and many boats equally 
 rowed on both sides were going up and down on the bosom 
 of the deep rolling river and the coxswains were cheering on 
 the men, for they were going to enter the contest of the 
 scratchean fours ; and three men were rowing together in a 
 boat, strong and stout and determined in their hearts that 
 they would either first break a blood vessel or earn for them- 
 selves the electroplated-Birmingham-manufactured magnifi- 
 cence of a pewter to stand on their hall tables in memorial 
 of their strength, and from time to time drink from it the 
 exhilarating streams of beer whensoever their dear heart 
 should compel them; but the fouth was weak and unequally 
 matched with the others and the coxswain was encour- 
 aging him and called him by name and spake cheering 
 words : 
 
 "Smith, when thou hast begun the contest, be not flurried 
 nor strive too hard against thy fate, look at the back of the 
 man before thee and row with as much strength as the Fates 
 spun out for thee on the day when thou fellest between the 
 knees of thy mother, neither lose thine oar, but hold it tight 
 with thy hands." 
 
Poems 3^7 
 
 111 
 
 The Two Deans 
 
 Scene: The Court of St. John's College, Cambridge. Entef 
 the two deans on their way to morning chapel. 
 
 Junior Dean: Brother, I am much pleased with Samuel 
 Butler, 
 I have observed him mightily of late ; 
 Methinks that in his melancholy walk 
 And air subdued when'er he meeteth me 
 Lurks something more than in most other men. 
 Senior Dean: It is a good young man. I do bethink me 
 That once I walked behind him in the cloister, 
 HJe saw me not, but whispered to his fellow : 
 "Of all men who do dwell beneath the moon 
 I love and reverence most the senior Dean." 
 Junior Dean : One thing is passing strange, and yet I know 
 not 
 How to condemn it ; but in one plain brief word 
 He never comes to Sunday morning chapel. 
 Methinks he teacheth in some Sunday school, 
 Feeding the poor and starveling intellect 
 With wholesome knowledge, or on the Sabbath mom 
 He loves the country and the neighbouring spire 
 Of Madingley or Coton, or perchance 
 Amid some humble poor he spends the day 
 Conversing with them, learning all their cares. 
 Comforting them and easing them in sickness. 
 Oh 'tis a rare young man! 
 Senior Dean : I will advance him to some public post. 
 He shall be chapel clerk, some day a fellow. 
 Some day perhaps a Dean, but as thou sayst 
 He is indeed an excellent young man — 
 Enter Butler suddenly without a coat, or anything on his 
 head, rushang through the cloisters, hearing a cup, a bottle of 
 cider, four lemons, two nutmegs, half a pound of sugar and a 
 nutmeg grater. 
 
 Curtain falls on the confusion of Butler and the horror- 
 stricken dismay of the two deans. 
 
3^8 Poems 
 
 IV 
 
 On the Italian Priesthood 
 
 (Conarte e con inganno, si yive mezzo I'anno; 
 Con inganno e con arte, si vive I'altra parte.) 
 
 In knavish art and gathering gear 
 They spend the one half of the year; 
 In gathering gear and knavish art 
 They somehow spend the other part. 
 
 v 
 A Psalm of Montreal 
 
 The City of Montreal is one of the most rising and, in 
 many respects, most agreeable on the American continent, 
 but its inhabitants are as yet too busy with commerce to 
 care greatly about the masterpieces of old Greek Art. In the 
 Montreal Museum of Natural History I came upon two plaster 
 casts, one of the Antinous and the other of the Discobolus — 
 not the good one, but in my poem, of course, I intend the 
 good one — banished from public view to a room where were 
 all manner of skins, plants, snakes, insects, etc., and, in the 
 middle of these, an old man stuffing an owl. 
 
 "Ah," said I, "so you have some antiques here ; why don't 
 you put them where people can see them ?" 
 
 "Well, sir," answered the custodian, "you see they are 
 rather vulgar." 
 
 He then talked a great deal and said his brother did all 
 Mr. Spurgeon's printing. 
 
 The dialogue — ^perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a 
 little of the one and a little of the other — between the writer 
 and this old man gave rise to the lines that follow : 
 
 Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room 
 The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall; 
 Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught. 
 Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth : 
 
 O God! O Montreal! 
 
Poems 389 
 
 Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter, 
 Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful — 
 He preacheth gospel of grace to the skin of owls 
 And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls : 
 
 O God! O Montreal! 
 
 When I saw him I was wroth and I said, "O Discobolus ! 
 Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men! 
 What doest thou here, how camest thou hither, Discobolus, 
 Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls ?" 
 
 O God! O Montreal! 
 
 And I turned to the man of skins and said unto him, "O thou 
 
 man of skins. 
 Wherefore hast thou done thus to shame the beauty of the 
 
 Discobolus ?" 
 But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins 
 And he answered, "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. 
 
 Spurgeon." 
 
 O God! O Montreal! 
 
 "The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar — 
 He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs ; 
 I, Sir, am a person of most respectable connections — 
 My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon." 
 
 O God! O Montreal! 
 
 Then I said,"0 brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher. 
 Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls, 
 Thou callest trousers 'pants,' whereas I call them 'trousers,' 
 Therefore thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee !" 
 
 O God ! O Montreal ! 
 
 "Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of 
 Hellas, 
 
 The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon's haber- 
 dashery to the gospel of the Discobolus?" 
 
 Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty saying, "The Dis- 
 cobolus hath no gospel. 
 
 But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon." 
 
 O God! O Montreal! 
 
390 Poems 
 
 vi 
 
 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 def encefulness : 
 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 ? 
 
 But the righteous man will not plunder the defenceful — 
 
 Not if he be alone and unarmed — for his conscience will 
 smite him; 
 
 He will not rob a she-bear of her cubs, 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 here- 
 after. 
 
 Neither by itself, nor by another, nor by any residuum of ill 
 consequences ? 
 
 Surely, where weakness is utter, honour ceaseth. 
 
 Nay, I will do what is right in the eye of him who can harm 
 me. 
 
Poems 391 
 
 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. 
 
 vii 
 To Critics and Others 
 
 O Critics, cultured Critics ! 
 
 Who will praise me after I am dead. 
 
 Who will see in me both more and less than I intended, 
 
 But who will swear that whatever it was it was all per- 
 fectly right: 
 
 You will think you are better than the people who, when 
 I was alive, swore that whatever I did was wrong 
 
 And damned my books for me as fast as I could write them ; 
 
 But you will not be better, you will be just the same, 
 neither better nor worse, 
 
 And you will go for some future Butler as your fathers 
 have gone for me. 
 
 Oh ! How I should have hated you ! 
 
 But you, Nice People ! 
 
 Who will be sick of me because the critics thrust me down 
 your throats. 
 
 But who would take me willingly enough if you were not 
 bored about me. 
 
 Or if you could have the cream of me — and surely this 
 should suffice : 
 
 Please remember that, if I were living, I should be upon 
 your side 
 
 And should hate those who imposed me either on myself 
 or others ; 
 
 Therefore, I pray you, neglect me, burlesque me, boil me 
 down, do whatever you like with me. 
 
 But do not think that, if I were living, I should not aid 
 and abet you. 
 
 There is nothing that even Shakespeare would enjoy more 
 than a good burlesque of Hamlet. 
 
392 Poems 
 
 viii 
 For Narcissus 
 
 (A) 
 (To be written in front of the orchestral score.) 
 
 May he be damned for evermore 
 
 Who tampers with Narcissus' score ; 
 
 May he by poisonous snakes be bitten 
 
 Who writes more parts than what we've written. 
 
 We tried to make our music clear 
 
 For those who sing and those who hear, 
 
 Not lost and muddled up and drowned 
 
 In over-done orchestral sound; 
 
 So kindly leave the work alone 
 
 Or do it as we want it done. 
 
 (B) 
 
 Part II 
 
 Symphony 
 
 (During which the audience is requested to think as follows:) 
 
 An aged lady taken ill 
 
 Desires to reconstruct her will; 
 
 I see the 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 sonorous 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 number you will see. 
 
Poems 393 
 
 ix 
 
 A Translation 
 
 (Attempted in consequence of a challenge.) 
 
 " 'Mrs. Harris/ I says to her, 'dont name the charge, for 
 if I could afford to lay all my filler creeturs out for nothink 
 I would gladly do it; sich is the love I bear 'em. But what 
 I always says to them as has the management of matters, 
 Mrs. Harris,' " — here she kept her eye on Mr. Pecksniff — 
 " 'be they gents or be they ladies — ^is, Dont ask me whether I 
 wont take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle on the 
 chimley piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so 
 dispoged.'" (Martin Chu^zlewit, Chap. XIX). 
 
 ' SanAovli), 'AppiTOta8&i> fiXox* inSiom, 
 [1,4 6{)v S'^ xEpi [ifsBov &^elf&o, (I'^S' iv6ijLa1^e 
 To(it) flip Tot i-xlisv i-(aN^ xal ^ttfij eiiJi(, 
 ii xsv Xaiv jixovx' eV (lot S6va;jLii; -fs raipECt), 
 ofrou IxTisTOVou Ptdtou 6' SXi? evSov ibvtoz, 
 iaxaaltixi xal (!![ii.caSo<; louaa tcegiatECkai^t 
 [Iv XixTpij) yA^aaa. ■zomihsrjiaz Oovixoio 
 oOt^, OS 5ce Oiivnot Ppotuv xal ic6t[jiov lictoiqfi] 
 dXX' Ix Toi kgiiit o6 5' evl ^peol ^(i<;>^eo ofiotv'"^ 
 85SS SI o\ ne?vsi(pov lalSpaxov daxeXei; atef — 
 " 'xeCvoidtv flip iraot i«ipauoxo[ilvYj dfopsOu 
 e'tt' SvSp' sY-ce fuvaiz' 6tI(i) TiiSe Spya [i^ijXev, 
 6 ip£Xe, t(iuts ffii TaOta [!.' livefpeai; oi8i rf oe xp'%. 
 i8(j.lvae i) iBIXo) icfvecv (J.i9u, ^e Jtocl oOxf' 
 ei 8' &Y ex' loxipoipiv v&xaSiBZ Sixoc; fjSloi; otyou, 
 Sfp' h xepfflv IXm xfvouoi ts Tspxonlvt) ts, 
 Xs(Xe(i Te xpooSsIa' 6x6Tav ffXov ^Top (ivdYD-'" 
 
 X 
 
 In Memoriam 
 Feb. 14th, 1895 
 
 TO 
 
 H. R. F. 
 
 Out, out, out into the night. 
 
 With the wind bitter North East and the sea rough ; 
 
394 Poems 
 
 You have a racking cough and your lungs are weak, 
 But out, out into the night you go. 
 
 So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well ! 
 
 We have been three lights to one another and now we are two. 
 For you go far and alone into the darkness ; 
 But the light in you was stronger and clearer than ours. 
 For you came straighter from God and, whereas we had 
 
 learned, 
 You had never forgotten. Three minutes more and then 
 Out, out into the night you go, 
 
 So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well ! 
 
 Never a cross look, never a thought, 
 
 Never a word that had better been left unspoken ; 
 
 We gave you the best we had, such as it was. 
 
 It pleased you well, for you smiled and nodded your head ; 
 
 And now, out, out into the night you go. 
 
 So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well ! 
 
 You said we were a little weak that the three of us wept, 
 
 Are we then weak if we laugh when we are glad ? 
 
 When men are under the knife let them roar as they will, 
 
 So that they flinch not. 
 
 Therefore let tears flow on, for so long as we live 
 
 No such second sorrow shall ever draw nigh us, 
 
 Till one of us two leaves the other alone 
 
 And goes out, out, out into the night, 
 
 So guard the one that is left, O God, and fare him well ! 
 
 Yet for the great bitterness of this grief 
 
 We three, you and he and I, 
 
 May pass into the hearts of like true comrades hereafter. 
 
 In whom we may weep anew and yet comfort them. 
 
 As they too pass out, out, out into the night. 
 
 So guide them and guard them Heaven and fare them 
 well! 
 
 The minutes have flown and he whom we loved is gone. 
 The like of whom we never again shall see ; 
 The wind is heavy with snow and the sea rough. 
 He has a racking cough and his lungs are weak. 
 
Poems 395 
 
 Hand in hand we watch the train as it glides 
 
 Out, out, out into the night. 
 
 So take him into thy holy keeping, O Lord, 
 
 And guide him and guard him ever, and fare him well ! 
 
 XI 
 
 An Acadwnic Exercise 
 
 We were two lovers standing sadly by 
 While our two loves lay dead upon the ground ; 
 Each love had striven not to be first to die. 
 But each was gashed with many a cruel wound. 
 Said I : "Your love was false while mine was true." 
 Aflood with tears he cried : "It was not so, 
 'Twas your false love my true love falsely slew — 
 For 'twas your love that was the first to go." 
 Thus did we stand and said no more for shame 
 Till I, seeing his cheek so wan and wet, 
 Sobbed thus : "So be it ; my love shall bear the blame ; 
 Let us inter them honourably." And yet 
 I swear by all truth human and divine 
 'Twas his that in its death throes murdered mine. 
 
 xu 
 
 A Prayer 
 
 Searcher of souls, you who in heaven abide. 
 To whom the secrets of all hearts are open. 
 Though I do lie to all the world beside. 
 From me to these no falsehood shall be spoken. 
 Cleanse me not. Lord, I say, from secret sin 
 But from those faults which he who runs can see, 
 'Tis these that torture me, O Lord, begin 
 With these and let the hidden vices be; 
 If you must cleanse these too, at any rate 
 Deal with the seen sins first, 'tis only reason. 
 They being so gross, to let the others wait 
 The leisure of some more convenient season ; 
 
 And cleanse not all even then, leave me a few, 
 I would not be — not quite — so pure as you. 
 
39^ Poems 
 
 XIU 
 
 Karma 
 
 (A) 
 Who paints a picture, writes a play or book 
 Which others read while he's asleep in bed 
 O' the other side of the world — when they o'erlook 
 His page the sleeper might as well be dead ; 
 What knows he of his distant unfelt life? 
 What knows he of the thoughts his thoughts are raising. 
 The life his life is giving, or the strife 
 Concerning him — some cavilling, some praising? 
 Yet which is most alive, he who's asleep 
 Or his quick spirit in some other place. 
 Or score of other places, that doth keep 
 Attention fixed and sleep from others chase? 
 
 Which is the "he"— the "he" that sleeps, or "he" 
 That his own "he" can neither feel nor see? 
 
 (B) 
 What is't to live, if not to pull the strings 
 Of thought that pull those grosser strings whereby 
 We pull our limbs to pull material things 
 Into such shape as in our thoughts doth lie? 
 Who pulls the strings that pull an agent's hand. 
 The action's counted his, so, we being gone. 
 The deeds that others do by our command. 
 Albeit we know them not, are still our own. 
 He lives who does and he who does still lives. 
 Whether he wots of his own deeds or no. 
 Who knows the beating of his heart, that drives 
 Blood to each part, or how his limbs did grow ? 
 
 If life be naught but knowing, then each breath 
 We draw unheeded must be reckon'd death. 
 
 (C) 
 "Men's work we have," quoth one, "but we want them- 
 Them, palpable to touch and clear to view." 
 Is it so nothing, then, to have the gem 
 But we must weep to have the setting too ? 
 
Poems 397 
 
 Body is a chest wherein the tools abide 
 
 With which the craftsman works as best he can 
 
 And, as the chest the tools within doth hide, 
 
 So doth the body crib and hide the man. 
 
 Nay, though great Shakespeare stood in flesh before us, 
 
 Shbuld heaven on importunity release him. 
 
 Is it so certain that he might not bore us. 
 
 So sure but we ourselves might fail to please him ? 
 
 Who prays to have the moon full soon would pray, 
 
 Once it were his, to have it taken away. 
 
 xiv 
 The Life After Death 
 (A) 
 MeXXofTa ravra 
 Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear sheen 
 Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet those 
 Among the dead whose pupils we have been. 
 Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes ; 
 No meadow of asi^odel our feet shall tread. 
 Nor shall we look each other in the face 
 To love or hate each other being dead. 
 Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace. 
 We shall not argue saying " 'Twas thus" or "Thus," 
 Our argument's whole drift we shall forget; 
 Who's right, who's wrong, 'twill be all one to us ; 
 We shall not even know that we have met. 
 
 Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again. 
 Where dead men meet, on lips of living men. 
 
 (B) 
 Handel 
 There doth great Handel live, imperious still. 
 Invisible and impalpable as air. 
 But forcing flesh and blood to work his will 
 Effectually as though his flesh were there ; 
 He who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound 
 All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above. 
 From fire and hailstones running along the ground 
 
398 Poems 
 
 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 — 
 
 He'll meet both Jones and me and clap or hiss us 
 Vicariously for having writ Narcissus. 
 
 (C) 
 Handel 
 Father of my poor music — if such small 
 Offspring as mine, so born out of due time. 
 So scom'd, can be called fatherful at all. 
 Or dare to thy high sonship's rank to climb — 
 Best lov'd of all the dead whom I love best. 
 Though I love many another dearly too. 
 You in my heart take rank above the rest ; 
 King of those kings that most control me, you. 
 You were about my path, about my bed 
 In boyhood always and, where'er I be, 
 Whate'er I think or do, you, in my head, 
 Ground-bass to all my thoughts, are still with me ; 
 Methinks the very worms will find some strain 
 Of yours still lingering in my wasted brain. 
 
Index 
 
 Abbey Foregate, 342 
 
 Abbey Wood, 250 
 
 Abnormal Developments, 30 
 
 Abraham, Dr., Bishop of Well- 
 ington, N.Z., 40 
 
 Absurd, Which is, 331 
 
 "Academic Exercise," An, 381, 
 382, 395 
 
 Academic System and Repent- 
 ance, 135 
 
 Academies, 180, 292 
 
 Academicism, 103 
 
 Academy, 121 
 
 Accident, Design and Memory, 
 61, 62 
 
 Accounts, Squaring, 160 et seq. 
 
 Accumulated Dinners, 365 
 
 Accuracy, 138 
 
 Achilles, The Shield of, 379, 385 
 
 Acireale, 6, 7 
 
 Action, 67, 68 
 
 Action and Study, 139 
 
 Actor, 360 
 
 Adam and Eve, 243 
 
 Adams and Leverrier, 313 
 
 Advice to the Young, 34 
 
 ^gisthus, 345 
 
 ^neas Silvius, 282 
 
 ^olian Mode, 129, 
 
 A First Year in Canterbury 
 Settlement, i, 288, 369 
 
 Agamemnon, 344, 364 
 
 Agape, 123 
 
 Agonising, 105 
 
 Agrippa and Agrippina, 253 
 
 Airolo, 272 
 
 Alagna, 280 
 Albert Hall, 22 
 Alcohol, 343 
 Alexander Bolus, 116 
 Alfred Emery Cathie, Mr., 4, 
 193, 250, 251, 286, 371, 
 
 373 
 Alive, 318 
 Allah, 284, 285 
 Allesley School, i 
 "All fear of punishment is o'er," 
 
 118, 119 
 Ally Sloper's Half -holiday, 262 
 Alpine passes, 133, 134 
 Alps and Sanctuaries, 4, 238, 
 
 250, 259 et seq., 273, 275, 
 
 299, 304, 343. 350. 368, 
 
 376 
 •Material for a Projected 
 
 Sequel to, 259 et seq. 
 Alps pierced, 69 
 —The, by Holbein, 153 
 Alterni folium, 271 
 "A.M." Pseudonym, 40 
 Amateurs and Professionals, 
 
 145 
 Ambiguity, Studied, 290 
 Amen, 280 
 
 Amendes Honourables, 348 
 America, not a good place in 
 
 which to be a genius, 179 
 Amoeba, zyy, 321 
 Amputation, 349 
 Anachronism, 130 
 "An aged lady taken ill," 
 
 392 
 
 399 
 
400 
 
 Index 
 
 Analogies between Crime and 
 
 Disease, 375 
 Analogies between Organs and 
 
 Tools, 375 
 Analogy, 311 
 Analysis of the Sales of my 
 
 Books, 368, 369 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, 311 
 "Ancient Mariner," The, 229 
 Ancients and Moderns, 193 
 Ancient Work, 193 
 "Ancora sull' Origine Siciliana 
 
 dell' Odissea," 5 
 Andersen, Hans, 231 
 Anderson, Revd. Charles, 379, 
 
 380 
 "And in it he placed," 385 
 Andromeda, 225 
 "And the government shall be," 
 
 118 
 "And the Johnians practise 
 
 their tub," 384 
 Angelico, Fra, 230 
 Angels, Entertaining, 158 
 "Angelus," Millet's, 259 
 Anglican Catholic, 342 
 Animals understanding, yy 
 Annuity, Outliving, 374 
 Ansidei Raffaelle, The, 145 et 
 
 seq. 
 Antechambers, Publishers', dis- 
 tasteful, 373 
 Anthony, S., 56 
 Anthropomorphise, 266 
 Anthropomorphising the Deity, 
 
 309 
 Antinous, 388 
 Antitheses, 58 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 156 
 Ants, 266 
 Aosta, 206 
 Apollos, 325 
 Apologia, 370-4 
 Apology for the Devil, 217 
 Apple-woman, 243 
 Appoggiatura, 112 
 
 Apprentices, Virtuous and Idle, 
 326 
 
 Appropriating, 122, 299 
 
 Apricot tree, 81 
 
 Aquila, 265 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, 285 
 
 — of Heligoland, 235 
 
 Archimede^, 344 
 
 Arctic volcano, 179 
 
 Argument, 165, 328 
 
 Argument and Assertion, 164 
 
 Arnold, 386 
 
 Arnold, Dr., 365 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 184, 200, 202, 
 203, 380 
 
 Arnolfini, John, 256 
 
 Art and Trade, 170, 171 
 
 — and Usefulness, 173, 174 
 
 — Difficulties in, 102, 104 
 
 —Early, 154 
 
 — Great and Sham, 137 
 
 — Greatness in, 108 
 
 — Improvement in, 139 
 
 — Life and, 351 
 
 — Money and Religion, 229 
 
 — of Co very, 180 
 
 — of Propagating Opinion, 
 164 
 
 — Schools, 2, 136 
 
 Arts, The, 107 
 
 — Conveyancing and the, 96 
 
 — Money and the, 171, 172 
 
 Article-dealing, Literature and, 
 170 
 
 Articles, Essays, Stories, Un- 
 written, 229 
 
 Artist, The, and the Shop- 
 keeper, 169 
 
 Artists a dumb folk, 128, 129 
 
 Asceticism, 291 
 
 "As cheers the sun," 120 
 
 Asinometer, 184 
 
 Asplenium Trichomanes, 272 
 
 Assertion and Argument, 164 
 
 Assimilation, 82, 205 
 
 — of rhythm, 71, 210 
 
Index 
 
 401 
 
 Association, 65, 97 
 
 — Painting and, 138 
 
 — ^Unconscious, 65 
 
 Assonances, 383 
 
 Assyrian bas-reliefs, 242 
 
 Astrology, 61 
 
 Astronomical Speculation, An, 
 
 232 
 Athanasian Creed, 323, 324 
 Atheism, 230 
 Atheist, 315, 316 
 — Theist and, 337 
 Atheists, 275 
 Athenaeum (Club), 173 
 Athencsum, 376 
 Atoms, 73J 83, 84 
 — and Fixed Laws, 72 
 Atrophy, 231 
 
 Attempts at Classification, 303 
 Audience, What, to write for, 
 
 109 
 Auld Robin Gray, 267 
 Aurora Borealis, 269 
 Author, An, the worst person 
 
 to write his own notes, 
 
 21S 
 
 "Author of Erewhon," The, 
 an article by Desmond Mac- 
 Carthy in the Independent 
 . Review, 6 
 
 Authoress of the Odyssey, The, 
 
 378 
 
 Authoress of the Odyssey, The, 
 5, 187, 196, 199, 350, 368, 
 376 
 
 Authors, 364 
 
 Authors, Society of, 373 
 
 Automata, 289 
 
 Babes and Sucklings, The Book 
 
 of, 229 
 Babies, Night-Shirts and, 85, 
 
 86 
 Baby and Great Northern A 
 
 Shares, 53 
 Baby-getting, Justifiable, 289 
 
 Bach Choir concert, 123 
 
 Bach, Emmanuel, 126 
 
 Bach, John Sebastian, iio- 
 
 113, 120, 121, 123 
 — Appropriating from, 121 
 — Handel and, 112 
 Bachelor incarnate, 33 
 Backing one's own opinion, 335 
 Backwards, living, 292 
 Bacon, Lord, 25, 150 
 Bacon for Breakfast, 33 
 Baker, Mr. John H., 288 
 Baker Street, 251 
 Balance, The Flying, 231 
 Ballad, Refrain for, 231 
 Ballard, William, 2, 225, 244 
 Balloon, miraculous, 296 
 Balmoral, Countess of, 316 
 Bankruptcy Acts, Tentative, 18 
 Bank's action. Failure of, 91 
 Baptism, Infant, Doubts as to 
 
 eflBcacy of, I 
 Barley-water, 239 
 Barnard's Inn, 131, 153, 237 
 Barocco, 260 
 "Barrel-Organs," 41 
 Barrister principle, 340 
 Barristers, The two at Ypres, 
 
 255-8 
 Basaiti, Marco, 150 
 
 Basel, 4, 153, 376. 381 
 Baselessness, The, of our ideas, 
 
 309, 310 . 
 Basis of Life, The, 227 
 Bateson, Professor, F.R.S., 7 
 Bath, Wife of, 262 
 "Batti, batti," 122 
 Baxter, Richard, 326 
 Beale, Sir Wm. Phipson, Bart., 
 
 K.C., M.P., 8, 253 
 Beard, 311 
 
 Bears, The Three, 277, 278 
 Beauties of Nature, 270 
 Beauties Sleeping, 116 
 Beauty, 335, 389 
 Bed-key, 65 
 
402 
 
 Index 
 
 Bee, 49, 62, 266, 355 
 
 Beer, 312 
 
 Beer and my cat, 86, 87 
 
 Bees, 280 
 
 Beethoven, no, in, 115, 122, 
 
 126, 132, 258, 263, 264 
 Beginning, 312 
 Belgian Town Fairs, 345 
 Bellini, 13, 135, 149, 150, 152, 
 
 173, 179, 188, 23s, 257, 258, 
 
 357, 376, 378 
 Bellini, Trying to buy a, 152 
 Bellinzona, 260, 272 
 Bells, 85, 246, 263, 266, 267 
 Berg (Swedish painter), 243 
 Berlioz, 133 
 Bernard, St., 267 
 Bertoli and his Bees, 280 
 Biella, 342 
 Billiard ball, 311 
 Billiard balls, 9 
 Biographical Statement, 1-8 
 Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine, 
 
 K.c, M.P., 7 
 Birth, 289 
 Birth and Death, Functions of 
 
 one another, 15 
 — Fear of, 289 
 — The hour of. Praying for, 
 
 289 
 — ^Unconscious, 16 
 Birthright, My, 182 
 Bishop, an English one at 
 
 Siena and S. Gimignano, 
 
 274-6 
 Bishop Ken, 214 
 —of Carlisle, 31, 32, 254 
 Chichester at Faido, 271, 
 
 272 
 
 Lichfield, i 
 
 Peterborough, 250, 251 
 
 Bishops, 327 
 
 Blake, Dante, Virgil and Tenny- 
 son, 183 
 Blasphemy, 348 
 —Real, 341 
 
 "Blessing, Honour, Adoration," 
 
 121 
 Blundering in business and in 
 
 science, 218 
 Bodies, Our, an art, 278 
 — Our trivial, 22 
 Body, the manifesto of the 
 
 mind, 362 
 — pincers, bellows, and stew- 
 pan, 18 
 — The, and its work, 21-23 
 Bohemian existence, 345 
 Book, 396 
 Book of Babes and Sucklings, 
 
 The, 229 
 Book of Essays, A, 368, 369 
 Book, What sells a, 161 
 Book-keeping, 4 
 Books, 107, 357 
 — and Children, 106 
 — like Souls, 95 
 — My, 106, 158 et seq., 366 et 
 
 seq. 
 Analysis of the sales oi, 
 
 368-9 
 — On the making of Music, 
 
 Pictures and, 93 et seq. 
 — Rules for the making of, 96, 
 
 97 
 — should be tried by judge and 
 
 jury, 107 
 —The life of, 106 
 Boots, 240 
 Bore, a clever, 383 
 Born, What happens to you 
 
 when you are, 15, 16 
 Borrowing, 299 
 — in music, 123-9 
 Boss, Mrs., 364 
 Botticini, 146 
 Bottom-heavy, 329 
 Boulogne, 252, 254, 263 
 Boycott, 369 
 Brahms, 130 
 Brain, 85 
 — My wasted, 398 
 
Index 
 
 403 
 
 Brandy and water, 211 
 
 Brave, The, deserve to lose the 
 
 fair, 234 
 Bread, Our daily, 352 
 Breakfast, Bacon for, 33 
 Breeding and the Mendelian 
 
 Discovery, 16 
 Breeding from weak opinion, 
 
 164 
 —Good, 34, 340 
 Bregaglia, Val, 264 
 Breton fishermen, 36 
 Brevity, loi 
 Brighton, 336 
 British Museum, 2, 5, 6, 8, 41, 
 
 81, 156, 161, 165, 204, 218, 
 
 237, 242 
 British Public, Handel and the, 
 
 "3 
 , "Brother, I am much pleased 
 
 with Samuel Butler," 387 
 Brougham, Lord, his trousers, 
 
 261 
 Brown, Mrs., and spoiled tarts, 9 
 Browne medals, 292 
 Browning, Mrs., 186 
 Buddha, 255 
 Buddhism, 337 
 Buffon, 3, 107, 378 
 Bug, The smell of a, 246 
 Bunyan, 326, 327 
 —and Others, 188 et seq. 
 —and the Odyssey, 191 
 Burglars, 23 
 Buried alive before marriage, 
 
 293. 294 
 Burleigh, Lord, and Eumaeus, 
 
 195 
 Burlesque, 391 
 Burton (Anatomy), 311 
 'Bus conductor, 244 
 — driver, 244 
 
 Business, Science and, 217 
 Butcher-boy, 88 
 Butler, A. J., 186 
 Butler (Analogy), 311 
 
 Butler, Revd. Samuel, d.d., i, 
 4. 32, 378 (see Life and Let- 
 ters of Dr. Butler) 
 
 Butler, Samuel, and the Press, 
 N.Z., I, 2, 8, 39-42 
 
 Particulars of his life and 
 
 works, 1-8 
 
 Portraits of, 3, 5 
 
 quoted by A. D. Darbi- 
 
 shire 
 
 see under Samuel Butler 
 
 Butler, Rev. Thomas, 1-4 
 
 Butler, Some future, 391 
 
 Butler, Thomas William Gale, 2 
 
 — Letter to, 53 et seq. 
 
 Butler's Stones, 288 
 
 Butterflies, 250, 306 
 
 Buzzy bee. How doth the little, 
 266 
 
 Byron, 244 
 
 Calais, 213 
 
 —to Dover, 253, 254 
 
 Cam, 386 
 
 Cambridge, i, 4, 6, 7, no, 253, 
 
 379 
 — Professorship of Fine Arts, 4 
 Canada, 3, 379 
 Canadians, French, 136 
 Cannibalism, 29, 30 
 Canon of Chichester, 271 
 Cant, 230 
 
 — and Hypocrisy, 341 
 "Cantab" (pseudonym), 304 
 Canterbury Museum, N.Z., 41 
 Canterbury Pilgrims, 262 
 Canterbury Province, 2 
 Canterbury Settlement, A First 
 
 Year in, i, 288, 369 
 Canto Fermo, 267 
 Capping a success, 156 
 Caracal, The, 81 
 Carcassone, the Odyssey and a 
 
 tomb at, 198 
 Cards, leaving them at church, 
 
 342 
 
404 
 
 Index 
 
 Careful Investigation as En- 
 couraging Casuistry, 296 
 
 "Carefully," 290 
 
 Carestia, ZeflBrino, 198 
 
 Carletti, Signora Cesira, 282 
 
 Carlisle, Bishop of, 31, 32, 254 
 
 Carrodus, 242 
 
 Cary's Art-School, 2 
 
 Casale-Monferrato, 270, 350 
 
 Cash and Credit, 168 et seq. 
 
 Cassell and Co., 201 
 
 Castelvetrano, Labourers at, 
 194 
 
 Casuistry, 296 
 
 Cat, Beer and my, 86, 87 
 
 Ideas and Mouse-Ideas, 216 
 
 — Saying "Hallelujah" to a, 65 
 
 —The Jumping, 339 
 
 Catherine, S., by Raffaelle, 146, 
 148, 149 
 
 Cathie. See Alfred Emery 
 Cathie 
 
 Catholic, A, 342 
 
 Catholicism, 333 
 
 Catholics, 336 
 
 Cato, Miss, 207 
 
 Cats, 238 
 
 Cattle drinking, 81 
 
 Cell, The primordial, 55 
 
 "Cellarius" (pseudonym), 2, 
 41, 46 
 
 Cells, Our, 84, 86, 89 
 
 Century Club, 157, 184, 379 
 
 Cephas, 33 
 
 Chance, 297, 322 
 
 Chancellor's Medal, 291 
 
 Chancery Lane, 87 
 
 Change, 315 
 
 Change of circumstances and 
 memory, 63 
 
 Change and Immorality, 29 
 
 Changes of substance cognised, 
 
 75 
 Channel for water, 348 
 —Passage, The, 255 
 Chapel, Primitive Methodist, 341 
 
 Chapman and Hall, 186 
 
 Chapters in Music, 130, 131 
 
 Character, A man's, arid his 
 work, 188 
 
 —My, 187 
 
 Characteristics, Acquired, 96 
 
 Charing Cross, 70, 237 
 
 Charles Darwin and Samuel 
 Butler: A Step towards Re- 
 conciliation, 8, 376 
 
 Charles I, 233 
 
 Charybdis, Scylla and, 230, 326, 
 
 327 
 
 Chatto and Windus, 201 
 
 "Che faro," 132 
 
 Chemical Properties, 69 
 
 Cherubini, 100 
 
 Chiavenna, 261 
 
 Chichester, Bishop of and Can- 
 on of, 271, 272 
 
 Chicken, 66, 69 
 
 Chickens, Clergymen and, 56 
 
 — Sailor Boy and, 245 
 
 Child-Birth, 106 
 
 Childish to deny or to attempt 
 to define God, 326 
 
 Children, Books and, 106 
 
 — Tracts for, 229 
 
 China, Mr. Gladstone selling 
 his, 165 
 
 Choice, 319, 320, 321 
 
 — of Subjects, 105 
 
 Chords, Common, 226 
 
 Chord, the Lost, 280 
 
 Christ, 236, 260, 324, 348 
 
 —and the L. and N.W. Rail- 
 way, 339 
 
 Christ is Equilibrium, 73 
 
 Christs, Infant, 257 
 
 Christchurch, N.Z., i, 2, 3, 
 40 
 
 Christian, The, 337, 352 
 
 — minister and bad £10 note, 
 190 
 
 — miracles. Improbability of, 
 33S 
 
Index 
 
 405 
 
 Christianity, 230, 276, 311, 334, 
 
 335. 337. 340, 342, 347. 3Si. 
 
 352, 375 
 — Society and 350, 351 
 Christians, 350 
 Christmas at Boulogne, 254 
 — Eve, ivy and holly, 61 
 Christie's, 152, 165 
 Chronicles, 292 
 Church, The, 159, 307, 340, 366 
 
 and the Rectory, 334 
 
 and the Supernatural, 340 
 
 feasts of the, too much 
 
 neglected, 61 
 —of England, The, 338 
 — The English, abroad, 342 
 
 of Rome, 338 
 
 of the future, 229 ■ 
 
 Churches, The, in an equivocal 
 
 position, 190 
 Churchyard, living nearer to 
 
 the, 89 
 Cider, 387 
 
 Cima da Conegliano, 150 
 Cities, Unburying, 370 
 Civilisation in the Iliad, 196 
 Clacton Belle, 262 
 Claro, 272 
 
 Classical Review, The, 377 
 Classification, 218, 303 
 Clergy, The, 374 
 
 Ourselves and, 351 
 
 Clergyman, An English, 342, 343 
 Clergyman's Doubts, A, 3, 304- 
 
 8, 380 
 Clergymen and Chickens, 56 
 — born not hatched, 56, 57 
 Clergymen and Doctors, 226 
 Clifford's Inn, 2, 237-9 
 
 Euphemism, 238 
 
 Climbing, 103 
 
 Clodd, Mr. Edward, 379 
 
 Clothes, 36 
 
 Cobbe, Miss Frances Power, 207 
 
 Cobham, 231 
 
 Cobwebs in the dark, 60 
 
 Cock Tavern, The, 239, 240 
 
 Coffee, 273 
 
 Coins and words, 95 
 
 — of all nations, 277 
 
 — potential money, 95 
 
 Colborne-Veel, Miss, 40 
 
 Cold, 315 
 
 Colour, 141 et seq. 
 
 — shade and reputation, 138 
 
 — Words and, 144 
 
 Colourist, A great, 144 
 
 "Come, O Time," 116 
 
 Commentators, Homer and his, 
 
 196 
 Commerce, 341 
 Common Chords, 226 
 — form, 125 
 
 Commonplaces, Handel's, 115 
 Common Sense, 370 
 
 and Philosophy, 330 
 
 Reason and Faith, 328 
 
 The Voice of, 348 
 
 Compensation, 157 
 Competency, Vows of modest, 
 
 290 
 Complete Death, 355 
 Composition (painting), 140 
 Compression (literature), 100 
 Conceit left in the box as well 
 
 as Hope, 170 
 Conflict of duties, 84 
 Conscience, Jones's, 219 
 Consciousness, 73 
 — Vanishing, 53 
 Conservatism and Liberalism, 
 
 340 
 Conservative, The healthy 
 
 stomach, 82 
 Contemplation, Man of, 367 
 Continued Identity, 353-5 
 Continuity of existence, 54 
 Contradiction in Terms, 164, 
 
 210, 299, 301, 314, 315, 316 
 
 et seq. 
 Contributions to evolution, 66 
 Con-venience, 310 
 
4o6 
 
 Index 
 
 Convenience, 301-3 
 
 — God and, 347 
 
 — Truth and, 297 et seq. 
 
 "Convey me to some peaceful 
 
 shore," n6 
 Conveyancing and the arts, 96 
 Conviction, 328, 329 
 Convictions, Our profoundest 
 
 are unspeakable, 93 
 Cooking, 81, 222 
 Cooper, Eenimore, 265 
 Copernicus, 302 
 Copies of notes, 363 
 Corelli, 188 
 Corn, 325, 326 
 Corn-laws, 342 
 Coroners' Inquests, 325 
 Corpse, 353 
 Corpse-hood, 354 
 Correggio, 146 
 Cosimo, S., 281 
 Costa, Sir Michael, 113 
 Costermongers of religion, 222 
 Coterie, Literary and Scientific, 
 
 369 
 Coton, 387 
 Cotton Factories, 21 
 Counsels of Imperfection, 24 
 Counterpoint, 5, 113, 267, 315 
 Countess of Balmoral, 316 
 Countries, Imaginary, 105 
 Cousin, my, 241, 242, 250 
 Covery, the art of, 180 
 Cow, 261, 285 
 Cow, eyes like a, 233 
 Cow-bells, 85, 267 
 Cows, 255, 308 
 Crea, 5 
 Creating, The less a man creates 
 
 the better, 143 
 Credit, Cash and, 168 et seq. 
 — System, The, 328 
 Credulous Eye, The, 138 
 Creeds, Wants and, 336 
 Creighton, Dr. Mandell, 250, 
 
 251 
 
 Cricket, 386 
 
 Crimea, The Grotta, 261 
 
 Crime and disease, Analogies 
 
 between, 375 
 Critic, A Lady, 156 
 Criticism, 107 
 — Diderot on, 187 
 — Musical, 123; 130 
 Critics and Others, To, 380, 391 
 — fitness and unfitness, 107 
 Crivelli Carlo, 146 
 Croesus and his kitchen-maid, 
 
 89-92 
 Crossing oneself, 274 
 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 376 
 Crows, 230, 266 
 Crucifixion, 324, 375 
 "Crucifixion" by Holbein, 153 
 Crumby Woman, 267 
 Crystal Palace, 260 
 Cuckoo, 327, 337 
 Cunning, 315, 319, 320, 322, 323 
 
 Damiano, S., 281 
 
 Danaids, 344, 345 
 
 Dando, 242 
 
 Danse, La, 4, 376 
 
 Dante, 150, 183 
 
 Darbishire, Mr. A. D., 16 
 
 Dardanelles, 283-5 
 
 "Darwin among the Machines," 
 
 2, 8, 39-42 et seq. 
 Darwin, Charles, 3, 4, 8, 39, 40, 
 
 70, 161, 243, 265, 322, 339, 
 
 375, 376, 378 
 Darwin, Erasmus, 3, 378 
 Darwin, Mr. Francis, f.r.s., 8, 
 
 243 
 "Darwin on the Origin of 
 Species. A Dialogue," i, 8, 
 
 39-41 
 Darwinians, 374 
 David, 214, 224, 230 
 David, Gheeraert, 147 
 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 257, 376, 
 
 378 
 
Index 
 
 407 
 
 Daughter, My, 249 
 
 Day, 195, 315 
 
 Day, Mr. Lewis, 253 
 
 Days, Our, 12 
 
 De Minimis non curat Lex, 209 
 
 Veritas, 299 
 
 Dead, 318, 357, 365, 370 
 "Deadlock in Darwinism," 375, 
 
 376 
 Death, 22, 23, 79, 314, 315, 318, 
 
 353 et seq. 
 — A luxurious, 37 
 — and life, 93 
 — Apprehended, 382 
 
 beds. Christian, 229 
 
 — Bid him take, 359 
 
 — Birth and, 15 
 
 —Complete, 355 
 
 — Foreknowledge of, 353 
 
 —Ignorance of, 356, 357 
 
 — Indifference to, undesirable, 
 
 214 
 — in life, 76 
 — is equilibrium, 73 
 —Life and, 355 
 — Making ready for, 229 
 — Preparation for, 362 
 —The Defeat of, 355 
 —The Dislike of, 55, 358, 359 
 —The Torture of, 355, 356 
 — unconscious, 16 
 Debts, 292 
 
 Decimal, Recurring, 68 
 Defeat of Death, The, 355 
 Defencefulness, Odour of, 390 
 Definitions, 220, 221 
 "Deh Vieni," 252 
 Deity, The Homeric and the 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette, 33 
 Deliver us from evil, 213 
 Delphi, 351 
 Demand, 315 
 D'Enrico, 378 
 Dentist, My, 240 
 De profundis, 106 
 Descent with modification, 55 
 
 Design, 60, 61 
 — Memory and, 56 et seq. 
 Despising the world, 365 
 Destroy and fulfil, 335 
 Destruction and Death, 169 
 — of works of art, 179 
 Detail, 137, 138 
 Development, 95 
 Developments, Abnormal, 30 
 Devil, 224, 226, 23s, 236, 267, 
 
 31S 
 
 — ^A mischievous, 226 
 
 — ^An Apology for the, 217 
 
 — and God, 25 
 
 —God and the, 333, 334 
 
 Devils, 228 
 
 "Diary of a Journey" to take 
 MSS. of three of Butler's 
 books to Italy and Sicily, 7 
 
 Diavolo, Santo, 274 
 
 Dickens, Handel and, 134 
 
 Dickens and unconscious hu- 
 mour, 32 
 
 Dickens and Rochester, 32 
 
 Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy, The, 365 
 
 Diderot on criticism, 187, 188 
 
 Die, What happens to you 
 when you, 15, 16 
 
 Differences, 62, 83 
 
 DiflSculties in Art, 102, 104 
 
 Diffuseness, loi 
 
 Digestion, 82 
 
 Dim religious light. The, 338 
 
 Dinners, Accumulated, 365 
 
 Disappointing person, Myself a, 
 158 
 
 Disappointment, 311 
 
 Discobolus, 388, 389 
 
 Discords, 129, 130, 225 
 
 Disease and crime. Analogies 
 between, 375 
 
 — The fear-of-giving-them- 
 
 selves-away, 293 
 
 Diseased physically, 296 
 
 Diseases of friendship, 230, 382 
 
4o8 
 
 Index 
 
 Disgrace, 397 
 Disjoining, 21 
 Dislike of Death, The, 358, 359, 
 
 Dissimilarity, 55 
 
 Dissolution, 357, 358 
 
 Dives, 362 
 
 Divorce, 234, 252 
 
 Doctors, 38 
 
 — and clergymen, 226 
 
 Doctors' Commons, 244 
 
 Dodging fatigue, 27 
 
 Dog, 137, 220, 245, 246, 390 
 
 "Doge," Bellini's, 173 
 
 Doing, Worth, 369 
 
 Doll, 346 
 
 Dolls, Prayers are as, 212 
 
 Domenichino, 150 
 
 Dominant, 129, 130, 226, 260 
 
 Don, Captain, 274 
 
 Donatello, 195 
 
 Doncaster, Mrs., 238 
 
 Dan Giovamni, 131 
 
 Dorian mode, 129 
 
 Doubt and hope, 369, 370 
 
 Doubts, A Clergyman's, 304 
 
 Dover, 253, 254 
 
 Dow, Gerard, 99, 100 
 
 Dowe, Mrs., 259 
 
 Dowie's shop, 240 
 
 Dragon, Andromeda's, 225 
 
 Dragons, 160 
 
 Drapers, Scientists and, 218 
 
 Draper's store, 303 
 
 Drapery, 147 
 
 Dress, 107, 108 
 
 Drinking, My books do not take 
 to, 366 
 
 Drivel from one of the Kings- 
 leys, 34 
 
 Drones, Pedals or, 225 
 
 Dropping off of leaves and 
 guests, 230 
 
 Druggist's store, 303 
 
 Drunkard, 231, 349 
 
 Drunkenness, 342, 343 
 
 Drury Lane theatre, 131 
 Duckling, The Ugly, 231 
 Ducklings, A string of, 84 
 Ducks on the Serpentine, 63 
 Dullness, 179, 193 
 Dullnesses of virtue, 28 
 Dull people, 294 
 Dumb-bells academic, 219 
 Dunstable, John, in 
 Dunstan's, St., bells, 246 
 Dupes, 296 
 
 Duties, Conflict of, 84 
 Duty, 231 
 Dvorak, 130 
 Dynamical, 67, 68, 73 
 
 Eagle, I, 5, 6, 379, 380 
 Eagle, 390 
 
 "Eagles were not so swift," 65 
 "Earnest Clergyman," An, 304, 
 
 308 
 Eat and drink. Let us, 361 
 Eating and proselytising, 81 
 Eating grapes downwards, 98, 
 
 , 99 
 
 'Ecce.Homo" by Cotreggio, 146 
 
 Ecclesiastes, 201, 203 
 
 Eclat, 370 
 
 Editing notes, 215 
 
 Effort of retaining evacuations. 
 
 Effort to live, 358 
 
 Egg, 16, 67, 69, 70, 85, 100, 249, 
 
 272, 291, 363, 390 
 — and hen, 16, 390 
 
 powders, 245 
 
 Eggs do not become clergymen, 
 
 S6 
 — New-laid, 249 
 Ego and non-ego, 321-3 
 Electric light, 242 
 Elementary Morality, 24 et seq. 
 Eliot, George, 160 
 Elmsley Writing to Dr. Butler 
 
 215 
 Elysian plain, 397 
 
Index 
 
 409 
 
 Embankment, Thames, 237, 
 
 238 
 Embryo, 16, 354, 361 
 Emendators of corrupt text, 
 
 286 
 Empire, The Roman, 206-7 
 End, Let me not know mine, 
 
 212 
 —Longing for, 355, 356 
 Endings, 312 
 Endowing science and religion, 
 
 340 
 Energy, An, 76 
 
 Enfant Terrible, The, of litera- 
 ture, 183 ■ 
 England musically-minded, 128 
 Englefield Green, 249, 250 
 English Church abroad, The, 
 
 342 
 — composers. Old, 115 
 — fisherman, 36 
 
 Englishman, A stupid old, 285 
 Englishmen, Italians and, 207 
 Enquiry, Every, pursued with 
 
 passionate longing, 373 
 Entertaining angels, 158 
 — Myself not very, 158 
 Entrails, 330 
 Entuning the sky, 165 
 Ephemeral and Permanent 
 
 Success, 180 et seq. 
 Epiphany, 223 
 Equal temperament. Philosophy 
 
 and, 327 
 Equilibrium, 73, 78, 79 
 Equivocal generation, 72 
 Eremhon, 2, 3, 16, 26, 39 et seq., 
 
 106, 155-8, 161, 186, 187, 252, 
 
 288, 289, 296, 317, 368, 372, 
 
 374) 375 
 — ^The geography of, 288 
 — The Germs of, 39 et seq. 
 — ^the oracle, 26 
 — Dinners, The, 7, 8 
 Eremhon Revisited, 6, 369, 375 
 Material for, 288 et seq. 
 
 Erewhon to be visited by the 
 son of the original writer, 296 
 
 "Erl Konig," 133 
 
 Ernest Pontifex, 115 
 
 Erudite Research, Society for 
 the Repression of, 180 
 
 Eryx, Mount, 5 
 
 Esau, 268 
 
 Essays, A Book of, 368, 369 
 
 Essays, Articles, Stories, Un- 
 written, 229 
 
 Essays on Life, Art and Sci- 
 ence, 5, 6, 369, 376 
 
 Esther, Book of, 201 
 
 Eternal matter and mind, 314 
 
 Ether, Waking up, 68 
 
 "Ethics," Letter signed, 304-8, 
 380 
 
 Etruscan Urns at Volterra, 
 276-9 
 
 Euclid, 330, 331 
 
 Eumaeus and Lord Burleigh, 
 
 195 
 Europe in a blaze, 219 
 Evacuations, 17 
 Evans, R. W., 32 
 Evasive nature, 226 
 Evening Hymn, The, immoral, 
 
 214 
 Evidence, 217, 315, 335 
 Evidence for the Resurrection, 
 
 369, 375 
 Evil, 204, 205, 352 
 Evil One among the birds, An, 
 
 305 
 Evolution, 66, 332, 375 
 Evolution Old and New, 3, 4, 8, 
 
 66, 120, 368, 375 
 Ewe, 390 
 
 Ex nihilo nihil fit, 312, 314 
 Ex Veto, 5, 275, 368, 375 
 Examtiner, 3, 7, 304, 380 
 Examiner's dinner, 291 
 Excellence, Physical, 26 
 Excess, 291 
 Excursion train, 229 
 
4IO 
 
 Index 
 
 Exercise, An Acadanic, 395 
 Exploding, Death wants, 358 
 Expression and existence, 95 
 Extracts from the Note-Books 
 
 of Samuel Butler in the New 
 
 Quarterly, 7 
 Extremes, 315, 316 
 — meet, 25 
 
 Eyck, Van, 98, 99, 149, 153, 256 
 Eye, 138 
 Eyes, 139 
 — like a cow, 233 
 Eynsford, 247 
 
 Faddist, 361 
 
 Fads, Fancies and Theories, 232 
 
 Faesch, Hans Rudolf, 381 
 
 Faido, 263, 271 
 
 Failure of bank's action, 91 
 
 Failure, My, 370-4 
 
 — One form of, 224 
 
 Fair Haven, The, 2, 368, 374, 
 
 375. 382 
 Faith, 315, 330, 331, 336 
 — and Reason, 171, 333 
 — Common Sense and Reason, 
 
 328 
 — Logic and, 330 
 — Sanctified by, 351 
 Faith, the artist's, 171 
 — The test of, 360, 361 
 Faiths and formulae, 307 
 Falsehood, 299-301, 305 
 False love, 395 
 Fame, Posthumous, 360, 361 
 Family, The, 31 
 Family Prayers, 2, 230 
 "Fare you well," 394 
 Farrar, Archdeacon, crossing 
 
 the Channel, 213 
 Farringdon Street, 251 
 Fascination, 268 
 Fashion, 226, 278 
 Fate, 314, 319, 322 
 Father, My, and Shakespeare, 
 
 183 
 
 Father, My, no wish to see him 
 
 again, 32 
 "Father of my poor music — if 
 
 such small," 398 
 — It is a wise tune that knows 
 
 its own, 122 
 Fatigue, Dodging, 27 
 Faust, 258 
 Fear of death, 356 
 Fear-of-giving-themselves-away 
 
 disease, 293 
 Fear of the Lord, 172, 204, 352 
 Feeling, 78-90 
 — Genuine, 185 
 Feline Languages, Professor of, 
 
 289, 290 
 Ferentino, 273 
 Ferrari, 198, 256, 376, 378 
 Fetter Lane, 237 
 Fetish-worship, 325 
 Fiction, The great characters of, 
 
 217 
 Fielding, 191 
 
 Fille de Madame Angot, La, 260 
 Filosofia, La, 264 
 Filter, 280 
 
 Financial difficulties, 3, 4 
 Financier, Gladstone as a, 165 
 Fine Arts, Professorship of, at 
 
 Cambridge, 4 
 Finger-nail, A torn, 63 
 Fingers cut by hard and fast 
 
 lines, 170 
 Fire, 242 
 Firewood, 281 
 First Principles, 309 et seq., 
 
 330, 331 
 First Year in Canterbury Set- 
 tlement, A, I, 288, 369 
 FitzGerald, James Edward, 39, 
 
 41,42 
 Fitzwilliam Museum, 3, 385 
 Five-pound note, 64 
 Five shillings, 347 
 Fixed laws, Atoms and, 72 
 Flatter, Tuning death, 358 
 
Index 
 
 411 
 
 Fleet Street, 237-9 
 
 Flesh, 96, 332 
 
 Flies in the Milk- Jug, 216 
 
 Flint implement, 334 
 
 Flocks, 23, 398 
 
 Floods, 235 
 
 Flowers, Finding, 375 
 
 Flushing, 383, 384 
 
 Fly, The, 305 
 
 Folly, Glacial periods of, 197 
 
 Fore-knowledge of death, 353 
 
 Foraminifera, 230, 266 
 
 Formicomorphise, 266 
 
 Fooling around, 230 
 
 Foolishness and wisdom, 168 
 
 "Forgetting and forgot," 116 
 
 Forgive, We like to, 349 
 
 Forgiveness and Retribution, 
 
 349 
 Forsyth, Mr., 240 
 Fortune, good or 111,223,322, 371 
 Fortunes, 378 
 Foundation, 330 
 — Superstitious, 309 
 Francis, St., 230 
 Freeman, Froude and, 186 
 Freethinker, 315, 352 
 Freethinking Father, 231 
 Free-will, 72, 314, 315, 321, 322 
 — and Necessity, 316 et seq. 
 French town fairs, 345 
 Frenchmen, 207 
 Friends, 359, 364, 371 
 Friendship, 141, 230, 382 
 Froude and Freeman, 186 
 Fugue, 96, 100, 116, 125, 260 
 Fundamental Principles, 351 
 Funerals, 342, 343 
 Furber, 241, 242 
 Fuseli and nature, 138 
 Future, Knowledge of, fatal, 232 
 — and Fast, 220 
 — state. Ameliorating the, 293 
 
 Gadshill and Trapani, 193, 194 
 Gaetano, 234 
 
 Gaining one's point, 348 
 
 Galatea, 398 
 
 Gallows, 318 
 
 Gamp, Mrs., her speech trans- 
 lated into Greek verse, 393 
 
 Garlic, 270, 310 
 
 Garner, Professor, 185 
 
 Garvagh, Madonna, 148 
 
 Gauntlet of Youth, 108 
 
 Gaudenzio Ferrari, 198, 256, 
 376, 378 
 
 Gavottes, Minuets and Fugues, 4 
 
 Gear, Gathering, 388 
 
 General Confession, I cannot 
 repeat it unreservedly, 184 
 
 Generalism, Specialism and, 222 
 
 Generation, Equivocal, 72 
 
 — addressing the next, 159 
 
 Genius, 159, 174 et seq., 259 
 
 — and love, 176 
 
 — and providence, 180 
 
 — and the unkind fairy, 176 
 
 — and the world, 176 
 
 — a nuisance, 180 
 
 Gentleman, 36 
 
 — The Japanese, 245, 246 
 
 Genuine feeling, 185 
 
 George, St. Perseus and, 222 
 
 George I and II, 113 
 
 —IV, 242 
 
 Gerino da Pistoja, 276 
 
 German music; 127, 128 
 
 Germans, 207 
 
 Germs, 272 
 
 — of Erewhon and of Life and 
 Habit, 39 et seq. 
 
 — ^within germs, 70 
 
 Getting on, 372 
 
 Giacalone, Signor Ignazio, 194 
 
 Gig, 281 
 
 Gimignano, S., Siena and, 274-6 
 
 Giorgione, 135, 152 
 
 Giotto, 149, 154 
 
 Girl, My son would probably 
 be a, 366 
 
 Giusti, Giuseppe, 379 
 
412 
 
 Index 
 
 Glacial periods of folly, 197 
 
 Glaciers, Tj 
 
 Gladstone, 165, 212 
 
 Gladstonian, 301 
 
 Glory of God, The, 34 
 
 "Glory of theLord,"Andthe,ii6 
 
 Glory as a test of respecta- 
 bility, 281 
 
 Gnosis, 123 
 
 Goats, 267 
 
 God, 93, 225, 226, 293, 301, 308, 
 309, 314-16, 324-6, 330, 332, 
 334, 337, 339. 34i, 346, ,347, 
 350, 351, 363, 388-90, 394 
 
 — and Convenience, 347 
 
 Flesh, 332 
 
 Life, 332 
 
 Mammon, 24 
 
 ^Man, 33, 94 
 
 Philosophies, 328 
 
 the Devil, 25, 333, 334 
 
 ^the Unknown, 324, 326 
 
 — is Love, 226 
 
 God the Known and God the 
 Unknown, 3, 7 
 
 Gods, 309 
 
 — and Prophets, 333 
 
 God's Laws, 26 
 
 Goethe, 258 
 
 Gogin, Mr. Charles, 2, 4, 5, 100, 
 152, 243, 245, 246, 255 
 
 Gogin, the Japanese Gentleman 
 and the Dead Dog, 245, 246 
 
 Going away, 228 
 
 Gold, 172 
 
 mines, 224 
 
 — ^thread, 146, 147 
 
 Good-breeding, 34, 36 
 
 Good Faith, The limits of, 229 
 
 Good may come. That, 230 
 
 Goodwin, Harvey, Bp. of Car- 
 lisle, 31 
 
 Gopsall, 22 
 
 Gospel of Hellas, The, 389 
 
 Montreal, The, 389 
 
 Gosse, Mr. Edmund, c.b., ll.d., 8 
 
 Gothic woman, 247 
 Gounod-Barnby, 251 
 Gower Street, 266, 251 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 275 
 Grail, Holy, 290 
 Grain, The Isle of, 231 
 Grandfather, My, and myself, 
 
 172, 173 
 
 Grape-filter, 280 
 
 Grapes, Eating them down- 
 wards, 98, 99 
 
 — Sour, 60 
 
 Grass, 324, 325 
 
 Gratitude, 339 
 
 —and Revenge, 340, 341 
 
 Gravel, a tool, 19, 20 
 
 Gravity, 77 
 
 Great art and sham art, 137 
 
 Great Bear, The, 239 
 
 Great Eastern, The, 43 
 
 Great Northern A Shares, 53 
 
 Great Russell St., 326 
 
 Great things, 179 
 
 Great Unknown Source, 352 
 
 Great works, 106 
 
 Greatest men. The world and 
 its, 177 
 
 Greatness, 219 
 
 — in art, 108 
 
 —England's, 343 
 
 Greece, 5, 283 
 
 Greek Art, 388 
 
 Greeks, The, 200-4, 207, 338 
 
 GriiBn, The, 238 
 
 Grosvenor, Hon. Mrs. Richard, 
 
 251 
 Grotta Crimea, 261 
 — del toro, 199 
 Ground-bass, 398 
 Growth, 297 
 
 Grumbling, Saints, 211, 212 
 Guercino, 150 
 Guido, 150 
 
 Guinea-pig review success, 372 
 Gulliver's Travels, 190, 202 
 Gumption, 293 
 
Index 
 
 413 
 
 Gurney, Edmund, 263 
 Gyges, The true, 52 
 
 Haberdasher, Mr. Spurgeon's, 
 
 389 
 
 Habits, Bad, 231 
 
 Habits, On Breaking, 220 
 
 Hack-writer, No chance of be- 
 coming a, 167 
 
 Hades, 343-5 
 
 "Hailstone Chorus," 175 
 
 Hailstones, 397 . 
 
 Hair, 356 
 
 Hallelujah, 65 
 
 "Hallelujah Chorus," The, 115, 
 
 173 
 
 Halter, 327 
 
 Hamlet, 173, 175, 391 
 
 Hamlet, Don Quixote and Mr. 
 Pickwick, 217 
 
 Hammer and lever, 20 
 
 Hampstead 'bus, 244 
 
 Hand, The, 49 
 
 Hands, 49 
 
 Handel, i, 13, 14, 22, 63, loi, 
 1 10-14, 120, 121, 123, 126-8, 
 131-3, 161, 174, 178, 179, 188, 
 192, 252, 259, 263, 299, 357, 
 
 363- 365, 377. 378, 384, 397. 
 
 398 
 — a conservative, 115 
 — and a letter to a solicitor, 119 
 
 Bach, 112 
 
 Dickens, 134 
 
 Dr. Morell, 115 
 
 Ernest Pontifex, 115 
 
 Homer, 112 
 
 humanitarian nonsense, 119 
 
 Madame Patey, 113, 263 
 
 Marriage, 119 
 
 Music, no et seq. 
 
 Shakespeare, 114 
 
 Tennyson, 115 
 
 the British Public, 113 
 
 ^the Speaking Voice, 117 
 
 ^the Wetterhorn, 118 
 
 Handel Festival, At a, 133, 
 
 134 
 Handelian, A Yankee, 114 
 Handel's Commonplaces, 115 
 — Rules for tuning, 128 
 — Shower of rain, 120 
 Handicapped people, 103 
 Hanging, 317, 341 
 Hanging the dead, 365 
 Happiness, 228, 345, 356 
 — The greatest, of the greatest 
 
 number, 294 
 "Hark how the Songsters," 122 
 Harmonics, 303, 315, 358 
 Harmony, 315 
 Harris, Mrs., 393 
 Harrow Weald, 248 
 Harwich, 253 
 Hartman, Von, 3 
 Hartog, Professor Marcus, 7 
 Hate and Love, 83 
 Hating, 216 
 
 Hating, Loving and, 205, 206 
 Haweis, Revd. H. R., 241 
 Haydn, 1 11, 126 
 "He saw the lovely youth," 121 
 Heads, Veiled, 235 
 Health, Good, 370 
 — Money and Reputation, 37 
 Heat, 315 
 
 — and cold relative, 76 
 Heatherley's, 2, 139, 225 
 Heatherley's Holiday, Mr., 3 
 Heaven, 394 
 — and Hell, 35 
 — for wicked people, 290 
 — The Kingdom of, 106, 168, 
 
 169, 363 
 Hebe, 345 
 
 Heckmann Quartet, The, 263 
 Hedge and train, 21 
 Hedging the Cuckoo, 327 
 Heir to a fortune, 344 
 Heligoland, The Archbishop of, 
 
 235 
 Hell-Fire, 343-5 
 
414 
 
 Index 
 
 Hell, Heaven and, 35 
 
 Hellas, The gospel of, 389 
 
 Hen, 16, 249, 390 
 
 Henry IV, 156 
 
 Henry VI, 156 
 
 Herculaneum, 230 
 
 Hercules, 345 
 
 Hercules, 118 
 
 Heredity, 61, 62, 332, 375 
 
 — and Memory, 57, 66 
 
 Heroes, 364 
 
 Hering, Dr. Ewald, of Prague, 
 
 3. 57, 66 
 Hertfordshire, 64 
 Herodotus, 379, 384 
 Hesiod, 316 
 
 "Hey diddle diddle," 266 
 Hicks, Mrs., 247, 248 
 Higgledy-piggledy, 215 et seq., 
 
 230 
 Hindhead, 85 
 Hired, Waiting to be, 194 
 Historical Society of St. John's 
 
 College, Cambridge, 7 
 History, Unsettling, 250 
 Hoare, Henry, 63 et seq. 
 Hobson, 385 
 Hogarth, 188, 326 
 Hokitika Pass, 288 
 Holbein, 107, 235, 378 
 Holbein at Basel, 153 
 — ^A note on his drawing -La 
 
 Danse at Basel, 4 
 Holbein Card, A, 368 
 Holborn, 237 
 — Viaduct Station, 381 
 Holly on Christmas Eve, 61 
 Holy Ghost, The, 160, 172, 175, 348 
 Home, 32 
 Homer, 32, 33, 178, 179, 192, 
 
 260, 278, 363, 366, 378 
 — and the Basins, 254 
 — and his Commentators, 196 
 — Handel and, 112 
 Homer's Hot and Cold Springs, 
 
 283-7 
 
 Homeric Verse, 380, 393 
 I'Homme, le Style c'est, I07_ 
 Homoeopathy, British Associa- 
 tion of, 7 
 Homo Unius Libri, The Posi- 
 tion of a, 15s et seq. 
 Honesty, 122 
 — a low virtue, 162 
 Honour after death, 174 
 — "ceaseth," 316, 390 
 Honour, Codes of, 93 
 Honours, Posthumous, 367 
 Hoo, the Hundred of, 231 
 Hoodwinking the Public, 162 
 Hooghe, De, 153, 179, 188, 235, 
 
 256 
 Hoopoes, 283 
 Hope, Doubt and, 369, 370 
 — Conceit left in the box as 
 
 well as, 170 
 Horace, 48, 201, 207 
 — at the Post Office in Rome, 
 
 262 
 Horse, 390 
 
 Hot and Cold Springs, 283-7 
 Housemaid, Moliere's, 109 
 Hudibras, 157, 159 
 Human wishes. The vanity of, 
 
 219 
 Humanitarian nonsense, 119 
 Humanity, Types of rich and 
 
 poor, 51, 52 
 Humming-bird, 391 
 Humour, 11, 165, 291, 309 
 —My, 166 
 "Humour of Homer," The, S, 
 
 25s 
 Humour, Unconscious, and 
 
 Dickens, 32 
 — Unconscious, Myself and, 166 
 Hundred, a, years hence, 
 
 Writing for, 109 
 Hungarian music, 127, 128 
 Hutton, Richard Holt, 380 
 Huxley, 232, 339 
 Hyam, Mr., 241 
 
Index 
 
 415 
 
 Hybrids, their sterility, 66 
 
 Hyde Park, 243 
 
 Hydra, loi 
 
 Hydrogen, yj 
 
 Hymn, The Evening, immoral, 
 
 214 
 Hymns, 251 
 Hypocrisy, Cant and, 341 
 
 Ice, 179, 329 
 Ichthyosauri, 48 
 Ida, Mount, 283 
 Ideas, Cat and Mouse-, 216 
 — Incoherency of New, 216 
 — New, 106, 216 
 ' — Our, 216 
 
 — our. Baselessness of, 309, 310 
 — shadows, 95 
 — Words and, 65 
 Identity, 54, 60, 210 
 —Continued, 353-5 
 — Personal, 375 
 Idle Apprentice and Virtuous, 
 
 326 
 Idle classes, 335 
 Idyll, An, 233 
 Ightham Mote, 250 
 Ignorance, 339 
 — of Death, 356 
 — the basis of Knowledge, 57 
 Ignotius complex, 327 
 Ignotum simplex, 327 
 Iliad, The, 5, 6, 173-5, 185, 186, 
 
 196, 254, 255, 277, 376, 377, 
 
 380 
 Iliad in English Prose, The, 6, 
 
 368 
 Ilium and Padua, 195 
 Ill-used, 371 
 Illusion, 229, 323, 357 
 Image, God in man's own, 309 
 Imaginary Countries, 105 
 —Worlds, 232 
 Imagination, 310, 312 
 Imaum, 285 
 Immorality, 230 
 
 Immorality, Change and, 29 
 
 Immortal to oneself, 357 
 
 Immortality, 14, 362 
 
 — A good average three-score 
 years and ten of, 14 
 
 Immune to poverty, 225 
 
 Immutable law, 322 
 
 Imperfect Lady, The, 273 
 
 Imperfection, Counsels of, 24 
 
 Importances, Relative, 97, 100 
 
 Impression, A residuary, 273 
 
 Impressionism, 153 
 
 Improvement in Art, 139, 140 
 
 Improvidence, 322 
 
 Improvidence, Providence and, 
 223 
 
 "In sweetest harmony," 65 
 
 Inaccuracy, 300, 349 
 
 Inarticulate Touches, 137 
 
 Incense across the dining-room 
 table, 274 
 
 Increateness of Matter, 314 
 
 Increment of knowledge, 312 
 
 Incoherency of New Ideas, 216 
 
 Incomprehensibles, Two, 323, 
 324 
 
 Indifference to death unde- 
 sirable, 214 
 
 Indigestion, 82 
 
 Individual, 358 
 
 — The, and the race, 15 
 
 — The, and the world, antago- 
 nism between, 12 
 
 Individuality, 319 
 
 Infamy after death. Unde- 
 served, 361 
 
 Influence, Moral, 81 
 
 Influenza, Severe, 75 
 
 Ingenuity, 305 
 
 In Memoriam, 263 
 
 "In Memoriam to H. R. P.," 
 
 393-S 
 Innocents, Massacre of, 270 
 Inoculation, 227 
 
 Inorganic, Organic and, 19, 77-8 
 Inscription on chapel, 341 
 
4i6 
 
 Index 
 
 Inspiration, 179 
 Instinct, 266 
 Insults, Fancied, 61 
 Intellectual Rattlesnake, 268 
 - Self-indulgence, 27 
 Intelligence, "JT, 78 
 — The, Omnipresence of, ^^ 
 Intentions of parties to a deed, 
 
 96 
 Intoxication, 343 
 Introduction of Foreign Plants, 
 
 281 
 Intuition, 315 
 Ionian mode, 129 
 Iphis, 398 
 
 Irreligionof Orthodoxy, The,35o 
 Irving, Washington, 265 
 "Is," 31S 
 "Is not," 315 
 Isaac, 231 
 Ishmael, 231 
 Ismail Gusbashi, 283-7 
 Italian peasant, 36 
 — Priesthood, On the, 379 
 Italians and Englishmen, 207 
 — The, 207 
 
 — 'The early composers, 115, 127 
 Italian trips, 371 
 Italy, I, 2, III, 342 
 Ithaca, 5 
 Ivanhoe, 279 
 Ivy Hatch, 311 
 Ivy on Christmas Eve, 61 
 
 Japanese Gentleman, The, 245, 
 
 246 
 Jephtha, 120 
 
 Jesus Christ, 341, 352, 375 
 Jewels in pictures, 147 
 Jews, The, 200-4 
 — The return of the, 239 
 Jig in G. Minor, Handel's, loi 
 Job, 202-4 
 Johnians, 384, 385 
 John's, St., College, Cambridge, 
 
 I, 3. 6» 7. 379 
 
 Joining, 21 
 
 Jones, Henry Festing, 3, 4. S> 
 7, 8, 65, 114, 121, 132, 133, 
 153. 219, 237, 239, 246, 250, 
 
 253, 376 
 
 Jones, Tom, 364 
 
 Jones, Tom, 202 
 
 Jordan, 398 
 
 Joseph Andrews, 190 
 
 Joshua, 120 
 
 Journal of Philology, 195 
 
 Jove, 345 
 
 Jubilee Sixpence, 130 
 
 Judas Maccdbaus, 117, 118, 
 120 
 
 Judging the Dead, 365 
 
 Juggles, Words are, 95 
 
 Juices, Gastric, lose their co- 
 gent fluency, 82 
 
 Jumping Cat, The, 339 
 
 Jupiter, 338 
 
 Jupp, Mrs., 364 
 
 Justice, 301, 340 
 
 Justifiable baby-getting, 289 
 
 Jutes, 350 
 
 Jutland and "Waitee," 350 
 
 Karma, Squaring the account, 
 
 15 
 "Karma," Three Sonnets, 396 
 Kemp, Mr., 131, J53 
 Ken, Bishop, 214 
 Kensington Gore, 243 
 Kensington (South) Art 
 
 Schools, 2 
 Kerr, Miss Grainger, 7 
 Khartoum, Sack of, 244 
 Kindliness, 352 
 Kindly disposition. A, 331 
 Kindness, 299 
 Kinetic theory, 376 
 Kingdom of Heaven, The, 106, 
 
 168, 169, 363 
 Kingdom, The Super-Organic, 
 
 78 
 Kingdom, The Unseen, 320 
 
Index 
 
 417 
 
 Kingdoms, The mineral, vege- 
 table, animal, mechanical, 43 
 
 King's College Chapel, 385 
 
 King's Cross, 251 
 
 King's Parade, 385 
 
 Kingsleys, Drivel from one of 
 the, 34 
 
 Kitchen-maid, Croesus and his, 
 '89-92 
 
 Kitten, Naming, 108 
 
 Knife, 285 
 
 — and string, 21 
 
 Knives and forks, 99 
 
 Know, Trying to, 160 
 
 Knowing what gives us Plea- 
 sure, 207-9 
 
 Knowledge, 312 
 
 — ^based on ignorance, 57 
 
 — is Power, 102 
 
 Known from the Unknown, 
 The, 346 
 
 Kosmos, 309 
 
 Krause, Dr., 3 
 
 L. & N.W. Railway, Christ and 
 the, 339 
 
 Lady, An aged, 392 
 
 Lady Critic, A, 156 
 
 Lady getting photographed and 
 why, 163 
 
 Lady, The Imperfect, 273 
 
 Ladywell, 260 
 
 Lamarck, 3, 378 
 
 Lamb, 390 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 166, 197 
 
 Langar, i, 260 
 
 Langton, Robert, 32 
 
 Language, 65 
 
 Lark, 391 
 
 Larken, Mr. E. P., 236 
 
 Last Supper, 257 
 
 Latham, Revd. Henry, 253 
 
 Laundress, My, 313 
 
 Law Courts, 341 
 
 Law, The written and the un- 
 written, 9S 
 
 Lawrence, Gulf of St., 269 
 
 Laws of God, 26 
 
 Lawson, Marmaduke, 364 
 
 Lawyers, 339 
 
 Lay-figure, The model and the, 
 
 136, 137 
 
 Layard, Sir Henry, 370 
 
 Lazarus, 362 
 
 Learning, 102-5 
 
 Leather Lane, 237 
 
 Leave-taking, 228 
 
 Legs, Manzi's too hairy, 245 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 257, 376, 
 378 
 
 Lethe, 358 
 
 Letter, A, and a nervous sys- 
 tem, 85 
 
 — to a solicitor, Handel and a, 
 119, 120 
 
 Letters, 364 
 
 Leventina, Val, 271, 350 
 
 Lever, 20, 43 
 
 Leverrier, 313 
 
 Lex, De minimis non curat, 
 209 
 
 Liar, The good, made, not born, 
 
 305 . 
 Liberalism and conservatism, 
 
 340 
 Lie, An absolute, 299 
 Lies, 301 
 Life, 10, II, IS, 315, 318, 323, 
 
 332, 354-6, 362, 384 
 — ^A means of prolonging, 229 
 — ^A short, and a merry one 
 
 aimed at, 14 
 —after death, 13, 23, 383, 397, 
 
 398 
 —an art, 351, 352 
 —and Death, 93, 355 
 Life and Habit, 3, 8, 30, 35, 39 
 
 et seg., 41, 66, 71, 84, 156, 
 
 157, 166, 185, 186, 225, 249, 
 
 25o> 337, 368, 372 
 The Germs of Erewhon 
 
 and of, 39 et seq. 
 
4i8 
 
 Index 
 
 Life and Letters of Dr. Butler, 
 5, 10, 215, 364, 368, 374, 377 
 
 Life and Love, 227 
 
 — ^beyond the grave, 13 
 
 — easier got than kept, 141 
 
 — God and, 332 
 
 — in death, 76 
 
 — in others, 13 
 
 — is it virorth living? 17 
 
 — My squandered, 13 
 
 — My, the extremes of plea- 
 sure and pain, 13 
 
 — ^My virtuous, 28 
 
 — now an equation of only 99 
 unknown quantities, 57 
 
 Life of books. The, 106 
 
 — of the World to Come, The, 
 229, 360 et seq. 
 
 — Posthumous, 358 
 
 —The Rules of, 11, 351, 352 
 
 — The truest, 361, 362 
 
 Light and Shade, 140, 328 
 
 — The Dim Religious, 338 
 
 Limbs, Extracorporaneous, 50, 
 
 51 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, 237 
 Lines, Hard-and-fast, cut, 170 
 "Lips of living men," 397 
 Literary Man's Test, A, 109 
 — Power, 108 
 — Sketch-Book, 237 
 Literature and Article-dealing, 
 
 170 
 — Difficulties in, 102, 104 
 — Emotion not words, 96 
 — Many mansions in the king- 
 dom of, 181 
 —The Enfant Terrible of, 183 
 — useful and useless, 173 
 Living and non-living, 71 
 — in others is the true life, 15 
 Litigation, 338, 339 
 Lizards, 11 
 
 "Loathsome Urns," 116 
 Logic, 329-31, 333, 346 
 — and Faith, 330 
 
 Logic and Philosophy, 329 
 Lohengrin, 35 
 Lohengrin, 263 
 Lombard portals, 152 
 London, 3, 161, 237, 342 
 — Trees, 238 
 London wall. A, 142 
 Longden, Mrs., no 
 Longevity, 66 
 Longfellow, 226 
 Lord of the Isles, 262 
 Lord's Prayer, The, 349 
 Lord, And the Glory of the, 
 
 116 
 Lord, The, bringing two of his 
 
 children, 134 
 — The Fear of the, 172, 204, 
 
 352 
 — The voice of the, 348 
 — What is Man? 9 et seq. 
 Loredano Loredani, 258 
 Losing cats, 238 
 "Lost Chord," The, 280 
 Louis XVI, 260 
 Love, 226, 332 
 — and Hate, 83 
 — and Life, 227 
 — cut short by death, 359, 
 
 381 
 — dried up and withered, 359, 
 
 381. 
 — Genius and, 176 
 — God is, 226 
 — not blighted by death, 359, 
 
 381 
 
 shop. The, 206 
 
 Lovers, Two, 395 
 
 Loving and Hating, 205, 206 
 
 Loving God, 33 
 
 Lucifer, 25 
 
 Luck, 315, 319, 320, 322, 323, 
 
 370 
 — and Success, 181 
 Luck or Cunning? 4, 66, 173, 
 
 368, 375, 376 
 Lucky and Unlucky, 220 
 
Index 
 
 M9 
 
 "Lucubratio Ebria," 2, 8, 39, 41, 
 
 47 et seq. 
 Lugano, 131 
 Luino, Bernardino, 131 
 Lute, The little rift within the, 
 
 16 
 Lydian mode, 129 
 Lying, 300. 304, 308 
 — Dissertation on, 304 
 
 Macbeth witch, 248 
 
 MacCarthy, Mr. IDesmond, 6, 7 
 
 McCormick, Revd. Canon Jo- 
 seph, D.D., 379 
 
 McCuUoch, 119, 229 
 
 Machines, 45-7, 50 
 
 Madingley, 387 
 
 Madonna, 230, 334 
 
 — ^Ansidei, 145-51 
 
 — di S. Sisto, 257 
 
 — Garvagh, 148 
 
 Magazines, The West-End, 181 
 
 Magdalene, Mary, 228 
 
 Mahomedan, The, 337 
 
 Maid, My books' mother's, 366 
 
 Maigre, Dining, 255, 256 
 
 Mairengo, 271 
 
 Maitland, Mr. J. A. Fuller, 7 
 
 Makeshifts, 20 
 
 Making notes, 100, loi 
 
 Making of Music, Pictures and 
 Books, On the, 93 et seq. 
 
 — Literature, Music and Pic- 
 tures, Rules for, 96, 97 
 
 Mamma, Does she know ? 243 
 
 Man, 9, 10, so, 361 
 
 — and his Organism, 18 
 
 — a tool-box, 18, 86 
 
 — domesticated by machines, 
 
 45 
 — God and, 33 
 "Man in Vain," 122 
 Man, Lord, what isl g et seq. 
 — shot out of a cannon, 78 
 — The, behind the words, 94 
 Manners Makyth Man, 228 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, 255 
 
 Man's Place in Nature, 31 
 
 Manzi, the model, 245 
 
 Marbot, 186 
 
 Mares'-Nests, My, 377 
 
 Market Square, 385 
 
 Marriage, 227, 341 
 
 —and the Turk, 285 
 
 — Handel and, 1,19 
 
 — of Inconvenience, 230 
 
 — Offers of, 227 
 
 Marrying and regretting, 284 
 
 Martin Chusslewit, 380, 393 
 
 Mary, The Great Saint, 385 
 
 — Magdalene, 228 
 
 — Where's my? 311 
 
 Masterpieces, 292 
 
 Masters, the old, and their pu- 
 pils, 135 
 
 Match-box, 286 
 
 Material for' Erewhon Revis- 
 ited, 288 et seq. 
 
 — for a projected Sequel to Alps 
 and Sanctuaries, 259 et seq. 
 
 Matter, 67, 68, 73 
 
 Matter, Mind and, 74 et seq. 
 
 — Opinion and, 80 
 
 — Subdivisible, 82 
 
 Maximum, 209, 299 
 
 "May he be damned for ever- 
 more," 392 
 
 Meanness, Vices of, 34 
 
 Meannesses of Virtue, 34 
 
 Meat-eating, 197 
 
 "Mecsenas," 262 
 
 Mechanical life, kingdom, 
 world, 43 
 
 Mediocrity, 187, 188 
 
 Me-e-at, 65 
 
 Megalanthrope, 309 
 
 Melchisedec, 33 
 
 MiWovTa ToOra, 397 
 
 Member of Parliament, 314 
 
 Memnon, 244 
 
 Memoriam, In, 263 
 
 Memoriam, In, To H.R.F., 393 
 
420 
 
 Index 
 
 Memory, 61, 62, 69, 71, 312, 
 
 332, 375 
 
 — a way, an echo, 58 
 
 — and Design, 56 et seq. 
 
 — and heredity, 57, 66 
 
 — and Mistakes, 62, 63 
 
 — and Rhythm, 58 
 
 — and Viscosity, 58 
 
 "Memory as a Key to the Phe- 
 nomena of Heredity," 56 
 
 "Memory as a Universal Func- 
 tion of organised matter," 66 
 
 Memory of a love cut short by 
 death, 359, 381 
 
 — Reproduction and, 59 
 
 — Shocks and, 60 
 
 — Slipshod, 306 
 
 — The physics of, 66 
 
 — Unconscious, 59 
 
 Men and Monkeys, 185 
 
 — and Women, 226 
 
 Men of Science, 219 
 
 Mend ele Jeff's Law, 66 
 
 Mendelssohn, no, 115, 149, 150, 
 258, 261 
 
 " 'Men's work we have,' quoth 
 one, 'but we want them,' " 
 396 
 
 Mental and Physical, 69 
 
 — and Physical pabulum, 81 
 
 Mental Evolution in Animals, 4 
 
 Mental stomachs. Our, 310 
 
 — Suffering, 370 
 
 Men, The finest, 36 
 
 Meo, Gaetano, 114 
 
 Mercy, 307, 361 
 
 Meredith, George, 185, 186 
 
 Merian, Baron, 364 
 
 Mesopotamia, 288 
 
 Messiah, 22, 114, 116, 173, 259, 
 380 
 
 Metaphysics, 266 
 
 Meteorological Observatory, 
 282, 283 
 
 Metsu, 99, 100 
 
 Michael Angelo, 324 
 
 Michael, S., 224 
 
 Microbe of knowledge, 204 
 
 Microcosm, 309 
 
 Middleman of mind, 364 
 
 Middle way, The, 331 
 
 Mieris, van, 99 
 
 Mikado, The, 131 
 
 Militant, 374 
 
 Milk, 261, 285 
 
 Milk-Jug, Flies in the, 216 
 
 Milkman, 238 
 
 Millet, 259 
 
 Mills, Joanna, 364 
 
 Mind, 67, 68, 73 
 
 — and Matter, 74 et seq. 
 
 — ^An Open, 300 
 
 Minerva, 338 
 
 Miniature, Painting with mop, 
 
 94 
 
 Minimis, De, non curat lex, 
 209-11 
 
 — ■ — non curat Veritas, 299 
 
 Minimum, 209, 299 
 
 Minority and Majority, 290 
 
 Minus nothing, 316 
 
 Miracle of forming opinion, 163 
 
 — of nothings forming some- 
 thing, 210 
 
 Miracles, 335-7, 340 
 
 "Miraculous Draught of 
 Fishes," 276 
 
 Mischief, Professor of, 291 
 
 Mischievous devil, 226 
 
 Misery, 345 
 
 Misrepresentation, 366, 367, 
 
 369 
 
 Missionaries, 335 
 Missolonghi, 244 
 Mistakes, Memory and, 62, 63 
 — The Power to Make, y^ 
 Mistress, The Happy, 231 
 Misunderstanding, Human, 229 
 Mixo-Lydian mode, 129 
 Mnemosyne, 358 
 Model, The, and the Lay-Fig- 
 ure, 136, 137 
 
Index 
 
 421 
 
 Moderns and Ancients, 193 
 Modern Simony, 172 
 Modes, The ecclesiastical, 129 
 Modest competency. Vows of, 
 
 290 
 Modification, Descent with, 55 
 Moliere and his housemaid, 109 
 Money, 31, 36, 142, 221, 365 
 — an Art, 277 
 — and technique, 139 
 Money and the arts, 171, 172 
 — and words, 95 
 — ^Art and Relieion, 229 
 — Coins potential, 95 
 — difficulty, 371 
 
 doctor, 37 
 
 — easier made than kept, 141 
 — Health and Reputation, 37 
 —Tying up, 360 
 Monkey and stick, 49 
 Monkeys, Men and, 185 
 Mont S. Michel, 371 
 Monte-Carlo, 334 
 Monte Generoso, 270 
 Monteverde, 129 
 Month of heaven and month of 
 
 hell before birth, 289 
 Montreal, 269, 388 
 —A Psalm oi, 3, 4, 6, 379, 388 
 — The gospel of, 389 
 Montreuil-sur-Mer, 258 
 Moon, The Cuckoo and the, 337 
 Moor Park, 252 
 Moorhouse, William Sefton, 
 
 311. 312 
 Moral Government before man, 
 
 48 
 —guilt, 366 
 — influence, 81 
 Moral Merit, 366 
 — Responsibility, 317 
 — Try-Your-Strengths, 184 
 Morality, 358 
 
 — Absolute, is stagnation, 176 
 — and pleasure, 29 
 — Elementary, 24 et seq. 
 
 Morality, its foundation and su- 
 perstructure, 24 
 
 — The Christian, 25 
 
 Morell, Dr., Handel and, 115 
 
 Mores, 29 
 
 Moritz, St., 260 
 
 Moses, 224 
 
 Moszkowski, 132 
 
 Mother, My son's, 366 
 
 Mother's maid. My books', 366 
 
 Motion, 74, 76 
 
 Mountain, 336 
 
 Mount, God's, 341 
 
 Mouse-Ideas, Cat-Ideas and, 
 216 
 
 Mouse in the Milk-Jug, 216 
 
 Mozart, ill, 123, 126, 132, 252 
 
 M.S., My, 184, 187 
 
 Mudie, Mr., 202 
 
 Muller, 263 
 
 Multitude, 84, 310 
 
 Murder, 268, 269, 292, 317 
 
 Murray, Mr. John, 10 
 
 Museum. See British Museum 
 
 — of Natural History, Mont- 
 real, 388 
 
 Music, 4, II, 107, no et seq., 
 129, 357. 392, 398 
 
 — Borrowing or appropriating, 
 299 
 
 ^Chapters in, 130, 131 
 
 — DiflSculties in, 102 
 
 — Emotion, not notes, 96 
 
 — Handel and, no et seq. 
 
 — How to know whether you 
 are enjoying, 209 
 
 — On Borrowing in, 123 et 
 seq. 
 
 — Pictures and Books, On the 
 making of, 93 et seq. 
 
 — ^Rules for, 96, 97 
 
 — Untuning or entuning the sky, 
 
 165 
 — useless, 173 
 — Writing, 372 
 Musical Criticism, 123, 130 
 
422 
 
 Index 
 
 Musician, Only a . professional, 
 unable to understand Handel, 
 
 115 
 Mustard-seed, 336 
 Mutton and sheep, 279 
 My work, 374-8 
 Myself, 183 
 
 — a disappointing person, 158 
 Myself and my books, 158 et 
 
 seq., 366 
 — and my publishers, 166 
 — and "Unconscious Humour," 
 
 166 
 — in Dowfe's Shop, 240 
 — in love with beautiful young 
 
 lady, 284 
 — My grandfather and, 172, 
 
 173 
 
 — Nausicaa and, 193 
 
 — no special ability, no connec- 
 tions, 369 
 
 — Triibner and, 155 et seq. 
 
 — unpopular, 372 
 
 Mythology, The Christian, 348 
 
 Narcissus, 5, 112, 131, 176, 371, 
 
 Z77, 380, 392, 398 
 National Gallery, 243, 256 
 — Portrait Gallery, 5 
 Natural Selection, 289 
 Nature, 235 
 — Beauties of, 270 
 —does not run smooth, 143 
 — evasive, 226 
 
 — like Herbert Spencer, 138 
 — mediocre, 12 
 -^Putting salt on her tail, 
 
 137 
 — Sketching from, 137 
 — Studying from, 136 
 — Truths from, 138 
 —Touch of, 185 
 —The Unity of, 88, 89 
 — The Works of, 220 
 Nature's Double Falsehood, 
 
 301 
 
 Nausicaa, 194 
 
 — and Myself, 193 
 
 Nay, 295 
 
 Necessity, 72, 315, 321, 322 
 
 — Free-will and, 316 et seq. 
 
 Neglect, 366, 367 
 
 Negri, Cavaliere Avvocato, 270, 
 
 350 
 Nelson, 199 
 Neptune (the god), 254; (the 
 
 planet), 313 
 Nero, 365 
 Nerves, 79 
 — and Postmen, 85 
 New Ideas, 106 
 New Quarterly, 7, 251 
 New Testament, 338, 339 
 New Zealand, i, 8, 21, 39, 63, 
 
 99, 213, 250, 268, 270, 271, 
 
 283 
 Newland's Law, 66 
 Newman, Cardinal, 186, 187 
 Newspapers, 291, 292 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 344, 345 
 Nice people, 391 
 Nicholas Nickleby, Telemachus 
 
 and, 193 
 Night, 315 
 
 Shirts and Babies, 85, 86 
 
 Nihilism, 219 
 
 Nihilo, Ex, nihil fit, 312, 314 
 
 Nile, The Battle ofthe, 278 
 
 Niobean folds, 269 
 
 Noise, Making, 373 
 
 Non-Ego, Ego and, 321 
 
 Non-living and living, 71 
 
 Non Omnis Moriar, 355 
 
 Nonsense, 72, 75, 328 
 
 — Humanitarian, 119 
 
 Norman fisherman, 36 
 
 "Not on sad Stygian shore," 
 
 397 
 
 Note-Books of Samuel Butler, 
 The, Extracts from, in the 
 New Quarterly Review, 7 
 
 Notes, 363 
 
Index 
 
 423 
 
 Notes, an author the worst per- 
 son to edit or even to write 
 his own, 215 
 
 — Making, 100, loi 
 
 — These, 261 
 
 Nothing, 310, 312, 314, 316 
 
 Notoriety, 373 
 
 Nuremberg, 258 
 
 Obliteration of the Past, 293 
 
 Obscurity, 366, 367 
 
 — after death, 291 
 
 Observation, 363 
 
 "O Critics, cultured Critics!" 
 
 391 
 Occasions Supreme, 268, 269 
 Octogenarian, 354 
 Gde for S. Cecilia's Day, 165 
 "Odour of defencefulness," 390 
 Odyssey, The, 5, 173, 192-9, 
 
 254, 277, 302, 369, 376-8, 
 
 380 
 — Homer's, 32 
 — Rendered into English Prose, 
 
 The, 6, 369 
 — The, and a Tomb at Carcas- 
 sonne, 198 
 — The, Bunyan and, 191 
 — The, a corpse to all who need 
 
 Lang's translation, 197 
 — The, written by a woman, 
 
 198 
 Offers of Marriage, 227 
 Oil and Water, 210 
 Old age, 66 
 Old Masters, The, and their 
 
 pupils, 135 
 Olympus, Mount, 345 
 Omission in art, 97, 100, loi 
 Omnibus, Studying faces in, 
 
 137 
 Omnipresence of Intelligence, 
 
 77 
 
 Omnium gatherum, 10 
 
 On the Making of Music, Pic- 
 tures and Books, 93 et seq. 
 
 Oneself, 357 
 
 Opera, At the, 131 
 
 — Grand, 131 
 
 — Italian, 131 
 
 Opinion, 335 
 
 —and matter, 80 
 
 — heredity or post-natal, 321 
 
 — Public, 108, 261 
 
 Opinion, The Art of propagat- 
 ing, 164 
 
 Opinions kept in the back- 
 ground, 294, 29s 
 
 Oppenheims, 239 
 
 Opposite, Its, lurks in every- 
 thing, 58, 59 
 
 Opposites, 76, 297 
 
 Oracle in Erewhon, 26 
 
 Orchestra, The world an, 134 
 
 Orchid, 305 
 
 Organic and inorganic, 19, yj- 
 80 
 
 Organism, Our, 86 
 
 Organs and Makeshifts, 20 
 
 — and tools. Analogies between, 
 
 375 
 —Our, 321, 336 
 Origin of Life, 48 
 Origin of Species, The, I, 8, 39- 
 
 41 
 Originality, 292 
 "Origine Siciliana dell' Odis- 
 
 sea," 5 
 Oropa, 282 
 Orphan, A born, 33 
 Orthodoxy, The Irreligion of, 
 
 350 
 Othello, Providence and, 223 
 Ourselves and the Clergy, 351 
 "Out, out into the night," 
 
 393 
 
 Ova, spermatozoa and embryos 
 think almost identically, 16 
 
 Over-work, 26 
 
 Ovum, Impregnate, 54 
 
 "Owen John Pickard" (pseudo- 
 nym), 2 
 
424 
 
 Index 
 
 "Owen William Bickersteth," 
 his supposed brother, 2 
 
 Owl, Stuffed, 388 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge, 222 
 
 Oxygen, 77 
 
 Oystefj Who would want to 
 kiss an? 205 
 
 Pabulum, Mental and physical, 
 81 
 
 Padua, Ilium and, 195 
 
 Pagani's Restaurant, 7, 8 
 
 Pain, 345, 366 
 
 — felt by another, 295 
 
 Painter, The, an artist, not 
 merely a mirror, 143 
 
 Painter, The Moral, 235 
 
 Painter, The young, puzzling 
 him, 140 
 
 Painter's, A, Views on Paint- 
 ing, 13s et seq. 
 
 Painting, 107 
 
 — ^A Painter's Views on, 135 
 et seq. 
 
 — an epitomising of nature, 
 141 
 
 — and Association, 138 
 
 — emotion, not forms or col- 
 ours, 96 
 
 Painting, useless, 173 
 
 Palestine, The Return of the 
 Jews to, 239 
 
 Palestrina, 113 
 
 Pall Mall Magazine, 236 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette, The Homeric 
 Deity and the, 33 
 
 Pancras, St., bells, 246 
 
 Pandora, 170 
 
 Pangenesis, 70 
 
 Pantomime, 260 
 
 Pants, 389 
 
 Parables, The, 350 
 
 Paracca, Giovanni Antonio, 376, 
 378 
 
 Paralysis (Handel), 113, (Ma- 
 dame Patey), 114 
 
 Parrots, 259 
 
 Parry, John, 255 
 
 Parsee, A patient, 255 
 
 Parsifal, 123 
 
 Past, Future and, 220 
 
 — Society for Burial of the, 
 180 
 
 Pater, Walter, 184 
 
 Patey, Madame, 113, 114, 263 
 
 "Patiently," 290 
 
 Paul, S., 190, 316, 325 
 
 Pauli, Charles Paine, 2, 3, 6 
 
 Paul's, St., 70, 199, 267 
 
 Pea in boot, 349 
 
 Peace at the last, 361 
 
 — The, that passeth understand- 
 ing, 338 
 
 Pear's Soap, 209 
 
 Peas, Shelling, 343 
 
 Pecksniff, 393 
 
 Peculiar People, The, 337 
 
 Pedals or drones, 225 
 
 People, Nice, 391 
 
 — The Peculiar, 337 
 
 Permanent Success, Ephemeral 
 and, 180 et seq. 
 
 Persecution, 82 
 
 Perseus and Andromeda, 225 
 
 — and St. George, 222 
 
 Persistence, 315 
 
 Person, Myself a Disappoint- 
 ing, 158 
 
 Personal Identity, 60, 375 
 
 Personality, Double, 235 
 
 — The, of the Author, 107 
 
 Personified Science, 339 
 
 Peterborough, 250, 251 
 
 Petrie, Mr. Flinders, 370 
 
 Pharisaism, 20i 
 
 Philharmonic Concert, At a, 
 132 
 
 Philippians, 162 
 
 Phillips, Mr., 343 
 
 "Philosophic Dialogue on the 
 Origin of Species," i, 39-41 
 
 Philosophic mind, A truly, 46 
 
Index 
 
 425 
 
 Philosopher, The, 169 
 
 Philosopher's Stone, 358 
 
 Philosophies, God and, 328 
 
 Philosophy, 327 
 
 — Common Sense and, 330 
 
 — Logic and, 329 
 
 "Philosophy of the Uncon- 
 scious," 3 
 
 Photographed, Why a lady gets, 
 163 
 
 Photographer in every bush, 
 214 
 
 Photographer's nature, 214 
 
 Photographs at Herculaneum, 
 230 
 
 — of people in shop-windows, 
 206 
 
 Photography, 4 
 
 Phrygian mode, 129 
 
 Physical and Spiritual, 96 
 
 — Excellence, 26 
 
 — Mental and, 69 
 
 — pabulum, Mental and, 81 
 
 Piano-playing unconsciously, 53 
 
 — Well-tuned, 300 
 
 Piccolomini, 282 
 
 Pickwick, Mr., Hamlet, Don 
 Quixote and, 217 
 
 Picture, 396 
 
 Pictures, 357 
 
 Pictures, On the making of Mu- 
 sic, Books and, 93 et seq. 
 
 — Rules for, 96, g? 
 
 Pienza, 282, 283 
 
 Pigs, 252 
 
 Pilate, 307 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, The, 188 et 
 ^eq., 193. 202 
 
 Pinturicchio, 275 
 
 Piora, 272, 273 
 
 Pipe, Tobacco, 47 
 
 Pitt Press, 385 
 
 Planets, 313 
 
 Plants, Introduction of Foreign, 
 281 
 
 Plants, understanding, 77 
 
 Plato, 150, i86 
 
 Piatt, Mr. Arthur, 195, 377 
 
 Play, 396 
 
 Pleasure, 345 
 
 — Morality and, 29 
 
 Pleasure, On Knowing What 
 
 Gives, 154, 207-9, 331 
 —With, n8 
 Plot, 131 
 Plover, 305, 306 
 Plus nothing, 316 
 Podging, 264 
 Poem, A rhymed, should not 
 
 exceed a sonnet in length, 
 
 192 
 Poems, 379 et seq. 
 Poetry, 192, 193, 266 
 — better kept short, 197 
 Poets, The, 225 
 Poggibonsi, 275, 276 
 Pogni, Ulisse, 275 
 Poins, 178 
 
 Point, Gaining one's, 348 
 Points of View, Two, 297 
 Pollaiuolo, School of, 146 
 Pomposities of virtue, 28 
 Pontifex, Alethea and Miss 
 
 Savage, 2 
 — Ernest, 115 
 Poor, 306 316 
 Pope, The, 260 
 Populus Vult, 184 
 Porpoise, The Contented, 231 
 Portland Road, 251 
 Portraits, 107 
 Portraits of S. Butler, 3, 5 
 Position, The, of a Homo Unius 
 
 Libri, 155 et seq. 
 Possessing one's soul in peace, 
 
 361 
 Post Office, 286 
 — in Rome, 262 
 Postmen, nerves and, 85 
 Posterity, 362 
 Posthumous Honours, 367 
 —Life, 360, 363 
 
426 
 
 Index 
 
 Posthumous Recognition, 367 
 Pot-boiler, The Complete, 230 
 Potato-shoot, 54 
 Poverty, 225, 315 
 Power, Knowledge is, 102 
 — Literary, 108 
 — to make mistakes, JJ 
 Praise, 397 
 Prayer, 212-14 
 — The Lord's 349 
 "Prayer," A, 395 
 Prayer-book, 251 
 Prayers, Family, 2, 230 
 — How I shed mine, 213 
 Praying for rain, 326 
 Preachers, Street, 222 
 Preface to Vol. II (of Note- 
 Books), 215 
 Pre-lethal life, 363 
 Preparation for death, 362 
 Prescription, Eating doctor's, 
 
 311 
 Press, The, N.Z., i, 2, 8, 39-41 
 Pretending to know things one 
 
 does not, stupid, 209 
 Priest and his breviary, 136 
 Priests, 38, 334 
 "Priests' Bargain," The, 236 
 Priests of art, 124 
 Priggishness, 35 
 Prigs, 35 
 
 Prigs and Blackguards, 230 
 Primitive Methodist Chapel, 
 
 341 
 Prince, Jones's cat, 153 
 Principles, First, 309 et seq., 
 
 330, 331 
 Probate, 339 
 Procreation, Wilful, 289 
 Profane Statues, Sacred and, 
 
 139 
 Professionals, Amateurs and. 
 
 Programme, Descriptive, 380 
 Progress, a desire to live beyond 
 one's income, I2 
 
 Projected sequel to Alps and 
 Sanctuaries, Material for a, 
 259 et seq. 
 
 Promontogno, 264 
 
 Prophets, Gods and, 333 
 
 Prophets, stoning them, 157, 
 201 
 
 Property, 309 
 
 Proposing, The art of, 289 
 
 Prose, 193, 264 
 
 — Poetical, 197 
 
 — Translations from verse into, 
 197 
 
 Proselyte, 82 
 
 Proselytising, eating and, 81 
 
 Protoplasm, 58 
 
 — and Reproduction, 69 
 
 — Viscid, 69, 70 
 
 Providence, 322 
 
 — and Improvidence, 223 
 
 — and Othello, 223 
 
 — Genius and, 180 
 
 — Tempting, 99 
 
 Proverbi Toscani, 379 
 
 Proverbs, The, 201, 203 
 
 Psalmist, The, 27, 212 
 
 "Psalm of Montreal," A, 3, 4, 
 6, 379. 388 
 
 Psalm, A penitential, 230 
 
 Psalms, The, 202 
 
 Public, Catering for the, 372 
 
 — ear. The, 162 
 
 — Handel and the British, 113 
 
 — Hoodwinking the, 162 
 
 —life, 367 
 
 — My, a declining one, 369 
 
 — opinion, 108, 261 
 
 — Wooing the, 371 
 
 Publisher, 364 
 
 Publishers' antechambers dis- 
 tasteful, 373 
 
 Publishers, Myself and my, 166 
 
 Publishing at my own risk, 373 
 
 Pulling strings, 396 
 
 Punch, 208 
 
 Punishment, 343 
 
Index 
 
 427 
 
 Punishments, Rewards and, 362 
 
 Pupils, 173 
 
 Pupils, The old masters and 
 
 their, 135 
 Purcell, 122, 127, 128, 188 
 Purgatory, 219 
 Purse, Atrophy of the, 231 
 Purses, Things and, 224 
 Puzzled atoms, 84 
 Puzzled to death, 206 
 
 Quails, 307 
 
 Quarrelling, The art of, 229 
 
 Queen, The, 316 
 
 — of Heaven, The, 334 
 
 Quick people, 294 
 
 Quick, The, and the dead, 279 
 
 Quickly, Mrs., 264 
 
 Quickness in seeing, 139 
 
 "Quis Desiderio^ ?" 166 
 
 Quixote, Don, Hamlet, Mr. 
 Pickwick and, 217 
 
 RaccoUa di Proverhi Toscani, 
 
 379 
 Race, The, and the individual, 
 
 IS 
 Rachel, Madame, 184 
 Raffaelle, 256, 257, 324 
 — the Ansidei, 145 et seq. 
 Railway, Line of, The last six 
 
 inches of a, 380 
 Rain, 326 
 Rain-drops of new experience, 
 
 62 
 Rain, Handel's shower of, 120 
 Rakaia, 288 
 
 "Ramblings in Cheapside," 261 
 Rangitata, 268, 288 
 Rape of Lucrece, The, 192 
 Rapson, Mr. E. J., 165 
 Rarity, 365 
 Rassegna della Letteratura Sict- 
 
 liana, 5 
 Rattlesnake, An intellectual, 
 
 268 
 
 Ravens, 253 
 
 Reading aloud what I write, 
 109 
 
 Reading and Writing, 328 
 
 Real Blasphemy, 341 
 
 Reason, 315 
 
 — Common Sense, and Faith, 
 328 
 
 — and Faith, 171 
 
 —Faith and, 333 
 
 Rebelliousness, 332 et seq. 
 
 Recognition, Posthumous, 367 
 
 Reconciliation, 346 et seq.. 
 
 "Reconciliation, A step to- 
 wards," 8, 376 
 
 Record Office, 237 
 
 Records and Memorials -col- 
 lected by R. A. Streatfeild, 6 
 
 Rectory, 334 
 
 Reflection, 344 
 
 Reflex Action, 90, 344 
 
 Refreshment, Sense of, 17 
 
 Regret, 348 
 
 Relative Importances, 97, 100 
 
 Relative minor, 226, 260 
 
 Relaxation of effort, 17 
 
 Religion, 35, 329, 346, 347 
 
 — Science and, 36 
 
 — Women and, 228 
 
 Religious light. The dim, 338 
 
 Rembrandt, 107, 149, 151-3, 173, 
 
 179, 235. 357 
 — Buymg a, 151 
 Remembering, 63 
 Remembrance after death, 360, 
 
 361, 367. 369 
 
 Renan, 337 
 
 Rent, Pay me my, 391 
 
 Repentance, The Academic Sys- 
 tem and, 13s 
 
 Reproduction ad infinitum, 54 
 
 — and Memory, 59 
 
 — the discontent of the germs 
 inside the parents, 16 
 
 Reproduction, Protoplasm and, 
 69 
 
428 
 
 Index 
 
 Reproductive system, 68 
 Reputation, 217, 370, 372 
 —A lasting, 155 
 — Cheap, 247 
 — Money and Health, 37 
 — Shade, Colour and, i'38 
 Requiem^ Mozart's, 123 
 Reserve between parents and 
 
 children, 31 
 Responsibility, Moral, 317 
 Rest, 17, 315 
 Resurrection, 324 
 Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 
 The Evidence for the, 2, 6 
 Retirement, 371, 372 
 Retribution, Forgiveness and, 
 
 349 
 
 Return of the Jews to Pales- 
 tine, 239 
 
 Revenge, Gratitude and, 340-1 
 
 Reversion, My, 4, 61 
 
 — Selling a, 229 
 
 Reversion to ancestors, 66 
 
 Reviewers, 156, 196 
 
 Reward, Ten shillings, 341 
 
 Rewards and punishments, 
 362 
 
 Rhodes, Cecil, 367 
 
 Rhythm and memory, 58 
 
 Rhythms, 68, 71, 73 
 
 Riches, 315 
 
 Rickmansworth, 252 
 
 Rift, The little, within the lute, 
 16 
 
 "Righteous Man," The, 304, 316, 
 380, 390 
 
 Righteousness, 200 et seq. 
 
 River of Death, 358 
 
 Memory, 358 
 
 Robbery, 309 
 
 Roberts, Mr. Arthur, 132 
 
 Robinson Crusoe, 202 
 
 Rockstro, W. S., 5, 128, 250-2 
 
 Roman Catholic, 342 
 
 Roman Emperor, The, 213 
 
 Roman Emperors, 325 
 
 Roman Empire, The, 206, 
 207 
 
 Romanes, G. J., 4 
 
 Romans, The, 200-4, 338 
 
 Rome, 262 
 
 — Church of, 338 
 
 Rosherville Gardens, 260 
 
 Rothschilds, 52, 239 
 
 Royal Academy Exhibition, 3, 
 276 
 
 Rubens, 230 
 
 Rudimentary organs in ma- 
 chines, 47 
 
 Rules for making Literature, 
 Music and Pictures, 96, 97 
 
 — for tuning the harpsichord, 
 Handel's, 128 
 
 —of Life, The, 11, 351, 352 
 
 Run smooth, Nature does not, 
 193 
 
 Sacer, The Vates, 363-5 
 Sack of Khartoum, 244 
 Sacred and Profane Statues, 
 
 139 
 
 Sacro Monte, Varallo-Sesia, 5 
 
 Varese, 198, 260 
 
 Sailor, 311 
 
 — ^Archdeacon Farrar not an ex- 
 cellent, 213 
 
 — Boy and Chickens, 245 
 
 Saints, 211, 212 
 
 Sales of my books. Analysis of, 
 368, 369 
 
 Salt, Putting, on Nature's tail, 
 
 137 
 Samson, 180 
 "Samuel Butler," an article by 
 
 R. A. Streatfeild, in the 
 
 Monthly Review, 6 
 — an Obituary Notice by H. F. 
 
 Jones in the Eagle, 6 
 Samuel Butler: Author of Ere- 
 
 whon, A Paper read before 
 
 the British Association of 
 
 Homoeopathy, 7 
 
Index 
 
 429 
 
 Samuel Butler: Author of Ere- 
 whon, A Paper read be- 
 fore the Historical Society 
 of St. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge, 7 
 
 Samuel Butler, "Brother, I am 
 much pleased with," 387 
 
 Samuel Butler: Records and 
 Memorials collected by R. A. 
 Streatfeild, 6 
 
 Sanctified by Faith, 351 
 
 Sano di Pietro, 281 
 
 Sans souci of indifference, 
 
 357 
 Santa FamigUa, A, with clothes 
 
 drying, 86 
 "Santo Diavolo," 274 
 Satan, 251 
 Saul. 65, 133 
 Saul in the cave, 214 
 Sausages, 120, 269 
 Savage, Miss Eliza Mary Ann, 
 
 2, 4 
 
 Savoyard, A melancholy, 88 
 
 Saxony, 128 
 
 Scaffolding, Words a, 94 
 
 Scarlatti Domenico, in, 112, 
 126 
 
 Scarlet fever, 64 
 
 Scartazzini, Signor, 266 
 
 Scheria, 5, 350, 370 
 
 Schliemann, 370 
 
 Schoolmasters, Earnest, 230 
 
 Schubert, 133 
 
 Schumann, 209 
 
 Science, 159, 324, 329, 333 
 
 — and Business, 217 
 
 — and Religion, 36 
 
 — and Theology, 340 
 
 — Men of, 219 
 
 — Personified, 339 
 
 —The Enfant Terrible of Lit- 
 erature and, 183 
 
 Scientific Terminology, 218 
 
 Scientists and Drapers, 218 
 
 Scotchman at Boulogne, 252 
 
 Scott, Mr. R. F., Master of St. 
 John's College, Cambridge, 
 
 7 
 
 Scylla and Charybdis, 326, 327 
 
 Scylla's cave of scientific ter- 
 minology, 218 
 
 Sea-sick, 254, 255 
 
 Sea-sickness, 82 
 
 "Searcher of Souls, you who in 
 heaven abide," 395 
 
 Secular thinking, 163 
 
 Seed, 363 
 
 Seeds, 361 
 
 Seeing, 139 
 
 — colour, 141 et seq. 
 
 — Painting depends on, 139 
 
 — Quickness in, 139 
 
 Segni, 273 
 
 Seigel's Syrup, Mother, 296 
 
 Self, 85 
 
 Self-confidence, 225 
 
 Self-indulgence, Intellectual, 27 
 
 Selfishness, 348, 349 
 
 Selections from Previous Works. 
 etc., 4, 368, 380 
 
 Selinunte, 194 
 
 Sells, What, a book, 161 
 
 Senate House, 385 
 
 Sensations, 60 
 
 Sense, 331 
 
 — of need. My reviewers', 196 
 
 — of Touch, The, 230 
 
 — The Voice of Common, 348 
 
 Senses, The link between mat- 
 ter and mind, 86 
 
 Sensible Men, 228 
 
 Sensitiveness to newspapers, 
 291 
 
 Sentiment, 329 
 
 Separation, 228 
 
 — Judicious, 230 
 
 — of relations, 32 
 
 — Union and, 83 
 
 Sequel to Alps and Sanctuaries, 
 Material for a Projected, 259 
 et seq. 
 
430 
 
 Index 
 
 Seriously, Taking life and death 
 
 too, 357 
 Sermon preached by two people, 
 
 296 
 SermonSj Unprofessional, 200 et 
 
 seq. 
 Serpent, A single, 84 
 Serpentine, Ducks on the, 63 
 Servants, 89 
 Sesia, Val, 280 
 Settlement in the steps of the 
 
 Union Bank, 87 
 Seven Sonnets and a Psalm of 
 
 Montreal, 6, 380 
 Sex, 226 
 
 Sexual Matters, 30 
 Shade, Colour and Reputation, 
 
 138 
 — Light and, 140 
 Shadows, Our ideas, 94, 95 
 Shakespeare, 13, 14, 28, 30, 107, 
 
 114, 156, 161, 174, 178, 179, 
 
 192, 342, 343, 357, 363, 378, 397 
 Shakespeare, Handel and, ii4 
 — My Father and, 183 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets Recon- 
 sidered, 6, 369, 377, 382, 383 
 Shakespearean Words, 268, 269 
 Sham Art and Great Art, 137 
 Shan States, 381 
 Sharp, Virtue tunes herself, 27 
 Shaw, Mr. George Bernard, 7 
 She-bear, 390 
 Shepherdness, China with lamb, 
 
 230 
 Shepherds, 23, 398 
 Shield of Achilles, The, 379, 385 
 Shocks, 60 
 Shopkeeper, The Artist and the, 
 
 169 
 Shoolbred's, 218 
 Shortening, loi 
 "Should Riches mate with 
 
 Love?" 176 
 Shrewsbury, i, 3, 5, 342, 343 
 Sicilian Origin of the Odyssey, 5 
 
 Sicily, 5, 7, 273, 274 
 
 Sickness, 82 
 
 Siddons, Mrs. 270 
 
 Siena, 281 
 
 — and S. Gimignano, 274-6 
 
 Silenus, 230 
 
 Silvio, 264-7 
 
 Similarity, 55 
 
 Simony, Modern, 172 
 
 Simplification, 97 
 
 Simpson, 198 
 
 Sin, 395 
 
 — ^A Mountain, 29 
 
 Sinai, 307 
 
 Sincerity, 154, 340 
 
 — a low virtue, 162 
 
 Singapore, 381 
 
 Sins, My secret, 395 
 
 — ^that are worth committing, 
 II 
 
 Sisto, Madonna di S., 257 
 
 Sisyphus, 344, 355 
 
 Sitting quiet after eating, 82 
 
 Sixpence, The Jubilee, 136 
 
 Skeleton in Cupboard, 315 
 
 Sketch-Books, Literary, 237 
 
 Sketches, Written, 237 et seq. 
 
 Sketching from nature; 137 
 
 Skin, dropping off, 88, 89 
 
 — of one's teeth, 169 
 
 Slade, Mr., 288 
 
 Sleep and death, 25 
 
 Sleeper, 396 
 
 Sleeping Beauties, 116 
 
 Slipshod thinkers, 350 
 
 Small things, 308 
 
 Smalley, Mr., Rector of Bays- 
 water, no 
 
 Smith, 386 
 
 — ^and the Rangitata, 268 
 
 — Mrs., 316 
 
 Snails, slugs and superstitions, 
 II 
 
 Snakes, Poisonous, 392 
 
 Snap-shots, 372 
 
 Snap-shotting a bishop, 254 
 
Index 
 
 431 
 
 Snap-shotting Archdeacon Far- 
 rar, 213 
 
 Snipe, 226 
 
 So-and-so, Mrs., 347 
 
 Societies, The Learned, moult- 
 ing yearly medals, 206 
 
 Society and Christianity, 350, 
 
 351 
 — for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 
 to Animals, 206 
 — for the Suppression of Use- 
 less Knowledge, 293 
 — of Authors, 373 
 Soglio, 264, 265 
 Solario, Andrea, 149 
 Solicitor, Handel and a letter to 
 
 a, 119 
 — The Family, 392 
 — Wound in the, serious, 91 
 Solicitors, 37 
 
 Solomon in all his glory, 224 
 — The Song of, 201 
 "Something," 63 
 Something out of nothing, 57, 
 
 310, 312, 314, 346 
 Son of Man, 348 
 —My, 366 
 
 Songs without Words, no, 149 
 Sonnet, Rhymed poem should 
 
 not exceed in length, 192 
 Sonnets, 383 
 — Shakespeare's, Reconsidered, 
 
 6, 369, 382, 383 
 Sorrow within sorrow, 228 
 Soul, 76 
 
 Souls and Books, 95 
 —Transmigration of, 357, 358 
 Sound and silence, 328 
 Soup, 269 
 Source, The Great Unknown, 
 
 352 
 South Sea Islanders, 207 
 Sovereigns in the street, 375"^ 
 Sparks, 219 
 Speaking voice, Handel and the, 
 
 117 
 
 Specialism and Generalism, 
 
 222 
 Spectator, 3, 161, 380 
 Speculation, 229 
 — ^An Astronomical, 232 
 Spencer, Herbert, 138, 230 
 Spenlow and Jorkins, 334 
 Spermatozoa, 16, 17 
 Spider, 305, 306 
 Spiritual, Physical and, 96 
 — Treadmill, 338 
 Spoiled Tarts, 9 
 Spontaneity, 319, 323 
 Spontaneous Generation, 323 
 Sports, 16 
 
 Spurgeon, Mr., 388, 389 
 Squandering, 13 
 Squaring accounts, 160, 161 
 — the account and Karma, 15 
 Stagnation, 29 
 Stars ahead of and behind us, 
 
 232, 233 
 Starting again ad infinitum, 
 
 361, 362 
 Statical, 67, 68 
 Statues, Sacred and 'profane, 
 
 139 
 
 Stead, Mr., 190 
 
 Stealing (Music), 122 
 
 Steamboat, 229 
 
 Steam Engine, 325 
 
 Steam Engines, A fertile union 
 between two, 46 
 
 Steps in ice, 312 
 
 Sterility of hybrids, 66 
 
 Stevens, Alfred, 199 
 
 Stevenson, R. L., 187 
 
 Still-born on reaching birth, 
 361 
 
 Stomach, 82, 310 
 
 — Our mental, 310 
 
 Stone, vivo, 279 
 
 Stop, I had better, 378 
 
 — Where to, 138 
 
 Stories, Unwritten articles, es- 
 says, 229 
 
432 
 
 Index 
 
 "Stowed away in a' Montreal 
 lumber-room," 388 
 
 Strad, 241 
 
 Straightforwardness, 352 
 
 Strand, The, 237 
 
 Strange flesh, 30 
 
 Street preachejs, 222 
 
 — The Man iri the, 121 
 
 Streatfeild, Mr. R. A., 6, 7, 8, 
 40 
 
 String and Knife, 21 
 
 Struldbrugs, Literary, 229 
 
 Studied Ambiguity, 290 
 
 Study, Action and, 139 
 
 — and Research, 375 
 
 Studying from nature, 136 
 
 Stuff, 68 
 
 Stygian shore, 397 
 
 Style, 107, 186, 187 
 
 Subdivisible matter, 82 
 
 Subject and Treatment, 108 
 
 — Choice of, 105 
 
 Subjects, Familiar, 277 
 
 — Titles and, 229 et seq. 
 
 Sub-vicious, 25 
 
 Substance, 67-9 
 
 — An eternal, unchangeable, un- 
 derlying, 75 
 
 —The Universal, 67, 68 
 
 Success, Bored by, 371 
 
 — Capping a, 156 
 
 — Ephemeral and Permanent, 
 180 et seq. 
 
 — Financial, 373 
 
 — My own, 157 
 
 Successors, Who will be man's, 
 
 44 
 Suffering, Mental, 370 
 Sugar, 178 
 Suicide, 232 
 Suite de Piices, loi 
 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 128, 130 
 Summer, 315 
 Sun, 309 
 
 Sunday morning chapel, 387 
 Sunday Times, The, 186 
 
 Sunday Walks, 341 
 
 Supernatural, The Church and 
 the, 340 
 
 Super-Organic Kingdom, The, 
 78 
 
 Superstition, 346 
 
 Superstitions, Life, Snails and 
 slugs, II 
 
 Superstitious Foundations, 309 
 
 Supply, 315 
 
 Suppressio Veri, 140 
 
 Supreme Occasions, 268, 269 
 
 Susanna, 120 
 
 Swede, An impulsive, 243 
 
 Swell, A; all round, 36 
 
 Swells, 35 
 
 Swift, Dean, 191 
 
 Swindling, 341 
 
 Switzerland, 342 
 
 Symbols, 346 
 
 Symphony for Part II of Nar- 
 cissus, 380, 392 
 
 Sykes, at Cambridge, no 
 
 Tabachetti, 5, 376 
 
 Tabard, The, 262 
 
 Tabulae rasae, 357 
 
 — scriptae, 357 
 
 Tadpoles, 55 
 
 Talk, perhaps originally con- 
 fined to scholars, 94 
 
 Tantalus, 343, 344, 355 
 
 Technical Knowledge, College 
 of, 221 
 
 Technique, Money and, 139 
 
 Tedder, Mr., Librarian of the 
 Athenaeum Club, 173 
 
 Teeth, 356 
 
 Teetotaller, 361 
 
 Telemachus, 32 
 
 — and Nicholas Nickleby, 193 
 
 Teleology, 66 
 
 Temperament, Equal, 112 
 
 and Philosophy, 327 
 
 — Mean tone, 128 
 
 Tempting Providence, 99 
 
Index 
 
 433 
 
 Tennyson, 183, 188, 195, 240, 
 
 343 
 — would have spoiled Handel's 
 
 music, 115 
 Terbourg, 243 
 
 Terminology, Scientific, 218 
 Terseness, 100 , 
 
 Tersifying, loi 
 Test, A Literary man's, 109 
 — of Faith, 360, 361 
 Testament, The New, 338, 339 
 —The Old, 201 
 Testimony, 324 
 Thackeray, 178, 188 
 That-way-and-it-isn'tness, 226 
 The Enfant Terrible of Litera- 
 ture, 183 
 The Germs of Erewhon and of 
 
 Life and Habit, 39-55 
 The Life after Death, Three 
 
 Sonnets, 383, 384, 397, 398 
 The Life of the World to Come, 
 
 360 et seq. 
 The Position of a Homo Unius 
 
 Libri, 155 et seq. 
 The Righteous Man, 304, 380, 
 
 390 
 "The righteous man will rob 
 
 none but the defenceless," 
 
 390 
 
 Thebes, 230 
 
 Theist, 316 
 
 — and Atheist, 337 
 
 Theodora, 117, 118 
 
 Theodora and Susanna, 120 
 
 Theology, Science and, 340 
 
 Theories, Forming and discard- 
 ing, 377 
 
 "There doth great Handel live, 
 imperious still," 397 
 
 Thieves falling out, 292 
 
 Things and purses, 224 
 
 —Great, 179 
 
 Thinking, 73 
 
 —Secular, 163 
 
 This-way-and-it-isness, 226 
 
 Thomas, Miss Bertha, 274 
 
 Thought, 67, 68 
 
 — and Word, 93 
 
 — ^without words, 93 
 
 Thoughts, My, 216 
 
 Three hundred a year "deaden- 
 ing," 34 
 
 Three-score years and ten of 
 immortality, 14 
 
 Ticinesi, 350 
 
 Tilbrook, Revd. S., 364 
 
 Time, 219 
 
 — and Life, Accidents of, 358 
 
 — heals wounds, 359 
 
 — past, present and future, 67 
 
 Times, The, 123, 166, 185, 186, 
 223, 237 
 
 Timon of Athens (Purcell's) 122 
 
 Tinkering a sonnet, 383 
 
 Tintoretto, 256 
 
 Titian, 135, 152 
 
 Title, Requisitions on, 309, 310 
 
 Titles and Subjects, 229 et seq. 
 
 Titus Andronicus, 156 
 
 Tobacco, Crumb of, 251 
 
 —pipe, 47 
 
 — plant, 267 
 
 Tobacconist, My, 165 
 
 Tom Jones, 202 
 
 Tom Jones, 364 
 
 Tonic, 226, 260 
 
 Too much. What is? 103 
 
 Tool, 321 
 
 Tool-box, 18, 19, 23, 86, 321 
 
 Tools, 18-20, 22, 232 
 
 — and Organs, Analogies be- 
 tween, 375 
 
 Tooth-ache, 370 
 
 Torture of Death, The, 355, 356 
 
 Touch of Nature, One, 185 
 
 — The Sense of, 230 
 
 Touches, Inarticulate, 137 
 
 Trade, Art and, 170, 171 
 
 Tragic Expression, 269, 270 
 
 Trail and Writing, 96 
 
 Train and Hedge, 21 
 
434 
 
 Index 
 
 Train not moving, 311 
 Translating the Odyssey, 197 
 Translation, a dislocation, 198 
 — ^A {Martin Chuzslewit) , 393 
 — from an Unpublished Work 
 
 of Herodotus, 379, 384 
 Translations, 94 
 — from verse into prose, 197 
 Transmigration of souls, 357, 
 
 358 
 Traponese Origin of the Odys- 
 sey, On the, 5 
 Trapani, 5, 199, 376 
 — and Gadshill, 193, 194 
 Treadmill, The Spiritual, 338 
 Treatment, Subject and, 108 
 Treaty, Secret with oneself, 
 
 209 
 Tregaskis, Mr., 40 
 Trespasses, 340 
 Trinity Hall, 253 
 Triumph of Time and Truth, 
 
 116 
 Trubner and Myself, 155 et seq. 
 Truisms, 331 
 Trumpington Road, 385 
 Trunk, Packing our, 100 
 Truth, 292, 297-303, 307, 352 
 — ^Absolute, 310 
 
 Pretty safe from, 59 
 
 — and Convenience, 297 et seq. 
 — Guesses at, 347 
 
 Tellers, Professional, 222 
 
 Truths from nature, 138 
 
 Troad, The, 5, 283-7 
 
 Trojan War, 260 
 
 Trouble-saving, 302 
 
 Troy, 370 
 
 Trying to Know, 160 
 
 ^make myself like things, 
 
 209 
 Try-your-strengths, Moral, 184 
 Tub, 384 
 
 Tuke, Mr. H. S., a^r.a., 243 
 Tune, It is a wise tune that 
 
 knows its own father, 122 
 
 Tuning Death flatter, 358 
 
 — Handel's Rules for, 128 
 
 — Virtue sharp, 27 
 
 Turk, The, and marriage, 285 
 
 Turnpikes, 342 
 
 Twelve VoUintaries and Fugues 
 
 by the celebrated Mr. Handel, 
 
 128 
 Two Deans, The, 379, 387 
 Two Incomprehensibles, 323, 
 
 324 
 Two Writers, 235 
 Tylor, Mr. Alfred, 158 
 Tyndall, 232 
 Types of humanity, rich and 
 
 poor, SI, 52 
 "Tyrants now no more shall 
 
 dread," 118 
 
 Ulysses, 6, 122, 377 
 
 Ulysses, 32, 194, 19s, 199, 335 
 
 — and Penelope, 198 
 
 Umbrella, 51 
 
 Unburying Cities, 370 
 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin, 265 
 
 Unconscious, The Philosophy 
 of the, 3 
 
 — Theory of the, S9 
 
 — action, 53 et seq. 
 
 — association, 65 
 
 — humour and Dickens, 32 
 
 Myself and, 166 
 
 — ^memory, 59 
 
 Unconscious Memory, 3, 7, 8, 
 39, 42, 66, 368, 375 
 
 Understanding, 73 
 
 — The peace that passeth, 338 
 
 Undertakings, Abandoned, 96 
 
 Unimaginative, The, are as chil- 
 dren, 307 
 
 Union and Separation, 83 
 
 —Bank, The, 87, 88 
 
 Unity, 310 
 
 — and multitude, 84 
 
 —of nature. The, 88, 89 
 
 Universe, The, 314 
 
Index 
 
 435 
 
 Universe, The, the only true 
 
 atom, 84 
 Universal Review, 5, 6, 166, 181, 
 
 261, 369, 376 
 Universal substance, The, 67, 
 
 68 
 Universities, 292, 293, 335 
 University Calendar, 293 
 Unknown, Giod and the, 324-6 
 Unlucky, Lucky and, 220 
 Unorthodox, 374 
 Unpopular, Myself, 372 
 Unprofessional Sermons, 200 et 
 
 seq. 
 Unrest, 315 
 Unseen Kingdom, 320 
 —World, II, 168, 320, 347 
 Untuning the sky, 165 
 Unwritten law. The, 95 
 Usefulness, Art and, 173, 174 
 Useless knowledge, 293 
 
 Val Bregaglia, 264 
 
 — Leventina, 350 
 
 — Sesia, 280 
 
 Valentine, 85 
 
 Values, 290 
 
 Vanity of human wishes, 219 
 
 "Vanquished slaves," 119 
 
 Varallo-Sesia, 4, 5, 7, 198, 274, 
 
 280 
 Varese, 260 
 
 Vates Sacer, The, 363-5 
 Veal and calf, 279 
 Vegetarian, 361 
 Velasquez, 153, 179 
 Venice, 274 
 Venus and Adonis, 192 
 "Venus laughing from the 
 
 skies," 117, 118 
 Venus, Transits of, 232 
 "Verdi prati," 267 
 Veritas, De minimis non curat, 
 
 299 , . 
 Verrocchio, 140 
 
 Verse, 192, i93 
 
 Verse into prose. Translations 
 
 from, 197 
 — ^poetry and prose, 193 
 Vesuvius, 343 
 Viale at Pienza, The, 282 
 Vibrations, 58, 66 et seq. 
 Vice, 352 
 
 — and Virtue, 27, 28 
 Vices of meanness, 34 
 Victims, man remains on 
 
 friendly terms with his, 82 
 Vien Tiane, 381 
 View, Two points of, 297 
 Views on Painting, A Painter's, 
 
 13s et seq. 
 Vinci, Leonardo da, 257, 376, 
 
 378 
 Violin, 325 
 maker, Furber the, 241, 
 
 242 
 
 practising, 270 
 
 Virgil, 150, 183, 361 
 
 Virtue, 25, 352 
 
 — The meannesses of, 34 
 
 — The wages of, 289 
 
 — Vice and, 27, 28 
 
 Virtuous and Idle Apprentices, 
 
 326 
 — Life, My, 28, 29 
 Viscidity of protoplasm, 69, 70 
 Viscosity, 58 
 
 Vittorio Emanuele II, 270 
 Vivisection, 390 
 "Voi che sapete," 252 
 Voice of Common Sense, 348 
 
 the Lord, 348 
 
 Volcano, The arctic, 179 
 
 Volition, 73 
 
 Volterra, 276-9 
 
 Vows of modest competency, 
 
 290 
 "Vuaitee," 350 
 Vult, Populus, 184 
 
 Wages, The, of birth, 289 
 — — — virtue, 289 
 
436 
 
 Index 
 
 "Wait till the clouds roll by," 
 260 
 
 "Waitee," Jutland and, 350 
 
 Waiting to be hired, 194 
 
 Walks in the Regions of Sci- 
 ence and Faith, 31 
 
 Walks, Sunday, 341 
 
 Wallace, Mr. A. R., 375 
 
 Wandering, 225 
 
 Wanted, a Society, 180 
 
 Wants and Creeds, 336 
 
 War against machines, 46 
 
 Wardour Street, 229 
 
 Waste, 114 
 
 paper baskets. Mental, 216 
 
 Washing-up, 99 
 
 Wasps, 81 
 
 Watch, an intelligent creature, 
 
 44 
 
 chain, 286 
 
 — mending with pickaxe, 94 
 Water, Channel for, 348 
 
 colour drawings, 8 
 
 dipper, 20 
 
 Watson, Hon. Mrs., 32 
 
 Watts, 152 
 
 Way of all Flesh, The, 6, 7, 115, 
 
 153. 364. 369. 377 
 "Weakness is utter," 316, 390 
 Weather, The, 294 
 Weismann and the germ being 
 
 the proper starting-point, 16 
 "Welcome, welcome, mighty 
 
 King," 120 
 Wellington (Duke), 199 
 — N.Z., Bishop of, 40 
 Wespin, Jean de, 376 
 Westminster Abbey, 199, 290 
 Wetterhorn, Handel and the, 
 
 118 
 "We were two lovers standing 
 
 sadly by," 395 
 "What is't to live if not to 
 
 pull the strings," 396 
 "While now without measure," 
 
 H7 
 
 Whistling Handel, 65 
 
 Whitman, Walt, 179 
 
 "Who paints a picture, writes 
 
 a play or book," 396 
 "Why," 57 
 "Why?" 327 
 Widow, 391 
 
 Wife of Bath, The, 262 
 Wife, My, 249 
 Wilful procreation, 289 
 Will, Reconstructing, 392 
 Wind Concerts, At the, 133 
 Window-cleaning, 242 
 Winter, 315 
 
 Wisdom, 169, 172, 176, 203, 223 
 — and Foolishness, 168 
 — from the West, 284 
 — ^Worldly, 290, 291 
 "Wise men flattering," 117, 
 
 118 
 Wishes, The vanity of human, 
 
 219 
 Wit, 365 
 
 — No professor of, 221 
 "With darkness deep," 121 
 "With their vain mysterious 
 
 art," 117, 118 
 Woman, 226 
 Womanish men, 334 
 Woman's suffrage, 227 
 —religion, 334 
 Womb, 292 
 Women, 226, 227 
 — and religion, 228 
 Wood, Mr. H. J. T., 7 
 Woodsia, 271, 272 
 Wooing the public, 371 
 Word, Thought and, 93 
 Wordist, A great, 144 
 Words, 301, 330 
 — a scaffolding, 94 
 — and Colour, 144 
 
 feelings, 79 
 
 ideas, 65 
 
 —juggles, 95 
 — ^like money, 95 
 
Index 
 
 437 
 
 Words, organised thought, 93 
 
 Wordsworth, 186 
 
 — only a poet, not a musician, 
 116 
 
 Work, Ancient, 193 
 
 — and the body, 21-3 
 
 — Men's, 396 
 
 —My, 374-8 
 
 — Our, looking to see where it 
 is wrong, 140 
 
 — Poetical, the less a man cre- 
 ates, the better, 143 
 
 — ^to last must be good, 14 
 
 Working classes, 335 
 
 — Men's College, 5, 56, 204 
 
 World, The, 35, 328, 348, 365 
 
 a gambling table, 12 
 
 and genius, 12 
 
 and the individual, 12 
 
 governed by self-interest, 
 
 12 
 
 not wise, 12 
 
 of the unborn, 16 
 
 pervaded by come-and-go, 
 
 14 
 spiritual and the physical, 
 
 174 
 
 Unseen, 168, 320, 347 
 
 — This masks a greater, 176 
 — ^to come. The life of the, 360 
 
 et seq. 
 Worldly wisdom, 290, 291 
 Worlds, Imaginary, 232 
 
 Worlds, Two, 24, 25 
 
 Worms, 398 
 
 Worsley, Mr. Reginald E., 241, 
 
 242, 250 / 
 
 Worth Doing, 369 
 Wound in the solicitor, 91 
 Wounds, Scars of old, 370, 371 
 Wrangling, 331 
 Wrath to come, 270 
 Writer, 247 
 —A young, 363 
 Writing for a hundred years 
 
 hence, 109 
 — slowly, 27 
 — and trail, 96 
 — unconsciously, 53 
 Writs of our thoughts, 320 
 Written sketches, 237 et seq. 
 
 "X.Y.Z." (pseudonym), 304, 
 380 
 
 Yankee Handelian, A, 114 
 Yea, 295 
 
 Young, Advice to the, 34 
 Young people, 30 
 Youth, The gauntlet of, 108 
 Ypres, The Two Barristers at, 
 2S5-8 
 
 Zeus, 386 
 
 Zoological Gardens, 243, 254 
 
 THE END