Chapter 2

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.

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 feller 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 Chuzzlewit_, Chap. XIX).

“ως εφατ αυταρ εyώ μιν αμειβομένη προσέειπον, ‘δαιμονίη, Άρρισσιαδέω αλοχ' αντιθέοιο, μη θην δη περι μίσθον ανείρεο, μήδ’ ονόμαζε τοίη yάρ τοι εyων αyανη και ηπίη ειμί, η κεν λαον απαντ’ ει μοι δύναμίς yε παρείη, σίτου επηετανου βιότου θ’ αλις ενδον εόντος, ασπασίως και αμισθος εουσα περιστείλαιμι [εν λέκτρω λέξασα τανηλεyέος θανάτοιο αυτή, ος κε θάνησι βροτων και πότμον επίσπη] αλλ’ εκ τοι ερέω συ δ’ ενι φρεσι βάλλεο σησιν’”— οσσε δέ οι Πεξνειφον εσέδρακον ασκελες αιεί— “‘κείνοισιν yαρ πασι πιφαυσκομένη αyορεύω ειτ’ ανδο’ ειτε yυναίχ’ οτέω τάδε ερyα μέμηλεν, ω φίλε, τίπτε συ ταυτα μ’ ανείρεαι; ουδέ τί σε χρη ιδμέναι η εθέλω πίνειν μέθυ, ηε και ουχί ει δ’ αy’ επ’ εσχάροφιν κάταθες δέπας ηδέος οινου, οφρ’ εν χερσιν ελω πίνουσά τε τερπομένη τε, χείλεά τε προσθεισ’ οπόταν φίλον ητορ ανώyη.’”

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; 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. 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 Academic 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.

xii—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.

xiii—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? 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, Should 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)

Μελλοντα ταυτα

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 asphodel 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 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 scorn’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.

Footnotes

{16} “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_, Trübner & Co., 1878, chapter viii, p. 134.

And compare the idea underlying “The World of the Unborn” in _Erewhon_.

{26} 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.

{30} 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.

{31} _Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith_, by Harvey Goodwin, D.D., Lord Bishop of Carlisle. John Murray, 1883.

{32a} 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.

{32b} This 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 his mind, he would have edited it so as to avoid speaking of Homer as the author of the poem.

{41} _Life and Habit_ is dated 1878, but it actually appeared on Butler’s birthday, 4th December, 1877.

{92} 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.

{106} Cf. the note “Reproduction,” p. 16 ante.

{107} _Evolution Old & New_, p. 77.

{128} _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. 1089). 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.

{131} 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. 133 post.

{136} 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.

{147} Raffaelle’s picture “The Virgin and child attended by S. John the Baptist and S. Nicholas of Bari” (commonly known as the “Madonna 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 themselves.

{151} Cf. the passage in _Alps and Sanctuaries_, chapter XIII, beginning “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.”

{153} 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_.

{162} 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, knowing 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.

{176} _Narcissus_, “Should Riches mate with Love.”

{235} 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.

{203} All 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} Cf. “Imaginary Worlds,” p. 233 post.

{225} “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.

{251} 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, 1911.

“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?’”

{261} “Ramblings in Cheapside” in _Essays on Life_, _Art and Science_.

{263} Edmund Gurney, author of _The Power of Sound_, and Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research.

{279} Cf. Wamba’s explanation of the Saxon swine being converted into Norman pork on their death. _Ivanhoe_, Chap. I.

{282} See “A Medieval Girl School” in _Essays on Life_, _Art & Science_.

{333} “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).

{343} “No one can hate drunkenness more than I do, but I am confident 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).

{364} There are letters from these people in _The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler_.

{369} Butler made this note in 1899 before the publication of _Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered_, which was published in the same year. _The Odyssey Rendered info English Prose_ appeared in 1900 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 11s. 9d. in connection with a projected republication of his articles in the _Universal Review_ or of some of his Italian articles about the _Odyssey_.

{376} Butler had two separate grounds of complaint against Charles Darwin, one scientific, the other personal. With regard to the personal 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).