Transcribed from the 1912 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Photograph of Samuel Butler]
The Note-Books of
Samuel Butler
Author of “Erewhon”
* * * * *
Selections arranged and edited by
Henry Festing Jones
* * * * *
With photogravure portrait by Emery Walker from a
photograph taken by Alfred Cathie in 1898
* * * * *
London
A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C.
1912
* * * * *
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
_Preface_
EARLY in his life Samuel Butler began to carry a note-book and to write
down in it anything he wanted to remember; it might be something he heard
some one say, more commonly it was something 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
reconsidering the notes, destroying those that he remembered having used
in his published books and re-writing the remainder. The re-writing
shortened some but it lengthened others and suggested so many new ones
that the index was soon of little use and there seemed to be no finality
about it (“Making Notes,” pp. 100–1 post). In 1891 he attached 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
1902, he left five bound volumes, with the contents dated and indexed,
about 225 pages of closely written sermon paper to each volume, and more
than enough unbound and unindexed sheets to made 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 lifetime, 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 was not prepared for such a
multitude and variety of thoughts, reflections, conversations, incidents.
There are entries about his early life at Langar, Handel, school days at
Shrewsbury, Cambridge, Christianity, literature, New Zealand,
sheep-farming, philosophy, painting, money, evolution, morality, Italy,
speculation, photography, music, natural history, archæology, 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 volumes for
entries about New Zealand 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, between 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,” p. 215 post), they
were intended for his own private use as a quarry from 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 was 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, “At Piora,” 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 may be said that he did use the notes for his books,
though not precisely in the way he originally intended. And the constant
re-writing and re-considering were useful also by forcing him to settle
exactly what he thought and to state it as clearly and tersely 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)
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 more 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 accountant 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 swim. 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 proposal
over with Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Butler’s literary executor, and, having
obtained his approval, set to work. From November 1907 to May 1910,
inclusive, the _New Quarterly_ published 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, shuffled them
and turned them over, meditating on them, familiarising myself with them
and tentatively 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 were cases in which the language 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 alterations I bore in mind Butler’s own
views on the subject which I found in a note about editing letters:
“Granted 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 according to his discretion or indiscretion.”
My “discretion or indiscretion” was less seriously strained in making
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
classification is like accounts. Sometimes it is easy to see which way
the balance of convenience lies, sometimes 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 some 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 times 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 chameleon changes of significance that
came over them as they harmonised 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 increasing frequency with which difficulties were solved by these
restorations at last forced me to the conclusion, which I accepted 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 short and
unrepresentative selection which Mr. Fifield would have refused to
publish. I have tried to make suck 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 indulgence upon the many mistakes which it is now
too late to correct, even if knew how to correct them. Had it been
possible for him to see what I have 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 have everything; and, after all, ‘Le mieux est l’ennemi du
bien.’”
Here will be found much of what he used to say as he talked with one or
two intimate friends in his own chambers or in mine at the close of the
day, or on a Sunday walk in the country 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 irritating, 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 autograph letter from Charles Darwin are mentioned. Since the note
was in type I have received from New Zealand a copy of the Weekly Press
of 19th June, 1912, containing the Dialogue again reprinted and a
facsimile reproduction of Darwin’s letter. 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
perseverance in searching for and identifying Butler’s early
contributions 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 anything seemed to turn on it. And I
have made the index.
The Biographical Statement is founded 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 notes entered into and
formed part of Butler’s working life. It does not stop at the 18th of
June, 1902, because, as he says (p. 23 post), “Death is not more the end
of some than it is the beginning of others”; and, again (p. 13 post), for
those who come to the true birth the life we live beyond the grave 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 during 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.