The essential quality of great artists is incommensurable with biography; they seem to be unconsciously engaged in a perpetual evasion3 of the event. All that piety4 can do for them is beside the mark. Their wilful5 spirit is fled before the last stone of the mausoleum can be got in place, and as it flies it jogs the elbow of the cup-bearer and his libation is spilt idly upon the ground. Although it would be too much and too ungrateful to say that the monumental piety of Mr Festing Jones has been similarly turned to derision—after all, Butler was not a great man—we feel that something analogous6 has happened. This laborious7 building is a great deal too large for him to dwell in. He had made himself a cosy8 habitation in the Note-Books, with the fire in the right place and fairly impervious9 to the direct draughts10 of criticism. In a two-volume memoir11[11] he shivers perceptibly, and at moments he looks faintly ridiculous more than faintly pathetic.
[Footnote 11: Samuel Butler, author of 'Erewhon' (1835-1902): a
Memoir. By Henry Festing Jones. 2 vols. (Macmillan.)]
And if it be said that a biography should make no difference to our estimate of the man who lives and has his being in his published works, we reply that it shifts the emphasis. An amusingly wrong-headed book about Homer is a peccadillo12; ten years of life lavished14 upon it is something a good deal more serious. And even The Way of all Flesh, which as an experimental novel is a very considerable achievement, becomes something different when we have to regard it as a laborious and infinitely15 careful record of experienced fact. Further still, even the edge of the perfected inconsequence of certain of the 'Notes' is somewhat dulled when we see the trick of it being exercised. The origin of the amusing remark on Blake, who 'was no good because he learnt Italian at over 60 in order to read Dante, and we know Dante was no good because he was so fond of Virgil, and Virgil was no good because Tennyson ran him—well, Tennyson goes without saying,' is to be found in 'No, I don't like Lamb. You see, Canon Ainger writes about him, and Canon Ainger goes to tea with my aunts.' Repeated, it becomes merely a clever way of being stupid, as we should be if we were tempted16 to say we couldn't bear Handel, because Butler was mad on him, and Butler was no good because he was run by Mr Jones, and, well, Mr Jones goes without saying.
Nevertheless, though Butler lives with much discomfort17 and some danger in Mr Jones's tabernacle, he does continue to live. What his head loses by the inquisition of a biography his heart gains, though we wonder whether Butler himself would have smiled upon the exchange. Butler loses almost the last vestige18 of a title to be considered a creative artist when the incredible fact is revealed that the letters of Theobald and Christina in The Way of all Flesh are merely reproduced from those which his father and mother sent him. Nor was Butler, even as a copyist, always adequate to his originals. The brilliantly witty19 letters of Miss Savage20, by which the first volume is made precious, seem to us to indicate a real woman upon whom something more substantial might have been modelled than the delightful21 but evanescent picture of Alethea Pontifex. Here, at least, is a picture of Miss Savage and Butler together which, to our sense, gives some common element in both which escaped the expression of the author of The Way of all Flesh:—
'I like the cherry-eating scene, too [Miss Savage wrote after reading the MS. of Alps and Sanctuaries], because it reminded me of your eating cherries when I first knew you. One day when I was going to the gallery, a very hot day I remember, I met you on the shady side of Berners Street, eating cherries out of a basket. Like your Italian friends, you were perfectly22 silent with content, and you handed the basket to me as I was passing, without saying a word. I pulled out a handful and went on my way rejoicing, without saying a word either. I had not before perceived you to be different from any one else. I was like Peter Bell and the primrose23 with the yellow brim. As I went away to France a day or two after that and did not see you again for months, the recollection of you as you were eating cherries in Berners Street abode24 with me and pleased me greatly.'
Again, we feel that the unsubstantial Towneley of the novel should have been more like flesh and blood when we learn that he too was drawn25 from the life, and from a life which was intimately connected with Butler's. Here, most evidently, the heart gains what the head loses, for the story of Butler's long-suffering generosity26 to Charles Paine Pauli is almost beyond belief and comprehension. Butler had met Pauli, who was two years his junior, in New Zealand, and had conceived a passionate27 admiration28 for him. Learning that he desired to read for the bar, Butler, who had made an unexpected success of his sheep-farming, offered to lend him ￡100 to get to England and ￡200 a year until he was called. Very shortly after they both arrived in England, Pauli separated from Butler, refusing even to let him know his address, and thenceforward paid him one brief visit every day. He continued, however, to draw his allowance regularly until his death all through the period when, owing to the failure of Butler's investments, ￡200 seems to have been a good deal more than one-half Butler's income. At Pauli's death in 1897 Butler discovered what he must surely at moments have suspected, that Pauli had been making between ￡500 and ￡800 at the bar, and had left about ￡9000—not to Butler. Butler wrote an account of the affair after Pauli's death which is strangely self-revealing:—
'… Everything that he had was good, and he was such a fine handsome fellow, with such an attractive manner that to me he seemed everything I should like myself to be, but knew very well that I was not….
'I had felt from the very beginning that my intimacy29 with Pauli was only superficial, and I also perceived more and more that I bored him…. He liked society and I hated it. Moreover, he was at times very irritable30 and would find continual fault with me; often, I have no doubt, justly, but often, as it seemed to me, unreasonably31. Devoted32 to him as I continued to be for many years, those years were very unhappy as well as very happy ones.
'I set down a great deal to his ill-health, no doubt truly; a great deal more, I was sure, was my own fault—and I am so still; I excused much on the score of his poverty and his dependence33 on myself—for his father and mother, when it came to the point, could do nothing for him; I was his host and was bound to forbear on that ground if on no other. I always hoped that, as time went on, and he saw how absolutely devoted to him I was, and what unbounded confidence I had in him, and how I forgave him over and over again for treatment which I would not have stood for a moment from any one else—I always hoped that he would soften34 and deal as frankly35 and unreservedly with me as I with him; but, though for some fifteen years I hoped this, in the end I gave it up, and settled down into a resolve from which I never departed—to do all I could for him, to avoid friction36 of every kind, and to make the best of things for him and myself that circumstances would allow.'
In love such as this there is a feminine tenderness and devotion which positively37 illuminates38 what otherwise appears to be a streak39 of perversity40 in Butler; and the illumination becomes still more certain when we read Butler's letters to the young Swiss, Hans Faesch, to whom Out into the Night was written. Faesch had departed for Singapore.
'The sooner we all of us,' wrote Butler, 'as men of sense and sober reason, get through the very acute, poignant41 sorrow which we now feel, the better for us all. There is no fear of any of us forgetting when the acute stage is passed. I should be ashamed of myself for having felt as keenly and spoken with as little reserve as I have if it were any one but you; but I feel no shame at any length to which grief can take me when it is about you. I can call to mind no word which ever passed between us three which had been better unspoken: no syllable42 of irritation43 or unkindness; nothing but goodness and kindness ever came out of you, and such as our best was we gave it to you as you gave yours to us. Who may not well be plunged44 up to the lips in sorrow at parting from one of whom he can say this in all soberness and truth? I feel as though I had lost an only son with no hope of another….'
The love is almost pathetically lavish13. Letters like these reveal to us a man so avid45 of affection that he must of necessity erect46 every barrier and defence to avoid a mortal wound. His sensibility was rentrée, probably as a consequence of his appalling47 childhood; and the indication helps us to understand not only the inordinate48 suspiciousness with which he behaved to Darwin, but the extent to which irony49 was his favoured weapon. The most threatening danger for such a man is to take the professions of the world at their face value; he can inoculate50 himself only by irony. The more extreme his case, the more devouring51 the hunger to love and be loved, the more extreme the irony, and in Butler it reached the absolute maximum, which is to interpret the professions of the world as their exact opposite. As a reviewer of the Note-Books in The Athen?um recently said, Butler's method was to stand propositions on their heads. He universalised his method; he applied52 it not merely to scientific propositions of fact, but, even more ruthlessly, to the converse53 of daily life. He divided up the world into a vast majority who meant the opposite of what they said, and an infinitesimal minority who were sincere. The truth that the vast majority are borderland cases escaped him, largely because he was compelled by his isolation54 to regard all his honest beliefs as proven certainties. That a man could like and admire him and yet regard him as in many things mistaken and wrong-headed was strictly55 incomprehensible to him, and from this angle the curious relations which existed between him and Dr Richard Garnett of the British Museum are of uncommon56 interest. They afford a strange example of mutual57 mystification.
Thus at least one-half the world, not of life only (which does not greatly matter, for one can live as happily with half the world as with the whole) but of thought, was closed to him. Most of the poetry, the music, and the art of the world was humbug58 to him, and it was only by insisting that Homer and Shakespeare were exactly like himself that he managed to except them from his natural aversion. So, in the last resort, he humbugged himself quite as vehemently59 as he imagined the majority of men were engaged in humbugging him. If his standard of truth was higher than that of the many, it was lower than that of the few. There is a kingdom where the crass60 division into sheep and goats is merely clumsy and inopportune. In the slow meanderings of this Memoir we too often catch a glimpse of Butler measuring giants with the impertinent foot-rule of his common sense. One does not like him the less for it, but it is, in spite of all the disconcerting jokes with which it may be covered, a futile61 and ridiculous occupation. Persistently62 there emerges from the record the impression of something childish, whether in petulance63 or gaminerie, a crudeness as well as a shrewdness of judgment64 and ideal. Where Butler thought himself complete, he was insufficient65; and where he thought himself insufficient, he was complete. To himself he appeared a hobbledehoy by the side of Pauli; to us he appears a hobbledehoy by the side of Miss Savage.
[OCTOBER, 1919.
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1
contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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8
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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impervious
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| adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的 | |
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draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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memoir
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| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
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12
peccadillo
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| n.轻罪，小过失 | |
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13
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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21
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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23
primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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24
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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25
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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26
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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27
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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31
unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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32
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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33
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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34
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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illuminates
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| v.使明亮( illuminate的第三人称单数 )；照亮；装饰；说明 | |
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39
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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41
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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42
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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43
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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44
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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45
avid
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| adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的 | |
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46
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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47
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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48
inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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49
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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50
inoculate
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| v.给...接种，给...注射疫苗 | |
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51
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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52
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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53
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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54
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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55
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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56
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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57
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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58
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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59
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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60
crass
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| adj.愚钝的，粗糙的；彻底的 | |
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61
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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62
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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63
petulance
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| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
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64
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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65
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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