Note-Books of Samuel Butler
Author: first_name: Samuel
last_name: Butler
first_name: Henry Festing
last_name: Jones
Language: English
Year: 1912

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:<br></br>“One’s thoughts fly so fast that one must shoot them; it is no use trying to put salt on their tails.”<br></br>So he bagged as many as he could hit and preserved them, re-written on loose sheets of paper which constituted a sor