New-York tribune., 1920-01-10
Memoirs of Samuel Butler
Interesting View of Genius in
Notes Gathered by Ell. F. Jones

'ensive questioning into Christianity,
20 Investigations into evolution. his
questIng for faith led him to some
tnlng like conclusion in his theory
ehat the variation Of species was the
WORKING OF sub-consciously intelligent
adaptation. Therein he broke off from
the Darwinian belief that variation WAS
accidental and unintelligent, and there
ore purposeless, and this difference
,ed him to the writing of Life and
Habit Luck or Cunning ?" and those
oener books in which the mind of a
ayman is applied to the problem of
evolution. This difference in opinion
led to a misunderstanding and to a
personal quarrel between Darwin and
himself that was never resolved.
There is an extraordinary record
oere Of Buffers personal relationships.
he was capable, in spite Of his satiric
outlook on human nature, Of the most
luixotic and idealistie friendships for
men: The record Of his friendship for
Sauii, young journalist whom he met
IN New Zealand, is curious one. It
was the friendship Of a difident. shv.
poetical man for confident, SNOWY.
worldly man, and it led. to a doelike
devotion on the part Of Butler. Paull
thought If he could get to England and
become barrister he might have some
chance Of success, and Butler under
took to take him back with him and to
finance him until he might earn a COM
potency at the law. Through all the
displeasure of his family, through
very deceit and humiliation that
sauli himself later put upon him, he
him hic o~~>;v en.A
continued him the allowance Of s2oo a
year until Pauli's death thirty years
later put an end to this strange
friendship, when he found that for
! many years PAUL. had been earning
FIVE times that amount. For years
PAUL. refused to let Butler know
where he lived, and Butler learned Of
his death through newspaper notice.
And the tragic truth Of this strange
friendship which Butler knew was that
his white heat of devotion" bored
PAUL..
There is recorded another remark
able friendship developed when Butler
vas fifty-six, and this time for a young
man, Hans Faesch. who seems to have
( cen in no way a remarkable person.
The small circle of people who made
up Buffers personal attendants and
close friends were riveted to him by
strong bonds of affection which no
trial could break down. He took a
deep delight in people of a racy, ma
tive, pungent wit; and in his personal
attendants, in his charwoman, his
laundress and his clerk. Alfred Cathie,
he had rare assortment of charac-
ters. Cathie tyrannized over him and
cided matters Of state for him. He
was a person of such swift, original
judgments as Butler loved.
Butler was chary of women. and
regarded them heretically and real
isticaly. At the studio where he stud
led art for many years the women
students called him the Incarnate
Bachelor. He had a few cautious
friendships with women, but it is plain
that he was desperately afraid Of any
romantic attachment. Two threatened
him in the course Of his life-the first
for a surprisingly beautiful Italian
peasant gir lnamed Isabella and the
other for Miss Savage. She was a
woman of his own temper of mind
satiric, skeptcal and witty. She was
! cripple, not at all beautiful, but, to
judge from the quite remarkable cor
respondence, woman Of great humor
and charm. She had an understanding
of his genius and a devotion for him
not unlike his for PAUL., but as he had
bored PAUL. so she bored him.
No one stood SO isolated from his
period of lionhood following "Erewhon"
ne met Sir George Trevelyan and John
Morley and was disrespectful Of them.
Browning, Tennyson. Meredith and
Rossetti he openly derided. He lived
entirely out of literary and social
circles, and as time went by his de-
fant solitude grew more and more
marked. In the end he was a sort Of
ishmael from all the literary and scien
tfic cliches. So that in 1899, when some
one wrote requesting his influence
81 am terribly out Of favor with
ali of them the reviewersl. l
never write on any subject unless I
believe the opinion of those who have
he ear of the public to be mistaken.
and this involves that every
book ! write runs counter to the men
Who are in possession Of the field;
hence l am always in hot water {.
The complete isolation, or worse than
isolation, in which ! stand robs me Of
all power to do a good turn to any one
else. however much l might wish to
do So"
Many of Buffers intensest causes
seem pedantic quibblings. 1t is diff
cult to understand the heat with which
he fought to prove that the Odyssey
was written by woman, or that Shake
speare's sonnets were Of a certain
period, or his studied Indifference to all
musicians but Handel. There are
dozen instances by which he proved
himself truly descended from DR.: But
Ter, the famous pedagogue. But In the
fearlessness with which he sought for
the truth, In the faithfulness with
which he tended his lights, In the
breadth Of his vision, he was an impas-
stoned lover OF life. Only one valuing
it deeply could have made such fierce
jests about it. And only one tragically
knowing it's limitations could have said,
AZ he did when he was asked to speak
on "How to Make the Best of Life:
Il do not even know how to make the
beat Of the twenty inmates your com
mittee has placed at my disposal.
Life is like playing violin solo In
public and learning the instrument as
one goes on. One cannot make the
best Of such impossbiitiss."