CHAPTER  1   .sx   
  CHAPTER  1   .sx   
  Origins   .sx   
  " The  Three  Most  Important  Things  a  man  has  are  briefly  , 
his  private  parts  , his  money  , and  his  religious  opinions .sx   "  
The  statement  , with  the  sting  in  its  tail  , comes  from  an  outwardly  
conventional  Victorian  , bowler-hatted  and  black-suited .sx   Was  it  
conceived  during  Family  Prayers  , and  recorded  , like  so  many  of  
Samuel  Butler's  notes  and  aphorisms  , in  the  Reading  Room  of  the  
British  Museum ?sx   
  Butler  remains  one  of  the  great  unclassifiable  minds  of  the  
nineteenth  century  , with  a  reputation  that  rises  and  falls  but  
obstinately  resists  definition .sx   His  versatility  and  curiosity  led  
him  into  many  areas  of  life  and  thought :sx   religion  , science  , 
literature  , art .sx   He  was  artist  and  photographer  , as  well  as  
novelist  , critic  , and  philosopher  , sheep  farmer  , company  director  
and  property  developer .sx   But  his  claim  on  our  interest  has  
additional  support  in  the  modern  writers  who  were  influenced  by  and  
interested  in  him :sx   Shaw  , first  and  foremost  ; H.G.  Wells  , Lytton  
Strachey  , the  Woolfs  , E.M.  Forster  , Ivy  Compton-Burnett  , Robert  
Graves  , James  Joyce .sx   
  Combative  , lucid  , honest  , with  a  mischievous  sense  of  humour  
which  surfaced  at  most  inappropriate  moments  , Butler  developed  his  
intellectual  muscle  by  questioning  received  ideas  and  attitudes .sx   
Betrayed  as  a  child  , he  resolved  never  to  be  'humbugged'  again  , 
while  perplexingly  playing  the  role  of  the  archetypal  English  
gentleman :sx   public  school  and  Cambridge  ; chambers  in  Clifford's  Inn  ; 
British  Museum  , Royal  Academy  , correspondence  columns  of  the  
  Athenaeum .sx   But  a  formative  summer  as  an  unpaid  curate  in  the  
slums  of  London  , long  months  on  an  emigrant  ship  and  four  years  as  
a  sheep  farmer  in  New  Zealand  provided  a  second  , less  conventional  
education .sx   He  felt  uneasy  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  well-connected  
'nice'  people  , preferring  the  atmosphere  of  public  houses  and  music  
halls .sx   
  In  his  irreverent  autobiographical  novel  , The  Way  of  All  
Flesh  ,  published  after  his  death  , in  1903  , Butler  created  a  
new  kind  of  being  fit  for  the  modern  world  , Ernest  Pontifex  ( Ernest  
Priest) .sx   Writing  about  Ernest's  education  , which  was  parallel  to  
his  own  , he  exclaims :sx   " What  a  lie  , what  a  sickly  
debilitating  debauch  did  not  Ernest's  school  and  university  career  
now  seem  to  him  , in  comparison  with  his  life  in  prison  and  as  a  
tailor  in  Blackfriars .sx   "  ( WF  368  ) For  all  the  bachelor  , 
middle-class  security  of  his  London  chambers  and  his  comfortable  
routine  , Butler  lived  in  close  awareness  of  the  less  affluent  and  
more  bohemian .sx   For  his  pleasures  , he  would  make  his  weekly  visit  to  
Madame  Dumas  in  Islington  , or  take  the  steamer  for  a  day  trip  to  
Margate  or  Clacton  , or  accompany  his  servant  Alfred  to  the  
pantomime .sx   
  One  can  mock  , as  Malcolm  Muggeridge  did  in  his  caustic  study  of  
Butler  , The  Earnest  Atheist  ,  Butler's  reliance  on  his  
cheque  book  and  his  meticulous  book-keeping  by  double  entry  ; but  he  
was  living  in  a  tightly  knit  , urban  society  that  put  a  monetary  
value  on  everyone  and  everything  , in  spite  of  denials  to  the  
contrary .sx   Money  was  luck  , and  freedom .sx   Butler's  nostalgia  for  the  
pastoral  simplicity  of  the  eighteenth  century  , partly  expressed  in  
the  utopia  of  his  novel  Erewhon  , or  in  his  affection  for  the  
healthy  , good-looking  peasants  of  the  Italian  Alps  , was  fed  by  his  
intimate  contact  with  the  realities  of  London  ; and  every  day  , like  
a  good  Victorian  but  in  his  own  highly  sceptical  way  , he  thought  
about  the  impact  of  religion  and  the  nature  of  God .sx   
  When  Butler  escaped  from  England  and  landed  in  New  Zealand  as  a  
young  immigrant  of  twenty-four  , he  climbed  the  volcanic  hills  that  
surround  Port  Lyttelton  harbour  to  have  a  sight  of  his  new  country .sx   
The  Canterbury  Plains  , lovely  in  colouring  , stretched  away  into  the  
distance  , where  his  eye  was  met  by  the  extensive  blue  line  of  the  
Southern  Alps .sx   As  soon  as  he  saw  the  mountains  , he  longed  to  cross  
them .sx   
  Within  a  few  weeks  , he  had  fulfilled  his  wish  , and  returned .sx   It  
was  a  pattern  he  would  repeat  on  several  occasions  during  his  years  
in  South  Island  , most  memorably  in  his  courageous  explorations  of  
the  headwaters  of  the  Rangitata  river  which  formed  the  foundation  
of  the  fictional  journey  over  the  range  and  on  into  'Erewhon' .sx   The  
impulse  to  explore  and  discover  , preferably  in  isolation  , 
characterised  his  restless  cast  of  mind .sx   If  some  grand  obstacle  
loomed  on  the  horizon  , mysterious  and  forbidding  -  the  Anglican  
God  , the  Victorian  family  , Darwin  , Homer  -  he  set  out  to  
investigate  for  himself  ; and  he  would  come  back  from  these  mental  
expeditions  , having  mapped  out  the  territory  to  his  own  
satisfaction  , to  announce  to  an  uninterested  world  that  the  mystery  
had  been  solved .sx   In  his  final  years  , Butler  became  acutely  
conscious  of  the  symmetry  of  his  literary  career  ; it  began  in  1872  
with  Erewhon  and  ended  in  1901  with  Erewhon  
Revisited  ,  the  emotional  climax  of  which  is  set  on  the  very  
summit  of  a  mountain  range  , in  the  shadow  of  giant  statues  guarding  
the  pass  into  the  magical  country  beyond .sx   
  The  rhythm  of  Butler's  life  , in  an  age  when  travel  was  suddenly  
available  and  cheap  , was  punctuated  by  journeys .sx   The  railway  and  
the  steamship  made  the  whole  world  more  accessible  to  
mid-nineteenth-century  England  , and  when  Butler  was  planning  to  
emigrate  , fleeing  the  twin  spectres  of  his  father  and  ordination  , 
he  considered  , in  rapid  succession  , the  merits  of  Liberia  , the  Cape  
and  British  Columbia .sx   In  the  end  New  Zealand  offered  the  advantage  
of  being  as  far  away  from  England  in  space  and  time  as  was  
practical  , and  proved  to  be  his  most  significant  journey .sx   But  every  
setting  out  was  matched  by  a  return .sx   England  , and  the  English  
society  , which  so  confounded  and  oppressed  him  , kept  calling  to  
him  ; and  however  hard  he  strained  at  the  ties  that  held  him  , he  
would  be  drawn  , quietly  but  inexorably  , back  to  his  base  at  
Clifford's  Inn  , to  the  circle  of  his  close  friends  , even  , in  spite  
of  his  loud  protests  to  the  contrary  , to  his  family .sx   In  London  he  
would  work  at  his  books  , his  painting  or  his  music  until  his  eyes  
failed  and  his  brain  reeled .sx   Then  he  would  pack  his  bags  again  and  
go  , in  summer  to  the  Alps  , at  Easter  or  Whitsun  to  Boulogne  , or  on  
Thursdays  and  Sundays  to  Gad's  Hill  or  the  Downs .sx   
  He  enjoyed  travelling  light .sx   The  British  Museum  was  his  
library .sx   He  could  find  a  piano  anywhere  , and  in  any  event  carried  
most  of  Handel  in  his  head .sx   Yet  his  rooms  at  Clifford's  Inn  were  
stuffed  with  objects  , the  walls  crowded  with  photographs  , sketches  
and  paintings .sx   He  kept  piles  of  his  own  unsold  books  , stacks  of  
manuscripts  , letters  , notebooks  , boxes  of  glass  negatives .sx   He  lived  
among  the  residue  of  his  own  life  , a  lumber-room  existence  from  
which  little  was  discarded  because  everything  had  meaning .sx   His  
memory  was  equally  retentive .sx   He  recalled  images  , incidents  , casual  
encounters  and  conversations  , and  recorded  them  in  his  notebooks  
and  correspondence  , and  he  kept  pressed  copies  of  most  of  his  
letters .sx   Even  when  travelling  , he  laid  down  a  trail  of  forwarding  
addresses  , postes  restantes  and  trusted  
hoteliers  to  ensure  that  he  maintained  contact  with  his  friends  and  
with  his  family .sx   
  It  is  in  his  relations  with  his  family  that  Butler's  
paradoxical  nature  is  most  evident .sx   His  father  was  his  intimate  
enemy .sx   He  felt  rejected  by  his  mother .sx   He  claimed  to  dislike  his  
sisters .sx   He  hated  his  brother .sx   He  left  England  in  pique  and  hurt  to  
escape  from  the  stifling  incomprehension  of  his  parents  and  what  he  
believed  they  stood  for  ; yet  he  wrote  to  them  at  great  length  from  
New  Zealand  , and  when  they  proudly  edited  his  letters  and  published  
them  , he  turned  on  them  after  correcting  the  proofs  and  rejected  
the  book  , A  First  Year  in  Canterbury  Settlement  ,  as  being  
infected  with  the  taint  of  the  family  home  , Langar .sx   But  he  could  
not  let  them  go .sx   On  occasions  , he  was  barred  from  the  house  ; on  
others  , he  threatened  to  leave  , never  to  meet  again .sx   He  always  
returned  , and  was  present  at  the  deathbeds  of  his  mother  and  his  
father .sx   The  combat  was  resolvable  in  one  sense  only  by  death  , and  , 
in  another  , by  fiction .sx   
  The  Way  of  All  Flesh  is  the  story  of  Butler's  
elemental  conflict  with  his  family .sx   V.S.  Pritchett  described  it  as  
one  of  the  time-bombs  of  literature  , " lying  in  Butler's  
desk  at  Clifford's  Inn  for  thirty  years  , waiting  to  blow  up  the  
Victorian  family  and  with  it  the  whole  great  pillared  and  
balustraded  edifice  of  the  Victorian  novel  "   .sx   The  book  
follows  the  path  of  much  of  Butler's  own  early  development  closely  , 
and  is  undeniably  , if  selectively  , autobiographical .sx   He  purged  
himself  during  the  long  process  of  its  creation .sx   He  wrote  it  partly  
out  of  resentment  and  remembered  hate  ; but  he  turns  the  irony  as  
savagely  on  himself  as  on  his  parents  and  sisters  , and  on  the  whole  
ethos  of  Victorian  values  which  he  abominated  and  yet  knew  himself  
to  be  inescapably  a  part  of .sx   
  The  novel  is  an  exercise  in  demythologising  the  family  , both  as  
an  institution  and  in  personal  terms .sx   It  is  the  detailed  , intimate  
record  of  Butler's  memories  , nightmares  and  dreams  , an  extended  
gloss  on  the  naive  painting  , 'Family  Prayers'  , which  he  painted  in  
1864  and  which  was  his  first  attempt  to  open  up  the  dark  , locked  
room  of  his  childhood .sx   Like  Ingmar  Bergman  , who  also  survived  an  
upbringing  in  which  sin  and  punishment  prevailed  over  grace  and  
forgiveness  , Samuel  Butler  transformed  his  painful  experience  of  
childhood  into  art .sx   Bergman  , discussing  the  great  film  makers  , 
commented :sx   " When  film  is  not  a  document  , it  is  
dream .sx   "  Butler's  novel  is  dream  disguised  as  document .sx   
  However  much  Butler  strove  to  recreate  himself  , he  was  
hyper  -  conscious  of  being  the  product  of  his  parents  , 
grandparents  and  ancestors  ; and  he  spent  much  of  his  life  
investigating  his  origins .sx   The  key  figure  in  the  family  was  
Samuel's  grandfather  and  namesake  , Headmaster  of  Shrewsbury  public  
school  and  Bishop  of  Lichfield  , who  died  when  he  was  four .sx   It  was  
Samuel's  birthday  , and  a  village  woman  who  did  sewing  at  Langar  
Rectory  brought  him  a  little  pot  of  honey .sx   " My  father  came  
in  , told  us  grandpapa  was  dead  , and  took  away  the  honey  saying  it  
would  not  be  good  for  us .sx   "   .sx   
  Samuel  had  only  one  direct  memory  of  his  grandfather  , less  
ominous :sx   " I  had  a  vision  of  myself  before  a  nursery  fire  
with  Dr  Butler  walking  up  and  down  the  room  watching  my  sister  
Harrie  and  myself .sx   "  ( M1 .sx 19  ) The  'portrait'  of  Dr  Butler  in  
  The  Way  of  All  Flesh  ,  translated  into  George  Pontifex  , a  
successful  publisher  of  religious  works  , is  ambivalent .sx   His  
fictional  epitaph  ( WF  110) :sx   
  HE  NOW  LIES  AWAITING  A  JOYFUL  RESURRECTION   .sx   
  AT  THE  LAST  DAY   .sx   
  WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS   .sx   
  THAT  DAY  WILL  DISCOVER   .sx   
  hints  at  Butler's  uncertainty  about  his  own  judgment  of  him .sx   
When  he  eventually  inherited  a  dinner  service  of  silver  plate  , 
presented  to  Dr  Butler  when  he  became  Bishop  of  Lichfield  , he  
decided  to  sell  it .sx   
  I  took  it  to  a  silversmith's  in  the  Strand  , or  rather  
got  them  to  send  some  one  to  see  it  ; he  said  it  was  very  good  , but  
of  a  period  ( 1836  ) now  out  of  fashion .sx   
  'There  is  one  especial  test  of  respectability  in  plate,'  he  
remarked  ; 'we  seldom  find  it  but  , when  we  do  , we  consider  it  the  
most  correct  thing  and  the  best  guarantee  of  solid  prosperity  that  
anything  in  plate  can  give .sx   When  there  is  a  silver  venison  dish  we  
know  that  the  plate  comes  from  an  owner  of  the  very  highest  
respectability .sx '   .sx   
  My  grandfather  had  a  silver  venison  dish .sx    .sx   
  To  this  note  Butler  added  a  P.S.  , after  he  had  written  the  
monumental  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Dr  Samuel  Butler   :sx   
  When  I  wrote  the  above  , I  knew  nothing  about  my  
grandfather  except  that  he  had  been  a  great  schoolmaster  -  and  I  
did  not  like  schoolmasters  ; and  then  a  bishop  -  and  I  did  not  like  
bishops  ; and  that  he  was  supposed  to  be  like  my  father .sx   [He  does  
not  need  to  add  , 'and  I  did  not  like  my  father' .sx ]  Of  course  when  I  
got  hold  of  his  papers  , I  saw  what  he  was  and  fell  head  over  ears  
in  love  with  him .sx   Had  I  known  then  what  I  know  now  , I  do  not  think  
I  could  have  sold  the  plate  ; but  it  was  much  better  that  I  should  , 
and  I  have  raised  a  far  better  monument  to  his  memory  than  ever  the  
plate  was .sx   ( M2 .sx 50-1  )  .sx