FAMILY FEUD

Evening Star, Issue 19443, 29 December 1926, Page 3

FAMILY FEUD

HEW LIGHT DH SAMUEL BUTLER Few novels have created more permanent interest, than Samuel Butler's famous ‘The Way of All Flesh,’ and that bitter study of the dangers of parental domination has always been accepted as a more or less accurate account of the author’s relations with lu’s father and mother. It is this view which Mrs R. S. Garnett considerably modifies in her new book, ‘Samuel Butler and His Family Relations ’ (savs a writer in ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’). Mrs Garnett, bearing a. name which commands respect in the world of English literature, is a relation of the Butler family. Tier mother was a cousin of Butler’s mother, and she had close personal dealings with Canon Butler, his wife, and children. Here, then, is the truth about a relationship made notoriously .unpleasant in the novel. Mrs Garnett defends the Butler family against the ridicule and scorn of ‘ The Way of All Flesh.’ She does it fairly and gently. It is not to discredit the opinions of Samuel Bntlor, but to soften them, that she has written her interesting book.

A KINDLY OLD GENTLEMAN. The Rev. Thomas Butler was a very kindly old gentleman, and in real life bore few resemblances to his counterpart in ‘ The Way of All Flesh.’ Ho is exhibited to us as a humorist, as, when asked by his wife to bring her two crinolines when lie came to fetch her after a visit home, ho replied: “My dear, J do not know how I can bring both your hoops, unless 1 wear one.” And on one occasion, when acting as nurse to the children, who were making outrageous noises, lie cried, angrily: “Children, don’t you know that your mother has gone to lie down with a headache?” Then the dismay on the conscience-stricken faces of the infants made him burst out laughing. Airs Garnett does not describe the character of Canon Butler’s wife or daughters, but leaves us to appreciate their values as a background to the personality of the father. THE - SENSITIVE SON.

It was really Samuel Butler, the son, who had a peculiar temperament. Ho was sensitive, opposed to the conventionalities of the age, freedom-lov-ing, and yet affectionate at heart. The father’s sin towards the son lay in excessive restraint; he would not allow the boy to feel towards him as the boy desired. So this disappointment turned to bitterness. And there you have the secret of Samuel Butler’s book. When the reader has apprehended this attitude he can forgive much of the harshness of ‘The Way of All Flesh.’ It becomes more and more clear as we rend Airs Garnett’s book that ‘The Way of All Flesh ’ is an attack on the age rather than on the Butler family. However, the reader may be left to form his own opinions. ‘ Samuel Butler and His Family Relations,’ written and illustrated in an admirable manner, throws a good deal of light on a problem of much interest to every student of fiction ns an interpretation of real life.