FRINGES OF TRUTH

Southland Times, Issue 19123, 15 December 1923, Page 9 (Supplement)

FRINGES OF TRUTH

A MAN WHO THREW BRICKS.

(By

“Rufus.”)

One gets many- surprises in this life, but only a very small percentage of agreeable ones. In view of this I was distinctly stunned yesterday when I actually received from a bookseller the book I had - ordered. It seems years ago since I went a weary round of all the booksellers in town, asking humbly if they could supply me with the “Notebooks of Samuel Butler.” Everywhere I was regarded with tolerant amusement ; no one had heard of the illustrious Samuel, no one showed any particular desire to be enlightened. I was about to give it up in disgust, but in my distress I came to a fellow-spirit, a patron of the arts. He smiled reassuringly, took my address, assured me that in due course all would be well. He then sold me a copy of “Stewart Island Poems,” which I did not want and allowed me to depart.. Weeks went by, till the incident had altogether’ slipped my mind, Then, like a bolt from the blue, the “Notebooks” appeared true, my literary enthusiasm was somewhat damped by the fact that I was not in a position to fittingly reimburse the bookseller for his services. Still, I feel sure that one who is so genuine a patron of the arts will not damp my scholarly ardour for a few pence. The idea is inconceivable.

It is an unfortunate fact that, as is so frequently the case with writers whose circle of devotees is small but elect, Butler’s works are found for the most part in distressingly expensive editions. Yet in New Zealand Butler has always enjoyed some small degree of popularity, partly because he is the greatest writer that has as yet set foot in this country, and partly because he wrote for the “Christchurch Press,” both of them doubtful distinctions. Yet it is quite probable that Butler was neither influenced nor impressed by New Zealand. His only object in coming here, apparently, was to make enough money to enable him to pass the better part of his life in independence. As soon as- this was done he returned to London to live in scholarly ease. For it was absolutely essential to the genius of Butler that he should remain independent of public sentiment and public taste. Indeed, I think that if Butler had tried to earn a living by journalism he would not have made enough to pay for lead pencils. The key note of his whole life is in one paragraph in his “Notebooks”:—“l am the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I cannot, and I know I cannot, get the literary and scientific big-wigs to give me a shilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle of them.” And so he did. I never fail to take infinite delight in the spectacle of Butler standing apart from the exalted concourse of the mighty one and fashioning missiles with the unholy glee of a refractory school boy. Butler was certainly an artistic brick thrower. He did not commit the too frequent mistake of'wasting time and strength in hurling his missiles at the vulgar mob because he knew that even the most angular and weighty bricks would rebound harmlessly from their adamantine skulls. His bricks fell in the small but exclusive literary glass houses and caused a great, upheaval and a smashing of glass. There can be no doubt that he derived a vast amount of healthy and selfish satisfaction from this, just as there can be no doubt that he lost a great deal of money over it. One does not alienate the demagogues with impunity. ‘ In one place in his “Notebooks” he says of his books, "The balance against them is now over £350. How completely they must have been squashed unless I had a little money of my own.” It is rather a distressing reflection, but true nevertheless, that but for a few thousand pounds the genius of Samuel Butler would probably never have elevated itself out of the common ruck. And it is still more distressing to reflect in these days of best sellers and circulations that are numbered in millions, that the output of one of the best pens of the 19th century involved a net loss of over £350. Indeed, even given that a man has sufficient money to publish his own books, it is very seldom that he is willing to -persevere in his literary efforts without ever attaining any degree of prominence. Yet Butler was one of those rare and selfcontained individuals who cared as little for other people as they cared for him. He wrote entirely for his own satisfaction; when an idea came to him he was not content until he had worked it off. If any particular phase of life irritated him he attacked it until his spleen had subsided. I conceive that it was this spirit that’ “The Way of All Flesh” was written. For a piece of deliberate, drawn out, brutality this book has no equal. It is the outcome of an early attempt on the part of Butler’s parents to force him into the Anglican clergy, an attempt that seems, to have rankled in the writer’s mind for the greater part of his life, and one which he never forgave. In “The Way of All Mesh” he turns upon his own parents in particular and upon the Anglican clergy in general, and dissects them in a very horrible and realistic manner. He strips them of every vestige’ of dignity or decency, shows the established Christian religion in the light of a narrowing and degenerating ‘force, shows the home life of the clergy as a strained mockery. Considered as a novel the book is not a good one, because all through it shows the one implacable purpose in the mind of the writer. Never once does he relent during the whole course of the book. The scene towards the close, where the Rev. Theo-

bald’s wife dies is a master stroke of cruelty.

* she went away so peacefully that it was like the blending of sea and sky in mid-ocean upon a soft hazy day when none can say where the earth ends and the heavens begin. Indeed, she died to the realities of life with less pain than she had waked from many of its illusions. ‘She has been the comfort and mainstay of my life for more than thirty years,’ said Theobald, ‘but one could not wish it prolonged’ and he buried his face in his handkerchief to conceal his want of emotion.” A great book, so great that Bernard Shaw was not ashamed to pirate it in great chunks. Yet a disagreeable book, withal, and with a conclusion that is quite intolerable. I hope I may not read it again for a long time to come. Still, it is undoubtedly the most deadly and effective brick that Butler ever heaved, and I fear the hole has not been very well patched. And I can conceive of no higher joy in this life than to heave one or two such bricks into the camp of the enemy before I depart.