Life and Times of Samuel Butler

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20065, 23 March 1935, Page 12

Life and Times of Samuel Butler

The impression that William Sefton Moorhouse made on Samuel Butler was so strong that at even nearly half a century later, Butler considered him one of .the most striking personalities he had ever met. Hide in First Locomotive Run It is but natural to assume that the man who could make such a strong and irradicable impression on Butler, must be a person of outstanding character, as indeed Moorhouse was. In the stirring days of the development of Canterbury, he was, for many years, the leading man amongst those leaders of unusual ability who guided the destinies of our infant colony. He it was who initiated the policy of freely borrowing—later known as the “Moorhouse” policy—a habit quickly acquired by the rest of the provinces as well as the Central Government, and which has lasted to our own times.

When Mr E. J. Bell, the Librarian of the Christchurch Public Library took over his duties in 1913, he discovered this treasure stowed away in a cupboard. O. T. J. Alpers, to whom the picture was shown, made efforts to discover its earlier history, but without avail. Mr Alpers considered that it had at one time been in the possession of the Canterbury Society of Arts, and that, together with the portrait of Cass, had been handed over to the Museum. Mr Bell then had the portrait hung in the Reference Room of the Public Library.

The portrait, dated 1873, bears a striking likeness to the photographs of Butler, and shows him as a dark, keeneyed man of long features, with thick black hair, brushed back, heavy eyelashes and a short-cropped dark beard. Apart from its historic value, the painting is considered by art critics as a work of merit. Butler was always fond of painting, in fact he seriously thought of devoting himself solely to art work, and was ranked as an artist of no mean skill. Clash with Literary Censorship But this was not the only “affair” in which Butler was “mixed-up” in the Christchurch Public Library. This time it was a matter of books, and the very delicate problem of the literary censorship. When “Erewhon Revisited” was first published, the book received warm praise in a signed article in “The Press” by O. T. J. Alpers. Mr Alpers relates that “someone, who knew his address, posted a copy of the paper to him, and thinking I was the sender

Behind this progressive policy was the dynamic personality of William Sefton Moorhouse pushing on his country's interest and so sacrificing his chance of piling up a private fortune. The Lyttelton tunnel was his favourite child and he devoted a tremendous amount of his aggressive energy to this enterprise. As a preliminary, the Christchurch-HeaLhcote line was built this being the initial railway to be constructed in New Zealand. Moorhouse must have thought a great deal of Butler for he invited his Mesopotamian friend to share with him the honour of having the first ride on the first locomotive in the Colony.

Butler was greatly pleased at this mark of friendship and forty years later recalled it: “I suppose I am probably the last survivor of those who rode on the trial trip of the first locomotive that ever travelled in New Zealand. Moorhouse, Beeves, myself and one other (but of this I am not certain) were the only ones on the engine as it started from Christchurch and ran to the Heathcote.” I am inclined to think that the “one other” person who travelled in this trial trip of the first locomotive with Moorhouse, Butler, and Reeves was John Marshman, the first manager of the Canterbury railways. Butler as Artist John Marshman lived in River Road, Christchurch, next door to Dr von Haast. This house was recently demolished, and in giving an account of the home, a writer in “The Press” stated: “At times Samuel Butler came in from his station, played on the Marshman piano, painted in the din-ing-room, and walked in the Marshman garden. No doubt he also sniffed the banksia roses and dreamed of the time when, having created the estate of his desire, he would be able to return to London and the British Museum, and there devote himself to literature. But in the meantime, he played the piano and painted . . .

The writer goes on to say “A granddaughter of John Marshman, a Christchurch resident, is to-day the possessor of a portrait of her grandfather which was painted by Samuel Butler. Quite a little romance is attached to this portrait. John Marshman did not always live at 54 River Road. He also lived at Sumner and on the old Wilderness road. During one of the upheavals in the shifting of many possessions, the portrait was put out among some lumber to be given to a daily charwoman. Thirty years afterwards one of John Marshman’s grandsons identified the painting, hanging, smoke-blackened, above the fireplace of a fisherman’s hut at Redcliffs. Promptly he bought it from the fisherman: and to-day it is a valued family possession, linking as it does Samuel Butler with John Marshman, Canterbury’s first genera] manager of railways.”

While at Cambridge, Butler was a keen student of painting but the exigencies of sheep-farming and exploring seems to have driven painting out of his life during his stay in Canterbury. One of those who knew him when in New Zealand states "I never remember Butler drawing or sketching in New Zealand, and I do not think he ever painted."

However, there is a most interesting self-portrait of Butler hanging in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. Like the painting of Marshman, this portrait also seems to have had a varied and chequered career. For twenty years this portrait has hung in the reference room of the Christchurch public Library, until loaned by the Library authorities to the Art Gallery a couple of years ago. Just how this painting came to be in the possession of the library in the first place, nobody seems to know. Festing-Jones states “Butler’s pictures, sketches, and studies were distributed (after his death in 1902) some to the British Museum, others to friends, but no record was kept. One of his portraits of himself was sent to Christchurch, New Zealand, and hung in the museum there, where also hangs his portrait of Mr T. Cass.” This portrait of Cass, which has been mentioned previously, was painted by Butler when the sitter was in London for a brief period, acting as Emigration Agent for the Colony, in 1868. Cass presented the portrait to the Canterbury Museum.

RANDOM NOTES ON SOJOURN IN SOUTH CANTERBURY

(Specially written for “The Timaru Herald” by W. Vance.)

he replied direct to me, thanking me for what he called “an extremely kind and gratifying article, warmly sympathetic in tone.” We exchanged some half-dozen letters in the course of the next few months. His last letter to me was written three weeks before his death. With this letter came a complete set of his works—some seventeen volumes—which he wished me to present on his behalf, to such library or other institution in Christchurch as I might chose.” Mr Alpers goes on to say that he chose the Christchurch Public Library, and the gift was gratefully accepted by them. When however Samuel Butler’s posthumous book “The Way of All Flesh” was presented to the Library, in order to complete the set, the Board of Governors took alarm, and refused to accept it. Alpers thereupon demanded the return of the other books, so that he place the complete set with some institution which would be willing to accept it, so the Board of Governors affected a somewhat peculiar compromise. They accepted “The Way of All Flesh” but placed the whole of his books in a glass case under lock and key. Butler had died before he could receive news about the dispute with the Public Library, but Alpers remarks: “Had he lived long enough to learn from me how his books had been placed under lock and key, I can imagine how he w’ould have chuckled, and what a droll and whimsical entry he would, there and then, have made in his inimitable Note Book. But the treatment meted out to his books would not have disturbed him overmuch; he would have reflected, with unruffled confidence, that a day would come when the Christchurch Public Library and every other library in the English-

speaking world would gladly welcome on its shelves the least orthodox of his writings.” In passing judgment on the library authorities, we must remember that the outlook of Society was still coloured by the afterglow of Victorian prejudice, and that the battle for a more “modem,” attitude towards life, so long fought for by Butler, was by no means wholly won. A New Zealand Novel Seeing that this literary genius never allowed his interest in this country to wane, even after forty years of absence, one would have thought that he would have mentioned New Zealand more, in his books like “Alps and Sanctuaries.” However he was very generous to this land, and the wonderfully realistic descriptions of our backcountry have never been excelled —I have never seen them equalled.

As he succeeded in catching the atmosphere and the spirit of our own back-country so amazingly well, it would be interesting to hazard just how successful a novel, dealing solely with New Zealand as a background would have been, if Butler had devoted himself to the task of writing one.

A New Zealand author recently says that when he returned to this country after spending some time in England and the Continent, he turned his attention to the question of writing novels with New Zealand as a background and he studied Butler with this purpose in view. He writes: “Erewhon” is of course chiefly concerned with the questioning of an age and the outlining of a philosophy that has influenced many thinkers. But its prelude, describing a journey of exploration in the wilder mountain country of New Zealand, is an impressive piece of work; sufficiently so to mislead a casual reader into the belief that he was beginning a story of high adventure. I afterwards took this portion of the book in retrospect and tried to imagine what could be done with it by a skilful novelist. I was not very hopeful. The rivers of New Zealand, their mountain cradles and the awesome gorges through which they battle their way to the plains, have a beauty that can move clearly across a printed page, and so also with the cloud-hidden peaks of the major ranges. But it is a cold beauty and at times a dai'k one and I rather think it could shadow a narra-

Just how successful Butler would have been had he chosen to write a novel with New Zealand as a background must remain one of the “ifs" of history. I feel sure that he would have made a success of writing a popular book which would have taken on with the public if he had tried as his following statement testifies: “I think I could even now write an anonymous book that would take the public as much as ‘Erewhon’ did.” (To Be Continued.)