A MAJOR LINK WITH LITERATURE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21529, 16 December 1939, Page 32 (Supplement)

A MAJOR LINK WITH LITERATURE

Samuel Butler s Genius AUTHOR OF “EREWHON” A LTHOI GH in the course of the centenary the Province has produced many writers of high ability, in South Canterbury Samuel Butler 11835-19021. rasilx occupies pride ol place. “Erewhon" being amongst the unchallenged classics of the age. Although not a native of New Zealand, Butler is righth regarded as a South ( anh rbiii \ product, inasmuch as his experiences in this province went far l<» mould his opinions and develop his mental outlook. It was in this province that he largely sened his lilcran apprenticeship. r I he grandson of Bishop Butler, a man of considerable literary ability and breadth of view, he was born in Nottinghamshire, and was educated at St. Jchn's College. Cambridge, where he narrowly misled a classical scholarship. He wished to be a painter, and refused, on grounds of religious dount, to enter the church. After some differences with his father, on this head. he emigrated in 1859 to New Zealand, and established a sheep run on the Rangitata. He had already been connected at College with an under-graduates’ paper “The Eagle.” and in New Zealand he contributed various articles to the press including a dialogue. “Darwin and the Origin of Species.” and a sketch "Darwin among the Mechanics.” which was the germ of the famous “Erewhon.” His sheep farming proved profitable, and within five years of his arrival ui the colony he disposed of his station, having doubled his money. On returning to England he began to study painting seriously, and from 1858 to 1876 he exhibited irgularly at the Royal Academy. He was also a musician of parts, but he lives not by his musical compositions, good though undoubtedly they were, and his pictures, which possessed considerable merit, but by his books. His first important book was “Erewhon.” or "Over the Ranges,” a story of an imaginary country, shut off from the world. The account of Erewhon manners enabled Butler to proclaim hi own philosophy of life. “Erewhon.” which has had a popular success denied in Butler’s lifetime to all his later bocks, was followed by “The Fair Heaven" based on a pamphlet on rhe "Evidence for the Resurrection,” which Butler had printed privatel} 7 in 1865. and which appeared without a name, and was later taken seriously by some reviewers. In a second edition issued in the same year. Butler disclosed his authorship. Meanwhile he had been following up his early interest in the doctrine of evolution. In 1872 he twi e stayed with the famous Charles Darwin, with whom he was on terms of friendship. But h»j£ study of evolution led to a stron r dissent from Darwins views and ta the upholding of a doctrine which lie traced back in part to Buffon. Lamar k and Erasmus Darwin whose contribution to the theory seemed to him to have been overlaid by the prai e accorded to Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection. In 1877 he published the first of his books on this subject. “Life and Habit.” in which he developed the doctrine that heredity and therefore evolution depended not cn the natural selection of change variations or “sports,” but on “unconscious memory,” transmitted as habit from generation to generation, and tending constantly to grow with the life of the race. This was followed by other volumes in which Butler s biological themes were further developed. These writings, by means of which he has achieved “the reintroduction of teleology into organic life,” received no serious notice from his contemporaries, though they have been more favourably considered by later scientists. “Natural Selection”—as interpreted by Darwin seemed to Butler to remove all idea of progress from the universe and to depend on the occurrence of - ance it left entirely unexplained. Having completed his contributions to ;he theory of evolution. Butler turned his attention to a problem of a very different order—the Homeric question. He developed the belief that the Iliad and the Odyssey wore by different writers—the former by a native of Troad and th? latter by a woman of Trapani. Sicily. Around this problem he wrote voluminously. He also translated both the Iliad and the Odyssey into colloquial prose. His other Works included his charming “Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Colone Ticino.” Butler’s novel “The Way ot All Flesh,” was not published till after his death. Tills book is the quintessence of the author’s commonsense philosophy. It wages war on all exrtemes, on all shams and pretence—above all of which the pretenders are unconscious—on all attempts to take cither life or death too seriously. It is full of bitter irony, which the author turns on occasion against himself. It is. of course, caricature; but no bock gives a better satiric picture of life and manners in mid-Victorian England. Butler wrote a good, plain vigorous English, almost devoid cf ornament. Beyond question ne occupies a unique position in the literature of tlie southern hemisphere.