Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler, page 546
And he said he would go.
So when the sun was well down and the cool night air was sauntering under the chestnuts, the pair sat together cheek to cheek and with their arms round each other’s waists.
“O Gaetano,” she exclaimed, “I do love you so very dearly. When you look at me your eyes are like — they are like the eyes” — here she faltered a little— “the eyes of a cow.”
Thenceforward he cared not . . .
And so on.
A Divorce Novelette
The hero and heroine are engaged against their wishes. They like one another very well but each is in love with some one else; nevertheless, under an uncle’s will, they forfeit large property unless they marry one another, so they get married, making no secret to one another that they dislike it very much.
On the evening of their wedding day they broach the subject that has long been nearest to their hearts — the possibility of being divorced. They discuss it tearfully, but the obstacles seem insuperable. Nevertheless they agree that faint heart never yet got rid of fair lady, “None but the brave,” exclaims the husband, “deserve to lose the fair,” and they plight their most solemn vows that they will henceforth live but for the object of getting divorced from one another.
But the course of true divorce never did run smooth, and the plot turns upon the difficulties that meet them and how they try to overcome them. At one time they seem almost certain of success, but the cup is dashed from their lips and is farther off than ever.
At last an opportunity occurs in an unlooked-for manner. They are divorced and live happily apart ever afterwards.
The Moral Painter — A Tale of Double Personality
Once upon a time there was a painter who divided his life into two halves; in the one half he painted pot-boilers for the market, setting every consideration aside except that of doing for his master, the public, something for which he could get paid the money on which he lived. He was great at floods and never looked at nature except in order to see what would make most show with least expense. On the whole he found nothing so cheap to make and easy to sell as veiled heads.
The other half of his time he studied and painted with the sincerity of Giovanni Bellini, Rembrandt, Holbein or De Hooghe. He was then his own master and thought only of doing his work as well as he could, regardless of whether it would bring him anything but debt and abuse or not. He gave his best without receiving so much as thanks.
He avoided the temptation of telling either half about the other.
Two Writers
One left little or nothing about himself and the world complained that it was puzzled. Another, mindful of this, left copious details about himself, whereon the world said that it was even more puzzled about him than about the man who had left nothing, till presently it found out that it was also bored, and troubled itself no more about either.
The Archbishop of Heligoland
The Archbishop of Heligoland believes his faith, and it makes him so unhappy that he finds it impossible to advise any one to accept it. He summons the Devil, makes a compact with him and is relieved by being made to see that there was nothing in it — whereon he is very good and happy and leads a most beneficent life, but is haunted by the thought that on his death the Devil will claim his bond. This terror grows greater and greater, and he determines to see the Devil again.
The upshot of it all is that the Devil turns out to have been Christ who has a dual life and appears sometimes as Christ and sometimes as the Devil.
CHAPTER XVI. Written Sketches
Literary Sketch-Books
The true writer will stop everywhere and anywhere to put down his notes, as the true painter will stop everywhere and anywhere to sketch.
I do not see why an author should not have a sale of literary sketches, each one short, slight and capable of being framed and glazed in small compass. They would make excellent library decorations and ought to fetch as much as an artist’s sketches. They might be cut up in suitable lots, if the fashion were once set, and many a man might be making provision for his family at odd times with his notes as an artist does with his sketches.
London
If I were asked what part of London I was most identified with after Clifford’s Inn itself, I should say Fetter Lane — every part of it. Just by the Record Office is one of the places where I am especially prone to get ideas; so also is the other end, about the butcher’s shop near Holborn. The reason in both cases is the same, namely, that I have about had time to settle down to reflection after leaving, on the one hand, my rooms in Clifford’s Inn and, on the other, Jones’s rooms in Barnard’s Inn where I usually spend the evening. The subject which has occupied my mind during the day being approached anew after an interval and a shake, some fresh idea in connection with it often strikes me. But long before I knew Jones, Fetter Lane was always a street which I was more in than perhaps any other in London. Leather Lane, the road through Lincoln’s Inn Fields to the Museum, the Embankment, Fleet Street, the Strand and Charing Cross come next.
A Clifford’s Inn Euphemism
People when they want to get rid of their cats, and do not like killing them, bring them to the garden of Clifford’s Inn, drop them there and go away. In spite of all that is said about cats being able to find their way so wonderfully, they seldom do find it, and once in Clifford’s Inn the cat generally remains there. The technical word among the laundresses in the inn for this is, “losing” a cat:
“Poor thing, poor thing,” said one old woman to me a few days ago, “it’s got no fur on its head at all, and no doubt that’s why the people she lived with lost her.”
London Trees
They are making a great outcry about the ventilators on the Thames Embankment, just as they made a great outcry about the Griffin in Fleet Street. [See Alps and Sanctuaries. Introduction.] They say the ventilators have spoiled the Thames Embankment. They do not spoil it half so much as the statues do — indeed, I do not see that they spoil it at all. The trees that are planted everywhere are, or will be, a more serious nuisance. Trees are all very well where there is plenty of room, otherwise they are a mistake; they keep in the moisture, exclude light and air, and their roots disturb foundations; most of our London Squares would look much better if the trees were thinned. I should like to cut down all the plane trees in the garden of Clifford’s Inn and leave only the others.
What I Said to the Milkman
One afternoon I heard a knock at the door and found it was the milkman. Mrs. Doncaster [his laundress] was not there, so I took in the milk myself. The milkman is a very nice man, and, by way of making himself pleasant, said, rather complainingly, that the weather kept very dry.
I looked at him significantly and said: “Ah, yes, of course for your business you must find it very inconvenient,” and laughed.
He saw he had been caught and laughed too. It was a very old joke, but he had not expected it at that particular moment, and on the top of such an innocent remark.
The Return of the Jews to Palestine
A man called on me last week and proposed gravely that I should write a book upon an idea which had occurred to a friend of his, a Jew living in New Bond Street. It was a plan requiring the co-operation of a brilliant writer and that was why he had come to me. If only I would help, the return of the Jews to Palestine would be rendered certain and easy. There was no trouble about the poor Jews, he knew how he could get them back at any time; the difficulty lay with the Rothschilds, the Oppenheims and such; with my assistance, however, the thing could be done.
I am afraid I was rude enough to decline to go into the scheme on the ground that I did not care twopence whether the Rothschilds and Oppenheims went back to Palestine or not. This was felt to be an obstacle; but then he began to try and make me care, whereupon, of course, I had to get rid of him. [1883.]
The Great Bear’s Barley-Water
Last night Jones was walking down with me from Staple Inn to Clifford’s Inn, about 10 o’clock, and we saw the Great Bear standing upright on the tip of his tail which was coming out of a chimney pot. Jones said it wanted attending to. I said:
“Yes, but to attend to it properly we ought to sit up with it all night, and if the Great Bear thinks that I am going to sit by his bed-side and give him a spoonful of barley-water every ten minutes, he will find himself much mistaken.” [1892.]
The Cock Tavern
I went into Fleet Street one Sunday morning last November with my camera lucida to see whether I should like to make a sketch of the gap made by the demolition of the Cock Tavern. It was rather pretty, with an old roof or two behind and scaffolding about and torn paper hanging to an exposed party-wall and old fireplaces and so on, but it was not very much out of the way. Still I would have taken it if it had not been the Cock. I thought of all the trash that has been written about it and of Tennyson’s plump head waiter (who by the way used to swear that he did not know Tennyson and that Tennyson never did resort to the Cock) and I said to myself:
“No — you may go. I will put out no hand to save you.”
Myself in Dowie’s Shop
I always buy ready-made boots and insist on taking those which the shopman says are much too large for me. By this means I keep free from corns, but I have a great deal of trouble generally with the shopman. I had got on a pair once which I thought would do, and the shopman said for the third or fourth time:
“But really, sir, these boots are much too large for you.” I turned to him and said rather sternly, “Now, you made that remark before.”
There was nothing in it, but all at once I became aware that I was being watched, and, looking up, saw a middle-aged gentleman eyeing the whole proceedings with much amusement. He was quite polite but he was obviously exceedingly amused. I can hardly tell why, nor why I should put such a trifle down, but somehow or other an impression was made upon me by the affair quite out of proportion to that usually produced by so small a matter.
My Dentist
Mr. Forsyth had been stopping a tooth for me and then talked a little, as he generally does, and asked me if I knew a certain distinguished literary man, or rather journalist. I said No, and that I did not want to know him. The paper edited by the gentleman in question was not to my taste. I was a literary Ishmael, and preferred to remain so. It was my rôle.
“It seems to me,” I continued, “that if a man will only be careful not to write about things that he does not understand, if he will use the tooth-pick freely and the spirit twice a day, and come to you again in October, he will get on very well without knowing any of the big-wigs.”
“The tooth-pick freely” and “the spirit twice a day” being tags of Mr. Forsyth’s, he laughed.
Furber the Violin-Maker
From what my cousin [Reginald E. Worsley] and Gogin both tell me I am sure that Furber is one of the best men we have. My cousin did not like to send Hyam to him for a violin: he did not think him worthy to have one. Furber does not want you to buy a violin unless you can appreciate it when you have it. My cousin says of him:
“He is generally a little tight on a Saturday afternoon. He always speaks the truth, but on Saturday afternoons it comes pouring out more.”
“His joints [i.e. the joints of the violins he makes] are the closest and neatest that were ever made.”
“He always speaks of the corners of a fiddle; Haweis would call them the points. Haweis calls it the neck of a fiddle. Furber always the handle.”
My cousin says he would like to take his violins to bed with him.
Speaking of Strad violins Furber said: “Rough, rough linings, but they look as if they grew together.”
One day my cousin called and Furber, on opening the door, before saying “How do you do?” or any word of greeting, said very quietly:
“The dog is dead.”
My cousin, having said what he thought sufficient, took up a violin and played a few notes. Furber evidently did not like it. Rose, the dog, was still unburied; she was laid out in that very room. My cousin stopped. Then Mrs. Furber came in.
R. E. W. “I am very sorry, Mrs. Furber, to hear about Rose.”
Mrs. F. “Well, yes sir. But I suppose it is all for the best.”
R. E. W. “I am afraid you will miss her a great deal.”
Mrs. F. “No doubt we shall, sir; but you see she is only gone a little while before us.”
R. E. W. “Oh, Mrs. Furber, I hope a good long while.”
Mrs. F. (brightening). “Well, yes sir, I don’t want to go just yet, though Mr. Furber does say it is a happy thing to die.”
My cousin says that Furber hardly knows any one by their real name. He identifies them by some nickname in connection with the fiddles they buy from him or get him to repair, or by some personal peculiarity.
“There is one man,” said my cousin, “whom he calls ‘diaphragm’ because he wanted a fiddle made with what he called a diaphragm in it. He knows Dando and Carrodus and Jenny Lind, but hardly any one else.”
“Who is Dando?” said I.
“Why, Dando? Not know Dando? He was George the Fourth’s music master, and is now one of the oldest members of the profession.”
Window Cleaning in the British Museum Reading-Room
Once a year or so the figures on the Assyrian bas-reliefs break adrift and may be seen, with their scaling ladders and all, cleaning the outside of the windows in the dome of the reading-room. It is very pretty to watch them and they would photograph beautifully. If I live to see them do it again I must certainly snapshot them. You can see them smoking and sparring, and this year they have left a little hole in the window above the clock.
The Electric Light in its Infancy
I heard a woman in a ‘bus boring her lover about the electric light. She wanted to know this and that, and the poor lover was helpless. Then she said she wanted to know how it was regulated. At last she settled down by saying that she knew it was in its infancy. The word “infancy” seemed to have a soothing effect upon her, for she said no more but, leaning her head against her lover’s shoulder, composed herself to slumber.
Fire
I was at one the other night and heard a man say: “That corner stack is alight now quite nicely.” People’s sympathies seem generally to be with the fire so long as no one is in danger of being burned.
Adam and Eve
A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and Eve.
“Which is Adam and which is Eve?” said one.
“I do not know,” said the other, “but I could tell if they had their clothes on.”
Does Mamma Know?
A father was telling his eldest daughter, aged about six, that she had a little sister, and was explaining to her how nice it all was. The child said it was delightful and added:
“Does Mamma know? Let’s go and tell her.”
Mr. Darwin in the Zoological Gardens
Frank Darwin told me his father was once standing near the hippopotamus cage when a little boy and girl, aged four and five, came up. The hippopotamus shut his eyes for a minute.
“That bird’s dead,” said the little girl; “come along.”
Terbourg
Gogin told me that Berg, an impulsive Swede whom he had known in Laurens’s studio in Paris and who painted very well, came to London and was taken by an artist friend [Henry Scott Tuke, A.R.A.] to the National Gallery where he became very enthusiastic about the Terbourgs. They then went for a walk and, in Kensington Gore, near one of the entrances to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, there was an old Irish apple-woman sitting with her feet in a basket, smoking a pipe and selling oranges.
“Arranges two a penny, sorr,” said the old woman in a general way.
And Berg, turning to her and throwing out his hands appealingly, said:
“O, madame, avez-vous vu les Terbourgs? Allez voir les Terbourgs.”
He felt that such a big note had been left out of the life of any one who had not seen them.
At Doctors’ Commons
A woman once stopped me at the entrance to Doctors’ Commons and said:
“If you please, sir, can you tell me — is this the place that I came to before?”
Not knowing where she had been before I could not tell her.
The Sack of Khartoum
As I was getting out of a ‘bus the conductor said to me in a confidential tone:
“I say, what does that mean? ‘Sack of Khartoum’? What does ‘Sack of Khartoum’ mean?”
“It means,” said I, “that they’ve taken Khartoum and played hell with it all round.”
He understood that and thanked me, whereon we parted.
Missolonghi
Ballard [a fellow art-student with Butler at Heatherley’s] told me that an old governess, some twenty years since, was teaching some girls modern geography. One of them did not know the name Missolonghi. The old lady wrung her hands:
“Why, me dear,” she exclaimed, “when I was your age I could never hear the name mentioned without bursting into tears.”
I should perhaps add that Byron died there.
Memnon
I saw the driver of the Hampstead ‘bus once, near St. Giles’s Church — an old, fat, red-faced man sitting bolt upright on the top of his ‘bus in a driving storm of snow, fast asleep with a huge waterproof over his great-coat which descended with sweeping lines on to a tarpaulin. All this rose out of a cloud of steam from the horses. He had a short clay pipe in his mouth but, for the moment, he looked just like Memnon.
Manzi the Model
They had promised him sittings at the Royal Academy and then refused him on the ground that his legs were too hairy. He complained to Gogin:
“Why,” said he, “I sat at the Slade School for the figure only last week, and there were five ladies, but not one of them told me my legs were too hairy.”
A Sailor Boy and Some Chickens
A pretty girl in the train had some chirping chickens about ten days’ old in a box labelled “German egg powders. One packet equal to six eggs.” A sailor boy got in at Basingstoke, a quiet, reserved youth, well behaved and unusually good-looking. By and by the chickens were taken out of the box and fed with biscuit on the carriage seat. This thawed the boy who, though he fought against it for some lime, yielded to irresistible fascination and said:
