Samuel Butler-A Sketch [13]
were about twenty houses where he visited, but he seldom accepted an invitation to dinner--it upset the regularity of his life; besides, he belonged to no club and had no means of returning hospitality. When two colonial friends called unexpectedly about noon one day, soon after he settled in London, he went to the nearest cook-shop in Fetter Lane and returned carrying a dish of hot roast pork and greens. This was all very well once in a way, but not the sort of thing to be repeated indefinitely.
On Thursdays, instead of going to the Museum, he often took a day off, going into the country sketching or walking, and on Sundays, whatever the weather, he nearly always went into the country walking; his map of the district for thirty miles round London is covered all over with red lines showing where he had been. He sometimes went out of town from Saturday to Monday, and for over twenty years spent Christmas at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
There is a Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia with many chapels, each containing life-sized statues and frescoes illustrating the life of Christ. Butler had visited this sanctuary repeatedly, and was a great favourite with the townspeople, who knew that he was studying the statues and frescoes in the chapels, and who remembered that in the preface to 'Alps and Sanctuaries' he had declared his intention of writing about them. In August, 1887, the Varallesi brought matters to a head by giving him a civic dinner on the Mountain. Everyone was present, there were several speeches and, when we were coming down the slippery mountain path after it was all over, he said to me:
"You know, there's nothing for it now but to write that book about the Sacro Monte at once. It must be the next thing I do."
Accordingly, on returning home, he took up photography and, immediately after Christmas, went back to Varallo to photograph the statues and collect material. Much research was necessary and many visits to out-of-the-way sanctuaries which might have contained work by the sculptor Tabachetti, whom he was rescuing from oblivion and identifying with the Flemish Jean de Wespin. One of these visits, made after his book was published, forms the subject of "The Sanctuary of Montrigone." 'Ex Voto', the book about Varallo, appeared in 1888, and an Italian translation by Cavaliere Angelo Rizzetti was published at Novara in 1894.
"Quis Desiderio . . . ?" ('The Humour of Homer and Other Essays') was developed in 1888 from something in a letter from Miss Savage nearly ten years earlier. On the 15th of December, 1878, in acknowledging this letter, Butler wrote:
I am sure that any tree or flower nursed by Miss Cobbe would be the VERY first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before they ever came to know her WELL. The sight of the brass buttons on her pea-jacket would settle them out of hand.
There was an enclosure in Miss Savage's letter, but it is unfortunately lost; I suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion to Moore's poem and perhaps a portrait of Miss Frances Power Cobbe--pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all.
On the 10th November, 1879, Miss Savage, having been ill, wrote to Butler:
I have been dipping into the books of Moses, being sometimes at a loss for something to read while shut up in my apartment. You know that I have never read the Bible much, consequently there is generally something of a novelty that I hit on. As you do know your Bible well, perhaps you can tell me what became of Aaron. The account given of his end in Numbers xx. is extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory. Evidently he did not come by his death fairly, but whether he was murdered secretly for the furtherance of some private ends, or publicly in a State sacrifice, I can't make out. I myself rather incline to the former opinion, but I should like to know what the experts say about it. A very nice, exciting little tale might be made out of it in the style of the police stories in 'All the rear Round' called "The Mystery of Mount Hor or What became of Aaron?" Don't forget to
On Thursdays, instead of going to the Museum, he often took a day off, going into the country sketching or walking, and on Sundays, whatever the weather, he nearly always went into the country walking; his map of the district for thirty miles round London is covered all over with red lines showing where he had been. He sometimes went out of town from Saturday to Monday, and for over twenty years spent Christmas at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
There is a Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia with many chapels, each containing life-sized statues and frescoes illustrating the life of Christ. Butler had visited this sanctuary repeatedly, and was a great favourite with the townspeople, who knew that he was studying the statues and frescoes in the chapels, and who remembered that in the preface to 'Alps and Sanctuaries' he had declared his intention of writing about them. In August, 1887, the Varallesi brought matters to a head by giving him a civic dinner on the Mountain. Everyone was present, there were several speeches and, when we were coming down the slippery mountain path after it was all over, he said to me:
"You know, there's nothing for it now but to write that book about the Sacro Monte at once. It must be the next thing I do."
Accordingly, on returning home, he took up photography and, immediately after Christmas, went back to Varallo to photograph the statues and collect material. Much research was necessary and many visits to out-of-the-way sanctuaries which might have contained work by the sculptor Tabachetti, whom he was rescuing from oblivion and identifying with the Flemish Jean de Wespin. One of these visits, made after his book was published, forms the subject of "The Sanctuary of Montrigone." 'Ex Voto', the book about Varallo, appeared in 1888, and an Italian translation by Cavaliere Angelo Rizzetti was published at Novara in 1894.
"Quis Desiderio . . . ?" ('The Humour of Homer and Other Essays') was developed in 1888 from something in a letter from Miss Savage nearly ten years earlier. On the 15th of December, 1878, in acknowledging this letter, Butler wrote:
I am sure that any tree or flower nursed by Miss Cobbe would be the VERY first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before they ever came to know her WELL. The sight of the brass buttons on her pea-jacket would settle them out of hand.
There was an enclosure in Miss Savage's letter, but it is unfortunately lost; I suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion to Moore's poem and perhaps a portrait of Miss Frances Power Cobbe--pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all.
On the 10th November, 1879, Miss Savage, having been ill, wrote to Butler:
I have been dipping into the books of Moses, being sometimes at a loss for something to read while shut up in my apartment. You know that I have never read the Bible much, consequently there is generally something of a novelty that I hit on. As you do know your Bible well, perhaps you can tell me what became of Aaron. The account given of his end in Numbers xx. is extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory. Evidently he did not come by his death fairly, but whether he was murdered secretly for the furtherance of some private ends, or publicly in a State sacrifice, I can't make out. I myself rather incline to the former opinion, but I should like to know what the experts say about it. A very nice, exciting little tale might be made out of it in the style of the police stories in 'All the rear Round' called "The Mystery of Mount Hor or What became of Aaron?" Don't forget to