Neville Cardus, on devising cultural self-improvement scheme, in Autobiography (1947): "'... one day I picked up a copy of Samuel Butler's Note Books and read the following: 'Never try to learn anything until the not knowing it has become a nuisance to you for some time ...' ' "
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Neville Cardus Print: Book
In her edition of Mary Gladstone's "Diaries and Letters", Lucy Masterman would suggest that it was under her father's influence that Mary read Butler's "Analogy".
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Gladstone Print: Book
Elizabeth Sewell's brother William, seeing her reading Butler's "Analogy", exclaimed 'You can't understand that', which made her reticent for years about the comfort and strength this book had given her during adolescent depression.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Sewell Print: Book
"At home, after leaving school in 1857 ... [Louisa Martindale's] reading was, at first, chiefly the Bible. On 16 September she started to take Fraser's Magazine, and her diary becomes full of references to this, and to articles in the Times on subjects as diverse as Fortification and The War in New Zealand. She read, and was charmed by, Symington on architecture, sculpture, and painting ... Further books which she read included Froude's History of England ... The Bible and Modern Thought, Butler's Analogy, Memorials of Fox, Bancroft's American Revolution, Rollin's Ancient History, Waddington's Church History, the Works of Paley, Locke on the Human Understanding, and Mrs Jameson's Characteristics of Women."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa Martindale Print: Book
'I came home and read Hudibras and William Byrd ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Richard Grahame Print: Book
[Letter from Lord Byron to Annabella Milbanke, Feb 15 1814]. 'In my letter of ye 12th in answer to your last I omitted to say that I have not for several years looked into the tract of Locke's which you mention - but I have redde it formerly, though I fear to little purpose since it is forgotten. - & have always understod that and Butler's Analogy to be the best treatises of the kind... Of the Scriptures themselves I have ever been a reader and admirer as compositions, particularly the Arab-Job - and parts of Isaiah - and the Song of Deborah'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
'I will not tell you my exact state of health day by day, but will give you a diary of my reading, which is perhaps a good index of my physical state.
Friday morning. Full of buck. "Tartarin sur les Alpes".
Friday afternoon. Wanted soothing. "Letters from a Silent Study".
Saturday morning. Very depressed. "Pickwick Papers".
Saturday afternoon. A little better. "Esmond".
Sunday morning. Quite well thank you! "Butler's Analogy".
Sunday afternoon. Quite well thank you! "Esmond and Stonewall Jackson".
As a guide I may point out that "Pickwick" cheers me up when I am most depressed, while "Butler's Analogy" taxes all my strength.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Donald William Alers Hankey Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
Letter from Whewell to Rose, dated 24/6/1818, discusses Butler's argument.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Whewell Print: Book
'I devoured poetry and nothing but poetry until I became insensible to poetry. Take an example; I happened upon some fat volumes of Campbell's "British Poets", the complete works of from four to eight poets in each volume which cost me 6d. apiece. They had shabby worn leather bindings, and the type was on the small side and closely set. But I ploughed through them, doggedly, as if reading for a bet, or an imposed task. One volume I remember contained the poetical works of Samuel Daniel, Browne, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Drummond (of Ha[w]thornden), John Donne, and some more minor ones. Another contained along with "also rans" Cowley, Milton and "Hudibras" Butler. And, I repeat, I ploughed through them with a stout heart, but little sense, and a dwindling understanding.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'And so I home to dinner, and thence abroad to Pauls churchyard and there looked upon the second part of "Hudibras", which I buy not but borrow to read, to see if it be as good as the first, which the world cries so mightily up; though it hath not a good liking in me, though I had tried by twice or three times reading to bring myself to think it witty.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'[By c. late 1830s] My mind had [...] become much quietened and strengthened by the reading of Butler's "Analogy", which I had always heard mentioned with admiration,and which I stumbled upon, as it seemed accidentally (though doubtless it was a Providential help sent me) [...] I took it up first for curiosity, and read it through nearly, but not quite to the end; feeling very much afraid all the time that some one would inquire into my studies, and being greatly humiliated by an observation made by William [reader's brother, a clergyman], who one day found me with it in my hand. His surprised tone, as he exclaimed,
"You can't understand that," made me shrink into my shell of reserve, and for years I never owned to anyone that Butler's "Analogy" had been to me, as it has been to hundreds, the stay of a troubled intellect and a weak faith.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Sewell Print: Book
Letter to Collector MacVicar, May 30 1773 'I will no longer bewilder myself among figures, for I see you ready to compare me to Hudibras, "Who could not ope/ His mouth but out there flew a trope"?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] ... In poetry, ... most of Cowley, Butler, and Denham, Pope and Dryden often;...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 2 May 1837:
'Yes! the extracts from Mrs Butler's play, in the Athenaeum, are very beautiful -- and so are
some others which I have seen in another paper.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 2 June 1837:
'I have read the Star of Seville [...] It [italics]is[end italics] unequal -- it appears as if its
writer stopped to take breath after her finest things -- and she has written some very fine
things. You will admire Estrella's apology for her appearance [italics]alone[end italics], at the
trial scene. It touched me deeply'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'My mind also had become much quieted and strengthened by the reading of Butler's "Analogy", which I had always heard mentioned with admiration, and which I stumbled upon, as it seemed accidentally (though doubtless it was a Providential help sent me), while we were spending a few days at the Hermitage. I took it up first for curiosity, and read it through nearly, but not quite to the end; feeling very much afraid all the time that some one would inquire into my studies, and being greatly humiliated by an observation made by William, who one day found me with it in my hand. His surprised tone as he exclaimed, "You can't understand that", made me shrink into my shell of reserve, and for years I never owned to anyone that Butler's "Analogy" had been to me, as it has been to hundreds, the stay of a troubled intellect and a weak faith'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'You shock me. Not by liking "The Way of all Flesh", but by liking "The Devil?s Garden" and "Fortitude" . . . . it is not excusable to lose your head about badness or mediocrity. About "The Devil?s Garden" there is nothing to be said, it simply does not exist. "Fortitude" is by a man who has written one real book ("Mr, Perrin & Mr. Traill") , but "Fortitude" is undoubtedly a failure.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'[Rev Charles Burney's] Abridgement of Pearson's Exposition of the Creed, is printed, though not yet published. He gave to my father & me each a Copy. His Motto, I think a most happy one, taken from some work of the great Bentley's - "The most excellent Bishop Pearson - the very dust of whose writings is gold". - I have read above half the volume; it is all fudge to call it a book for the use of [underlined] young persons [end underlining] - Unless they are such Young Persons as Moll, who reads Lock on Human Understanding in two days, & says it is easy, & fancies she understands it - And the same farce she played regarding Butler's Analogy, the toughest book (allowed by learned men) in the English language, which she spoke of with the familiar partiality I would speak of Tom Hickerthrift, & bamboozled me into trying to read - and, Good Lord! when I had pored over a dozen pages & shook my ears, and asked myself - "Well, Sal, how dost like it? Dost understand one word?" "O, yes; all the [underlined] words [end underlining], but not one of their meanings when put together." "Why, then, Sal; put the book away; and say nothing about it; but say thy prayers in peace, & leave the reasons [underlined] why [end underlining] thou art impelled to say them, and all the [underlined] fatras [end underlining] of analyzation, to those who have more logical brains, or more leisure to read what they do not comprehend". But, however, a great part of Dr Charles's abridgement, I flatter myself I [underlined] do [end underlining] understand; and what is too deep for me, Moll may explain. He has retained a heap of hard words, which send me to Dr Johnson's dictionary continually - Some of them, are expressive, & worth reviving, others, we have happier substitutes for, and it was ungraceful to admit them, and shewed a false and pedantic taste'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney Print: Book
'[Rev Charles Burney's] Abridgement of Pearson's Exposition of the Creed, is printed, though not yet published. He gave to my father & me each a Copy. His Motto, I think a most happy one, taken from some work of the great Bentley's - "The most excellent Bishop Pearson - the very dust of whose writings is gold". - I have read above half the volume; it is all fudge to call it a book for the use of [underlined] young persons [end underlining] - Unless they are such Young Persons as Moll, who reads Lock on Human Understanding in two days, & says it is easy, & fancies she understands it - And the same farce she played regarding Butler's Analogy, the toughest book (allowed by learned men) in the English language, which she spoke of with the familiar partiality I would speak of Tom Hickerthrift, & bamboozled me into trying to read - and, Good Lord! when I had pored over a dozen pages & shook my ears, and asked myself - "Well, Sal, how dost like it? Dost understand one word?" "O, yes; all the [underlined] words [end underlining], but not one of their meanings when put together." "Why, then, Sal; put the book away; and say nothing about it; but say thy prayers in peace, & leave the reasons [underlined] why [end underlining] thou art impelled to say them, and all the [underlined] fatras [end underlining] of analyzation, to those who have more logical brains, or more leisure to read what they do not comprehend". But, however, a great part of Dr Charles's abridgement, I flatter myself I [underlined] do [end underlining] understand; and what is too deep for me, Moll may explain. He has retained a heap of hard words, which send me to Dr Johnson's dictionary continually - Some of them, are expressive, & worth reviving, others, we have happier substitutes for, and it was ungraceful to admit them, and shewed a false and pedantic taste'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Marianne Francis Print: Book
Monday 2 September 1929: 'I have just read a page or two out of Samuel Butler's notebooks to take the taste of Alice Meynell's life out of my mouth. One rather craves brilliance & cantankerousness. Yet I am interested; a little teased by the tight airless Meynell style; & then I think what they had that we had not -- some suavity & grace, certainly [comments further on Meynell's work, life and personality] [...] When one reads a life one often compares one's own life with it. And doing this I was aware of some sweetness & dignity in those lives compared with ours [...] Yet in fact their lives would be intolerable -- so insincere, so elaborate; so I think [goes on to comment further on Meynell family, and others' reminiscences of them]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I am extremely busy & my novel isn?t getting a fair chance. I solace myself with the "note books" of Samuel Butler.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
[Pilkington having annoyed Swift by remembering one of his poems and reciting it to others, he decided to test her memory. She told him] 'I could repeat not only all his Works, but all [italics] Shakespear[end italics]'s, which I put to this Trial; I desir'd him to open any Part of it and read a Line, and I would engage to go on with the whole Speech; as we were in his Library, he directly made the Experiment: The Line he first gave me, he had purposely picked out for its singular Oddness:
[italics] Put rancours in the Vessel of my Peace [end italics] MacBeth
I readily went on with the whole Speech, and did so several times, that he try'd me with different Plays. The Dean then took down [italics] Hudibras [end italics], and order'd me to examine him in it, as he had done me in [italics] Shakespear [end itaics]; and, to my great Surprize, I found he remember'd every Line, from Beginning to End of it. I say, it surpriz'd me, because I had been misled by Mr [italics] Pope [end italics]'s Remark, That
[italics] Where beams of warm Imagination play
The Memory's soft Figures melt away [end italics] Essay on Criticism'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Jonathan Swift Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 9 April 1905:
'Elizabeth [employer] has lent me Erewhon which I am enjoying.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Sydney [Larkin's father] gave him free run of his library and his appetite for books grew enormously. "Thanks to my father", he wrote later: "our house contained not only the principal works of most main English writers in some form or other (admittedly there were exceptions, like Dickens), but also nearly-complete collections of authors my father favoured - Hardy, Bennett, Wilde, Butler and Shaw, and later on Lawrence, Huxley and Katherine Mansfield".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Larkin Print: Book
'If among the books of divinity that you are so kindly offered the use of, you can borrow any of the following, they will help to establish you in the belief of the truth of Divine Revelation:- Paley's Evidences of Christianity; Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible, in Letters to Thomas Paine; Bishop Porteus' Compendium of the Evidences of Christianity; Addison's Evidences of the Christian Religion; Madam Genlis' Religion the only Basis of Happiness and true Philosophy, in which the Principles of the modern pretended Philosophers are laid open and refuted, 2 vols. Butler's Divine Analogy; Bentley against Collins; Bentley's Sermons on the Folly of Atheism; Jenkins Reasonableness and Certainty of the Chrisian Religion, 2 vols. I have lately read the whole of these works with great satisfaction. If you are fond of real philosophy and astronomy, you will be highly pleased with Bentley's Sermons on the Folly of Atheism. Paley's is an extraordinary good work. Butler's Analogy is a very great work.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
'I also sent for Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible, in Letters to T. Paine; Bishop Porteus's Compendium of the Evidences of Christianity, Butler's Divine Analogy, Paley's Evidences of Christianity, Pilgrim's Good Intent, Pascal's Thoughts, Addison's Evidences of Christianity, Conibeare on Revealed Religion, Madam de Genlis's Religion the only Basis of Happiness and sound Philosophy, with Observations on pretended modern Philosophers, 2 vols. Jenkin's Reasonableness and Certainty of Christianity, and several others of the same tendency. Those excellent defences of revealed religion I read through, during which I had many struggles . . . '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
[on the Apostles, Cambridge students' society to which Alfred Tennyson belonged]
'These friends not only debated on politics but read their Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Butler, Hume, Bentham, Descartes and Kant, and discussed such questions as the Origin of Evil, the Derivation of Moral Sentiments, Prayer and the Personality of God.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: The Apostles Print: Book
'[Johnson said] "Hudibras" affords a strong proof how much hold political principles had then upon the minds of men. There is in "Hudibras" a great deal of bullion which will always last. But to be sure the brightest strokes of his wit owed their force to the impression of the characters which was upon men's minds at the time; to their knowing them at table and in the street; in short, being familiar with them; and above all, to his satire being directed against those whom a little while before they had hated and feared.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'I am now reading Butler's Analogy'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Gurney Print: Book
'Who did the Athenaeum I know not, but it is very kind.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Serial / periodical
Books read by Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, December 1896 - March 1897, taken from his list of books requested and then sent by his friends. Source author notes that Wilde read and re-read everything available to him in prison. 'Gaston de Latour by Walter Pater, MA (Macmillan), Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Wordsworth's Complete Works in one volume with preface by John Morley (Macmillan, 7/6), Matthew Arnold's Poems. One volume complete. (Macmillan, 7/6), Dante and other Essays by Dean Church (Macmillan, 5/-), Percy's Reliques, Hallam's Middle Ages (History of), Dryden's Poems (1 vol. Macmillan. 3/6), Burns's Poems ditto, Morte D'Arthur ditto, Froissart's Chronicles ditto, Buckle's History of Civilisation, Marlowe's Plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (edited by A. Pollard 2 vols 10/-) Macmillan, Introduction to Dante by John Addington Symonds, Companion to Dante by A.J. Butler, Miscellaneous Essays by Walter Pater, An English translation of Goethe's Faust'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
Lady Dacre to John Murray, 27 May 1835:
'Thousands of thanks, dear Mr. Murray, for allowing us to read those sheets of the wonderful Fanny's "Journal" in their rough state. I cannot tell you the entertainment they have proved to Lord Dacre, and how strongly they interest me, who have always been a greater enthusiast about her than he has. The depth of thought, the vigour of writing, the high tone of poetry in her descriptions, the absolute reality of all she portrays, make her work enchanting and piquant in the extreme [comments further] [...] The vigorous style shows the advantage of having studied the older authors as she has done. I wish she would not "progress." How I hate that word as a verb. A few more American expressions I would fain change for the honest English she delights in.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord and Lady Dacre Print: Unknown
Sir Francis B. Head to John Murray, 2 July 1835:
'I have not had time to finish Fanny Kemble's book, but have seen enough of it to feel that she has been most unkindly and unjustly treated by the reviewers [...] I know of no subject I would more willingly undertake than her vindication. People say she is vulgar! So was Eve, for she scratched whatever part of her itched, and did a hundred things we should call vulgar. But the fact is, everything is vulgar now-a-days [...] Poor Fanny Kemble has fallen a victim to this tyranny. Her book is full of cleverness, talent, simple-heartedness, nature and nakedness. Her style is a little rough spot, but did you ever know a woman who was without one? I have no patience with the way she has been treated.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Francis B. Head Print: Book
Lady Callcott to John Murray (c.1835):
'Let me thank you for Mrs. Butler: very clever, very romantic, some excellent
feelings, but (may I say) not as [italics]womanly[end italics] as I would have liked.
A little too much of the tone of one living chiefly with men -- the green-room, in
short. I have read a volume and a half [...] Mrs. Butler's "Journal" appears to me to
improve as she goes on. The things to be objected to appear more seldom, and her
criticisms on her own art and what is connected with it are so good that I should
like to see tham separated and much enlarged. She is a clever, and moreover a
shrewd observer; and setting apart the intentional descriptions, there are traits
throughout that mark a strong and fine hand.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Callcott Print: Book
'Meeting held at 68 Northcourt Avenue
20th III 1935
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last Meeting were read & approved
[...]
4. The Program of anonymous readings was then proceeded with[;] members reading in the
order in which they sat round the room. An interval of about 2 minutes at the end of each
piece was allowed for cogitation at the end of which the reader anounced the authors name &
the work from which he had read. Identification proved unexpectedly dificult[.] No one reading
was identified by everyone & the highest scorer only guessed eight authors & 4 & ½ works
Reader Author Work
E. B. Castle Plato Phaedo
M. S. W. Pollard R. Browning Pictures in Florence
E. Goadby Saml. Butler Notes
M. E. Robson Flecker Hassan
R. H. Robson Belloc Eyewitness
E. C. Stevens M. Arnold Self dependance
E. D. Brain B. Shaw Pre. to Back to Methuselah
M. Castle T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus
A. Rawlings R. Browning Pheidippides
J. Rawlings G. Eliot Middlemarch
E. B. Smith Lewis Carroll Phantasmagoria
F. E. Reynolds Tennyson Locksley Hall
S. A. Reynolds E. B. Browning Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
H. R. Smith Chas. Kingsley Westward Ho
F. E. Pollard Shelley Prometheus Unbound'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Goadby
'Rained all day without stopping. Read Butler's Crusade. May bought winter dress at Selfridge's £1.0.5. payed her with cheque..'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'Dense fog. Could hardly see ... May had to go to bed till night. I read Memoir of J. E. Butler.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'It was from [my father, a policeman] that I acquired the habit, which I have never been able to shake off, of reading in bed; and one of my most vivid recollections is of my father lying up in bed, upholstered in pillows, the eternal pipe in his mouth, absorbed in a book, and I, a young boy, lying gravely beside him, pretending to be deep in—of all the literary meats for a child's stomach!—Hudibras.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Desmond Malone Print: Book
'Meeting held at “Oakdene” Northcourt Avenue. 31st March 1942. S. A. Reynolds in
the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read & signed.
[...]
4. The evening was devoted to miscellaneous readings as follows:
from: Autobiography by Eric Gill read by Muriel Stevens
The Lost Peace by Harold Butler [read by] F. E. Pollard
Letters of Gertrude Bell [read by] Isabel Taylor
Florence through Aged Eyes by H. M. Wallis [read by] H. R. Smith
Shepherds Life by W. H. Hudson [read by] L. Dorothea Taylor
Triolets by T. B. Clark [read by] S. A. Reynolds
Sick Heart River by John Buchan [read by] Margaret Dilks'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard Print: Book
'The mess was ... the only place where, that
bitter winter, one could read in comfort ... One
Sunday afternoon I took down with me a book I had
just bought—Butler's Erewhon
Revisited—and was soon absorbed in it.
The mess was, as I had anticipated, nearly empty,
but presently Captain Slater, the [former] Eton
master ... came in and, passing behind my chair,
observed the title of my book. "O God! O
Montreal!" he cried, "that I should find someone
reading Sam Butler in the British Army!" He was
genuinely amused and interested, and though we
were too disparate in age and temperament ever to
become close friends, a sympathetic bond did
henceforth exist between us ... But that ... was a
lesson. So long as we remained in England I
confined my mess reading to the Tatler and
the Bystander and other periodicals of the
kind which were the only literary recreations of
the majority of His Majesty's officers. When we
reached the Front, the situation changed, in this
as in many other respects.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Edward Read Print: Book
'I have just finished that wonderful book—"The Way
of All Flesh". It is a wonderful book.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Hudson Print: Book
