The Note-Books of Samuel Butler Part 39

David said he had more understanding than his teachers. If his teachers were anything like mine this need not imply much understanding on David's part. And if his teachers did not know more than the Psalms--it is absurd. It is merely swagger, like the German Emperor. [1897.]

S. Michael

He contended with the devil about the body of Moses. Now, I do not believe that any reasonable person would contend about the body of Moses with the devil or with any one else.

One Form of Failure

From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

Andromeda

The dragon was never in better health and spirits than on the morning when Perseus came down upon him. It is said that Andromeda told Perseus she had been thinking how remarkably well he was looking. He had got up quite in his usual health--and so on.

When I said this to Ballard [a fellow art-student at Heatherley's]

and that other thing which I said about Andromeda in Life and Habit, {225} he remarked that he wished it had been so in the poets.

I looked at him. "Ballard," I said, "I also am 'the poets.'"

Self-Confidence

Nothing is ever any good unless it is thwarted with self-distrust though in the main self-confident.

Wandering

When the inclination is not obvious, the mind meanders, or maunders, as a stream in a flat meadow.

Poverty

I shun it because I have found it so apt to become contagious; but I fancy my const.i.tution is more seasoned against it now than formerly.

I hope that what I have gone through may have made me immune.

Pedals or Drones

The discords of every age are rendered possible by being taken on a drone or pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This drone is, as it were, the flour and suet of a plum pudding.

Evasive Nature

She is one long This-way-and-it-isness and, at the same time, That- way-and-it-isn'tness. She flies so like a snipe that she is hard to hit.

Fas.h.i.+on

Fas.h.i.+on is like G.o.d, man cannot see it in its holy of holies and live. And it is, like G.o.d, increate, springing out of nothing, yet the maker of all things--ever changing yet the same yesterday, to-day and for ever.

Doctors and Clergymen

A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.

G.o.d is Love

I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is!

Common Chords

If Man is the tonic and G.o.d the dominant, the Devil is certainly the sub-dominant and Woman is the relative minor.

G.o.d and the Devil

G.o.d and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.

s.e.x

The s.e.xes are the first--or are among the first great experiments in the social subdivision of labour.

Women

If you choose to insist on the a.n.a.logies and points of resemblance between men and women, they are so great that the differences seem indeed small. If, on the other hand, you are in a mood for emphasising the points of difference, you can show that men and women have hardly anything in common. And so with anything: if a man wants to make a case he can generally find a way of doing so.