Erewhon Revisited | Page 4

of any other

religion, than there is between Jesus Christ and Mahomet. He is a typical middle-class
Englishman, deeply tainted with priggishness in his earlier years, but in great part freed
from it by the sweet uses of adversity.
If I may be allowed for a moment to speak about myself, I would say that I have never
ceased to profess myself a member of the more advanced wing of the English Broad
Church. What those who belong to this wing believe, I believe. What they reject, I reject.
No two people think absolutely alike on any subject, but when I converse with advanced
Broad Churchmen I find myself in substantial harmony with them. I believe--and should
be very sorry if I did not believe--that, mutatis mutandis, such men will find the advice
given on pp. 277-281 and 287-291 of this book much what, under the supposed
circumstances, they would themselves give.
Lastly, I should express my great obligations to Mr. R. A. Streatfeild of the British
Museum, who, in the absence from England of my friend Mr. H. Festing Jones, has
kindly supervised the corrections of my book as it passed through the press.
SAMUEL BUTLER.
May 1, 1901.


CHAPTER I
: UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE--MY FATHER STARTS FOR EREWHON

Before telling the story of my father's second visit to the remarkable country which he
discovered now some thirty years since, I should perhaps say a few words about his
career between the publication of his book in 1872, and his death in the early summer of
1891. I shall thus touch briefly on the causes that occasioned his failure to maintain that
hold on the public which he had apparently secured at first.
His book, as the reader may perhaps know, was published anonymously, and my poor
father used to ascribe the acclamation with which it was received, to the fact that no one
knew who it might not have been written by. Omne ignotum pro magnifico, and during
its month of anonymity the book was a frequent topic of appreciative comment in good
literary circles. Almost coincidently with the discovery that he was a mere nobody,
people began to feel that their admiration had been too hastily bestowed, and before long
opinion turned all the more seriously against him for this very reason. The subscription,
to which the Lord Mayor had at first given his cordial support, was curtly announced as
closed before it had been opened a week; it had met with so little success that I will not
specify the amount eventually handed over, not without protest, to my father; small,
however, as it was, he narrowly escaped being prosecuted for trying to obtain money
under false pretences.
The Geographical Society, which had for a few days received him with open arms, was
among the first to turn upon him--not, so far as I can ascertain, on account of the mystery
in which he had enshrouded the exact whereabouts of Erewhon, nor yet by reason of its
being persistently alleged that he was subject to frequent attacks of alcoholic
poisoning--but through his own want of tact, and a highly-strung nervous state, which led
him to attach too much importance to his own discoveries, and not enough to those of

other people. This, at least, was my father's version of the matter, as I heard it from his
own lips in the later years of his life.
"I was still very young," he said to me, "and my mind was more or less unhinged by the
strangeness and peril of my adventures." Be this as it may, I fear there is no doubt that he
was injudicious; and an ounce of judgement is worth a pound of discovery.
Hence, in a surprisingly short time, he found himself dropped even by those who had
taken him up most warmly, and had done most to find him that employment as a writer of
religious tracts on which his livelihood was then dependent. The discredit, however, into
which my father fell, had the effect of deterring any considerable number of people from
trying to rediscover Erewhon, and thus caused it to remain as unknown to geographers in
general as though it had never been found. A few shepherds and cadets at up-country
stations had, indeed, tried to follow in my father's footsteps, during the time when his
book was still being taken seriously; but they had most of them returned, unable to face
the difficulties that had opposed them. Some few, however, had not returned, and though
search was made for them, their bodies had not been found. When he reached Erewhon
on his second visit, my father learned that others had attempted to visit the country more
recently--probably quite independently of his own book; and before