XXXI FORTUNE'S GIFTS 173 deserve it. But rotten to the root they assuredly are now to 1893 the full as much as they were in 1822. Aet. 58 By the way my Life and Memoirs of Dr. Butler has stood lamentably on one side for some months. During my holiday, in railway stations, in trains, at every odd moment I revised my translation of the second twelve books of the Odyssey; on my return at the end of September I copied these twelve books anew and found they had thrown so much new light on the first twelve that these wanted no little revision also. I have another ten days' work to do on them, and then I can return to Dr. Butler whose correspondence I have found fascinating—so clear, so strong, so laborious, so sensible and, above all, so kind and considerate that I really know of no collection of letters that I find more charming. And then the people who wrote to him did, some of them, write such lovely stuff. Here, for example, is a sentence: "Sans interest, sans patron, sans everything that makes a man no-man, I left my cradle to swagger through the wilderness of life, gathering crab-apples by the way and munching them on the thorn-stuffed stool of repentance." Why, it is Shakespearean.1 But how could I help it? When Fortune threw such a prize as the bringing back the Odyssey and its writer to their own home. and people, what man with one spark of literary enthusiasm could refrain from at once putting all else on one side? I have seldom felt more profoundly moved than when I brought Tabachetti back to Dinant in Belgium, where his very name was unknown, and restored that Titan to his home after an absence of 300 years [Ex Voto]; but that was a little thing in comparison with this. Does it occur to you that there may be a little presumption in all this? I assure you it does so to me; but my pen has run away with me and I reckon you have taken the length of my foot before now. Veel 2 has not written and will not write, so I shall have a correspondent the less and, believe me, my correspondence is heavy especially for Italy and Sicily. By the way, in Sicily this summer I saw the ruins of Selinunte-columns in every flute of which a man can stand! When London goes to rack we shall leave nothing like it. I don't know whether you like nonsense verses; I don't know that I do much myself; but something made me write one or two the other day: 1 The Rev. S. Tillbrook to Dr. Butler, 21st April 1817, Life and Letters of Dr. Butler, I. 127. 2 Colborne-Veel, Editor of The Press, N.Z., while Butler was writing in that paper. 1893 Aet. 58 174 THE LOST CHORD There was a young lady named Ford Till she roused the whole town, And when she had found it-O Lord! I suppose you XXXI know Sullivan's song "The Lost Chord." Believe me, with all kindest wishes for the new year in which this will reach you, Yours very truly, S. BUTLER. |