Skip to main content

Full text of "The Note Books Of Samuel Butler"

See other formats


Elementary Morality              33

Melchisedec

He was a really happy man. He was without father,
without mother and without descent. He was an incarnate
bachelor. He was a born orphan.

Bacon for Breakfast

Now [1893] when I am abroad, being older and taking
less exercise, I do not want any breakfast beyond coffee
and bread and butter, but when this note was written [1880]
I liked a modest rasher of bacon in addition, and used to
notice the jealous indignation with which heads of families
who enjoyed the privilege of Cephas and the brethren of
our Lord regarded it. There were they with three or four
elderly unmarried daughters as well as old mamma—how
could they afford bacon ? And there was I, a selfish bachelor—.
The appetising, savoury smell of my rasher seemed to drive
them mad. I used to feel very uncomfortable, very small
and quite aware how low it was of me to have bacon for
breakfast and no daughters instead of daughters and no
bacon. But when I consulted the oracles of heaven about
it, I was always told to stick to my bacon and not to make
a fool of myself. I despised myself but have not withered
under my own contempt so completely as I ought to have
done.

God and Man

To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense,
experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in
hand. " We know that all things work together for good to
them that love God." To be loved by God is the same as
to love Him. We love Him because He first loved us.

The Homeric Deity and the Pall Mall Gazette

A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette (I think in 1874 or 1875,
and in. the autumn months, but I cannot now remember)

his mind, he would have edited it so as to avoid speaking of Homer as
the author of the poem.