ation of
Hering's lecture "On Memory," which is in Unconscious Memory, and of
mentioning Butler as having enunciated the theory contained in Life
and Habit.
In 1886 Butler published his last book on evolution, Luck or Cunning
as the Main Means of Organic Modification? His other contributions
to the subject are some essays, written for the Examiner in 1879,
"God the Known and God the Unknown," which were re-published by Mr.
Fifield in 1909, and the articles "The Deadlock in Darwinism" which
appeared in the Universal Review in 1890 and are contained in this
volume; some further notes on evolution will be found in The Note-
Books of Samuel Butler (1912).
It was while he was writing Life and Habit that I first met him.
For several years he had been in the habit of spending six or eight
weeks of the summer in Italy and the Canton Ticino, generally making
Faido his headquarters. Many a page of his books was written while
resting by the fountain of some subalpine village or waiting in the
shade of the chestnuts till the light came so that he could continue
a sketch. Every year he returned home by a different route, and
thus gradually became acquainted with every part of the Canton and
North Italy. There is scarcely a town or village, a point of view,
a building, statue or picture in all this country with which he was
not familiar. In 1878 he happened to be on the Sacro Monte above
Varese at the time I took my holiday; there I joined him, and nearly
every year afterwards we were in Italy together.
He was always a delightful companion, and perhaps at his gayest on
these occasions. "A man's holiday," he would say, "is his garden,"
and he set out to enjoy himself and to make everyone about him enjoy
themselves too. I told him the old schoolboy muddle about Sir
Walter Raleigh introducing tobacco and saying: "We shall this day
light up such a fire in England as I trust shall never be put out."
He had not heard it before and, though amused, appeared preoccupied,
and perhaps a little jealous, during the rest of the evening. Next
morning, while he was pouring out his coffee, his eyes twinkled and
he said, with assumed carelessness:
"By the by, do you remember?--wasn't it Columbus who bashed the egg
down on the table and said 'Eppur non si muove'?"
He was welcome wherever he went, full of fun and ready to play while
doing the honours of the country. Many of the peasants were old
friends, and every day we were sure
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