" EREWHON " AND THE "SPECTATOR." [TO THE EDITOR OF
THE "SPECTATOR." j SIR,—I called your review of " Erewhon " of April 20th, 1872, " favourable," and so it was ; I. should have been captious if I had called it anything else, for it and the Pall Mall Gazette article of April 12th, 1872, at once lifted the book into the
position which, with all its faults, it has maintained. But I did not say that I liked, much less endorsed, everything in its whole four columns. On the contrary, I disliked extremely the passages quoted by your reviewer in your issue of February 8th. Your reviewer does not say that his pre- decessor in 1872 had also written as follows:— "What he [the author of `Erewhon'] seems to want to impress upon his readers is the wisdom of quietly taking your notions of what is best from the society round you. In one page the author confesses that the high Ydgrunites '—i.s., the higher worshippers of Ydgrun (Mrs. Grundy) have got 'about as far as it is in the right nature of man to go,'—a judgment which he only modifies by saying that they ought to speak out more clearly what they think. Of course this too may be veiled satire ; but if it is, the book is without definite drift—which no one who reads it carefully will readily believe."
I should hope not. The above passage comes to this, that my " object " and " intention " was sufficiently plain,—viz., to uphold the current conscience of a man's best peers as his
safest moral guide. I intended this, intend it, and, I trust, always shall intend it. What sane man will uphold any other
guidance as generally safer,—exceptis, of course, ezcipiendis My " object " and " intention " having been thus clearly and
correctly expressed, I disregarded the subsequent passage quoted in your last issue as merely a reviewer's parting kick, and as rendered comparatively harmless by the fuller one that had gone before. The subsequent passage runs :-
" It is certainly quite true that if any one will accept the implied satiric teaching of the book, he will fluid himself morally and intellectually nowhere,' i.e., in Erewhon, when he has done."
Your reviewer, ignoring the first of the two passages quoted above, tries to fasten it on me that I regard the second as
praise," inasmuch as, speaking of the article as a whole, I called it "favourable." Hence he deduces that "it rightly
describes Mr. Butler's object, and correctly indicates the result to which his satire is intended to lead." [Italics mine.] He
or she evidently does not consider these words as involving a very disgraceful imputation ; if he (as we will say for brevity) did indeed so consider them, he would not use them so lightly. I differ from him ; and, out of respect for the good opinion both of your readers and yourself, must request you to publish
the foregoing letter.—I am, Sir, &c., SAMUEL BUTLER.
15 Clifford's Inn, B.C.
[We of course gladly publish Mr. Butler's letter, but we
cannot honestly say that we think he was unfairly or die- courteously treated by our reviewer.—ED. Spectator.]
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