se
which his father and mother sent him. Nor was Butler, even as a copyist,
always adequate to his originals. The brilliantly witty letters of Miss
Savage, by which the first volume is made precious, seem to us to
indicate a real woman upon whom something more substantial might have
been modelled than the delightful but evanescent picture of Alethea
Pontifex. Here, at least, is a picture of Miss Savage and Butler
together which, to our sense, gives some common element in both which
escaped the expression of the author of _The Way of all Flesh_:--
'I like the cherry-eating scene, too [Miss Savage wrote after
reading the MS. of _Alps and Sanctuaries_], because it reminded me
of your eating cherries when I first knew you. One day when I was
going to the gallery, a very hot day I remember, I met you on the
shady side of Berners Street, eating cherries out of a basket. Like
your Italian friends, you were perfectly silent with content, and
you handed the basket to me as I was passing, without saying a word.
I pulled out a handful and went on my way rejoicing, without saying
a word either. I had not before perceived you to be different from
any one else. I was like Peter Bell and the primrose with the yellow
brim. As I went away to France a day or two after that and did not
see you again for months, the recollection of you as you were eating
cherries in Berners Street abode with me and pleased me greatly.'
Again, we feel that the unsubstantial Towneley of the novel should have
been more like flesh and blood when we learn that he too was drawn from
the life, and from a life which was intimately connected with Butler's.
Here, most evidently, the heart gains what the head loses, for the story
of Butler's long-suffering generosity to Charles Paine Pauli is almost
beyond belief and comprehension. Butler had met Pauli, who was two years
his junior, in New Zealand, and had conceived a passionate admiration
for him. Learning that he desired to read for the bar, Butler, who had
made an unexpected success of his sheep-farming, offered to lend him
L100 to get to England and L200 a year until he was called. Very shortly
after they both arrived in England, Pauli separated from Butler,
refusing even to let him know his address, and thenceforward paid him
one brief visit every day. He continued, however, to draw his allowance
regularly until his death all through the period when, owing to
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