the idea of quieting Miss Savage and also as an experiment to
ascertain whether he was likely to succeed with a novel. The result
seems to have satisfied him, for, not long after The Fair Haven, he
began The Way of All Flesh, sending the MS. to Miss Savage, as he
did everything he wrote, for her approval and putting her into the
book as Ernest's Aunt Alethea. He continued writing it in the
intervals of other work until her death in February, 1885, after
which he did not touch it. It was published in 1903 by Mr. R. A.
Streatfeild, his literary executor.

Soon after The Fair Haven Butler began to be aware that his letter
in the Press, "Darwin among the Machines," was descending with
further modifications and developing in his mind into a theory about
evolution which took shape as Life and Habit; but the writing of
this very remarkable and suggestive book was delayed and the
painting interrupted by absence from England on business in Canada.
He had been persuaded by a college friend, a member of one of the
great banking families, to call in his colonial mortgages and to put
the money into several new companies. He was going to make thirty
or forty per cent instead of only ten. One of these companies was a
Canadian undertaking, of which he became a director; it was
necessary for someone to go to headquarters and investigate its
affairs; he went, and was much occupied by the business for two or
three years. By the beginning of 1876 he had returned finally to
London, but most of his money was lost and his financial position
for the next ten years caused him very serious anxiety. His
personal expenditure was already so low that it was hardly possible
to reduce it, and he set to work at his profession more
industriously than ever, hoping to paint something that he could
sell, his spare time being occupied with Life and Habit, which was