The Fair Haven by Samuel Butler
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page 3 of 266 (01%)
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anticipated that some at any rate of them would keenly resent it.
Writing to Miss Savage in March, 1873 (shortly before the publication of the book), he said: "I should hope that attacks on The Fair Haven will give me an opportunity of excusing myself, and if so I shall endeavour that the excuse may be worse than the fault it is intended to excuse." A few days later he referred to the difficulties that he had encountered in getting the book accepted by a publisher: " --- were frightened and even considered the scheme of the book unjustifiable. --- urged me, as politely as he could, not to do it, and evidently thinks I shall get myself into disgrace even among freethinkers. It's all nonsense. I dare say I shall get into a row- -at least I hope I shall." Evidently there is here no anticipation of The Fair Haven being misunderstood. Misunderstood, however, it was, not only by reviewers, some of whom greeted it solemnly as a defence of orthodoxy, but by divines of high standing, such as the late Canon Ainger, who sent it to a friend whom he wished to convert. This was more than Butler could resist, and he hastened to issue a second edition bearing his name and accompanied by a preface in which the deceived elect were held up to ridicule. Butler used to maintain that The Fair Haven did his reputation no harm. Writing in 1901, he said: "The Fair Haven got me into no social disgrace that I have ever been able to discover. I might attack Christianity as much as I chose and nobody cared one straw; but when I attacked Darwin it was a different matter. For many years Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory made a shipwreck of my literary prospects. I am only now beginning to emerge from the literary and social injury which those two perfectly righteous books inflicted on me. I dare say they |
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