THE NOTE-BOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER




PREFACE



Early in his life Samuel Butler began to carry a note-book and to
write down in it anything he wanted to remember; it might be
something he heard some one say, more commonly it was something he
said himself. In one of these notes he gives a reason for making
them:

"One's thoughts fly so fast that one must shoot them; it is no use
trying to put salt on their tails."

So he bagged as many as he could hit and preserved them, re-written
on loose sheets of paper which constituted a sort of museum stored
with the wise, beautiful, and strange creatures that were continually
winging their way across the field of his vision. As he became a
more expert marksman his collection increased and his museum grew so
crowded that he wanted a catalogue. In 1874 he started an index, and
this led to his reconsidering the notes, destroying those that he
remembered having used in his published books and re-writing the
remainder. The re-writing shortened some but it lengthened others
and suggested so many new ones that the index was soon of little use
and there seemed to be no finality about it ("Making Notes," pp. 100-
1 post). In 1891 he attached the problem afresh and made it a rule