William Butler

“ The children followed him, Esk bestowing a wink upon me, Peter grinning and toeing in like a Devon duck, and that wild-cat thing, Silver Heels—
"You need not wait, Captain Butler," said Sir William, politely.
Mr. Butler retired, leaving the door swinging. Out in the dark hallway I fancied I could still see his shallow eyes shining. I may have been mistaken. But all men know now that Walter Butler hath eyes that see as well by dark as by the light of the sun; and none know it so well as the people of New York Province and of Tryon County.
"Michael," said Sir William, "go to the slate." ”

“ There is not a man in the Bazaar would dare to look him in the face!” Mr. W. insisted that he must “look him in the face,” and
bring him up before him, adding, “If you are afraid, then take your six men,” (who all stood in a row behind their gallant leader, with about as much courage as Falstaff's squad, gazing right into the face of the magistrate;) “surely seven of you, armed with tulwars, are enough to arrest one English soldier with only a stick in his hand.” ”

“ There our author has resided; there he is said to have written something or other, and the very room and spot of its composition are pointed out. It is best not to be too critical; and, on the other hand, if we believe, in general, that where a man of genius has lived he has also written, we shall seldom be far wrong. There is little doubt that here Butler, possessed of more leisure and independence than at any other period of his life, did really revise and prepare his work for press, of which the first part was published in 1663, and the second in the year following. ”

“ Butler introduced into his mission field which tended to make an extension of the work inevitable. Other systems may be equally scriptural and equally acceptable to God, but this system has some peculiarities in this special direction. It was not devised by any one man in a single day or a single year, but is the outgrowth of a movement extending over a long series of years; and as the product of an active movement it is adapted to the condition of things similar to that in which it first took shape. In other words, it can only work successfully while it is actively aggressive. ”

“ She was placed by the examiners above the senior classic at Cambridge in 1887. By his two marriages Butler had five sons and three daughters.
Among Butler’s chief publications are his volumes of school and university sermons (1861, 1866, 1898, 1899) , Ten Great and Good Men (1909) , Chatham as an Orator (Romanes lecture, 1912) , Some Leisure Hours of a Long Life (1914) . He died at Cambridge 14 January 1918.
There is a portrait of Butler by Sir Hubert von Herkomer at Harrow, and another by Sir William Orpen at Trinity College, Cambridge. ”

“ BUTLER, WILLIAM JOHN (1818–1894) , dean of Lincoln, eldest son of John Laforey Butler, a member of the firm of H. and I. Johnstone, merchants and bankers, was born in Bryanston Street, Marylebone, London, on 10 Feb. 1818. His mother, Henrietta, daughter of Captain Robert Patrick, was of Irish, as his father was of Pembrokeshire, descent. After schooling at Enfield, he became a queen's scholar at Westminster in 1832, and was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1836. ”

“ Butler's efforts were ably seconded by her husband, William S. Butler, one of the successful merchants of Boston. Mr. Butler died in 1898, and many a poor family felt they had lost a friend.
Mrs. Butler is a Spiritualist, and is one of the most successful clairvoyant physicians in the country, but has not permitted herself to become in any way bigoted or narrow-minded. When her attention has been called to persons needing assistance, she has not considered whether they were Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Gentile, but has ever been ready to help. ”

“ BUTLER, SAMUEL (1774–1839) , English classical scholar and schoolmaster, and bishop of Lichfield, was born at Kenilworth on the 30th of January 1774. He was educated at Rugby, and in 1792 went to St John’s College, Cambridge. Butler’s classical career was a brilliant one. He obtained three of Sir William Browne’s medals, for the Latin (1792) and Greek (1793, 1794) odes, the medal for the Greek ode in 1792 being won by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1793 Butler was elected to the Craven scholarship, amongst the competitors being John Keate, afterwards headmaster of Eton, and Coleridge. ”

“ He is now pastor of St. Mark’s Church, New York. For the past three or four years, Mr. Butler has taken an active part in the politics of the Empire State, and was sent as a delegate to the National Republican Convention that nominated General Grant for his second term, and in which assembly he exercised considerable influence with the colored delegates from the South.
Mr. Butler is a man of good education, well read, of retentive memory, able in debate, quick to take advantage of an opponent, an eloquent, extemporaneous speaker, and popular with the masses. ”

“ BUTLER, JAMES (fl. 1631–1634) , military adventurer, was one of the many members of the Irish house of Butler who in the seventeenth century gained reputation as soldiers. Not less than six officers of the name appear to be distinguishable in the imperial service during the thirty years' war. The James Butler in question is said to have belonged to the branch of his house which traced its origin to the first viscount Mountgarret, the second son of Pierce, eighth earl of Ormonde and Ossory [q. v.] ”

“ Butler for a misfortune not his fault. "Perhaps some day the fever may scorch you—like our young kinsman Micky—eh, lad?"
I said, "Perhaps, sir," with eyes on the smoking joint before me. It was Sir William's pleasure that I learn to carve; and, in truth, I found it easy, save for the carving of a goose or of those wild-ducks we shot on the great Vlaie.
We were but four to dine that day: Sir William, Mr. Butler, Silver Heels, and myself. Mistress Molly remained in the nursery, where were also Peter and Esk, inasmuch as they slobbered and fouled the cloth, and so fed in the play-room. ”

“ La Fayette says, "When I wanted a thing well done, I ordered a Butler to do it."
From this retrospect it will be seen that in all the wars of the country, in the revolutionary war, in the Indian war, in the last British war, and the present Mexican war, the blood of almost every Butler able to bear arms has been freely shed in the public cause. Maj. Gen. William O. Butler is now among the highest in the military service of his country; and he has attained this grade from the ranks—the position of a private being the only one he ever sought. ”

“ Preaching a crusade, according to the fashion of those times, against the Saracens, he fell sick, and died in the hospital at Dover, called God’s-house, in 1253, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and in the ninth of his episcopal functions. This is a brief character of an exemplary prelate, but the credulous Butler chooses to affirm, that three dead persons were restored to life, and other miraculous cures were worked at his tomb. Father Porter gossips a story of a miraculous flow of unction at his consecration; of a dead-born child having been brought to life by his dead merits ”

“ Butler has seized on the Relay House, on the junction of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, with the rail from Washington, and has displayed a good deal of vigour since his arrival at Annapolis. He is a democrat, and a celebrated criminal lawyer in Massachusetts. Troops are pouring into New York, and are preparing to attack Alexandria, on the Virginia side, below Washington and the Navy Yard, where a large Confederate flag is flying, which can be seen from the President’s windows in the White House. ”

“ And you are more high of heart than she
For all her wanderings over-sea;
But I'd have bird and rush forget
Those other two, for never yet
Has lover lived but longed to wive
Like them that are no more alive. ”

“ Butler’s professional labours were commenced at the early age of seventeen, and were continued with indefatigable ardour to the last year of his life, a period of fifty-seven years. In estimating the value of such a man, we should combine his moral principle with his literary employments ”

“ Butler, "and time for your 20 carving lesson. Did you not hear the bugles from the forts?"
"I heard nothing, sir," said I, giving him a surly look, which he returned with that blank stare of the eyes, noticeable in hawks and kites and foul night birds surprised by light.
"Sir William dines early," he said, as I followed him through the dim hallway, past the nursery, and down stairs. "If he has to wait your pleasure for his slice of roast, you will await his pleasure for the remainder of the day in the school-room." ”

“ Butler in return assured the duke that he would serve him rather than any other mortal. On the same day Eger was reached, and Butler was assigned quarters in the town, while his regiment remained outside the gates. Meanwhile on the 23rd Butler had contrived to despatch his chaplain to Piccolomini, now at Pilsen, assuring him that he would be true to the emperor, and adding that perchance God's providence designed to force him to do some heroic deed. Piccolomini bade the chaplain tell Butler that if he desired the imperial favour and promotion, he must deliver up Wallenstein dead or alive. ”

“ I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish. ”

“ Above us rises the lofty dome, far up into the dim distance. The floor on which we tread is of polished marble and jasper, ornamented with a wainscoating of sculptured marble tablets inlaid with flowers formed of precious stones. ”

“ After the publication of Erewhon in 1872, Butler returned once more to theology, and made his anonymous pamphlet the basis of the far more elaborate Fair Haven, which was originally published as the posthumous work of a certain John Pickard Owen, preceded by a memoir of the deceased author by his supposed brother, William Bickersteth Owen. It is possible that the memoir was the fruit of a suggestion made by Miss Savage, an able and witty woman with whom Butler corresponded at the time. ”

“ It appears then, that the ecclesiastics of the church of Salisbury were among the “moderns” of Alban Butler, “who imagined” of the seven sleepers as related in the legend, and so imagining, taught the “stuff,” as bishop Patrick calls it, to their flocks. Yet Alban Butler weeps over the Reformation, which swept the “imaginations” of his “moderns” away, and he would fain bring us back to the religion of the imaginers. ”

“ And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream:
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream ”

“ For all life longs for the Last Day
And there's no man but cocks his ear
To know when Michael's trumpet cries
That flesh and bone may disappear,
And souls as if they were but sighs,
And there be nothing but God left ”

“ The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire ”

“ The eagle links them to the earth; the cloud carries to them the message of the sky; the ocean sends them her tempest; the air rolls her thunders beneath their brows, and launches her lightnings from their sides ”

“ In stature, Mr. Butler is below the medium, of neat figure, genteel in appearance, of mixed blood, sharp, bright eyes, pleasing countenance, easy in manners, and interesting in conversation. He is about thirty years of age. In all emergencies, he has been considered true to his race, and may be regarded as a representative man.
T. MORRIS CHESTER.
Mr. Chester is a native of Pennsylvania, and is by profession, a lawyer. He spent some years in Liberia, returned home, and took an honorable part in the [Pg 527] war of the Rebellion. ”

“ But can a man be said to do a thing by habit when he has never done it before? His ancestors have done it, but not he. Can the habit have been acquired by them for his benefit? Not unless he and his ancestors are the same person. Perhaps, then, they are the same person.
In February, 1876, partly to clear his mind and partly to tell someone, he wrote down his thoughts in a letter to his namesake, Thomas William Gale Butler, a fellow art-student who was then in New Zealand; so much of the letter as concerns the growth of his theory is given in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912) . ”

“ Butler says that he “was taught to apply himself to manual labour by an angel, who appeared, platting mats of palm-tree leaves, then rising to pray, and after some time sitting down again to work; and who at length said to him, ‘Do this, and thou shalt be saved.’ The life, attributed by Butler to St. Athanasius, informs us that our saint continued in some degree to pray whilst he was at work; that he detested the Arians; that he would not speak to a heretic unless to exhort him to the true faith ”

“ No man ever loved liberty and [Pg 117] virtue with a purer affection; no man ever labored in their cause with a more distinguished zeal; no man ever brought to the task a more glorious genius, accomplished with a more consummate learning. Milton was the noblest model of a devoted patriot and true Englishman; and the study of his works is the most certain means of perpetuating to his country spirits worthy of her greatness.
[Pg 118]
SAMUEL BUTLER.
"In the midst of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can only perish with his language. ”

“ Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid
And brood on hopes and fear no more. ”