And so his life went on and his interests drifted through the theory of evolution, the authorship of the _Odyssey_, the life of his grandfather, and the meaning of Shakespeare's Sonnets. The sales of his books pursued a course by no means so varied, but steadily declined. In 1899, when he drew up a statement of profit and loss, the average sales of his eleven books, excluding _Erewhon_, which was the first, amounted to 306 copies each. Of his _Selections from Previous Works_, 120 copies were sold in fifteen years. Of _The Authoress of the Odyssey_, 165 copies were sold. He might well have added discouragement to his first cause of bitterness. The religion of Christ produced Canon Butler, the religion of science produced Darwin, the religion of good looks and good breeding produced Pauli. On paper he was indomitable. He swore he had enjoyed life, that on the balance his good luck overbalanced the bad. But he swore a little too often, he explained a little too much in detail for this to have been quite true. And then, at the very end of his life, the luck turned, and his last book, by a strange irony, was produced at the publisher's own risk, the greatest triumph in his literary career which Butler was able to see since the success of his first book. After he was dead his reputation, magically assisted with incantations by Mr. Bernard Shaw and others, sprang up to an amazing height, like the plant grown from the Indian enchanter's bean. Now the world is confronted with a situation in which the neglected philosopher of Clifford's Inn has attained an importance he never dreamt of and perhaps would not have approved. "Above all things," he said, "let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in _me_." This useful motto was printed on the menu of the first Erewhon dinner; but a great number of his disciples have disregarded the admonition. I was once the witness of one undergraduate trying to proselytise another and telling him that it was a worthy ambition to desire to be like Christ. "I don't want to be like anyone else," replied the second undergraduate, "but if I did, I shouldn't choose Christ, I should choose Samuel Butler." This is at once an extreme instance and one strictly guarded against Butler's own disapproval: for the kernel of the remark would meet with his applause. But it illustrates the direction in which many of his admirers have more frenetically rushed. It is an ironic fate for so ironic a philosopher that his teaching should have become a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground for so many solemn and ridiculous persons.