Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
I am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of a mistake,
even when it involves my having shown much ignorance and stupidity, as
well as I like hitting on a new idea. It does comfort one so to be able
to feel sure that one knows how to tumble and how to retreat promptly and
without chagrin. Being bowled over in inaccuracy, when I have tried to
verify, makes me careful. But if I have not tried to verify and then
turn out wrong, this, if I find it out, upsets me very much and I pray
that I may be found out whenever I do it.
Jutland and “Waitee”
I made a mistake in _The Authoress of the Odyssey_ [in a note on p. 31]
when I said “Scheria means Jutland—a piece of land jutting out into the
sea.” Jutland means the Land of the Jutes.
And I made a mistake in _Alps and Sanctuaries_ [Chap. III], speaking of
the peasants in the Val Leventina knowing English, when I said “One
English word has become universally adopted by the Ticinesi themselves.
They say ‘Waitee’ just as we should say ‘Wait’ to stop some one from
going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word with a consonant so
they have added ‘ee,’ but there can be no doubt about the origin of the
word.” The Avvocato Negri of Casale-Monferrato says that they have a
word in their dialetto which, if ever written, would appear as “vuaitee,”
it means “stop” or “look here,” and is used to attract attention. This,
or something like it, no doubt is what they really say and has no more to
do with waiting than Jutland has to do with jutting.
The Parables
The people do not act reasonably in a single instance. The sower was a
bad sower; the shepherd who left his ninety and nine sheep in the
wilderness was a foolish shepherd; the husbandman who would not have his
corn weeded was no farmer—and so on. None of them go nearly on all
fours, they halt so much as to have neither literary nor moral value to
any but slipshod thinkers.
Granted, but are we not all slipshod thinkers?
The Irreligion of Orthodoxy
We do not fall foul of Christians for their religion, but for what we
hold to be their want of religion—for the low views they take of God and
of his glory, and for the unworthiness with which they try to serve him.
Society and Christianity
The burden of society is really a very light one. She does not require
us to believe the Christian religion, she has very vague ideas as to what
the Christian religion is, much less does she require us to practise it.
She is quite satisfied if we do not obtrude our disbelief in it in an
offensive manner. Surely this is no very grievous burden.
Sanctified by Faith
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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