The Samuel Butler Collection at Saint John's College, Cambridge / A Catalogue and a Commentary

Transcribed by from the 1921 W. Heffer & Sons edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
A Catalogue and a Commentary
by HENRY FESTING JONES and A. T. BARTHOLOMEW
cambridge w. heffer & sons ltd. 1921
It seems to me, the more I think of it, that the true life of anyone is not the one they live in themselves, and of which they are themselves conscious, but the life they live in the hearts of others. Our bodies and brains are but the tools with which we work to make our true life, which is not in the tool-box and tools we ignorantly mistake for ourselves, but in the work we do with them; and this work, if it be truly done, lives more in others than in ourselves.
S. Butler, 1895.
The Butler Collection was not all given to St. John’s at once. I sent up some pictures and some books in 1917; and at intervals I have sent more, always keeping a list of what has gone. Now that I have no more to send seems the proper time for a Catalogue to be issued, and it is made from the lists which I kept, and which were in part printed in The Eagle , put in order by A. T. Bartholomew and annotated by myself. I am responsible for the notes and am the person intended when “I” and “me” occur. Bartholomew is responsible for the classification, for verifying, for checking, and for the bibliographical part.
In time the collection will no doubt increase as new editions or translations of Butler’s books appear and as further books are published referring to him. All such I intend to include in the collection; and I hope that other Butlerians will see fit to make additions to it.
I think that the notes give all necessary explanations; but I may perhaps say here that many of the pictures were made before Butler contemplated writing such a book as Alps and Sanctuaries . When he was preparing that book he went to the places therein described and made on the spot many black and white drawings for reproduction; but he found that this method would take too long, so he made others of the black and white drawings from oil and water-colour sketches which he had done previously, and this is why some of the pictures are dated many years before the book was published.