Cambridge Pieces

Transcribed from the 1914 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
By Samuel Butler Author of “Erewhon,” “The Way of All Flesh,” etc.
Edited by R. A. Streatfeild
London : A. C. Fifield 1914
This essay is believed to be the first composition by Samuel Butler that appeared in print . It was published in the first number of the Eagle, a magazine written and edited by members of St. John’s College , Cambridge , in the Lent Term , 1858, when Butler was in his fourth and last year of residence .
I sit down scarcely knowing how to grasp my own meaning, and give it a tangible shape in words; and yet it is concerning this very expression of our thoughts in words that I wish to speak. As I muse things fall more into their proper places, and, little fit for the task as my confession pronounces me to be, I will try to make clear that which is in my mind.
I think, then, that the style of our authors of a couple of hundred years ago was more terse and masculine than that of those of the present day, possessing both more of the graphic element, and more vigour, straightforwardness, and conciseness. Most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a man should be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give to it any kind of utterance, and that having made up his mind what to say, the less thought he takes how to say it, more than briefly, pointedly, and plainly, the better; for instance, Bacon tells us, “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark”; he does not say, what I can imagine a last century writer to have said, “A feeling somewhat analogous to the dread with which children are affected upon entering a dark room, is that which most men entertain at the contemplation of death.” Jeremy Taylor says, “Tell them it is as much intemperance to weep too much as to laugh too much”; he does not say, “All men will acknowledge that laughing admits of intemperance, but some men may at first sight hesitate to allow that a similar imputation may be at times attached to weeping.”