In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School. My father had introduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen at once under his charm. He was curiously unlike what one had imagined a Head Master to be—not old and pompous and austere, but young and gracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand. His leading characteristic was gracefulness. He was graceful in appearance, tall and as yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; graceful in writing, and pre-eminently graceful in speech. He was young—thirty-four—and looked younger, although (availing himself of the opportunity afforded by an illness in the summer of 1867) he had just grown a beard. He had a keen sense of humour, and was not afraid to display it before boys, although he was a little pampered by a sense of the solemn reverence due not only to what was sacred, but to everything that was established and official. To breakfast with a Head Master is usually rather an awful experience, but there was no awe about the pleasant meals in Butler's dining-room (now the head Master's study), for he was unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, and tactful in adapting his conversation to the capacities of his guests.
It was rather more alarming to face him at the periodical inspection of one's Form. ("Saying to the Head Master" was the old phrase, then lapsing out of date.) We used to think that he found a peculiar interest in testing the acquirements of such boys as he knew personally, and of those whose parents were his friends; so that on these occasions it was a doubtful privilege to "know him," as the phrase is, "at home." Till one reached the Sixth Form these social and official encounters with Butler were one's only opportunities of meeting him at close quarters; but every Sunday evening we heard him preach in the Chapel, and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, at least in many cases, great. They were always written in beautifully clear and fluent English, and were often decorated with a fine quotation in prose or verse. In substance they were extraordinarily simple, though not childish. For example, he often preached on such practical topics as Gambling, National Education; and the Housing of the Poor, as well as on themes more obviously and directly religious. He was at his best in commemorating a boy who had died in the School, when his genuine sympathy with sorrow made itself unmistakably felt. But whatever was the subject, whether public or domestic, he always treated it in the same simply Christian spirit. I know from his own lips that he had never passed through those depths of spiritual experience which go to make a great preacher; but his sermons revealed in every sentence a pure, chivalrous, and duty-loving heart. One of his intimate friends once spoke of his "Arthur-like" character, and the epithet was exactly right.
His most conspicuous gift was unquestionably his eloquence. His fluency, beauty of phrase, and happy power of turning "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," made him extraordinarily effective on a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of 1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writing his sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, and even boys who did not usually care for sermons were fascinated by his oratory.
In the region of thought I doubt if he exercised any great influence. To me he never seemed to have arrived at his conclusions by any process of serious reasoning. He held strongly and conscientiously a certain number of conventions—a kind of Palmerstonian Whiggery, a love of "spirited foreign policy;" an admiration for the military character, an immense regard for the Crown, for Parliament, and for all established institutions (he was much shocked when the present Bishop of Oxford spoke in the Debating Society in favour of Republicanism); and in every department of life he paid an almost superstitious reverence to authority. I once ventured to tell him that even a beadle was a sacred being in his eyes, and he did not deny the soft impeachment.
His intellectual influence was not in the region of thought, but in that of expression. His scholarship was essentially literary. He had an instinctive and unaffected love of all that was beautiful, whether in prose or verse, in Greek, Latin, or English. His reading was wide and thorough. Nobody knew Burke so well, and he had a contagious enthusiasm for Parliamentary oratory. In composition he had a curiosa felicitas in the strictest meaning of the phrase; for his felicity was the product of care. To go through a prize-exercise with him was a real joy, so generous was his appreciation, so fastidious his taste, so dexterous his substitution of the telling for the ineffective word, and so palpably genuine his enjoyment of the business.
As a ruler his most noticeable quality was his power of discipline. He was feared—and a Head Master who is not feared is not fit for his post; and by bad boys he was hated, and by most good boys he was loved. By most, but not by all. There were some, even among the best, who resented his system of minute regulation, his "Chinese exactness" in trivial detail, his tendency to treat the tiniest breach of a School rule as if it were an offence against the moral law.
I think it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew him best loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, but it was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into an injustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour and dishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always and exactly the same. His memory for anything associated with his pupils careers was extraordinarily retentive, and he was even passionately loyal to Auld Lang Syne. And there is yet another characteristic which claims emphatic mention in any attempt to estimate his influence. He was conspicuously and essentially a gentleman. In appearance, manner, speech, thought, and act, this gentlemanlike quality of his nature made itself felt; and it roused in such as were susceptible of the spell an admiration which the most meritorious teachers have often, by sheer boorishness forfeited.
Time out of mind, a Head Mastership has been regarded as a stepping-stone to a Bishopric—with disastrous results to the Church—and in Butler's case it seemed only too likely that the precedent would be followed. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, once said to a Harrovian colleague, "What sort of Bishop would your old master, Dr. Butler, make?" "The very worst," was the reply. "He is quite ignorant of the Church, and would try to discipline his clergy like school-boys. But there is one place for which he is peculiarly qualified—the Mastership of Trinity." And the Prime Minister concurred. In June, 1885, Gladstone was driven from office, and was succeeded by Lord Salisbury. In October, 1886, the Master of Trinity (Dr. W. H. Thompson) died, and Salisbury promptly offered the Mastership to Dr. Butler, who had for a year been Dean of Gloucester. It is not often that a man is designated for the same great post by two Prime Ministers of different politics.
At Trinity, though at first he had to live down certain amount of jealousy and ill-feeling, Butler's power and influence increased steadily from year to year, and towards the end he was universally respected and admired. A resident contemporary writes: "He was certainly a Reformer, but not a violent one. His most conspicuous services to the College were, in my opinion, these: (1) Sage guidance of the turbulent and uncouth democracy of which a College Governing body consists. (2) A steady aim at the highest in education, being careful to secure the position of literary education from the encroachments of science and mathematics. (3) Affectionate stimulus to all undergraduates who need it, especially Old Harrovians. (4) The maintenance of the dignity and commanding position of Trinity and consequently of the University in the world at large."
To Cambridge generally Butler endeared himself by his eager interest in all good enterprises, by his stirring oratory and persuasive preaching, and by his lavish hospitality. As Vice-Chancellor, in 1889 and 1890, he worthily maintained the most dignified traditions of academical office. Those who knew him both on the religious and on the social side will appreciate the judgment said to have been pronounced by Canon Mason, then Master of Pembroke: "Butler will be saved, like Rahab, by hospitality and faith."