Strictly limited in the amount of work which he was allowed to do, Teixeira in these weeks read voraciously; and his letters of this period contain almost the only critical judgements that I was able to extract from him.
On 25.5.20. he writes:
Was Pearsall Smith the inventor of the pedigree tracing the descent of the English from the ten lost tribes of Israel?
Isaac
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Isaacson
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Saxon
What was the other famous book, besides Erewhon, which George Meredith (whom I am beginning to dislike almost as much as Henry James and Pearl Craigie) caused Smith, Elder & Co. to reject? Was it Treasure Island or something quite different?
Which Samuel Butlers am I to buy now? I have (in the order of which I have enjoyed them):
- The Way of all Flesh
- Alps and Sanctuaries
- The Notebooks
- Erewhon Revisited
- Erewhon
The machinery part of the last-named bored me; the philosophy also; and I fear I missed much of the irony. But the style! It’s unbeaten. It’s as good as Defoe. It knocks Stevenson silly because it’s so utterly natural. Hats off to that for style.
Should I enjoy The Humour of Homer, though knowing nothing or little about Homer? The Authoress of the Odyssey: would this be wasted on me? What is The Fair Haven about? I don’t want to read Butler’s religious views—all you Britons think and talk and write much too much about religion—nor his views on evolution: he is too much in sympathy, I gather, with that dishonest fellow, Darwin.
What shall I read of that same Darwin, so that I may do my own chuckling? Please name the best two or three, in their order as written.