"Business is Business": The Money Ethic of Samuel Butler

237 "BUSINESS IS BUSINESS"« THE MONEY ETHIC OF SAMUEL BUTLER By Jill Rubenstein (University of Cincinnati) How blest the prudent man, the maiden pure, Whose income is both ample and secure, Arising from Consolidated Three Per Cent Annuities, paid quarterly. So asserts the final chorus in Narcissus, the Handelian "dramatic cantata" written by Samuel Butler with Henry Festing Jones.1 The ideal of blessedness expressed is, of course, ironic, particularly in the pastoral context in which it occurs; but like most of Butler 's irony, it is impure and well mixed with sincerity. Butler's attitude toward money combines artistic disdain, gentlemanly aloofness and bourgeois preoccupation with the insecurity of unnecessarily prolonged poverty. "Money," wrote Butler in his Notebook, "is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money - or the want of money¡ but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order."2 Not surprisingly, money became a pervasive theme in Butler's writing as well as in the conduct of his own life,3 Butler's background created a healthy respect for money and an inevitable awareness of its potential perversions, especially as an instrument of parental tyranny. Until his father died in 1886 when Butler was fifty-one, his financial status was at best uncertain and often quite precarious. In reconstructing and judging the financial relationship between Canon Butler and his prodigal son, one is tempted to award the verdict to the son, but fairness demands some equivocation. At various times both were at fault. The father vitiated originally good intentions with inflexibility and self-righteousness, while Butler allowed youthful pride and the desire for independence to be transformed into hypersensitivity . The conflict began in 1859 over Butler's choice of a profession . He refused to be ordained, and his father suggested the law or teaching as viable alternatives, neither of which appealed to the son. Canon Butler immediately threatened to withdraw financial support, but his son responded with a good spirit and, under the circumstances, admirable civility and restraint! You would with the best intention in the world make me a bed that I know very well will not fit me. I know that when I am in, escape is impossible! and knowing that I have duties to myself to perform even more binding on me than those to my parents, with all respect, adopt the alternative of rejecting the pounds shilling and pence and going in search of my own bread my own way. ^ These are brave words¡ nevertheless, four months later in September 1859. Butler embarked for New Zealand well capitalized with 238 his father's money. Contrary to everyone's expectations, he made a remarkable success of his sheep raising venture there.' His letters home (several of them requesting additional capital) deal with the practical details of caring for his growing flock and re\eal a sound business sense and a zest for doing things well rather than shoddily. He returned to England in the autumn cf 1868 having shown an excellent profit on his initial investment . Unfortunately a series of speculative investments lost considerable sums , and in spite of two trips to Kontreal to try to salvage some of his capital, Butler found himself in I876 once again impecunious. His father was not forthcoming with any substantial monetary assistance, and Butler managed to scrape along for the next three years. However, his hopes to earn a comfortable living through writing and painting remained unrealized , and in the autumn of 1879 he decided to borrow money on a property left to him in his grandfather's will. This necessitated Canon Butler's changing his own will to make Samuel's reversion absolute rather than contingent on his father's death. However, he refused to effect the change, and he forced Butler to submit a minutely detailed and, considering the son was fortyfour years old at the time, humiliating account of how he had spent his money since returning from New Zealand. In return he granted Butler an allowance of £300 per year, contingent on Butler 's promise to stop contributing to the maintenance of Charles Paine Pauli. Canon Butler...