Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino. Samuel Butler
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that he read The Tablet’s description of “Alps and Sanctuaries” as “a book that Wordsworth would have gloated over with delight.” On the other hand, the compliment paid to his little discourse on the “wondrous efficacy of crosses and crossing,” which the pious Tablet read in a devotional rather than a biological sense and characterised as “so very suggestive and moral that it might form part of a sermon,” must have pleased him almost as much as The Rock’s naïf acceptance of “The Fair Haven” as a defence of Protestant orthodoxy.
“Alps and Sanctuaries” is essentially a holiday book, and no one ever enjoyed a holiday more keenly than Butler. “When a man is in his office,” he used to say, “he should be exact and precise, but his holiday is his garden, and too much precision here is a mistake.” He acted up to his words, and in “Alps and Sanctuaries” we see him in his most unbuttoned mood, giving the rein to his high spirits and letting his fantastic humour carry him whither it would. Butler always spent his holidays in Italy, a country which he had known and loved from his earliest childhood, and for which the passing years only increased his affection. Few Englishmen have ever studied her people, her landscape and her art with deeper sympathy and understanding, and she never received a sincerer tribute than the book which Butler dedicated to his “second country” as “a thank-offering for the happiness she has afforded me.”
Butler used to declare that he wrote his books so that he might have something to read in his old age, knowing what he liked much better than any one else could do. But though he cared little for contemporary popularity, no man valued intelligent appreciation more highly. He recorded in his “Note-books” with evident delight the remark made by a lady after reading “Alps and Sanctuaries”: “You seem to hear him speaking,” adding, “I don’t think I ever heard a criticism of my books which pleased me better.” The story of another unsolicited testimonial I must give in his own words:
“One day in the autumn of 1886 I walked up to Piora from Airolo, returning the same day. At Piora I met a very nice quiet man whose name I presently discovered, and who, I have since learned, is a well-known and most liberal employer of labour somewhere in the north of England. He told me that he had been induced to visit Piora by a book which had made a great impression upon him. He could not recollect its title, but it had made a great impression upon him; nor yet could he recollect the author’s name, but the book had made a great impression upon him; he could not remember even what else there was in the book; the only thing he knew was that it had made a great impression upon him.
“This is a good example of what is called a residuary impression. Whether or no I told him that the book which had made such a great impression upon him was called ‘Alps and Sanctuaries,’ and that it had been written by the person he was addressing, I cannot tell. It would have been very like me to have blurted it all out and given him to understand how fortunate he had been in meeting me. This would be so fatally like me that the chances are ten to one that I did it; but I have, thank Heaven, no recollection of sin in this respect, and have rather a strong impression that, for once in my life, I smiled to myself and said nothing.”
Butler always remembered with satisfaction that “Alps and Sanctuaries” gained him the friendship of Dr. Mandell Creighton. In her biography of her husband, Mrs. Creighton mentions that the Bishop had been reading “Alps and Sanctuaries,” which charmed him so much that he determined to visit some of the places described therein. On his return to England, Dr. Creighton wrote to Butler, telling him how much “Alps and Sanctuaries” had added to the pleasure of his trip, and begged him to come to Peterborough and pay him a visit. The story is told in Butler’s “Note-books,” but I cannot resist the temptation to repeat it:
“The first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down to Peterborough, I was a little doubtful whether to go or not. As usual, I consulted my good clerk Alfred, who said:
“ ‘Let me have a look at his letter, sir.’
“I gave him the letter, and he said:
“ ‘I see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you may go.’
“I went, and enjoyed myself very much. I should like to add that there are few men who have ever impressed me so profoundly and so favourably as Dr. Creighton. I have often seen him since, both at Peterborough and at Fulham, and like and admire him most cordially.”
“Alps and Sanctuaries” was published a few months before the opening of the St. Gothard tunnel in 1882. That event naturally made many and great changes in the Val Leventina, and we who know the valley only as a thoroughfare for shrieking smoking expresses, can scarcely realise its ancient peace in the days of which Butler wrote. But apart from the incursion of the railway, Butler’s beloved valleys have changed but little since “Alps and Sanctuaries” was written. A few more roads have been made, and a few more hotels have been built. Butler’s prediction to the effect that the next great change in locomotion in the Ticinese valleys “would have something to do with electricity”—a prediction which in 1881 was by no means so obvious as a twentieth-century reader might suppose—has been strikingly fulfilled. Electric railways now run up the Val Blenio from Biasca to Acquarossa, half-way to Olivone; up the Val Mesocco from Bellinzona to Mesocco, and from Locarno up the Val Maggia to Bignasco. Ere long they will doubtless penetrate the higher recesses of the valleys. Many of the “nice people” mentioned in “Alps and Sanctuaries” have passed away. Signer Dazio no longer reigns in Fusio; his hotel is in other hands, “and from the sign is gone Sibylla’s name.” Signor Guglielmoni has long since fallen a victim to the rigours of the Alpine winter, which Butler so feelingly describes. At S. Michele, however, there are still some monks who remember Butler and a copy of “Alps and Sanctuaries,” given by him to the Sanctuary, is one of their most cherished possessions. The lapse of thirty years has left S. Michele unaltered, so far as I could see a few years ago, save for the arm-chairs made out of clipped box-trees. These have fallen grievously from their high estate as depicted on p. 103, and are now deplorably thin and ragged.
I think that Butler must at one time have intended to bring out a new edition of “Alps and Sanctuaries”—the so-called second edition published in 1882 by Mr. David Bogue being merely a re-issue of the original sheets with a new title-page—since he took the trouble to compile an elaborate and highly characteristic index, the manuscript of which is bound up in a copy of the so-called second edition now in my possession. This idea he seems to have abandoned, and he did not revise the text of the book, beyond correcting two or three misprints. He continued, however, to accumulate material for a possible sequel, and at his death he left a large mass of rough notes recording impressions of many holiday expeditions to various parts of Italy, in particular to his favourite Lombard and Ticinese valleys. Mr. Festing Jones and I have examined these notes with great care, and from them Mr. Jones, who was, I need hardly say, Butler’s constant companion both at home and abroad, and his collaborator in the original “Alps and Sanctuaries,” has constructed one entirely new chapter, “Fusio Revisited,” and made considerable additions to Chapter X. I have, in addition, borrowed two passages, relating respectively to Bellinzona (p. 198) and Varese (p. 257) from Butler’s recently published “Note-books,” and Mr. Jones has kindly allowed me to take the note on Medea Colleone and her passero solitario (p. 23) from his “Diary of a Journey through North Italy and Sicily.” I have revised the original text of the book, into which some trifling errors had crept, and have completed the index by adding references to the new matter. I have also ventured to consign to an appendix the original Chapter IX, “Reforms instituted at S. Michele in the year 1478,” which contains a summary of certain documents relating to the Sanctuary. These are valuable to scholars and students, but are not likely to interest the ordinary reader, and I am following the suggestion of a friend in transplanting the chapter bodily to the end of the book. The illustrations, all save six which the reader will easily distinguish, are printed from the original Dawson-Process blocks, which are interesting examples of early photo-engraving work.
Mr. Fifield’s determination to make the present edition handy and portable has unfortunately compelled him to abandon Mr. Charles Gogin’s design for the original cover, which requires a larger volume than would in the present case be convenient. Readers who propose to carry the book from S. Ambrogio up to the Sanctuary