The Curse of the Butlers
Sep. 20th, 2007 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmAt the end of my last post I made a glancing reference to the Curse of the Butlers, and perhaps implied that it lay in writing musical pieces that never got performed. Not so! That trend has been firmly bucked by my brother, whose pieces always get performed, and to rapturous applause.
I meant something a bit more general - namely the tendency of my (paternal) ancestors to choose some obscure, inkhorn subject, about which only half a dozen people in the world give more than a passing hoot, and then to devote their impecunious lives to it. In due course they become masters of a Lilliputian empire and talk about it at every opportunity, without once realising that not everyone shares their obsession. In its most aggravated form the Butler chooses two apparently unrelated (but equally obscure) subjects, and then shrinks the available audience still further by obsessing about them only in combination.
So, for example, you might, like my grandfather, become an expert in Esperanto – even to the extent of bringing your children up bilingual, and encouraging them to give speeches in praise of Ludwig Zamenhof at Hyde Park Corner.* You might also have a lot of time for the Tonic Sol-fa system, and/or follow a fitful career as a classical harpist (the instrument that’s always in demand!). You might be a Quaker who joined the Society of Friends because of your pacifist beliefs during the Great War, but who always hankered after the C of E hymns of your childhood. All these are suitable Butler activities, but they are consummated only when you can bring them together – for example by publishing a book of Esperanto hymns that no one will ever sing.
That’s why I believe that this earlier Charles Butler** must be one of my ancestors. Look at the evidence. First, he was a vicar – as so many of my forebears were. Second, he was an expert in two obscure and unrelated subjects: bee-keeping and spelling reform. Third, he brought them together by publishing a groundbreaking apiary handbook in reformed spelling! And, as a bonus, he even wrote a musical piece, The Bees’ Madrigal, based on the sounds that honey bees make in their hives. Has anyone ever sung it? I don’t know.
Grandpa, I embrace you.
All the same, I’m grateful that I’m so self-aware and hip that nothing like that could ever happen to me.
*My grandfather’s adherence to Esperanto went to extreme lengths. For example, he forbade his children to eat Toblerone chocolate because Tobler had defected from the Esperantists to support a breakaway language, Ido. Even at one generation’s remove, this gives Toblerone a subversive, forbidden edge (if not three).
** It's worth scrolling down this page, at least as far as the picture of Brother Adam - "known as the man in search of the perfect bee". As you can tell from his expression, there are times when half a bee just isn't enough.
I meant something a bit more general - namely the tendency of my (paternal) ancestors to choose some obscure, inkhorn subject, about which only half a dozen people in the world give more than a passing hoot, and then to devote their impecunious lives to it. In due course they become masters of a Lilliputian empire and talk about it at every opportunity, without once realising that not everyone shares their obsession. In its most aggravated form the Butler chooses two apparently unrelated (but equally obscure) subjects, and then shrinks the available audience still further by obsessing about them only in combination.
So, for example, you might, like my grandfather, become an expert in Esperanto – even to the extent of bringing your children up bilingual, and encouraging them to give speeches in praise of Ludwig Zamenhof at Hyde Park Corner.* You might also have a lot of time for the Tonic Sol-fa system, and/or follow a fitful career as a classical harpist (the instrument that’s always in demand!). You might be a Quaker who joined the Society of Friends because of your pacifist beliefs during the Great War, but who always hankered after the C of E hymns of your childhood. All these are suitable Butler activities, but they are consummated only when you can bring them together – for example by publishing a book of Esperanto hymns that no one will ever sing.
That’s why I believe that this earlier Charles Butler** must be one of my ancestors. Look at the evidence. First, he was a vicar – as so many of my forebears were. Second, he was an expert in two obscure and unrelated subjects: bee-keeping and spelling reform. Third, he brought them together by publishing a groundbreaking apiary handbook in reformed spelling! And, as a bonus, he even wrote a musical piece, The Bees’ Madrigal, based on the sounds that honey bees make in their hives. Has anyone ever sung it? I don’t know.
Grandpa, I embrace you.
All the same, I’m grateful that I’m so self-aware and hip that nothing like that could ever happen to me.
*My grandfather’s adherence to Esperanto went to extreme lengths. For example, he forbade his children to eat Toblerone chocolate because Tobler had defected from the Esperantists to support a breakaway language, Ido. Even at one generation’s remove, this gives Toblerone a subversive, forbidden edge (if not three).
** It's worth scrolling down this page, at least as far as the picture of Brother Adam - "known as the man in search of the perfect bee". As you can tell from his expression, there are times when half a bee just isn't enough.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-20 07:22 pm (UTC)That is fantastic. Fantastic.
Which Butler?
Date: 2007-09-20 09:56 pm (UTC)Re: Which Butler?
Date: 2007-09-20 10:02 pm (UTC)Re: Which Butler?
Date: 2007-09-20 11:17 pm (UTC)He died well before I was even born -- on the other side of the Atlantic, no less (yes, I'm a Yank) -- but his works have had a lasting influence throughout the anglosphere. I'm sure they'll continue to be an inspiration to students for many years to come.
Incidentally, there's a nice Wikipedia entry on him, here:
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagu_Christie_Butler
Re: Which Butler?
Date: 2007-09-21 07:12 am (UTC)My grandfather (known to us as "Avo", of course) was already elderly when I was born - on his 79th birthday, in fact - and I have very few personal memories of him. The most vivid is of going with my father and brother to visit him in his flat in Kingston-on-Thames, and of being given herbal cigarettes to smoke outside while the adults had a private chat. I'd have been about 5 years old then, and I remember thinking it was immensely cool...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-20 11:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-21 07:45 am (UTC)You'll probably get arrested for that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-22 12:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-21 07:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-21 08:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-21 10:03 pm (UTC)The only documentary evidence I have is a handwritten family tree, researched by a genealogically-minded ancestor, possibly my great-grandfather. That traces the family back to one Robert Butler of Claines in Worcestershire (died 1546). At that time they seem already to have been lawyers, notaries and clerics. Not very ducal - although, of course, even the Ormondes were only earls back then.
Curse of the Butlers
Date: 2007-10-06 10:47 pm (UTC)Your auld segotia ...
Re: Curse of the Butlers
Date: 2007-10-07 10:38 am (UTC)Re: Curse of the Butlers
Date: 2007-10-07 08:49 pm (UTC)Your apiarist friend ...