Samuel wrote later that his parents were "brutal and stupid by nature". His education began at home and included frequent beatings, as was not uncommon at the time. Samuel Butler's relations with his parents, especially with his father, were largely antagonistic.
Thomas Butler, states one critic, "to make up for having been a servile son, became a bullying father." Samuel's immediate family created for him an oppressive home environment (chronicled in The Way of All Flesh). His only son, Thomas, wished to go into the Navy but succumbed to paternal pressure and entered the Church of England, in which he led an undistinguished career, in contrast to his father's. Butler was the son of a tradesman and descended from a line of yeomen, but his scholarly aptitude being recognised at a young age, he had been sent to Rugby and Cambridge, where he distinguished himself.
Samuel Butler, then headmaster of Shrewsbury School and later Bishop of Lichfield. Samuel Butler's birthplace and childhood homeīutler was born on 4 December 1835 at the rectory in the village of Langar, Nottinghamshire.
0 kommentar(er)
