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Certain Personal Matters - Bagarrow · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty two of Certain Personal Matters. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Carebeer Auckland, New Zealand Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty two. Frankly, I detest this bag Arrow. Yet
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  Speaker 1: it's quite generally conceded that bag Arrow is a very
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  Speaker 1: well meaning fellow. But the trouble is to understand him.
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  Speaker 1: To do that, I've been at some pains, and yet
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  Speaker 1: I'm still a mere theorist. And atthropometric estimate of the
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  Speaker 1: man fails to reveal any reason for the distinction of
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  Speaker 1: my aversion. He is of passable height, breadth, and density,
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  Speaker 1: and save for a certain complacency of expression, I find
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  Speaker 1: no salient objection in his face. He has bluish eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and a whitish skin, and average colored here, none of
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  Speaker 1: them distinctly indictable possessions. It's something in his interior and
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  Speaker 1: unseen mechanism. I think that must be wrong, some internal
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  Speaker 1: lesion that finds expression in his acts. His mental operations indeed,
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  Speaker 1: were at first as inconceivable to me as a crabs
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  Speaker 1: or a cockchafers. That's where all the trouble came in.
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  Speaker 1: For that reason alone, they fascinated me and aggrieved me
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  Speaker 1: from the conditions of our acquaintance. We were colleagues. I
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  Speaker 1: had to study him with some thoroughness, observing him under
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  Speaker 1: these circumstances and those I have, by the bye, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: wondered idly how he would react to alcohol, a fluid
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  Speaker 1: he avoids. It would, I am sure, be an entirely
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  Speaker 1: novel and remarkable kind of drunk, And I am also
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  Speaker 1: certain it would be an offensive one. But I can't
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  Speaker 1: imagine it. I have no dubta. I could as soon
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  Speaker 1: evolve from my inner consciousness an intoxicated giraffe. But as
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  Speaker 1: I say, this interesting experience has hitherto been denied me.
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  Speaker 1: Now my theory of bag Arrow is this that he
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  Speaker 1: has a kind of disease in his ideals, some interruption
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  Speaker 1: of nutrition that has left them small and emasculate. He
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  Speaker 1: aims it appears at a state called really nice or
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  Speaker 1: the true gentleman, the outward and visible signs of which
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  Speaker 1: are a conspicuous quietness of costume gloves in all weathers,
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  Speaker 1: and a tightly rolled umbrella, but coupled in some ways
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  Speaker 1: with this is a queer smack of the propagandist, a
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  Speaker 1: kind of dwarfed prophetic passion. That is the particular oddness
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  Speaker 1: of him. He displays a timid yet persistent desire to
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  Speaker 1: foist this true gentleman of his upon an unwilling world,
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  Speaker 1: to make you really nice. After his own pattern. I
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  Speaker 1: always suspect him of trying to convert me by stealth
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  Speaker 1: when I'm not looking. So far as I can see,
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  Speaker 1: Bagarrow's conception of this true gentleman of his is at
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  Speaker 1: best a compromise. Mainly holiness, but a tinted kind of holiness,
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  Speaker 1: goodness in clean cuffs and with something neat in ties.
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  Speaker 1: He renounces the flesh and the devil willingly enough, but
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  Speaker 1: he wants to keep up a decent appearance. Now a
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  Speaker 1: stark saint I can find sympathy for. I respect your profit,
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  Speaker 1: unkempt and a hair shirt denouncing sin and mundane affairs
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  Speaker 1: in general, with hoarse passion and a fiery hate. I
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  Speaker 1: would not go for my holidays with, nor make a
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  Speaker 1: domestic pet of such a man, but I respect him.
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  Speaker 1: The Bagarrow's pose is different. Bag Arrow would call that
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  Speaker 1: carrying things to extremes His is an unobtrusive virtue, a
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  Speaker 1: compromising descent inaggressive aggressions on sin. So I take it,
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  Speaker 1: and a time he puts it to you in a
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  Speaker 1: drawling argument, a stream of bagarrowisms, until you have to
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  Speaker 1: hurt his feelings. Happily, he is always getting his feelings
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  Speaker 1: hurt just to stop the flow of him life, said
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  Speaker 1: bag Arrow, in a moment of expansiveness. Is scarcely worth
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  Speaker 1: living unless you are doing good to some one that
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  Speaker 1: I take to be the keystone of him. I want
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  Speaker 1: to be a good influence upon all the people I meet.
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  Speaker 1: I do not think it's ever dawned upon him that
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  Speaker 1: he himself is in any way short of perfection. And
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  Speaker 1: so far as I can see, the triumph and end
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  Speaker 1: of his good influence is cleanliness of cough, compactness of umbrella,
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  Speaker 1: and general assimilar to the bag Arrow ideal. Hear him
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  Speaker 1: upon one's social duties, this living soul, in this world
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  Speaker 1: of wonders, in moderation, said bag Arrow, opening out to
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  Speaker 1: questions on that matter. Social relaxation is desirable, and I
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  Speaker 1: will even go so far as to admit that I
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  Speaker 1: think it well to have at hand some pleasant expedient
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  Speaker 1: for entertaining people in passing the time. A humorous song
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  Speaker 1: or a recitation, provided it is a really good taste,
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  Speaker 1: is harmless enough, and sometimes it may even be turned
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  Speaker 1: to good account. And everyone should try to master some
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  Speaker 1: instrument or other. The flute perhaps is as convenient as
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  Speaker 1: any for the fiddle and piano, you know, are difficult
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  Speaker 1: and expensive to learn, and require constant practice. A little
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  Speaker 1: leisure Maine is also a great acquisition for a man.
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  Speaker 1: Some may differ from me in that continued bagarrow, but
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  Speaker 1: I see no harm in it. There are hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: effectly proper and innocent tricks with coins and bits of
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  Speaker 1: paper and pieces of string that will make an evening
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  Speaker 1: pass most delightfully. One may get quite a little reputation
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  Speaker 1: as an entertainer with these things, and it is pursued pegaro,
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  Speaker 1: quite glowing with liberality. Just a little pharisaical to object
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  Speaker 1: to card tricks. There are quantities of really quite clever
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  Speaker 1: and mathematical things that one may do with a chosen card,
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  Speaker 1: dealing the pack into heaps and counting slowly. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: it is not for mere pleasuring that I learned these
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  Speaker 1: things it gives anyone with a little tact an opportunity
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  Speaker 1: for stopping card playing. When the pack is brought in
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  Speaker 1: and all the party are intent upon gaming, you may
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  Speaker 1: seize your opportunity and take the card, saying, let me
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  Speaker 1: show you a little trick, or have you seen masculines
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  Speaker 1: new trick with the cards? Before anyone can object, you
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  Speaker 1: are displaying your skill to their astonished eyes, and in
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  Speaker 1: their wonder at your cleverness. The objectionable game may be
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  Speaker 1: indefinitely postponed, Yet so set our times as your gambler,
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  Speaker 1: upon his abominal pursuit, says bag Arrow that in practice,
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  Speaker 1: even this ingenious expedient has been known to fail. He
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  Speaker 1: tried it once, it seems, in a racetrack at Kempton Park,
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  Speaker 1: and afterwards he had to buy a new hat. That incident,
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  Speaker 1: indeed gives you the very essence of bag Arrow in
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  Speaker 1: his insidious attacks on evil. I remember that on another occasion,
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  Speaker 1: he went out of his way to promise a partially
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  Speaker 1: intoxicated manner drink, and taking him into a public house,
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  Speaker 1: ordered two lemon squashes drinks. He'd liked lemon squash himself,
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  Speaker 1: and he did not like beer, and he thought he
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  Speaker 1: had only to introduce the poor fallen creature to the
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  Speaker 1: delights of temperance to insure his conversion. There and then,
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  Speaker 1: I think he expected the man to fall upon him crying,
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  Speaker 1: my benefactor. But he did not say my benefactor at
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  Speaker 1: any rate, though he fell upon him cheerfully enough to
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  Speaker 1: avoid the appearance of priggishness, which he dreads with some reason.
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  Speaker 1: He even went so far as to procure a herb tobacco,
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  Speaker 1: which he smokes with the help of frequent sulfur matches.
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  Speaker 1: This he recommends to us strongly. Won't you try it,
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  Speaker 1: he says, with a winning smile. Just once, and he's
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  Speaker 1: the only man I ever met who drinks that facetious
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  Speaker 1: fluid non alcoholic beer. Once he proposed to wean me
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  Speaker 1: upon that from my distinct device, which led indeed to
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  Speaker 1: our first rupture. I find it delicious, he said, in
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  Speaker 1: pathetic surprise. It is one of his most inveterate habits
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  Speaker 1: to tell you quietly what he does or would do
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  Speaker 1: under the circumstances. Seeing you at Kipling, he will propound
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  Speaker 1: the propossession that all true literature has a distinct aim.
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  Speaker 1: His test of literary merit is what good it does
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  Speaker 1: to you. He is a great eight lender of books,
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  Speaker 1: especially of Carlyle and Ruskin, which authors, for some absolutely
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  Speaker 1: inscrutable reason, he considers provocative of Bagaroism. And he goes
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  Speaker 1: to the county council lectures on dairy work because it
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  Speaker 1: encourages others to improve themselves. But I've said enough to
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  Speaker 1: display him and of Bagaro, at least as I can
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  Speaker 1: well testify, it is easy to have more than enough. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: after whole days with him, I've gone home to dream
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  Speaker 1: of the realization of his ideals, a sort of Bagaro millennium,
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  Speaker 1: a world of bagarrows, all kinds of men, Falstaffs, Don Quixotes,
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  Speaker 1: Alan Stewart's, John the Baptists, John Knox's, Quilp's and ben
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  Speaker 1: Venuto Cellini's, all so to speak, bagarrowed, all with clean cuffs,
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  Speaker 1: tight umbrellas, and temperate ways, passing to and fro in
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  Speaker 1: a regenerate earth. And so he goes on his way
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  Speaker 1: through this wonderful universe, with his eyes fixed upon two
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  Speaker 1: or three secondary things, without the lust or pride of life,
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  Speaker 1: without curiosity or adventure, a mere timid missionary of a
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  Speaker 1: religion of nicer ways, a quiet setter of a good example.
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  Speaker 1: I can assure you this is no exaggeration, but a portrait.
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  Speaker 1: It seems to me that the thing must be pathological,
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  Speaker 1: That he and this goodness of his have exactly the
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  Speaker 1: same claim upon Lombroso as say the born criminal. He
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  Speaker 1: is born good, a congenital good example, a sufferer from
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  Speaker 1: entrophy of his original sin. The only hope I can
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  Speaker 1: see for Bagaro, short of murder is forcible trepening. He
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  Speaker 1: ought to have the seat of his ideas lanced, and
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  Speaker 1: all this wash about doing good to people by stealth
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  Speaker 1: taken away. It may be he might prove to be
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  Speaker 1: a very decent fellow, then, if there was anything left
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  Speaker 1: of him. That is end of chapter thirty two.