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Certain Personal Matters - The Pose Novel · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
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  Speaker 1: by Jimney Nabber. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, the po'se novel. I watched the little spurts
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  Speaker 1: of flame jet out from between the writhing pages of
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  Speaker 1: my manuscript, watched the sheets coil up in their fiery
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  Speaker 1: anguish and start one from another. I helped the fire
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  Speaker 1: to the very vitals of the mass by poking the
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  Speaker 1: brittle heap. And at last the sacrifice was over. The
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  Speaker 1: flames turned from pink to blue and died out. The
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  Speaker 1: red glow gave place to black. Little luminous red streaks
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  Speaker 1: coiled across the charred sheets and vanished at the margins,
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  Speaker 1: and only the ashes of my inspiration remained. The ink
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  Speaker 1: was a lustrous black on the dull blackness of the
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  Speaker 1: burnt paper. I could still read this, much of my
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  Speaker 1: indiscretion remaining. He smiled at them all and said nothing
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  Speaker 1: fool I said, and stirred the crackling mass into a
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  Speaker 1: featureless heap of black scraps. Then, with my chin on
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  Speaker 1: my fists and elbows on knees, I stared at the
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  Speaker 1: end of my labors. I suppose, after all there has
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  Speaker 1: been some profit out of the thing. Satan finds some
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  Speaker 1: mischief still for idle hands to do, and one may well,
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  Speaker 1: thank Heaven, it was only a novel. Still, it means
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  Speaker 1: many days out of my life, and I would be
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  Speaker 1: glad to find some positive benefit accruing. Clearly, in the
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  Speaker 1: first place, I have eased my mind of some execrable English.
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  Speaker 1: I am cleaner now by some dozen faulty phrases that
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  Speaker 1: I have committed and saw afterwards in all the nakedness
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  Speaker 1: of typewriting. Thank Heaven for typewriting. Were it not for
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  Speaker 1: that this thing had gone to the scoffing of some
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  Speaker 1: publisher's reader, and another had known my shame. And I
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  Speaker 1: shall not write another pose novel. I am inclined to
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  Speaker 1: think these pose novels the wild oats of authorship. We
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  Speaker 1: sit down in the heyday of our youth to write
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  Speaker 1: the masterpiece. Obviously, it must be a novel about a
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  Speaker 1: man and a woman, and something as splendid as we
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  Speaker 1: can conceive of. In that way, we look about us,
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  Speaker 1: we do not go far for perfection. One of the
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  Speaker 1: brace holds the pen, and the other is inside his
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  Speaker 1: or her head, and so off to the willing pen.
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  Speaker 1: Only a few years ago we went slashing among the
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  Speaker 1: poppies with a walking stick, and were we said, boldly
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  Speaker 1: and openly, herald's and hecks slaying our thousands. Now, of
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  Speaker 1: course we are grown up to self respect and must
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  Speaker 1: needs be a little disingenuous about it. But as the
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  Speaker 1: story unfolds, there is no mistaking the likeness. In spite
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  Speaker 1: of the transfiguration. This bold, decided man, who performs such
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  Speaker 1: deeds of daring do in the noisome slum, knocks down
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  Speaker 1: the burly wife beater, rescues an unmistakable miss Clapton from
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  Speaker 1: the knife of Alaskar, and is all the while cultivating
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  Speaker 1: a virtuous consumption that stretches him on an edifying, pathetic,
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  Speaker 1: and altogether beautiful deathbed. In the last chapter, my dear
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  Speaker 1: authling cry, my friends, we hear the squeak of that
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  Speaker 1: little voice of yours in every word he utters, is
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  Speaker 1: that what you aspire to be? That two pence colored
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  Speaker 1: edition of yourself? Heaven defend you from your desires. Yet
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  Speaker 1: there was a singular fascination in writing the book, to
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  Speaker 1: be an anticipation, my own sympathetic historian, to joy with
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  Speaker 1: my joys yet to come, and sorrow with my sorrows,
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  Speaker 1: to bear disaster like a man, and at last to
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  Speaker 1: close my own dear eyes, and with a swelling heart
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  Speaker 1: right my own epitaph. The pleasure remained with me until
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  Speaker 1: I reached the end. How admirably I strutted in front
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  Speaker 1: of myself, and I and the better self of me
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  Speaker 1: that was flourishing about in the book. We pretended not
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  Speaker 1: to know each other for what we were. He was
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  Speaker 1: myself with a wig and a sham visiting card, and
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  Speaker 1: I owed it to myself to respect my disguise. I
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  Speaker 1: made him with very red hair, my hair as fairly dark,
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  Speaker 1: and shifted his university from London to Cambridge. Clearly it
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  Speaker 1: could not be the same person, I argued, But I
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  Speaker 1: endowed him with all the treasures of myself. I made
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  Speaker 1: him say all the good things I might have said
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  Speaker 1: had I thought of them opportunely, and all the noble
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  Speaker 1: thoughts that occurred to me afterwards occurred to him at
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  Speaker 1: the time. He was myself myself at a premium myself,
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  Speaker 1: without any drawbacks the quintessence and culmination of me. And
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  Speaker 1: yet somehow when he came back from the typewriter, he
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  Speaker 1: seemed a bit of an ass. Probably every tadpole author
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  Speaker 1: writes a pose novel, at least I hope so, for
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  Speaker 1: the sake of my self respect. Most after my fashion
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  Speaker 1: burned the thing, or benevolent publishers lose it. It is
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  Speaker 1: an ill thing. If by some accident the tadpole tale
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  Speaker 1: survives the tadpole stage. The authoress does the feminine equivalent.
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  Speaker 1: But I should judge either that she did it more abundantly,
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  Speaker 1: or else that she burned less. Has she never everre
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  Speaker 1: swept past you with a scornful look, disdained you in
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  Speaker 1: all the pride of her beauty, rippled laughter at you,
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  Speaker 1: or amazed you with her artless girlishness. And even after
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  Speaker 1: the early stages, some of the trick may survive unless
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  Speaker 1: I read books with malice instead of charity. I must confess, though,
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  Speaker 1: that I have a weakness for finding mine author among
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  Speaker 1: his puppets. I conceive him always taking the best parts,
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  Speaker 1: like an actor manager or a little boy playing with
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  Speaker 1: his sisters. I do not read many novels with sincere belief,
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  Speaker 1: and I like to get such entertainment from them as
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  Speaker 1: I can, so that these artless little self revelations are
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  Speaker 1: very sweet and precious to me among all the lay figures,
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  Speaker 1: tragedy and comedy. Since the deception is transparent, I make
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  Speaker 1: the most of the transparency, and love to see the
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  Speaker 1: clumsy fingers on the strings of the marionettes. And this
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  Speaker 1: will be none the less pleasant, now that I have
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  Speaker 1: so narrowly escaped giving this entertainment to others. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: this stage is a necessary one. We begin with ignorance
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  Speaker 1: and the imagination, the material of the pose novel. Later
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  Speaker 1: come self knowledge, disappointments, and self consciousness. And the prodigals
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  Speaker 1: of fiction stay themselves upon the husks of epigram and cynicism,
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  Speaker 1: and in the place of artless aspiration, are indeed, in
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  Speaker 1: plain black and white, very desperate characters. It is, after all,
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  Speaker 1: only another pose, the pose of not posing. We the
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  Speaker 1: common clay of the world of letters, must needs write
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  Speaker 1: in this way, because we cannot forget our foolish little
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  Speaker 1: selves in our work. But some few there are who
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  Speaker 1: sit as gods above their private universes, and write without
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  Speaker 1: passion or vanity, at least, so I have been told,
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  Speaker 1: these be the true artist of letters, the white windows
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  Speaker 1: upon the truth of things. We, by comparison, are but
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  Speaker 1: stained glass in our own honor, and do but obstruct
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  Speaker 1: the view with our haloes and attitudes. Yet even Shakespeare,
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  Speaker 1: the critics tell us, and they say they know posed
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  Speaker 1: in the character of Hamlet. After all, the pose novel
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  Speaker 1: method has at times attained to the level of literature.
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  Speaker 1: Charlotte Bronte might possibly have found no other topic had
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  Speaker 1: she disdained the plain little woman with a shrewish tongue.
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  Speaker 1: And where had Charles Kingsley been if the vision of
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  Speaker 1: a curate rampant had not rejoiced his heart. Still, I
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  Speaker 1: am not sorry that this novel is burned. Even now
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  Speaker 1: it is ridiculous, And the time might have come when
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  Speaker 1: this book, full of high, if foolish aims, and the vain,
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  Speaker 1: vast promise of well meaning youth, had been too keen
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  Speaker 1: a reproach to be endured three volumes of good intentions.
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  Speaker 1: It is too much. There was more than a novel
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  Speaker 1: burning just now. After this I shall be in a
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  Speaker 1: position to take a humorist's view of life, end of
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  Speaker 1: chapter fourteen,