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Certain Personal Matters - The Literary Regimen · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten 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. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Graham Scott, Cheltenham, England. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: The literary regimen. At the risk of offending the young
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  Speaker 1: beginner's illusions, he must be reminded of one or two
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  Speaker 1: homely but important facts bearing upon literary production. Homely as
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  Speaker 1: they are, they explain much that is at first puzzling.
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  Speaker 1: This perplexing question of distinction, the quality of being somehow
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  Speaker 1: fresh individual. Really, it is a perfectly simple matter. It
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  Speaker 1: is common knowledge that after prolonged fast the brain works
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  Speaker 1: in a feeble manner. The current of one's thoughts is
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  Speaker 1: pallid and shallow. It is difficult to fix the attention
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  Speaker 1: and impossible to mobilize the full forces of the mind.
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  Speaker 1: On the other hand, immediately after a sound meal the
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  Speaker 1: brain feels massive, but static tea is conducive to a
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  Speaker 1: gentle flow of pleasing thoughts, And anyone who has taken
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  Speaker 1: eastern syrup of the hypophosphytes will recall at once the
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  Speaker 1: state of cerebrale errethism of general mental alacrity, that followed
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  Speaker 1: on a dose again champagne, followed perhaps by a soupson
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  Speaker 1: of whiskey, leads to a mood essentially humorous and playful,
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  Speaker 1: while about three dozen oysters taken fasting will in most
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  Speaker 1: cases produce a profound and even ominous melancholy. One might
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  Speaker 1: enlarge further upon this topic, on the brutalizing influences of beer,
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  Speaker 1: the sedative quality of lettuce, the stimulating consequences of curried chicken.
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  Speaker 1: But enough has been said to point our oar argument.
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  Speaker 1: It is that such facts as this can surely indicate
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  Speaker 1: only one conclusion, and that is the entire dependence of
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  Speaker 1: literary qualities upon the diet of the writer. I may
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  Speaker 1: remind the reader, in confirmation of this suggestion, of what
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  Speaker 1: is perhaps the most widely known fact about Carlyle, that
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  Speaker 1: on one memorable occasion he threw his breakfast out of
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  Speaker 1: the window. Why did he throw his breakfast out of
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  Speaker 1: the window? Surely his friends have cherished the story out
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  Speaker 1: of no petty love of deprecatory detail. There are, however,
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  Speaker 1: those who would have us believe it was mere childish
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  Speaker 1: petulance at a chilly rasher or a hard boiled deck.
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  Speaker 1: Such a supposition is absurd. On the other hand, what
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  Speaker 1: is more natural than an outburst of righteous indignation at
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  Speaker 1: the ruin of some carefully studied climax of feeding The
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  Speaker 1: thoughtful literary beginner who is not altogether submerged in foolish
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  Speaker 1: theories of inspiration and natural genius, Will we fancy see
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  Speaker 1: pretty clearly that I am developing what is perhaps, after all,
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  Speaker 1: the fundamental secret of literary art. To come now to
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  Speaker 1: more explicit instructions. It is imperative, if you wish to
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  Speaker 1: write with any power and freshness at all, that you
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  Speaker 1: should utterly ruin your digestion. Any literary person will confirm
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  Speaker 1: this statement at any cost. The thing must be done,
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  Speaker 1: even if you have to live on German sausage, onions
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  Speaker 1: and cheese to do it. So long as you turn
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  Speaker 1: all your dietary to flesh and blood, you will get
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  Speaker 1: no literature out of it. We learn in suffering what
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  Speaker 1: we teach in song. This is why men who live
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  Speaker 1: at home with their mothers, or have their elder sisters
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  Speaker 1: to see after them never, by any chance, however great,
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  Speaker 1: their literary ambition may be write anything but minor poetry.
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  Speaker 1: They get their meals at regular hours and done to
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  Speaker 1: a turn, and that plays the very devil, if you
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  Speaker 1: will pardon the phrase. With one's imagination, a careful stuff
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  Speaker 1: body of the records of literary men in the past,
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  Speaker 1: and a considerable knowledge of living authors suggests two chief
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  Speaker 1: ways of losing one's digestion and engendering literary capacity. You
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  Speaker 1: go and live in humble lodgings. We could name dozens
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  Speaker 1: of prominent men who have fed a great ambition in
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  Speaker 1: this way. Or you marry a nice girl who does
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  Speaker 1: not understand housekeeping. The former is the more efficacious method,
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  Speaker 1: because as a rule, the nice girl wants to come
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  Speaker 1: and sit on your knee all day, and that is
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  Speaker 1: a great impediment to literary composition. Belonging to a club,
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  Speaker 1: even a literary club where you can dine, is absolute
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  Speaker 1: ruined to the literary beginner. Many a bright young fellow
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  Speaker 1: who has pushed his way, or has been pushed by
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  Speaker 1: indiscreet friends into the society of successful literary men, has
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  Speaker 1: been spoilt by this fatal error, and he has saved
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  Speaker 1: his stomach to lose his reputation. Having got rid of
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  Speaker 1: your digestion. Then the common condition of all good literature.
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  Speaker 1: The next thing is to ari change your dietary for
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  Speaker 1: the particular literary effect you desire. And here we may
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  Speaker 1: point out the secrecy observed in such matters by literary men.
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  Speaker 1: Stevenson fled to Samoa to hide his extremely elaborate methods
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  Speaker 1: and to keep his kitchen servants out of the reach
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  Speaker 1: of bribery. Even Sir Walter Besant, though he is fairly
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  Speaker 1: communicative to the young aspirant, has dropped no hints of
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  Speaker 1: the plain, pure and wholesome menu he follows. Sullah professed
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  Speaker 1: to eat everything, but that was probably his badinage. Possibly
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  Speaker 1: he had one staple and took the rest as condiment.
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  Speaker 1: Then what did Shakespeare live on? Bacon? And mister Barry,
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  Speaker 1: though he has written a delightful book about his pipe
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  Speaker 1: and tobacco full of suggestion to the young humorist, lets
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  Speaker 1: out nothing or next to nothing of his meat and drink.
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  Speaker 1: His hints about pipes are very extensively followed, and nowadays
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  Speaker 1: every ambitious young pressman smokes in public at least one
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  Speaker 1: well burnt brier with an excess centric stem, even at
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  Speaker 1: some personal inconvenience But this jealous reticence on the part
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  Speaker 1: of successful men you notice they never let even the
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  Speaker 1: interviewer see their kitchens or the debris of a meal,
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  Speaker 1: necessarily throws one back upon rumor and hypothesis. In this matter.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Andrew Lang, for instance, is popularly associated with salmon,
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  Speaker 1: but that is probably a wilful delusion. Excessive salmon, far
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  Speaker 1: from engendering geniality, will be found in practice a vague
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  Speaker 1: and melancholy diet, tending more towards the magnificent despondency of
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  Speaker 1: mister hall Caine. Nor does mister Haggard feed entirely on
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  Speaker 1: raw meat. Indeed, for lurid and somewhat pessimistic narrative, there
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  Speaker 1: is nothing like the ordinary current bun eaten new and
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  Speaker 1: in quantity. A light, humorous style is best attained by
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  Speaker 1: soda water and dry biscuits following cafe noois. The soda
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  Speaker 1: water may be either Scotch or Irish, as the taste inclines.
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  Speaker 1: For a florid, tawdry style the beginner, they must take
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  Speaker 1: nothing but boiled water, stewed vegetables, and an interest in
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  Speaker 1: the movements against vivisection, opium, alcohol tobacco, sarcophagy, and the
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  Speaker 1: male sex. For contributions to the leading reviews. Boiled pork
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  Speaker 1: and cabbage may be eaten with bottled beer followed by
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  Speaker 1: apple dumpling. This effectively suppresses any tendency to facetiousness or
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  Speaker 1: what respectable English people call dublanendre, and brings you on
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  Speaker 1: app or with the serious people who read these publications.
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  Speaker 1: So soon as you begin to feel wakeful and restless,
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  Speaker 1: discontinue writing for what is vulgarly known as the Foundersiekla
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  Speaker 1: type of publication. On the other hand, one should limit
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  Speaker 1: one's self to an aerated bread shop for a week
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  Speaker 1: or so, with the exception of an occasional tea. In
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  Speaker 1: a literary household, all people fed mainly on scones become clever,
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  Speaker 1: and this regiment, with an occasional debauch upon macaroons, chocolate
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  Speaker 1: and cheap champagne and brisk daily walks from Oxford Circus
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  Speaker 1: through Regent Street, Piccadilly and the Green Park to Westminster
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  Speaker 1: and back should result in an animated society satire. It
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  Speaker 1: is not known what mister Kipling takes to make him
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  Speaker 1: so peculiar. Many of us would like to know. Possibly
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  Speaker 1: it is something he picked up in the jungle berries,
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  Speaker 1: or something a friend who made a few tentative experiments
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  Speaker 1: to this end, turned out nothing beyond a will, and
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  Speaker 1: that he dictated and left incomplete. It was scarcely on
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  Speaker 1: the lines of an ordinary will, being blasphemous and mentioning
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  Speaker 1: no property except his inside. For short stories of the
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  Speaker 1: detective type, strong cold tea and hard biscuits of fruitful eating,
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  Speaker 1: while for a social science novel one should take an
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  Speaker 1: abundance of boiled rice and toast and water. However, these
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  Speaker 1: remarks are mainly by way of suggestion. Every writer in
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  Speaker 1: the Ends, so soon as his digestion is destroyed, must
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  Speaker 1: ascertain for himself the peculiar diet that suits him best,
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  Speaker 1: that is, which disagrees with him the most. If everything
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  Speaker 1: else fails, he might try some chemical food. Chapper's food
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  Speaker 1: for authors by the bye, well advertised and with portraits
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  Speaker 1: of literary men in their drawing rooms, fed entirely on
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  Speaker 1: Jabber's food, with medical certificates of its unwholesomeness, and favorable
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  Speaker 1: and expagated reviews of works written on it, ought to
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  Speaker 1: be a brilliant success among literary aspirants. A small but
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  Speaker 1: sufficient quantity of arsenic might, with advantage, be mixed in
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  Speaker 1: end of chapter ten