Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Certain Personal Matters - The Book of Curses

Transcript

Certain Personal Matters - The Book of Curses · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: by Graham Scott, Cheltenham, England. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: The Book of Curses. Professor Gargoyle, you must understand, has
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: traveled to and fro in the earth, culling flowers of speech.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: A kind of recording angel he is, but without any
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: sentimental tears to be plain. He studies swearing. His collection, however,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: only approaches completeness in the western departments of European language.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Going eastward, he found such an appalling and tropical luxuriance
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of these ornaments as to despair at last altogether of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: even a representative selection. They do not curse, he says,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: at door handles, and shirt studs, and such other trifles
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: as will draw down the meager discharge of an occidental
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: But when they do begin. I hired a promising looking
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: man at Calcutta, and after a month or so, refused
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to pay his wages. He was unable to get at
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: me with the big knife he carried because the door
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: was locked. So he sat on his hands outside under
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the verandah from a quarter past six in the morning
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: until nearly ten, cursing, cursing in one steady, unbroken floe,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: an astonishing spate of blasphemy. First he cursed my family
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: from me along the female line back to eve, and then,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: having toyed with me personally for a little while, he
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: started off along the line of my possible posterity to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: my remotest great grandchildren. Then he cursed me by this,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and that my hand ached taking it down. He was
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: so very rich. It was a perfect anthology of Bengali blasphemy, vivid,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: scorching and variegated, not too alike. And then he turned
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: about and dealt with different parts of me. I was
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: really very fortunate in him. Yet it was depressing to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: think that all this was from one man, and that
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: there are six hundred million people in Asia. Naturally, said
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the professor in answer to my question, these investigations involve
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a certain element of danger. The first condition of curse
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: collecting is to be unpopular, especially in the East where
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: comminator is Swearing alone is practiced, and you have to
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: offend a man very grievously to get him to disgorge
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: his treasure in this country, except among ladies in comparatively
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: humble circumstances, anything like this fluent, explicit, detailed and sincere
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: cursing aimed at missile fashion that a personal enemy is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: not found. It was quite common a few centuries ago. Indeed,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages, it was part of the recognized procedure.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Aggrieved parties would issue a father's curse, an orphan's curse,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and so forth, much as we should take out a
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: county court summons. And it paid a large part in
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: ecclesiastical policy too. At one time the entire church militant
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: here on earth was swearing in unison and the Latin
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: tongue at the Republic of Venice, a very splendid and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: imposing spectacle. It seems to me a pity to let
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: these old customs die out so completely. I estimate that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: more than half these Gothic forms have altogether passed out
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of memory. There must have been some splendid things in
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Urson Gaelic, too, For the Celtic mind, with its more
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: vivid sense of color, its quicker transitions, and deeper emotional quality,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: has ever overcursed the stolid Teuton. It is all getting forgotten. Indeed,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: your common Englishman now scarcely curses it all a more
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: colorless and conventional affair than what in England is called swearing.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: One can scarcely imagine. It is just common talk with
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: some half dozen orthodox bad words dropped in here and
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: there in the most foolish and illogical manner. Fancy having
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: orthodox unorthodox words. I remember one day getting into a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: third class smoking carriage on the Metropolitan Railway about one
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: o'clock and finding it full of rough working men. Everything
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: they said was seasoned with one incredibly stupid adjective, and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: no doubt they thought they were very desperate characters. At last,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I asked them not to say that word again. One
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: fourthwith asked me, what the blank? I really cannot quote
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: these puerilities, What the idiotic cliche that mattered to me?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So I looked at him quietly over my glasses, and
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I began it was a revelation to these poor fellows.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: They sat open mouthed, gasping. Then those that were nearest
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: me began to edge away, and of the very next
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: station they all bundled out of the carriage before the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: train stopped, as though I had some infectious disease, and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the thing was just a rough, imperfect rendering of some
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: mere commonplaces passing the time day, as it were, with
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: which the Heathen of Aleppo used to favor the servants
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: of the American missionary. Indeed, said Professor Gargoyle, if it
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: were not for women, there would be nothing in England
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that one could speak of as swearing at all, I say,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: said I. It is not that rather rough on the ladies,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: not at all. They have agreed to consider certain words
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: for no very good reason, bad words. It is a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: pure convention. It has little or nothing to do with
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the actual meaning. Because for every one of these bad words,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: there is a pair of rays or synonym considered to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: be quite suitable for polite ears. Hence, the feeblest creek
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: can always produce a sensation by breaking the taboo. But
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: women are learning how to undo this error of theirs.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Now the word damn, for instance, is I hear being
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: admitted freely into the boudoir and feminine conversation. It is
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: even considered a rather prudish thing to object to this word. Now, men,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: especially feeble men, hate doing things that women do. As
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a consequence, men who go about saying damn are now
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: regarded by their fellow men as only a shade less
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: effeminate than those who go about saying nasty and horrid.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: The subtler sex will not be long in noticing what
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: has happened to this objectionable word. When they do, they will,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of course forthwith take up all the others. It will
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: be a little startling, perhaps at first, but in the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: end there will be no swearing left. I have no
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: doubt there will be those who will ever their petty
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: wit on the pioneer women. But where a martyr is wanted,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a woman can always be found to offer herself. She
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: will clothe herself in cursing like the ungodly, and perish
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: in that nessa's shirt a marto to pure language. And
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: then this dull cads swearing, a mere unnecessary affectation of coarseness,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: will disappear, and a very good job too. There is
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: a pretty department of the subject, which I might call
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: grace swearing odds fish, cried the King when he saw
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the man climbing Saulsbery Spire. He shall have a patent
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: for it. No one else shall do it. One might
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: call such little thing's water, street curses, Oddspotkins is a
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: lady like Forem and Odds postles, a variety I met
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in the British Museum. Every gentleman, once upon a time
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: aspired to have his own particular grace curse, just as
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: he liked to have his crest, and his book plate
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and his characteristic signature. It fluttered pleasantly into his conversation
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: as mister Whistler's butterfly comes into his pictures, a signature
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and a delight Odds butterfly. I have sometimes thought a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: little book of grace words and heraldic curses, printed with
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: wide margins on the best paper. Its covers should be
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of soft red leather, stamped with little gold flowers. It
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: might be made a birthday book or a pocket diary
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: daily invocations. Coming back to wrothy swearing, I must confess
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I am sorry to see it decay. It was such
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a thoroughly hygienic and moral practice. You see, if anything
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: annoying happens to a man, or if any powerful emotion
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: seizes him, his brain under the irritation begins to disengage
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: energy at a tremendous rate. He has to use all
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: his available force of control in keeping the energy in.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Some of it will leak away into the nerves of
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: his face and distort his features. Some may set his
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: tear glands at work. Some may travel down his vagus
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: nerve and inhibit his heart's action so that he faints
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: or upset the blood vessels in his head and give
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: him a stroke. Or if he pens it up without
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: his reaching any of these vents, it may rise at
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: last a flood level, and you will have violent assaults,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the breaking of furniture. Mother, Even for all this energy,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a good flamboyant ranting swear is nature's outlet. All primitive
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: men and most animals swear. It is an emotional shunt.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Your cat swears at you because she does not want
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to scratch your face, and the horse, because he cannot swear,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: drops dead. So you see my reason for regretting the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: decay of this excellent and most wholesome practice. However, I
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: must be getting on just now. I am traveling about London,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: paying cabmen their legal fares. Sometimes one picks up a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: new variant, though much of it is merely stereo, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: with that flinging a playful curse at me, he disappeared
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: at once into the tobacco smoke from which I had
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: engendered him an amusing and cheerful person on the whole,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: though I will admit his theme was a little undesirable.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eight two