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Certain Personal Matters - The Writing of Essays · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five 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 Larry Wilson, Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: The writing of essays, the art of the essayist is
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  Speaker 1: so simple, so entirely free from canons of criticism, and
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  Speaker 1: withal so delightful, that one must needs wonder why all
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  Speaker 1: men are not essayists. Perhaps people do not know how
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  Speaker 1: we see it is, or perhaps beginners are misled rightly
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  Speaker 1: taught it may be learnt in a brief ten minutes
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  Speaker 1: or so. What art there is in it? And all
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  Speaker 1: the rest is as easy as wandering among woodlands on
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  Speaker 1: a bright morning in the spring. Then sit you down,
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  Speaker 1: if you would join us, taking paper, pens and ink,
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  Speaker 1: and mark this. Your pen is a matter of vital moment,
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  Speaker 1: for every pen writes its own sort of essay, and
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  Speaker 1: pencils also after their kind. The ink perhaps may have
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  Speaker 1: its influence too, and the paper, but paramount is the pin. This,
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  Speaker 1: indeed is the fundamental secret of essay writing. Wed any
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  Speaker 1: man to his proper pen and the delights of composition
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  Speaker 1: and the birth of an essay are assured. Only many
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  Speaker 1: of us wander through the earth and never meet with her,
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  Speaker 1: futile and lonely man. And of all pins your quill.
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  Speaker 1: For essays that are literature, there is a subtle informality,
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  Speaker 1: a delightful easiness, perhaps even a faint immorality, essentially literary
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  Speaker 1: about the quill. The quill is rich in suggestion and quotation.
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  Speaker 1: There are quills that would quote you Montaigne and Horace
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  Speaker 1: in the hands of a trades union delegate. And those quirky,
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  Speaker 1: idle noises this pen makes are delightful and would break
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  Speaker 1: your easy fluency with wit. All the classical essays wrote
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  Speaker 1: with the quill, and Addison used the most expensive kind
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  Speaker 1: the government purchased, and the beginning of the inferior essay
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  Speaker 1: was the dawn of the cheap steel pen. The quill
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  Speaker 1: nibs they sell to fit into ordinary pen holders are
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  Speaker 1: no true quills at all, lack in dignity. They may
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  Speaker 1: even lead you into the new humor if you trust
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  Speaker 1: over much to their use. After a proper quill, commend
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  Speaker 1: me to a stumpy B B pencil, you get less
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  Speaker 1: polish and broader effects. But you are still doing good literature.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the work is close. Mister George Meredith, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: is suspected of a soft pencil, and always it is
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  Speaker 1: blunter than quill work, and more terse. With a hard pencil,
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  Speaker 1: no man can write anything but a graceless style. A
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  Speaker 1: kind of east wind Er gives and smile you cannot,
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  Speaker 1: so that it is often used for serious articles in
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  Speaker 1: the Half Crown Reviews. There follows the host of steel pins,
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  Speaker 1: the ball clear scientific style, all set about with words
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  Speaker 1: like evolution and environment, which aims at expressing its meaning
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  Speaker 1: with precision, and an exemplary economy of words is done
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  Speaker 1: with fine steel nibs twelve a penny at any stationer's.
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  Speaker 1: The j pen to the lady novelist, and the stylograph
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  Speaker 1: to the devil your essayist. Must not touch the things
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  Speaker 1: so much for the pen. If you cannot write essays easily,
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  Speaker 1: that is where the hitch comes in. Get a box
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  Speaker 1: of a different kind of pen, and begin again, and
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  Speaker 1: so on again and again until despair or joy arrests you.
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  Speaker 1: As for a typewriter, you could no more get an
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  Speaker 1: essay out of a typewriter than you could play a
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  Speaker 1: sonata upon its keys. No essay was ever written with
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  Speaker 1: a typewriter, yet, nor ever will be. Besides its impossibility,
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  Speaker 1: the suggestion applies a brutal disregard of the division of
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  Speaker 1: labor by which we live and move and have our being.
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  Speaker 1: If the essays typewrite, the unemployed typewriter, who is commonly
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  Speaker 1: a person of superior education and capacity, might take to essays,
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  Speaker 1: and where is your living, then one might as reasonably
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  Speaker 1: start at once with the line of type and print
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  Speaker 1: one's wit and humor straight away, and taking the invasion
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  Speaker 1: of other trades one step further, one might, after an
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  Speaker 1: attempt to sell one's own newspaper, even get to the
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  Speaker 1: pitch of having to read it one's south. No, even
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  Speaker 1: essays must be reasonable. If its mechanical clitter clatter did
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  Speaker 1: not render composition impossible, the typewriter would still be beneath
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  Speaker 1: the honor of a literary man. Then for the paper,
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  Speaker 1: the luxurious, expensive, small sized cream laid note is best,
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  Speaker 1: since it makes your essay choice and compact, And failing that,
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  Speaker 1: ripped envelope and the back of bills. Some men love
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  Speaker 1: rule paper because they can write athwart the lines, and
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  Speaker 1: some take the fly leaves of their friend's books. But
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  Speaker 1: whosoever writes on cheap sermon paper full of hairs should
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  Speaker 1: write far away from the woman he loves, lest he
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  Speaker 1: offend her ears. It is good, however, for a terse,
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  Speaker 1: forcible style. The ink should be glossy black as it
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  Speaker 1: leaves your pen. For polished English, Violet inks lead to
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  Speaker 1: a sham sentiment, and blue black to vulgarity. Red ink
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  Speaker 1: essays are often good, but usually unfit for publication. This
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  Speaker 1: is as much almost as anyone need to know to
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  Speaker 1: begin essay writing. Given your proper pen in ink or
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  Speaker 1: pencil and paper, you simply sit down and write the thing.
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  Speaker 1: The value of an essay is not its matter, but
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  Speaker 1: its mood. You must be comfortable, of course, an easy
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  Speaker 1: chair with armrests, slippers, and a book to write upon
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  Speaker 1: are usually in ployd, and you must be fed recently
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  Speaker 1: and your body clothed with ease rather than grandeur. For
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  Speaker 1: the rest, do not trouble to stick to your subject,
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  Speaker 1: or any subject, and take no thought for the editor
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  Speaker 1: or the reader. For your essay should be as spontaneous
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  Speaker 1: as the lilies of the field, so long as you
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  Speaker 1: do not begin with a definition, you may begin anyhow.
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  Speaker 1: An abrupt beginning is much admired, after the fashion of
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  Speaker 1: the clown's entry through the chimis's window. Then whack at
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  Speaker 1: your reader at once, Hit him over the head with
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  Speaker 1: the sausages, risk him up with the poker, bundle him
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  Speaker 1: into the wilbarrow, and so carry him away with you
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  Speaker 1: before he knows where you are. You can do what
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  Speaker 1: you like with the reader. Then, if you only keep
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  Speaker 1: him nicely on the moon, so long as you are happy,
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  Speaker 1: your reader will be so too. But one law must
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  Speaker 1: be observed. An essay, like a dog that wishes to please,
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  Speaker 1: must have a lively taiale, short, but as waggish as possible,
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  Speaker 1: Like a rocket, an essay goes only with fizzle and
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  Speaker 1: sparks at the end of it. And know that to
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  Speaker 1: stop writing is the secret of writing an essay. The
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  Speaker 1: essay that the public loves dies young. End of Chapter
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  Speaker 1: twenty five.