Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Certain Personal Matters - Euphemia’s New Entertainment

Transcript

Certain Personal Matters - Euphemia’s New Entertainment · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: by Greg Giardano. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty, Euphemia's New Entertainment. Euphemia has great ideas of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: putting people at their ease, a thousand little devices for
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: thawing the very stiffest among them, with a home like glow.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Far be it from me to sing her praises, but
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I must admit that at times she's extremely successful in this,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: at times almost two successful. That tea cake business, for instance,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: No doubt it's a genial expedient to make your guests
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: toast his own tea cake. Doubt he must go upon
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: his knees upon your hearth rug, and his poses will
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: melt away like the dews of the morning before the
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: rising sun. Nevertheless, when it comes to roasting a gallant
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: veteran like Major Augustus, deliberately roasting him in spite of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the facts that he has served as country nobly through
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: thirty irksome years of peace, and that he admires Euphemia
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: with a delicate fervor roasting him. I say, alive, as
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: if he were a Strasbourg goose, or suddenly a fixing
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a delicate young genius to the hither end of a
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: toasting fork. While he is in the midst of a
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: really very subtle and tender conversation. The limits of social
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: warmth seemed to be approaching dangerously near. However, this scarcely
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: concerns Euphemia's new entertainment. This new entertainment is modeling in clay.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Euphemia tells me it is to be quite the common
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: thing this winter. It is intended especially for the evening
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: after a little dinner. As the reader is aware, the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: evening after a little dinner is apt to Paul, a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: certain placid contentment creeps over people. I don't know in
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: what organ originality resides, but it's a curious thing, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: one I must leave to the consideration of psychologists. That
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: people's output of original remarks appears to be obstructed in
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: some way after these gastronomic exercises. Then a little dinner
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: always confirms my theory of the absurdity of polygonal conversation.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Music and songs, too, have their drawbacks, especially gay songs,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: they invariably evoke a vaporous, melancholy card playing. Euphemia objects
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to because her uncle, the Dean, is prominent in connection
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: with some ridiculous association for the suppression of gambling, and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: in what are called games, no irrational creature, esteeming himself
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: an immortal soul, would participate in this difficulty. It was
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: that Euphemia decided, I fancy, by the possession of certain
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: really very becoming aprons, took up this business of clay modeling.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: You have a lump of grayish clay and a saucer
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: of water in certain small tools of wood, for which
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I cannot discover the slightest use in the world given you,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and Euphemia puts on a very winning bib, then moistening
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the clay until it acquires sufficient plasticity, and incidentally splashing
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: your cuffs and coat sleeves with a greatly light tinted mud.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: You set to work. At first people are a little
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: disgusted at the apparent dirtiness of the employment, and also
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: perhaps rather diffident. The eldest lay, he says weakly deprecatory things,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and the feeblest male is jocular after his wont But
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: it is remarkable how soon the charm of this delightful
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: occupation seizes hold of you. For really, the sensations of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: molding this plastic matter into shape are wonderfully and quite
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: unaccountably pleasing. It is ever so much easier than drawing
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: things quote anyone can do it end quote as the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: advertisement people say, and the work is so much more
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: substantial in its effects. Technical questions arise in molding. Ahead
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you take a lump and find it down, or do
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: you dab on the features after the main knob of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: it is shaped. So soon as your guests realize the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: plastic possibilities before them, a great silence, a delicious absorption
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: comes over them. Some rash person states that he is
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: molding an apollo, or a vase, or a bust of
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: mister Gladstone, or an elephant or some such animal. The
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: wiser ones go to work in a speculative spirit, aiming
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: secretly at this, perhaps, but quite willing to go on
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: with that if providence so wills it. Buddhas are good subjects.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: There's a certain genial rotundity not difficult to attain, And
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the pyramidal build of the idol is well suited to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the material. You can start a buddha and hedge to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: make it a loaf of bread. If the features are unsatisfactory.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: For slender object, a skeletal substructure of bent hairpins or
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: matches is advisable. The innate egotism of the human animal
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: becomes very conspicuous. His tail is too large, says the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: lady with the fish and self criticism. I haven't put
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: his tail on yet. That's his trunk, answers the young
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: man with the elephant. It's a pretty sight to see
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the first awakening of the artistic passion in your guests.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: The flush of discovery, the glow of innocent pride, is
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the familiar features of mister Gladstone emerged from the bust
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of clytie. An accidental stroke of the thumb nail develops
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: new marvels of expression. By the bye is just as
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: well to forbid deliberate attempts at portraiture. And I know
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: no more becoming expression for every one than the look
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of intent and pleasing effort, A divine touch almost that
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: comes over the common man. Modeling for my own part,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I feel of being infinitely my own superior. When I
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: get my fingers upon the clay, and incidentally, how much
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: pleasanter this is than writing articles. See the work grow
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: altogether under your hands, to begin with the large masses
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and finish with the details, as every artist should. Just
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to show how easy the whole thing is, I append
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a little sketch of the first work I ever did.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I had had positively no previous instruction. Unfortunately, the left
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: ear of the animal, a cat by the bye, has
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: fallen off. The figure to the left is the back
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: of view of a Buddha. However, I have said enough
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to show the charm of the new amusement. It will
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: prove a boon to many a troubled hostess. The material
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: is called modeling clay, and one may buy it of
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: any dealer in artist's materials several pounds or sixpence. This
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: has to be renewed at intervals, as a good deal
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: is taken away by the more careless among your guests
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: upon their clothes. End of Chapter twenty. Recording by Greg Giardano,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Newport Ridge, Florida,