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Certain Personal Matters - In a Literary Household · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six 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: In a literary household, in the literary household of fiction
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  Speaker 1: and the drama, things are usually in a distressing enough condition.
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  Speaker 1: The husband, as you know, has a hacking cough and
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  Speaker 1: the wife a dying baby, and they write in the
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  Speaker 1: intervals of these cares among the litter of the breakfast things.
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  Speaker 1: Occasionally a comic but sympathetic servant brings in an armful,
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  Speaker 1: heaped up and brimming over of rejected manuscripts. For in
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  Speaker 1: the dramatic life, it never rains, but it pours. Instead
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  Speaker 1: of talking about editors in a bright and vigorous fashion,
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  Speaker 1: as the recipients of rejections are won't the husband groans
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  Speaker 1: and covers his face with his hands, and the wife
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  Speaker 1: leaving the touching little story she is writing as she
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  Speaker 1: posts this about nine PM, and it brings in a
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  Speaker 1: publisher and one hundred pounds or so before ten point
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  Speaker 1: thirty comforts him by flopping suddenly over his shoulder courage,
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  Speaker 1: she says, stroking his hyacinthine locks, whereas all real literary
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  Speaker 1: men are more or less gray or bald. Sometimes, as
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  Speaker 1: in our flat comic, tradesmen interrupt the course of true
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  Speaker 1: literature with their ignoble desire for cash payment. And sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: as in our boys, uncles come and weep at the
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  Speaker 1: infinite pathos of a bad breakfast egg. But it's always
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  Speaker 1: a very sordid, dusty lump in your throaty affair, and
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  Speaker 1: no doubt it conduces to mortality by deterring the young
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  Speaker 1: and fressionable from literary vices. As for its truth, that
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  Speaker 1: is another matter altogether. Yet it must not be really
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  Speaker 1: imagined that a literary household is just like any other.
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  Speaker 1: There is the brass paper fastener, for instance. I have
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  Speaker 1: sometimes thought that Euphemia married me with an eye to
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  Speaker 1: these conveniences. She has two in her gray gloves, and
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  Speaker 1: one with the head inked in her boot in the
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  Speaker 1: place of a button, others I suspect her of. Then
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  Speaker 1: she fastened the lamp shade together with them, and tried
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  Speaker 1: one day to introduce them instead of pearl buttons as
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  Speaker 1: efficient anchorage for cuffs and collars, and she made a
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  Speaker 1: new handle for the little drawer under the inkstand with one. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: the literary household is held together, so to speak, by
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  Speaker 1: paper fasteners. And how other people get along without them
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  Speaker 1: we are at a loss to imagine. And another point,
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  Speaker 1: almost equally important, is that the husband is generally messing
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  Speaker 1: about at home. That is, indeed, to a superficial observer,
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  Speaker 1: one of them the most remarkable characteristics of the literary household.
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  Speaker 1: Other husbands are cast out in the morning to raven
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  Speaker 1: for income, and return to a home that is swept
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  Speaker 1: and garnished towards the end of the day. But the
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  Speaker 1: literary husband is ever in possession. His work must not
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  Speaker 1: be disturbed, even when he is merely thinking. The study
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  Speaker 1: is consequently a kind of domestic cordite factory, and you
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  Speaker 1: are never certain when it may explode. The concussion of
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  Speaker 1: a dustpan and brush may set it going. The sweeping
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  Speaker 1: of a carpet in the room upstairs, then behold a haggard,
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  Speaker 1: brain weary man, fierce and disheveled and full of shattered
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  Speaker 1: masterpiece expostulating other houses have their day of cleaning out
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  Speaker 1: this room, and the day for cleaning out that. But
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  Speaker 1: in the literary household there is one uniform date for
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  Speaker 1: all such functions, and that is tomorrow. So that missus
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  Speaker 1: Myrgles makes her purifying raids with her heart in her mouth,
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  Speaker 1: and has acquired a way of leaving the pale and
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  Speaker 1: brush or whatever artillery she has with her in a
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  Speaker 1: manner that unavoidably engages the infuriated brute's attention and so
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  Speaker 1: covers her retreat. It is a problem that has never
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  Speaker 1: been properly solved, this discord of order and orderly literary work.
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  Speaker 1: Possibly it might be done by making the literary person
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  Speaker 1: live elsewhere, or preventing literary persons from having households. However
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  Speaker 1: it might be done, it is not done. This is
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  Speaker 1: a thing innocent girls exposed to the surreptitious proposals of
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  Speaker 1: literary men do not understand. They think it will be
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  Speaker 1: very fine to have photographs of themselves and their cozy
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  Speaker 1: nooks published in magazines to illustrate the man's interviews, And
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  Speaker 1: the full horror of having this feral creature always about
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  Speaker 1: the house and scarcely ever being able to do any
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  Speaker 1: little thing without his knowing it is not brought properly
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  Speaker 1: home to them until escape is impossible, and then there
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  Speaker 1: is the ten of copy everywhere. That is really the
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  Speaker 1: fundamental distinction. It is a misfortune of literary people that
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  Speaker 1: they have to write about something. There is no reason,
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  Speaker 1: of course, why they should, but the thing is so. Consequently,
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  Speaker 1: they are always looking about them for something to write about.
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  Speaker 1: They cannot take a pure minded interest in anything in
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  Speaker 1: earth or heaven. Their servant is no servant but a character.
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  Speaker 1: Their cat is a possible reservoir of humorous observation. They
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  Speaker 1: look out of window and see men as columns walking.
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  Speaker 1: Even the sanctity of their own hearts, their self respect,
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  Speaker 1: their most private emotions are disregarded. The wife is infected
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  Speaker 1: with the taint her private opinion of her husband. She
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  Speaker 1: makes into a short story, forgets its origin, and shows
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  Speaker 1: it him with pride, while the husband decants his heart
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  Speaker 1: beats into occasional verse and minor poetry. It is amazing
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  Speaker 1: what a lot of latter day literature consists of such
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  Speaker 1: breaches of confidence, and not simply latter day littery. The
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  Speaker 1: visitor is fortunate who leaves no marketable impression behind The
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  Speaker 1: literary entertainers eye you over as if they were dealers
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  Speaker 1: in a slave mart and speculate on your uses. They
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  Speaker 1: tried to think how you would do as a scoundrel,
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  Speaker 1: and mark your little turns of phrase and kinks of thought.
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  Speaker 1: To that end, the innocent visitor bites his cake and
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  Speaker 1: talks about theaters, while the meditative person in the armchair
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  Speaker 1: may be in imagination stabbing him or starving him on
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  Speaker 1: a desert island, or even, horrible to tell, flinging him
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  Speaker 1: headlong into the arms of the young lady to the
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  Speaker 1: right and covering her face with a thousand passionate kisses.
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  Speaker 1: A manuscript in the rough of Euphemia's that I recently
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  Speaker 1: suppressed was an absolutely scandalous example of this method of
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  Speaker 1: utilizing one's acquaintances. Missus Harborough, who was indeed Euphemia's most
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  Speaker 1: confidential friend for six weeks and more, she had made
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  Speaker 1: to Elope with Scrimjaw as still eddy and honorable a man,
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  Speaker 1: as we know, though unpleasant to Euphemia on account of
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  Speaker 1: his manner of holding his tea cup. I believe there
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  Speaker 1: really was something quite harmless, of course, between Missus Harbor
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  Speaker 1: and Scrimjaw, and that imparted in confidence had been touched
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  Speaker 1: up with vivid color here and there, and utilized freely.
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  Speaker 1: Scrimjaw is represented as always holding teacups in his peculiar way,
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  Speaker 1: so that anyone would recognize him at once. Euphemia calls
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  Speaker 1: that character. Then Harborough, who is really on excellent terms
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  Speaker 1: with his wife, and in spite of his quiet manner,
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  Speaker 1: a very generous and courageous fellow, is turned aside from
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  Speaker 1: his headlong pursuit of the fugitives across Wimbledon common a
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  Speaker 1: they elope by the bye on Scrimjaw's tandem bicycle, by
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  Speaker 1: the fear of being hit by a golf ball. I
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  Speaker 1: pointed out to Euphemia that these things were calculated to
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  Speaker 1: lose us friends, and she promises to destroy the likeness.
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  Speaker 1: But I have no confidence in her promise. She will
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  Speaker 1: probably clap a violent auburn wig on missus Harborough and
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  Speaker 1: makes Scrimdaw squint and give Harbor a big beard. The
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  Speaker 1: point that she won't grasp is that, with that fatal
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  Speaker 1: facility for detail, which is one of the most indisputable
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  Speaker 1: proofs of woman's intellectual inferiority, she has reproduced endless remarks
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  Speaker 1: and mannerisms of these excellent people with more than photographic fidelity.
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  Speaker 1: But this is really a private trouble, though it illustrates
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  Speaker 1: very well the shameless way in which those who have
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  Speaker 1: the literary taint will bring to market their most intimate affairs.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter six