No. 1348: The winners
Jaspistos reports: Competitors were given an extract from Frank Harris's Autobiogra- phy and asked to imagine it after 'improve- ment' by Henry James's editorial hand. I remember an attempt by James (in Portrait of a Lady, I think) to describe 3 passionate kiss, and what a mess he made of it. On the other hand, whether with the help of Frank Harris or a subconscious gremlin, he was capable of pretty startling stuff. Take this, for instance, from Roder- ick Hudson:
'Oh, I can't explain!' cried Roderick impatient returning to his work. 'I've only one way expressing my deepest feelings — it's this.' An° he swung his tool.
In The Wings of the Dove Harris or tbe gremlin brough off another special effect: Then she had had her equal consciousness that, within five minutes, something between thelii had — well, she couldn't call it anything hut come.
For these and other amusing horrible, double entendres in English literature recommend Bloomers (Unwin Paperbacks'
1.50).
James, whose style was likened by H..61; Wells to the efforts of an elephant to Piers up a pea, is not at all easy to imitate: it not just a matter of polite longi: windedness. Five of you passed the 01.1 test and earn £10 each, and 13„asil Ransome-Davies gets the bottle of r° Roger White Foil Champagne (NV), Pre' sented by the distributors Dent and Reuss' of My all too hectic awareness of proximity ---ed having, as it were, 'boxed myself in' — seettibe to prompt a retreat. That it should not 0 viewed, even by the most suspicious eye, asto case of reculer pour mieux sauter, ledIne station myself, albeit with a faint sense.d absurdity, squarely in the corridor. PhYsi,,,p withdrawal accomplished, I ventured to bre° the suddenly palpable silence with a question. 'What is your — I flung gently at her. of 'My name?' She keenly retrieved the nottemi interrogation, only to leave it dangling, s° the beneath its Damoclean shadow 1 caught not unmistakable resonance of some response , merely verbal. It now struck my whirling Petc`r
tions that, with something more at stake than the 'airs and graces' of my — I should say 'our' — finely chequered exchanges, a more robust, more positively carnal, quarry called for pursuit.
(Basil Ransome-Davies) Observing in myself an undoubted stirring of concupiscence, I manoeuvred her out of the room, reflecting, on the admittedly slender evidence of her ankle — which I contrived to touch — that she would indeed `do a turn'. Miss fakes — for so she confessed herself to be — at first drew back the member thus compromised, until my extravagant artificial praise of it caused her to hesitate en tirant. Presented thus unex- Pectedly with an 'opening', instinct — or long- cultivated habit? — conjured me to follow it, as h were, 'up'. The coup de jambe embarked Upon, the ungloved hand at length encountered textures kindred to itself. The mezzanine gained, I braced myself — pondering the incon- gruity of such sensibility — for the added betise I knew to be required. 'How supple-soft!' I cried the pain was exquisite — 'Let me!' and boldly ascended the campanile to `ring' — could I? —
the 'bell'. (Noel Petty) We remained in the room for a time of which I could take no measure save that it was too long a time for what I wished to make of it — an interval, a barrier indefinite, insurmountable. The strangest thing of all was what did follow when I compared it with my previous idea of hat, in the worst eventuality, might not. Her :!aving was there with her like a thing more "°noured in the act than the anticipation which Sile got off from by, simply, letting me lead her °. ht. She felt no touch in the picture of familiar Intimacies that had until then been before her, ,execPt my hand on her slender ankle, which iranslated itself to a calf both supple and soft, then to a more elevated place. She could be ce'lain now, it may be assumed, that after such an hors d'oeuvre there would follow an entree. (T. Griffiths) Extemporising, momentarily, some plausible Pretext or other for our — ah! but I was cunning extrication, instantly, from the room, a corridor presented itself, whose emptiness Prompted, on my side, an enquiry. _ 'Your name — ?' I fairly breathed the words, cXercising, as I did so, a preternatural agility, twisting to touch her ankle; at which juncture, Lolunteering, by way of response, 'Miss Jakes', re throbbingly withdrew her foot, at which, rIthPhatically, I demurred. What exclamation, ;er ankle eluding then my fingers, passed my Ii was to this effect, that her ankle possessed a di", der pulchritude. It was, I may add, my it:Illation of her practical insensibility to my h_entions that, the warm, sequestered flesh of ,c.r calf tempting my touch, allowed my hand luly to stray. I fancy I referred to the supple 'tnttness of flesh; begged permission for further sav enture. At all events, I plunged, yet more
peedily, my hand up . . . (Llewellin Berg) It•
Lasgs with a subterfuge all too, for me, ready, Much as it couldn't, in the actual indubitabil- tlY_ of the thing, be other than primitive promp- i„H.g_s of animal cunning, that I manoeuvred her .'" iuo a corridor which was, if at any rate not rrr, PPortunely' of a certainty untypically de- 'ced.
reld°o't yet,' I said, with an exhalation of real 74-13' admiration, 'my dear, know you.' nutini; by now almost too painfully beautiful the v:d belief that such a 'stunner' was made of Of m rY flesh I was so deucedly feeling the urges Yself was What I sought concussedly, by
some slight, silky touch to confirm.
'Miss,' she answered, matching the formally clothed yet, I sensed, interiorly deliquescent protocol of her self-reference by the teasingly inadequate modesty conveyed in withdrawing a fine-modelled foot, lakes'.
To my 'Oh, but you so magnificently mustn't' I added a higher, exploratory, critical probing. (Charles Mosley)
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