dashes off his leading article in a couple of hours, with, perhaps, more than his thumb inky, and the bustle and rush of a newspaper office beating around his table, while messengers carry off his reflections, slip by slip, unrevised, to feed the compositors upstairs.

Yet it is a creditable piece of work as a rule, a sensible and sometimes weighty discourse on some topic of the day, making up by its freshness and virility of utterance for its inevitable lack of literary finish. Indeed, there is nothing more remarkable in the marvellous achievements of journalism than the ability, public spirit, and conscience that are expended worthily in the writing of leading articles.

Have

Dr. Johnson was once asked how he had acquired his extraordinary power of expressing ideas on any subject in conversation unhesitatingly and with force and felicity of diction. "I always try to have something to say," he replied, "and to say it as well as I can." That, it seems to me, is the golden rule of leader-writers. something to say on many topics, and be able to say it clearly, earnestly, and promptly. An "all-round leaderwriter"-that is, a man who is expected to write well or passably on a variety of subjects, and to write often against time-finds the work, if he aims at doing it conscientiously, very trying and very arduous, unless he is possessed of a well-informed and cultivated mind and has at command a skilful and ready pen. He must be widely read, especially in literature, history, and politics, and must carry in his memory a mass of varied, accurate, and well-assorted knowledge on these subjects, ready for use at a moment's call. He must be a careful observer of the drift of public opinion. He must be a man of sound sense and shrewd judgment, without crotchets, without conceit, of a liberal and thoughtful

mind, capable of looking at a question from different standpoints. He must have that ready command of language and facility for happy and forcible phrasing which are essential not only to clear and forcible presentation of ideas but to rapidity of composition.

A leader-writer must be, above all things, a ready writer. Charm and beauty of form, the qualities of literature, are not required in a leading article. Lord Morley, a brilliant leader-writer as well as a great littérateur, lays down what he calls a highly important maxim for those who pursue literature, which applies, I think, with even greater force to the writing of leading articles. "It is a great mistake," he says, "to expend more time and labor on a piece of composition than is enough to make it serve the purpose in hand." The purpose of a leading article is to express an opinion upon one of the public topics of the hour, political, religious, or social.

As

a rule it has but the briefest of existences. Published to-day, to-morrow forgotten. Frequently it has to be composed with the utmost haste. News of an unexpected occurrence, sensational in its relation to the political or social world, is often received in the newspaper office within an hour of going to press. The arrangements for the leading articles had, of course, been long ago completed. Nevertheless, it is absolutely necessary that the morning paper should have an editorial comment on this grave event, which happened without the slightest forewarning. A more common experience is that the leader-writer is compelled to wait until very late at night for the report of an important pronouncement by a leading statesman in Parliament or in the country, upon which he is to produce an article. It is obvious that in these circumstances bewildering speed must often necessarily attend the labors of the writer of the "leader."

He must, therefore, have the gift of rapid composition. There must be no indecision as to what to say. There must be no fastidious choosing of words. He cannot afford to lose a minute for any consideration whatever. He must set to work quickly and decisively; and while he has, of course, to compose with inward care, he cannot afford to attempt to put a greater polish on the article than its intrinsic character and its purpose demand.

I know a very able university man who was engaged as a leader-writer on a London newspaper. He did varied and capable work on politics, social questions, historic anniversaries, topics of antiquarian interest so long as he received his subject in the afternoon, and had four or five hours in which leisurely to compose the article. But one night he happened to be the only man available in the office when news arrived of one of those startling Occurrences which occasionally take the newspapers by surprise, and nevertheless demand treatment in a "leader." He sat down, in obedience to the hurried summons of the editor, to supply the essential comment. But he could not make up his mind swiftly, and he had not the faculty of ready writing. In that sudden emergency he found himself incapable of saying anything with point on the subject. The latest minute at which the printers could take copy, and send the paper to the machines at the fixed hour, inexorably struck, and found him with only a few cold sentences on a single slip of paper. His slow-moving though powerful mind was unable to cope with the ruthless conditions of daily journalism.

Be it said that the hesitation of the philosopher, fearful of pronouncing a rash judgment, the leisure of the scholar, anxious to verify his facts, and the fastidiousness of the stylist, pondering over and weighing every word, are unsuited to the circumstances un

der which the "leader" is normally produced. The leader-writer must have go and dash. It is his fate not to be studied, but simply to be read. A piece of composition which is perfunctorily discussed at the breakfast-table, or quickly scanned in train or tram, is perhaps best written rapidly. William Arnold, for many years a leader-writer on the Manchester Guardian, used to say very aptly that if those who ran might read, then it was best to write running. Therefore, in leader-writing rapid composition is the most valuable of all qualities. Without it no amount of those excellent gifts, knowledge and capacity and experience, will make leader-writing anything but drudging and exhausting hack-work. At any rate, without it, it is impossible to put knowledge and capacity and experience to account in leader-writing. Capable leader-writers are men who, first and foremost, can write fast. William Arnold, as we are told by his colleague, Mr. C. E. Montague, composed a leading article as fast as the pen could move. Sir Wemyss Reid was one of the most successful of journalists. climbed from the lowest to the highest positions in the newspaper world. His good fortune was to be ascribed mainly to his readiness as a writer. I have heard him boast that he could dictate a leading article of fifteen hundred words at the phenomenal speed of twenty minutes, and write one in three-quarters of an hour. What is more remarkable is that he could write his "leader" with people talking around him, and felt no difficulty in joining in the conversation. The articles of this untiring and versatile journalist were capable and honest journalism. At least, they fully served the purpose for which they were intended, and that is their sufficient justification. Another swift leader-writer was Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen, who in the sixties and seventies wrote "leaders" for the Pall Mall

He

Gazette. It was his custom after an early breakfast to dash off the article and leave it at the newspaper office on his way to the Law Courts. His brother, Leslie Stephen, says: "Articles came from him as easily as ordinary talk. The fountain seemed to be always full, and had only to be turned on to the desired end." This readiness in conception and rapidity in execution is often the result of a habit of mind which may gradually be acquired. With practice, the brain can be made to work rapidly almost as well as it can work slowly. Indeed, I have heard a very ready journalist declare that the work he rapidly dictates to a shorthand writer is far superior in dash and finish to work which he writes himself and on the composition of which he spends a great deal more time and thought.

Another faculty indispensable to the leader-writer is the power of detachment and complete concentration in the midst of distractions. At a Press Club dinner in London a few years ago Lord Morley made a most interesting autobiographical confession. "It was whilst I was writing a leading article for a certain periodical that I received a letter from an illustrious statesman offering me a post in his Cabinet," said he. "Gentlemen, so strong in me was the journalistic instinct that, after accepting the illustrious statesman's offer, I went back and finished that leading article! And I can assure you," he added when the cheers which greeted this statement had died away, "that neither the grammar nor the style of the latter half of the article fell short of my usual standard." Surely the concluding passages of that "leader," written under the exultation of a great personal triumph, must have immensely exceeded its opening in weight and animation and eloquence. But, unhappily, it is not to radiant and inspiring interruptions of such a naLIVING AGE. VOL. XLIV.

2328

ture that leader-writers are usually subjected. They have not only to work against time in the jaded hours of the night, when the physical and mental capacities are at their lowest vitality; but to work within earshot of noisy machinery, amid the banging of doors, the rush of many feet along the passages, the shouting of sub-editors and printers, and the periodical visits of the messengers of the composingroom on the search for "copy." Some leader-writers, indeed, find in the atmosphere of the newspaper office the frame of mind or the train of thought best suited for the production of a "leader." The very distractions of that busy hive inspire them. The smell of printers' ink mounts, like wine, exhilaratingly to their brain.

Dr. Johnson had a deeply rooted prejudice against those who in his day were called "news-writers," the predecessors of the leader-writers of our time. In one of his Idler papers the Doctor says: "I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie." How ridiculous it seems to associate in any way the blameless citizens who now preach to us from the editorial columns of the newspapers with a licentious soldiery unloosed upon the community! Many a man who calls himself "we" in a morning newspaper lives the most retired and obscurest of existences in a flat or a small house in the suburbs. Probably the worst that his neighbors can say against him is that he looks at things, no matter how apparently trivial, through his glasses with eager inquisitiveness. But that is simply a manifestation of the fear of the journalist, for whom there is "copy" in all things, that an idea or fact worth having should pass by him unnoticed. He dresses ordinarily. Nor is he above discussing the weather with a neigh

bor. It may be that the neighbor has not the faintest suspicion that this man, who asks him over his gardenpaling whether he thinks it will rain, is the main spokesman of that great daily paper the Leader, the writer of those earnest and weighty reflections and admonitions on public affairs in the editorial columns. The identity of the leader-writer is merged absolutely in the individuality of the journal for which he writes. The controlling minds of the daily newspapers are, even in this age of publicity, unknown so far as the general public are concerned. In a few instances the editor may be a personality, but the writers of the articles which help so powerfully to form public opinion are almost without exception written by men whose names even have never been heard of by their readers. George Charles Brodrick, who wrote about sixteen hunded leading articles in the Times, "fantastic in their variety," as he says, complains, in his Memories and Impressions, of the sense of isolation induced by the maintenance of a strict anonymity. Occasionally this self-obliteration greatly depressed him. He pined for recognition. But if his services brought no public acknowledgment, he found consolation in the thought that he was "doing the work of an unrecognized statesman, and exercising a greater influence on public opinion than any politician except a very few in the foremost rank."

But it is not only that the leaderwriter is denied the pleasure of public distinction. His work is quickly overtaken by oblivion. Harriet Martineau wrote for the Daily News as many as sixteen hundred leading articles, at the rate, for months in succession, of six in a week. These productions were thought so valuable that it was once proposed to republish twelve volumes of them. But the writer did

not favor the proposal. "Three volumes would be enough, as so many of the articles are merely temporary," she modestly said. However, none of the articles were reprinted. With the countless productions of thousands of other untiring journalists, they lie buried and unknown in many a dustladen newspaper file. But Frederick Knight Hunt, editor of the Daily News, was most enthusiastically appreciative of Harriet Martineau's leading articles. He told her brother that they moulded public opinion through Parliament. "They are read in the clubs," he said. "They precede the debates, and mollify the Times. The Daily News leads." On another occasion he declared, "These are not newspaper articles, but poems." Yet in a letter to Harriet Martineau herself he indulges in some interesting reflections on leading articles and their writers which show that his standard of excellence was high. "Our contributors," he says, "never write more than four articles a week at most. It is all the best of them could fairly do. And political writers commonly deteriorate. The first article is excellent, and we think we have found a treasure. The second is less striking. But we are not surprised that so high a standard cannot in every instance be maintained. At the third we say, "Have we not read something like this very lately?" The next is so manifest a falling off that we desire no more."

The life of every day is now so full, so busy, and so interesting that few readers are able, without an effort, to recall at its close what was said in the morning paper. At any rate, as the leader-writer goes to his work he finds the public engrossed in the evening papers. What he writes to-night is obliterated from the minds of his readers at the longest the day after tomorrow. But, after all, a short memory in his readers, and its consequent

quick forgetfulness of his articles, has its compensations for the leaderwriter. He is compelled to deal often with the same topic. He must, therefore, necessarily repeat himself; but, thanks to the merciful oblivion to

Chambers's Journal.

which his work quickly passes, for its readers it always possesses freshness and originality. The shortness of the public memory is in many things a curse. To the leader-writer it is a blessing in disguise.

Michael Macdonagh.

The lengthening row of tall grassgreen volumes in which Mr. Henry James is marshalling his "collected works" forms a monument of art so fine in quality and at the same time so remote from anything which has preceded it that it has for the critic a double portion of suggestion and challenge. It has its own intricate and highly civilized beauty, which demands characterization; and, even when we have found for this the right clue and the exact epithets, we are still faced with a series of questions with which, in treating at any rate the fiction of our own language, we are little used to be confronted. What we are accustomed to is work in which the beauties and excellencies are more or less easily detachable from the main fabric. Our novelists bring certain powers, certain gifts of humor and poetry and observation, and tumble them out in their pages in the free-handed way which we are apt to compare complacently with the severer economy practised in other lands. We may separate from the generous heap the qualities that please us, as we might pick out the grapes or the apricots from a cornucopia of summer fruit. We make our selection accordingly, and we throw away the rest. But the long procession of books which began with "Roderick Hudson" and ends (for the present) with "The Golden Bowl" will not submit, as we quickly discover, to

"The Novels of Henry James." Edition de Luxe. In 24 Volumes. Vols. I.-XX. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d. net each volume.)

selection in this sense. We cannot, that is to say, isolate certain qualities in them without finding ourselves involved with all the rest. The metaphor of the cornucopia will not fit them. We have to deal rather with a densely-woven tapestry, in which style, line, color, and composition are all of a piece, all inherent, all part of one process. The closeness of the web in Mr. James's later books is such that even the most completely initiated admirers cannot rustle the pages, dip into them here and there, skim or skip; they must begin at the first sentence and go steadily through to the last even to master the outline of the story. In the same way a criticism of Mr. James's work as a whole, an examination of the "novel" as it has shaped itself under his hand, demands a disentangling of the principles of the art of fiction, as to which we have to admit that we know but one critic who has explored the ground and named its divisions.

That critic is Mr. Henry James himself. The new prefaces which he has written for the collected edition of his works bristle, of course, with interest for those who know and admire the books of which they treat; but they have also a general aspect which makes their appearance an event, indeed the first event, in the history of an art almost as confusedly apprehended as it is enormously practised. The English novel, the greatest examples of it hardly less so than the least,