"Sir,--I have reason to think that many persons have a very inaccurate
notion of the _Editorial System_. What I call by this name has grown up in
the last _centenary_--a word I may use to signify the hundred years now
ending, and to avoid the ambiguity of _century_. It cannot conveniently be
explained by editors themselves, and _edited_ journals generally do not
like to say much about it. In _your_ paper perhaps, in which editorial
duties differ somewhat from those of ordinary journals, the common system
may be freely spoken of.
"When a reviewed author, as very often happens, writes to the editor of the
reviewing journal to complain of what has been said of him, he
frequently--even more often than not--complains of 'your reviewer.' He
sometimes presumes that 'you' have, 'through inadvertence' in this
instance, 'allowed some incompetent person to lower the character of your
usually accurate pages.' Sometimes he talks of 'your scribe,' and, in
extreme cases, even of 'your hack.' All this shows perfect ignorance of the
journal system, except where it is done under the notion of letting the
editor down easy. But the editor never accepts the mercy.
"All that is in a journal, except what is marked as from a correspondent,
either by the editor himself or by the correspondent's real or fictitious
signature, is published entirely on editorial responsibility, as much as if
the editor had written it himself. The editor, therefore, may claim, and
does claim and exercise, unlimited right of omission, addition, and
alteration. This is so well understood that the editor performs his last
function on the last revise without the 'contributor' knowing what is done.
The word _contributor_ is the proper one; it implies that he furnishes
materials without stating what he furnishes or how much of it is accepted,
or whether he be the only contributor. All this applies both to political
and literary journals. No editor acknowledges {16} the right of a
contributor to withdraw an article, if he should find alterations in the
proof sent to him for correction which would make him wish that the article
should not appear. If the _demand_ for suppression were made--I say nothing
about what might be granted to _request_--the answer would be, 'It is not
your article, but mine; I have all the responsibility; if it should contain
a libel, I could not give you up, even at your own desire. You have
furnished me with materials, on the known and common understanding that I
was to use them at my discretion, and you have no right to impede my
operations by making the appearance of the article depend on your
approbation of my use of your materials.'
"There is something to be said for this system, and something against it--I
mean simply on its own merits. But the all-conquering argument in its favor
is, that the only practicable alternative is the modern French plan of no
articles without the signature of the writers. I need not discuss this
plan; there is no collective party in favor of it. Some may think it is not
the only alternative; they have not produced any intermediate proposal in
which any dozen of persons have concurred. Many will say, Is not all this,
though perfectly correct, well known to be matter of form? Is it not
practically the course of events that an engaged contributor writes the
article, and sends it to the editor, who admits it as
written--substantially, at least? And is it not often very well known, by
style and in other ways, who it was wrote the article? This system is
matter of form just as much as loaded pistols are matter of form so long as
the wearer is not assailed; but matter of form takes the form of matter in
the pulling of a trigger, so soon as the need arises. Editors and
contributors who can work together find each other out by elective
affinity, so that the common run of events settles down into most articles
appearing much as they are written. And there are two safety-valves; that
is, when judicious persons come together. In the first place, the editor
himself, when he has selected his contributor, feels that {17} the
contributor is likely to know his business better than an editor can teach
him; in fact, it is on that principle that the selection is made. But he
feels that he is more competent than the writer to judge questions of
strength and of tone, especially when the general purpose of the journal is
considered, of which the editor is the judge without appeal. An editor who
meddles with substantive matter is likely to be wrong, even when he knows
the subject; but one who prunes what he deems excess, is likely to be
right, even when he does not know the subject. In the second place, a
contributor knows that he is supplying an editor, and learns, without
suppressing truth or suggesting falsehood, to make the tone of his
communications suit the periodical in which they are to appear. Hence it
very often arises that a reviewed author, who thinks he knows the name of
his reviewer, and proclaims it with expressions of dissatisfaction, is only
wrong in supposing that his critic has given all his mind. It has happened
to myself more than once, to be announced as the author of articles which I
could not have signed, because they did not go far enough to warrant my
affixing my name to them as to a sufficient expression of my own opinion.
"There are two other ways in which a reviewed author may be wrong about his
critic. An editor frequently makes slight insertions or omissions--I mean
slight in quantity of type--as he goes over the last proof; this he does in
a comparative hurry, and it may chance that he does not know the full sting
of his little alteration. The very bit which the writer of the book most
complains of may not have been seen by the person who is called the writer
of the article until after the appearance of the journal; nay, if he be one
of those--few, I daresay--who do not read their own articles, may never
have been seen by him at all. Possibly, the insertion or omission would not
have been made if the editor could have had one minute's conversation with
his contributor. Sometimes it actually contradicts something which is {18}
allowed to remain in another part of the article; and sometimes, especially
in the case of omission, it renders other parts of the article
unintelligible. These are disadvantages of the system, and a judicious
editor is not very free with his _unus et alter pannus_. Next, readers in
general, when they see the pages of a journal with the articles so nicely
fitting, and so many ending with the page or column, have very little
notion of the cutting and carving which goes to the process. At the very
last moment arises the necessity of some trimming of this kind; and the
editor, who would gladly call the writer to counsel if he could, is obliged
to strike out ten or twelve lines. He must do his best, but it may chance
that the omission selected would take from the writer the power of owning
the article. A few years ago, an able opponent of mine wrote to a journal
some criticisms upon an article which he expressly attributed to me. I
replied as if I were the writer, which, in a sense, I was. But if any one
had required of me an unmodified 'Yes' or 'No' to the question whether I
wrote the article, I must, of two falsehoods, have chosen 'No': for certain
omissions, dictated by the necessities of space and time, would have
amounted, had my signature been affixed, to a silent surrender of points
which, in my own character, I must have strongly insisted on, unless I had
chosen to admit certain inferences against what I had previously published
in my own name. I may here add that the forms of journalism obliged me in
this case to remind my opponent that it could not be permitted to me, _in
that journal_, either to acknowledge or deny the authorship of the
articles. The cautions derived from the above remarks are particularly
wanted with reference to the editorial comments upon letters of complaint.
There is often no time to send these letters to the contributor, and even
when this can be done, an editor is--and very properly--never of so
editorial a mind as when he is revising the comments of a contributor upon
an assailant of the article. He is then in a better position as to
information, and a more {19} critical position as to responsibility. Of
course, an editor never meddles, except under notice, with the letter of a
correspondent, whether of a complainant, of a casual informant, or of a
contributor who sees reason to become a correspondent. Omissions must
sometimes be made when a grievance is too highly spiced. It did once happen
to me that a waggish editor made an insertion without notice in a letter
signed by me with some fiction, which insertion contained the name of a
friend of mine, with a satire which I did not believe, and should not have
written if I had. To my strong rebuke, he replied--'I know it was very
wrong; but human nature could not resist.' But this was the only occasion
on which such a thing ever happened to me.
"I daresay what I have written may give some of your readers to understand
some of the _pericula et commoda_ of modern journalism. I have known men of
deep learning and science as ignorant of the prevailing system as any
uneducated reader of a newspaper in a country town. I may perhaps induce
some writers not to be too sure about this, that, or the other person. They
may detect their reviewer, and they may be safe in attributing to him the
general matter and tone of the article. But about one and another point,
especially if it be a short and stinging point, they may very easily chance
to be wrong. It has happened to myself, and within a few weeks to
publication, to be wrong in two ways in reading a past article--to
attribute to editorial insertion what was really my own, and to attribute
to myself what was really editorial insertion."
What is a man to do who is asked whether he wrote an article? He may, of
course, refuse to answer; which is regarded as an admission. He may say, as
Swift did to Serjeant Bettesworth, "Sir, when I was a young man, a friend
of mine advised me, whenever I was asked whether I had written a certain
paper, to deny it; and I accordingly tell that I did _not_ write it." He
may say, as I often do, {20} when charged with having invented a joke,
story, or epigram, "I want all the credit I can get, and therefore I always
acknowledge all that is attributed to me, truly or not; the story, etc.
_is_ mine." But for serious earnest, in the matter of imputed criticism,
the answer may be, "The article was of my material, but the editor has not
let it stand as I gave it; I cannot own it as a whole." He may then refuse
to be particular as to the amount of the editor's interference. Of this
there are two extreme cases. The editor may have expunged nothing but a
qualifying adverb. Or he may have done as follows. We all remember the
account of Adam which satirizes woman, but eulogizes her if every second
and third line be transposed. As in:
"Adam could find no solid peace
When Eve was given him for a mate,
Till he beheld a woman's face,
Adam was in a happy state."
If this had been the article, and a gallant editor had made the
transpositions, the author could not with truth acknowledge. If the
alteration were only an omitted adverb, or a few things of the sort, the
author could not with truth deny. In all that comes between, every man must
be his own casuist. I stared, when I was a boy, to hear grave persons
approve of Sir Walter Scott's downright denial that he was the author of
Waverley, in answer to the Prince Regent's downright question. If I
remember rightly, Samuel Johnson would have approved of the same course.
It is known that, whatever the law gives, it also gives all that is
necessary to full possession; thus a man whose land is environed by land of
others has a right of way over the land of these others. By analogy, it is
argued that when a man has a right to his secret, he has a right to all
that is necessary to keep it, and that is not unlawful. If, then, he can
only keep his secret by denial, he has a right to denial. This I admit to
be an answer against all men except the denier himself; if conscience and
self-respect will allow {21} it, no one can impeach it. But the question
cannot be solved on a case. That question is, A lie, is it _malum in se_,
without reference to meaning and circumstances? This is a question with two
sides to it. Cases may be invented in which a lie is the only way of
preventing a murder, or in which a lie may otherwise save a life. In these
cases it is difficult to acquit, and almost impossible to blame; discretion
introduced, the line becomes very hard to draw.
I know but one work which has precisely--as at first appears--the character
and object of my Budget. It is the _Review of the Works of the Royal
Society of London_, by Sir John Hill, M.D. (1751 and 1780, 4to.). This man
offended many: the Royal Society, by his work, the medical profession, by
inventing and selling extra-pharmacopoeian doses; Garrick, by resenting the
rejection of a play. So Garrick wrote:
"For physic and farces his equal there scarce is;
His farces are physic; his physic a farce is."
I have fired at the Royal Society and at the medical profession, but I have
given a wide berth to the drama and its wits; so there is no epigram out
against me, as yet. He was very able and very eccentric. Dr. Thomson
(_Hist. Roy. Soc._) says he has no humor, but Dr. Thomson was a man who
never would have discovered humor.
Mr. Weld (_Hist. Roy. Soc._) backs Dr. Thomson, but with a remarkable
addition. Having followed his predecessor in observing that the
_Transactions_ in Martin Folkes's time have an unusual proportion of
trifling and puerile papers, he says that Hill's book is a poor attempt at
humor, and glaringly exhibits the feelings of a disappointed man. It is
probable, he adds, that the points told with some effect on the Society;
for shortly after its publication the _Transactions_ possess a much higher
scientific value.