porters, famous contributors and timid aspirants, and in the underground distance is the roar and vibration of vast steam machines which disgorge papers more quickly than one can count.
The reality is perhaps different from this picture--how different the aspirant will realise when she has at last obtained a position in an office. Having obtained such a position, she may congratulate herself that the most trying part of the apprenticeship is over. Henceforward she will be among those who can put her in the right way. She will no longer need the assistance of a handbook; it is only the unattached beginner, working (so pathetically) without guidance and in the dark, who needs that.
One thing, however, may be said about the newspaper office. It is as strictly a place of business as a draper's shop or a bank. Many women-journalists fail to recognise this fact. They do not see that in an office the relations of people must be first and foremost official; that social considerations, and even considerations of animal comfort, must be put aside in order that Business may have a clear road.
I have met in newspaper offices the sprightly woman who martyrises herself because she must work in a room with other women whose dullness and primness jar on her vivacities; the woman who is aggrieved because winter is warmed for her by a gas stove instead of an open fire; the woman who feels insulted because male associates do not accord her the elaborate ritual of deference to which she has been accustomed in drawing-rooms; the woman who arrives late because she is tired, and blandly offers to "make up the time at night;" the woman who says, "I forgot to do so and so, I'm so sorry," and stands like a spoiled child smilingly expectant of forgiveness; and other women of a similar kind.
A vast number of women engaged in journalism, I verily believe, secretly regard it as a delightful game. The tremendous seriousness of it they completely miss. On no other assumption can the attitude of many women-journalists towards their work be explained. Therefore, my final words to the outside contributor, as I leave her on the threshold of an office, are these: Journalism is not a game, and in journalism there are no excuses.
The Truth about an Author
Preface to the New Edition
Sometime in the last century I was for several years one of the most regular contributors to the Academy, under the editorship of Mr. Lewis Hind and the ownership of Mr. Morgan Richards. The work was constant; but the pay was bad, as it too often is where a paper has ideals. I well remember the day when, by dint of amicable menaces, I got the rate raised in my favour from ten to fifteen shillings a column, with a minimum of two guineas an article for exposing the fatuity of popular idols. One evening I met Mr. Lewis Hind at the first performance of some very important play, whose name I forget, in the stalls of some theatre whose name I forget. (However, the theatre has since been demolished.) We began to talk about the Academy, and as I was an editor myself, I felt justified in offering a little advice to a fellow-creature. “What you want in the Academy,” I said, “is a sensational serial.” “Yes, I know,” he replied, with that careful laziness of tone which used to mark his more profound utterances, “and I should like you to write your literary autobiography for us!” In this singular manner was the notion of the following book first presented to me. It was not in the least my own notion.
I began to write the opening chapters immediately, for I was fascinated by this opportunity to tell the truth about the literary life, and my impatience would not wait. I had been earning a living by my pen for a number of years, and my experience of the business did not at all correspond with anything that I had ever read in print about the literary life, whether optimistic or pessimistic. I took a malicious and frigid pleasure, as I always do, in setting down facts which are opposed to accepted sentimental falsities; and certainly I did not spare myself. It did not occur to me, even in the midst of my immense conceit, to spare myself. But even had I been tempted to spare myself I should not have done so, because there is no surer way of damping the reader’s interest than to spare oneself in a recital which concerns oneself.
The sensational serial ran in the Academy for about three months, but I had written it all in the spare hours of a very much shorter period than that. It was issued anonymously, partly from discretion, and partly in the hope that the London world of letters would indulge in conjecture as to its authorship, which in theory was to be kept a dark secret. The London world of letters, however, did nothing of the kind. Everybody who had any interest in such a matter seemed to know at once the name of the author. Mr. Andrew Chatto, whose acquaintance I made just then, assured me that he was certain of the authorship of the first article, on stylistic evidence; and I found him tearing out the pages of the Academy and keeping them. I found also a number of other people doing-the same. In fact I do not exaggerate in saying that the success of the serial was terrific—among about a hundred people. It happened to me to see quite sane and sober writing persons gurgle with joy over the mere recollection of sundry scenes in my autobiography. But Mr. Andrew Chatto, an expert of immense experience, gave me his opinion, with perhaps even more than his customary blandness, that the public would have no use for my autobiography. I could scarcely adopt his view. It seemed to me impossible that so honest a disclosure, which had caused such unholy joy in some of the most weary hearts that London contains, should pass unheeded by a more general public.
Mr.
