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
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
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,
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,