Revelations, again, as we found to be the case with editing, do not properly constitute a department of the art of letters. Though they are of far more importance than any other branch of contemporary journalism, yet it is impossible to compare their publication to a creative act of pure literature.
It may be urged that such Revelations as are written in the office of the newspaper publishing them are not only literature, but literature of a very high order. They are, on the face of it, extremely difficult to compose. If they are to have any chance of deceiving the public, the writer must thoroughly know the world which he counterfeits; he must be able to copy its literary style, its air, its errors. It is even sometimes necessary for him to attempt the exquisitely subtle art of forgery.
The objection is well found; but it is not of this kind of Revelation that I propose to speak. It belongs to the higher branches of our art, and is quite unsuited to a little elementary manual.
The Revelation I speak of here is the ordinary type of private communication, domestic treason, or accidental discovery, dealing, as a rule, with public affairs, and brought to the office spontaneously by servants, colonial adventurers, or ministers of religion.
Nine Revelations out of ten are of this kind; and the young journalist who may desire to rise in his great calling must make himself thoroughly familiar with the whole process by which they are to be procured and published.
A small amount of additional matter has, indeed, sometimes to be furnished, but it is almost insignificant, and is, moreover, of so conventional a nature, that it need not trouble us for a moment. Some such phrase as “We have received the following communication from a source upon which we place the firmest reliance,” will do very well to open with, and at the end: “We shall be interested to see what reply can be given to the above,” is a very useful formula. Thus the words “To be continued,” added at the end are often highly lucrative. They were used by the Courrier des Frises (a first-class authority on such matters), when it recently published a number of private letters, written (alas!) in the English tongue, and concerning the noblest figure in English politics.
But though there is little to be done in the way of writing, there is a considerable mental strain involved in judging whether a particular Revelation will suit the proprietor of the newspaper upon which one is employed, and one must not unfrequently be prepared to suffer from exhausting terrors for some weeks after its publication.
Difficult as is the art of testing Revelation, the rules that govern it are few and simple. The Revelator, if a domestic servant, wears a round black bowler hat and a short jacket, and a pair of very good trousers stolen from his master; he will be clean shaven. If an adventurer or minister of religion, he will wear a soft felt hat and carry a large muffler round his throat. Either sort walk noiselessly, but the first in a firm, and the second in a shuffling manner. I am far from saying that all who enter newspaper offices under this appearance bear with them Revelations even of the mildest kind, but I do say that whenever Revelations come, they are brought by one of these two kinds of men.
I should add that the Revelator like the moneylender, the spy, and every other professional man whose livelihood depends upon efficiency is invariably sober. If any man come to you with a Revelation and seem even a trifle drunk, dismiss him without inquiry, though not before you have admonished him upon his shame and sin, and pointed out the ruin that such indulgence brings upon all save the wealthy.