FROM other people’s work I must return to my own. As is Fleet Street compared with Hyde Park, so is journalism with the authorship of more lasting literature.

To would-be scribblers I would say journalism is a bagatelle in comparison with the production of a book. The main axiom for a book is Write what you know about. If you live with dukes, don’t write about the slums. If you live in the slums, don’t write of dukes.

Don’t write unless you have something to say. For the papers, matter is more important than style. Aim at telling something interesting in an interesting way. Keep it short and crisp and to the point. Never mind rejection. Introductions to editors are of no avail. They generally retard. Work of merit always finds its niche, so peg away till you get the right thing and fit it into the right corner.

A journalist requires no equipment but a quick perception of men and matters, a desire for information, and a belief that what interests her may interest someone else. A journalist is obliged to look ahead:

Someone is reported very ill—collect facts for an obituary notice.

A picture promises to become successful—have an account of the artist and his work ready for press.

An actor is producing a new play—try to learn something about the play, and any little incident of its production.

One used to write of things that had been; but since all this Yankee journalism has come in, one has to anticipate things that are to be. Weddings are described to-day before the marriage ceremony even takes place.

It is a bad sign of the times, but that is modern journalism. A journalist’s is a hard and anxious life and often ill-paid; but here, at least, men and women can earn equal wages, and have equal chances. Nearly all the papers except The Times now have women on their staff.

Just as an actor adopts various disguises, so it is amusing to remember how many pseudonyms have been the different masks which have helped me, as other journalists, to attract the attention of the public. The public loves variety. It would never, never pay to appear always as the same old stager.

Journalists must turn their hand to anything, at any time, and in any way. Sometimes I wrote as a man, sometimes as an old lady, comparing the past with the present. For instance, the “Elderly Scribe” became “A Girl at the Drawing-room,” under which heading a long article once appeared in a leading paper, describing my imaginary thrills as an American débutante at the first Court of King Edward VII.

I think it was in the Pall Mall Gazette:

Most useful proved my own experiences at such functions as Drawing-rooms, and my favourite adage as to journalism came into play, viz. Write of what you know.

But how, some timid minds may object, can a working-woman still afford to go to Court? Suffice it to say that one originally handsome gown of wealthier days served me, its wearer, several times to make my curtseys to Royalty.

I should not have attended so often in the ordinary way, but going so much abroad as I did, it was advisable. There one’s reception at Court is of use, for, after all, foreigners are unable to judge one’s social position from one’s appearance, some of the worst scamps seeming the most ideal on the surface, therefore a pass-word, such as having “been to Court”—which means so little in England—counts for something across the water. I always wore a train, that once belonged to my great-grandmother. It ought to know its way to Buckingham Palace by now. Strangely enough, that old chiné silk (it must be between one hundred and a hundred and fifty years old) has a stripe of soft grey between wider stripes of beautiful mellowed flowers. It is exactly the same kind of thing that is so fashionable to-day. History repeats itself even in silk, and those dull chiné ribbons and dull chiné silks are but reproductions of those worn by our great-grandmothers.

Royalty and really great folk—that is great-minded people in high places—do not carp at the clothes of those whose work in life is harder than showing off new and expensive dresses. Thank goodness, the days are long dead when writers were supposed to exist on the sufferance of publishers, to be always ragged, in debt, or to fawn on patrons and live in Grub Street.

Still, this is forestalling the account of my laborious, weary time before achieving anything, so it must be put down in faithful warning that “good times” have to be worked and waited for.

I often wonder now how I lived through those first years of hardship, paying off debts, working often ten hours a day with the constant goal of making an income and achieving success.

Poverty or ambition are the only stepping-stones to attainment. Perseverance did it, and bed. On and on I pegged. Wrote and re-wrote some things several times over, while others were not even corrected. Worked with throbbing eyes and weary brain—I’ve always been more or less a teetotaller, but it wasn’t that which helped me—it was bed. Never a good sleeper at any time, I crept off to bed as early as possible, and even if I did not sleep, I rested my back, closed my eyes, and lay in the dark. Most of my work was planned then, all my articles were thought out in that silent obscurity. My bed was my salvation.

Lots of people work best in the evening and the small hours of the morning. I was never any good then, and if “copy” had to be ready, say, by eleven at night, and I knew a “printer’s devil” would be standing in my hall at that hour to bear it away to the machines, I always got hot and cold, nervous and fussy; I never worked so well as directly after breakfast.

Work! Would anyone dare to say I have not worked? Why, in one fortnight (November, 1906) I see I had long signed articles in the Queen, Daily Chronicle, Observer, Daily Mail, and Tatler. Five important papers, besides unsigned articles in others.

“What does a signed article imply?” someone may wonder. It means double, treble, quadruple pay—as compared with an unsigned one. It means the writer’s name is of value, and sufficiently established to say what he thinks and means right out, instead of sending his poisoned darts unofficially in the disguise of anonymity. All articles and reviews ought to be signed, I think. One takes more care, gives more thought, attains a higher standard than for anonymous stuff. Leaders and critiques would be of real value if one knew who had written them.

Ease has come, facility of the pen. I believe I could write an article on almost any sort of subject with five minutes’ notice, and twenty minutes in which to dictate it. It is so easy to write on a theme which you never really touch on at all, but just glide along the outside edge. Things conceived like this cannot be of permanent value, but they are the product of an active brain and serve their purpose for the moment. That is journalism.

It may be interesting to beginners to read here how I wrote my first magazine article as a girl, in amateur days. This will illustrate how wise it is to make use of one’s opportunities; how from one small beginning a path may be opened in the wood of difficulty, at which, except in rare instances, all but genius has to hew.

I chanced to be in Paris in 1890, with my husband and mother who knew Pasteur, and thus I saw a good deal of the delightful, grey-bearded old gentleman whose work made such a stir at that time and revolutionised science. He was then about seventy. Short in stature, he was in no way a striking figure, but his clear eyes and thoughtful face arrested attention. I shall never forget the charm of his manner, and the courteous tolerance he displayed towards an unscientific young woman, who had no excuse for poking about the place save that she was the sister of one of his students and the daughter of a scientist. At that time Pasteur did very little personal work or research himself, but he most carefully superintended everything that was done under his roof.

So anxious was he for others to benefit by his experience that he had set apart fourteen tables in his large laboratory, at which were to be found working students of all nationalities and ages, from twenty-five to fifty—some of them men who had already won a name in science. No charge was made to them beyond the price of the materials they used, and every facility for scientific research was provided.

The hydrophobia cure was then the subject of commanding interest in the scientific world. It was a curious set of people who assembled in the large outer hall of the Institute every morning. On one occasion when I was there the patients numbered eighty-nine, amongst whom were a little English girl (the first to be sent over by the Lord Mayor’s Mansion-House Fund), a French soldier, a Belgian fisherman, a German, and many more of different nationalities.

On my return to England from that visit, with mental and scribbled notes, I sat down to write a little article on “Pasteur and his Institute,” which I sent addressed to the editor of Murray’s Magazine, feeling quite proud of myself but absolutely certain of its rejection. It was the first magazine article I had attempted. What was my surprise on receiving a letter in the course of a few days, signed “The Editor,” saying that he had been much interested in the article, but it was far too short for a magazine, and if I could double its length and write on one side of the paper only, he would have great pleasure in inserting it.

I actually jumped for joy. It seemed as if the whole literary world were opening at my feet. Of course, I copied it all out carefully on one side of the paper as ordered, and added a little bit here and a little bit there, counting the words one by one as they crept from tens into hundreds. The article duly appeared. It was wonderfully well reviewed, for it was the first thing of the kind on Pasteur that had been written in English, and therefore was quoted at some length in our Press.

A few years afterwards, when struggling to pay Charterhouse and Harrow bills, I was dining out one night when a gentleman was introduced to me. He said:

“I know you very well, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, far better than you know me. I have printed several of your articles.”

“Indeed,” I exclaimed, surprised, “but I have never seen you before.”

“No, but you know the editor of Murray’s Magazine as a correspondent.”

“Of course I do,” I laughed, “and love him very much, for he printed my first magazine effort.”

“I am the man,” he replied; “I am W. L. Courtney, under which name I have since accepted several articles of yours for the Fortnightly Review.”

This was a pleasant means of introduction to one’s editor.

Lending or borrowing money ends friendship, and in the same way I feel shy of offering my wares to anyone I know. Mr. Courtney and I are excellent friends; but the work is arranged by an agent nowadays. Friendship and work have never gone together in my case. It is so much better to be incognito, and for them to remain unknown. Writing is a business, and can only be worked on a strictly business footing.

On one of the few occasions I ever entered an editor’s room—certainly in all those thirteen years of stress of work the occasions could be counted on my fingers—the experience was not pleasant.

Up dirty, dark stairs I stumbled, and after much waiting was shown into the gentleman’s office. I informed him I was going abroad, that I could take photographs, and suggested a somewhat new scheme of illustrated articles.

“What do you want for half a dozen?” he enquired.

“Five guineas a column,” was my reply.

“Five guineas a column. Tush! I’ll give you one guinea; and take six articles.”

I had only been a widow a short time, and was in deep, dull black, with the little uniform muslin collar and cuffs. He looked me up and down. Perhaps he thought I wanted the money badly, and repeated “A guinea a column, no more.”

“But I cannot take less than five. I am going abroad to get the information, and six guineas would not pay the ticket one way.”

“Ten guineas for the six, then.”

“No,” I replied, sticking firmly to my guns; “I am sorry I cannot do them for that. Good morning.”

He barely raised his eyes from the paper. He did not even rise, nor open the door. I stepped out, choking with humiliation and tears, but with my head still high.

I wrote several books in the following years and many magazine articles, but for five long years my name never once appeared in that gentleman’s paper. Probably the only paper in the country into which some sort of notice of something of mine did not creep.

He paid me out; but I survived.

Another time, I was dining in Grosvenor Street. A charming young man took me in to dinner. He asked a number of questions, spoke much of my past work and future plans. Being surprised, I said:

“You seem to know a great deal about me.”

“I do.”

“Would you mind telling me why? Are you a detective from Scotland Yard?”

He laughed.

“No, I am only one of your editors. You constantly write for me in the St. James’s Gazette. My name is Hugh Chisholm.”

The same thing happened with regard to the Pall Mall Gazette and Sir Douglas Straight.

Editors seldom or never write; many of them do not even know how. There are, of course, one or two brilliant exceptions, as W. L. Courtney of the Fortnightly, Owen Seaman of Punch, L. J. Maxse of the National Review, Austin Harrison of the English Review. But there is hardly a single daily paper where the editor is a writer, except J. L. Garvin of the Pall Mall, and J. S. R. Phillips of the Yorkshire Post. Many editors were once “reporters,” and on an occasion of stress were put on to edit some subject. Having done it satisfactorily they came in useful in times of pressure, and finally became one of the many sub-editors necessary in a news office. From that apprenticeship they have gradually climbed to the post of editor. An editor is therefore not a literary man as a rule, but a business manager with a sound judgment of the public pulse and what the public wants. If he is wise he never goes into Society or knows people, because then his hand is free, and he can be independent. He decides the policy and the attitude of his paper, therefore he must read all the contemporary Press, and about eleven o’clock in the morning he is so buried in other people’s newspapers that he has to be dug out of the pulpy débris and printer’s ink.

It is a tremendous strain to be an editor, besides a terrible responsibility. Poor men, I pity them. It is bad enough to be a topical writer; to have a “printer’s devil” waiting on one’s door-mat for articles on which the ink is hardly dry; but to have to read and pass everything nightly at such a pace is enough to send the wretched editor demented. He is responsible for libellous matter, so out it must go. He must not offend his political party, so free-lance contributors must be “edited,” and, above all, he has only so many columns to fill and ten times the amount of stuff waiting to be inserted.

Then again, The Times, that great bulwark of the British Constitution, receives from fifty to a hundred letters a day for insertion, out of which only six or eight of the most public interest can be printed. The Times is a great asset of the country, and proud, indeed, should be John Walter, the fifth generation. He is Chairman of the journal founded and maintained by his family at such a high standard for so many years. He ought to write the true history of The Times, as he alone can.

But there are many and puzzling questions as to the journalism of the present day.

Why are modern writers so destructive in their ideas? Why are they so seldom constructive?

Why in politics is everything for pulling down, and nothing for building up?

Is this the craze of the age? The hypercritical, hypersensitive desire to destroy everybody and everything, and why, oh why, must we have veiled advertisements in nearly every column of our minor newspapers?