Arnold Bennett

“ 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;" ”

“ A lover is one who deludes himself; a journalist is one who deludes himself and other people. The born journalist comes into the world with the fixed notion that nothing under the sun is uninteresting. He says: "I cannot pass along the street, or cut my finger, or marry, or catch a cold or a fish, or go to church, or perform any act whatever, without being impressed anew by the interestingness of mundane phenomena, and without experiencing a desire to share this impression with my fellow-creatures." ”

“ I bring this general indictment in order that the eyes of the aspirant may be opened to the opportunities which await her. A brilliant future lies before the woman who will devote to these neglected women's subjects skilled craftmanship and the enthusiasm of an artist, of which surely they are as worthy as anything else in journalism. At present it seems as if the women who write for women are content to remain all their lives mere amateurs of the pen; the one who first puts herself to the trouble of becoming an expert may rely upon making a sensation in the world of editors. ”

“ To find out, to uncover, one's true style; to lay bare one's self: how is this to be set about? Primarily, by experiment in the way of imitation, which is the commencement of all art. Every great artist--Shakspere, Beethoven, Velasquez, Inigo Jones--has started by imitating the models which he admired and to which he felt drawn. ”

“ Many women-writers, though by no means all, have been cured of the habit of italicising, which was the outcome of a natural desire to atone for weakness by stridency. (Every writer, of whatever sex, must carry on a guerilla against this desire.) It is useless, however, to discipline a vicious instinct in one direction, if one panders to it in another. Women have given up italics; but they have set no watch against over-emphasis in more insidious forms. And so their writing is commonly marred by an undue insistence, a shrillness, a certain quality of multiloquence. ”

“ It is less difficult, I should say, to succeed moderately in journalism than to succeed moderately in dressmaking. Any woman of understanding and education, provided she has good health and the necessary iron determination, can become a competent journalist of sorts if she chooses to put herself into hard training for a year or two--and this irrespective of natural bent. Yet even so, I would recommend you, unless you are assured of a genuine predisposition towards it, to find another and less exhausting, less disappointing occupation than journalism. ”

“ Having written an article, they send it to the first paper whose name enters their heads, without giving a single thought to the question of suitability. By such beginners the Standard, the Sun, and the Morning Advertiser are recognised merely as so many dailies, the Saturday Review, Tit-Bits, and the Bazaar merely as so many weeklies, and the Strand, Macmillan's Magazine, and the Fortnightly merely as so many monthlies; and no doubt when their stuff has been refused by the Standard, they blithely forward it to the Sun, and so on. ”

“ In the early years of daily journalism, for example, the sole subjects deemed worthy of a newspaper's attention were politics, money, and the law. Some conservative sheets still endeavour to live up to this ideal, but the circulation and the influence go to those which find no aspect of human existence beneath their notice. Formerly newspapers had a morbid dread of being readable. They have lost that dread now, and those which have lost it most completely, most completely succeed. As with the dailies, so with every other sort of paper. ”

“ As in other arts, so in journalism, the high essentials may not be inculcated. It is the mere technique which is imparted. By a curious paradox, the student is taught, of art, only what he already knows. Anyone can learn to write, and to write well, in any given style; but to see, to discern the interestingness which is veiled from the crowd--that comes not by tuition ”

“ 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. ”

“ Writers upon cookery in women's papers have been content, without thinking upon what is really wanted, to follow the methods of cookery books, ignoring the truism that cookery books, by reason of their omissions and silences, are valuable only to efficient cooks, who stand in no deep need of them. It is to the inexperienced cook that cookery articles are designed to appeal, and therefore they should be exhaustive, describing processes exactly, measuring quantities with precision, taking nothing for granted, leaving nothing to the imagination. ”

“ But how are you, the woman who desires to be a journalist, to ascertain whether you have that genuine predisposition, those natural gifts which will renew your strength and take away the bitterness of disappointments? You may come some way towards deciding the point by answering these three questions:--
Are you seriously addicted to reading newspapers and periodicals? Does the thought regularly occur to you, apropos of fact or incident personally observed: "Here is 'copy' for a paper"? Have you the reputation among your friends of being a good letter-writer? ”

“ If a woman considers herself destined for the comic press, her wisest course is to collaborate with an artist. A joke may be the best and most original joke in the world, but it will not have a very safe chance of acceptance unless it is illustrated. The illustration per se may be without talent; no matter; mediocre pictures have certainly been instrumental in selling innumerable jokes. And as with jokes, so with "skits," satires, and parodies: the writer must combine with the artist if success is to be reached. ”

“ That editors are invisible is taken for granted only by the inexperienced. Without doubt editors love to surround themselves with an atmosphere of mystery, aloofness, and sovereignty, but in truth they are human beings, and may be so treated. The invisibility of editors is mainly a legend. If you call at a newspaper office and, presenting your card, ask in a firm voice to see the editor, the probability is that you will see him, or some one else clothed with authority. ”

“ Since the early failures of every aspirant are without doubt largely due to the neglect of this branch of journalistic learning, let me once more lay stress on the fact that every paper differs from every other paper in its needs--in what it demands from the outside contributor. Each paper has its own public, its own policy, its own tone, its own physiognomy, its own preferences, its own prejudices. These must be studied--as one would study a subject like zoology. And as in zoology, to acquire a useful knowledge, it is necessary to classify. ”

“ When such a person, writing over her own name in the columns of a renowned and powerful paper, may thus brazenly ignore the elementary principles of composition, it may be guessed what latitude of carelessness and error is allowed to obscurer performers in obscurer sheets.
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It is not only in the apparently trivial but really important details of style that women's work falls short, but in qualities even more vital. Fashion, to refer again to that branch of journalism, is a complicated and difficult subject, requiring for its adequate treatment the utmost orderliness and lucidity. ”

“ Stated plainly, my first charge amounts to this: women-journalists are unreliable as a class. They are unreliable, not by sexual imperfection, or from any defect of loyalty or good faith, but because they have not yet understood the codes of conduct prevailing in the temples so recently opened to them. On the hearth, their respect for the exigencies of that mysterious business is unimpeachable; somehow, admittance to the shrine engenders a certain forgetfulness, Or perhaps it would be kinder and truer to say that the influences of domesticity are too strong to be lightly thrown off. ”

“ They are not expected to suffer the same discipline, nor are they judged by the same standards. In Fleet Street femininity is an absolution, not an accident. The statement may be denied, but it is broadly true, and can easily be demonstrated.
Such a condition of affairs is mischievous. It works injustice to both parties, but more particularly to the woman, since it sets an arbitrary limit to healthy competition, while putting a premium on mediocrity. Is there any sexual reason why a woman should be a less accomplished journalist than a man? ”

“ The splendid pertinacity and ingenuity of the American journalist in wringing copy out of any and every side of existence cannot fail to quicken the pulses of those who are accustomed to the soberer, narrower, sleepier ways of English newspapers. Fleet Street pretends to despise and contemn American methods, yet a gradual Americanising of the English press is always taking place, with results on the whole admirable.
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Photography is an aid to the outside contributor. Illustrations always assist an article; sometimes they are sufficient to make an unsaleable article saleable. ”

“ The simple fact of course is that in journalism, as probably in no other profession, success depends wholly upon the loyal co-operation, the perfect reliability, of a number of people--some great, some small, but none irresponsible. ”

“ Every paper has its regular staff of leader-writers, and what is wanted from the outsider is freshness. An editor tosses aside your column and a half about evolution, but is glad to have a paragraph saying that you saw Herbert Spencer the day before yesterday gazing solemnly for ten minutes in a milliner's window. Fleet Street at this moment is simply running with men who want to air their views about things in general. ”

“ Chapter III The Roads towards Journalism
More women long and strive to be journalists than by natural gifts are fitted for the profession. By itself, the wish is no evidence of latent capacity. Such desire may be induced by the need to earn a livelihood; or by the peremptory impulse to do something which drives forward so many women to-day; or perhaps through conversing with an enthusiastic journalist ”

“ Among morning papers, the most attractive to the outside contributor is the Daily Mail, one of the best-edited newspapers in the world. The Daily Mail does not ask itself on receiving an unsolicited contribution: "Is it our custom to publish things of this kind"? No, it scorns precedent and is always anxious for novelty. It demands absolute freshness, a great deal of verve, and the strictest brevity. It makes a feature of very short interviews and articles on topics of the hour. ”

“ It was to Adam the time that a man can least forget in after life, --the time when he believes that the first woman he has ever loved betrays by a slight something--a word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or an eyelid--that she is at least beginning to love him in return. ”

“ Even a lexicographer may nod, but it surely requires no intellectual power surpassing the achievement of women to refrain from regularly mis-spelling some of the commonest English words. The fact that there are niceties of syntax which have proved too much for great literary artists, does not make less culpable a wilful ignorance of the leading grammatical rules; yet the average woman will not undergo the brief drudgery of learning them. ”

“ The root of the evil lies, as I think, in training. The female sex is prone to be inaccurate and careless of apparently trivial detail, because that is the general tendency of mankind. In men destined for a business or a profession, the proclivity is harshly discouraged at an early stage. In women, who usually are not destined for anything whatever, it enjoys a merry life, and often refuses to be improved out of existence when the sudden need arises. No one by taking thought, can deracinate the mental habits of, say, twenty years. ”

“ We may no more choose our styles than our characters. Style, like character, can, it is true, be trained--strengthened, chastened, refined, rendered shapely; but in essentials it must for ever remain as it originally was. It is the expression, not only of the thoughts immediately to be set down, but of the very man himself, and with the man it will develop. It cannot be invented ”

“ Although they care nothing for the graces of style, they know precisely what they want, and they insist on getting it.
Next to the popular penny weeklies as prey meet for the aspirant, I name the three "Gazettes," the Pall Mall, the Westminster, and the St. James's. These--the first two especially--make a point of their hospitality to the outside contributor. They appeal of course to a cultured class, and they are catholic in their tastes--ready for anything provided it is topical and well done. They pride themselves on being literary, and therefore good style is essential. ”