Authorship

“ If one prefers the theory of single authorship—an authorship of course which is limited as the subject matter of the tales was common property—one can find just as many arguments for it as the [14] upholders of the plural authorship theory can lay against it. ”

“ The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship. ”

“ It draws from any number of learned and skilful contributors; but a more learned and skilful person supervises, corrects, and coordinates. Of this closet, the secret does not transpire. No writer is suffered to claim the authorship of any paper; every thing good, from whatever quarter, comes out editorially; and thus, by making the paper every thing, and those who write it nothing, the character and the awe of the journal gain. ”

“ I have tried to indicate some of the obvious temptations of authors, especially so far as they are strengthened by the practice of authorship as a profession. They may be summed up by saying that they tend to degrade the profession into a trade, and a trade which has as many tricks as the least elevating kind of business. ”

“ Very few persons are educated with the view to their becoming authors. They generally write on subjects pertaining to the profession or business in which they have been practically engaged: a clergyman writes on divinity; a physician, on medicine; a lawyer, on jurisprudence; a teacher, on education; and a mechanic, on his particular trade. There are [59] subjects, however, which occupy common ground, on which individuals of various professions often write.
3. Authorship is founded upon the invention of letters, and the art of combining them into words. ”

“ You must study life and human nature. You must go through the best authors, with careful noting of the style of each. You must bind yourself to habits of regular work, and not allow your plans to be lightly broken. Authorship is business, not play: and it must be treated as business. ”

“ But wofully will that man find himself mistaken, who imagines that the profession of literature, or (to speak more plainly) the trade of authorship, besets its members with fewer or with less insidious temptations, than the Church, the law, or the different branches of commerce. ”

“ The first is the disinclination of the more educated classes to write for their country in their own language. Authorship is with us still the vocation of the needy and fawning Pundit, or the ambitious school-boy, or the idle scribbler who must needs be an author simply because he cannot be anything else. ”

“ The view of life of these people, my comrades in authorship, consisted in this: that life in general goes on developing, and in this development we—men of thought—have the chief part; and among men of thought it is we—artists and poets—who have the greatest influence. Our vocation is to teach mankind. ”

“ There are subjects of deep interest, which lie somewhat nearer the surface of the earth—the origin of certain usages and undertakings, and the authorship of certain long-lived works, which appear to be made of a species of literary everlasting, but whose original proprietors have never been discovered. ”

“ But after the restraints and rules which must guide the acknowledged author, whose power of making a real contribution is ascertained, comes the consideration, how or on what principle are we to find a check for that troublesome disposition to authorship arising from the spread of what is called Education, which turns a growing rush of vanity and ambition into this current? The well-taught, an increasing number, are almost all able to write essays on given themes, which demand new periodicals to save them from lying in cold obstruction. ”

“ Drawing on a wide range of authorship studies and thoroughly conversant with the methods discussed, Love is essential reading for anyone investigating the authorship of a document or evaluating the evidence behind an attribution. ”

“ If you would know how to make yourself master of any book that you read, form the habit, if the book is your own, of making notes with a pencil in the margin of the pages; but if the book is not your property, or in any case, take a sheet of paper and write at the end of every chapter questions on the matter discussed, and the answer to such questions will probably bring out the author’s meaning so fully that you will have absorbed the book and made it your own; for, as an eminent American author has said, “thought is the property of whoever can entertain it.” ”

“ In making up the volume I have drawn less on documents,—charters, messages, resolutions, declarations, instructions, statutes, and treaties,—than on those kinds of material in which the personality of the writer plays a greater part,—journals, letters, reports, discussions, and reminiscences. Whenever a piece could be found which is both characteristic and well written, it has been chosen over a piece which is equally accurate but has less literary merit. ”

“ So in all work in composition, select a subject that readily lends itself to the form of discourse demanded; or, conversely, select the form of discourse suitable for presenting most effectively your material.
Author’s Individuality. If an author is writing for other purposes than for conscious practice, he should choose the form of discourse in which he can best work, and to which he can best shape his material. Some men tell stories well; others are debaters; while yet others are wonderfully gifted with eloquence. ”

“ One should read at his writing-desk, pen in hand, taking note of new and striking thoughts, of graceful and forcible modes of expression; bringing the author's ideas into the presence of higher truths, of principles that are fixed; rejecting what is false, assimilating what is just. Better still, write yourselves. Do not imagine that I have the faintest [pg 204] desire to encourage you to become authors; there would be fewer and better authors if men were in the habit of doing what I would have you do. ”

“ The publisher introduced him to me as a gentleman scarcely less eminent in literature than in music, and me to him as an aspirant critic—a young gentleman scarcely less eminent in philosophy than in philology. ”

“ But finally, when several publishers offered to take the story as fiction, I cut short all negotiations and decided to publish it myself. Where I am known at all, it is my misfortune to be known as a writer of fiction. ”

“ The literature of which I have hitherto spoken is that of which analysis can take cognisance, the writing which possesses a measure, at least, of distinction, of accomplishment, that which, in every class, belongs to the tradition of good work. It is very easy to draw a rough line, not too high, above which all may fairly be treated as literature in posse if not in esse. In former ages, almost all that was published, certainly all that attracted public attention and secured readers, was of this sort. ”

“ As the field, however, is so ample that even to do justice to an outline will require much attention to arrangement, it will be necessary to distribute what we have to offer, in this stage of our work, under the heads of Bibliography, Philology, Criticism, History, General, Local, and Personal, and Miscellaneous Literature; premising that as we confine ourselves, in the strictest sense, to elegant literature, or what has been termed the Belles Lettres, science, theology, and politics, will, of course, be excluded. ”

“ If it is not a wise and proper policy to commence with the authors generally recognized and acclaimed as the best in the realms of pure literature, what principle can be adopted as a guide to such an immense labyrinth as the field of general literature? ”

“ And what, then, must the Great Author of all things think of one who thus comes into his presence, extols his works in all moods and tenses, the Great Author knowing that this flatterer has never studied out a line in the great book of Nature—nay, that he has discouraged others from studying it? I come now to certain guiding ideas—necessary in carrying out any worthy system of scientific and industrial education. ”

“ I shall then deviate from this ancient established usage of writers, for various, and to myself obvious reasons, the most prominent of which is, that I esteem that class of persons into whose hands this work may fall, as an intelligent and reading people, better prepared to pass judgment than myself, who, if they utter criticism, will base their opinions upon the merit of the work itself, aside from the self-eulogistic encomiums of the author. ”

“ The Name of the Author ought to be the last thing we inquire into, when we Judge of the merit of an ingenious Composure, but contrary to this maxim we generally judge of the Book by the Author, instead of judging of the Author by the Book. ”

“ We have shown the world that we possess writers of the first order in this delightful province of Fiction and of Truth; for every Fiction invented naturally, must be true. After the abundant invective poured on this class of books, it is time to settle for ever the controversy, by asserting that these works of fiction are among the most instructive of every polished nation, and must contain all the useful truths of human life, if composed with genius. ”

“ Whatever the publication to which an author desires to contribute, he should consider first, last, and all the time, its readers—their surroundings, their education, their income, their ambitions, their amusements, their prejudices—in short, he must see them as they really are. ”

“ If I touch various objects, and ride into miry places, it is to baffle any mischance befalling me as an author, to prevent my books getting into disrepute; in nine cases out of ten to prevent any expressions, thoughts, or situations in any work which I am writing from resembling the thoughts, expressions, and situations of other authors, for my great wish, as I told you before, is to be original. ”

“ Lastly, and chiefly, I commend these classical authors to you because they, in the European civilisation which we all inherit, conserve the norm of literature; the steady grip on the essential; the clean outline at which in verse or in prose—in epic, drama, history, or philosophical treatise—a writer should aim. ”

“ We select and set aside as literature that which is original, the product of what we call genius. As I have said, the subject of a production does not always determine the desired quality which makes it literature. A biography may contain all the facts in regard to a man and his character, arranged in an orderly and comprehensible manner, and yet not be literature ”

“ By the perusal of history you will learn to distinguish truth from fable, and to know what part is founded on fact, and what on the imagination of the poet. These authors will store your mind with images the most sublime and beautiful, assist your judgment, and form your taste; since their works have been esteemed the model for composition in all succeeding times. Without a constant attention, therefore, to improve in reading and understanding them, you will be ignorant of those subjects which every author refers to ”

“ The whole book—both introduction and essay—is the production of a master hand and an enthusiast in his art. He says, ‘I practised several of the methods then published, in hopes of becoming master of the best, but I soon discovered that in all of them there were a number of deficiencies, which, at different times, I endeavoured to supply.’ He tells us that he had perused more than forty publications and manuscripts on shorthand writing, and that with none of them was he thoroughly satisfied. ”

“ Hence it is that, though certain of the wise sayings or verses it contains may have authors assigned to them, no really ancient book claims to have an author—a human author. It is only later that the tendency is felt to satisfy the natural craving for a cause by assigning books to individual hands. ”

“ There are moreover qualities of style which, though [Pg 106] they may not entitle an author to a place in the first rank of writers, must secure for him a high regard as an authentic historian. Indeed, in this department of literature, those less brilliant and less attractive qualities which give security as to an historian’s diligence, accuracy, and impartiality, may well be accepted in place of the brighter recommendations of genius, or eloquence, or powers of description. ”

“ But if we are to be answered by a class, plethoric with wealth and rank; that literature ought to be content with living on its own means; must not the obvious answer be—Is the author to be an author, down to his grave? ”

“ As regards the particular consideration, when people see a book, and know that its author is skilled in the branch of science of which it treats, and is thoroughly versed therein, they judge its merits more fairly and apply themselves more seriously to read and remember it, so that both author and reader are better satisfied. ”

“ What scholarship has agreed upon as the meaning of a word, that must be its meaning for us. Words come and words go, and change with the passing of time. We must seek, then, the sense of the word as used at the time of the work or writer studied. We must, further, determine the classification of the document concerned, whether technical, scientific, or literature for art's sake. ”

“ Whatever may be the merit of the work of which we are speaking, it must be admitted, that few, on their first appearance, and during a long subsequent period after publication, have received greater or warmer applause. The stores of erudition displayed in it, recommended it to the classical scholar, while the happy application of the author's reading to the affairs of human life, drew to it the attention of common readers. ”

“ If the writer is capable of skilful condensation, without loss of grace of composition, or of graphic power, then the article, measured by its influence upon the public mind, must be preferred to the more diffuse treatise of the book. ”

“ In the progress of these researches many topics presented themselves, some of which, from their novelty and curiosity, courted investigation. Literary history, in this enlarged circuit, becomes not merely a philological history of critical erudition, but ascends into a philosophy of books where their subjects, their tendency, and their immediate or gradual influence over the people discover their actual condition.
Authors are the creators or the creatures of opinion; the great form an epoch, the many reflect their age. ”