To return to the date of Johnstone's arrival at the _Guardian_ office in
Manchester, where he was made welcome. He found friends upon the staff,
and kept them in spite of his want of sympathy with some of the
political views of the paper. On politics he never wrote, except when
recording matters of fact on his mission to the Greco-Turkish war. But,
not to speak of living persons, he was brought for some years into close
contact with one of the best-equipped and finest-tempered journalists
of our time. William Thomas Arnold, the son of Thomas, and nephew of
Matthew Arnold, was one of the two or three men, senior to himself, in
his personal circle, for whom Johnstone had a profound regard both as a
man and as a master-craftsman. This regard was well-deserved. An
authoritative scholar in the history of the early Roman Empire, a critic
who cast original light on Keats and some of the Jacobean poets, at home
in Dryden, in the French literature both of the great century and the
romantic age, abreast also of criticism in both countries, and a sound
vigorous judge of acting and the drama, Arnold made time to share the
daily burdens and aid in sustaining the high uncompromising standards of
a newspaper whose many foes have never questioned its consistent and
iron courage during the last ten years. Arnold often stood to Johnstone
in the capacity of actual editorial chief for the evening. It is hateful
to be edited, even to the change of a comma, except where errors of fact
or risks of libel are in question. Political contributions are another
thing; a common line--the "view of the paper"--must be adhered to, and
self-sacrifice in detail, within large limits, is simply necessary. That
is warfare; you may resign your commission, but, if you do not, must
accept instructions. But in art and letters! The mutual respect of the
two men may be measured by the freedom that was left to Johnstone, and
by the spirit in which he, rightly the most sensitive of men in such
concerns and naturally irritable, took the occasional blue-pencillings.
His other colleagues also held Johnstone in regard, in spite of the
vehemence with which he went his own way. Sometimes he would come in
from the concert, like an instrument whose strings are still quivering
at full pitch, and this is not the mood for rapid committee work at
night. There might be one great explanation from time to time which
cleared the air. It was seen that he was thinking of his subject, and
not of his own vanity, and that he was immensely, indignantly, and
delightfully wrapped up in that subject. On the whole it was a good
training for him, and few strong men, beginning at the age of
thirty-four, would have shown themselves, despite occasional rubs, so
reasonably adaptive. It may also be said that few newspapers would have
stood so well by a writer who, whenever he felt it his duty to do so,
would promptly perturb the musical hive, careless whether drone or
hornet minded. Mr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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