Justification by Faith.

The other day, when we were talking about the design of this and other publications, our frequent correspondent Occasional Correspondent pointed out that handwritten essays like this one in our Magazine usually have nearly even alignment on the right as well as on the left.

To someone whose writing career began in the nineteenth century, lining up the right edge of a page is instinct. It is as obviously necessary as matching one’s socks. There is no obvious reason why socks must match: mismatched socks cover the feet just as well, and you might spare yourself quite a bit of time rummaging in the socks drawer if you accepted the first two socks that came out. But that is not done.

Every manual of penmanship teaches that the lines should be as even as possible on the right, and neatness is considered a sufficient justification for justification.

But there is a practical reason for it as well, though it may not be obvious if you do not write for publication.

Writing is only the first stage in preparing a manuscript. The second stage is revision. You read over what you have written and start crossing things out, replacing whole paragraphs, adding what you forgot to put in when you were writing, or what you have just thought of now.

All these revisions are made in the margins, in your own hand, the same as the manuscript itself. If there is not a clear border between manuscript and revisions, you will make an indecipherable mess of the page. Thus those neat, even lines are not a luxury but a necessity to someone who, like Dr. Boli, writes by hand with the intention of revising the text for the press. As we often find when we look deeper into what seem like senseless traditions, there are sound practical reasons for neat margins.