The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1873-03-20


hooks 4 steel. they have not scrupled to
seize and to turn 10 account every good
thought hey could pick up in their reading.
Milton boldly pIagarized from Dante and
Tasso, and ali OF them from Homer sn&
who believes that Homer had no reservoir
OF learning Ito draw FROM no mysterious
lake OF knowledge, Into which he could now
and then throw bucket? Goethe laughed
The idea Of absolute originality O scorn, and
declared that it an authors du'y o use
all THAI was suggested to him from any quar-
ter. what is a great man." asked Emer-
son. but one of great affinitIes. who takes
up into himself all arts. sciences, all knowa~
oles, as his TODD 800. Every book is quo
tatlon and every house is quotation OUT
OF all forests and mines, and stone queries:
and every man is quotation from all his
ancestors" Occasional accidental coinci-
dences of thought and expression will not de.
tract from writer's just fame. It is only
the habifual and conscious thief, the maa
who lines by plumber. and who thus shows
himself to be both weak and wicked, that
merits the plllory. Literal, bald borrowing
whether of the plan or treatment-the SUBJ
stance or form-the thoughts or expressions.
of work, is absolutely indefensible but he
is not thief who borrcws he ideas OF hun
dred other men and repays them with com
pound interest. 1t is one thing to purloin
fntiy-tempercd steel, and another to takea
pound OF literary old iron. and convert it in
he furnace of ones mind into a hundred
watch-springs, worth each q thousand times
as much as tho iron. When genus borrows,
1t borrows grandiy, giving to the borrowed
matter lie aud beauty it lacked before.
When Shakespeare is accused of pilfering,
Lander replies !: "Yet he was more original
than his originals. He breathed upon dead
bodies, and brought them into life " 1t has
been said Of Pope that, whatever jewel he
appropriated, he set in gold. Perhaps the
best definition OF Legitimate appropriation
was given by Hegel. when Cousin was accu~
sed of stealing his ideas. Cousin" SAID he,
IN Is caught some small fishes in my pond,
but he hhs drowned them IN bis ewD sauce +"
This Was quite different from the case OF
patchwork sermon preached by Mr.. Fish,
of which old lady com planned that it was
$50 full of pOlIa ~ogs thatsle couldn't see
the Fish,
For these reasons, about the meanesS busi-
ness literary man can engage in is that
raIgnng AUTH for THEFT on The score of
pretty parailelisms and condolences. The
small critics who stoop to this are like con-
stables who thrive by catching thieves; they
hunt down the cuIprits not because their
mora sense is outraged. but because they
F,n hoo tba ,Ha
MolIere was tainted with having plagiarized
q scene here, q situation there, character
elsewhere. he replied ''Je reprends mon bien
on je ie trouve-I recoye, my property where
everEl findit." The whole philosophy of pla-
giarism lies In that sentence. A mantof genius
takes unhesitatingly whatever he can organ.
iZe vulgar pagarist is vulgar thief, a
liar. and braggart, calling on men to I'D.
mire the peacock splendor Of his wretched
daw nature. Ninetenths OF what is denouu-
ced as plagiarism Is only such as the plants
exercise upon the earth and air,-or the bee
upon the flowers and honeysuckles, Ito
organize the stolen ma erial into higher
forms, and make it suitable for the food OF
man.
The fact is, our literature, and all litera~
ture, abounds with those simiarIties of
thought and expression which are so hastily
denounced as isreinies Roman literature
was one immense plagiarism Milton has
been called the celestial thief" Paley.
Butler, Colerdge, Southey, Gray, helped
themselves freely 20 other mems thoughts.
''Garth did not write his own Dspensary."
Ran no riolc of ia
les from the classics; Miraheau got the ablest
of this speeches from Dunont. Fox was
often primed by Burke, and Burke by Boiling
broke. G. itics with provokingly tenacious
memories have declared that many
OF Robert Halls gems of illustration were
conveyed" from Burke, Grattau, and War
burton and that some Of them have been
recouyeyed by Macauiy from Hall. 1t has
been asserted that aIl the thinking in Chal-
mer's economical discourses is cribbed from
Andrew Tuller's THE Gospel It's O,cn Witness.
John Foster has truly sail that it is the mark
and the prerogative of genius to be capable
of lighting It's own fire but it is no mark
of s!ayish imitation If it sometimes kindl0,
its flame by an electric spark caught from
kindred mind Ovid complains of the early
writer's for having :'stoen all the good
things !" the early writer's stole from the
Greeks the Greeks cribbed from the Egyp-
tians the Egyptians flched from the ante
dituvians and they, we suppose, puriolned
from the Prometheus who stole the fre d.
rectly from heaven 1t is easy TO raise the
hue and-cry of Plagiarism but, IN many
cases. the simiIarities upon which the litera-