The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-07-16
VERIFY YOUR QUOTATIONS.
Serious Blunders Made by Prominent Lit
erary Men.

| Serious Blunders Made by Prominent Lit
erary Men.
The late Dean Stanley, when he visited
this country, few years before his
death, delivered several pertinent and
very sensible addresses. In one of
these. pronounced in New York before
the students of theological school in
that city, he advised the young men,
among other things, to verify their quo
tations. The counsel was certainly very
good, and the necessity of such veritica-
ton Is laid upon all public speakers and
writers. For there is hardly anything
so common as are the mistakes in quo
ting another's language which we find
in literature-mistakes that arise from
the practice of quoting from memory
INDUCED in by writers not few. There
is, indeed, question of morality be-
hind this matter, and it has been Sc
| riously discussed whether a writer is
| bound to do more than to give the sub
| stance of the sentence which he quotes,
instead of the exact words. May not
man be too finical and precise? Why
should he spend an hour or two in
hunting up the quotation that is in his
mind, even if he unconsciously change
the authors language, without doing
violence to the authors thought? The
| chief danger is the contraction of loose
habits of composition. For there is no
wish or design to misrepresent or state
| falsely the opinions which another has
| expressed. We say nothing here, eX-
| cept in censure, of the practice of the
compilers of HYMN books, who, with
malice prepense alter, prune, and often
| times sadly mutilate the religious poetry
that comes beneath their imp;ous hands.
The immortality of that kind of work is
| beyond question.
The remark which Steele made in
reference, as is generally supposed, to
Lady Elizabeth Hastings, has often been
| quoted and almost as often quoted in
correctly. Steele wrote: Though her
mien carries much more invitation than
command, to behold her is an immedi
! ate check to loose behavior; to love her
was a liberal education" There are
| two curious Interpretations on this bright
| and famous sentence, which Thackeray
declared to be 1.-The finest compliment
to woman that perhaps was ever
! offered" One is in the essay on Pope
contained in James Russell LOwelrs
'sMy Study Windows. "Was it not in
this age" says Mr.. Lowell. that loose
Dick Steele paid his wife the finest COM
| pliment ever paid to woman, when he
said that to know her was a liberal
education?'" Here are two distinct
errors committed by so careful a writer
as Mr.. Lowell. Yet he is not alone in
this. Arthur Helps, in his romance of
'Realmah, has this sentence: ."Steele
| also did not i'll describe, though briefly,
| the charm of being with a woman whom
he greatly admired. when he said that
to be much with her was in itself lib
eral education" We are also told that
Leigh Hunt once, in quoting the re-
mark, incorrectly ascribed it to Con-
greve. Here, then, are three distinct
Writers of high rank who have shown
how, in 4 moment of careless compo-
sition, they were lead astray by an in
accurate remembrance. They had no
desire to misquote their author, and
they gave the substance. But they
grievously failed in the words them
selves, and one of them, at least in their
application.
There are slips of the tongue and
slips of the pen to which the best
speakers and writers are liable, and we
are not, therefore, disposed to be CEN
serious. How often have Millions
fresh woods and pastures new been
changed to fresh fieldSr' Words.
worth's primrose by a rivers brim"
has been rendered ''cowslips on the
rivers brink and sometimes ION the
fountains brim." Cowpers "cups
that cheer but.not inebriate" have been
almost always made to appear in the
singular number, really destroying the
sense of the passage to a great extent.
We heard a canon in Yorkminister once
begin sermon in this way: Zone Of
our poets, Cowper, L think, has said
that there are books in the running
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in
everything, - and nobody in the
large congregation appeared to be
astonished. We also heard learned
professor at college commencement
dinner speak of ''the still vex'd Ber-
moOthes" and ascribe the phrase of
Milton. The cynosure of neighboring
eyes" is often presented as the ''cyno-
sure of every eye" and ''that last in
trinity of noble mind is generally rem
dered 1.-The last infrmity of noble
mind" which possibly Milton meant
to say. A preacher of our acquaintance
who is usually very careful in his refer
ences, once. to his own subsequent
modification. attributed the Injunction
of the apostle James, ''Be We doors of
the word and not hearers only" to St.
Paul.
But those who quote incorrectly MAJ
comfort themselves by thinking that
they are in good company. There are.
as every careful reader knows. numer-
Gus quotations in the New Testament
from the writers of the Hebrew Scrip
lures in the old. They are made almost
altogether from the septuagint versions.
and not from the original Hebrew, and
in great many cases the quotations
are not accurately given. In some
cases the New Testament writers seem
to have had the Greek translation be-
fore them; il others. possibly version
in the Aramaiac tongue; but they often.
doubtless, quoted from memory. and
could not always recall the precise
words. The same thing appears in the
quotations which the early Christian
fathers made from the Gospels and
other sacred writings. Absolute exact
itude is not always to be found
Perhaps it may be thought that
these are small matters, and we may be |
told that little things are great to lit. |