The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1892-08-20
TIE QUESTION OF PLAGIARISM.
Gems OF Thought, 1t Appears, May BE
Stolen if Put in New Settings.

Gems of Thought, 1t Appears, May Be
Stolen if Put in New Settings.
No one has ever been able to de-
fine what plagiarism is, and there
fore it is unlikely that there should
be any general agreement as to what
makes a man liable to such a charge.
The question is perpetually recurring
in other fields of literature as well as
in homiletics, and no one has laid
down any scientific principle of suffi-
Gent clearness to decide all disputes.
It cannot be that a man who is in
debted to another for an idea is
guilty of theft if he adapts it for his
own purposes; for, if such an appro-
priation be fraud, nearly all modern
writer's have committed unpardon-
able sins against the ancients.
They may not have known every
thing clown in JUDGE. "but the range
of literary and speculative ideas was
remarkably extensive in Greece, and
if we are going to judge those of our
writers-tO confine ourselves only to
our own nationality-who have owed
inspiration to Athens, we shall have
to condemn a good many illustrious
names. Chaucer, Spenser, Shake
speare, Milton, Dryden, Pope-whose
withers will be unwrung? A short
time ago a critic took occasion to
draw up a list of instances in which
the poet laureate had adopted
thoughts and expressions from his
predecessors. 1t was wholly a work
of supererogation, for Lord Jenny
son would be the first to admit the
debt which he, in common with
other poets, owes to Homer and Vir-
gil. Classical phrases are taken
wholesale, as every student knows,
witness such lines as This way and
that dividing the swift mind" and
''She could not draw the quiet night
into her blood"-the last a capital in
stance, for it assimilates and i'm
proves upon the original.
It is not freshness of thought
alone, but also freshness of treat
ment, which gives an author the
right to call his work original. If
we take the supreme instance of
Shakespeare we see at once that the
real question in many cases of this
kind is not where the writer got the
idea, but what he HAD done with it.
A poet, a novelist, an essayist, a
preacher a take a hint in a crude
state and SO transform it by the as
sOciatiOns and characteristics of his
own mind that he is justly entitled
to claim it as his own. He cannot
be called a plagiarist, at all events;
for many of these SO called thefts
are unconscious "reminiscences, I'M
recognized as such, which are worked
into the texture of a mans own
thoughts and made instinct with his
w personality.
In novels and romances, again, we
have numerous instances of the same
free exchange; nc n ought to call
it by a harder name, unless he is
able to discount the frequency of
literary condolences or possesses a
higher originality than that to which
most of us can attain. Such re1ec-
tons, no doubt. were present in the
minds of the Congregational union
when they absolved MI. Woods from
the charges made against him. He
was no plagiarist, because, while
from Dr.. Dykes valuable store he
selected a few homiltic gems, he pre-
scented them to his congregation at
Clapton sparkling in some original
setting of his own.-London Tele-
graph.
A Story About Ex-Governor Curtin.
Ex-Governor Curtin stopped off
here on his way to Philadelphia.
while governor" he said, "a friend
of mine called to see me, and in the
course of conversation asked me
whether l could tell him where to
get a good horse, as he wanted to
buy one, but wanted a first class ami
NAL.
Il told him l a nc judge Of
horses, but pointed to DR.. Ruther-
ford, an old Harrisburg physician,
now deceased, who was present, and
said, The doctor there can give you
the desired information
1.-THE doctor said, DO you want a
first class animal!'
"'I do said the friend.
"'Well, SIR replied the doctor,
you can't go amiss in buying any
horse you see within a radius of
forty miles of Harrisburg. for all the
bad horses have been bought up and
turned over to the government for
the use of the army.'"-Harrisburg
Patriot.
KISSING on the Stare.