The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-11-07
ALL ARE PLAGIARIsTs.

| is forgotten" once remarked Marie
| Antoinette's milliner. and then no
| doubt proceeded 10 decorate the un-
| fortunate queen in ribbons and furbe-
lows, once common TO fashion that
had been forgotten And the milliner's
remark was not exactly original, for
! the preacher in EccleSiastes had made
use of similar sentiment several thou
| sand years before, when he said
There is nothing new under the SUM-"
There is a volume of truth in the senti-
ment, however, no matter how ancient,
or how often it is repeated. If TO say
| or write words that have been said or
written before constitutes plagiarism
| then all speakers and writers are pla-
giariSts. Shakespeare, 7CervanteS,
VOltaire, men of marvellous mental re-
sources, adapted, repeated and appro-
priated the thoughts of others. The
last named once wrote: '.All the max
ers of dictionaries, all compilers who
do nothing else than repeat backward
and forward the opinions, the errors,
the impostures. and the truths already
printed, we may term plagiarists; but
honest plagiaristS, who arrogate not
the merit of invention" The Cincin-
natl Tmes-Star says even Robert
Louis Stevenson, with one of the rich
est minds of modern times, acknowl-
edged just before his death that his
Treasure Island was largely based
on ideas he found in Robinson Cru
soc" 1t is related in THE Eclipse of
Faith that the author, in one of his
intellectual visions, saw suddenly ex-
plunged from literature every text,
every phrase, which had been quoted
or borrowed from the IDLE, not only in
the books of devotion and theology. but
in those of poetry and fiction. Said
the author:
Never before had I any adequate idea
of the extent TO which the Bible had
nodded the Intellectual and moral life of
the last eighteen centuries nor how init
mately 1t had interfused Itself with the
habits of thought and modes of express
it's comprehensive imagery and language
had been introduced into human writings,
and most of all where there had been most
Of genius. A vast portion of literature
became instantly worthless, and il was
transformed into so much waste paper.
1t was almost impossible to look into any
book of merit and read ten pages to-
gether without coming to some provoking
erasures and mutilations, which made
whole passages uninteiligible. Many of
the sweetest passages of Shakespeare
were converted into nonsense, from the
absence of those words which his own all
but divine genius had appropriated from
still diviner source. AS 10 Milton, he was
nearly ruined. as might naturally be sup
posed. Walter Scotts novels were filed
with lacunae. 1 hoped 1t might be other
wise with the philosophers. and so It
was; but even here IT was curious 20
see what strange ravages the visitation |
had wrought Some of the most beauti- |
full and comprehensive OF Bacon's |
aphorisms were reduced to engmaticaI !
nonsense.
Many Of the plays OF Shakespeare /
are historical. OF course their plots I
were not invented by him. but plots of /
Shakespeare's plays that are not his |
tOrical can be found In Boccaccio or |
older authors. Bulwer borrowed the /
incidents Of his stories from legends q /
thousand or more years old An orig
inal story told by Horace Walpole OF |
an Irishman who said he would have
been handsome man if they had not
him in his cradle, was taken
from Cervantes' Don Quixote." and
he borrowed it from the Greeks and |
the Greeks stole it from the Egyptians
centuries before. Virgil, the poet
laureate of Rome. borrowed from Nae
vius and Naevius would have accom-
plished but little as poet had not the
great Homer preceded him. Mon
taigne once put the whole business Of
adapting, borrowing. plagiarizing or
10y whatever term it is known in a
when he compared his writ
ings to thread that binds the flowers
Of others. and says that in necessarily
pouring the waters Of a few good old
authors into his sieve some drops fall
upon his paper In an article on pla-
giarism recently contributed 10 The
Writer, Charles Robinson quotes from
Mr.. Puff's defense when caught ap-
line from "Othello." as
follows: That's OF no consequence;
all that can be said is that two people
10 hit on the same thought.
and Shakespeare made use OF it first.
That's ALL
PECULIAR NEW MACHINE