The San Francisco call., 1896-03-04
FAMILIAR MISCONCEPTIONS.
Passages Should Never Be Cited at
Second Hand.

Second Hand.
Of the many causes of misquotation the
most fruitful is citing passage at second
hand. Hundreds of familiar quotations,
however, which are continually dropping
from mems lips and pens, nave not even
the advantage of being taken literally at
second. but are taken from the third or
thirtieth hand. If in the former case they
greet their authors with "a certain alien
ated majesty" what must be their look in
the latter? Must not a writer be COM
PEELED to disavow even if he does not fail
to recognize the children of his brain when
they are thus mutilated or metamor-
phosedp Familiar as all educated persons
are supposed to be with Shakespeare few
English authors are oftener misquoted.
The line
One touch Of nature makes the whole world kin,
is continually quoted as though the poet
meant to say that single trait of natural
ness In the character outbalances all the
artificialty OF modern life. and is an evil
dence of the underlying kinship of men,
whereas, as another has said, Shakespeare
meant that nature has implanted in hu-
manity one characteristic, which shows
that all men are really of one stock,
namely, the universal tendency to run
after novelty, and to prefer superficial to
concealed virtues. How rarely is the
speech of Lady Macbeth quoted correctly.
but screw UP your courage to the stick
ing placel" For 'place" the word point"
is substituted.
Mr. Lowell is usually careful as we'll as
felicitous in quotation, but there is a
lapsus pennR in his quotation OF familiar
line OF Goldsmith when the critic says of
Drummond's 'Gondibert' that sit is re-
mote, unfrlendly melancholy and, above
all. slow" Another passage from Gold
smiths play, '.She Stoops to Conquer"
namely, Ask me no questions and II tell
yon no fibs,' is usually misquoted. ''lies"
being substituted for "fibs." Buffers
couplet:
He that complies against his will
is OF his own opinion still,
is usually transformed into
man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still
In quoting the well-known passage from
one of Morton's plays, appreciation from
Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed" the
word ''praise' is usually substituted for
appreciation" The charm of Tennyson
lies SO much in the curious felicity of his
words and i'll his exquisite rhythm that
the ear of one of his admirers is tortured
more than it usually is by misquotation,
when other words are substituted for his,
or their collocation is changed; as, when
s'My good sword cleaves the helms of men"
IS substituted for "My good blade carves
the casques of men," etc.
A passage in Virgil that has often been
misquoted is the following from the
Eneid II, 1913:
Dextrae Sc parvus Iulus
Implicit sequiturque patrem non passibus equis.
When these lines were quoted some years
ago by speaker at a convention in
Faneuil Hall General B. F. Butler, who
presided, undertook to correct him, telling
him that he should have said, "haud
passibus aquis." The speaker insisted
that he was right, as he was, albeit in the
collection OF quotations from foreign lam
guages in Worcester's Dictionary at that
time authority might have been found for
Buffers assertion.
Two noted maxims of Christian life
ascribed to st. Augustine have been shown
by Dean Stanley not to be his, namely,
eve believe the miracles for the sake of
the gospels, not the gospels for the sake OF
the miracles" and 'In necessarius unitas,
in dubiis Hbertas, in omnibus caritas -
The substance of the former saying may
be found IN various writers far less famous
than Augustine; the latter is due to Ru-
pertus Meldenius, an obscure German
divine of the seventeenth century. 1t was
the Able Bolleau, not Boileau, the French
poet, as some suppose, who said of the
Jesuits that they heightened the creed and
shortened the ecalegue.-Springfeld Re-
publican.