The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-25


lightened as ours, the harvest of wit Is
gathered in and little left to CLEAN"
Jeffrey humorously says: In our own
times all the higher walks of literature
have been SO long and so often trodden
that 1t is scarcely possible to keep out
of the footsteps of some of our precur-
sors. The ancients, it is well known,
have stolen most of our bright
thoughts, and not only visibly beset all
the patent approaches to glory, but
swarm in such ambushed muititudes
behind that when we think we have
gone fairly beyond their plagiarisms
and honestly worked out an original
excellence of our own, up starts some
deep read antiquarian and makes it out
much to his own satisfaction that
heaven knows how many of those busy
bodies have been before hand with us
in the genius and the species of our
invention
1t is manifestly true that genius can
not feed upon itself, that it is essen
TALLY passive and receptive in its ma
ture and impregnates itself continual
ly with the thoughts and feelings of
others The best part of genius is con-
stituted in recollections, and for this
reason we find the anc'ents called
Memory" the mother of the muses..
1t is then almost impossible for
man to be great speaker CT writer
without A great memory. The neces-
sity of memory is obvious. 1t is to the
absorption and cultivation of this great
faculty we owe all with which we are
most delighted in oratory or literature
at the present day Equipped. then,
with retentive memGry, cons ,dering
how many thousand workers there
have been in the fields of science and
literature since the first poet sang and
the first philosopher wrote" and consid-
n1 trJl
varying and everlasting. it is no more
wonder that they suggest to different
writer's and speakers the same ideas
and are described in the same ham
guage, than the sky, the wood and the
wave should be painted on canvas in
the same colors by different artists.
Professor Marsh. in his lectures on the
English language, observes that socie-
ty now is so intensely social and men,
through the action of the printing
press, participate so largely in one an
others intellectual condition that in
stances of concurrent mental action be-
tween unconnected individuals are per-
petually recurring. Not only does ev
cry new mechanical contrivance," says
he, originate with half dozen differ
ent inventors at the same time, but the
same thing is true of literary creation.
If you conceive a striking cnouSht, a
beautiful image, an apposite illustra-
ton, which you know to be original
with yourself and delay for a twelve
month to vindicate your priority of
claim by putting it on record, you will
find dozen scattered authors stimuli
taneously uttering the same thing"
Every paralleism in literature or Ian
guage is not deliberate ~lagiarism
nor is every borrowed thought a uelib
crate steal. The mighty genius of
Shakespeare had no time for original
i. /
to in a contribution of mine to the
Standard on the play of ''Othello.' I
may with propriety repeat it here. THE
play of 'Othelo' was not framed by the
molding influences of the times
Shakespeare never took tbs trouble of
inventing stories. 1t was enough for
him to select from those that had besn
| already invented or recorded, such as
had one or both of two recommended
tions, namely, suitableness to mis- par
ticular purpose and their being parts
of popular tradition. So from the old,
vague Italian romance did he evolve
the grand tragedy of 'Othelo.'
No one ever has accused Byron or
| Moore as plagiarists. Yet one would
| be justified in charging that Byron
| stole from Moore, or Moore fror7 By
ron. with as much prima facie evidence
| as the Rev. Father MacCorry from In
/ gersoll. With them the assimilation of
! ideas and words are much more strik-
| ingly alike than any parallel between
Ingersoll and the Rev. Father MacCor-
ry, which will surely be admitted after
reading the following verses:
so the struck eagle, stretched upon
the plain,
| No more through rolling clouds to soar
| again,
| Viewed his own feather on the fatal
! dart
And winged the shaft that quivered in
his heart
-Byron's English Bards and Scotch
| Reviewers.
Like young eagle who has lent his
plume
To Hedge the shaft by which he meets
his doom
See their own feathers plucked to wing
the dart
| Which rank corruption destines for
! their heart
Thomas Moores Corruption
There is before us in these verses a
| groundwork of plagiary to all appear.
ances either against Moore or Byron
| surely against him who was second in
! chronological order. They We're con-
| tempDraneOus poets as much as Inger-
soil and the Rev. MacCotry are con-
temporaneous lecturers. I have yet 70
| read, however, where any critic cried
stop thief to either Of the famous
poets on accounts of the sameness of
| the verses Why? Because there was
-, no more justification for even an in
situation of plagiarism between the
STRUCK eagle" of Byron viewing his
own feather on the fatal DART and
| Moore's young eagle vino has lent his
! plume to fedge the shaft by which he
| meets his DOOM than there is between
Ingersolfs FOWL on the dead limbs of
the tree of knowledge" "a very stupid
comparison, by the way. The tree OF
| knowledge is also called the tree of
| life, and there can be no dead limbs on
| live tree) and MacCCrrs's equally
bad application of his "holtirg owl
upon withered stump Ornithologists
are authority that owls seldom or new
! er perch on objects close to the grcun5.
I would here suggest in his next lecture
that he would for the "withered stump
| substitute a ruined sabe' tbs much
| better.
There is here proven that between
Byron and Moore, 1ngersoll and Faths I