The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1901-02-20
MANY nMsQuoTArIoMs.


tion TO say that "misquotation" Is the
besetting sin OF even the educated people.
who wouli fain use the thoughts and
words OF others 20 embeiiish or 20 aid
their own ideas.
few Illustrations OF everyday errors
Will be more convincing than many pages
of generalities:
Water, water everywhere.
And not drop TO drink.
passes current. but Coleridge wrote:
Water. water. everywhere,
Nor any drop TO drink.
The usual quota tion from Mo6rc is:
Twas ever AUS from childhoods hour.
What the poet said I'm his sigh was:
''Oh, ever thus" etc.
Cne OF the most hackneyed and stub
born errors is in these lines:
The best-laid plans of mice and men
Gang aft agley.
The word plans" should be schemes
TO reproduce exactly what Burns said
Butler made perfectly understands
BILE statement when he said:
He that complies against his VIII
is OF his own opinion still.
But in the usual form
man convinced against his will
Is OF the same opinion still
it is nauseous The same author wrote:
Look before YOU ere you leap.
which is certainly better and more pre-
else advice than the usual Look before
you leap
Shakespeare Is 40 badly maitreated at
second hand 'hat it Is impossible To give
moro than a few examples ne said:
Misery scduainta "A Inan with strange
bedfellows,
And also
Dressed IN little brief authority.
instead Of misery makes strange bed
fellows i'm the first instance and
clothed in the second. lie also wrote:
A locker OF in Vienna.
and not "a locker on IN Venice" This is
one OF the most common blunLers. In the
famous soliloquy Of Jacques, the infant"
is usually spoken of as I'm 'his" nurses
arms. hut the men and women" were
IN the" arms of their nurses, and, there
fore the gender IL not restricted TO his
Another passage is usually quoted thus:
Nothing extsnuate,
Nor aueht set down In malice.
1t should be:
Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.
A pitfall lies in:
A babbled OF green fields,
Commonly quoted. IL runs:
And then he habbled OF green fields.
The "and then" is not In the text, and
the "a" is constructed by some comment
ators TO mean aye and not "he" at all.
The context supports either reading. But
Shakespeare did write:
Comparisons are odorous
and not "odious." IL is a malapropism
that antedates that charming and daring
excursionist into the fields of misquota-
ton.
Now Is the Winter of our discomfort"
is almost always used without regard 10
the context, aud its meaning is thereby
perverted. A glance at the passage VIII
show that the meaning is that 'the Win
TER of our discomfort is "A thing of the
past and glorious Summer" is at hand
now brought by the "son OF York"
Shakespeare also wrote "One foot in
sea and one on land" not zone foot on
sea-" etc, as many will have IL.
A bone OF contention lies in this line in
Gray's "Elegy."
Kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
For noiseless, the practical mind. which
refuses 10 reconcile the idea OF tenor
with the absence of noise, Substitutes
"even." and for kept" the word held"
is often used, Bishop Porteus wrote:
held
The tenor OF his way,
which may account for some Of the con-
fusion.
Sir Walter Raleigh said:
If she seem not chaste TO me,
What care | how chaste she be?
This is totally changed In meaning
when IL reappears in the form:
II she be not fair to me
What care I how fair she be?
Raleigh also. speaking of floods and
streams" wrote:
The shallow murmur, but tho deep are
dumb:
John Pomfret said nothing about
Kissing the hand that gave the blow.
What he did write was:
We bear IL calmly though ponderous
woe,
And stin adore the hand that gave the
blow.
And John NJ. sewau said:
No pent up Uuca contracts your powers,
Not
No pent UP Utica confines his powers.
Two common errors are to be found I'm
variants on Middletons IAN rs not gold
that glisteneth," and In Appreciation
from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise, in
deed"
1t would seen 10 be almost impossible
to go astray i'm the little prayer from the
New England Primer" but IL il done ev-
cry day In tho 1177 reprint of this book,
In which IL first appeared. the first lines
read:
Now Law me down 10 take my sleep,
] pray the Lord. etc.
IL will be seen. therefore. that the ac-
curacy Of the quotation depends upon the
edition from which IL was learned
Pope said: Speed the going mot the
partlns) gue<t:" and Millions line Is:
Fresh woods and pastures new" not
"helds." The tongue is not an ''unriily
member" but an 'unruly evil" You
make assurance double sure" and not
dOuhly sure. IL is wet sheet and "A
flowing sea" as Cunningham wrote Il,
and not n flowing sail" and mercy
droppeth as the gentle rain" II does not
fan like the dew"
There has ever been a question as To
the good or bad taste displayed I'm tho
use OF quotations at ALL but there can be-
but one view OF Interpretations. They are
incxcusable. and should be reformed al
together.