The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1907-07-15
.7HE GREAT WRITERS,
Ideas and Inspiration Taken BY
One Author From Another.
BUT GENIUS BoRRoWs AoBLY

The Crude Or ls Refined and shs Raw
Material Fashionsd Into > Thing n
Bsauty--shaksspsars a. = Nest Bril-
liant Exampls.
Our great writer's are not great rob
bers. Literature is not a repository of
stolen goods. What seem like steal
Ings by the steel pen are rather the
output Of the lapidary or q reissue Of
the mint or, better still, tke borrow.
Ings from bank repaid with interest
1T Is wonderful" says Charles
Reade. how genius can borrow" "All
literature" remarks Oliver Wendell
Holmes, ELVES by borrowing and lend
Ing" and. he adds, "A good image Is
like a diamond, which may be set
hundred times In as many generations
and gain new beauties with every
change" This Is not a question Of
originality. "The lighting a candle
at neighbor's fire." observes Dean
| Swift, docs not affect our property III
the wick and flame.v "Genlus Dor
rows nobIy." The transference ia
often a transmutation. For brass. the
borrower brings gold, and for iron,
| silver, and for wood, brass, and for
stones, iron. The crude ore is refined
and the raw material fashioned into
q thing Of beauty. a
| 1t has been pointed out by Mr. Huth
ii his "LIfe Of Buckle that there Is a
kind of pedigree in literature. Dante
avows his Indebtedness to Virgil, as
the latter himself was under obIiga-
tons to Homer.
4 Ariosto owes much to Virgil. and
Epenser borrows frequently from
Ariosto. Spenser's "Faerie Queene"
gave birth to Fletcher's Purple Is
land" and this to Bernard's isle Of
Man." and this In turn to Defoe's
Robinson CtusoeT and Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress Ike 80 many
blossoms rising from the one stem.
Shakespeare has been called "the
great Warwickshlre thief" so inveter-
ate is his borrowing habit He invaded
literature like Napoleon and brought
back the rarest art treasures to enrich
and beautify bis verse. One is sur
prised to learn that our dramatist has
no original plots, that he has given to
poetry no new rhythm or stanza and
that "he ran not only In the old road,
, but in the old ruts." His 'As You
; Like IT. is taken from an old romance.
The characters OF bis Julius Caesar
are old Romans taken from Plutarch
But what borrowing! Dry bones are
+. turned into living men. The common
, est materials are taken into the lam
bent flame Of his genius and transmit
ed into airy beauty.
Milton. too, is free borrower. 1t Il
) this fact. indeed. that makes his verse
j so rich in learned "reminiscences and 81
j gorgeous with "barbaric pearl ant
gold" He owes much to Shakespeare
/. Some critics think Milton's Eve is Dor
r0wed from Shakespeare's Miranda. II
) the Tanning Of the Shrew" occurs thu
: line:
. As morning roses newly washed in dew.
While Milton in "L'AIlegro' speak
I Of
: Fresh blown roses washed in dew.
Milton is a very mine to many. Pop
Is his debtor Milton's "Smoky SoT
ceress"-a woman to the waist ans
! fair, but lending foul in many seal
J fold voluminous and vast''-ris made I
! say, 'sThey call me sin and for a sig
!. portentous hold me: but, familia
!. grown. pleased and with attractiv
graces won the most averse." Pop
: sings:
;. Vice IL monster OF so frightful nien
A to be hated needs hut TO be seen:
But seen too Oft. familiar with her face
t We first endure, then pity. then embrac'
E Tennyson must have had in min
/ MiIton's
:. Hanging in q golden chain
Z This pendent world
when he wrote:
The whole round world Il every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet I
l. God. - M Is
IS Tennyaon. indeed. derives much OF b
le exquisite imagery and felicitous phrai
e ing from authors whose names. evel
d many literary men do not know
e.. Pope bofrows his ''Vtta. Spark idt
Ee from an old poem DyiThomaH Flatma,
ge Byron gets his Eagle Feather "a
h age In his English Baris and Scott
er Reviewers" from AeschyIus, who fou
ished in the ffth century before o.
Is era.
= ColeFidge owes his lode to MOI
u BIancs to German poem by Friedrit
n Brown.
2. Bishop Ken is indebted for h
d thought In "The Evening Hymn"
Sir Thomas Browne ia his HCoIIoqt
WITH cod.~
In his own characteristic mann
e. Rudyard Kipling has met the que
q ton Of unconscious thievery with
y bit Of verse which commences:
When 'Omer smote, As nIoomin' Tyre
he Ed card men sing BY land and sea.
re And wot q thought e might require
81 - went an took the same as me.
Of Let shakespeare's lines close Il
y paper: