The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1907-07-06
THE GREAT
WRITERS
Ideas Inspiration Taken by
One Author From Another
GENIUS BORR0WS N0BLY
The Crude Ore rs Refined and the Rev
Material Fashioned Into Thing Ut
Beauty--Shakespeare As d Most
Brilliant Example.

stolen goods. What seem like steal,
ings BY the steel pen are rather the
output Of the Iapldary Or d reissue DC
the mint or, better still, the 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, be adds, "A coed image Is
like a diamond. which may be set a
hundred times IN as many generations
ana gain new beauties with every
change" This Ii not a question Of
originality. ssThe lighting candle
at q neighbours fire. observes Dean
Swift, "does not affect our property In
the wick and fame" Genius bor-
rows nobly." The transference Is
often transmutaticn. 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
thing OF beauty.
1t has been pointed out by Mr. Huth
In his life Of Buckle" that there is a
kind Of pedigree in literature Dante
ayows his Indebtedness to Virgil, as
the latter himself was under obliga-
lions to Homer.
Ariosto owes much to Virgil, and
Spenser borrows frequently from
Ariosto. Sponsors "Faerie Queene"
gave birth to Fietcher's purple Is
land" and this to Demands elsie OF
Man." and this In turn to Defoe's
"Robinson Crusoev and Bunyan's
'Pilgrim's Progress''-all like so many
blossoms rising from the one stem.
Shakespeare has been called ''the
great Warwickshire thief so inveter-
ate is his borrowing habit. lie invaded
literature Ike a Napoleon and brought
back the rarest art treasures to enrich
and beautify his verse One is SUR
prised to learn that our dranatist has
no original plots, that he has given TO
poetry no new rhythm or stanza and
that che ran not only In the old road.
but in the old ruts." His GAS You
Like IT. is taken from an old romance.
The characters Of his Julius Caesar''l
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 fame Of bis genius and transmits
cd into airy beauty
Milton, too. is 0 free borrower. It II
this fact. indeed, that makes his verse
so rich in learned "reminiscences and go
gorgeous with "barbaric pearl ana
gold" He owes much to Shakespeare.
Some critics think Millions Eve Is bor-
rowed from Shakespeare's Miranda. In
the Tanning Of the shrew" occurs the
line:
AS morning roses newly washedin dew.
While Milton In "L'Allegrog speaks
Of
Fresh blown roses washed in dew. 2
Milton is a very mine to many. Pops
is his debtor. Mllton's Smoky Sor-
ceress"-a woman to the waist ana
fair, but lending foul In many a sealy
fold voluminous and vast'-ls made to
soy. They call me sin and for q sign
portentous hold me; but familiar
grown, / pleased and with attractive
graces won the most averse." Popa
sings: II
Vice is d monster Of 20 frightfui rnien 3
As 10 be hated needs krt 20 be seem
But seen too oft. familiar with her face
We first endure. then pity. then embrace.
Tennyson must have had in mind
Millions
Hanging in q golden eh6in
This pendent world
when lle wrote:
The whole round world Is every way
Bound BY geld chains about the feet OF
Cod
Tennyson. indeed, derives much Of bis
exquisite imagery and felicitous phrss-
Ing from authors whose names. even.
many literary men do not know.
Pope borrows his tyital Spark idea
from an old poem by Thomas Flatnan.
Byron gets his Eagle Feather" i'm
age In bis English Bards aud Scotch
Reviewers from AescbyIns, who four
ished In the 9th century before cur
era.
Coleride1 owes DIS Ode 70 Mont
Blanc" to German poem By Friedrich
Brown.
Bishop Ken Is Indebted for his
thought IA THE Evening Hymn to
Sir Thomas Browne Ia his "ColloQuy
with God~
In his Own characteristic manner
ludyara KipIIng has met the ques-
ton Of unconscious fhievery With a
BIT Of verse which commences:
when 'onaer szuote 81 bloomin' iyrs
I'd card men sing by land and sea.
And wot e thought e might require
= went an took the same as ne.
ret shakespeare's lines close fhIu
paper
I'ii cyorsq4s @om with thieyarys
THE viin q thief and with I've great A.
Hrzcticr
rlobF ne vast zea; ths Moons an arr1ns
Ara hsr Pale frs sss rnasehes from tAs
ssa's tiisf saoss nasia surge -
a iase al ,sara; g. sariha
Faa' tss-s aHs asssas ~ rsmu
Frsn rsnerni a sh1Ts
tniFt
s I. puaa y circle sLarszine.