Clarke courier. [volume] (Berryville, Va.) 1869-1997, 1907-07-31
THE GREAT WRITERS,
Ideas and Inspiration Taken by
One Author From Another.
gut GENIUS BoRRows noBLY
The Crude Orc is Refined and the Raw
Material Fashioned Into Thing of
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS as a Most Bril-
liant Example.

5eauty-shakespeare as a Most Bril-
liant Example.
Our great writer's are not great rob
bers. Literature Is not repository of
stolen goods What seem like steal
ings by the steel pen are rather the
output OF the iapidary or reissue OF
the mint or. better still, the borrow
ings from bank repaid with interest.
1t is wonderful" says Charles
Reade, "how genius can borrow IAN
literature" remarks Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Lives 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
;inality- THE lighting candle
at neighbours fire." observes Dean
Swift, docs not affect our property in
the wick ana fame" Genius hor-
rows nobly.'' The transrercnce is
often 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
thing OF beauty.
IL has been pointed out Ivy Mr.. HUH
in his Life of Buckle that there q n
kind OF pesiigree in literature. Dante
avows his indebtedness to Virgil. a.
the latter himself was under oh!Sa-
t'onS to Homer.
Ariosto owes much 10 Virgil. and
Spcaser borrows Frequently from
Ariosto Sponsors "Facr.e Qucene"
gave birth TO Fletcher's Purple Is
land" anu this 20 Bernard's isle Of
Man." and this i'm turn To Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe" and Bunvan's
Pilgrims Progress--aIl like SO many
blossoms rising from the one stem.
Shakespeare has been called 'the
great Warwickshire thief" SO invctcr-
ate is his borrowing habit. He invaded
literature like a Napoleon and brought
back the rarest art treasures to enrich
and beautlfy his 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 I'm the old road.
but I'm the old ruts'' His "As You
Like It. is taken from an old romance.
The characters OF his 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. II Is
this fact. indeed. that makes his verse
so rich In learned "Reminiscences and so
gorgeous with "barbaric pearl and
gold" He owes much To Shakespeare.
Some critics think Millions Eve Is bor-
rowed from Shakespeare Miranda. In
the Tanning OF the Shrew" occurs the
line:
AS morning roses newly washed in dew.
While Milton in "LAllegro" speaks
Of
Fresh blown roses washed in dew.
Milton is very mine 10 many. Pope
is his debtor. Millions smoky Sor-
ceress"-a woman TO the waist and
fair. but ending foul I'm many n scaly
fold voluminous and vast"-is made Ia
say. They call me sin and FOR n sign
portentous hold me; but. familiar
grown. / pleased and with attractive
graces won the most averse." Pope
sings:
Vice is monster OF so frightful mien
AS to be hated needs but q be seen:
But seen too oft. familiar with her face
We first endure. then pity. then embrace.
Tennyson must have had In mini
Millions
Hanging In n golden chain
This pendent world
when he wrote:
The whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet OF
God.
exquisite imagery and felicitous phras-
Ing from authors whose names. even.
many literary men do not know
Pope borrows his "Nital Spark" idea
from an old poem by Thomas Flatman.
Byron gets his Eagle Feather" inn
age in his English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers" from Aeschylus. who flour
ished in the fifth century before our
era.
Coleridge owes his Ode TO Mont
Blanc" 10 Il German poem by Friedrich
Brown.
Bishop Ken is indebted for his
thought in The Evening Hymn" to
Sir Thomas Browne in his "Colloquy
With God"
In his own characteristic manner
RudyaUl Eipling has met the ques-
ton of unconscious thicvcry with a
bit OF verse which commences:
When 'Omer smote is bloomin' lyre
Ed card men sing by land and sea.
And wot = thought q might r,sqt,ire
+ went an took the same as me.
Let Shakespcare's lines close this
paper:
I'll example you with thievery:
The suns thief and with his great at
traction
Robs the vast sea; the moons an arrant
thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the
sun;
The seas thief. whose liquid surge re-
solves
The moon into salt tears; the earth's a
That feeds and breeds by a composture
stolen
From general excrement; each things a
thief.
S. Il. Dunn in Circle Magazine.
Mercy to him that shows 1t Is the
rule.-Cowper.