Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1907-11-14


bers. Literature is not Il repository of
stolen goods What seem like steal
ings by the steel pen are rather the
output of the lapidary or a reissue of
the mint or, better still. the borrow
ings from u bank repaid with interest.
"It 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. 1.-The lighting candle
at neighbor's fire." observes Dean
Swift, does not affect our property in
the wick and fame" Genius bor-
rows nobly" The transference IS
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
a thing of beauty.
1t has been pointed out by Mr.. Huth
kind of pedigree in literature. Dante
avuws his Indebtedness to Virgil, as
the latter himself was under obliga-
tons to Homer.
Ariosto owes much to Virgil, and
Spenser borrows frequently from
Ariosto. Sponsors "Faerie Queene"
gave birth TO Fletchers Purple Is
land" and this to Bernard's isle of
Man." and this In turn TO Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe" 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. He invaded
literature like Napoleon and brought
back the rarest art treasures to enrich
and beautify 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 In the old road,
but in the old ruts." His "As You
Like 1t" 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 fame of his genius and transmit
ed into airy beauty.
Milton. too. is free borrower. 1t Is
this fact, indeed, that makes his verse
so rich In learned reminiscence and so
gorgeous with "barbaric pearl and
cold - q ~ hob
Some critics think Aiiltons Eve is bor-
rowed from Shakespeares 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 Il very mine to many. Pope
is his debtor. Milton's Smoky Sor
ceress'-a woman to the waist and
fair. but ending foul in many a scaly
fold voluminous and vast"-is made to
say, "They call me sin and for sign
portentous hold me; but, familiar
grown, | pleased and with attractive
graCes won the most averse." Pope
sings:
Vice is n monster of 50 frlghtful mien
AS to be hated needs but to be seen:
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure then pity. then embrace.
Tennyson must have had in mind
Millions
Hanging in golden chain
This pendent world
when he wrote.
The whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the foet OF
God.
Tennyson. indeed, derives much of his
exquisite imagery and felicitous phras-
ing from authors whose names, even.
many literary men do not know.
Pope borrows his vital Spark" idea
from an old poem by Thomas Flatman.
Byron gets his Eagle Feather" inn
age in his English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers from AeschyIus, who -four
ished in the fifth century before our
era.
Coleridgc owes his ode to Mont
Blanc" to 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
Rudyard Kipling has met the ques-
ton OF unconscious thievery with
bit of verse which commences:
When 'Omer smote is bloomin' Tyre
Ed card men sing by land and sea.
And wot g thought e might require
E went an took the same as me.
Let Shakespeare's lines close this
paper:
I'll example you with thievery:
The SUMS 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 a thief, whose liquid surge re-
solves
The moon into salt tears; the earth's q
thief
That feeds and breeds by composture
stolen
From general excrement; each things 9
thief.
S. r. Dunn In Circle Magazine.
a StYIIst.