MISQUOTATIONS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3382, 11 July 1927, Page 7

MISQUOTATIONS.

The English are inveterate quoters. We quote shamelessly from books we have never read —from authors whose very names we do not know; often without realising that we are quoting at all. And yet we have the effrontery to turn up our noses at anyone who consciously applies to the affairs of this modern age some jewel of speech from the great writers of the past, and to snigger “cliche,” “tag,” “vieux jeu.”

It would be interesting to. discover which is the most misquoted phrase in English literature, writes D.H. in the “Spectator.” I am inclined to believe that it must be the last line of Milton’s “Lycidas,” which so many,people who should know much better persist in quoting as

“To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new,” making miserable tautology of a fine line. A short time ago I read an interesting character sketch of Shakespeare’s “Lady Macbeth,” in which occurred the wellknown phrase “sticking point.” The writer, knew perfectly well, I have no doubt, that Shakespeare wrote “Screw your courage to the sticking place,” but nine readers out of ten would have supposed “place” to be a mere misprint for “point.”

Another author who has paid the penalty of greatness is Pope:— ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing” is almost always quoted, nowadays as “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Science is substituted for the classics. It must be admitted that the popular version is less priggish than the original, but it plays havoc with the second line of the couplet. Butler’s “Hudibra’s” is more often mentioned than read in these days, but it is a mine of good things. , One of the best known is

“He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still,” This usually undergoes a' strange transformation into

“A man conceived against his will Is of the same opinion still,” which is sheer nonsense, although the underlying idea is plain enough. A sentiment which appealed perhaps more to our grandfathers than to ourselves is “Pity is akin to love.” Most of us would confidently assert that this conies from “Alexander’s Feast,” but it does not. Dryden wrote “Pity melts the mind to love,” Thomas Southerne (1660 to 1764) has “Pity’s akin to love,” but we cannot shelter ourselves behind him. We misquote Dryden; we do not quote Southerne. It must be firmly exasperating to an author to reflect that posterity will, in all probability, refuse to read his masterpieces, but will merely seize on his best things —and misuse them! “Steal ! To be sure they may, and egad, serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children —disfigure them to make ’em pass for their own. ” Sir Fretful Plagiary, in his righteous wrath, cannot refrain from pilfering and misquoting Churchill’s lines: i “Like Gipsies, lest the stolen brats be known Defacing first, then claiming for his own. ’ ’ But our consciences are clear on this point. Our weakness is rather that of the poor relations or humble friends of the great. Wc do not profess to be t the originators of our purple patches. Nay, we make haste to avow that they are borrowed in the hope of inducing our audience to believe that our acquaintance with the aristocracy of literature is far more intimate than it really is. We may even achieve a reputation for having read their works by the judicious use of a few trite quotations of half a dozen words each I More of our familiar and everyday quotations come, as everybody knows, from the Bible than from any other source. But, curiously enough, many pious aphorisms have become household words on the strength of an origin in Holy Writ which they cannot establish.

“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb” (which, in fact, comes from such a very unbiblical source as Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey”). “A merciful man is merciful to his beast.” “Not lost, but gone before.” “Fish in troubled waters,” would be attributed to the Bible by most of us, while “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth,” which actually occurs in the Book of Job, Would probably' be fathered on Shakespeare. The student of the natural history of quotations is continually meeting fresh surprises. For instance, who would have thought that such an expression as “Old women of both sexe§, ’ ’ -.which might, perhaps, have come out of one of Disraeli’s novels, but belongs, one -would say, more properly to the nineties of the last century, was written by an author who died over 150 years ago. And yet it occurs in “Tristram Shandy.” And “Alliteration’s Artful Aid,” which ought, according to all the laws of probability, to be found in Pope’s “Essay on Criticism,” comes from an otherwise forgotten poem of Churchill. “He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles Ms own; and he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.” Our fault is that we do not “borrow the aid of the understanding” of those whose words wo appropriate. We are too content to use them as pure stock phrases, which save us the trouble of thinking for ourselves, until they become: “Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace.” There is a certain element of meanness and ingratitude in our behaviour. Ordinary decency, one would think, should impel us to consider and appreciate the gems which we borrow from our forefathers. It is true that the very greatest passages in our literature have escaped such ignoble use. Such phrases as: “Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in ttthe beauty of a thousand stars,” or those marvellous lines in the middle of the fourth Act of “The Tempest,” to choose at random, do not lend themselves easily to quotation. But this does not exonerate us. We would profane them if w r e could ! The meanness lies in the manner of our borrowing, not in the act itself, for, as Emerson says; “There are great ways of borrowing.”