THINGS AND THOUGHTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2604, 10 February 1904, Page 70

THINGS AND THOUGHTS.

By Johm Christie,

Byron says that Nature broke her die in moulding Sheridan. This is about a compliment in the grand PL ygiarlsm. style, but it is doubtful if the statement it-eelf is fundamentally consistent -with fact. Nature probibly never bieaks her dies or moulds, though it is Lkely enough that ,she allows some of lliem to lie unufeoJ for long periods, and thai picks them up again at quite unthought of times and places. TV hen she does this, the result is the production of men or v> omen more or less like men and women who have previously played a part in the drama of life. Should such characters hz intellectual and artistic, who I is so liLelj as that, m their efToils to realise their genius and leproduce the world about them, they should exjiress themselves by means and methods akin to those used by their pitdccesbors, or even occasionally present the same points of view in identical language? Vaiintion in the environment of the operative mind might be expected to lead to variation in the r. Jl -nlt of the intellectual or artistic eff.nt, but this i.s not always the case. As a matter of fact, nion in v. ld-tly-j-eparared p.iris «f the ■noild, who have never even heard of each other, som-etimes <; -imultan^ouf.'y make? d'»eo\ erics which arc practically identical, and the same thoughts occur to minds parted fioin tach other not only by land-s and seas, hut thou-.aixls of years in time. A saictent, of lifo and literature once became acquainted TviJi an unlettered but interesting man whose ideas concerning mankind and the nature of things were strikingly like those set forth in the histories' of Grecian and Arabian philosophy. A siinilpa- instance was thai presented by the case of a young country workman who, when he began to read Sh-'kespeare, snid that he found many of the persons in the plays saying things which he himself had thought about for years. If in either of these instances the persons mentioned had taken to literature, the result might have been work which would have led to their being arraigned in the courts of sciolistic criticism for plagiarism. Yet how utterly unjust the charge would have been ; jmd the real offence, if offence ihene were, would have lain afc the door of "Nature in reproducing minds more or kss akin to those of persons who had already played a recorded part in her everlasting drama, in which "what has been may be again, and in -nhkh, whatever may be lost for a time, Bothing is lost for eternity. ■ Instances, ancient and modern, will readily occur to the mind in this conncc- j tion. A cat,? in point is presented by the almost identical way in which two poets, born in widely-separated ages and countries, deal with the labyrinthine humours I or tragic vicipsitudes of love.

The thirty-third number in the first book of the ''Odes of Horace" is addressed to Tibullus, who appears to have had occasion to bewail tlhat feminine flexibility which, though doubtJs&s agreeable to chose for whom it is manifested, is generally a subject for lamentation with its victims. As Englished by Smart, the ode reads thus :

' Grieve not too much, my Albius, thoughtful of cruel Glycera ; " nor chant your mournful elegies, because, her faith being broken, a younger man is more agreeable than you in her eyes. "A love for Cyrue inflames Lycoris, distinguished for her little forehead : Cyrus follows the rough Pholoe ; but she-goats shall sooner be united to the Apulian wolves than Pholoe shall commit a crime with a base adulterer.

'"Such is the will of Venus, who delights in cruel sport, to subject to her brazen yokes persons and tempers ill-suited to each other.

"As for myself, the slave-born Myrtale, more untractable than the Adriatic Sea, that forms the Calabrian gulfs, entangled me in a pleasing chain, at the very time that a- more eligible love courted my embraces." Pass from this to Maimun-ibn-Kais, an Arabian of the seventh century of our era, and hear him announce, through the English of Professor A. A. Bevan:

"She to whom I have become attached has become attached to a man other thai, myself, and that man has become attached to ar other woman.

".And to him, again, a woman has become attached, whom he seeks not to win, whi'e among the men of her tribe there is one who, by reason of her, is languishing and distraught.

"And to me also another woman is attached, who suits me not — thus love is linked with love, a love that is ail disastrous.

"Each one of us suffers loss, longing after another, being_ at once far off °and nigh at hand/ ensnared, and a layer of Siiares."

There is a very noticeable identity in these poems with respect to subject and method of treatment. Yet it is unlikely that Maimun-ibn-Ivais knew Horace, but it would have to be proved that he did before be c uld be charged with plagiarism. But even if we did know him, would if not, instead of straightway charging him wibh conscious or unconscious reproduction, be more philosophical and scientific to look for the genesis of his poem in some vital or casual identity of mind as betwesa turn and his Koman predecessor? ]S T o doubt there are feeble "folk who imifcatively re produce the thoughts and the words of other men, and when they pretend to originality they should be called to show causs why sentence should not be passed upon them as plagiarists; but these are not the people who make poems like this of Mai-mun-ibn-Kais, brimful of dramatic insight and freshly original in imagery. To gat closer to the philosophy of the subject, take from the same class of literature another instance which, on a hasty view, suggests the idea of plagiarism. One of the finest lyrics in the English language is to be found in Sir Walter Scott's "Rokeby," where it appears as a song sung by a minstrel who figures in that metrical

romance. The measure of the verse is found in Bum, 1 , who revived it fiom a, beautiful Jacobite lament associated with the close of the seventeenth century, but apart from that the song is Scott's own, and contains the vital elements of ten thousand pathetic love stories. Here »t

"A weary lot is thine, fair maid, A weary lot is thine! To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, And pros-3 the rue for wine! A lightsouic tye, a soldier's mien, A feath-er ol the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green; No more of me you knew, " My love! Ko more oi me you knew. "This morn is merry June, I trow, Ths lose- is budding fain; But she shall b'oorn m winter snow Ere we two meet a3ai.li." H.. turned his charger as he spake Upon the nvcr shore-, He ga^e his buJla reins a shake, Said "Adieu for evermore, My love ! And adieu foi evermore."

A modern pGet — A. E. Housman — treats the same theme, in a different measure and from a diiidont point of view, in three fine verses "nhifh rincj true to the h^iH of natui'e, tho'ir;li the central stanza, through its use of the uneuphonious contractions ''sky s" and "we're."' falls away from that classical diction which is essential to the craftsmanship of a poetical masterpiece : Iho street sounds to the soldier's treadj And out -,7s t oop to see: A Einp'e 3 - Gdcoat itu-ns his head, Hs turm. and lool« at me. My man, from dcy to sky's so far, We never crccsed before • Such Imcucs apart the world's ends are, We're like to meet no mo-re. "What thoughts at hea.t have you and I We ccni'ot «3*op to tol! ; But dead or living, chunk or dry, So'chcr, I w,sh you we-I'.

Here the pcr.-onal note comes direct from the woman, and suggests a subtler spiritual emotion than that indicated by the man in Scott's more musical, but not more memorable, verses. In both pieces, however, the identity of subject is so close that a plea of plagiarism against the later post mirht be entertained by some readers. To others, however, the facts will suggest only another interesting instance of that parallelism which is exemplified in the poems quoted from Horaca a-nd Maimun-ibn-Kaif. Lamartine, too, has a little piece which might bo plnced in the same category with the lyrics of Scott and Hon?man, as it shows v/hab elemental passion and pathos may spiing out of the merest chance meeting of two souls, who may never again near each other in fheir wanderings to and fro upon the planet. Happily, the comedy of contingencies is not always freighted with potential tragedy, and this very subject of the casual vet fateful me.nirg of soul with &oul is dealt with from its comic side by Shakespeare, when he makes Rosalind in "As You Like It &ay of the love affair oi Oliver and Celia :

"There wos never anything so sudden but the- Jiighl of two rams or Csesor's thrasonical bnvg of 'I cnme. saw, and overcame.' : for your brolim* and my sister no pooner met., br.t they looked ; no sooner looked, but they loved ; no sooner love-d, but they sighed ; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason ; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy ; and in these degrees they have -niado a pair of stairs to marriage ; they are in the very v rath of love, and they' -will together: clubs cannot part them." But the subject has other aspects. In ; respect to what may be termed the tradi- j tionaiy thought and sentiment of the race. ' men of genius who happen to os well read are no doubt apt to reproduce, unconsciously, many of the wise and fine things said by their predecessors. Yet much of the work which, at the first glance, appears to stand within this category may also be due to identity of mental bias or outlook , in the writer?. "Marcus Aurelius avowedly i paraphrases Plato when he says : ! '"He that is a man in good earnest must not be so mean as to whine for life, and f grasp intemperately at old age : let him leave this point to Providence. His duty ■ is to consider how he may make the most of ■ his life, and spend what there is to the j best advantage." j In the eleventh book of "Paradise Lost" j Milton represents the archangel Michael as . imparting the same wise counsel to Adam : Xor love thy life, nc_ ha to; but what thou I hvost I Live well; how long, or short, permit to , heaven. ! But though Milton is, perhaps, the greatest • assimilator in literature, it would be un- ' critical to apply the term of plagiar.st to ; him in this connection. The saving as he j uses it fits naturally into the weft and woof ' of the rest of his test, and the thought and the expression may have been worked out by him with complete intellectual independence. It may be impossible to prove this, but it is equally impossible to maintain^ ! except on a broad basis of mere assump- ' tion, that Milton is here either consciously ! or unconsciously a borrower or adapter ! from Plato 01 Marcus Aurelius. This line ! of argument is applicable also to Allan ! R-amsay's Doric setting of the same philosophy in his "Gentle Shepherd": Let fowk bode weel, artel strive to do their best i\ao mairs required; let heaven mak' oot th» lest. Ramsay no doubt knew Milton as well as ' Milton knew Plato and Marcus Aurelius, but the saying as written by him is natural to ths mind and circumstances of the person in whose mouth he places it, and therefore a charge of conscious or even unconscious reproduction cannot logically be laid at the Scottish poet's door. Botji Milton ' and Ramsay may be mere reproducers in these instances, but there is no more ground for assuming go than for conclud- i ing that each poet arrived at his philo- I sophy independently as a thing congenial ' to his own mind for the time being, and natural to the persons and circumstances under treatment. ' The theory jf accidental coincidence, made much of by some people, is not worth serious consideration in this connection. ;

Strictly sp-akin^, there is nothing accidental in niture. Xi r dv mcv ot intellectual originality and honesty knowingly play the part of bcrro^er?, a^imilators, or imitators. At the outset they no doubt often are disciple,? in both thought and style, but in the ca^a ol men of real mental distinction, that phase of their experience is soon left behind them ; and thereafter, if their work invites comparison with that of others on account of similarity in matter or method, iL must be because o-i absolutely unconscious reproduction, or bpcau,?? they have, quite independently in themselves, some menial quality, dramatic -'nstiuet, emotional bias, or axtisti; sense po<-s°s<«ed by the other msn between wlio-?e work ""and laeirs tnere is an identity. \t anvrate there are many stiiking instances "which cannot be accounted for except by takinf this view, and even the strongest argument for the i ron >_cious reprnduction "theory must rest ■ n nvsumption. I; is an everyday thing with nature to endow different minds with qualities likely to lea? at come points to identity cf effort or aclrievemsnfc in the labour of those minds, and it is only by duly considering this fact that we can an'ive at anything worthy tlie nams of philosophy in connection with a subject; like that, now undflr consideration.

A few r-iors citations nwv be given, b-;t ~ ft. thou.«and would not complete" the list. Byron and Emerson have not much in common, yet they sometimes touch the same subject with a suggestive isimilarity. In referring to railptors and their " work. Byron, says, in the one hundred and eighteenth stanza of the second canto of Don Juan :

I've c-een much finer wcrneri, rips and real, Than all tho iioasen«s of their stone ideal. Emerson's essay on Character contains this thought, expressed in somewhat the same way, though wich !o«s zes'S ?nd effectiveness. ''I do not think," observes the philosopher, "the Apollo and the Jove impossible in .flesh and blcod. Every trait which the artist Tecorded in stone "he had seen in life, and better i-han his copy." Here there is complete identity of statement, but a judicious student of literature would probably not only hesitate but decline to charge Emerson with pla^inrinn. It is true he says the sime tiling as Byron, but he says ifc with obvioua spontaneous- 3^ ness, and as rising noturnlly out of the subject which he has in hand. Where this spontaneity and senuency are present, plagiarism is a word which will be used only by th-e impulsive and superficial critic Ifc is a -till further cry from Robert Burns to Ho?ca than from Emerson to Byron, yet they, too, furnish matter for these glancing parallels,. Illicit loves and licentious affections are said by the Hebrewprophet to fcske sway th,-> heart, destroy the spiritual in man ; and Burns delivers ths same verdict when he says of libertinism that

It liar'lens a' -wilhiu, Aad patriflos the failing. The. ScotMsh poefs kiiowledge of his Bible wss no doubt closer than his observance cf its precepts, bnt ,his literary aereemenfc with iTosea in the instance quoted very likely arose ontiiely from both observers havinor. independently, a corresponding acquaintance 'with the facts of human experience.

In respect to poverty and misfortune, Burns certainly needed to go to no predecessor for information or inspiration. "VViuit he says of th«m is therefore, presumptively, altogether the product of his own mind. Yet some of hip deliverances in this connection are sinxrularlv similar to paspasjes in Chan per and Brvden. In the "Wife of Bath's Tale' Chaucer says: Povert is liaiel good, and, as I gesse, A ful grefc bryn^er out of busynesae; A great p.monder eeh of sapiens To him that takith it in picisra. Povert, fal oit-en, when a man is lowe, Mafeeth. him his god and eek himself to knowe; Povert a. spectacle is, as thinkith aie, Thurgh which he may his vexroy frendes se. This is modernised thus by Dryden : Vonl is a bitter and a hateful good. Because its virtus? r.re not rmcleritcod ; Yet many thing?., impo=3ib!e to thought. Ilave bsen by need to full perfection brought. The daring of tho soul proceeds from thence, Sharpness of wit and active diligence; Prudence at otieo and fortitude H gives, And, if in p-ati^r.co ta^cn. m-ends our lives; For c'en that in<!jgerce thit brings rra low, j\lv..kcs me mvoelf a~>d Him abnvo to kr.ovr : Tf we from woalt'i to pover*-v nescp"-d T"ant rivf.q to kkot7 the fl3:\-rer from the

And. in spc-aking of misfortune", it is thus that Birns expresses himself in his "Epistle to Davie" :

3 Tbay si? the wit of arrc to youih, li>:y ] et ns ken oufc^l ; They raaV in =- c t*>p inked truth— Ths rail o U f \ , i; - c i ij. Tho' leases an' crones Be les'-cm right severs. There's wit tiiets ye'U get -there Yell find nae other where. This fcimilaritv is intercftinsrly striking, yet a full consideration of the cirn.nv:pnces wouM probably cntise % judicial critic to indefi'iitflv defer jud<:Tr.-ent were a chrrcje of plagiarism here Indued icrainst Burn*.

Long ago a wise man with a gerius for felicitous generalisation condensed the experience of ages into the saying. "Like begets like."' Since then many observers, from whom, we may in this connection select Burke and Carlyle, have supplied their kind with instances in proof of the truth of this nxiom. In his essay on i-he "Sublime and Beautiful," Bulks says : "I have often observed that on mimicking the looks and gestures of angry, or placid, or frightened, or daring men, T have involuntarily found my mind turned to that passion whose appearance I endeavoured to imitate ; nay, I am convinced it is hard to avoid it, though one strove to separate the pas-ion from its correspondent gestures." Carlyle, in "Sartor Resartus,'' describes the action of the same law or principle

"Gaze thou in the facs of thy brother, in those eyes -nhere plays the lambent fire of Kindness, or in those -where nges ihs lurid conflagration of Anger ; feel how thy own so ouiet Soul is straightway involun*

tarily kindled with the like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, or of deadly -grappling Hate) ; and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man."

Here Burke and Carlyle give their respective modern instances of the old doctrine that like leads to like, without any indication that either the one or the other had ever heard of the ancient saw ; and it is not improbable that Carlyle, ia writing as he did, was as unconscious of Burke as both he and Burke appear to have been of the proverb of the philosophy of which they were giving examples.

Few would expect to be reminded of Keats v.hile reading Walt Whitmans prose, yet in rambling through "Democratic Vistas" we come upon this passage : "Law is the unshakable order of the universe for ever ; and the law over all, and law of laws, is the law of successions, that of the superior law, in tiny, gradually supplanting and overwhelming the inferior one." Now, "Hyperion,' in so far as it is a philosophical poem,, is an exposition of the doctrine thus expressed by Whitman, and the doctrine itself is specifically crystallised in the fumous»lines : As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far TktA Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs ; > And. as we show beyond iliat Heaven and

Earth In form and shape compact and beautiful, In will, in action free, companionsliip, And thousand other signs of purei life; So on our heels a. fresh perfection treads, A power more strong in beauty, born of ua And fated to -excel us, as we pass In glory that old Darkness: for 'tis the eternal law That first on beauty should ba first -n might: Yea, by that law, another race may drive Our conquerors to mourn as we do now. But what evidence is there that Whitman was a borrower, either conscious or unconscious, from Keats? What he says in the passage quoted is logically in keeping with his subject, and in all probability it came quite independently and spontaneously from his own mind at ..he time he wrote it.

It is not unlikely that even ephemeral current literature could ba drawn on in this connection -with iich results. Lst us cite one instance by 'way of . suggestion. An article in a New Zealand newspaper published on the 12th &ugust in the year 1889 closed with these words : — "It is with remarkable men as it is with great mountains, concerning which experience teaches that those who live nearest them are often least aware of or least impressed by those characteristics which make them the glory of the landscape, the haunt and main region of Nature's majesty, and the goal of the traveller's desire." Nine years later, in 1898, a British statesman, speaking in England, and praising another statesman who had died on the 19 th of May in that year, said : "Sometimes I think that great men are like mountains, and that we do not appreciate their magnitude while •we are still close to them. You have to go to a distance- to see which peak it is that towers above its fellows." Here we have both identity in thought and expression. Yet what the journalist wrote was, in so far as he was concerned, quite- original, and no doubt this could be said with equal truth with respect to the statesman. It is not at all likely v that the words of the journalist had ever fallen under the stateman's observatioa, though three years after their first appearance they were published as an asioin in a small book. A simple enough explanation is at hand. The subject in each case was a man of strong personality, and anyone familiar with the indifference of average country folk to their neighbouring mountain* and with that of average men to their greatest contemporaries would be likely enough to .hit upon the comparison. Certain things are universal, and it needs only corresponding mental insight and corresponding verbal skill to see them and set them in the same light. At anyrate, a plea of plagiarism in such cases needs far more than similarity in though* or expression, or in both, to justify it. Jfalurally, the literature of Christendom abounds in paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels of Cbrist; but these are, generally, of no specific philosophical value, and of little enduring literary interest. It is otherwise with works, or the vital passages of works, which have an apparently independent identity of thought and expression. To this category belongs the remarkable correspondence between the profoundly philosophical Parable of the Talents and an equally philosophical passage in Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure." Here is the parable, as it appears in the Gospel according to Matthew : "For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one ; to every man according to his several ability ; and straightway took his journey. "Then he that had received tike five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that received two, he also gained other two. But he that received' one went and digged in the eartih, and hid his lord's money. "After a long time the lord of these servants corneth, and reckoneth with them. Affd so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying. Lord, thou deKveredst unto me fiv« talents : behold, I have gained besides them five talents more. His lord said unto him : Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou hast 'been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents ; behold, I have gained two other trlents besides them. Hi? Lord said unto him. Well done, good and faithful servant; t-boa h?st been faithful over a few things, I v- ill make thee ruler over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

"Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hayt not strawed ; and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the eartih . 10, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered, and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I ren-p where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed : thou oughtest, iihereiore, to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my ccming I should have- received my own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents ; for unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance ; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The kingdom of heaven is thus seen to consist in a right and unselfish use of faculty and opportunity, while moral disorder — which involves spiritual privation, and may include personal punishment — must follow their neglect or misapplication. This is as much a matter of nature and science as the law of gravitation, though the supernatural significance superstitiously associated with the parable may hays hindered many persons from seeing that it embodies a true philosophy of the nature of things, as they relate to morality or conduct, and the spiritual life of man. Turn to the same Cosx^el or philosophy as it is set forth in the language pnd method of Shakespeare, and all this will become as clear and unquestionable as the sun at noonday. Shakespeare's treatment suggests neither conscious nor unconscious reproduction on his part, though tihe truth tertually and dramatically insisted on by him is identical with that which is the burden of the parable, and in one remarkable passage it is expressed, as in the parable, by the figurative use of the terms of the moneylender or usurer. In the first scene of the first act of "Measure for Measure," the Duke says to Angelo :

Thyself and thy belorgii.gs Are not thine owe so proper as to wsste 'lhyse-2f upon thy vutuas, them on thee. Heaven dotb with us as v;a with toicbes do; I\ ot light them for themselves . for if our v:r-

tuea Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if wo ha-d them. not. Spirits aie not finely

touched, But to fine issaes: nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But like a thrifty goddess she detei mines Herself the gloTy of a creditor, Both, thanks and use.

This is precisely the gospel or pCiilosophy of the Parable of the Talents, and the moral disorder and personal ignominy which ensue upon Angelo's violation of the truth of principle insisted on, realise dramatically -and with extraordinary im-pressiven-ess the fate which Christ, in figurative language, allots to the man who failed to use his opportunity aright : "And cast ye tihe unprofitable servant into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." But will anyone say that "Measure for Measure," which is, organically, as entirely a thing by itself as a tree growing up out of its own loots, is a plagiarism, or in any way derived from the Parable of the Talents? A careful study of both is more likely to lead the reader to the conclusion that the law-in-na-ture which Christ saw in Palestine was also seen independently by Shakespeare in England, and that the dramatist, without conscious recollection of what had been taught by the spiritual teacher proceeded to set forth the same gospel in his own way, and in doing so even hit, with equal unconsciousness, upon expressions akin to those ascribed to Christ.

Be this as it may, it is apparent that an inquiry about plagiarism might be carried /into all the highways and byways of life and literature, and along the whole course of history. Yet, if this were done, it would probably be seen that, in all noteworthy cases, the thing which hasty critics are apt to call plagiarism is in no sense due to imitation, or even to coincidence, but to the fact that nature loves to reproduce minds which, constituted more or less alike, naturally leen towards the same objects and subjects, and express themselves in ways which correspond with each other. After all, mere imitation is the work of weaklings, and may be left humorously or contemptuously to find its own way to the maelstioms of oblivion. As to men of genius, even if it can be proved that they do in some sense or manner pick the brains of their predecessors or contemporaries, why need people trouble themselves about the matter? It is, no doubt, possible for a well-equipped mind to deal with the subject interestingly and instructively as a study in the science of thought and the genesis of literature ; but, as a rule, it is- just about as useful to inquire into what a man of genius owes to his predecessors or contemporaries as to try to find out how much a rose or an oak derives from the atmosphere breathed by its leaves or the earth penetrated by its roots. In the case of the man, the flower, and the tree, the individual has a vitality of its own, and the only things that concern sensible men and women are the completeness, beauty, and organic integrity of the separate results.