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There is a very pretty Eastern tale of which the fate of plagiarists often reminds us. The slave of a magician saw his master wave his wand, and heard him give orders to the spirits who arose at the summons. The slave stole the wand, and waved it himself in the air; but he had not observed that his master used the left hand for that purpose.
What is the dredging-song which the oyster "come of a gentle kind" is said to love? These random thoughts may serve to indicate to the true seeker new and unworked mines of rhythmic ore. We are crying continually, that we have no national literature, that we are a nation of imitators and plagiarists. Why will not some one take the trouble to learn what we have?
Betty had puzzled over the rights and wrongs of the matter until it had come to be almost an abstraction a subject for formal, impersonal debate, like those they used to discuss in the junior English classes, in high school days "Resolved: that it is right to help plagiarists to try again." Now the reality of it all was forced upon her.
On the 15th of November, 1791, the gathering of emigres comprises "at least 120,000 former gentlemen and drilled partisans and soldiers, not counting the forces of the German princes about to join them." According to him, the scholars who do not choose to admire him are fools, charlatans and plagiarists.
Like some stately hollyhock or dahlia of this month's gardens, he endures while all other flowers are dying; but all around is winter a mild one, perhaps, wherein a few annuals or pretty field weeds still linger on; but, like all mild winters, especially prolific in fungi, which, too, are not without their gaudiness, even their beauty, although bred only from the decay of higher organisms, the plagiarists of the vegetable world....
We need not be surprised therefore to find that the Russians, in becoming acquainted with foreign literature, became imitators and plagiarists. In this kind of work their natural pliancy of mind and powerful histrionic talent made them wonderfully successful.
If the English aristocracy are more vivacious and cosmopolitan, it is thanks to the wines of France, which it is the mode with them to prefer; but still, like all plagiarists, they are imitators, not inventors; they borrow our wines and copy our manners. The Germans "
But Wordsworth, where he is indeed Wordsworth, may be mimicked by copyists, he may be plundered by plagiarists; but he cannot be imitated, except by those who are not born to be imitators. For without his depth of feeling and his imaginative power his sense would want its vital warmth and peculiarity; and without his strong sense, his mysticism would become sickly mere fog, and dimness!
Like some stately hollyhock or dahlia of this month's gardens, he endures while all other flowers are dying; but all around is winter a mild one, perhaps, wherein a few annuals or pretty field weeds still linger on; but, like all mild winters, especially prolific in fungi, which, too, are not without their gaudiness, even their beauty, although bred only from the decay of higher organisms, the plagiarists of the vegetable world.
The key-note to the character of Paul Gauguin, painter and sculptor, may be found in his declaration that in art there are only revolutionists or plagiarists. A brave speech. And a proud man who uttered it; for unless he wished to avoid its implications he must needs prove his sincerity.
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