The Theory of Quotation - Page 2

deaf oaf or other chose to sit upon a necessary stile.
Surely Shakespeare or Lamb, or what other source you contemplate, has
had the thing long enough? Out of the road with them. Turn and turn
about.

And inverted commas are so inhospitable. If you _must_ take in another
man's offspring, you should surely try to make the poor foundlings feel
at home. Away with such uncharitable distinctions between the children
of the house and the stranger within your gates. I never see inverted
commas but I think of the necessary persecuted mediæval Jew in yellow
gabardine.

At least, never put the name of the author you quote. Think of the
feelings of the dead. Don't let the poor spirit take it to heart that
its monumental sayings would pass unrecognised without your
advertisement. You mean well, perhaps, but it is in the poorest taste.
Yet I have seen Patience on a Monument honourably awarded to William
Shakespeare, and fenced in by commas from all intercourse with the
general text.

There is something so extremely dishonest, too, in acknowledging
quotations. Possibly the good people who so contrive that such
signatures as "Shakespeare," "Homer," or "St. Paul," appear to be
written here and there to parts of their inferior work, manage to
justify the proceeding in their conscience; but it is uncommonly like
hallmarking pewter on the strength of an infinitesimal tinge of silver
therein. The point becomes at once clear if we imagine some obscure
painter quoting the style of Raphael and fragments of his designs, and
acknowledging his indebtedness by appending the master's signature.
Blank forgery! And a flood of light was thrown on the matter by a chance
remark of one of Euphemia's aunts--she is a great reader of pure
fiction--anent a popular novel: "I am sure it must be a nice book," said
she, "or she could not get all these people to write the mottoes for the
chapters."

No, it is all very well to play with one's conscience. I have known men
so sophisticated as to assert that unacknowledged quotation was wrong.
But very few really reasonable people will, I think, refuse to agree
with me that the only artistic, the only kindly, and the only honest
method of quotation is plagiary. If you cannot plagiarise, surely it
were better not to quote.