CHAPTER XIX
ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE
There is very little originality in this world. Even among the greatest thoughts expressed by famous philosophers, there are very few that had not been heard before in some form or other. It is the pithy way in which they are expressed by such men as La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, and Balzac that made the reputation of these great writers. The characteristics of man and woman have always existed, just as has their anatomy, and the dissector of the human heart cannot invent anything new any more than the dissector of the human body. We all know these characteristics, but what we like is to see a philosopher present them to us in a new shape.
Pascal says that the greatest compliment that can be paid to a book, even to a thought, is the exclamation, 'I could have written that!' and 'I could have said that!' In fact, the author whom we admire most is the one who writes a book that we 'could' have written ourselves. And we say 'bravo' when a philosopher gives us a thought of our own, only better expressed than we could have done it, or when he confirms an opinion that we already held ourselves.
No; there is nothing original, not even the stories that we hear and tell in our clubs. They have been told before. I forget who said that there were only thirty-five anecdotes in the world, seventeen of which were unfit for ladies' ears.
Even the characters of fiction are not original. The novelist is, as a rule, none but a portrait painter, possessed of more or less originality and talent. Charles Dickens said that there was not a single personage of his novels whom he had not drawn from life. Thackeray and Balzac, two observers of mankind of marvellous ability, said the same. Racine borrowed of Sophocles and Euripides, Molière of Plautus and Terence. Alexandre Dumas chose his heroes from history, and regifted them with life with his unequalled imagination. George Eliot's personality remained a mystery for a long time, but everybody knew that the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life' was a native of Nuneaton, or had lived long enough in that town to introduce local characters who were recognised at once. The Dame aux Camélias, the Camille of the American stage, by Dumas, junr., was inspired, if not suggested, by Manon Lescaut. And is not the Adam Bede of George Eliot a variation of Goethe's Faust? Is not Tess of Thomas Hardy another? And that marvellous hero Tartarin of Alphonse Daudet: do you not recognise in him Don Quixote? More than that, he is a double embodiment, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in one: the Don Quixote who dreams of adventures with lions in the desert, of ascensions on Mont Blanc, of guns, swords, and alpinstocks, and the Sancho Panza who thinks of wool socks, flannel vests, and a medicine-chest for the marvellous journeys that are going to be undertaken – a tremendous creation, this double personage, but not altogether original.
Every character has been described in fiction, every characteristic of mankind has been told; but we like to see those characters described again with new surroundings; we love to hear the philosophy of life told over again in new, pleasant, pithy, witty sentences.
This lack of originality in literature is so obvious, it is so well acknowledged a fact that authors, novelists, or philosophers have used mankind for their work, and availed themselves of all that mankind has written or said before, that the law does not allow the literary man to own the work of his brain for ever and ever, as he owns land or any other valuable possession. After allowing him to derive a benefit for forty or fifty years, his literary productions become common property – that is to say, return to mankind to whom he owed so much of them.
CHAPTER XX
PLAGIARISM
La Bruyère said: 'Women often love liberty only to abuse it.' Two hundred years later Balzac wrote: 'There are women who crave for liberty in order to make bad use of it.' The thoughts are not great, they are not even true, but that is not the question. Could such a genius as Balzac be accused of plagiarism because he expressed a thought practically in the very words of La Bruyère? I would as soon charge Balzac with plagiarism as I would accuse a Vanderbilt or a Carnegie of trying to cheat a street-car conductor out of a penny fare. The heroines of Tess and Adam Bede practically go through the same ordeals as Gretchen. Would you seriously accuse Thomas Hardy and George Eliot of plagiarism, and say that they owed their plots to Goethe's 'Faust'?
There are people engaged in literary pursuits, or, rather, in the literary trade, and, as a rule, not very successful at that, who spend their leisure time in trying to catch successful men in the act of committing plagiarism. The moment they can discover in their works a sentence that they can compare to a sentence written by some other author, they put the two sentences side by side and send them to the papers. There are papers always ready to publish that sort of thing. Of course, respectable papers throw those communications into the waste-paper baskets. Then, when the papers have published the would-be plagiarism, the perpetrator marks it in blue pencil at the four corners and sends it to the author – anonymously, of course. For that matter, whenever there appears anything nasty about a successful man in the papers – an adverse criticism or a scurrilous paragraph – he never runs the slightest risk of not seeing it; there are scores of failures, of crabbed, jealous, penurious nobodies who mail it to him. It does him no harm; but it does them good.
As far as I can recollect I have, during my twenty-one years of literary life, committed plagiarism four times: twice quite unintentionally, once through the inadvertence of a compositor, and once absolutely out of mere wickedness, just to draw out the plagiarism hunter. And I will tell you how it happened. Once, many years ago, I was reading a book on the French, written by an American. A phrase struck me as expressing a sentiment so true, so well observed, that I memorized it, and, unfortunately, when, several years later, I wrote a series of articles on France for a London paper, I incorporated the phrase. I was not long in being discovered. The author of the book, which had never sold, wrote to all the papers that I had 'stolen his book,' and thought the correspondence would start a sale for his book. Of course I was guilty, and I apologized, explaining how it had happened. For years the phrase had been in my mind – had, as it were, become part and parcel of myself. May this be a warning to authors who may take too great a fancy to a thought of theirs well expressed by some other author. It is a very dangerous practice. Another time I incorporated in a newspaper article a quotation from Emerson, but the compositor omitted the inverted commas, and Emerson's sentence read as if it was mine. Of course, no one would accuse me of choosing Emerson to plagiarize in America, but this article brought me half a dozen anonymous letters. In one of them there was this choice bit: 'The second half of the article is by Emerson; the first half I don't know, but probably not by the author.' Twenty centuries of Christianity have caused Christians to love one another. But when I really had a good time was when, deliberately, as I said before, out of sheer wickedness, I introduced into my text nine lines of Shakespeare.
I have kept the newspapers that commented on it and the anonymous letters that were mailed to me. One of them had humour in it. 'My dear sir,' said the writer, 'when you speak of an incident as being a personal reminiscence, it is a mistake to borrow it of an author so widely known for the last three centuries as the late William Shakespeare.'
A celebrated literary friend of mine once amused himself in incorporating twenty lines of Dickens as his own in the midst of an essay he published in his own paper.
When he feels dull, he takes from his shelves a scrapbook which contains the letters and newspaper cuttings referring to the subject.
When a literary man has a reputation of long standing, never for a moment accuse him of plagiarism. He may express a thought already expressed by someone else; he may work out a plot which is not original; but success that lasts rests on some personal merit. I have never heard successful men charge any of their brethren of the pen with plagiarism. Successful men are charitable to their craft, as beautiful women are to their sex.
CHAPTER XXI
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AND REMINISCENCES
The best writers of memoirs have been the French, and it is through those memoirs that we know so well and so intimately the reigns of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Napoleon I., as well as the history of the Revolution, the Restoration, and the Second Empire.
Courtiers, diplomatists, statesmen, and women of the Court, by their memoirs and letters, have made us acquainted not only with the public life of Sovereigns, but with all the details of their private life, with all the Court gossip.
The French, however, care little or nothing for memoirs that do not make clear to them some chapter of history.
The English, on the contrary, have practically no memoirs of that sort. The only interesting ones that I know are those of Greville. On the other hand, almost every man of note, literary man, journalist, artist, actor, publishes his autobiography or his reminiscences.
While the French only care for the work that a man before the public has produced, the English like to know how he lived, how he worked, whom he met, whom he knew, and his appreciation of the character of his more or less famous friends and acquaintances.
Why, even the music-hall star publishes his reminiscences in England. The fact is that, if a man keeps his diary regularly, and knows how to tell an anecdote well, he can always write a readable book of reminiscences.
Among the best books of this sort that I know I would mention those of the late Edmund Yates and George Augustus Sala; but the best of all is the one which I do hope will make its appearance one day (although I am not aware that it is being prepared), and will be signed by the wittiest raconteur and causeur of England, Mr. Henry Labouchere.
Try to get Mr. Labouchere in one corner of the smoke-room in the House of Commons, give him a cup of coffee and some good cigarettes, and just turn him on; there is no better treat, no more intellectual feast of mirth and humour and wit in store for you. His style is the very one suited for a crisp, gossipy, brilliant book of reminiscences.
Among possible writers of interesting and piquant memoirs or reminiscences I ought to mention Lady Dorothy Nevil and Lady Jeune. Both ladies have known in intimacy every celebrity you wish to name – Kings, Queens, statesmen, generals, prelates, judges, politicians, literary men, artists, lawyers, actors; there is not a man or woman of fame who has not supplied an impression or an incident to them.
And they are the very women to write memoirs, both possessed of keen judgment and insight in human nature, and of great literary ability, both delightful conversationalists, always capable of drawing you out and enabling you to do your best, and thus supplying them with materials for notes and observations.
I am not announcing any book, for neither of these two ladies ever mentioned to me that she was preparing a book of memoirs, but I wish they would, and I have simply named them as being both capable of writing books of unsurpassed interest.
In order to write a good and trustworthy book of reminiscences, you must, above all, be an observer and a listener, besides a good story-teller. You must be modest enough to know how to efface yourself, remain hidden behind the scenes, and put all your personages on the stage without hardly appearing yourself.
You must be satisfied with sharing the honours of the book with all your dramatis personæ, and not cause the printing of the volume to be stopped for want of a sufficient supply of 'I's' and 'me's.'
I knew a famous actor whose reminiscences were published some years ago by a literary man. Once I congratulated that actor on the success of the book.
'Yes,' he said, 'the book has done me good, because X., you know, mentions my name once or twice in that book.'
And many books of reminiscences that I know are full of the sayings and doings of the author, with an occasional mention of people of whom we should like to hear a great deal.
I have met these men in private, and sometimes found them clever, and invariably fatiguing bores, and their books are not more entertaining than their conversation. Many of them reminded me of the first visit that Diderot paid to Voltaire, on which occasion he talked the great French wit deaf and dumb.
'What do you think of Diderot?' asked a friend of Voltaire a few days after that visit.
'Well,' replied Voltaire, 'Diderot is a clever fellow, but he has no talent for dialogue.'
CHAPTER XXII
THOUGHTS ON HATS
The manly man wears his hat slightly inclined on the right, naturally, without exaggeration, and without swagger. The braggart wears his right on his ear. Jolly fellows, destitute of manners, and drunkards, wear theirs on the back of the head; when far gone, the brim of the hat touches the neck.
Hypocrites wear theirs over the eyes. Fops wear their hats inclined on the left. Why? The reason is simple. Of course, they know that the hat, if inclined, should be on the right; but, unfortunately for them, they look at themselves in the glass, where the hat inclined on the left looks as if it were inclined on the right. So they wear it on the left, and think they have done the correct thing.
The very proper man and the prig invariably wear their hats perfectly straight. The scientific man and all men of brains put their heads well inside their hats; the more scientific the mind is, the deeper the head goes inside the hat.
Fools put on their hats with the help of both hands, and simply lay them on the top of their heads. I suppose they feel that hats are meant to cover the brain, and they are satisfied, in their modesty and consciousness of their value, with covering the small quantity of brains given to them by Nature.
The absent-minded man is recognised by his hat brushed against the nap, the tidy man by his irreproachably smooth hat, and the needy man by a greasy hat.
A shabby coat is not necessarily a sign that a man is hard up. Many men get so fond of a coat that they cannot make up their minds to part with it and discard it; but shoes down at heel and a shabby, greasy hat prove that their wearer is drowning: he is helpless and hopeless.
Only the well-off man, who serves nobody, wears a white top-hat; this hat is the emblem of independence and of success in life.
Man's station in life is shown from the way he takes off his hat. Kings and emperors just lift it off their heads. A gentleman takes off his hat to whoever salutes him. Once a beggar in Dublin saluted the great Irish patriot, Daniel O'Connell. The latter returned the salute by taking off his hat to the beggar.
'How can you take off your hat to a beggar?' remarked a friend who was with him. 'Because,' he replied, 'I don't want that beggar to say that he is more of a gentleman than I am.' Parvenus keep their hats on always, unless before some aristocrat, to whom they cringe.
The Englishman takes off his hat with a stiff jerk and puts it on again immediately. The Frenchman takes it off gently, and, before a lady, remains uncovered until she says to him: 'Couvrez-vous, monsieur, je vous prie.'
The Italian takes it off with ceremony, and with his hand puts it nearly to the ground. Timid men keep rolling their hats in their hands. Very religious ones pray inside them, making a wry face, as if the emanations were of an unpleasant character.
Soldiers and horsemen fix their hats by pressing on the top of the crown.
Men who belong to decent clubs and frequent 'at homes' never need be in want of a good hat.
In Paris, in London, and in New York during the season no gentleman can wear anything but a silk hat after lunch-time.
When you pay calls, you must enter the drawing-room with your hat in your hand and keep it all the time, unless you are on very intimate terms with your host and hostess, when you may leave it in the hall.
A well-put-on hat is the proof of a well-balanced mind.
CHAPTER XXIII
THOUGHTS ON EYE-GLASSES
The man who wears spectacles – I mean eye-glasses with branches fixed behind the ears – is a serious man, a man of science, a man of business – at all events, a man who thinks of his comfort before he thinks of his appearance. There is no nonsense, no frivolity about him, especially if they are framed in gold. He is a steady man, somewhat prosaic, and even matter-of-fact. If he is a young man and wears them, you may conclude that he means to succeed, and always look on the serious side of life. He is no fop, no lady-killer, but a man whose affections can be relied on, and who expects a woman to love him for the qualities of his mind and the truthfulness of his heart.
Next to a solid gold watch and chain, a pair of gold spectacles are the best testimony of respectability; then comes a sound umbrella.
The man who wears his eye-glasses halfway down his nose is a shrewd man of business, who ever bears in mind that time is money. Thus placed, his eye-glasses enable him to read a letter of introduction, and, above them, to read and observe the character of the person who has presented it to him. Lawyers generally wear them that way, and they seldom fail to have their bureau so placed that they can have their backs to the window, while their clients or callers are seated opposite in the full light of the day.
Old gentlemen wear their eye-glasses on the tip of their noses when they read their newspaper, because it enables them to recline in their arm-chairs and assume a more comfortable position.
The single eye-glass was originally worn by people whose eyes were different, in order to remedy the defective one. To-day it may be asserted that, out of a hundred men who wear single eye-glasses, ninety-nine see through – the other one. The single eye-glass is tolerable in a man of a certain age who is both clever and distingué looking. John Bright, with his fine white mass of hair and intelligent, firm, yet kind expression, looked beautiful with his eye-glass on. Lord Beaconsfield also looked well with one. To Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, with his turned-up nose and sneering smile, and his jaw ever ready to snap, it adds impudence.
When a man looks silly, the single eye-glass finishes him and makes him look like a drivelling idiot. If, besides, he is very young, it gives you an irresistible desire to smack his face or pull his nose.
The single eye-glass originated in England, but it is now worn in France quite as much, especially by young dudes, who, lacking the manliness of young Englishmen, look preposterously ridiculous with them on. I must say, however, that great Frenchmen have worn single eye-glasses, among them Alphonse Daudet, Aurélien Scholl, President Felix Faure, Gaston Paris. Alfred Capus, now our most popular dramatist, wears one; so does Paul Bourget, but the latter is short-sighted on the right side.
No Royalty has ever been known to wear one, although not long ago I saw a portrait of the Kaiser with a single eye-glass.
America is to be congratulated on the absence of single eye-glasses. I may have seen one or two at the horse-show in New York, but I should not like to swear to it. An American dude, with his trousers turned up, wearing a single eye-glass and sucking the top of his stick, would be a sight for the gods to enjoy. I believe that a single eye-glass, not only in Chicago or Kansas City, but in Broadway, New York, and even in Boston, would cause Americans, whose bump of veneration is not highly developed, to pass remarks not of a particularly favourable character on its wearer. In the West, he might be tarred and feathered, if not lynched. One way or the other, he would be a success there.
But the most impudent, the most provoking single eye-glass of all is the one which is worn, generally by very young men, without strings. As they frown and wink, and make the grimace unavoidable to the wearer of that kind of apparel, they seem to say: 'See what practice can do! I have no string, yet I am not at all afraid of my glass falling from my eye.' Rich Annamites grow their finger-nails eight and ten inches long, to show you that they are aristocrats, and have never used their hands for any kind of work. French and English parasites advertise their uselessness by this exhibition of the single eye-glass without string. And with it on, they eat, talk, smoke, run, laugh, and sneeze – and it sticks. Wonderful, simply wonderful! When you can do that, you really are 'in it.'
When you consider the progress that civilization is making every day, the discoveries that are made, the pluck and perseverance that are shown by the pioneers of all science, by the princes of commerce, by the explorers of new fields and pastures, in your gratitude for all they have done and are still doing for the world, you must not forget the well-groomed young man who has succeeded in being able to wear a single eye-glass without a string.