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Certain Personal Matters - The Theory of Quotation · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty eight of Certain Personal Matters. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Greg Giardano. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty eight. The theory of quotation. The nobler method
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  Speaker 1: of quotation is not to quote at all, For why
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  Speaker 1: should one repeat good things that are already written, are
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  Speaker 1: not the words in their fittest context in the original. Clearly,
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  Speaker 1: then your new setting cannot be so congruous, which is
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  Speaker 1: forthwith an admission of incongruity your quotation and is evidently
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  Speaker 1: a plug in, a leak, an apology for a gap
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  Speaker 1: in your own words. But your vulgar author will even
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  Speaker 1: go out of his way to make the clothing of
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  Speaker 1: his thoughts thus heterogeneous. He counts every stolen scrap he
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  Speaker 1: can work in an improvement a literary catus worm. Yet
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  Speaker 1: would he consider it improvement to put a piece of
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  Speaker 1: even the richest of old tapestry or gold embroidery into
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  Speaker 1: his new pair of breeks. The passion for quotation is
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  Speaker 1: peculiar to literature. We do not glory to quote our
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  Speaker 1: costume dress and cast off court robes, or furnish our
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  Speaker 1: houses from the marine's store. Neither are we proud of
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  Speaker 1: alien initials on the domestic silver. We like things new
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  Speaker 1: and primarily our own. We have a wholesome instinct against infection.
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  Speaker 1: Except it seems in the matter of ideas and Authorling
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  Speaker 1: will deliberately inoculate his copy with the inverted comma basilis
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  Speaker 1: till the page swims unsteadily, counting the fever a glow
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  Speaker 1: of pure literary healthiness. Yet this reproduction, rightly considered, is
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  Speaker 1: merely a proof that his appetite for books has run
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  Speaker 1: beyond his digestion or his industry. May be to seek
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  Speaker 1: you expect an omelet, and presently upcome the unbroken eggs.
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  Speaker 1: A tissue of quotation, wisely looked at, is indeed but
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  Speaker 1: a motley garment, eloquent either of a fool or an
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  Speaker 1: idle knave in a fool's disguise. Nevertheless, at times the
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  Speaker 1: truth must be told, we must quote. As for omitting
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  Speaker 1: that we have quoted, that is another matter altogether. But
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  Speaker 1: the other man's phrase will lie at time so close
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  Speaker 1: in one's mind to the trend of one's thoughts, that
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  Speaker 1: all virtue, notwithstanding, they must needs run into the groove
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  Speaker 1: of it. There are phrases that lie about in a
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  Speaker 1: literary mind, like orange peel on a pavement. You are
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  Speaker 1: down on them before you know where you are. But
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  Speaker 1: does this necessitate acknowledgment to the man now in hades
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  Speaker 1: who sucked that orange and strewed the peel in your way? Rather,
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  Speaker 1: is it not more becoming to be angry at its
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  Speaker 1: careless anticipation? One may reasonably look at it in this way.
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  Speaker 1: What business has a man to think of things right
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  Speaker 1: in front of you, poke his head, as it were,
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  Speaker 1: into your light? What right has he to set up
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  Speaker 1: dams and tunnel out swallow holes to deflect the current
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  Speaker 1: of your thoughts. Surely you may remove these obstructions if
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  Speaker 1: it suits you, and put them where you will. Else
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  Speaker 1: all literature will presently be choked up, and the making
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  Speaker 1: of books come to an end. One might as well
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  Speaker 1: walk ten miles out of one's way because some deaf
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  Speaker 1: oath or other chose to sit upon a necessary style.
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  Speaker 1: Surely Shakespeare or Lamb or what other source you contemplate,
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  Speaker 1: has had the thing long enough out of the road
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  Speaker 1: with them, turn and turn about, and inverted commas are
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  Speaker 1: so inhospitable. If you must take in another man's offspring,
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  Speaker 1: you should surely try to make the poor foundlings feel
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  Speaker 1: at home away with such uncharitable distinctions between the children
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  Speaker 1: of the house and the stranger within your gates. I
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  Speaker 1: never see inverted commas, but I think of the necessary
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  Speaker 1: persecuted medieval jew and yellow Gabardine. At least, never put
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  Speaker 1: the name of the author you quote. Think of the
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  Speaker 1: feelings of the dead. Don't let the poor spirit take
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  Speaker 1: it to heart that its monumental sayings would pass unrecognized
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  Speaker 1: without your advertisement. Mean well, perhaps, but it is in
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  Speaker 1: the poorest taste. Yet I have seen patience on a
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  Speaker 1: monument honorably awarded to William Shakespeare and fenced in by
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  Speaker 1: commas from all intercourse with the general text. There is
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  Speaker 1: something so extremely dishonest too, in acknowledging quotations. Possibly the
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  Speaker 1: good people who so contrived that such signatures as Shakespeare,
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  Speaker 1: Homer or Saint Paul appeared to be written here and
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  Speaker 1: there to parts of their inferior work, managed to justify
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  Speaker 1: the proceeding in their conscience. But it is uncommonly like
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  Speaker 1: hallmarking pewter on the strength of an infintesimial tinge of silver.
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  Speaker 1: Therein the point he becomes at once clear. If we
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  Speaker 1: imagine some obscure painter quoting the style of Raphael and
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  Speaker 1: fragments of his designs, and acknowledging his indebtedness by appending
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  Speaker 1: the master's signature, blank forgery and a flood of light
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  Speaker 1: was thrown on the matter. By chance remark of one
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  Speaker 1: of Euphemia's aunts, she is a great reader of pure fiction,
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  Speaker 1: a ent a popular novel. Quote. I am sure it
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  Speaker 1: must be a nice book, said she, Or she could
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  Speaker 1: not get all these people to write the mottoes for
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  Speaker 1: the chapters end quote. No, it is all very well
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  Speaker 1: to play with one's conscience. I have known men so
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  Speaker 1: sophisticated as to assert that unacknowledged quotation was wrong. But
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  Speaker 1: very few really reasonable people will, I think, refuse to
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  Speaker 1: agree with me. The only artistic, the only kindly, and
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  Speaker 1: the only honest method of quotation is plagiary. If you
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  Speaker 1: cannot plagiar eyes, surely it were better not to quote
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  Speaker 1: and of Chapter twenty eight. Recording by Gregg Giardano, Newport, Richie, Florida,