Harper's Weekly/When the Bills Come In

by Eugene Manlove Rhodes

When the Bills Come In

By EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES

MOST writer-folk are nervous. They are not writers because they are nervous: they are nervous because they are writers. And to be painfully aware, on February twenty-ninth, that one must, by writing, procure $289.32 on or before March thirty-first, makes it possible and probable that he will not even raise the thirty-two cents.

It is because of this paralyzing effect of fixed payments upon the human mind, or certainly upon my mind, that I have now hit upon the happy idea of writing a series of papers, and laying them by to eke out my life-insurance.

There are many advantages in this scheme, beside the obvious one that if I had sold these papers while—or whilst—I yet lived, I should doubtless have spent the money long ago. First, the missus will probably get more of that good money for the MSS than I could possibly have got. For that particular brand of MSS she will have the market cornered, and if there is any demand at all she may make quite advantageous terms. I can find it in my heart to hope that she will be very austere. Second, I may cheerfully say “I” when “I" is what I mean without clumsy subterfuge or foolish circumlocution. It is one of the many advantages of being dead—perhaps the greatest advantage—that you do not have to be modest. In some ways it was very tiresome to be alive.

Third, I may use the humble parenthesis when I see fit; I will be at liberty to fearlessly split infinitives or tensed verbs: last and best, I shall not have to read the proofs.

I think I shall write a little about writing—for two reasons, neither of which reasons is that I have anything particularly new or valuable to say. But I have reason to believe that most readers are writing, or are going to write, or think they are going to write.

There is everything in a name, no matter what Verulam says.

Take the Republican Party of today. So long as one faction submits to be branded as Insurgents or even as Progressives, while the other wing is triumphantly known as Republicans, "Standpatters." or the “Old Guard," we may expect no great changes. But when the radicals shall be known as Republicans and the conservatives are called the "Non-Progressives," then we shall hear tidings.

When the United Slates can plagiarize the Filipinos and get the transaction whitewashed as assimilation, while the writer who really assimilates another man's thought, makes it a part of himself, recoins it and utters it again, will be called a plagiarist—(unless indeed, he is a genius)—I trust we can see that the name of a thing is a question of the very first importance.

Observe that I am not writing of men of genius. No one will accuse the genius of plagiarism. No one—not even Thomas Fleming Day—will accuse Mr. Rudyard Kipling of plagiarism. I suppose the man does not live who would not think it an honor to have Mr. Kipling plagiarize from him.

 

PLAGIARISM is an ugly word. I mean now the word as a word, not the thing. The sound of it is intrinsically ugly, only less hateful than the hideous no-word "pants.” And no one can possibly spell plagiarism without a dictionary.

What curious things men do! We used to write with pens, and then we spelled the word "recie—Wait a minute!—Oh yes!—"received," in full, by means of making “e” and “i” exactly alike and putting the dot half way between the two letters. But with the advent of the typewriter this evasion will no longer serve. Now we spell it “rec'd.”

 

HERE'S another funny thing. Mr. Jones, a tired business man—every business man is a Tired Business Man nowadays, and it is for his Weariness that musical and other comedies must be silly—dictates his letters. As the stenographer does not usually know the full name and address of the correspondent, Mr. Jones gives that as a preliminary both to save time and as a precaution against forgetting to give it at all. Hence the formal superscription:

 

Mr. James Edwick Smith
Kennebec,
Me.

Dear Sir:

 

This is sensible enough, so far. But, from habit, Mr. Jones uses the same form of superscription when he does the writing himself—(with, perhaps, "My dear Mr. Smith," or "Dear Jim" instead of "Dear Sir")—although the form is then meaningless, since he knows the address without such note. And Thompson, who has no stenographer, and has never dictated a letter, uses the same formal, commercial superscription—because Jones does!

We are all the slaves of habit. We do things every day, merely from the force of habits whose origin we have never known. You have noted that unless the larger horse of a team were driven on the off side you are annoyed or even distressed? This is, of course, because your heart is on your left side. You may say that it is because you are used to that particular arrangement of horses: but did you ever ask yourself why the larger horse is harnessed upon the right side? Let us follow it up: it is really very interesting.

It is because, not so very long since, we had a postilion to drive for us, who rode one of the horses. It was his habit to hitch the smaller horse on the left hand side, because it is easier to get on a small horse than on a larger one and because it was the habit to mount a horse from the left side.

The habit of getting on a horse from the left side was formed because men had the habit of wearing the sword upon the left side: therefore to get upon a horse from the right side while wearing a sword, was not practical; one’s sword would get tangled between one's legs. The habit of wearing the sword on the left side rather than on the right was formed because most men were habitually right-handed; and so could draw easier and quicker from a scabbard on the left. The habit of being right-handed was formed so that the heart might not be easily reached by the oppposing sword: and the sword habit was partly because man is a fighting animal, and partly because he was clever enough to invent something better than teeth and claws to fight with.

We might easily go further and inquire how man acquired the clever habit of thinking—but that would be to set reason to explain itself, a horrible habit, fortunately confined to philosophers.

That chain of thought seems fairly clear; but we are not always so fortunate. Every one knows why Friday is an unlucky day and thirteen an unlucky number, especially the legally hanged; but who has found the mystical bond between the white horse and the red-headed girl? Yet there must have been some reason for this fortunate fact. Come to think of it, the colors go well together.

 

REASON assures us that waiters wear evening dress because, yesterday or day before, the master was attended by his own man, and the man wore the master's cast-off clothing; but reason throws no light on why the master ever wore evening dress in the first place. Doubtless there is some arbitrary historical cause; but I do not think reason ever had anything to do with evening dress. Perhaps it is of Puritan origin, a species of penance for the sins of the flesh: perhaps it was originally a symbol of devil-worship.

When I was alive, it so often distressingly happened that when I had finished writing a little passage and saw that it was good, I must needs cry out, “There’s that beast Kipling again!”—having discovered that I was once more the victim of a too tenacious memory. To be sure, I could change the phrase from “a contemporary of Nineveh and Tyre” for instance, to “a contemporary of Damascus and Arpad;” but the phrase was none the less stolen for being spoiled, and I was naturally resentful. Therefore, it is easy to see why Mr. Kipling is associated with plagiarism in my mind, because he has so frequently been the plagiarzee—if I may coin a needed word.

There is a great deal more of this unconscious stealing going on than you wot, and I think that no one would be more surprised than some of the guilty parties, who were innocently unaware of it.

I have had the opposite experience too, more than once, and have gravely cut out a good phrase under the impression that it was loot, to find out, too late for publication, that it was of my own authentic make; to say nothing of the numberless cases when I was in doubt, but tacked on quotation marks to be on the safe side. Curiously enough, I once had plagiarism thrust upon me. I used a quotation, with perfectly good quotation marks in the MSS. These were cut out in galley sheets. Twice, I nobly restored them in the proofs; yet the quotation murks were rigorously suppressed, and the booty was finally printed without them, to my great joy.

To plagiarize a man is the surest way as well as the commonest way to disseminate his principles. If you but plagiarize him often enough, you make him immortal, and then you cannot plagiarize him at all. He has become part of the common stock. Do your utmost and you only succeed in making a happy allusion. You cannot plagiarize the Decalogue, or Shakespeare or the Gettysburg Address. Thus, if you have only written something worth while in the first place, the plagiarist is your best friend.

 

FOR, you may cheat, swindle, defraud and steal in merely material ways and walk unsuspected,—honored, anyway. Cases have been known where a box-car has been stolen, or even a whole railroad, and no one the wiser. But the one theft that you cannot commit with impunity is the literary theft. It is not only always detected; it is always detected immediately. True, it is seldom exposed, unless by officious third persons. The wise writer is delighted with this proof of merit; the unwise writer is, commonly, at least prudent enough to let sleeping dogs lie, to ware the deadly parallel column.

One cowardly and popular device is to convey a striking sentiment or a striking phrase by making one of your characters, A or Y, use it in his speech. Thus, if the transfer passes unnoted you get credit for originality: whereas if it is noticed, you still get credit for cleverness in making your man A, or your man Y, so well read and so humanly consistent. This is obviously the safest form of literary theft. But it is a base and unworthy evasion, showing the same meanness of spirit involved in making hedge-bets. I seldom resort to it myself. My talent lies more along the lines of plain piracy.

 

ONE thing more about quotations. If you are trying to convince, in a subtle argument where closest attention is desired, quotation marks are prone to distract attention from the vital matter of what is said to the irrelevant matter of who said it first. It is often advisable to give the weighty passage enforcing (or causing) your views, without the quotation marks; and then, after you have made your point, you may cite the authority who supplied you with your master-stroke. With a little practice you also can acquire the habit of forgetting to name your authority.

If strictly original work were printed in the normal way, and borrowed or ways worked-over material punished and proclaimed by red ink, literature would be one vast red Pacific, sparsely dotted by barren islets of black.

To remold a thought, inspired by enthusiasm and admiration—that beneficent process cannot be stopped without stopping all thought. It is needful, however, to cast into the crucible one new ingredient—yourself. Be you never so light off weight, if you add yourself to the alloy, you are making a legitimate scientific experiment, even though it may be a futile one. But if you do not put yourself into the remolding, you are merely melting down your loot, silver curiously carven, into unrecognizable bullion, for the sake of an ignominious safety. When you do this you are not merely a thief. You are also a wastrel.

Our most commonplace, everyday speech is compounded of forgotten plagiarisms. When we say, “There are more good democrats in Oyster Bay, believe me, kid, than in many a Harmon Club,” we don’t really think of

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

But Tennyson turns over in his grave, nevertheless.

Lest I forget when I write my forthcoming paper, Notebooks and the Artistic Temperament, let me now urge my little friend legion to exercise great caution in taking down the bright sayings of his friends, for future use. It is not safe. They have such an abominable habit of cribbing their bright sayings from books.

Now for the application. It is commonly said to my little friend Legion: Read the great writers for style. But, I say to him: Read the great dead masters for ideas. Devour them, Fletcherize them, digest, assimilate, make them part of your blood; let the enriched blood visit your brain. The resultant activities will be fairly your own, and the little kinks and convolutions of your brain, which are entirely different from the kinks of any other brain, will furnish you all the style you will ever get.

There are no really fresh ideas; just as there is not any fresh air. air and ideas are refreshed and refreshing, vitalized and vitalizing; but the thoughts have been thought before and the air has been breathed before.

Note, however, that I advise to read the great dead writers for this purpose. This Is for two reasons. The great dead writers will not protest, and there are not many great ones living. For what few there are, they are not apt to protest: but they would make note of it privately and think coldly of you.

I find that I have not been quite honest about my reasons for writing this paper. I am keen about the life insurance feature, right enough. But neither will I be sorry to be remembered—kindly, I hope—for a fleeting second. Then surely, like Gaffer and Granny Tyl in The Bluebird, we live again, we dead, when we are remembered; we move dimly in the spinning mist and smile our love at you.

It is curious to think how highly you would value the slightest word from me from where I am now. Yet, could you really question me, it is like you would ask me about some utterly trivial thing, just as I, could I get word from you, would probably ask you about baseball championships or presidential elections or some equally unimportant matter. For the fact that I still existed would of itself answer the one Important Question; just as the great thing with you is not whether you are a Shakespeare or a coal-heaver, which is a slight and superficial matter. The great thing is, that you exist at all. That is the one incredible miracle.

As a matter of fact, what I feel just now is not regret so much as curiosity as to how it happened. Cyrano wished to die upon a hero's sword. We have few conveniences for such exit now. We are reduced, broadly speaking, to dying of sickness, mental error, adulterated food, doctors of an experimental turn, or motor-cars. Personally. I hope that it was not a motor-car, or at least that it was not an intoxicated motor-car. The idea of being killed by an intoxicated motor-car has always been distastful to me.

 

Postscript

 

OWING to the disgusting and heartless importunities of my creditors, especially of the insurance company, I have been compelled, most reluctantly, to modify my original plan and to dispose of these papers now. This leaves me in a false position, which I feel keenly, and I trust you will share my regret.