Quotation can be one of the finest graces of literature and one! of its most tedious superfluities. There ought therefore to be an art of quotation. But who knows its rules? Quotation is one of the flowers of Style, which is itself incapable of description or of subservience.to rule. It is successful in proportion as it is! merged in style, swinging with its wing, intensifying its force, deepening its depth of suggestion. Yet if there is no art of quotation there is such a thing as art in quoting. Here (without its article) art has a different meaning; it is simply a tact, an instinct of rightness, an exercise of harmonious power. As each, it cannot be reduced to rule, ut certain general observations may perhaps be ventured, "As tae Porr Says.
Although many of the most original writers have been frog quoters, a plethora of quotation is usually a sign of weakness, writes "Johns o' London." Many essays! and addresses are emasculated by' frequent and sloppy quota: The author seems to proceed leaping from stepping-stone stepping-stone of reference. His pendulum swings like this:—
Tt was written of old.
As Browning finch We may not all agree with Mr. Ber. nard Shaiv's views, but. oe GK. Chesterton witty pats I may remind Matthew Arnold. oe rou of the words of 1Bipling's lines are known to. you ye Perhaps some of you have read an amusing book called "Bindle?.
I again quote Browning.
Let me advert to that fine thought of Marcus Aurelius. c., ete.
Writers of this kind, moreover, rarely quote with elementary tact They will introduce Shakespeare and Elia Wheeler Wilcox into the same essay, and are capable of adorning the same paragraph with lines from Pope and_ Francis Thompson, Disraeli rightly dismisses the notion that no one would quote if he could think, but the truth is that many people do quote because thoughts fail them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.