CHAPTER XXXII.
LITERARY FELONY.
We have recently seen many elaborate discussions as to whether plagiarism is virtuous or criminal--in other words, whether writers may steal.

If a minister can find a sermon better than any one he can make, why not preach it?
If an author can find a paragraph for his book better than any he can himself manufacture, why not appropriate it?
That sounds well.

But why not go further and ask, if a woman find a set of furs better than she has in her wardrobe, why not take them?
If a man find that his neighbor has a cow full Alderney, while he has in his own yard only a scrawny runt, why not drive home the Alderney?
Theft is taking anything that does not belong to you, whether it be sheep, oxen, hats, coats or literary material.
Without attempting to point put the line that divides the lawful appropriation of another's ideas from the appropriation of another's phraseology, we have only to say that a literary man always knows when he is stealing.

Whether found out or not, the process is belittling, and a man is through it blasted for this world and damaged for the next one.

The ass in the fable wanted to die because he was beaten so much, but after death they changed his hide into a drum-head, and thus he was beaten more than ever.