It was that of the mind of a bigot
to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it
contracts. The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now
say, a happy one; for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a
Preface to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long
before my remark was repeated. When a person of fair character for
literary honesty uses an image, such as another has employed before
him, the presumption is, that he has struck upon it independently,
or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own.
It is impossible to tell, in a great many cases, whether a
comparison which suddenly suggests itself is a new conception or a
recollection. I told you the other day that I never wrote a line
of verse that seemed to me comparatively good, but it appeared old
at once, and often as if it had been borrowed. But I confess I
never suspected the above comparison of being old, except from the
fact of its obviousness. It is proper, however, that I proceed by
a formal instrument to relinquish all claim to any property in an
idea given to the world at about the time when I had just joined
the class in which Master Thomas Moore was then a somewhat advanced
scholar.
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