What is Property [197]
by refusing to push their sale, by replacing them with poor imitations, by reproducing them in a hundred indirect ways; and no one knows how far the science of plagiarism, and skilful imitation may be carried. Against proprietors. Are we ignorant of the fact, that a demand for a dozen copies enables a bookseller to sell a thousand; that with an edition of five hundred he can supply a kingdom for thirty years? What will the poor authors do in the presence of this omnipotent union of booksellers? I will tell them what they will do. They will enter the employ of those whom they now treat as pirates; and, to secure an advantage, they will become wage laborers. A fit reward for ignoble avarice, and insatiable pride.[1]
[1] The property fever is at its height among writers and artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring passion. An artist sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right; only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers, the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then, does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as the chief of the literary classes, in playing for their benefit the role of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the accomplice and associate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the mind?
Contradictions of contradictions!" Genius is the great leveller of the world," cries M. de Lamartine; "then genius should be a proprietor. Literary property is the fortune of democracy." This unfortunate poet thinks himself profound when he is only puffed up. His eloquence consists solely in coupling ideas which clash with each other: ROUND SQUARE, DARK SUN, FALLEN ANGEL, PRIEST and LOVE, THOUGHT and POETRY, GUNIUS {???}, and FORTUNE, LEVELING and PROPERTY. Let us tell him, in reply, that his mind is a dark luminary; that each of his discourses is a disordered harmony; and that all his successes, whether in verse or prose, are due to the use of the extraordinary in the treatment of the most ordinary subjects.
"Le National," in reply to the report of M. Lamartine, endeavors to prove that literary property is of quite a different nature from landed property; as if the nature of the right of property depended on the object to which it is applied, and not on the mode of its exercise and the condition of its existence. But the main object of "Le National" is to please a class of proprietors whom an extension of the right of property vexes: that is why "Le National" opposes literary property. Will it tell us, once for all, whether it is for equality or against it?
6. OBJECTION.--Property in occupied land passes to the heirs of the occupant. "Why," say the authors, "should not the work of genius pass in like manner to the heirs of the man of genius?" M. Wolowski's reply: "Because the labor of the first occupant is continued by his heirs, while the heirs of an author
[1] The property fever is at its height among writers and artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring passion. An artist sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right; only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers, the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then, does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as the chief of the literary classes, in playing for their benefit the role of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the accomplice and associate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the mind?
Contradictions of contradictions!" Genius is the great leveller of the world," cries M. de Lamartine; "then genius should be a proprietor. Literary property is the fortune of democracy." This unfortunate poet thinks himself profound when he is only puffed up. His eloquence consists solely in coupling ideas which clash with each other: ROUND SQUARE, DARK SUN, FALLEN ANGEL, PRIEST and LOVE, THOUGHT and POETRY, GUNIUS {???}, and FORTUNE, LEVELING and PROPERTY. Let us tell him, in reply, that his mind is a dark luminary; that each of his discourses is a disordered harmony; and that all his successes, whether in verse or prose, are due to the use of the extraordinary in the treatment of the most ordinary subjects.
"Le National," in reply to the report of M. Lamartine, endeavors to prove that literary property is of quite a different nature from landed property; as if the nature of the right of property depended on the object to which it is applied, and not on the mode of its exercise and the condition of its existence. But the main object of "Le National" is to please a class of proprietors whom an extension of the right of property vexes: that is why "Le National" opposes literary property. Will it tell us, once for all, whether it is for equality or against it?
6. OBJECTION.--Property in occupied land passes to the heirs of the occupant. "Why," say the authors, "should not the work of genius pass in like manner to the heirs of the man of genius?" M. Wolowski's reply: "Because the labor of the first occupant is continued by his heirs, while the heirs of an author