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Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 539, 21 June 1909, Page 11

; . An English; writer'discusses nature-as a ,plagiarist: 't)scar.-Wilde's, well-known contention: that nature l is continually • found pl». giarisirig■ from art mayi'havo been suggested•by a Wiistlerism.': Sonieono called Whistler's attention: to', a remarkable..sunset;. suj;-, gestedthat it.'was like.a Tumor.: "Ah, yes,'', said::_Wbistler, ; ."she's' creeping -..np, ■ she's creeping up." .:; James jPayn was .'a.'speoial sufferer.ffrorii '.nature's., depredations on his pages... In one of-his stories," having .to. ab- ' sent one of .his characters. iu .-such a. way as to leave liis friends; doubtful whether he w»s alivo:or dead, he madb him drop into'; a'hol.low.tree arid there-starve to death.' This was' too "good ;a 1 hiiit for- nature 'to let- pass. ! _'Years-after I hadVplaccd my wicked baronet in his living tomb," says Payri, '.'she'starved to death a hunter in Mexico'under precisely similar ;:circuiristances, and so late -la's-'last month she 'has., done -tho same in a forest of..Styria." 'In.another book ho wiped out a wholq; population ,by submerging' an island in tho Payn,' "what did; nature do?,: Sho;waited.for an insultingly , short time, if her' idea' was that the stery should bo.forgotton, and,then.reproduced the samo circiunstarices ou her own account,.and without tlio:least, acknowledgment, in Indian ;Soas.v.... An author, however, ■;. can.- hardly claim.copyright v m'tho destruction of an is-land,-as Lafcadio Hcarn foundi During aresiclcnco at. : Grande 'Islo' ho collected the tradition of: a populous island that had been conyorted into .a sandbank flush with the sea, I 'by a tornado, and wovo it into a story which 1 he: afterwards, published- uridor the: titlo of ■ 'La' Cbita."' Nearly twenty years after not !.only-was Grande Mo swept away in tho ''same manner, but iwtaro enriched tho epi- ! sode ,with. mruiy ■ details, borrowed from | ; .Hoarn's. story, i; "A girl child," savs (Miss Bisland;. "was rescued by Manila fishermen, as Hearn had imagined. After living with ; one of their families for some' time sho was finally recovered by her father (who had believed her lost-in the general catastrophoV under circumstances ,astoundingly,like those invented by the" author so many years be'.fore." ■-•. . '•.-■.■■■