Young authors, in admiration of their idols, so often write the prose of Theseus β hoping to replace a great authorβs passage word-by-word until it becomes their own, having lost none of its literary quality.
Great authors, in admiration of the young, wish them to cease this foolish idolatry at once β to find their own voice, and not another's. Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of self-betrayal.