| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: evidently wasn't aware of the degenerative nature of his changes
as he sat there, looking suddenly quite little under my eyes.
"Well, George!" he said, quite happily unconscious of my silent
criticism, "what do you think of it all?"
"Well," I said, "in the first place--it's a damned swindle!"
"Tut! tut!" said my uncle. "It's as straight as-- It's fair
trading!"
"So much the worse for trading," I said.
"It's the sort of thing everybody does. After all, there's no
harm in the stuff--and it may do good. It might do a lot of
good--giving people confidence, f'rinstance, against an epidemic.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: better. But when those words are put together you get "you man of
desires" and no German is going to understand that. He might even
think that Daniel is full of lustful desires. Now wouldn't that
be a fine translation! So I have to let the literal words go and
try to discover how the German says what the Hebrew "ish
chamudoth" expresses. I discover that the German says this, "You
dear Daniel", "you dear Mary", or "you gracious maiden", "you
lovely maiden", "you gentle girl" and so on. A translator must
have a large vocabulary so he can have more words for when a
particular one just does not fit in the context.
Why should I talk about translating so much? I would need an
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: child in her arms looked up in his face and smiled, stretching
out its rosy hands to grasp at the winged circle of gold on
his breast. His heart warmed to the touch. It seemed like a
greeting of love and trust to one who had journeyed long in
loneliness and perplexity, fighting with his own doubts and
fears, and following a light that was veiled in clouds.
"Why might not this child have been the promised Prince?"
he asked within himself, as he touched its soft cheek. "Kings
have been born ere now in lowlier houses than this, and the
favourite of the stars may rise even from a cottage. But it
has not seemed good to the God of wisdom to reward my search
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