Evening star., 1932-10-12
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL,

Look as far back through the cen.
turies in old books as you please. yor
seldom will find anything startlingly
new to you or any word which strikes
you as strange.
Go back to the days of Miss JANE
Austen and read her fine novels, par.
ticularly Emma" and MANSFIELD
Park" There is scarcely word or q
thing described which is different ir
any real degree.
Turn the reading wheel Of time
plunge into the great Rome, the great
Greece, even there one finds nothing
which leaves a reader in much doubt.
Translators have used their abilities
as well as their rights, Of course. but
after all. they have changed very little.
This reader at least has always taken
with grain of salt the theory often
expressed that no one can know a
great book except in its original tongue
There is very little practical reason
why an adequate translation cannot
ception of the beauties of masterpiece
The fine bloom may be brushed off the
peach, but the very tangible fruit re-
mains.
Edward FitZgeralo's translation Of old
Omar's quatrains are even better than
the original, according to many COM
petent to know, and certainly according
to any reader who will take the trouble
to look into other versions, especially
the sc-called literal translations.
The modern reader in English may
feel reasonably certain that he is get
ting, if not the entire spirit Of for
eign work, at least enough of that spirit
to enable him to feel that he is read
ing at first hand. not second hand.
He is entitled to this feeling, OF
course, only with the best translations
Just how he will know these is another
matter. Here he must depend upon
his common sense, as we'll as upon such
scholarship as he is fortunate enough
to possess.
He will be struck. in any event, with
the great similarity between human
nature in past ages and human nature
today. Not many descriptions Of things
or deeds, or acts, or emotions are new
to him or strange.
He will not forget that the age in
which he stands, in which he is per-
mitted to read, is the beneficiary of all
past ages, so that if he has been fairly
well educated. as the phrase has it, and
has made favorable progress, he, too
will be the beneficiary of times past.
Yet however Skillful he may have
been in his school days and since in
amassing for personal use a lore OF
material not always useful but always
interesting, he may still be entitled to
feel that he ought to run across brand
new words and ideas.
Here is a translation of a japanese
novel written by japanese lady al
fhnIcond
The book is excellent, astonishingly
modern in tone
There is not, however, an article of
furniture described which does not
have its counterpart in any home to-
day, in almost any nation in the world
The young women play game-and
what game?
Checkers!
No doubt the checkers of that period
in Japan was not exactly the checkers
played in country stores in America, but
the translator gave it the name GER
tainly.
The emotions Of the characters are
exactly like the emotions of modern
Americans, with certain understandable
variations
If modern American young people
were placed in similar situations, their
basic reactions would not be SO very
different, despite the thousand years.
And 1000 years is lot of time.
Mankind gibly speaks O. centuries
and centuries, and even thousands of
years, as if all that time past were MOTH
ing more than a mere handful of DAYS.
when the truth is that even historical
times past mount into heights beyond
the comprehension of brains.
In relation to all those millions gone,
those innumerable meals eaten, those
daily prayers sent up from all over the
earth, those hopes and fears, that end
less succession of days and nights, the
great universal medium in which they
all existed, called time, does not exist
at all
Time Is word which means moth
ing. We like to think that it extends