| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: making the wills of other persons subservient to their own. There
are many allusions to the subject in memoirs and other unimportant
works, but I only know of one where the subject is spoken of
definitely. It is MERCIA AND ITS WORTHIES, written by Ezra Toms
more than a hundred years ago. The author goes into the question of
the close association of the then Edgar Caswall with Mesmer in
Paris. He speaks of Caswall being a pupil and the fellow worker of
Mesmer, and states that though, when the latter left France, he took
away with him a vast quantity of philosophical and electric
instruments, he was never known to use them again. He once made it
known to a friend that he had given them to his old pupil. The term
Lair of the White Worm |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: me, whereby it appeared that she had left a small plantation,
as he called it, on York River, that is, where my mother lived,
to me, with the stock of servants and cattle upon it, and given
it in trust to this son of mine for my use, whenever he should
hear of my being alive, and to my heirs, if I had any children,
and in default of heirs, to whomsoever I should by will dispose
of it; but gave the income of it, till I should be heard of, or
found, to my said son; and if I should not be living, then it was
to him, and his heirs.
This plantation, though remote from him, he said he did not
let out, but managed it by a head-clerk (steward), as he did
Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: the classical writers both in poetry or prose; it was (Greek). The balance
of sentences and the introduction of paragraphs at suitable intervals must
not be neglected if the harmony of the English language is to be preserved.
And still a caution has to be added on the other side, that we must avoid
giving it a numerical or mechanical character.
(3) This, however, is not one of the greatest difficulties of the
translator; much greater is that which arises from the restriction of the
use of the genders. Men and women in English are masculine and feminine,
and there is a similar distinction of sex in the words denoting animals;
but all things else, whether outward objects or abstract ideas, are
relegated to the class of neuters. Hardly in some flight of poetry do we
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