| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: size, intention, and quality. But there could not in the nature of
things be much resemblance, because Frank conceives Shakespear to have
been a broken-hearted, melancholy, enormously sentimental person,
whereas I am convinced that he was very like myself: in fact, if I
had been born in 1556 instead of in 1856, I should have taken to blank
verse and given Shakespear a harder run for his money than all the
other Elizabethans put together. Yet the success of Frank Harris's
book on Shakespear gave me great delight.
To those who know the literary world of London there was a sharp
stroke of ironic comedy in the irresistible verdict in its favor. In
critical literature there is one prize that is always open to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: any rate it is couched in language which is very rarely obscure. On the
other hand, the greatest writers of Greece, Thucydides, Plato, Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Pindar, Demosthenes, are generally those which are found to be
most difficult and to diverge most widely from the English idiom. The
translator will often have to convert the more abstract Greek into the more
concrete English, or vice versa, and he ought not to force upon one
language the character of another. In some cases, where the order is
confused, the expression feeble, the emphasis misplaced, or the sense
somewhat faulty, he will not strive in his rendering to reproduce these
characteristics, but will re-write the passage as his author would have
written it at first, had he not been 'nodding'; and he will not hesitate to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
chief himself brought the service to a sudden check. He had just
learned of the treacherous conduct of one in whom he had every
reason to trust. That evening the prayer seemed unusually short
and formal. As the singing stopped he arose abruptly and left the
room. I hastened after him, fearing some sudden illness. 'What is
it?' I asked. 'It is this,' was the reply; 'I am not yet fit to
say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us."'
It is with natural reluctance that I touch upon the last prayer of
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