| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: little shanty in the evening to wish her Happy Christmas,
although it was over. They piled up comforts and blankets in the
cart, and she lay on them quite snugly, her scarred child's-face
looking out from a great woollen hood Mrs. Howth gave her. Old
Yare held Barney, with his hat in his hand, looking as if he
deserved hanging, but very proud of the kindness they all showed
his girl. Holmes gave him some money for a Christmas gift, and
he took it, eagerly enough. For some unexpressed reason, they
stood a long time in the snow bidding Lois good-bye; and for the
same reason, it may be, she was loath to go, looking at each one
earnestly as she laughed and grew red and pale answering them,
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: this night, took on Him the form of man, and for man vouchsafed
to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His behest
thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal,
all-wise--in Him is my trust; and though stripped and crushed by
thee--though naked, desolate, void of resource--I do not
despair, I cannot despair: were the lance of Guthrum now wet
with my blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I
pray; Jehovah, in his own time, will aid."
I need not continue the quotation; the whole devoir was in the
same strain. There were errors of orthography, there were
foreign idioms, there were some faults of construction, there
The Professor |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: beer or a purse "full of" money. So I translated it: "You
gracious one". This way a German can at last think about what the
angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me
corrupting the angelic greeting - and I still have not used the
most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most
satisfactory German and translated the salutation: "God says
hello, Mary dear" (for that is what the angel was intending to say
and what he would have said had he even been German!). If I had,
I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their
great devotion to dear Mary and because I have destroyed the
greeting.
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