t at
present more care is exercised, and conscientious critical exactitude in
translating important spiritual works has given us English versions that
are not unworthy of their originals. [1--An example of this is the late
Canon Mackey's edition of the complete works of St. Francis of Sales,
which has, unfortunately, to be completed without him.]

There is good service to be done to the Church in England by this work
of translation, and it is one in which grown-up girls, if they have been
sufficiently trained, might give valuable help. It must be borne in mind
that not every book which is beautiful or useful in its own language, is
desirable to translate. Some depend so much upon the genius of the
language and the mentality of their native country that they simply
evaporate in translation; others appeal so markedly to national points
of view that they seem anomalous in other languages, as a good deal of
our present-day English writing would appear in French. It has also to
be impressed on translators that their responsibility is great; that it
takes laborious persistence to make a really good translation, doing
justice to both sides, giving the spirit of the author as well as his
literal meaning, and not straining the language of the translation into
unnatural forms to make it carry a sense that it does not easily bear.

The beauty of a translator's work is in the perfect accord of conscience
and freedom, and this is not attained without unwearied search for the
right word, the only right word which will give the true meaning and the
true expression of any idea. To believe that this right word exists is
one of the delights of translating; to be a lover of choice and
beautiful words is an attraction in itself, leading to the love of
things more beautiful still, the love of truth, and fitness, and
transparency; the exercise of thought, and discrimination, and balance,
and especially of a quality most rare and precious in women--mental
patience. It is said that we excel in moral patience, but that when we
approach anything intellectual this enduring virtue disappears, and we
must "reach the goal in a bound or never arrive there at all." The
sustained search for the perfect word would do much to correct this
impatience, and if the search is aided by a knowledge of several modern
languages so that comparative meanings and uses may be balanced against
one another, it will be found not only to open rich veins of thought,
but