I find it difficult none the less to define with
any clarity, or even truth, the nature of the profit and pleasure which I have derived. One is bound in honesty to discount the very large proportion of vanity which enters into one's enjoyment. What is it, when one has isolated this most discreditable element, that actually remains? The intricate accuracy of the clasSic tongues does without question in- culcate the habit of handling words with flexibility and precision ; but I should hesitate to aver that this habit is not as readily con- tracted by a careful study of our own masters of prose, such as Dryden ; and I must admit that my own style, putrid though it be, has been influenced and formed far more by my admiration for French stylists than by any conscious imitation of Cicero or Demos- thenes. I do not for one moment pretend that the thoughts of the Greek and Roman philosophers cannot with equal, or, indeed, with greater, facility be absorbed from the perusal of good translations ; and the shape and colour of the Greek dramatists is certainly con- veyed with little real loss by such renderings as those of Professor Gilbert Murray or by such inspired imitations as Atalanta in Calydon. The whole problem, to my mind, boils down to this, that there is a certain quality of beauty which no translation can possibly supply. To appreciate, for instance, the loveliness of a Virgilian, or the strength of a Lucretian, hexameter does necessitate some knowledge of the language and the prosody of Rome ; even as without some slight knowledge of Greek one can have small idea of the strong- winged music of Homer, or of the delicacy of the little lyrics with which Aristophanes enriched his comedies.
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