Chapter VIII: Disraeli 177 (2)

These principles would probably meet with general acceptance from all who have considered the question of Imperial rule. They are, indeed, almost commonplace. Unfortunately, in practice the necessity of conforming to them is often forgotten. India is the great instance in point. Englishmen are often so convinced that the natives of India ought to be loyal, they hear so much said of their loyalty, they appreciate so little the causes which are at work to produce disloyalty, and, in spite of occasional mistakes due to errors of judgment, they are in reality so earnestly desirous of doing what they consider, sometimes perhaps erroneously, their duty towards the native population, that they are apt to lose sight of the fact that the self-interest of the subject race is the principal basis of the whole Imperial fabric. They forget, whilst they are adding to the upper story of the house, that the foundations may give way.

This is not the place to enter into any lengthy discussion upon Indian affairs. It may be said, however, that the Indian history of the last few years certainly gives cause for some anxiety. Attention was at one time too exclusively paid to frontier policy, which constitutes only one, and that not the most important, element of the complex Indian problem.

That the policy of "masterly inactivity," to use the phrase epigrammatically, but perhaps somewhat incorrectly, applied to the line of action advocated by Lord Lawrence in 1869, required some modifications as the onward movement of Russia in Asia developed, will scarcely be contested by the most devoted of Lawrentian partisans and followers. That those modifications were wisely introduced is a proposition the truth of which it is difficult to admit. The portion of Lord Lawrence's programme which was necessarily temporary, inasmuch as it depended on the circumstances of the time, was rejected without taking sufficient account of the further and far more important portion which was of permanent application. This latter portion was defined in an historic and oft-quoted despatch which he indited on the eve of his departure from India, and which may be regarded as his political testament. In this despatch, Lord Lawrence, speaking with all the authority due to a lifelong acquaintance with Indian affairs, laid down the broad general principle that the strongest security of our rule lay "in the contentment, if not in the attachment, of the masses."[22] The truth of this general principle was at one time too much neglected. Under the influence of a predominant militarism acting on too pliant politicians, vast military expenditure was incurred. Territory lying outside the natural geographical frontier of India was occupied, the acquisition of which was condemned not merely by sound policy, but also by sound strategy. Taxation was increased, and, generally, the material interests of the natives of India were sacrificed and British Imperial rule exposed to subsequent danger, in order to satisfy the exigencies of a school of soldier-politicians who only saw one, and that the most technical, aspect of a very wide and complex question.

Neither, unfortunately, is there any sure guarantee that the mistakes, which it is now almost universally admitted were made, will not recur. Where, indeed, are we to look for any effective check? The rulers of India, whether they sit in Calcutta or London, may again be carried away by the partial views of an influential class, or of a few masterful individuals. It is absurd to speak of creating free institutions in India to control the Indian Government. Experience has shown that parliamentary action in England not infrequently degenerates into acrimonious discussion and recrimination dictated by party passion; in any case, it is generally too late to change the course of events. Still less reliance can be placed on the action of the British Press, which falls a ready victim to the specious arguments advanced by some strategical pseudo-Imperialist in high position, or by some fervent acolyte who has learnt at the feet of his master the fatal and facile lesson of how an Empire, built up by statesmen, may be wrecked by the well-intentioned but mistaken measures recommended by specialists to ensure Imperial salvation. The managers of the London newspapers afford, indeed, be it said to their credit, every facility for the publication of views adverse to those which they themselves advocate. But it is none the less true that, during the years when the unwise frontier policy of a few years ago was being planned and executed, the voices of the opposition, although they were those of Indian statesmen and officials who could speak with the highest authority, failed to obtain an adequate hearing until the evil was irremediable. On the other hand, the views of the strategical specialists went abroad over the land, with the result that ill-informed and careless public opinion followed their advice without having any very precise idea of whither it was being led.

It would appear, therefore, that there is need for great care and watchfulness in the management of Indian affairs. That same inconsistency of character and absence of definite aim, which are such notable Anglo-Saxon qualities and which adapt themselves so admirably to the requirements of Imperial rule, may in some respects constitute an additional danger. If we are not to adopt a policy based on securing the contentment of the subject race by ministering to their material interests, we must of necessity make a distinct approach to the counter-policy of governing by the sword alone. In that case, it would be as well not to allow a free native Press, or to encourage high education. Any repressive or retrograde measures in either of these directions would, without doubt, meet with strong and, to a great extent, reasonable opposition in England. A large section of the public, forgetful of the fact that they had stood passively by whilst measures, such as the imposition of increased taxes, which the natives of India really resent, were adopted, would protest loudly against the adoption of other measures which are, indeed, open to objection, but which nevertheless touch Oriental in a far less degree than they affect Western public feeling. The result of this inconsistency is that our present system rather tends to turn out demagogues from our colleges, to give them every facility for sowing their subversive views broadcast over the land, and at the same time to prepare the ground for the reception of the seed which they sow. Now this is the very reverse of a sound Imperial policy. We cannot, it is true, effectually prevent the manufacture of demagogues without adopting measures which would render us false to our acknowledged principles of government and to our civilising mission. But we may govern in such a manner as to give the demagogue no fulcrum with which to move his credulous and ill-informed countrymen and co-religionists. The leading principle of a government of this nature should be that low taxation is the most potent instrument with which to conjure discontent. This is the policy which will tend more than any other to the stability of Imperial rule. If it is to be adopted, two elements of British society will have to be kept in check at the hands of the statesman acting in concert with the moralist. These are Militarism and Commercial Egotism. The Empire depends in a great degree on the strength and efficiency of its army. It thrives on its commerce. But if the soldier and the trader are not kept under some degree of statesmanlike control, they are capable of becoming the most formidable, though unconscious, enemies of the British Empire.

It will be seen, therefore, that though there are some disquieting circumstances attendant on our Imperial rule, the general result of an examination into the causes which led to the collapse of Roman power, and a comparison of those causes with the principles on which the British Empire is governed, are, on the whole, encouraging. To every danger which threatens there is a safeguard. To every portion of the body politic in which symptoms of disease may occur, it is possible to apply a remedy.

Christianity is our most powerful ally. We are the sworn enemies of the slave-dealer and the slave-owner. The dangers arising from the possible pauperisation of the proletariat may, it is to be hoped, be averted by our national character and by the natural play of our time-honoured institutions. If we adhere steadily to the principle that local revenues are to be expended locally, and if, at the same time, we give all reasonable encouragement to local self-government and shun any tendency towards over-centralisation, we shall steer clear of one of the rocks on which the Roman ship of state was wrecked. Unskilful or unwise finance is our greatest danger, but here again the remedy lies ready to hand if we are wise enough to avail ourselves of it. It consists in adapting our fiscal methods to the requirements of our subject races, and still more in the steadfast rejection of any proposals which, by rendering high taxation inevitable, will infringe the cardinal principle on which a sound Imperial policy should be based. That principle is that, whilst the sword should be always ready for use, it should be kept in reserve for great emergencies, and that we should endeavour to find, in the contentment of the subject race, a more worthy and, it may be hoped, a stronger bond of union between the rulers and the ruled.

If any more sweeping generalisation than this is required, it may be said that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the essential points of a sound Imperial policy admit of being embodied in this one statement, that, whilst steadily avoiding any movement in the direction of official proselytism, our relations with the various races who are subjects of the King of England should be founded on the granite rock of the Christian moral code.

Humanity, as it passes through phase after phase of the historical
movement, may advance indefinitely in excellence; but its advance
will be an indefinite approximation to the Christian type. A
divergence from that type, to whatever extent it may take place,
will not be progress, but debasement and corruption. In a moral
point of view, in short, the world may abandon Christianity, but
can never advance beyond it. This is not a matter of authority, or
even of revelation. If it is true, it is a matter of reason as much
as anything in the world.[23]

[Footnote 1: _Italy and Her Invaders_. Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892.]

[Footnote 2: Male imperando summum imperium amittitur.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.]

[Footnote 3: _Decline and Fall_, chap. xx.]

[Footnote 4: Any one who wishes to gain an insight into the fundamental principles which governed those relations cannot do better than read the opening chapters of Sorel's _L'Europe et la Révolution Française_.]

[Footnote 5: Ecclesiastes i. 9.]

[Footnote 6: _Life and Letters of Sir James Graham_, vol. ii. p. 328.]

[Footnote 7: Lord Farrer says: "It is the privilege of honourable trade that, like mercy, it is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes; each of its dealings is of necessity a benefit to both parties. But traders and speculators are not always the most scrupulous of mankind. Their dealings with savage and half-civilised nations too often betray sharp practice, sometimes violence and wrong. The persons who carry on our trade on the outskirts of civilisation are not distinguished by a special appreciation of the rights of others, nor are the speculators, who are attracted by the enormous profits to be made by precarious investments in half-civilised countries, people in whose hands we should desire to place the fortunes or reputation of our country. When a difficulty arises between ourselves and one of the weaker nations, these are the persons whose voice is most loudly raised for acts of violence, of aggression, or of revenge."--_The State in its Relation to Trade_, p. 177.]

[Footnote 8: It should never be forgotten that, in Oriental countries, whatever good is done to the masses is necessarily purchased at the expense of incurring the resentment of the ruling classes, who abused the power they formerly possessed. Seeley (_Expansion of England_, p. 320) says with great truth: "It would be very rash to assume that any gratitude, which may have been aroused here and there by our administration, can be more than sufficient to counterbalance the discontent which we have excited among those whom we have ousted from authority and influence."]

[Footnote 9: Juvenal, xiv. 176-8.]

[Footnote 10: "La supériorité des Anglo-Saxons! Si on ne la proclame pas, on la subit et on la redoute; les craintes, les méfiances et parfois les haines que soulève l'Anglais l'attestent assez haut....

"Nous ne pouvons faire un pas à travers le monde, sans rencontrer l'Anglais. Nous ne pouvons jeter les yeux sur nos anciennes possessions, sans y voir flotter le pavilion anglais." _A Quoi tient la Supériorité des Anglo-Saxons?_--Demolins. This work, as well as another on much the same subject (_L'Europa giovane_, by Guglielmo Ferrero), were reviewed in the _Edinburgh Review_ for January 1898.]

[Footnote 11: _Vie de Turgot_, i. 47. In the debate on the India Act in 1858, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, whose views were generally distinguished for their moderation, said: "I do most confidently maintain that no civilised Government ever existed on the face of this earth which was more corrupt, more perfidious, and more capricious than the East India Company was from 1758 to 1784, when it was placed under Parliamentary control."]

[Footnote 12: "It still remains true that there is a large body of public opinion in England which carries into all politics a sound moral sense, and which places a just and righteous policy higher than any mere party interest. It is on the power and pressure of this opinion that the high character of English government must ultimately depend."--_Map of Life_, Lecky, p. 184. It will be a matter for surprise if the ultra-bureaucratic spirit, coupled with a somewhat pronounced degree of commercial egotism, do not prove the two rocks on which German colonial enterprise will be eventually shipwrecked.]

[Footnote 13: Butcher, _Some Aspects of the Greek Genius_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 14: _Essays_. "Of Honour and Reputation."]

[Footnote 15: _Sir Charles Wood's Administration of Indian Affairs, 1859-66._ West. 1867. Sir Algernon West was Private Secretary to Sir Charles Wood, afterwards Lord Halifax, who was the first Secretary of State for India appointed after the passing of the India Act of 1858, and, therefore, inaugurated the new system.]

[Footnote 16: See, _inter alia_, Chesney's _Indian Polity_, p. 136.]

[Footnote 17: Perhaps the best-known example is "Salus populi suprema lex esto," a maxim which, as Selden has pointed out (_Table Talk_, ciii.), is very frequently misapplied. See also the advice given by the Emperor Claudius to the Parthian Mithridates (Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 11).]

[Footnote 18: "The idea of forcing everything to an artificial equality has something, at first view, very captivating in it. It has all the appearance imaginable of justice and good order; and very many persons, without any sort of partial purposes, have been led to adopt such schemes, and to pursue them with great earnestness and warmth. Though I have no doubt that the minute, laborious, and very expensive _cadastre_, which was made by the King of Sardinia, has done no sort of good, and that after all his pains a few years will restore all things to their first inequality, yet it has been the admiration of half the reforming financiers of Europe; I mean the official financiers, as well as the speculative."--_Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis_, ii. 126.]

[Footnote 19: Mill, _History of British India_, vi. 433.]

[Footnote 20: Elphinstone, _History of India_, p. 77.]

[Footnote 21: Lord Lawrence said: "Light taxation is, in my mind, the panacea for foreign rule in India." Bosworth Smith, _Life of Lord Lawrence_, vol. ii. p. 497.]

[Footnote 22: The essential portions of this despatch, in so far as the purposes of the present argument are concerned, are given in Sir Richard Temple's work (p. 185), and in Bosworth Smith's _Life of Lord Lawrence_, vol. ii. p. 186.]

[Footnote 23: Goldwin Smith, _Lectures on the Study of History_, p. 154.]

II

TRANSLATION AND PARAPHRASE

_"The Edinburgh Review," July 1913_

When Emerson said "We like everything to do its office, whether it be a milch-cow or a rattlesnake," he assumed, perhaps somewhat too hastily in the latter case, that all the world understands the functions which a milch-cow or a rattlesnake is called upon to perform. No one can doubt that the office of a translator is to translate, but a wide difference of opinion may exist, and, in fact, has always existed, as to the latitude which he may allow himself in translating. Is he to adhere rigidly to a literal rendering of the original text, or is paraphrase permissible, and, if permissible, within what limits may it be adopted? In deciding which of these courses to pursue, the translator stands between Scylla and Charybdis. If he departs too widely from the precise words of the text, he incurs the blame of the purist, who will accuse him of foisting language on the original author which the latter never employed, with the possible result that even the ideas or sentiments which it had been intended to convey have been disfigured. If, on the other hand, he renders word for word, he will often find, more especially if his translation be in verse, that in a cacophonous attempt to force the genius of one language into an unnatural channel, the whole of the beauty and even, possibly, some of the real meaning of the original have been allowed to evaporate. Dr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, in an instructive article on Translation contributed to the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ quotes the high authority of Dryden as to the course which should be followed in the execution of an ideal translation.

A translator (Dryden writes) that would write with any force or
spirit of an original must never dwell on the words of his author.
He ought to possess himself entirely, and perfectly comprehend the
genius and sense of his author, the nature of the subject, and the
terms of the art or subject treated of; and then he will express
himself as justly, and with as much life, as if he wrote an
original; whereas he who copies word for word loses all the spirit
in the tedious transfusion.

In the application of Dryden's canon a distinction has to be made between prose and verse. The composition of good prose, which Coleridge described as "words in the right order," is, indeed, of the utmost importance for all the purposes of the historian, the writer on philosophy, or the orator. An example of the manner in which fine prose can bring to the mind a vivid conception of a striking event is Jeremy Collier's description of Cranmer's death, which excited the enthusiastic admiration of Mr. Gladstone.[24] He seemed [Collier wrote] "to repel the force of the fire and to overlook the torture, by strength of thought." Nevertheless, the main object of the prose writer, and still more of the orator, should be to state his facts or to prove his case. Cato laid down the very sound principle "rem tene, verba sequentur," and Quintilian held that "no speaker, when important interests are involved, should be very solicitous about his words." It is true that this principle is one that has been more often honoured in the breach than the observance. Lucian, in his _Lexiphanes_,[25] directs the shafts of his keen satire against the meticulous attention to phraseology practised by his contemporaries. Cardinal Bembo sacrificed substance to form to the extent of advising young men not to read St. Paul for fear that their style should be injured, and Professor Saintsbury[26] mentions the case of a French author, Paul de Saint-Victor, who "used, when sitting down to write, to put words that had struck his fancy at intervals over the sheet, and write his matter in and up to them." These are instances of that word-worship run mad which has not infrequently led to dire results, inasmuch as it has tended to engender the belief that statesmanship is synonymous with fine writing or perfervid oratory. The oratory in which Demosthenes excelled, Professor Bury says,[27] "was one of the curses of Greek politics."

The attention paid by the ancients to what may be termed tricks of style has probably in some degree enhanced the difficulties of prose translation. It may not always be easy in a foreign language to reproduce the subtle linguistic shades of Demosthenic oratory--the Anaphora (repetition of the same word at the beginning of co-ordinate sentences following one another), the Anastrophe (the final word of a sentence repeated at the beginning of one immediately following), the Polysyndeton (the same conjunction repeated), or the Epidiorthosis (the correction of an expression). Nevertheless, in dealing with a prose composition, the weight of the arguments, the lucidity with which the facts are set forth, and the force with which the conclusions are driven home, rank, or should rank, in the mind of the reader higher than any feelings which are derived from the music of the words or the skilful order in which they are arranged. Moreover, in prose more frequently than in verse, it is the beauty of the idea expressed which attracts rather than the language in which it is clothed. Thus, for instance, there can be no difficulty in translating the celebrated metaphor of Pericles[28] that "the loss of the youth of the city was as if the spring was taken out of the year," because the beauty of the idea can in no way suffer by presenting it in English, French, or German rather than in the original Greek. Again, to quote another instance from Latin, the fine epitaph to St. Ovinus in Ely Cathedral: "Lucem tuam Ovino da, Deus, et requiem," loses nothing of its terse pathos by being rendered into English. Occasionally, indeed, the truth is forced upon us that even in prose "a thing may be well said once but cannot be well said twice" (τὸ καλῶς εἰπεῖν ἅπαξ περιγίγνεται, δὶς δὲ οὐκ ἐνδέχεται), but this is generally because the genius of one language lends itself with special ease to some singularly felicitous and often epigrammatic form of expression which is almost or sometimes even quite untranslatable. Who, for instance, would dare to translate into English the following description which the Duchesse de Dino[29] gave of a lady of her acquaintance: "Elle n'a jamais été jolie, mais elle était blanche et fraîche, _avec quelques jolis détails"_? On the whole, however, it may be said that if the prose translator is thoroughly well acquainted with both of the languages which he has to handle, he ought to be able to pay adequate homage to the genius of the one without offering undue violence to that of the other.

The case of the translator of poetry, which Coleridge defined as "the best words in the best order," is manifestly very different. A phrase which is harmonious or pregnant with fire in one language may become discordant, flat, and vapid when translated into another. Shelley spoke of "the vanity of translation." "It were as wise (he said) to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet."

Longinus has told us[30] that "beautiful words are the very light of thought" (φῶς γὰρ τῷ ὄντι ἴδιον τοῦ νοῦ τὰ καλὰ ὀνόματα), but it will often happen, in reading a fine passage, that on analysing the sentiments evoked, it is difficult to decide whether they are due to the thought or to the beauty of the words. A mere word, as in the case of Edgar Poe's "Nevermore," has at times inspired a poet. When Keats, speaking of Melancholy, says:

She lives with Beauty--Beauty that must die--
And Joy, whose hand is ever on his lips,
Bidding adieu,

or when Mrs. Browning writes:

... Young
As Eve with Nature's daybreak on her face,

the pleasure, both of sense and sentiment, is in each case derived alike from the music of the language and the beauty of the ideas. But in such lines as

Arethusa arose from her couch of snows, etc.,

or Coleridge's description of the river Alph running

Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea,

it is the language rather than the idea which fascinates. Professor Walker, speaking of the most exquisitely harmonious lyric ever written in English, or perhaps in any other language,[31] says with great truth: "The reader of _Lycidas_ rises from it ready to grasp the 'two-handed engine' and smite; though he may be doubtful what the engine is, and what is to be smitten."

It may be observed, moreover, that one of the main difficulties to be encountered in translating some of the masterpieces of ancient literature arises from their exquisite simplicity. Although the indulgence in glaring improprieties of language in the pursuit of novelty of thought was not altogether unknown to the ancients, and was, indeed, stigmatised by Longinus with the epithet of "corybantising,"[32] the full development of this pernicious practice has been reserved for the modern world. Dryden made himself indirectly responsible for a good deal of bad poetry when he said that great wits were allied to madness. The late Professor Butcher,[33] as also Lamb in his essay on "The Sanity of True Genius," have both pointed out that genius and high ability are eminently sane.

In some respects it may be said that didactic poetry affords special facilities to the translator, inasmuch as it bears a more close relation to prose than verse of other descriptions. Didactic poets, such as Lucretius and Pope, are almost forced by the inexorable necessities of their subjects to think in prose. However much we may admire their verse, it is impossible not to perceive that, in dealing with subjects that require great precision of thought, they have felt themselves hampered by the necessities of metre and rhythm. They may, indeed, resort to blank verse, which is a sort of half-way house between prose and rhyme, as was done by Mr. Leonard in his excellent translation of Empedocles, of which the following specimen may be given:

οὐκ ἔστιν πελάσασθαι ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἐφεκτὸν
ἡμετέροις ἢ χερσὶ λαβεῖν, ᾗπερ τε μεγίστη
πειθοῦς ἀνθρώποισιν ἁμαξιτὸς εἰς φρένα πίπτει.

We may not bring It near us with our eyes,
We may not grasp It with our human hands.
With neither hands nor eyes, those highways twain,
Whereby Belief drops into the minds of men.

But Dr. Symmons, one of the numerous translators of Virgil, said, with some truth, that the adoption of blank verse only involves "a laborious and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose."[34]

A good example of what can be done in this branch of literature is furnished by Dryden. Lucretius[35] wrote:

Tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire?
Mortua cui vita est prope iam vivo atque videnti,
Qui somno partem maiorem conteris aevi,
Et vigilans stertis nec somnia cernere cessas
Sollicitamque geris cassa formidine mentem
Nec reperire potes tibi quid sit saepe mali, cum
Ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curis,
Atque animi incerto fluitans errore vagaris.

Dryden's translation departs but slightly from the original text and at the same time presents the ideas of Lucretius in rhythmical and melodious English:

And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath,
Whose very life is little more than death?
More than one-half by lazy sleep possest,
And when awake, thy soul but nods at best,
Day-dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in thy breast.
Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind,
Whose cause and case thou never hopest to find,
But still uncertain, with thyself at strife,
Thou wanderest in the labyrinth of life.

Descriptive poetry also lends itself with comparative ease to translation. Nothing can be better than the translation made by Mr. Gladstone[36] of _Iliad_ iv. 422-32. The original Greek runs thus:

ὡς δ' ὅτ' ἐν αἰγιαλῷ πολυηχέι· κῦμα θαλάσσης
ὄρνυτ' ἐπασσύτερον Ζεφύρου ὕπο κινήσαντος·
πόντῳ μέν τε πρῶτα κορύσσεται, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
χέρσῳ ῥηγνύμενον μεγάλα βρέμει, ἀμφὶ δέ τ' ἄκρας
κυρτὸν ἐὸν κορυφοῦται, ἀποπτύει δ' ἁλὸς ἄχνην·
ὧς τότ' ἐπασσύτεραι Δαναῶν κίνυντο φάλαγγες
νωλεμέως πόλεμόνδε. κέλευε δὲ οἷσιν ἕκαστος
ἡγεμόνων· οἱ δ' ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν, οὐδέ κε φαίης
τόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ' ἐν στήθεσιν αὐδήν,
σιγῇ, δειδιότες σημάντορας· ἀμφὶ δὲ πᾶσι
τεύχεα ποικίλ' ἔλαμπε, τὰ εἱμένοι ἐστιχόωντο.

Mr. Gladstone, who evidently drew his inspiration from the author of "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake," translated as follows:

As when the billow gathers fast
With slow and sullen roar,
Beneath the keen north-western blast,
Against the sounding shore.
First far at sea it rears its crest,
Then bursts upon the beach;
Or with proud arch and swelling breast,
Where headlands outward reach,
It smites their strength, and bellowing flings
Its silver foam afar--
So stern and thick the Danaan kings
And soldiers marched to war.
Each leader gave his men the word,
Each warrior deep in silence heard,
So mute they marched, them couldst not ken
They were a mass of speaking men;
And as they strode in martial might
Their flickering arms shot back the light.

It is, however, in dealing with poetry which is neither didactic nor descriptive that the difficulty--indeed often the impossibility--of reconciling the genius of the two languages becomes most apparent. It may be said with truth that the best way of ascertaining how a fine or luminous idea can be presented in any particular language is to set aside altogether the idea of translation, and to inquire how some master in the particular language has presented the case without reference to the utterances of his predecessors in other languages. A good example of this process may be found in comparing the language in which others have treated Vauvenargues' well-known saying: "Pour exécuter de grandes choses, il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais mourir." Bacchylides[37] put the same idea in the following words:

θνατὸν εὖντα χρὴ διδύμους ἀέξειν
γνώμας, ὅτι τ' αὔριον ὄψεαι
μοῦνον ἁλίου φάος,
χὥτι πεντήκοντ' ἔτεα
ζωὰν βαθύπλουτον τελεῖς.[38]

And the great Arab poet Abu'l'Ala, whose verse has been admirably translated by Mr. Baerlein, wrote:

If you will do some deed before you die,
Remember not this caravan of death,
But have belief that every little breath
Will stay with you for an eternity.

Another instance of the same kind, which may be cited without in any way wishing to advance what Professor Courthope[39] very justly calls "the mean charge of plagiarism," is Tennyson's line, "His honour rooted in dishonour stood." Euripides[40] expressed the same idea in the following words:

ἐκ τῶν γὰρ αἰσχρῶν ἐσθλὰ μηχανώμεθα.

To cite another case, the following lines of _Paradise Lost_ may be compared with the treatment accorded by Euripides to the same subject:

Oh, why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on Earth, this fair defect
Of Nature, and not fill the World at once
With men as Angels, without feminine;
Or find some other way to generate
Mankind?

Euripides wrote:

ὦ Ζεῦ, τί δὴ κίβδηλον ἀνθρώποις κακόν,
γυναῖκας ἐς φῶς ἡλίου κατῴκισας;
εἰ γὰρ βρότειον ἤθελες σπεῖραι γένος,
οὐκ ἐκ γυναικῶν χρῆν παρασχέσθαι τόδε.[41]

Apart, however, from the process to which allusion is made above, very many instances may, of course, be cited, of translations properly so called which have reproduced not merely the exact sense but the vigour of the original idea in a foreign language with little or no resort to paraphrase. What can be better than Cowley's translation of Claudian's lines?--

Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum
Aequaevumque videt consenuisse nemus.

A neighbouring wood born with himself he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees,

thus, as Gibbon says,[42] improving on the original, inasmuch as, being a good botanist, Cowley "concealed the oaks under a more general expression."

Take also the case of the well-known Latin epigram:

Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeus illi;
Sint sua mella; sit et corporis exigui.

It has frequently been translated, but never more felicitously or accurately than by the late Lord Wensleydale:

Be epigrams like bees; let them have stings;
And Honey too, and let them be small things.

On the other hand, the attempt to adhere too closely to the text of the original and to reject paraphrase sometimes leads to results which can scarcely be described as other than the reverse of felicitous. An instance in point is Sappho's lines:

καὶ γὰρ αἰ φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει,
αἰ δὲ δῶρα μὴ δέκετ', ἄλλα δώσει,
αἰ δὲ μὴ φίλει, ταχέως φιλήσει
κωὐκ ἐθέλοισα.

So great a master of verse as Mr. Headlam translated thus:

The pursued shall soon be the pursuer!
Gifts, though now refusing, yet shall bring
Love the lover yet, and woo the wooer,
Though heart it wring!

Many of Mr. Headlam's translations are, however, excellent, more especially those from English into Greek. He says in his preface: "Greek, in my experience, is easier to write than English." He has admirably reproduced the pathetic simplicity of Herrick's lines:

Here a pretty baby lies,
Sung to sleep with Lullabies;
Pray be silent and not stir
The easy earth that covers her.

μήτηρ βαυκαλόωσά μ' ἐκοίμισεν· ἀτρέμα βαῖνε
μὴ 'γείρῃς κούφην γῆν μ' ἐπιεσσόμενον.

Many singularly happy attempts to render English into Latin or Greek verse are given in Mr. Kennedy's fascinating little volume _Between Whiles_, of which the following example may be quoted:

Few the words that I have spoken;
True love's words are ever few;
Yet by many a speechless token
Hath my heart discoursed to you.

οἶδα παῦρ' ἔπη λαλήσας· παῦρ' ἔρως λαλεῖν φιλεῖ·
ξυμβόλοις δ' ὅμως ἀναύδοις σοὶ τὸ πᾶν ᾐνιξάμην.

The extent to which it is necessary to resort to paraphrase will, of course, vary greatly, and will largely depend upon whether the language into which the translation is made happens to furnish epithets and expressions which are rhythmical and at the same time correspond accurately to those of the original. Take, for instance, a case such as the following fragment of Euripides:

τὰ μὲν διδακτὰ μανθάνω, τὰ δ' εὑρετὰ
ζητῶ, τὰ δ' εὐκτὰ παρὰ θεῶν ᾐτησάμην.

There is but little difficulty in turning this into English verse with but slight resort to paraphrase:

I learn what may be taught;
I seek what may be sought;
My other wants I dare
To ask from Heaven in prayer,

But in a large majority of cases paraphrase is almost imposed on the translator by the necessities of the case. Mr. William Cory's rendering of the famous verses of Callimachus on his friend Heraclitus, which is too well known to need quotation, has been justly admired as one of the best and most poetic translations ever made from Greek, but it can scarcely be called a translation in the sense in which that term is employed by purists. It is a paraphrase.

It is needless to dwell on the difficulty of finding any suitable words capable of being adapted to the necessities of English metre and rhythm for the numerous and highly poetic adjectives in which the Greek language abounds. It would tax the ingenuity of any translator to weave into his verse expressions corresponding to the ἁλιερκέες ὄχθαι (sea-constraining cliffs) or the Μναμοσύνας λιπαράμπυκος (Mnemosyne of the shining fillet) of Pindar. Neither is the difficulty wholly confined to poetry. A good many epithets have from time to time been applied to the Nile, but none so graphic or so perfectly accurate as that employed by Herodotus,[43] who uses the phrase ὑπὸ τοσούτου τε ποταμοῦ καὶ οὕτω ἐργατικοῦ. The English translation "that vast river, so constantly at work" is a poor equivalent for the original Greek. German possesses to a greater degree than any other modern language the word-coining power which was such a marked characteristic of Greek, with the result that it offers special difficulties to the translator of verse. Mr. Brandes[44] quotes the following lines of the German poet Bücher:

Welche Heldenfreudigkeit der Liebe,
Welche Stärke muthigen Entsagens,
Welche himmlisch erdentschwungene Triebe,
Welche Gottbegeistrung des Ertragens!
Welche Sich-Erhebung, Sich-Erwiedrung,
Sich-Entäussrung, völl'ge Hin-sich-gebung,
Seelenaustausch, Ineinanderlebung!

It is probable that these lines have never been translated into English verse, and it is obvious that no translation, which did not largely consist of paraphrase, would be possible.

Alliteration, which is a powerful literary instrument in the hands of a skilful writer, but which may easily be allowed to degenerate into a mere jingle, is of less common occurrence in Greek than in English, notably early English, literature. It was, however, occasionally employed by both poets and dramatists. Euripides, for instance, in the _Cyclops_ (l. 120) makes use of the following expression, which would serve as a good motto for an Anarchist club, ἀκούει δ' οὐδὲν οὐδεὶς οὐδενός. Clytemnestra, also, in speaking of the murder of her husband (_Ag._ 1551-52) says:

πρὸς ἡμῶν
κάππεσε, κάτθανε, καὶ καταθάψομεν.[45]

That Greek alliteration is capable of imitation is shown by Pope's translation of the well-known line[46]:

πολλὰ δ' ἄναντα κάταντα πάραντά τε δόχμιὰ τ' ἦλθον·

O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks, they go.

Pope at times brought alliteration to his aid in cases where no such device had been adopted by Homer, as when, in describing the labours of Sisyphus,[47] he wrote:

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone.

On the whole, although a good deal more than is contained in this article may be said on either side, it would appear that, broadly speaking, Dryden's principle holds good for prose translations, and that experience has shown, in respect to translations in verse, that, save in rare instances, a resort to paraphrase is necessary.

The writer ventures, in conclusion, to give two instances, in one of which there has been comparatively but slight departure from the text of the original Greek, whilst in the other there has been greater indulgence in paraphrase. Both are taken from the Anthology. The first is an epitaph on a shipwrecked sailor by an unknown author:

Ναυτίλε, μὴ πεύθου τίνος ἐνθάδε τύμβος ὅδ' εἰμί,
ἀλλ' αὐτὸς πόντου τύγχανε χρηστοτέρου.

No matter who I was; but may the sea
To you prove kindlier than it was to me.

The other is by Macedonius:

Αὔριον ἀθρήσω σε· τὸ δ' οὔ ποτε γίνεται ἡμῖν
ἠθάδος ἀμβολίης αἰὲν ἀεξομένης·
ταῦτά μοι ἱμείροντι χαρίζεαι, ἄλλα δ' ἐς ἄλλους
δῶρα φέρεις, ἐμεθέν πίστιν ἀπειπαμένη.
ὄψομαι ἑσπερίη σε. τί δ' ἕσπερός έστι γυναικῶν;
γῆρας ἀμετρήτῳ πληθόμενον ῥυτίδι.

Ever "To-morrow" thou dost say;
When will to-morrow's sun arise?
Thus custom ratifies delay;
My faithfulness thou dost despise.
Others are welcomed, whilst to me
"At even come," thou say'st, "not now."
What will life's evening bring to thee?
Old age--a many-wrinkled brow.

Dryden's well-known lines in _Aurengzebe_ embody the idea of Macedonius in epigrammatic and felicitous verse:

Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay,
To-morrow's falser than the former day.

[Footnote 24: Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii. p. 467.]

[Footnote 25: Weise, 1841, vol. ii. p. 303.]

[Footnote 26: _Loci Critici_, p. 40.]

[Footnote 27: _History of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 326.]

[Footnote 28: The use by Pericles of this metaphor rests on the authority of Aristotle (_Rhet._ i. 7. 34). Herodotus (vii. 162) ascribes almost the identical words to Gelo, and a similar idea is given by Euripides in _Supp._ 447-49.]

[Footnote 29: _Memoirs_, vol. i. p. 328.]

[Footnote 30: _On the Sublime_, xxx.]

[Footnote 31: _Literature of the Victorian Era_, p. 382.]

[Footnote 32: _On the Sublime_, c. v.]

[Footnote 33: Aristotle's _Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, p. 398.]

[Footnote 34: _Miscellaneous Writings_, Conington, vol. i. p. 162.]

[Footnote 35: iii. 1045 ff.]

[Footnote 36: Mr. Gladstone's merits as a translator were great. His Latin translation of Toplady's hymn "Rock of Ages," beginning "Jesus, pro me perforatus," is altogether admirable.]

[Footnote 37: _Od._ iii. 78-82.]

[Footnote 38: "As a mortal, thou must nourish each of two forebodings--that to-morrow's sunlight will be the last that thou shalt see: and that for fifty years thou wilt live out thy life in ample wealth."]

[Footnote 39: _History of English Poetry_, iii., 394.]

[Footnote 40: _Hipp._ 331.]

[Footnote 41: "Great Zeus, why didst thou, to man's sorrow, put woman, evil counterfeit, to dwell where shines the sun? If thou wert minded that the human race should multiply, it was not from women they should have drawn their stock."--_Hipp._ 616-19.]

[Footnote 42: _Decline and Fall_, v. 185.]

[Footnote 43: Book ii. c. 11.]

[Footnote 44: _Eighteenth Century Literature_, vol. vi. p. 331.]

[Footnote 45: "By us he fell, he died, and we will bury him."]

[Footnote 46: _Il._ xxiii. 116.]

[Footnote 47: _Od._ xi. 733.]

"THE QUARTERLY REVIEW"

III

SIR ALFRED LYALL

_"Quarterly Review," July 1913_

After reading and admiring Sir Mortimer Durand's life of Alfred Lyall, I am tempted to exclaim in the words of Shenstone's exquisite inscription, which has always seemed to me about the best thing that Shenstone ever wrote, "Heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!" He was one of my oldest and best of friends. More than this, although our characters differed widely, and although I should never for a moment think of rating my intellectual attainments on a par with his, at the same time I may say that in the course of a long life I do not think that I have ever been brought in contact with any one with whom I found myself in more thorough community of opinion and sentiment upon the sundry and manifold questions which excited our common interest. He was a strong Unionist, a strong Free Trader, and a strong anti-suffragist. I am, for good or evil, all these things. He was a sincere Liberal in the non-party sense of that very elastic word. So was I. That is to say, there was a time when we both thought ourselves good mid-Victorian Liberals--a school of politicians whose ideas have now been swept into the limbo of forgotten things, the only surviving principles of that age being apparently those associated with a faint and somewhat fantastic cult of the primrose. In 1866 he wrote to his sister--and I cannot but smile on reading the letter--"I am more and more Radical every year"; and he expressed regret that circumstances did not permit of his setting up as "a fierce demagogue" in England. I could have conscientiously written in much the same spirit at the same period, but it has not taken me nearly half a century to discover that two persons more unfitted by nature and temperament to be "fierce demagogues" than Alfred Lyall and myself were probably never born. In respect to the Indian political questions which were current during his day--such as the controversy between the Lawrentian and "Forward" schools of frontier policy, the Curzon-Kitchener episode, and the adaptation of Western reforms to meet the growing requirements to which education has given birth--his views, although perhaps rather in my opinion unduly pessimistic and desponding, were generally identical with my own.

Albeit he was an earnest reformer, he was a warm advocate of strong and capable government, and, in writing to our common friend, Lord Morley, in 1882, he anathematised what he considered the weakness shown by the Gladstone Government in dealing with disorder in Ireland. Himself not only the kindest, but also the most just and judicially-minded of men, he feared that a maudlin and misplaced sentimentalism would destroy the more virile elements in the national character. "I should like," he said, in words which must not, of course, be taken too literally, "a little more fierceness and honest brutality in the national temperament." His heart went out, in a manner which is only possible to those who have watched them closely at work, to those Englishmen, whether soldiers or civilians, who, but little known and even at times depreciated by their own countrymen, are carrying the fame, the glory, the justice and humanity of England to the four quarters of the globe.

The roving Englishman (he said) is the salt of English land....
Only those who go out of this civilised country, to see the rough
work on the frontiers and in the far lands, properly understand
what our men are like and can do.... They cannot manage a
steam-engine, but they can drive restive and ill-trained horses
over rough roads.

He felt--and as one who has humbly dabbled in literature at the close of an active political life, I can fully sympathise with him--that "when one has once taken a hand in the world's affairs, literature is like rowing in a picturesque reach of the Thames after a bout in the open sea." Yet, in the case of Lyall, literature was not a matter of mere academic interest. "His incessant study was history." He thought, with Lord Acton, that an historical student should be "a politician with his face turned backwards." His mind was eminently objective. He was for ever seeking to know the causes of things; and though far too observant to push to extreme lengths analogies between the past and the present, he nevertheless sought, notably in the history of Imperial Rome, for any facts or commentaries gleaned from ancient times which might be of service to the modern empire of which he was so justly proud, and in the foundation of which the splendid service of which he was an illustrious member had played so conspicuous a part. "I wonder," he wrote in 1901, "how far the Roman Empire profited by high education."

Lyall was by nature a poet. Sir Mortimer Durand says, truly enough, that his volume of verses, "if not great poetry, as some hold, was yet true poetry." Poetic expressions, in fact, bubbled up in his mind almost unconsciously in dealing with every incident of his life. Lord Tennyson tells us in his _Memoir_ that one evening, when his father and mother were rowing across the Solent, they saw a heron. His father described this incident in the following language: "One dark heron flew over the sea, backed by a daffodil sky." Similarly, Lyall, writing with the enthusiasm of a young father for his firstborn, said: "The child has eyes like the fish-pools of Heshbon, with wondrous depth of intelligent gaze." But, though a poet, it would be a great error to suppose that Lyall was an idealist, if by that term is meant one who, after a platonic fashion, indulges in ideas which are wholly visionary and unpractical. He had, indeed, ideals. No man of his imagination and mental calibre could be without them. But they were ideals based on a solid foundation of facts. It was here that, in spite of some sympathy based on common literary tastes, he altogether parted company from a brother poet, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, who has invariably left his facts to take care of themselves. Though eminently meditative and reflective, Lyall's mind, his biographer says, "seemed always hungry for facts." "Though he had an unusual degree of imagination, he never allowed himself to be tempted too far from the region of the known or the knowable." The reason why he at times appeared to vacillate was that he did not consider he sufficiently understood all the facts to justify his forming an opinion capable of satisfying his somewhat hypercritical judgment. He was, in fact, very difficult to convince of the truth of an opinion, not because of his prejudices, for he had none, but by reason of his constitutional scepticism. He acted throughout life on the principle laid down by the Greek philosopher Epicharmus: "Be sober, and remember to disbelieve. These are the sinews of the mind." I have been informed on unimpeachable authority that when he was a member of the Treasury Committee which sat on the question of providing facilities for the study of Oriental languages in this country, he constantly asked the witnesses whom he examined leading questions from which it might rather be inferred that he held opinions diametrically opposed to those which in reality he entertained. His sole object was to arrive at a sound conclusion. He wished to elicit all possible objections to any views to which he was personally inclined. It is very probable that his Oriental experience led him to adopt this procedure; for, as any one who has lived much in the East will recognise, it is the only possible safeguard against the illusions which may arise from the common Oriental habit of endeavouring to say what is pleasant to the interrogator, especially if he occupies some position of authority.

Only half-reconciled, in the first instance, to Indian exile, and, when once he had taken the final step of departure, constantly brooding over the intellectual attractions rather than the material comforts of European life, Lyall speedily came to the conclusion that, if he was to bear a hand in governing India, the first thing he had to do was to understand Indians. He therefore brought his acutely analytical intellect to the task of comprehending the Indian habit of thought. In the course of his researches he displayed that thoroughness and passionate love of truth which was the distinguishing feature of his character throughout life. That he succeeded in a manner which has been surpassed by none, and only faintly rivalled by a very few, is now generally recognised both by his own countrymen and also--which is far more remarkable--by the inhabitants of the country which formed the subject of his study. So far as it is possible for any Western to achieve that very difficult task, he may be said to have got to the back of the Oriental mind. He embodied the results of his long experience at times in sweeping and profound generalisations, which covered the whole field of Oriental thought and action, and at others in pithy epigrammatic sayings in which the racy humour, sometimes tinged with a shade of cynical irony, never obscured the deep feeling of sympathy he entertained for everything that was worthy of respect and admiration.

Lyall had read history to some purpose. He knew, in the words which Gregorovius applied to the rule of Theodosius in Italy, that "not even the wisest and most humane of princes, if he be an alien in race, in customs and religion, can ever win the hearts of the people." He had read De Tocqueville, and from the pages of an author whose habit of thought must have been most congenial to him, he drew the conclusion that "it was the increased prosperity and enlightenment of the French people which produced the grand crash." He therefore thought that "the wildest, as well as the shallowest notion of all is that universally prevalent belief that education, civilisation and increased material prosperity will reconcile the people of India eventually to our rule." Hence he was prepared to accept--perhaps rather more entirely than it deserved to be accepted--the statement of that very astute Brahmin, Sir Dinkur Rao, himself the minister of an important native State, that "the natives prefer a bad native Government to our best patent institutions." These, and similar oracular statements, have now become the commonplaces of all who deal with questions affecting India. That there is much truth in them cannot be gainsaid, but they are still often too much ignored by one section of the British public, who, carried away by home-made sentiment, forget that of all national virtues gratitude for favours received is the most rare, while by another section they are applied to the advocacy of a degree of autonomous rule which would be disastrous to the interests, not only of India itself, but also to the cause of all real civilised progress.

The point, however, on which in conversation Lyall was wont to insist most strongly was that the West was almost incomprehensible to the East, and, _vice versa_, that the Western could never thoroughly understand the Oriental. In point of fact, when we talk of progress, it is necessary to fix some standard by which progress may be measured. We know our Western standard; we endeavour to enforce it; and we are so convinced that it gives an accurate measure of human moral and material advancement that we experience a shock on hearing that there are large numbers of even highly educated human beings who hold that the standard is altogether false. Yet that, Lyall would argue, is generally the Oriental frame of mind. Fatalism, natural conservatism and ignorance lead the uneducated to reject our ideas, while the highly educated often hold that our standard of progress is too material to be a true measure, and that consequently, far from advancing, we are standing still or even retrograding. Lyall, personifying a Brahmin, said, "Politics I cannot help regarding as the superficial aspect of deeper problems; and for progress, the latest incarnation of European materialism, I have an incurable distrust." These subtle intellectuals, in fact, as Surendranath Banerjee, one of the leaders of the Swadeshi movement, told Dr. Wegener,[48] hold that the English are "stupid and ignorant," and, therefore, wholly unfit to govern India.