But before I clude, let me here give another spe of written ese to illustrate what I mean by simplicity ah of feeling which is to be found even in the Classica Minora, literature written in official uniform ese. It is a poem of four lines by a modem poet written on New? Years Eve. The words in ese are:
which, translated word for word, mean: _
Don ( say home poor pass year hard,
North wind has blown many times cold, year peach willow hall front trees Pay-back you spring light full eyes see.
A free translation would be something like this:
TO MY WIFE Fret not, _though poor we yet pass the year ;
Let the north wind blow ne er so chill and drear, year when pead willow are in bloom, You II yet see Spring and sunlight in our home.
Here is another spe longer and more sustained. It is a poem by Tu Fu, the Wordsworth of a, of the Tang Dynasty. I will here first give my English translation. The subject is
MEETING WITH AN OLD FRIEND In life, friends seldom are brought near;
Like stars, eae shines in its sphere. To-night,_oh what a happy night [ We sit beh the same lamplight. Our youth and strength last but a day. You and I_ah! our hairs are grey . Friends! Half are in a better land, With tears we grasp each other s hand. Twenty more years, _short, after all, I once again asd your hall. Whe, you had not a wife ;
Now you have children, _such is life Beaming, they greet their father ^ chum ;
They ask me from where I have e. Before our say, we each have said, The table is already laid. Fresh salads from the garden near,
Rice mixed with millet, _frugal cheer . When shall we meet ? tis hard to know . And so let the wine freely flow. This wine, I know, will do no harm. My old friend s wele is so warm . To-morrow I go, _to be whirled. Again into the wide, wide world.
The above, my version I admit, is almost doggerel, which is meant merely to give the meaning of the ese text. But here is the ese text which is not doggerel, but poetry _poetry simple to the verge of colloquialism, yet with a grace, dignity pathos and nobleness which I ot reprodud which perhaps it is impossible to reproduce, in English in such simple language.
JOHN SMITH IN A
" The Philisti only ignores all ditions of life which are not his own but he also demands that the rest of mankind should fashion its mode of existeer his own ."*.... GOETHE.
Mr. W. Stead once asked: "What is the secret of Marie Corellis popularity?" His answer was: "Like author, like reader; because the John Smiths who read her novels live in Marie Corelli s world and regard her as the most authoritative expo of the Universe in which they live, move and have their being." What Marie Corelli is to the John Smiths i Britain, the Rev. Arthur Smith is to the John Smiths in a.
Now the differeween the really educated person and the half educated one is this. The really educated person wants to read books which will tell him the real truth about a thing, whereas the half educated person prefers to read books which will tell him what he wants the thing to be, what his vanity prompts him to wish that the thing should be. John Smith in a wants very much to be a superior person to the aman and the Rev. Arthur Smith writes a book to prove clusively that he, John Smith, is a very much superior person to the aman. There-fore, the Rev. Arthur Smith is a person very dear to John Smith, and the "ese Characteristics" bee a Bib