Correspondence with Edith Maryon 1912–1924

GA 263 — 14 September 1919

Letter from Edith Maryon

Edith Maryon to Rudolf Steiner

Villa St. Georg
Arlesheim near Basel, September 14, 1919

Dear and esteemed teacher,

The second translation of chapters one and two of your book has finally arrived, but I find it extremely difficult to form an opinion about it. At first I read the two chapters purely from the point of view of an English book, and found that it is well written, in very modern, apt English, the images very much in the English sense, with no trace of the German origin (as in my poor creation!). Only here and there did I find a sentence that seemed to me to be modern slang, but it is probably not perceived that way in present-day England. It reads fluently and interestingly, and I could well imagine that, if it is properly published, it could even become a popular book. The one translator is already an experienced and well-known writer, and she already has a lot of influence in these circles, and she could contribute significantly to the book being published by the National Labor Press.

Then I read it and compared it to the original. Here it turned out that the two translators took a lot of liberties with the sentence distribution, [and that] in my opinion, with the exception of one or two places, without having a good reason for it. I think they formed two or three sentences out of one, two sentences out of one, etc. This happens on average twice or more per page. But this could be quickly corrected and made good; I think it would be desirable because a different nuance comes across.

Then they have usually written three quarters of the words that are written in bold in the original, so that the emphasized word has the same value as the others. I also think that they often translated too freely, that is, they tried to understand the meaning and then freely render it in their own way, so that it is a bit as if you had seen a blue painting and, from memory, made a green one! It is the same with paragraphs; they create completely new ones in an arbitrary way.

Finally, I compared the first chapter of the two translations and found that the other one reads more fluently when viewed as a whole, which is easy to understand because one translator had already written a lot and I had not! I often find my sentences clumsier, but perhaps more faithful – in some respects – to the original; others are even like another version, some better. (Is that immodest?) But in the end I think that the best thing to do would be to use the other translation, because the people in England have influence and I don't, and they have to work there and will be more interested if they can create their own tools. I would only insist that the stressed words should also be stressed in English, and that one should not arbitrarily introduce a different sentence distribution. If time is not too pressing and the others allow it (which they may not do because they are firmly convinced that their translation is quite faithful to the original), I would like to see some things a little differently. This judgment is formed from the first chapter; I have only briefly read the second, but my critique is about the same. I will study the matter further in the next few days, but probably not think much differently.

So I am writing now, so that perhaps a little time can be saved. The lady and Mr. Kaufmann plan to be in Dornach at the end of September. The question is whether a translation should be given to the Nat[ional] Lab[our] Press immediately so that we can get an answer?

If the others come and allow me, I would like to go through the work and compare it, it might be possible to improve it a bit, but that would take time, maybe it's better and more important to get started quickly now? I await your judgment on all of this and have not said anything to the two people.

I have various letters from the commission, etc. to present to you later.

I would have loved to be able to work on this as well, but it seems that life wants to throw me out on this occasion and I have to let it happen for the sake of the matter.

It will be so nice when you can work here again, the times are quite difficult and the weeks are very long. I received the letter well and was very happy about it.

With my warmest regards

L. Edith C. Maryon