ed, but re-lived and re-created.

To perform such a feat the writer must, to begin with, be familiar
with the mountains, and able to appreciate with Wordsworth

The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

The translator of the present version was born and reared in a region
closely similar to that of the story. Her home was originally in the
picturesque town of Salzburg, and her father, Franz von Pausinger, was
one of the greatest landscape painters of his country and generation.
Another equally important requisite is knowledge of children. It
happens that this translator has a daughter just the age of the
heroine, who moreover loves to dress in Tyrolese costume. To translate
"Heidi" was for her therefore a labor of love, which means that the
love contended with and overcame the labor.

The English style of the present version is, then, distinctive. It has
often been noticed that those who acquire a foreign language often
learn to speak it with unusual clearness and purity. For illustration
we need go no further than Joseph Conrad, a Pole, probably the
greatest master of narrative English writing to-day; or to our own
fellow-citizen Carl Schurz. In the present case, the writer has lived
seven years in America and has strengthened an excellent training with
a wide reading of the best English classics.

Many people say that they read without noticing the author's style.
This is seldom quite true; unconsciously every one is impressed in
some way or other by the style of every book, or by its lack of style.
Children are particularly sensitive in this respect and should,
therefore, as much as is practicable, read only the best. In the new
translation of "Heidi" here offered to the public I believe that most
readers will notice an especial flavor, that very quality of delight
in mountain scenes, in mountain people and in child life generally,
which is one of the chief merits of the German original. The phrasing
has also been carefully adapted to the purpose of reading aloud--a
thing that few translators think of. In conclusion, the author,
realising the difference between the two languages, has endeavored to
write the story afresh, as Johanna Spyri would have written it had
English been her native tongue. How successful the attempt has been
the reader will judge.

CHARLES WHARTON STORK
Assistant Professor of En