Saint Teresa Of Avila William Thomas Walsh by William Thomas Walsh instant download after payment.

Years ago, when I read an English translation of Saint Teresa's Autobiography, as it is improperly called, I wondered whether a woman in whom the divine and the human so strikingly met could really have been as banal, as priggish, as self-consciously "literary" as she often appeared in those pages. Later, when I was able to read the Spanish text, I discovered that the irritating qualities were not hers, but her devout translator's. What a vital book to be embalmed in so much stuffy rhetoric! I resolved that whenever it was necessary to quote that work, I would make my own translations, and as literally as possible, even at some sacrifice of euphony; not excluding the occasional slips in grammar, faulty reference, careless sentence structure, and vigorous colloquialisms of one who wrote with no eye to bookish effect, but just as she spoke, rapidly, tersely, wittily, now and then quite awkwardly. Only thus could one convey, in another language, the characteristic quality, the timbre and rhythm of writings which, whatever their technical faults or peculiarities, were always honest, gusty, human, interesting, and stimulating, often aglow with the beauty and sublimity of genius directed by sanctity. When I came to her letters and later treatises, there were some good translations at hand, notably the excellent ones by the Benedictines of Stanbrook Abbey, England. But having gone so far with my own, it seemed imperative to continue for the sake of uniformity of style — the style being, I hope, Saint Teresa's rather than mine.