A Night in the Luxembourg: With Pref, and Appendix by Arthur Ransome (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Night in the Luxembourg: With Pref, and Appendix by Arthur RansomeI have been placed in such a dilemma in translating this book. Certain phrases and de scriptions were, in the French, no more than delightful sporting of the intellect with the flesh that is its master. In the English, for us, less accustomed to plain-speaking, and far less accustomed to a playful attitude towards mat ters of which we never speak unless with great solemnity, they became wilful parades of the indecent. It is important to remember that they were not so in the French, but were such things as might well be heard in a story told in general conversation if the talkers were Frenchmen of genius.There is no ugliness in the frank acceptance of the flesh, that is a motive, one among many, in this book, and perhaps more noticeable by us than the author intended. No doubt it never occurred to M. De Gourmont that he was writing for the English. We are only for tunate listeners to a monologue, and must not presume upon our position to ask him to te member we are there.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.