I have spoken above of Eltzbacher's qualities as compiler; it here
becomes necessary to say something of his work as translator. His
translation is that of a very intelligent man, trusting to his
intelligence to justify him in translating quite freely. He is confident
that he knows what the idea to be presented is, and his main concern is
to express that in the language best suited to the purpose. He even
avows, as will be seen, that he has "cautiously revised" other people's
translations from the Russian, without himself claiming to be familiar
with the Russian language. I would as soon entrust this extremely
delicate task to Eltzbacher as to anybody I know, for he is in general
remarkably correct in his re-wordings. The justification of his
confidence in his knowledge of the author's thought may be seen in the
fact that in passages which happen not to affect the main thought he
makes a few such slips as _zahlen mit ihrer Vergiftung_ for "pay to be
poisoned," _Willkuer_ for "arbitrament," and even _eine blutige
Revolution ruecksichtslos niederwuerfe_ for "would do anything in his
power to precipitate a bloody revolution" (can he have been misled by
the chemist's use of "precipitate"?), but in passages where these
blunders would do real harm he keeps clear of them, being safeguarded by
his knowledge of the sense. But it makes a difference whom you translate
in this way. Tucker is a man who uses language with especial precision:
every phrase in a sentence of his may be presumed to contribute
something definite to the thought; and Eltzbacher treats him as if the
less conspicuous phrases were merely ornamental work which might safely
be omitted or amended when they seemed not to be advantageous for
ornamental purposes. I must confess that I have little faith in the
Eltzbacher method of translation for the rendering of any author; but it
works especially ill with an author like Tucker.
Of course all defects of translation are cured, silently, by
substituting the original English. Therefore, at the expense of slightly
increasing the bulk of the Tucker chapter, this edition gives American
readers a much more accurate presentation of the utterances of the
American champion of Anarchism than can be had in Eltzbacher's German;
and, since I have the same advantage as regards Godwin, I think I may
claim in general terms that mine is the best edition of Eltzbacher for
those who read both English and German.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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