4 ms·

Pretty impressive from a linguistic standpoint how close an 1830's document reads like something that could have been written today (with perhaps a touch of pre

Pretty impressive from a linguistic standpoint how close an 1830's document reads like something that could have been written today (with perhaps a touch of pretentious formality). Try reading the communications of the US Founding Fathers less than a century before, and the stylistic changes are like night and day.

QGuLL 10y ago
It has been translated from french, maybe the translator has taken some liberties.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rudolf0 10y ago
This is a translation of the original French. The translation was done within the past 50 years, I think.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  Well, that would explain it.
ranko 10y ago
We're reading this in a modern (1990s) translation - Balzac wrote in French.
GuiA 10y ago
Translation from French, as others have pointed out. The original text is longer, and covers stimulants other than coffee, such as tobacco and sugar: http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm The French is slightly dated in some ways, but definitely could have been written today (albeit by an old school literary type, of which we have plenty).
- woodrowbarlow 10y ago
  it sounds like you are fluent in french. how closely does the phrase "liver spots" match the original text?
  - ramimac 10y ago
    Here is the relevant French excerpt: "Enfin, j'ai découvert une horrible et cruelle méthode, que je ne conseille qu'aux hommes d'une excessive vigueur, à cheveux noir et durs, à peau mélangée d'ocre et de vermillon, à mains carrées, à jambes en forme de balustres comme ceux de la place Louis XV." The original text states "... with mixed/blended ochre and vermillion skin"
lgessler 10y ago
As others point out, this translation was done more recently, though I have experienced your general point: that the writing of a skilled author can endure a few centuries longer than that of their contemporaries. The Journal of John Woolman and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography are both autobiographies written by Colonial Americans in the 1770's. Franklin's prose (save for obvious allowances, like the presence of obsolete words like breed, 'to rear [a child]') is much more lucid. He avoids the ambling conga lines of clauses that characterize the prose of the founding fathers and John Woolman, and he has a much better control of vocabulary and imagery. Compare these two passages. First, Franklin: >[B]ut they voted an aid to New England of three thousand pounds, to put into the hands of the governor, and appropriated it for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain. Some of the council, desirous of giving the House still further embarrassment, advis'd the governor not to accept provision, as not being the thing he had demanded; but he reply'd, "I shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is gunpowder," which he accordingly bought, and they never objected to it. >It was in allusion to this fact when in our fire company we feared the success of our proposal in favour of the lottery, and I had said to my friend Mr. Syng, one of our members, "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then, if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine. "I see," says, he, "you have improv'd by being so long in the Assembly; your equivocal project would be just a match for their wheat or other grain." Now, Woolman: > If any, who through the love of gain engage in business wherein they dwell as among the tombs and touch the bodies of those who are dead, should through the infinite love of God feel the power of the cross of Christ to crucify them to the world, and therein learn humbly to follow the divine Leader, here is the judgment of this world, here the prince of this world is cast out. The water of separation is felt; and though we have been among the slain, and through the desire of gain have touched the dead body of a man, yet in the purifying love of Christ we are washed in the water of separation; we are brought off from that business, from that gain, and from that fellowship which is not agreeable to His holy will. I have felt a renewed confirmation in the time of this voyage, that the Lord, in His infinite love, is calling to His visited children so to give up all outward possessions and means of getting treasures, that His Holy Spirit may have free course in their hearts and direct them in all their proceedings. To feel the substance pointed at in this figure, man must know death as to his own will. Not as clear, right? Though I wonder if Woolman's writing was transparent even to readers in his own time.
interfixus 10y ago
Well, and I find a lot of English language texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries far less stale and much more contemporary sounding than similar offerings in my native Danish. Kierkegaard and to a lesser extent Hans Christian Andersen (sort of well known examples, I suppose) sound dated, Dickens doesn't really.

QGuLL 10y ago

It has been translated from french, maybe the translator has taken some liberties.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rudolf0 10y ago

This is a translation of the original French. The translation was done within the past 50 years, I think.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
Well, that would explain it.

ranko 10y ago

We're reading this in a modern (1990s) translation - Balzac wrote in French.

GuiA 10y ago

Translation from French, as others have pointed out. The original text is longer, and covers stimulants other than coffee, such as tobacco and sugar: http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm The French is slightly dated in some ways, but definitely could have been written today (albeit by an old school literary type, of which we have plenty).

woodrowbarlow 10y ago
it sounds like you are fluent in french. how closely does the phrase "liver spots" match the original text?
- ramimac 10y ago
  Here is the relevant French excerpt: "Enfin, j'ai découvert une horrible et cruelle méthode, que je ne conseille qu'aux hommes d'une excessive vigueur, à cheveux noir et durs, à peau mélangée d'ocre et de vermillon, à mains carrées, à jambes en forme de balustres comme ceux de la place Louis XV." The original text states "... with mixed/blended ochre and vermillion skin"

lgessler 10y ago

As others point out, this translation was done more recently, though I have experienced your general point: that the writing of a skilled author can endure a few centuries longer than that of their contemporaries. The Journal of John Woolman and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography are both autobiographies written by Colonial Americans in the 1770's. Franklin's prose (save for obvious allowances, like the presence of obsolete words like breed, 'to rear [a child]') is much more lucid. He avoids the ambling conga lines of clauses that characterize the prose of the founding fathers and John Woolman, and he has a much better control of vocabulary and imagery. Compare these two passages. First, Franklin: >[B]ut they voted an aid to New England of three thousand pounds, to put into the hands of the governor, and appropriated it for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain. Some of the council, desirous of giving the House still further embarrassment, advis'd the governor not to accept provision, as not being the thing he had demanded; but he reply'd, "I shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is gunpowder," which he accordingly bought, and they never objected to it. >It was in allusion to this fact when in our fire company we feared the success of our proposal in favour of the lottery, and I had said to my friend Mr. Syng, one of our members, "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then, if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine. "I see," says, he, "you have improv'd by being so long in the Assembly; your equivocal project would be just a match for their wheat or other grain." Now, Woolman: > If any, who through the love of gain engage in business wherein they dwell as among the tombs and touch the bodies of those who are dead, should through the infinite love of God feel the power of the cross of Christ to crucify them to the world, and therein learn humbly to follow the divine Leader, here is the judgment of this world, here the prince of this world is cast out. The water of separation is felt; and though we have been among the slain, and through the desire of gain have touched the dead body of a man, yet in the purifying love of Christ we are washed in the water of separation; we are brought off from that business, from that gain, and from that fellowship which is not agreeable to His holy will. I have felt a renewed confirmation in the time of this voyage, that the Lord, in His infinite love, is calling to His visited children so to give up all outward possessions and means of getting treasures, that His Holy Spirit may have free course in their hearts and direct them in all their proceedings. To feel the substance pointed at in this figure, man must know death as to his own will. Not as clear, right? Though I wonder if Woolman's writing was transparent even to readers in his own time.

interfixus 10y ago

Well, and I find a lot of English language texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries far less stale and much more contemporary sounding than similar offerings in my native Danish. Kierkegaard and to a lesser extent Hans Christian Andersen (sort of well known examples, I suppose) sound dated, Dickens doesn't really.