Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/34



Though his letters contain scattered references to the principles which he followed in translation, Teixeira could never be persuaded to publish his complete and considered theory. His excuse was that he had never been able to write more than eight hundred words of original matter, a disability that once threatened him with disaster when he was invited to lecture on the science and art of bridge to the members of a club formed for mutual improvement and the pursuit of learning. After being entertained at a fortifying banquet, Teixeira delivered his eight-hundred words. As, at the end of the two and three-quarter minutes which his reading occupied, the audience seemed ready and even anxious for more, he read his address a second time. Later, he began in the middle; later still, he ran disgracefully from the hall.

The method which he followed in translation has, therefore, to be reconstructed from