Inferior to the Original

Matthew Arnold, preface to "Merope," The Poems of Matthew Arnold (London: Oxford University Press, 1922),  pp. 284-285:

[A] translation is a work not only inferior to the original by the whole difference of talent between the first composer and his translator: it is even inferior to the best which the translator could do under more inspiring circumstances. No man can do his best with a subject which does not penetrate him: no man can be penetrated by a subject which he does not conceive independently.

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