are so trimmed and edited that the text is scarcely recognizable in the " translation."
From all this it seems plain that those who use either Mr. Lee's or Dr. Kettlewell's " translation," hoping to find in it a veritable treatise of Thomas a Kempis, will be disappointed, and that Father " Carre's " is the only English translation (in any true sense of the word) of the " De Vita " which has yet appeared.
That work cannot, unfortunately, be republished; for to revise it, without re-writing it, would be practically impossible, and to reprint it as it stands would be to print something which scarcely any one would read. This fact, the appearance last year of Dr. Pohl's text, and the kind suggestion of a friend, have led to the present attempt. It has been a labour of love; and that it may be useful to those into whose hands it may come is the earnest hope of
October, 1903.
The Translator's notes are marked thus [ ].
