such a translation, to be sure, would be uproariously denounced, just as Luther and Wycliffe were denounced, but he could well afford to face the storm. The various Revised Versions, including the Modern Speech New Testament of Richard Francis Weymouth, leave much to be desired. They rectify many naif blunders and so make the whole narrative more intelligible, but they still render most of the tropes of the original literally.
These tropes are not the substance of Holy Writ; they are simply its color. In the same way mere tone-color is not the substance of a musical composition. Beethoven's Eighth Symphony is just as great a work, in all its essentials, in a four-hand piano arrangement as in the original score. Every harmonic and melodic idea of the composer is there; one can trace just as clearly the subtle processes of his mind; every step in the working out of the materials is just as plain. True enough, there are orchestral compositions of which this cannot be reasonably said; their color is so much more important than their form that when one takes away the former the latter almost ceases to exist. But I doubt that many competent critics would argue that they belong to the first rank. Form, after all, is the important thing. It is design that counts, not decoration—design and organization. The pillars of a musical masterpiece are like the pillars of the Parthenon; they are almost as beautiful bleached white as they were in all their original hues.
