IV
I have endeavored, in this translation of "La Nouvelle Carthage," to enable the reader to obtain something of the effect which is produced by the original French. But Eekhoud, although a great writer, is in no sense a stylist. He is controlled by his emotion and by his conception, and his prose is exuberant and often rhapsodic; in his work we have a clear case of content creating its own form.
It has been necessary to delete one paragraph from the chapter entitled "The Runners," and several passages from the chapter dealing with "The Riet-Dijk." These passages are purely descriptive, and to French readers their frankness would have its warrant in the tradition of literary realism; in this matter Anglo-Saxon and Gallic taste are at variance.
