John Conington wrote this paragraph to describe the challenges of translating from Latin into the English of his day (he died in 1869).
“Still, where it is almost impossible to walk quite straight, the walker will reconcile himself to incidental deviations, and will even consider, where a slip is inevitable, on which side of the line it is better that the slip should take place.”
From “The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry” by Horace, Tr. John Conington.
Conington expected to miss the path, to fall short, to slip or trip, but he was prepared for that, prepared to get up and go on again, scratched, besmirched, weary; metaphorically speaking. Let us ask the Good Shepherd to guide us along the right path, and to give us the comfort of his crook and staff, as we make our incidentally devious way through Life.
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