True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation. - Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Books that have become classics—books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal—always remind me of venerable colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay.

What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, or wingëd air.

What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next.