TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

This edition of Blessed Henry Suso’s Little Book of Eternal Wisdom is translated from the classical German text of Cardinal Melchior Diepenbrock, Prince-Bishop of Breslau.

That it is a very imperfect reproduction of the incomparable original, I am fully aware, but there are authors whose beauties of idiom are such as to be untranslatable, and Suso is one of them.

It is superfluous to enlarge here on the intrinsic merits of Blessed Henry Suso’s work. For over five hundred years it has enjoyed undiminished popularity, as at once a religious and literary masterpiece. Such a work speaks too eloquently for itself; it is its own best praise, its own best commentary.