Hermann Weyl的书见过几本，却无缘他的The Classical Groups，昨天才得了一本，只有纪念意义了。

老外(Weyl)写东西，特别注重表达和形式，所以作为一个“老外”，他感觉自己的英文不够好，说上帝们给他的舌头带了枷锁。

The gods have imposed upon my writing the yoke of a foreign tongue that was not sung at my cradle.

“Was das heissen will, weiss jeder,

Der im Traum pferdlos geritten ist,”

I am tempted to say with the Swiss poet Gottfried Keller (1819–1890). Nobody is more aware than myself of the attendant loss in vigor, ease and lucidity of expression.

vigor, ease and lucidity of expression正是他要追求的，因为追求，所以才总觉得“缺失”。那句德文不知道是不是Gottfried Keller的诗句，大概意思是，Everyone who has dreamt of riding free, without the need of a horse, will know what I mean. 英文就是他的马儿。

有趣的是，半个世纪以后，Eberhard Zeidler在Quantum Field Theory的前言里为自己的英文不好表示歉意时，就顺手牵出老外这个前辈来作伴儿：

Apology. The author apologizes for his imperfect English style. In the preface to his monograph The Classical Groups, Princeton University Press, 1946, Hermann Weyl writes the following……（接着就引用上面那段话）