But to tamper with the author's words because of the sensibilities of present-day readers is unacceptable.
Present-day readers, he said, "treasure what we have done, and we hope to continue doing it for future generations".
He wished, as he said, to understand fully those about whom he wrote, to live alongside them, and to allow them to explain themselves to present-day readers.
Though not Renan's best historical work, it can still claim the attention of present-day readers because it presents a "mythical" account of the making of Christianity by the popular imagination and thus has a place, like his other historical works, in the literature of messianism.
But many present-day readers can recognize things in this marvelous tale.
In one chapter, Gallagher decided to literally translate a game in which the children cross their fingers — "a Christian symbol" that he said would not have existed in ancient Rome — because it made the most sense for present-day readers.
But these are matters for specialists, providing them with gainful employment, and do not much affect the present-day reader's enjoyment of the book.
Much of _Time'_s tone was lightly mocking of the movement — and now seems drenched in the unconscious sexism it sought to define — which makes its treatment of Millett's work strike a present-day reader as surprisingly respectful.
The good news for the present-day reader, of course, is that we needn't worry about any book disappearing: technology allows us to store a book electronically, and we can keep every word around forever, without concern for dust or space.
Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island has also fallen out of favour with present-day readers, but any number of adventure stories, from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book to The Action Hero's Handbook derive from it.
