ASPASIA.—A Romance, byRobert Hamerling, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in two vols. Paper, $1.00. Cloth, $1.75.
“We have read his work conscientiously, and, we confess, with profit. Never have we had so clear an insight into the manners, thoughts, and feelings of the ancient Greeks. No study has made us so familiar with the age of Pericles. We recognize throughout that the author is master of the period of which he treats. Moreover, looking back upon the work from the end to the beginning, we clearly perceive in it a complete unity of purpose not at all evident during the reading.
“Hamerling’s Aspasia, herself the most beautiful woman in all Hellas, is the apostle of beauty and of joyousness, the implacable enemy of all that is stern and harsh in life. Unfortunately, morality is stern, and had no place among Aspasia’s doctrines. This ugly fact, Landor has thrust as far into the background as possible. Hamerling obtrudes it. He does not moralize, he neither condemns nor praises; but like fate, silent, passionless, and resistless, he carries the story along, allows the sunshine for a time to silver the turbid stream, the butterflies and gnats to flutter above it in rainbow tints, and then remorselessly draws over the landscape gray twilight. He but follows the course of history; yet the absolute pitilessness with which he does it is almost terrible.”—Extracts from Review in Yale Literary Magazine.
“No more beautiful chapter can be found in any book of this age than that in which Pericles and Aspasia are described as visiting the poet Sophocles in the garden on the bank of the Cephissus.”—Utica Morning Herald.
“It is one of the great excellencies of this romance, this lofty song of the genius of the Greeks, that it is composed with perfect artistic symmetry in the treatment of the different parts, and from the first word to the last is thoroughly harmonious in tone and coloring. Therefore, in ‘Aspasia,’ we are given a book, which could only proceed from the union of an artistic nature and a thoughtful mind—a book that does not depict fiery passions in dramatic conflict, but with dignified composure, leads the conflict therein described to the final catastrophe.”—Allgemeine Zeitung.(Augsburg).
William S. Gottsberger’s Publications.