FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Romans wore the toga on occasions of ceremony.
[2] The Romans divided the time from sunset to sunrise into four night-watches (vigiliae).
[3] Priests paid by the government, who predicted future events.
[4] Citron-wood tables, with an ivory foot.
[5] Marseilles.
[6] Passage leading from the door to the atrium.
[7] Drawing-room.
ADVERTISEMENTS
THE WILL.—A NOVEL, by Ernst Eckstein, from the German by Clara Bell, in two vols. Paper, $1.00 Cloth, $1.75 per set.
“Since the appearance of ‘Debit and Credit’ we have not seen a German novel that can rank, in the line struck out by that famous work, with ‘The Will,’ by Ernst Eckstein. It is a vivid picture of German city life, and the characters, whether quaint, commonplace, tragical, or a mixture of all three, are admirably drawn. All the German carefulness is in Eckstein’s work, but there is besides a sparkle and verve entirely French—and French of the best kind.”—Catholic Mirror, Baltimore.
“The chief value of the book is in its well-drawn and strong pictures of life in both German cities and villages, and Clara Bell, has, as usual, proved herself a mistress of the German Tongue.”—Sunday Star, Providence.
“Ernst Eckstein, hitherto known as a writer of classical romance, now tries his hand upon a genre story of German life. To our mind, it is his most successful work.”—Bulletin, San Francisco, Cal.
“The present work is entitled ‘The Will,’ and is written by Ernst Eckstein, the author of the striking historical novel, Quintus Claudius. The name of Clara Bell as the translator from the German is assurance enough of the excellence of its rendering into English. The plot of the story is not a novel one, but it is skillfully executed, and the whole tale is developed with much dramatic power.”—Boston Zion’s Herald.
“‘The Will,’ by Eckstein, is the latest and best work of its author. The scene, the people, the events of the story are new, the plot is ingenious, and the action rapid and exciting enough to please the most jaded novel reader. The character of schoolmaster Heinzius would alone make the reputation of a new writer, and there are other sketches from life none the less masterly. Ernst Eckstein excels in heroines, of whom there are several in the book—all clearly defined—contending for the sympathy of the reader.”—The Journal of Commerce, New York.
PRUSIAS.—A Romance of Ancient Rome under the Republic, by Ernst Eckstein, from the German by Clara Bell. Authorized edition. In two vols. Paper, $1.00. Cloth, $1.75.
“The date of ‘Prusias’ is the latter half of the first century B. C. Rome is waging her tedious war with Mithridates. There are also risings in Spain, and the home army is badly depleted. Prusias comes to Capua as a learned Armenian, the tutor of a noble pupil in one of the aristocratic households. Each member of this circle is distinct. Some of the most splendid traits of human nature develop among these grand statesmen and their dignified wives, mothers, and daughters. The ideal Roman maiden is Psyche; but she has a trace of Greek blood and of the native gentleness. Of a more interesting type is Fannia, who might, minus her slaves and stola, pass for a modern and saucy New York beauty. Her wit, spirit, selfishness, and impulsive magnanimity might easily have been a nineteenth-century evolution. In the family to which Prusias comes are two sons, one of military leanings, the other a student. Into the ear of the latter Prusias whispers the real purpose of his coming to Italy. He is an Armenian and in league with Mithridates for the reduction of Roman rule. The unity which the Senate has tried to extend to the freshly-conquered provinces of Italy is a thing of slow growth. Prusias by his strategy and helped by Mithridates’s gold, hopes to organize slaves and disaffected provincials into a force which will oblige weakened Rome to make terms, one of which shall be complete emancipation and equality of every man before the law. His harangues are in lofty strain, and, save that he never takes the coarse, belligerent tone of our contemporaries, these speeches might have been made by one of our own Abolitionists. The one point that Prusias never forgets is personal dignity and a regal consideration for his friends. But after all, this son of the gods is befooled by a woman, a sinuous and transcendently ambitious Roman belle, the second wife of the dull and trustful prefect of Capua; for this tiny woman had all men in her net whom she found it useful to have there.
“The daughter of the prefect—hard, homely-featured, and hating the supple stepmother with an unspeakable hate, tearing her beauty at last like a tigress and so causing her death—is a repulsive but very strong figure. The two brothers who range themselves on opposite sides in the servile war make another unforgettable picture; and the beautiful slave Brenna, who follows her noble lover into camp, is a spark of light against the lurid background. The servile movement is combined with the bold plans of the Thracian Spartacus. He is a good figure and perpetually surprises us with his keen foresight and disciplinary power.
“The book is stirring, realistic in the even German way, and full of the fibre and breath of its century.”—Boston Ev’g Transcript.
QUINTUS CLAUDIUS.—A Romance of Imperial Rome, by Ernst Eckstein, from the German by Clara Bell, in two vols. Paper, $1.00. Cloth, $1. 75.
“We owe to Eckstein the brilliant romance of ‘Quintus Claudius,’ which Clara Bell has done well to translate for us, for it is worthy of place beside the Emperor of Ebers and the Aspasia of Hamerling. It is a story of Rome in the reign of Domitian, and the most noted characters of the time figure in its pages, which are a series of picturesque descriptions of Roman life and manners in the imperial city, and in those luxurious retreats at Baiae and elsewhere to which the wealthy Romans used to retreat from the heats of summer. It is full of stirring scenes in the streets, in the palaces, in the temples, and in the amphitheatre, and the actors therein represent every phase of Roman character, from the treacherous and cowardly Domitian and the vile Domitia down to the secret gatherings of the new sect and their exit from life in the blood-soaked sands of the arena, where they were torn in pieces by the beasts of the desert. The life and the manners of all classes at this period were never painted with a bolder pencil than by Eckstein in this masterly romance, which displays as much scholarship as invention.”—Mail and Express, N. Y.
“These neat volumes contain a story first published in German. It is written in that style which Ebers has cultivated so successfully. The place is Rome; the time, that of Domitian at the end of the first century. The very careful study of historical data, is evident from the notes at the foot of nearly every page. The author attempted the difficult task of presenting in a single story the whole life of Rome, the intrigues of that day which compassed the overthrow of Domitian, and the deep fervor and terrible trials of the Christians in the last of the general persecutions. The court, the army, the amphitheatre, the catacombs, the evil and the good of Roman manhood and womanhood—all are here. And the work is done with power and success. It is a book for every Christian and for every student, a book of lasting value, bringing more than one nation under obligation to its author.”—New Jerusalem Magazine, Boston, Mass.
“A new Romance of Ancient Times! The success of Ernst Eckstein’s new novel, ‘Quintus Claudius,’ which recently appeared in Vienna, may fairly be called phenomenal, critics and the public unite in praising the work.”—Grazer Morgenpost.
“‘Quintus Claudius’ is a finished work of art, capable of bearing any analysis, a literary production teeming with instruction and interest, full of plastic forms, and rich in the most dramatic changes of mood.”—Pester Lloyd.
SERAPIS. A Romance by Georg Ebers, from the German by Clara Bell. Authorized Edition. In one vol. Paper cover, 50 cts. Cloth binding, 90 cts.
“A new novel by Ebers is always a pleasure; and ‘Serapis’ has all the qualities conspicuous in the Egyptian novels that preceded it, with an intensified dramatic and descriptive power that tempts one to pronounce it one of the very best of the series. Nothing is lost from that perfectly preserved atmosphere of something foreign to our own experience in time and place, which one felt instinctively to be foreign whether or not one were Egyptologist enough to recognize it as perfect; while at the same time the interest is kept up by a stress of human feeling which makes the thrilling events chronicled hold one as if they happened before one’s eyes. The early Christians are represented, not as martyrs and haloed heroes, but as human beings with a great deal of human nature in them; the touch of the Christian Bishop quite indifferent to the conversion and the fate of a young Christian maiden as soon as he learned that she preferred to be an Aryan Christian, being especially—shall we say natural, or artistic? The heroine is not a young girl ardent in the Christian faith, as is customary in similar historical stories, but one clinging fiercely to the old faiths; the description of the torture to her soul, even after she began to turn to the light, in the sacrilegious destruction of the old gods and temples, being given with wonderful vividness. The mere outward descriptions are singularly effective; whether of a young girl resting in a garden on soft cushions under the gilt-coffered ceiling of the arcade, peeling a luscious peach as she listens to the plash of the fountains and watches the buds swelling on the tall trees, while among the smooth, shining leaves of the orange and lemon trees gleamed the swelling fruit,—or of a maiden devoted to the worship of Isis waiting for her Christian lover,—or finally of the magnificent Serapeum, never more glorious than when the Christians had resolved on its destruction and the cunning priests, with the aid of mirrors, caused a ray of the setting sun—a shaft of intense brightness—to fall on the lips of the statue of the god as if in derision of his enemies. Of dramatic effects there are many intensely dramatic; more especially the scene where Constantine mounts the ladder with his axe to overthrow the god, almost as sensitive himself to his own daring as the young agonized girl, watching him as if the first blow he should deal to the beautiful and unique work of art might wreck her love for him, as his axe would wreck the ivory. Even more powerful than this, perhaps, is the scene where Theophilus, struggling in vain to persuade even his own followers to the destruction of the great image, seizes the crucifix of his own Lord, and trembling almost at his own audacity, dashes it to the ground in fragments, to show that even the symbol of his own religion is as nothing compared with the spirit; falling then upon his knees in an ecstasy of remorseful prayer, and gathering up the bits of broken ivory to kiss them devoutly. The book is so full of scenes and effects like this, that while quite as instructive in its way as the other Egyptian novels, it is more strikingly interesting as a story.”—The Critic, N. Y.
ASPASIA.—A Romance, by Robert 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).
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