HIGHER THAN THE CHURCH.—An Art Legend of Ancient Times, by Wilhelmine von Hillern, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in one vol. Paper, 25 cts. Cloth, 50 cts.
“Mary J. Safford translates acceptably a very charming short story from the German of Wilhelmine von Hillern. If it was not told by the sacristan of Breisach, it deserves to have been. It has the full flavor of old German and English love tales, such as have been crystallized in the old ballads. The Emperor, the gifted boy, his struggles with the stupidity of his townsmen, his apparently hopeless love above him; these form the old delightful scene, set in a Düreresque border. There are touches here and there which refer to the present. The sixteenth century tale has a political moral that will appeal to Germans who believe that Alsatia, once German in heart as well as in tongue, ought to be held by force to the Fatherland till she forgets her beloved France.”—N. Y. Times.
William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York.
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 a 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.