Through Night to Light: A Novel. By Friedrich Spielhagen. New York: Leypoldt & Holt.
Were one of our first American novelists to put forth such a story as the above, it would be hissed by the voice of public opinion; but it seems we may receive from the German, and call poetic, ideal, and spirituelle, what would be considered coarse and immoral even in a penny journal.
We will give a specimen of the author's philosophy. Speaking of a married woman who had been in more cases than one unfaithful to her marriage relations, the author says,
"Have you not paid the penalty of the wrong, if wrong it was to follow the impulse of a free heart? Is it reasonable to sacrifice the wife to a rigorous moral law which the husband does not consider binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I, not you." (He might have added only Almighty God.) "Why, then, should you obey it? I tell you the day of freedom which is now dawning will blow all such self-imposed laws to the winds, and with them all the ordinances devised by a dark, monkish disposition to fetter nature and torment hearts."
To the corrupting influence of this style of literature we owe such scenes as the one which recently in this city shocked the public mind. The title of this book is a misnomer. It should be, not Through Night to Light, but Through Light to Night.
The Two Cottages. Showing how many more families may be comfortable and happy than are so. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870.
Of this simple story of humble life we cannot speak too highly. It is as valuable for its suggestions as it is truthful in its delineations.
Mary and Mi-ka: A Tale of the Holy Childhood. With an account of the Institution. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1870.