Excerpt from Aspasia, Vol. 1: A Romance

IF this romance, according to a much quoted saying of our time, seeks out as its work, a nation - the old Hellenic race - will not a shade of thought and pedantry seem to cling to the description of this kind of tail, since the universal labor of the Greek people was that of the artist, poet, and thinker? Will it not be infe rior in freshness of sensation, to scenes drawn from the spring of simple, vigorous life, whose poetry is not yet exhausted P And, on the other hand, must not suchaun attempt also lack the charm of the cleverness - in the modern sense of the word - piquant realism, and bright, vivid coloring of the literary productions of the present day P Ought Hellenic life to be represented otherwise than with Hellenic simplicity, and should its chronicler strive for any thing except to gain a breath of the Hellen ic spirit, the Hellenic grace? Is it not especially diflicult to describe a vanished life P Minute painting of modem existence is praised as charmingly realistic; that of ancient times will produce on many the chilling impres sion of erudition. Indeed, whoever merely turns over tile leaves of this book, noticing that the different por tions disclose views of the various sides of Hellenic life, will promptly form the opinion that he has a mere sketch book of loose sheets, or at most a historical romance, which according to the idea of most persons, is about the same thing as no romance at all.

And yet - if the romance, as an artistic work, is dis tinguished by its internal and external form from bio graphy, history and mere narrative, if it is not only the expression of a life and destiny contained within itself, but also of a conflict which has a logical development and solution, what I relate here is a romance. It not merely contains, in a positive form, beautiful sensuality glorified by intellect, in its development, prime and decay; but the conflict between the wstlzetz'c and moral ideal of existence arises and is decided in the life of an individual, and the destiny of a nation. This parallelism between the fate of individuals and nations, individual and uni versal life, has always hovered before me as the art secret of epic poetry, its supreme principle, its peculiar model. Not, however, that the particulars related of in dividual life and those of national existence run side by side, one as it were an episode of the other, but both as far as possible, relate to one and the same detail, and resemble an organic structure, closely interwoven and blended together.

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