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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6922578 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53001 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53001) diff --git a/old/53001-0.txt b/old/53001-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b2777a2..0000000 --- a/old/53001-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7747 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magic of Spain, by Aubrey F.G. Bell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Magic of Spain - -Author: Aubrey F.G. Bell - -Release Date: September 7, 2016 [EBook #53001] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGIC OF SPAIN *** - - - - -Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - - - - - - - THE MAGIC OF SPAIN - - - - - THE MAGIC - OF SPAIN - - BY AUBREY F. G. BELL - - Or vous aurez loisir - Cheminant en Espagne - Bien que maintes montagnes - Il vous faudra monter. - _Pilgrims’ Song._ - - LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, - NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXII. - - - WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. - - - - -NOTE - - -This is rather a collection of stray notes on Spain than a connected -study--of notes from many pleasant hours of Spanish literature and -travel, but perhaps of too individual an interest to appear without some -apology. No reference will be found to those great social and political -problems which disturb Spanish life. To fill the idler moments of a -Spanish holiday, and possibly to help the reader to feel that “parfum du -terroir” which pervades Spain, is the unambitious object of these pages. -Better still, if he turns from them in dissatisfaction to authoritative -writers on Spanish life and letters, and to the magic-land of Spanish -literature itself. For permission to reprint some of these short essays -in slightly altered form the author has to thank the Editors of the -_Morning Post_, the _Outlook_, and the _Queen_. - - - - -PREFACE - - -It is not easy in a few words to account for the strange Oriental spell -that Spain has exercised over many minds nor to explain the potency of -its attraction. For indeed the great Peninsula possesses a special spice -and flavour. It has not the immemorial culture of Italy, nor the -pleasant smiling landscapes of France with her green meadows and crystal -streams. The old Iberia, that _dura tellus_, has a peculiar raciness. -Its colour is often harsh and crude; many of its districts are barren -and discomfortable. The bleak and rocky uplands and the ragged sierra -ridges cut the country into sharp divisions and cause it to be thinly -and variously populated. On those uplands the breath of the wind is -often icy and the sun strikes with a biting force. Great parched and -desolate plains extend treeless and unprotected two thousand feet above -the sea. The villages at distant intervals are of the colour of the -soil, and scarcely to be distinguished from a mass of yellow-brown -rocks. Morning and evening a string of mules may be seen outlined on the -horizon, for the peasants set out in bands to till their distant fields; -or a shepherd with his flock of sheep, or goats, relieves the strange -monotony of this dust-laden windy desert. Nothing could be sadder or -less harmonious than the peasants’ harsh and strident singing, the very -peculiarity of which has, however, a piquancy and charm. Hard too is -their language, with its clean gutturals, far rougher and manlier than -the musical sister-tongue of Italy. All points to a like conclusion, -that this is no country of comfort and soft languorous delight, but of a -quaint and forcible originality, where the most jaded mind may be braced -and inspirited and find a fresher and more stirring life. - -In Spain the sharpness of contrasts precludes any feeling of weariness -or satiety. There are regions of luxuriant growth and African sun -bounded by mountains of eternal snow. Through the plain a river glides -among orange groves and grey olives; in the shaded _patios_ of the city -silver fountains keep the air cool and fresh, and on the coldest night -in winter the temperature is still some degrees above the -freezing-point. Yet here, in the most fiery heat of summer, we may lift -up our eyes to the hills and look on the snowy sierra against the deep -blue of the sky; and if a shower, in this region of little rain, falls -upon the low-lying districts, it adds but another coat of whiteness to -the neighbouring range. It is indeed a strange and fascinating land, a -_Land voll Sonnenschein_ and fierce blinding light, yet a land of -shrill, piercing blasts and icy air, a land of many various elements -both of climate and population. It is no wonder that its inhabitants are -of a character strongly individual and preserve the original Iberian -strain. A racy pithiness of speech is theirs. In no country are proverbs -more common, and a string of them can indeed form a peasant’s -conversation, pungent as the rosaries of red _piments_ that hang on the -balconies of farms. - -It was in Spain that the rogue-story, the _novela de pícaros_, -originated, and the Spanish novelists of the last thirty years have -given free rein to the local types of various parts of Spain. Nowhere -has provincialism continued to be so clearly marked. In other countries -better communications have corrupted the local manners into a conformity -of excellence. In Spain the nature of the country, with its rough -mountain barriers and turbulent unnavigable rivers, still protects -originality and keeps the character of the provinces distinct, and the -native of Andalucía continues to despise the native of Galicia and to be -ridiculed by the native of Castille. This does not make for material -prosperity, but it constitutes a country of the picturesque and -unexpected, a country where imagination is not dead, and where the -artist and poet find their true home. Not the least attraction to them -perhaps is the Spanish improvidence and absence of method, and the gay -living from hand to mouth. An unwary traveller in the wilder districts -may easily find himself half-perishing from scarcity of food, and lost -in an intricate labyrinth of ways between far-distant villages. “A bad -thing, sirs, it is to have a lack of bread,” sang the poet of the -twelfth-century _Poema del Cid_. The hardy peasant of the poorer -regions lives scantily from day to day on the product of the niggard -soil, won by patient labour. The peasant in more fertile parts does not -necessarily fare better, but he labours magnificently less. The -deliberate method of prosperity and success is held in small esteem. The -mighty Empire of Spain was in fact the affair of a generation only. From -the time of Philip II. onwards the Spanish Empire might aptly be -compared with the Cid’s corpse, for, though by its prestige and the -favour of heaven it might continue to reap fresh victories, it was -nevertheless irrevocably dead and awaiting dissolution. And it is the -improvidence of Spain that has charmed the foreigner. For, eager as he -is to admire its poetic aspects, in his inmost soul he often regards -himself as incomparably superior, and hurries home to civilization with -a sheaf of curious details negligently gleaned. - -The courteous Spaniard conceals his contempt for the foreigner, but were -he privileged to read the numerous sketches, scenes, and saunterings -published yearly of Spain, he would have some scope for legitimate -amusement. A faint remonstrance has indeed been heard in the Peninsula -against the idea of Spanish grandees lying in wait at dark corners to -rob a French journalist of his fortune. But mostly they are content to -let the foreigner continue in his ignorance. For stern and melancholy -Spain retains her secret, and is not to be won from her Oriental -impenetrable mystery by any wiles. Unchanging and impassive, her cities -seem to mock the stranger, and the roughness of the intervening -wildernesses discourages him. But he returns again and again to this -remote and mediæval country, that in his practical eyes should be so -rich and is so poor. The repulses he receives whet his curiosity and -increase his ardour. Yet Spain is not, in spite of its many tourists, a -country of foreign colonies. To the Englishman this fact brings a -striking novelty, for he may visit Switzerland and Italy and France and -scarcely leave the atmosphere of England, but in Spain he will find no -difficulty in following Bacon’s advice to the traveller in foreign -countries to “sequester himself from the company of his countrymen.” - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -NOTE v - -PREFACE vii - -I. SPANISH CHARACTER-- - i. Some Stray Opinions 17 - ii. Vain Generalities 25 - -II. TRAVELLING IN SPAIN 47 - -III. ON THE SPANISH FRONTIER 57 - -IV. ESKUAL-ERRIA-- - i. Basque Country 66 - ii. Basque Customs 72 - -V. IN REMOTE NAVARRE 80 - -VI. SPANISH CITIES 85 - -VII. IN OLD CASTILLE 92 - -VIII. THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 97 - -IX. THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN 104 - -X. AN EASTERN VILLAGE 108 - -XI. OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN 112 - -XII. THE JUDGING OF THE WATERS 120 - -XIII. SEVILLE IN WINTER 125 - -XIV. FROM A SEVILLE HOUSETOP 129 - -XV. FEBRUARY IN ANDALUCÍA 134 - -XVI. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH LITERATURE 142 - -XVII. THE POEM OF THE CID-- - i. A Primitive Masterpiece 153 - ii. Valencia del Cid 157 - -XVIII. A PRISONER OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION-- - i. Novedades 163 - ii. Salamanca University 165 - iii. In a Valladolid Dungeon 169 - iv. Ex forti dulcedo 178 - -XIX. THE MODERN SPANISH NOVEL-- - i. Revival. Fernán Caballero 185 - ii. 1870-1900 191 - iii. In the Twentieth Century 201 - -XX. NOVELS OF GALICIA 214 - -XXI. NOVELS OF THE MOUNTAIN-- - i. “Savour of the Soil” 222 - ii. “On the Heights” 231 - -XXII. CASTILIAN PROSE 239 - -XXIII. TOLEDO AND EL GRECO 244 - -INDEX 259 - - - - -THE MAGIC OF SPAIN - - - - -I - -SPANISH CHARACTER - - -I.--STRAY OPINIONS - -To collect a mass of isolated and contradictory opinions concerning the -Spanish is a comparatively simple task, although it is difficult or -impossible to derive from them a consistent picture of Spanish -character. To Wellington they are “this extraordinary and perverse -people,” to whom to boast of Spain’s strength was a natural weakness. -“Procrastination and improvidence are their besetting sins,” says -Napier, and of their conduct in the Peninsular War: “Of proverbially -vivid imagination and quick resentments, the Spaniards act individually -rather than nationally, and, during this war, what appeared constancy of -purpose was but a repetition of momentary fury generated like electric -sparks by constant collision with the French.” “The Spaniards are -perfect masters of saying everything and doing nothing.” They have -dignified sentiments and lofty expressions, but taken with their deeds -these are “but a strong wind blowing shrivelled leaves.” “In the -arrangement of warlike affairs difficulties are always overlooked by the -Spaniards, who are carried on from one phantasy to another so swiftly -that the first conception of an enterprise is immediately followed by a -confident anticipation of complete success.” Though they are “hasty in -revenge and feeble in battle,” they are “patient to the last degree in -suffering.” To the peasants he allows “a susceptibility of grand -sentiments.” They “endure calamity, men and women alike, with a singular -and unostentatious courage. But their virtues are passive, their faults -active, and, instigated by a peculiar arrogance, they are perpetually -projecting enterprises which they have not sufficient vigour to -execute.” “To neglect real resources and fasten upon imaginary projects -is peculiarly Spanish.” A French writer of the same period, General -Marbot, contents himself with observing that the Spanish “ont beaucoup -conservé du caractère des Arabes et sont fatalistes; aussi -répétaient-ils sans cesse ‘Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar,’” but adds -that “ils ont un mérite immense, c’est que, bien que battus, ils ne se -découragent jamais.” Turning to earlier centuries we find that in Livy -and Strabo the Spaniards are obstinate, unsociable, silent, dressed in -black, despisers of death, very sober. In the centuries of Spain’s -greatness the comments naturally thicken, although they are often not -easily reconcilable. To an Italian, Paolo Cortese, at the beginning of -the sixteenth century the Spanish are, in a shower of epithets, -“ambitious, good-natured, curious, greedy, contentious, tenacious, -magnificent, suspicious, sly.” Another Italian, Paolo Tiepolo, later -draws a distinction[1] between those who have travelled and those who -have not left Spain, those former being “per la maggior parte avvisati, -diligenti, tolleranti.” In Pepys we read of the “ceremoniousness of the -Spaniards,” and that “the Spaniards are the best disciplined foot in the -world; will refuse no extraordinary service if commanded, but scorn to -be paid for it as in other countries,” and of “the plain habit of the -Spaniards, how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak of -Colchester bayze, and the ladies mantles in cold weather of white -flannell.” To a learned Spaniard, Masdeu, they are, to quote but a few -of his judgments, “lively, swift in conception, slow and thoughtful in -coming to a resolution, active and effectual in carrying it into -execution. They are the stoutest defenders of religion, and masters in -asceticism.” “Their disinterestedness and honesty in commerce is known -to all. They are frugal at table, especially averse from any excess in -drinking. In conversation they are serious and taciturn, not giving to -biting speech, courteous, affable, and pleasant; they hate flattery, but -they respect others and look to be respected themselves. They speak with -majesty, but without affectation. They are generous, serviceable, -kindly, and have a pleasure in conferring benefits, and they exalt -things foreign more than their own. They have envy, pride, and a love of -glory, but with noble, redeeming qualities. In their attire they are -neat and moderate; when they go abroad they are dressed well and -smartly, but with a befitting gravity.” “They spend with magnificence -and extravagance.” A French traveller, Mme. d’Aulnoy,[2] in the -seventeenth century, says of the Spanish that “Nature has been kinder to -them than they are to themselves; they are born with more wit than -others; they have a great quickness of mind join’d with great solidity; -they speak and deliver their words with ease; they have a great memory; -their style is neat and concise, and they are quick of apprehension; it -is easie to teach them whatever they have a mind to; they are perfect -masters in Politicks, and when there is a necessity for it they are -temperate and laborious.”... “They are patient to excess, obstinate, -idle, singular philosophers; and, as to the rest, men of honour, keeping -their words tho’ it cost them their lives.” She considers their greatest -defect to be a “passion for revenge,” and speaks of “their fantastick -grandeur.” A short account by an Englishman in 1701, has little good to -say of the Spanish, except that they “have an incomparable Zeal to plant -the Catholick Religion.” He notes their sluggishness, their immorality, -and it is, moreover, impossible to distinguish a Spanish Cavalier from a -Cobler, while most of their houses are “of earth and like Mole-hills, -but one storey high.” They have an “esprit orgueilleux,” and treat -strangers “de turc à maure,” says a Frenchman of the same period,[3] so -that the Englishman may have had some slight, some _turc à maure_ -experience in Spain. Another Englishman,[4] half a century later, writes -that the Spanish are “generous, liberal, magnificent, and charitable; -religious without dispute, but devout to the greatest excess of -superstition.”... “If they have any predominant fault it is perhaps -that of being rather too high-minded; hence they have entertained, at -different times, the most extravagant conceits.”... “Their cloaths are -usually of a very dark colour, and their cloaks almost black. This shows -the natural gravity of the people.”... “There are no soldiers in the -whole world braver than the Spanish.” Reclus, in his estimate of the -Spanish, has boldly allowed the contrasts and contradictions of Spanish -character to stand side by side. They are “apathetic in daily life, but -of a quick resolution, persistent courage and unwearying tenacity. They -are vain, but if any one has a right to be so, they have. In spite of -their pride they are simple and pleasant in their manners. They esteem -themselves highly, but they are equally ready to recognize the merit of -others. They are very swift and keen to lay a finger on the weak side or -the vices of other people, but never bemean themselves by despising -them. They have a great store of seriousness, a rare firmness of -character. They are contented with their lot and are fatalists. A -mixture of superstition and ignorance, common-sense, and subtle irony; -they are at times ferocious, though naturally of a magnanimous -generosity, fond of revenge, yet forgetting injuries, fond of equality, -yet guilty of oppression.” The verdicts of modern Spanish thinkers have -been mostly pessimistic.[5] Spaniards in the twentieth century have been -busily occupied with analytical introspection, the result of their -national misfortunes and injured pride. They prefer to speak atrociously -of themselves than that foreigners should speak of them only moderately -well. Señor Mallada holds[6] his countrymen to be “idle, unpractical -dreamers.” In Spain, says Ángel Ganivet,[7] “there are many who have no -will, _hay muchos enfermos de la voluntad_”--there is a lack of -concentration, that is of persistent concentration, and a lack of -proportion, of the power to consider more than one idea, more than one -aspect of a question. So _Azorín_ complains that “there is plenty of -insight and rapid vision, but no co-ordination of ideas or steady -fulfilment or will.”[8] In a book by Ricardo León[9] we read that the -Spanish are hostile to their rulers, whoever they may be, and of the -evils of _el Caciquismo_. But the author sees little hope of change in a -country where men live between two extremes, “two fires, two -fanaticisms,” either reactionaries or demagogues; where the currents of -activity and passion are unregulated, where thought is either stagnant -or enmeshed in a gossamer woof of subtle distinctions, and the golden -mean of common-sense is not attained. The inhabitants of Alcalá are -“strong, hard, brave, and stubborn, rigorous in their virtues and their -vices, violent in their loves and hates, tenacious alike of good and of -evil.” To counterbalance their clear intelligence, greatheartedness, -quick imagination and eloquence they have serious defects, “and -especially a certain unrestfulness of spirit, a nervous irritability -which prevents them from living in peace or comfort with themselves or -with others, a true Spanish failing, peculiarly attached both of old and -at the present day to that harsh, turbulent, strongly original character -of the race which has never allowed us rest, but kept us perpetually at -strife, taking umbrage at our very shadows.”... “While there were -infidels to fight, strongholds to defend, vows to fulfil, or even when -there were civil wars and vigorous smuggling and bands of brigands,” -there was scope for the virtues and vices of a people “born and bred -for action and passionate deeds,” “fashioned in battle”; but “on the -advent of the moderate customs of modern times” they find themselves -“out of their natural atmosphere, idle, poor, disconcerted, cramped.” -And this is the tragedy of Spain to-day--a great-hearted people in the -toils of civilization. In Pérez Galdós’ “El Caballero Encantado,” the -spirit of Spain thus addresses one of her sons: “The capital defect of -the Spaniards of your time is that you live exclusively the life of -words, and the language is so beautiful that the delight in the sweet -sound of it woos you to sleep. You speak too much; you lavish without -stint a wealth of phrases to conceal the poverty of your actions.”[10] -In an earlier book[11] Señor León deplores the fashion prevailing in -Spain “to depreciate all that is Spanish, and to bestow great praise on -all that is foreign. A wave of moral cowardice and utilitarian baseness -is passing over Spain.” But Spanish character is not permanently -weakened nor shorn of its dignity and independence, the eclipse is but -temporary and, indeed, partial, not affecting the humbler classes. The -spirit of Spain will revive, as in “El Caballero Encantado,” when it is -being carried from the death-bed to the grave,[12] and may be aptly -likened, as by Don Rafael Altamira, to the waters of the Guadiana which, -after flowing for a space underground, return once more to the surface. - - -II.--VAIN GENERALITIES. - -“And indeed,” wrote Pepys, “we do all naturally love the Spanish and -hate the French,” and if, since his day, we have learned to love the -French, the character of the Spanish has not ceased to attract and -interest Englishmen. Yet any attempt to generalize concerning Spanish -character would seem a vain and foolish task, since Spain is the country -of Europe which has most stringently preserved its local differences of -race and language, and it is still true, as in Ford’s time, that “the -rude agricultural Gallician, the industrious manufacturing artisan of -Barcelona, the gay and voluptuous Andalucian, the sly vindictive -Valencian are as essentially different from each other as so many -distinct characters at the same masquerade,” and the Basque[13] and -_andaluz_, for instance, are as far apart as Frenchman and Spaniard. It -is possible to take the various ingredients, Castilian pride,[14] -Catalan thrift,[15] Andalusian imagination, Gallegan dullness,[16] the -grimness of Navarre, the stubbornness of Aragon,[17] Valencian or -Murcian cunning, and, tying them into a convenient bundle, to speak of -the Spanish as proud, thrifty, etc., or, in a more pessimistic key, as -haughty, avaricious, untruthful, stolid, cruel, obstinate, malicious. -But, though such a judgment is notoriously false, a few qualities may -perhaps be attributed to the whole of Spain as in some measure common to -her various peoples. Foremost among these qualities are independence and -personal dignity. The Spaniards are a nation of individualists, each a -law unto himself, and they are thus as a nation frequently misunderstood -and their pride has not suffered them to correct errors concerning them, -while at the same time it would perhaps be difficult to find in any -other nation so great a number of individuals whom one may admire and -respect. The dramatist Don Jacinto Benavente has said[18] that in Spain -“each of us would like to be the only great man in a nation of fools, -the only honest man in a tribe of knaves,” and speaks of “our unbridled -individualism.” No one is a more thorough individualist than Don Pío -Baroja, and the principal character of his novel, _César ó Nada_, -declares that the Spanish, “as individualists require, more than a -democratic, federal organization, an iron military discipline.” -“Democracy, Republicanism, Socialism have in reality little root in our -country.... Moreover we admit no superiorities and do not willingly -accept king or president, priest or prophet.” It is this refractoriness -which has made the Spanish so hard a people to govern, and wrought -permanent mischief to their prosperity as a nation. They would seem to -have still to learn the true dignity of loyalty and service. Every -Spaniard, of however humble a position, considers that he is well -qualified to criticize the measures of his rulers, and still more the -fancied measures that he chooses to attribute to them. Thus in a -Republic every citizen would believe himself to be capable of conducting -the affairs of the nation better than the President, as Sancho was -convinced that he could govern his island as well or better than any; -nevertheless Spaniards are inclined to acquiesce in a firm unquestioned -authority with a kind of heroical submission, accepting its decisions as -they accept the inevitable decrees of fate, and for this reason an -old-established system of government, such as the Monarchy, is -infinitely the best suited to the Spanish temperament. No doubt they -would prefer to have no system of government, if that were possible, -being restive and tumultuous under restraint. On one occasion a Spanish -_chauffeur_ while driving his mistress considered that he had been -insulted by a passer in the street and, leaving mistress and motor, -proceeded to punish the offender till the police interfered.[19] And if -the Spanish find it difficult to work harmoniously under the orders of -others, it is no easier for them to maintain a joint authority; they can -never co-operate for long, their political parties and commercial unions -rapidly fall asunder like the seeds of a pomegranate. Similarly one may -see at a glance of any Spanish crowd that it is not a fused mass but a -collection of units remaining aloof and separate; if the individual -gains, the State suffers, and Spanish politics sometimes have an air of -cramping angularities and crude ambitions. But this individualism and -independence has its nobler and more pleasant side, for even in extreme -poverty and distress, dignity and an accompanying courtesy, honesty, and -sobriety,[20] rarely desert the Spaniard. Each is king in his own -house, be it miserable attic or merely the space of sun that his shadow -covers; _mientras en mi casa me estoy rey me soy_. The following -dialogue bears intrinsic evidence of its nationality, it could not -belong to any country but Spain: “Is your worship a thief?”--“Yes, to -serve God and all good people.”[21] Thus personal dignity and individual -pride may be said to be the dominant notes of Spain. So the beggars in -the street address one another as Sir, _señor_, lord, and if you cannot -give them an alms for the good of your soul you must at least give -excuses--_perdone Vd. por Dios_. While we admire this independence we -cannot help seeing that it is a false dignity, which prefers to starve, -like one of the characters in Pérez Galdós’ _Fortunata y Jacinta_, -because “_mi dinidá y sinificancia no me permiten_--my dignity and -importance do not allow me,” to accept employment. The fair outward show -given to garret poverty is pathetic, but it is liable to deceive and to -create distrust. Mme. d’Aulnoy remarked that the Spanish “bear up under -this Indigency with such an air of gravity as would cheat one.” - -In _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ Don Adriano de Armado says to Moth that he is -“ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster,” but to Moth’s -observation, “You are a gentleman and a gamester, Sir,” he answers -well-pleased, “I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete -man” (_todo un hombre_). The Spanish have ever shown themselves to be -ill at reckoning, they are careless of details and have indeed an -Oriental incuriousness of facts and figures; in no country is it more -difficult to obtain accurate returns or consecutive statistics. Against -all drudgery the Spanish temperament rebels[22]; they act by impulse, in -disconnected moments without persistency; their concentration is of -instants,[23] without consequence; and it has been observed that “Spain -has developed her life and art by means of spiritual convulsions.” What -is said in one of Pérez Galdós’ novels[24] of Narváez might with truth -be applied to many Spaniards: “He has a great heart and a great -intelligence, but they manifest themselves only by fits and starts, by -impulses, _por arranques_.” There is plenty of intelligence among -Spaniards but little continuity of judgment; no perseverance. They are -enthusiastic for a project and, their thoughts outrunning action, they -see the matter begun, in progress, finished, so that their very keenness -prevents accomplishment, and finally nothing is done. Don Quixote, we -remember, thought little of the winning of a kingdom and cutting off a -giant’s head: “all that I consider already done, _que todo esto doy ya -for hecho._” Or sometimes their intelligence mars their labour and, not -content with doing a simple thing simply, they spoil it by being a -little too clever, or decide a matter too readily by a swift judgment -that may happen to be false. The Spanish are a people of immense and -abiding energy,[25] but their energy is often dormant or misdirected. -Two Spaniards in the twentieth century have been seen to converse with -so fierce an intensity that it seemed over and over again in the course -of a protracted and loud discussion that they must come from words to -blows; and the matter in dispute, conducted with a heat that would have -exhausted less energetic natures, was whether it was right or wrong to -expel the Moriscos from Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth -century. Yet it is not certain that the Spanish can be called -unpractical; they are often idle, indifferent, aloof from the events of -daily life, but when a matter truly interests them, they would seem to -be sufficiently shrewd and practical. King James I. of Aragon aimed an -accusation at the Castilians which has often been applied to all -Spaniards: “You do nothing without extravagance.[26]” But a fundamental -ingredient of Spanish character is realism and clear vision; it is -their birthright of transparent subtle air and unclouded skies. They are -keen to detect all falseness and hypocrisy, and display a shrewd insight -into character; but their study has been ever of persons rather than of -books and things,[27] so that they may act extravagantly themselves even -while they are the first to see another’s extravagance, keenly -practical, it may be said, in the affairs of others, strangely abstract -and improvident in their own. Their realism, if it drives them by -reaction into a barren love of words and visions of impossible ideals, -expresses itself in a directness which is very characteristic of all -classes of Spaniards, in the pregnant brevity of countless proverbs, in -concentrated intensity at a given moment, in humour and satire and a -strong love of ridicule. Their proverbs show a thriftiness and practical -good sense very different from the prudence that enriches, but equally -far removed from the romantic view of Spaniards sometimes held by -foreigners. In noble lines Calderón has said of life that it is “a -shadow, a fantasy, and the greatest good is of small worth, since all -life is a dream and dreams themselves a dream”:-- - - ¿qué es la vida? Un frenesí. - ¿qué es la vida? Una ilusión, - una sombra, una ficción, - y el mayor bien es pequeño, - que toda la vida es sueño - y los sueños sueño son; - -but we may doubt whether the following lines of Lope de Vega are not as -truly Spanish in spirit:-- - - Nada me parece bien, - Todos me son importunos.-- - ¿Teneis dineros?--Ningunos.-- - Pues procurad que os los den. - -“I see no good in anything; all men weary me.--Have you -money?--None--Then see that you get some given you.”[28] An almost harsh -flavour of originality is found in Spanish humour, a sly and malicious -irony, a biting wit, full of gaiety and good-humour, but of great force -and directness. Their courtesy is proverbial, and it is not simply a -superficial politeness, brittle as glass, but goes to the very core of -the man. A knowledge of Spain would seem to show that the mere forms of -politeness have no little effect in maintaining the dignity of a nation. -The Spaniard, writing from his own house, speaks of it as _esta su -casa_, this your house, and to a tradesman he will sign himself, “Your -sure servant, who kisses your hands” (S.S.S., Q.B.S.M. which is shorter -than the corresponding English, “Yours faithfully”); mere forms, it will -be said, but forms that show the spirit and betray the lordly and -generous magnificence of the men who once ruled the world, and of whom -Bacon wrote: “I have marvelled sometimes at Spain, how they clasp and -contain so large dominions with so few natural Spaniards.” As a kind of -magnificent disregard of human life has earned for Spaniards the charge -of cruelty, so their attitude towards time has led many to look upon -them as lazy and utterly unbusinesslike.[29] “The Spartans and Spaniards -have been noted to be of small dispatch,” says Bacon, and this -procrastination and delay was as prominent in the spacious times of -Spain’s greatness as at the present day. We need but think of the -endless trailing procedure of Inquisition trials, or of books waiting on -the frontier for inspection with a man hired to dust them once a month. -In ordinary life it is due perhaps rather to indifference and disdain -than to an innate sluggishness; in official transactions formalism, and -the inability to co-operate with others often bring matters to an -intricate pass of papers, from which there is no issue but by a patient -and slow unravelling. Even to-day a rigid centralization carries the -pettiest affair to Madrid for settlement, and lays upon the Prime -Minister a crushing load of work. Etiquette is carried to excess, and -there are in Spain many “formal natures,” men who would perish upon a -ceremony rather than come to a quick and common-sense conclusion. But -the true defect of Spanish politics is that they have a tendency to -become abstract, with many excellent formulas and catchwords, but -divorced from reality, a kind of up-to-date scholasticism. Sometimes -they appear to be a game of dialectics, carried on by a few skilful -players, sometimes a “rushing splendour of rhetoric,” carrying away -many. Spaniards are fond of what Butler calls “that idle and not very -innocent employment of forming imaginary models of the world and schemes -of governing it.” Spanish politicians, says Señor Pérez Galdós, “live in -a world of rituals and formulas, recipes and expedients. The language -has filled with aphorisms and mottos and emblems. Ideas become -stereotyped, and contemplated actions go seeking to embody themselves in -words and cannot make their choice of them.”[30] It would seem indeed -that reality has shown itself so angular and hard-featured to the -Spanish that they gladly make efforts to escape from it. While no nation -shows so great a courage, endurance and patient endeavour in misfortune -and defeat, they are not equally successful in success, they are often -spoilt by prosperity and become weak, dissolute and frivolous; they must -have something to fight, and fall when they no longer press against -opposition. This may account for the fact that the poorer classes are -still, as in Ford’s time, “by no means the worst portion of the -population.” The peasants are courteous, intelligent, patient, energetic -and persevering: their praises have been sung by many writers.[31] But a -pathetic fatalism and apathy prevail, and a great bitterness against -those in authority. _Pobreza nunca alza cabeza_, poverty never raises -its head, they say, _la cárcel y la cuaresma para los pobres es hecha_, -prison and Lent are for the poor; they look for no bettering of their -lot, but for _pan y paciencia y muerte con penitencia_--bread and -patience and death with repentance. But it must be said that the fault -is not only of those “on top,” but of those also who, brooking no -superiorities of any kind,[32] thus reduce differences between man and -man to the brutal divisions of wealth and poverty and make life a race -for riches. It remains true, however, that the peasants of Spain are -ground down by taxes,[33] and work incessantly only to hover on the -fringes of starvation; _todo sea por Dios_, they say, and content -themselves with the observation that honesty and riches do not fit into -one sack--_honra y provecho no caben en un saco_. There is a certain -elemental hardness in the Spanish which helps them to support hardships -stoically and, indeed, to be scornful of modern comforts and luxury. -Their indifference towards disquiet and discomfort and noisy uproar[34] -often dismays the foreigner, but it is not that they are inconsiderate -of the feelings of others, they have a deep sensitiveness and -refinement, but they have not been enervated and rendered over-sensitive -by a luxurious civilization. Their climate, with its harsh extremes of -cold and heat,[35] produces a people like that of León’s _Alcalá de los -Zegríes_, “rigorous in their virtues and their vices, violent in their -loves and hates.” They go easily to extremes; Spanish intellects are apt -to be either totally undeveloped, or else over-subtle in nice -distinctions, and action in the same way, when it comes, comes with -violence and excess, like the rivers of Spain which, parched all summer, -pour down after rain in rushing torrents. The charges of cruelty and -fanaticism, the bull-fight and the _auto-de-fé_, have fixed themselves -upon the Spanish. They are by nature inflexible and uncompromising, and -like to carry out their principles without looking to the many delicate -shades of grey between white and black. But they are not by nature -cruel; they support bodily sufferings with courage and inflict them upon -others as the lesser of two evils, burning the heretics to prevent the -spread of their heresy; and indeed to men convinced that these -“pertinacious schismaticks” were to burn for ever and ever in another -place, a touch of fire in this life could hardly seem an excessive -punishment.[36] Cruelty to animals on the roads of Spain is extremely -rare, and at the bull-fights[37] it is only fair to observe that, while -the foreigner’s attention is directed to the sufferings of the horses, -the whole mind of the Spaniard is bent on intricacies of the conflict -between man and bull, and nice passes which escape the foreigner.[38] -The _autos-de-fé_ and the Inquisition have cast over Spain a reputation -for fanaticism and obscurantist bigotry. But the Spanish, while eager -supporters of their faith, are too independent to bow down for long to a -Clerical predominance; they cannot be called a priest-ridden nation.[39] -_Ni buen fraile por amigo, ni malo por enemigo_, says one of their -proverbs--make no friend of a good monk, nor enemy of a bad; and again, -_Haz lo que dice el fraile no lo que hace_--follow the monk’s precept, -not his example. They believe uncompromisingly in the Roman Catholic -religion, but have a ready eye for the faults of its ministers; they -love and reverence the Church as a refuge from reality, but continue to -be realists in their mysticism. The Church in Spain has done noble work, -but it has been a retreat more than a morality, encouraging hollow shows -rather than love of truth,[40] patience and submission rather than -enterprise and a persistent search for remedies. The anti-Clericals -complain that the influence of the priest in the family is excessive, -but when the women are kept in a semi-Oriental seclusion, while the men -chatter together in street and casino and café, as still happens in many -parts of Spain,[41] it is but natural for the women to turn from the -discomfort and isolation of their homes to the magnificent ceremonies of -the Church.[42] The Spaniards are naturally inclined to generosity and a -love of magnificence, but, their poverty preventing, this too often -degenerates to shams and hollowness. To poverty and the proud -concealment of poverty, much of the feeling of suspicion which prevails -in Spain may be attributed. A large number of Spaniards may be said to -be well-to-do in the street, poverty-stricken in the home. The family -in Pereda’s _Bocetos al temple_ which chooses without a moment’s -hesitation to live on potatoes in order to be able to dress luxuriously, -is no solitary instance, and in Madrid many live in bare rooms who drive -abroad in carriages. The Spanish are more careful of outward show than -any other nation. The universal neatness and soldierly smartness of -their dress must excite admiration. But watch a poor man fold and refold -the brilliantly lined outer edge of his _capa_ that the more worn -portions of the velvet may not appear--the _capa_ which may itself cover -a multitude of sins (_la capa todo lo tapa_) that recalls the passage in -Shakespeare:-- - - “_Armado_: The naked truth of it is I have no shirt. I go woolward - for penance. - - _Boyet_: True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen.” - -Or follow a smart officer through the streets to his house. The position -and entrance of the house will not prepare you for its decreasing -splendour as you climb stair after stair to the bare rooms where he -lives. There is much that is _postizo_, false and artificial, in the -exterior view, as Spaniards will themselves bitterly confess. -Appearances must be maintained. So Bacon says that “It hath been an -opinion that the Frenchmen are wiser than they seem and the Spaniards -seem wiser than they are,” and many of their houses are built not to -live in but to look on. Hence, partly, a disquieting element of -mistrust, of “suspicions that ever fly by twilight” foreign to the -frank and open nature of true Spaniards. “Of every Spanish undertaking,” -writes Señor Benavente in 1909, “it may be said as of the famous -_Cortes_ that it is ‘dishonoured while yet unborn.’ The result is that -he who is jealous of his good name shuns contact with all business -affairs like pitch, and the affairs fall into the hands of men who are -untroubled by scruples.... All these suspicions and distrusts are a sign -rather of our poverty than of our morality. There is so great a scarcity -of money that it becomes unintelligible that any one who has the -handling of it should fail to keep a part for himself.... We are, -moreover, so firmly attached to old-fashioned ideas of -nobility--_rancias hidalguías_--that, in spite of our pressing need of -money, we still consider its acquisition contemptible; so we prefer to -seek it by subterranean channels as if it were a crime to seek it in the -light of day.” - -Suspicion of new things has ever been at once the strength and the -weakness of Spain.[43] In the nineteenth century this suspicion -expressed itself in patriotism carried to its extreme logical -conclusion. Were Napoleon’s reforms of a nature to benefit Spain in an -inestimable degree? To the Spaniard they were the tyrannical and -insidious measures of a usurper. Was his brother Joseph intelligent, -well-intentioned, conciliatory? To the Spaniard he was ever the -squint-eyed drinker, _Pepe Botellas_, and it was idle to insist that he -did not squint, and did not drink. Was King Amadeo an enlightened, -courageous, and self-effacing ruler? To the Spaniard he was an intruder, -to be treated with neglect, insolence or disdain. This distrust may have -been foolish and harmful to the interests of Spain, but it was in many -respects noble and admirable. To-day, however, we have rather the -reverse side of the picture, a pessimism about all things Spanish, and a -foolish tendency to imitate things foreign. Beneath his outer _capa_ of -haughty pride the Spaniard is keenly aware of his limitations; he has no -confidence in his own actions or in his country, or, rather, his -confidence is merely momentary and is never sustained. It is, no doubt, -a sign not of progress but degeneracy to exchange the Spanish _capa_, -peculiarly suited to a climate of hot sun and cold air, for English -overcoats or the becoming mantilla for the newest fashion in Parisian -hats. It is not necessarily a sign of progress to exchange old-fashioned -Spanish piety for the latest shades of scepticism, or to leave the -simple life of an _hidalgo_ in the provinces for the idler, dissipated -life in the only capital and court. The desire to be very modern is at -present a good thing in Spain, yet it need not consist in casting aside -old traditions and diffidently rejecting Spanish customs that are -excellent. This exalting of foreign customs and depreciation of their -own which has been frequently observed of Spaniards, is due rather to -an inverted pride than to humility; at the beginning of the nineteenth -century it was considered a mark of culture in Spain to despise things -Spanish and to worship things French, but all the time the Spanish -believe at heart in themselves,[44] they praise foreign countries with -their lips, but continue to place Spain first, and if they imitate, they -cast a peculiarly Iberian flavour over their imitations. The late Bishop -Creighton, looking at Spain historically, remarked that it “leaves the -curious impression of a country which never did anything original--now -the Moors, now France, now Italy, have influenced it.” If this is so, -certainly the Moors, and France, and Italy have wrought some of their -most original works in Spain; and it can hardly be said that the great -Spanish discoverers and conquerors, painters, philosophers, and poets of -the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries were not original, -whether they were influenced by Moors, Frenchmen, or Italians.[45] But, -indeed, the Spaniard more readily repels than assimilates, it is his -virtue and his defect; he remains isolated and alone, difficult to -convince, impossible to govern. New political and social theories from -France are spread in Spain, but they there serve progress less than -disquiet and the rancour of those who have not towards those who have. -The reforms needed by Spain will not be furthered by riots and disorder, -and the demagogues who encourage them are perhaps less patriotic than -they profess to be. For Spain needs peace, long periods of tranquillity -in which to develop her resources and to learn the more difficult task -of maintaining in prosperity that strength and independent nobility of -character which have shone out so clearly in misfortune. The conclusion -then, if so desultory a study warrants a conclusion, is that the Spanish -are a fundamentally noble, courteous, and independent people, energetic -and brave, with a natural tendency to grandeur and generosity, whom -poverty often leads to hollow display and the consequent suspicion and -distrust. They will be at immense pains to “bear up under their -indigency,” but have a greater consideration for the semblance than for -the reality and substance of well-being, for artificial show, supported -by infinite care and ingenuity, than for a more solid prosperity, based -on serious effort. Their realism, throwing into relief the apparent -pettiness of daily life, causes them to dream dreams and weave fragile -abstract palaces of fair-sounding phrases; they have not that useful -quality of accuracy, an understanding of the value and importance of -details and gradual effort, of pennies and minutes: they will smite a -stone in twain at a great blow, but the idea that it might be pierced by -drops of water _saepe cadendo_ is foreign to them, and often they aim -at a million and miss a unit. They are a nation of strongly original -characters, acting on impulses and intermittently, and thinking in -extremes; often failing in the face of prosperity, but proud, resolute, -and patient in misfortune; often magnificently imprudent, but never -despicable, except to those whose worship is of riches and success; an -admirable but discomfortable people, not adapting itself readily to -modern conditions, but ever to be reckoned with as an energetic, vital -force, not bowing permanently before defeat. - - - - -II - -TRAVELLING IN SPAIN - - -It was, of course, Samuel Johnson who said, “There is a good deal of -Spain that has not been perambulated,” and the remark still holds good -for those who, like Don Quixote, wish to “go seeking adventures.” The -brigand stories, “got up,” as Ford would say, “for the home market,” are -now slightly exploded, and few travellers expect to find at every turn-- - - “Cent coupe-jarrets à faces renégates - Coiffés de montéras et chaussés d’alpargates.” - -Yet even to-day few foreigners realize that they may cross and recross -the Peninsula from north to south and from east to west in perfect -security. They will meet with no cloak-and-sword episodes; their -adventures must be of another order. It is true that the Spaniard can -use his knife, but the knife comes into play in quarrels of cards and -love and jealousy, in which the passing traveller can have no part. -Those, however, who measure culture by comfort, and wish to journey as -consistent first-class passengers through life, should certainly narrow -their Spanish travels to the round of a few cities-- - - “Erret et extremos scrutetur alter Iberos,” - -and, however rapid and conventional, a journey that includes the -Alhambra, the Mosque of Córdoba, the Cathedrals of Seville, Toledo, and -Burgos,[46] and the picture-galleries of Seville and Madrid, can -scarcely be said to have been in vain. But to know Spain and the -Spaniards it is necessary to go further afield, to the small towns and -villages of Andalucía and Castille, for here, rather than in the larger -towns, is to be found the true spirit of the race. Some five thousand -villages are still to be reached only by bridle-paths, and in these -there has been little change since Cervantes went his rounds collecting -taxes; so that for those who care to leave the beaten track there still -remain many unexplored districts, and much first-hand knowledge to glean -of the country and its inhabitants. To many, no doubt, Spain is the -country of dance and song and sun-burnt mirth, of the flutter of fans -and the flash of dark eyes; the country of the bull-fight and the white -mantilla and carnations in the hair; of Roman ruins and Moorish palaces -set in groves of myrtle and orange; of-- - - “Cloaked shapes, the twanging of guitars, - A rush of feet and rapiers clashing, - Then silence deep with breathless stars, - And overhead a white hand flashing.” - -and if any shadows fall across the picture they are those of the -brigand and the priest-inquisitor. Then comes the inevitable reaction. -Those who visit Spain find that it is for them indeed _un pays de -l’imprévu_. The former image in their mind soon perishes, and they cry -out upon this “ciel insalubre,” this-- - - “pays endiablé; - Nous y mangions, au lieu de farine de blé, - Des rats et des souris et pour toutes ribotes - Nous avons dévoré beaucoup de vieilles bottes.” - -But, to judge from many books published about Spain, most European -countries would seem to have entered into a league to look upon the -Peninsula solely as a land of a poetical unreality, its inhabitants -divided into inquisitors, monks, brigands, and conspirators, lending-- - - “the colour of romance - To every trivial circumstance.” - -A well-balanced and accurate account of the country is singularly rare. -It is true that in some respects Spain has changed little since the -sixteenth century, but, on the other hand, during the twentieth century, -while she has been making laborious progress, foreign ideas of Spain -have remained stationary, with the prejudices and fixed opinions of -fifty years ago. No error or exaggeration concerning Spain is too -ridiculous to be affirmed and readily believed, and those who take no -thought to study the Peninsula in quiet days save as a land of vague -romance, when trouble occurs are officious with wise criticisms and -stern common-sense, based on ignorance. Quite recently the hysterical -visions of prisoners tortured in Spanish dungeons, and of priestly -cruelty and greed, might persuade one that Mr. Kipling’s “Little Foxes” -was written not before, but after, the events of 1909 in Spain. One -forgets that it is of Ethiopia, not Spain, that Mr. Lethabie Groombride, -M.P., exclaims, “What callous oppression! The dark places of the earth -are full of cruelty!” Like the natives of Ethiopia, the courteous -Spaniards are “much pleased at your condescensions;” but they too have a -sense of humour, and note with amusement the ignorance of nations which -declare that Spain’s chief need is more education and culture. - -For the traveller who wishes to explore the remote parts of Spain, and -to escape from Spanish trains, the simplest method is to proceed on -horseback. Walking and bicycling and motoring are possible in the North, -and especially in the Basque Provinces, where the inns are good and the -roads excellent. But in most parts of Spain they are practically -impossible; the roads are too stony or too dusty even for walking, and, -moreover, in fifty kilometres you may find hardly one inn. There remains -the _diligencia_--_coche_, _tartana_, _diabla_, call it what you -will--but a single experience of it will probably be sufficient. It -rolls and lurches heavily to the loud, continuous shouting of the driver -to his horses: _Caballo-allo-allo-allo_, _Mula-ula-ula-ula_. The -traveller, if he has the misfortune to be in the interior, is beaten -against the wooden sides, the windows rattle, the bells jingle, the -vehicle sways slowly on its way, groaning and complaining of the -breadth, as well as the length, of the road[47]--_nosotros tambien -llegaremos, si Dios quiere_, as a driver said when passed by more rapid -travellers, “if it is the will of Heaven.” Occasionally at a country -railway station may be seen a boy who is a pillar of dust or mud. He is -the _zagal_ of the _diligencia_, who runs by its side through dirt and -mire, urging on the horses, or stands to rest on the step at the back. -Sometimes the _diligencia_ descends into river-beds, usually dry; and -after much rain it is apt to stay there, and darkness falls and the -frogs croak mockingly, while more mules are fetched to help in the work -of extrication. Often it proceeds by night, throwing strange, fantastic -shadows in the narrow streets of sleeping villages. The driver must -undergo not only extremes of heat and cold, but is often in danger of -snowdrifts and swollen torrents and rocks from the hill-sides. A -Navarrese innkeeper, an old soldier of Santa Cruz, introduced a driver -of a _diligencia_ as “the bravest man of my acquaintance.” Spanish -travellers accept all these discomforts with a marvellous, fatalistic -resignation and equanimity; but even a pedestrian will go further and -fare better in an afternoon than a traveller in _diligencia_ during a -whole day. Still, as a unique experience, a _diligencia_ drive must be -undertaken; and the driver is good company, sparing time from the loud -praise and blame meted out to his mules to bestow pithy comments on the -living and the dead-- - - “The crosses in the mountain pass, - Mules gay with tassels, the loud din - Of muleteers, the tethered ass - That crops the dusty wayside grass, - And cavaliers with spurs of brass - Alighting at the inn.” - -The inns, _mesones_, _ventorrillos_, _ventas_, _posadas_, _paradores_, -are still much the same as in the times of Cervantes, moderately clean, -immoderately uncomfortable, bare alike of furniture and food.[48] Still -to your first inquiry the answer is, “_Hay de todo_, we have -everything,” still to your further inquiry the abstract _todo_ shrinks -to _nada_. But for an understanding of the Spanish people, nothing is -more interesting and one may add, more pleasant than to listen to their -talk as they sit round some great inn fire of crackling scented twigs -burning on the stone floor of the court and kitchen. The discomfort and -hardships of travel in remote parts of Spain are repaid in flowing -measure. Here a solitary peasant is seen ploughing land so precipitous -and steep that the stones rattle down as he advances; there the mules -stand hour by hour at the plough while the peasants--in this case -servants on some great estate--play cards, the large earthenware -_botijos_ of water standing ready to their hand; or a group of workers -in the fields stand shivering in early morning round a great common -_puchero_, dipping their spoons in turn, and in turn raising the _bota_ -high above their heads to drink; or one has a glimpse of some peasant’s -dress[49] of brilliant colouring, of some ancient vanishing costume of -leather or velvet, silk embroidery or silver buttons--at every turn some -quaint custom, some curious picturesque scene and colour appears, and -the talk of the peasants is a delight. The two most successful English -travellers in Spain were beyond doubt, Ford and Borrow. They won the -respect of all classes of Spaniards, and saw practically the whole of -Spanish life three-quarters of a century ago. Borrow describes himself -on one occasion as “dressed in the fashion of the peasants of the -neighbourhood of Segovia in Old Castile, namely, I had on my head a -species of leather helmet or _montera_, with a jacket and trousers of -the same material.” And Ford says: “In all out-of-the-way districts the -traveller may adopt the national costume of the road, to wit, the -peaked hat (_sombrero gacho_), the jacket of fur (_zamarra_).” But -without the peaked hat, now almost extinct, or Borrow’s leathern helmet, -a few changes of dress and especially what Ford calls “a graceful and -sleeveless Castilian _manta_” or rather _capa_, excellently suited to -the climate, will bring many advantages. For to the ordinary traveller, -with red book and camera, the Spaniard will hardly disclose his true -nature, and remains an impenetrable mystery; not that the foreigner -often realizes the existence of the unsolved riddle, the Spaniard -presenting a sufficient number of striking aspects to make a swift -superficial impression. The best guides to Spain are still Ford’s -“Gatherings,” and a thorough acquaintance with “Don Quixote,” a fluent -knowledge of Spanish, and, lastly, the advice of Spaniards, since as -Sancho sagely observed, “más sabe el necio en su casa que el cuerdo en -casa ajena.” The traveller in Spain may in the heat of summer listen to -the silver plashing of fountains in marble _patios_, and feel the -coolness of snowy Sierras; he may in early morning gather frozen oranges -to be eaten later beneath a burning sun; but it is this sun which with -the cold winds tends to limit his wanderings to a brief period of spring -or autumn. Martial indeed says-- - - “Aestus serenos aureo franges Tago - Obscurus umbris arborum.” - -but under the fierce Castilian sun--and there are said to be 3600 hours -of sunshine in the year--the imagination produces no golden tints in the -Tagus, and trees are few. Comfort the traveller will scarcely find, but -serviceableness and courtesy on all sides. If he is wise, he will, -however, imitate the Spaniards not only a little in their dress, but -greatly in their manners. He will arm himself with an inalienable fund -of patience. He will be courteous even while chafing at delay. His -courtesy will never go unanswered. “_La cortesía tenerla con quien la -tenga_, Courtesy to him who has it,” as one of Calderón’s characters -says. Money often obtains much, but the offer of a cigarette or a cigar -is often not less effective. Without a courteous manner the money will -be treated as an insult and the cigar refused. Calderón says again: “_El -sombrero y el dinero son los que hacen amigos_, Raising the hat and -money make most friends.” Few peoples respect themselves more than the -Spanish, and they look for respect from others. “The sensitive Spaniard -bristles up like a porcupine against the suspicion of a disdain.” They -do not forget that they were once the greatest people in Europe, and -they regard it as an accident that the march of modern civilization has -left them behind, being, indeed, too mechanical for their pride to -adopt. And still the golden rule for the traveller in Spain is never to -be in a hurry or never to show that he is in a hurry, for by doing so he -will increase delays and defeat his object. He must learn the Spanish -proverb thoroughly--_Paciencia y barajar_, “Patience, and shuffle the -cards.” Patience and courtesy he will find to be above rubies. The -Spaniard, so sensitive and excitable, remains unmoved by delays and -petty official tyrannies which drive an Englishman into a kind of -despair and fury of impatience.[50] But the lower officials in Spain are -apt to be ignorant and self-important, very official, and curt inquiries -only remind them that they represent the whole majesty of the Law and -the State; they multiply their shrugs and inscrutable _No se puede_’s. -On the other hand, a polite speech, though it occupy several of the few -minutes that the traveller may have to spare, is in Spain time well -spent and performs miracles;--if, that is, he still persists in -considering the value of time, and has not found it simpler to accept -the less accurate methods of the Spaniard. For he may ask in a -cathedral, “When is Mass going to be celebrated?” and the answer is, -“_No sé, Señor_; _Cuando vengan los canónigos_”--when it is the good -pleasure of the Canons to appear; or he may ask in a station, “When does -the train start?” and must not be surprised if the answer is again, “_No -sé, Señor_.” He had best content himself once and for all to breakfast -at five-o’clock tea, and will find consolation in the thought that here -at least there is no unseemly rush and strain, in this original and -exquisite land of To-morrow--_Mañana por la mañana_. - - - - -III - -ON THE SPANISH FRONTIER - - -The Bidasoa, in the last part of its course, divides Spain from France. -It further divides Basque from Basque. It has thus a local and an -historic interest. It is the scene of smuggling between French and -Spanish Basques and, as a frontier river, it has seen many a quaint and -solemn episode in the past--the passage of Wellington’s troops, for -instance, in 1813, or the exchange in boats of Francis I. against two -hostages (his sons) in 1526, the King showing an eager haste to win -across the river and reach the friendly inhabitants of St. Jean de -Luz[51] and the sheltering walls of Bayonne. But it is the passing -beauty of the whole Bidasoa valley that attracts the visitor, the -loveliness of the river and the hills and the villages by the river. The -Bidasoa is beautiful during its whole course from where it rises near -the village of Maya, a little mountain stream running swiftly through -woods of oak and chestnut. At times the hills break abruptly down, the -water lies deep and dark-green beneath, and there is a look of Ullswater -about both hills and river. A little above Endarlaza the road leaves the -river, and from here may be had a glimpse of the Bidasoa of unrivalled -beauty. For it runs in a long, irregular stretch, irregular for the -rough backbones of hill covered with boulders and bushes of box. At each -hill-ridge one might expect the river to bend and vanish, but still it -appears beyond. Nearer the village of Vera it contracts to a narrower -flow, and the water lashes over rocks, magnificently white and green. -The river is known to fishermen as well as to smugglers and Carlists and -lovers of Nature. Certainly the wisest travellers, before passing on to -the bleak uplands of Castille, will stay to explore this little strip of -green country, with its fresh woods and valleys and villages full of -state and ancientry. Vera, in a sunny hollow, has an especial -fascination. The vine-covered balconies and projecting roofs keep the -houses in shade, and on two sides is the rustle and flow of water. The -houses stand on different levels, several storeys of them mounting roof -above roof from the river to the church. They are curious in their -sculptured stone, their quaint carved buttresses, their nail-studded -doors or rounded arches leading to the outer court, their crazy wooden -balconies, their coats-of-arms, their inscriptions. At the very -entrance of the Bidasoa stands Fuenterrabía, beneath gently sloping -Jaizquibel. It is a little town of marvellous, narrow streets, steep and -crooked, and overjutting houses carved in wood and stone. In front is a -little bay, black with fishing-boats, and seen from across the water, -Fuenterrabía’s clustered group of houses, yellow and brown and grey, -crowned by the ancient church and tenth-century castle, is of a rare and -enchanting beauty. Not only a narrow strip of river, but several -centuries separate it from Hendaye opposite, with its shore on the -Bidasoa and its shore on the sea, and its woods above the river, crowded -in spring with daffodils. The sudden change from everything that is -French to everything that is Spanish cannot but be surprising. It is -due, no doubt, to the fact that beneath the French and the Spanish -civilization and language, the people have an older language and -civilization common to either side. The Basque spoken varies but little, -being merely a little broader in Spain than in France. Mme. d’Aulnoy -noticed the abrupt change wrought by a few yards of travel. “It’s -certain, as soon as I past the little river of Bidassoa, I was not -understood unless I spake Castilian; and not above a quarter of an Hour -before I should not have been understood had I not spoke French.”[52] -Obstacles and delays begin: “Here are Toll-gatherers who make you pay -for everything you carry with you, not excepting your Cloaths. This Tax -is demanded at their Pleasure and is excessive on Strangers.” Letters -are no longer received in a well-ordered service: “There is in this -country a very ill order touching commerce, and when the French carrier -arrives at St. Sebastian, all the letters he brings are deliver’d to -others who are good footmen and ease one another. They put their packets -into a sack tied with rotten cords to their shoulder, by which means it -oft happens that the secrets of your heart and family are open to the -first curious body who makes drunk the Footpost.” Mme. d’Aulnoy is -irritated by the unintelligibility of Basque: “This country called -Biscaye is full of high mountains where are several iron mines.[53] The -Biscays climb up the rocks as easily and with as great swiftness as -stags. Their language (if one may call such jargon language) is very -poor, seeing one word signifies abundance of things. There are none but -those born in the country that can understand it; and I am told that to -the end it may be more particularly theirs they make no use of it in -writing: they make their children learn to read and write French and -Spanish according to which King’s subjects they are.” “They are said to -understand one another,” said Scaliger of the Basques, “but, for my -part, I doubt it.” The most famous scene of peace witnessed by the -Bidasoa was the meeting held in the _Île des Faisans_, or _de la -Conférence_, a narrow island, now worn to a mere strip by the flow of -the tide, between Philip IV. of Spain and Louis XIV. of France in 1660. -It was a scene of lavish splendour and magnificence, and Velázquez, then -in the last year of his life, superintended the decorations and -assisted at the interview.[54] But most often we hear of the Bidasoa as -a scene of strife and anxiety, escape and pursuit. The very river was an -object of dispute between the Governments of France and Spain, until it -was decided that the one half of it belonged to France, the other to -Spain; in the centre of the bridge of Béhobie is the dividing line, -marked in blue for France and red for Spain. Many a time has the sight -of its waters, flowing swiftly to the sea, been welcomed by men in -danger of life and liberty. Colonel Péroz[55] has graphically described -his escape by swimming the river during the last Carlist war. On May 5, -1808, Marbot reached the Bidasoa, after riding day and night through -hostile country to bring the Emperor (then at the Château de Marrac, -near Bayonne) news of the _Dos de Mayo_ rising at Madrid. At the -beginning of November Napoleon himself crossed the frontier, and as he -rode rapidly along the _route d’Espagne_ and beneath the Church of -Urrugne, with its ancient, sad inscription,[56] little thought that the -enterprise upon which he was now engaged was to be a main cause in -bringing him swiftly to the last hour that kills. - -In the Middle Ages the pilgrims to the shrine of Santiago went through -the Basque country and across the frontier in fear of their lives. The -Basques were fierce and brave, and fond of plunder. In 1120 a Bishop was -obliged to lay aside his episcopal robes, and taking with him only two -servants and a guide who understood the “barbarous tongue of the -Basques,” so passed through to Compostella. In later times the pilgrims -would sing, as they left Irun,-- - - “Adieu la France jolie - Et les nobles fleurs de lys - Car je m’en vais en Espagne, - C’est un étrange pays,” - -and would look back with sighs to the good cheer of France: - - “Quand nous fûmes á Saint Jean de Luz[57] - Les biens de Dieu en abondance, - Car ce sont gens de Dieu élus, - Des charités ont souvenance.” - -The older way into Spain was the Roman road from Dax to S. Jean Pied de -Port and Roncesvalles--where, indeed, and not “by Fontarabia,” -Charlemagne was attacked by the Basques;[58] but often this road was -rendered impassable by war. In the middle of the 12th century the French -Basque country passed, with the rest of Aquitaine, into the possession -of the English Crown, and henceforth many were the battles and frontier -raids between the Basques on either side. In 1296 we read of a truce in -the quarrels between San Sebastian and “Fuent Arrabia,” and of an -agreement made between them not to “send or take bread, or wine, or -meat, or arms or horses, or other merchandise to Bayonne, or England, or -Flanders while the war lasts between the King of France and the King of -England.” On July 19, 1311, a peace is made between Bayonne and Biarritz -(Beiarritz) on the one hand, and Laredo, Castro-Urdiales, and Santander -on the other. A few years later we find the King of Castille writing to -the King of England to complain of the seizure of the goods of his -vassals of Biscay by the Seneschal of Aquitaine, “against all right and -reason.” As often before and after “en ce temps avoit grand rancune -entre le roy d’Angleterre et les Espagnols.” In 1352 a treaty is formed -between “England and the people of the coast of Cantabria,” who were -famous for their prowess in catching whales, as well as in frontier -warfare, and came into rivalry with English fishermen. In 1482 “amicable -intelligences” are concluded at Westminster between “Edward, by the -Grace of God King of England and France and Lord of Ireland” and “the -inhabitants of the noble and loyal Province of Guipúzcoa.”[59] During -the 17th century the frontier raids continued, and in 1636 (as before in -1558) the town of St. Jean de Luz was taken and pillaged by the -Spaniards. Up in the hills, near the little village of Sare, the -Spaniards of Vera were defeated, and Sare still displays on the walls of -its _mairie_ the coat-of-arms given by Louis XIV. after the victory won -by the bravery of its inhabitants, with the following inscription in -Basque:--“Reward of courage and loyalty, given to Sare by Louis XIV. in -1693.”[60] In the Peninsular War, Sare and its mountain, La Rhune, -played a prominent part, and many a vivid description, such as the -following, occurs in Napier:--“Day had broken with great splendour, and -three guns were fired as signal of attack from Atchuria. The French were -driven from La Rhune, Sare was carried, and the enemy brushed away from -Ainhoa and Urdax: “It was now eight o’clock, and from the smaller -Rhune[61] a splendid spectacle of war opened upon the view. On the left -the ships of war, slowly sailing to and fro, were exchanging shots with -the fort of Socoa, and Hope, menacing all the French lines on the low -ground, sent the sound of a hundred pieces of artillery bellowing up the -rocks, to be answered by nearly as many from the tops of the mountains. -On the right the summit of the great Atchuria[62] was just lighted by -the rising sun, and fifty thousand men rushing down its enormous slopes -with ringing shouts seemed to chase the receding shadows into the deep -valley.” The description of the passage of the Bidasoa in October, 1813, -is equally graphic: “From San Marcial seven columns could now be seen at -once, moving on a line of five miles, those above bridge plunging at -once into the fiery contest, those below appearing in the distance like -huge, sullen snakes winding over the heavy sands.” The mountainous -character of the frontier, causing Spain to be entered by one or two -narrow passages, has indeed concentrated upon a few points a picturesque -variety of traffic through the centuries--a historical pageant of -soldiers, pilgrims, smugglers, Kings and Queens dethroned or released -from imprisonment, wily agents, gorgeous ambassadors, fugitive -politicians, exiled Jesuits, heretic missionaries, Carlist conspirators, -with a large sprinkling of visitors and adventurers from many lands. - - - - -IV - -ESKUAL-ERRIA - - -I.--BASQUE COUNTRY - -There are few peoples more deserving of study than the Basques, and few -countries more pleasant to visit and to live in than the Basque -Provinces. After the treeless, unsheltered mountains and plains, and the -compact villages of Castille or Navarre, the villages of the Basque -country, set in green, and, to quote the phrase of a Spanish novelist, -“all in the peace of prayer,” are a delightful contrast. The sky has no -longer the harsh intensity of the Castilian, and everywhere is a -softness of outlines; everywhere, too, is green--the green of chestnut -and oak, of maize and trefoil, meadow and cider-orchard. The maize is -the principal crop of the year, providing the heavy, yellow bread, -_artoa_, as well as food for the oxen and material for mats, mattresses, -and even cigarette-papers. The fields are divided by slabs of stone, and -in the mists of the early mornings the Angelus rings from hidden towers; -and the only other sound is that of scythes cutting the drenched grass -or trefoil. Every true Basque is of noble, ancient family, and the -Basque farmhouse, with its wooden façade and carved projecting -buttresses, its wide balcony and deep ornamented eaves, is handed down -from father to son without change. It stands surrounded by orchards and -fields of maize, and often overshadowed by an immense fig-tree or a -group of splendid walnut-trees. The roof slopes down on one side till it -nearly reaches the ground. The lower part of the front is hollowed into -a court, and on one side of this a door leads straight into the spacious -kitchen, with its huge fireplace and many vessels of scoured bronze and -copper, which forms the principal room of the house. A dark, narrow -staircase leads to the bedrooms; through the cracks of the floors may -often be seen the oxen in their stalls beneath. Large chests of oak, -some of them beautifully carved, are to be found in most Basque farms. -In Vizcaya a large vine-trellis, running forward on posts from the inner -court beneath the balcony, further deepens the dark velvet spaces in the -whitewashed front of the farm; in Guipúzcoa many houses have no balcony -or trellis, but are overgrown with heavy vines, that often entirely -cover all the windows. From the windows hang long strings of red piments -or white onions; above the door there is frequently an ancient stone -coat-of-arms or an inscription with the name of the founders and the -date, and above this a cross or the letters I. H. S. The house is thus -half sacred. After the father’s death, the eldest son becomes “Lord of -the house, etcheco-jauna,” while the younger sons often emigrate. - -It was from their farms, so dear to them, that the Basques formerly took -their names, so that they are called not Smith or Collier, but -At-the-head-of-the-hill (Mendiburu) or Under-the-new-road (Bideberripe). -Even now a Basque in the country is never called by his surname, but -either by his Christian name or a nickname, or the name of his house or -property. Etche (“house”) is perhaps the commonest compound. Etcheberri -(“newhouse”) has numerous variants--Echeverri, Echevarri, Echavarri (in -Vizcaya and Alava, where the Basque spoken is broader than in Guipúzcoa, -new is “barri”), Chavarri, Echarri, Echave, Xavier, Javer, etc. The -number of Basque-speaking people can now but little exceed half a -million, and only very rarely is a Basque found who is unable to speak -Spanish or French.[63] Of the three Spanish-Basque provinces, Guipúzcoa -(capital San Sebastián) alone is entirely Basque. At Bilbao, the capital -of Vizcaya, no Basque is spoken; and long before reaching Vitoria, the -capital of Alava, the language spoken is Castilian. Nor is Basque spoken -at Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, though it reaches almost to its -walls, and till quite recently had a wider extension in Navarre, names -of places such as Mendigorria (“red mountain”) surviving. The difficulty -of the language has been somewhat exaggerated; there is a well-known -story that the Devil spent three years in the Basque country, and only -succeeded in learning two words: _Bai_, “yes;” and _Es_, “no.” But it -remains true that the immense and complicated system of Basque -conjugations is for a foreigner almost impossible to master; and at the -same time the Basque literature to reward the learner is of the -scantiest. Interesting indeed are the proverbs, some of the songs, and -the pastorales, which have been compared in more than one particular -with the Greek drama, but which are now acted only in the province of -Soule. The stage, in the open air, is formed of plain planks, supported -most often on barrels. A curtain cuts off a part for the actors to -change their costumes, the same person often taking several parts in a -play. The curtain has two doors, one for the good and one for the -wicked. The good and the wicked are kept strictly separate. The -pastorale is always in honour of Christianity and the Roman Catholic -religion, and the wicked are the heathen, the Turks, the English, etc. -Red is the colour of the wicked, that of the good is blue; in this -respect no change is ever made. The good always walk slowly and -solemnly, but when the wicked come on the stage the music is immediately -changed to a lively air, and they never remain long quiet, their -movements continuing quick and agitated. The acting is very simple; a -journey, for instance, is represented by walking up and down the stage -several times. The characters are usually taken exclusively by men and -boys, but there are a few pastorales acted by women only; the sexes are -never mingled. Strange and amusing anachronisms abound. In the -pastorale entitled _Abraham_, Abraham appears in high boots and felt -hat; Sarah in a modern, bright-coloured dress, with hat, veil, and fan; -Isaac carries one or two sticks on his shoulder for the sacrifice; the -Angel is a little boy in white. Then there are the heathen and the -Christian kings, the former dressed in red, with high crowns arrayed -with plumes and ribbons, the latter in blue with crowns of gold. In the -middle of the play one of the Christian kings leaves the stage, and -presently appears above the curtain and speaks with Abraham. He -represents the “Eternal Father.” The verses are spoken in a loud -monotonous chant, each verse being literally measured out by motion up -and down the stage, the only change being when the music becomes faster -or slower. The music is composed of the two Basque instruments the -_churula_, a shrill pipe, and the _tamboril_, a kind of guitar with six -strings, played by the same person. The strangeness of the scene, the -loud chanting of the actors as the tone rises and falls, the fantastic -costumes, the dances of the “Satans,” the prayers of the Christians, and -especially the slow march and action of the blues, dignified and -majestic, and the turbulent, restless movements of the reds, are not -soon forgotten. - -The Basque language, _Eskuara_, was described by the Spanish historian, -Mariana, as “coarse and barbarous,” and a traveller among the Basques in -the Middle Ages recorded that to hear them speak one would say they were -dogs barking. In English, the word “jingo” has been said to derive from -the Basque _Jincoa_, “God,” introduced by Wellington’s troops after the -Peninsular War. The Basque word is an abbreviation of _Jaungoicoa_, “the -Lord on high,” _jauna_, “lord,” being the common form of greeting -between peasant and peasant. It becomes more and more rare to hear pure -Basque spoken; foreign words creep in and, with the definite article -“_a_” suffixed, hide under a Basque form: _dembora_ (Lat. _tempus_) thus -ousting the Basque word _eguraldia_ for “weather,” _gorphuntza_ (Lat. -_corpus_) being “body,” and so on.[64] Pure Basque recedes to remote -villages in the mountains, and there the Basque maintains his ancient -customs, as averse from change to-day as when Horace described him as -“Cantabrum indoctum juga ferre nostra.”[65] - - -II.--BASQUE CUSTOMS - -An old Latin account speaks of the Basques as going nowhere--not even to -church--without arms, usually a bow and arrows, and says that they are -“gens affabilis, elegans et hilaris--courteous, graceful, and -light-hearted;”[66] but, in spite of their known hospitality, their -distrust of the foreigner and their hatred of intrusion are shown in -more than one of their proverbs, as “The stranger-guest does not work -himself, and prevents you from working.” The Basques are, indeed, the -most energetic, as they are the most ancient people of the Peninsula. -“Naguia bethi lansu--The idle man is ever busy,” says another of their -proverbs; and, again, “Idle youth brings needy old age.”[67] Their -fields are well and economically cultivated, and if their methods are -antiquated, this is partly due to the mountainous nature of the country -and the smallness of the holdings, making it simpler, _e.g._, to thresh -corn by beating it sheaf by sheaf against a stone. Numerous small -factories--of cloth as at Vergara, of paper at Tolosa, of iron and -steel at Eibar and Elgoibar, of furniture at Azpeitia--and many quarries -and tile-factories prove their industry; and entering a small Basque -town such as Elgoibar, one may hear in tiny shops on all sides the sound -of sandal-makers and workers in wood and leather. They know how to work, -and they know how to enjoy themselves with thoroughness at the village -fêtes. From dawn to dusk the ball is to be heard against the wall of the -pelota court on Sundays, with intervals of dancing to the shrill pipe -and drum of the _chunchunero_. Voltaire, thinking of their love of -dancing, described them as “un petit peuple qui danse sur les Pyrénées,” -and certain dances still survive. The sword-dance, _ezpata danza_, is -one of the most remarkable, and has been described by Pierre Loti in -“Figures et choses qui passaient;” and other dances are those -representing the primitive methods of agriculture, the vintage, weaving, -etc. The Basque pelota has, unfortunately, become, of recent years, a -game of professionals, and as played, _e.g._, at Madrid, the interest is -rather in the betting than in the play. The enthusiasm formerly excited -among the Basques by the game is illustrated by the story that several -Basque soldiers left the Army of the Rhine, returned to their country to -play a game of ball, and, having played and won it, rejoined the army in -time to take part in the battle of Austerlitz.[68] A game played in the -immense court of a small Basque village is still a splendid sight, -though it has lost much of its splendour, and the old Rebot is fast -dying out. Pierre Loti has described a game of Blaid, as seen in a -French-Basque village, in his novel of the Basque country, “Ramuntcho”; -and this form of the game has been played in Paris and London. But old -peasants will shake their heads and say it is no longer “as of old.” The -expression “of old” is common on the lips of both French and Spanish -Basques;[69] they willingly praise the past, and are intensely -conservative of all their customs, their immemorial language, their -games, privileges, religion. The ox-carts, with wheels of solid wood, to -be seen under the vine-trellises of Basque farms, seem as old as the -withered trunk of the oak of Guernica, and similarly many ancient -customs have been retained. In some parts, at funerals, the men wear -long cloaks reaching to the feet, the women also wearing long, full -cloaks with hoods, that completely hide the face. The men go first, and -then all the women--men and women in single file--the chief mourners -coming last. Both at weddings and funerals, feasts were formerly given -on such an extensive scale that the family was often nearly ruined, and -a law (_fuero_) was passed forbidding to invite any but relations to the -third degree. But the wedding-feast is still sufficiently imposing; it -continues for many hours, and immediately afterwards the young begin -dancing, while the old play cards. As to the offerings at funerals, -“none but an eye-witness,” says Larramendi, in the eighteenth century, -“could believe the quantity of bread and wax that is offered. Moreover, -at these big funerals, in some places a live ox, and in others a sheep, -is brought as an offering to the church door, and when the service is -over it is taken away, and a fixed sum of money is given to the -priest.”[70] This curious custom, a survival of the offerings to the -dead and a trace of ancestor-worship, has not yet wholly died out. In -one village at least (Arriba, on the borders of Navarre and Guipúzcoa) -it is customary at funerals to offer bread and wax, and to bring to the -church either a quarter of veal or a live sheep, which is afterwards -given to the priest. The Basques are intensely religious, and it is -characteristic of them that before they were converted to Christianity -they were the terror of the Christians--indeed, the pilgrims to Santiago -de Compostella at all times feared the passage through the Basque -Provinces, the strange language adding to their difficulties (“La -Biscaye,” they said, “où il y a d’étrange monde, où l’on n’entend pas -les gens”). The Basques troop in to early Mass every Sunday, often by -rough mountain paths, from farms lying a league away. Yet it must not be -thought that the Basques are priest-ridden; the priests are respected, -and often take part in their games or walk many miles across the hills -to visit the sick. But though the Basques are often narrow and -fanatical, they have far too much dignity and independence to be the -blind followers of the priests. In the Carlist wars they fought chiefly -for their old privileges, or _fueros_, and the result of the wars was -that nearly all their _fueros_ were lost, in 1839 and 1876. “Nothing is -so fair as liberty,” says one of their songs, and their national song, -“Guernikako Arbola,”[71] with its stirring air, celebrates “the holy -tree of Guernica, loved by all the Basques.” In the little green-set -town of Guernica a fine new oak, some forty years old, has taken the -place of the old tree, now a mere trunk protected by glass, while in the -little pillared temple are still to be seen the seven marble seats on -which assembled-- - - “Peasant and lord in their appointed seat, - Guardians of Biscay’s ancient liberty.” - -These are the two last lines of Wordsworth’s sonnet to the - - “Oak of Guernica! Tree of holier power - Than that which in Dodona did enshrine, - So faith too fondly deemed, a voice divine.” - -Noble, handsome, graceful in all their movements, hardy and shrewd, the -Basques are active and untiring whether as farmers, smugglers, soldiers, -or _pelotaris_. They live aloof in scattered farms, a healthy open-air -life (their word for rich is _aberatz_, from _abere_, head of cattle), -and, indeed, in a town they tend to lose some of their good qualities. -Their dress has always an air of careful neatness and distinction, with -the _béret_, white shirt (without a tie), dark blue or black coat thrown -over shoulder (or long blouse), silent sandals and the peculiar -_makhila_, a stout iron-pointed stick of medlar. They are shrinking into -their mountains, a race doomed to perish, “un peuple qui s’en va.” They -have watched during thousands of years new races spring up and prosper -around them, and in the twentieth century they see trains and motors -penetrate to the inaccessible places where the Roman legions were -checked, or Charlemagne with all his peerage fell. An inscription here -and there shows them bowing to destiny and the relentless march of time -in saddened resignation, or betaking themselves to the consolation of -their religion--the following inscriptions, for instance, along the -frontier: “Man is beaten by every hour, and the last leads him to the -grave.”[72] “Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.”[73] “Ici fait l’home cequi -pevt et fortune ce que elle vevt.”[74] “Post fata resurgo.”[75] “Deum -time, Mariam invoca.”[76] “Orhoit hilcea.”[77] The privileges that -remain to the Basques are few, consisting in a slightly less acute -centralization than obtains in other provinces of Spain.[78] They have -no _fueros_ left to make it worth their while to take up arms afresh, -and they still have vivid memories of their wasted fields and desolate -farms in the last Carlist war. But were their ancient religion to be -really attacked, or were an attempt made to expel the monks from the -Basque provinces, the peasants could be counted upon to make a desperate -resistance, more in defence of their independence than on behalf of the -monks themselves. Foreigners have often misunderstood the Basques,[79] -for they are reserved and silent towards the new-comer (“Gizonciki -arabotz andi,” they say--“Little man, much noise”; “the empty barrel -makes the most noise,” and so on). But there is no suspicion of -commercialism about their love of liberty such as has often been -attributed to the Catalans: they love their beautiful land, the -Eskual-erria, for its own sake and the religion and customs of their -forefathers, and the strangers who visit their country soon learn to -love and admire its broad healing power and spirit of ancient peace. It -is a country of civilization without great cities, where exists an -intimate and ennobling relation between the soil and the inhabitants. - - - - -V - -IN REMOTE NAVARRE - - -Navarre is held to be one of the chief bulwarks of Clericalism in Spain, -and so remote and isolated are its villages, so primitive its life and -agriculture, so few its means of communication, that it might seem that -no breath of modern times could have penetrated to this province. Lying -on the frontier of France, it is defended from the inroads of -civilization by its mountains and wide wastes of desert land. In those -lonely groups of houses of massive yellow-brown stone, clustered around -their church, and crowning rocky hills of the same colour, there is no -room for differences of opinion, and he who does not attend Mass at -least once in the year is forced to go and live elsewhere. Should you -ask how he can be forced to go, the answer you will receive is, “By the -law, by public opinion.” Quite recently a traveller, arriving famished -at one of these villages of Navarre, with no smaller change than a -French napoleon, went from door to door in vain. No one would accept -this _doblón de oro_ (gold doubloon). Finally, a woman who had lived -for a time at Salies de Béarn consented to receive it, and sent it later -to be changed at the capital, Pamplona. Yet even here in Navarre there -is an appreciable body of liberal opinion, and even in the heart of the -Carlist country, at Estella, the Club Carlista is faced by the ensign of -the Círculo Liberal; even here in all but the smaller villages opinion -is divided, and the policy of Clericals and anti-Clericals discussed -with animation. Those who served in the second Carlist war recognize -that the times have altered, and that leaders, or _cabecillas_, are no -longer forthcoming to lead them in swift night marches across the hills, -willing though they might be to follow. At Estella a fort taken by the -Carlists is now a peaceful covered market-place, and the palace where -Don Carlos held his court is a pleasant _fonda_ with a cool _patio_ of -flowers. Those who enter Navarre by the Convent of Roncesvalles and the -Pass where Roland was slain, and which Byng a thousand years later, in -1813, was forced to evacuate with ten thousand troops, may be easily -deceived into imagining that Navarre is a land of meadows and green -woods and pleasant streams. The swift river Urrobi runs through passes -of rugged hills, but overgrown with box and beech trees and pines. Steep -walls of rock are in summer covered with foxgloves and bramble and -broom, scabious, St. John’s wort, mallow, bell heather, and many other -flowers and ferns, and in places the hills are red with wild -strawberries. The Urrobi forces its way through barriers of grey rock -and over ledges in green pools and white rushing torrents. But this is -not the true Navarre. There no trees are to be seen, and one is -perpetually in a wide circle of bare hills. The country is the most -desolate imaginable, formed by bare, ashen-grey hills (scored and gashed -by dry torrent-beds) and valleys equally barren. The wind hisses, and -crickets chatter loudly in a few stunted elms by the roadside. All is -greyness without colour, and in late summer the stubble-fields far and -near add a new note of desolation, and it seems out of keeping with the -character of the country that these fields should ever be a fresh green -in spring. Indeed, the occasional hollows of olives and plots of -vineyards have an air of unreality in the surrounding wilderness of -crumbling dust and shale. Yet some welcome patches of colour are to be -found, if it is only a line of chicory or of huge purple thistles along -a stubble-field, or a blue-bloused peasant jogging down the dusty road -on a mule with crimson trappings. And on the threshing-floors around the -villages, where work is carried on far into the night, often by -lightning flash, the white shirts and blue blouses of the men, and the -pink and red dresses and long white headkerchiefs of the women form a -picturesque and beautiful scene through the clouds of flying chaff and -ruddy golden grain falling in heavier, more compact masses. For here the -threshing is all done by hand with the help of mules, oxen, and horses, -which are driven round and round, drawing all the children of the -village on little wooden sledges. When the grain has been thus sifted, -the process is completed by throwing it into the air from long wooden -shovels and close-pronged wooden forks. The corn is grown on precipices -and sheer mountain-sides, and is brought down to the threshing-floors on -donkeys, which disappear beneath their rustling load. The men who live -in this grim country are also stern and grim, harsh featured, hard, and -strong; and, though hospitable and not unkindly, they are fierce and -obstinate upon occasion, and sometimes cruel to their animals. Their -food is rough, but not unplentiful; of wheat there is no lack, and with -some vines and olives they are content to have the three necessities of -a Spanish peasant’s life. The villages would often pass unnoticed on -their rocky hills were it not for the outstanding feature of their grim, -massive churches; the church of Gallipienzo dominates a mountain, and is -so solid and fine that it seems to dwarf it. These churches are to be -seen for very many miles across the completely bare country, and at -night the lights of the village streets form, from long distances, -strange, irregular letters on a mountain-side, making the village far -more conspicuous than it would be by day. Sansol, a little village not -far from Logroño, looks from some distance like a great fortress of -brown stone with tiny black loop-holes (the glassless windows); behind -is a long backbone of grey, rocky hill, and beyond the purple-black -Monte Jura with a glimpse of white road. Bitter and fierce are the -winters in Navarre, and pitiless the sun in summer; but for all its -forbidding aspects it repays the discomforts of a visit to its remote -districts. Lumbier is like a miniature Toledo, on its bare hill above -the winding river, and Sanguesa, of brown yellow stone, on the Aragón, -of the same colour, has its magnificently sculptured church of Santa -María, and other beautiful carvings on private houses. And after a few -weeks’ acquaintance with the harsh country and the proud inhabitants, -the traveller will realize the possibility of those relentless Carlist -wars which still send a thrill through those who recall them, and the -difficulty of hunting down _cabecillas_ who knew the country and of -bringing the war to an end. - - - - -VI - -SPANISH CITIES - - -Spain is pre-eminently a land of cities. Often they stand conspicuous in -an arid and treeless tract of country, glancing like jewels in a -sunburnt land. The pleasant and fertile strip of country, on the French -frontier is not properly Spanish, but Basque. On the other hand, nothing -could be more Spanish than the little quaint old town of Fuenterrabía. -The original name was Basque--Ondarrabia, “The two banks of sand.” The -Romans, hearing the name, but ignorant of its meaning and seeing, -moreover, the swift flow of the tide beneath the walls of the town, -called it Unda Rapida.[80] From the Latin Unda Rapida or Fons Rapidus -came the Spanish Fuenterrabía,[81] and the French in their turn, -connecting it with the Arabs, called it Fontarabie. The Basque name is, -however, still in use, and one of the streets of Irun where, as in many -other towns and villages, the street names are written up both in -Spanish and Basque, has the full-sounding name Ondarrabiko Karreka--the -street of Ondarrabia. If one may compare small things with great, the -cities of Northern Spain are like castles built by children in the sand, -and left high and dry by the receding tide. City after city stood walled -and bulwarked on the extreme fringe of the Christian territory, for a -time the court and capital of Spain, till a fresh conquest drove back -the Moors a lap further south. This in part accounts for the grim and -wonderful Spanish cities, with their magnificent buildings and -fortifications, that still exist, but exist with no longer the stir of a -great destiny within their walls, but merely as it were the mighty -shells of an extinct life. So Burgos, León, Toledo, were capital cities -for a space, thronged with the busy traffic of courtiers and warriors, -and Avila, the city of saints, has the great fortifications of a -frontier town. It is difficult to believe that Toledo has at all changed -since the Cid’s horse miraculously stayed before the burning light -hidden in the wall of one of its streets, and the water-carriers to-day -go leisurely down to the river, their donkeys’ panniers laden with -earthen jars, as when Cervantes wrote “La Ilustre Fregona.” And, indeed, -Spanish cities are little liable to change. The steep uneven ways of -Toledo and Salamanca and Segovia scorn modern traffic. The passing of a -carriage is possible in the main streets, but is a rare event that -rattles and reverberates along the walls. More suitable are the stately -processions, their banners showing brightly against the brown-yellow -buildings. Segovia has been called the queen of Castilian cities, as -Toledo is the king. And Segovia must ever remain mediæval, a city of a -hundred levels, sinking by terraces of half-ruinous walls, tufted with -grass and flowers, from the Cathedral down to the foot of its mighty -Roman aqueduct. A Latin author three hundred years ago wrote that “in -Segovia nemo otiosus, nemo mendicus”--there were no beggars at Segovia. -It would be unsafe to assert this of any Spanish town to-day. Spain is -no country of “neat cities and populous towns full of most industrious -artificers.” Such towns--Barcelona,[82] Bilbao--there are, but mostly -the cities are, in the words of Burton, “cities decayed,” which contain -many “Spanish loiterers,” though they are not “base and poor towns,” nor -are the people “squalid, ugly, uncivil.” The southern cities show a -softer influence. The surrounding country is less abrupt and harsh, and -the stern features of the north are forgotten. Cadiz lies out into the -sea, a Spanish Venice, cut in straight white streets, like the slices of -an iced cake. Seville is wonderful at all times, a _maravilla_ to -foreigners and Spaniards. The Spanish novelist Palacio Valdés, in “La -Hermana San Sulpicio,” has described it during nights of midsummer, when -to go through the city was to visit the interior of the houses, for from -the _patios_, where the families were assembled, great rays of light -shot through the iron screen-doors into the dark and stifled streets, -and guitar and song broke the stillness: “Seville at such an hour had a -magical look, a charm that disturbed the mind.” But of all the cities of -the south Granada has a peculiar fascination. This is largely due to its -many contrasts. It is a city of orange groves and fountains, yet it -lies over two thousand feet above sea-level, and is a summer rather than -a winter city; the fiercest heat is relieved by cool air from the -eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada, and the gardens of the Alhambra and -the Generalife, with their myrtles, cypresses and cedars, give a -delicious shade. In winter icy cold strikes through the marble halls of -the Alhambra; yet it is never more beautiful than seen in February from -San Cristobal, or from the cactus-covered hill beneath San Miguel, or -from where the Darro flows rapidly far below. For it rises above the -slender branches of elms and poplars, grey and in parts purple from -their swelling buds--the red and yellow-brown towers, the crumbling -walls of red earth and brick and large smooth rounded stones of white, -or black, or red, the trailing ivy, the open white-pillared galleries. A -few almond-trees are in flower, and above to the left stand the long -lines of cypresses of the grey-white Generalife, where flower celandines -and daffodils. Many of these Spanish cities are visited chiefly for -their great ancient buildings and Cathedrals; yet the most part of them -deserve a more patient study for their own sake, for their memories of -old, and for the life of their narrow winding streets. The Spanish -writer _Azorín_ (Martínez Ruiz), in a book of few pages,[83] conveys -some wonderfully clear-cut impressions of Spain. He turns with -preference to details of the centuries of Spain’s greatness, when -Murcia, Valencia, and Seville were famous for their silks, Talavera for -its earthenware, Toledo for its swords, when the gloves of Ocaña or the -spurs of Ajofrín were unrivalled; or to the survival of old Spain in a -picture, or a building, or a city. Thus he loves to wander through León -with its spirit of ancient Spain and its classical street-names--here a -cobbled grass-grown _plaza_ with pale acacias and ancient walls, the -slow flight of doves and the wind rustling torn pieces of paper; there a -quiet convent _patio_ with bays and rigid cypresses. For him the narrow -streets of Córdoba have a deeper charm than those of any other Spanish -city. He wanders through the labyrinth of intricate winding ways, with -glimpses of small pillared _patios_ of flowers and fountains, and finds -everywhere silence and a deep serene melancholy, restfulness, oblivion, -and a harmony of soft shades, nowhere the light-hearted frivolity -conventionally attributed to Andalucía. _Azorín’s_ originality consists -in forcing a few apparently insignificant details to yield the whole -spirit of a city, a country, a people. If he mentions the Mosque of -Córdoba, it is but to note the beggars taking the sun in the _Patio de -los Naranjos_, the sparrows twittering in the orange-trees, the sound of -pitchers filling at the fountain. He gives us poignant descriptions of -dead provincial cities and ruined ancestral houses. The decadence of -Spain brought flourishing cities to low estate: Spain’s revival menaces -them with a fresh ruin. Old narrow passages and intricate courts and -sculptured houses make place for the introduction of tramways and broad -asphalt streets. The old Santander described by Pereda survives only in -his books, the old parts of Barcelona and Valencia are fast -disappearing, and happy is the city such as Toledo whose position on -abrupt rocks with no level spaces seems to promise an eternity of -mediævalism and individuality. - - - - -VII - -IN OLD CASTILLE - - -It is with astonishment and a kind of fear that the traveller passes -through the high-lying plains of Old Castille, journeying swiftly from -city to city, to - - “Old towns whose history lies hid - In monkish chronicle or rhyme, - Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid, - Zamora and Valladolid....” - -for in these intervening tracts, sun-parched and windswept, it seems -scarcely possible that men should live. The villages are closely huddled -together, little compact masses of low, unwhitewashed houses, without a -tree or garden, so colourless, and clinging to the soil as sometimes to -pass unnoticed. Rivers flow between low, bare banks without bush or -tree, like streaks of mother-of-pearl inlaid in earthenware. And there -are wide tracts of land without a house or boundary, a continuous -desolation with no signs of life, except here and there a flock of sheep -or herd of goats, or a line of peasants returning at sunset from their -work. Surely life here can have but few attractions; there can be no -joy of the soil, little temptation for Berceo’s “_mal labrador_” of the -thirteenth century, who “loved the earth more than he loved the -Creator,” and “would alter landmarks to enlarge his estate”--_cambiaba -los mojones por ganar eredat_. Yet the slower trains are invaded by a -merry throng of pleasant, courteous, good-looking peasants, oval-faced, -with splendid teeth and eyelashes, who speed the journey with gay -conversation and shrill singing, and pass constantly from one carriage -to another to greet friends or to avoid the officials who inquire -awkwardly after tickets. They have plenty of life and cheerfulness, and -it is with renewed wonder that one looks at the dead, crumbling villages -where they live, and remembers the piercing force of the Castilian sun -in summer and the icy, penetrating winter winds. All day they must work -without the shelter of a single hedge or tree in the searching wind[84] -that sifts the soil, or under a sun that parches and shrivels it into -dust. But a nearer acquaintance reveals a certain charm[85] about these -villages of hard, clear names: Campillo, Cantalapedra, Pedroso, -Madrigal--a charm of clean-swept spaces, and clear, luminous air and -silent intensity; and the country ceases to be uniformly colourless. -Here a woman in a dress of light-blue linen, with long flowing -headkerchief of white, passes on a donkey through fields of golden ripe -corn; there, from narrow windows in a street of yellow-brown houses, -hang bright patches of geraniums and carnations in flower. And the -doorways of square or round or pointed arches give entrance to cool, -silent courts. _Azorín_ has described the old Castilian hidalgo, who -has never left his ancestral house, with its large rooms, many of them -unfurnished, and old portraits consigned to an attic and covered with -the dust of centuries: “His lands have disappeared, his furniture has -disappeared; he does nothing; he has a sad intensity of expression,” and -when further misfortune befalls him he says, “There is no help for -it--_qué le vamos á hacer_!” Everywhere is decay, and the trace of -vanished splendour. So these old ruined hidalgos live out their grey, -monotonous lives in some ancient town or village of Castille, amid the -immense plains with “distances of radiant sky and faint blue lines of -mountains.” The blue smoke rises from scented fires of rosemary, and, as -the bells ring to Matins, the doves swerve and circle, the grey doves -sweep slowly across the sky perpetually blue. And night and day the -doors of the houses are kept continually closed, with a deserted air -beneath the broad coats-of-arms carved in stone. _Azorín_ describes -minutely a Castilian town, standing among cornfields and olives--one of -those towns that the foreigner rarely has the courage to visit. Its -streets are narrow and tortuous. It contains three ancient inns, four -churches, three hermitages, two convents. It has no industries save a -few ruined cloth manufactures, and only the usurer flourishes. It -contains fourteen students (who have not taken their degree), four -doctors, twelve lawyers (only six of whom earn a living, and this by -slandering one another, and from time to time bringing a blackmail suit -against some poor-spirited inhabitant). There is a Guild of the Christ -of the Dying, and when a member dies a messenger goes through the -streets ringing a bell and crying: “At such an hour the funeral of Don -Fulano.” The summers are fiery, the winters are long and cruel. No -visits are paid; doors and windows remain closed; few persons go through -the streets, but in the _plazas_, on clear days of winter, dense groups -of men may be seen taking the sun, wrapped in their brown plaids and -_capas_. Nothing happens; the deep silence is broken by the clang of a -forge-hammer or by the crowing of a cock. In time of Carnival a few -“masks” pass, dressed up with mats and carrying old brooms. The -labourers are poverty-stricken, and meat is the luxury of a few “rich” -inhabitants. _Azorín_ notes the Castilian’s “fundamental energy, -aloofness, indifference, and lofty disdain, with sudden inspirations of -heroism”; and we may count it no small heroism to live on, proudly -uncomplaining, in surroundings so harsh and discomfortable. - - - - -VIII - -THE DESERT AND THE SOWN - - -The French soldiers, looking at the trifling Manzanares and its mighty -bridges, may have exclaimed, “So even the Spanish rivers ran away.” But -those who, at sight of tiny threads of water in immense river-beds, are -inclined to ask, with Don Pedro in _Much Ado about Nothing_, “What need -the bridge much broader than the flood?” find their answer after a few -days of heavy rain. Marks six feet and more high on houses many hundreds -of yards from the banks of the Ebro record the rising of the waters. -Thus, in many districts, crops which have survived the summer drought -are swept away by the autumn deluge, and those who have cried for rain -are mocked with ruin when the waters “prevail exceedingly upon the -earth.” Spain’s agriculture perishes for lack of water, yet water -abounds, whether subterranean, as in parts of Castille, or in the -copious snows of the high-lying regions, where the snow is sometimes -preserved in snow-pits, _pozos de nieve_, or in these periodical -floods; and it would seem that the philologist had Spain in his mind -who connected the Basque adjective _idorra_, meaning “dry,” with ὓδωρ, -the Greek for water. To utilize, extend, and regulate the water -supply is a problem of vital importance to Spain--a problem which has -long occupied the thoughts of Spanish statesmen. Alfonso the Learned, in -his “Crónica General,” says, “This Spain, then, of which we speak is as -the paradise of God.... For the most part, it is watered with streams -and fountains, and wells are never lacking in all places that have need -of them;” but Strabo, more impartial, had remarked of Spain that, “For -the most part, it yields but a poor sustenance. For large districts are -composed of mountains and woodland and plains, with thin and, moreover, -not uniformly well-watered soil--οὐδἐ ταὐτην ὁμαλῶς εὔυδρον.” And -since Strabo’s time many have been the alterations for the worse. -Turdetania, for instance, the country between Seville and Huelva, is no -longer marvellously prosperous--θαυμα-στῶς εὐτυχεῖ; in fact -South Estremadura, of old one of Rome’s granaries, is now one of the -most desolate regions in Spain. But the worst decay is that of the -forests. The woods have fallen and fallen, and still the axe rings -avidly in those woods that remain. The very words for a wood, _bosque_ -or _selva_, have become rare and poetical. Thus the soil is further -parched and impoverished, while towns and villages stand unsheltered -from wind and sun. The Escorial, which grew up among woods, may now be -seen from afar in its almost sinister magnificence across grey hills -and plains without a tree; and Madrid, though a tree figures prominently -in the city arms, looks out upon plains from which all traces of former -oak and chestnut forests have long since vanished. The absence of trees -in Spain increases both the dryness and the floods, and afforestation is -therefore quite as important as irrigation. The canalization of rivers -may diminish the floods, but while there is no soil on the -hill-sides--or soil so light that it is swept away by heavy -rainfalls--the rain must continue to be a blessing strangely disguised. -It is calculated that in six or eight years the trees would knit the -soil together, and give it sufficient staying power to resist and absorb -the rains, though, of course, there would as yet be no actual profit of -timber. Outlay of toil and money for so distant a remuneration is not -congenial to the Spanish temperament. The great land-owners do nothing. -The State spends a few thousand pesetas every year; but at the present -rate afforestation will need hundreds of years, bearing a resemblance to -that long-desired map of Spain, which is to be issued in some eleven -hundred sections, and of which from two to three sections appear -annually.[86] The advantages of irrigation have been amply proved in -Spain, justifying the juxtaposition of water and gold in Pindar’s ode; -but only about a fiftieth of Spain’s total area--and especially the -plain of Granada and the strip of coast of Málaga and Valencia--can at -present show the immense productiveness due to irrigation, combined with -the swift-maturing sun of Spain. There are, of course, immense -difficulties, and not the least are the ignorance and the poverty of the -peasants. Water added to a poor soil will be of little value if the -peasants are not taught artificial means of enriching the soil, and -modern methods of cultivating it. The extreme poverty of the peasants -would, however, prevent them at present from employing any but the -simplest methods; in many districts they mortgage their land in order to -be able to sow their crops, and Spanish farmers are often in the hands -of the usurers. The usurer has been their only resource in moments of -distress, and finally they are driven to emigrate, leaving their land to -the usurer. A narrow strip of fertile land along the rivers stands out -in contrast to the desolate country beyond. Thus the Ebro flows through -Aragon, among woods of silver birch and poplars, and plantations of -olives and vines and maize; but on either side appears the barren -country of perfectly bare reddish or brown hills of crumbling earth, -like great sand-dunes, without a plant, curiously folded and scored by -rushing water, with intricate, abrupt hollows and catacombs. The -villages are the colour of the soil, and at no great distance are -scarcely distinguishable from a bare hill-side. Or desert plains are -thinly covered with grey thyme, and in the more fertile parts produce -dwarfed vines and corn, so that in autumn one looks across immense, -undivided plains of stubble and yellowing vineyards to the distant -horizon of dim blue hills. The cruel winds[87] of Spain blow straight -from the iced mountain ridges, unstemmed by any barrier of woods. The -first snows fall early round Avila and on the uplands, but in the towns -snow at Christmas is rare. The foreigner sometimes has a capricious wish -to see these wide, tawny plains covered with snow--_après la plaine -blanche une autre plaine blanche_, like the Queen Romayquia, wife of -Abenabet, Moorish King of Seville, who could find no solace in her -longing for the sight of snow. The King ordered almond-trees to be -planted all about the city of Córdoba, that in early spring at least, if -not at Christmas, the Queen might beguile her fancy with the snow-white -almond blossoms.[88] But even in Andalucía, towards the end of December, -one may see several comparatively low mountain ranges thickly coated -with snow. Stores of firing are then brought down to the villages from -the treeless hills. Further north the vines have been pruned, and the -vine-twigs brought in for burning; but here the vines have not yet lost -their leaves, and the firing consists of thyme and whin and rosemary, -mint and lavender and other scented hill-plants. Troops of donkeys -arrive at sunset, with immense, sweet-smelling loads, that entirely hide -the red or purple tassels and fringes of their harness. The oranges now -gleam in myriads along the eastern coast; sometimes the icy winds from -inland freeze them, and fires of smouldering straw are burnt round and -in the orange groves, after the wind has ceased, that a dense smoke may -hang about the trees and warm them. Weeks before Christmas the -_turroneros_ from Jijona, noticeable for their small peaked hats of -black velvet, appear in nearly every city and town of Spain. In porches -or in large bare shops they set out their layers of white wooden boxes, -and samples of the _turrón_, or almond-paste, which is an essential part -of Spanish Christmas fare. For the time, Jijona, the grey town in the -hills, is deserted, though but a few weeks ago every house was a busy -scene of _turrón_ making, and nailing thin white planks into boxes. The -snow will soon lie deep on the Carrasqueta hill-range above the town. -The almond-trees, whose pink flowers in February form a solitary belt of -colour between Jijona and the rocky mountains, are now as bare and grey -as the surrounding country. Some of the inhabitants have gone to the -warmer south, taking the _diligencia_ to Alicante; others have scaled -the steep, winding road past the Barranco de la Batalla, where once the -Cid wrought havoc of the Moors, and now herds of goats feed apparently -on nothing, and have taken train at Alcoy for the cold, high-lying -cities of the north. But not in the northern uplands only are Spanish -winters cruel; the _dehesas_ of Andalucía are equally unprotected, the -silent, icy winds blow subtle and fierce and penetrating over the -undulating hill country round Córdoba, and one may see shepherd boys, -closely muffled in their plaids, standing frozen and motionless, the -sheep pressing around them and against one another for shelter. - - - - -IX - -THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN - - -A first view of Catalonia from the sea shows at any rate the stones from -which, according to the proverb, the Catalans make bread. For great -spines of rust-coloured rock, covered here and there by pines of a crude -green, run to the sea and break off in abrupt cliffs. In the valleys of -these ridges towns and villages skirt the shore, Rosas, Palamos, San -Feliú de Guixols with its cork industry, and lace-making Arenys de Mar. -Towards Barcelona both soil and villages become greyer, but Barcelona -itself has colour in plenty. The Spanish and foreign ships in the -harbour, the palm-trees near the quay, above them the tall white and -yellow houses with shutters of green and brown, and above these again a -view of the great Cathedral--all this, bounded by the purple mountains, -makes the sight of Barcelona from the sea very picturesque and -attractive. - -The coast to the south of Barcelona is very fertile. There are hedges of -reeds twenty feet high, of cactus and of aloe, aloes of that exquisite -blue-green which is so often the colour of the Mediterranean in -September. Through yellowing orchards of magnificent peaches, of figs -and apples in great abundance, come glimpses of the intense leaden-blue -hill-ranges to the west. The grapes have already for the most part been -gathered for wine, but there are still many vines that, earlier in the -year, are cut back to the ground, and have the look of blighted -potato-plants, and that now, grown to the size of currant-bushes and -unstaked, are laden with large yellow grapes. Occasionally, too, one -sees tall date-palms and orange-trees. - -After Casteldefels the hills are covered with pines, and the nights, -which are warm but have heavy dew, bring out their scent so strongly -that it is at times almost oppressive. The nights are silent but for the -continual chirping of crickets and the sound of the unquiet sea. The -stars are strangely bright, Sirius burns large and intense, and Orion -nightly stalks the sky in all his glory till the sun catches him in -mid-heaven. The sea is alive with phosphorus, and far out are seen the -lights of fishing-boats, while on land the glow-worms are almost as many -as the stars. The orange and purple sunrises and sunsets of pink and -amethyst are very lovely, and the sails of the fishing-boats continue -white, and the sea retains its blue for some time after the light of the -after-glow is gone. A little further south the cliffs are covered with -dwarf palms, rosemary in flower, and other shrubs. The road here is -good, but one meets no pedestrians, for a path along the railway is the -accepted thoroughfare between village and village in spite of the -notices that forbid its use. The men for the most part wear a black -peaked cap, a long blouse, and trousers of brown or blue. The sash is -nearly always black and is worn wide, the sandals have a tip and heel -covering only, with fastenings of leather or black cloth from the tip. -The women wear handkerchiefs that entirely cover the head. The -predominant colours are blue and black. A kilomètre or more before -wine-making Sitges the road is bounded by rough terraces of stone with -vines and dark green carob-trees. A succession of terraces on the one -side runs far up the hills, and on the other the rude-walled vineyards -stretch to the edge of the sea. Sitges, a village of less than four -thousand inhabitants, is prettily placed, its octagonal-towered church -rising from a rock in the sea. A few kilomètres further Villanueva y -Geltrú is but a fairly large and rather ordinary provincial town, though -it has its picturesque corners, with its houses washed in various shades -of blue, pink, green, or yellow, and views of vineyard country appearing -at the end of many of its long, straight streets. After Villanueva the -hills recede further inland, and there is a little more flat country, -but it is occupied largely by great marshes, loud with the croaking of -frogs. - -It is not till one reaches Roda and Creixell that any villages have a -really Spanish, or rather Castilian, look. Creixell, especially, with -its massive church and great square building of stone standing haughtily -on a hill of wall-terraces sprinkled with carob-trees, and with its -houses the colour of the soil, has all the air of a little Toledo. Early -on an autumn morning it may be seen reflected, with every house and -window, in a blue lagoon hundreds of yards from the village and -separated by sandbanks from the sea. The olives and vineyards now extend -to the shore, and above San Vicente great white country-houses stand -among orchards and olives. After Creixell there are but two villages, -Torredenbarra and Altafulla, before Tarragona, the second coast-town of -Catalonia. Here, indeed, the sun beats with a fiery strength; here, -indeed, the Mediterranean is “crystalline,” and “the lightning of the -noon-tide ocean flashes.” Here is excellent firm sand for bathing and, -swimming far out, the sun is still seen shining through the transparent -water on the waved sand below. At the end of September the season is -over, yet the days are still almost too hot, and the deep blue of the -bay and the long purple line of hills to the north-west are -indescribably beautiful. Tarragona, the favoured city of the Romans, is -the possessor of many noble Roman ruins, and wonderful Cyclopean walls, -and its outline, seen against the sky from the road leading to Tortosa, -is one of the most magnificent in Spain. The town and its neighbourhood, -as well as the whole coast of Catalonia is, perhaps, not as well known -as it deserves. In autumn, if the days and even the nights are hot, -there is always a refreshing coolness in the early mornings; the people -are, as a rule, pleasant and courteous; in some villages many speak -Catalan only, and at times, catching a word here and there, one may -think oneself to be in Italy. - - - - -X - -AN EASTERN VILLAGE - - -There is no cloud in the clear March sky, filled with radiant light. -Beyond the dark green of orange-trees and grey olives lies the sea, a -faint line of blue. And, to the west, the mountains of bare rock are -faintly purple, looking frail and brittle in their clear but distant -outlines. A herd of goats passes slowly down a wide river-bed of smooth -white stones, with no shred or vestige of water. Lines of aloes and tall -reeds grow along its banks, and on either side peasants dressed in black -are at work in the fields, ploughing with single mules between the brown -stems of vines recently pruned, or pruning the orange-trees and olives. -Bundles of vine and olive twigs lie ready to be carted to the village -for fuel. Women in dresses of white and pink and scarlet are hoeing the -green corn. The pear- and peach-trees are in flower, and the almond-trees -fully arrayed in freshest green. At intervals, wells or _norias_ explain -the green fresh look of the country, so different from the burnt -desolation of the waterless regions further north. For Oropesa, the -neighbouring village, is but some sixty miles north of Valencia, and is -bordered on the one side by the full fertility of the Valencian plain, -though on the other it is surrounded by barren hills. In each _noria_ a -long crooked branch forms the handle to the iron wheel and to this a -mule is tied, and as the mule turns, the wheel revolves with a slow -clinking sound, and the long earthenware jars (_arcaduces_) attached to -the wheel gush water into a trough and so by small channels of dry earth -into the fields of brown and reddish soil. A path leads through green -fields and clumps of orange-trees to the village. In some fields further -south the last oranges have been gathered, and thousands of pearl-shaped -buds tell that the trees before long will be covered with a glistening -snow of scented blossoms. But in many the oranges still reign -resplendent: on a grey day they stand out with more vivid distinctness -than when the sun blurs them in a luminous haze, leaving them clearly -visible only in the level light of its rising or its setting. The trees -are bowed with fruit, and the laden branches are propped up from the -ground. The thronging oranges glow in myriad spheres of gold, here and -there lie golden mounds of gathered oranges, and below the trees the -ground is a strewn pavement of gold. On every side beneath the trees may -be seen a magic land of myriad golden lamps; single or in trefoils and -clusters of seven and ten and twenty, the oranges hang within a few -inches of the ground. Hundreds of yards away through intervals of trees -appears the same foison of gleaming fruit, and the air is all scented -with oranges. From time to time a light wind blows beneath the trees, -and the twigs with their burdens of crowding oranges sway heavily to and -fro, like slowly swung censers of burning gold. But near Oropesa the -oranges are comparatively few. The village is built on a steep -precipitous hill of grey rock, crowned by the ruinous walls of a great -castle. The houses clamber roof over roof, in ragged disarray up the -rock. They are of yellowish-brown stone with rough cement, and mostly -innocent of glass, but have a touch of whitewash in front, so that they -wear shining morning faces to the rising sun. In the mistless radiant -mornings the village stands out clearly, its sharp rock rising sheer -from the plain. The sea beyond is silver, and on the other side every -wrinkle in the rocks of the grey mountains is distinctly visible. There -is no sound but the occasional voices of children, the clink and clang -of a forge-hammer, the crowing of a cock, or a faint crystal crash of -waves breaking; but from time to time there is a dry rumour of wheels, -and the cry of a man to his mule as he passes down the road in his cart. -Wrapped in their plaids against the keen morning air, the peasants pass -leisurely in carts and on mules to work in the fields until the evening. -At dusk the slow procession returns, with many a greeting and _bona nit_ -and smiles of sunburnt wrinkled faces. Thin lines of blue smoke go up -from swiftly flaring fires of vine twigs and rosemary and dry plants -gathered from the hills, and an hour or two hours later Oropesa is -given over to sleep and the silence of the stars, broken only by the -deep rhythmic cry of the _sereno_ calling the hours. To the south a road -goes up through grey rocky hills with thyme and dwarf-palms and cistus. -The bare smooth rocks have a metallic ring, and there is no sign of life -save for a herd of goats far above, the goat-herd with his plaid and -wide felt hat clearly outlined on the sky, and the sound of his flute -distinct in the solitude of the hills, utterly silent save for the -silver tinkling of goat-bells. No water can remain on these rocky hills, -it pours immediately away to the plains beyond, where, by a stream bed -barely a yard wide, a pillar tells of those who perished there in 1850, -in “the _diligencia_ carried away by the waters of the torrent.” Though -Oropesa now has a railway station, the _diligencias_ still ply between -it and Castellón and Torreblanca, and it might be fifty miles from any -railway, so primitive and self-centred is its life. Occasionally comes a -sunless morning with a quiet grey sky, rare on the east coast of Spain -except in the days of early spring. The sea lies motionless and grey, -with pale reflections of light in coils and patches of gold. So still is -the air that the quiet piping of birds among the olives falls like a -stone in hushed waters. As the day advances the mountains, which earlier -were mingled and lost in the grey of the sky, grow more distinct, till -towards sunset every line and crevice in their sharp ranges becomes -marked, and the overhanging mist of cloud melts away into the grey of -evening, sprinkled with the gold-dust of the stars. - - - - -XI - -OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN - - -The Mediterranean off the coast of Spain is not always calm. Sometimes -the east wind, the _Llevant_, lashes the waves to fury, and the shores -along the villages and towns are black with lines of fishing-boats that -dare not put out to sea. But for weeks together it is “lulled in the -coil of its crystalline streams,” and the sun rises and sets across a -silken plain of blue. In such weather a journey along the coast has a -wonderful freshness and a fascinating charm. Again and again the -traveller recalls the magic of those lines of the old romance: - - “Quién hubiese tal ventura, - Sobre las aguas del mar, - Como hubo el conde Arnaldos, - La mañana de San Juan!” - - “Oh for a chance as happy, - Where the deep sea waters swell, - As on the morn of St. John’s Day, - Count Arnaldos befel,” etc. - -By St. John’s Day, however, the sun flashes its rays too fiercely, and -it is in late spring or early autumn that the voyage is most enjoyable. -A land journey can give no idea of the loveliness of these coasts, and -towns such as Alicante and Almería lose much of their beauty if deprived -of their background of mountains, which can only be seen fully out at -sea. The sea and sky are unfailingly beautiful, and the life of the -ports, full of colour and movement, never loses its interest. Almería, -fallen from its ancient greatness, is yet active in its “purple-shadowed -bay,”[89] and exports every year two million barrels, a hundred million -pounds, of grapes, chiefly to America and England. Torrevieja, further -north, is a small town or village of some seven thousand inhabitants, at -which steamers touch to take in a cargo of salt, but which the tourist, -on his way from Elche to Murcia, rarely turns aside to visit. It has a -thoroughly African look, with its flat-roofed, grey-white houses on a -bare, level strip of sandy coast, with no trees except palms, that stand -conspicuous like trees of the desert; the sand in places is thinly -covered with grass, of lightest, almost yellow, green. To the left, seen -from the sea, is a long line of gleaming salt, drawn from the sea-water -by evaporation under the summer sun, and now ready to be exported. -Beyond the line of salt is a distant range of bare mountains, faintly -purple. The town has one or two small towers, four factory chimneys, and -half a dozen round mills, with arms as slender as the cranes on the -loading steamers in the harbour. A continual rosary of barges, yellow, -white, green, or black, carries the salt across the bay. The heavy load -weighs the barge to the water’s edge, and the glistening white salt -seems to float on the blue surface. In the barge, at either end, go as -many as twenty or even thirty men, some sitting rowing, others facing -them and standing to row, and others punting with their poles of immense -length that taper away at the top to the slight girth of a fishing rod. -The shirts of the men, mauve, pink, white, red, or purple, their light -blue or black coats, red sashes, trousers of velvet or velvet corduroy -of many shades, from bright yellow to dark brown, the long shining -yellow punt poles, and the white pyramids of salt on the sea of -sapphire, combine to form a strange and beautiful sight. The empty -barges return high in the water, with little mounds of salt left along -their ledges. At midday the houses seem to faint and grow indistinct, -the mountains fade to a hardly perceptible outline, only the salt -reflects the sun in every facet of its countless grains, and glitters -whiter than snow. In the sunset the lines resume their sharpness, and -the mountains are grey or blue-grey or intense leaden blue or purple, -according to their distances. The Murcian sky is famous for its clear -serenity, and the sunsets and sunrises are of surpassing fairness. -Alicante, too, which is nearer to Murcia than to Valencia, has a -wonderful sky and a wonderful sea, and here, too, the “sunrise is a -glorious birth.” “Alicante aux clochers mêle les minarets,” says Victor -Hugo in one of the poems of “Les Orientales,” and from the sea Alicante -has an Oriental look, with its lines of palms, stories of flat roofs, -and bare background of hills and mountains. But it is at evening that -Alicante is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The lights -shine softly through the four lines of palm-trees along the Paseo de los -Mártires, and are reflected across the water; in the harbour the last -radiance of evening sets the tracery of masts and cranes and rigging in -clear relief. To the west the sea is already dark, almost wine-coloured, -the οἲνψ of the Greeks, but in the east it is a most -exquisite blue, a blue that seems to be a transparent surface of -turquoise covering a layer of white chalk. The eastern horizon is -faintly purple, and against it the sails of a fleet of fishing-boats are -whiter than at any other time, and gleam long after the sun has set. -Later the sea catches for an instant the faint purple of the sky, the -sky loses its colour, and finally a mistiness of softest grey merges -them together, so that one may no longer distinguish where the sky -ceases or the sea begins. On the rocks of the coast the waves at night -break, filled with phosphorus, in a luminous spray, “like light -dissolved in star showers thrown.” The low line of pale lights along El -Grao, Valencia’s harbour, if approached at night, has a look, from some -distance at sea, of such a phosphorus wave. By day the harbour is seen -to be a forest of masts, and far away the towers of Valencia, round the -tall Miguelete, appear as numerous, and in the distance almost as -slender as the masts of the harbour: “les clochers de ses trois cents -églises.” Along the coast of the Huerta, especially to the south of -Valencia, glisten a number of snow-white pyramids, that seem at first to -be more salt, having the exact look of the mounds that lie along the bay -of Cadiz. They are the whitewashed, triangular fronts of the peasants’ -thatched cottages or _barracas_, standing in the fertile plain, “Spain’s -Orchard.” - -One of the most lovely and original sights along the whole coast is that -of the high range of bare, treeless mountains south of Cartagena, -falling sheer into the sea, a delicate purple above the light blue -water. There is not the merest rim of coast, in fact the sea flows round -the mountains’ flanks, and they continue far out from the land, their -tops occasionally appearing as small islands. - -But especially will the traveller who has the happy chance to find -himself at dawn of a cloudless day in a boat an hour west of -Almería--especially then will he be ready to repeat the lines: - - “Quién hubiese tal ventura - Sobre las aguas del mar.” - -A slight gleam in the east warns the moon that its reign of quiet light -is to finish, and begins the long prelude of day. Above a dark line of -sea a faint orange creeps into the sky, deepening to orange-purple, and -soon fringing off in pale yellow, saffron, and daffodil. Then, later, -above this, widens a space of clearest green, and at last the body of -the sky changes from grey to a light blue. In the west all is still -grey, as with a soft woof of hanging mists. The sails of a boat going -out to sea are white in the first glow of dawn, and the gently swelling -sea eastwards reflects the light in level gleams of gold, like smooth, -burnished meadows of buttercups. Then the sun rises, red-orange, on a -cloudless sea line, the sea becomes light blue, and along the rest of -the horizon lie spaces of pearl and opal, while in the east a dim, -silver moon fades slowly. The scene is of such enchanting loveliness, -like the birth of a new world, that if the Sierra Nevada chances to be -for the most part hidden in a long cloud of mist, the traveller scarcely -notices one or two peaks that seem to be floating snow-white clouds. -Then the mist of cloud melts away, and, one by one, the snow summits -appear, till the whole immense range stands bare, looking incredibly -high in a heaven of clear, faint green. It is a sight to make men hold -their breath. The ship, night’s shadows scarce driven from her deck, -passes slowly, almost noiselessly through the water as if she, too, -understood that here is some enchanted country. The view of the Sierra -Nevada from Granada, lovely as it is, gives no hint of a sight so -incomparable as this. The range is of such vast length, the snow is so -deep and soft. Long, almost level lines, huge, abrupt crags, gently -sloping gullies, smooth, pyramid-shaped peaks, shelves and pinnacles, -crevices and ledges, are all entirely wrapped in deep, much-sunned snow, -without a break. Each look, after turning for a moment to the grey -western horizon or the waving, crystalline surface of blue sea, brings a -new wonder and a fresh surprise; so marvellous is the radiance of white -appearing in the full glow from the east, and such is the infinite -clearness and subtlety of the outlines on a sky varying from blue-grey -to transparent green. The long massive range, seen from some distance -out at sea, gives the impression of a height of twenty thousand feet, -whereas from Granada it is difficult to realize that the highest peak is -over eleven thousand. Below the snow-line, a high range of bare -grey-purple mountains seems to sink into the sea, though there is, in -fact, a line of level coast. Far or near no tree is to be seen; a white -lighthouse stands on the coast, and on the silken blue sea gleams an -occasional white sail or the flash of a seagull’s wing. As the sun rises -higher the softly folding mountains beneath the Sierra Nevada grow more -purple above the sea, and the shadows of their dimpling hollows blacken. -Above, the wide, smooth spaces and the deep ravines present their broad -surplice of glistening white to the sun without a shadow. It is all -unimaginably lovely, with a breathless purity of things primeval-- - - “Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke - Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag.” - -This and other hours of delight during a coasting voyage in the Spanish -Mediterranean are not soon forgotten, and, though they cannot be -translated into words-- - - “They flash upon that inward eye - Which is the bliss of solitude.” - -The voyage may be prolonged on the south coast, and, from the time -when, on his left, Tarifa lies along the sea, like a line of melting -snow under smoothly moulded hills of green, and, on the right, Tangiers -shows its white houses indistinctly beneath the bare, grey mountains of -Africa, to the time when at Port Bou he bids farewell to the Catalan -coast and to Spain, the traveller will not have a dull or unenjoyable -moment; if only the gods send him propitious, cloudless days-- - - “Quién hubiese tal ventura - Sobre las aguas del mar!” - - - - -XII - -THE JUDGING OF THE WATERS - - -It was a cloudless day of November. The Cathedral of Valencia stood grey -against a sky of soft blue. In the _Plaza de la Constitución_ the sun -shone on the central fountain and marked in dark lines the shadows of -the houses and the Cathedral. From the great “Door of the Apostles” came -a smell of incense as people went out and in. Surmounted by its large -rose-window, the doorway has a worn and ancient air, and the plants -growing here and there in the wall add to its look of venerable -splendour. Some of the apostles stand there headless, some without arms, -some mere trunks of stone. Above, the tall _Miguelete_ tower rises -conspicuous here, as it is conspicuous far and wide across the Valencian -plain. A few priests passed, a few carts drawn by long strings of mules, -a newspaper-seller cried the _Heraldo de Madrid_, and some peasants in -black or blue-grey groups talked together, leaning on their sticks. -Shortly after eleven a long, green sofa was set up on the pavement -immediately in front of the Cathedral door, and a narrow space round it -was enclosed with an iron railing. Sofa and railing, carried across the -street in sections, bore the inscription _Tribunal de las Aguas_. For it -was Thursday, the meeting-day of the tribunal which judges disputes -arising from the irrigation of the Huerta. - -To the peasant of the Valencian Huerta loss of water for his land means -starvation, and the hours at which each is allowed to draw off water -from the narrow channels that cross his land are carefully regulated. If -one takes water out of his turn the fields of another must suffer, and -the case must be brought before the judges sitting in weekly council. -Against their sentence there is no protest or appeal; it is absolutely -final, and though there must be cases of injustice, the peasants are -very proud of their tribunal. There is no writing--the cases are not -even recorded--the matter is decided on the spot and in the open air -between man and man; there are no clerks or advocates; no table, ink, or -papers to confuse the simple;[90] no fees or anxious delays, and the -judges, moreover, chosen by and from the peasants themselves, thoroughly -understand the questions brought before them. It is a strange sight, the -sitting of this all-powerful institution, centuries old, in the _Plaza -de la Constitución_, in the twentieth century. There is a dignified -simplicity about it, a lack of display which is imposing. The peasants -have a conscious pride in being able to arrange their own affairs -without interference of the men of learning, just as they are ready to -settle their more private quarrels without recourse to the law. The man -who has been stabbed in a quarrel will conceal the name of his assailant -from the police, always reserving for himself the pleasure of taking -vengeance later on. The character of the peasants of the Huerta is -indeed a mixture of haughtiness and cunning, of simplicity and -shrewdness, and the word that best describes them is the Spanish -_socarronería_--a certain malicious humour.[91] Living isolated in the -vast open plain, they form a community apart, and resent external -interference. Their tribunal is entirely primitive and rustic; in all -its years of city life it has adopted none of the city’s ways, and has -not even the shelter of a roof. - -In the present instance there was but a single question to be settled, -and the proceedings lasted less than five minutes, passing all but -unnoticed. At about a quarter to twelve the judges, five in number, and -dressed in black as ordinary peasants, walked slowly into the enclosure -and occupied their places on the official sofa, taking off their black -felt hats. The full body of the judges is seven, chosen from different -districts to represent the principal canals of irrigation. Another -peasant, officer of the tribunal (on his cap is written _A. de T. -Aguas_, the _alguacil_, that is, of the Tribunal of Waters), standing at -the small gate in the railing, formally declared the tribunal open: -_S’obri el tribunal_ are the consecrated words. He then introduced the -plaintiff and defendant, who stood bareheaded and without their sticks -at half a yard’s distance from the judges. After each had stated his -case--and any interruption is rigorously fined--one of the judges at -once passed sentence. The verdict was against the old man, and he turned -without a word to leave the enclosure. His wife, however, without the -railing, though he put his finger to his lips to silence her, was not to -be overawed, and in a shrill torrent of words reproached the judges as -they filed solemnly into the Plaza. The _Tribunal de las Aguas_ was -closed; the judges dispersed to their silent fields, to meet again in -the rattle and clamour of the crowded city on the following Thursday. -Every Thursday throughout the year the plain green sofa and circular -railing are brought out in sections, and the judges make their -appearance in the Plaza. They do not always enter the enclosure, for -sometimes there is no dispute pending, or the disputants have come to an -agreement in the Plaza without recourse to the tribunal, and when the -clock strikes twelve, railing and sofa are carried back. The judges help -to bring about a settlement, and this perhaps explains that their -official verdicts are given instantaneously, with no pause for thought -or consultation; they have no doubt heard every detail of the case and -come to a decision beforehand. - -Readers of Don Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’ gloomy but delightful novel, “La -Barraca,” will remember the scene at the “Door of the Apostles” when -Batiste, unable to check his indignation at the unjust charge brought -against him, is fined for his excited interruptions and fined too for -the misdeed which he had not committed. But as a rule the scene is a -quiet and almost a solemn one. The tribunal has the sanctity of years; -the peasant respects an institution which was the same in his father’s -time and in his grandfather’s, and in that of his ancestors five -centuries ago. The judges who before and after are simple peasants, are, -for the moment invested with the power of settling matters of vital -importance; for disregarding the sentence of the tribunal they may -deprive a man entirely of his right of water, and so render him and his -family penniless. They represent the whole Huerta, embodying alike its -independent spirit and its conservative traditions. A few minutes after -the judges have risen, and sometimes before the Cathedral clock has -struck twelve, sofa and railing have disappeared, and it is hard to -realize that the time-honoured Judging of the Waters, so primitive and -impressive, has actually been held in this city of two hundred thousand -inhabitants, and in this paved square where now there are but few -wayfarers, and the central fountain flows and trickles in silence. - - - - -XIII - -SEVILLE IN WINTER - - -It is in spring, from March to May, that Seville is chiefly visited; the -warm air and hot sun, the orange-trees in flower, the great religious -festivals, the famous bull-fights, attract a host of foreigners, and the -city has an animation unwonted even in the gay and lively capital of -Andalucía. In winter Seville has a quieter, but perhaps not less potent -charm. Winter often brings with it a succession of cool clear days, when -the sky is of a serene, almost transparent blue, with golden sunsets. -The white lines of flat-roofed houses seen against the blue of the -evening sky have the soft light and colouring of opals, while the -distant hills of the horizon are faintly purple. On these still days the -motionless river reflects the lines of leafless silver birch and yellow -tamarisks in all the tracery of their slender branches. A few yards -further from the bank on either side thousands of dark orange-trees are -hung with gleaming fruit, circling the city with a fringe of lamps. -Above and through the trees, now bare and grey, of the _Paseo de las -Delicias_ show the various greens of the tall eucalyptus-trees and -palms, the orange-trees and cypresses of the Santelmo gardens. On the -quay lie immense mounds of oranges ready to be packed: the hot sun fills -the air with their scent, children make flying attacks and retire -precipitately with an orange apiece, while an occasional beggar also -receives his dole from the apparently inexhaustible store. In the -ever-crowded _Calle de las Sierpes_ small open stalls display fresh -violets and magnificent carnations and roses, and in some gardens one -may see roses and geraniums in flower. In the lovely gardens of the -Alcázar the sun draws a deliciously mingled scent from the box-hedges, -myrtles and oranges. - -Occasionally--still in unclouded weather--the wind is cold and piercing -and all go muffled to the eyes, the men in their _capas_, the women with -long shawls. In the _Patio de los Naranjos_, beneath the trees laden -with oranges, the wind sweeps across the pavement of rough bricks, -intergrown with grass and the duller green of mosses, and rattles the -fallen leaves in lines and circles. Far above, the great Giralda tower -stands pink and creamy grey in the clear winter sky. By the Gate of -Pardon, in a corner of hot sun and sheltered from the wind, a few -beggars sit warming themselves and watching with Oriental patience and -immobility. The streets are mostly too narrow to let in the sun, but in -the _plazas_ and any open space men are seen basking in sunshine, -_tomando el sol_. Along the bridge that leads to the suburb of Triana -the seats on both sides are crowded. Triana, better than Seville, -corresponds to Cervantes’ description of a city where adventures are to -be met at every street corner, and Triana supplies an army of loiterers -whose life’s mission in winter is to “take the sun.” - -On the eve of high festivals in winter, such as the Epiphany, it is -already growing dark when services are held, and the vast Cathedral is -faintly lit with hundreds of candles and dim hanging lamps, though the -last daylight still lingers awhile in the deep reds and purples, green, -orange, and every colour of the windows overhead. There is no procession -of the Three Kings through the city; at Alcoy, in the province of -Valencia, the Three Kings come riding, laden with presents, into the -town from beyond the grey mountains that surround it, and half the -population goes out to meet them, but Seville is too “civilized” for -this. - -Even in Seville not all the winter days are cloudless and serene. On -some of them the sky is a uniform grey, and the rain falls unceasingly -till the centre of the narrower, unevenly cobbled streets, raised at -either side and without a pavement, becomes a running stream. But when -the Andalusian sun reappears, the houses have an added freshness in -their glowing white, or in their coats of faint green or red, yellow or -purple (though even these usually have a line of white along the roof), -and in the air is a feeling of spring. There is an ancient Andalusian -song that makes March say to January-- - - “Con tres días que me quedan - Y tres que me preste mi compadre Abríl - He de poner tus ovejas - Que te acordarás de mí.” - -(With the three days that are left me and three lent me by my friend -April, I will put your sheep in such a plight that you will remember -me.) This is the Cumbrian:-- - - “March said to Aperill - ‘I see three haggs [sheep] upon a hill. - And if you will lend me dayes three - I’ll find a way to make them dee.’” - -But the rigour of the days that follow in Cumberland has no place or -parallel in the low-lying districts of Andalucía:-- - - “The first of them was wind and weet, - The second of them was snaw and sleet, - The third of them was sic a freeze - It froze the birds’ nebs to the trees; - When the three days were past and gane - The three silly haggs came hirpling hame.” - -At Seville a few weeks after the Day of the Kings winter is really over: -in February the sky has an intenser blue, and with the longer sunshine -the warmth increases. The spring days follow in their matchless -splendour, till finally the sun’s fiery heat drives all who can leave -the city to the cooler refuge of the sea or the hills. - - - - -XIV - -FROM A SEVILLE HOUSETOP - - -In winter Seville’s sky is sometimes for weeks entirely cloudless. Day -after day opens and dies peacefully away like a perfect flower; or, if a -strong cold wind drives across the day, it still blows in a heaven of -limitless clear blue. But in early spring the sky is often veiled in a -floating canopy of grey, or one may watch the white masses of clouds -thin and melt on the blue. And the blue is no longer fixed, distant, and -serene; even when apparently clear it has a vague movement of dissolving -mists, an intangible white softness interlacing it. It is this quality -of the sky, harmonizing so well with the soft lines and delicate colours -of the city, that gives to Seville in spring its unfailing charm. -Especially is that charm felt in the hour when men’s cigarettes begin to -glow and dot the streets with tiny fire-flies, distinct as the white -flowers worn by the women in their hair. The deep-red carnations and -dark violets of the open flower-stalls fade into shadow; the light -greens, lilacs, yellows, browns, and blues of the houses take a greyer -tinge. The last sunshine throws its thinner radiance along the white -lines of flat roofs that stand out in many levels and angles on the blue -or blue-and-white sky, and the effect is of pearls and opals, not the -flash of polished opals, but, as it were, blue veins of opal in white -chalk. The west is filled with a level radiance of pure gold, and -presently the eastern sky also changes from blue to a faint golden grey. -One by one the hanging street lamps begin to shed their soft glow of -white light, and overhead the first stars shine faintly and vanish and -reappear. The bells of goats and the mellower note of cowbells are heard -as they go their evening round to be milked, driven by a boy astride his -donkey, or by an old man with faded-pink umbrella; or a donkey passes -laden with oranges, the fruit’s gold gleaming through the twilight -afterglow from between the netting of the panniers. A breath of country -air invades the city; the day’s work is ended, and perhaps from some -church or convent you may hear “a distant bell that seems to mourn the -dying of the day”: - - “Squilla di lontano - Che paia ’l giorno pianger che si muore.” - -The swift Southern twilight soon dies, but this short hour more than any -other embodies the magic of a Seville spring. For Seville at other times -is “a city full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city.” It wakes to -a discordant music of many street cries. All kinds of wares are hawked -shrilly, with loud shouts, or slow, dirge-like chants. Later in the day -come the more melodious cries of “Oranges! Water! Violets! -Carnations!--_¡Qué buenas naranjas! Agua, quien quiere agua! Violetas! -Claveles!_” But to the flat brick-paved housetops, surrounded with walls -of different height, from three to twenty feet, all whitewashed to their -level tops, these sounds of the street come faintly. The rattle of -wheels over the cobbles is deadened, the bells of slowly driven cows and -goats chime distantly; sometimes one hears the intricate whistle of the -knife-grinder, or a barrel-organ plays an interminable dance to the -clacking of castañets, that fascinates by its ceaseless repetition. But -the sounds are vague and muffled, without harshness or stridency, and -here reigns more uninterrupted quiet than in the cool marble _patios_ -below, with the frequent goings out and in through the door’s iron -_reja_. On the walls or in the line of shade beneath them stand rows of -plants--roses, geraniums, heliotrope, and especially carnations. From -here the street sellers fill their open stalls and baskets with the huge -carnations of spring, the smaller early carnations coming chiefly from -Málaga. And the carnations never look more beautiful than seen, dark red -or pink or yellow, against these walls of glistening white; one is fain -to call them by their German or “soft Spanish name”--_Nelken, claveles_. -The sun rising lights up the housetops so that they gleam like snow -between the dark spaces of bronze or green or blue glazed tiles, -slender-springing towers, and infrequent roofs, covered thickly in -spring with grass, like small fields. Or on a night of moon the city has -a phantom look of whited sepulchres, and if no moon looks round her -with delight when the heavens are bare, there is an uninterrupted view -of stars in the whole sky, as from a ship’s deck. At midday, when the -sun is all fire and narrows the lines of shadow to mere rims of black, -one may not look for more than an instant across the glaring radiance of -white. In the morning there is an exquisite freshness. Little smoke -rises from the houses--only an occasional tiny wraith of grey--but, -beyond, a dense line goes up from the Cartuja factory of _azulejos_, and -hangs black-purple on the blue sky--the morning sky streaked with waving -outdrawn wisps of white mist-like cloud. There is a flapping of pigeons’ -wings as they flutter from wall to wall, and the twittering of -innumerable sparrows. The hours are marked by the crystal striking of -many clocks that are heard only dim and intermittently from below in the -street traffic. But it is at evening that the housetop has an almost -magical charm, when the sun has set in a sky of delicate gold, and in -the east long thin lines of white and faint purple cloud lie across a -sky of lightest blue. Then the flowers along the wall give out all their -scent. Swallows whirl and swerve far overhead or lightly skim the -hundred levels of whitewashed turret and wall. The _claveles_ fade -slowly in the growing dusk; the wide, uneven plain of glowing walls -gradually becomes indistinct and blurred; finally the sky, too, is -moulded to a perfect symmetry of grey, and perhaps an immense -orange-coloured moon climbs slowly above the city. Seville is lovely in -winter, when the sky is a cold, serene blue, and night by night the -stars glint and glitter; lovely in spring, when everywhere, in roof and -_patio_ and garden, is a triumph of green, when the oranges still hang -on the orange-trees in flower--like yellow crocuses peering from the -snow--and the corn is already high in the olives beyond the river; -lovely in summer, when the greens are parched and shrivelled, and a hot -wind blows heavily across the fainting housetops, or in nights of sultry -stillness the intense glow from many a lighted _patio_ falls across the -velvet darkness of the narrow streets. Lovely at all times, but never -more lovely than in the temperate days of spring, when a hundred bells -are ringing for the Feast of Resurrection, and the flowers from -countless roofs are gathered for the _fête_; when, in scenes of fairy -magic, the slow _pasos_ move with their myriad candles burning through -the twilight, along the crowded streets and _plazas_ to the Cathedral, -while still peacefully above its Court of Oranges the tall Giralda looks -across the city that hems it in, to the wide _dehesas_ of Andalucía, to -the green fields and olive-covered hills beyond the gently flowing -Guadalquivir, and to the distant line of the Sierra Morena. - - - - -XV - -FEBRUARY IN ANDALUCÍA - - -Not one perhaps in a hundred of those who visit Seville and Granada sees -more than a glimpse of the beautiful country and curious villages of -Andalucía; yet there is much pleasure and interest to be had from a -journey through all this region. In February an early start with the sun -will enable the traveller on horseback or on foot to accomplish a fair -day’s journey, since the sun has not yet begun to burn and force him to -rest for some six central hours of the day, as later in the year. And -the outlines on every side are exquisitely clear, the sky usually -cloudless, and streams flow where later there will be but dry channels. -In parts the fields and roadside spaces are blue and purple with -dwarf-irises (the peasants call them simply _lirios_, lilies), and the -almond-trees are in flower; and at no time of the year is there a -greater and more delightful contrast between spring in the valley and -winter on the hills. Near Seville the immense plains stretch -interminably to the faint mountains, brown and dull-green pastures of -heather and dwarf-palm, flecked with silver-white streaks of water; -herds of cattle, glossy black with white horns, pigs, horses, and great -flocks of sheep graze there. Or the country is gently undulating like -Sussex downs, but with softlier-moulded outlines and a horizon of faint -blue mountains, in February exquisitely distinct in faintness. A village -often entirely covers one of the small hills, not a house venturing -forward to form an outskirt, but all clustered and compact. Steep, -perfectly straight streets of sharp narrow cobbles, without side -pavements, run up to the church at the top through rows of low, -whitewashed houses, of a single storey and of a dazzling whiteness. At -evening the labourers come in from the far distant fields in a -continuous line, on foot or on mules and donkeys, and children go out to -meet them and are given a ride back into the village. Sometimes their -return is of several kilomètres, over deep earthy or stony paths, and, -with their gleaming mattocks (_pioches_, _azadones_) over their -shoulders, they are now to be seen clearly outlined on the evening sky, -and now are lost from view in one of the many hollows of the hills. Far -and near there is no tree, “neither bush nor shrub to bear off any -weather at all,” and the winds seem to have sifted and moulded the hills -into softly folding mounds and hollows. In February the winds still blow -occasionally with icy breath, and you will meet men on crimson and -magenta-tasselled mules and donkeys, closely wrapped in old-fashioned -_capas_ of brown, only their eyes visible. On the road there are few -travellers--charcoal-burners coming down with troops of laden donkeys -from the hills, or a slow cart drawn by a string of mules, the driver -lazily asleep, and the reins appearing from between the soles of his -sandals,[92] or a troop of gipsies, or orange sellers with the panniers -of their mules brimmed with oranges, now selling at six _reales_, a -little over a shilling, the hundred. Sometimes the country is all -grey-pinched and icy, and but a little further (as near snow-white Arcos -de la Frontera) are great hedges of shrubs and aloes and brambles and -cactus, with a sound of bees, and hovering white and yellow butterflies, -and wide spaces of tall branched flowers of asphodel and grey scented -rosemary. Or in a corner of windswept hills you may find a sheltered -_huerta_ with thick hedge of tall black cypresses; the oranges crowd the -trees with gold, and the almond-trees shed across the dusty road a thick -carpet of broken flowers, pink and white. To Grazalema leads only a -steep and narrow foot-path after one has left the road not far from -Algodonales (pronounced by the peasants in a torrent of vowels Aooae) -and crossed the river Guadalete. In the valley the oranges gleam in -myriads, and the hills immediately above are coloured with a continuous -spray of almond-trees in flower, entirely covering their sides, and -sometimes crowning them in triumph. And far above, over woods of cork -and evergreen oak from which rise frail blue lines of smoke from -charcoal-burners’ fires, appear two or three peaks of snow clear against -a pale blue sky. The path goes up along hedges of brambles through -asphodels and hundreds of trailing periwinkles, with stepping-stones and -flowing streams; here and there a snow-white olive-oil mill with -sentinel cypresses. And, below, the pale snow-fed Guadalete flows -swiftly over white stones through groves of oranges. From a distance -Grazalema gives the fanciful idea of broken shells on a stony shore, -with its houses of white and pink and brown, many of them overhanging -and seeming to grow out of steep rocks. From the village a path leads -through corkwoods, the stripped trunks of the trees a deep maroon -colour, to Ronda on its sheer hill. From Antequera to Málaga by road is -some fifty kilomètres, and here, too, are wonderful contrasts and sudden -change from winter to summer. In the unsheltered plains round Bobadilla -the almond-trees show no sign of flower, and the grey mountains above -the stern frowning towers of Antequera are ice-bound. Turning the pass, -appears a magnificent view of six or seven serrated hill-ranges to the -line of sea beyond hidden Málaga--on the left a fantastically jagged -range, sprinkled in parts with snow; on the right a long line of -snow-mountains that ends in a bare range rising purple from the sea. And -the ice soon grows thin and vanishes, giving place to irises, tiny -jonquils, and periwinkles, and descending half-way down the mountain -side, to Villanueva, the almond-trees have already lost half their -blossoms, grass and white dusty road and dark new-ploughed soil are -thickly strewn with their petals, and the fields of broad beans are in -scented black and white flower. Along the coast full summer reigns, the -balconies are heavy with trailing flowers, the sea is deepest blue, and -the wind blows half-sultrily across the fields of beans and the -faded-green leaves of sugar-cane, with their scent of hay. Sometimes the -road is lined with poplars, and ox-carts go laden with grass and trefoil -and leaves from the sugar-canes. Elsewhere the road winds inland through -grey rocky hills and woods of strong-scented pines, with glimpses of -blue sea; or passes high above cliffs, the sea swelling dull green -immediately below or foaming round dark rocks. From Motril or some other -point one may go up to Granada, the Sierra Nevada appearing and altering -continually; and thoughts of the Alhambra and other names of magic -shorten the road, though it has many a beautiful view and village, such -as Pino to the left on the mountain side, with its white houses and deep -red-brown roofs. But of the many fair districts of Andalucía perhaps the -most delightful in scenery is that lying between the Guadalquivir and La -Mancha, a region of brushwood and mountain. The road from Marmolejo runs -up through hills covered with shrubs of every shade of green, from -grey-blue to shrill yellow, many of them scented, lentiscus, escalonia, -_adelfa_, cistus, rosemary, and a hundred more; even in February the -mid-day sun scents the whole air with them. Near the village of -Cardeña, some thirty miles from Marmolejo, a ruin is supposed to be that -of the inn where many scenes of “Don Quixote” occurred, but only a few -stones remain. Leaving the village in early morning in frost and ice in -order to go down to Montoro on the Guadalquivir, the road at first is -wild, bordered by oak-trees, with flocks of sheep, a few patches of -corn, many magpies, the plaining of birds and the occasional whirr of a -partridge. Yet even here in a few hollows are vines and almond-trees, -and spaces of scented plants and wild yellow jonquils, with white or -brown or yellow butterflies, a humming of bees and rustling of lizards. -The road now cuts through hills of scented shrubs, so various and -ordered with such careful harmony as could be rivalled by no garden -planted by man. On either side are range and range of hills -shrub-covered, dull green, brown and blue, brown where the shrubs have -been cut for firing. To the right is a wide deep gorge with tiny river -far below, and glimpses of blue distances and valleys of more hills. To -the left more hills, and across a blue distance of hill valleys the -Sierra de Jaen with its beautiful pyramid-shaped peak of deepest snow, -and far to the right of it the two more pointed peaks of Granada’s -Sierra Nevada, marvellously clear in distance. Between them and the -Sierra de Jaen runs the snow-sprinkled range above the village of Los -Villares de Jaen. In the transparent might of even a February noon the -more distant and the higher of the near hills are purple, and the great -snow-mountains below the snow-line grow faint and grey. Montoro is a -beautiful quaint town rising above the Guadalquivir in seven or eight -storeys of houses of red stone and whitewash. The tall church-tower, -also of red stone, stands massively above the town, and precipitously -steep and cobbled streets lead up to it. Houses look sheer down from -windows, balconies, and gardens to the river far below, which flows over -a weir above and below the town, so that there is a perpetual sound of -rushing water. From Montoro one may follow the Guadalquivir, now a -majestic river, through its olive groves to the famous bridge of -Alcolea, and the low white line beneath bare hills and wooded mountains -which is Córdoba, seen from the East. Everywhere on the roads and in the -inns of Andalucía the peasants are courteous, pleasant, intelligent, -picturesque; always ready to give any service in their power, often -immensely ignorant. They will ask if “Ingalaterra” is not Spain’s -border-country and confuse it with Gibraltar, or if the Queen was a -Christian before her marriage. For the most part they cannot read or -write;[93] yet they converse willingly on the most various subjects, -especially on politics and religion, the mayor and the priest. Here a -woman complains: “Nine children I had, and the nine are dead; it’s -better so in these times of misery”; there a peasant describes the snowy -Sierra in the month of August, how it glows whiter than lilies across -the plain--_más blanca, que una azucena_; or tells how beautiful is the -country in later spring when the quinces, apples, and pomegranates are -in flower, _que es un paraiso_--a very paradise. As they sit round the -_candela_, in the cold evenings of early spring, talk flows on into the -night, always pleasant and courteous, as of one _gran señor_ to -another. - - - - -XVI - -SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH LITERATURE - - -There is not a literature in Europe more individual than that of Spain. -It has been influenced greatly at various times by other countries, -especially Italy and France, but in its many masterpieces it has a -flavour of the soil, a local colouring that is all its own. Even when -Spanish authors have borrowed most freely they have usually succeeded in -casting their own individuality over their “honourable kind of -thieving.” Who has a more individual genius than Juan Ruiz, the merry -Archpriest of Hita? Yet it has been shown that his debt to French, -Latin, and other authors is very considerable. In this form of -borrowing--practised by Shakespeare--which is not a direct imitation but -a loan of bricks to make them marble, there is in fact a high -originality. The phrase in which the merits of the Marqués de Santillana -have been summed up might be applied to the whole of Spanish literature: -when it ceases to imitate it is inimitable. Santillana’s mountain -songs--his _serranillas_ are scented as it were with the thyme of the -Castilian hills, whereas his sonnets in the Italian manner are -colourless and artificial. - -Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly speaks of “that forcible realistic touch, that -alert vision, that intense impression of the thing seen and accurately -observed which give to Spanish literature its peculiar stamp of -authenticity.” The clear atmosphere of Spain, in which distant mountains -seem to be close at hand, is also the atmosphere of Spanish literature. -The Spaniard may have little subtlety of insight or critical judgment, -but he has a directness of vision that has manifested itself in bigotry, -brutality, and cynical satire, as well as in keen humour, -straight-forwardness, and dignity of character. The realism which has -produced the terrible Christs of the Cathedrals, with their long human -hair and life-like wounds, or the polychrome statues of Spanish carvers, -with a presentation of pain on the human face in all and more than all -its horror--this realism may be due either to a hatred of all that is -false and factitious or to a lack of sensibility, an inability to -sympathize without a harsh shock, a thrill of terrified awe. What would -the Greeks have said to these tortured features, these agonizing brows -and flowing wounds? It is as false art to perpetuate in wood or stone -the agony of a few culminating moments as it is to picture a face -laughing or yawning, from whose perpetually open mouth we will soon turn -with a laugh or a yawn. This realism has found a less harsh expression -in Spanish literature, as in the sane and brilliant art of Velázquez. -The brutality occasionally makes itself felt, as in some of Quevedo’s -bitter writings, but most often the spirit is nobler and more human. In -the twelfth-century “Poema del Cid” all the figures stand out in -wonderful clearness, from the Cid himself to the nine years’ old child -at Burgos, who tells the Cid that they dare not open their doors to him -for fear of the King’s edict. And the events of the poem are brought to -pass before our eyes with a joyful zest and rapidity and a stamp of -truth that are worthy of Homer. We see the Cid ride with a hundred -chosen knights across the Bridge of Alcántara and up Toledo’s narrow -streets. We see him knocking at the gate of San Pedro de Cardeña to bid -farewell to his wife Doña Jimena, and the abbot, who was saying Mass for -the return of dawn, running out with lights and torches to welcome “him -who was born in happy hour.” We see him again in battle as the pennants -rise and fall, we hear “the sword’s griding screech” and the trampling -of the horses at which the earth trembles. In “Celestina,” the long -prose drama of the end of the fifteenth century, we have the same truth -to life, though in very different scenes. Here it is not knights and -battles, but common people of the street--the old hag Celestina, or -Calisto’s servants--that are drawn with a master hand. - -“Celestina” gives some inkling of the picaresque novels to come, of -which the flower and cream is “Lazarillo de Tormes” (1554 is the date of -our earliest edition), to be followed by “Guzmán de Alfarache,” “El -Buscón,” and a long posterity in Spain, France, and England. This is no -tale of true love like the “Celestina,” but of gnawing hunger and of the -ingenious efforts of Lazarillo to procure himself bread. His successive -masters, the blind beggar, the miserly priest, the penniless Castilian -gentleman, the rascally seller of Papal bulls, are sketched in the -autobiography of their servant Lazarillo, with the keen eye of famine, -and are unforgettable, as is Lazarillo himself, whose name has become -the common name in Spain for a blind man’s guide, just as Victor Hugo’s -immortal Gavroche gave his name to the Paris _gamin_. It is, in fact, a -masterpiece of seven short chapters, lively in every sentence, of a -direct and biting humour, perhaps the most graphic story ever penned. A -few terse phrases throw a scene or a character into amazingly high -relief, and the picture is as fresh and living to-day as when it first -appeared three and a half centuries ago. No other country and no other -language could have produced a piece of realism so cynically bare, so -completely charming. It has the caustic pithiness of Spanish proverbs, -the bitter flavour of harsh Iberia. It belongs to life rather than to -literature, but life portrayed with the restraint and force of a -consummate art. It was early translated into English as “The Marvelus -Dedes and the Lyf of Lazaro de Tormes.” The authorship of “Lazarillo” -has been ascribed to this man and to that, and there has been great -argument about it and about, without the least degree of certainty. The -name of Hurtado de Mendoza is frequently to be found upon the -title-page. Born in 1503, he was alive when the novel appeared; he was -an author; he could write in trenchant, nay, in scurrilous style, as his -letters concerning the Pope show--he calls him an old rascal, _vellaco_; -but these are hardly conclusive proofs. Whoever the author, the work -still reigns supreme, though many may have thought with Ginés de -Pasamonte in “Don Quixote” that it would be an evil moment for -“Lazarillo” when their memoirs appeared. Half a century after -“Lazarillo” the same faithfulness to picaresque reality, with a broader -outlook and a more universal sympathy, is to be found in the “Novelas -Ejemplares” of Cervantes. Rinconete and Cortadillo, the eponymous heroes -of one of his best-known stories, are closely related to Lazarillo; they -are in fact the Lazarillos of the South of Spain. On the realism of “Don -Quixote” it is unnecessary to lay stress. Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, -referring to its immediate triumph, says: “To contemporary readers the -charm of ‘Don Quixote’ lay in its amalgamation of imaginative and -realistic elements, in its accumulated episodes, in its infinite -sympathy and its persuasive humour. There was no question, then, as to -whether ‘Don Quixote’ was a well of symbolic doctrine. The canvas was -crowded with types familiar to every one who had eyes to see his -companions on the dusty highways of Spain. The wenches who served Don -Quixote with stockfish and black bread; the lad Andrés, flayed in the -grove of oaks by Juan Haldudo the Rich of Quintanar; the goatherds -seated round the fire on which the pot of salted goat was simmering; -the three lively needle-makers from the Colt of Córdoba; the midnight -procession escorting the dead body from Baeza to Segovia, and chanting -dirges on the road; the dozen galley-slaves tramping on, strung together -like beads on an iron chain; all these are observed and presented with -masterly precision of detail.”[94] - -In spite of Censors and Inquisitors Spanish literature was free and -outspoken, for it portrayed life as it was. If it shows devotion to -Church and King it is because these were deeply-rooted national -convictions. But the priests sometimes meet with less respect. The Cid -threatens to make of the Pope’s vestments trappings for his horse, and -we have seen that Hurtado de Mendoza, the King of Spain’s ambassador in -Rome, speaks of his Holiness in terms that call to mind Benvenuto -Cellini’s passionate outbursts. We have seen, too, the unflattered -portraits of priest and pardon-seller in “Lazarillo de Tormes.” -Cervantes, who “respects and adores the Church as a Catholic and -faithful Christian,” does not fail to thrust fun at the fat _alforjas_, -the well-provisioned saddle-bags of the _señores clérigos_, “who rarely -allow themselves to fare ill,” and he deals more sternly with the -household priests who “govern princes’ houses, and, not being of -princely birth themselves, are unable to guide the conduct of those who -are,” and who “in trying to teach those they govern to be narrow and -limited make them miserable.” He gives us the picture of the false -pilgrims who travel through the length and breadth of Spain, “and there -is not a village in which they do not receive meat and drink and at -least a _real_ in money, and at the end of their journey they leave the -country with a treasure of over a hundred ducats,” and he even allows -himself to wonder why Ginés de Pasamonte’s clever monkey has not been -arraigned before the gentlemen of the Inquisition. - -There are in Spanish literature occasional signs of a distorted -imagination, a restless longing to materialize the invisible, which is -not a fanciful dreaming, but rather a kind of super-realism, a strained -and persistent effort to attain a tangible perfection--the spirit which -in some Spanish buildings has added ornament to ornament till the result -is a rich magnificence in an infinity of details but hideousness as a -whole. One form of this we have in such works as Quevedo’s “Sueños,” -another, the Churrigueresque, in the later style of Góngora. On the -other hand, we have the great Spanish mystics in their sincerity, -reflected in the exquisite simplicity of their style, one of the noblest -glories of the literature of their country. Yet they, too, as has often -been pointed out, were pre-eminently practical; Luis de León, for -instance, energetic head of the Augustinian Order; Santa Teresa, the -wise, untiring administrator. Their writings have the fiery transparency -of Pascal, and all the clear and vivid precision of military writers of -many countries, in whose case, as in that of so large a number of -Spaniards, “the lance has not blunted the pen.”[95] The mystics rise to -noble heights of sublimity, but the virtue of their writing is that it -is to the point, with no vague rhetoric; and no advocate could surpass -the lucidity with which Luis de León conducted his own defence before -the Inquisition. - -Perhaps the weakest side of Spanish literature is its deficiency in -critical insight. Few, indeed, are the Spanish authors of whom it might -be said, as Ticknor said long ago of Luis de León, that there is -scarcely a line of their poetry that is not exquisite. Espronceda’s -undeniable genius, for instance, shatters itself on that unwieldy -fragment “El Diablo Mundo.” Excessive facility of composition has been -the stumbling-block of the authors as it has been the stumbling-block of -the orators of Spain. Hardly a speaker in the Spanish _Cortes_ is ever -at a loss for words to give expression to his ideas or to conceal the -lack of them. Each, as Don Adriano de Armado in “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” -is one - - “That hath a mint of phrases in his brain, - One whom the music of his own vain tongue - Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.” - -Even so marvellous an orator as Emilio Castelar was at times carried -away by the magnificent eloquence that flowed unfailingly from his lips. -In the same way Lope de Vega could throw off a play in a few days. Over -2000 plays and _autos_ are ascribed to him, and in the 450 that remain -his most ardent admirers confess that there are arid tracts. And, -ordinarily, this copiousness has been a fault, telling against Spanish -literature, and it continues to be a fault: Señor Blasco Ibáñez writes -his brilliant novels in evident haste; Señor Perez Galdós has entered -on the fifth series of ten of his “Episodios Nacionales,” and his other -novels and plays are very numerous. Such wealth of production could not -but be harmful to critical judgment. In the nineteenth century Spain -produced one or two excellent critics, especially Larra and _Clarín_, -the pseudonym of Leopoldo Alas, author of “La Regenta,” one of the most -striking psychological novels of the century. Generally, however, if -German literary criticism is circular and, however illuminating the -by-paths of its learning, wanders round the point without ever quite -touching it, Spanish literary criticism is superficial, and either veils -the point in a polite mesh of words, or is prevented by this very -rhetoric from seeing the point at all. Even Valera, who so carefully -limned his own prose, and whose verse, though not inspired, is always -delicate and polished, was far from being a good critic. He praised -effusively works that at best deserved silence, and this insincerity in -literary matters is, it is to be feared, a common weakness in Spain. - -The characteristic of Spanish literature that unites it in a special -bond of sympathy with English literature is its large store of humour. -It meets us in the “Poema del Cid,” in the character of the Cid, and in -the quick detection of the ludicrous; the poems of the Archpriest of -Hita are full of merriment and of humorous portrayal of character; the -humour of the Archpriest reappears in “Lazarillo de Tormes,” but without -his jovial gaiety; with Quevedo its vein becomes cruelly satirical. -Humour did not desert Luis de León when ill and solitary in the dark -Valladolid prison of the Inquisition; and it is to be found in a large -majority of Spanish authors, being but another side of their direct, -unclouded observation. In the most humorous of all books, even Don -Quixote, the Knight of the Sad Countenance, is constrained to laugh: at -the sight of Sancho, we read, his melancholy was not strong enough to -prevent him from joining in his laughter--and the whole world laughs -with, not at him. - -It is because Spanish literature is intensely national that it has so -universal an interest, and in its most recent phase, the novel, it has a -local character that is full of charm. José María de Pereda, for -instance, scarcely ever left his native Cantabrian province. He wrote of -the places and people that he understood and loved. Yet no one who has -read his great novels, “El Sabor de la Tierruca,” or “Sotileza,” or -“Peñas Arriba,” will contend that they are provincial, or that their -interest is merely local.[96] His characters are universal, and Pereda -is another instance of the truth that he who digs a little land deep -reaps a better reward than he who works shallowly over a wide extent. So -Señor Blasco Ibáñez is read with most delight when he cultivates his own -garden--the city and province of Valencia. - - - - -XVII - -THE POEM OF THE CID - - -1.--A PRIMITIVE MASTERPIECE - -The national hero of Spain has been presented in many guises, but is -nowhere more intensely Spanish than in the “Poema del Cid.” Here are no -marvellous events and miracles, no journeyings out of Spain to Paris and -Rome; everything occurs naturally and simply in Spanish surroundings, -and this the first great masterpiece of Spanish letters has a strong -flavour of the soil. After winning a “victory marvellous and great” over -the Moors in Spain, the Cid says, “I give thanks to God who is Master of -the world; I was in want before, now I am rich, for I have goods and -land and gold and honour.... Moors and Christians live in great fear of -me. There, inland in Morocco, where the Mosques are, they look to have -some night an inroad from me. It is but their fear, for I think not of -it. I shall not go to seek them, in Valencia shall I be.” The Cid is -chivalrous, brave, magnanimous, simple, with a strong sense of humour -and love of fair-play. With simple good faith the poet sees no need to -explain or excuse actions of his hero that may seem blameworthy to a -later age, such as the deceit practised upon the two Jews. Though not -historical, the poem has an air of truth and sincerity deeply -impressive. It was probably composed in the middle of the twelfth -century, not much more than fifty years after the Cid’s death in 1099. -It has been attributed to the beginning of the thirteenth century, but -intrinsic evidence warrants the earlier date. The language is more -archaic than that of thirteenth-century writers. Traces of the Latin -chrysalis appear. “To-morrow morning” is _cras á la mañana_, half Latin -and half Spanish, and “each” in the same way is _quiscadauno_, while the -word _huebos_, which frequently occurs in the sense of _menester_, is -but the Latin _opus_ thinly disguised. The poem, as it has come down to -us incomplete, has nearly four thousand verses. It is written in long -assonant lines of unequal number of syllables. “The poet,” as Tomas -Antonio Sánchez, who first edited the “Poema del Cid” in 1779, remarks, -“thought nothing of giving two or three syllables more to a line as his -sentence might require,” and lines of eleven and lines of eighteen -syllables occur indifferently. From beginning to end the story moves on -without flagging; the style is so rapid and direct that it carries the -reader with it. There is a joy and freshness in the narrative that have -rarely been surpassed.[97] These events may not have happened, or may -have happened differently, but that matters little, since, owing to the -skill of the unknown poet, they stand out with a vividness that imprints -them indelibly on the mind of the reader and proves that nothing is so -real as that which has not happened. Who can forget, for instance, the -arrival of King Alfonso and the Cid at Toledo, when the King passes on -into the town, but the Cid remains on the further side of the Tagus, in -the castle of San Serván (now a beautiful ruin with two Moorish windows -still left, and surrounded by dwarf-asphodels in spring). He says to the -King: “I with mine will rest in San Serván; this evening will my -followers arrive. I will hold vigil in that holy place; to-morrow -morning I will enter the city.” Here he and his followers “said matins -and prime until the dawn,” and next day they enter Toledo, the Cid -splendidly attired and accompanied by a hundred knights, riding across -the bridge of Alcántara and up the steep and narrow street to the Court -or Parliament.[98] Every detail of his dress is given, purple and gold -and silver. But fresh and quaintly vivid details are frequent in the -poem. When the counts of Carrión have outraged and abandoned their -wives the poet pauses to exclaim, “What good fortune were the Cid -Campeador to appear.” Félez Muñoz, on finding the Cid’s daughters almost -at the point of death, brings them water in his hat: “new it was and -fresh, and he had brought it from Valencia.” Mass is said “at half -cock-crow, before the dawn.” The Moor Abengalvon upbraids the treachery -of his guests in planning his murder as follows: “Tell me what have I -done to you, Counts of Carrión? I serving you without guile, and you -took counsel for my death, _Hyo sirviendovos sin art, E vos conseiastes -para mi muert_.” Nothing could be more spontaneous and direct. With -equal directness honest Pero Bermuez calls one of the Counts of Carrión -“a tongue without hands,” “a mouth without truth,” and we read of Asur -González, who “would breakfast before he went to prayer,” that “purple -he came for he had breakfasted, and reckless was his speech.” The -account of the battle is well known: “they clasp their shields before -their breasts, they lower their lances with their banners, they bow -their faces over the saddles, they went to smite them with bold hearts. -With loud voice calls he who was born in happy hour, ‘Strike them, -knights, for the love of charity. I am Ruy Diaz, the Cid Campeador of -Bibar.’ All strike in the group where is Pero Bermuez. Three hundred -lances are there, all with their banners. A Moor apiece they killed at a -single blow, and as they turned about they kill as many more. There -would you see many lances rise and fall, many a shield pierced and -riddled, many a breastplate broken through, many white banners come out -red with blood, many good steeds go without a rider. The Moors call on -Mahomet, the Christians on St. James. In a short space a thousand and -three hundred of the Moors are slain.” No version can give an idea of -the vigour of the original. But it is not only battle scenes that are -treated forcibly and thrown into high relief. We may take the arrival of -the Cid at San Pedro de Cardeña as an example of the amazing vividness -given to more quiet episodes: “The cocks are crowing and the dawn is -trying to break, when the good Campeador arrived at San Pedro. The Abbot -Don Sancho, servant of the Creator, was saying Matins for the return of -dawn. And Doña Jimena, with five noble ladies, was praying St. Peter and -the Creator: ‘O Thou who guidest all, be with my Cid the Campeador.’ He -was calling at the gate and they heard the summons. Heavens! how glad -was the Abbot Don Sancho! With lights and with candles they ran into the -courtyard. With such joy they receive him who was born in happy hour. ‘I -thank God, my Cid,’ said the Abbot Don Sancho, ‘since I see you here, -accept my hospitality.’” - - -II. VALENCIA DEL CID. - -The poem opens abruptly with the exile of the Cid from Castille. He -rides to his house at Burgos but finds all closed against him. Only a -nine-year-old girl is found to tell him that “last night came the King’s -letter. We dare not open or receive you, else would we lose our goods -and houses, and moreover the eyes of our heads.” - -To obtain money the Cid fills two chests with sand, and on these -“covered with red leather, and studded with nails well-gilt,” he obtains -six hundred marks from the Jews Rachel and Vidas. They are not to open -the chests for a year. On the wall in the cloister of the Cathedral at -Burgos still hangs an ancient chest known as the _Cofre del Cid_. Thus -furnished, the Cid leaves Castille, and he prays solemnly to God and the -glorious Saint Mary, “for here I leave Castille, since the King is wrath -with me, and I know not if in all my days I shall enter it again.” He -takes leave of his wife and children at the Convent of San Pedro de -Cardeña, and, after early Mass said by the Abbot Don Sancho, departs, -wistfully turning his head to look back. Doña Jimena, his wife, prays -for his safety to the “glorious Lord the Father, who madest Heaven and -Earth, and thirdly, the sea, who madest stars and moon and the sun to -give heat.” Already men were flocking to the Cid’s banner, and his first -exploit is the capture of the town of Castejon. He lies in ambush before -it: “The dawn is breaking, and morning was at hand. The sun went forth, -Heavens! how beautiful it rose. In Castejon all were awaking. They open -the gates, and quickly went forth to see their work in the fields and -their possessions.” When they were all gone forth, the Cid took the -town. The next town, Alcocer, he also captures by a wile. “The news -grieves those of Teca, the men of Teruel it does not please; it pleases -not the men of Calatayud.” A host of Moors besieges the Cid in Alcocer, -and after three weeks, the provisions failing, he goes forth and gains a -great victory. At the sound of the drums of the Moorish host “the earth -was like to crack.” He pursues the enemy to the walls of Calatayud. -_Fata Calatayuth duró el segudar._ He sends Alvar Fáñez to _Castiella la -gentil_ with a present of thirty horses for King Alfonso and money for -Doña Jimena, and for a thousand masses at Santa María de Burgos. -Zaragoza agrees to pay tribute to the Cid. Don Remont Berenger, Count of -Barcelona, goes out against him, and persists in coming to an -engagement, though the Cid sends him a message: “I have nothing of his, -bid him let me go in peace.” The result is a crushing defeat of the -“army of the Franks,” and the Count is taken prisoner. The account of -his captivity is entertaining. The Count refuses all food: “‘I will not -eat a mouthful for all there is in Spain. I will rather die (lit. lose -my body and leave my soul) since such ill-equipped men have beaten me in -battle.’ You will hear what said my Cid Ruy Diaz: ‘Eat, Count, of this -bread and drink this wine; if you do as I say you shall be free, if not -in all your days you shall not see Christian land.’” The Count eats -nothing for three days: “They dividing these great spoils cannot make -him eat a piece of bread.” Then the Cid renews his promise to give him -liberty: “But of what you have lost and I won in the field know that I -will not give you any part, but what you have lost I will not give you, -for I have need of it for me and for my vassals, and will not give it -you.” At length the Count yields. “The Count is eating, Heavens! with -what good will. Over against him sat he who was born in happy hour: ‘If -you eat not well, Count, and I am not satisfied, here we shall remain, -we shall not part.’... The Cid, who is watching him, is satisfied, so -quickly did Count Remont move his hands,” and he escorts him on his way. -The Count takes his leave and “goes turning his head and looking back; -with fear he went that the Cid will repent, that which he would not do -for all that is in the world.” Fresh victories follow. The Cid carries -the war “over against the salt sea” and takes among other towns -Murviedro (the old Saguntum and modern Sagunto). Here he is besieged by -the Valencians, but sallies forth and defeats them. _Fata Valencia duró -el segudar._ For three years he continues to wage war and take towns. -“The fame of my Cid, know well, is noised abroad.” “The inhabitants of -Valencia know not what to do. From no quarter came bread, father and son -are without counsel, friend cannot comfort friend. A bad thing, Sirs, it -is to have a lack of bread.” After a siege of nine months the Cid takes -Valencia. He establishes a Christian bishopric in his new town, and -sends a present of a hundred horses to King Alfonso. Alvar Fáñez on his -return escorts Doña Jimena and her daughters Elvira and Sol to Valencia. -The Cid bids them welcome to the city: “‘You, loved and honoured wife, -and both my daughters, my heart and my soul, enter with me the city of -Valencia, the possession that I have won you.’ Mother and daughters -kissed his hands, with such honour entered they Valencia. My Cid went -with them to the Citadel: he led them up to the highest part. Velvet -eyes glance on all sides. They look at Valencia, how the city lies, and -on the other side they have the sea. They look on the plain, luxuriant, -and large. They raise their hands to pray to God. So glad is my Cid and -his companions for this good and great spoil. The winter is departing, -and March is about to come in....” The Moorish King Jucef, with “fifty -times a thousand” Moors, comes up against the Cid, but is defeated with -great slaughter. “There escaped not more than a hundred and four.” A -fresh present of two hundred horses is sent to King Alfonso. The Counts -of Carrión now determine to ask for the Cid’s daughters in marriage, and -the King proposes an interview with the Cid “above the Tagus, which is a -principal river.” The marriage is arranged, and the Counts return with -the Cid to Valencia, where the wedding festivities last a full -fortnight. The guests depart laden with presents from the Cid. “Rich -return to Castille those who had come to the wedding.” And here there is -a very definite division in the poem. “The verses of this song have here -an ending. May the Creator be with you and all his Saints” (lines, 2286, -7). The remainder of the poem tells of the treachery and punishment of -the Counts of Carrión. It begins with the incident of the lion. A lion -that was kept in the court of the Cid’s house escaped one day as the Cid -lay asleep. His trusty followers drew round him to keep him from harm, -but of the Counts of Carrión one scrambled under the Cid’s bench, the -other ran out by the door crying: “I shall not see Carrión,” and hid -behind the beam of a wine-press, so that his cloak and doublet were all -soiled. The Cid, having cowed the lion, “asked for his sons-in-law, but -found them not. They call aloud for them, but none answers. When they -found them and they came, they came all pale. You have not seen such -jests as went about the Court. My Cid the Campeador ordered that they -should cease.” Further events showed the small spirit and treachery of -the Cid’s sons-in-law, and his daughters are ultimately betrothed to -nobler men, the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon. The poem, as we have it, -ends with a prayer that God may give Paradise to him who wrote (_i.e._ -copied) it, and with a request for money or a glass of wine for its -reciters: “Dat nos del vino si non tenedes dineros.” - - - - -XVIII - -A PRISONER OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION - - -I.--NOVEDADES - -The poetry of Luis de León is not voluminous; he has no great variety of -theme; he sings “the quiet life of him who shuns the world’s uproar;” -but there is, as has been said, scarcely a line of it that is not -exquisite. And if, as a lyric poet, Luis de León stands in the front of -Spanish literature, as a writer of eloquent and well-moulded Castilian -prose he has had few equals. His “Nombres de Cristo” is one of the -masterpieces of the Spanish language. The sentences are perhaps -occasionally too prolix, lengthening out in a rich profusion of words -and images. He had, as Ticknor said, a Hebrew soul, and he delighted in -similes. It is indeed partly this that gives to his style a colour and a -sound which rank him among the greatest prose-writers of any age. But as -a writer Luis de León is too well known to need comment. And to himself -his literary works were of a secondary importance, and held a -subordinate place in his strenuous and energetic life. Born in 1527, of -a well-known family at Belmonte in La Mancha, he was sent by his father -at the age of fourteen to the University of Salamanca with the advice to -“follow the common opinion in letters, _que siguiese la opinión comun en -las letras_.” The precept was not unneeded in that age, for the -Reformation had unhinged men’s beliefs and left them a prey to many -fears. Intolerance on the side of reformers was answered by fresh -intolerance. In Spain one might least expect any dissent from the -accepted religion. Even in Spain, however, the general ferment of the -rest of Europe had found an echo, the spirit of doubt and inquiry had -penetrated to the Spanish Universities, and men’s minds were opening to -new lines of thought. There was indeed ample scope for reform. -Scholasticism had become a dry and stilted system, well qualified to -call down ridicule on all learning. Its professors delighted in -hairsplitting and quibbles. Luis de León speaks with a scathing sarcasm -of the type of professor who said that he was ... “content with a -knowledge of St. Thomas and the Saints ... and had no wish for any new -learning (_novedades_);” of those who “flatter themselves and fancy -that, because they have in their rooms a score of books covered with -dust, and have obtained the degree of master of arts, they have well -earned the name of men of letters, and may for the rest give themselves -up quite securely to sleep and good living ... and they consider that -the mere fact of having the books and dipping into some part of them -once a year bestows on them a knowledge of St. Thomas and the Saints.” -But the new spirit of inquiry and reform led those who belonged to the -old school to fence themselves the more closely with narrow and bigoted -beliefs, to cling to conventionalities of dogma, and to cry out on the -most innocent innovations. Violent attacks on Scholasticism had the -effect of showing more moderate attempts at reform in an odious light. -Suspicions were everywhere rife, and it required no little care to avoid -the accusation of being anxious for “new things.” The highest -ecclesiastics were not exempt from attack. Carranza, the Archbishop of -Toledo, had spent a certain number of years in England. In 1556 he had -visited Oxford and found it Catholic, _la encontró católica_, but in the -following year at Cambridge he burnt many heretical books and English -Bibles. On his return to Spain he was thought to have been contaminated -by contact with so many heretics, though he boasted that he had done -more than any other in discovering them. - - -II.--SALAMANCA UNIVERSITY - -In the Universities especially accusations of every kind hung fire over -men marked out by their position or abilities. The University of -Salamanca had always been eminently conservative. Popes and Kings were -anxious for its welfare. Philip II. saw in the University a stronghold -of religion and loyalty. Pedro Chacon tells how “in the year 1560, on -the return of our sovereign Don Philip to Spain after an absence of -several years spent in reducing and governing the kingdom of England, he -at once confirmed all the privileges which the University had received -from his predecessors.” He intervened personally in the general affairs -and particular disputes of the University, and seems to have considered -no trouble too great to preserve the ancient purity of its opinions. -Luis de León became deeply attached to the University, “the light,” as -he said, “not of Spain only, but of all Europe,” and to Salamanca as -student and professor he devoted his entire life. He entered the -Augustinian order a few months after arriving at Salamanca, and by so -doing renounced a very considerable income which he would otherwise have -inherited as his father’s eldest son. His success was rapid. He obtained -the chair of philosophy, and afterwards that of theology, and this -latter chair he still held when he was arrested in the beginning of 1572 -and detained for nearly five years in the prison of the Inquisition at -Valladolid. The most serious charges against him were that he had -translated the Song of Solomon into the vulgar tongue, and that he had -depreciated the authority of the Vulgate. But it was a question -primarily between two schools of thought in the University, between the -rival Greek and Hebrew scholars, between the members of the order of St. -Dominic and the members of the order of St. Augustine, and the case only -came under the authority of the Inquisition through the denunciations of -Luis de León’s enemies, such as León de Castro. León de Castro was a -professor of the old school. He was an excellent Latin and Greek -scholar, and was possessed of great energy and perseverance. By his -learning, and partly by sheer force of character, he had won a position -of high authority in the University, and he guarded his authority with a -jealous care. Intolerant of opposition, he sought to crush all who by -their talents or popularity might throw him into the shade. He wished to -reign supreme. He was easily roused to such a pitch of anger that he -lost all control of himself; “when engaged in a dispute,” says Luis de -León, “he does not know what he is doing or saying.” He was hasty in his -judgment of men and opinions, and supplied deficiencies in his own -knowledge by a fierce positiveness. It is said that if he found an -opinion in the work of a saint or philosopher, he would at once say, -“This is the opinion of all the saints, of all the philosophers.” To him -the Vulgate was the final and irrefragable authority, and he opposed -with the utmost vigour those scholars who went back to the Hebrew -original. Such Hebrew scholars he called “Jews,” a name that smelt of -fire in that age. (Against Luis de León the accusation was actually -brought of being a Jew, and descended from Jews.) If it was shown that -the Hebrew text differed from the Vulgate, Castro answered that the -Hebrew text had been altered by the “Jews” since the translation had -been made. His position was thus impregnable. He would listen to no -arguments, but shouted down his opponents. In a narrow age he might -persuade himself that in thus asserting his opinions he was doing good -service to the Church. His influence was without doubt great, and it -needed no little courage to oppose him. Luis de León, however, was not a -man to lie flat and love Setebos. He was frank and open by nature, even -to rashness and indiscretion, and in his eagerness for reform was not -afraid of making enemies. When he took his degree he attacked certain -abuses in a Latin speech of Ciceronian violence, and on another occasion -he publicly upbraided the Dominicans with the heresies of their order, -and the thrust seems to have gone home, for he himself says that they -felt it keenly, “_sintieronse fieramente_.” Above all, he had no -sympathy with pedantry and intolerance. It was impossible that two men -of characters so different should not come into collision, and in fact -the discussions between professors were often marked by boisterous -disputes and all the venom of ill-feeling and discourtesy that sometimes -strangely enough creeps into the daily life of the learned. On one -occasion Luis de León threatened to have Castro’s book--a commentary on -Isaiah--burnt by the Inquisition. On this book Castro had spent much -trouble and much money, and the threat cut him to the quick, so that he -answered that he would have Luis de León himself burnt. And such threats -were not empty words, or the thoughtless bickering of an idle hour. That -Luis de León had many malignant enemies was amply shown at his trial. - - -III.--IN A VALLADOLID DUNGEON. - -The order of imprisonment was issued on the 26th of February, 1572. His -goods were to be confiscated with the exception of a bed and forty -ducats to provide for his food in prison. He was to be seized, wherever -found, “in church, monastery, or other sacred place,” and he was to -bring with him nothing but clothes and linen. A curious clause adds that -“beasts of burden to carry him and his bed, etc., are to be provided at -the customary price, and the price is not to be raised.” He was thus -arrested and conducted to Valladolid. The following description of the -prison is given in the trial of Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, who had -been confined there some ten years before. “The prison consisted of two -rooms, one for him and one for two servants. They were so remote that -the Archbishop heard nothing of a fire which broke out on the 21st of -September, 1561, and, lasting for a day and a half, consumed more than -four hundred houses, some of them close to the secret prison. The stench -was so intolerable that they were obliged at times to beg that the doors -might be opened, or they would be suffocated. The infection of the place -rendered both master and servants seriously ill, and the doctors of the -Holy Office reported that it was indispensable to bathe the apartment in -pure air morning and evening. In consequence the Inquisitors arranged -that a grating should be made in the door, a device which the Archbishop -scorned as adding insult to injury. The rooms were not swept ... the -shutters of the windows were kept closed, and on some days the -Archbishop had to light a candle at nine in the morning. The food was -brought on broken plates; the sheets served as table-cloth....” In a -letter written to Philip II., after two years of imprisonment, the -Archbishop says, “I fear and expect death daily, and to this end my -treatment seems to have been directed ever since I came here.” The loss -of sun and light, and the actual dirtiness and horror of the place must -have been utterly repulsive to a man of Luis de León’s temperament. In -one of his writings, “La Perfecta Casada,” he says, “Is not cleanliness -the fountain head of beauty--the first and greater part of it?” He loved -the open air, and was wont to regret the loss of liberty which even his -duties as professor at Salamanca entailed. But to the actual and severe -hardships to be undergone there was added, for the devout Catholic, the -more subtle and indefinite torture of the mind. For he could not be -certain that by some involuntary sin he had not incurred degradation in -this life, and punishment unceasing in the next, and in the loneliness -and gloom of the prison these doubts would often recur. Luis de León -acknowledged the full authority of the Inquisition, and his unqualified -submission was not forced or hypocritical, but the fruit of a sincere -conviction. The extreme clearness of his intellect was his safeguard, -and, though he bowed himself in all things to the will of the Church, he -was well assured of his own innocence. Shortly after his arrest he drew -up a profession of faith, declaring that he lived and died “now and in -the future in the faith and belief of the Holy Catholic Church, and -confessing his sins _con entrañable dolor_.” His defence was conducted -throughout in a masterly way. During these five years of suffering he -showed a fine sincerity and a clearness of argument that remind one very -strongly of Pascal. Never was his style more trenchant and lucid, his -reasoning more subtle than in the numerous “Unpublished Documents” that -have come down to us. On no occasion was the patience and humility of -the man more clearly shown. It is a strange reflection that many of -these documents, in accordance with the secrecy of the Inquisition’s -proceedings, were kept hidden from Luis de León himself, and that he -probably never knew, as we know, that he came within a little of being -examined upon the rack. In spite of his ingenious and elaborate defence, -Luis de León’s trial was a long one, and one must shudder to think of -the sufferings and despair of men of weaker metal and less subtle -intellect, such as his intimate friend Grajal, who died in prison. The -Inquisition proceeded as usual in an extremely slow and thorough -fashion. “_Recato y secreto_,” caution and secrecy, were indeed its -watchwords. Witnesses concerning Luis de León’s case were examined in -many parts of Spain, and even at Cuzco, in Peru. It were easy to declaim -against the cruelty and tyranny of the Inquisition, but on closer view -it would seem unjust to lay the blame entirely at its door. The times, -as we have noted, called for the utmost vigilance on the part of the -upholders of the true and Catholic faith. They might hold themselves -bound to investigate with unwearied diligence the most trifling disputes -concerning the doctrine of the Church. Already unorthodox books had been -filtering into Spain. A translation of the Psalms had been received at -Cadiz, and one man alone, a kind of sixteenth-century Borrow, had -brought two bales of heretical books to Seville. The life of the -bookseller was rendered anxious and difficult by such proceedings. In a -letter to the Inquisitors of Valladolid we read: “The booksellers of -this town (Salamanca) have received and continue daily to receive bales -of books from France and other parts. These they dare not open for sale -without permission.” The evil must be stopped before it spread contagion -through the country. It may be argued plausibly that the firmness of the -Inquisition saved Spain from the religious dissensions that raged so -fiercely in France, Germany, and England, nor may it be forgotten that -the centuries of the Inquisition’s most rigorous power were the -centuries of Spain’s greatest literary glory. - -Perhaps the harm of the Inquisition was, rather, not that it affected -original thought and research, but that it created in everyday life an -intolerable spirit of suspicion and distrust. It was to the animosity of -their private enemies that the imprisonment of both Archbishop Carranza -and Luis de León was due, and it is difficult to believe in the -sincerity of the witnesses who, “without being cited” and “for the -discharge of their conscience,” laid their accusations before the -Inquisition. In the University of Salamanca there was much prying and -spying, fostered by the rivalries and enmity of the professors. The -professors were elected by the votes of the students after a public -discussion between the candidates on a given theme, and this system -naturally led to considerable ill-feeling and many abuses. During -discussions in the University there would be always some one on the -watch for any specious subject of accusation. Thus, when Luis de León -maintained that “marriage was not in itself an evil but only a less -blessed state than celibacy,” León de Castro had written it down in -order to denounce it to the Inquisition, and in the same way another -professor had gone hastily out during a discussion in order to fetch pen -and ink. On one occasion, when Zuñiga was in Luis de León’s cell at -Salamanca, the latter mentioned a book which his friend, the celebrated -Arias Montano, had sent him. Zuñiga thereupon displayed suspicions of -Montano which Luis de León resented. A few days afterwards, to quote -Luis de León’s own words, “he seemed to me to be still suspicious and, -knowing that he was of a morose spirit and ever inclined to see things -in their worst light, I said to him laughingly: ‘You are indeed a -pessimist; it seems you still think ill of Montano.’ He said, ‘No; of -the man I do not think ill, but I am not certain that it is not my duty -to denounce the book.’” Luis de León goes on to say that more than two -years afterwards he also “had a fit of pessimism, and, considering the -number of heretics who had been discovered and were being discovered -daily in Spain,” determined himself to lay the matter before the -Inquisition--a common way of forestalling an accusation. Again, Medina -examined with most holy zeal (_con santísimo celo_) Luis de León’s -lectures and other papers. The result would be all the more fruitful in -that he would not omit the notes taken by students at the lectures, and, -as Luis de León was well aware, “ignorant students often put a quite -wrong interpretation on what the lecturer said.” Medina did, in fact, -call a meeting of students in his cell and inquired of them if they had -heard or knew of any suspicious or perverted doctrines of Luis de León. -Such methods must multiply means of attack and further spin out a trial. -Of one witness Luis de León, in his defence, said, “This witness is the -Bachelor of Arts Rodríguez, nicknamed ‘Doctor Subtle’ in the University. -I think it is he because he says I left him without an answer, and he -was the only person of that University with whom this happened. For as -he was a man of unsound judgment and sometimes asked impertinent -questions and from what he heard and did not understand collected -nonsensical answers, I grew angry and called him a fool. And at other -times, in order not to become angry and out of humour on his account, I -would give him no answer but flee from him. And he is so witless and -importunate that I remember trying to escape him both indoors and in the -Schools and in the streets, he following and asking absurd questions, I -hurrying on without answering, until at last some of my companions or -other students would push him aside and hold him back by force.” A -little picture of academic life which for vividness it would be hard to -surpass. Luis de León, indeed, was not sparing in his criticism of his -various accusers. Their names, in accordance with the custom of the -Inquisition, were kept from him, but on reading the anonymous -accusations, he referred each one to its true author with unfailing -judgment and was thus enabled to refute them with a sure hand. Of one of -the witnesses who belonged to his own order he said: “He is known among -us as a man who never speaks the truth except by accident.” Of another -he speaks satirically as “most spiritual,” _espiritualísimo_, and says -that the words “kisses,” “embraces,” “bright eyes,” and other words in -the Spanish rendering of the Song of Songs scandalized him; words, that -is, which had not struck him when he read them in Latin, shocked him now -that they were written in the romance. Luis de León was not unaware that -the worst interpretation would be put on his sayings, or reported -sayings, and he was led by this fear himself to lay many trivial details -before the Inquisition. Thus he confessed that at a lecture “the -students furthest from me bade me speak louder, for I was hoarse and -they could not hear me well, and I said: ‘I am hoarse and, you know, it -is better to speak low that the gentlemen of the Inquisition may not -hear.’” He was full of life and humour, and many a chance word spoken in -jest might be twisted by the malicious to an uncatholic implication. He -felt in prison that he was fighting blindfold against many enemies and -asked more than once to be brought face to face with his accusers. “And -thus,” he says, “they speak from afar as men in safety and free, while -I, blind and in prison, cannot see who is attacking me.” Many absurd -charges were brought against him. According to one witness he “always -said low mass, even on a feast day, and no one could hear what he said -as he mumbled ‘tu, tu, tu,’ and made an end very speedily.” Another -accusation seems to have been based on a mere quibble between the words -_vino_, “wine,” and _vinó_, “came.” For at a dinner some one seems to -have asked for wine and Fray Luis to have said that it was doubtful if -it had come; but, according to the witness, all understood his answer to -refer to the coming of Christ! Another witness said that he was “a very -clever theologian, but somewhat bold in his lectures”--a charge less -petty than the preceding, but from its vagueness scarcely less -ridiculous. In the same spirit Castro “had heard say,” “thought that he -had heard”; Medina “thought that he saw in Fray Luis an inclination to -new things.” Such charges coming from enemies made his innocence, as he -said, “clearer than the light of noon.” Minute points were elaborately -dealt with. For instance, the sale of Castro’s book on Isaiah had been -spoilt, he said, by the Jews (Luis de León and his friends); according -to Luis de León, the real reason of its failure was its size and -costliness. As to the accusation of being, in fact, by descent a Jew, it -would appear that Fray Luis’ great-grandmother, or rather the second -wife of his great-grandfather, was of Jewish origin. - -The one serious charge was, indeed, that he did not give due authority -to the Vulgate. It is probable that his attitude had been inopportune at -a time when the Vulgate was being attacked on all sides by the heretics, -and that the numerous students who attended his lectures were apt to -exaggerate his doctrine. - -And so the trial dragged on. Luis de León began to lose patience. “If -only,” he exclaims, “the sun were divided fairly between me and my -accusers”--a metaphor borrowed from duelling. He complains frequently of -unnecessary delay. He writes to the Inquisitors, “You are delaying the -conclusion of my trial without just cause,” “without cause and to the -one end of lengthening out my imprisonment, and with the wish to put a -term to my life, since you find me without fault.” He begs that there be -no more delay “considering the length of time I have been here, and the -small cause there was for bringing me here, and the enmity and notorious -calumnies that began and occasioned this scandal.” His imprisonment, he -says, is “a long, harsh and cruel torment.” Partly constant -communications between Valladolid and Madrid caused delay. Thus a -request of Fray Luis, made on the 20th of August, did not receive an -answer from the Supreme Tribunal at Madrid till the 20th of September. -Partly, too, it must be admitted that after the scandal and excitement -caused by his imprisonment at Salamanca, where he had a host of friends -and followers, it would seem almost as if the Inquisitors were unwilling -to release him with the confession that the whole matter had been smoke -without a fire; and the longer the trial continued the greater, -naturally, would become their embarrassment. - -He was allowed some books and a few other articles. Thus he asks for a -crucifix, a brass candlestick, a knife, “to cut what I eat,” the works -of St. Leon, a Hebrew Bible, a Sophocles in Greek, a Pindar in Greek and -Latin, etc. He complains that he is not properly attended, and “it has -happened that I have fainted with hunger from having no one to give me -food, and I beg that I may be given a monk of my order to serve me if -you do not wish to allow me to die alone between four walls.” He was not -allowed the use of the Sacraments, and in his frequent illness this was -a constant torture. “You persist,” he says, “in keeping me in prison as -if I were a heretic, deprived of the use of the Sacraments, with -manifest danger to my life and to my soul, though you bring no fresh -charge against me.” He therefore begs them, pending the sentence, to -“allow me at least a free death among my monks.” Seeing that the -conclusion of his case was delayed from day to day he implores, in -another petition, to be transported to some monastery in Valladolid that -he may die there as a Christian. “This is the only thing that I solicit -or desire, since the passion of my enemies and my own sins have taken -from me all that one desires in life.” - - -IV.--EX FORTI DULCEDO. - -On the 28th September, 1576, the sentence is at length pronounced. The -majority of the judges “are of opinion that Fray Luis de León be put to -the torture as to his meaning, and as to what has been witnessed against -him, and as to the propositions that have been noted as heretical, in -spite of the fact that the theologians profess finally to be satisfied -with them and to give them the meaning that Fray Luis would have them -bear; and that the torture to be applied to him be moderate, seeing that -the accused is of delicate health; and that the results obtained be then -further examined.” This was the verdict of four out of the seven judges; -one gave no decision; the remaining two were of opinion that the accused -should be reprimanded in the Court of the Holy Office, and that in the -general hall of the greater Schools of Salamanca, in the presence of the -students and other persons of the University, he should declare his -propositions to be suspicious and ambiguous; that he should be forbidden -to lecture in the Schools or elsewhere, and that his translation of the -Song of Solomon should be prohibited and withdrawn from circulation. - -The superior and more impartial tribunal of Madrid quashed the sentence, -and Luis de León was not questioned on the rack. It ordered (7th -December, 1576) that Fray Luis de León should be acquitted and -admonished in the Court of the Holy Office to be careful in future how -he treated of matters so dangerous as those implicated in the trial. The -sentence pronounced runs as follows: “We find, in accordance with the -decrees and on the merits of the said suit, that it is our duty to -absolve and we do absolve the said Fray Luis de León from the burden of -this trial.” He requested and obtained a declaration that he had been -acquitted without penance or stain whatsoever, and was free to exercise -all his duties in the University. - -Luis de León’s health had never been robust, and the hardships of his -imprisonment broke it completely. That he survived is probably due to -his fortitude and mystic faith. In a dedication to Cardinal Quiroga, he -says: “When I was on trial, owing to the intrigues of certain of my -enemies, and was branded as suspicious in the faith, and was cut off not -only from the conversation but from the intercourse and very sight of -men, and was buried in a prison for five years, in the midst of all this -I felt a peace and joyfulness of spirit which I often miss now that I am -restored to the light of day and to my friends.” - -These years spent in prison were not passed in idleness. Besides the -business of his defence, he wrote several of his poems during this time -and his long treatise “Los Nombres de Cristo.” Many know his short poem -beginning, “Here falsehood and wrong kept me imprisoned,” and ending -with the line so often quoted in Spanish literature, “ni envidiado ni -envidioso.” And we may refer to this time of his imprisonment such -passages as “No pinta el prado aquí la primavera”-- - - “Here with the spring the meadows are not gay - Nor the clouds golden in the rising sun; - No nightingale pours forth its plaintive lay: - But here the night is sleepless, and the day - Is full of tears and unconsoling sorrow, - And the sad present has a sadder morrow....” - -Or the beautiful poem beginning “Virgen que el sol más pura”-- - - “Virgin purer than the sun, - Glory of mortals, of the heavens light, - Whose pity is not less than thy great might,...” - -Without the enforced leisure of these years we cannot doubt that his -“Nombres de Cristo” would never have been written, and Spanish prose -would have lacked one of its most luminous and brilliant jewels. - -Spanish literature owes him a great gratitude for having written in -Spanish, contrary to the prejudices of the learned, who held that a -writing to be profound must be obscure, and “marvelled that a theologian -of whom they expected some great treatise full of deep questions had -ended by writing a book in romance.” But Luis de León wished, he says, -to open the “new path” of good style, that consists “both in what is -said and in the way of saying it, and in the task of choosing the best -words of those in common use, and considering the sound of them, and -even at times of counting the letters, and weighing and measuring and -mingling them, that the matter be presented not only with clearness but -with softness and harmony.” - -Nearly five years after his arrest Luis de León returned to Salamanca. -He returned entirely justified, and the University welcomed him back -with rejoicing. Over the Augustinian Order especially his trial had hung -like a cloud, and the condemnation of so distinguished a professor must -have been felt as a disgrace by the whole University. The legend is well -known. When Luis de León resumed his lectures the entire University -thronged to hear him. He was enjoined by the Inquisition to preserve -complete silence as to its proceedings, but this was an occasion at -least for subtle and indirect allusions, and for the excitement of -general sympathy. Luis de León rose in the crowded room and began his -lecture with the words: “Gentlemen, we were saying yesterday,” and so -continued his course. The intervening five years were obliterated. The -story is so thoroughly in keeping with the character of the man, whose -simplicity and sincere humility produced an effect unattainable by the -most studious artifice, that we would willingly maintain its truth. We -would thrust aside the prosaic facts that Luis de León did not resume -his lectures, the chair having been occupied in his absence, and he -acquiescing in this on his return (_la daba por bien empleada_), and -that, when he was assigned another course of lectures, a long dispute -arose in the University as to the hour at which he should deliver them. -We may say at least that, if the story is not literal in the facts, in -spirit it is essentially true. The quaint kind of pulpit from which the -words were spoken, and the lecture-room with its rough-hewn benches, are -still preserved in the University at Salamanca, and the sublime words, -“_Decíamos ayer_,” form part of the _repertoire_ of the tourist’s -cicerone. - -Luis de León, on the recovery of his freedom, might exclaim, in the -words of the Persiles of Cervantes (Cervantes, who professed himself -Luis de León’s “reverent votary and follower,” _á quien yo reverencio, -adoro y sigo_): “I give you thanks, immense and merciful Heavens, that -you have brought me to die where your light may look upon my death, and -not in the shades of the dark prison-house which I now leave.” He -survived for fifteen years, dying on the 23rd of August, 1591, nine days -after being promoted from Vicar-General to Provincial of his Order. His -good humour and natural gaiety, his unselfishness and common-sense, won -for him many and strong friendships--we feel, indeed, that he was a man -not without failings, but entirely lovable. He had been commanded by the -Inquisitor-General to publish his own works, and was entrusted with the -publication of those of Santa Teresa. His second Inquisition trial arose -apparently from a lecture on the vexed question of predestination and -freewill. It was declared that the University of Salamanca was greatly -scandalized at the boldness with which he maintained that the contrary -of his own opinion was heresy. The matter, however, ended by his being -“benevolently and lovingly admonished” at Toledo. Besides these and many -other occupations, he gave ungrudging help to the Carmelite nuns in -asserting their independence, which was threatened by a reform -sanctioned by Philip II. The Pope, indeed, was favourable to the nuns, -but the King opposed the Papal Brief, and Luis de León is reported to -have said: “It is impossible to carry out a single order of His Holiness -in Spain.” The story that Fray Luis died of grief on account of the -King’s anger at this opposition is certainly untrue, although it is -likely enough that the King was annoyed. He is said to have exclaimed: -“Quien le mete á Frai Luis en estas cosas?--What has Fray Luis to do in -this _galère_?” Luis de León’s life was thus not without many turmoils. -But we may like best to think of him, as in the description in his -“Nombres de Cristo,” “in the month of June, after the Feast of St. John -when the Salamanca term breaks up,” retiring from a long year of work to -the country house possessed by his monastery on the banks of the Tormes. -There, in the great garden of trees growing without order, with a stream -“running and pausing as if in laughter,” and with the winding river -Tormes in sight--“a place far better than the professor’s chair”--he -would meditate alone or converse with friends “in the cool of the -morning, on a day most calm and bright;” “for,” he says elsewhere in the -same work, “it may be that in towns there is more refinement of speech, -but fineness of sentiment is of the country and of solitude.” - - - - -XIX - -THE MODERN SPANISH NOVEL - - -I.--REVIVAL. FERNÁN CABALLERO - -The success of “Don Quixote” might have been expected to fire a host of -imitators, but the seventeenth century in Spain was given rather to the -drama than to the novel, and the eighteenth century “was an age of -barrenness in Spain, so far as concerns romance.”[99] In the first half -of the nineteenth century the Spanish novel was for the most part a pale -imitation of Sir Walter Scott, and these somewhat insipid romances, in -spite of the wealth of subjects afforded by Spanish history, were not -genuinely Spanish; they were due to a taste imported by returning -exiles, and were not a natural growth of the soil. Thus the Condesa -Pardo Bazán could say that in Spain the novel has no yesterday, only an -_anteayer_, a day before yesterday, and the appearance of Fernán -Caballero’s “La Gaviota” was hailed by a Spanish critic as a link -between Cervantes and the nineteenth century. It marked, indeed, the -revival of realistic fiction in Spain. Cecilia Böhl von Faber, daughter -of a distinguished German settled in Spain, was born in Switzerland in -1796, but passed nearly the whole of her life in Spain, and chiefly at -Seville. She combined German depth with the wit and clear vision of -Andalucía. A discerning Madrid critic reviewing “La Gaviota,” the first -published work of the then unknown Fernán Caballero--it had been written -first in French, and now appeared in Spanish in the pages of “El -Heraldo” (1848-49)--said that it displayed a mixture of the German and -Andalusian Schools, the pencil of Dürer, and the colouring of Murillo. A -character in “La Gaviota” observes: “Were I Queen of Spain, I would -command a novel of customs to be written in every province.” It was the -_novela de costumbres_ that Fernán Caballero wrote with such brilliant -success. She wished, she said, to show Spain as it really was, and not -as it was commonly painted by foreigners. - -Cecilia Böhl von Faber was thrice married--to Spaniards--and it was as -Marquesa de Arco Hermoso, living on her husband’s estate at Dos -Hermanas, a small village near Seville, that the idea first occurred to -her to collect the fast-disappearing customs and traditions of the -peasants. She came into frequent touch with them owing to her wish to -learn their individual needs, and know how best to administer her -charity. The thirteen years from her second marriage in 1822, to the -death of the Marqués de Arco Hermoso, in 1835, were spent mainly at -Seville, at their house in the _Plaza de San Vicente_, or in the -neighbourhood. The story _La Familia de Albareda_, the scene of which is -Dos Hermanas, was then written, from events that actually occurred in -this village, although it was not published till later. It was when her -third husband was absent in Australia that she thought of publishing her -stories, and took her _nom de plume_ from a small village of La Mancha, -called Fernán Caballero. The appearance of “La Gaviota,” which is, -indeed, one of the best, if not the best, of Fernán’s novels, aroused -considerable surprise and enthusiasm, and many surmises as to who might -be the author. It was a work so unlike the romantic tales and insipid -imitations then in vogue; it showed so fresh and spontaneous an -inspiration. Here were no echoes of older novelists; all was written -from keen personal observation, and the reader was enabled by the -author’s art to realize in words scenes and characters which he had -known and felt, but had been unable to express. - -After the tragic death of her third husband, in 1859, Fernán Caballero -was firmly resolved to enter a convent, but her friends did their utmost -to dissuade her, and she believed, moreover, that the only books she -would be allowed to read would be those of devotion. Finally she gave up -this idea, and lived for nearly ten years in one of the houses of the -_Patio de las Banderas_ in the Seville Alcázar, granted to her by Queen -Isabel II. It would be difficult to imagine a more pleasant home for a -writer. On one side the beautiful gardens of the Alcázar, with their -myrtles, palms, and oranges, clipped box-hedges, and white marble -fountains; on the other the _Plaza del Triunfo_, planted with -orange-trees, acacias and palms, and the Cathedral and wonderful Giralda -tower. The Revolution of 1868 came to destroy this peace. The Alcázar -became for the time the property of the nation, and Fernán Caballero was -driven to seek a home elsewhere. She was for other reasons, as a devout -Roman Catholic and Royalist, deeply distressed by the Revolution and its -sacrilegious results in Seville. The pettiness of many revolutionary -measures was shown by the fact that the night-watchmen--the -_serenos_--of Seville were forbidden, in calling out the hours, to use -the traditional preface “Ave María Purísima.” Fernán Caballero obtained -the reversal of this decree. She lived to listen with tears of joy to -the bells of the Giralda, as they rang out the news of the Restoration -and the beginning of Alfonso XII.’s reign. She was then living in the -curving, silent bye-steet that now bears her name. No. 14 is -distinguished from the other houses by having, besides the _patio_, a -garden with a large lemon-tree, and other shrubs. Here she died in the -spring of 1877, in her eighty-first year. The Queen came to visit her -here, and a memorial tablet was placed above the entrance of the house -by her friends the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier. - -The quality that gives imperishable value to Fernán’s work is its truth: -the scenes are at once felt to be real, the characters are living. She -reproduces the lively mirth and malicious wit of the _andaluz_ peasant, -the gay laughter-loving nature of the Sevillians, with their keen -perception of the false and the ridiculous. She describes a Seville -_patio_ (in “Elia”), or a bull-fight (in “La Gaviota”), or a country -house, _quinta_ (in “Clemencia”), or a deserted convent (in “La -Gaviota”) with a delicate minuteness of detail that brings them vividly -before us. Writing of simple, everyday events, as in the preface she -characterizes those of “Elia,” she paints them with unsurpassed -clearness and vigour, and much of the piquancy and charm, the _sal y -pimienta_, of the South is in her pages. There are in her works some -scenes that in sobriety and psychological skill are worthy of Stendhal. -Her characters are drawn from life with the sure and penetrating -analysis of genius. Perhaps the best example of all is the character of -Marisalada in “La Gaviota,” but the slighter figures, the conservative -General Santa María and the bull-fighter Pepe Vera, in the same novel, -the vivacious, charitable Asistenta in “Elia” (having much in common -with Fernán’s own character), who is unmoved by the discovery of a Roman -epitaph on one of her farms and refuses to believe that there is a land -where bishops marry, Marcial and Jenaro in “Lágrimas”--all these and -many more are sketched with masterly skill. It is when they treat of -country scenes and peasant life that the novels of Fernán Caballero are -at their best, as the first half of “La Gaviota” in the village of -Villamar, or a part of “Clemencia” (1852) in the village of Villa-María. -The character of Don Martín of Villa-María and the scene of his -interview with the importunate Tía Latrana are thoroughly in the manner -of Pereda. So, too, is the wife of the village mayor in “Lágrimas.” -“Haber gastadu mis cuartus” she exclaims--and the use of dialect, so -freely employed by Pereda, is noticeable--“en facere de esse fillu meu -un hulgazán! Non me lo dejú para esu mi tíu Bartulumé, es verdad.” The -foreigners at Seville are portrayed with less sympathy; so we have Sir -John Burnwood, who has come to Seville in order to ride up the Giralda, -and, finding this impossible, proposes to buy the Alcázar, or Sir George -Percy, who is admitted to have noble qualities, but allowed to show -unmistakably bad taste. - -Fernán Caballero is not afraid of interrupting her story by digressions, -whether their object be to inculcate virtue, to exalt the Roman Catholic -religion, or to ridicule the importers of foreign fashions and foreign -phrases into Spain. Sometimes, as in “Lágrimas,” this is carried to -excess and rather spoils the effect of the story, but in most of her -works the digressions are never altogether wearisome; the original and -fascinating character that won for Cecilia Böhl von Faber a host of -friends is not often or for long absent from the novels and _relaciones_ -of Fernán Caballero. It has been observed that “La Gaviota,” though it -contains scarcely any action, has not a line too much. “No aspiramos á -causar efecto,” says the preface of “La Familia de Albareda,” and it is -this very absence of thrilling action or melodramatic effect that gives -so permanent a charm to Fernán’s works. For a proper appreciation of -Seville and Andalucía they are invaluable: there is not one of them in -which some trait explanatory of the Sevillian and _andaluz_ characters -does not appear. A recent Spanish writer quite unjustly denies that -Fernán Caballero shows any of the _sal andaluza_, and is of opinion that -her work has not left a deep trace in Spanish literature, but must be -considered rather as a preparation for the higher flights of the -novelists who followed. It is difficult to agree with this view. Fernán -Caballero not only hoisted the flag of true Spanish realism, and pointed -to a land of promise, but carved for herself a very real and abiding -empire in this land of her rediscovery. - - -II.--1870-1900. - -In 1864 Pereda published his first work, “Escenas montañesas,” and ten -years later, and three before the death of Fernán Caballero, appeared -Valera’s first novel, “Pepita Jiménez,” and Alarcón’s “El Sombrero de -tres picos.” Since 1874 scarcely a year has passed without producing a -Spanish novel that deserves a high rank in literature. Yet Pereda[100] -did not at once impose himself, and early in 1874 Pérez Galdós could put -the following words into the mouth of one of the characters in _Napoleón -en Chamartín_: “In the matter of novels we are so far astray that, after -producing the source of all the novels of the world, and the most -entertaining book ever written by man, Spain is now unable to compose a -novel of more worth than a grain of mustard seed, and translates these -sentimental French stories.” - -Similarly, Señor Menéndez y Pelayo remarks that “about the year 1870, -the date of Pérez Galdós’ first book, the Spanish novel was slumbering -in the arms of insipid or monstrous productions, _entre ñoñerías y -monstruosidades_.” There is little insipidity or sentimentalism in the -more modern Spanish novel. Realism is the dominant note of Spanish -literature. The very atmosphere of Spain makes for clear vision. Its -artists are realistic, even brutally realistic, as Goya occasionally is; -even its mystics have not been wrapped wholly from the world: they do -not live in a cloud, insensible to the real facts of life. And in the -same way the great Spanish novelists are realistic. There is, however, a -true Castilian dignity about their realism. They do not, in George -Meredith’s phrase, mistake the “muddy shallows” for the depths of -Nature. They may treat of the vulgar and the base, but they do not treat -of them in a way that is vulgar and base. They may be as outspoken as -Martial, but their realism is eminently sane and clean. - -The modern fashion, strongly in favour of realism, should do justice to -the merits of Spanish novels. It is no doubt guided by the love of -contrast that caused Stendhal, a romantic and an enthusiast at heart, to -read pages of the “Code Civil” before writing his novels, and to adopt a -style mathematically cold and thin, and Flaubert, a poet, to analyse a -subject so vulgar as that of _Madame Bovary_. A simpler age may delight -in works of a fantastic imagination, but a more complex and perhaps -hypocritical age must have truth and away with vagueness and pretence. - -Minds so complicated and many-sided as to be rarely themselves, admire -the simple and concrete, and the Spanish genius, which is essentially -objective, answers to this taste both in its literature and in its art. -Yet it is characteristic that in many Spanish novels realism and -mysticism go hand in hand. That peculiarly Spanish mysticism which shows -its false side in Clarín’s “La Regenta,” its practical spirit in Palacio -Valdés’ “Marta y María,” its sadness in Azorín’s “La Voluntad,” is by no -writer more sympathetically treated than by Juan Valera, in “Pepita -Jiménez” and other novels. Valera was too great an artist to belong to -any school. He repeated in many prefaces that his aim was not to -instruct or to edify, but rather to give pleasure. The old heresy that -works of art should edify has had great influence in Spain, and it makes -its presence felt in modern novels with a set purpose, _romans à thèse_. -It cast its shadow over the work of Fernán Caballero and Pereda, and, -passing to the enemy, reappears at intervals in Pérez Galdós and Blasco -Ibáñez. But Valera would have none of it. A novel, he said, “should be -poetry, not history, that is, it should paint things not as they are but -fairer than they are, illuminating them with a light that may cast over -them a certain charm.” The magic of his style, which he caught by his -own confession from the great Spanish mystics of the sixteenth and -seventeenth centuries, supplied this charm, and is sufficient to make -his work imperishable. It is a charm that is exquisite and escapes -analysis, reminding of that metallic lustre in ancient Spanish -_azulejos_, or glazed tiles, of which modern manufacturers in vain seek -to recapture the secret. Valera was not, in a strict sense, a great -novelist. The construction of his stories is often weak, and the -characters all speak the language of Don Juan Valera. “In Valera,” it -has been said, “there are no Sanchos, all are Valeras.” He was himself -aware of these limitations. He would sometimes say in a preface that he -was not certain if his book were or were not a novel, and as to the -invariably polished speech of his characters, the conversation of the -nurse Antoñona with Luis de Vargas, in “Pepita Jiménez,” is accounted -for by the fact that she had prayed that it might be given her to speak -on this occasion, not in grotesque language, as was her wont, but in -elegant and cultured style. Similarly, Juana la Larga says to her -discreet daughter Juanita, “All that you have said seems to be taken -from the books that Don Pascual gives you to read.” - -But Valera could delineate characters skilfully. In his longest novel, -“Las Ilusiones del Doctor Faustino,” the hero, Señor Don Faustino López -y Mendoza, is in some degree a typical figure of modern Spain. Living in -his half ruinous ancestral house in the village of Villabermeja, he -feels himself to be capable of great deeds, but achieves nothing. He -laments not being of humble birth to become a brigand like the great -José María, he laments not having been born in the eleventh or twelfth -century to carve out for himself a kingdom with his sword, and he ends -by obtaining a modest post at Madrid, which brings him little over £100 -a year. Valera’s creations have only seemed unreal because, through the -alchemy of his style, he is a King Midas, turning all to gold, and the -excellence of his art raises his figures to the level of statues in -Parian marble. They are not, therefore, less lifelike; because he has an -“exquisite adjustment of word to thought,”[101] it does not follow that -he is “without life and passion”[102]--rather the passion is raised to a -white heat, with the flames no longer visible. And in his descriptions -he is a true realist, giving us the light and laughter of Andalucía. His -“Juanita la Larga” is a charming sketch of life in an Andalusian village -that may recall Alarcón’s “El Sombrero de tres picos.” Some of the most -laughter-rousing scenes of “El Sombrero de tres picos” pass in the -little stone-paved court in front of a flour mill, a quarter of a league -from a certain cathedral town in Andalucía. The court is shaded by a -huge vine-trellis, sufficiently thick and solid for the miller to -sleep--or pretend to sleep--unnoticed among its leaves. It is a brief, -delightful sketch, coloured and malicious, of Andalusian life in the -first years of the nineteenth century. To Andalucía also belong two -novels by Palacio Valdés, “La Hermana San Sulpicio” and “Los Majos de -Cádiz.” But it is Andalucía described not by a native but by a -stranger, for Palacio Valdés is of the North. He has a sense of humour -rather English than Spanish, and he is, indeed, almost as well known out -of Spain as within the Peninsula. It is a humour less bitter and -aggressive than that of another Asturian, Leopoldo Alas, with whom -Valdés collaborated in a volume of critical essays. As a sketcher of -character, Valdés is admirable. Gloria, the typically Andalusian girl, -and the Gallegan Sanjurjo are both excellently drawn in “La Hermana San -Sulpicio.” The scene of his “Marta y María” is laid in an old town of -Astúrias--the author is now in his native country--surrounded by a wide -level of meadows and gently sloping hills to the _ría_, bordered by -immense pine woods and the sea. It is a novel even more delightful than -“La Hermana San Sulpicio.” The scene of “La Aldea perdida” is also -Astúrias. It is a pastoral symphony, an Asturian counterpart to Pereda’s -“El Sabor de la Tierruca,” a charming story--in spite of its theatrical -ending--of village rivalries and reconciliations in a land wooded with -chestnuts and oaks and cider-apples, a land of maize and cool green -fields of trefoil, and mountain paths hedged with honeysuckle. But in -other works Palacio Veldés has not maintained this Spanish inspiration. -In “La Espuma,” “Maximina,” “La Fe,” the influence is that of the French -naturalistic School. _Clarín_ (Leopoldo Alas), though born at Zamora -also an Asturian, was likewise deeply influenced by France in his long -work “La Regenta.” In one of his critical essays _Clarín_ wrote that -“Spanish realism is very Spanish; it is in the race. But it has its -defects, _no todo en él es flores_; it is deficient in psychology and -the poetry of passion.” In “La Regenta” we have passion and -psychological analysis and epigrammatic wit. The scene is the old -cathedral city of Vetusta (or rather Oviedo). The treatment is not -characteristically Spanish. Vetusta is here a typical provincial town, -such as Flaubert might have described and hated, and its inhabitants are -almost all represented as ignorant, vulgar, or vicious. Their stupidity -and vulgarity are lashed with an ingenious subtlety that is unsparing, -and the motives guiding their actions are laid bare with an amazing -skill. _Clarín’s_ humour is often a little cruel, and the novel is -crowded with terse and biting phrases. One of the readers of the Vetusta -_casino_--the worthiest of them, _Clarín_ is careful to assure us--is -thus pilloried in a few lines: “He arrived at nine o’clock every evening -without fail, took _Le Figaro_ and _The Times_, which he placed over _Le -Figaro_, put on his gold spectacles, and, lulled by the sound of the -gas, fell gently asleep over the foremost paper of the world, a -privilege which no one sought to dispute. Shortly after his death of -apoplexy, over _The Times_, it was discovered that he knew no English.” - -The most prominent figure among living Spanish novelists is undoubtedly -Don Benito Pérez Galdós. In his “Episodios Nacionales,” the troubled -history of Spain in the nineteenth century, from the wars against -Napoleon to the death of Prim, passes before us in a Spanish human -comedy. We see the noble death of Churruca in the battle of Trafalgar, -we witness the brief, feverish defence of Madrid before Napoleon, the -heroic sieges of Zaragoza and Gerona, the stubborn resistance of Bilbao -to the troops of Zumalacárregui in the first Carlist war; later we see -Isabel II. silently crossing the French frontier at Irun, the effect of -Castelar’s eloquence in the Cortes, Prim landing at Cadiz--these and a -hundred more principal actors and events are marshalled in a succession -of novels now numbering over forty. Pérez Galdós continues to write with -undiminished vigour. The forty-second episode, “España Trágica” (1909), -pictures Madrid opinion in street and _café_ during the year 1870, when -Spain was “in high fever,” choosing a king. The book ends with a vivid -account of the assassination of Prim. His long and difficult task was -crowned with success, but his presence was needed now more than ever to -check the hostility of the federalists on the one hand, of the -aristocracy on the other. It was the 27th December, 1870, and on the -following day he was to travel to Cartagena in order to receive the Duke -of Aosta. He had just left the Congreso. The night was bitterly cold and -the carriage rolled silently through the snow in almost deserted -streets. It was noticed that first one man and then a second stopped in -the street to light a cigar. This was apparently a signal. A little -further on, in the _Calle del Turco_, a carriage blocked the way, and -almost immediately the windows of Prim’s carriage crashed in on both -sides and he fell back, wounded by more than one bullet. The -forty-third Episode, “Amadeo I.” (1910), describes the reign of the -Italian prince which began thus tragically with the murder of Prim, -continued for two years in a tragi-comedy, and ended with the dignified -withdrawal of the loyal and disinterested “rey caballero,” who had been -wilfully and persistently misunderstood and slighted by the subjects who -had invited him to reign over them. With the Queen and their three -children, including the infant Duke of the Abruzzi, he descended the -steps of the _Palacio del Oriente_ for the last time “entre alabarderos -rígidos, sin música ni voces que turbaran el fúnebre silencio. Sólo el -rumor de las pisadas marcaba el lento caminar de una época” (February, -1873). With this and a volume on the first Spanish Republic,[103] the -fifth and final series of the Episodes marches rapidly towards -completion. For forty years novels and plays from Pérez Galdós’ pen have -appeared at the rate of two or more a year, and some of the novels are -of considerable length--“Fortunata y Jacinta” has something like two -thousand pages. Well-drawn characters and skilfully reconstructed scenes -abound, but a weariness sometimes overcomes the reader. For these novels -scarcely seem to have an end or a beginning; there is no plot or -concentration of interest. Perhaps for this very reason they are an -extremely faithful presentation of life. No one would dispute Pérez -Galdós’ great talent as a writer, but his admirers may regret that he -does not pause to draw more complete pictures with finished art. In his -anti-clerical novel, “Doña Perfecta,” Don Inocencio represents the -influence of the priest in the family. Doña Perfecta, in league with the -priest, secretly sets the whole force of her wealth and power in -mediæval Orbajosa in the scale against her nephew, Pepe, who wishes to -marry her only child, Rosario. Pepe is looked upon in Orbajosa as an -atheist and _hors la loi_, although he is merely a modern man of -science. There is no acknowledged opposition: Doña Perfecta meets him -invariably with a pleasant smile; but his letters are opened and -confiscated, he finds a spirit of steady though veiled hostility in Doña -Perfecta’s house and in Orbajosa, he is assured that Rosario does not -love him, and he cannot convince or overcome insidious enemies who never -come into the open. Finally, Doña Perfecta becomes the murderess of her -nephew, though in such a way that her conscience is entirely free from -sense of guilt. The end justifies the means. The character of Doña -Perfecta is developed with consummate skill; Palacio Valdés thirteen -years later drew a slighter sketch on the same lines--Doña Tula, -Gloria’s mother (in “La Hermana San Sulpicio,” 1889). No doubt there are -towns in Spain such as Orbajosa, where the spirit of the Church is -bigoted and Jesuitical, opposed to all progress; or such as Nieva, in -“Marta y María,” where the people consider María to be a saint who can -work miracles, and bring children for her to cure them with a look, and -her confessor encourages the belief; or such as Vetusta, in “La -Regenta,” where Don Fermín combines a high position in the Chapter of -the Cathedral with a steady traffic in Church furniture and ornaments. -Yet one may sometimes wonder whether the anti-Clericals are not too -inclined to attribute all the ills of Spain to the influence of the -priests. “Valgame Dios y qué vida nos hemos de dar, Sancho amigo,” they -seem to say, as if the dissolution of the religious orders and the -separation of Church and State would at once spell prosperity in Spain. -The religious communities are numerous and rich; beggars, as at -Orbajosa, are also numerous (and occasionally rich), but it would be -unfair to lay the blame of poverty and backwardness entirely on the -Church. There are many other causes, one of them the dissipated, -careless life of society in the large towns, sketched by el padre Luis -Coloma in his novel “Pequeñeces,” and by Pérez Galdós himself in “El -Caballero Encantado.” - - -III.--IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. - -The novel continues to hold the field in Spanish literature. The early -years of the twentieth century saw the death of two splendid writers, -Valera (1824-1905), and Pereda (1833-1906), and Leopoldo Alas died in -1901. Of the older novelists, Pérez Galdós, the Condesa Pardo -Bazán,[104] Palacio Valdés, and Jacinto Octavio Picón[105] still remain, -and a brilliant group of younger writers is ready to pass on the torch -undimmed. Pérez Galdós’ “El Caballero Encantado” is dated July-December, -1909. Writing immediately after the Barcelona riots, it was natural that -the condition and future of Spain should be in his thoughts, and an -allegorical figure representing Spain or the spirit of the race plays a -prominent part in the book. The novel has, indeed, a little too much of -the marvellous and the symbolical, and when the hero by a last -transformation becomes a fish in the river Tagus, we are uncomfortably -reminded of the spurious and fantastical continuation of _Lazarillo de -Tormes_, in which Lázaro is transformed into a tunny-fish. The reason -given by Señor Pérez Galdós is, however, excellent: “To this sad -dwelling (the silent depths of the Tagus) come those who by their -loquacity have drowned the will and thought of Spanish life in an ocean -of words. Nearly all those here present are orators. They spoke much, -and did nothing. Some of them are masters of high-sounding phrases, -conjurers who, by the magic of their art and the vanity of their -rhetoric, transformed the tower of eloquence into a tower of Babel.” The -theme of the book is that Don Carlos de Tarsis, the young Marqués de -Mudarra, deputy for a district of the geographical existence of which he -has but a vague idea, who lives at Madrid, and spends with both hands -the money drained from his estates, is magically changed into a -farm-labourer on his land, or rather, on the land that was his, and now -belongs in part to his agent, in part to his usurer. For to meet the -expenses of his idle and dissipated life he must have money at any cost; -but when the rents of his tenants are raised they emigrate, and his -agent, who attributes the backwardness of agriculture in Spain to the -fact that “the great land-owners live far from their estates as though -they were ashamed of them,” supplies him with ever-diminishing sums, -till he is reduced to penury and usurers. Tarsis recognizes that he is a -most unworthy acolyte of Idleness, and that his only merit is “the -brutal sincerity of his pessimism,” but he “would rather die than work.” -So far the character is drawn from life, and it is only in the -vagueness of the subsequent enchantments that the effect of the novel -becomes veiled and uncertain. From a farm-labourer he successively -becomes shepherd, quarryman, tramp, and criminal--all with much needless -magic--till, by the final ordeal of silence in the golden Tagus, he is -restored to his original being as Marqués de Mudarra, a chastened and a -wiser marquis. Stress is laid on the miserable state of the poor, -compared with the immunity of the rich. Famishing men are dragged off to -prison for rooting up onions on a rich man’s estate, and shot down by -the Guardia Civil when they try to escape--the official report runs: -“the prisoners attempted to escape, and were overtaken by an accident -from which a natural death ensued.” There is perhaps a greater air of -reality about the account of the rich _Caciques_, owners of vast estates -or _latifundios_, who pay to the Treasury but a tenth part of the proper -land-tax, who falsify returns at elections, protect criminals, and -assault honest folk, while the judges are their creatures. This -_Caciquismo_ is part of the deplorable administration of Spain. Señor -Pérez Galdós who, as a native of the Canary Islands, has the double -advantage of looking at Spain as it were from within and from without, -returns to the question of words and deeds, the wealth of words and the -scantiness of action, with an insistence which must be excessively -annoying to a Spanish reader. Yet he does not despair of Spain’s future. -He sees hope in the proved vitality of the race, in its quick recoveries -after misfortune, its heroism even under self-inflicted sufferings: -“The ineffable follies of my sons have plunged me (_i.e._ Spain) in -despair, and in the darkness of despair my death has seemed certain and -inevitable. And then in some terrible crisis that appeared to ensure my -destruction, I have revived when they were carrying me from the -death-bed to the grave.” - -The best work of Pereda was of the Mountain, Valera and Fernán Caballero -write of Andalucía, Palacio Valdés of Astúrias, and similarly the -Gallegans, Valle-Inclán and Señora Pardo Bazán have found their best -inspiration in Galicia, and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez in his native -Valencia. Valencia is a fertile land of fierce heat and dazzling -light--the light so wonderfully reflected in the work of the Valencian -painter Joaquín Sorolla. Blasco Ibánez has written some striking novels -that have no connection with Valencia, but his best and most delightful -work is steeped in the life of the immense Valencian plain (in “La -Barraca,” an intense story of a boycott of the Huerta); of the city of -Valencia (in “Arroz y Tartana”); of the rice-growing, fever-stricken -marshes of the Albufera, famous for its fishing and shooting, near -Valencia (“Cañas y Barro”); of the fishermen and smugglers of El Grao -and the Valencian coastline (“Flor de Mayo”); of love among the oranges -in the orchard of Spain (“Entre Naranjos”). Blasco Ibáñez excels in -portraying the lives and thoughts and struggles of the simple fisherman -and peasant--hardworking as Batiste, or magnificently idle as Pimentó; -and in describing popular customs and traditions,--a simple procession -in floodtime (as in “Entre Naranjos”) or the dances and _festeigs_, -courtings, of the _atlóts_ and _atlotas_ of Ibiza (in “Los Muertos -mandan”). The hero of “Los Muertos mandan” (1909), Don Jaime or Chaume, -is not a peasant, but a member of an ancient family of Mallorcan nobles, -hemmed in by tradition and inherited instincts. The background, however, -of descriptions of Mallorca and lawless peasant life in Ibiza, with its -woods and orchards and white farms girt by a green transparent sea, -contribute more powerfully to the charm of the book than the wrestling -of Don Jaime against the clinging influence of the innumerable dead, who -still prevail. But, indeed, Blasco Ibáñez’ presentation of any strenuous -life-struggle is forcible and imposing. It reflects his own personality. -His creed is one of restless striving and discontent with the apathy too -frequent in Spain. His activity is immense: though little over forty -years of age, his novels are already many in number, short stories and -articles are continually appearing from his pen, he lectures, travels, -translates, publishes, controls a Valencian paper, _El Pueblo_, and till -the autumn of 1908 represented Valencia in Parliament as a Republican; -now his energies are occupied in founding two towns--to be called New -Valencia and Cervantes--for colonies of Valencians in the Argentine. - -Blasco Ibáñez once wrote a long novel of the French Revolution, “Viva la -República!” and in his ideas and in his art the influence of France has, -no doubt, been very strong. His ideas sometimes trespass on his art, as -in “La Catedral,” where, in the person of Gabriel Luna, he declaims -tediously and without mercy. His novels, as a rule, show an admirable -unity. In each of his heroes we see Blasco Ibáñez: but Blasco Ibáñez -entirely identified with the peasant Batiste (in “La Barraca”), or the -painter Renovales (in “La Maja Desnuda”), or the Socialist Luna (in “La -Catedral”), or the bull-fighter Gallardo (in “Sangre y Arena”). His very -manner catches the atmosphere and colour of the surroundings he -describes. He becomes vulgar in the descriptions of commercial, crowded -Valencia, wearisome in details of the feasts of its _bourgeois_ and the -various foods of its market-place (in “Arroz y Tartana”); he can be -magnificently simple, with the soul of a peasant or a fisherman (in “La -Barraca” and “Flor de Mayo”), and the fertile Huerta gives free scope to -his luxuriant art, his overflow of poetry and imagination. This power of -concentration, which Blasco Ibáñez possesses in so high a degree, is -rare in Spanish literature. The heroes of Blasco Ibáñez’ novels are men -strong to labour, persistent before defeat. They are almost always -defeated and die, Gallardo in the arena, Luna assassinated in Toledo -Cathedral, the Pascuals, fishermen of three generations, drowned in -storms off the Valencian coast. But the dominant note of his novels is -still “E pur si muove,” and in spirit his heroes are as unconquerable as -Don Quixote. He has Zola’s power of describing crowds; in “La Horda” -appears the multitude of hucksters and street-sellers that haunt the -Madrid _Rastro_; and similarly the background of “Luna Benamor” (1909) -is formed by a vivid description of Gibraltar, with its motley crowd of -Spaniards and Jews and Moors and Englishmen. His prose is suited to -these descriptions; it is living, coloured, tumultuous, sometimes -hurried and careless--a Spanish critic speaks of his _barbarismos -gramaticales_. From so voluminous and passionate a writer we should -expect nothing of the polished or the exquisite, his work is in the -rough; in a sense its incorrect ardour is Spanish, but its persistent -energy is a refreshing note in Spain, and may well cover an occasional -fault of taste or an ungrammatical sentence here and there. His works -are nearly always striking and original, however hurried may have been -their composition. - -It has been remarked that the younger Spanish novelists are rather -thinkers than artists, and Pío Baroja, Martínez Ruiz (_Azorín_) and -Valle-Inclán have introduced an almost alien note into Spanish -literature. It is significant that two at least of these writers, -_Azorín_ and Pío Baroja, are keen admirers of the essentially -intellectual art of El Greco: Theotocopuli has cast over them the spell -of his ascetically thin figures and cold attenuated tints. Pío Baroja is -almost Russian in his pitilessly accurate descriptions, in his rebellion -against the facts of life and his championship of the -persecuted--outcasts, criminals, and vagabonds. In “La Ciudad de la -Niebla” (1909), “The City of Fog,” he brings his clear, almost -photographic, vision to bear on London, and chiefly on the dingier -districts, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, the squalid labyrinth of streets -off Shaftesbury Avenue, the Docks, the Embankment. Similarly in “César -ó Nada” (1910) he continues to write in a spirit of mocking reckless -individualism. The narrative is but a slender thread to string together -his observations of men and places.[106] _Azorín_, again, is not -concerned with the form of his novels. He is a thinker, a psychological -analyst, who deliberately disregards construction. Yuste, in “La -Voluntad,” voices the author’s opinions; “Particularly,” he says, “the -novel must have no plot; life itself has no plot: it is varied, -many-sided, floating, contradictory--everything except symmetrical, -geometrical, rigid, as it appears in novels.” The novel must give -fragments, separate sensations. In “Las Confesiones de un pequeño -filósofo” _Azorín_ gives us his original impressions, his fragmentary -sensations of “figures et choses qui passaient” in a style full of -poetry and charm. His “La Voluntad” is a book very modern in its -restless thought and individualistic philosophy. It has that originality -of which Yuste, the philosopher of the book, speaks as consisting in -“something undefinable, a secret fascination of thought, a mysterious -suggestiveness of ideas.” The rare charm of _Azorín’s_ style and his -skill in descriptions, _emoción del paisaje, imaginatio locorum_, clothe -with serenity his “obstinate questionings of sense and outward things,” -and with peace his purely intellectual spirit and disquieting irony. -With Ramón del Valle-Inclán, again, construction and plot are secondary. -The action is slightly sketched in his novels, but incidents and persons -are thrown into high relief by the delicate and original character of -his style. It is a style built up of all that is rare and exquisite, -with a sobriety that chisels a finished picture in a single phrase. In -“El Resplandor de la Hoguera,” for instance, a green path leading from a -small Basque village to its cemetery is simply described as “todo en paz -de oratión,” and such lonely word pictures abound in his writings. His -latest work, a trilogy, is “La Guerra Carlista,” and the action of the -first part, “Los Cruzados de la Causa” (1908), passes in a village of -Galicia. The haughty, great-hearted Gallegan _hidalgo_ Don Juan Manuel, -perhaps the best of Valle-Inclán’s vivid character-sketches, appears in -this as in many others of his novels. The second part, “El Resplandor de -la Hoguera” (1909), follows the broken movements of the guerilla -fighting in the intricate Basque country; and the third part (each part -forming, however, a separate novel), “Gerifaltes de Antaño” (1909), -describes the furtive but daring tactics of that sinister Carlist -_cabecilla_, Manuel Santa Cruz, priest of Hernialde, leading his men at -night, “swift and silent as a wolf,” by labyrinthine mountain paths, -past maize-fields and chestnut-trees and vineyards, and scented meadows -under the stars, or ordering execution after execution of men and women -“with a mystical coldness and internal peace.” His cruelty was that of -the peasant who lights a fire to destroy the plagues of his vineyard. He -watched the smoke go up as an evening sacrifice-- - -“Lo que á unos encendía en amor, á los otros los encendía en odio, y el -cabecilla pasaba entre el incendio y el saqueo, anhelando el amanecer de -paz para aquellas aldeas húmedas y verdes, que regulaban su vida por la -voz de las campanas, al ir al campo, al yantar, al cubrir el fuego de -ceniza y llevar á los pesebres el recado de yerba. Era su crueldad como -la del viñador que enciende hogueras contra las plagas de su viña. -Miraba subir el humo como en un sacrificio, con la serena esperanza de -hacer la vendimia en un día del Señor, bajo el oro del sol y la voz de -aquellas campanas de cobre antiguo, bien tañidas.” - -It is difficult to analyse the fascination of these novels. Their -incidents seem trivial enough and the characters speak in thin, broken -sentences; but the effect is a marvellously vivid picture of the -flickering scenes of the last Carlist war and the hill tactics of the -_cabecillas_. The thin lines are due not to any poverty of inspiration -but to the restraint of a consummate artist. The most recent Spanish -novelist of note is Ricardo León, a young writer from Málaga, whose -first novel, “Casta de Hidalgos,” was published in the autumn of 1908, -followed by “Comedia Sentimental” in 1909, and “Alcalá de los Zegríes,” -“La Escuela de los Sofistas” (a volume of dialogues), and “El Amor de -los Amores” in 1910. These books are the work of a writer who has read -and assimilated the best of Spanish literature from its earliest -beginnings, chronicles, legends, _serranillas_, fervent religious -treatises. His style is, indeed, not unworthy of the Spanish mystics. It -has at once richness and sobriety, it is steeped in archaic humanism, -but tinged with modern sadness and disillusion; it is, as the author -might himself call it, “un castellano de clásico sabor.” It has in it -nothing strained or artificial, being, rather, the flowing expression of -a mystical intensity. He gives admirable pictures of the thoughts and -lives of old-fashioned proud _hidalgos_, “after the pattern of the -ancient _hidalgos_ of Castille,” such as Don Juan Manuel, who lives in -ruinous Santillana with its sadness of centuries, _tristeza milenaria_, -in “Casta de Hidalgos;” or of serious, reserved philosophers, such as -Don Juan Antonio in “Comedia Sentimental.” “Alcalá de los Zegríes” -contains many passages of noble Spanish prose, and others of -psychological interest; but it is for the most part concerned with -politics and party strife. The Spaniards, as a rule, are more interested -in politics than in literature. Valera’s celebrated “Pepita Jiménez” -brought him no more than eight thousand _reales_, or under £80, and -Señor Unamuno, the Rector of Salamanca University, a prominent Spanish -thinker and writer, has declared that literary opinion in Spain is -formed by some five hundred persons, “quinientas personas mal -contadas.” The novelists may protest, but the novel gains. There is no -temptation to write in order to please the taste of a public which does -not exist. If there is something commercial in the methodical output of -Pérez Galdós’ or Blasco Ibáñez’ novels, commercialism has certainly, -hitherto, had but little part in Spanish literature. Limited, unliterary -Spain has had this advantage. The world’s debate has not vulgarized it; -a half-culture has not dragged down the novel to flamboyant, -self-advertising methods. The novel in Spain is at its best when it -rejects, or has not come into contact with, foreign influences. It can -be realistic without thought of this or that school. It fascinates by -its original flavour and scent of the soil. - - - - -XX - -NOVELS OF GALICIA - - -The inhabitants of Galicia have been held to be the Boeotians of Spain, -yet the fact that in the political world many eminent persons are -Gallegans seems to show that Galicia has been maligned. To Galicia, too, -belong two gifted modern writers, the Condesa Emilia Pardo Bazán and Don -Ramón del Valle-Inclán. Señora Pardo Bazán belongs to the older group of -Spanish novelists; born in 1851,[107] she published her two well-known -novels of Galicia, “Los Pazos de Ulloa,” and “La Madre Naturaleza,” in -1886 and 1887, and “De mi tierra,” a book of scenes and essays of -Galicia, in 1888. It is as a regional novelist that Señora Pardo Bazán -has won her most glorious laurels. “Galicienne ella adore les choses de -la Galice,” says M. Vézinet,[108] and he adds that she develops the same -subjects as French naturalists, but avoids the licentiousness of which -they are so fond. The multitude of her tasks and interests has -necessarily hampered her art as a novelist. “She has unfortunately -diffused her energies in all directions,” says Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly. -“No one can succeed in everything--as a poet, a romancer, an essayist, a -critic, a lecturer, and a politician. Yet the Condesa Pardo Bazán is all -this, and more. We would gladly exchange all her miscellaneous writings -for another novel like ‘Los Pazos de Ulloa.’”[109] - -“Los Pazos de Ulloa” is a novel impregnated with the atmosphere of -Galicia. Los Pazos is a large country-house in a remote valley of maize -and vines and chestnuts, reached on horseback through a desolate -wolf-country, _país de lobos_. Its furniture is rickety, its -window-frames have no glass, though it is not so ruinous as Los Pazos de -Limioso some leagues away, which lacks even window-frames. The village -priest of Ulloa has but two devotions, those of the _jarro_ and the -_escopeta_, the wine-jar and the gun; the drinking of water and the use -of soap he holds alike to be effeminate. The Marqués de Ulloa, too, -frank, noble at heart, but cynical, often brutal, spends much of his -time at village fairs, and shooting partridges in the maize or among -pines and scented hill-plants. He is totally in the power of his servant -Primitivo, who manages his estates. Primitivo, too, holds the peasants, -as he says, in the palm of his hand. They are patient workers who, -however, in the opinion of the Marqués de Ulloa, need a strong hand to -control them--some one like Primitivo _que les dé ciento de ventaja en -picardía_, that is, who will know two tricks to their one. When the -Marqués disburdens himself to the new chaplain, Don Julián, in the wild -neglected garden, on the subject of Primitivo, he becomes aware by a -rustling in the undergrowth that Primitivo has been listening to the -outburst. When, as a first step to freedom, he determines to leave Los -Pazos on a visit to his uncle at Santiago de Compostella, Primitivo -makes no open opposition, but the mare is unshod, the donkey has been -mysteriously wounded. The Marqués and Julián determine to go on foot to -Cebre, where they will take the diligence. The path grows wilder, the -woods close in more thickly, a cross shows where a man has been killed, -there is no sound but that of the woodcutters among the chestnuts. The -Marqués, keenly alert, sees the glint of a gun’s barrel in the brushwood -pointing at the chaplain, who is held to be the instigator of this -rebellion. It is Primitivo “out shooting.” The book is a gloomy picture -of a rich country ruined by mismanagement, underhand dealing, and -ignorance. The Marqués de Ulloa’s agent has the peasants so completely -in his power that he is able to turn the scale of an election. He began -by methodically robbing his master in the administration of his estate, -and the money so obtained he lends to the peasants, who are driven to -borrow that they may be able to continue to work their land. Primitivo -charges an interest of eight per cent. (per month), and in years of -famine he raises the interest. The country and its inhabitants are -described with a master-hand. Don Ramón del Valle-Inclán is one of the -new school of Spanish novelists, and properly belongs to the twentieth -century. He is above all things a stylist. In his _sutiles prosas_ there -is an exquisite restraint, with here and there a tinge of archaism and a -haunting music of soft languid cadences. He loves the rare, the -delicate, the costly, and his art is to write of luxury in sober -phrases, instinct with sadness and the magic of regret. It is a style of -silk and cut crystal, as of silver-work or polished ivory handled by -thin ascetic fingers. In his four “Sonatas” (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and -Winter) we have the memoirs of the Marqués de Bradomín, the -recollections of his former loves. The scene of “Sonata de Primavera” is -an Italian palazzo with the lilacs in flower along its terraces and -roses filling the garden between the cypresses, while the scene of -“Sonata de Estío” is Mexico in all the luxurious growth of its summer -vegetation. In the “Sonata de Invierno” the scene is the Carlist Court -at Estella and the setting is more gloomy. The Marquis loses an arm in -the service of King Charles VII., and from the window of his sick-room -at Villareal de Navarra looks out on a road lined with leafless poplars -and mountains flecked with snow. But these novels do not equal “Sonata -de Otoño,” the scene of which is in Señor Valle-Inclán’s native Galicia. -Two lines of Verlaine in some way describe the novel:-- - - “Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé - Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé.” - -It is a book that may be read in little more than an hour, yet it has -many arresting pages. A few short sentences, words thrown here and there -at random with concealed art, give a wonderfully clear picture of green, -rainy Galicia, with its hills and streams. We see the hills and more -hills veiled in mist, the flocks of white and black sheep, the mills, -the white smoke rising from the houses among the fig-trees, the distant -blue mountains tipped with the first snows, a flight of doves against -green fields above the tower of a _Pazo_, a stony bridle-path with its -bramble hedges and great pools of water at which oxen drink, the -peasants arriving to pay their tribute of corn at the Palacio, the -shepherds coming down from the hills wearing their capes of reeds. Women -return singing from the fountain, an old man drives on his cows as they -stop to graze, a half-witted woman gathers scented herbs and simples -that have mickle grace to “give health to the soul and cure the ills of -the herd.” And there is the Palacio de Bradomín, with its flight of wide -granite steps; a path leads to it through the green, drenched -countryside, and the autumn sun lights up its windows among tall -chestnut-trees. A fountain trickles and birds sing in the old garden of -myrtle, cedar, and cypress, still in late autumn brimmed with roses, -though “the paths were covered with dry and yellow leaves that the wind -swept with a slow rustling; the snails, motionless _como viejos -paralíticos_, as old paralytics, were taking the sun on the seats of -stone.” The passages of the Palacio are long and gloomy, and cold -strikes through the large silent rooms, so that in all of them logs of -wood burn brightly, stirred with tongs of “ancient bronze, elaborately -worked.” The bare branches of the trees graze the windows of the -library, where, among the parchment bindings, reigns a monastic peace, -_un sueño canónico y doctoral_. - -It is in a minute chiselling of details that lies Señor Valle-Inclán’s -strength. The snails in the garden, the shape of the glasses, the silver -chains of a hanging-lamp--nothing is passed over as insignificant. But -the details are given in few words, with the clear precision of a -skilled craftsman. And he has the power to set his characters in strong -relief. Thus in “Sonata de Otoño” we have that _muy gran señor_ Don Juan -Manuel, who on his first appearance hurries away “to Villa del Prior, to -thrash a clerk.” It is his custom to ride over from his country-house, -his _Pazo_, two leagues away, tie his horse to the Palacio garden-gate, -enter and call to a servant for wine--for that excellent _vino de la -Fontela_ which would be the best in the world, he says, if pressed from -selected grapes--drink and fall asleep, and then waking up call loudly -for his horse, whether it chances to be night or day, and ride back to -his _Pazo_. There is a glimpse of the mother of Concha, who would tell -the children stories of the saints, and with “mystic, noble fingers” -slowly turn the pages to show them the pictures of the Christian Year; -of the mother of Xavier, who would pass her days in the recess of a -wide balcony spinning for her servants, in a chair of crimson velvet -studded with silver nails. There is thin, white Concha, so saintly and -so frail; there is Xavier, Marqués de Bradomín, himself, the gallant, -cynical sceptic; there is the page Florisel, the old servant Candelaria, -with their rare and far-sought names. - -In “Flor de Santidad,” perhaps the best of Señor Valle-Inclán’s books, -we have the same delicate descriptions of Galicia--the sinister inn, -solitary in a gloomy brown Sierra; the shepherdess, keeping her flock -and seeing mystic visions among the Celtic stones, yellowed with ancient -lichens, _líquenes milenarios_; the simple greeting of the peasants: -_Alabado sea Dios_, “Glory be to God”; pilgrims and witches; charms and -magical incantations to preserve the flocks from evil; cunning and -simplicity, superstition and crime. The same charm of mystical -simplicity and innocence that surrounds Adega, the girl shepherdess of -“Flor de Santidad,” surrounds all the heroines of Señor Valle-Inclán’s -novels; Maximina, for instance, of the sorrowful, velvet eyes, _ojos -aterciopelados y tristes_, in “Sonata de Invierno.” It is in “Flor de -Santidad” that occurs the picture, repeated in “Jardín Novelesco,” of -the old peasant woman going with her little grandson to find him a -master. They meet the Archpriest of Lestrove, who is riding -leisurely--_de andadura mansa y doctoral_--to preach at a village -festival. “May God give us a holy and good day.” The Archpriest draws in -his mare. “Are you going to the fair?” he asks. “The poor have nothing -to do at the fair. We are going to look for a master for the boy.” “And -does he know his catechism?” “Yes, Señor, he knows it. Poverty does not -prevent from being a Christian.” The grandmother leaves the -nine-year-old child in the service of a blind beggar. “To be the servant -of a blind man is a position many would like to have,” says the beggar, -and the new _Lazarillo_ answers sorrowfully, “Sí, Señor, sí.” As she -watches them go slowly away along the road through the wet green -country, she murmurs, drying her tears: “Nine years old and already -earning the bread he eats. Glory be to God.” - -Incidents and characters are thrown into the relief given by the -peculiar and original magic of Señor Valle-Inclán’s delicately chiselled -prose. There is in this prose something icily fresh, something of lilacs -and hydrangeas, vague reminiscences of the silver tinkling of voices in -a glass-roofed market, or of the swish of a scythe in wet grass. The -words are cunningly weighed and chosen and set as _gouttes d’argent -d’orfévrerie_. And the transparent freshness of his style is admirably -suited to describe the primitive simplicity and freshness of Galicia. - - - - -XXI - -NOVELS OF THE MOUNTAIN - - -I.--“SAVOUR OF THE SOIL” - -Fifty years ago, before Zola and the naturalistic school were on the -lips of men, a Spanish novelist, José María de Pereda, was beginning to -write who can only not be called a naturalist, because of the -associations given to the name in France. Humour and frankness run -through Spanish literature; there is less artificial refinement and more -vigour and broadly human sympathy than in the literature of France. The -very language is frank and outspoken rather than subtle and insinuating. -And the nobly independent character of Spaniards of all classes counts -for much in the admirable sanity of Spanish realism. “Our lowest social -strata,” says the Condesa Pardo Bazán, “differ not a little from those -described by Zola and the Goncourts.” The Spanish realist has thus no -cause to dissect common people and vulgar events from a superior point -of view, putting on gloves, as it were, to keep his hands clean. He -knows that virtue perches in strange places and learns to see _le -sublime d’en bas_, and there is a wide gulf between French naturalism -and Spanish realism. Pereda,[110] a _hidalgo_ of the old school, born at -Santander on the 6th of February, 1833, spent the greater part of his -life in the _Montaña_, at Santander, or at his country estate of -Polanco, only leaving Cantabria to study for a few years at Madrid, and -later to sit for a few months in the Cortes as a Carlist. The rest of -his life he passed among his family and books and friends in his beloved -_Montaña_.[111] His friend in private life, Señor Pérez Galdós, -describes him as dark, sunburnt, of medium height, with moustache and -pointed beard, of a character fundamentally Spanish, and of very nervous -temperament, with a horror of conventionality and pretence. It was about -the year 1859 that custom and character sketches from Pereda’s pen began -to appear in a Santander paper, _La Abeja Montañesa_. They were -collected in 1864, and published under the title of “Escenas -montañesas.” “Escenas montañesas” gives the essence of Pereda’s art, -and, though he later wrote long novels and occasionally attained an -admirable unity of treatment, the delight is still in the descriptions -of fast-vanishing customs and in the characters of his peasants and -fishermen rather than in the thread of the action, which is generally -slight; and the strength of his novels lies not in their heroes and -heroines but in the secondary figures and the side-shows. “Escenas -montañesas” shows us life in Santander and the neighbouring -mountain-country as it was half a century ago, and as it now lives -permanently in Pereda’s art. Scenes and people are presented to us with -extraordinary vividness, and only now and then the sketches read almost -too much like observations taken directly from the note-book. We have -the picaresque sketch of the _raquero_, the Santander _gamin_ who lives -by petty larceny from ships along the quays; the old-fashioned household -in a mountain village--by a hereditary privilege Saint John is looked -upon as one of the family, and the Saint’s procession raiment figures in -the washing list; the wake at a village funeral, with the frequent -toast, “to the glory of the dead,” _á la buena gloria del defunto_; tía -Nisca, going her long homeward journey on foot after bidding farewell to -her son on a ship bound for “the Indies,” and reproaching the unfertile -soil that causes its sons to emigrate, though there is a song that men -who go to the Indies in order to get rich would find the Indies at home, -were they but willing to work:-- - - “A las Indias van los hombres - A las Indias por ganar, - Las Indias aquí las tienen - Si quisieran trabajar;” - -and especially the noble figure of tío Tremontorio (the first and -foremost of Pereda’s long line of masterly portraits in humble life, and -the last of that race of hardy fishermen who, with the Basques, rivalled -English whalers in the North Seas and made treaties with English kings -during the Middle Ages), net-making, or eating his bread and raw -_bacalao_ on his balcony in the squalid _Calle Alta_, or consoling the -wives and mothers of fishermen on the _Muelle Anaos_ (in “La Leva”), and -dying cheerfully (in “El fin de una raza”), after many hours of battling -with the waves, glad to die quietly in his house, although he had nearly -perished in the storm owing to his unwillingness to lose an -_escapulario_ of the _Vírgen del Carmen_. “We are all sailors of that -further sea,” he says, in his rough language, as he lies dying, “all -bound for the same port. If the devil does not block it against us, I -to-morrow and you another day will cast anchor there.” “Suum cuique” is -the longest and not the least excellent of these _Escenas_. A poor -_hidalgo_ of the mountain, Don Silvestre Seturas, visits a powerful -friend at Madrid, and is speedily disillusioned of the capital and only -court. His friend in turn accompanies him to his ancestral -country-house, and is delighted at first with the country and its -idyllic peace. But the _rat de ville_ begins to discover, after some -months, that the country has neither peace nor poetry--“Barbarus híc ego -sum quia non intelligor ulli”--and returns to Madrid. Several incidents -contribute to his change of opinion, incidents which reveal the -character of the peasants and illustrate the fact that Pereda, while he -makes us love the peasants of the _Montaña_, is never blind to their -faults and weaknesses. The rich _madrileño_ had decided to give a clock -for the tower of the village church. But distrust occupies a large place -in the character of the villagers, and they fear the rich even when -bringing gifts. What hidden intention is there in this unwonted -generosity? The Mayor calls the Council together, and the result is a -long document for the donor to sign. He is to undertake to place the -clock in the tower at his own cost; he is to give an annuity of two -thousand _reales_ to meet any expenses connected with the clock; he is -to build another tower if the present one falls down “in my time or in -that of all the generations and heirs that may come after me”; he is to -pay for all lawsuits arising from the clock in the village, or in the -neighbourhood. When he tears up the paper, the villagers’ suspicion of -some afterthought in his gift is irrefragably confirmed. Lawsuits are -the passion of the Mountain. One has continued in Don Silvestre’s -family for seven generations, and he himself, having through poverty to -choose between remaining a bachelor all his life and giving up the -lawsuit, chooses the former without wavering. The last straw in his -friend’s patience is a lawsuit drawn up against him because, when he was -out shooting, part of a wall of loose stones round a peasant’s fields -crumbled down shortly after he happened to have fired at a bird. - -“Bocetos al temple” (1876), and “Tipos Trashumantes” (1877), show the -same power of keen observation. Pereda, who treats the failings of the -peasants with unsparing, but withal benevolent humour, becomes merciless -and even cruel when dealing with the pretentiousness of the vulgar and -the inanity of rich _désœuvrés_. It has been wittily said of him that -“he reverses the apostolic precept: so far from suffering fools gladly, -he gladly makes fools suffer.” Without going outside his province he -found matter ready to his hand in the _veraneantes_, the _flâneurs_ from -Madrid, who passed the hot months in Santander. - -Thus in “Tipos Trashumantes” he pillories the _sabio_, the learned man, -who allows that Cervantes was not an entirely common man, but regrets -that neither Cervantes nor Calderón possessed the “philosophy of -æsthetics,” or who despises the inhabitants of Santander because they -have not heard of Jeeéguel (Hegel); the _literato_ or journalist who, -because a speaker in Cortes had rendered Dante popular by a quotation, -murmurs, “_come corpo morto cade_” if he drops his stick or cigar; the -barber who misses in Santander that indefinable “air” of Madrid;--in -fact, a procession of quacks and knaves, and fools and snobs: perhaps -the only “sympathetic” figure is that of the Barón de la Rescoldera, who -“has never a good word nor a bad deed.” It is pleasant to turn back to -village scenes in “Tipos y Paisajes” (forming a second part of “Escenas -montañesas,” 1871). Here we find the enriched “Indian” (that is a -_montañés_ who has returned to his country after making a fortune in -South America); the schoolmaster, in a serviceable coat of black, who -writes letters for the whole village, and shuts himself up in his house -to get, if not drunk, at least very intoxicated; the peasant Blas, who, -after inheriting thirty thousand dollars, is miserable, but feels that -he must live _como un señor_ now that he is rich, and dismisses as a -temptation to be resisted the wish to go as of old, with goad on -shoulder, along the high-road by the side of his oxen; the practical, -rough, kindly priest, Don Perfecto; Don Robustiano, an old-fashioned -_hidalgo_, who does not allow the modern use of matches in his -household, and who, from the experiences of his own poverty, is not -easily misled, when he visits a neighbouring _hidalgo_, by the excuses -for “my wife and daughter at church.” “I see through you,” says Don -Robustiano to himself, “no doubt they are hidden away in some corner of -the house for lack of clothes.” But especially is the sketch entitled -_El Amor de los tizones_ admirable and worthy of Cervantes. It is a -description of a rustic gathering or _tertulia_ in the kitchen of one of -the poor houses of a mountain village. The peasants--each of them a -clearly defined character--enter one by one with the greeting, “Dios nos -acompañe” or, “Dios sea aquí,” and round the log fire, the flicker of -the flames lighting up their faces against the immense smoke-blackened -chimney, they pray a _rosario_ for the dead, or tell stories of -brigands, and witches, and enchantments. “Los hombres de pró” -(originally published with “Bocetos al temple”) and “El Buey Suelto” -(written in 1877) are still collections of sketches, the first of a -canvassing for an election in rural parts of Spain, the second, of the -miseries of bachelors, and the scenes in both are touched with Pereda’s -vividness and humour. Pereda, as a novelist proper, begins with “Don -Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera” (written in 1878), which describes the -effects of the revolution of 1868 on a small village of the Mountain, -with “De tal palo tal astilla” (1879), an answer to Pérez Galdós’ “Doña -Perfecta,” “El Sabor de la Tierruca” (1882) and “Pedro Sánchez” (1883). -“El Sabor de la Tierruca” (Savour of the Soil) is a whole-hearted book -of the _Montaña_; its serenity is scarcely disturbed by the frequent -village fights and rivalries in which the weapons are stout sticks cut -from the mountain-side. The book is filled with a fresh and acrid smell -of the earth and autumn scents, and has the peace of still days when not -a leaf stirs, and there is no movement in the ripe and yellow -maize-fields. It is a life lived and felt by the author and not -superficially observed, so that there is no trace of artificiality or -false sentiment in the descriptions. Cumbrales and Rinconeda are rival -villages, Cumbrales lying high among orchards, Rinconeda lower down on -the edge of the plain, in thick oak and chestnut woods. Rinconeda -rejoices when the raging _ábrego_, the south wind, sweeps in furious -gusts from the hills and ravages Cumbrales; Cumbrales rejoices when the -rain turns every street of Rinconeda into a rushing torrent. The -characters of the inhabitants of Cumbrales are drawn with all Pereda’s -skill; Juanguirle, for instance, a rich, hard-working peasant, the -simple, sensible Mayor of Cumbrales; Baldomero, who “cannot understand -how doing nothing, thinking of nothing, troubling about nothing, can be -unpleasant to any sensible person”; his father, Don Valentín, “hero of -Luchana” and worshipper of Espartero, who, after a frugal meal, says to -his son that it is not the part of good Liberals to be so indulging -themselves when the Carlists are flaunting “the black flag of tyranny,” -to which Baldomero answers laconically that it would have sounded more -convincing before the meal. There is an epic fight between the two -villages which rages so violently that the Mayor, Juanguirle, in vain -attempts to stop it “in the name of _la Josticia_, in the name of the -law, of _la Costitución_, of God Himself, if necessary, since, for lack -of a better, I am now His representative here.” A few moments afterwards -sad to relate, Juanguirle, stung by an insult hurled at Cumbrales, is in -the very thickest of the fray. In “Escenas montañesas” Pereda had -slightly sketched a _deshoja_, the harvest task of separating the ripe -cob of maize from its sheath. A certain number of cobs (from two to -six) are set aside from each large basketful for the poor, for the souls -in purgatory, and other pious purposes. In “El Sabor de la Tierruca” the -scene is described more fully. The workers, over fifty in number, sing -songs and slow ballads as the heaps of shining yellow cobs and the heaps -of crisp, white leaves grow and grow, and their singing is accompanied -at intervals by the noise of torrents of maize-cobs emptied from the -baskets. We have, too, a description of a _derrota_, when flocks and -herds are turned out promiscuously to graze, of the game of _cachurra_, -a kind of rustic hockey, and the simple feasts of roasted chestnuts with -a _bota_ of wine. Yet all is not “jest and youthful jollity.” The -peasants, in their prudent distrust, have a keen eye for witches, and a -weak old woman, of few words, poor and lonely, and in league with the -Devil, plays a sadly large part in the history of Cumbrales. So in -“Tipos y Paisajes,” the witch is feared not only by the boys whom she -surprises stealing the grapes in the garden of her hut, but by the whole -village. If a cow dies, it is the fault of the witch; if a man spends -his days drinking in the tavern, the misery of his family is traced, not -to him, but to the witch. - - -II.--“ON THE HEIGHTS” - -In “Pedro Sánchez” Pereda, not without trepidation, travelled outside -his native region to Madrid, then, in 1854, “a large tumbledown village, -parched, old, and dirty;”[112] but Pedro Sanchez is a _montañés_, and -the first part of the book, before he leaves his native _Montaña_, in -style far exceeds the rest. The chief[113] works of Pereda, after “El -Sabor de la Tierruca” and “Pedro Sánchez,” were “Sotileza” (1885), “La -Puchera” (1889), and “Peñas arriba” (1895). “Sotileza” is a novel of the -old, now vanished, Santander. Both in the characters and the language it -is the most local of Pereda’s novels, and it is perhaps the one which -has become most famous. It has an atmosphere of pitch and tar and -sea-weed, and in the _Calle Alta_ nets and tattered rags hang from the -balconies, fishwives quarrel shrilly, and the strident, piercing cry of -the sardine-seller rends the air. Andrés, Muergo, and Cleto are all in -love with Silda, and Silda, growing up slight and graceful, and called -_Sotileza_ from the name for the thin wire or gut to which the fish-hook -is attached, is not naturally prone to let her feelings appear. But -Andrés, the son of a prosperous captain in the merchant service, cannot -marry beneath him; Muergo, the half-brutish, half-childish nephew of -tío Mechelín and tía Sidora, with whom Sotileza, an orphan, lives, is -conveniently drowned in a storm; and we leave Sotileza engaged to Cleto, -the honest son of tío Mocejón, who, with his wife, la Sargüeta, and his -daughter, Carpia, are the terror of the _Calle Alta_ and of _el pae -Polinar_. El padre Apolinar is a charitable, homely priest who receives -his poor petitioners with gruff words, but ends by giving them the -little that he possesses. One night, as he is writing his important -sermon, he is interrupted--not for the first time--by a poor woman whose -husband is ill. “Let her go to the doctor,” he exclaims; but when he -finds they are starving, “_Ave María Purísima_,” he cries twice, “and he -has three children and a wife, and there is no more honest man.” He -orders his old servant to bring the _puchero_ containing potatoes and a -little meat--the priest’s evening meal. After sniffing it deliciously, -he sends it off to the sick man, and as he resumes his sermon he says to -himself: “I have certainly read somewhere that to keep in good health -when engaged on so difficult a task as the one I now have in hand, there -is nothing better than to go to bed hungry. Well, there is no doubt as -to my being hungry, wolfishly hungry, to-night.” Sotileza leaves an -impression of wind-driven spray and tossing seas, of manly courageous -effort and vigour and zest of living; the difficulty of the language and -the roughness of the life described alike contribute to the power and -convincing character of the work. Pereda never showed more admirably his -capacity to raise the commonest lives, the most vulgar incidents and -the language of the street--of the strident _Calle Alta_ from which _pae -Polinar_ fled in comical dismay--to the region of high art. There is -something epical about his figures, in the clamorous feuds of the -fishwives not less than in the serene heroism of the deep-sea fishermen. -“La Puchera” is only half a sea-novel. The inhabitants of Robleces only -go sea-fishing to eke out the miserable pittance won by cultivation of -the soil. Thus in the house of Juan Pedro (called _El Lebrato_) and -Pedro Juan, his son (nicknamed _El Josco_, from his ferocious shyness), -fishing-tackle and oars mingle with agricultural tools. Juan Pedro is a -widower, and father and son are entirely devoted to one another, but -their house is untidy and uncomfortable for lack of a woman’s care. -Pedro Juan is in love with Pilara, Pilara is in love with Pedro Juan, -her family encourages the match, his father asks for nothing better, but -Pedro Juan cannot break through his timidity and bring himself to speak. -At last, however, he is emboldened when Pilara at the haymaking, in -scarlet skirt, bodice of striped blue, and headkerchief of many colours, -arranging the hay on the cart as he forks it up to her, leaps laughingly -from the last hay-cart into his arms. “Pilara, from here to the Church -for the señor priest to marry us. Will you agree to it?” And she -answers, “We might have been back long ago, _hijo de mi alma_, if you -had been different.” Though the miser of the book, Don Baltasar, is most -skilfully drawn, its interest centres more especially in the life of -Juan Pedro and Pedro Juan: Juan Pedro, gay and talkative, appearing on -festival days with his famous sea-boots, his Cochin-China medal, and a -silk necktie; Pedro Juan, who at his wedding, when asked by the priest, -Don Alejo, if he will have Pilara to be his wife, answers: “And will I -not indeed? She knows well I will, and you know it too.” - -In 1895 appeared “Peñas arriba” (On the heights), the crown and -masterpiece of Pereda’s work. It is a novel of the high mountain, as -“Sotileza” is a novel of the sea. Don Celso lives in Tablanca in his -ancestral house which holds lordship over a whole valley and has had the -honour of lodging two prelates, the Bishops of León and Santander; but -Don Celso is old and in failing health, and he so urgently begs his -nephew Marcelo to come to him that, against his will, the latter leaves -Madrid and his comfortable rooms in the _Calle del Arenal_. After a long -ride on and on over high mountain passes and narrow, precipitous paths -and haunts of bears, he reaches Tablanca after nightfall. A whistle from -his attendant, Chisco, the barking of dogs, an uncertain light moving to -and fro, black shapes round the light, a sound of voices, and Marcelo is -received into his uncle’s arms. Next day, from the wide balconies, he -discovers the mountains on one side nearly touching the house, on the -other a chequer-work of green meadows and yellow stubble-fields of maize -against a background of mountains green and brown and grey, and the -village among rocks and brushwood and intricate paths. There is a saying -in the village that the largest piece of flat ground is the floor of -Don Celso’s dining-room. Of the characters of the book Don Sabas belongs -to that noble army of humble parish priests described by Pereda--the -village priest in “De tal palo tal astilla”; Don Frutos, discreet and -talkative, in “Don Gonzalo”; the joyous priest of Robleces, _regocijado -de humor_, in “La Puchera,” whose only vice is to go out to sea twice a -week with the fishing-boats; and the incomparable _pae Polinar_ in -“Sotileza.” Don Sabas has a passion for the mountain, and, once upon the -heights, the exact word and the right phrase come to him in which to -express his enthusiasm and his deep knowledge of their plants and -animals. To have given him a bishopric in a flat country would have -meant death to him. He is fearless and untiring whether he is tracking a -bear, or out in a snow-blizzard on the heights to rescue some peasant or -herdsman who has not returned to the village, or visiting the sick on a -black night of storm. Don Celso is also a noble figure, practical and -imposing, and in his immense kitchen of an evening he holds a -patriarchal gathering of peasants. We have, too, the splendid Tolstoian -figure of the _hidalgo_ of ancient race, Gómez de Pomar, the author of -many books, unloading a cart of hay in his simple peasant’s dress. He is -a model of noble courtesy--_hidalga cortesía_, his style is “spirited -and vigorous, pure Castilian untainted, as the blood that flows in his -veins.” Consciously or unconsciously, it is a self-portrait of Pereda. -The book abounds in impressive scenes and characters; it was a subject -dear to Pereda’s heart, and he produced a work which ranks among the -great novels of the world. There is a certain solidity in Pereda’s -writing well suited to describe the stern deep-shadowed -mountain-country, while his unlatin love of the wild and desolate -rejoices in the hurricanes that tear up trees and whirl the snow-drifts -on the mountain-side. “Peñas arriba” represents the whole life and being -of the author and gives us a full measure of the true _sabor de la -tierruca_, the savour of the soil. In “Esbozos y Rasguños” Pereda -ridicules those mad Cervantists who prove that Cervantes was omniscient, -an excellent theologian, a cook, a sailor, a geographer, a freethinker, -and who will soon prove that neither is Cervantes Cervantes, nor _Don -Quixote Don Quixote_. But of the true spirit of Cervantes he had imbibed -a large part, even though he never attained to his great-hearted -tolerance and the wider outlook of those more spacious times. His -prose[114] is robust and austerely free from foreign idioms, laden with -dialect and phrases native to the soil. It has caught the vigorous -freshness of the mountain air, and the scent of earth and woods and -moors, the rush of the sea and the elemental simplicity of men ennobled -by constant contact with earth and ocean. Pereda wrote out of the -fulness of his heart, without seeking popularity. His rough grandeur, -rugged as the country of “Peñas arriba,” his frequent use of dialect, -his untranslatableness, make for few readers. But those who, like Don -Sabas, care to leave the level country and climb the mountain height, -will find in Pereda a classic, high and steadfast as the hills. Blindly -though the iniquity of oblivion scattereth her poppy, it is perhaps not -“prodigiously temerarious” to suspect that Pereda may still be read when -Zola is forgotten. - - - - -XXII - -CASTILIAN PROSE - - -“The Spanish language,” said an English writer in 1701, “is properly -none at all, for if the Spaniards were to restore to the Egyptians, -Grecians, Arabians, Moors, Jews, Romans, Vandals, Huns, Goths, French, -and, lastly, Italians, the words they have taken from them, they must of -necessity remain dumb.” And, again, the Spanish language “consists of -a’s and o’s, and nothing else but mouthing and grimace.” Another -Englishman, sixty years later, says of the Spanish language, that “As -there is something pompous and magnificent in the length of its words -and the sound of them, so there is also a peculiarity in the turn and -manner of their phrases and expressions.” In the time of Spain’s -greatness a larger measure of justice is bestowed on the Spanish -language. “It is expressive, noble, and grave,” says Mme. d’Aulnoy; “it -is only our own (_i.e._ French) which excels it.” But with the decay of -Spain’s material prosperity the language seems to have fallen into a -disrepute; can a nation that possesses no gold currency and no -battleships possess a language or literature worthy of the name? It may -be admitted that many modern Spaniards themselves do not write correct -or idiomatic Spanish; the language has been crowded with foreign -importations, and while it is the easiest language to learn -superficially, it is, by reason of its immense wealth of words and -baffling reserves of idioms, one of the most difficult to learn well. -“The best Castilian is here spoken,” said Mme. d’Aulnoy of Burgos, and -it is still in Castille that the purest Spanish is to be learnt, in -regions, _i.e._ where, owing to the climate, the foreigner makes but a -briefest stay. Toledo is more likely to be visited for two days to see -its churches, than for two months to learn the language; it gives no -inviting impression of comfort to the stranger. In “Don Quixote” we read -that “They cannot speak so well who are brought up in the Zocodover as -those who spend the day walking to and fro in the cloisters of the -Cathedral, yet all are Toledans.” But although among the peasants of -Spain there are many _prevaricadores del buen lenguaje_, with reckless -transposition of consonants (such as _probe_ for _pobre_), their -language is often essentially purer and more idiomatic, with “a -peculiarity in the turn and manner of their phrases,” than that of the -_reprochadores de voquibles_, who cast it in their teeth, and who would -die rather than offend _la grammaire_, but allow themselves the constant -use of foreign words and expressions in the construction of their -sentences. True Castilian has a combined softness and vigour, enabling -it to be at once impassioned and concise, a harmony and strength -scarcely to be found in any other language, and a pithiness which -springs from the soil and has not its origin in books. Many of Spain’s -greatest writers have wielded lance and pen alternately; they are not -“grammarians who hack and slash for the genitive case,” but in the clear -shock and flow of vowels, scarcely interrupted by their setting of -slurred consonants, we seem to hear a rumour of battle, and their words -can be, like those of St. Francis of Assisi preaching, _a modo che -saette acute_--very sharp arrows. This native vigour corrects the -tendency to rich magnificence and trailing growth of words; while -without this richness the Castilian language might be like staccato -Catalan--a succession of quick pistol-shots, as it were, not the stately -tones of an organ. It is not too much to say that Castilian--not the -miserable Castilian of many of the newspapers and many modern authors, -but Castilian at its best--has been excelled only by Greek. It is thus a -language truly worth studying, and it is easily learnt; it has, next to -English, the widest extension in the world, and it possesses a splendid -literature of eight centuries, continued at the present day in a number -of characteristic and fascinating novels. Yet the Castilian language, -literarily, is so little studied that it seems to be considered to be -“properly none at all;” and these novels when read in translations lose -their savour. Cervantes prophesied that “Don Quixote” would be -translated into all nations and languages, but, as Dante said that -poetry cannot be translated “senza rompere tutta sua dolcezza e -armonia,” so Cervantes likens translations to the reverse side of -Flemish tapestries--the figures still visible, but obscured by a crowd -of thread-ends. The best Spanish is still to be found in the writers of -the golden age of Spanish literature, and especially in the writings of -the mystics. - -The style of Cervantes changes with his characters, who are allowed to -murder Castilian in Spanish-Basque or Gascon-Catalan, but he is a master -at will of the purest Castilian, in him never divorced from the full -flavour of life, and he refers scornfully to the spurious continuation -of “Don Quixote” as “written in Aragonese.” Equally _castizo_, hardily -idiomatic and flavoured pungently, is the style of Quevedo. Of modern -writers, Valera and Pereda, differing so widely, are alike in this, that -they are both masters of noble Castilian prose, and have nothing to say -to the imported phraseologies which pervade a large proportion of modern -Spanish writing. Pérez Galdós, too, has a thoroughly Spanish style, -robust and vigorous, rich in words, idiomatic. The most recent Spanish -writers in a novellizing spirit tread more delicately; they resemble -Sancho Panza, who, “when he was Governor, learnt to eat fastidiously, _á -lo melindroso_, so that he would eat grapes and even the seeds of a -pomegranate with a fork.” The style of León, indeed, is full and -fine-sounding, and, like that of Valera, carries us back to the writings -of the mystics in the sixteenth century; but Valle-Inclán (guilty only -very occasionally of words such as _madama_ or _dandy_) and _Azorín_ -have a mastery of deliberately thin, exquisitely clear-cut prose.[115] -“Llovía menudo y ligero en aquella fertil valle del Baztan....”; in this -passage of Valle-Inclán’s “Gerifaltes de Antaño” (1909), as in so many -others, we have a delicate finished picture, reached after much labour -of rejection and compression, though he has the art to conceal his -_affres du style_. In a language so inexhaustibly rich as the Spanish, -and with the tendency of Spaniards to write in hurried, copious fashion, -this choice and sifting of words is welcome, and is in no danger of -being carried to excess. - - - - -XXIII - -TOLEDO AND EL GRECO - - -The fame of El Greco[116] has of late years spread and deepened, -although the full fascination of his pictures will perhaps never be -understood, except by a few. Of his life we have but one or two -threadbare details, and this is the more tantalizing because we feel -that his life and character were of a strange, alluring interest. -Before his coming to Spain, the most interesting fact we learn -concerning him is contained in a letter of the artist Julio Clovio, -written in November, 1570: “There has arrived in Rome a young Cretan, a -disciple of Titian, and, in my opinion, an excellent painter--_parmi -raro nella pittura_.” The date of El Greco’s birth is uncertain, but if -he was a _giovine_ in 1570, he would hardly have been seventy-seven at -the time of his death in 1614. This assertion as to his age was made -when the date of his death was given as 1625. It has been conjectured -that it arose from an easy confusion between _sesenta_ and _setenta_, -and that he was not seventy-seven but sixty-seven; the year of his birth -would then be 1547. The exact date of his arrival at Toledo is unknown, -but it was about the year 1575; certainly in or before 1577. Toledo had -ceased to be the capital and court of Spain, yet still remained the home -not only of princes of the Church, but of many men of letters, and the -Arabic MS. of “Don Quixote” was discovered in its market-place. Its -cathedral was “the richest church in Christendom.” An Italian work -published at Venice in 1563 records that “the priests reign triumphant -in Toledo--_trionfano_--and give themselves up to good living, and no -one reproves them.” The power of the Inquisition was at its height. From -the gloom of the Escorial, Philip II.’s narrow, unbending spirit found -many echoes in the stern cities of Castille. El Greco lived to see the -expulsion of the Moriscos, and the utter decay of the trade and industry -of Toledo and other cities. Antonelli’s project to make the Tagus -navigable as far as Toledo was rejected scornfully: would not God have -made it navigable had it been His will? Yet it was the golden age of -Spanish letters, and during El Greco’s sojourn at Toledo the most -humorous and broadly human figure of all literature was being elaborated -in Cervantes’ brain. El Greco died at Toledo two years before the death -of Cervantes and Shakespeare. - -Pacheco says of El Greco that he was “in all things as singular as in -his paintings.” Other stray notices represent him as “a great -philosopher,” “eloquent in discourse,” a witty, acute speaker--_de -agudos dichos_--a writer on painting, sculpture and architecture. We are -further told that he earned many ducats but spent them in pomp and -display, even keeping musicians to play to him during his meals. He -would seem to have retained the soft atmosphere of Italian luxury amid -the narrow, gloomy Toledo streets, and to have introduced an alien note -of pleasure into the cold, intense existence of Castille. But if his -life preserved about it a certain tinge of Venice (Venice that spent -what Venice earned), his art was essentially Spanish. The mannerism of -his painting might be deemed extravagant, as his caprices might not be -understood, by many Spaniards. He was, they might say, “too picked, too -spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate.” They are -the epithets of Holofernes describing a Spaniard; and what could be more -Spanish than El Greco’s mingling of keen vision and realistic power as a -portrait painter with an intense, unfailing spiritualism; than his -vehement, almost tortured desire to shun the common and the vulgar--not -the mere seeking after originality but a wish to be sincere, to express -his own soul? His manner has not the sensuous richness of Italy but a -Castilian, nay, a Toledan austerity. It is as “a sword of Spain, the -ice-brook’s temper.” Already in his famous “Expolio” (in the Sacristy of -Toledo Cathedral), painted not long after he had arrived in Spain, he -had, as Señor Cossío says, abandoned the reds and golds of Italy for -blue and carmine and ashen grey. As to the price of this picture he had -a quarrel with the Chapter of Toledo Cathedral.[117] Assessors were -appointed to value it and they found that, though the picture was beyond -all price--_no tiene prescio ni estimación_--a verdict with which all -who have seen the “Expolio” will readily agree, yet, having regard to -“these poverty-stricken times,” they assessed it at nine hundred ducats, -an extraordinarily high price for that period. The Chapter, on the -other hand, offered a much smaller sum, and that under the condition -that he should remove certain “improprieties”--_ynpropiedades_--from the -picture, among them the figures of “the Virgin and the saints--_las -marias y nuestra señora_--whose presence in the picture is contrary to -the gospel, seeing that they were not actually present.” El Greco held -out for his own price, but the Mayor, siding with the Chapter, decreed -that he must either give up the picture or go to prison, and the painter -submitted. The exquisitely beautiful figures that he was to have removed -are, however, still in the picture, as well as the other -_ynpropiedades_, so that he seems at least to have defied the narrow -spirit of the letter in the priests who “reigned triumphant” at Toledo. -Perhaps--in the temper of Alonso Cano towards the Chapter of Granada -Cathedral--he threatened to destroy the “Expolio,” and the Chapter, -having given him a hundred and fifty ducats on account, would be -unwilling to lose their picture. Certainly El Greco would not say to -himself with Frà Lippo Lippi-- - - “they must know! - Don’t you think they’re the likeliest to know, - They, with their Latin? so I swallow my rage, - Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint - To please them.” - -El Greco painted to please no one but himself and his individual vision. -His next great picture, the “San Mauricio,” was painted by command of -Philip II., but it did not please the King and in his lifetime was not -placed in the Escorial, where it now is. _No le contentó á su Magestad_, -says Sigüenza, and he goes on to say, “and this is small wonder, since -it pleases but few, though it is said that it shows much art, _aunque -dizen es de mucho arte_.” It is conceivable that the picture as a whole -might seem ugly, and repel, especially on a first view, before the eye -had embraced its wealth of beautiful details. The real reason, however, -of its “not pleasing” was not the exaggerated drawing nor the harsh -colouring, the dominant note of yellow and blue, but the realistic -portrayal of the group of martyrs in the foreground. “Saints,” proceeded -Sigüenza, “should be painted in such a manner that they may not take -away the desire to pray, but may rather incite to devotion.” - - “‘Ay, but you don’t so instigate to prayer,’ - Strikes in the Prior! ‘when your meaning’s plain - It does not say to folks--remember matins-- - Or, mind you fast next Friday.’” - -The Spanish Church would willingly have reduced art to skull and bones. -But El Greco saw that his Saints must be human before they could be -divine. He had now inaugurated that realism which was to find its -highest expression in the art of Velázquez, but which is evident also in -the Saints and Madonnas of Murillo. - -El Greco has not the immediate attraction and universal appeal of -Velázquez; some of his pictures may displease at first and only -gradually make their charm felt. What, then, we may ask, is El Greco’s -peculiar fascination, the dominating power to attract or to repel in -his pictures so great that it is apt to become almost an obsession? Is -it the truth to life, or the aloofness from life, the clear expression -of character or the spiritual submission to divine will? Does it lie in -his fondness for those cold, simple colours, the pale greens and lilacs, -grey and the blue of hydrangeas or of the surface of ice, that delight -the soul of “primitive” and “decadent” alike; in the pervading life and -movement, the slender, lengthened limbs and tapering figures; in the -subtle permanence of expressions and attitudes that were “so fugitive”? -Is it the passionate sincerity and striving that disdains rest and mere -complacency of work accomplished, the noble discontent with effects -achieved, the ceaseless longing to reach yet higher levels, till -ultimately, as in his “Asunción,” the whole picture is moulded to a -perfect realization of the soul’s desire, a harmonious unity of -aspiration, “toccando un poco la vita futura”? Or is it the exquisite -sadness, the air of acquiescence in suffering and fate unshunnable, or -the wonderful peace and serene joy of some of his faces? It is a rare -combination of all this that gives the essence of El Greco’s potent -charm; it is the richness of contrast so truly Spanish, the marvellous -rendering alike of heavenly things and things terrestrial, the wild -magic of his imagination, the sober individual alchemy of his style. In -these delicate lines, thin faces, long white limbs and restrained -colours there is a spiritual intensity that impassions and consumes with -a light and fire reaching beyond dim mortal vision. But in the -expression there is, moreover, a softness of lingering pity, of linked -sweetness and tears for earthly sorrows, that makes his art not cold and -distant, appealing merely to the intellect, but lovable and human; “a -thing ensky’d and sainted,” yet still bound by gold chains about the -feet of man. - -The little church of Santo Tomé, with its beautiful old tower, stands -but a few hundred yards from El Greco’s house at Toledo, and for this -church he painted perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the most -important of all his works--“El Entierro del Conde Orgaz.” For an artist -the “Entierro” has almost as much interest and instruction as “Las -Meninas” of Velázquez. The subject is a local legend. Saint Augustine -and Saint Stephen come down to carry to burial the corpse of the -charitable Conde de Orgaz--of whom we read that he “employed his life in -holy works and so came to a holy death”--and the chief citizens of -Toledo mourn him. In this long line of faces El Greco shows his full -mastery as a portrait-painter. And we may see in them all the race of -Castille--Castilian dignity, frankness, nobility, sadness, resignation, -pride, haughtiness, intensity, ascetic mysticism. We seem, as we look, -to hear the solemn rhythm of Jorge Manrique’s verses--[118] - - “Este mundo es el camino - Para el otro, que es morada - Sin pesar; - Mas cumple tener buen tino - Para andar esta jornada - Sin errar. - Partimos cuando nacemos, - Andamos mientras vivimos, - Y llegamos - Al tiempo que fenecemos; - Así que cuando morimos - Descansamos.” - -The light of the torches burning in long thin flame and the upward look -of the priest in plain surplice draw the eye up to the second part of -the picture, the _Gloria_, where the Conde de Orgaz appears before -Christ and the Virgin in a heaven thronged with apostles and saints and -supported by angels. The beauty of the lower part is as easily -recognizable as that of a picture of Velázquez, but the _Gloria_ takes -longer to appreciate, having a fuller measure of El Greco’s mannerism. -Partly for this reason the picture may displease at first, permanently -displease if seen once only in a cursory glance, but on a more leisured -study it assumes its right place as one of the wonderful and most -beautiful pictures of the world. It requires time, too, to realize the -infinite beauty of detail, the figures on St. Augustine’s robe, the -scene of St. Stephen’s stoning on that of St. Stephen, and the skill -with which all monotony is avoided in the mourners, in spite of their -being nearly all of the same height, and nearly all wearing white ruffs -and pointed beards. - -In his later pictures El Greco increased the mannerism of his style; the -figures are longer, more angular, the intensity of expression becomes -an obsession, a paroxysm: he paints as one for whom the whole world has -ceased to exist. Sometimes, as in the “Baptism” at Toledo, these -exaggerations seriously spoil the beauty of his work; but the “Asunción” -of the church of San Vicente, at Toledo, also belongs to his later -style, and is not the least beautiful of his pictures: in no other work -of art has the sense of motion been so marvellously expressed--the -Virgin, saints, and angels seem actually floating upwards before our -eyes. El Greco’s mannerism, _jene unglaubliche Manier_, Herr Carl Justi -calls it, is more evident in some of his pictures, in others less; but -there is not a sufficiently wide gulf between them to justify the saying -that “they are so different that they appear not to be painted by the -same hand,”[119] nor to countenance Palomino’s statement that “What he -did well no one did better, and what he did badly no one did worse.” - -It was not carelessly nor ignorantly that El Greco drew his figures out -of proportion, making them preternaturally long and thin. He did so -deliberately, just as Bacon said deliberately that “In all beauty there -is some strangeness of proportion,” and the effect in El Greco’s -pictures often, indeed as a rule, justifies his boldness. We see him - - “Pouring his soul ... - Reaching, that Heaven might so replenish him, - Above and through his art--for it gives way; - That arm is wrongly put--and there again-- - A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines, - Its body, so to speak! its soul is right.” - -Naturally the peculiarity of his style has at once struck all observers. -So the French have spoken of his “maladresses enfantines, audaces -troublantes,” his “attitudes strapassées,” his “draperies cassées et -chiffonnées á plaisir,” his “dessin fantastique.” So Sir Edmund Head -wrote of some of El Greco’s pictures as “extravagant in length, of an -ashen-grey tone, most singular in so fine a colourist.” If only glanced -at once, this is perhaps the impression that the majority of his -pictures would leave, and he thus remains a sphinx to many. “He will -always remain caviare to the multitude,” wrote Sir J. C. Robinson in -1868; “the uninitiated observer passes over [his pictures] with wonder -and bewilderment, the grim angular figures and draperies and the -flickering unrest of all the details affecting him as would a harsh -tumult of discordant sounds.” - -Palomino said of El Greco that “he ended by making his painting -despicable and ridiculous alike by extravagance of drawing and harshness -of colour.” His contemporaries explained the singularity of his work -either as due to madness or to craving for effect, _por valentía, para -salir del día_, or to a wish to prevent them from being confused with -those of Titian! - -Not less than his drawing, El Greco’s colouring has been a -stumbling-block and an offence. We read of his “teintes presque -cadavériques,” “coloris grisâtre, pâle blafard,” “symphonies en bleu -mineur;” and Ford characteristically wrote that his pictures were often -“as leaden as cholera morbus.” After the rich reds and golds of Italian -painting, the subtler tints of El Greco, evolved by him partly under -Tintoretto’s influence, partly under the influence of Toledo, could not -please his contemporaries, but we feel now that they are no slight -ingredient of his charm. In colouring El Greco largely influenced -Velázquez, and through Velázquez all subsequent painting. Velázquez -learnt from him, in the words of Señor Cossío, “his harmony of silver -greys and the use of certain carmines.” But it was not only El Greco’s -colouring that affected him. Señor Cossío sees in the construction of -“The Surrender of Breda” vague reminiscences of the “San Mauricio,” and -one may also see in it reminiscences of the “Expolio.” Palomino, in his -Life of Velázquez, says that “in his portraits he imitated Domenico -Greco, for he considered that his heads could not be sufficiently -praised.” Velázquez rejected El Greco’s mystic intellectuality, but -possibly without El Greco’s influence the realism of Velázquez might -have been excessively exact and less inspired. - -Toledo, in the words of a modern Spanish poet, stands “dark, ruinous, -forgotten and alone;” but Domenico[120] Theotocopuli, who lay there -unremembered for three centuries, now rises to spread his fame through -the world-- - - “Tout passe. L’art robuste - Seul a l’éternité, - Le buste - Survit à la cité.” - -Foreigners from many lands climb up and down the cobbled lanes and -passages, in search of hidden churches here and there with pictures by -El Greco--Santo Tomé, San José, San Vicente, Santa Leocadia, San -Nicolás, and many more: - - “The sanctuary’s gloom no longer wards - Vain tongues from where his pictures stand apart.” - -He loved to paint the city, and, besides his famous view of it, we find -it in the background of his pictures. The Cathedral and the Bridge of -Alcántara and the Castle of San Servando are perfectly distinct in the -“Asunción” of the Church of San Vicente. The city figures again, though -less clearly, in the magnificent picture of St. Martin (of Tours) -dividing his cloak, an act of charity that certainly receives a new -significance in this bleak, unsheltered Toledo country. And Toledo, not -Troy, appears in the “Laocoon,” the only picture by El Greco that has a -classical subject. El Greco, the Cretan, lived at Toledo for some forty -years, and the charm of Toledo seems to have entered into his soul. His -house was not in one of the smothered streets, but in an open space high -above the Tagus, opposite the Synagogue of the Jews.[121] It has a cool -_patio_ with a floor of red bricks and glazed tiles, and four white -pillars, with a tiny well near the entrance, and a grey wooden gallery -above, resting on the pillars, and open on one side, so that in spring -swallows occasionally enter and whirl round the court. To the right a -door leads to a quaint, old-fashioned kitchen, with its immense open -fireplace and seats on either side beneath the chimney. That El Greco, a -foreigner, should have become the most Spanish of Spanish painters, was -due no doubt to the influence exercised over him by this stern yet -luring city of Castille. It is impossible to dissociate his colouring -from the many greens and greys and browns of the city and surrounding -country, the rust-coloured soil of the Cigarrales thinly covered with -many greens that are not green, grey hill-plants, dull tints of thyme -and olive, the shriller green of pomegranate and other fruit-trees, the -grass sun-parched to patches of yellow. And perhaps it is not altogether -fanciful to connect the metallic gleams visible in certain lights on the -surface of the Tagus with the glazed effects so frequent in El Greco’s -pictures, or even the ragged, wind-tormented elms by the river with some -of his more extravagant figures. The city points upward like a grey -sword; and whether seen in shafts and foils of orange light against a -stormy sunset, or fainting and crumbling greyly beneath a relentless sun -and sky of cloudless blue, it has the austere intensity that we find in -El Greco’s work. Yet, as in the greyest pictures of El Greco occurs some -relieving touch of colour, so Toledo is not merely a monotonous symmetry -of brown or grey. A procession, white and gold and red and purple, -passes through the narrow streets under a shower of roses from the -balconies of houses gaily hung in white and red, red and yellow; or the -bright colours of peasants’ dresses are to be seen against the ancient -Alcántara bridge as they come in to market; or in some street of -stifling, windowless walls that lead up to a line of blue sky by day, -and at night to a ribbon of stars, comes a glimpse, through doors of -massive ancient stone, of a _patio_ of bright flowers--carnations, -nasturtiums, geraniums--as one may find a picture of El Greco in some -old forgotten Church; and beneath the yellow-brown walls and grey rocks -of the city are gardens of fruit-trees, where in spring nightingales -sing from pomegranates in scarlet flower. It is a city of continual -surprises, not to be understood or appreciated in a single day or a -single visit; it gives, like El Greco’s pictures, a strong original -impression at a first glance, but its inner being, its softer moments, -its true significance and charm it reveals only to a patient study. Its -attitude is indeed that of reserve; it seems to be holding judgment on -modern civilization. It represents all that is noblest, most individual, -and unbendingly austere in the spirit of Spain. - - - - -INDEX - - -A - -Abenabet, _King of Seville_, 101 - -_Afforestation_, 99 - -_Agriculture_, 97, 203 - -Ajofrín, 90 - -Alarcón (Pedro Antonio de), 195 - -Alas (Leopoldo) _Clarín_, 150, 193, 196, 197 - -Alfonso, _el Sabio_, quoted, 98 - -_Alhambra, The_, 89 - -Alicante, 113, 114, 115 - -Almería, 57, 113 - -Altabiscar, Poem of, 62 - -Altamira (Rafael), quoted, 22, 25 - -Amadeo I., _King of Spain_, 43, 198-199 - -Andalucía, 103, 128, 134-141, 186, 195 - -_Andalusians_, 25, 26, 90, 140, 188, 190 - -André (E. L.), 39 - -Antequera, 137 - -_Anti-Clericals_, 39, 40, 81, 199, 200 - -Aragon, 26, 100 - -Arenys de Mar, 104 - -Arriba, 75 - -Asturians, 26, 196 - -Asturias, 196 - -Atchuria, 64, 65 - -Avila, 87 - -Augustinians, 166, 181 - -Aulnoy, Mme. d’, quoted, 20, 29, 52, 59, 60, 62, 239, 240 - -Azorín. _See_ Martínez Ruiz. - -_Azulejos_, 132, 194 - - -B - -Bacon (Francis), quoted, xi, 33, 34, 41, 252 - -Barcelona, 88, 91, 104 - -Baroja (Pío), 27, 93, 208, 209 - -Basque Provinces, 50, 63, 66-79, 210-211 - -_Basques_, 25, 28, 61, 62, 66-79, 209, 225 - -Bayonne, 63 - -_Beggars_, 29, 87, 126 - -Béhobie, bridge of, 61 - -Benavente (Jacinto), 27, 41 - -Berceo (Gonzalo de), 39, 93 - -Berenger (Remont), _Count of Barcelona_, 159-160 - -_Betting_, 73, 74 - -Biarritz, 63 - -Bidasoa, 57-61, 65 - -Bilbao, 60, 88 - -Blasco Ibáñez (Vicente), 38, 123, 149, 152, 193, 205-208 - -Böhl von Faber (Cecilia). _See_ Fernán Caballero. - -_Booksellers_, 172 - -Borrow (George), 53 - -_Brigands_, 47, 194 - -Browning (Robert), quoted, 248, 249, 253, 256 - -_Bullfights_, 38 - -Burgos, 87, 158, 240 - -Burton’s _Anatomy_, quoted, 88 - -Butler, _Bishop_, quoted, 35 - -C - -_Caciquismo_, 23, 204 - -Cadiz, 88 - -Calderón de la Barca (Pedro), 32, 55, 227 - -Cambridge, 165 - -Camões (Luiz), quoted, 25, 26, 251 - -Cantabria, 63, 223-238 - -Cardeña, 139 - -_Carlists_, 76, 78, 81, 84, 210, 211, 223, 230 - -Carranza, _Archbishop_, 165, 169, 170 - -Cartagena, 116 - -Castejon, 158 - -Castelar (Emilio), 149, 198 - -_Castilian language_, viii, 24, 163, 181, 193, 202, - 212, 221, 222, 237, 239-243, 245 - -_Castilians_, 26, 93, 94, 95, 96, 212 251 - -Castille, 48, 54, 66, 92-96, 232, 246 - -Castro (León de), 166, 167, 168, 173 - -_Catalan language_, 241 - -_Catalans_, 26, 34, 79 - -Catalonia, 104-107 - -_Celestina, La_, 144 - -Cervantes, 48, 146, 147, 182, 227, 237, 241, 242, 246 - “Don Quixote,” 28, 88, 139, 146, 185, 240, 242, 245 - Don Quixote, 30, 151, 207 - Sancho, 27, 33, 40, 54, 242 - -Charlemagne, 62 - -_Church in Spain, the_, 39, 40, 200, 201, 245-246, 249 - -_Cid, Poema del_, 144, 150, 153-162 - -Cid, the, 87, 102, 144, 153-162 - -Clarín. _See_ Alas (L.) - -Clarke (Edward), quoted, 21, 239 - -Clarke (Henry Butler), 79 - -Claudian, quoted, 48 - -_Climate_, viii, 37, 54, 93, 100 - -Clovio (Julio), 245 - -Coloma (Luis), 201 - -Córdoba, 90, 101, 103, 140 - -Cortese (Paolo), quoted, 18 - -Creighton (Mandell), _Bishop of London_, quoted, 44 - -Creixell, 106-107 - - -D - -_Dances, Basque_, 73 - -Dante, quoted, 26, 130, 241, 250 - -_Deshoja, A_, 230-231 - -Díaz de Bivar (Rodrigo). _See_ Cid. - -_Diligencias_, 50, 51, 52 - -Dominicans, 166, 168 - -_Dress_, 53, 54, 77, 106, 135 - - -E - -Ebro, the, 100 - -_Education_, 140 - -Edward II., _King of England_, 63 - -Eibar, 73 - -Elgoibar, 73 - -Emigration, 100, 203, 225 - -England and Spain, 25, 63, 166 - -_Escorial, the_, 98 - -_Eskuara_, 59, 60, 62, 64, 68, 70-71, 76, 85-86 - -Espronceda (José de), 149 - -Estella, 81, 217 - -Estremadura, 98 - - -F - -Fernán Caballero, 185-191, 193 - -Fitzmaurice-Kelly (James), quoted, 142, 143, 146-147, 185, 195, 215, 227 - -Flaubert (Gustave), 192, 197 - -Ford (Richard), 25, 36, 47, 51, 53, 253 - -France (Anatole), quoted, 30 - -Francis of Assisi, Saint, 241 - -Francis I., King of France, 57 - -Fuenterrabía, 58, 62, 63, 85-86 - -_Fueros_, 76, 78, 79 - -_Funeral offerings_, 75 - - -G - -Galicia, 214-221 - -_Gallegos_, 25, 26, 214, 216, 220 - -Ganivet (Ángel), 22 - -Gallipienzo, 83 - -Gasset (Rafael), 99 - -Gautier (Théophile), quoted, 254, 256 - -_Generalife, the_, 89 - -Gibraltar, 207 - -_Giralda, the_, 126, 133, 188 - -Gómez de Baquero (E.), 201 - -Góngoray Argote (Luis), 148 - -Goya [Francisco Goya y Lucientes], 192 - -Granada, 88-89 - -_Grao, El_, 115, 205 - -Grazalema, 136, 137 - -Greco, El, 208, 243, 244-258 - -Guadalete, the, 137 - -Guadalquivir, the, 133, 140 - -Guernica, 76 - -_Guernicaco Arbola_, 76, 77 - -Guipúzcoa, 64, 67, 68, 78 - - -H - -Hendaye, 59 - -_Heresy_, 38, 172, 173 - -Horace, quoted, 71 - -_Houses_, 21 - -_Huerta, the Valencian_, 115-116, 121, 122, 124, 161, 205 - -Hugo (Victor), quoted, 47, 49, 57, 114, 115 - -Hurtado de Mendoza (Diego), 145 - - -I - -Ibiza, 205, 206 - -_Idearium Español_, 22 - -Île des Faisans, 60 - -_Inns_, 52, 140-141 - -_Inquisition, the_, 34, 38, 39, 147, 148, 168-184, 246 - -_Inscriptions_, 58, 60, 61, 64, 67, 77-78 - -_Irrigation_, 98, 99, 121-124 - -Irun, 62, 73, 198 - -Isabel II., _Queen of Spain_, 187, 188, 198 - - -J - -James I., _King of Aragon_, quoted, 26, 31 - -_Jews_, 167, 176 - -Jijona, 102 - -Jimena, wife of El Cid, 157, 158, 160 - -Johnson (Samuel), quoted, 47 - -Joseph, _King of Spain_, 42 - -Juan Manuel, _Infante_, quoted, 101 - - -K - -Kipling (Rudyard), quoted, 50 - - -L - -La Rhune, 64 - -Larramendi (Manuel de), 72, 74 - -_Lazarillo de Tormes_, 144, 145, 150, 202 - -León, 48, 87, 90 - ----- (Luis de), 148, 149, 151, 163-184 - ----- (Ricardo), 23, 24, 94, 211, 212, 242-243 - -Longfellow (H. W.), quoted, 52, 92 - -Loti (Pierre) [Julien Viaud], 73, 74 - -_Louis XIV._, _King of France_, 60, 64 - -Lumbier, 83 - - -M - -Madrid, 99, 198, 202, 203, 207, 228, 231, 232 - -Maeztu (Ramiro de), quoted, 36 - -_Makhilas_, 77 - -Málaga, 137, 138 - -Mallada (Lucas), quoted, 22 - -Manrique (Jorge), 251 - -Marbot, _General_, 61 - -----, quoted, 18 - -Mariana (Juan de), 37, 70 - -Martial, quoted, 26, 54, 100 - -Martínez Ruiz (J.), _Azorín_, 22, 89-90, 94-96, 193, 208, 209 - -Masdeu, quoted, 19 - -Menéndez y Pelayo (Marcelino), 151, 192 - -_Montaña, La_, 26, 223, 226, 228-238 - -Montano (Arias), 173 - -Montoro, 140 - -_Moors in Spain, the_, 26, 31, 86, 101, 161, 246 - -Murcia, 90, 114 - -Murillo (Bartolomé Esteban), 249 - -_Mystics_, 148, 149, 192, 193, 194, 242 - - -N - -Napier (Sir W.), _Lieut.-General_, quoted, 17, 18, 26, 64 - -Napoleon, 42, 61 - -Narváez (Ramón María), _General_, 30 - -Navarre, 80-84 - -_Navarrese_, 26, 83 - -_Norias_, 108-109 - -_Novels_, ix, 144, 151, 185-238, 241 - - -O - -Ocaña, 90 - -Ondarrabia, 85, 86 - -_Oranges, Court of_, 90, 126 - -Oropesa, 108-111 - -Oviedo, 197 - -_Ox-carts_, 74 - -Oxford, 165 - - -P - -Pacheco (Francisco), 245 - -Palacio Valdés (Armando), 88, 193, 195-196, 200 - -_Papal authority in Spain_, 146, 147, 183 - -Pardo Bazán (Emilia), 185, 205, 214-217, 222 - -_Parish Priests_, 76, 215, 233, 236 - -Pascal (Blaise), 148, 171 - -_Pastorales, Basque_, 69-70 - -_Patios_, viii, 54, 88, 90, 131, 133, 189, 256 - -_Peasants_, 71, 82, 83, 94, 100, 110, 120-124, 135, - 140, 141, 205, 215-216, 226-227, 229-230, 240 - -_Pelota, Basque_, 73, 74 - -_Peninsular War, the_, 17, 64, 65, 81 - -Pepys (Samuel), quoted, 19, 25, 39, 44 - -Pereda (José María de), 40, 91, 151, 152, 189, 190, 191, 193, 222-238, 242 - -Pérez Galdós (Benito), 24, 29, 30, 35, 37, 150, 191, - 192, 193, 197, 204, 223, 242 - -Péroz, _Colonel_, 61 - -Philip II., _King of Spain_, 165, 246, 248 - -Philip IV., _King of Spain_, 60 - -Picón (Jacinto Octavio), 201-202 - -_Pilgrims_, 61, 62, 76, 147 - -Pino, 138 - -Place-names, 64, 65, 68, 78, 85, 86 - -_Politics_, 28, 35, 212 - -Pomponius Mela, quoted, 86 - -_Post_, 56, 59 - -Prim (Juan), _General_, _Conde de Reus_, 198 - -_Processions_, 87, 127, 133 - -_Proverbs_, ix, 26, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, - 40, 63, 69, 72, 79, 93, 121, 145 - - -Q - -Quevedo [Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas], 29, 39, 144, 148, 150, 242 - - -R - -Reclus (Elisée), quoted, 21 - -_Religion_, 38, 39, 40, 44, 76, 80, 147, 200 - -_Roads_, 50, 51, 52 - -Romayquia, _Queen_, 101 - -Roncesvalles, 62 - -Ruiz (Juan), 39, 142, 150 - - -S - -Sagunto, 160 - -Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 57, 60, 62, 64, 78 - -Saint-Pée, 78 - -Salamanca, 87, 164-168, 173-175, 181-183 - -Sánchez (Tomás Antonio), 154 - -San Feliú de Guixols, 104 - -Sanguesa, 84 - -San Sebastian, 63 - -Sansol, 83 - -Santa Cruz (Manuel), 210, 211 - -Santander, 91, 224, 232-233 - -Santiago de Compostella, 61, 62 - -Santillana, _Marqués de_ [Iñigo López de Mendoza], 142, 143 - -San Vicente, 107 - -Sare, 64, 78 - -Scaliger, quoted, 60 - -Scott (_Sir_ Walter), 185 - -Segovia, 87 - -_Serenos_, 111, 188 - -Seville, 88, 90, 125-133, 187, 188 - -Shakespeare, quoted, 29, 41, 149, 246 - -Sierra de Jaen, 139 - -Sierra Nevada, 117, 118, 138, 139, 141 - -Sitges, 106 - -_Smuggling_, 57, 58, 77, 205 - -_Socialism_, 27 - -Socoa, 65 - -_Song of Solomon, the_, 166, 175 - -Sorolla (Joaquín), 205 - -Stendhal [Henri Beyle], 189, 192 - -Strabo, quoted, 98 - - -T - -Tagus, the, 54, 161, 202-203 - -Talavera, 90 - -Tannenberg (Boris de), 151, 223, 237 - -Tarifa, 118 - -Tarragona, 107 - -Teresa, Santa, 25, 148, 183 - -Theotocopuli (Dominico). _See_ Greco. - -_Threshing_, 72, 82 - -Ticknor (George), quoted, 52 149, 163 - -Tiepolo (Paolo), quoted, 19 - -Tintoretto, 255 - -Titian, 245, 254 - -Toledo, 87, 90, 91, 155, 240, 244-258 - -Torrevieja, 113-114 - -Townsend (Joseph), quoted, 31 - -_Translations_, 241-242 - -_Travelling_, 47-56 - -_Turroneros_, 102 - - -U - -Unamuno (Miguel de), 212 - -Urrobi, 81 - -Urrugne, 61 - -_Usury_, 95, 100, 203, 217 - - -V - -Valencia, 90, 91, 115, 120, 160, 161, 205, 206 - -Valencia Island, 86 - -_Valencians_, 25, 26, 122 - -Valera (Juan), 150, 191, 193-195, 212, 242 - -Valle-Inclán (Ramón del), 205, 208, 210, 211, 217-221, 242-243 - -Vega (Lope Félix de), 33, 149 - -Velázquez [Diego Velázquez de Silva], 60, 144, 248, 253, 254 - -Vera, 58, 64, 78 - -Vézinet (F.), 214 - -_Villages_, 48, 80, 83, 92, 94, 100, 107, 135, 138, 229 - -Villanueva y Geltrú, 106 - -Vinson (Julien), 71 - -Vizcaya, 60, 63, 68, 76, 78 - -Voltaire, quoted, 73 - -_Vulgate, the_, 166, 167, 176-177 - - -W - -Webster (Wentworth), 71 - -Wellington, _the Duke of_, 17, 78 - -_Whale-fishing_, 63, 225 - -_Witches_, 231 - -_Women, influence of_, 40 - -Wordsworth (William), quoted, 76, 77 - -Wynn (Sir R.), quoted, 30, 60 - - -Z - -_Zagal, the_, 51 - -Zola (Émile), 207, 222, 238 - - * * * * * - -THE SPANISH SERIES. - -Edited by ALBERT F. 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His -wit plays with unimpaired vivacity, his convictions grow more and more -genuine and surprising.”--_Morning Leader._ - - * * * * * - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [1] The distinction still holds good, and those Spaniards who have - travelled, _e.g._ to Buenos Aires, differ by a certain practical - energy and optimism from those who have never left the Peninsula. - - [2] “The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady----. Travels into - Spain.” English translation. Second edition. London. 1692. - - [3] Villefranche. “État présent d’Espagne.” 1717. - - [4] Edward Clarke. “Letters concerning the Spanish Nation.” London. - 1763. - - [5] This pessimism “is based on our recent disasters; on the fact that - we are fallen, a terrible fact in the implacable merciless logic of - international life; on the momentary lack of will from which we are - suffering; and on the anachronism of certain vices and ideals which, - since they can no longer, as in past ages, be excused on the ground - that other nations share them, seem to show that we are incorrigible.” - Rafael Altamira, “Psicología del Pueblo Español” (Madrid. 1902), in - which will be found several of the opinions quoted above. - - [6] “Los Males de la Patria.” - - [7] “Idearium Español.” - - [8] “La Voluntad.” Barcelona. 1902: “La intuición de las cosas, la - visión rápida no falta, pero falta, en cambio, la co-ordinación - reflexiva, el laboreo paciente, la voluntad.” - - [9] “Alcalá de los Zegríes.” Madrid. 1910. - - [10] Saints in other countries have carried their heads in their - hands, but there is a legend of a saint in Spain who, not content - to walk a league with his head under his arm, continued to talk the - while without ceasing. He was, no doubt “concealing the poverty of - his action,” like Bertram dal Bornio, carrying his head “a guisa di - lanterna” in the Inferno. - - [11] “Comedia Sentimental.” 1909. - - [12] One may apply to it the words of Santa Teresa-- - - “Tiene tan divinas mañas - Que en un tan acerbo trance - Sale triunfando del lance - Obrando grandes hazañas.” - - - [13] Ford considered the Basque to be as “proud as Lucifer and as - combustible as his matches,” and there is a proverb, “En nave y en - castillo no más que un vizcaino.” Cf. Camões. Os Lusiadas: - - A gente biscainha que carece - De polidas razões e que as injurias - Muito mal dos estranhos compadece. - - - [14] The Castilians, said King James I. of Aragon, are very haughty - and proud: _de gran ufania e erguylhosos_. In the Lusiads the - Castilian is “grande e raro.” - - [15] The line of Dante is well known: “l’avara povertà di Catalogna.” - Napier speaks of “the Catalans, a fierce and constant race.” - - [16] The Gallegan, “o Gallego cauto” and “sordidos Gallegos duro - bando,” in Camões, ever remains the butt of Spanish wit. The - inhabitants of the _Montaña_ are considered almost equally dense: - “El montañés para defender una necedad dice tres” and again “From - Burgos to the sea all is stupidity.” The Asturian, of the region - between Galicia and the _Montaña_ has, rather, the reputation of a - business-like shrewdness, he is the _Astur avarus_ of Martial and - Silius Italicus; in return for his boast that he has never had any - infecting contact with the Moors, a proverb says: “El asturiano, loco - y vano, poco fiel y mal cristiano.” - - [17] “Para cantar los navarros, para llorar los franceses, para pegar - cuatro tiros los mozos aragoneses.” - - [18] In “El Imparcial.” - - [19] It is true that he was a Spanish Basque and was merely - reproducing in modern dress the scene in “Don Quixote,” in which the - Biscayan leaves his mistresses unprotected in their carriage and - fights in order to show that he is by birth a _caballero_. - - [20] Drunkenness is especially rare in Spain. Their sobriety has been - made a reproach, as being based on laziness and lack of initiative. - The second half of their proverb: “Goza de tu poco mientras busca más - el loco--Enjoy the little you have, and let the fool seek more” is, - indeed, as foolish as the first half is wise. - - [21] Cf. the “altos pensamientos,” of Quevedo’s famous Pablos of - Segovia and his father, the barber-thief, and the latter’s remark: - “Esto de ser ladron no es arte mecánica sino liberal”--the thief’s is - no base mechanical trade, but a liberal profession. - - [22] “Drudgery they will do none at all.” Sir R. Wynn, “A brief - relation of what was observed by the Prince’s servants in their - journey into Spain.” 1623. - - [23] They have that momentary isolated intensity which M. Anatole - France ascribes to men of action: “Ils sont tout entiers dans le - moment qu’ils vivent et leur génie se ramasse sur un point. Ils se - renouvellent sans cesse et ne se prolongent pas.” - - [24] Episodios Nacionales. Narváez. 1902. - - [25] Cf. Joseph Townsend. “A journey through Spain in the years - 1786 and 1787,” 3 vols. London. 1792: “We must not imagine that the - Spaniards are naturally indolent; they are remarkable for activity, - capable of strenuous exertions and patient of fatigue.” Another - noteworthy judgment of the same author concerning the Spaniards is - that “Their ambition aims in everything at perfection, and by seeking - too much they often obtain too little.” - - [26] “Non hi ha res al mon que vosaltres non faessetz exir de mesura.” - - [27] “La letra con sangre entra,” is a sad proverb of the Spanish and - in the modern education of the printed page they are deficient. - - [28] Cf. the sayings, _Poderoso caballero es don Dinero; Dadivas - quebrantan peñas; Dineros son calidad, etc._ Sancho goes to govern - the island of Barataria “with a very great desire to make money.” The - tendency is still to hoard, rather than invest, as did Don Bernard de - Castil Blazo in _Gil Blas_, keeping 50,000 ducats in a chest in his - house. - - [29] Spaniards prefer to enjoy time as a gift sent by the gods, - than to waste it in trying to spend it too nicely. _El tiempo lo da - Dios; Dios mejora las horas; Con el tiempo maduran las uvas._ To a - peasant two o’clock on a day of March is “four more hours of sun.” - Time is not parcelled out mechanically into tiny divisions by clocks. - Distances are given by hours--an hour to a league. The Catalans are - less lavish of the minutes; to a stranger asking the distance to a - village near Tarragona, a peasant answered cannily in Catalan, “un - cuart y mitj”--that is, the village was a quarter of an hour and half - a quarter of an hour distant. Curiously the Catalans give the hour as - in German, _e.g._ half-past eight is _dos cuarts de nou--halb Neun_. - - [30] “El Caballero encantado,” 1909: “Viven en un mundo de - ritualidades, de fórmulas, de trámites y recetas. El lenguaje se ha - llenado de aforismos, de lemas y emblemas; las ideas salen plagadas - de motes, y cuando las acciones quieren producirse andan buscando - la palabra en que han de encarnarse y no acaban de elegir.” The - Spaniards speak with conviction of the great gulf fixed between word - and deed:--_del dicho al hecho hay gran trecho; Los dichos en nos, los - hechos en Dios_. - - [31] Cf. a speaker in the _Cortes_ in June, 1910: “Aquí no hay nada - tan alto como las clases bajas.” - - [32] Don Ramiro de Maeztu has written of the aggressive assertion of - personality--_innecesária afirmación de las personas_--in Spain. - - [33] _Lo que no lleva Cristo lo llera el fisco_--“What the Church - leaves, the Treasury receives,” says an old proverb. - - [34] An author in Pérez Galdós’ _Fortunata y Jacinta_ says that the - Spaniards, that _pícara raza_, are unaware of the value of time and of - the value of silence. “You cannot make them understand that to take - possession of other people’s silence is like stealing a coin.” “It is - a lack of civilization.” By such un-Spanish criticisms Señor Pérez - Galdós betrays the fact that he was not born in Spain. - - [35] The historian, Mariana, displayed more patriotism than accuracy - when he wrote that Spain “is not like Africa, which is burnt by the - violence of the sun nor is it assailed, as is France, by winds and - frosts and humidity of air and earth.” - - [36] So Fr. Alonso de Espina wrote that, were an Inquisition - established, “serían innumerables los entregados al fuego, los cuales - si no fuesen aquí ... cruelmente castigados ... habrán de ser quemados - en el fuego eterno.” La Fortaleza de la Fe. 1459. - - [37] “This spectacle,” says an admiring Englishman in 1760, “is - certainly one of the finest in the world, whether it is considered - merely as a _coup-d’œil_ or as an exertion of the bravery and infinite - agility of the performer.” - - [38] Yet certainly no Englishman should attend a bull-fight while the - modern custom prevails of leading out a cruelly gored horse, sewing - it up, and bringing it in again for fresh sufferings. This is done to - save the contractors of the _plaza_ a few shillings and is a disgrace - to Spain. Those who have not seen a bull-fight and can scarcely - believe that so sordid and outrageous a practice is possible may, if - they have the courage, read all the details in Señor Blasco Ibáñez’ - novel _Sangre y Arena_ (1908). - - [39] The Inquisition was a tyranny universally feared, though in - principle supported by the people. In Pepys we read of “the English - and Dutch who have been sent for to work (in the manufacture of - certain stuffs) being taken with a Psalm-book or Testament and so - clapped up and the house pulled down; and the greatest Lord in Spayne - dare not say a word against it if the word Inquisition be mentioned.” - Cf. the groundless terror of the old woman in Quevedo’s _El Buscón_, - or the story of the man who, when asked for a few pears by an - Inquisitor, pulled up and presented him with the whole tree. Attacks - on and ridicule of priests in Spain are not exclusively modern; the - following verse of Juan Ruiz (14th century) is but one of countless - instances throughout Spanish literature: - - “Como quier que los frayles et clerigos disen que aman a Dios servir - Si barruntan que el rico está para morir - Quando oyen sus dineros que comienzan a retenir - Qual de ellos lo levará comienzan luego a rennir.” - - But recently the number of those believing in religion has diminished, - and the anti-Clericals have been driven by certain abuses of the - Church to a more or less crude parade of atheism. It is felt that - the Church has crushed life rather than sought its fuller, nobler - expression. Thus a writer, E. L. André (“Ética Española,” 1910), says: - “We conceive life solely as a preparation for death,” and speaks of - the slight _espíritu territorial_ possessed by Spaniards. Cf. Berceo, - in the 13th century: “Quanto aquí vivimos en ageno moramos”--our life - on earth is a sojourn in a strange land. - - [40] Honesty is a common attribute of Spaniards, but they have perhaps - no very accurate regard for the value of truthfulness or honesty in - words. - - [41] _La mujer y el fraile mal parecen en la calle._ In the South, - as at Seville, the percentage of women to be seen in the streets is - noticeably small. - - [42] “El consejo de la mujer es poco,” said Sancho, “y el que no lo - toma es loco.” The women maintain their influence, but it is thus not - properly their own, but rather that of the Church. - - [43] The phrase _Seguir sin novedad_ is still used to imply that - everything is going on well. But an ever-increasing number of - politicians are now advocating “new things” with a somewhat crude - violence. It is a reaction against the apathy that waited with crossed - hands-- - - “Vuolsi così colà dove si puote - Ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.” - - - [44] Cf. the characteristic trait mentioned by Samuel Pepys: “They - will cry out against their King, and Commanders, and Generals, none - like them in the world, and yet will not hear a stranger say a word of - them but will cut his throat.” - - [45] It is true, however, that the mass of the Spanish nation has - still to develop on really Spanish lines: hence its present weakness - and its potential strength in the future, when a civilization of a - truly national character shall have imposed itself upon the artificial - civilization of culture imported from France, and religion imported - from Rome. - - [46] The ethereally lovely Cathedral of León is more remote. - - [47] Some of the secondary roads of Andalucía are excellent, and - motorable, though narrow. But between the roads of most provinces - there is little to choose. No wonder that there is in Spain a saint - invoked as the protector of “way-farers and the dying.” Ford remarked - that while the rest of Spain calls the Milky Way “the road to - Santiago,” the Gallegans themselves know better, and call it “the road - to Jerusalem.” The roads from small towns to their stations, at charge - of the _municipios_, are notably bad, and amaze the newly arrived - foreigner. But, indeed, the roads in the immediate neighbourhood of - such important industrial cities as Valencia and Barcelona are often - in a deplorable state, and it is no infrequent sight to see carts of - fruit or vegetables stuck fast in deep ruts of mud. - - [48] Ticknor, in 1818, speaks of Spain as “a country such as this - where all comfortable or decent modes of travelling fail,” of the - “abominable roads,” and of the inns as “miserable hovels,” destitute - of provisions. A century and a half earlier Mme. d’ Aulnoy said: “You - enter not any inn to dine but carry your provisions with you.” But the - centuries pass not for Spanish inns. - - [49] A peasant woman near Almería wore a long yellow and pink - kerchief, a bright red shawl, light blue bodice, skirt of white and - mauve, dark blue apron with a white line, red stockings, yellow - sandals, and carried a second shawl of brilliant orange colour, yet - all blent harmoniously under the glaring sunlight. - - [50] Especially in the matter of letters, the ignorance, indifference, - errors, and delays of the officials are, to an Englishman, past - belief, and not least so at Madrid, where a letter has been kept for - two months and handed over, after repeated inquiries, with the date of - the Madrid post-mark, _seventy_ days earlier, clearly visible. Reforms - are, however, in contemplation. Foreign letters as a rule fare better - than others. A card posted at Granada on May 15, and a letter posted - in France on May 26, both arrived at Barcelona on May 27 (1911). - - [51] The former importance of St. Jean de Luz (in Basque Donibane - Lohitzune) is shown by the lines-- - - “Saint Jean de Luz, petit Paris - Bayonne, son écurie.” - - Similar is the proud boast of Almería: - - “Cuando Almería era Almería - Granada era su alquería.” - - Victor Hugo quaintly describes St. Jean de Luz in 1843 as “un village - cahoté dans les anfractuosités de la montagne.” - - [52] English translation of 1692. - - [53] In 1623 Sir R. Wynn describes the country near “Bilbo” as “all - infinite Rocky, cover’d onely with Furrs and a few Juniper Trees.” - - [54] At St. Jean de Luz, where Louis XIV. was married to the Infanta, - a house still hears the inscription-- - - “L’Infante je reçus l’an mil six cent soixante - On m’appelle depuis le Chasteau de l’Infante.” - - - [55] “Par Vocation.” Paris. 1905. - - [56] “_Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat._--All hours wound, the last - kills.” - - [57] Cf. Mme. d’Aulnoy: “We were here very well entertain’d so that - our Tables were covered with all sorts of Wild Fowls.” - - [58] The Basque poem, “_Altabiscarraco Kantua_,” singing of victory, - was considered magnificent when it was thought to be centuries old, - and though it has been proved beyond all doubt to be modern, we may - still venture to consider it to be magnificent: “A cry is heard among - the Basque mountains, and the Etchecojauna, standing before his door, - listens and says: ‘What is it? who is there?’ and the dog asleep at - his master’s feet, rises and fills the region of Altabiscar with his - barking.” One line is, “_Cer nahi zuten gure menditarik Norteko gizon - horiek?_--What do these men of the North want in our mountains?” and - another, “Why have they come to disturb our peace?” The Basques must - often have asked a like question as they have seen the foreigners of - younger races crowd around their mountains; but in spite of these - inroads, the Basques have succeeded in keeping a part of their - language and customs, like the waters of their proverb which, after a - thousand years, still run in their old course: “_Mila urthe igaro eta - ura bere bidean--Después de años mil, vuelve el rio á su cubil_.” - - [59] Rymer, “Foedera.” - - [60] - - SARARI - BALHOREA - RENETALE - YALTASSUN - AREN SARIA - EMANA LUIS - XIV. 1693. - - The words _balhorea_ (valour) and _leyaltassuna_ (loyalty) are typical - of the absence of truly Basque abstract words. - - [61] The mountain La Rhune or Larrhun, is half in France, half in - Spain. Its name is Basque, derived from _larre_, pasture, and _on_, - good (in Navarre there is a river Larron and a village Larraona); but - the first syllable has become the French article, and a lower flank of - the mountain is known as “La petite Rhune.” - - [62] Napier, who had no gift of spelling, writes Atchuria, or - Atchubia. The word means White Rock (_aitz_, rock, and _churi_, white) - and its Spanish name is Peña Plata, Silver Mountain. - - [63] The badness of their French has been ridiculed in the proverb, - “Parler français comme une vache (_i.e._ Basque) espagnole.” - - [64] Yet in a codex of the twelfth century occur eighteen Basque - words, all of which, except four, are still used, if in slightly - altered forms. The Basque language gives many proofs of the extreme - antiquity of the Basques. The words for “knife,” “axe,” etc., - are derived from _aitz_, meaning “stone.” The words for “Monday” - (_astelehena_, “first day of the week”), “Tuesday” (_asteartea_, - “middle of the week”), “Wednesday” (_asteazkena_, “last of the week”) - point to a week of three days. The counting is vigesimal: “forty” is - _berrogoi_ (twice twenty); “sixty,” _hirogoi_ (thrice twenty). The - word for “twenty,” _hogoi_, has a curious similarity with the Greek - εἲκοτι and the sheepscoring _gigget_. There are no general terms--no - word for “tree” (for which _arbola_ is used), but for different kinds - of trees; no word for “sister,” but for “brother’s sister,” “sister’s - sister;” and no abstract terms (_karitatea_, _prudentzia_, _etc._, - being used). - - [65] The best account of the Basques is to be found in the late Mr. - Wentworth Webster’s “Loisirs d’un Étranger au Pays Basque,” and in - his “The Basques, the Oldest People of Western Europe;” in M. Julien - Vinson’s “Les Basques et le Pays Basque” and Francisque Michel’s “Les - Basques.” - - [66] A French writer, Le Pays, speaks thus of the Basque country in - the seventeenth century: “La joye y commence avec la vie et n’y finit - qu’avec la mort. Elle paroist en toutes leurs actions. Les prestres en - ont leur part aussi bien que les autres. J’ai remarqué qu’aux nopces - c’est toûjours le curé qui mene le branle.” Another Frenchman of the - same period says that the Basques of Labourd are “des gens toujours - fols et souvent yvres.” Similarly, Larramendi says that the Basques - are “muy inclinados á ver fiestas.” - - [67] Cf. their proverbs, “Lan lasterra, lan alferra--Rapid work, idle - work;” and “Geroa, alferraren leloa--To-morrow is the refrain of the - idle.” - - [68] The great game at Irun, between French and Spanish Basques, about - the year 1840, has become a legend, and is still spoken of by the - peasants. Gascoña, the chief French player, was offered 10,000 francs - “pour faire trahison,” but refused, were it ten times the sum. Oxen, - crops, fields and houses were freely betted. The ball, we are told, - was slily wetted for service, tintacks were scattered in the court, - and Gascoña, accustomed to play barefoot, called for a pair of heavy - wooden _sabots_, and continued the game. The French won, and were - obliged to escape across the frontier without changing, and _chistera_ - on arm. Those were the times when the peasants left their farms - to play for the love of the game. To-day the game is in the hands - of a few professionals, for the benefit of foreigners, the result - often arranged beforehand. “Aujourd’hui,” said an aged player of the - frontier, “les joueurs rient quelquefois: nous ne riions pas, nous.” - - [69] Antaño, en los antaños, dans le temps. - - [70] Corografía de Guipúzcoa: “No es creible si no se ve el mucho pan - y cera que se ofrece.... Además en tales grandes funerales por modo de - ofrenda se trae á la puerta de la iglesia un buey vivo en unos lugares - y en otros un carnero también vivo que, acabado el oficio, se vuelve - á la casería ó carnicería, y por esto se paga al cura una cantidad - determinada en dinero.” He estimates the house expenses at 500 duros - (or dollars), and the Church expenses at another 500, truly an immense - sum for those days. When the burials took place in the church, the - offerings of bread and wax would be made on the tomb. - - [71] The music and words are by Iparraguirre. - - [72] Sare. - - [73] Urrugne, above the sun-dial on the church. - - [74] Saint Jean de Luz. - - [75] Saint Pée, formerly Stus. Petrus de Ivarren. “There is a little - village called St. Pé, where I was stopped a day or two by very bad - weather. I was lodged at the Curé’s, a good old man, from whose - conversation about the state of France I received light which had - important results. He was very clever and very well-informed, and took - not only right, but large views of things.”--_The Duke of Wellington - to J. W. Croker._ - - [76] Near Louhossoa. - - [77] “Remember death.”--Ossès. - - [78] Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa are, with Barcelona and Pontevedra, - the most densely populated provinces in Spain. The Basques have a - genius for administration which is not to be found in other parts - of the Peninsula. Their excellent roads and cleanly kept towns form - a striking contrast. They have a true love of local independence, - and in the eighteenth century we find two Basque frontier villages, - Vera and Sare, styling themselves in a treaty the “two Republics.” - The treaty concerned Yerbas y Aguas y Bellotas; grass, water and - acorns. Similarly, to-day, in the Basque provinces groups of small - villages and houses are joined in free “hermandades,” “universidades,” - “anteiglesias,” “valles.” The few privileges that remain are jealously - guarded. The Navarrese will tell you with pride that theirs is the - only province where a man is allowed to find a substitute in the - conscriptions. - - [79] The Spanish Premier himself has said in the Senate (October, - 1910), that if the Basque Provinces are more advanced than other parts - of Spain this is due not to their merits, but to the favouritism of - governments. A knowledge of the Basques, however, hardly warrants this - statement. Since the abolition of the _fueros_, says the late Mr. - Butler Clarke, in “Modern Spain,” “their efforts are restricted to - making the administration of their provinces a model for the rest of - Spain.” - - [80] The Basques took their revenge by the hand of M. l’Abbé d’Iharce - de Bidassouet. In his “Histoire des Cantabres,” tom. I. Paris, 1825 - (vol. ii. was not published), he derives all names of places from - Basque, as the original language of the world. “Je ne serai pas assez - hardi,” he says, “pour soutenir que le Père Éternel parlât basque,” - but he is really convinced that it is so. L’Andalousie, with the help - of the article, he derives from two Basque words, “landa lusia,” long - land. Versailles is a Basque word, so is Athens, so is Helicon. Norway - puzzles him for a moment, but soon with the remark that “Norvège - est un mot altéré et corrompu,” he tosses it aside and proceeds on - his reckless etymological course. Certainly to the irresponsible - philologist Basque offers a delightful field. For instance, the name - of the desolate salt lake of Kevir in Persia has been derived from a - word “gavr” or “gav” (“hollow,” “depression”). In Basque “gabe” means - without, and the word for night is also “gabe” (no doubt as being a - hollow without light). Then we have the Gaves, de Pau, d’Oloron, etc.; - the Spanish “gaveta” (a pigeonhole), “gavia” (pit dug for planting a - tree); “cavus,” “cave” and so forth. But to draw inferences as to the - origin of the Iberians, as to whether the same or different peoples - inhabited the Caucasus and the Pyrenees, or even as to whether “le - Père Éternel parlât Basque,” is a very different matter, beset with - pitfalls innumerable. - - [81] See Wentworth Webster, “Les Loisirs d’un Étranger au Pays - Basque.” 1901. This was a common practice of the Romans who, meeting - words so rough and horrid to their Latin pronunciation in the land of - the Basques, “quorum nomina,” according to Pomponius Mela, “nostro - ore concipi nequeunt,” would smooth and round these names and give - them a Latin derivation. The Spaniards may have done the same in the - case of Valencia Island, Co. Kerry. The form in old maps is Ballinish - (_Innish_, “island,” and _ball_, “home” or perhaps “mouth”--the - harbour the mouth of the island), and the peasants still pronounce the - name Valinch. - - [82] Yet those who connect Barcelona with the smoke and gloom of an - industrial city, having heard it spoken of as the Manchester of Spain, - are mistaken. Barcelona is still worthy of the praise of the Venetian - ambassador in the sixteenth century, who called it a “bellissima - città,” with “copia di giardini bellisimi,” and of the praises of - Cervantes in “Don Quixote,” and in “Las Dos Doncellas,” where it is - the “flower of the beautiful cities of the world and an honour to - Spain.” - - [83] “España: Hombres y paisajes.” 1909. - - [84] A Spanish proverb says: “When it rains, it rains; when it snows, - it snows; but ’tis bad weather when it blows.” Agriculture in many - parts of Spain is literally “ἀπάνευθεν ἐπ’ ἀγροῦ πήυατα πάσχειν--to - suffer woes apart upon the land.” - - [85] Cf. Pío Baroja, “César ó Nada.” Madrid, 1910: “Hay una hora - en estos pueblos castellanos, adustos y viejos, de paz y serenidad - ideales. Es el comenzar de la mañana. Todavía los gallos cantan, las - campanadas de la iglesia se derraman por el aire y el sol comienza - á penetrar en las calles en ráfagas de luz. La mañana es un diluvio - de claridad que se precipita sobre el pueblo amarillento. El cielo - está azul, el aire limpio, puro y diáfano; la atmósfera transparente - no da casi efectos de perspectiva, y su masa etérea hace vibrar - los contornos de las casas, de los campanarios y de los remates de - los tejados. El viento frío y sutil juega en las encrucijadas y se - entretiene en torcer los tallos de los geranios y de los claveles - que llamean en los balcones. Hay por todas partes un olor de jara y - de retama quemada que viene de los hornos donde se cuece el pan, y - un olor de alhucema que viene de los zaguanes.” Castille has been a - little neglected by the novelists in comparison with other regions. - But recently Ricardo León (in “El Amor de los Amores,” 1910), has - sung the praises of the _ancha, heróica tierra de Castilla_, its - austere simplicity and strength, its serene atmosphere, its golden - crops, its flocks of sheep, clear streams, thyme-scented solitudes, - and far horizons. And _Azorín_, in a short study, “En la Meseta” (_La - Vanguardia_ of Barcelona, January 4, 1911), as in his books “España,” - “El Alma Castellana,” “Los Pueblos,” skilfully portrays the inner - spirit of Castille: “Por la ventana se columbra un paisaje llano, - seco, desmantelado; á lo lejos se divisan unas montañas con las cimas - blanqueadas por la nieve.... Todo el silencio, toda la rigidez, toda - la adustez de esta inmoble vida castellana está concentrada en los - rebaños que cruzan la llanura lentamente y se recogen en los oteros - y los valles de las montañas. Mirad ese rabadán, envuelto en su capa - récia y parda, contemplando un cielo azul sin nubes, ante el paisaje - abrupto y grandioso de la montaña, y tendréis explicado el tipo del - campesino castellano castizo, histórico: noble, austero, grave y - elegante en el ademán, corto, sentencioso y agudo on sus razones.” - - [86] Señor Gasset, Minister of Public Works, now proposes (in a scheme - explained to the Congress on March 9, 1911) to spend twenty-seven - million _pesetas_ on afforestation in ten years. - - [87] Martial, referring to the frequency of winds of Spain, says-- - - “Debes non aliter timere risum - Quam ventum Spanius.” - - - [88] El Conde Lucanor, “Enxemplo 30:” “...el rey Abenabet de Sevilla - era casada con Romayquia et amábala muy mas que á cosa del mundo, et - ella era muy buena mujer, et los moros han della muy buenos enxemplos: - pero una manera habia que non era muy buena, esto era, que á las - vegadas tomaba algunos antojos á su voluntad. Et acaesció que un dia, - estando en Córdoba en el mes de febrero, cayó una nieve, et cuando - Romayquia esto vió comenzó á llorar, et el rey preguntóle porque - lloraba, et ella dijó que porque nunca la dejaba estar en tierra que - hubiese nieve. Et el rey, por le facer placer, fize poner almendrales - por toda la tierra de Córdoba, porque pues Córdoba es tan caliente - tierra et non nieva y cada año, que en el febrero paresciesen los - almendrales floridos et le semejasen nieve, por le facer perder aquel - deseo de la nieve.” - - [89] George Eliot, “The Spanish Gypsy.” The purple shadows are the - effect of dark patches of rock seen through the transparent blue water. - - [90] “_Papel y tinta y poca justicia_, paper, ink, and little - justice,” say the people, in one of their proverbs. They feel that, - in Spain, if revenge is a kind of wild justice, so too frequently is - justice. - - [91] Barretti’s Dictionary (edition of 1778) quaintly renders - _socarrón_ as “a crafty, subtle fellow; an arch wag.” - - [92] On the road from Tortosa to Valencia there is a stone cross with - the pathetic, ill-spelt inscription: “Aqui murió instantáneamente al - tirarse del carro por habersele desembocado el mulo Domin^{co} Cugat - Jardi el 30 agosto de 1894. R.I.P. Carrateros ya veis lo que paso este - infelis.” “Carters, you see what happened to this unhappy man.” But - the carters throughout Spain continue to sleep away the long hours of - the road. - - [93] The latest statistics available show that, while 90 and 80 per - cent. of the electors in some northern provinces of Spain can read and - write, in Andalucía the highest averages are 51 and 50 (provinces of - Cadiz and Seville), that of the province of Córdoba being but 41, of - Almería 38, of Granada and Jaen 35, of Málaga 34. - - [94] “Chapters on Spanish Literature.” 1908. - - [95] “N’uma mão a penna e n’outra a lança.” - - [96] M. Boris de Tannenberg, speaking of “Sotileza,” has said - excellently: “C’est que plus une œuvre a un caractère local marqué, - plus elle a de chance de devenir universelle, à condition que - l’écrivain, sous la particularité des mœurs et du langage, ait pénétre - jusqu’au fond commun d’humanité.” And Don Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, - who represented King Alfonso on January 23, 1911, in the ceremony of - unveiling at Santander the statue of Pereda by Señor Collaut Valera - (nephew of the novelist, Juan Valera), said in his speech: “His - books, so local that even the inhabitants of the mountain require a - glossary, and as Spanish as the most Spanish writings since Cervantes - and Quevedo, are profoundly human owing to the intensity of life which - they contain, and the quiet majesty with which it is developed.” - - [97] We are apt to forget that men in the Middle Ages, if they dwelt - insistently on the sinister “Dance of Death,” also felt to the full - the joys of living. The “Poema del Cid” sings no variations on the - theme “How good is man’s life, the mere living,” but the feeling - itself appears in every line. - - [98] The King had sent “letters to León and Sanctiague, to Portuguese - and Galicians, to those of Carrión and the Men of Castille,” to - announce a _Cort dentro en Tolledo_, in order to judge between the Cid - and the Counts of Carrión. “Since I was King,” he says, “I have held - but two _Cortes_, one in Burgos, the other in Carrión, this third in - Tolledo have I come to hold to-day.” - - [99] James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 231. - - [100] See pp. 151, 222-238. Pereda is, perhaps, the least read outside - Spain of all Spanish novelists; yet it is scarcely too much to say - that he who cannot appreciate Pereda cannot understand the spirit or - feel the true savour of Spain. - - [101] “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 246. - - [102] Andrés González-Blanco, “Historia de la novela en España desde - el romanticismo hasta nuestros días.” Madrid. 1909. - - [103] La Primera República. Madrid. 1911. - - [104] See page 214. - - [105] Señor Picón, whose writings are rather exquisite than - voluminous, is the author of “Dulce y Sabrosa,” and several short - stories. A Spanish critic, Señor Gómez de Baquero, has said of him - that while “his thoughts look to the future, his style listens to the - golden music of the past.” His latest work is “Juanita Tenorio,” a - long novel (published as vol. 3 of his Complete Works in the autumn - of 1910), in which his art, skilful and delicate as it is, has not - been entirely successful in eclipsing the sordidness of the subject - by the magic of the style. The following quotation--a description of - Madrid seen from an attic-window at night--will give some idea of his - restrained and clear-cut style: “Era noche cerrada. En primer término - no percibía la vista más que las grandes masas angulosas y obscuras de - muros, parodones y tejados: descollando por encima de ellos surgían - los contornos de torres y campanarios, cuyos puntiagudos chapiteles, - cubiertos de pizarra, recogían el escaso claror de las estrellas; acà - y allà rompían la superficie negra de las fachadas los rectángulos de - luz amarillenta que forman los balcones alumbrados interiormente, y al - través de algun vidrio brillaba el resplandor solitario de una lámpara - con su pantalla de color; de las chimeneas salían nubecillas de humo, - que, flotando como manchas fugaces en la lobreguez del ambiente, se - desvanecían en la altura; por entre las manzanas de casas, á lo largo - de las calles rectas, divisabanse las hileras de los faroles, cuyas - llamas reverberaban en cristales y vidrieras, ó á trechos algún arco - voltáico irradiaba intenso fulgor blanquecino; y de aquel conjunto de - sombras esmaltadas de toques luminosos so alzaba el rumor confuso de - mil ruidos diversos; rodar de vehículos, vocear de vendedores, gritar - de chicos y cantar de criadas; ya el tecleo de un piano, ya el lento - sonar de las campanadas de un reloj.” - - [106] “César ó Nada” is the first of a trilogy entitled “Las - Ciudades”; another trilogy, “El Mar,” is begun with “Las Inquietudes - de Shanti Andía” (1911), a vivid disconnected narrative concerning - the lives of adventurous sailors of the Basque coast in the little - fishing-harbour of Luzaro and in their distant voyages. The style, - or absence of style, is clear, transparent, as it were brittle with - the shock of abrupt short sentences, interspersed with sonorous - Basque names and rough snatches of Basque song. In Basque, too, are - the indications of the site in which lie buried the coffers of gold - coins hoarded by a miserly slave trader. But the book ends with the - sad reflection: “No one now in Luzaro is willing to be a sailor. Los - vascos se retiran del mar.” - - [107] Six years after Galdós, sixteen before Blasco Ibáñez, one before - Alas and Picón, and two before Palacio Valdés. - - [108] F. Vézinet, “Les Maîtres du Roman Espagnol Contemporain,” Paris, - 1907. - - [109] Indeed, in reading the more recent novels by Señora Pardo Bazán, - “La Quimera,” or “La Sirena Negra,” or “Dulce Dueño” (1911), striking - and original as they are, one cannot help looking back from them - somewhat regretfully to her Galician novels of the eighties. - - [110] “Le trait essentiel du réalisme de Pereda c’est la sympathie - avec laquelle il décrit les mœurs populaires, sans optimisme outré, - mais avec une divination profonde de leur poésie intime. Pereda - aime le peuple par tempérament d’artiste, pour ce que celui-ci a de - pittoresque et d’original; il l’aime aussi en homme et en chrétien, - comme une humanité plus simple, aux sentiments spontanés et naïfs. - Il ne nous dissimule pas sa grossièreté et ses misères mais il nous - ouvre les yeux sur ses vertus ignorées; jusque chez les êtres dégradés - par le vice, il nous montre quelque noble instinct qui survit et se - réveille à l’occasion. Et ce réalisme, qu’illumine toujours un rayon - d’idéal, respecte l’homme en le peignant même dans ses vulgarités ou - ses laideurs.” Boris de Tannenberg. L’Espagne littéraire. Paris, 1903. - - [111] The country between Burgos and the Atlantic, known as the - “_Montaña_” with Santander for its capital, is a district of - continuous mountains and hills and steep meadows and maize-fields, - with scarcely an inch of level ground. The hills far up are covered - with chestnut and oak, beech, walnut and sycamore; rushing streams are - hidden in deep wooded clefts, and rough walls of stones divide field - from field, where the reapers, with difficulty wielding their scythes, - have but a precipitous foothold. The villages and scattered farms - are of massive yellow stone, with roofs of deep-brown tiles and wide - balconies suspended by grey wooden posts from the projecting eaves. - - [112] Even so, however, the clear splendour of the sky of Castille - must have cast a charm over the place. The dominant impression at - Madrid to-day is, indeed, that of light and of open spaces, the - Puerta del Sol in a radiance of sunshine, the Carrera de San Jeronymo - going off apparently into space, the surrounding country far-seen and - treeless, the clear blue mountains, and the sky from verge to zenith - clothed with a brilliance of dazzling light so that “ogni parte ad - ogni parte splende.” - - [113] “La Montálvez” (1888) and “Nubes de Estío” (1891) are perhaps - his weakest works. “Nubes de Estío” is rather wearisome till the Duque - de Cañaveral arrives, “falling like a Jupiter among little gods.” “Al - Primer Vuelo” (1890) is a novel of the Cantabrian coast, but without - the full salt and vigour of “Sotileza.” - - [114] M. Boris de Tannenberg speaks of “l’âpre saveur de sa langue, un - peu rude et fruste, mais solide, musclée et haute en couleur.” - - [115] The difference between these artists in prose may be best - illustrated by quotation: “El Cura abrió la ventana y miró al cielo. - Apenas brillaban las estrellas. Estúvose quieto y meditando, con los - ojos fijos en la sombra de los montes. Bajo la bóveda de la noche, - todos los rumores parecían llenos de prestigio. El ladrido de los - perros, el paso de las patrullas, el agua del río en las presas, - eran voces religiosas y misteriosas, como esos anhelos ignotos que - estremecen á las almas en su noche oscura.” (Valle-Inclán, “Gerifaltes - de Antaño.”) Here we have the clear thin outlines, the studied - restraint of the admirer of El Greco. In the following passage, from - León’s “Alcalá de los Zegríes,” we find the more sensuous glowing - imagination of the Andalusian novelist: “Fué Alfonso hacia la ventana - y apoyó la ardorosa frente en los cristales. Todo era silencio y - soledad. Las estrellas oscilaban en el cielo; la ancha bóveda, oscura, - estaba acribillada de lucecillas trémulas. Una fogata brillaba á lo - lejos en el campo. Y en el silencio grave, en la callada sombra, las - puertas de bronce del misterio se abrían de par en par.” In the hands - of both writers Castilian yields a full measure of its magic. - - [116] Señor Cossío published his well-known work, “El Greco,” 2 - tom. Madrid, in 1908. The second volume consists of illustrations - of El Greco’s pictures; most of the reproductions are, however, - unfortunately somewhat indistinct. The reproductions from photographs - in a little book, “El Greco,” by A. F. Calvert and C. Gasquoine - Hartley. London: John Lane, 1909, are much clearer. The illustrations - are excellent in “Le Greco.” Par Maurice Barrès et Paul Lafond. - Paris: Floury, as also those of pictures by El Greco in Herr Meier - Graefe’s “Spanische Reise,” Berlin, 1910. In October, 1910, appeared - a short scholarly study, “El Greco en Toledo.” Por Francisco de Borja - de San Román y Fernández. Madrid: Suárez. It contains eighty-eight - original documents of great interest, especially the inventory of El - Greco’s possessions (_vienes_), drawn up by his son, Jorge Manuel, on - April 12, 1614, five days after El Greco’s death, the discovery and - publication of which will, as the author says, give intense pleasure - to all lovers of El Greco. This contains over 100 pictures by El - Greco (some unfinished), 200 prints, 150 drawings, 15 sketches, 20 - plaster models, 30 models in clay and wax, etc. Among the Greek books - are Josephus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Homer, Aristotle’s - Politics and Physics, the Old and New Testaments, Lucian, Plutarch - (bite di Plutarco), Æsop, Euripides. The Italian include Petrarca and - Ariosto, but fifty more Italian books, with seventeen in romance and - nineteen on architecture, are uncatalogued. The commonest articles - receive a quaint dignity in the old ringing Castilian, as “quatro - pares de escarpines” (four pair of socks), “un cajón grande de pino - con cinco gabetas” (a large chest of pine with five drawers), “una - alacena de madera grande” (a large wooden cupboard), “una espada y una - daga con tiros y pretina” (a sword and dagger with their belts). - - [117] Cf. his dispute with the Church of Santo Tomé as to the price of - “El Entierro,” of which dispute a most interesting account is to be - found in the documents of Señor San Román’s book. - - [118] The temptation is great to quote the _Coplas_ from beginning to - end. They have been excellently translated by Longfellow, but all who - read them in the original will be ready to say with the shepherd of - Camões: “Quam bem que sôa o verso castelhano.” - - [119] “Son tan disonantes unas de otras que no parecen ser de la misma - mano” (Jusepe Martínez). - - [120] Or Dominico. Sometimes he signed Domy^{co} or Dom^{co} at - the end of documents. The fourth letter of the signature (in Greek - characters) on the “Baptism” in the Prado Gallery has all the air of a - Greek _eta_. - - [121] Even though the house now known and shown as “la Casa del - Greco” is not that in which El Greco lived, it occupies very much the - same open situation; for by the disappearance of the block of houses - belonging to the Marqués de Villena, El Greco’s landlord, it steps - into the first place above the river. - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magic of Spain, by Aubrey F.G. 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padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} -.poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 11em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - -.pagenum {font-style:normal;position:absolute; -left:95%;font-size:55%;text-align:right;color:gray; -background-color:#ffffff;font-variant:normal;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;text-indent:0em;} -@media print, handheld -{.pagenum - {display: none;} - } - -.box1 {border:3px solid black;padding:.25em;margin:auto auto; -max-width:22em;} -.box2 {border:3px solid black;padding:.25em;margin:.25em auto .25em; -padding:2em;} -.box3 {border:3px solid black;padding:.25em;margin:.25em auto .25em;} - -</style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magic of Spain, by Aubrey F.G. Bell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Magic of Spain - -Author: Aubrey F.G. Bell - -Release Date: September 7, 2016 [EBook #53001] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGIC OF SPAIN *** - - - - -Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="341" height="500" alt="cover" title="" /> -</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;margin:auto auto;max-width:50%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> - -<p class="c"><a href="#CONTENTS">Contents.</a><br /> -<a href="#INDEX">Index</a>: - -<a href="#A">A</a>, -<a href="#B">B</a>, -<a href="#C">C</a>, -<a href="#D">D</a>, -<a href="#E">E</a>, -<a href="#F">F</a>, -<a href="#G">G</a>, -<a href="#H">H</a>, -<a href="#I-i">I</a>, -<a href="#J">J</a>, -<a href="#K">K</a>, -<a href="#L">L</a>, -<a href="#M">M</a>, -<a href="#N">N</a>, -<a href="#O">O</a>, -<a href="#P">P</a>, -<a href="#Q">Q</a>, -<a href="#R">R</a>, -<a href="#S">S</a>, -<a href="#T">T</a>, -<a href="#U">U</a>, -<a href="#V-i">V</a>, -<a href="#W">W</a>, -<a href="#Z">Z</a></p> -<p class="c">(etext transcriber's note)</p></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i"></a>{i}</span></p> - -<p class="c">THE MAGIC OF SPAIN</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii"></a>{ii}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii"></a>{iii}</span> </p> - -<div class="box1"> -<div class="box2"> -<h1> -THE MAGIC<br /> -<big>OF SPAIN</big></h1> - -<p class="cb"> -BY AUBREY F. G. BELL<br /> -</p> -</div> - -<div class="box2"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Or vous aurez loisir<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cheminant en Espagne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bien que maintes montagnes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Il vous faudra monter.<br /></span> -<span class="i5"><i>Pilgrims’ Song.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="box3"> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD,<br /> -NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXII.</div></div> -</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv"></a>{iv}</span> - -</div></div> - -<p class="c"><small> -WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.</small> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v"></a>{v}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a>NOTE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HIS is rather a collection of stray notes on Spain than a connected -study—of notes from many pleasant hours of Spanish literature and -travel, but perhaps of too individual an interest to appear without some -apology. No reference will be found to those great social and political -problems which disturb Spanish life. To fill the idler moments of a -Spanish holiday, and possibly to help the reader to feel that “parfum du -terroir” which pervades Spain, is the unambitious object of these pages. -Better still, if he turns from them in dissatisfaction to authoritative -writers on Spanish life and letters, and to the magic-land of Spanish -literature itself. For permission to reprint some of these short essays -in slightly altered form the author has to thank the Editors of the -<i>Morning Post</i>, the <i>Outlook</i>, and the <i>Queen</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi"></a>{vi}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii"></a>{vii}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is not easy in a few words to account for the strange Oriental spell -that Spain has exercised over many minds nor to explain the potency of -its attraction. For indeed the great Peninsula possesses a special spice -and flavour. It has not the immemorial culture of Italy, nor the -pleasant smiling landscapes of France with her green meadows and crystal -streams. The old Iberia, that <i>dura tellus</i>, has a peculiar raciness. -Its colour is often harsh and crude; many of its districts are barren -and discomfortable. The bleak and rocky uplands and the ragged sierra -ridges cut the country into sharp divisions and cause it to be thinly -and variously populated. On those uplands the breath of the wind is -often icy and the sun strikes with a biting force. Great parched and -desolate plains extend treeless and unprotected two thousand feet above -the sea. The villages at distant intervals are of the colour of the -soil, and scarcely to be distinguished from a mass of yellow-brown -rocks. Morning and evening a string of mules may be seen outlined on the -horizon, for the peasants set out in bands to till their distant fields; -or a shepherd with his flock of sheep, or goats,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii"></a>{viii}</span> relieves the strange -monotony of this dust-laden windy desert. Nothing could be sadder or -less harmonious than the peasants’ harsh and strident singing, the very -peculiarity of which has, however, a piquancy and charm. Hard too is -their language, with its clean gutturals, far rougher and manlier than -the musical sister-tongue of Italy. All points to a like conclusion, -that this is no country of comfort and soft languorous delight, but of a -quaint and forcible originality, where the most jaded mind may be braced -and inspirited and find a fresher and more stirring life.</p> - -<p>In Spain the sharpness of contrasts precludes any feeling of weariness -or satiety. There are regions of luxuriant growth and African sun -bounded by mountains of eternal snow. Through the plain a river glides -among orange groves and grey olives; in the shaded <i>patios</i> of the city -silver fountains keep the air cool and fresh, and on the coldest night -in winter the temperature is still some degrees above the -freezing-point. Yet here, in the most fiery heat of summer, we may lift -up our eyes to the hills and look on the snowy sierra against the deep -blue of the sky; and if a shower, in this region of little rain, falls -upon the low-lying districts, it adds but another coat of whiteness to -the neighbouring range. It is indeed a strange and fascinating land, a -<i>Land voll Sonnenschein</i> and fierce blinding light, yet a land of -shrill, piercing blasts and icy air, a land of many various elements -both of climate and population. It is no wonder that its inhabitants are -of a character strongly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix"></a>{ix}</span> individual and preserve the original Iberian -strain. A racy pithiness of speech is theirs. In no country are proverbs -more common, and a string of them can indeed form a peasant’s -conversation, pungent as the rosaries of red <i>piments</i> that hang on the -balconies of farms.</p> - -<p>It was in Spain that the rogue-story, the <i>novela de pícaros</i>, -originated, and the Spanish novelists of the last thirty years have -given free rein to the local types of various parts of Spain. Nowhere -has provincialism continued to be so clearly marked. In other countries -better communications have corrupted the local manners into a conformity -of excellence. In Spain the nature of the country, with its rough -mountain barriers and turbulent unnavigable rivers, still protects -originality and keeps the character of the provinces distinct, and the -native of Andalucía continues to despise the native of Galicia and to be -ridiculed by the native of Castille. This does not make for material -prosperity, but it constitutes a country of the picturesque and -unexpected, a country where imagination is not dead, and where the -artist and poet find their true home. Not the least attraction to them -perhaps is the Spanish improvidence and absence of method, and the gay -living from hand to mouth. An unwary traveller in the wilder districts -may easily find himself half-perishing from scarcity of food, and lost -in an intricate labyrinth of ways between far-distant villages. “A bad -thing, sirs, it is to have a lack of bread,” sang the poet of the -twelfth-century <i>Poema del Cid</i>. The hardy peasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_x" id="page_x"></a>{x}</span> of the poorer -regions lives scantily from day to day on the product of the niggard -soil, won by patient labour. The peasant in more fertile parts does not -necessarily fare better, but he labours magnificently less. The -deliberate method of prosperity and success is held in small esteem. The -mighty Empire of Spain was in fact the affair of a generation only. From -the time of Philip II. onwards the Spanish Empire might aptly be -compared with the Cid’s corpse, for, though by its prestige and the -favour of heaven it might continue to reap fresh victories, it was -nevertheless irrevocably dead and awaiting dissolution. And it is the -improvidence of Spain that has charmed the foreigner. For, eager as he -is to admire its poetic aspects, in his inmost soul he often regards -himself as incomparably superior, and hurries home to civilization with -a sheaf of curious details negligently gleaned.</p> - -<p>The courteous Spaniard conceals his contempt for the foreigner, but were -he privileged to read the numerous sketches, scenes, and saunterings -published yearly of Spain, he would have some scope for legitimate -amusement. A faint remonstrance has indeed been heard in the Peninsula -against the idea of Spanish grandees lying in wait at dark corners to -rob a French journalist of his fortune. But mostly they are content to -let the foreigner continue in his ignorance. For stern and melancholy -Spain retains her secret, and is not to be won from her Oriental -impenetrable mystery by any wiles. Unchanging and impassive, her cities -seem to mock the stranger, and the roughness of the intervening -wildernesses<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xi" id="page_xi"></a>{xi}</span> discourages him. But he returns again and again to this -remote and mediæval country, that in his practical eyes should be so -rich and is so poor. The repulses he receives whet his curiosity and -increase his ardour. Yet Spain is not, in spite of its many tourists, a -country of foreign colonies. To the Englishman this fact brings a -striking novelty, for he may visit Switzerland and Italy and France and -scarcely leave the atmosphere of England, but in Spain he will find no -difficulty in following Bacon’s advice to the traveller in foreign -countries to “sequester himself from the company of his countrymen.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xii" id="page_xii"></a>{xii}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xiii" id="page_xiii"></a>{xiii}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#NOTE">Note</a></span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_v">v</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#PREFACE">Preface</a></span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_vii">vii</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#I">I.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Spanish Character</span>—</td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> i. Some Stray Opinions</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_017">17</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td>ii. Vain Generalities</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_025">25</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#II">II.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Travelling in Spain</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#III">III.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">On the Spanish Frontier</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_057">57</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Eskual-Erria</span>—</td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> i. Basque Country</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_066">66</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td>ii. Basque Customs</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_072">72</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#V">V.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">In Remote Navarre</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_080">80</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Spanish Cities</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_085">85</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">In Old Castille</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_092">92</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Desert and the Sown</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_097">97</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Coast of Catalonia in Autumn</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#X">X.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">An Eastern Village</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Off the East Coast of Spain</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_112">112</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Judging of the Waters</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_120">120</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Seville in Winter</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_125">125</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">From a Seville Housetop</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_129">129</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">February in Andalucía</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_134">134</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Some Characteristics of Spanish Literature</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xiv" id="page_xiv"></a>{xiv}</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_142">142</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Poem of the Cid</span>—</td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> i. A Primitive Masterpiece</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td>ii. Valencia del Cid</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_157">157</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">A Prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition</span>—</td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> i. Novedades</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_163">163</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> ii. Salamanca University</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td>iii. In a Valladolid Dungeon</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_169">169</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> iv. Ex forti dulcedo</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_178">178</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Modern Spanish Novel</span>—</td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> i. Revival. Fernán Caballero</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_185">185</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> ii. 1870-1900</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_191">191</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td>iii. In the Twentieth Century</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_201">201</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Novels of Galicia</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_214">214</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Novels of the Mountain</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td> i. “Savour of the Soil”</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_222">222</a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td>ii. “On the Heights”</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_231">231</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Castilian Prose</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_239">239</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rttd"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Toledo and El Greco</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_244">244</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#INDEX">Index</a>: -<a href="#A">A</a>, -<a href="#B">B</a>, -<a href="#C">C</a>, -<a href="#D">D</a>, -<a href="#E">E</a>, -<a href="#F">F</a>, -<a href="#G">G</a>, -<a href="#H">H</a>, -<a href="#I-i">I</a>, -<a href="#J">J</a>, -<a href="#K">K</a>, -<a href="#L">L</a>, -<a href="#M">M</a>, -<a href="#N">N</a>, -<a href="#O">O</a>, -<a href="#P">P</a>, -<a href="#Q">Q</a>, -<a href="#R">R</a>, -<a href="#S">S</a>, -<a href="#T">T</a>, -<a href="#U">U</a>, -<a href="#V-i">V</a>, -<a href="#W">W</a>, -<a href="#Z">Z</a></span> </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_259">259</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xv" id="page_xv"></a>{xv}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xvi" id="page_xvi"></a>{xvi}</span> </p> - -<p class="cb"><big><big>THE MAGIC OF SPAIN</big></big></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<br /><br /> -SPANISH CHARACTER</h2> - -<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">Stray Opinions</span></h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>O collect a mass of isolated and contradictory opinions concerning the -Spanish is a comparatively simple task, although it is difficult or -impossible to derive from them a consistent picture of Spanish -character. To Wellington they are “this extraordinary and perverse -people,” to whom to boast of Spain’s strength was a natural weakness. -“Procrastination and improvidence are their besetting sins,” says -Napier, and of their conduct in the Peninsular War: “Of proverbially -vivid imagination and quick resentments, the Spaniards act individually -rather than nationally, and, during this war, what appeared constancy of -purpose was but a repetition of momentary fury generated like electric -sparks by constant collision with the French.” “The Spaniards are -perfect masters of saying everything and doing nothing.” They have -dignified sentiments and lofty expressions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span> but taken with their deeds -these are “but a strong wind blowing shrivelled leaves.” “In the -arrangement of warlike affairs difficulties are always overlooked by the -Spaniards, who are carried on from one phantasy to another so swiftly -that the first conception of an enterprise is immediately followed by a -confident anticipation of complete success.” Though they are “hasty in -revenge and feeble in battle,” they are “patient to the last degree in -suffering.” To the peasants he allows “a susceptibility of grand -sentiments.” They “endure calamity, men and women alike, with a singular -and unostentatious courage. But their virtues are passive, their faults -active, and, instigated by a peculiar arrogance, they are perpetually -projecting enterprises which they have not sufficient vigour to -execute.” “To neglect real resources and fasten upon imaginary projects -is peculiarly Spanish.” A French writer of the same period, General -Marbot, contents himself with observing that the Spanish “ont beaucoup -conservé du caractère des Arabes et sont fatalistes; aussi -répétaient-ils sans cesse ‘Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> but adds -that “ils ont un mérite immense, c’est que, bien que battus, ils ne se -découragent jamais.” Turning to earlier centuries we find that in Livy -and Strabo the Spaniards are obstinate, unsociable, silent, dressed in -black, despisers of death, very sober. In the centuries of Spain’s -greatness the comments naturally thicken, although they are often not -easily reconcilable. To an Italian, Paolo Cortese, at the beginning of -the sixteenth century the Spanish are,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span> in a shower of epithets, -“ambitious, good-natured, curious, greedy, contentious, tenacious, -magnificent, suspicious, sly.” Another Italian, Paolo Tiepolo, later -draws a distinction<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> between those who have travelled and those who -have not left Spain, those former being “per la maggior parte avvisati, -diligenti, tolleranti.” In Pepys we read of the “ceremoniousness of the -Spaniards,” and that “the Spaniards are the best disciplined foot in the -world; will refuse no extraordinary service if commanded, but scorn to -be paid for it as in other countries,” and of “the plain habit of the -Spaniards, how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak of -Colchester bayze, and the ladies mantles in cold weather of white -flannell.” To a learned Spaniard, Masdeu, they are, to quote but a few -of his judgments, “lively, swift in conception, slow and thoughtful in -coming to a resolution, active and effectual in carrying it into -execution. They are the stoutest defenders of religion, and masters in -asceticism.” “Their disinterestedness and honesty in commerce is known -to all. They are frugal at table, especially averse from any excess in -drinking. In conversation they are serious and taciturn, not giving to -biting speech, courteous, affable, and pleasant; they hate flattery, but -they respect others and look to be respected themselves. They speak with -majesty, but without affectation. They are generous, serviceable, -kindly, and have a pleasure in conferring benefits,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span> and they exalt -things foreign more than their own. They have envy, pride, and a love of -glory, but with noble, redeeming qualities. In their attire they are -neat and moderate; when they go abroad they are dressed well and -smartly, but with a befitting gravity.” “They spend with magnificence -and extravagance.” A French traveller, Mme. d’Aulnoy,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> in the -seventeenth century, says of the Spanish that “Nature has been kinder to -them than they are to themselves; they are born with more wit than -others; they have a great quickness of mind join’d with great solidity; -they speak and deliver their words with ease; they have a great memory; -their style is neat and concise, and they are quick of apprehension; it -is easie to teach them whatever they have a mind to; they are perfect -masters in Politicks, and when there is a necessity for it they are -temperate and laborious.”... “They are patient to excess, obstinate, -idle, singular philosophers; and, as to the rest, men of honour, keeping -their words tho’ it cost them their lives.” She considers their greatest -defect to be a “passion for revenge,” and speaks of “their fantastick -grandeur.” A short account by an Englishman in 1701, has little good to -say of the Spanish, except that they “have an incomparable Zeal to plant -the Catholick Religion.” He notes their sluggishness, their immorality, -and it is, moreover, impossible to distinguish a Spanish Cavalier from a -Cobler, while most of their houses<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span> are “of earth and like Mole-hills, -but one storey high.” They have an “esprit orgueilleux,” and treat -strangers “de turc à maure,” says a Frenchman of the same period,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> so -that the Englishman may have had some slight, some <i>turc à maure</i> -experience in Spain. Another Englishman,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> half a century later, writes -that the Spanish are “generous, liberal, magnificent, and charitable; -religious without dispute, but devout to the greatest excess of -superstition.”... “If they have any predominant fault it is perhaps -that of being rather too high-minded; hence they have entertained, at -different times, the most extravagant conceits.”... “Their cloaths are -usually of a very dark colour, and their cloaks almost black. This shows -the natural gravity of the people.”... “There are no soldiers in the -whole world braver than the Spanish.” Reclus, in his estimate of the -Spanish, has boldly allowed the contrasts and contradictions of Spanish -character to stand side by side. They are “apathetic in daily life, but -of a quick resolution, persistent courage and unwearying tenacity. They -are vain, but if any one has a right to be so, they have. In spite of -their pride they are simple and pleasant in their manners. They esteem -themselves highly, but they are equally ready to recognize the merit of -others. They are very swift and keen to lay a finger on the weak side or -the vices of other people, but never bemean themselves by despising -them. They have a great store<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span> of seriousness, a rare firmness of -character. They are contented with their lot and are fatalists. A -mixture of superstition and ignorance, common-sense, and subtle irony; -they are at times ferocious, though naturally of a magnanimous -generosity, fond of revenge, yet forgetting injuries, fond of equality, -yet guilty of oppression.” The verdicts of modern Spanish thinkers have -been mostly pessimistic.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Spaniards in the twentieth century have been -busily occupied with analytical introspection, the result of their -national misfortunes and injured pride. They prefer to speak atrociously -of themselves than that foreigners should speak of them only moderately -well. Señor Mallada holds<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> his countrymen to be “idle, unpractical -dreamers.” In Spain, says Ángel Ganivet,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> “there are many who have no -will, <i>hay muchos enfermos de la voluntad</i>”—there is a lack of -concentration, that is of persistent concentration, and a lack of -proportion, of the power to consider more than one idea, more than one -aspect of a question. So <i>Azorín</i> complains that “there is plenty of -insight and rapid vision, but no co-ordination of ideas or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span> steady -fulfilment or will.”<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> In a book by Ricardo León<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> we read that the -Spanish are hostile to their rulers, whoever they may be, and of the -evils of <i>el Caciquismo</i>. But the author sees little hope of change in a -country where men live between two extremes, “two fires, two -fanaticisms,” either reactionaries or demagogues; where the currents of -activity and passion are unregulated, where thought is either stagnant -or enmeshed in a gossamer woof of subtle distinctions, and the golden -mean of common-sense is not attained. The inhabitants of Alcalá are -“strong, hard, brave, and stubborn, rigorous in their virtues and their -vices, violent in their loves and hates, tenacious alike of good and of -evil.” To counterbalance their clear intelligence, greatheartedness, -quick imagination and eloquence they have serious defects, “and -especially a certain unrestfulness of spirit, a nervous irritability -which prevents them from living in peace or comfort with themselves or -with others, a true Spanish failing, peculiarly attached both of old and -at the present day to that harsh, turbulent, strongly original character -of the race which has never allowed us rest, but kept us perpetually at -strife, taking umbrage at our very shadows.”... “While there were -infidels to fight, strongholds to defend, vows to fulfil, or even when -there were civil wars and vigorous smuggling and bands of brigands,” -there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span> was scope for the virtues and vices of a people “born and bred -for action and passionate deeds,” “fashioned in battle”; but “on the -advent of the moderate customs of modern times” they find themselves -“out of their natural atmosphere, idle, poor, disconcerted, cramped.” -And this is the tragedy of Spain to-day—a great-hearted people in the -toils of civilization. In Pérez Galdós’ “El Caballero Encantado,” the -spirit of Spain thus addresses one of her sons: “The capital defect of -the Spaniards of your time is that you live exclusively the life of -words, and the language is so beautiful that the delight in the sweet -sound of it woos you to sleep. You speak too much; you lavish without -stint a wealth of phrases to conceal the poverty of your actions.”<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> -In an earlier book<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Señor León deplores the fashion prevailing in -Spain “to depreciate all that is Spanish, and to bestow great praise on -all that is foreign. A wave of moral cowardice and utilitarian baseness -is passing over Spain.” But Spanish character is not permanently -weakened nor shorn of its dignity and independence, the eclipse is but -temporary and, indeed, partial, not affecting the humbler classes. The -spirit of Spain will revive, as in “El Caballero Encantado,” when it is -being carried from the death-bed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span> grave,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> and may be aptly -likened, as by Don Rafael Altamira, to the waters of the Guadiana which, -after flowing for a space underground, return once more to the surface.</p> - -<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">Vain Generalities.</span></h3> - -<p>“And indeed,” wrote Pepys, “we do all naturally love the Spanish and -hate the French,” and if, since his day, we have learned to love the -French, the character of the Spanish has not ceased to attract and -interest Englishmen. Yet any attempt to generalize concerning Spanish -character would seem a vain and foolish task, since Spain is the country -of Europe which has most stringently preserved its local differences of -race and language, and it is still true, as in Ford’s time, that “the -rude agricultural Gallician, the industrious manufacturing artisan of -Barcelona, the gay and voluptuous Andalucian, the sly vindictive -Valencian are as essentially different from each other as so many -distinct characters at the same masquerade,” and the Basque<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and -<i>andaluz</i>, for instance, are as far apart as Frenchman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span> and Spaniard. It -is possible to take the various ingredients, Castilian pride,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> -Catalan thrift,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Andalusian imagination, Gallegan dullness,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> the -grimness of Navarre, the stubbornness of Aragon,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Valencian or -Murcian cunning, and, tying them into a convenient bundle, to speak of -the Spanish as proud, thrifty, etc., or, in a more pessimistic key, as -haughty, avaricious, untruthful, stolid, cruel, obstinate, malicious. -But, though such a judgment is notoriously false, a few qualities may -perhaps be attributed to the whole of Spain as in some measure common to -her various peoples. Foremost among these qualities are independence and -personal dignity. The Spaniards are a nation of individualists, each a -law unto himself, and they are thus as a nation frequently misunderstood -and their pride has not suffered them to correct errors concerning them, -while at the same time it would perhaps be difficult to find in any -other nation so great a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span> number of individuals whom one may admire and -respect. The dramatist Don Jacinto Benavente has said<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> that in Spain -“each of us would like to be the only great man in a nation of fools, -the only honest man in a tribe of knaves,” and speaks of “our unbridled -individualism.” No one is a more thorough individualist than Don Pío -Baroja, and the principal character of his novel, <i>César ó Nada</i>, -declares that the Spanish, “as individualists require, more than a -democratic, federal organization, an iron military discipline.” -“Democracy, Republicanism, Socialism have in reality little root in our -country.... Moreover we admit no superiorities and do not willingly -accept king or president, priest or prophet.” It is this refractoriness -which has made the Spanish so hard a people to govern, and wrought -permanent mischief to their prosperity as a nation. They would seem to -have still to learn the true dignity of loyalty and service. Every -Spaniard, of however humble a position, considers that he is well -qualified to criticize the measures of his rulers, and still more the -fancied measures that he chooses to attribute to them. Thus in a -Republic every citizen would believe himself to be capable of conducting -the affairs of the nation better than the President, as Sancho was -convinced that he could govern his island as well or better than any; -nevertheless Spaniards are inclined to acquiesce in a firm unquestioned -authority with a kind of heroical submission, accepting its decisions as -they accept the inevitable decrees of fate, and for this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span> reason an -old-established system of government, such as the Monarchy, is -infinitely the best suited to the Spanish temperament. No doubt they -would prefer to have no system of government, if that were possible, -being restive and tumultuous under restraint. On one occasion a Spanish -<i>chauffeur</i> while driving his mistress considered that he had been -insulted by a passer in the street and, leaving mistress and motor, -proceeded to punish the offender till the police interfered.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> And if -the Spanish find it difficult to work harmoniously under the orders of -others, it is no easier for them to maintain a joint authority; they can -never co-operate for long, their political parties and commercial unions -rapidly fall asunder like the seeds of a pomegranate. Similarly one may -see at a glance of any Spanish crowd that it is not a fused mass but a -collection of units remaining aloof and separate; if the individual -gains, the State suffers, and Spanish politics sometimes have an air of -cramping angularities and crude ambitions. But this individualism and -independence has its nobler and more pleasant side, for even in extreme -poverty and distress, dignity and an accompanying courtesy, honesty, and -sobriety,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> rarely desert the Spaniard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> Each is king in his own -house, be it miserable attic or merely the space of sun that his shadow -covers; <i>mientras en mi casa me estoy rey me soy</i>. The following -dialogue bears intrinsic evidence of its nationality, it could not -belong to any country but Spain: “Is your worship a thief?”—“Yes, to -serve God and all good people.”<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Thus personal dignity and individual -pride may be said to be the dominant notes of Spain. So the beggars in -the street address one another as Sir, <i>señor</i>, lord, and if you cannot -give them an alms for the good of your soul you must at least give -excuses—<i>perdone Vd. por Dios</i>. While we admire this independence we -cannot help seeing that it is a false dignity, which prefers to starve, -like one of the characters in Pérez Galdós’ <i>Fortunata y Jacinta</i>, -because “<i>mi dinidá y sinificancia no me permiten</i>—my dignity and -importance do not allow me,” to accept employment. The fair outward show -given to garret poverty is pathetic, but it is liable to deceive and to -create distrust. Mme. d’Aulnoy remarked that the Spanish “bear up under -this Indigency with such an air of gravity as would cheat one.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i> Don Adriano de Armado says to Moth that he is -“ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster,” but to Moth’s -observation, “You are a gentleman and a gamester, Sir,” he answers -well-pleased, “I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete -man” (<i>todo un hombre</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span> The Spanish have ever shown themselves to be -ill at reckoning, they are careless of details and have indeed an -Oriental incuriousness of facts and figures; in no country is it more -difficult to obtain accurate returns or consecutive statistics. Against -all drudgery the Spanish temperament rebels<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>; they act by impulse, in -disconnected moments without persistency; their concentration is of -instants,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> without consequence; and it has been observed that “Spain -has developed her life and art by means of spiritual convulsions.” What -is said in one of Pérez Galdós’ novels<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> of Narváez might with truth -be applied to many Spaniards: “He has a great heart and a great -intelligence, but they manifest themselves only by fits and starts, by -impulses, <i>por arranques</i>.” There is plenty of intelligence among -Spaniards but little continuity of judgment; no perseverance. They are -enthusiastic for a project and, their thoughts outrunning action, they -see the matter begun, in progress, finished, so that their very keenness -prevents accomplishment, and finally nothing is done. Don Quixote, we -remember, thought little of the winning of a kingdom and cutting off a -giant’s head: “all that I consider already done, <i>que todo<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span> esto doy ya -for hecho.</i>” Or sometimes their intelligence mars their labour and, not -content with doing a simple thing simply, they spoil it by being a -little too clever, or decide a matter too readily by a swift judgment -that may happen to be false. The Spanish are a people of immense and -abiding energy,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> but their energy is often dormant or misdirected. -Two Spaniards in the twentieth century have been seen to converse with -so fierce an intensity that it seemed over and over again in the course -of a protracted and loud discussion that they must come from words to -blows; and the matter in dispute, conducted with a heat that would have -exhausted less energetic natures, was whether it was right or wrong to -expel the Moriscos from Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth -century. Yet it is not certain that the Spanish can be called -unpractical; they are often idle, indifferent, aloof from the events of -daily life, but when a matter truly interests them, they would seem to -be sufficiently shrewd and practical. King James I. of Aragon aimed an -accusation at the Castilians which has often been applied to all -Spaniards: “You do nothing without extravagance.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>” But a fundamental -ingredient of Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span> character is realism and clear vision; it is -their birthright of transparent subtle air and unclouded skies. They are -keen to detect all falseness and hypocrisy, and display a shrewd insight -into character; but their study has been ever of persons rather than of -books and things,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> so that they may act extravagantly themselves even -while they are the first to see another’s extravagance, keenly -practical, it may be said, in the affairs of others, strangely abstract -and improvident in their own. Their realism, if it drives them by -reaction into a barren love of words and visions of impossible ideals, -expresses itself in a directness which is very characteristic of all -classes of Spaniards, in the pregnant brevity of countless proverbs, in -concentrated intensity at a given moment, in humour and satire and a -strong love of ridicule. Their proverbs show a thriftiness and practical -good sense very different from the prudence that enriches, but equally -far removed from the romantic view of Spaniards sometimes held by -foreigners. In noble lines Calderón has said of life that it is “a -shadow, a fantasy, and the greatest good is of small worth, since all -life is a dream and dreams themselves a dream”:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">¿qué es la vida? Un frenesí.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">¿qué es la vida? Una ilusión,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">una sombra, una ficción,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">y el mayor bien es pequeño,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">que toda la vida es sueño<br /></span> -<span class="i0">y los sueños sueño son;<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">but we may doubt whether the following lines of Lope de Vega are not as -truly Spanish in spirit:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nada me parece bien,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Todos me son importunos.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">¿Teneis dineros?—Ningunos.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pues procurad que os los den.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">“I see no good in anything; all men weary me.—Have you -money?—None—Then see that you get some given you.”<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> An almost harsh -flavour of originality is found in Spanish humour, a sly and malicious -irony, a biting wit, full of gaiety and good-humour, but of great force -and directness. Their courtesy is proverbial, and it is not simply a -superficial politeness, brittle as glass, but goes to the very core of -the man. A knowledge of Spain would seem to show that the mere forms of -politeness have no little effect in maintaining the dignity of a nation. -The Spaniard, writing from his own house, speaks of it as <i>esta su -casa</i>, this your house, and to a tradesman he will sign himself, “Your -sure servant, who kisses your hands” (S.S.S., Q.B.S.M. which is shorter -than the corresponding English, “Yours faithfully”); mere forms, it will -be said, but forms that show the spirit and betray the lordly and -generous magnificence of the men who once ruled the world, and of whom -Bacon wrote: “I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span> marvelled sometimes at Spain, how they clasp and -contain so large dominions with so few natural Spaniards.” As a kind of -magnificent disregard of human life has earned for Spaniards the charge -of cruelty, so their attitude towards time has led many to look upon -them as lazy and utterly unbusinesslike.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> “The Spartans and Spaniards -have been noted to be of small dispatch,” says Bacon, and this -procrastination and delay was as prominent in the spacious times of -Spain’s greatness as at the present day. We need but think of the -endless trailing procedure of Inquisition trials, or of books waiting on -the frontier for inspection with a man hired to dust them once a month. -In ordinary life it is due perhaps rather to indifference and disdain -than to an innate sluggishness; in official transactions formalism, and -the inability to co-operate with others often bring matters to an -intricate pass of papers, from which there is no issue but by a patient -and slow unravelling. Even to-day a rigid centralization carries the -pettiest affair to Madrid for settlement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> and lays upon the Prime -Minister a crushing load of work. Etiquette is carried to excess, and -there are in Spain many “formal natures,” men who would perish upon a -ceremony rather than come to a quick and common-sense conclusion. But -the true defect of Spanish politics is that they have a tendency to -become abstract, with many excellent formulas and catchwords, but -divorced from reality, a kind of up-to-date scholasticism. Sometimes -they appear to be a game of dialectics, carried on by a few skilful -players, sometimes a “rushing splendour of rhetoric,” carrying away -many. Spaniards are fond of what Butler calls “that idle and not very -innocent employment of forming imaginary models of the world and schemes -of governing it.” Spanish politicians, says Señor Pérez Galdós, “live in -a world of rituals and formulas, recipes and expedients. The language -has filled with aphorisms and mottos and emblems. Ideas become -stereotyped, and contemplated actions go seeking to embody themselves in -words and cannot make their choice of them.”<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> It would seem indeed -that reality has shown itself so angular and hard-featured to the -Spanish that they gladly make efforts to escape from it. While no nation -shows so great a courage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span> endurance and patient endeavour in misfortune -and defeat, they are not equally successful in success, they are often -spoilt by prosperity and become weak, dissolute and frivolous; they must -have something to fight, and fall when they no longer press against -opposition. This may account for the fact that the poorer classes are -still, as in Ford’s time, “by no means the worst portion of the -population.” The peasants are courteous, intelligent, patient, energetic -and persevering: their praises have been sung by many writers.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> But a -pathetic fatalism and apathy prevail, and a great bitterness against -those in authority. <i>Pobreza nunca alza cabeza</i>, poverty never raises -its head, they say, <i>la cárcel y la cuaresma para los pobres es hecha</i>, -prison and Lent are for the poor; they look for no bettering of their -lot, but for <i>pan y paciencia y muerte con penitencia</i>—bread and -patience and death with repentance. But it must be said that the fault -is not only of those “on top,” but of those also who, brooking no -superiorities of any kind,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> thus reduce differences between man and -man to the brutal divisions of wealth and poverty and make life a race -for riches. It remains true, however, that the peasants of Spain are -ground down by taxes,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and work incessantly only to hover on the -fringes of starvation; <i>todo sea por Dios</i>, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span> say, and content -themselves with the observation that honesty and riches do not fit into -one sack—<i>honra y provecho no caben en un saco</i>. There is a certain -elemental hardness in the Spanish which helps them to support hardships -stoically and, indeed, to be scornful of modern comforts and luxury. -Their indifference towards disquiet and discomfort and noisy uproar<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> -often dismays the foreigner, but it is not that they are inconsiderate -of the feelings of others, they have a deep sensitiveness and -refinement, but they have not been enervated and rendered over-sensitive -by a luxurious civilization. Their climate, with its harsh extremes of -cold and heat,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> produces a people like that of León’s <i>Alcalá de los -Zegríes</i>, “rigorous in their virtues and their vices, violent in their -loves and hates.” They go easily to extremes; Spanish intellects are apt -to be either totally undeveloped, or else over-subtle in nice -distinctions, and action in the same way, when it comes, comes with -violence and excess, like the rivers of Spain which, parched all summer, -pour down after rain in rushing torrents. The charges of cruelty and -fanaticism, the bull-fight and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span> <i>auto-de-fé</i>, have fixed themselves -upon the Spanish. They are by nature inflexible and uncompromising, and -like to carry out their principles without looking to the many delicate -shades of grey between white and black. But they are not by nature -cruel; they support bodily sufferings with courage and inflict them upon -others as the lesser of two evils, burning the heretics to prevent the -spread of their heresy; and indeed to men convinced that these -“pertinacious schismaticks” were to burn for ever and ever in another -place, a touch of fire in this life could hardly seem an excessive -punishment.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Cruelty to animals on the roads of Spain is extremely -rare, and at the bull-fights<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> it is only fair to observe that, while -the foreigner’s attention is directed to the sufferings of the horses, -the whole mind of the Spaniard is bent on intricacies of the conflict -between man and bull, and nice passes which escape the foreigner.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> -The <i>autos-de-fé</i> and the Inquisition have cast over Spain a reputation<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span> -for fanaticism and obscurantist bigotry. But the Spanish, while eager -supporters of their faith, are too independent to bow down for long to a -Clerical predominance; they cannot be called a priest-ridden nation.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> -<i>Ni buen fraile por amigo, ni malo por enemigo</i>, says one of their -proverbs—make no friend of a good monk, nor enemy of a bad; and again, -<i>Haz lo que dice el fraile no lo que hace</i>—follow the monk’s precept, -not his example. They believe uncompromisingly in the Roman Catholic -religion, but have a ready eye for the faults of its ministers; they -love and reverence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span> the Church as a refuge from reality, but continue to -be realists in their mysticism. The Church in Spain has done noble work, -but it has been a retreat more than a morality, encouraging hollow shows -rather than love of truth,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> patience and submission rather than -enterprise and a persistent search for remedies. The anti-Clericals -complain that the influence of the priest in the family is excessive, -but when the women are kept in a semi-Oriental seclusion, while the men -chatter together in street and casino and café, as still happens in many -parts of Spain,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> it is but natural for the women to turn from the -discomfort and isolation of their homes to the magnificent ceremonies of -the Church.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> The Spaniards are naturally inclined to generosity and a -love of magnificence, but, their poverty preventing, this too often -degenerates to shams and hollowness. To poverty and the proud -concealment of poverty, much of the feeling of suspicion which prevails -in Spain may be attributed. A large number of Spaniards may be said to -be well-to-do in the street,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span> poverty-stricken in the home. The family -in Pereda’s <i>Bocetos al temple</i> which chooses without a moment’s -hesitation to live on potatoes in order to be able to dress luxuriously, -is no solitary instance, and in Madrid many live in bare rooms who drive -abroad in carriages. The Spanish are more careful of outward show than -any other nation. The universal neatness and soldierly smartness of -their dress must excite admiration. But watch a poor man fold and refold -the brilliantly lined outer edge of his <i>capa</i> that the more worn -portions of the velvet may not appear—the <i>capa</i> which may itself cover -a multitude of sins (<i>la capa todo lo tapa</i>) that recalls the passage in -Shakespeare:—</p> - -<div class="blockquotsml"><p>“<i>Armado</i>: The naked truth of it is I have no shirt. I go woolward -for penance.</p> - -<p><i>Boyet</i>: True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind">Or follow a smart officer through the streets to his house. The position -and entrance of the house will not prepare you for its decreasing -splendour as you climb stair after stair to the bare rooms where he -lives. There is much that is <i>postizo</i>, false and artificial, in the -exterior view, as Spaniards will themselves bitterly confess. -Appearances must be maintained. So Bacon says that “It hath been an -opinion that the Frenchmen are wiser than they seem and the Spaniards -seem wiser than they are,” and many of their houses are built not to -live in but to look on. Hence, partly, a disquieting element of -mistrust, of “suspicions that ever fly by twilight” foreign<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span> to the -frank and open nature of true Spaniards. “Of every Spanish undertaking,” -writes Señor Benavente in 1909, “it may be said as of the famous -<i>Cortes</i> that it is ‘dishonoured while yet unborn.’ The result is that -he who is jealous of his good name shuns contact with all business -affairs like pitch, and the affairs fall into the hands of men who are -untroubled by scruples.... All these suspicions and distrusts are a sign -rather of our poverty than of our morality. There is so great a scarcity -of money that it becomes unintelligible that any one who has the -handling of it should fail to keep a part for himself.... We are, -moreover, so firmly attached to old-fashioned ideas of -nobility—<i>rancias hidalguías</i>—that, in spite of our pressing need of -money, we still consider its acquisition contemptible; so we prefer to -seek it by subterranean channels as if it were a crime to seek it in the -light of day.”</p> - -<p>Suspicion of new things has ever been at once the strength and the -weakness of Spain.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> In the nineteenth century this suspicion -expressed itself in patriotism carried to its extreme logical -conclusion. Were Napoleon’s reforms of a nature to benefit Spain in an -inestimable degree? To the Spaniard they were the tyrannical and -insidious measures of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span> usurper. Was his brother Joseph intelligent, -well-intentioned, conciliatory? To the Spaniard he was ever the -squint-eyed drinker, <i>Pepe Botellas</i>, and it was idle to insist that he -did not squint, and did not drink. Was King Amadeo an enlightened, -courageous, and self-effacing ruler? To the Spaniard he was an intruder, -to be treated with neglect, insolence or disdain. This distrust may have -been foolish and harmful to the interests of Spain, but it was in many -respects noble and admirable. To-day, however, we have rather the -reverse side of the picture, a pessimism about all things Spanish, and a -foolish tendency to imitate things foreign. Beneath his outer <i>capa</i> of -haughty pride the Spaniard is keenly aware of his limitations; he has no -confidence in his own actions or in his country, or, rather, his -confidence is merely momentary and is never sustained. It is, no doubt, -a sign not of progress but degeneracy to exchange the Spanish <i>capa</i>, -peculiarly suited to a climate of hot sun and cold air, for English -overcoats or the becoming mantilla for the newest fashion in Parisian -hats. It is not necessarily a sign of progress to exchange old-fashioned -Spanish piety for the latest shades of scepticism, or to leave the -simple life of an <i>hidalgo</i> in the provinces for the idler, dissipated -life in the only capital and court. The desire to be very modern is at -present a good thing in Spain, yet it need not consist in casting aside -old traditions and diffidently rejecting Spanish customs that are -excellent. This exalting of foreign customs and depreciation of their -own which has been frequently observed of Spaniards,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> is due rather to -an inverted pride than to humility; at the beginning of the nineteenth -century it was considered a mark of culture in Spain to despise things -Spanish and to worship things French, but all the time the Spanish -believe at heart in themselves,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> they praise foreign countries with -their lips, but continue to place Spain first, and if they imitate, they -cast a peculiarly Iberian flavour over their imitations. The late Bishop -Creighton, looking at Spain historically, remarked that it “leaves the -curious impression of a country which never did anything original—now -the Moors, now France, now Italy, have influenced it.” If this is so, -certainly the Moors, and France, and Italy have wrought some of their -most original works in Spain; and it can hardly be said that the great -Spanish discoverers and conquerors, painters, philosophers, and poets of -the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries were not original, -whether they were influenced by Moors, Frenchmen, or Italians.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> But, -indeed, the Spaniard more readily repels than assimilates, it is his -virtue and his defect; he remains isolated and alone, difficult to -convince, impossible to govern. New political and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span> social theories from -France are spread in Spain, but they there serve progress less than -disquiet and the rancour of those who have not towards those who have. -The reforms needed by Spain will not be furthered by riots and disorder, -and the demagogues who encourage them are perhaps less patriotic than -they profess to be. For Spain needs peace, long periods of tranquillity -in which to develop her resources and to learn the more difficult task -of maintaining in prosperity that strength and independent nobility of -character which have shone out so clearly in misfortune. The conclusion -then, if so desultory a study warrants a conclusion, is that the Spanish -are a fundamentally noble, courteous, and independent people, energetic -and brave, with a natural tendency to grandeur and generosity, whom -poverty often leads to hollow display and the consequent suspicion and -distrust. They will be at immense pains to “bear up under their -indigency,” but have a greater consideration for the semblance than for -the reality and substance of well-being, for artificial show, supported -by infinite care and ingenuity, than for a more solid prosperity, based -on serious effort. Their realism, throwing into relief the apparent -pettiness of daily life, causes them to dream dreams and weave fragile -abstract palaces of fair-sounding phrases; they have not that useful -quality of accuracy, an understanding of the value and importance of -details and gradual effort, of pennies and minutes: they will smite a -stone in twain at a great blow, but the idea that it might be pierced by -drops of water <i>saepe cadendo</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span> is foreign to them, and often they aim -at a million and miss a unit. They are a nation of strongly original -characters, acting on impulses and intermittently, and thinking in -extremes; often failing in the face of prosperity, but proud, resolute, -and patient in misfortune; often magnificently imprudent, but never -despicable, except to those whose worship is of riches and success; an -admirable but discomfortable people, not adapting itself readily to -modern conditions, but ever to be reckoned with as an energetic, vital -force, not bowing permanently before defeat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<br /><br /> -TRAVELLING IN SPAIN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T was, of course, Samuel Johnson who said, “There is a good deal of -Spain that has not been perambulated,” and the remark still holds good -for those who, like Don Quixote, wish to “go seeking adventures.” The -brigand stories, “got up,” as Ford would say, “for the home market,” are -now slightly exploded, and few travellers expect to find at every turn—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Cent coupe-jarrets à faces renégates<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Coiffés de montéras et chaussés d’alpargates.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Yet even to-day few foreigners realize that they may cross and recross -the Peninsula from north to south and from east to west in perfect -security. They will meet with no cloak-and-sword episodes; their -adventures must be of another order. It is true that the Spaniard can -use his knife, but the knife comes into play in quarrels of cards and -love and jealousy, in which the passing traveller can have no part. -Those, however, who measure culture by comfort, and wish to journey as -consistent first-class passengers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span> through life, should certainly narrow -their Spanish travels to the round of a few cities—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Erret et extremos scrutetur alter Iberos,”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">and, however rapid and conventional, a journey that includes the -Alhambra, the Mosque of Córdoba, the Cathedrals of Seville, Toledo, and -Burgos,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> and the picture-galleries of Seville and Madrid, can -scarcely be said to have been in vain. But to know Spain and the -Spaniards it is necessary to go further afield, to the small towns and -villages of Andalucía and Castille, for here, rather than in the larger -towns, is to be found the true spirit of the race. Some five thousand -villages are still to be reached only by bridle-paths, and in these -there has been little change since Cervantes went his rounds collecting -taxes; so that for those who care to leave the beaten track there still -remain many unexplored districts, and much first-hand knowledge to glean -of the country and its inhabitants. To many, no doubt, Spain is the -country of dance and song and sun-burnt mirth, of the flutter of fans -and the flash of dark eyes; the country of the bull-fight and the white -mantilla and carnations in the hair; of Roman ruins and Moorish palaces -set in groves of myrtle and orange; of—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Cloaked shapes, the twanging of guitars,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">A rush of feet and rapiers clashing,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Then silence deep with breathless stars,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And overhead a white hand flashing.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">and if any shadows fall across the picture they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span> those of the -brigand and the priest-inquisitor. Then comes the inevitable reaction. -Those who visit Spain find that it is for them indeed <i>un pays de -l’imprévu</i>. The former image in their mind soon perishes, and they cry -out upon this “ciel insalubre,” this—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">“pays endiablé;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nous y mangions, au lieu de farine de blé,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Des rats et des souris et pour toutes ribotes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nous avons dévoré beaucoup de vieilles bottes.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">But, to judge from many books published about Spain, most European -countries would seem to have entered into a league to look upon the -Peninsula solely as a land of a poetical unreality, its inhabitants -divided into inquisitors, monks, brigands, and conspirators, lending—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">“the colour of romance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To every trivial circumstance.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">A well-balanced and accurate account of the country is singularly rare. -It is true that in some respects Spain has changed little since the -sixteenth century, but, on the other hand, during the twentieth century, -while she has been making laborious progress, foreign ideas of Spain -have remained stationary, with the prejudices and fixed opinions of -fifty years ago. No error or exaggeration concerning Spain is too -ridiculous to be affirmed and readily believed, and those who take no -thought to study the Peninsula in quiet days save as a land of vague -romance, when trouble occurs are officious with wise criticisms and -stern common-sense, based on ignorance. Quite recently the hysterical -visions of prisoners tortured in Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> dungeons, and of priestly -cruelty and greed, might persuade one that Mr. Kipling’s “Little Foxes” -was written not before, but after, the events of 1909 in Spain. One -forgets that it is of Ethiopia, not Spain, that Mr. Lethabie Groombride, -M.P., exclaims, “What callous oppression! The dark places of the earth -are full of cruelty!” Like the natives of Ethiopia, the courteous -Spaniards are “much pleased at your condescensions;” but they too have a -sense of humour, and note with amusement the ignorance of nations which -declare that Spain’s chief need is more education and culture.</p> - -<p>For the traveller who wishes to explore the remote parts of Spain, and -to escape from Spanish trains, the simplest method is to proceed on -horseback. Walking and bicycling and motoring are possible in the North, -and especially in the Basque Provinces, where the inns are good and the -roads excellent. But in most parts of Spain they are practically -impossible; the roads are too stony or too dusty even for walking, and, -moreover, in fifty kilometres you may find hardly one inn. There remains -the <i>diligencia</i>—<i>coche</i>, <i>tartana</i>, <i>diabla</i>, call it what you -will—but a single experience of it will probably be sufficient. It -rolls and lurches heavily to the loud, continuous shouting of the driver -to his horses: <i>Caballo-allo-allo-allo</i>, <i>Mula-ula-ula-ula</i>. The -traveller, if he has the misfortune to be in the interior, is beaten -against the wooden sides, the windows rattle, the bells jingle, the -vehicle sways slowly on its way, groaning and complaining of the -breadth, as well as the length, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span> the road<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>—<i>nosotros tambien -llegaremos, si Dios quiere</i>, as a driver said when passed by more rapid -travellers, “if it is the will of Heaven.” Occasionally at a country -railway station may be seen a boy who is a pillar of dust or mud. He is -the <i>zagal</i> of the <i>diligencia</i>, who runs by its side through dirt and -mire, urging on the horses, or stands to rest on the step at the back. -Sometimes the <i>diligencia</i> descends into river-beds, usually dry; and -after much rain it is apt to stay there, and darkness falls and the -frogs croak mockingly, while more mules are fetched to help in the work -of extrication. Often it proceeds by night, throwing strange, fantastic -shadows in the narrow streets of sleeping villages. The driver must -undergo not only extremes of heat and cold, but is often in danger of -snowdrifts and swollen torrents and rocks from the hill-sides. A -Navarrese innkeeper, an old soldier of Santa Cruz, introduced a driver -of a <i>diligencia</i> as “the bravest man of my acquaintance.” Spanish -travellers accept all these discomforts with a marvellous, fatalistic -resignation and equanimity; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span> even a pedestrian will go further and -fare better in an afternoon than a traveller in <i>diligencia</i> during a -whole day. Still, as a unique experience, a <i>diligencia</i> drive must be -undertaken; and the driver is good company, sparing time from the loud -praise and blame meted out to his mules to bestow pithy comments on the -living and the dead—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The crosses in the mountain pass,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Mules gay with tassels, the loud din<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Of muleteers, the tethered ass<br /></span> -<span class="i1">That crops the dusty wayside grass,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And cavaliers with spurs of brass<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Alighting at the inn.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The inns, <i>mesones</i>, <i>ventorrillos</i>, <i>ventas</i>, <i>posadas</i>, <i>paradores</i>, -are still much the same as in the times of Cervantes, moderately clean, -immoderately uncomfortable, bare alike of furniture and food.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> Still -to your first inquiry the answer is, “<i>Hay de todo</i>, we have -everything,” still to your further inquiry the abstract <i>todo</i> shrinks -to <i>nada</i>. But for an understanding of the Spanish people, nothing is -more interesting and one may add, more pleasant than to listen to their -talk as they sit round some great inn fire of crackling scented twigs -burning on the stone floor of the court and kitchen. The discomfort and -hardships of travel in remote parts of Spain are repaid in flowing -measure. Here a solitary peasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span> is seen ploughing land so precipitous -and steep that the stones rattle down as he advances; there the mules -stand hour by hour at the plough while the peasants—in this case -servants on some great estate—play cards, the large earthenware -<i>botijos</i> of water standing ready to their hand; or a group of workers -in the fields stand shivering in early morning round a great common -<i>puchero</i>, dipping their spoons in turn, and in turn raising the <i>bota</i> -high above their heads to drink; or one has a glimpse of some peasant’s -dress<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> of brilliant colouring, of some ancient vanishing costume of -leather or velvet, silk embroidery or silver buttons—at every turn some -quaint custom, some curious picturesque scene and colour appears, and -the talk of the peasants is a delight. The two most successful English -travellers in Spain were beyond doubt, Ford and Borrow. They won the -respect of all classes of Spaniards, and saw practically the whole of -Spanish life three-quarters of a century ago. Borrow describes himself -on one occasion as “dressed in the fashion of the peasants of the -neighbourhood of Segovia in Old Castile, namely, I had on my head a -species of leather helmet or <i>montera</i>, with a jacket and trousers of -the same material.” And Ford says: “In all out-of-the-way districts the -traveller may adopt the national costume of the road, to wit, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span> -peaked hat (<i>sombrero gacho</i>), the jacket of fur (<i>zamarra</i>).” But -without the peaked hat, now almost extinct, or Borrow’s leathern helmet, -a few changes of dress and especially what Ford calls “a graceful and -sleeveless Castilian <i>manta</i>” or rather <i>capa</i>, excellently suited to -the climate, will bring many advantages. For to the ordinary traveller, -with red book and camera, the Spaniard will hardly disclose his true -nature, and remains an impenetrable mystery; not that the foreigner -often realizes the existence of the unsolved riddle, the Spaniard -presenting a sufficient number of striking aspects to make a swift -superficial impression. The best guides to Spain are still Ford’s -“Gatherings,” and a thorough acquaintance with “Don Quixote,” a fluent -knowledge of Spanish, and, lastly, the advice of Spaniards, since as -Sancho sagely observed, “más sabe el necio en su casa que el cuerdo en -casa ajena.” The traveller in Spain may in the heat of summer listen to -the silver plashing of fountains in marble <i>patios</i>, and feel the -coolness of snowy Sierras; he may in early morning gather frozen oranges -to be eaten later beneath a burning sun; but it is this sun which with -the cold winds tends to limit his wanderings to a brief period of spring -or autumn. Martial indeed says—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Aestus serenos aureo franges Tago<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Obscurus umbris arborum.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">but under the fierce Castilian sun—and there are said to be 3600 hours -of sunshine in the year—the imagination produces no golden tints in the -Tagus,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span> and trees are few. Comfort the traveller will scarcely find, but -serviceableness and courtesy on all sides. If he is wise, he will, -however, imitate the Spaniards not only a little in their dress, but -greatly in their manners. He will arm himself with an inalienable fund -of patience. He will be courteous even while chafing at delay. His -courtesy will never go unanswered. “<i>La cortesía tenerla con quien la -tenga</i>, Courtesy to him who has it,” as one of Calderón’s characters -says. Money often obtains much, but the offer of a cigarette or a cigar -is often not less effective. Without a courteous manner the money will -be treated as an insult and the cigar refused. Calderón says again: “<i>El -sombrero y el dinero son los que hacen amigos</i>, Raising the hat and -money make most friends.” Few peoples respect themselves more than the -Spanish, and they look for respect from others. “The sensitive Spaniard -bristles up like a porcupine against the suspicion of a disdain.” They -do not forget that they were once the greatest people in Europe, and -they regard it as an accident that the march of modern civilization has -left them behind, being, indeed, too mechanical for their pride to -adopt. And still the golden rule for the traveller in Spain is never to -be in a hurry or never to show that he is in a hurry, for by doing so he -will increase delays and defeat his object. He must learn the Spanish -proverb thoroughly—<i>Paciencia y barajar</i>, “Patience, and shuffle the -cards.” Patience and courtesy he will find to be above rubies. The -Spaniard, so sensitive and excitable, remains unmoved by delays<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span> and -petty official tyrannies which drive an Englishman into a kind of -despair and fury of impatience.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> But the lower officials in Spain are -apt to be ignorant and self-important, very official, and curt inquiries -only remind them that they represent the whole majesty of the Law and -the State; they multiply their shrugs and inscrutable <i>No se puede</i>’s. -On the other hand, a polite speech, though it occupy several of the few -minutes that the traveller may have to spare, is in Spain time well -spent and performs miracles;—if, that is, he still persists in -considering the value of time, and has not found it simpler to accept -the less accurate methods of the Spaniard. For he may ask in a -cathedral, “When is Mass going to be celebrated?” and the answer is, -“<i>No sé, Señor</i>; <i>Cuando vengan los canónigos</i>”—when it is the good -pleasure of the Canons to appear; or he may ask in a station, “When does -the train start?” and must not be surprised if the answer is again, “<i>No -sé, Señor</i>.” He had best content himself once and for all to breakfast -at five-o’clock tea, and will find consolation in the thought that here -at least there is no unseemly rush and strain, in this original and -exquisite land of To-morrow—<i>Mañana por la mañana</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<br /><br /> -ON THE SPANISH FRONTIER</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Bidasoa, in the last part of its course, divides Spain from France. -It further divides Basque from Basque. It has thus a local and an -historic interest. It is the scene of smuggling between French and -Spanish Basques and, as a frontier river, it has seen many a quaint and -solemn episode in the past—the passage of Wellington’s troops, for -instance, in 1813, or the exchange in boats of Francis I. against two -hostages (his sons) in 1526, the King showing an eager haste to win -across the river and reach the friendly inhabitants of St. Jean de -Luz<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and the sheltering walls of Bayonne. But it is the passing -beauty of the whole Bidasoa valley that attracts the visitor, the -loveliness of the river and the hills and the villages by the river. The -Bidasoa is beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span> during its whole course from where it rises near -the village of Maya, a little mountain stream running swiftly through -woods of oak and chestnut. At times the hills break abruptly down, the -water lies deep and dark-green beneath, and there is a look of Ullswater -about both hills and river. A little above Endarlaza the road leaves the -river, and from here may be had a glimpse of the Bidasoa of unrivalled -beauty. For it runs in a long, irregular stretch, irregular for the -rough backbones of hill covered with boulders and bushes of box. At each -hill-ridge one might expect the river to bend and vanish, but still it -appears beyond. Nearer the village of Vera it contracts to a narrower -flow, and the water lashes over rocks, magnificently white and green. -The river is known to fishermen as well as to smugglers and Carlists and -lovers of Nature. Certainly the wisest travellers, before passing on to -the bleak uplands of Castille, will stay to explore this little strip of -green country, with its fresh woods and valleys and villages full of -state and ancientry. Vera, in a sunny hollow, has an especial -fascination. The vine-covered balconies and projecting roofs keep the -houses in shade, and on two sides is the rustle and flow of water. The -houses stand on different levels, several storeys of them mounting roof -above roof from the river to the church. They are curious in their -sculptured stone, their quaint carved buttresses, their nail-studded -doors or rounded arches leading to the outer court, their crazy wooden -balconies, their coats-of-arms, their inscriptions. At the very -entrance<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span> of the Bidasoa stands Fuenterrabía, beneath gently sloping -Jaizquibel. It is a little town of marvellous, narrow streets, steep and -crooked, and overjutting houses carved in wood and stone. In front is a -little bay, black with fishing-boats, and seen from across the water, -Fuenterrabía’s clustered group of houses, yellow and brown and grey, -crowned by the ancient church and tenth-century castle, is of a rare and -enchanting beauty. Not only a narrow strip of river, but several -centuries separate it from Hendaye opposite, with its shore on the -Bidasoa and its shore on the sea, and its woods above the river, crowded -in spring with daffodils. The sudden change from everything that is -French to everything that is Spanish cannot but be surprising. It is -due, no doubt, to the fact that beneath the French and the Spanish -civilization and language, the people have an older language and -civilization common to either side. The Basque spoken varies but little, -being merely a little broader in Spain than in France. Mme. d’Aulnoy -noticed the abrupt change wrought by a few yards of travel. “It’s -certain, as soon as I past the little river of Bidassoa, I was not -understood unless I spake Castilian; and not above a quarter of an Hour -before I should not have been understood had I not spoke French.”<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> -Obstacles and delays begin: “Here are Toll-gatherers who make you pay -for everything you carry with you, not excepting your Cloaths. This Tax -is demanded at their Pleasure and is excessive on Strangers.” Letters -are no longer received in a well-ordered service: “There<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span> is in this -country a very ill order touching commerce, and when the French carrier -arrives at St. Sebastian, all the letters he brings are deliver’d to -others who are good footmen and ease one another. They put their packets -into a sack tied with rotten cords to their shoulder, by which means it -oft happens that the secrets of your heart and family are open to the -first curious body who makes drunk the Footpost.” Mme. d’Aulnoy is -irritated by the unintelligibility of Basque: “This country called -Biscaye is full of high mountains where are several iron mines.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> The -Biscays climb up the rocks as easily and with as great swiftness as -stags. Their language (if one may call such jargon language) is very -poor, seeing one word signifies abundance of things. There are none but -those born in the country that can understand it; and I am told that to -the end it may be more particularly theirs they make no use of it in -writing: they make their children learn to read and write French and -Spanish according to which King’s subjects they are.” “They are said to -understand one another,” said Scaliger of the Basques, “but, for my -part, I doubt it.” The most famous scene of peace witnessed by the -Bidasoa was the meeting held in the <i>Île des Faisans</i>, or <i>de la -Conférence</i>, a narrow island, now worn to a mere strip by the flow of -the tide, between Philip IV. of Spain and Louis XIV. of France in 1660. -It was a scene of lavish splendour and magnificence, and Velázquez, then -in the last year of his life, superintended the decorations and -assisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span> at the interview.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> But most often we hear of the Bidasoa as -a scene of strife and anxiety, escape and pursuit. The very river was an -object of dispute between the Governments of France and Spain, until it -was decided that the one half of it belonged to France, the other to -Spain; in the centre of the bridge of Béhobie is the dividing line, -marked in blue for France and red for Spain. Many a time has the sight -of its waters, flowing swiftly to the sea, been welcomed by men in -danger of life and liberty. Colonel Péroz<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> has graphically described -his escape by swimming the river during the last Carlist war. On May 5, -1808, Marbot reached the Bidasoa, after riding day and night through -hostile country to bring the Emperor (then at the Château de Marrac, -near Bayonne) news of the <i>Dos de Mayo</i> rising at Madrid. At the -beginning of November Napoleon himself crossed the frontier, and as he -rode rapidly along the <i>route d’Espagne</i> and beneath the Church of -Urrugne, with its ancient, sad inscription,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> little thought that the -enterprise upon which he was now engaged was to be a main cause in -bringing him swiftly to the last hour that kills.</p> - -<p>In the Middle Ages the pilgrims to the shrine of Santiago went through -the Basque country and across the frontier in fear of their lives. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span> -Basques were fierce and brave, and fond of plunder. In 1120 a Bishop was -obliged to lay aside his episcopal robes, and taking with him only two -servants and a guide who understood the “barbarous tongue of the -Basques,” so passed through to Compostella. In later times the pilgrims -would sing, as they left Irun,—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Adieu la France jolie<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Et les nobles fleurs de lys<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Car je m’en vais en Espagne,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">C’est un étrange pays,”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">and would look back with sighs to the good cheer of France:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Quand nous fûmes á Saint Jean de Luz<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Les biens de Dieu en abondance,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Car ce sont gens de Dieu élus,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Des charités ont souvenance.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">The older way into Spain was the Roman road from Dax to S. Jean Pied de -Port and Roncesvalles—where, indeed, and not “by Fontarabia,” -Charlemagne was attacked by the Basques;<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> but often this road was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span> -rendered impassable by war. In the middle of the 12th century the French -Basque country passed, with the rest of Aquitaine, into the possession -of the English Crown, and henceforth many were the battles and frontier -raids between the Basques on either side. In 1296 we read of a truce in -the quarrels between San Sebastian and “Fuent Arrabia,” and of an -agreement made between them not to “send or take bread, or wine, or -meat, or arms or horses, or other merchandise to Bayonne, or England, or -Flanders while the war lasts between the King of France and the King of -England.” On July 19, 1311, a peace is made between Bayonne and Biarritz -(Beiarritz) on the one hand, and Laredo, Castro-Urdiales, and Santander -on the other. A few years later we find the King of Castille writing to -the King of England to complain of the seizure of the goods of his -vassals of Biscay by the Seneschal of Aquitaine, “against all right and -reason.” As often before and after “en ce temps avoit grand rancune -entre le roy d’Angleterre et les Espagnols.” In 1352 a treaty is formed -between “England and the people of the coast of Cantabria,” who were -famous for their prowess in catching whales, as well as in frontier -warfare, and came into rivalry with English fishermen. In 1482 “amicable -intelligences” are concluded at Westminster between “Edward, by the -Grace of God King of England and France and Lord of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span> Ireland” and “the -inhabitants of the noble and loyal Province of Guipúzcoa.”<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> During -the 17th century the frontier raids continued, and in 1636 (as before in -1558) the town of St. Jean de Luz was taken and pillaged by the -Spaniards. Up in the hills, near the little village of Sare, the -Spaniards of Vera were defeated, and Sare still displays on the walls of -its <i>mairie</i> the coat-of-arms given by Louis XIV. after the victory won -by the bravery of its inhabitants, with the following inscription in -Basque:—“Reward of courage and loyalty, given to Sare by Louis XIV. in -1693.”<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> In the Peninsular War, Sare and its mountain, La Rhune, -played a prominent part, and many a vivid description, such as the -following, occurs in Napier:—“Day had broken with great splendour, and -three guns were fired as signal of attack from Atchuria. The French were -driven from La Rhune, Sare was carried, and the enemy brushed away from -Ainhoa and Urdax: “It was now eight o’clock, and from the smaller -Rhune<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span> a splendid spectacle of war opened upon the view. On the left -the ships of war, slowly sailing to and fro, were exchanging shots with -the fort of Socoa, and Hope, menacing all the French lines on the low -ground, sent the sound of a hundred pieces of artillery bellowing up the -rocks, to be answered by nearly as many from the tops of the mountains. -On the right the summit of the great Atchuria<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> was just lighted by -the rising sun, and fifty thousand men rushing down its enormous slopes -with ringing shouts seemed to chase the receding shadows into the deep -valley.” The description of the passage of the Bidasoa in October, 1813, -is equally graphic: “From San Marcial seven columns could now be seen at -once, moving on a line of five miles, those above bridge plunging at -once into the fiery contest, those below appearing in the distance like -huge, sullen snakes winding over the heavy sands.” The mountainous -character of the frontier, causing Spain to be entered by one or two -narrow passages, has indeed concentrated upon a few points a picturesque -variety of traffic through the centuries—a historical pageant of -soldiers, pilgrims, smugglers, Kings and Queens dethroned or released -from imprisonment, wily agents, gorgeous ambassadors, fugitive -politicians, exiled Jesuits, heretic missionaries, Carlist conspirators, -with a large sprinkling of visitors and adventurers from many lands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<br /><br /> -ESKUAL-ERRIA</h2> - -<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">Basque Country</span></h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE are few peoples more deserving of study than the Basques, and few -countries more pleasant to visit and to live in than the Basque -Provinces. After the treeless, unsheltered mountains and plains, and the -compact villages of Castille or Navarre, the villages of the Basque -country, set in green, and, to quote the phrase of a Spanish novelist, -“all in the peace of prayer,” are a delightful contrast. The sky has no -longer the harsh intensity of the Castilian, and everywhere is a -softness of outlines; everywhere, too, is green—the green of chestnut -and oak, of maize and trefoil, meadow and cider-orchard. The maize is -the principal crop of the year, providing the heavy, yellow bread, -<i>artoa</i>, as well as food for the oxen and material for mats, mattresses, -and even cigarette-papers. The fields are divided by slabs of stone, and -in the mists of the early mornings the Angelus rings from hidden towers; -and the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span> other sound is that of scythes cutting the drenched grass -or trefoil. Every true Basque is of noble, ancient family, and the -Basque farmhouse, with its wooden façade and carved projecting -buttresses, its wide balcony and deep ornamented eaves, is handed down -from father to son without change. It stands surrounded by orchards and -fields of maize, and often overshadowed by an immense fig-tree or a -group of splendid walnut-trees. The roof slopes down on one side till it -nearly reaches the ground. The lower part of the front is hollowed into -a court, and on one side of this a door leads straight into the spacious -kitchen, with its huge fireplace and many vessels of scoured bronze and -copper, which forms the principal room of the house. A dark, narrow -staircase leads to the bedrooms; through the cracks of the floors may -often be seen the oxen in their stalls beneath. Large chests of oak, -some of them beautifully carved, are to be found in most Basque farms. -In Vizcaya a large vine-trellis, running forward on posts from the inner -court beneath the balcony, further deepens the dark velvet spaces in the -whitewashed front of the farm; in Guipúzcoa many houses have no balcony -or trellis, but are overgrown with heavy vines, that often entirely -cover all the windows. From the windows hang long strings of red piments -or white onions; above the door there is frequently an ancient stone -coat-of-arms or an inscription with the name of the founders and the -date, and above this a cross or the letters I. H. S. The house is thus -half sacred. After the father’s death, the eldest son becomes “Lord of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span> -the house, etcheco-jauna,” while the younger sons often emigrate.</p> - -<p>It was from their farms, so dear to them, that the Basques formerly took -their names, so that they are called not Smith or Collier, but -At-the-head-of-the-hill (Mendiburu) or Under-the-new-road (Bideberripe). -Even now a Basque in the country is never called by his surname, but -either by his Christian name or a nickname, or the name of his house or -property. Etche (“house”) is perhaps the commonest compound. Etcheberri -(“newhouse”) has numerous variants—Echeverri, Echevarri, Echavarri (in -Vizcaya and Alava, where the Basque spoken is broader than in Guipúzcoa, -new is “barri”), Chavarri, Echarri, Echave, Xavier, Javer, etc. The -number of Basque-speaking people can now but little exceed half a -million, and only very rarely is a Basque found who is unable to speak -Spanish or French.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Of the three Spanish-Basque provinces, Guipúzcoa -(capital San Sebastián) alone is entirely Basque. At Bilbao, the capital -of Vizcaya, no Basque is spoken; and long before reaching Vitoria, the -capital of Alava, the language spoken is Castilian. Nor is Basque spoken -at Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, though it reaches almost to its -walls, and till quite recently had a wider extension in Navarre, names -of places such as Mendigorria (“red mountain”) surviving. The difficulty -of the language has been somewhat exaggerated; there is a well-known -story that the Devil spent three years in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> the Basque country, and only -succeeded in learning two words: <i>Bai</i>, “yes;” and <i>Es</i>, “no.” But it -remains true that the immense and complicated system of Basque -conjugations is for a foreigner almost impossible to master; and at the -same time the Basque literature to reward the learner is of the -scantiest. Interesting indeed are the proverbs, some of the songs, and -the pastorales, which have been compared in more than one particular -with the Greek drama, but which are now acted only in the province of -Soule. The stage, in the open air, is formed of plain planks, supported -most often on barrels. A curtain cuts off a part for the actors to -change their costumes, the same person often taking several parts in a -play. The curtain has two doors, one for the good and one for the -wicked. The good and the wicked are kept strictly separate. The -pastorale is always in honour of Christianity and the Roman Catholic -religion, and the wicked are the heathen, the Turks, the English, etc. -Red is the colour of the wicked, that of the good is blue; in this -respect no change is ever made. The good always walk slowly and -solemnly, but when the wicked come on the stage the music is immediately -changed to a lively air, and they never remain long quiet, their -movements continuing quick and agitated. The acting is very simple; a -journey, for instance, is represented by walking up and down the stage -several times. The characters are usually taken exclusively by men and -boys, but there are a few pastorales acted by women only; the sexes are -never mingled. Strange and amusing anachronisms abound.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> In the -pastorale entitled <i>Abraham</i>, Abraham appears in high boots and felt -hat; Sarah in a modern, bright-coloured dress, with hat, veil, and fan; -Isaac carries one or two sticks on his shoulder for the sacrifice; the -Angel is a little boy in white. Then there are the heathen and the -Christian kings, the former dressed in red, with high crowns arrayed -with plumes and ribbons, the latter in blue with crowns of gold. In the -middle of the play one of the Christian kings leaves the stage, and -presently appears above the curtain and speaks with Abraham. He -represents the “Eternal Father.” The verses are spoken in a loud -monotonous chant, each verse being literally measured out by motion up -and down the stage, the only change being when the music becomes faster -or slower. The music is composed of the two Basque instruments the -<i>churula</i>, a shrill pipe, and the <i>tamboril</i>, a kind of guitar with six -strings, played by the same person. The strangeness of the scene, the -loud chanting of the actors as the tone rises and falls, the fantastic -costumes, the dances of the “Satans,” the prayers of the Christians, and -especially the slow march and action of the blues, dignified and -majestic, and the turbulent, restless movements of the reds, are not -soon forgotten.</p> - -<p>The Basque language, <i>Eskuara</i>, was described by the Spanish historian, -Mariana, as “coarse and barbarous,” and a traveller among the Basques in -the Middle Ages recorded that to hear them speak one would say they were -dogs barking. In English, the word “jingo” has been said to derive from -the Basque<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span> <i>Jincoa</i>, “God,” introduced by Wellington’s troops after the -Peninsular War. The Basque word is an abbreviation of <i>Jaungoicoa</i>, “the -Lord on high,” <i>jauna</i>, “lord,” being the common form of greeting -between peasant and peasant. It becomes more and more rare to hear pure -Basque spoken; foreign words creep in and, with the definite article -“<i>a</i>” suffixed, hide under a Basque form: <i>dembora</i> (Lat. <i>tempus</i>) thus -ousting the Basque word <i>eguraldia</i> for “weather,” <i>gorphuntza</i> (Lat. -<i>corpus</i>) being “body,” and so on.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> Pure Basque recedes to remote -villages in the mountains, and there the Basque maintains his ancient -customs, as averse from change to-day as when Horace described him as -“Cantabrum indoctum juga ferre nostra.”<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span></p> - -<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">Basque Customs</span></h3> - -<p>An old Latin account speaks of the Basques as going nowhere—not even to -church—without arms, usually a bow and arrows, and says that they are -“gens affabilis, elegans et hilaris—courteous, graceful, and -light-hearted;”<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> but, in spite of their known hospitality, their -distrust of the foreigner and their hatred of intrusion are shown in -more than one of their proverbs, as “The stranger-guest does not work -himself, and prevents you from working.” The Basques are, indeed, the -most energetic, as they are the most ancient people of the Peninsula. -“Naguia bethi lansu—The idle man is ever busy,” says another of their -proverbs; and, again, “Idle youth brings needy old age.”<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Their -fields are well and economically cultivated, and if their methods are -antiquated, this is partly due to the mountainous nature of the country -and the smallness of the holdings, making it simpler, <i>e.g.</i>, to thresh -corn by beating it sheaf by sheaf against a stone. Numerous small -factories—of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span> cloth as at Vergara, of paper at Tolosa, of iron and -steel at Eibar and Elgoibar, of furniture at Azpeitia—and many quarries -and tile-factories prove their industry; and entering a small Basque -town such as Elgoibar, one may hear in tiny shops on all sides the sound -of sandal-makers and workers in wood and leather. They know how to work, -and they know how to enjoy themselves with thoroughness at the village -fêtes. From dawn to dusk the ball is to be heard against the wall of the -pelota court on Sundays, with intervals of dancing to the shrill pipe -and drum of the <i>chunchunero</i>. Voltaire, thinking of their love of -dancing, described them as “un petit peuple qui danse sur les Pyrénées,” -and certain dances still survive. The sword-dance, <i>ezpata danza</i>, is -one of the most remarkable, and has been described by Pierre Loti in -“Figures et choses qui passaient;” and other dances are those -representing the primitive methods of agriculture, the vintage, weaving, -etc. The Basque pelota has, unfortunately, become, of recent years, a -game of professionals, and as played, <i>e.g.</i>, at Madrid, the interest is -rather in the betting than in the play. The enthusiasm formerly excited -among the Basques by the game is illustrated by the story that several -Basque soldiers left the Army of the Rhine, returned to their country to -play a game of ball, and, having played and won it, rejoined the army in -time to take part in the battle of Austerlitz.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> A game played in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span> the -immense court of a small Basque village is still a splendid sight, -though it has lost much of its splendour, and the old Rebot is fast -dying out. Pierre Loti has described a game of Blaid, as seen in a -French-Basque village, in his novel of the Basque country, “Ramuntcho”; -and this form of the game has been played in Paris and London. But old -peasants will shake their heads and say it is no longer “as of old.” The -expression “of old” is common on the lips of both French and Spanish -Basques;<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> they willingly praise the past, and are intensely -conservative of all their customs, their immemorial language, their -games, privileges, religion. The ox-carts, with wheels of solid wood, to -be seen under the vine-trellises of Basque farms, seem as old as the -withered trunk of the oak of Guernica, and similarly many ancient -customs have been retained. In some parts, at funerals, the men wear -long cloaks reaching to the feet, the women also wearing long, full -cloaks with hoods, that completely hide the face. The men go first, and -then all the women—men and women in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span> single file—the chief mourners -coming last. Both at weddings and funerals, feasts were formerly given -on such an extensive scale that the family was often nearly ruined, and -a law (<i>fuero</i>) was passed forbidding to invite any but relations to the -third degree. But the wedding-feast is still sufficiently imposing; it -continues for many hours, and immediately afterwards the young begin -dancing, while the old play cards. As to the offerings at funerals, -“none but an eye-witness,” says Larramendi, in the eighteenth century, -“could believe the quantity of bread and wax that is offered. Moreover, -at these big funerals, in some places a live ox, and in others a sheep, -is brought as an offering to the church door, and when the service is -over it is taken away, and a fixed sum of money is given to the -priest.”<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> This curious custom, a survival of the offerings to the -dead and a trace of ancestor-worship, has not yet wholly died out. In -one village at least (Arriba, on the borders of Navarre and Guipúzcoa) -it is customary at funerals to offer bread and wax, and to bring to the -church either a quarter of veal or a live sheep, which is afterwards -given to the priest. The Basques are intensely religious,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span> and it is -characteristic of them that before they were converted to Christianity -they were the terror of the Christians—indeed, the pilgrims to Santiago -de Compostella at all times feared the passage through the Basque -Provinces, the strange language adding to their difficulties (“La -Biscaye,” they said, “où il y a d’étrange monde, où l’on n’entend pas -les gens”). The Basques troop in to early Mass every Sunday, often by -rough mountain paths, from farms lying a league away. Yet it must not be -thought that the Basques are priest-ridden; the priests are respected, -and often take part in their games or walk many miles across the hills -to visit the sick. But though the Basques are often narrow and -fanatical, they have far too much dignity and independence to be the -blind followers of the priests. In the Carlist wars they fought chiefly -for their old privileges, or <i>fueros</i>, and the result of the wars was -that nearly all their <i>fueros</i> were lost, in 1839 and 1876. “Nothing is -so fair as liberty,” says one of their songs, and their national song, -“Guernikako Arbola,”<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> with its stirring air, celebrates “the holy -tree of Guernica, loved by all the Basques.” In the little green-set -town of Guernica a fine new oak, some forty years old, has taken the -place of the old tree, now a mere trunk protected by glass, while in the -little pillared temple are still to be seen the seven marble seats on -which assembled—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Peasant and lord in their appointed seat,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Guardians of Biscay’s ancient liberty.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span></p> - -<p>These are the two last lines of Wordsworth’s sonnet to the</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Oak of Guernica! Tree of holier power<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Than that which in Dodona did enshrine,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">So faith too fondly deemed, a voice divine.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Noble, handsome, graceful in all their movements, hardy and shrewd, the -Basques are active and untiring whether as farmers, smugglers, soldiers, -or <i>pelotaris</i>. They live aloof in scattered farms, a healthy open-air -life (their word for rich is <i>aberatz</i>, from <i>abere</i>, head of cattle), -and, indeed, in a town they tend to lose some of their good qualities. -Their dress has always an air of careful neatness and distinction, with -the <i>béret</i>, white shirt (without a tie), dark blue or black coat thrown -over shoulder (or long blouse), silent sandals and the peculiar -<i>makhila</i>, a stout iron-pointed stick of medlar. They are shrinking into -their mountains, a race doomed to perish, “un peuple qui s’en va.” They -have watched during thousands of years new races spring up and prosper -around them, and in the twentieth century they see trains and motors -penetrate to the inaccessible places where the Roman legions were -checked, or Charlemagne with all his peerage fell. An inscription here -and there shows them bowing to destiny and the relentless march of time -in saddened resignation, or betaking themselves to the consolation of -their religion—the following inscriptions, for instance, along the -frontier: “Man is beaten by every hour, and the last leads him to the -grave.”<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> “Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.”<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span> “Ici fait l’home cequi -pevt et fortune ce que elle vevt.”<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> “Post fata resurgo.”<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> “Deum -time, Mariam invoca.”<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> “Orhoit hilcea.”<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> The privileges that -remain to the Basques are few, consisting in a slightly less acute -centralization than obtains in other provinces of Spain.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> They have -no <i>fueros</i> left to make it worth their while to take up arms afresh, -and they still have vivid memories of their wasted fields and desolate -farms in the last Carlist war. But were their ancient religion to be -really attacked, or were an attempt made to expel the monks from the -Basque provinces, the peasants could be counted upon to make a desperate -resistance, more in defence of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span> independence than on behalf of the -monks themselves. Foreigners have often misunderstood the Basques,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> -for they are reserved and silent towards the new-comer (“Gizonciki -arabotz andi,” they say—“Little man, much noise”; “the empty barrel -makes the most noise,” and so on). But there is no suspicion of -commercialism about their love of liberty such as has often been -attributed to the Catalans: they love their beautiful land, the -Eskual-erria, for its own sake and the religion and customs of their -forefathers, and the strangers who visit their country soon learn to -love and admire its broad healing power and spirit of ancient peace. It -is a country of civilization without great cities, where exists an -intimate and ennobling relation between the soil and the inhabitants.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<br /><br /> -IN REMOTE NAVARRE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>AVARRE is held to be one of the chief bulwarks of Clericalism in Spain, -and so remote and isolated are its villages, so primitive its life and -agriculture, so few its means of communication, that it might seem that -no breath of modern times could have penetrated to this province. Lying -on the frontier of France, it is defended from the inroads of -civilization by its mountains and wide wastes of desert land. In those -lonely groups of houses of massive yellow-brown stone, clustered around -their church, and crowning rocky hills of the same colour, there is no -room for differences of opinion, and he who does not attend Mass at -least once in the year is forced to go and live elsewhere. Should you -ask how he can be forced to go, the answer you will receive is, “By the -law, by public opinion.” Quite recently a traveller, arriving famished -at one of these villages of Navarre, with no smaller change than a -French napoleon, went from door to door in vain. No one would accept -this <i>doblón de oro</i> (gold doubloon). Finally, a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span> who had lived -for a time at Salies de Béarn consented to receive it, and sent it later -to be changed at the capital, Pamplona. Yet even here in Navarre there -is an appreciable body of liberal opinion, and even in the heart of the -Carlist country, at Estella, the Club Carlista is faced by the ensign of -the Círculo Liberal; even here in all but the smaller villages opinion -is divided, and the policy of Clericals and anti-Clericals discussed -with animation. Those who served in the second Carlist war recognize -that the times have altered, and that leaders, or <i>cabecillas</i>, are no -longer forthcoming to lead them in swift night marches across the hills, -willing though they might be to follow. At Estella a fort taken by the -Carlists is now a peaceful covered market-place, and the palace where -Don Carlos held his court is a pleasant <i>fonda</i> with a cool <i>patio</i> of -flowers. Those who enter Navarre by the Convent of Roncesvalles and the -Pass where Roland was slain, and which Byng a thousand years later, in -1813, was forced to evacuate with ten thousand troops, may be easily -deceived into imagining that Navarre is a land of meadows and green -woods and pleasant streams. The swift river Urrobi runs through passes -of rugged hills, but overgrown with box and beech trees and pines. Steep -walls of rock are in summer covered with foxgloves and bramble and -broom, scabious, St. John’s wort, mallow, bell heather, and many other -flowers and ferns, and in places the hills are red with wild -strawberries. The Urrobi forces its way through barriers of grey rock -and over ledges in green pools and white rushing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span> torrents. But this is -not the true Navarre. There no trees are to be seen, and one is -perpetually in a wide circle of bare hills. The country is the most -desolate imaginable, formed by bare, ashen-grey hills (scored and gashed -by dry torrent-beds) and valleys equally barren. The wind hisses, and -crickets chatter loudly in a few stunted elms by the roadside. All is -greyness without colour, and in late summer the stubble-fields far and -near add a new note of desolation, and it seems out of keeping with the -character of the country that these fields should ever be a fresh green -in spring. Indeed, the occasional hollows of olives and plots of -vineyards have an air of unreality in the surrounding wilderness of -crumbling dust and shale. Yet some welcome patches of colour are to be -found, if it is only a line of chicory or of huge purple thistles along -a stubble-field, or a blue-bloused peasant jogging down the dusty road -on a mule with crimson trappings. And on the threshing-floors around the -villages, where work is carried on far into the night, often by -lightning flash, the white shirts and blue blouses of the men, and the -pink and red dresses and long white headkerchiefs of the women form a -picturesque and beautiful scene through the clouds of flying chaff and -ruddy golden grain falling in heavier, more compact masses. For here the -threshing is all done by hand with the help of mules, oxen, and horses, -which are driven round and round, drawing all the children of the -village on little wooden sledges. When the grain has been thus sifted, -the process is completed by throwing it into the air from long wooden<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span> -shovels and close-pronged wooden forks. The corn is grown on precipices -and sheer mountain-sides, and is brought down to the threshing-floors on -donkeys, which disappear beneath their rustling load. The men who live -in this grim country are also stern and grim, harsh featured, hard, and -strong; and, though hospitable and not unkindly, they are fierce and -obstinate upon occasion, and sometimes cruel to their animals. Their -food is rough, but not unplentiful; of wheat there is no lack, and with -some vines and olives they are content to have the three necessities of -a Spanish peasant’s life. The villages would often pass unnoticed on -their rocky hills were it not for the outstanding feature of their grim, -massive churches; the church of Gallipienzo dominates a mountain, and is -so solid and fine that it seems to dwarf it. These churches are to be -seen for very many miles across the completely bare country, and at -night the lights of the village streets form, from long distances, -strange, irregular letters on a mountain-side, making the village far -more conspicuous than it would be by day. Sansol, a little village not -far from Logroño, looks from some distance like a great fortress of -brown stone with tiny black loop-holes (the glassless windows); behind -is a long backbone of grey, rocky hill, and beyond the purple-black -Monte Jura with a glimpse of white road. Bitter and fierce are the -winters in Navarre, and pitiless the sun in summer; but for all its -forbidding aspects it repays the discomforts of a visit to its remote -districts. Lumbier is like a miniature Toledo, on its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span> bare hill above -the winding river, and Sanguesa, of brown yellow stone, on the Aragón, -of the same colour, has its magnificently sculptured church of Santa -María, and other beautiful carvings on private houses. And after a few -weeks’ acquaintance with the harsh country and the proud inhabitants, -the traveller will realize the possibility of those relentless Carlist -wars which still send a thrill through those who recall them, and the -difficulty of hunting down <i>cabecillas</i> who knew the country and of -bringing the war to an end.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<br /><br /> -SPANISH CITIES</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>PAIN is pre-eminently a land of cities. Often they stand conspicuous in -an arid and treeless tract of country, glancing like jewels in a -sunburnt land. The pleasant and fertile strip of country, on the French -frontier is not properly Spanish, but Basque. On the other hand, nothing -could be more Spanish than the little quaint old town of Fuenterrabía. -The original name was Basque—Ondarrabia, “The two banks of sand.” The -Romans, hearing the name, but ignorant of its meaning and seeing, -moreover, the swift flow of the tide beneath the walls of the town, -called it Unda Rapida.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span> From the Latin Unda Rapida or Fons Rapidus -came the Spanish Fuenterrabía,<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> and the French in their turn, -connecting it with the Arabs, called it Fontarabie. The Basque name is, -however, still in use, and one of the streets of Irun where, as in many -other towns and villages, the street names are written up both in -Spanish and Basque, has the full-sounding name Ondarrabiko Karreka—the -street of Ondarrabia. If one may compare small things with great, the -cities of Northern Spain are like castles built by children in the sand, -and left high and dry by the receding tide. City after city stood walled -and bulwarked on the extreme fringe of the Christian territory, for a -time the court and capital of Spain, till a fresh conquest drove back -the Moors a lap further south. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span>This in part accounts for the grim and -wonderful Spanish cities, with their magnificent buildings and -fortifications, that still exist, but exist with no longer the stir of a -great destiny within their walls, but merely as it were the mighty -shells of an extinct life. So Burgos, León, Toledo, were capital cities -for a space, thronged with the busy traffic of courtiers and warriors, -and Avila, the city of saints, has the great fortifications of a -frontier town. It is difficult to believe that Toledo has at all changed -since the Cid’s horse miraculously stayed before the burning light -hidden in the wall of one of its streets, and the water-carriers to-day -go leisurely down to the river, their donkeys’ panniers laden with -earthen jars, as when Cervantes wrote “La Ilustre Fregona.” And, indeed, -Spanish cities are little liable to change. The steep uneven ways of -Toledo and Salamanca and Segovia scorn modern traffic. The passing of a -carriage is possible in the main streets, but is a rare event that -rattles and reverberates along the walls. More suitable are the stately -processions, their banners showing brightly against the brown-yellow -buildings. Segovia has been called the queen of Castilian cities, as -Toledo is the king. And Segovia must ever remain mediæval, a city of a -hundred levels, sinking by terraces of half-ruinous walls, tufted with -grass and flowers, from the Cathedral down to the foot of its mighty -Roman aqueduct. A Latin author three hundred years ago wrote that “in -Segovia nemo otiosus, nemo mendicus”—there were no beggars at Segovia. -It would be unsafe to assert this of any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span> Spanish town to-day. Spain is -no country of “neat cities and populous towns full of most industrious -artificers.” Such towns—Barcelona,<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Bilbao—there are, but mostly -the cities are, in the words of Burton, “cities decayed,” which contain -many “Spanish loiterers,” though they are not “base and poor towns,” nor -are the people “squalid, ugly, uncivil.” The southern cities show a -softer influence. The surrounding country is less abrupt and harsh, and -the stern features of the north are forgotten. Cadiz lies out into the -sea, a Spanish Venice, cut in straight white streets, like the slices of -an iced cake. Seville is wonderful at all times, a <i>maravilla</i> to -foreigners and Spaniards. The Spanish novelist Palacio Valdés, in “La -Hermana San Sulpicio,” has described it during nights of midsummer, when -to go through the city was to visit the interior of the houses, for from -the <i>patios</i>, where the families were assembled, great rays of light -shot through the iron screen-doors into the dark and stifled streets, -and guitar and song broke the stillness: “Seville at such an hour had a -magical look, a charm that disturbed the mind.” But of all the cities of -the south Granada has a peculiar fascination. This is largely due to its -many<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> contrasts. It is a city of orange groves and fountains, yet it -lies over two thousand feet above sea-level, and is a summer rather than -a winter city; the fiercest heat is relieved by cool air from the -eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada, and the gardens of the Alhambra and -the Generalife, with their myrtles, cypresses and cedars, give a -delicious shade. In winter icy cold strikes through the marble halls of -the Alhambra; yet it is never more beautiful than seen in February from -San Cristobal, or from the cactus-covered hill beneath San Miguel, or -from where the Darro flows rapidly far below. For it rises above the -slender branches of elms and poplars, grey and in parts purple from -their swelling buds—the red and yellow-brown towers, the crumbling -walls of red earth and brick and large smooth rounded stones of white, -or black, or red, the trailing ivy, the open white-pillared galleries. A -few almond-trees are in flower, and above to the left stand the long -lines of cypresses of the grey-white Generalife, where flower celandines -and daffodils. Many of these Spanish cities are visited chiefly for -their great ancient buildings and Cathedrals; yet the most part of them -deserve a more patient study for their own sake, for their memories of -old, and for the life of their narrow winding streets. The Spanish -writer <i>Azorín</i> (Martínez Ruiz), in a book of few pages,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> conveys -some wonderfully clear-cut impressions of Spain. He turns with -preference to details of the centuries of Spain’s greatness, when -Murcia, Valencia, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span> Seville were famous for their silks, Talavera for -its earthenware, Toledo for its swords, when the gloves of Ocaña or the -spurs of Ajofrín were unrivalled; or to the survival of old Spain in a -picture, or a building, or a city. Thus he loves to wander through León -with its spirit of ancient Spain and its classical street-names—here a -cobbled grass-grown <i>plaza</i> with pale acacias and ancient walls, the -slow flight of doves and the wind rustling torn pieces of paper; there a -quiet convent <i>patio</i> with bays and rigid cypresses. For him the narrow -streets of Córdoba have a deeper charm than those of any other Spanish -city. He wanders through the labyrinth of intricate winding ways, with -glimpses of small pillared <i>patios</i> of flowers and fountains, and finds -everywhere silence and a deep serene melancholy, restfulness, oblivion, -and a harmony of soft shades, nowhere the light-hearted frivolity -conventionally attributed to Andalucía. <i>Azorín’s</i> originality consists -in forcing a few apparently insignificant details to yield the whole -spirit of a city, a country, a people. If he mentions the Mosque of -Córdoba, it is but to note the beggars taking the sun in the <i>Patio de -los Naranjos</i>, the sparrows twittering in the orange-trees, the sound of -pitchers filling at the fountain. He gives us poignant descriptions of -dead provincial cities and ruined ancestral houses. The decadence of -Spain brought flourishing cities to low estate: Spain’s revival menaces -them with a fresh ruin. Old narrow passages and intricate courts and -sculptured<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> houses make place for the introduction of tramways and broad -asphalt streets. The old Santander described by Pereda survives only in -his books, the old parts of Barcelona and Valencia are fast -disappearing, and happy is the city such as Toledo whose position on -abrupt rocks with no level spaces seems to promise an eternity of -mediævalism and individuality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII<br /><br /> -IN OLD CASTILLE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is with astonishment and a kind of fear that the traveller passes -through the high-lying plains of Old Castille, journeying swiftly from -city to city, to</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Old towns whose history lies hid<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In monkish chronicle or rhyme,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Zamora and Valladolid....”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">for in these intervening tracts, sun-parched and windswept, it seems -scarcely possible that men should live. The villages are closely huddled -together, little compact masses of low, unwhitewashed houses, without a -tree or garden, so colourless, and clinging to the soil as sometimes to -pass unnoticed. Rivers flow between low, bare banks without bush or -tree, like streaks of mother-of-pearl inlaid in earthenware. And there -are wide tracts of land without a house or boundary, a continuous -desolation with no signs of life, except here and there a flock of sheep -or herd of goats, or a line of peasants returning at sunset from their -work. Surely life here can have but few<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span> attractions; there can be no -joy of the soil, little temptation for Berceo’s “<i>mal labrador</i>” of the -thirteenth century, who “loved the earth more than he loved the -Creator,” and “would alter landmarks to enlarge his estate”—<i>cambiaba -los mojones por ganar eredat</i>. Yet the slower trains are invaded by a -merry throng of pleasant, courteous, good-looking peasants, oval-faced, -with splendid teeth and eyelashes, who speed the journey with gay -conversation and shrill singing, and pass constantly from one carriage -to another to greet friends or to avoid the officials who inquire -awkwardly after tickets. They have plenty of life and cheerfulness, and -it is with renewed wonder that one looks at the dead, crumbling villages -where they live, and remembers the piercing force of the Castilian sun -in summer and the icy, penetrating winter winds. All day they must work -without the shelter of a single hedge or tree in the searching wind<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> -that sifts the soil, or under a sun that parches and shrivels it into -dust. But a nearer acquaintance reveals a certain charm<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> about these<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span> -villages of hard, clear names: Campillo, Cantalapedra, Pedroso, -Madrigal—a charm of clean-swept spaces, and clear, luminous air and -silent intensity; and the country ceases to be uniformly colourless. -Here a woman in a dress of light-blue linen, with long flowing -headkerchief of white, passes on a donkey through fields of golden ripe -corn; there, from narrow windows in a street of yellow-brown houses, -hang bright patches of geraniums and carnations in flower. And the -doorways of square or round or pointed arches give entrance to cool, -silent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span> courts. <i>Azorín</i> has described the old Castilian hidalgo, who -has never left his ancestral house, with its large rooms, many of them -unfurnished, and old portraits consigned to an attic and covered with -the dust of centuries: “His lands have disappeared, his furniture has -disappeared; he does nothing; he has a sad intensity of expression,” and -when further misfortune befalls him he says, “There is no help for -it—<i>qué le vamos á hacer</i>!” Everywhere is decay, and the trace of -vanished splendour. So these old ruined hidalgos live out their grey, -monotonous lives in some ancient town or village of Castille, amid the -immense plains with “distances of radiant sky and faint blue lines of -mountains.” The blue smoke rises from scented fires of rosemary, and, as -the bells ring to Matins, the doves swerve and circle, the grey doves -sweep slowly across the sky perpetually blue. And night and day the -doors of the houses are kept continually closed, with a deserted air -beneath the broad coats-of-arms carved in stone. <i>Azorín</i> describes -minutely a Castilian town, standing among cornfields and olives—one of -those towns that the foreigner rarely has the courage to visit. Its -streets are narrow and tortuous. It contains three ancient inns, four -churches, three hermitages, two convents. It has no industries save a -few ruined cloth manufactures, and only the usurer flourishes. It -contains fourteen students (who have not taken their degree), four -doctors, twelve lawyers (only six of whom earn a living, and this by -slandering one another, and from time to time bringing a blackmail suit -against<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> some poor-spirited inhabitant). There is a Guild of the Christ -of the Dying, and when a member dies a messenger goes through the -streets ringing a bell and crying: “At such an hour the funeral of Don -Fulano.” The summers are fiery, the winters are long and cruel. No -visits are paid; doors and windows remain closed; few persons go through -the streets, but in the <i>plazas</i>, on clear days of winter, dense groups -of men may be seen taking the sun, wrapped in their brown plaids and -<i>capas</i>. Nothing happens; the deep silence is broken by the clang of a -forge-hammer or by the crowing of a cock. In time of Carnival a few -“masks” pass, dressed up with mats and carrying old brooms. The -labourers are poverty-stricken, and meat is the luxury of a few “rich” -inhabitants. <i>Azorín</i> notes the Castilian’s “fundamental energy, -aloofness, indifference, and lofty disdain, with sudden inspirations of -heroism”; and we may count it no small heroism to live on, proudly -uncomplaining, in surroundings so harsh and discomfortable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII<br /><br /> -THE DESERT AND THE SOWN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE French soldiers, looking at the trifling Manzanares and its mighty -bridges, may have exclaimed, “So even the Spanish rivers ran away.” But -those who, at sight of tiny threads of water in immense river-beds, are -inclined to ask, with Don Pedro in <i>Much Ado about Nothing</i>, “What need -the bridge much broader than the flood?” find their answer after a few -days of heavy rain. Marks six feet and more high on houses many hundreds -of yards from the banks of the Ebro record the rising of the waters. -Thus, in many districts, crops which have survived the summer drought -are swept away by the autumn deluge, and those who have cried for rain -are mocked with ruin when the waters “prevail exceedingly upon the -earth.” Spain’s agriculture perishes for lack of water, yet water -abounds, whether subterranean, as in parts of Castille, or in the -copious snows of the high-lying regions, where the snow is sometimes -preserved in snow-pits, <i>pozos de nieve</i>, or in these periodical -floods;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span> and it would seem that the philologist had Spain in his mind -who connected the Basque adjective <i>idorra</i>, meaning “dry,” with ὓδωρ, -the Greek for water. To utilize, extend, and regulate the water -supply is a problem of vital importance to Spain—a problem which has -long occupied the thoughts of Spanish statesmen. Alfonso the Learned, in -his “Crónica General,” says, “This Spain, then, of which we speak is as -the paradise of God.... For the most part, it is watered with streams -and fountains, and wells are never lacking in all places that have need -of them;” but Strabo, more impartial, had remarked of Spain that, “For -the most part, it yields but a poor sustenance. For large districts are -composed of mountains and woodland and plains, with thin and, moreover, -not uniformly well-watered soil—οὐδἐ ταὐτην ὁμαλῶς εὔυδρον.” And -since Strabo’s time many have been the alterations for the worse. -Turdetania, for instance, the country between Seville and Huelva, is no -longer marvellously prosperous—θαυμα-στῶς εὐτυχεῖ; in fact -South Estremadura, of old one of Rome’s granaries, is now one of the -most desolate regions in Spain. But the worst decay is that of the -forests. The woods have fallen and fallen, and still the axe rings -avidly in those woods that remain. The very words for a wood, <i>bosque</i> -or <i>selva</i>, have become rare and poetical. Thus the soil is further -parched and impoverished, while towns and villages stand unsheltered -from wind and sun. The Escorial, which grew up among woods, may now be -seen from afar in its almost sinister magnificence across grey<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span> hills -and plains without a tree; and Madrid, though a tree figures prominently -in the city arms, looks out upon plains from which all traces of former -oak and chestnut forests have long since vanished. The absence of trees -in Spain increases both the dryness and the floods, and afforestation is -therefore quite as important as irrigation. The canalization of rivers -may diminish the floods, but while there is no soil on the -hill-sides—or soil so light that it is swept away by heavy -rainfalls—the rain must continue to be a blessing strangely disguised. -It is calculated that in six or eight years the trees would knit the -soil together, and give it sufficient staying power to resist and absorb -the rains, though, of course, there would as yet be no actual profit of -timber. Outlay of toil and money for so distant a remuneration is not -congenial to the Spanish temperament. The great land-owners do nothing. -The State spends a few thousand pesetas every year; but at the present -rate afforestation will need hundreds of years, bearing a resemblance to -that long-desired map of Spain, which is to be issued in some eleven -hundred sections, and of which from two to three sections appear -annually.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> The advantages of irrigation have been amply proved in -Spain, justifying the juxtaposition of water and gold in Pindar’s ode; -but only about a fiftieth of Spain’s total area—and especially the -plain of Granada and the strip of coast of Málaga and Valencia—can at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> -present show the immense productiveness due to irrigation, combined with -the swift-maturing sun of Spain. There are, of course, immense -difficulties, and not the least are the ignorance and the poverty of the -peasants. Water added to a poor soil will be of little value if the -peasants are not taught artificial means of enriching the soil, and -modern methods of cultivating it. The extreme poverty of the peasants -would, however, prevent them at present from employing any but the -simplest methods; in many districts they mortgage their land in order to -be able to sow their crops, and Spanish farmers are often in the hands -of the usurers. The usurer has been their only resource in moments of -distress, and finally they are driven to emigrate, leaving their land to -the usurer. A narrow strip of fertile land along the rivers stands out -in contrast to the desolate country beyond. Thus the Ebro flows through -Aragon, among woods of silver birch and poplars, and plantations of -olives and vines and maize; but on either side appears the barren -country of perfectly bare reddish or brown hills of crumbling earth, -like great sand-dunes, without a plant, curiously folded and scored by -rushing water, with intricate, abrupt hollows and catacombs. The -villages are the colour of the soil, and at no great distance are -scarcely distinguishable from a bare hill-side. Or desert plains are -thinly covered with grey thyme, and in the more fertile parts produce -dwarfed vines and corn, so that in autumn one looks across immense, -undivided plains of stubble and yellowing vineyards to the distant -horizon of dim blue hills.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span> The cruel winds<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> of Spain blow straight -from the iced mountain ridges, unstemmed by any barrier of woods. The -first snows fall early round Avila and on the uplands, but in the towns -snow at Christmas is rare. The foreigner sometimes has a capricious wish -to see these wide, tawny plains covered with snow—<i>après la plaine -blanche une autre plaine blanche</i>, like the Queen Romayquia, wife of -Abenabet, Moorish King of Seville, who could find no solace in her -longing for the sight of snow. The King ordered almond-trees to be -planted all about the city of Córdoba, that in early spring at least, if -not at Christmas, the Queen might beguile her fancy with the snow-white -almond blossoms.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> But even in Andalucía, towards the end of December, -one may see several comparatively low mountain ranges thickly coated -with snow. Stores of firing are then brought down to the villages from -the treeless hills. Further north the vines have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span> been pruned, and the -vine-twigs brought in for burning; but here the vines have not yet lost -their leaves, and the firing consists of thyme and whin and rosemary, -mint and lavender and other scented hill-plants. Troops of donkeys -arrive at sunset, with immense, sweet-smelling loads, that entirely hide -the red or purple tassels and fringes of their harness. The oranges now -gleam in myriads along the eastern coast; sometimes the icy winds from -inland freeze them, and fires of smouldering straw are burnt round and -in the orange groves, after the wind has ceased, that a dense smoke may -hang about the trees and warm them. Weeks before Christmas the -<i>turroneros</i> from Jijona, noticeable for their small peaked hats of -black velvet, appear in nearly every city and town of Spain. In porches -or in large bare shops they set out their layers of white wooden boxes, -and samples of the <i>turrón</i>, or almond-paste, which is an essential part -of Spanish Christmas fare. For the time, Jijona, the grey town in the -hills, is deserted, though but a few weeks ago every house was a busy -scene of <i>turrón</i> making, and nailing thin white planks into boxes. The -snow will soon lie deep on the Carrasqueta hill-range above the town. -The almond-trees, whose pink flowers in February form a solitary belt of -colour between Jijona and the rocky mountains, are now as bare and grey -as the surrounding country. Some of the inhabitants have gone to the -warmer south, taking the <i>diligencia</i> to Alicante; others have scaled -the steep, winding road past the Barranco de la Batalla, where once the -Cid wrought havoc of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> Moors, and now herds of goats feed apparently -on nothing, and have taken train at Alcoy for the cold, high-lying -cities of the north. But not in the northern uplands only are Spanish -winters cruel; the <i>dehesas</i> of Andalucía are equally unprotected, the -silent, icy winds blow subtle and fierce and penetrating over the -undulating hill country round Córdoba, and one may see shepherd boys, -closely muffled in their plaids, standing frozen and motionless, the -sheep pressing around them and against one another for shelter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX<br /><br /> -THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> FIRST view of Catalonia from the sea shows at any rate the stones from -which, according to the proverb, the Catalans make bread. For great -spines of rust-coloured rock, covered here and there by pines of a crude -green, run to the sea and break off in abrupt cliffs. In the valleys of -these ridges towns and villages skirt the shore, Rosas, Palamos, San -Feliú de Guixols with its cork industry, and lace-making Arenys de Mar. -Towards Barcelona both soil and villages become greyer, but Barcelona -itself has colour in plenty. The Spanish and foreign ships in the -harbour, the palm-trees near the quay, above them the tall white and -yellow houses with shutters of green and brown, and above these again a -view of the great Cathedral—all this, bounded by the purple mountains, -makes the sight of Barcelona from the sea very picturesque and -attractive.</p> - -<p>The coast to the south of Barcelona is very fertile. There are hedges of -reeds twenty feet high, of cactus<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> and of aloe, aloes of that exquisite -blue-green which is so often the colour of the Mediterranean in -September. Through yellowing orchards of magnificent peaches, of figs -and apples in great abundance, come glimpses of the intense leaden-blue -hill-ranges to the west. The grapes have already for the most part been -gathered for wine, but there are still many vines that, earlier in the -year, are cut back to the ground, and have the look of blighted -potato-plants, and that now, grown to the size of currant-bushes and -unstaked, are laden with large yellow grapes. Occasionally, too, one -sees tall date-palms and orange-trees.</p> - -<p>After Casteldefels the hills are covered with pines, and the nights, -which are warm but have heavy dew, bring out their scent so strongly -that it is at times almost oppressive. The nights are silent but for the -continual chirping of crickets and the sound of the unquiet sea. The -stars are strangely bright, Sirius burns large and intense, and Orion -nightly stalks the sky in all his glory till the sun catches him in -mid-heaven. The sea is alive with phosphorus, and far out are seen the -lights of fishing-boats, while on land the glow-worms are almost as many -as the stars. The orange and purple sunrises and sunsets of pink and -amethyst are very lovely, and the sails of the fishing-boats continue -white, and the sea retains its blue for some time after the light of the -after-glow is gone. A little further south the cliffs are covered with -dwarf palms, rosemary in flower, and other shrubs. The road here is -good, but one meets no pedestrians, for a path along the railway is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span> -accepted thoroughfare between village and village in spite of the -notices that forbid its use. The men for the most part wear a black -peaked cap, a long blouse, and trousers of brown or blue. The sash is -nearly always black and is worn wide, the sandals have a tip and heel -covering only, with fastenings of leather or black cloth from the tip. -The women wear handkerchiefs that entirely cover the head. The -predominant colours are blue and black. A kilomètre or more before -wine-making Sitges the road is bounded by rough terraces of stone with -vines and dark green carob-trees. A succession of terraces on the one -side runs far up the hills, and on the other the rude-walled vineyards -stretch to the edge of the sea. Sitges, a village of less than four -thousand inhabitants, is prettily placed, its octagonal-towered church -rising from a rock in the sea. A few kilomètres further Villanueva y -Geltrú is but a fairly large and rather ordinary provincial town, though -it has its picturesque corners, with its houses washed in various shades -of blue, pink, green, or yellow, and views of vineyard country appearing -at the end of many of its long, straight streets. After Villanueva the -hills recede further inland, and there is a little more flat country, -but it is occupied largely by great marshes, loud with the croaking of -frogs.</p> - -<p>It is not till one reaches Roda and Creixell that any villages have a -really Spanish, or rather Castilian, look. Creixell, especially, with -its massive church and great square building of stone standing haughtily -on a hill of wall-terraces sprinkled with carob-trees,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> and with its -houses the colour of the soil, has all the air of a little Toledo. Early -on an autumn morning it may be seen reflected, with every house and -window, in a blue lagoon hundreds of yards from the village and -separated by sandbanks from the sea. The olives and vineyards now extend -to the shore, and above San Vicente great white country-houses stand -among orchards and olives. After Creixell there are but two villages, -Torredenbarra and Altafulla, before Tarragona, the second coast-town of -Catalonia. Here, indeed, the sun beats with a fiery strength; here, -indeed, the Mediterranean is “crystalline,” and “the lightning of the -noon-tide ocean flashes.” Here is excellent firm sand for bathing and, -swimming far out, the sun is still seen shining through the transparent -water on the waved sand below. At the end of September the season is -over, yet the days are still almost too hot, and the deep blue of the -bay and the long purple line of hills to the north-west are -indescribably beautiful. Tarragona, the favoured city of the Romans, is -the possessor of many noble Roman ruins, and wonderful Cyclopean walls, -and its outline, seen against the sky from the road leading to Tortosa, -is one of the most magnificent in Spain. The town and its neighbourhood, -as well as the whole coast of Catalonia is, perhaps, not as well known -as it deserves. In autumn, if the days and even the nights are hot, -there is always a refreshing coolness in the early mornings; the people -are, as a rule, pleasant and courteous; in some villages many speak -Catalan only, and at times, catching a word here and there, one may -think oneself to be in Italy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X<br /><br /> -AN EASTERN VILLAGE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is no cloud in the clear March sky, filled with radiant light. -Beyond the dark green of orange-trees and grey olives lies the sea, a -faint line of blue. And, to the west, the mountains of bare rock are -faintly purple, looking frail and brittle in their clear but distant -outlines. A herd of goats passes slowly down a wide river-bed of smooth -white stones, with no shred or vestige of water. Lines of aloes and tall -reeds grow along its banks, and on either side peasants dressed in black -are at work in the fields, ploughing with single mules between the brown -stems of vines recently pruned, or pruning the orange-trees and olives. -Bundles of vine and olive twigs lie ready to be carted to the village -for fuel. Women in dresses of white and pink and scarlet are hoeing the -green corn. The pear- and peach-trees are in flower, and the almond-trees -fully arrayed in freshest green. At intervals, wells or <i>norias</i> explain -the green fresh look of the country, so different from the burnt -desolation of the waterless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span> regions further north. For Oropesa, the -neighbouring village, is but some sixty miles north of Valencia, and is -bordered on the one side by the full fertility of the Valencian plain, -though on the other it is surrounded by barren hills. In each <i>noria</i> a -long crooked branch forms the handle to the iron wheel and to this a -mule is tied, and as the mule turns, the wheel revolves with a slow -clinking sound, and the long earthenware jars (<i>arcaduces</i>) attached to -the wheel gush water into a trough and so by small channels of dry earth -into the fields of brown and reddish soil. A path leads through green -fields and clumps of orange-trees to the village. In some fields further -south the last oranges have been gathered, and thousands of pearl-shaped -buds tell that the trees before long will be covered with a glistening -snow of scented blossoms. But in many the oranges still reign -resplendent: on a grey day they stand out with more vivid distinctness -than when the sun blurs them in a luminous haze, leaving them clearly -visible only in the level light of its rising or its setting. The trees -are bowed with fruit, and the laden branches are propped up from the -ground. The thronging oranges glow in myriad spheres of gold, here and -there lie golden mounds of gathered oranges, and below the trees the -ground is a strewn pavement of gold. On every side beneath the trees may -be seen a magic land of myriad golden lamps; single or in trefoils and -clusters of seven and ten and twenty, the oranges hang within a few -inches of the ground. Hundreds of yards away through intervals<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span> of trees -appears the same foison of gleaming fruit, and the air is all scented -with oranges. From time to time a light wind blows beneath the trees, -and the twigs with their burdens of crowding oranges sway heavily to and -fro, like slowly swung censers of burning gold. But near Oropesa the -oranges are comparatively few. The village is built on a steep -precipitous hill of grey rock, crowned by the ruinous walls of a great -castle. The houses clamber roof over roof, in ragged disarray up the -rock. They are of yellowish-brown stone with rough cement, and mostly -innocent of glass, but have a touch of whitewash in front, so that they -wear shining morning faces to the rising sun. In the mistless radiant -mornings the village stands out clearly, its sharp rock rising sheer -from the plain. The sea beyond is silver, and on the other side every -wrinkle in the rocks of the grey mountains is distinctly visible. There -is no sound but the occasional voices of children, the clink and clang -of a forge-hammer, the crowing of a cock, or a faint crystal crash of -waves breaking; but from time to time there is a dry rumour of wheels, -and the cry of a man to his mule as he passes down the road in his cart. -Wrapped in their plaids against the keen morning air, the peasants pass -leisurely in carts and on mules to work in the fields until the evening. -At dusk the slow procession returns, with many a greeting and <i>bona nit</i> -and smiles of sunburnt wrinkled faces. Thin lines of blue smoke go up -from swiftly flaring fires of vine twigs and rosemary and dry plants -gathered from the hills, and an hour or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> two hours later Oropesa is -given over to sleep and the silence of the stars, broken only by the -deep rhythmic cry of the <i>sereno</i> calling the hours. To the south a road -goes up through grey rocky hills with thyme and dwarf-palms and cistus. -The bare smooth rocks have a metallic ring, and there is no sign of life -save for a herd of goats far above, the goat-herd with his plaid and -wide felt hat clearly outlined on the sky, and the sound of his flute -distinct in the solitude of the hills, utterly silent save for the -silver tinkling of goat-bells. No water can remain on these rocky hills, -it pours immediately away to the plains beyond, where, by a stream bed -barely a yard wide, a pillar tells of those who perished there in 1850, -in “the <i>diligencia</i> carried away by the waters of the torrent.” Though -Oropesa now has a railway station, the <i>diligencias</i> still ply between -it and Castellón and Torreblanca, and it might be fifty miles from any -railway, so primitive and self-centred is its life. Occasionally comes a -sunless morning with a quiet grey sky, rare on the east coast of Spain -except in the days of early spring. The sea lies motionless and grey, -with pale reflections of light in coils and patches of gold. So still is -the air that the quiet piping of birds among the olives falls like a -stone in hushed waters. As the day advances the mountains, which earlier -were mingled and lost in the grey of the sky, grow more distinct, till -towards sunset every line and crevice in their sharp ranges becomes -marked, and the overhanging mist of cloud melts away into the grey of -evening, sprinkled with the gold-dust of the stars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI<br /><br /> -OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Mediterranean off the coast of Spain is not always calm. Sometimes -the east wind, the <i>Llevant</i>, lashes the waves to fury, and the shores -along the villages and towns are black with lines of fishing-boats that -dare not put out to sea. But for weeks together it is “lulled in the -coil of its crystalline streams,” and the sun rises and sets across a -silken plain of blue. In such weather a journey along the coast has a -wonderful freshness and a fascinating charm. Again and again the -traveller recalls the magic of those lines of the old romance:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Quién hubiese tal ventura,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sobre las aguas del mar,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Como hubo el conde Arnaldos,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">La mañana de San Juan!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Oh for a chance as happy,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the deep sea waters swell,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">As on the morn of St. John’s Day,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Count Arnaldos befel,” etc.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>By St. John’s Day, however, the sun flashes its rays too fiercely, and -it is in late spring or early autumn<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span> that the voyage is most enjoyable. -A land journey can give no idea of the loveliness of these coasts, and -towns such as Alicante and Almería lose much of their beauty if deprived -of their background of mountains, which can only be seen fully out at -sea. The sea and sky are unfailingly beautiful, and the life of the -ports, full of colour and movement, never loses its interest. Almería, -fallen from its ancient greatness, is yet active in its “purple-shadowed -bay,”<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> and exports every year two million barrels, a hundred million -pounds, of grapes, chiefly to America and England. Torrevieja, further -north, is a small town or village of some seven thousand inhabitants, at -which steamers touch to take in a cargo of salt, but which the tourist, -on his way from Elche to Murcia, rarely turns aside to visit. It has a -thoroughly African look, with its flat-roofed, grey-white houses on a -bare, level strip of sandy coast, with no trees except palms, that stand -conspicuous like trees of the desert; the sand in places is thinly -covered with grass, of lightest, almost yellow, green. To the left, seen -from the sea, is a long line of gleaming salt, drawn from the sea-water -by evaporation under the summer sun, and now ready to be exported. -Beyond the line of salt is a distant range of bare mountains, faintly -purple. The town has one or two small towers, four factory chimneys, and -half a dozen round mills, with arms as slender as the cranes on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> -loading steamers in the harbour. A continual rosary of barges, yellow, -white, green, or black, carries the salt across the bay. The heavy load -weighs the barge to the water’s edge, and the glistening white salt -seems to float on the blue surface. In the barge, at either end, go as -many as twenty or even thirty men, some sitting rowing, others facing -them and standing to row, and others punting with their poles of immense -length that taper away at the top to the slight girth of a fishing rod. -The shirts of the men, mauve, pink, white, red, or purple, their light -blue or black coats, red sashes, trousers of velvet or velvet corduroy -of many shades, from bright yellow to dark brown, the long shining -yellow punt poles, and the white pyramids of salt on the sea of -sapphire, combine to form a strange and beautiful sight. The empty -barges return high in the water, with little mounds of salt left along -their ledges. At midday the houses seem to faint and grow indistinct, -the mountains fade to a hardly perceptible outline, only the salt -reflects the sun in every facet of its countless grains, and glitters -whiter than snow. In the sunset the lines resume their sharpness, and -the mountains are grey or blue-grey or intense leaden blue or purple, -according to their distances. The Murcian sky is famous for its clear -serenity, and the sunsets and sunrises are of surpassing fairness. -Alicante, too, which is nearer to Murcia than to Valencia, has a -wonderful sky and a wonderful sea, and here, too, the “sunrise is a -glorious birth.” “Alicante aux clochers mêle les minarets,” says Victor -Hugo in one of the poems of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> “Les Orientales,” and from the sea Alicante -has an Oriental look, with its lines of palms, stories of flat roofs, -and bare background of hills and mountains. But it is at evening that -Alicante is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The lights -shine softly through the four lines of palm-trees along the Paseo de los -Mártires, and are reflected across the water; in the harbour the last -radiance of evening sets the tracery of masts and cranes and rigging in -clear relief. To the west the sea is already dark, almost wine-coloured, -the οἲνψ of the Greeks, but in the east it is a most -exquisite blue, a blue that seems to be a transparent surface of -turquoise covering a layer of white chalk. The eastern horizon is -faintly purple, and against it the sails of a fleet of fishing-boats are -whiter than at any other time, and gleam long after the sun has set. -Later the sea catches for an instant the faint purple of the sky, the -sky loses its colour, and finally a mistiness of softest grey merges -them together, so that one may no longer distinguish where the sky -ceases or the sea begins. On the rocks of the coast the waves at night -break, filled with phosphorus, in a luminous spray, “like light -dissolved in star showers thrown.” The low line of pale lights along El -Grao, Valencia’s harbour, if approached at night, has a look, from some -distance at sea, of such a phosphorus wave. By day the harbour is seen -to be a forest of masts, and far away the towers of Valencia, round the -tall Miguelete, appear as numerous, and in the distance almost as -slender as the masts of the harbour: “les clochers de ses trois cents -églises.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> Along the coast of the Huerta, especially to the south of -Valencia, glisten a number of snow-white pyramids, that seem at first to -be more salt, having the exact look of the mounds that lie along the bay -of Cadiz. They are the whitewashed, triangular fronts of the peasants’ -thatched cottages or <i>barracas</i>, standing in the fertile plain, “Spain’s -Orchard.”</p> - -<p>One of the most lovely and original sights along the whole coast is that -of the high range of bare, treeless mountains south of Cartagena, -falling sheer into the sea, a delicate purple above the light blue -water. There is not the merest rim of coast, in fact the sea flows round -the mountains’ flanks, and they continue far out from the land, their -tops occasionally appearing as small islands.</p> - -<p>But especially will the traveller who has the happy chance to find -himself at dawn of a cloudless day in a boat an hour west of -Almería—especially then will he be ready to repeat the lines:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Quién hubiese tal ventura<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sobre las aguas del mar.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>A slight gleam in the east warns the moon that its reign of quiet light -is to finish, and begins the long prelude of day. Above a dark line of -sea a faint orange creeps into the sky, deepening to orange-purple, and -soon fringing off in pale yellow, saffron, and daffodil. Then, later, -above this, widens a space of clearest green, and at last the body of -the sky changes from grey to a light blue. In the west all is still -grey, as with a soft woof of hanging mists.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span> The sails of a boat going -out to sea are white in the first glow of dawn, and the gently swelling -sea eastwards reflects the light in level gleams of gold, like smooth, -burnished meadows of buttercups. Then the sun rises, red-orange, on a -cloudless sea line, the sea becomes light blue, and along the rest of -the horizon lie spaces of pearl and opal, while in the east a dim, -silver moon fades slowly. The scene is of such enchanting loveliness, -like the birth of a new world, that if the Sierra Nevada chances to be -for the most part hidden in a long cloud of mist, the traveller scarcely -notices one or two peaks that seem to be floating snow-white clouds. -Then the mist of cloud melts away, and, one by one, the snow summits -appear, till the whole immense range stands bare, looking incredibly -high in a heaven of clear, faint green. It is a sight to make men hold -their breath. The ship, night’s shadows scarce driven from her deck, -passes slowly, almost noiselessly through the water as if she, too, -understood that here is some enchanted country. The view of the Sierra -Nevada from Granada, lovely as it is, gives no hint of a sight so -incomparable as this. The range is of such vast length, the snow is so -deep and soft. Long, almost level lines, huge, abrupt crags, gently -sloping gullies, smooth, pyramid-shaped peaks, shelves and pinnacles, -crevices and ledges, are all entirely wrapped in deep, much-sunned snow, -without a break. Each look, after turning for a moment to the grey -western horizon or the waving, crystalline surface of blue sea, brings a -new wonder and a fresh surprise; so marvellous<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> is the radiance of white -appearing in the full glow from the east, and such is the infinite -clearness and subtlety of the outlines on a sky varying from blue-grey -to transparent green. The long massive range, seen from some distance -out at sea, gives the impression of a height of twenty thousand feet, -whereas from Granada it is difficult to realize that the highest peak is -over eleven thousand. Below the snow-line, a high range of bare -grey-purple mountains seems to sink into the sea, though there is, in -fact, a line of level coast. Far or near no tree is to be seen; a white -lighthouse stands on the coast, and on the silken blue sea gleams an -occasional white sail or the flash of a seagull’s wing. As the sun rises -higher the softly folding mountains beneath the Sierra Nevada grow more -purple above the sea, and the shadows of their dimpling hollows blacken. -Above, the wide, smooth spaces and the deep ravines present their broad -surplice of glistening white to the sun without a shadow. It is all -unimaginably lovely, with a breathless purity of things primeval—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>This and other hours of delight during a coasting voyage in the Spanish -Mediterranean are not soon forgotten, and, though they cannot be -translated into words—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“They flash upon that inward eye<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Which is the bliss of solitude.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The voyage may be prolonged on the south coast,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> and, from the time -when, on his left, Tarifa lies along the sea, like a line of melting -snow under smoothly moulded hills of green, and, on the right, Tangiers -shows its white houses indistinctly beneath the bare, grey mountains of -Africa, to the time when at Port Bou he bids farewell to the Catalan -coast and to Spain, the traveller will not have a dull or unenjoyable -moment; if only the gods send him propitious, cloudless days—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Quién hubiese tal ventura<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sobre las aguas del mar!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII<br /><br /> -THE JUDGING OF THE WATERS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T was a cloudless day of November. The Cathedral of Valencia stood grey -against a sky of soft blue. In the <i>Plaza de la Constitución</i> the sun -shone on the central fountain and marked in dark lines the shadows of -the houses and the Cathedral. From the great “Door of the Apostles” came -a smell of incense as people went out and in. Surmounted by its large -rose-window, the doorway has a worn and ancient air, and the plants -growing here and there in the wall add to its look of venerable -splendour. Some of the apostles stand there headless, some without arms, -some mere trunks of stone. Above, the tall <i>Miguelete</i> tower rises -conspicuous here, as it is conspicuous far and wide across the Valencian -plain. A few priests passed, a few carts drawn by long strings of mules, -a newspaper-seller cried the <i>Heraldo de Madrid</i>, and some peasants in -black or blue-grey groups talked together, leaning on their sticks. -Shortly after eleven a long, green sofa was set up on the pavement -immediately in front of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span> Cathedral door, and a narrow space round it -was enclosed with an iron railing. Sofa and railing, carried across the -street in sections, bore the inscription <i>Tribunal de las Aguas</i>. For it -was Thursday, the meeting-day of the tribunal which judges disputes -arising from the irrigation of the Huerta.</p> - -<p>To the peasant of the Valencian Huerta loss of water for his land means -starvation, and the hours at which each is allowed to draw off water -from the narrow channels that cross his land are carefully regulated. If -one takes water out of his turn the fields of another must suffer, and -the case must be brought before the judges sitting in weekly council. -Against their sentence there is no protest or appeal; it is absolutely -final, and though there must be cases of injustice, the peasants are -very proud of their tribunal. There is no writing—the cases are not -even recorded—the matter is decided on the spot and in the open air -between man and man; there are no clerks or advocates; no table, ink, or -papers to confuse the simple;<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> no fees or anxious delays, and the -judges, moreover, chosen by and from the peasants themselves, thoroughly -understand the questions brought before them. It is a strange sight, the -sitting of this all-powerful institution, centuries old, in the <i>Plaza -de la Constitución</i>, in the twentieth century. There is a dignified -simplicity about it, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span> lack of display which is imposing. The peasants -have a conscious pride in being able to arrange their own affairs -without interference of the men of learning, just as they are ready to -settle their more private quarrels without recourse to the law. The man -who has been stabbed in a quarrel will conceal the name of his assailant -from the police, always reserving for himself the pleasure of taking -vengeance later on. The character of the peasants of the Huerta is -indeed a mixture of haughtiness and cunning, of simplicity and -shrewdness, and the word that best describes them is the Spanish -<i>socarronería</i>—a certain malicious humour.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> Living isolated in the -vast open plain, they form a community apart, and resent external -interference. Their tribunal is entirely primitive and rustic; in all -its years of city life it has adopted none of the city’s ways, and has -not even the shelter of a roof.</p> - -<p>In the present instance there was but a single question to be settled, -and the proceedings lasted less than five minutes, passing all but -unnoticed. At about a quarter to twelve the judges, five in number, and -dressed in black as ordinary peasants, walked slowly into the enclosure -and occupied their places on the official sofa, taking off their black -felt hats. The full body of the judges is seven, chosen from different -districts to represent the principal canals of irrigation. Another -peasant, officer of the tribunal (on his cap is written <i>A. de T. -Aguas</i>, the <i>alguacil</i>, that is, of the Tribunal of Waters), standing at -the small gate in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span> railing, formally declared the tribunal open: -<i>S’obri el tribunal</i> are the consecrated words. He then introduced the -plaintiff and defendant, who stood bareheaded and without their sticks -at half a yard’s distance from the judges. After each had stated his -case—and any interruption is rigorously fined—one of the judges at -once passed sentence. The verdict was against the old man, and he turned -without a word to leave the enclosure. His wife, however, without the -railing, though he put his finger to his lips to silence her, was not to -be overawed, and in a shrill torrent of words reproached the judges as -they filed solemnly into the Plaza. The <i>Tribunal de las Aguas</i> was -closed; the judges dispersed to their silent fields, to meet again in -the rattle and clamour of the crowded city on the following Thursday. -Every Thursday throughout the year the plain green sofa and circular -railing are brought out in sections, and the judges make their -appearance in the Plaza. They do not always enter the enclosure, for -sometimes there is no dispute pending, or the disputants have come to an -agreement in the Plaza without recourse to the tribunal, and when the -clock strikes twelve, railing and sofa are carried back. The judges help -to bring about a settlement, and this perhaps explains that their -official verdicts are given instantaneously, with no pause for thought -or consultation; they have no doubt heard every detail of the case and -come to a decision beforehand.</p> - -<p>Readers of Don Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’ gloomy but delightful novel, “La -Barraca,” will remember the scene<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span> at the “Door of the Apostles” when -Batiste, unable to check his indignation at the unjust charge brought -against him, is fined for his excited interruptions and fined too for -the misdeed which he had not committed. But as a rule the scene is a -quiet and almost a solemn one. The tribunal has the sanctity of years; -the peasant respects an institution which was the same in his father’s -time and in his grandfather’s, and in that of his ancestors five -centuries ago. The judges who before and after are simple peasants, are, -for the moment invested with the power of settling matters of vital -importance; for disregarding the sentence of the tribunal they may -deprive a man entirely of his right of water, and so render him and his -family penniless. They represent the whole Huerta, embodying alike its -independent spirit and its conservative traditions. A few minutes after -the judges have risen, and sometimes before the Cathedral clock has -struck twelve, sofa and railing have disappeared, and it is hard to -realize that the time-honoured Judging of the Waters, so primitive and -impressive, has actually been held in this city of two hundred thousand -inhabitants, and in this paved square where now there are but few -wayfarers, and the central fountain flows and trickles in silence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII<br /><br /> -SEVILLE IN WINTER</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is in spring, from March to May, that Seville is chiefly visited; the -warm air and hot sun, the orange-trees in flower, the great religious -festivals, the famous bull-fights, attract a host of foreigners, and the -city has an animation unwonted even in the gay and lively capital of -Andalucía. In winter Seville has a quieter, but perhaps not less potent -charm. Winter often brings with it a succession of cool clear days, when -the sky is of a serene, almost transparent blue, with golden sunsets. -The white lines of flat-roofed houses seen against the blue of the -evening sky have the soft light and colouring of opals, while the -distant hills of the horizon are faintly purple. On these still days the -motionless river reflects the lines of leafless silver birch and yellow -tamarisks in all the tracery of their slender branches. A few yards -further from the bank on either side thousands of dark orange-trees are -hung with gleaming fruit, circling the city with a fringe of lamps. -Above and through the trees, now bare and grey, of the <i>Paseo de las -Delicias</i> show the various<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span> greens of the tall eucalyptus-trees and -palms, the orange-trees and cypresses of the Santelmo gardens. On the -quay lie immense mounds of oranges ready to be packed: the hot sun fills -the air with their scent, children make flying attacks and retire -precipitately with an orange apiece, while an occasional beggar also -receives his dole from the apparently inexhaustible store. In the -ever-crowded <i>Calle de las Sierpes</i> small open stalls display fresh -violets and magnificent carnations and roses, and in some gardens one -may see roses and geraniums in flower. In the lovely gardens of the -Alcázar the sun draws a deliciously mingled scent from the box-hedges, -myrtles and oranges.</p> - -<p>Occasionally—still in unclouded weather—the wind is cold and piercing -and all go muffled to the eyes, the men in their <i>capas</i>, the women with -long shawls. In the <i>Patio de los Naranjos</i>, beneath the trees laden -with oranges, the wind sweeps across the pavement of rough bricks, -intergrown with grass and the duller green of mosses, and rattles the -fallen leaves in lines and circles. Far above, the great Giralda tower -stands pink and creamy grey in the clear winter sky. By the Gate of -Pardon, in a corner of hot sun and sheltered from the wind, a few -beggars sit warming themselves and watching with Oriental patience and -immobility. The streets are mostly too narrow to let in the sun, but in -the <i>plazas</i> and any open space men are seen basking in sunshine, -<i>tomando el sol</i>. Along the bridge that leads to the suburb of Triana -the seats on both sides are crowded. Triana, better than Seville, -corresponds to Cervantes’ description of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> a city where adventures are to -be met at every street corner, and Triana supplies an army of loiterers -whose life’s mission in winter is to “take the sun.”</p> - -<p>On the eve of high festivals in winter, such as the Epiphany, it is -already growing dark when services are held, and the vast Cathedral is -faintly lit with hundreds of candles and dim hanging lamps, though the -last daylight still lingers awhile in the deep reds and purples, green, -orange, and every colour of the windows overhead. There is no procession -of the Three Kings through the city; at Alcoy, in the province of -Valencia, the Three Kings come riding, laden with presents, into the -town from beyond the grey mountains that surround it, and half the -population goes out to meet them, but Seville is too “civilized” for -this.</p> - -<p>Even in Seville not all the winter days are cloudless and serene. On -some of them the sky is a uniform grey, and the rain falls unceasingly -till the centre of the narrower, unevenly cobbled streets, raised at -either side and without a pavement, becomes a running stream. But when -the Andalusian sun reappears, the houses have an added freshness in -their glowing white, or in their coats of faint green or red, yellow or -purple (though even these usually have a line of white along the roof), -and in the air is a feeling of spring. There is an ancient Andalusian -song that makes March say to January—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Con tres días que me quedan<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Y tres que me preste mi compadre Abríl<br /></span> -<span class="i1">He de poner tus ovejas<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Que te acordarás de mí.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">(With the three days that are left me and three lent me by my friend -April, I will put your sheep in such a plight that you will remember -me.) This is the Cumbrian:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“March said to Aperill<br /></span> -<span class="i1">‘I see three haggs [sheep] upon a hill.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And if you will lend me dayes three<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I’ll find a way to make them dee.’<span class="lftspc">”</span><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">But the rigour of the days that follow in Cumberland has no place or -parallel in the low-lying districts of Andalucía:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The first of them was wind and weet,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The second of them was snaw and sleet,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The third of them was sic a freeze<br /></span> -<span class="i1">It froze the birds’ nebs to the trees;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">When the three days were past and gane<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The three silly haggs came hirpling hame.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>At Seville a few weeks after the Day of the Kings winter is really over: -in February the sky has an intenser blue, and with the longer sunshine -the warmth increases. The spring days follow in their matchless -splendour, till finally the sun’s fiery heat drives all who can leave -the city to the cooler refuge of the sea or the hills.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV<br /><br /> -FROM A SEVILLE HOUSETOP</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N winter Seville’s sky is sometimes for weeks entirely cloudless. Day -after day opens and dies peacefully away like a perfect flower; or, if a -strong cold wind drives across the day, it still blows in a heaven of -limitless clear blue. But in early spring the sky is often veiled in a -floating canopy of grey, or one may watch the white masses of clouds -thin and melt on the blue. And the blue is no longer fixed, distant, and -serene; even when apparently clear it has a vague movement of dissolving -mists, an intangible white softness interlacing it. It is this quality -of the sky, harmonizing so well with the soft lines and delicate colours -of the city, that gives to Seville in spring its unfailing charm. -Especially is that charm felt in the hour when men’s cigarettes begin to -glow and dot the streets with tiny fire-flies, distinct as the white -flowers worn by the women in their hair. The deep-red carnations and -dark violets of the open flower-stalls fade into shadow; the light -greens, lilacs, yellows, browns, and blues of the houses take a greyer -tinge. The last<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span> sunshine throws its thinner radiance along the white -lines of flat roofs that stand out in many levels and angles on the blue -or blue-and-white sky, and the effect is of pearls and opals, not the -flash of polished opals, but, as it were, blue veins of opal in white -chalk. The west is filled with a level radiance of pure gold, and -presently the eastern sky also changes from blue to a faint golden grey. -One by one the hanging street lamps begin to shed their soft glow of -white light, and overhead the first stars shine faintly and vanish and -reappear. The bells of goats and the mellower note of cowbells are heard -as they go their evening round to be milked, driven by a boy astride his -donkey, or by an old man with faded-pink umbrella; or a donkey passes -laden with oranges, the fruit’s gold gleaming through the twilight -afterglow from between the netting of the panniers. A breath of country -air invades the city; the day’s work is ended, and perhaps from some -church or convent you may hear “a distant bell that seems to mourn the -dying of the day”:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">“Squilla di lontano<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Che paia ’l giorno pianger che si muore.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The swift Southern twilight soon dies, but this short hour more than any -other embodies the magic of a Seville spring. For Seville at other times -is “a city full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city.” It wakes to -a discordant music of many street cries. All kinds of wares are hawked -shrilly, with loud shouts, or slow, dirge-like chants. Later in the day -come the more melodious cries of “Oranges! Water!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span> Violets! -Carnations!—<i>¡Qué buenas naranjas! Agua, quien quiere agua! Violetas! -Claveles!</i>” But to the flat brick-paved housetops, surrounded with walls -of different height, from three to twenty feet, all whitewashed to their -level tops, these sounds of the street come faintly. The rattle of -wheels over the cobbles is deadened, the bells of slowly driven cows and -goats chime distantly; sometimes one hears the intricate whistle of the -knife-grinder, or a barrel-organ plays an interminable dance to the -clacking of castañets, that fascinates by its ceaseless repetition. But -the sounds are vague and muffled, without harshness or stridency, and -here reigns more uninterrupted quiet than in the cool marble <i>patios</i> -below, with the frequent goings out and in through the door’s iron -<i>reja</i>. On the walls or in the line of shade beneath them stand rows of -plants—roses, geraniums, heliotrope, and especially carnations. From -here the street sellers fill their open stalls and baskets with the huge -carnations of spring, the smaller early carnations coming chiefly from -Málaga. And the carnations never look more beautiful than seen, dark red -or pink or yellow, against these walls of glistening white; one is fain -to call them by their German or “soft Spanish name”—<i>Nelken, claveles</i>. -The sun rising lights up the housetops so that they gleam like snow -between the dark spaces of bronze or green or blue glazed tiles, -slender-springing towers, and infrequent roofs, covered thickly in -spring with grass, like small fields. Or on a night of moon the city has -a phantom look of whited sepulchres, and if no moon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span> looks round her -with delight when the heavens are bare, there is an uninterrupted view -of stars in the whole sky, as from a ship’s deck. At midday, when the -sun is all fire and narrows the lines of shadow to mere rims of black, -one may not look for more than an instant across the glaring radiance of -white. In the morning there is an exquisite freshness. Little smoke -rises from the houses—only an occasional tiny wraith of grey—but, -beyond, a dense line goes up from the Cartuja factory of <i>azulejos</i>, and -hangs black-purple on the blue sky—the morning sky streaked with waving -outdrawn wisps of white mist-like cloud. There is a flapping of pigeons’ -wings as they flutter from wall to wall, and the twittering of -innumerable sparrows. The hours are marked by the crystal striking of -many clocks that are heard only dim and intermittently from below in the -street traffic. But it is at evening that the housetop has an almost -magical charm, when the sun has set in a sky of delicate gold, and in -the east long thin lines of white and faint purple cloud lie across a -sky of lightest blue. Then the flowers along the wall give out all their -scent. Swallows whirl and swerve far overhead or lightly skim the -hundred levels of whitewashed turret and wall. The <i>claveles</i> fade -slowly in the growing dusk; the wide, uneven plain of glowing walls -gradually becomes indistinct and blurred; finally the sky, too, is -moulded to a perfect symmetry of grey, and perhaps an immense -orange-coloured moon climbs slowly above the city. Seville is lovely in -winter, when the sky is a cold, serene blue, and night by night<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span> the -stars glint and glitter; lovely in spring, when everywhere, in roof and -<i>patio</i> and garden, is a triumph of green, when the oranges still hang -on the orange-trees in flower—like yellow crocuses peering from the -snow—and the corn is already high in the olives beyond the river; -lovely in summer, when the greens are parched and shrivelled, and a hot -wind blows heavily across the fainting housetops, or in nights of sultry -stillness the intense glow from many a lighted <i>patio</i> falls across the -velvet darkness of the narrow streets. Lovely at all times, but never -more lovely than in the temperate days of spring, when a hundred bells -are ringing for the Feast of Resurrection, and the flowers from -countless roofs are gathered for the <i>fête</i>; when, in scenes of fairy -magic, the slow <i>pasos</i> move with their myriad candles burning through -the twilight, along the crowded streets and <i>plazas</i> to the Cathedral, -while still peacefully above its Court of Oranges the tall Giralda looks -across the city that hems it in, to the wide <i>dehesas</i> of Andalucía, to -the green fields and olive-covered hills beyond the gently flowing -Guadalquivir, and to the distant line of the Sierra Morena.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV<br /><br /> -FEBRUARY IN ANDALUCÍA</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>OT one perhaps in a hundred of those who visit Seville and Granada sees -more than a glimpse of the beautiful country and curious villages of -Andalucía; yet there is much pleasure and interest to be had from a -journey through all this region. In February an early start with the sun -will enable the traveller on horseback or on foot to accomplish a fair -day’s journey, since the sun has not yet begun to burn and force him to -rest for some six central hours of the day, as later in the year. And -the outlines on every side are exquisitely clear, the sky usually -cloudless, and streams flow where later there will be but dry channels. -In parts the fields and roadside spaces are blue and purple with -dwarf-irises (the peasants call them simply <i>lirios</i>, lilies), and the -almond-trees are in flower; and at no time of the year is there a -greater and more delightful contrast between spring in the valley and -winter on the hills. Near Seville the immense plains stretch -interminably to the faint mountains, brown and dull-green pastures of -heather<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> and dwarf-palm, flecked with silver-white streaks of water; -herds of cattle, glossy black with white horns, pigs, horses, and great -flocks of sheep graze there. Or the country is gently undulating like -Sussex downs, but with softlier-moulded outlines and a horizon of faint -blue mountains, in February exquisitely distinct in faintness. A village -often entirely covers one of the small hills, not a house venturing -forward to form an outskirt, but all clustered and compact. Steep, -perfectly straight streets of sharp narrow cobbles, without side -pavements, run up to the church at the top through rows of low, -whitewashed houses, of a single storey and of a dazzling whiteness. At -evening the labourers come in from the far distant fields in a -continuous line, on foot or on mules and donkeys, and children go out to -meet them and are given a ride back into the village. Sometimes their -return is of several kilomètres, over deep earthy or stony paths, and, -with their gleaming mattocks (<i>pioches</i>, <i>azadones</i>) over their -shoulders, they are now to be seen clearly outlined on the evening sky, -and now are lost from view in one of the many hollows of the hills. Far -and near there is no tree, “neither bush nor shrub to bear off any -weather at all,” and the winds seem to have sifted and moulded the hills -into softly folding mounds and hollows. In February the winds still blow -occasionally with icy breath, and you will meet men on crimson and -magenta-tasselled mules and donkeys, closely wrapped in old-fashioned -<i>capas</i> of brown, only their eyes visible. On the road there are few -travellers—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span>charcoal-burners coming down with troops of laden donkeys -from the hills, or a slow cart drawn by a string of mules, the driver -lazily asleep, and the reins appearing from between the soles of his -sandals,<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> or a troop of gipsies, or orange sellers with the panniers -of their mules brimmed with oranges, now selling at six <i>reales</i>, a -little over a shilling, the hundred. Sometimes the country is all -grey-pinched and icy, and but a little further (as near snow-white Arcos -de la Frontera) are great hedges of shrubs and aloes and brambles and -cactus, with a sound of bees, and hovering white and yellow butterflies, -and wide spaces of tall branched flowers of asphodel and grey scented -rosemary. Or in a corner of windswept hills you may find a sheltered -<i>huerta</i> with thick hedge of tall black cypresses; the oranges crowd the -trees with gold, and the almond-trees shed across the dusty road a thick -carpet of broken flowers, pink and white. To Grazalema leads only a -steep and narrow foot-path after one has left the road not far from -Algodonales (pronounced by the peasants in a torrent of vowels Aooae) -and crossed the river Guadalete. In the valley the oranges gleam in -myriads, and the hills immediately above are coloured with a continuous -spray of almond-trees in flower, entirely covering<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span> their sides, and -sometimes crowning them in triumph. And far above, over woods of cork -and evergreen oak from which rise frail blue lines of smoke from -charcoal-burners’ fires, appear two or three peaks of snow clear against -a pale blue sky. The path goes up along hedges of brambles through -asphodels and hundreds of trailing periwinkles, with stepping-stones and -flowing streams; here and there a snow-white olive-oil mill with -sentinel cypresses. And, below, the pale snow-fed Guadalete flows -swiftly over white stones through groves of oranges. From a distance -Grazalema gives the fanciful idea of broken shells on a stony shore, -with its houses of white and pink and brown, many of them overhanging -and seeming to grow out of steep rocks. From the village a path leads -through corkwoods, the stripped trunks of the trees a deep maroon -colour, to Ronda on its sheer hill. From Antequera to Málaga by road is -some fifty kilomètres, and here, too, are wonderful contrasts and sudden -change from winter to summer. In the unsheltered plains round Bobadilla -the almond-trees show no sign of flower, and the grey mountains above -the stern frowning towers of Antequera are ice-bound. Turning the pass, -appears a magnificent view of six or seven serrated hill-ranges to the -line of sea beyond hidden Málaga—on the left a fantastically jagged -range, sprinkled in parts with snow; on the right a long line of -snow-mountains that ends in a bare range rising purple from the sea. And -the ice soon grows thin and vanishes, giving place to irises, tiny -jonquils, and periwinkles, and descending half-way down the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span> mountain -side, to Villanueva, the almond-trees have already lost half their -blossoms, grass and white dusty road and dark new-ploughed soil are -thickly strewn with their petals, and the fields of broad beans are in -scented black and white flower. Along the coast full summer reigns, the -balconies are heavy with trailing flowers, the sea is deepest blue, and -the wind blows half-sultrily across the fields of beans and the -faded-green leaves of sugar-cane, with their scent of hay. Sometimes the -road is lined with poplars, and ox-carts go laden with grass and trefoil -and leaves from the sugar-canes. Elsewhere the road winds inland through -grey rocky hills and woods of strong-scented pines, with glimpses of -blue sea; or passes high above cliffs, the sea swelling dull green -immediately below or foaming round dark rocks. From Motril or some other -point one may go up to Granada, the Sierra Nevada appearing and altering -continually; and thoughts of the Alhambra and other names of magic -shorten the road, though it has many a beautiful view and village, such -as Pino to the left on the mountain side, with its white houses and deep -red-brown roofs. But of the many fair districts of Andalucía perhaps the -most delightful in scenery is that lying between the Guadalquivir and La -Mancha, a region of brushwood and mountain. The road from Marmolejo runs -up through hills covered with shrubs of every shade of green, from -grey-blue to shrill yellow, many of them scented, lentiscus, escalonia, -<i>adelfa</i>, cistus, rosemary, and a hundred more; even in February the -mid-day sun scents the whole air with them. Near<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span> the village of -Cardeña, some thirty miles from Marmolejo, a ruin is supposed to be that -of the inn where many scenes of “Don Quixote” occurred, but only a few -stones remain. Leaving the village in early morning in frost and ice in -order to go down to Montoro on the Guadalquivir, the road at first is -wild, bordered by oak-trees, with flocks of sheep, a few patches of -corn, many magpies, the plaining of birds and the occasional whirr of a -partridge. Yet even here in a few hollows are vines and almond-trees, -and spaces of scented plants and wild yellow jonquils, with white or -brown or yellow butterflies, a humming of bees and rustling of lizards. -The road now cuts through hills of scented shrubs, so various and -ordered with such careful harmony as could be rivalled by no garden -planted by man. On either side are range and range of hills -shrub-covered, dull green, brown and blue, brown where the shrubs have -been cut for firing. To the right is a wide deep gorge with tiny river -far below, and glimpses of blue distances and valleys of more hills. To -the left more hills, and across a blue distance of hill valleys the -Sierra de Jaen with its beautiful pyramid-shaped peak of deepest snow, -and far to the right of it the two more pointed peaks of Granada’s -Sierra Nevada, marvellously clear in distance. Between them and the -Sierra de Jaen runs the snow-sprinkled range above the village of Los -Villares de Jaen. In the transparent might of even a February noon the -more distant and the higher of the near hills are purple, and the great -snow-mountains below the snow-line<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span> grow faint and grey. Montoro is a -beautiful quaint town rising above the Guadalquivir in seven or eight -storeys of houses of red stone and whitewash. The tall church-tower, -also of red stone, stands massively above the town, and precipitously -steep and cobbled streets lead up to it. Houses look sheer down from -windows, balconies, and gardens to the river far below, which flows over -a weir above and below the town, so that there is a perpetual sound of -rushing water. From Montoro one may follow the Guadalquivir, now a -majestic river, through its olive groves to the famous bridge of -Alcolea, and the low white line beneath bare hills and wooded mountains -which is Córdoba, seen from the East. Everywhere on the roads and in the -inns of Andalucía the peasants are courteous, pleasant, intelligent, -picturesque; always ready to give any service in their power, often -immensely ignorant. They will ask if “Ingalaterra” is not Spain’s -border-country and confuse it with Gibraltar, or if the Queen was a -Christian before her marriage. For the most part they cannot read or -write;<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> yet they converse willingly on the most various subjects, -especially on politics and religion, the mayor and the priest. Here a -woman complains: “Nine children I had, and the nine are dead; it’s -better so in these times of misery”; there a peasant describes the snowy -Sierra in the month of August, how it glows whiter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span> than lilies across -the plain—<i>más blanca, que una azucena</i>; or tells how beautiful is the -country in later spring when the quinces, apples, and pomegranates are -in flower, <i>que es un paraiso</i>—a very paradise. As they sit round the -<i>candela</i>, in the cold evenings of early spring, talk flows on into the -night, always pleasant and courteous, as of one <i>gran señor</i> to -another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI<br /><br /> -SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH LITERATURE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is not a literature in Europe more individual than that of Spain. -It has been influenced greatly at various times by other countries, -especially Italy and France, but in its many masterpieces it has a -flavour of the soil, a local colouring that is all its own. Even when -Spanish authors have borrowed most freely they have usually succeeded in -casting their own individuality over their “honourable kind of -thieving.” Who has a more individual genius than Juan Ruiz, the merry -Archpriest of Hita? Yet it has been shown that his debt to French, -Latin, and other authors is very considerable. In this form of -borrowing—practised by Shakespeare—which is not a direct imitation but -a loan of bricks to make them marble, there is in fact a high -originality. The phrase in which the merits of the Marqués de Santillana -have been summed up might be applied to the whole of Spanish literature: -when it ceases to imitate it is inimitable. Santillana’s mountain -songs—his <i>serranillas</i> are scented<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span> as it were with the thyme of the -Castilian hills, whereas his sonnets in the Italian manner are -colourless and artificial.</p> - -<p>Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly speaks of “that forcible realistic touch, that -alert vision, that intense impression of the thing seen and accurately -observed which give to Spanish literature its peculiar stamp of -authenticity.” The clear atmosphere of Spain, in which distant mountains -seem to be close at hand, is also the atmosphere of Spanish literature. -The Spaniard may have little subtlety of insight or critical judgment, -but he has a directness of vision that has manifested itself in bigotry, -brutality, and cynical satire, as well as in keen humour, -straight-forwardness, and dignity of character. The realism which has -produced the terrible Christs of the Cathedrals, with their long human -hair and life-like wounds, or the polychrome statues of Spanish carvers, -with a presentation of pain on the human face in all and more than all -its horror—this realism may be due either to a hatred of all that is -false and factitious or to a lack of sensibility, an inability to -sympathize without a harsh shock, a thrill of terrified awe. What would -the Greeks have said to these tortured features, these agonizing brows -and flowing wounds? It is as false art to perpetuate in wood or stone -the agony of a few culminating moments as it is to picture a face -laughing or yawning, from whose perpetually open mouth we will soon turn -with a laugh or a yawn. This realism has found a less harsh expression -in Spanish literature, as in the sane<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span> and brilliant art of Velázquez. -The brutality occasionally makes itself felt, as in some of Quevedo’s -bitter writings, but most often the spirit is nobler and more human. In -the twelfth-century “Poema del Cid” all the figures stand out in -wonderful clearness, from the Cid himself to the nine years’ old child -at Burgos, who tells the Cid that they dare not open their doors to him -for fear of the King’s edict. And the events of the poem are brought to -pass before our eyes with a joyful zest and rapidity and a stamp of -truth that are worthy of Homer. We see the Cid ride with a hundred -chosen knights across the Bridge of Alcántara and up Toledo’s narrow -streets. We see him knocking at the gate of San Pedro de Cardeña to bid -farewell to his wife Doña Jimena, and the abbot, who was saying Mass for -the return of dawn, running out with lights and torches to welcome “him -who was born in happy hour.” We see him again in battle as the pennants -rise and fall, we hear “the sword’s griding screech” and the trampling -of the horses at which the earth trembles. In “Celestina,” the long -prose drama of the end of the fifteenth century, we have the same truth -to life, though in very different scenes. Here it is not knights and -battles, but common people of the street—the old hag Celestina, or -Calisto’s servants—that are drawn with a master hand.</p> - -<p>“Celestina” gives some inkling of the picaresque novels to come, of -which the flower and cream is “Lazarillo de Tormes” (1554 is the date of -our earliest edition), to be followed by “Guzmán de Alfarache,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span> “El -Buscón,” and a long posterity in Spain, France, and England. This is no -tale of true love like the “Celestina,” but of gnawing hunger and of the -ingenious efforts of Lazarillo to procure himself bread. His successive -masters, the blind beggar, the miserly priest, the penniless Castilian -gentleman, the rascally seller of Papal bulls, are sketched in the -autobiography of their servant Lazarillo, with the keen eye of famine, -and are unforgettable, as is Lazarillo himself, whose name has become -the common name in Spain for a blind man’s guide, just as Victor Hugo’s -immortal Gavroche gave his name to the Paris <i>gamin</i>. It is, in fact, a -masterpiece of seven short chapters, lively in every sentence, of a -direct and biting humour, perhaps the most graphic story ever penned. A -few terse phrases throw a scene or a character into amazingly high -relief, and the picture is as fresh and living to-day as when it first -appeared three and a half centuries ago. No other country and no other -language could have produced a piece of realism so cynically bare, so -completely charming. It has the caustic pithiness of Spanish proverbs, -the bitter flavour of harsh Iberia. It belongs to life rather than to -literature, but life portrayed with the restraint and force of a -consummate art. It was early translated into English as “The Marvelus -Dedes and the Lyf of Lazaro de Tormes.” The authorship of “Lazarillo” -has been ascribed to this man and to that, and there has been great -argument about it and about, without the least degree of certainty. The -name of Hurtado de Mendoza is frequently to be found upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span> -title-page. Born in 1503, he was alive when the novel appeared; he was -an author; he could write in trenchant, nay, in scurrilous style, as his -letters concerning the Pope show—he calls him an old rascal, <i>vellaco</i>; -but these are hardly conclusive proofs. Whoever the author, the work -still reigns supreme, though many may have thought with Ginés de -Pasamonte in “Don Quixote” that it would be an evil moment for -“Lazarillo” when their memoirs appeared. Half a century after -“Lazarillo” the same faithfulness to picaresque reality, with a broader -outlook and a more universal sympathy, is to be found in the “Novelas -Ejemplares” of Cervantes. Rinconete and Cortadillo, the eponymous heroes -of one of his best-known stories, are closely related to Lazarillo; they -are in fact the Lazarillos of the South of Spain. On the realism of “Don -Quixote” it is unnecessary to lay stress. Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, -referring to its immediate triumph, says: “To contemporary readers the -charm of ‘Don Quixote’ lay in its amalgamation of imaginative and -realistic elements, in its accumulated episodes, in its infinite -sympathy and its persuasive humour. There was no question, then, as to -whether ‘Don Quixote’ was a well of symbolic doctrine. The canvas was -crowded with types familiar to every one who had eyes to see his -companions on the dusty highways of Spain. The wenches who served Don -Quixote with stockfish and black bread; the lad Andrés, flayed in the -grove of oaks by Juan Haldudo the Rich of Quintanar; the goatherds -seated round the fire on which the pot of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span> salted goat was simmering; -the three lively needle-makers from the Colt of Córdoba; the midnight -procession escorting the dead body from Baeza to Segovia, and chanting -dirges on the road; the dozen galley-slaves tramping on, strung together -like beads on an iron chain; all these are observed and presented with -masterly precision of detail.”<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> - -<p>In spite of Censors and Inquisitors Spanish literature was free and -outspoken, for it portrayed life as it was. If it shows devotion to -Church and King it is because these were deeply-rooted national -convictions. But the priests sometimes meet with less respect. The Cid -threatens to make of the Pope’s vestments trappings for his horse, and -we have seen that Hurtado de Mendoza, the King of Spain’s ambassador in -Rome, speaks of his Holiness in terms that call to mind Benvenuto -Cellini’s passionate outbursts. We have seen, too, the unflattered -portraits of priest and pardon-seller in “Lazarillo de Tormes.” -Cervantes, who “respects and adores the Church as a Catholic and -faithful Christian,” does not fail to thrust fun at the fat <i>alforjas</i>, -the well-provisioned saddle-bags of the <i>señores clérigos</i>, “who rarely -allow themselves to fare ill,” and he deals more sternly with the -household priests who “govern princes’ houses, and, not being of -princely birth themselves, are unable to guide the conduct of those who -are,” and who “in trying to teach those they govern to be narrow and -limited make them miserable.” He gives us the picture of the false -pilgrims who travel through the length and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span> breadth of Spain, “and there -is not a village in which they do not receive meat and drink and at -least a <i>real</i> in money, and at the end of their journey they leave the -country with a treasure of over a hundred ducats,” and he even allows -himself to wonder why Ginés de Pasamonte’s clever monkey has not been -arraigned before the gentlemen of the Inquisition.</p> - -<p>There are in Spanish literature occasional signs of a distorted -imagination, a restless longing to materialize the invisible, which is -not a fanciful dreaming, but rather a kind of super-realism, a strained -and persistent effort to attain a tangible perfection—the spirit which -in some Spanish buildings has added ornament to ornament till the result -is a rich magnificence in an infinity of details but hideousness as a -whole. One form of this we have in such works as Quevedo’s “Sueños,” -another, the Churrigueresque, in the later style of Góngora. On the -other hand, we have the great Spanish mystics in their sincerity, -reflected in the exquisite simplicity of their style, one of the noblest -glories of the literature of their country. Yet they, too, as has often -been pointed out, were pre-eminently practical; Luis de León, for -instance, energetic head of the Augustinian Order; Santa Teresa, the -wise, untiring administrator. Their writings have the fiery transparency -of Pascal, and all the clear and vivid precision of military writers of -many countries, in whose case, as in that of so large a number of -Spaniards, “the lance has not blunted the pen.”<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> The mystics rise to -noble heights<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span> of sublimity, but the virtue of their writing is that it -is to the point, with no vague rhetoric; and no advocate could surpass -the lucidity with which Luis de León conducted his own defence before -the Inquisition.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the weakest side of Spanish literature is its deficiency in -critical insight. Few, indeed, are the Spanish authors of whom it might -be said, as Ticknor said long ago of Luis de León, that there is -scarcely a line of their poetry that is not exquisite. Espronceda’s -undeniable genius, for instance, shatters itself on that unwieldy -fragment “El Diablo Mundo.” Excessive facility of composition has been -the stumbling-block of the authors as it has been the stumbling-block of -the orators of Spain. Hardly a speaker in the Spanish <i>Cortes</i> is ever -at a loss for words to give expression to his ideas or to conceal the -lack of them. Each, as Don Adriano de Armado in “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” -is one</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“That hath a mint of phrases in his brain,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">One whom the music of his own vain tongue<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Even so marvellous an orator as Emilio Castelar was at times carried -away by the magnificent eloquence that flowed unfailingly from his lips. -In the same way Lope de Vega could throw off a play in a few days. Over -2000 plays and <i>autos</i> are ascribed to him, and in the 450 that remain -his most ardent admirers confess that there are arid tracts. And, -ordinarily, this copiousness has been a fault, telling against Spanish -literature, and it continues to be a fault: Señor Blasco Ibáñez writes -his brilliant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span> novels in evident haste; Señor Perez Galdós has entered -on the fifth series of ten of his “Episodios Nacionales,” and his other -novels and plays are very numerous. Such wealth of production could not -but be harmful to critical judgment. In the nineteenth century Spain -produced one or two excellent critics, especially Larra and <i>Clarín</i>, -the pseudonym of Leopoldo Alas, author of “La Regenta,” one of the most -striking psychological novels of the century. Generally, however, if -German literary criticism is circular and, however illuminating the -by-paths of its learning, wanders round the point without ever quite -touching it, Spanish literary criticism is superficial, and either veils -the point in a polite mesh of words, or is prevented by this very -rhetoric from seeing the point at all. Even Valera, who so carefully -limned his own prose, and whose verse, though not inspired, is always -delicate and polished, was far from being a good critic. He praised -effusively works that at best deserved silence, and this insincerity in -literary matters is, it is to be feared, a common weakness in Spain.</p> - -<p>The characteristic of Spanish literature that unites it in a special -bond of sympathy with English literature is its large store of humour. -It meets us in the “Poema del Cid,” in the character of the Cid, and in -the quick detection of the ludicrous; the poems of the Archpriest of -Hita are full of merriment and of humorous portrayal of character; the -humour of the Archpriest reappears in “Lazarillo de Tormes,” but without -his jovial gaiety; with Quevedo its vein<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span> becomes cruelly satirical. -Humour did not desert Luis de León when ill and solitary in the dark -Valladolid prison of the Inquisition; and it is to be found in a large -majority of Spanish authors, being but another side of their direct, -unclouded observation. In the most humorous of all books, even Don -Quixote, the Knight of the Sad Countenance, is constrained to laugh: at -the sight of Sancho, we read, his melancholy was not strong enough to -prevent him from joining in his laughter—and the whole world laughs -with, not at him.</p> - -<p>It is because Spanish literature is intensely national that it has so -universal an interest, and in its most recent phase, the novel, it has a -local character that is full of charm. José María de Pereda, for -instance, scarcely ever left his native Cantabrian province. He wrote of -the places and people that he understood and loved. Yet no one who has -read his great novels, “El Sabor de la Tierruca,” or “Sotileza,” or -“Peñas Arriba,” will contend that they are provincial, or that their -interest is merely local.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> His characters<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> are universal, and Pereda -is another instance of the truth that he who digs a little land deep -reaps a better reward than he who works shallowly over a wide extent. So -Señor Blasco Ibáñez is read with most delight when he cultivates his own -garden—the city and province of Valencia.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII<br /><br /> -THE POEM OF THE CID</h2> - -<h3>1.—<span class="smcap">A Primitive Masterpiece</span></h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE national hero of Spain has been presented in many guises, but is -nowhere more intensely Spanish than in the “Poema del Cid.” Here are no -marvellous events and miracles, no journeyings out of Spain to Paris and -Rome; everything occurs naturally and simply in Spanish surroundings, -and this the first great masterpiece of Spanish letters has a strong -flavour of the soil. After winning a “victory marvellous and great” over -the Moors in Spain, the Cid says, “I give thanks to God who is Master of -the world; I was in want before, now I am rich, for I have goods and -land and gold and honour.... Moors and Christians live in great fear of -me. There, inland in Morocco, where the Mosques are, they look to have -some night an inroad from me. It is but their fear, for I think not of -it. I shall not go to seek them, in Valencia shall I be.” The Cid is -chivalrous, brave, magnanimous, simple, with a strong sense of humour<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span> -and love of fair-play. With simple good faith the poet sees no need to -explain or excuse actions of his hero that may seem blameworthy to a -later age, such as the deceit practised upon the two Jews. Though not -historical, the poem has an air of truth and sincerity deeply -impressive. It was probably composed in the middle of the twelfth -century, not much more than fifty years after the Cid’s death in 1099. -It has been attributed to the beginning of the thirteenth century, but -intrinsic evidence warrants the earlier date. The language is more -archaic than that of thirteenth-century writers. Traces of the Latin -chrysalis appear. “To-morrow morning” is <i>cras á la mañana</i>, half Latin -and half Spanish, and “each” in the same way is <i>quiscadauno</i>, while the -word <i>huebos</i>, which frequently occurs in the sense of <i>menester</i>, is -but the Latin <i>opus</i> thinly disguised. The poem, as it has come down to -us incomplete, has nearly four thousand verses. It is written in long -assonant lines of unequal number of syllables. “The poet,” as Tomas -Antonio Sánchez, who first edited the “Poema del Cid” in 1779, remarks, -“thought nothing of giving two or three syllables more to a line as his -sentence might require,” and lines of eleven and lines of eighteen -syllables occur indifferently. From beginning to end the story moves on -without flagging; the style is so rapid and direct that it carries the -reader with it. There is a joy and freshness in the narrative that have -rarely been surpassed.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> These events may not have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span> happened, or may -have happened differently, but that matters little, since, owing to the -skill of the unknown poet, they stand out with a vividness that imprints -them indelibly on the mind of the reader and proves that nothing is so -real as that which has not happened. Who can forget, for instance, the -arrival of King Alfonso and the Cid at Toledo, when the King passes on -into the town, but the Cid remains on the further side of the Tagus, in -the castle of San Serván (now a beautiful ruin with two Moorish windows -still left, and surrounded by dwarf-asphodels in spring). He says to the -King: “I with mine will rest in San Serván; this evening will my -followers arrive. I will hold vigil in that holy place; to-morrow -morning I will enter the city.” Here he and his followers “said matins -and prime until the dawn,” and next day they enter Toledo, the Cid -splendidly attired and accompanied by a hundred knights, riding across -the bridge of Alcántara and up the steep and narrow street to the Court -or Parliament.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> Every detail of his dress is given, purple and gold -and silver. But fresh and quaintly vivid details are frequent in the -poem. When the counts of Carrión have outraged and abandoned their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span> -wives the poet pauses to exclaim, “What good fortune were the Cid -Campeador to appear.” Félez Muñoz, on finding the Cid’s daughters almost -at the point of death, brings them water in his hat: “new it was and -fresh, and he had brought it from Valencia.” Mass is said “at half -cock-crow, before the dawn.” The Moor Abengalvon upbraids the treachery -of his guests in planning his murder as follows: “Tell me what have I -done to you, Counts of Carrión? I serving you without guile, and you -took counsel for my death, <i>Hyo sirviendovos sin art, E vos conseiastes -para mi muert</i>.” Nothing could be more spontaneous and direct. With -equal directness honest Pero Bermuez calls one of the Counts of Carrión -“a tongue without hands,” “a mouth without truth,” and we read of Asur -González, who “would breakfast before he went to prayer,” that “purple -he came for he had breakfasted, and reckless was his speech.” The -account of the battle is well known: “they clasp their shields before -their breasts, they lower their lances with their banners, they bow -their faces over the saddles, they went to smite them with bold hearts. -With loud voice calls he who was born in happy hour, ‘Strike them, -knights, for the love of charity. I am Ruy Diaz, the Cid Campeador of -Bibar.’ All strike in the group where is Pero Bermuez. Three hundred -lances are there, all with their banners. A Moor apiece they killed at a -single blow, and as they turned about they kill as many more. There -would you see many lances rise and fall, many a shield pierced and -riddled, many a breastplate broken through, many<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span> white banners come out -red with blood, many good steeds go without a rider. The Moors call on -Mahomet, the Christians on St. James. In a short space a thousand and -three hundred of the Moors are slain.” No version can give an idea of -the vigour of the original. But it is not only battle scenes that are -treated forcibly and thrown into high relief. We may take the arrival of -the Cid at San Pedro de Cardeña as an example of the amazing vividness -given to more quiet episodes: “The cocks are crowing and the dawn is -trying to break, when the good Campeador arrived at San Pedro. The Abbot -Don Sancho, servant of the Creator, was saying Matins for the return of -dawn. And Doña Jimena, with five noble ladies, was praying St. Peter and -the Creator: ‘O Thou who guidest all, be with my Cid the Campeador.’ He -was calling at the gate and they heard the summons. Heavens! how glad -was the Abbot Don Sancho! With lights and with candles they ran into the -courtyard. With such joy they receive him who was born in happy hour. ‘I -thank God, my Cid,’ said the Abbot Don Sancho, ‘since I see you here, -accept my hospitality.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<h3>II. <span class="smcap">Valencia del Cid.</span></h3> - -<p>The poem opens abruptly with the exile of the Cid from Castille. He -rides to his house at Burgos but finds all closed against him. Only a -nine-year-old girl is found to tell him that “last night came the King’s -letter. We dare not open or receive you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span> else would we lose our goods -and houses, and moreover the eyes of our heads.”</p> - -<p>To obtain money the Cid fills two chests with sand, and on these -“covered with red leather, and studded with nails well-gilt,” he obtains -six hundred marks from the Jews Rachel and Vidas. They are not to open -the chests for a year. On the wall in the cloister of the Cathedral at -Burgos still hangs an ancient chest known as the <i>Cofre del Cid</i>. Thus -furnished, the Cid leaves Castille, and he prays solemnly to God and the -glorious Saint Mary, “for here I leave Castille, since the King is wrath -with me, and I know not if in all my days I shall enter it again.” He -takes leave of his wife and children at the Convent of San Pedro de -Cardeña, and, after early Mass said by the Abbot Don Sancho, departs, -wistfully turning his head to look back. Doña Jimena, his wife, prays -for his safety to the “glorious Lord the Father, who madest Heaven and -Earth, and thirdly, the sea, who madest stars and moon and the sun to -give heat.” Already men were flocking to the Cid’s banner, and his first -exploit is the capture of the town of Castejon. He lies in ambush before -it: “The dawn is breaking, and morning was at hand. The sun went forth, -Heavens! how beautiful it rose. In Castejon all were awaking. They open -the gates, and quickly went forth to see their work in the fields and -their possessions.” When they were all gone forth, the Cid took the -town. The next town, Alcocer, he also captures by a wile. “The news -grieves those of Teca, the men of Teruel it does not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span> please; it pleases -not the men of Calatayud.” A host of Moors besieges the Cid in Alcocer, -and after three weeks, the provisions failing, he goes forth and gains a -great victory. At the sound of the drums of the Moorish host “the earth -was like to crack.” He pursues the enemy to the walls of Calatayud. -<i>Fata Calatayuth duró el segudar.</i> He sends Alvar Fáñez to <i>Castiella la -gentil</i> with a present of thirty horses for King Alfonso and money for -Doña Jimena, and for a thousand masses at Santa María de Burgos. -Zaragoza agrees to pay tribute to the Cid. Don Remont Berenger, Count of -Barcelona, goes out against him, and persists in coming to an -engagement, though the Cid sends him a message: “I have nothing of his, -bid him let me go in peace.” The result is a crushing defeat of the -“army of the Franks,” and the Count is taken prisoner. The account of -his captivity is entertaining. The Count refuses all food: “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I will not -eat a mouthful for all there is in Spain. I will rather die (lit. lose -my body and leave my soul) since such ill-equipped men have beaten me in -battle.’ You will hear what said my Cid Ruy Diaz: ‘Eat, Count, of this -bread and drink this wine; if you do as I say you shall be free, if not -in all your days you shall not see Christian land.’<span class="lftspc">”</span> The Count eats -nothing for three days: “They dividing these great spoils cannot make -him eat a piece of bread.” Then the Cid renews his promise to give him -liberty: “But of what you have lost and I won in the field know that I -will not give you any part, but what you have lost I will not give you, -for I have need of it for me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span> and for my vassals, and will not give it -you.” At length the Count yields. “The Count is eating, Heavens! with -what good will. Over against him sat he who was born in happy hour: ‘If -you eat not well, Count, and I am not satisfied, here we shall remain, -we shall not part.’... The Cid, who is watching him, is satisfied, so -quickly did Count Remont move his hands,” and he escorts him on his way. -The Count takes his leave and “goes turning his head and looking back; -with fear he went that the Cid will repent, that which he would not do -for all that is in the world.” Fresh victories follow. The Cid carries -the war “over against the salt sea” and takes among other towns -Murviedro (the old Saguntum and modern Sagunto). Here he is besieged by -the Valencians, but sallies forth and defeats them. <i>Fata Valencia duró -el segudar.</i> For three years he continues to wage war and take towns. -“The fame of my Cid, know well, is noised abroad.” “The inhabitants of -Valencia know not what to do. From no quarter came bread, father and son -are without counsel, friend cannot comfort friend. A bad thing, Sirs, it -is to have a lack of bread.” After a siege of nine months the Cid takes -Valencia. He establishes a Christian bishopric in his new town, and -sends a present of a hundred horses to King Alfonso. Alvar Fáñez on his -return escorts Doña Jimena and her daughters Elvira and Sol to Valencia. -The Cid bids them welcome to the city: “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>You, loved and honoured wife, -and both my daughters, my heart and my soul, enter with me the city of -Valencia, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span> possession that I have won you.’ Mother and daughters -kissed his hands, with such honour entered they Valencia. My Cid went -with them to the Citadel: he led them up to the highest part. Velvet -eyes glance on all sides. They look at Valencia, how the city lies, and -on the other side they have the sea. They look on the plain, luxuriant, -and large. They raise their hands to pray to God. So glad is my Cid and -his companions for this good and great spoil. The winter is departing, -and March is about to come in....” The Moorish King Jucef, with “fifty -times a thousand” Moors, comes up against the Cid, but is defeated with -great slaughter. “There escaped not more than a hundred and four.” A -fresh present of two hundred horses is sent to King Alfonso. The Counts -of Carrión now determine to ask for the Cid’s daughters in marriage, and -the King proposes an interview with the Cid “above the Tagus, which is a -principal river.” The marriage is arranged, and the Counts return with -the Cid to Valencia, where the wedding festivities last a full -fortnight. The guests depart laden with presents from the Cid. “Rich -return to Castille those who had come to the wedding.” And here there is -a very definite division in the poem. “The verses of this song have here -an ending. May the Creator be with you and all his Saints” (lines, 2286, -7). The remainder of the poem tells of the treachery and punishment of -the Counts of Carrión. It begins with the incident of the lion. A lion -that was kept in the court of the Cid’s house escaped one day as the Cid -lay asleep. His trusty<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span> followers drew round him to keep him from harm, -but of the Counts of Carrión one scrambled under the Cid’s bench, the -other ran out by the door crying: “I shall not see Carrión,” and hid -behind the beam of a wine-press, so that his cloak and doublet were all -soiled. The Cid, having cowed the lion, “asked for his sons-in-law, but -found them not. They call aloud for them, but none answers. When they -found them and they came, they came all pale. You have not seen such -jests as went about the Court. My Cid the Campeador ordered that they -should cease.” Further events showed the small spirit and treachery of -the Cid’s sons-in-law, and his daughters are ultimately betrothed to -nobler men, the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon. The poem, as we have it, -ends with a prayer that God may give Paradise to him who wrote (<i>i.e.</i> -copied) it, and with a request for money or a glass of wine for its -reciters: “Dat nos del vino si non tenedes dineros.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br /><br /> -A PRISONER OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION</h2> - -<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">Novedades</span></h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE poetry of Luis de León is not voluminous; he has no great variety of -theme; he sings “the quiet life of him who shuns the world’s uproar;” -but there is, as has been said, scarcely a line of it that is not -exquisite. And if, as a lyric poet, Luis de León stands in the front of -Spanish literature, as a writer of eloquent and well-moulded Castilian -prose he has had few equals. His “Nombres de Cristo” is one of the -masterpieces of the Spanish language. The sentences are perhaps -occasionally too prolix, lengthening out in a rich profusion of words -and images. He had, as Ticknor said, a Hebrew soul, and he delighted in -similes. It is indeed partly this that gives to his style a colour and a -sound which rank him among the greatest prose-writers of any age. But as -a writer Luis de León is too well known to need comment. And to himself -his literary works were of a secondary importance, and held a -subordinate place in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span> strenuous and energetic life. Born in 1527, of -a well-known family at Belmonte in La Mancha, he was sent by his father -at the age of fourteen to the University of Salamanca with the advice to -“follow the common opinion in letters, <i>que siguiese la opinión comun en -las letras</i>.” The precept was not unneeded in that age, for the -Reformation had unhinged men’s beliefs and left them a prey to many -fears. Intolerance on the side of reformers was answered by fresh -intolerance. In Spain one might least expect any dissent from the -accepted religion. Even in Spain, however, the general ferment of the -rest of Europe had found an echo, the spirit of doubt and inquiry had -penetrated to the Spanish Universities, and men’s minds were opening to -new lines of thought. There was indeed ample scope for reform. -Scholasticism had become a dry and stilted system, well qualified to -call down ridicule on all learning. Its professors delighted in -hairsplitting and quibbles. Luis de León speaks with a scathing sarcasm -of the type of professor who said that he was ... “content with a -knowledge of St. Thomas and the Saints ... and had no wish for any new -learning (<i>novedades</i>);” of those who “flatter themselves and fancy -that, because they have in their rooms a score of books covered with -dust, and have obtained the degree of master of arts, they have well -earned the name of men of letters, and may for the rest give themselves -up quite securely to sleep and good living ... and they consider that -the mere fact of having the books and dipping into some part of them -once a year<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span> bestows on them a knowledge of St. Thomas and the Saints.” -But the new spirit of inquiry and reform led those who belonged to the -old school to fence themselves the more closely with narrow and bigoted -beliefs, to cling to conventionalities of dogma, and to cry out on the -most innocent innovations. Violent attacks on Scholasticism had the -effect of showing more moderate attempts at reform in an odious light. -Suspicions were everywhere rife, and it required no little care to avoid -the accusation of being anxious for “new things.” The highest -ecclesiastics were not exempt from attack. Carranza, the Archbishop of -Toledo, had spent a certain number of years in England. In 1556 he had -visited Oxford and found it Catholic, <i>la encontró católica</i>, but in the -following year at Cambridge he burnt many heretical books and English -Bibles. On his return to Spain he was thought to have been contaminated -by contact with so many heretics, though he boasted that he had done -more than any other in discovering them.</p> - -<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">Salamanca University</span></h3> - -<p>In the Universities especially accusations of every kind hung fire over -men marked out by their position or abilities. The University of -Salamanca had always been eminently conservative. Popes and Kings were -anxious for its welfare. Philip II. saw in the University a stronghold -of religion and loyalty. Pedro Chacon tells how “in the year 1560, on -the return of our sovereign Don Philip to Spain after an absence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span> of -several years spent in reducing and governing the kingdom of England, he -at once confirmed all the privileges which the University had received -from his predecessors.” He intervened personally in the general affairs -and particular disputes of the University, and seems to have considered -no trouble too great to preserve the ancient purity of its opinions. -Luis de León became deeply attached to the University, “the light,” as -he said, “not of Spain only, but of all Europe,” and to Salamanca as -student and professor he devoted his entire life. He entered the -Augustinian order a few months after arriving at Salamanca, and by so -doing renounced a very considerable income which he would otherwise have -inherited as his father’s eldest son. His success was rapid. He obtained -the chair of philosophy, and afterwards that of theology, and this -latter chair he still held when he was arrested in the beginning of 1572 -and detained for nearly five years in the prison of the Inquisition at -Valladolid. The most serious charges against him were that he had -translated the Song of Solomon into the vulgar tongue, and that he had -depreciated the authority of the Vulgate. But it was a question -primarily between two schools of thought in the University, between the -rival Greek and Hebrew scholars, between the members of the order of St. -Dominic and the members of the order of St. Augustine, and the case only -came under the authority of the Inquisition through the denunciations of -Luis de León’s enemies, such as León de Castro. León de Castro was a -professor of the old school. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> was an excellent Latin and Greek -scholar, and was possessed of great energy and perseverance. By his -learning, and partly by sheer force of character, he had won a position -of high authority in the University, and he guarded his authority with a -jealous care. Intolerant of opposition, he sought to crush all who by -their talents or popularity might throw him into the shade. He wished to -reign supreme. He was easily roused to such a pitch of anger that he -lost all control of himself; “when engaged in a dispute,” says Luis de -León, “he does not know what he is doing or saying.” He was hasty in his -judgment of men and opinions, and supplied deficiencies in his own -knowledge by a fierce positiveness. It is said that if he found an -opinion in the work of a saint or philosopher, he would at once say, -“This is the opinion of all the saints, of all the philosophers.” To him -the Vulgate was the final and irrefragable authority, and he opposed -with the utmost vigour those scholars who went back to the Hebrew -original. Such Hebrew scholars he called “Jews,” a name that smelt of -fire in that age. (Against Luis de León the accusation was actually -brought of being a Jew, and descended from Jews.) If it was shown that -the Hebrew text differed from the Vulgate, Castro answered that the -Hebrew text had been altered by the “Jews” since the translation had -been made. His position was thus impregnable. He would listen to no -arguments, but shouted down his opponents. In a narrow age he might -persuade himself that in thus asserting his opinions he was doing good -service<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> to the Church. His influence was without doubt great, and it -needed no little courage to oppose him. Luis de León, however, was not a -man to lie flat and love Setebos. He was frank and open by nature, even -to rashness and indiscretion, and in his eagerness for reform was not -afraid of making enemies. When he took his degree he attacked certain -abuses in a Latin speech of Ciceronian violence, and on another occasion -he publicly upbraided the Dominicans with the heresies of their order, -and the thrust seems to have gone home, for he himself says that they -felt it keenly, “<i>sintieronse fieramente</i>.” Above all, he had no -sympathy with pedantry and intolerance. It was impossible that two men -of characters so different should not come into collision, and in fact -the discussions between professors were often marked by boisterous -disputes and all the venom of ill-feeling and discourtesy that sometimes -strangely enough creeps into the daily life of the learned. On one -occasion Luis de León threatened to have Castro’s book—a commentary on -Isaiah—burnt by the Inquisition. On this book Castro had spent much -trouble and much money, and the threat cut him to the quick, so that he -answered that he would have Luis de León himself burnt. And such threats -were not empty words, or the thoughtless bickering of an idle hour. That -Luis de León had many malignant enemies was amply shown at his trial.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span></p> - -<h3>III.—<span class="smcap">In a Valladolid Dungeon.</span></h3> - -<p>The order of imprisonment was issued on the 26th of February, 1572. His -goods were to be confiscated with the exception of a bed and forty -ducats to provide for his food in prison. He was to be seized, wherever -found, “in church, monastery, or other sacred place,” and he was to -bring with him nothing but clothes and linen. A curious clause adds that -“beasts of burden to carry him and his bed, etc., are to be provided at -the customary price, and the price is not to be raised.” He was thus -arrested and conducted to Valladolid. The following description of the -prison is given in the trial of Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, who had -been confined there some ten years before. “The prison consisted of two -rooms, one for him and one for two servants. They were so remote that -the Archbishop heard nothing of a fire which broke out on the 21st of -September, 1561, and, lasting for a day and a half, consumed more than -four hundred houses, some of them close to the secret prison. The stench -was so intolerable that they were obliged at times to beg that the doors -might be opened, or they would be suffocated. The infection of the place -rendered both master and servants seriously ill, and the doctors of the -Holy Office reported that it was indispensable to bathe the apartment in -pure air morning and evening. In consequence the Inquisitors arranged -that a grating should be made in the door, a device which the Archbishop -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span>scorned as adding insult to injury. The rooms were not swept ... the -shutters of the windows were kept closed, and on some days the -Archbishop had to light a candle at nine in the morning. The food was -brought on broken plates; the sheets served as table-cloth....” In a -letter written to Philip II., after two years of imprisonment, the -Archbishop says, “I fear and expect death daily, and to this end my -treatment seems to have been directed ever since I came here.” The loss -of sun and light, and the actual dirtiness and horror of the place must -have been utterly repulsive to a man of Luis de León’s temperament. In -one of his writings, “La Perfecta Casada,” he says, “Is not cleanliness -the fountain head of beauty—the first and greater part of it?” He loved -the open air, and was wont to regret the loss of liberty which even his -duties as professor at Salamanca entailed. But to the actual and severe -hardships to be undergone there was added, for the devout Catholic, the -more subtle and indefinite torture of the mind. For he could not be -certain that by some involuntary sin he had not incurred degradation in -this life, and punishment unceasing in the next, and in the loneliness -and gloom of the prison these doubts would often recur. Luis de León -acknowledged the full authority of the Inquisition, and his unqualified -submission was not forced or hypocritical, but the fruit of a sincere -conviction. The extreme clearness of his intellect was his safeguard, -and, though he bowed himself in all things to the will of the Church, he -was well assured of his own innocence. Shortly after his arrest he drew -up a profession of faith, declaring that he lived and died<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span> “now and in -the future in the faith and belief of the Holy Catholic Church, and -confessing his sins <i>con entrañable dolor</i>.” His defence was conducted -throughout in a masterly way. During these five years of suffering he -showed a fine sincerity and a clearness of argument that remind one very -strongly of Pascal. Never was his style more trenchant and lucid, his -reasoning more subtle than in the numerous “Unpublished Documents” that -have come down to us. On no occasion was the patience and humility of -the man more clearly shown. It is a strange reflection that many of -these documents, in accordance with the secrecy of the Inquisition’s -proceedings, were kept hidden from Luis de León himself, and that he -probably never knew, as we know, that he came within a little of being -examined upon the rack. In spite of his ingenious and elaborate defence, -Luis de León’s trial was a long one, and one must shudder to think of -the sufferings and despair of men of weaker metal and less subtle -intellect, such as his intimate friend Grajal, who died in prison. The -Inquisition proceeded as usual in an extremely slow and thorough -fashion. “<i>Recato y secreto</i>,” caution and secrecy, were indeed its -watchwords. Witnesses concerning Luis de León’s case were examined in -many parts of Spain, and even at Cuzco, in Peru. It were easy to declaim -against the cruelty and tyranny of the Inquisition, but on closer view -it would seem unjust to lay the blame entirely at its door. The times, -as we have noted, called for the utmost vigilance on the part of the -upholders of the true and Catholic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span> faith. They might hold themselves -bound to investigate with unwearied diligence the most trifling disputes -concerning the doctrine of the Church. Already unorthodox books had been -filtering into Spain. A translation of the Psalms had been received at -Cadiz, and one man alone, a kind of sixteenth-century Borrow, had -brought two bales of heretical books to Seville. The life of the -bookseller was rendered anxious and difficult by such proceedings. In a -letter to the Inquisitors of Valladolid we read: “The booksellers of -this town (Salamanca) have received and continue daily to receive bales -of books from France and other parts. These they dare not open for sale -without permission.” The evil must be stopped before it spread contagion -through the country. It may be argued plausibly that the firmness of the -Inquisition saved Spain from the religious dissensions that raged so -fiercely in France, Germany, and England, nor may it be forgotten that -the centuries of the Inquisition’s most rigorous power were the -centuries of Spain’s greatest literary glory.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the harm of the Inquisition was, rather, not that it affected -original thought and research, but that it created in everyday life an -intolerable spirit of suspicion and distrust. It was to the animosity of -their private enemies that the imprisonment of both Archbishop Carranza -and Luis de León was due, and it is difficult to believe in the -sincerity of the witnesses who, “without being cited” and “for the -discharge of their conscience,” laid their accusations before the -Inquisition. In the University of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span> Salamanca there was much prying and -spying, fostered by the rivalries and enmity of the professors. The -professors were elected by the votes of the students after a public -discussion between the candidates on a given theme, and this system -naturally led to considerable ill-feeling and many abuses. During -discussions in the University there would be always some one on the -watch for any specious subject of accusation. Thus, when Luis de León -maintained that “marriage was not in itself an evil but only a less -blessed state than celibacy,” León de Castro had written it down in -order to denounce it to the Inquisition, and in the same way another -professor had gone hastily out during a discussion in order to fetch pen -and ink. On one occasion, when Zuñiga was in Luis de León’s cell at -Salamanca, the latter mentioned a book which his friend, the celebrated -Arias Montano, had sent him. Zuñiga thereupon displayed suspicions of -Montano which Luis de León resented. A few days afterwards, to quote -Luis de León’s own words, “he seemed to me to be still suspicious and, -knowing that he was of a morose spirit and ever inclined to see things -in their worst light, I said to him laughingly: ‘You are indeed a -pessimist; it seems you still think ill of Montano.’ He said, ‘No; of -the man I do not think ill, but I am not certain that it is not my duty -to denounce the book.’<span class="lftspc">”</span> Luis de León goes on to say that more than two -years afterwards he also “had a fit of pessimism, and, considering the -number of heretics who had been discovered and were being discovered -daily in Spain,” determined himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span> to lay the matter before the -Inquisition—a common way of forestalling an accusation. Again, Medina -examined with most holy zeal (<i>con santísimo celo</i>) Luis de León’s -lectures and other papers. The result would be all the more fruitful in -that he would not omit the notes taken by students at the lectures, and, -as Luis de León was well aware, “ignorant students often put a quite -wrong interpretation on what the lecturer said.” Medina did, in fact, -call a meeting of students in his cell and inquired of them if they had -heard or knew of any suspicious or perverted doctrines of Luis de León. -Such methods must multiply means of attack and further spin out a trial. -Of one witness Luis de León, in his defence, said, “This witness is the -Bachelor of Arts Rodríguez, nicknamed ‘Doctor Subtle’ in the University. -I think it is he because he says I left him without an answer, and he -was the only person of that University with whom this happened. For as -he was a man of unsound judgment and sometimes asked impertinent -questions and from what he heard and did not understand collected -nonsensical answers, I grew angry and called him a fool. And at other -times, in order not to become angry and out of humour on his account, I -would give him no answer but flee from him. And he is so witless and -importunate that I remember trying to escape him both indoors and in the -Schools and in the streets, he following and asking absurd questions, I -hurrying on without answering, until at last some of my companions or -other students would push him aside and hold him back by force.” A<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span> -little picture of academic life which for vividness it would be hard to -surpass. Luis de León, indeed, was not sparing in his criticism of his -various accusers. Their names, in accordance with the custom of the -Inquisition, were kept from him, but on reading the anonymous -accusations, he referred each one to its true author with unfailing -judgment and was thus enabled to refute them with a sure hand. Of one of -the witnesses who belonged to his own order he said: “He is known among -us as a man who never speaks the truth except by accident.” Of another -he speaks satirically as “most spiritual,” <i>espiritualísimo</i>, and says -that the words “kisses,” “embraces,” “bright eyes,” and other words in -the Spanish rendering of the Song of Songs scandalized him; words, that -is, which had not struck him when he read them in Latin, shocked him now -that they were written in the romance. Luis de León was not unaware that -the worst interpretation would be put on his sayings, or reported -sayings, and he was led by this fear himself to lay many trivial details -before the Inquisition. Thus he confessed that at a lecture “the -students furthest from me bade me speak louder, for I was hoarse and -they could not hear me well, and I said: ‘I am hoarse and, you know, it -is better to speak low that the gentlemen of the Inquisition may not -hear.’<span class="lftspc">”</span> He was full of life and humour, and many a chance word spoken in -jest might be twisted by the malicious to an uncatholic implication. He -felt in prison that he was fighting blindfold against many enemies and -asked more than once to be brought face to face with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span> his accusers. “And -thus,” he says, “they speak from afar as men in safety and free, while -I, blind and in prison, cannot see who is attacking me.” Many absurd -charges were brought against him. According to one witness he “always -said low mass, even on a feast day, and no one could hear what he said -as he mumbled ‘tu, tu, tu,’ and made an end very speedily.” Another -accusation seems to have been based on a mere quibble between the words -<i>vino</i>, “wine,” and <i>vinó</i>, “came.” For at a dinner some one seems to -have asked for wine and Fray Luis to have said that it was doubtful if -it had come; but, according to the witness, all understood his answer to -refer to the coming of Christ! Another witness said that he was “a very -clever theologian, but somewhat bold in his lectures”—a charge less -petty than the preceding, but from its vagueness scarcely less -ridiculous. In the same spirit Castro “had heard say,” “thought that he -had heard”; Medina “thought that he saw in Fray Luis an inclination to -new things.” Such charges coming from enemies made his innocence, as he -said, “clearer than the light of noon.” Minute points were elaborately -dealt with. For instance, the sale of Castro’s book on Isaiah had been -spoilt, he said, by the Jews (Luis de León and his friends); according -to Luis de León, the real reason of its failure was its size and -costliness. As to the accusation of being, in fact, by descent a Jew, it -would appear that Fray Luis’ great-grandmother, or rather the second -wife of his great-grandfather, was of Jewish origin.</p> - -<p>The one serious charge was, indeed, that he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span> not give due authority -to the Vulgate. It is probable that his attitude had been inopportune at -a time when the Vulgate was being attacked on all sides by the heretics, -and that the numerous students who attended his lectures were apt to -exaggerate his doctrine.</p> - -<p>And so the trial dragged on. Luis de León began to lose patience. “If -only,” he exclaims, “the sun were divided fairly between me and my -accusers”—a metaphor borrowed from duelling. He complains frequently of -unnecessary delay. He writes to the Inquisitors, “You are delaying the -conclusion of my trial without just cause,” “without cause and to the -one end of lengthening out my imprisonment, and with the wish to put a -term to my life, since you find me without fault.” He begs that there be -no more delay “considering the length of time I have been here, and the -small cause there was for bringing me here, and the enmity and notorious -calumnies that began and occasioned this scandal.” His imprisonment, he -says, is “a long, harsh and cruel torment.” Partly constant -communications between Valladolid and Madrid caused delay. Thus a -request of Fray Luis, made on the 20th of August, did not receive an -answer from the Supreme Tribunal at Madrid till the 20th of September. -Partly, too, it must be admitted that after the scandal and excitement -caused by his imprisonment at Salamanca, where he had a host of friends -and followers, it would seem almost as if the Inquisitors were unwilling -to release him with the confession that the whole matter had been smoke -without a fire; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span> the longer the trial continued the greater, -naturally, would become their embarrassment.</p> - -<p>He was allowed some books and a few other articles. Thus he asks for a -crucifix, a brass candlestick, a knife, “to cut what I eat,” the works -of St. Leon, a Hebrew Bible, a Sophocles in Greek, a Pindar in Greek and -Latin, etc. He complains that he is not properly attended, and “it has -happened that I have fainted with hunger from having no one to give me -food, and I beg that I may be given a monk of my order to serve me if -you do not wish to allow me to die alone between four walls.” He was not -allowed the use of the Sacraments, and in his frequent illness this was -a constant torture. “You persist,” he says, “in keeping me in prison as -if I were a heretic, deprived of the use of the Sacraments, with -manifest danger to my life and to my soul, though you bring no fresh -charge against me.” He therefore begs them, pending the sentence, to -“allow me at least a free death among my monks.” Seeing that the -conclusion of his case was delayed from day to day he implores, in -another petition, to be transported to some monastery in Valladolid that -he may die there as a Christian. “This is the only thing that I solicit -or desire, since the passion of my enemies and my own sins have taken -from me all that one desires in life.”</p> - -<h3>IV.—<span class="smcap">Ex Forti Dulcedo.</span></h3> - -<p>On the 28th September, 1576, the sentence is at length pronounced. The -majority of the judges “are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span> of opinion that Fray Luis de León be put to -the torture as to his meaning, and as to what has been witnessed against -him, and as to the propositions that have been noted as heretical, in -spite of the fact that the theologians profess finally to be satisfied -with them and to give them the meaning that Fray Luis would have them -bear; and that the torture to be applied to him be moderate, seeing that -the accused is of delicate health; and that the results obtained be then -further examined.” This was the verdict of four out of the seven judges; -one gave no decision; the remaining two were of opinion that the accused -should be reprimanded in the Court of the Holy Office, and that in the -general hall of the greater Schools of Salamanca, in the presence of the -students and other persons of the University, he should declare his -propositions to be suspicious and ambiguous; that he should be forbidden -to lecture in the Schools or elsewhere, and that his translation of the -Song of Solomon should be prohibited and withdrawn from circulation.</p> - -<p>The superior and more impartial tribunal of Madrid quashed the sentence, -and Luis de León was not questioned on the rack. It ordered (7th -December, 1576) that Fray Luis de León should be acquitted and -admonished in the Court of the Holy Office to be careful in future how -he treated of matters so dangerous as those implicated in the trial. The -sentence pronounced runs as follows: “We find, in accordance with the -decrees and on the merits of the said suit, that it is our duty to -absolve and we do absolve the said Fray Luis de León from the burden<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span> of -this trial.” He requested and obtained a declaration that he had been -acquitted without penance or stain whatsoever, and was free to exercise -all his duties in the University.</p> - -<p>Luis de León’s health had never been robust, and the hardships of his -imprisonment broke it completely. That he survived is probably due to -his fortitude and mystic faith. In a dedication to Cardinal Quiroga, he -says: “When I was on trial, owing to the intrigues of certain of my -enemies, and was branded as suspicious in the faith, and was cut off not -only from the conversation but from the intercourse and very sight of -men, and was buried in a prison for five years, in the midst of all this -I felt a peace and joyfulness of spirit which I often miss now that I am -restored to the light of day and to my friends.”</p> - -<p>These years spent in prison were not passed in idleness. Besides the -business of his defence, he wrote several of his poems during this time -and his long treatise “Los Nombres de Cristo.” Many know his short poem -beginning, “Here falsehood and wrong kept me imprisoned,” and ending -with the line so often quoted in Spanish literature, “ni envidiado ni -envidioso.” And we may refer to this time of his imprisonment such -passages as “No pinta el prado aquí la primavera”—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Here with the spring the meadows are not gay<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Nor the clouds golden in the rising sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">No nightingale pours forth its plaintive lay:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But here the night is sleepless, and the day<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Is full of tears and unconsoling sorrow,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And the sad present has a sadder morrow....”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">Or the beautiful poem beginning “Virgen que el sol más pura”—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Virgin purer than the sun,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Glory of mortals, of the heavens light,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Whose pity is not less than thy great might,...”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Without the enforced leisure of these years we cannot doubt that his -“Nombres de Cristo” would never have been written, and Spanish prose -would have lacked one of its most luminous and brilliant jewels.</p> - -<p>Spanish literature owes him a great gratitude for having written in -Spanish, contrary to the prejudices of the learned, who held that a -writing to be profound must be obscure, and “marvelled that a theologian -of whom they expected some great treatise full of deep questions had -ended by writing a book in romance.” But Luis de León wished, he says, -to open the “new path” of good style, that consists “both in what is -said and in the way of saying it, and in the task of choosing the best -words of those in common use, and considering the sound of them, and -even at times of counting the letters, and weighing and measuring and -mingling them, that the matter be presented not only with clearness but -with softness and harmony.”</p> - -<p>Nearly five years after his arrest Luis de León returned to Salamanca. -He returned entirely justified, and the University welcomed him back -with rejoicing. Over the Augustinian Order especially his trial had hung -like a cloud, and the condemnation of so distinguished a professor must -have been felt as a disgrace by the whole University. The legend is well -known.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> When Luis de León resumed his lectures the entire University -thronged to hear him. He was enjoined by the Inquisition to preserve -complete silence as to its proceedings, but this was an occasion at -least for subtle and indirect allusions, and for the excitement of -general sympathy. Luis de León rose in the crowded room and began his -lecture with the words: “Gentlemen, we were saying yesterday,” and so -continued his course. The intervening five years were obliterated. The -story is so thoroughly in keeping with the character of the man, whose -simplicity and sincere humility produced an effect unattainable by the -most studious artifice, that we would willingly maintain its truth. We -would thrust aside the prosaic facts that Luis de León did not resume -his lectures, the chair having been occupied in his absence, and he -acquiescing in this on his return (<i>la daba por bien empleada</i>), and -that, when he was assigned another course of lectures, a long dispute -arose in the University as to the hour at which he should deliver them. -We may say at least that, if the story is not literal in the facts, in -spirit it is essentially true. The quaint kind of pulpit from which the -words were spoken, and the lecture-room with its rough-hewn benches, are -still preserved in the University at Salamanca, and the sublime words, -“<i>Decíamos ayer</i>,” form part of the <i>repertoire</i> of the tourist’s -cicerone.</p> - -<p>Luis de León, on the recovery of his freedom, might exclaim, in the -words of the Persiles of Cervantes (Cervantes, who professed himself -Luis de León’s “reverent votary and follower,” <i>á quien yo<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span> reverencio, -adoro y sigo</i>): “I give you thanks, immense and merciful Heavens, that -you have brought me to die where your light may look upon my death, and -not in the shades of the dark prison-house which I now leave.” He -survived for fifteen years, dying on the 23rd of August, 1591, nine days -after being promoted from Vicar-General to Provincial of his Order. His -good humour and natural gaiety, his unselfishness and common-sense, won -for him many and strong friendships—we feel, indeed, that he was a man -not without failings, but entirely lovable. He had been commanded by the -Inquisitor-General to publish his own works, and was entrusted with the -publication of those of Santa Teresa. His second Inquisition trial arose -apparently from a lecture on the vexed question of predestination and -freewill. It was declared that the University of Salamanca was greatly -scandalized at the boldness with which he maintained that the contrary -of his own opinion was heresy. The matter, however, ended by his being -“benevolently and lovingly admonished” at Toledo. Besides these and many -other occupations, he gave ungrudging help to the Carmelite nuns in -asserting their independence, which was threatened by a reform -sanctioned by Philip II. The Pope, indeed, was favourable to the nuns, -but the King opposed the Papal Brief, and Luis de León is reported to -have said: “It is impossible to carry out a single order of His Holiness -in Spain.” The story that Fray Luis died of grief on account of the -King’s anger at this opposition is certainly untrue, although it is -likely enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>{184}</span> that the King was annoyed. He is said to have exclaimed: -“Quien le mete á Frai Luis en estas cosas?—What has Fray Luis to do in -this <i>galère</i>?” Luis de León’s life was thus not without many turmoils. -But we may like best to think of him, as in the description in his -“Nombres de Cristo,” “in the month of June, after the Feast of St. John -when the Salamanca term breaks up,” retiring from a long year of work to -the country house possessed by his monastery on the banks of the Tormes. -There, in the great garden of trees growing without order, with a stream -“running and pausing as if in laughter,” and with the winding river -Tormes in sight—“a place far better than the professor’s chair”—he -would meditate alone or converse with friends “in the cool of the -morning, on a day most calm and bright;” “for,” he says elsewhere in the -same work, “it may be that in towns there is more refinement of speech, -but fineness of sentiment is of the country and of solitude.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a>{185}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX<br /><br /> -THE MODERN SPANISH NOVEL</h2> - -<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">Revival. Fernán Caballero</span></h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE success of “Don Quixote” might have been expected to fire a host of -imitators, but the seventeenth century in Spain was given rather to the -drama than to the novel, and the eighteenth century “was an age of -barrenness in Spain, so far as concerns romance.”<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> In the first half -of the nineteenth century the Spanish novel was for the most part a pale -imitation of Sir Walter Scott, and these somewhat insipid romances, in -spite of the wealth of subjects afforded by Spanish history, were not -genuinely Spanish; they were due to a taste imported by returning -exiles, and were not a natural growth of the soil. Thus the Condesa -Pardo Bazán could say that in Spain the novel has no yesterday, only an -<i>anteayer</i>, a day before yesterday, and the appearance of Fernán -Caballero’s “La Gaviota” was hailed by a Spanish critic as a link -between Cervantes and the nineteenth century. It marked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a>{186}</span> indeed, the -revival of realistic fiction in Spain. Cecilia Böhl von Faber, daughter -of a distinguished German settled in Spain, was born in Switzerland in -1796, but passed nearly the whole of her life in Spain, and chiefly at -Seville. She combined German depth with the wit and clear vision of -Andalucía. A discerning Madrid critic reviewing “La Gaviota,” the first -published work of the then unknown Fernán Caballero—it had been written -first in French, and now appeared in Spanish in the pages of “El -Heraldo” (1848-49)—said that it displayed a mixture of the German and -Andalusian Schools, the pencil of Dürer, and the colouring of Murillo. A -character in “La Gaviota” observes: “Were I Queen of Spain, I would -command a novel of customs to be written in every province.” It was the -<i>novela de costumbres</i> that Fernán Caballero wrote with such brilliant -success. She wished, she said, to show Spain as it really was, and not -as it was commonly painted by foreigners.</p> - -<p>Cecilia Böhl von Faber was thrice married—to Spaniards—and it was as -Marquesa de Arco Hermoso, living on her husband’s estate at Dos -Hermanas, a small village near Seville, that the idea first occurred to -her to collect the fast-disappearing customs and traditions of the -peasants. She came into frequent touch with them owing to her wish to -learn their individual needs, and know how best to administer her -charity. The thirteen years from her second marriage in 1822, to the -death of the Marqués de Arco Hermoso, in 1835, were spent mainly at -Seville, at their house in the <i>Plaza de San Vicente</i>, or in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>{187}</span> -neighbourhood. The story <i>La Familia de Albareda</i>, the scene of which is -Dos Hermanas, was then written, from events that actually occurred in -this village, although it was not published till later. It was when her -third husband was absent in Australia that she thought of publishing her -stories, and took her <i>nom de plume</i> from a small village of La Mancha, -called Fernán Caballero. The appearance of “La Gaviota,” which is, -indeed, one of the best, if not the best, of Fernán’s novels, aroused -considerable surprise and enthusiasm, and many surmises as to who might -be the author. It was a work so unlike the romantic tales and insipid -imitations then in vogue; it showed so fresh and spontaneous an -inspiration. Here were no echoes of older novelists; all was written -from keen personal observation, and the reader was enabled by the -author’s art to realize in words scenes and characters which he had -known and felt, but had been unable to express.</p> - -<p>After the tragic death of her third husband, in 1859, Fernán Caballero -was firmly resolved to enter a convent, but her friends did their utmost -to dissuade her, and she believed, moreover, that the only books she -would be allowed to read would be those of devotion. Finally she gave up -this idea, and lived for nearly ten years in one of the houses of the -<i>Patio de las Banderas</i> in the Seville Alcázar, granted to her by Queen -Isabel II. It would be difficult to imagine a more pleasant home for a -writer. On one side the beautiful gardens of the Alcázar, with their -myrtles, palms, and oranges, clipped box-hedges, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>{188}</span> white marble -fountains; on the other the <i>Plaza del Triunfo</i>, planted with -orange-trees, acacias and palms, and the Cathedral and wonderful Giralda -tower. The Revolution of 1868 came to destroy this peace. The Alcázar -became for the time the property of the nation, and Fernán Caballero was -driven to seek a home elsewhere. She was for other reasons, as a devout -Roman Catholic and Royalist, deeply distressed by the Revolution and its -sacrilegious results in Seville. The pettiness of many revolutionary -measures was shown by the fact that the night-watchmen—the -<i>serenos</i>—of Seville were forbidden, in calling out the hours, to use -the traditional preface “Ave María Purísima.” Fernán Caballero obtained -the reversal of this decree. She lived to listen with tears of joy to -the bells of the Giralda, as they rang out the news of the Restoration -and the beginning of Alfonso XII.’s reign. She was then living in the -curving, silent bye-steet that now bears her name. No. 14 is -distinguished from the other houses by having, besides the <i>patio</i>, a -garden with a large lemon-tree, and other shrubs. Here she died in the -spring of 1877, in her eighty-first year. The Queen came to visit her -here, and a memorial tablet was placed above the entrance of the house -by her friends the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier.</p> - -<p>The quality that gives imperishable value to Fernán’s work is its truth: -the scenes are at once felt to be real, the characters are living. She -reproduces the lively mirth and malicious wit of the <i>andaluz</i> peasant, -the gay laughter-loving nature of the Sevillians, with their keen -perception of the false<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a>{189}</span> and the ridiculous. She describes a Seville -<i>patio</i> (in “Elia”), or a bull-fight (in “La Gaviota”), or a country -house, <i>quinta</i> (in “Clemencia”), or a deserted convent (in “La -Gaviota”) with a delicate minuteness of detail that brings them vividly -before us. Writing of simple, everyday events, as in the preface she -characterizes those of “Elia,” she paints them with unsurpassed -clearness and vigour, and much of the piquancy and charm, the <i>sal y -pimienta</i>, of the South is in her pages. There are in her works some -scenes that in sobriety and psychological skill are worthy of Stendhal. -Her characters are drawn from life with the sure and penetrating -analysis of genius. Perhaps the best example of all is the character of -Marisalada in “La Gaviota,” but the slighter figures, the conservative -General Santa María and the bull-fighter Pepe Vera, in the same novel, -the vivacious, charitable Asistenta in “Elia” (having much in common -with Fernán’s own character), who is unmoved by the discovery of a Roman -epitaph on one of her farms and refuses to believe that there is a land -where bishops marry, Marcial and Jenaro in “Lágrimas”—all these and -many more are sketched with masterly skill. It is when they treat of -country scenes and peasant life that the novels of Fernán Caballero are -at their best, as the first half of “La Gaviota” in the village of -Villamar, or a part of “Clemencia” (1852) in the village of Villa-María. -The character of Don Martín of Villa-María and the scene of his -interview with the importunate Tía Latrana are thoroughly in the manner -of Pereda. So, too, is the wife of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>{190}</span> village mayor in “Lágrimas.” -“Haber gastadu mis cuartus” she exclaims—and the use of dialect, so -freely employed by Pereda, is noticeable—“en facere de esse fillu meu -un hulgazán! Non me lo dejú para esu mi tíu Bartulumé, es verdad.” The -foreigners at Seville are portrayed with less sympathy; so we have Sir -John Burnwood, who has come to Seville in order to ride up the Giralda, -and, finding this impossible, proposes to buy the Alcázar, or Sir George -Percy, who is admitted to have noble qualities, but allowed to show -unmistakably bad taste.</p> - -<p>Fernán Caballero is not afraid of interrupting her story by digressions, -whether their object be to inculcate virtue, to exalt the Roman Catholic -religion, or to ridicule the importers of foreign fashions and foreign -phrases into Spain. Sometimes, as in “Lágrimas,” this is carried to -excess and rather spoils the effect of the story, but in most of her -works the digressions are never altogether wearisome; the original and -fascinating character that won for Cecilia Böhl von Faber a host of -friends is not often or for long absent from the novels and <i>relaciones</i> -of Fernán Caballero. It has been observed that “La Gaviota,” though it -contains scarcely any action, has not a line too much. “No aspiramos á -causar efecto,” says the preface of “La Familia de Albareda,” and it is -this very absence of thrilling action or melodramatic effect that gives -so permanent a charm to Fernán’s works. For a proper appreciation of -Seville and Andalucía they are invaluable: there is not one of them in -which some trait explanatory of the Sevillian and <i>andaluz</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a>{191}</span> characters -does not appear. A recent Spanish writer quite unjustly denies that -Fernán Caballero shows any of the <i>sal andaluza</i>, and is of opinion that -her work has not left a deep trace in Spanish literature, but must be -considered rather as a preparation for the higher flights of the -novelists who followed. It is difficult to agree with this view. Fernán -Caballero not only hoisted the flag of true Spanish realism, and pointed -to a land of promise, but carved for herself a very real and abiding -empire in this land of her rediscovery.</p> - -<h3>II.—1870-1900.</h3> - -<p>In 1864 Pereda published his first work, “Escenas montañesas,” and ten -years later, and three before the death of Fernán Caballero, appeared -Valera’s first novel, “Pepita Jiménez,” and Alarcón’s “El Sombrero de -tres picos.” Since 1874 scarcely a year has passed without producing a -Spanish novel that deserves a high rank in literature. Yet Pereda<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> -did not at once impose himself, and early in 1874 Pérez Galdós could put -the following words into the mouth of one of the characters in <i>Napoleón -en Chamartín</i>: “In the matter of novels we are so far astray that, after -producing the source of all the novels of the world, and the most -entertaining book ever written by man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a>{192}</span> Spain is now unable to compose a -novel of more worth than a grain of mustard seed, and translates these -sentimental French stories.”</p> - -<p>Similarly, Señor Menéndez y Pelayo remarks that “about the year 1870, -the date of Pérez Galdós’ first book, the Spanish novel was slumbering -in the arms of insipid or monstrous productions, <i>entre ñoñerías y -monstruosidades</i>.” There is little insipidity or sentimentalism in the -more modern Spanish novel. Realism is the dominant note of Spanish -literature. The very atmosphere of Spain makes for clear vision. Its -artists are realistic, even brutally realistic, as Goya occasionally is; -even its mystics have not been wrapped wholly from the world: they do -not live in a cloud, insensible to the real facts of life. And in the -same way the great Spanish novelists are realistic. There is, however, a -true Castilian dignity about their realism. They do not, in George -Meredith’s phrase, mistake the “muddy shallows” for the depths of -Nature. They may treat of the vulgar and the base, but they do not treat -of them in a way that is vulgar and base. They may be as outspoken as -Martial, but their realism is eminently sane and clean.</p> - -<p>The modern fashion, strongly in favour of realism, should do justice to -the merits of Spanish novels. It is no doubt guided by the love of -contrast that caused Stendhal, a romantic and an enthusiast at heart, to -read pages of the “Code Civil” before writing his novels, and to adopt a -style mathematically cold and thin, and Flaubert, a poet, to analyse a -subject so vulgar<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>{193}</span> as that of <i>Madame Bovary</i>. A simpler age may delight -in works of a fantastic imagination, but a more complex and perhaps -hypocritical age must have truth and away with vagueness and pretence.</p> - -<p>Minds so complicated and many-sided as to be rarely themselves, admire -the simple and concrete, and the Spanish genius, which is essentially -objective, answers to this taste both in its literature and in its art. -Yet it is characteristic that in many Spanish novels realism and -mysticism go hand in hand. That peculiarly Spanish mysticism which shows -its false side in Clarín’s “La Regenta,” its practical spirit in Palacio -Valdés’ “Marta y María,” its sadness in Azorín’s “La Voluntad,” is by no -writer more sympathetically treated than by Juan Valera, in “Pepita -Jiménez” and other novels. Valera was too great an artist to belong to -any school. He repeated in many prefaces that his aim was not to -instruct or to edify, but rather to give pleasure. The old heresy that -works of art should edify has had great influence in Spain, and it makes -its presence felt in modern novels with a set purpose, <i>romans à thèse</i>. -It cast its shadow over the work of Fernán Caballero and Pereda, and, -passing to the enemy, reappears at intervals in Pérez Galdós and Blasco -Ibáñez. But Valera would have none of it. A novel, he said, “should be -poetry, not history, that is, it should paint things not as they are but -fairer than they are, illuminating them with a light that may cast over -them a certain charm.” The magic of his style, which he caught by his -own confession from the great Spanish mystics of the sixteenth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>{194}</span> and -seventeenth centuries, supplied this charm, and is sufficient to make -his work imperishable. It is a charm that is exquisite and escapes -analysis, reminding of that metallic lustre in ancient Spanish -<i>azulejos</i>, or glazed tiles, of which modern manufacturers in vain seek -to recapture the secret. Valera was not, in a strict sense, a great -novelist. The construction of his stories is often weak, and the -characters all speak the language of Don Juan Valera. “In Valera,” it -has been said, “there are no Sanchos, all are Valeras.” He was himself -aware of these limitations. He would sometimes say in a preface that he -was not certain if his book were or were not a novel, and as to the -invariably polished speech of his characters, the conversation of the -nurse Antoñona with Luis de Vargas, in “Pepita Jiménez,” is accounted -for by the fact that she had prayed that it might be given her to speak -on this occasion, not in grotesque language, as was her wont, but in -elegant and cultured style. Similarly, Juana la Larga says to her -discreet daughter Juanita, “All that you have said seems to be taken -from the books that Don Pascual gives you to read.”</p> - -<p>But Valera could delineate characters skilfully. In his longest novel, -“Las Ilusiones del Doctor Faustino,” the hero, Señor Don Faustino López -y Mendoza, is in some degree a typical figure of modern Spain. Living in -his half ruinous ancestral house in the village of Villabermeja, he -feels himself to be capable of great deeds, but achieves nothing. He -laments not being of humble birth to become a brigand like the great -José María, he laments not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>{195}</span> having been born in the eleventh or twelfth -century to carve out for himself a kingdom with his sword, and he ends -by obtaining a modest post at Madrid, which brings him little over £100 -a year. Valera’s creations have only seemed unreal because, through the -alchemy of his style, he is a King Midas, turning all to gold, and the -excellence of his art raises his figures to the level of statues in -Parian marble. They are not, therefore, less lifelike; because he has an -“exquisite adjustment of word to thought,”<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> it does not follow that -he is “without life and passion”<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a>—rather the passion is raised to a -white heat, with the flames no longer visible. And in his descriptions -he is a true realist, giving us the light and laughter of Andalucía. His -“Juanita la Larga” is a charming sketch of life in an Andalusian village -that may recall Alarcón’s “El Sombrero de tres picos.” Some of the most -laughter-rousing scenes of “El Sombrero de tres picos” pass in the -little stone-paved court in front of a flour mill, a quarter of a league -from a certain cathedral town in Andalucía. The court is shaded by a -huge vine-trellis, sufficiently thick and solid for the miller to -sleep—or pretend to sleep—unnoticed among its leaves. It is a brief, -delightful sketch, coloured and malicious, of Andalusian life in the -first years of the nineteenth century. To Andalucía also belong two -novels by Palacio Valdés, “La Hermana San Sulpicio” and “Los Majos de -Cádiz.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>{196}</span> But it is Andalucía described not by a native but by a -stranger, for Palacio Valdés is of the North. He has a sense of humour -rather English than Spanish, and he is, indeed, almost as well known out -of Spain as within the Peninsula. It is a humour less bitter and -aggressive than that of another Asturian, Leopoldo Alas, with whom -Valdés collaborated in a volume of critical essays. As a sketcher of -character, Valdés is admirable. Gloria, the typically Andalusian girl, -and the Gallegan Sanjurjo are both excellently drawn in “La Hermana San -Sulpicio.” The scene of his “Marta y María” is laid in an old town of -Astúrias—the author is now in his native country—surrounded by a wide -level of meadows and gently sloping hills to the <i>ría</i>, bordered by -immense pine woods and the sea. It is a novel even more delightful than -“La Hermana San Sulpicio.” The scene of “La Aldea perdida” is also -Astúrias. It is a pastoral symphony, an Asturian counterpart to Pereda’s -“El Sabor de la Tierruca,” a charming story—in spite of its theatrical -ending—of village rivalries and reconciliations in a land wooded with -chestnuts and oaks and cider-apples, a land of maize and cool green -fields of trefoil, and mountain paths hedged with honeysuckle. But in -other works Palacio Veldés has not maintained this Spanish inspiration. -In “La Espuma,” “Maximina,” “La Fe,” the influence is that of the French -naturalistic School. <i>Clarín</i> (Leopoldo Alas), though born at Zamora -also an Asturian, was likewise deeply influenced by France in his long -work “La Regenta.” In one of his critical essays <i>Clarín</i> wrote that -“Spanish realism<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a>{197}</span> is very Spanish; it is in the race. But it has its -defects, <i>no todo en él es flores</i>; it is deficient in psychology and -the poetry of passion.” In “La Regenta” we have passion and -psychological analysis and epigrammatic wit. The scene is the old -cathedral city of Vetusta (or rather Oviedo). The treatment is not -characteristically Spanish. Vetusta is here a typical provincial town, -such as Flaubert might have described and hated, and its inhabitants are -almost all represented as ignorant, vulgar, or vicious. Their stupidity -and vulgarity are lashed with an ingenious subtlety that is unsparing, -and the motives guiding their actions are laid bare with an amazing -skill. <i>Clarín’s</i> humour is often a little cruel, and the novel is -crowded with terse and biting phrases. One of the readers of the Vetusta -<i>casino</i>—the worthiest of them, <i>Clarín</i> is careful to assure us—is -thus pilloried in a few lines: “He arrived at nine o’clock every evening -without fail, took <i>Le Figaro</i> and <i>The Times</i>, which he placed over <i>Le -Figaro</i>, put on his gold spectacles, and, lulled by the sound of the -gas, fell gently asleep over the foremost paper of the world, a -privilege which no one sought to dispute. Shortly after his death of -apoplexy, over <i>The Times</i>, it was discovered that he knew no English.”</p> - -<p>The most prominent figure among living Spanish novelists is undoubtedly -Don Benito Pérez Galdós. In his “Episodios Nacionales,” the troubled -history of Spain in the nineteenth century, from the wars against -Napoleon to the death of Prim, passes before us in a Spanish human -comedy. We see the noble<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a>{198}</span> death of Churruca in the battle of Trafalgar, -we witness the brief, feverish defence of Madrid before Napoleon, the -heroic sieges of Zaragoza and Gerona, the stubborn resistance of Bilbao -to the troops of Zumalacárregui in the first Carlist war; later we see -Isabel II. silently crossing the French frontier at Irun, the effect of -Castelar’s eloquence in the Cortes, Prim landing at Cadiz—these and a -hundred more principal actors and events are marshalled in a succession -of novels now numbering over forty. Pérez Galdós continues to write with -undiminished vigour. The forty-second episode, “España Trágica” (1909), -pictures Madrid opinion in street and <i>café</i> during the year 1870, when -Spain was “in high fever,” choosing a king. The book ends with a vivid -account of the assassination of Prim. His long and difficult task was -crowned with success, but his presence was needed now more than ever to -check the hostility of the federalists on the one hand, of the -aristocracy on the other. It was the 27th December, 1870, and on the -following day he was to travel to Cartagena in order to receive the Duke -of Aosta. He had just left the Congreso. The night was bitterly cold and -the carriage rolled silently through the snow in almost deserted -streets. It was noticed that first one man and then a second stopped in -the street to light a cigar. This was apparently a signal. A little -further on, in the <i>Calle del Turco</i>, a carriage blocked the way, and -almost immediately the windows of Prim’s carriage crashed in on both -sides and he fell back, wounded by more than one bullet. The -forty-third<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a>{199}</span> Episode, “Amadeo I.” (1910), describes the reign of the -Italian prince which began thus tragically with the murder of Prim, -continued for two years in a tragi-comedy, and ended with the dignified -withdrawal of the loyal and disinterested “rey caballero,” who had been -wilfully and persistently misunderstood and slighted by the subjects who -had invited him to reign over them. With the Queen and their three -children, including the infant Duke of the Abruzzi, he descended the -steps of the <i>Palacio del Oriente</i> for the last time “entre alabarderos -rígidos, sin música ni voces que turbaran el fúnebre silencio. Sólo el -rumor de las pisadas marcaba el lento caminar de una época” (February, -1873). With this and a volume on the first Spanish Republic,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> the -fifth and final series of the Episodes marches rapidly towards -completion. For forty years novels and plays from Pérez Galdós’ pen have -appeared at the rate of two or more a year, and some of the novels are -of considerable length—“Fortunata y Jacinta” has something like two -thousand pages. Well-drawn characters and skilfully reconstructed scenes -abound, but a weariness sometimes overcomes the reader. For these novels -scarcely seem to have an end or a beginning; there is no plot or -concentration of interest. Perhaps for this very reason they are an -extremely faithful presentation of life. No one would dispute Pérez -Galdós’ great talent as a writer, but his admirers may regret that he -does not pause to draw more complete pictures with finished art. In his -anti-clerical<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a>{200}</span> novel, “Doña Perfecta,” Don Inocencio represents the -influence of the priest in the family. Doña Perfecta, in league with the -priest, secretly sets the whole force of her wealth and power in -mediæval Orbajosa in the scale against her nephew, Pepe, who wishes to -marry her only child, Rosario. Pepe is looked upon in Orbajosa as an -atheist and <i>hors la loi</i>, although he is merely a modern man of -science. There is no acknowledged opposition: Doña Perfecta meets him -invariably with a pleasant smile; but his letters are opened and -confiscated, he finds a spirit of steady though veiled hostility in Doña -Perfecta’s house and in Orbajosa, he is assured that Rosario does not -love him, and he cannot convince or overcome insidious enemies who never -come into the open. Finally, Doña Perfecta becomes the murderess of her -nephew, though in such a way that her conscience is entirely free from -sense of guilt. The end justifies the means. The character of Doña -Perfecta is developed with consummate skill; Palacio Valdés thirteen -years later drew a slighter sketch on the same lines—Doña Tula, -Gloria’s mother (in “La Hermana San Sulpicio,” 1889). No doubt there are -towns in Spain such as Orbajosa, where the spirit of the Church is -bigoted and Jesuitical, opposed to all progress; or such as Nieva, in -“Marta y María,” where the people consider María to be a saint who can -work miracles, and bring children for her to cure them with a look, and -her confessor encourages the belief; or such as Vetusta, in “La -Regenta,” where Don Fermín combines a high position in the Chapter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a>{201}</span> of -the Cathedral with a steady traffic in Church furniture and ornaments. -Yet one may sometimes wonder whether the anti-Clericals are not too -inclined to attribute all the ills of Spain to the influence of the -priests. “Valgame Dios y qué vida nos hemos de dar, Sancho amigo,” they -seem to say, as if the dissolution of the religious orders and the -separation of Church and State would at once spell prosperity in Spain. -The religious communities are numerous and rich; beggars, as at -Orbajosa, are also numerous (and occasionally rich), but it would be -unfair to lay the blame of poverty and backwardness entirely on the -Church. There are many other causes, one of them the dissipated, -careless life of society in the large towns, sketched by el padre Luis -Coloma in his novel “Pequeñeces,” and by Pérez Galdós himself in “El -Caballero Encantado.”</p> - -<h3>III.—<span class="smcap">In the Twentieth Century.</span></h3> - -<p>The novel continues to hold the field in Spanish literature. The early -years of the twentieth century saw the death of two splendid writers, -Valera (1824-1905), and Pereda (1833-1906), and Leopoldo Alas died in -1901. Of the older novelists, Pérez Galdós, the Condesa Pardo -Bazán,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Palacio Valdés, and Jacinto Octavio Picón<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> still remain, -and a brilliant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a>{202}</span> group of younger writers is ready to pass on the torch -undimmed. Pérez Galdós’ “El Caballero Encantado” is dated July-December, -1909. Writing immediately after the Barcelona riots, it was natural that -the condition and future of Spain should be in his thoughts, and an -allegorical figure representing Spain or the spirit of the race plays a -prominent part in the book. The novel has, indeed, a little too much of -the marvellous and the symbolical, and when the hero by a last -transformation becomes a fish in the river Tagus, we are uncomfortably -reminded of the spurious and fantastical continuation of <i>Lazarillo de<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a>{203}</span> -Tormes</i>, in which Lázaro is transformed into a tunny-fish. The reason -given by Señor Pérez Galdós is, however, excellent: “To this sad -dwelling (the silent depths of the Tagus) come those who by their -loquacity have drowned the will and thought of Spanish life in an ocean -of words. Nearly all those here present are orators. They spoke much, -and did nothing. Some of them are masters of high-sounding phrases, -conjurers who, by the magic of their art and the vanity of their -rhetoric, transformed the tower of eloquence into a tower of Babel.” The -theme of the book is that Don Carlos de Tarsis, the young Marqués de -Mudarra, deputy for a district of the geographical existence of which he -has but a vague idea, who lives at Madrid, and spends with both hands -the money drained from his estates, is magically changed into a -farm-labourer on his land, or rather, on the land that was his, and now -belongs in part to his agent, in part to his usurer. For to meet the -expenses of his idle and dissipated life he must have money at any cost; -but when the rents of his tenants are raised they emigrate, and his -agent, who attributes the backwardness of agriculture in Spain to the -fact that “the great land-owners live far from their estates as though -they were ashamed of them,” supplies him with ever-diminishing sums, -till he is reduced to penury and usurers. Tarsis recognizes that he is a -most unworthy acolyte of Idleness, and that his only merit is “the -brutal sincerity of his pessimism,” but he “would rather die than work.” -So far the character is drawn from life, and it is only in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a>{204}</span> -vagueness of the subsequent enchantments that the effect of the novel -becomes veiled and uncertain. From a farm-labourer he successively -becomes shepherd, quarryman, tramp, and criminal—all with much needless -magic—till, by the final ordeal of silence in the golden Tagus, he is -restored to his original being as Marqués de Mudarra, a chastened and a -wiser marquis. Stress is laid on the miserable state of the poor, -compared with the immunity of the rich. Famishing men are dragged off to -prison for rooting up onions on a rich man’s estate, and shot down by -the Guardia Civil when they try to escape—the official report runs: -“the prisoners attempted to escape, and were overtaken by an accident -from which a natural death ensued.” There is perhaps a greater air of -reality about the account of the rich <i>Caciques</i>, owners of vast estates -or <i>latifundios</i>, who pay to the Treasury but a tenth part of the proper -land-tax, who falsify returns at elections, protect criminals, and -assault honest folk, while the judges are their creatures. This -<i>Caciquismo</i> is part of the deplorable administration of Spain. Señor -Pérez Galdós who, as a native of the Canary Islands, has the double -advantage of looking at Spain as it were from within and from without, -returns to the question of words and deeds, the wealth of words and the -scantiness of action, with an insistence which must be excessively -annoying to a Spanish reader. Yet he does not despair of Spain’s future. -He sees hope in the proved vitality of the race, in its quick recoveries -after misfortune, its heroism even under self-inflicted sufferings: -“The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a>{205}</span> ineffable follies of my sons have plunged me (<i>i.e.</i> Spain) in -despair, and in the darkness of despair my death has seemed certain and -inevitable. And then in some terrible crisis that appeared to ensure my -destruction, I have revived when they were carrying me from the -death-bed to the grave.”</p> - -<p>The best work of Pereda was of the Mountain, Valera and Fernán Caballero -write of Andalucía, Palacio Valdés of Astúrias, and similarly the -Gallegans, Valle-Inclán and Señora Pardo Bazán have found their best -inspiration in Galicia, and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez in his native -Valencia. Valencia is a fertile land of fierce heat and dazzling -light—the light so wonderfully reflected in the work of the Valencian -painter Joaquín Sorolla. Blasco Ibánez has written some striking novels -that have no connection with Valencia, but his best and most delightful -work is steeped in the life of the immense Valencian plain (in “La -Barraca,” an intense story of a boycott of the Huerta); of the city of -Valencia (in “Arroz y Tartana”); of the rice-growing, fever-stricken -marshes of the Albufera, famous for its fishing and shooting, near -Valencia (“Cañas y Barro”); of the fishermen and smugglers of El Grao -and the Valencian coastline (“Flor de Mayo”); of love among the oranges -in the orchard of Spain (“Entre Naranjos”). Blasco Ibáñez excels in -portraying the lives and thoughts and struggles of the simple fisherman -and peasant—hardworking as Batiste, or magnificently idle as Pimentó; -and in describing popular customs and traditions,—a simple procession -in floodtime (as in “Entre Naranjos”) or the dances<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a>{206}</span> and <i>festeigs</i>, -courtings, of the <i>atlóts</i> and <i>atlotas</i> of Ibiza (in “Los Muertos -mandan”). The hero of “Los Muertos mandan” (1909), Don Jaime or Chaume, -is not a peasant, but a member of an ancient family of Mallorcan nobles, -hemmed in by tradition and inherited instincts. The background, however, -of descriptions of Mallorca and lawless peasant life in Ibiza, with its -woods and orchards and white farms girt by a green transparent sea, -contribute more powerfully to the charm of the book than the wrestling -of Don Jaime against the clinging influence of the innumerable dead, who -still prevail. But, indeed, Blasco Ibáñez’ presentation of any strenuous -life-struggle is forcible and imposing. It reflects his own personality. -His creed is one of restless striving and discontent with the apathy too -frequent in Spain. His activity is immense: though little over forty -years of age, his novels are already many in number, short stories and -articles are continually appearing from his pen, he lectures, travels, -translates, publishes, controls a Valencian paper, <i>El Pueblo</i>, and till -the autumn of 1908 represented Valencia in Parliament as a Republican; -now his energies are occupied in founding two towns—to be called New -Valencia and Cervantes—for colonies of Valencians in the Argentine.</p> - -<p>Blasco Ibáñez once wrote a long novel of the French Revolution, “Viva la -República!” and in his ideas and in his art the influence of France has, -no doubt, been very strong. His ideas sometimes trespass on his art, as -in “La Catedral,” where, in the person of Gabriel Luna, he declaims -tediously and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>{207}</span> without mercy. His novels, as a rule, show an admirable -unity. In each of his heroes we see Blasco Ibáñez: but Blasco Ibáñez -entirely identified with the peasant Batiste (in “La Barraca”), or the -painter Renovales (in “La Maja Desnuda”), or the Socialist Luna (in “La -Catedral”), or the bull-fighter Gallardo (in “Sangre y Arena”). His very -manner catches the atmosphere and colour of the surroundings he -describes. He becomes vulgar in the descriptions of commercial, crowded -Valencia, wearisome in details of the feasts of its <i>bourgeois</i> and the -various foods of its market-place (in “Arroz y Tartana”); he can be -magnificently simple, with the soul of a peasant or a fisherman (in “La -Barraca” and “Flor de Mayo”), and the fertile Huerta gives free scope to -his luxuriant art, his overflow of poetry and imagination. This power of -concentration, which Blasco Ibáñez possesses in so high a degree, is -rare in Spanish literature. The heroes of Blasco Ibáñez’ novels are men -strong to labour, persistent before defeat. They are almost always -defeated and die, Gallardo in the arena, Luna assassinated in Toledo -Cathedral, the Pascuals, fishermen of three generations, drowned in -storms off the Valencian coast. But the dominant note of his novels is -still “E pur si muove,” and in spirit his heroes are as unconquerable as -Don Quixote. He has Zola’s power of describing crowds; in “La Horda” -appears the multitude of hucksters and street-sellers that haunt the -Madrid <i>Rastro</i>; and similarly the background of “Luna Benamor” (1909) -is formed by a vivid description of Gibraltar, with its motley<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a>{208}</span> crowd of -Spaniards and Jews and Moors and Englishmen. His prose is suited to -these descriptions; it is living, coloured, tumultuous, sometimes -hurried and careless—a Spanish critic speaks of his <i>barbarismos -gramaticales</i>. From so voluminous and passionate a writer we should -expect nothing of the polished or the exquisite, his work is in the -rough; in a sense its incorrect ardour is Spanish, but its persistent -energy is a refreshing note in Spain, and may well cover an occasional -fault of taste or an ungrammatical sentence here and there. His works -are nearly always striking and original, however hurried may have been -their composition.</p> - -<p>It has been remarked that the younger Spanish novelists are rather -thinkers than artists, and Pío Baroja, Martínez Ruiz (<i>Azorín</i>) and -Valle-Inclán have introduced an almost alien note into Spanish -literature. It is significant that two at least of these writers, -<i>Azorín</i> and Pío Baroja, are keen admirers of the essentially -intellectual art of El Greco: Theotocopuli has cast over them the spell -of his ascetically thin figures and cold attenuated tints. Pío Baroja is -almost Russian in his pitilessly accurate descriptions, in his rebellion -against the facts of life and his championship of the -persecuted—outcasts, criminals, and vagabonds. In “La Ciudad de la -Niebla” (1909), “The City of Fog,” he brings his clear, almost -photographic, vision to bear on London, and chiefly on the dingier -districts, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, the squalid labyrinth of streets -off Shaftesbury Avenue, the Docks, the Embankment. Similarly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>{209}</span> in “César -ó Nada” (1910) he continues to write in a spirit of mocking reckless -individualism. The narrative is but a slender thread to string together -his observations of men and places.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> <i>Azorín</i>, again, is not -concerned with the form of his novels. He is a thinker, a psychological -analyst, who deliberately disregards construction. Yuste, in “La -Voluntad,” voices the author’s opinions; “Particularly,” he says, “the -novel must have no plot; life itself has no plot: it is varied, -many-sided, floating, contradictory—everything except symmetrical, -geometrical, rigid, as it appears in novels.” The novel must give -fragments, separate sensations. In “Las Confesiones de un pequeño -filósofo” <i>Azorín</i> gives us his original impressions, his fragmentary -sensations of “figures et choses qui passaient” in a style full of -poetry and charm. His “La Voluntad” is a book very modern in its -restless thought and individualistic philosophy. It has that originality -of which Yuste, the philosopher of the book, speaks as consisting in -“something undefinable, a secret fascination of thought, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a>{210}</span> mysterious -suggestiveness of ideas.” The rare charm of <i>Azorín’s</i> style and his -skill in descriptions, <i>emoción del paisaje, imaginatio locorum</i>, clothe -with serenity his “obstinate questionings of sense and outward things,” -and with peace his purely intellectual spirit and disquieting irony. -With Ramón del Valle-Inclán, again, construction and plot are secondary. -The action is slightly sketched in his novels, but incidents and persons -are thrown into high relief by the delicate and original character of -his style. It is a style built up of all that is rare and exquisite, -with a sobriety that chisels a finished picture in a single phrase. In -“El Resplandor de la Hoguera,” for instance, a green path leading from a -small Basque village to its cemetery is simply described as “todo en paz -de oratión,” and such lonely word pictures abound in his writings. His -latest work, a trilogy, is “La Guerra Carlista,” and the action of the -first part, “Los Cruzados de la Causa” (1908), passes in a village of -Galicia. The haughty, great-hearted Gallegan <i>hidalgo</i> Don Juan Manuel, -perhaps the best of Valle-Inclán’s vivid character-sketches, appears in -this as in many others of his novels. The second part, “El Resplandor de -la Hoguera” (1909), follows the broken movements of the guerilla -fighting in the intricate Basque country; and the third part (each part -forming, however, a separate novel), “Gerifaltes de Antaño” (1909), -describes the furtive but daring tactics of that sinister Carlist -<i>cabecilla</i>, Manuel Santa Cruz, priest of Hernialde, leading his men at -night, “swift and silent as a wolf,” by labyrinthine<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a>{211}</span> mountain paths, -past maize-fields and chestnut-trees and vineyards, and scented meadows -under the stars, or ordering execution after execution of men and women -“with a mystical coldness and internal peace.” His cruelty was that of -the peasant who lights a fire to destroy the plagues of his vineyard. He -watched the smoke go up as an evening sacrifice—</p> - -<p>“Lo que á unos encendía en amor, á los otros los encendía en odio, y el -cabecilla pasaba entre el incendio y el saqueo, anhelando el amanecer de -paz para aquellas aldeas húmedas y verdes, que regulaban su vida por la -voz de las campanas, al ir al campo, al yantar, al cubrir el fuego de -ceniza y llevar á los pesebres el recado de yerba. Era su crueldad como -la del viñador que enciende hogueras contra las plagas de su viña. -Miraba subir el humo como en un sacrificio, con la serena esperanza de -hacer la vendimia en un día del Señor, bajo el oro del sol y la voz de -aquellas campanas de cobre antiguo, bien tañidas.”</p> - -<p>It is difficult to analyse the fascination of these novels. Their -incidents seem trivial enough and the characters speak in thin, broken -sentences; but the effect is a marvellously vivid picture of the -flickering scenes of the last Carlist war and the hill tactics of the -<i>cabecillas</i>. The thin lines are due not to any poverty of inspiration -but to the restraint of a consummate artist. The most recent Spanish -novelist of note is Ricardo León, a young writer from Málaga, whose -first novel, “Casta de Hidalgos,” was published<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a>{212}</span> in the autumn of 1908, -followed by “Comedia Sentimental” in 1909, and “Alcalá de los Zegríes,” -“La Escuela de los Sofistas” (a volume of dialogues), and “El Amor de -los Amores” in 1910. These books are the work of a writer who has read -and assimilated the best of Spanish literature from its earliest -beginnings, chronicles, legends, <i>serranillas</i>, fervent religious -treatises. His style is, indeed, not unworthy of the Spanish mystics. It -has at once richness and sobriety, it is steeped in archaic humanism, -but tinged with modern sadness and disillusion; it is, as the author -might himself call it, “un castellano de clásico sabor.” It has in it -nothing strained or artificial, being, rather, the flowing expression of -a mystical intensity. He gives admirable pictures of the thoughts and -lives of old-fashioned proud <i>hidalgos</i>, “after the pattern of the -ancient <i>hidalgos</i> of Castille,” such as Don Juan Manuel, who lives in -ruinous Santillana with its sadness of centuries, <i>tristeza milenaria</i>, -in “Casta de Hidalgos;” or of serious, reserved philosophers, such as -Don Juan Antonio in “Comedia Sentimental.” “Alcalá de los Zegríes” -contains many passages of noble Spanish prose, and others of -psychological interest; but it is for the most part concerned with -politics and party strife. The Spaniards, as a rule, are more interested -in politics than in literature. Valera’s celebrated “Pepita Jiménez” -brought him no more than eight thousand <i>reales</i>, or under £80, and -Señor Unamuno, the Rector of Salamanca University, a prominent Spanish -thinker and writer, has declared that literary opinion in Spain is -formed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a>{213}</span> some five hundred persons, “quinientas personas mal -contadas.” The novelists may protest, but the novel gains. There is no -temptation to write in order to please the taste of a public which does -not exist. If there is something commercial in the methodical output of -Pérez Galdós’ or Blasco Ibáñez’ novels, commercialism has certainly, -hitherto, had but little part in Spanish literature. Limited, unliterary -Spain has had this advantage. The world’s debate has not vulgarized it; -a half-culture has not dragged down the novel to flamboyant, -self-advertising methods. The novel in Spain is at its best when it -rejects, or has not come into contact with, foreign influences. It can -be realistic without thought of this or that school. It fascinates by -its original flavour and scent of the soil.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>{214}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX<br /><br /> -NOVELS OF GALICIA</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE inhabitants of Galicia have been held to be the Boeotians of Spain, -yet the fact that in the political world many eminent persons are -Gallegans seems to show that Galicia has been maligned. To Galicia, too, -belong two gifted modern writers, the Condesa Emilia Pardo Bazán and Don -Ramón del Valle-Inclán. Señora Pardo Bazán belongs to the older group of -Spanish novelists; born in 1851,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> she published her two well-known -novels of Galicia, “Los Pazos de Ulloa,” and “La Madre Naturaleza,” in -1886 and 1887, and “De mi tierra,” a book of scenes and essays of -Galicia, in 1888. It is as a regional novelist that Señora Pardo Bazán -has won her most glorious laurels. “Galicienne ella adore les choses de -la Galice,” says M. Vézinet,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> and he adds that she develops the same -subjects as French naturalists, but avoids the licentiousness of which -they are so fond.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a>{215}</span> The multitude of her tasks and interests has -necessarily hampered her art as a novelist. “She has unfortunately -diffused her energies in all directions,” says Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly. -“No one can succeed in everything—as a poet, a romancer, an essayist, a -critic, a lecturer, and a politician. Yet the Condesa Pardo Bazán is all -this, and more. We would gladly exchange all her miscellaneous writings -for another novel like ‘Los Pazos de Ulloa.’<span class="lftspc">”</span><a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> - -<p>“Los Pazos de Ulloa” is a novel impregnated with the atmosphere of -Galicia. Los Pazos is a large country-house in a remote valley of maize -and vines and chestnuts, reached on horseback through a desolate -wolf-country, <i>país de lobos</i>. Its furniture is rickety, its -window-frames have no glass, though it is not so ruinous as Los Pazos de -Limioso some leagues away, which lacks even window-frames. The village -priest of Ulloa has but two devotions, those of the <i>jarro</i> and the -<i>escopeta</i>, the wine-jar and the gun; the drinking of water and the use -of soap he holds alike to be effeminate. The Marqués de Ulloa, too, -frank, noble at heart, but cynical, often brutal, spends much of his -time at village fairs, and shooting partridges in the maize or among -pines and scented hill-plants. He is totally in the power of his servant -Primitivo, who manages his estates. Primitivo, too, holds the peasants, -as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a>{216}</span> says, in the palm of his hand. They are patient workers who, -however, in the opinion of the Marqués de Ulloa, need a strong hand to -control them—some one like Primitivo <i>que les dé ciento de ventaja en -picardía</i>, that is, who will know two tricks to their one. When the -Marqués disburdens himself to the new chaplain, Don Julián, in the wild -neglected garden, on the subject of Primitivo, he becomes aware by a -rustling in the undergrowth that Primitivo has been listening to the -outburst. When, as a first step to freedom, he determines to leave Los -Pazos on a visit to his uncle at Santiago de Compostella, Primitivo -makes no open opposition, but the mare is unshod, the donkey has been -mysteriously wounded. The Marqués and Julián determine to go on foot to -Cebre, where they will take the diligence. The path grows wilder, the -woods close in more thickly, a cross shows where a man has been killed, -there is no sound but that of the woodcutters among the chestnuts. The -Marqués, keenly alert, sees the glint of a gun’s barrel in the brushwood -pointing at the chaplain, who is held to be the instigator of this -rebellion. It is Primitivo “out shooting.” The book is a gloomy picture -of a rich country ruined by mismanagement, underhand dealing, and -ignorance. The Marqués de Ulloa’s agent has the peasants so completely -in his power that he is able to turn the scale of an election. He began -by methodically robbing his master in the administration of his estate, -and the money so obtained he lends to the peasants, who are driven to -borrow that they may be able to continue to work<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a>{217}</span> their land. Primitivo -charges an interest of eight per cent. (per month), and in years of -famine he raises the interest. The country and its inhabitants are -described with a master-hand. Don Ramón del Valle-Inclán is one of the -new school of Spanish novelists, and properly belongs to the twentieth -century. He is above all things a stylist. In his <i>sutiles prosas</i> there -is an exquisite restraint, with here and there a tinge of archaism and a -haunting music of soft languid cadences. He loves the rare, the -delicate, the costly, and his art is to write of luxury in sober -phrases, instinct with sadness and the magic of regret. It is a style of -silk and cut crystal, as of silver-work or polished ivory handled by -thin ascetic fingers. In his four “Sonatas” (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and -Winter) we have the memoirs of the Marqués de Bradomín, the -recollections of his former loves. The scene of “Sonata de Primavera” is -an Italian palazzo with the lilacs in flower along its terraces and -roses filling the garden between the cypresses, while the scene of -“Sonata de Estío” is Mexico in all the luxurious growth of its summer -vegetation. In the “Sonata de Invierno” the scene is the Carlist Court -at Estella and the setting is more gloomy. The Marquis loses an arm in -the service of King Charles VII., and from the window of his sick-room -at Villareal de Navarra looks out on a road lined with leafless poplars -and mountains flecked with snow. But these novels do not equal “Sonata -de Otoño,” the scene of which is in Señor Valle-Inclán’s native Galicia. -Two lines of Verlaine in some way describe the novel:—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a>{218}</span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">It is a book that may be read in little more than an hour, yet it has -many arresting pages. A few short sentences, words thrown here and there -at random with concealed art, give a wonderfully clear picture of green, -rainy Galicia, with its hills and streams. We see the hills and more -hills veiled in mist, the flocks of white and black sheep, the mills, -the white smoke rising from the houses among the fig-trees, the distant -blue mountains tipped with the first snows, a flight of doves against -green fields above the tower of a <i>Pazo</i>, a stony bridle-path with its -bramble hedges and great pools of water at which oxen drink, the -peasants arriving to pay their tribute of corn at the Palacio, the -shepherds coming down from the hills wearing their capes of reeds. Women -return singing from the fountain, an old man drives on his cows as they -stop to graze, a half-witted woman gathers scented herbs and simples -that have mickle grace to “give health to the soul and cure the ills of -the herd.” And there is the Palacio de Bradomín, with its flight of wide -granite steps; a path leads to it through the green, drenched -countryside, and the autumn sun lights up its windows among tall -chestnut-trees. A fountain trickles and birds sing in the old garden of -myrtle, cedar, and cypress, still in late autumn brimmed with roses, -though “the paths were covered with dry and yellow leaves that the wind -swept with a slow rustling; the snails, motionless <i>como viejos -paralíticos</i>, as old paralytics, were taking the sun on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a>{219}</span> the seats of -stone.” The passages of the Palacio are long and gloomy, and cold -strikes through the large silent rooms, so that in all of them logs of -wood burn brightly, stirred with tongs of “ancient bronze, elaborately -worked.” The bare branches of the trees graze the windows of the -library, where, among the parchment bindings, reigns a monastic peace, -<i>un sueño canónico y doctoral</i>.</p> - -<p>It is in a minute chiselling of details that lies Señor Valle-Inclán’s -strength. The snails in the garden, the shape of the glasses, the silver -chains of a hanging-lamp—nothing is passed over as insignificant. But -the details are given in few words, with the clear precision of a -skilled craftsman. And he has the power to set his characters in strong -relief. Thus in “Sonata de Otoño” we have that <i>muy gran señor</i> Don Juan -Manuel, who on his first appearance hurries away “to Villa del Prior, to -thrash a clerk.” It is his custom to ride over from his country-house, -his <i>Pazo</i>, two leagues away, tie his horse to the Palacio garden-gate, -enter and call to a servant for wine—for that excellent <i>vino de la -Fontela</i> which would be the best in the world, he says, if pressed from -selected grapes—drink and fall asleep, and then waking up call loudly -for his horse, whether it chances to be night or day, and ride back to -his <i>Pazo</i>. There is a glimpse of the mother of Concha, who would tell -the children stories of the saints, and with “mystic, noble fingers” -slowly turn the pages to show them the pictures of the Christian Year; -of the mother of Xavier, who would pass her days in the recess of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a>{220}</span> -wide balcony spinning for her servants, in a chair of crimson velvet -studded with silver nails. There is thin, white Concha, so saintly and -so frail; there is Xavier, Marqués de Bradomín, himself, the gallant, -cynical sceptic; there is the page Florisel, the old servant Candelaria, -with their rare and far-sought names.</p> - -<p>In “Flor de Santidad,” perhaps the best of Señor Valle-Inclán’s books, -we have the same delicate descriptions of Galicia—the sinister inn, -solitary in a gloomy brown Sierra; the shepherdess, keeping her flock -and seeing mystic visions among the Celtic stones, yellowed with ancient -lichens, <i>líquenes milenarios</i>; the simple greeting of the peasants: -<i>Alabado sea Dios</i>, “Glory be to God”; pilgrims and witches; charms and -magical incantations to preserve the flocks from evil; cunning and -simplicity, superstition and crime. The same charm of mystical -simplicity and innocence that surrounds Adega, the girl shepherdess of -“Flor de Santidad,” surrounds all the heroines of Señor Valle-Inclán’s -novels; Maximina, for instance, of the sorrowful, velvet eyes, <i>ojos -aterciopelados y tristes</i>, in “Sonata de Invierno.” It is in “Flor de -Santidad” that occurs the picture, repeated in “Jardín Novelesco,” of -the old peasant woman going with her little grandson to find him a -master. They meet the Archpriest of Lestrove, who is riding -leisurely—<i>de andadura mansa y doctoral</i>—to preach at a village -festival. “May God give us a holy and good day.” The Archpriest draws in -his mare. “Are you going to the fair?” he asks. “The poor have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a>{221}</span> nothing -to do at the fair. We are going to look for a master for the boy.” “And -does he know his catechism?” “Yes, Señor, he knows it. Poverty does not -prevent from being a Christian.” The grandmother leaves the -nine-year-old child in the service of a blind beggar. “To be the servant -of a blind man is a position many would like to have,” says the beggar, -and the new <i>Lazarillo</i> answers sorrowfully, “Sí, Señor, sí.” As she -watches them go slowly away along the road through the wet green -country, she murmurs, drying her tears: “Nine years old and already -earning the bread he eats. Glory be to God.”</p> - -<p>Incidents and characters are thrown into the relief given by the -peculiar and original magic of Señor Valle-Inclán’s delicately chiselled -prose. There is in this prose something icily fresh, something of lilacs -and hydrangeas, vague reminiscences of the silver tinkling of voices in -a glass-roofed market, or of the swish of a scythe in wet grass. The -words are cunningly weighed and chosen and set as <i>gouttes d’argent -d’orfévrerie</i>. And the transparent freshness of his style is admirably -suited to describe the primitive simplicity and freshness of Galicia.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a>{222}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI<br /><br /> -NOVELS OF THE MOUNTAIN</h2> - -<h3>I.—“<span class="smcap">Savour of the Soil</span>”</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>IFTY years ago, before Zola and the naturalistic school were on the -lips of men, a Spanish novelist, José María de Pereda, was beginning to -write who can only not be called a naturalist, because of the -associations given to the name in France. Humour and frankness run -through Spanish literature; there is less artificial refinement and more -vigour and broadly human sympathy than in the literature of France. The -very language is frank and outspoken rather than subtle and insinuating. -And the nobly independent character of Spaniards of all classes counts -for much in the admirable sanity of Spanish realism. “Our lowest social -strata,” says the Condesa Pardo Bazán, “differ not a little from those -described by Zola and the Goncourts.” The Spanish realist has thus no -cause to dissect common people and vulgar events from a superior point -of view, putting on gloves, as it were, to keep his hands clean. He -knows that virtue perches in strange places and learns to see <i>le -sublime<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a>{223}</span> d’en bas</i>, and there is a wide gulf between French naturalism -and Spanish realism. Pereda,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> a <i>hidalgo</i> of the old school, born at -Santander on the 6th of February, 1833, spent the greater part of his -life in the <i>Montaña</i>, at Santander, or at his country estate of -Polanco, only leaving Cantabria to study for a few years at Madrid, and -later to sit for a few months in the Cortes as a Carlist. The rest of -his life he passed among his family and books and friends in his beloved -<i>Montaña</i>.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> His friend in private life, Señor Pérez Galdós, -describes him as dark, sunburnt, of medium height, with moustache<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a>{224}</span> and -pointed beard, of a character fundamentally Spanish, and of very nervous -temperament, with a horror of conventionality and pretence. It was about -the year 1859 that custom and character sketches from Pereda’s pen began -to appear in a Santander paper, <i>La Abeja Montañesa</i>. They were -collected in 1864, and published under the title of “Escenas -montañesas.” “Escenas montañesas” gives the essence of Pereda’s art, -and, though he later wrote long novels and occasionally attained an -admirable unity of treatment, the delight is still in the descriptions -of fast-vanishing customs and in the characters of his peasants and -fishermen rather than in the thread of the action, which is generally -slight; and the strength of his novels lies not in their heroes and -heroines but in the secondary figures and the side-shows. “Escenas -montañesas” shows us life in Santander and the neighbouring -mountain-country as it was half a century ago, and as it now lives -permanently in Pereda’s art. Scenes and people are presented to us with -extraordinary vividness, and only now and then the sketches read almost -too much like observations taken directly from the note-book. We have -the picaresque sketch of the <i>raquero</i>, the Santander <i>gamin</i> who lives -by petty larceny from ships along the quays; the old-fashioned household -in a mountain village—by a hereditary privilege Saint John is looked -upon as one of the family, and the Saint’s procession raiment figures in -the washing list; the wake at a village funeral, with the frequent -toast, “to the glory of the dead,” <i>á la buena gloria del<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a>{225}</span> defunto</i>; tía -Nisca, going her long homeward journey on foot after bidding farewell to -her son on a ship bound for “the Indies,” and reproaching the unfertile -soil that causes its sons to emigrate, though there is a song that men -who go to the Indies in order to get rich would find the Indies at home, -were they but willing to work:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“A las Indias van los hombres<br /></span> -<span class="i1">A las Indias por ganar,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Las Indias aquí las tienen<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Si quisieran trabajar;”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">and especially the noble figure of tío Tremontorio (the first and -foremost of Pereda’s long line of masterly portraits in humble life, and -the last of that race of hardy fishermen who, with the Basques, rivalled -English whalers in the North Seas and made treaties with English kings -during the Middle Ages), net-making, or eating his bread and raw -<i>bacalao</i> on his balcony in the squalid <i>Calle Alta</i>, or consoling the -wives and mothers of fishermen on the <i>Muelle Anaos</i> (in “La Leva”), and -dying cheerfully (in “El fin de una raza”), after many hours of battling -with the waves, glad to die quietly in his house, although he had nearly -perished in the storm owing to his unwillingness to lose an -<i>escapulario</i> of the <i>Vírgen del Carmen</i>. “We are all sailors of that -further sea,” he says, in his rough language, as he lies dying, “all -bound for the same port. If the devil does not block it against us, I -to-morrow and you another day will cast anchor there.” “Suum cuique” is -the longest and not the least excellent of these <i>Escenas</i>. A poor -<i>hidalgo</i> of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a>{226}</span> the mountain, Don Silvestre Seturas, visits a powerful -friend at Madrid, and is speedily disillusioned of the capital and only -court. His friend in turn accompanies him to his ancestral -country-house, and is delighted at first with the country and its -idyllic peace. But the <i>rat de ville</i> begins to discover, after some -months, that the country has neither peace nor poetry—“Barbarus híc ego -sum quia non intelligor ulli”—and returns to Madrid. Several incidents -contribute to his change of opinion, incidents which reveal the -character of the peasants and illustrate the fact that Pereda, while he -makes us love the peasants of the <i>Montaña</i>, is never blind to their -faults and weaknesses. The rich <i>madrileño</i> had decided to give a clock -for the tower of the village church. But distrust occupies a large place -in the character of the villagers, and they fear the rich even when -bringing gifts. What hidden intention is there in this unwonted -generosity? The Mayor calls the Council together, and the result is a -long document for the donor to sign. He is to undertake to place the -clock in the tower at his own cost; he is to give an annuity of two -thousand <i>reales</i> to meet any expenses connected with the clock; he is -to build another tower if the present one falls down “in my time or in -that of all the generations and heirs that may come after me”; he is to -pay for all lawsuits arising from the clock in the village, or in the -neighbourhood. When he tears up the paper, the villagers’ suspicion of -some afterthought in his gift is irrefragably confirmed. Lawsuits are -the passion of the Mountain. One has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a>{227}</span> continued in Don Silvestre’s -family for seven generations, and he himself, having through poverty to -choose between remaining a bachelor all his life and giving up the -lawsuit, chooses the former without wavering. The last straw in his -friend’s patience is a lawsuit drawn up against him because, when he was -out shooting, part of a wall of loose stones round a peasant’s fields -crumbled down shortly after he happened to have fired at a bird.</p> - -<p>“Bocetos al temple” (1876), and “Tipos Trashumantes” (1877), show the -same power of keen observation. Pereda, who treats the failings of the -peasants with unsparing, but withal benevolent humour, becomes merciless -and even cruel when dealing with the pretentiousness of the vulgar and -the inanity of rich <i>désœuvrés</i>. It has been wittily said of him that -“he reverses the apostolic precept: so far from suffering fools gladly, -he gladly makes fools suffer.” Without going outside his province he -found matter ready to his hand in the <i>veraneantes</i>, the <i>flâneurs</i> from -Madrid, who passed the hot months in Santander.</p> - -<p>Thus in “Tipos Trashumantes” he pillories the <i>sabio</i>, the learned man, -who allows that Cervantes was not an entirely common man, but regrets -that neither Cervantes nor Calderón possessed the “philosophy of -æsthetics,” or who despises the inhabitants of Santander because they -have not heard of Jeeéguel (Hegel); the <i>literato</i> or journalist who, -because a speaker in Cortes had rendered Dante popular by a quotation, -murmurs, “<i>come corpo morto cade</i>” if he drops his stick or cigar; the -barber who misses in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a>{228}</span> Santander that indefinable “air” of Madrid;—in -fact, a procession of quacks and knaves, and fools and snobs: perhaps -the only “sympathetic” figure is that of the Barón de la Rescoldera, who -“has never a good word nor a bad deed.” It is pleasant to turn back to -village scenes in “Tipos y Paisajes” (forming a second part of “Escenas -montañesas,” 1871). Here we find the enriched “Indian” (that is a -<i>montañés</i> who has returned to his country after making a fortune in -South America); the schoolmaster, in a serviceable coat of black, who -writes letters for the whole village, and shuts himself up in his house -to get, if not drunk, at least very intoxicated; the peasant Blas, who, -after inheriting thirty thousand dollars, is miserable, but feels that -he must live <i>como un señor</i> now that he is rich, and dismisses as a -temptation to be resisted the wish to go as of old, with goad on -shoulder, along the high-road by the side of his oxen; the practical, -rough, kindly priest, Don Perfecto; Don Robustiano, an old-fashioned -<i>hidalgo</i>, who does not allow the modern use of matches in his -household, and who, from the experiences of his own poverty, is not -easily misled, when he visits a neighbouring <i>hidalgo</i>, by the excuses -for “my wife and daughter at church.” “I see through you,” says Don -Robustiano to himself, “no doubt they are hidden away in some corner of -the house for lack of clothes.” But especially is the sketch entitled -<i>El Amor de los tizones</i> admirable and worthy of Cervantes. It is a -description of a rustic gathering or <i>tertulia</i> in the kitchen of one of -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a>{229}</span> poor houses of a mountain village. The peasants—each of them a -clearly defined character—enter one by one with the greeting, “Dios nos -acompañe” or, “Dios sea aquí,” and round the log fire, the flicker of -the flames lighting up their faces against the immense smoke-blackened -chimney, they pray a <i>rosario</i> for the dead, or tell stories of -brigands, and witches, and enchantments. “Los hombres de pró” -(originally published with “Bocetos al temple”) and “El Buey Suelto” -(written in 1877) are still collections of sketches, the first of a -canvassing for an election in rural parts of Spain, the second, of the -miseries of bachelors, and the scenes in both are touched with Pereda’s -vividness and humour. Pereda, as a novelist proper, begins with “Don -Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera” (written in 1878), which describes the -effects of the revolution of 1868 on a small village of the Mountain, -with “De tal palo tal astilla” (1879), an answer to Pérez Galdós’ “Doña -Perfecta,” “El Sabor de la Tierruca” (1882) and “Pedro Sánchez” (1883). -“El Sabor de la Tierruca” (Savour of the Soil) is a whole-hearted book -of the <i>Montaña</i>; its serenity is scarcely disturbed by the frequent -village fights and rivalries in which the weapons are stout sticks cut -from the mountain-side. The book is filled with a fresh and acrid smell -of the earth and autumn scents, and has the peace of still days when not -a leaf stirs, and there is no movement in the ripe and yellow -maize-fields. It is a life lived and felt by the author and not -superficially observed, so that there is no trace of artificiality or -false sentiment in the descriptions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a>{230}</span> Cumbrales and Rinconeda are rival -villages, Cumbrales lying high among orchards, Rinconeda lower down on -the edge of the plain, in thick oak and chestnut woods. Rinconeda -rejoices when the raging <i>ábrego</i>, the south wind, sweeps in furious -gusts from the hills and ravages Cumbrales; Cumbrales rejoices when the -rain turns every street of Rinconeda into a rushing torrent. The -characters of the inhabitants of Cumbrales are drawn with all Pereda’s -skill; Juanguirle, for instance, a rich, hard-working peasant, the -simple, sensible Mayor of Cumbrales; Baldomero, who “cannot understand -how doing nothing, thinking of nothing, troubling about nothing, can be -unpleasant to any sensible person”; his father, Don Valentín, “hero of -Luchana” and worshipper of Espartero, who, after a frugal meal, says to -his son that it is not the part of good Liberals to be so indulging -themselves when the Carlists are flaunting “the black flag of tyranny,” -to which Baldomero answers laconically that it would have sounded more -convincing before the meal. There is an epic fight between the two -villages which rages so violently that the Mayor, Juanguirle, in vain -attempts to stop it “in the name of <i>la Josticia</i>, in the name of the -law, of <i>la Costitución</i>, of God Himself, if necessary, since, for lack -of a better, I am now His representative here.” A few moments afterwards -sad to relate, Juanguirle, stung by an insult hurled at Cumbrales, is in -the very thickest of the fray. In “Escenas montañesas” Pereda had -slightly sketched a <i>deshoja</i>, the harvest task of separating the ripe -cob of maize from its sheath. A certain number of cobs<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a>{231}</span> (from two to -six) are set aside from each large basketful for the poor, for the souls -in purgatory, and other pious purposes. In “El Sabor de la Tierruca” the -scene is described more fully. The workers, over fifty in number, sing -songs and slow ballads as the heaps of shining yellow cobs and the heaps -of crisp, white leaves grow and grow, and their singing is accompanied -at intervals by the noise of torrents of maize-cobs emptied from the -baskets. We have, too, a description of a <i>derrota</i>, when flocks and -herds are turned out promiscuously to graze, of the game of <i>cachurra</i>, -a kind of rustic hockey, and the simple feasts of roasted chestnuts with -a <i>bota</i> of wine. Yet all is not “jest and youthful jollity.” The -peasants, in their prudent distrust, have a keen eye for witches, and a -weak old woman, of few words, poor and lonely, and in league with the -Devil, plays a sadly large part in the history of Cumbrales. So in -“Tipos y Paisajes,” the witch is feared not only by the boys whom she -surprises stealing the grapes in the garden of her hut, but by the whole -village. If a cow dies, it is the fault of the witch; if a man spends -his days drinking in the tavern, the misery of his family is traced, not -to him, but to the witch.</p> - -<h3>II.—“<span class="smcap">On the Heights</span>”</h3> - -<p>In “Pedro Sánchez” Pereda, not without trepidation, travelled outside -his native region to Madrid, then, in 1854, “a large tumbledown village, -parched,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a>{232}</span> old, and dirty;”<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> but Pedro Sanchez is a <i>montañés</i>, and -the first part of the book, before he leaves his native <i>Montaña</i>, in -style far exceeds the rest. The chief<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> works of Pereda, after “El -Sabor de la Tierruca” and “Pedro Sánchez,” were “Sotileza” (1885), “La -Puchera” (1889), and “Peñas arriba” (1895). “Sotileza” is a novel of the -old, now vanished, Santander. Both in the characters and the language it -is the most local of Pereda’s novels, and it is perhaps the one which -has become most famous. It has an atmosphere of pitch and tar and -sea-weed, and in the <i>Calle Alta</i> nets and tattered rags hang from the -balconies, fishwives quarrel shrilly, and the strident, piercing cry of -the sardine-seller rends the air. Andrés, Muergo, and Cleto are all in -love with Silda, and Silda, growing up slight and graceful, and called -<i>Sotileza</i> from the name for the thin wire or gut to which the fish-hook -is attached, is not naturally prone to let her feelings appear. But -Andrés, the son of a prosperous captain in the merchant service, cannot -marry beneath him; Muergo, the half-brutish, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a>{233}</span>half-childish nephew of -tío Mechelín and tía Sidora, with whom Sotileza, an orphan, lives, is -conveniently drowned in a storm; and we leave Sotileza engaged to Cleto, -the honest son of tío Mocejón, who, with his wife, la Sargüeta, and his -daughter, Carpia, are the terror of the <i>Calle Alta</i> and of <i>el pae -Polinar</i>. El padre Apolinar is a charitable, homely priest who receives -his poor petitioners with gruff words, but ends by giving them the -little that he possesses. One night, as he is writing his important -sermon, he is interrupted—not for the first time—by a poor woman whose -husband is ill. “Let her go to the doctor,” he exclaims; but when he -finds they are starving, “<i>Ave María Purísima</i>,” he cries twice, “and he -has three children and a wife, and there is no more honest man.” He -orders his old servant to bring the <i>puchero</i> containing potatoes and a -little meat—the priest’s evening meal. After sniffing it deliciously, -he sends it off to the sick man, and as he resumes his sermon he says to -himself: “I have certainly read somewhere that to keep in good health -when engaged on so difficult a task as the one I now have in hand, there -is nothing better than to go to bed hungry. Well, there is no doubt as -to my being hungry, wolfishly hungry, to-night.” Sotileza leaves an -impression of wind-driven spray and tossing seas, of manly courageous -effort and vigour and zest of living; the difficulty of the language and -the roughness of the life described alike contribute to the power and -convincing character of the work. Pereda never showed more admirably his -capacity to raise the commonest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a>{234}</span> lives, the most vulgar incidents and -the language of the street—of the strident <i>Calle Alta</i> from which <i>pae -Polinar</i> fled in comical dismay—to the region of high art. There is -something epical about his figures, in the clamorous feuds of the -fishwives not less than in the serene heroism of the deep-sea fishermen. -“La Puchera” is only half a sea-novel. The inhabitants of Robleces only -go sea-fishing to eke out the miserable pittance won by cultivation of -the soil. Thus in the house of Juan Pedro (called <i>El Lebrato</i>) and -Pedro Juan, his son (nicknamed <i>El Josco</i>, from his ferocious shyness), -fishing-tackle and oars mingle with agricultural tools. Juan Pedro is a -widower, and father and son are entirely devoted to one another, but -their house is untidy and uncomfortable for lack of a woman’s care. -Pedro Juan is in love with Pilara, Pilara is in love with Pedro Juan, -her family encourages the match, his father asks for nothing better, but -Pedro Juan cannot break through his timidity and bring himself to speak. -At last, however, he is emboldened when Pilara at the haymaking, in -scarlet skirt, bodice of striped blue, and headkerchief of many colours, -arranging the hay on the cart as he forks it up to her, leaps laughingly -from the last hay-cart into his arms. “Pilara, from here to the Church -for the señor priest to marry us. Will you agree to it?” And she -answers, “We might have been back long ago, <i>hijo de mi alma</i>, if you -had been different.” Though the miser of the book, Don Baltasar, is most -skilfully drawn, its interest centres more especially in the life of -Juan Pedro and Pedro Juan: Juan<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a>{235}</span> Pedro, gay and talkative, appearing on -festival days with his famous sea-boots, his Cochin-China medal, and a -silk necktie; Pedro Juan, who at his wedding, when asked by the priest, -Don Alejo, if he will have Pilara to be his wife, answers: “And will I -not indeed? She knows well I will, and you know it too.”</p> - -<p>In 1895 appeared “Peñas arriba” (On the heights), the crown and -masterpiece of Pereda’s work. It is a novel of the high mountain, as -“Sotileza” is a novel of the sea. Don Celso lives in Tablanca in his -ancestral house which holds lordship over a whole valley and has had the -honour of lodging two prelates, the Bishops of León and Santander; but -Don Celso is old and in failing health, and he so urgently begs his -nephew Marcelo to come to him that, against his will, the latter leaves -Madrid and his comfortable rooms in the <i>Calle del Arenal</i>. After a long -ride on and on over high mountain passes and narrow, precipitous paths -and haunts of bears, he reaches Tablanca after nightfall. A whistle from -his attendant, Chisco, the barking of dogs, an uncertain light moving to -and fro, black shapes round the light, a sound of voices, and Marcelo is -received into his uncle’s arms. Next day, from the wide balconies, he -discovers the mountains on one side nearly touching the house, on the -other a chequer-work of green meadows and yellow stubble-fields of maize -against a background of mountains green and brown and grey, and the -village among rocks and brushwood and intricate paths. There is a saying -in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a>{236}</span> village that the largest piece of flat ground is the floor of -Don Celso’s dining-room. Of the characters of the book Don Sabas belongs -to that noble army of humble parish priests described by Pereda—the -village priest in “De tal palo tal astilla”; Don Frutos, discreet and -talkative, in “Don Gonzalo”; the joyous priest of Robleces, <i>regocijado -de humor</i>, in “La Puchera,” whose only vice is to go out to sea twice a -week with the fishing-boats; and the incomparable <i>pae Polinar</i> in -“Sotileza.” Don Sabas has a passion for the mountain, and, once upon the -heights, the exact word and the right phrase come to him in which to -express his enthusiasm and his deep knowledge of their plants and -animals. To have given him a bishopric in a flat country would have -meant death to him. He is fearless and untiring whether he is tracking a -bear, or out in a snow-blizzard on the heights to rescue some peasant or -herdsman who has not returned to the village, or visiting the sick on a -black night of storm. Don Celso is also a noble figure, practical and -imposing, and in his immense kitchen of an evening he holds a -patriarchal gathering of peasants. We have, too, the splendid Tolstoian -figure of the <i>hidalgo</i> of ancient race, Gómez de Pomar, the author of -many books, unloading a cart of hay in his simple peasant’s dress. He is -a model of noble courtesy—<i>hidalga cortesía</i>, his style is “spirited -and vigorous, pure Castilian untainted, as the blood that flows in his -veins.” Consciously or unconsciously, it is a self-portrait of Pereda. -The book abounds in impressive scenes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a>{237}</span> characters; it was a subject -dear to Pereda’s heart, and he produced a work which ranks among the -great novels of the world. There is a certain solidity in Pereda’s -writing well suited to describe the stern deep-shadowed -mountain-country, while his unlatin love of the wild and desolate -rejoices in the hurricanes that tear up trees and whirl the snow-drifts -on the mountain-side. “Peñas arriba” represents the whole life and being -of the author and gives us a full measure of the true <i>sabor de la -tierruca</i>, the savour of the soil. In “Esbozos y Rasguños” Pereda -ridicules those mad Cervantists who prove that Cervantes was omniscient, -an excellent theologian, a cook, a sailor, a geographer, a freethinker, -and who will soon prove that neither is Cervantes Cervantes, nor <i>Don -Quixote Don Quixote</i>. But of the true spirit of Cervantes he had imbibed -a large part, even though he never attained to his great-hearted -tolerance and the wider outlook of those more spacious times. His -prose<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> is robust and austerely free from foreign idioms, laden with -dialect and phrases native to the soil. It has caught the vigorous -freshness of the mountain air, and the scent of earth and woods and -moors, the rush of the sea and the elemental simplicity of men ennobled -by constant contact with earth and ocean. Pereda wrote out of the -fulness of his heart, without seeking popularity. His rough grandeur, -rugged as the country of “Peñas arriba,” his frequent use of dialect, -his untranslatableness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a>{238}</span> make for few readers. But those who, like Don -Sabas, care to leave the level country and climb the mountain height, -will find in Pereda a classic, high and steadfast as the hills. Blindly -though the iniquity of oblivion scattereth her poppy, it is perhaps not -“prodigiously temerarious” to suspect that Pereda may still be read when -Zola is forgotten.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a>{239}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII<br /><br /> -CASTILIAN PROSE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra2">“</span><span class="letra">T</span>HE Spanish language,” said an English writer in 1701, “is properly -none at all, for if the Spaniards were to restore to the Egyptians, -Grecians, Arabians, Moors, Jews, Romans, Vandals, Huns, Goths, French, -and, lastly, Italians, the words they have taken from them, they must of -necessity remain dumb.” And, again, the Spanish language “consists of -a’s and o’s, and nothing else but mouthing and grimace.” Another -Englishman, sixty years later, says of the Spanish language, that “As -there is something pompous and magnificent in the length of its words -and the sound of them, so there is also a peculiarity in the turn and -manner of their phrases and expressions.” In the time of Spain’s -greatness a larger measure of justice is bestowed on the Spanish -language. “It is expressive, noble, and grave,” says Mme. d’Aulnoy; “it -is only our own (<i>i.e.</i> French) which excels it.” But with the decay of -Spain’s material prosperity the language seems to have fallen into a -disrepute; can a nation that possesses no gold<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a>{240}</span> currency and no -battleships possess a language or literature worthy of the name? It may -be admitted that many modern Spaniards themselves do not write correct -or idiomatic Spanish; the language has been crowded with foreign -importations, and while it is the easiest language to learn -superficially, it is, by reason of its immense wealth of words and -baffling reserves of idioms, one of the most difficult to learn well. -“The best Castilian is here spoken,” said Mme. d’Aulnoy of Burgos, and -it is still in Castille that the purest Spanish is to be learnt, in -regions, <i>i.e.</i> where, owing to the climate, the foreigner makes but a -briefest stay. Toledo is more likely to be visited for two days to see -its churches, than for two months to learn the language; it gives no -inviting impression of comfort to the stranger. In “Don Quixote” we read -that “They cannot speak so well who are brought up in the Zocodover as -those who spend the day walking to and fro in the cloisters of the -Cathedral, yet all are Toledans.” But although among the peasants of -Spain there are many <i>prevaricadores del buen lenguaje</i>, with reckless -transposition of consonants (such as <i>probe</i> for <i>pobre</i>), their -language is often essentially purer and more idiomatic, with “a -peculiarity in the turn and manner of their phrases,” than that of the -<i>reprochadores de voquibles</i>, who cast it in their teeth, and who would -die rather than offend <i>la grammaire</i>, but allow themselves the constant -use of foreign words and expressions in the construction of their -sentences. True Castilian has a combined softness and vigour, enabling -it to be at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a>{241}</span> once impassioned and concise, a harmony and strength -scarcely to be found in any other language, and a pithiness which -springs from the soil and has not its origin in books. Many of Spain’s -greatest writers have wielded lance and pen alternately; they are not -“grammarians who hack and slash for the genitive case,” but in the clear -shock and flow of vowels, scarcely interrupted by their setting of -slurred consonants, we seem to hear a rumour of battle, and their words -can be, like those of St. Francis of Assisi preaching, <i>a modo che -saette acute</i>—very sharp arrows. This native vigour corrects the -tendency to rich magnificence and trailing growth of words; while -without this richness the Castilian language might be like staccato -Catalan—a succession of quick pistol-shots, as it were, not the stately -tones of an organ. It is not too much to say that Castilian—not the -miserable Castilian of many of the newspapers and many modern authors, -but Castilian at its best—has been excelled only by Greek. It is thus a -language truly worth studying, and it is easily learnt; it has, next to -English, the widest extension in the world, and it possesses a splendid -literature of eight centuries, continued at the present day in a number -of characteristic and fascinating novels. Yet the Castilian language, -literarily, is so little studied that it seems to be considered to be -“properly none at all;” and these novels when read in translations lose -their savour. Cervantes prophesied that “Don Quixote” would be -translated into all nations and languages, but, as Dante said that -poetry cannot be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a>{242}</span> translated “senza rompere tutta sua dolcezza e -armonia,” so Cervantes likens translations to the reverse side of -Flemish tapestries—the figures still visible, but obscured by a crowd -of thread-ends. The best Spanish is still to be found in the writers of -the golden age of Spanish literature, and especially in the writings of -the mystics.</p> - -<p>The style of Cervantes changes with his characters, who are allowed to -murder Castilian in Spanish-Basque or Gascon-Catalan, but he is a master -at will of the purest Castilian, in him never divorced from the full -flavour of life, and he refers scornfully to the spurious continuation -of “Don Quixote” as “written in Aragonese.” Equally <i>castizo</i>, hardily -idiomatic and flavoured pungently, is the style of Quevedo. Of modern -writers, Valera and Pereda, differing so widely, are alike in this, that -they are both masters of noble Castilian prose, and have nothing to say -to the imported phraseologies which pervade a large proportion of modern -Spanish writing. Pérez Galdós, too, has a thoroughly Spanish style, -robust and vigorous, rich in words, idiomatic. The most recent Spanish -writers in a novellizing spirit tread more delicately; they resemble -Sancho Panza, who, “when he was Governor, learnt to eat fastidiously, <i>á -lo melindroso</i>, so that he would eat grapes and even the seeds of a -pomegranate with a fork.” The style of León, indeed, is full and -fine-sounding, and, like that of Valera, carries us back to the writings -of the mystics in the sixteenth century; but Valle-Inclán (guilty only -very occasionally of words such as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a>{243}</span> <i>madama</i> or <i>dandy</i>) and <i>Azorín</i> -have a mastery of deliberately thin, exquisitely clear-cut prose.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> -“Llovía menudo y ligero en aquella fertil valle del Baztan....”; in this -passage of Valle-Inclán’s “Gerifaltes de Antaño” (1909), as in so many -others, we have a delicate finished picture, reached after much labour -of rejection and compression, though he has the art to conceal his -<i>affres du style</i>. In a language so inexhaustibly rich as the Spanish, -and with the tendency of Spaniards to write in hurried, copious fashion, -this choice and sifting of words is welcome, and is in no danger of -being carried to excess.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a>{244}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII<br /><br /> -TOLEDO AND EL GRECO</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE fame of El Greco<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> has of late years spread and deepened, -although the full fascination of his pictures will perhaps never be -understood, except by a few. Of his life we have but one or two -threadbare details, and this is the more tantalizing because we feel -that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a>{245}</span> his life and character were of a strange, alluring interest. -Before his coming to Spain, the most interesting fact we learn -concerning him is contained in a letter of the artist Julio Clovio, -written in November, 1570: “There has arrived in Rome a young Cretan, a -disciple of Titian, and, in my opinion, an excellent painter—<i>parmi -raro nella pittura</i>.” The date of El Greco’s birth is uncertain, but if -he was a <i>giovine</i> in 1570, he would hardly have been seventy-seven at -the time of his death in 1614. This assertion as to his age was made -when the date of his death was given as 1625. It has been conjectured -that it arose from an easy confusion between <i>sesenta</i> and <i>setenta</i>, -and that he was not seventy-seven but sixty-seven; the year of his birth -would then be 1547. The exact date of his arrival at Toledo is unknown, -but it was about the year 1575; certainly in or before 1577. Toledo had -ceased to be the capital and court of Spain, yet still remained the home -not only of princes of the Church, but of many men of letters, and the -Arabic MS. of “Don Quixote” was discovered in its market-place. Its -cathedral was “the richest church in Christendom.” An Italian work -published<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a>{246}</span> at Venice in 1563 records that “the priests reign triumphant -in Toledo—<i>trionfano</i>—and give themselves up to good living, and no -one reproves them.” The power of the Inquisition was at its height. From -the gloom of the Escorial, Philip II.’s narrow, unbending spirit found -many echoes in the stern cities of Castille. El Greco lived to see the -expulsion of the Moriscos, and the utter decay of the trade and industry -of Toledo and other cities. Antonelli’s project to make the Tagus -navigable as far as Toledo was rejected scornfully: would not God have -made it navigable had it been His will? Yet it was the golden age of -Spanish letters, and during El Greco’s sojourn at Toledo the most -humorous and broadly human figure of all literature was being elaborated -in Cervantes’ brain. El Greco died at Toledo two years before the death -of Cervantes and Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Pacheco says of El Greco that he was “in all things as singular as in -his paintings.” Other stray notices represent him as “a great -philosopher,” “eloquent in discourse,” a witty, acute speaker—<i>de -agudos dichos</i>—a writer on painting, sculpture and architecture. We are -further told that he earned many ducats but spent them in pomp and -display, even keeping musicians to play to him during his meals. He -would seem to have retained the soft atmosphere of Italian luxury amid -the narrow, gloomy Toledo streets, and to have introduced an alien note -of pleasure into the cold, intense existence of Castille. But if his -life preserved about it a certain tinge of Venice (Venice that spent -what Venice earned), his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a>{247}</span> art was essentially Spanish. The mannerism of -his painting might be deemed extravagant, as his caprices might not be -understood, by many Spaniards. He was, they might say, “too picked, too -spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate.” They are -the epithets of Holofernes describing a Spaniard; and what could be more -Spanish than El Greco’s mingling of keen vision and realistic power as a -portrait painter with an intense, unfailing spiritualism; than his -vehement, almost tortured desire to shun the common and the vulgar—not -the mere seeking after originality but a wish to be sincere, to express -his own soul? His manner has not the sensuous richness of Italy but a -Castilian, nay, a Toledan austerity. It is as “a sword of Spain, the -ice-brook’s temper.” Already in his famous “Expolio” (in the Sacristy of -Toledo Cathedral), painted not long after he had arrived in Spain, he -had, as Señor Cossío says, abandoned the reds and golds of Italy for -blue and carmine and ashen grey. As to the price of this picture he had -a quarrel with the Chapter of Toledo Cathedral.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> Assessors were -appointed to value it and they found that, though the picture was beyond -all price—<i>no tiene prescio ni estimación</i>—a verdict with which all -who have seen the “Expolio” will readily agree, yet, having regard to -“these poverty-stricken times,” they assessed it at nine hundred ducats, -an extraordinarily high price<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a>{248}</span> for that period. The Chapter, on the -other hand, offered a much smaller sum, and that under the condition -that he should remove certain “improprieties”—<i>ynpropiedades</i>—from the -picture, among them the figures of “the Virgin and the saints—<i>las -marias y nuestra señora</i>—whose presence in the picture is contrary to -the gospel, seeing that they were not actually present.” El Greco held -out for his own price, but the Mayor, siding with the Chapter, decreed -that he must either give up the picture or go to prison, and the painter -submitted. The exquisitely beautiful figures that he was to have removed -are, however, still in the picture, as well as the other -<i>ynpropiedades</i>, so that he seems at least to have defied the narrow -spirit of the letter in the priests who “reigned triumphant” at Toledo. -Perhaps—in the temper of Alonso Cano towards the Chapter of Granada -Cathedral—he threatened to destroy the “Expolio,” and the Chapter, -having given him a hundred and fifty ducats on account, would be -unwilling to lose their picture. Certainly El Greco would not say to -himself with Frà Lippo Lippi—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">“they must know!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Don’t you think they’re the likeliest to know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They, with their Latin? so I swallow my rage,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To please them.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>El Greco painted to please no one but himself and his individual vision. -His next great picture, the “San Mauricio,” was painted by command of -Philip II., but it did not please the King and in his lifetime<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a>{249}</span> was not -placed in the Escorial, where it now is. <i>No le contentó á su Magestad</i>, -says Sigüenza, and he goes on to say, “and this is small wonder, since -it pleases but few, though it is said that it shows much art, <i>aunque -dizen es de mucho arte</i>.” It is conceivable that the picture as a whole -might seem ugly, and repel, especially on a first view, before the eye -had embraced its wealth of beautiful details. The real reason, however, -of its “not pleasing” was not the exaggerated drawing nor the harsh -colouring, the dominant note of yellow and blue, but the realistic -portrayal of the group of martyrs in the foreground. “Saints,” proceeded -Sigüenza, “should be painted in such a manner that they may not take -away the desire to pray, but may rather incite to devotion.”</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Ay, but you don’t so instigate to prayer,’<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Strikes in the Prior! ‘when your meaning’s plain<br /></span> -<span class="i1">It does not say to folks—remember matins—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Or, mind you fast next Friday.’<span class="lftspc">”</span><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The Spanish Church would willingly have reduced art to skull and bones. -But El Greco saw that his Saints must be human before they could be -divine. He had now inaugurated that realism which was to find its -highest expression in the art of Velázquez, but which is evident also in -the Saints and Madonnas of Murillo.</p> - -<p>El Greco has not the immediate attraction and universal appeal of -Velázquez; some of his pictures may displease at first and only -gradually make their charm felt. What, then, we may ask, is El Greco’s -peculiar fascination, the dominating power to attract<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a>{250}</span> or to repel in -his pictures so great that it is apt to become almost an obsession? Is -it the truth to life, or the aloofness from life, the clear expression -of character or the spiritual submission to divine will? Does it lie in -his fondness for those cold, simple colours, the pale greens and lilacs, -grey and the blue of hydrangeas or of the surface of ice, that delight -the soul of “primitive” and “decadent” alike; in the pervading life and -movement, the slender, lengthened limbs and tapering figures; in the -subtle permanence of expressions and attitudes that were “so fugitive”? -Is it the passionate sincerity and striving that disdains rest and mere -complacency of work accomplished, the noble discontent with effects -achieved, the ceaseless longing to reach yet higher levels, till -ultimately, as in his “Asunción,” the whole picture is moulded to a -perfect realization of the soul’s desire, a harmonious unity of -aspiration, “toccando un poco la vita futura”? Or is it the exquisite -sadness, the air of acquiescence in suffering and fate unshunnable, or -the wonderful peace and serene joy of some of his faces? It is a rare -combination of all this that gives the essence of El Greco’s potent -charm; it is the richness of contrast so truly Spanish, the marvellous -rendering alike of heavenly things and things terrestrial, the wild -magic of his imagination, the sober individual alchemy of his style. In -these delicate lines, thin faces, long white limbs and restrained -colours there is a spiritual intensity that impassions and consumes with -a light and fire reaching beyond dim mortal vision. But in the -expression there is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a>{251}</span> moreover, a softness of lingering pity, of linked -sweetness and tears for earthly sorrows, that makes his art not cold and -distant, appealing merely to the intellect, but lovable and human; “a -thing ensky’d and sainted,” yet still bound by gold chains about the -feet of man.</p> - -<p>The little church of Santo Tomé, with its beautiful old tower, stands -but a few hundred yards from El Greco’s house at Toledo, and for this -church he painted perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the most -important of all his works—“El Entierro del Conde Orgaz.” For an artist -the “Entierro” has almost as much interest and instruction as “Las -Meninas” of Velázquez. The subject is a local legend. Saint Augustine -and Saint Stephen come down to carry to burial the corpse of the -charitable Conde de Orgaz—of whom we read that he “employed his life in -holy works and so came to a holy death”—and the chief citizens of -Toledo mourn him. In this long line of faces El Greco shows his full -mastery as a portrait-painter. And we may see in them all the race of -Castille—Castilian dignity, frankness, nobility, sadness, resignation, -pride, haughtiness, intensity, ascetic mysticism. We seem, as we look, -to hear the solemn rhythm of Jorge Manrique’s verses—<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Este mundo es el camino<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Para el otro, que es morada<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a>{252}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sin pesar;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Mas cumple tener buen tino<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Para andar esta jornada<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sin errar.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Partimos cuando nacemos,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Andamos mientras vivimos,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Y llegamos<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Al tiempo que fenecemos;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Así que cuando morimos<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Descansamos.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The light of the torches burning in long thin flame and the upward look -of the priest in plain surplice draw the eye up to the second part of -the picture, the <i>Gloria</i>, where the Conde de Orgaz appears before -Christ and the Virgin in a heaven thronged with apostles and saints and -supported by angels. The beauty of the lower part is as easily -recognizable as that of a picture of Velázquez, but the <i>Gloria</i> takes -longer to appreciate, having a fuller measure of El Greco’s mannerism. -Partly for this reason the picture may displease at first, permanently -displease if seen once only in a cursory glance, but on a more leisured -study it assumes its right place as one of the wonderful and most -beautiful pictures of the world. It requires time, too, to realize the -infinite beauty of detail, the figures on St. Augustine’s robe, the -scene of St. Stephen’s stoning on that of St. Stephen, and the skill -with which all monotony is avoided in the mourners, in spite of their -being nearly all of the same height, and nearly all wearing white ruffs -and pointed beards.</p> - -<p>In his later pictures El Greco increased the mannerism of his style; the -figures are longer, more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a>{253}</span> angular, the intensity of expression becomes -an obsession, a paroxysm: he paints as one for whom the whole world has -ceased to exist. Sometimes, as in the “Baptism” at Toledo, these -exaggerations seriously spoil the beauty of his work; but the “Asunción” -of the church of San Vicente, at Toledo, also belongs to his later -style, and is not the least beautiful of his pictures: in no other work -of art has the sense of motion been so marvellously expressed—the -Virgin, saints, and angels seem actually floating upwards before our -eyes. El Greco’s mannerism, <i>jene unglaubliche Manier</i>, Herr Carl Justi -calls it, is more evident in some of his pictures, in others less; but -there is not a sufficiently wide gulf between them to justify the saying -that “they are so different that they appear not to be painted by the -same hand,”<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> nor to countenance Palomino’s statement that “What he -did well no one did better, and what he did badly no one did worse.”</p> - -<p>It was not carelessly nor ignorantly that El Greco drew his figures out -of proportion, making them preternaturally long and thin. He did so -deliberately, just as Bacon said deliberately that “In all beauty there -is some strangeness of proportion,” and the effect in El Greco’s -pictures often, indeed as a rule, justifies his boldness. We see him</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Pouring his soul ...<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Reaching, that Heaven might so replenish him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a>{254}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Above and through his art—for it gives way;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">That arm is wrongly put—and there again—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Its body, so to speak! its soul is right.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Naturally the peculiarity of his style has at once struck all observers. -So the French have spoken of his “maladresses enfantines, audaces -troublantes,” his “attitudes strapassées,” his “draperies cassées et -chiffonnées á plaisir,” his “dessin fantastique.” So Sir Edmund Head -wrote of some of El Greco’s pictures as “extravagant in length, of an -ashen-grey tone, most singular in so fine a colourist.” If only glanced -at once, this is perhaps the impression that the majority of his -pictures would leave, and he thus remains a sphinx to many. “He will -always remain caviare to the multitude,” wrote Sir J. C. Robinson in -1868; “the uninitiated observer passes over [his pictures] with wonder -and bewilderment, the grim angular figures and draperies and the -flickering unrest of all the details affecting him as would a harsh -tumult of discordant sounds.”</p> - -<p>Palomino said of El Greco that “he ended by making his painting -despicable and ridiculous alike by extravagance of drawing and harshness -of colour.” His contemporaries explained the singularity of his work -either as due to madness or to craving for effect, <i>por valentía, para -salir del día</i>, or to a wish to prevent them from being confused with -those of Titian!</p> - -<p>Not less than his drawing, El Greco’s colouring has been a -stumbling-block and an offence. We read<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a>{255}</span> of his “teintes presque -cadavériques,” “coloris grisâtre, pâle blafard,” “symphonies en bleu -mineur;” and Ford characteristically wrote that his pictures were often -“as leaden as cholera morbus.” After the rich reds and golds of Italian -painting, the subtler tints of El Greco, evolved by him partly under -Tintoretto’s influence, partly under the influence of Toledo, could not -please his contemporaries, but we feel now that they are no slight -ingredient of his charm. In colouring El Greco largely influenced -Velázquez, and through Velázquez all subsequent painting. Velázquez -learnt from him, in the words of Señor Cossío, “his harmony of silver -greys and the use of certain carmines.” But it was not only El Greco’s -colouring that affected him. Señor Cossío sees in the construction of -“The Surrender of Breda” vague reminiscences of the “San Mauricio,” and -one may also see in it reminiscences of the “Expolio.” Palomino, in his -Life of Velázquez, says that “in his portraits he imitated Domenico -Greco, for he considered that his heads could not be sufficiently -praised.” Velázquez rejected El Greco’s mystic intellectuality, but -possibly without El Greco’s influence the realism of Velázquez might -have been excessively exact and less inspired.</p> - -<p>Toledo, in the words of a modern Spanish poet, stands “dark, ruinous, -forgotten and alone;” but Domenico<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> Theotocopuli, who lay there -unremembered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a>{256}</span> for three centuries, now rises to spread his fame through -the world—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Tout passe. L’art robuste<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Seul a l’éternité,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Le buste<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Survit à la cité.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Foreigners from many lands climb up and down the cobbled lanes and -passages, in search of hidden churches here and there with pictures by -El Greco—Santo Tomé, San José, San Vicente, Santa Leocadia, San -Nicolás, and many more:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The sanctuary’s gloom no longer wards<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Vain tongues from where his pictures stand apart.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>He loved to paint the city, and, besides his famous view of it, we find -it in the background of his pictures. The Cathedral and the Bridge of -Alcántara and the Castle of San Servando are perfectly distinct in the -“Asunción” of the Church of San Vicente. The city figures again, though -less clearly, in the magnificent picture of St. Martin (of Tours) -dividing his cloak, an act of charity that certainly receives a new -significance in this bleak, unsheltered Toledo country. And Toledo, not -Troy, appears in the “Laocoon,” the only picture by El Greco that has a -classical subject. El Greco, the Cretan, lived at Toledo for some forty -years, and the charm of Toledo seems to have entered into his soul. His -house was not in one of the smothered streets, but in an open space high -above the Tagus, opposite the Synagogue of the Jews.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a>{257}</span> has a cool -<i>patio</i> with a floor of red bricks and glazed tiles, and four white -pillars, with a tiny well near the entrance, and a grey wooden gallery -above, resting on the pillars, and open on one side, so that in spring -swallows occasionally enter and whirl round the court. To the right a -door leads to a quaint, old-fashioned kitchen, with its immense open -fireplace and seats on either side beneath the chimney. That El Greco, a -foreigner, should have become the most Spanish of Spanish painters, was -due no doubt to the influence exercised over him by this stern yet -luring city of Castille. It is impossible to dissociate his colouring -from the many greens and greys and browns of the city and surrounding -country, the rust-coloured soil of the Cigarrales thinly covered with -many greens that are not green, grey hill-plants, dull tints of thyme -and olive, the shriller green of pomegranate and other fruit-trees, the -grass sun-parched to patches of yellow. And perhaps it is not altogether -fanciful to connect the metallic gleams visible in certain lights on the -surface of the Tagus with the glazed effects so frequent in El Greco’s -pictures, or even the ragged, wind-tormented elms by the river with some -of his more extravagant figures. The city points upward like a grey -sword; and whether seen in shafts and foils of orange light against a -stormy sunset, or fainting and crumbling greyly beneath a relentless sun -and sky of cloudless blue, it has the austere intensity<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a>{258}</span> that we find in -El Greco’s work. Yet, as in the greyest pictures of El Greco occurs some -relieving touch of colour, so Toledo is not merely a monotonous symmetry -of brown or grey. A procession, white and gold and red and purple, -passes through the narrow streets under a shower of roses from the -balconies of houses gaily hung in white and red, red and yellow; or the -bright colours of peasants’ dresses are to be seen against the ancient -Alcántara bridge as they come in to market; or in some street of -stifling, windowless walls that lead up to a line of blue sky by day, -and at night to a ribbon of stars, comes a glimpse, through doors of -massive ancient stone, of a <i>patio</i> of bright flowers—carnations, -nasturtiums, geraniums—as one may find a picture of El Greco in some -old forgotten Church; and beneath the yellow-brown walls and grey rocks -of the city are gardens of fruit-trees, where in spring nightingales -sing from pomegranates in scarlet flower. It is a city of continual -surprises, not to be understood or appreciated in a single day or a -single visit; it gives, like El Greco’s pictures, a strong original -impression at a first glance, but its inner being, its softer moments, -its true significance and charm it reveals only to a patient study. Its -attitude is indeed that of reserve; it seems to be holding judgment on -modern civilization. It represents all that is noblest, most individual, -and unbendingly austere in the spirit of Spain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a>{259}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> - -<p class="c"><a href="#A">A</a>, -<a href="#B">B</a>, -<a href="#C">C</a>, -<a href="#D">D</a>, -<a href="#E">E</a>, -<a href="#F">F</a>, -<a href="#G">G</a>, -<a href="#H">H</a>, -<a href="#I-i">I</a>, -<a href="#J">J</a>, -<a href="#K">K</a>, -<a href="#L">L</a>, -<a href="#M">M</a>, -<a href="#N">N</a>, -<a href="#O">O</a>, -<a href="#P">P</a>, -<a href="#Q">Q</a>, -<a href="#R">R</a>, -<a href="#S">S</a>, -<a href="#T">T</a>, -<a href="#U">U</a>, -<a href="#V-i">V</a>, -<a href="#W">W</a>, -<a href="#Z">Z</a></p> - -<p class="nind"> -<a name="A" id="A"></a><span class="lettre">A</span><br /> - -Abenabet, <i>King of Seville</i>, <a href="#page_101">101</a><br /> - -<i>Afforestation</i>, <a href="#page_099">99</a><br /> - -<i>Agriculture</i>, <a href="#page_097">97</a>, <a href="#page_203">203</a><br /> - -Ajofrín, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> - -Alarcón (Pedro Antonio de), <a href="#page_195">195</a><br /> - -Alas (Leopoldo) <i>Clarín</i>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_196">196</a>, <a href="#page_197">197</a><br /> - -Alfonso, <i>el Sabio</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_098">98</a><br /> - -<i>Alhambra, The</i>, <a href="#page_089">89</a><br /> - -Alicante, <a href="#page_113">113</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a>, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -Almería, <a href="#page_057">57</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> - -Altabiscar, Poem of, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> - -Altamira (Rafael), quoted, <a href="#page_022">22</a>, <a href="#page_025">25</a><br /> - -Amadeo I., <i>King of Spain</i>, <a href="#page_043">43</a>, <a href="#page_198">198-199</a><br /> - -Andalucía, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_134">134-141</a>, <a href="#page_186">186</a>, <a href="#page_195">195</a><br /> - -<i>Andalusians</i>, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a><br /> - -André (E. L.), <a href="#page_039">39</a><br /> - -Antequera, <a href="#page_137">137</a><br /> - -<i>Anti-Clericals</i>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_081">81</a>, <a href="#page_199">199</a>, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -Aragon, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> - -Arenys de Mar, <a href="#page_104">104</a><br /> - -Arriba, <a href="#page_075">75</a><br /> - -Asturians, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_196">196</a><br /> - -Asturias, <a href="#page_196">196</a><br /> - -Atchuria, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_065">65</a><br /> - -Avila, <a href="#page_087">87</a><br /> - -Augustinians, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a><br /> - -Aulnoy, Mme. d’, quoted, <a href="#page_020">20</a>, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_052">52</a>, <a href="#page_059">59</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_239">239</a>, <a href="#page_240">240</a><br /> - -Azorín. <i>See</i> Martínez Ruiz.<br /> - -<i>Azulejos</i>, <a href="#page_132">132</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="B" id="B"></a><span class="lettre">B</span><br /> - -Bacon (Francis), quoted, xi, <a href="#page_033">33</a>, <a href="#page_034">34</a>, <a href="#page_041">41</a>, <a href="#page_252">252</a><br /> - -Barcelona, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_104">104</a><br /> - -Baroja (Pío), <a href="#page_027">27</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_208">208</a>, <a href="#page_209">209</a><br /> - -Basque Provinces, <a href="#page_050">50</a>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_066">66-79</a>, <a href="#page_210">210-211</a><br /> - -<i>Basques</i>, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_028">28</a>, <a href="#page_061">61</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_066">66-79</a>, <a href="#page_209">209</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a><br /> - -Bayonne, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> - -<i>Beggars</i>, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> - -Béhobie, bridge of, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> - -Benavente (Jacinto), <a href="#page_027">27</a>, <a href="#page_041">41</a><br /> - -Berceo (Gonzalo de), <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a><br /> - -Berenger (Remont), <i>Count of Barcelona</i>, <a href="#page_159">159-160</a><br /> - -<i>Betting</i>, <a href="#page_073">73</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a><br /> - -Biarritz, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> - -Bidasoa, <a href="#page_057">57-61</a>, <a href="#page_065">65</a><br /> - -Bilbao, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_088">88</a><br /> - -Blasco Ibáñez (Vicente), <a href="#page_038">38</a>, <a href="#page_123">123</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_152">152</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_205">205-208</a><br /> - -Böhl von Faber (Cecilia). <i>See</i> Fernán Caballero.<br /> - -<i>Booksellers</i>, <a href="#page_172">172</a><br /> - -Borrow (George), <a href="#page_053">53</a><br /> - -<i>Brigands</i>, <a href="#page_047">47</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a><br /> - -Browning (Robert), quoted, <a href="#page_248">248</a>, <a href="#page_249">249</a>, <a href="#page_253">253</a>, <a href="#page_256">256</a><br /> - -<i>Bullfights</i>, <a href="#page_038">38</a><br /> - -Burgos, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_158">158</a>, <a href="#page_240">240</a><br /> - -Burton’s <i>Anatomy</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_088">88</a><br /> - -Butler, <i>Bishop</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_035">35</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a>{260}</span><br /> - -<a name="C" id="C"></a><span class="lettre">C</span><br /> - -<i>Caciquismo</i>, <a href="#page_023">23</a>, <a href="#page_204">204</a><br /> - -Cadiz, <a href="#page_088">88</a><br /> - -Calderón de la Barca (Pedro), <a href="#page_032">32</a>, <a href="#page_055">55</a>, <a href="#page_227">227</a><br /> - -Cambridge, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> - -Camões (Luiz), quoted, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_251">251</a><br /> - -Cantabria, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_223">223-238</a><br /> - -Cardeña, <a href="#page_139">139</a><br /> - -<i>Carlists</i>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a>, <a href="#page_081">81</a>, <a href="#page_084">84</a>, <a href="#page_210">210</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a>, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_230">230</a><br /> - -Carranza, <i>Archbishop</i>, <a href="#page_165">165</a>, <a href="#page_169">169</a>, <a href="#page_170">170</a><br /> - -Cartagena, <a href="#page_116">116</a><br /> - -Castejon, <a href="#page_158">158</a><br /> - -Castelar (Emilio), <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_198">198</a><br /> - -<i>Castilian language</i>, viii, <a href="#page_024">24</a>, <a href="#page_163">163</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_202">202</a>, <a href="#page_212">212</a>, <a href="#page_221">221</a>, <a href="#page_222">222</a>, <a href="#page_237">237</a>, <a href="#page_239">239-243</a>, <a href="#page_245">245</a><br /> - -<i>Castilians</i>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_096">96</a>, 212 <a href="#page_251">251</a><br /> - -Castille, <a href="#page_048">48</a>, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_066">66</a>, <a href="#page_092">92-96</a>, <a href="#page_232">232</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a><br /> - -Castro (León de), <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>, <a href="#page_168">168</a>, <a href="#page_173">173</a><br /> - -<i>Catalan language</i>, <a href="#page_241">241</a><br /> - -<i>Catalans</i>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_034">34</a>, <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> - -Catalonia, <a href="#page_104">104-107</a><br /> - -<i>Celestina, La</i>, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -Cervantes, <a href="#page_048">48</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a>, <a href="#page_227">227</a>, <a href="#page_237">237</a>, <a href="#page_241">241</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Don Quixote,” <a href="#page_028">28</a>, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_139">139</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_185">185</a>, <a href="#page_240">240</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a>, <a href="#page_245">245</a></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Don Quixote, <a href="#page_030">30</a>, <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_207">207</a></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sancho, <a href="#page_027">27</a>, <a href="#page_033">33</a>, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a></span><br /> - -Charlemagne, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> - -<i>Church in Spain, the</i>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_200">200</a>, <a href="#page_201">201</a>, <a href="#page_245">245-246</a>, <a href="#page_249">249</a><br /> - -<i>Cid, Poema del</i>, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_153">153-162</a><br /> - -Cid, the, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_102">102</a>, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_153">153-162</a><br /> - -Clarín. <i>See</i> Alas (L.)<br /> - -Clarke (Edward), quoted, <a href="#page_021">21</a>, <a href="#page_239">239</a><br /> - -Clarke (Henry Butler), <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> - -Claudian, quoted, <a href="#page_048">48</a><br /> - -<i>Climate</i>, viii, <a href="#page_037">37</a>, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> - -Clovio (Julio), <a href="#page_245">245</a><br /> - -Coloma (Luis), <a href="#page_201">201</a><br /> - -Córdoba, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> - -Cortese (Paolo), quoted, <a href="#page_018">18</a><br /> - -Creighton (Mandell), <i>Bishop of London</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_044">44</a><br /> - -Creixell, <a href="#page_106">106-107</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="D" id="D"></a><span class="lettre">D</span><br /> - -<i>Dances, Basque</i>, <a href="#page_073">73</a><br /> - -Dante, quoted, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_130">130</a>, <a href="#page_241">241</a>, <a href="#page_250">250</a><br /> - -<i>Deshoja, A</i>, <a href="#page_230">230-231</a><br /> - -Díaz de Bivar (Rodrigo). <i>See</i> Cid.<br /> - -<i>Diligencias</i>, <a href="#page_050">50</a>, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_052">52</a><br /> - -Dominicans, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> - -<i>Dress</i>, <a href="#page_053">53</a>, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_077">77</a>, <a href="#page_106">106</a>, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="E" id="E"></a><span class="lettre">E</span><br /> - -Ebro, the, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> - -<i>Education</i>, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> - -Edward II., <i>King of England</i>, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> - -Eibar, <a href="#page_073">73</a><br /> - -Elgoibar, <a href="#page_073">73</a><br /> - -Emigration, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_203">203</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a><br /> - -England and Spain, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_166">166</a><br /> - -<i>Escorial, the</i>, <a href="#page_098">98</a><br /> - -<i>Eskuara</i>, <a href="#page_059">59</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_068">68</a>, <a href="#page_070">70-71</a>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_085">85-86</a><br /> - -Espronceda (José de), <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> - -Estella, <a href="#page_081">81</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -Estremadura, <a href="#page_098">98</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="F" id="F"></a><span class="lettre">F</span><br /> - -Fernán Caballero, <a href="#page_185">185-191</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a><br /> - -Fitzmaurice-Kelly (James), quoted, <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_143">143</a>, <a href="#page_146">146-147</a>, <a href="#page_185">185</a>, <a href="#page_195">195</a>, <a href="#page_215">215</a>, <a href="#page_227">227</a><br /> - -Flaubert (Gustave), <a href="#page_192">192</a>, <a href="#page_197">197</a><br /> - -Ford (Richard), <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_047">47</a>, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_053">53</a>, <a href="#page_253">253</a><br /> - -France (Anatole), quoted, <a href="#page_030">30</a><br /> - -Francis of Assisi, Saint, <a href="#page_241">241</a><br /> - -Francis I., King of France, <a href="#page_057">57</a><br /> - -Fuenterrabía, <a href="#page_058">58</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_085">85-86</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a>{261}</span><br /> - -<i>Fueros</i>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a>, <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> - -<i>Funeral offerings</i>, <a href="#page_075">75</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="G" id="G"></a><span class="lettre">G</span><br /> - -Galicia, <a href="#page_214">214-221</a><br /> - -<i>Gallegos</i>, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_214">214</a>, <a href="#page_216">216</a>, <a href="#page_220">220</a><br /> - -Ganivet (Ángel), <a href="#page_022">22</a><br /> - -Gallipienzo, <a href="#page_083">83</a><br /> - -Gasset (Rafael), <a href="#page_099">99</a><br /> - -Gautier (Théophile), quoted, <a href="#page_254">254</a>, <a href="#page_256">256</a><br /> - -<i>Generalife, the</i>, <a href="#page_089">89</a><br /> - -Gibraltar, <a href="#page_207">207</a><br /> - -<i>Giralda, the</i>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_133">133</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a><br /> - -Gómez de Baquero (E.), <a href="#page_201">201</a><br /> - -Góngoray Argote (Luis), <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> - -Goya [Francisco Goya y Lucientes], <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> - -Granada, <a href="#page_088">88-89</a><br /> - -<i>Grao, El</i>, <a href="#page_115">115</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -Grazalema, <a href="#page_136">136</a>, <a href="#page_137">137</a><br /> - -Greco, El, <a href="#page_208">208</a>, <a href="#page_243">243</a>, <a href="#page_244">244-258</a><br /> - -Guadalete, the, <a href="#page_137">137</a><br /> - -Guadalquivir, the, <a href="#page_133">133</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> - -Guernica, <a href="#page_076">76</a><br /> - -<i>Guernicaco Arbola</i>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_077">77</a><br /> - -Guipúzcoa, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_067">67</a>, <a href="#page_068">68</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="H" id="H"></a><span class="lettre">H</span><br /> - -Hendaye, <a href="#page_059">59</a><br /> - -<i>Heresy</i>, <a href="#page_038">38</a>, <a href="#page_172">172</a>, <a href="#page_173">173</a><br /> - -Horace, quoted, <a href="#page_071">71</a><br /> - -<i>Houses</i>, <a href="#page_021">21</a><br /> - -<i>Huerta, the Valencian</i>, <a href="#page_115">115-116</a>, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -Hugo (Victor), quoted, <a href="#page_047">47</a>, <a href="#page_049">49</a>, <a href="#page_057">57</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a>, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -Hurtado de Mendoza (Diego), <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="I-i" id="I-i"></a><span class="lettre">I</span><br /> - -Ibiza, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_206">206</a><br /> - -<i>Idearium Español</i>, <a href="#page_022">22</a><br /> - -Île des Faisans, <a href="#page_060">60</a><br /> - -<i>Inns</i>, <a href="#page_052">52</a>, <a href="#page_140">140-141</a><br /> - -<i>Inquisition, the</i>, <a href="#page_034">34</a>, <a href="#page_038">38</a>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a>, <a href="#page_168">168-184</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a><br /> - -<i>Inscriptions</i>, <a href="#page_058">58</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_061">61</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_067">67</a>, <a href="#page_077">77-78</a><br /> - -<i>Irrigation</i>, <a href="#page_098">98</a>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_121">121-124</a><br /> - -Irun, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_073">73</a>, <a href="#page_198">198</a><br /> - -Isabel II., <i>Queen of Spain</i>, <a href="#page_187">187</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a>, <a href="#page_198">198</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="J" id="J"></a><span class="lettre">J</span><br /> - -James I., <i>King of Aragon</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_031">31</a><br /> - -<i>Jews</i>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>, <a href="#page_176">176</a><br /> - -Jijona, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> - -Jimena, wife of El Cid, <a href="#page_157">157</a>, <a href="#page_158">158</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> - -Johnson (Samuel), quoted, <a href="#page_047">47</a><br /> - -Joseph, <i>King of Spain</i>, <a href="#page_042">42</a><br /> - -Juan Manuel, <i>Infante</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_101">101</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="K" id="K"></a><span class="lettre">K</span><br /> - -Kipling (Rudyard), quoted, <a href="#page_050">50</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="L" id="L"></a><span class="lettre">L</span><br /> - -La Rhune, <a href="#page_064">64</a><br /> - -Larramendi (Manuel de), <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a><br /> - -<i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_202">202</a><br /> - -León, <a href="#page_048">48</a>, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> - -—— (Luis de), <a href="#page_148">148</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_163">163-184</a><br /> - -—— (Ricardo), <a href="#page_023">23</a>, <a href="#page_024">24</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a>, <a href="#page_212">212</a>, <a href="#page_242">242-243</a><br /> - -Longfellow (H. W.), quoted, <a href="#page_052">52</a>, <a href="#page_092">92</a><br /> - -Loti (Pierre) [Julien Viaud], <a href="#page_073">73</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a><br /> - -<i>Louis XIV.</i>, <i>King of France</i>, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a><br /> - -Lumbier, <a href="#page_083">83</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="M" id="M"></a><span class="lettre">M</span><br /> - -Madrid, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_198">198</a>, <a href="#page_202">202</a>, <a href="#page_203">203</a>, <a href="#page_207">207</a>, <a href="#page_228">228</a>, <a href="#page_231">231</a>, <a href="#page_232">232</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a>{262}</span><br /> - -Maeztu (Ramiro de), quoted, <a href="#page_036">36</a><br /> - -<i>Makhilas</i>, <a href="#page_077">77</a><br /> - -Málaga, <a href="#page_137">137</a>, <a href="#page_138">138</a><br /> - -Mallada (Lucas), quoted, <a href="#page_022">22</a><br /> - -Manrique (Jorge), <a href="#page_251">251</a><br /> - -Marbot, <i>General</i>, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> - -——, quoted, <a href="#page_018">18</a><br /> - -Mariana (Juan de), <a href="#page_037">37</a>, <a href="#page_070">70</a><br /> - -Martial, quoted, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> - -Martínez Ruiz (J.), <i>Azorín</i>, <a href="#page_022">22</a>, <a href="#page_089">89-90</a>, <a href="#page_094">94-96</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_208">208</a>, <a href="#page_209">209</a><br /> - -Masdeu, quoted, <a href="#page_019">19</a><br /> - -Menéndez y Pelayo (Marcelino), <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> - -<i>Montaña, La</i>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_226">226</a>, <a href="#page_228">228-238</a><br /> - -Montano (Arias), <a href="#page_173">173</a><br /> - -Montoro, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> - -<i>Moors in Spain, the</i>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_031">31</a>, <a href="#page_086">86</a>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a><br /> - -Murcia, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> - -Murillo (Bartolomé Esteban), <a href="#page_249">249</a><br /> - -<i>Mystics</i>, <a href="#page_148">148</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="N" id="N"></a><span class="lettre">N</span><br /> - -Napier (Sir W.), <i>Lieut.-General</i>, quoted, <a href="#page_017">17</a>, <a href="#page_018">18</a>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a><br /> - -Napoleon, <a href="#page_042">42</a>, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> - -Narváez (Ramón María), <i>General</i>, <a href="#page_030">30</a><br /> - -Navarre, <a href="#page_080">80-84</a><br /> - -<i>Navarrese</i>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_083">83</a><br /> - -<i>Norias</i>, <a href="#page_108">108-109</a><br /> - -<i>Novels</i>, ix, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_185">185-238</a>, <a href="#page_241">241</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="O" id="O"></a><span class="lettre">O</span><br /> - -Ocaña, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> - -Ondarrabia, <a href="#page_085">85</a>, <a href="#page_086">86</a><br /> - -<i>Oranges, Court of</i>, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> - -Oropesa, <a href="#page_108">108-111</a><br /> - -Oviedo, <a href="#page_197">197</a><br /> - -<i>Ox-carts</i>, <a href="#page_074">74</a><br /> - -Oxford, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="P" id="P"></a><span class="lettre">P</span><br /> - -Pacheco (Francisco), <a href="#page_245">245</a><br /> - -Palacio Valdés (Armando), <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_195">195-196</a>, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -<i>Papal authority in Spain</i>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> - -Pardo Bazán (Emilia), <a href="#page_185">185</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_214">214-217</a>, <a href="#page_222">222</a><br /> - -<i>Parish Priests</i>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_215">215</a>, <a href="#page_233">233</a>, <a href="#page_236">236</a><br /> - -Pascal (Blaise), <a href="#page_148">148</a>, <a href="#page_171">171</a><br /> - -<i>Pastorales, Basque</i>, <a href="#page_069">69-70</a><br /> - -<i>Patios</i>, viii, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_131">131</a>, <a href="#page_133">133</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_256">256</a><br /> - -<i>Peasants</i>, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_082">82</a>, <a href="#page_083">83</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a>, <a href="#page_120">120-124</a>, <a href="#page_135">135</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_215">215-216</a>, <a href="#page_226">226-227</a>, <a href="#page_229">229-230</a>, <a href="#page_240">240</a><br /> - -<i>Pelota, Basque</i>, <a href="#page_073">73</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a><br /> - -<i>Peninsular War, the</i>, <a href="#page_017">17</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> - -Pepys (Samuel), quoted, <a href="#page_019">19</a>, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_044">44</a><br /> - -Pereda (José María de), <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_152">152</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_222">222-238</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a><br /> - -Pérez Galdós (Benito), <a href="#page_024">24</a>, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_030">30</a>, <a href="#page_035">35</a>, <a href="#page_037">37</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_197">197</a>, <a href="#page_204">204</a>, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a><br /> - -Péroz, <i>Colonel</i>, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> - -Philip II., <i>King of Spain</i>, <a href="#page_165">165</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a>, <a href="#page_248">248</a><br /> - -Philip IV., <i>King of Spain</i>, <a href="#page_060">60</a><br /> - -Picón (Jacinto Octavio), <a href="#page_201">201-202</a><br /> - -<i>Pilgrims</i>, <a href="#page_061">61</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a><br /> - -Pino, <a href="#page_138">138</a><br /> - -Place-names, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, <a href="#page_068">68</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a>, <a href="#page_085">85</a>, <a href="#page_086">86</a><br /> - -<i>Politics</i>, <a href="#page_028">28</a>, <a href="#page_035">35</a>, <a href="#page_212">212</a><br /> - -Pomponius Mela, quoted, <a href="#page_086">86</a><br /> - -<i>Post</i>, <a href="#page_056">56</a>, <a href="#page_059">59</a><br /> - -Prim (Juan), <i>General</i>, <i>Conde de Reus</i>, <a href="#page_198">198</a><br /> - -<i>Processions</i>, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a>, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> - -<i>Proverbs</i>, ix, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_028">28</a>, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_032">32</a>, <a href="#page_033">33</a>, <a href="#page_034">34</a>, <a href="#page_035">35</a>, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_069">69</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_079">79</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a>{263}</span><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="Q" id="Q"></a><span class="lettre">Q</span><br /> - -Quevedo [Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas], <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="R" id="R"></a><span class="lettre">R</span><br /> - -Reclus (Elisée), quoted, <a href="#page_021">21</a><br /> - -<i>Religion</i>, <a href="#page_038">38</a>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_044">44</a>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_080">80</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -<i>Roads</i>, <a href="#page_050">50</a>, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_052">52</a><br /> - -Romayquia, <i>Queen</i>, <a href="#page_101">101</a><br /> - -Roncesvalles, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> - -Ruiz (Juan), <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="S" id="S"></a><span class="lettre">S</span><br /> - -Sagunto, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> - -Saint-Jean-de-Luz, <a href="#page_057">57</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -Saint-Pée, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -Salamanca, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_164">164-168</a>, <a href="#page_173">173-175</a>, <a href="#page_181">181-183</a><br /> - -Sánchez (Tomás Antonio), <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> - -San Feliú de Guixols, <a href="#page_104">104</a><br /> - -Sanguesa, <a href="#page_084">84</a><br /> - -San Sebastian, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> - -Sansol, <a href="#page_083">83</a><br /> - -Santa Cruz (Manuel), <a href="#page_210">210</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -Santander, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_224">224</a>, <a href="#page_232">232-233</a><br /> - -Santiago de Compostella, <a href="#page_061">61</a>, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> - -Santillana, <i>Marqués de</i> [Iñigo López de Mendoza], <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_143">143</a><br /> - -San Vicente, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> - -Sare, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -Scaliger, quoted, <a href="#page_060">60</a><br /> - -Scott (<i>Sir</i> Walter), <a href="#page_185">185</a><br /> - -Segovia, <a href="#page_087">87</a><br /> - -<i>Serenos</i>, <a href="#page_111">111</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a><br /> - -Seville, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_125">125-133</a>, <a href="#page_187">187</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a><br /> - -Shakespeare, quoted, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_041">41</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a><br /> - -Sierra de Jaen, <a href="#page_139">139</a><br /> - -Sierra Nevada, <a href="#page_117">117</a>, <a href="#page_118">118</a>, <a href="#page_138">138</a>, <a href="#page_139">139</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a><br /> - -Sitges, <a href="#page_106">106</a><br /> - -<i>Smuggling</i>, <a href="#page_057">57</a>, <a href="#page_058">58</a>, <a href="#page_077">77</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -<i>Socialism</i>, <a href="#page_027">27</a><br /> - -Socoa, <a href="#page_065">65</a><br /> - -<i>Song of Solomon, the</i>, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_175">175</a><br /> - -Sorolla (Joaquín), <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -Stendhal [Henri Beyle], <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> - -Strabo, quoted, <a href="#page_098">98</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="T" id="T"></a><span class="lettre">T</span><br /> - -Tagus, the, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a>, <a href="#page_202">202-203</a><br /> - -Talavera, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> - -Tannenberg (Boris de), <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_237">237</a><br /> - -Tarifa, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> - -Tarragona, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> - -Teresa, Santa, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a>, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> - -Theotocopuli (Dominico). <i>See</i> Greco.<br /> - -<i>Threshing</i>, <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_082">82</a><br /> - -Ticknor (George), quoted, 52 <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_163">163</a><br /> - -Tiepolo (Paolo), quoted, <a href="#page_019">19</a><br /> - -Tintoretto, <a href="#page_255">255</a><br /> - -Titian, <a href="#page_245">245</a>, <a href="#page_254">254</a><br /> - -Toledo, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_155">155</a>, <a href="#page_240">240</a>, <a href="#page_244">244-258</a><br /> - -Torrevieja, <a href="#page_113">113-114</a><br /> - -Townsend (Joseph), quoted, <a href="#page_031">31</a><br /> - -<i>Translations</i>, <a href="#page_241">241-242</a><br /> - -<i>Travelling</i>, <a href="#page_047">47-56</a><br /> - -<i>Turroneros</i>, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="U" id="U"></a><span class="lettre">U</span><br /> - -Unamuno (Miguel de), <a href="#page_212">212</a><br /> - -Urrobi, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> - -Urrugne, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> - -<i>Usury</i>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_203">203</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="V-i" id="V-i"></a><span class="lettre">V</span><br /> - -Valencia, <a href="#page_090">90</a>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_115">115</a>, <a href="#page_120">120</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_206">206</a><br /> - -Valencia Island, <a href="#page_086">86</a><br /> - -<i>Valencians</i>, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_026">26</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a>{264}</span><br /> - -Valera (Juan), <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_193">193-195</a>, <a href="#page_212">212</a>, <a href="#page_242">242</a><br /> - -Valle-Inclán (Ramón del), <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_208">208</a>, <a href="#page_210">210</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a>, <a href="#page_217">217-221</a>, <a href="#page_242">242-243</a><br /> - -Vega (Lope Félix de), <a href="#page_033">33</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> - -Velázquez [Diego Velázquez de Silva], <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_248">248</a>, <a href="#page_253">253</a>, <a href="#page_254">254</a><br /> - -Vera, <a href="#page_058">58</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -Vézinet (F.), <a href="#page_214">214</a><br /> - -<i>Villages</i>, <a href="#page_048">48</a>, <a href="#page_080">80</a>, <a href="#page_083">83</a>, <a href="#page_092">92</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_135">135</a>, <a href="#page_138">138</a>, <a href="#page_229">229</a><br /> - -Villanueva y Geltrú, <a href="#page_106">106</a><br /> - -Vinson (Julien), <a href="#page_071">71</a><br /> - -Vizcaya, <a href="#page_060">60</a>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_068">68</a>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -Voltaire, quoted, <a href="#page_073">73</a><br /> - -<i>Vulgate, the</i>, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>, <a href="#page_176">176-177</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="W" id="W"></a><span class="lettre">W</span><br /> - -Webster (Wentworth), <a href="#page_071">71</a><br /> - -Wellington, <i>the Duke of</i>, <a href="#page_017">17</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> - -<i>Whale-fishing</i>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a><br /> - -<i>Witches</i>, <a href="#page_231">231</a><br /> - -<i>Women, influence of</i>, <a href="#page_040">40</a><br /> - -Wordsworth (William), quoted, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_077">77</a><br /> - -Wynn (Sir R.), quoted, <a href="#page_030">30</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a><br /> - -<br /> -<a name="Z" id="Z"></a><span class="lettre">Z</span><br /> - -<i>Zagal, the</i>, <a href="#page_051">51</a><br /> - -Zola (Émile), <a href="#page_207">207</a>, <a href="#page_222">222</a>, <a href="#page_238">238</a><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a>{265}</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c">THE SPANISH SERIES.</p> - -<p class="c">Edited by ALBERT F. CALVERT.</p> - -<p class="c">A Series dealing with the Arts of Spain.</p> - -<p class="c">Crown 8vo. Gilt Top. Price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td>TOLEDO</td><td class="c">with</td><td> 510</td><td class="c"> illustrations.</td></tr> -<tr><td>MADRID</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">453</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>SEVILLE</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">300</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>MURILLO</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">165</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>CORDOVA</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">160</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>EL GRECO</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">136</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>VELAZQUEZ</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">136</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>THE PRADO</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">220</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>THE ESCORIAL</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">278</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>SCULPTURE IN SPAIN</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">140</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>VALENCIA AND MURCIA</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">300</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>ROYAL PALACES OF SPAIN</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">164</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>SPANISH ARMS AND ARMOUR</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">386</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>LEON, BURGOS AND SALAMANCA</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">462</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>CATALONIA AND BALEARIC ISLANDS</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">250</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -<tr><td>VALLADOLID, OVIEDO, SEGOVIA, ZAMORA, AVILA AND ZARAGOZA</td><td class="c">”</td><td align="left">413</td><td class="c">”</td></tr> -</table> - -<p>“Mr. A. 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These papers -are in his accustomed vein; bright, whimsical, clever, and -amusing.”—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> - -<p>“There is here all that joyfulness in action, easy brilliance, and skill -at the presentation of a case which have made this writer so delightful -a controversialist.”—<i>Daily News.</i></p> - -<p>“Thoroughly sane and virile.”—<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></p> - -<p>“Passages of marvellous power.”—<i>Echo.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Chesterton’s intellectual gambols are an increasing joy.”—<i>Evening -Standard.</i></p> - -<p>“The brilliant maker of paradox finds abundant scope for his wayward and -delightful humour in his present volume.... Every page contains some -witty phrase, some daring flight of fancy, or some startling turn of -thought.”—<i>Graphic.</i></p> - -<p>“A book of gorgeous paradoxes and brilliant epigram.”—<i>Onlooker.</i></p> - -<p>“A collection of delightful essays bristling with epigrams and flashes -of humour.... A clever, healthy, inspiring book, and will greatly add to -the reputation the author has already won by his ‘Napoleon of Notting -Hill.’<span class="lftspc">”</span>—<i>Clarion.</i></p> - -<p>“This brilliant book ... scintillating epigram and unorthodox -thought.”—<i>Weekly Scotsman.</i></p> - -<p>“A volume which makes delightful reading, and the more delightful -because it is impossible to read it without encountering in every -page—in every phrase almost—abundant food for thought ... his -brilliant wit, his verbal and mental agility are as evident as they are -in everything he writes.”—<i>Newcastle Daily Chronicle.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Chesterton is as inimitable, as elusive, as pungent as ever. His -wit plays with unimpaired vivacity, his convictions grow more and more -genuine and surprising.”—<i>Morning Leader.</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The distinction still holds good, and those Spaniards who -have travelled, <i>e.g.</i> to Buenos Aires, differ by a certain practical -energy and optimism from those who have never left the Peninsula.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> “The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady——. -Travels into Spain.” English translation. Second edition. London. 1692.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Villefranche. “État présent d’Espagne.” 1717.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Edward Clarke. “Letters concerning the Spanish Nation.” -London. 1763.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This pessimism “is based on our recent disasters; on the -fact that we are fallen, a terrible fact in the implacable merciless -logic of international life; on the momentary lack of will from which we -are suffering; and on the anachronism of certain vices and ideals which, -since they can no longer, as in past ages, be excused on the ground that -other nations share them, seem to show that we are incorrigible.” Rafael -Altamira, “Psicología del Pueblo Español” (Madrid. 1902), in which will -be found several of the opinions quoted above.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> “Los Males de la Patria.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> “Idearium Español.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> “La Voluntad.” Barcelona. 1902: “La intuición de las cosas, -la visión rápida no falta, pero falta, en cambio, la co-ordinación -reflexiva, el laboreo paciente, la voluntad.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> “Alcalá de los Zegríes.” Madrid. 1910.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Saints in other countries have carried their heads in -their hands, but there is a legend of a saint in Spain who, not content -to walk a league with his head under his arm, continued to talk the -while without ceasing. He was, no doubt “concealing the poverty of his -action,” like Bertram dal Bornio, carrying his head “a guisa di -lanterna” in the Inferno.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> “Comedia Sentimental.” 1909.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> One may apply to it the words of Santa Teresa— -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Tiene tan divinas mañas<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Que en un tan acerbo trance<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sale triunfando del lance<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Obrando grandes hazañas.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Ford considered the Basque to be as “proud as Lucifer and -as combustible as his matches,” and there is a proverb, “En nave y en -castillo no más que un vizcaino.” Cf. Camões. Os Lusiadas: -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A gente biscainha que carece<br /></span> -<span class="i0">De polidas razões e que as injurias<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Muito mal dos estranhos compadece.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The Castilians, said King James I. of Aragon, are very -haughty and proud: <i>de gran ufania e erguylhosos</i>. In the Lusiads the -Castilian is “grande e raro.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The line of Dante is well known: “l’avara povertà di -Catalogna.” Napier speaks of “the Catalans, a fierce and constant -race.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The Gallegan, “o Gallego cauto” and “sordidos Gallegos duro -bando,” in Camões, ever remains the butt of Spanish wit. The inhabitants -of the <i>Montaña</i> are considered almost equally dense: “El montañés para -defender una necedad dice tres” and again “From Burgos to the sea all is -stupidity.” The Asturian, of the region between Galicia and the -<i>Montaña</i> has, rather, the reputation of a business-like shrewdness, he -is the <i>Astur avarus</i> of Martial and Silius Italicus; in return for his -boast that he has never had any infecting contact with the Moors, a -proverb says: “El asturiano, loco y vano, poco fiel y mal cristiano.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> “Para cantar los navarros, para llorar los franceses, para -pegar cuatro tiros los mozos aragoneses.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> In “El Imparcial.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> It is true that he was a Spanish Basque and was merely -reproducing in modern dress the scene in “Don Quixote,” in which the -Biscayan leaves his mistresses unprotected in their carriage and fights -in order to show that he is by birth a <i>caballero</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Drunkenness is especially rare in Spain. Their sobriety -has been made a reproach, as being based on laziness and lack of -initiative. The second half of their proverb: “Goza de tu poco mientras -busca más el loco—Enjoy the little you have, and let the fool seek -more” is, indeed, as foolish as the first half is wise.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Cf. the “altos pensamientos,” of Quevedo’s famous Pablos -of Segovia and his father, the barber-thief, and the latter’s remark: -“Esto de ser ladron no es arte mecánica sino liberal”—the thief’s is no -base mechanical trade, but a liberal profession.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> “Drudgery they will do none at all.” Sir R. Wynn, “A brief -relation of what was observed by the Prince’s servants in their journey -into Spain.” 1623.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> They have that momentary isolated intensity which M. -Anatole France ascribes to men of action: “Ils sont tout entiers dans le -moment qu’ils vivent et leur génie se ramasse sur un point. Ils se -renouvellent sans cesse et ne se prolongent pas.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Episodios Nacionales. Narváez. 1902.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Cf. Joseph Townsend. “A journey through Spain in the years -1786 and 1787,” 3 vols. London. 1792: “We must not imagine that the -Spaniards are naturally indolent; they are remarkable for activity, -capable of strenuous exertions and patient of fatigue.” Another -noteworthy judgment of the same author concerning the Spaniards is that -“Their ambition aims in everything at perfection, and by seeking too -much they often obtain too little.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> “Non hi ha res al mon que vosaltres non faessetz exir de -mesura.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> “La letra con sangre entra,” is a sad proverb of the -Spanish and in the modern education of the printed page they are -deficient.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Cf. the sayings, <i>Poderoso caballero es don Dinero; -Dadivas quebrantan peñas; Dineros son calidad, etc.</i> Sancho goes to -govern the island of Barataria “with a very great desire to make money.” -The tendency is still to hoard, rather than invest, as did Don Bernard -de Castil Blazo in <i>Gil Blas</i>, keeping 50,000 ducats in a chest in his -house.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Spaniards prefer to enjoy time as a gift sent by the gods, -than to waste it in trying to spend it too nicely. <i>El tiempo lo da -Dios; Dios mejora las horas; Con el tiempo maduran las uvas.</i> To a -peasant two o’clock on a day of March is “four more hours of sun.” Time -is not parcelled out mechanically into tiny divisions by clocks. -Distances are given by hours—an hour to a league. The Catalans are less -lavish of the minutes; to a stranger asking the distance to a village -near Tarragona, a peasant answered cannily in Catalan, “un cuart y -mitj”—that is, the village was a quarter of an hour and half a quarter -of an hour distant. Curiously the Catalans give the hour as in German, -<i>e.g.</i> half-past eight is <i>dos cuarts de nou—halb Neun</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> “El Caballero encantado,” 1909: “Viven en un mundo de -ritualidades, de fórmulas, de trámites y recetas. El lenguaje se ha -llenado de aforismos, de lemas y emblemas; las ideas salen plagadas de -motes, y cuando las acciones quieren producirse andan buscando la -palabra en que han de encarnarse y no acaban de elegir.” The Spaniards -speak with conviction of the great gulf fixed between word and -deed:—<i>del dicho al hecho hay gran trecho; Los dichos en nos, los -hechos en Dios</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Cf. a speaker in the <i>Cortes</i> in June, 1910: “Aquí no hay -nada tan alto como las clases bajas.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Don Ramiro de Maeztu has written of the aggressive -assertion of personality—<i>innecesária afirmación de las personas</i>—in -Spain.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Lo que no lleva Cristo lo llera el fisco</i>—“What the -Church leaves, the Treasury receives,” says an old proverb.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> An author in Pérez Galdós’ <i>Fortunata y Jacinta</i> says that -the Spaniards, that <i>pícara raza</i>, are unaware of the value of time and -of the value of silence. “You cannot make them understand that to take -possession of other people’s silence is like stealing a coin.” “It is a -lack of civilization.” By such un-Spanish criticisms Señor Pérez Galdós -betrays the fact that he was not born in Spain.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The historian, Mariana, displayed more patriotism than -accuracy when he wrote that Spain “is not like Africa, which is burnt by -the violence of the sun nor is it assailed, as is France, by winds and -frosts and humidity of air and earth.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> So Fr. Alonso de Espina wrote that, were an Inquisition -established, “serían innumerables los entregados al fuego, los cuales si -no fuesen aquí ... cruelmente castigados ... habrán de ser quemados en -el fuego eterno.” La Fortaleza de la Fe. 1459.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> “This spectacle,” says an admiring Englishman in 1760, “is -certainly one of the finest in the world, whether it is considered -merely as a <i>coup-d’œil</i> or as an exertion of the bravery and -infinite agility of the performer.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Yet certainly no Englishman should attend a bull-fight -while the modern custom prevails of leading out a cruelly gored horse, -sewing it up, and bringing it in again for fresh sufferings. This is -done to save the contractors of the <i>plaza</i> a few shillings and is a -disgrace to Spain. Those who have not seen a bull-fight and can scarcely -believe that so sordid and outrageous a practice is possible may, if -they have the courage, read all the details in Señor Blasco Ibáñez’ -novel <i>Sangre y Arena</i> (1908).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The Inquisition was a tyranny universally feared, though -in principle supported by the people. In Pepys we read of “the English -and Dutch who have been sent for to work (in the manufacture of certain -stuffs) being taken with a Psalm-book or Testament and so clapped up and -the house pulled down; and the greatest Lord in Spayne dare not say a -word against it if the word Inquisition be mentioned.” Cf. the -groundless terror of the old woman in Quevedo’s <i>El Buscón</i>, or the -story of the man who, when asked for a few pears by an Inquisitor, -pulled up and presented him with the whole tree. Attacks on and ridicule -of priests in Spain are not exclusively modern; the following verse of -Juan Ruiz (14th century) is but one of countless instances throughout -Spanish literature: -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Como quier que los frayles et clerigos disen que aman a Dios servir<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Si barruntan que el rico está para morir<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Quando oyen sus dineros que comienzan a retenir<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Qual de ellos lo levará comienzan luego a rennir.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind"> -But recently the number of those believing in religion has diminished, -and the anti-Clericals have been driven by certain abuses of the Church -to a more or less crude parade of atheism. It is felt that the Church -has crushed life rather than sought its fuller, nobler expression. Thus -a writer, E. L. André (“Ética Española,” 1910), says: “We conceive life -solely as a preparation for death,” and speaks of the slight <i>espíritu -territorial</i> possessed by Spaniards. Cf. Berceo, in the 13th century: -“Quanto aquí vivimos en ageno moramos”—our life on earth is a sojourn -in a strange land.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Honesty is a common attribute of Spaniards, but they have -perhaps no very accurate regard for the value of truthfulness or honesty -in words.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>La mujer y el fraile mal parecen en la calle.</i> In the -South, as at Seville, the percentage of women to be seen in the streets -is noticeably small.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> “El consejo de la mujer es poco,” said Sancho, “y el que -no lo toma es loco.” The women maintain their influence, but it is thus -not properly their own, but rather that of the Church.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> The phrase <i>Seguir sin novedad</i> is still used to imply -that everything is going on well. But an ever-increasing number of -politicians are now advocating “new things” with a somewhat crude -violence. It is a reaction against the apathy that waited with crossed -hands— -</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Vuolsi così colà dove si puote<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Cf. the characteristic trait mentioned by Samuel Pepys: -“They will cry out against their King, and Commanders, and Generals, -none like them in the world, and yet will not hear a stranger say a word -of them but will cut his throat.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> It is true, however, that the mass of the Spanish nation -has still to develop on really Spanish lines: hence its present weakness -and its potential strength in the future, when a civilization of a truly -national character shall have imposed itself upon the artificial -civilization of culture imported from France, and religion imported from -Rome.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> The ethereally lovely Cathedral of León is more remote.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Some of the secondary roads of Andalucía are excellent, -and motorable, though narrow. But between the roads of most provinces -there is little to choose. No wonder that there is in Spain a saint -invoked as the protector of “way-farers and the dying.” Ford remarked -that while the rest of Spain calls the Milky Way “the road to Santiago,” -the Gallegans themselves know better, and call it “the road to -Jerusalem.” The roads from small towns to their stations, at charge of -the <i>municipios</i>, are notably bad, and amaze the newly arrived -foreigner. But, indeed, the roads in the immediate neighbourhood of such -important industrial cities as Valencia and Barcelona are often in a -deplorable state, and it is no infrequent sight to see carts of fruit or -vegetables stuck fast in deep ruts of mud.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Ticknor, in 1818, speaks of Spain as “a country such as -this where all comfortable or decent modes of travelling fail,” of the -“abominable roads,” and of the inns as “miserable hovels,” destitute of -provisions. A century and a half earlier Mme. d’ Aulnoy said: “You enter -not any inn to dine but carry your provisions with you.” But the -centuries pass not for Spanish inns.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> A peasant woman near Almería wore a long yellow and pink -kerchief, a bright red shawl, light blue bodice, skirt of white and -mauve, dark blue apron with a white line, red stockings, yellow sandals, -and carried a second shawl of brilliant orange colour, yet all blent -harmoniously under the glaring sunlight.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Especially in the matter of letters, the ignorance, -indifference, errors, and delays of the officials are, to an Englishman, -past belief, and not least so at Madrid, where a letter has been kept -for two months and handed over, after repeated inquiries, with the date -of the Madrid post-mark, <i>seventy</i> days earlier, clearly visible. -Reforms are, however, in contemplation. Foreign letters as a rule fare -better than others. A card posted at Granada on May 15, and a letter -posted in France on May 26, both arrived at Barcelona on May 27 (1911).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The former importance of St. Jean de Luz (in Basque -Donibane Lohitzune) is shown by the lines— -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Saint Jean de Luz, petit Paris<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Bayonne, son écurie.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind"> -Similar is the proud boast of Almería: -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Cuando Almería era Almería<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Granada era su alquería.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind"> -Victor Hugo quaintly describes St. Jean de Luz in 1843 as “un village -cahoté dans les anfractuosités de la montagne.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> English translation of 1692.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> In 1623 Sir R. Wynn describes the country near “Bilbo” as -“all infinite Rocky, cover’d onely with Furrs and a few Juniper Trees.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> At St. Jean de Luz, where Louis XIV. was married to the -Infanta, a house still hears the inscription— -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“L’Infante je reçus l’an mil six cent soixante<br /></span> -<span class="i1">On m’appelle depuis le Chasteau de l’Infante.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> “Par Vocation.” Paris. 1905.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> “<i>Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.</i>—All hours wound, the -last kills.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Cf. Mme. d’Aulnoy: “We were here very well entertain’d so -that our Tables were covered with all sorts of Wild Fowls.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The Basque poem, “<i>Altabiscarraco Kantua</i>,” singing of -victory, was considered magnificent when it was thought to be centuries -old, and though it has been proved beyond all doubt to be modern, we may -still venture to consider it to be magnificent: “A cry is heard among -the Basque mountains, and the Etchecojauna, standing before his door, -listens and says: ‘What is it? who is there?’ and the dog asleep at his -master’s feet, rises and fills the region of Altabiscar with his -barking.” One line is, “<i>Cer nahi zuten gure menditarik Norteko gizon -horiek?</i>—What do these men of the North want in our mountains?” and -another, “Why have they come to disturb our peace?” The Basques must -often have asked a like question as they have seen the foreigners of -younger races crowd around their mountains; but in spite of these -inroads, the Basques have succeeded in keeping a part of their language -and customs, like the waters of their proverb which, after a thousand -years, still run in their old course: “<i>Mila urthe igaro eta ura bere -bidean—Después de años mil, vuelve el rio á su cubil</i>.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Rymer, “Foedera.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> -</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">S A R A R I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">BALHOREA<br /></span> -<span class="i0">RENETALE<br /></span> -<span class="i0">YALTASSUN<br /></span> -<span class="i0">AREN SARIA<br /></span> -<span class="i0">EMANA LUIS<br /></span> -<span class="i0">XIV. 1693.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p class="nind"> -The words <i>balhorea</i> (valour) and <i>leyaltassuna</i> (loyalty) are typical -of the absence of truly Basque abstract words.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> The mountain La Rhune or Larrhun, is half in France, half -in Spain. Its name is Basque, derived from <i>larre</i>, pasture, and <i>on</i>, -good (in Navarre there is a river Larron and a village Larraona); but -the first syllable has become the French article, and a lower flank of -the mountain is known as “La petite Rhune.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Napier, who had no gift of spelling, writes Atchuria, or -Atchubia. The word means White Rock (<i>aitz</i>, rock, and <i>churi</i>, white) -and its Spanish name is Peña Plata, Silver Mountain.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> The badness of their French has been ridiculed in the -proverb, “Parler français comme une vache (<i>i.e.</i> Basque) espagnole.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Yet in a codex of the twelfth century occur eighteen -Basque words, all of which, except four, are still used, if in slightly -altered forms. The Basque language gives many proofs of the extreme -antiquity of the Basques. The words for “knife,” “axe,” etc., are -derived from <i>aitz</i>, meaning “stone.” The words for “Monday” -(<i>astelehena</i>, “first day of the week”), “Tuesday” (<i>asteartea</i>, “middle -of the week”), “Wednesday” (<i>asteazkena</i>, “last of the week”) point to a -week of three days. The counting is vigesimal: “forty” is <i>berrogoi</i> -(twice twenty); “sixty,” <i>hirogoi</i> (thrice twenty). The word for -“twenty,” <i>hogoi</i>, has a curious similarity with the Greek -εἲκοτι and the sheepscoring <i>gigget</i>. There are no general terms—no -word for “tree” (for which <i>arbola</i> is used), but for different kinds of -trees; no word for “sister,” but for “brother’s sister,” “sister’s -sister;” and no abstract terms (<i>karitatea</i>, <i>prudentzia</i>, <i>etc.</i>, being -used).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> The best account of the Basques is to be found in the late -Mr. Wentworth Webster’s “Loisirs d’un Étranger au Pays Basque,” and in -his “The Basques, the Oldest People of Western Europe;” in M. Julien -Vinson’s “Les Basques et le Pays Basque” and Francisque Michel’s “Les -Basques.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> A French writer, Le Pays, speaks thus of the Basque -country in the seventeenth century: “La joye y commence avec la vie et -n’y finit qu’avec la mort. Elle paroist en toutes leurs actions. Les -prestres en ont leur part aussi bien que les autres. J’ai remarqué -qu’aux nopces c’est toûjours le curé qui mene le branle.” Another -Frenchman of the same period says that the Basques of Labourd are “des -gens toujours fols et souvent yvres.” Similarly, Larramendi says that -the Basques are “muy inclinados á ver fiestas.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Cf. their proverbs, “Lan lasterra, lan alferra—Rapid -work, idle work;” and “Geroa, alferraren leloa—To-morrow is the refrain -of the idle.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> The great game at Irun, between French and Spanish -Basques, about the year 1840, has become a legend, and is still spoken -of by the peasants. Gascoña, the chief French player, was offered 10,000 -francs “pour faire trahison,” but refused, were it ten times the sum. -Oxen, crops, fields and houses were freely betted. The ball, we are -told, was slily wetted for service, tintacks were scattered in the -court, and Gascoña, accustomed to play barefoot, called for a pair of -heavy wooden <i>sabots</i>, and continued the game. The French won, and were -obliged to escape across the frontier without changing, and <i>chistera</i> -on arm. Those were the times when the peasants left their farms to play -for the love of the game. To-day the game is in the hands of a few -professionals, for the benefit of foreigners, the result often arranged -beforehand. “Aujourd’hui,” said an aged player of the frontier, “les -joueurs rient quelquefois: nous ne riions pas, nous.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Antaño, en los antaños, dans le temps.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Corografía de Guipúzcoa: “No es creible si no se ve el -mucho pan y cera que se ofrece.... Además en tales grandes funerales por -modo de ofrenda se trae á la puerta de la iglesia un buey vivo en unos -lugares y en otros un carnero también vivo que, acabado el oficio, se -vuelve á la casería ó carnicería, y por esto se paga al cura una -cantidad determinada en dinero.” He estimates the house expenses at 500 -duros (or dollars), and the Church expenses at another 500, truly an -immense sum for those days. When the burials took place in the church, -the offerings of bread and wax would be made on the tomb.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> The music and words are by Iparraguirre.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Sare.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Urrugne, above the sun-dial on the church.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Saint Jean de Luz.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Saint Pée, formerly Stus. Petrus de Ivarren. “There is a -little village called St. Pé, where I was stopped a day or two by very -bad weather. I was lodged at the Curé’s, a good old man, from whose -conversation about the state of France I received light which had -important results. He was very clever and very well-informed, and took -not only right, but large views of things.”—<i>The Duke of Wellington to -J. W. Croker.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Near Louhossoa.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> “Remember death.”—Ossès.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa are, with Barcelona and Pontevedra, -the most densely populated provinces in Spain. The Basques have a genius -for administration which is not to be found in other parts of the -Peninsula. Their excellent roads and cleanly kept towns form a striking -contrast. They have a true love of local independence, and in the -eighteenth century we find two Basque frontier villages, Vera and Sare, -styling themselves in a treaty the “two Republics.” The treaty concerned -Yerbas y Aguas y Bellotas; grass, water and acorns. Similarly, to-day, -in the Basque provinces groups of small villages and houses are joined -in free “hermandades,” “universidades,” “anteiglesias,” “valles.” The -few privileges that remain are jealously guarded. The Navarrese will -tell you with pride that theirs is the only province where a man is -allowed to find a substitute in the conscriptions.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> The Spanish Premier himself has said in the Senate -(October, 1910), that if the Basque Provinces are more advanced than -other parts of Spain this is due not to their merits, but to the -favouritism of governments. A knowledge of the Basques, however, hardly -warrants this statement. Since the abolition of the <i>fueros</i>, says the -late Mr. Butler Clarke, in “Modern Spain,” “their efforts are restricted -to making the administration of their provinces a model for the rest of -Spain.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> The Basques took their revenge by the hand of M. l’Abbé -d’Iharce de Bidassouet. In his “Histoire des Cantabres,” tom. I. Paris, -1825 (vol. ii. was not published), he derives all names of places from -Basque, as the original language of the world. “Je ne serai pas assez -hardi,” he says, “pour soutenir que le Père Éternel parlât basque,” but -he is really convinced that it is so. L’Andalousie, with the help of the -article, he derives from two Basque words, “landa lusia,” long land. -Versailles is a Basque word, so is Athens, so is Helicon. Norway puzzles -him for a moment, but soon with the remark that “Norvège est un mot -altéré et corrompu,” he tosses it aside and proceeds on his reckless -etymological course. Certainly to the irresponsible philologist Basque -offers a delightful field. For instance, the name of the desolate salt -lake of Kevir in Persia has been derived from a word “gavr” or “gav” -(“hollow,” “depression”). In Basque “gabe” means without, and the word -for night is also “gabe” (no doubt as being a hollow without light). -Then we have the Gaves, de Pau, d’Oloron, etc.; the Spanish “gaveta” (a -pigeonhole), “gavia” (pit dug for planting a tree); “cavus,” “cave” and -so forth. But to draw inferences as to the origin of the Iberians, as to -whether the same or different peoples inhabited the Caucasus and the -Pyrenees, or even as to whether “le Père Éternel parlât Basque,” is a -very different matter, beset with pitfalls innumerable.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> See Wentworth Webster, “Les Loisirs d’un Étranger au Pays -Basque.” 1901. This was a common practice of the Romans who, meeting -words so rough and horrid to their Latin pronunciation in the land of -the Basques, “quorum nomina,” according to Pomponius Mela, “nostro ore -concipi nequeunt,” would smooth and round these names and give them a -Latin derivation. The Spaniards may have done the same in the case of -Valencia Island, Co. Kerry. The form in old maps is Ballinish (<i>Innish</i>, -“island,” and <i>ball</i>, “home” or perhaps “mouth”—the harbour the mouth -of the island), and the peasants still pronounce the name Valinch.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Yet those who connect Barcelona with the smoke and gloom -of an industrial city, having heard it spoken of as the Manchester of -Spain, are mistaken. Barcelona is still worthy of the praise of the -Venetian ambassador in the sixteenth century, who called it a -“bellissima città,” with “copia di giardini bellisimi,” and of the -praises of Cervantes in “Don Quixote,” and in “Las Dos Doncellas,” where -it is the “flower of the beautiful cities of the world and an honour to -Spain.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> “España: Hombres y paisajes.” 1909.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> A Spanish proverb says: “When it rains, it rains; when it -snows, it snows; but ’tis bad weather when it blows.” Agriculture in -many parts of Spain is literally “ἀπάνευθεν ἐπ’ ἀγροῦ πήυατα πάσχειν—to -suffer woes apart upon the land.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Cf. Pío Baroja, “César ó Nada.” Madrid, 1910: “Hay una -hora en estos pueblos castellanos, adustos y viejos, de paz y serenidad -ideales. Es el comenzar de la mañana. Todavía los gallos cantan, las -campanadas de la iglesia se derraman por el aire y el sol comienza á -penetrar en las calles en ráfagas de luz. La mañana es un diluvio de -claridad que se precipita sobre el pueblo amarillento. El cielo está -azul, el aire limpio, puro y diáfano; la atmósfera transparente no da -casi efectos de perspectiva, y su masa etérea hace vibrar los contornos -de las casas, de los campanarios y de los remates de los tejados. El -viento frío y sutil juega en las encrucijadas y se entretiene en torcer -los tallos de los geranios y de los claveles que llamean en los -balcones. Hay por todas partes un olor de jara y de retama quemada que -viene de los hornos donde se cuece el pan, y un olor de alhucema que -viene de los zaguanes.” Castille has been a little neglected by the -novelists in comparison with other regions. But recently Ricardo León -(in “El Amor de los Amores,” 1910), has sung the praises of the <i>ancha, -heróica tierra de Castilla</i>, its austere simplicity and strength, its -serene atmosphere, its golden crops, its flocks of sheep, clear streams, -thyme-scented solitudes, and far horizons. And <i>Azorín</i>, in a short -study, “En la Meseta” (<i>La Vanguardia</i> of Barcelona, January 4, 1911), -as in his books “España,” “El Alma Castellana,” “Los Pueblos,” skilfully -portrays the inner spirit of Castille: “Por la ventana se columbra un -paisaje llano, seco, desmantelado; á lo lejos se divisan unas montañas -con las cimas blanqueadas por la nieve.... Todo el silencio, toda la -rigidez, toda la adustez de esta inmoble vida castellana está -concentrada en los rebaños que cruzan la llanura lentamente y se recogen -en los oteros y los valles de las montañas. Mirad ese rabadán, envuelto -en su capa récia y parda, contemplando un cielo azul sin nubes, ante el -paisaje abrupto y grandioso de la montaña, y tendréis explicado el tipo -del campesino castellano castizo, histórico: noble, austero, grave y -elegante en el ademán, corto, sentencioso y agudo on sus razones.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Señor Gasset, Minister of Public Works, now proposes (in a -scheme explained to the Congress on March 9, 1911) to spend twenty-seven -million <i>pesetas</i> on afforestation in ten years.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Martial, referring to the frequency of winds of Spain, -says— -</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Debes non aliter timere risum<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Quam ventum Spanius.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> El Conde Lucanor, “Enxemplo 30:” “...el rey Abenabet de -Sevilla era casada con Romayquia et amábala muy mas que á cosa del -mundo, et ella era muy buena mujer, et los moros han della muy buenos -enxemplos: pero una manera habia que non era muy buena, esto era, que á -las vegadas tomaba algunos antojos á su voluntad. Et acaesció que un -dia, estando en Córdoba en el mes de febrero, cayó una nieve, et cuando -Romayquia esto vió comenzó á llorar, et el rey preguntóle porque -lloraba, et ella dijó que porque nunca la dejaba estar en tierra que -hubiese nieve. Et el rey, por le facer placer, fize poner almendrales -por toda la tierra de Córdoba, porque pues Córdoba es tan caliente -tierra et non nieva y cada año, que en el febrero paresciesen los -almendrales floridos et le semejasen nieve, por le facer perder aquel -deseo de la nieve.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> George Eliot, “The Spanish Gypsy.” The purple shadows are -the effect of dark patches of rock seen through the transparent blue -water.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> “<i>Papel y tinta y poca justicia</i>, paper, ink, and little -justice,” say the people, in one of their proverbs. They feel that, in -Spain, if revenge is a kind of wild justice, so too frequently is -justice.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Barretti’s Dictionary (edition of 1778) quaintly renders -<i>socarrón</i> as “a crafty, subtle fellow; an arch wag.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> On the road from Tortosa to Valencia there is a stone -cross with the pathetic, ill-spelt inscription: “Aqui murió -instantáneamente al tirarse del carro por habersele desembocado el mulo -Domin<sup>co</sup> Cugat Jardi el 30 agosto de 1894. R.I.P. Carrateros ya veis -lo que paso este infelis.” “Carters, you see what happened to this -unhappy man.” But the carters throughout Spain continue to sleep away -the long hours of the road.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> The latest statistics available show that, while 90 and 80 -per cent. of the electors in some northern provinces of Spain can read -and write, in Andalucía the highest averages are 51 and 50 (provinces of -Cadiz and Seville), that of the province of Córdoba being but 41, of -Almería 38, of Granada and Jaen 35, of Málaga 34.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> “Chapters on Spanish Literature.” 1908.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> “N’uma mão a penna e n’outra a lança.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> M. Boris de Tannenberg, speaking of “Sotileza,” has said -excellently: “C’est que plus une œuvre a un caractère local marqué, -plus elle a de chance de devenir universelle, à condition que -l’écrivain, sous la particularité des mœurs et du langage, ait -pénétre jusqu’au fond commun d’humanité.” And Don Marcelino Menéndez y -Pelayo, who represented King Alfonso on January 23, 1911, in the -ceremony of unveiling at Santander the statue of Pereda by Señor Collaut -Valera (nephew of the novelist, Juan Valera), said in his speech: “His -books, so local that even the inhabitants of the mountain require a -glossary, and as Spanish as the most Spanish writings since Cervantes -and Quevedo, are profoundly human owing to the intensity of life which -they contain, and the quiet majesty with which it is developed.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> We are apt to forget that men in the Middle Ages, if they -dwelt insistently on the sinister “Dance of Death,” also felt to the -full the joys of living. The “Poema del Cid” sings no variations on the -theme “How good is man’s life, the mere living,” but the feeling itself -appears in every line.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> The King had sent “letters to León and Sanctiague, to -Portuguese and Galicians, to those of Carrión and the Men of Castille,” -to announce a <i>Cort dentro en Tolledo</i>, in order to judge between the -Cid and the Counts of Carrión. “Since I was King,” he says, “I have held -but two <i>Cortes</i>, one in Burgos, the other in Carrión, this third in -Tolledo have I come to hold to-day.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” -p. 231.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> See pp. <a href="#page_151">151</a>, <a href="#page_222">222-238</a>. Pereda is, perhaps, the least read -outside Spain of all Spanish novelists; yet it is scarcely too much to -say that he who cannot appreciate Pereda cannot understand the spirit or -feel the true savour of Spain.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 246.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Andrés González-Blanco, “Historia de la novela en España -desde el romanticismo hasta nuestros días.” Madrid. 1909.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> La Primera República. Madrid. 1911.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> See <a href="#page_214">page 214</a>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Señor Picón, whose writings are rather exquisite than -voluminous, is the author of “Dulce y Sabrosa,” and several short -stories. A Spanish critic, Señor Gómez de Baquero, has said of him that -while “his thoughts look to the future, his style listens to the golden -music of the past.” His latest work is “Juanita Tenorio,” a long novel -(published as vol. 3 of his Complete Works in the autumn of 1910), in -which his art, skilful and delicate as it is, has not been entirely -successful in eclipsing the sordidness of the subject by the magic of -the style. The following quotation—a description of Madrid seen from an -attic-window at night—will give some idea of his restrained and -clear-cut style: “Era noche cerrada. En primer término no percibía la -vista más que las grandes masas angulosas y obscuras de muros, parodones -y tejados: descollando por encima de ellos surgían los contornos de -torres y campanarios, cuyos puntiagudos chapiteles, cubiertos de -pizarra, recogían el escaso claror de las estrellas; acà y allà rompían -la superficie negra de las fachadas los rectángulos de luz amarillenta -que forman los balcones alumbrados interiormente, y al través de algun -vidrio brillaba el resplandor solitario de una lámpara con su pantalla -de color; de las chimeneas salían nubecillas de humo, que, flotando como -manchas fugaces en la lobreguez del ambiente, se desvanecían en la -altura; por entre las manzanas de casas, á lo largo de las calles -rectas, divisabanse las hileras de los faroles, cuyas llamas -reverberaban en cristales y vidrieras, ó á trechos algún arco voltáico -irradiaba intenso fulgor blanquecino; y de aquel conjunto de sombras -esmaltadas de toques luminosos so alzaba el rumor confuso de mil ruidos -diversos; rodar de vehículos, vocear de vendedores, gritar de chicos y -cantar de criadas; ya el tecleo de un piano, ya el lento sonar de las -campanadas de un reloj.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> “César ó Nada” is the first of a trilogy entitled “Las -Ciudades”; another trilogy, “El Mar,” is begun with “Las Inquietudes de -Shanti Andía” (1911), a vivid disconnected narrative concerning the -lives of adventurous sailors of the Basque coast in the little -fishing-harbour of Luzaro and in their distant voyages. The style, or -absence of style, is clear, transparent, as it were brittle with the -shock of abrupt short sentences, interspersed with sonorous Basque names -and rough snatches of Basque song. In Basque, too, are the indications -of the site in which lie buried the coffers of gold coins hoarded by a -miserly slave trader. But the book ends with the sad reflection: “No one -now in Luzaro is willing to be a sailor. Los vascos se retiran del -mar.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Six years after Galdós, sixteen before Blasco Ibáñez, one -before Alas and Picón, and two before Palacio Valdés.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> F. Vézinet, “Les Maîtres du Roman Espagnol Contemporain,” -Paris, 1907.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Indeed, in reading the more recent novels by Señora Pardo -Bazán, “La Quimera,” or “La Sirena Negra,” or “Dulce Dueño” (1911), -striking and original as they are, one cannot help looking back from -them somewhat regretfully to her Galician novels of the eighties.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> “Le trait essentiel du réalisme de Pereda c’est la -sympathie avec laquelle il décrit les mœurs populaires, sans -optimisme outré, mais avec une divination profonde de leur poésie -intime. Pereda aime le peuple par tempérament d’artiste, pour ce que -celui-ci a de pittoresque et d’original; il l’aime aussi en homme et en -chrétien, comme une humanité plus simple, aux sentiments spontanés et -naïfs. Il ne nous dissimule pas sa grossièreté et ses misères mais il -nous ouvre les yeux sur ses vertus ignorées; jusque chez les êtres -dégradés par le vice, il nous montre quelque noble instinct qui survit -et se réveille à l’occasion. Et ce réalisme, qu’illumine toujours un -rayon d’idéal, respecte l’homme en le peignant même dans ses vulgarités -ou ses laideurs.” Boris de Tannenberg. L’Espagne littéraire. Paris, -1903.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> The country between Burgos and the Atlantic, known as the -“<i>Montaña</i>” with Santander for its capital, is a district of continuous -mountains and hills and steep meadows and maize-fields, with scarcely an -inch of level ground. The hills far up are covered with chestnut and -oak, beech, walnut and sycamore; rushing streams are hidden in deep -wooded clefts, and rough walls of stones divide field from field, where -the reapers, with difficulty wielding their scythes, have but a -precipitous foothold. The villages and scattered farms are of massive -yellow stone, with roofs of deep-brown tiles and wide balconies -suspended by grey wooden posts from the projecting eaves.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Even so, however, the clear splendour of the sky of -Castille must have cast a charm over the place. The dominant impression -at Madrid to-day is, indeed, that of light and of open spaces, the -Puerta del Sol in a radiance of sunshine, the Carrera de San Jeronymo -going off apparently into space, the surrounding country far-seen and -treeless, the clear blue mountains, and the sky from verge to zenith -clothed with a brilliance of dazzling light so that “ogni parte ad ogni -parte splende.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> “La Montálvez” (1888) and “Nubes de Estío” (1891) are -perhaps his weakest works. “Nubes de Estío” is rather wearisome till the -Duque de Cañaveral arrives, “falling like a Jupiter among little gods.” -“Al Primer Vuelo” (1890) is a novel of the Cantabrian coast, but without -the full salt and vigour of “Sotileza.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> M. Boris de Tannenberg speaks of “l’âpre saveur de sa -langue, un peu rude et fruste, mais solide, musclée et haute en -couleur.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> The difference between these artists in prose may be best -illustrated by quotation: “El Cura abrió la ventana y miró al cielo. -Apenas brillaban las estrellas. Estúvose quieto y meditando, con los -ojos fijos en la sombra de los montes. Bajo la bóveda de la noche, todos -los rumores parecían llenos de prestigio. El ladrido de los perros, el -paso de las patrullas, el agua del río en las presas, eran voces -religiosas y misteriosas, como esos anhelos ignotos que estremecen á las -almas en su noche oscura.” (Valle-Inclán, “Gerifaltes de Antaño.”) Here -we have the clear thin outlines, the studied restraint of the admirer of -El Greco. In the following passage, from León’s “Alcalá de los Zegríes,” -we find the more sensuous glowing imagination of the Andalusian -novelist: “Fué Alfonso hacia la ventana y apoyó la ardorosa frente en -los cristales. Todo era silencio y soledad. Las estrellas oscilaban en -el cielo; la ancha bóveda, oscura, estaba acribillada de lucecillas -trémulas. Una fogata brillaba á lo lejos en el campo. Y en el silencio -grave, en la callada sombra, las puertas de bronce del misterio se -abrían de par en par.” In the hands of both writers Castilian yields a -full measure of its magic.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> Señor Cossío published his well-known work, “El Greco,” 2 -tom. Madrid, in 1908. The second volume consists of illustrations of El -Greco’s pictures; most of the reproductions are, however, unfortunately -somewhat indistinct. The reproductions from photographs in a little -book, “El Greco,” by A. F. Calvert and C. Gasquoine Hartley. London: -John Lane, 1909, are much clearer. The illustrations are excellent in -“Le Greco.” Par Maurice Barrès et Paul Lafond. Paris: Floury, as also -those of pictures by El Greco in Herr Meier Graefe’s “Spanische Reise,” -Berlin, 1910. In October, 1910, appeared a short scholarly study, “El -Greco en Toledo.” Por Francisco de Borja de San Román y Fernández. -Madrid: Suárez. It contains eighty-eight original documents of great -interest, especially the inventory of El Greco’s possessions (<i>vienes</i>), -drawn up by his son, Jorge Manuel, on April 12, 1614, five days after El -Greco’s death, the discovery and publication of which will, as the -author says, give intense pleasure to all lovers of El Greco. This -contains over 100 pictures by El Greco (some unfinished), 200 prints, -150 drawings, 15 sketches, 20 plaster models, 30 models in clay and wax, -etc. Among the Greek books are Josephus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, -Isocrates, Homer, Aristotle’s Politics and Physics, the Old and New -Testaments, Lucian, Plutarch (bite di Plutarco), Æsop, Euripides. The -Italian include Petrarca and Ariosto, but fifty more Italian books, with -seventeen in romance and nineteen on architecture, are uncatalogued. The -commonest articles receive a quaint dignity in the old ringing -Castilian, as “quatro pares de escarpines” (four pair of socks), “un -cajón grande de pino con cinco gabetas” (a large chest of pine with five -drawers), “una alacena de madera grande” (a large wooden cupboard), “una -espada y una daga con tiros y pretina” (a sword and dagger with their -belts).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Cf. his dispute with the Church of Santo Tomé as to the -price of “El Entierro,” of which dispute a most interesting account is -to be found in the documents of Señor San Román’s book.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> The temptation is great to quote the <i>Coplas</i> from -beginning to end. They have been excellently translated by Longfellow, -but all who read them in the original will be ready to say with the -shepherd of Camões: “Quam bem que sôa o verso castelhano.”</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> “Son tan disonantes unas de otras que no parecen ser de -la misma mano” (Jusepe Martínez).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Or Dominico. Sometimes he signed Domy<sup>co</sup> or Dom<sup>co</sup> at -the end of documents. The fourth letter of the signature (in Greek -characters) on the “Baptism” in the Prado Gallery has all the air of a -Greek <i>eta</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> Even though the house now known and shown as “la Casa del -Greco” is not that in which El Greco lived, it occupies very much the -same open situation; for by the disappearance of the block of houses -belonging to the Marqués de Villena, El Greco’s landlord, it steps into -the first place above the river.</p></div> - -</div> -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magic of Spain, by Aubrey F.G. 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