THE CONVENT OF THE ESCURIAL.

Before leaving for Andalusia, I went to see the famous convent of the Escurial, the Leviathan of architecture, the eighth wonder of the world, the grandest pile of granite on the earth; and if you wish other high-sounding names, you have only to create them, but you will find none that has not previously been applied to the edifice. I left Madrid early in the morning.

The village of the Escurial, which gives the convent its name, lies about eight leagues from the city, a short distance from the Guadarrama; the road crosses a desolate, arid plain bounded by a horizon of snow-clad mountains. When I arrived at the station of the Escurial a cold, drizzling rain was falling, which chilled me through.

From the station to the village there is a climb of half a mile. I entered a diligence, and after a few minutes’ ride was set down in a solitary street bordered on the left by the convent, and on the right by the houses of the village, and closed in the distance by the mountains. At the first sight one can make out nothing clearly: one expected to see a building, and sees a city; one does not know whether one is already in the convent or still outside of it; on every side there are walls; one goes forward, and finds one’s self in a square, looks around, and sees streets, but has scarcely entered these before the convent again closes around, and one has lost one’s bearings and does not know which way to turn. The first feeling is one of sadness. The entire building is of dirt-colored stone pointed with white lines; the roofs are covered with plates of lead. It seems like a building of earth. The walls are very high and bare, and there are a great number of windows, which look like loopholes. One would call it a prison rather than a convent. Everywhere one sees that sombre, dead color; there is not a living soul stirring, and the silence of an abandoned fortress broods over it; beyond the black roofs rises the black mountain, which seems to hang over the edifice and give it an air of mysterious solitude. The place, the lines, the colors, everything, seems to have been chosen by the founder for the purpose of offering to the eyes of man a sad and solemn spectacle.

Before entering you have lost your gaiety; you no longer smile; you think. You are arrested at the doors of the Escurial by a sort of trepidation, as at the gates of a desolate city; it seems that if the terrors of the Inquisition still linger in any corner of the earth, they must be found within these walls; you would say that here one might see its last traces and listen to its last echo.

Every one knows that the basilica and convent of the Escurial were founded by Philip II. after the battle of San Quintino, in fulfilment of a vow to Saint Lawrence made during the siege where the besieging force was obliged to storm a church consecrated to that saint. Don Juan Batista of Toledo began the work, and Herrera finished it; twenty years were spent in its construction. Philip II. wished the edifice to present the form of a gridiron, in commemoration of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, and such indeed is its form. The foundation is a rectangular parallelogram.

At the four corners rise four great square towers with pointed roofs, which represent the four feet of the gridiron; the church and the royal palace, which rise on one side, are symbolic of the handle, the interior buildings, which connect the two sides lengthwise, answer for the cross-bars. Other smaller buildings rise beyond the parallelogram at a short distance from the convent, and extend along one of the longer sides and one of the courts, forming two great squares; on the other two sides are gardens. The façades, the doorways, the vestibules—everything is in harmony with the grandeur and dignity of the edifice, and it is useless to add description to description. The royal palace is most splendid, and it is well to see it before entering the convent and the church, so as not to confuse the different impressions. This palace occupies the north-east corner of the structure. Some of the rooms are full of paintings; others hung from floor to ceiling with tapestries designed by Goya, representing bull-fights, popular balls, sports, festivals, and Spanish costumes; others royally furnished and adorned; the pavement, the doors, the windows covered with marvellous workmanship in mosaic and superb gilding.

But the chamber of Philip II. is the important one among all these rooms—a cell rather than a room, bare and squalid, with an alcove which opens into the royal oratory of the church, so that from the bed, when the doors are closed, one may see the priests saying mass. Philip II. slept in that cell, there he had his last sickness, and there he died. One may still see some chairs which he used, his writing-desk, and two small benches on which he rested his gouty leg. The walls are white, the ceiling is flat and without ornament, and the floor is of brick.

After seeing the royal palace one leaves the building, crosses the square, and re-enters by the principal doorway. A guide attaches himself to your person; you are led through a large vestibule and find yourself in the Courtyard of the Kings.

Then, for the first time, you are able to form an idea of the vast skeleton of the edifice. The courtyard is entirely surrounded by walls; on the side opposite the doorway rises the façade of the church. From the spacious platform rise six enormous Doric columns, each of which supports a great pedestal and every pedestal a statue. There are six colossal statues by Battista Monegro, representing Jehosaphat, Ezekiel, David, Solomon, Joshua, and Manasseh. The courtyard is paved with stone sprinkled with bits of mouldy turf; the walls look like rocks cut in vertical lines; everything is rigid, massive, and heavy, and offers the fantastic appearance of a building carved by Titans out of the solid mountain, ready to defy the shocks of time and the thunderbolts of heaven. There one begins to understand what the Escurial is.

One mounts the platform and enters the church.

The interior of the church is bare and gloomy; four enormous pilasters of gray granite bear up the vaulted roof painted in fresco by Luca Giordano; beside the great altar, carved and gilded in the Spanish style, and between the columns of the two royal oratories, one sees two groups of bronze statues, kneeling figures with clasped hands stretched toward the altar—on the right, Charles V., the empress Isabella, and several princesses; on the left, Philip II. with his wives. Over the doorway of the church, thirty feet from the ground, at the end of the great nave, rises the choir, with two rows of seats, in the Corinthian style and simple in design. In a corner near a secret door is the seat where Philip II. used to sit. Through that door he received letters and important despatches without being seen by the priests chanting in the choir. This church, which, compared with the whole edifice, seems very small, is nevertheless one of the largest churches in Spain, and, although it appears so devoid of ornament, contains a vast wealth of marbles, gold, relics, and paintings, which a dim light in part conceals, and from which the attention is diverted by the gloominess of the building. Besides the thousand works of art which one sees in the chapels, in the rooms which open out of the church, and on the staircases which lead to the galleries, there is in a corridor behind the choir a superb white marble crucifix, the work of Benvenuto Cellini, which bears the inscription, Benvenutus Zalinus, civis Florentinus, facebat 1562. In other parts one sees paintings by Navarrete and Herrera. But all surprise is overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness. The color of the stone, the dim light, the profound silence which encircles you incessantly draw your thoughts to the vastness, the hidden recesses, and the solitude of the edifice, and leave no place for the indulgence of your admiration. The appearance of that church inspires an inexpressible sense of restlessness. You would know by intuition, if you had not learned it otherwise, that around those walls for a long distance extend only granite, shadows, and silence; you feel that measureless structure without seeing it; you feel that you are standing in the midst of a forsaken city; you would hasten your steps to see it at once, to free yourself from the incubus of that mystery, and to seek, if anywhere they might be found, light, noise, and life.

From the church, through several bare, cold rooms, one passes into the sacristy, a large, vaulted chamber, along one of whose walls runs an unbroken row of wardrobes made of various fine woods. It contains also a series of paintings by Ribera, Giordano, Zurbarán, Tintoretto, and other Spanish and Italian painters; and at the end stands the famous altar of the Santa forma, with the very celebrated painting of poor Claude Coello, who died of a broken heart when Luca Giordano was summoned to the Escurial. The effect of this painting is truly above all expectation. It represents with life-size figures the procession which once marched to place the Santa forma in that very spot; it depicts the sacristy and the altar, the prior kneeling on the steps, with the casket and the sacred Host in his hands; around him are grouped the deacons on one side, Charles II. on his knees, and beyond the monks, priests, collegians, and the other worshippers. The figures are so life-like and natural, the perspective so true, the coloring, shading, and light so effective, that on first entering the sacristy one mistakes the painting for a mirror which reflects a religious ceremony being celebrated at that moment in the next room. Then the illusion vanishes, but one is still deceived as to the background of the picture, and it is actually necessary to approach close enough to touch it before one believes that it is only a painted canvas and not another sacristy. On the festival days the canvas is rolled up, and there appears in the centre of a little chapel a small temple of gilded bronze, within which one sees a magnificent casket, which contains the sacred Host, adorned with ten thousand rubies, diamonds, amethysts, and garnets arranged in the form of dazzling rays.

From the sacristy we went to the Pantheon. A guide led the way with a lighted torch: we descended a long granite staircase and came to a subterranean door, where not a single ray of light penetrated. Over this door one reads the following inscription in gilded letters of bronze:

“God great and omnipotent!

“A place consecrated by the piety of the Austrian dynasty to the mortal remains of the Catholic kings, who are looking for that day of their desire, under the great altar sacred to the Redeemer of the human race. Charles V., the most illustrious of the Cæsars, desired this for the last resting-place of himself and his lineage; Philip II., the most prudent of kings, planned it; Philip III., a monarch of sincere piety, made a beginning of the work; Philip IV., great in his clemency, constancy, and devotion, enlarged, adorned, and brought it to completion in the year of our Lord 1654.”

The guide entered: I followed him and found myself surrounded by sepulchres, or rather in a sepulchre, as dark and cold as a grotto in a mountain-side. It is a little octagonal chamber built entirely of marble, with a small altar on the side opposite the door, and in the remaining space from floor to ceiling, one above the other, tombs adorned with bronze ornaments and bas-reliefs; the ceiling is under the great altar in the church. To the right of the altar are the tombs of Charles V., Philip II., Philip III., Philip IV., Louis I., the three Don Carlos, and Ferdinand VII.; on the left, the empresses and queens. The guide placed his torch near the tomb of Maria Louisa of Savoy, the spouse of Charles III., and said to me with an air of mystery, “Read.” The marble is ruled in different directions; with a little study I was able to distinguish five letters; they form the name Luisa, written by the queen herself with the point of her scissors.

Suddenly the guide extinguished his torch and we were left in the dark; the blood froze in my veins. “Light it!” I cried. The guide laughed a long, ghostly laugh, which seemed to me like a death-rattle, and replied, “Look!” I looked: a faint ray of light, entering through a chink near the ceiling, stole along the wall almost to the pavement, shedding light



enough merely to make visible some tombs of the queens: it seemed like a beam of moonlight, and the bas-reliefs and the bronzes on the tombs gleamed in that uncanny glimmer as though they were dripping with water. At that moment I perceived, for the first time, the odor of that sepulchral air, and a tremor of fear seized me: in imagination I entered those tombs and saw all those stiffened corpses; I sought an escape through the vaulted roof, and found myself alone in the church. I fled from the church and lost myself in the labyrinth of the convent; presently I came to myself in the midst of the tombs, and felt that I was truly in the heart of that monstrous edifice, in its deepest part. I seemed to be a prisoner entombed in that mountain of granite, which was everywhere closing in upon me and pressing me on all sides, and would finally crush me, and I thought, with indescribable sadness, of the sky, the country, and the free air as of another world, “Sir,” said the guide solemnly before going out, extending his hand toward the tomb of Charles V., “the emperor is there, just as he was when they placed him there, with his eyes still open, so that he seems alive and speaking: it is a miracle of God performed for purposes of his own. He who lives will see.” And speaking these last words, he made the sign of the cross, as though he was afraid the emperor might hear, and led the way to the stairs.

After the church and the sacristy one goes to visit the picture-gallery, which contains a great number of paintings by artists of every nation, although not the best examples, for they were taken to the Madrid gallery, but, at any rate, paintings of sufficient merit to warrant a visit of a few hours.

From the picture-gallery one proceeds to the library by the great staircase, over which rises a high vaulted ceiling wholly covered with frescoes by Luca Giordano. The library consists of a hall of great size adorned with large allegorical pictures: it contains more than fifty thousand precious volumes, four thousand of which were presented by Philip II. There is also another room, containing a very rich collection of manuscripts.

From the library one goes to the convent. Here the imagination of man is lost. If any of my readers has read the Estudiante de Salamanca of Espronceda, he will remember how that indefatigable youth, in pursuing a mysterious lady whom he met at night at the foot of the chapel stairs, followed her from street to street, from square to square, from alley to alley, turning and twisting and going in circles, until he reached a point where he saw no longer the houses of Salamanca, but found himself in an unknown city, and how, as he continued to turn corners, cross squares, and hurry through the streets, the city seemed to enlarge as he advanced, and the streets to stretch away, and the alleys to make a thicker network, and how he went on and ever on without rest, not knowing whether he was asleep or awake, drunken or mad; and fear began to penetrate his iron heart and the strangest fancies crowded upon his bewildered mind. So is it with the stranger in the convent of the Escurial.

You pass through a long subterranean corridor, so narrow that you can touch the walls with your elbows, so low that your head almost strikes the ceiling, and damp as a submarine grotto, until you reach the end, turn around, and find yourself in another corridor. You go forward, come to doors and look through them: other corridors stretch away as far as the eye can reach. At the end of one you may see a ray of light, at the end of another an open door which allows you to peep into a suite of rooms. Now and then you hear the echo of a passing footstep; you stop and the sound dies away; then it comes again, but you cannot tell whether it is over your head, to the right or left, behind or in front. You step up to a door and turn back terrified. At the end of the interminable corridor along which your glance has run you have seen a man standing motionless as a spectre, looking at you. You hurry on and come out into a narrow courtyard surrounded by very high walls, grass-grown, hollow-sounding, and lighted by a wan light which seems to descend from an unknown sun—places like the courts of the witches of which they told us in our childhood.

You leave the courtyard, mount a flight of stairs, enter an upper gallery, and look around: it is another court, silent and deserted. You turn down another corridor, climb another staircase, and find yourself in a third court; then, again, corridors and stairs and suites of empty rooms and narrow courtyards; and everywhere granite, grass, a sickly light, and a sepulchral silence. For a little while you think you can retrace your steps; then the mind becomes confused, and you remember nothing; it seems as though you had walked ten miles—that you have been a month in this labyrinth and can never escape.

You approach a courtyard and say, “I have seen this already.” No, you are mistaken; it is another. You believe that you are in a certain part of the edifice when you are in the opposite part. You ask the guide where the cloister is, and he replies, “This is it,” and you walk on for half an hour. You seem to be dreaming: you see a succession of long walls flitting past, frescoed, hung with paintings, crosses, and inscriptions; you see and forget and ask yourself, “Where am I?”

You see the light of another world; you have never seen just such a light: is it the reflection from the stone, or does it come from the moon? No, it is daylight, but sadder than darkness—unreal, gloomy, and fantastic. And as you go on from corridor to corridor, from court to court, you look ahead with misgivings, expecting to see suddenly, as you turn a corner, a row of skeleton monks with hoods over their eyes and crosses in their hands; you think of Philip II., and seem to hear his heavy footsteps slowly retreating through the dark passages; you remember all that you have read about him, of his terrors and the Inquisition, and everything becomes clear to your mind’s eye with a sudden light; for the first time you understand it all: the Escurial is Philip II. You see it at every step, you feel it at every breath; he is still there, alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God. Then you would rebel and raise your thoughts to the God of your heart and your aspirations, and conquer the mysterious terror which the place inspires, but you cannot: the Escurial surrounds, holds, and crushes you; the chill of its walls penetrates to your marrow; the gloom of its sepulchral labyrinthine passages invades your soul; if you were with a friend, you would say, “Let us go out;” if perchance you were with a loved one, you would clasp her to your heart in trepidation; if you were alone, you would flee. Finally, you climb a staircase, enter a room, approach a window, and with a cry of gratitude hail the mountains, the sun, liberty, and the great and beneficent God who loves and pardons.

What a long breath you draw at that window!

From it you see the gardens, which fill but a small space and are very simple; but who can tell how elegant and beautiful they are, and in what perfect harmony with the building? You see twelve graceful fountains, each surrounded by four plots of myrtle, which represent royal shields, designed with exquisite taste and trimmed with such nicety that as one looks down at them from the windows they look like fabrics of plush and velvet, and form a very grateful contrast to the white sand of the paths. There are no trees, flowers, nor arbors: in all the garden one sees only the fountains, the plots of myrtle, and the two colors, green and white; and so charming is that dignified simplicity that one cannot bear to leave it, and when one has looked away the memory returns there and rests with a sweet subdued sense of pensive sadness.

In a room near that from which I looked at the garden the guide made me look at a collection of relics, which I examined in silence, without allowing him to suspect my secret feeling of doubt. There is a piece of the Holy Cross, presented by the Pope to Isabella II.; a bit of wood stained with the blood of Saint Lawrence, which is still visible; Saint Theresa’s inkhorn, and other objects, among them a little portable altar which belonged to Charles V., a crown of thorns, a pair of tweezers used for torture, found I know not where. Thence I was led to the dome of the church, from which one enjoys a splendid view. On one side the view extends over all the mountainous country which lies between the Escurial and Madrid; on the other one sees the snowy mountains of Guadarrama; below one comprehends at a glance the whole of the measureless edifice, the long lead-colored roofs, the towers, the courtyards, the cloisters, the porticoes, and the galleries; one may pass in thought through the thousand windings of the corridors and stairways, and say, “An hour ago I was below there—here—up there—down there—over yonder,” marvelling that one has made so great a journey, and delighted to have escaped from that labyrinth, those tombs and shadows, and to be able to return to the city and see one’s friends again.

An illustrious traveller has said that after passing a day in the Escurial one ought to be happy throughout the rest of one’s life, with the single thought that one might still be within those walls; and it is almost true: even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am feeling sad, I think of the Escurial, and then look at the walls of my room and congratulate myself; in sleepless nights I see again the courtyards of the Escurial; when I am sick and my sleep is broken and uneasy, I dream of wandering through those corridors alone in the dark, followed by the ghost of an old friar, crying and pounding at all the doors without finding a way of escape, until I rush headlong into the Pantheon, and the door clashes on my heels, and I remain entombed among the sepulchres. With what pleasure did I see again the thousand lights of the Puerta del Sol, the crowded cafés, and the great noisy street of Alcalá! On re-entering the house I made such a racket that the servant, a good simple Galician girl, ran breathless to her mistress and said, “I think the Italian has gone mad!”

I was more amused by the deputies of the Cortes than by either the cocks or the bulls. I was successful in obtaining a little corner in the reporters’ gallery, and went there every day, staying until the very end with infinite pleasure. The Spanish Parliament has a more youthful appearance than ours—not because the deputies are younger, but because they are nattier and better dressed. One does not see those dishevelled heads of hair, those unkempt beards, and colorless surtouts which are to be seen on the benches of our Chamber: one sees smooth and shiny beards and hair, embroidered shirts, long black coats, light trousers, tan gloves, silver-headed canes, and button-hole bouquets. The Spanish Parliament follows the fashion-plate. And as is the dress, so is the speech, lively, gay, flowery, and brilliant. We are continually lamenting that our deputies are more careful of form than is becoming to political orators, but the Spanish deputies observe this even more studiously, and, it must be admitted, with even greater grace. Not only do they speak with marvellous facility, so that one very rarely hears one of them pause in the middle of a period to find a word, but, moreover, every one tries to speak correctly and to add to his speech a certain poetical lustre, a little classical polish, and a slight impress of the grand oratorical style. The gravest ministers, the most timid deputies, the sternest financiers, even when they use arguments utterly foreign to rhetorical treatment, embellish their speeches with verses from the anthology, with happy anecdotes, and famous quotations, and apostrophes to culture, liberty, and patriotism; and they talk as rapidly as though they were reciting something committed to memory, with an intonation always measured and euphonious, and a variety of pose and gesture of which one never tires for an instant. And the journals, in criticising the speeches, praise the elevation of their style, praise the purity of their language, los rasgos sublimes (the sublime flashes), which appear admirable if they are writing of their friends, be it understood, or, on the other hand, they say in disparagement that the style is slipshod, the language corrupt, the form—that precious form!—in a word unpolished, base, and unworthy of the splendid traditions of Spanish oratory.

This cultivation of form, this great facility of speech, degenerates into vanity and bombast, and it is true that one must not search in the Parliament of Madrid for examples of genuine political eloquence; but it is none the less true, as is universally conceded, that this Parliament, among all those of Europe, is richest in oratory in the general acceptation of that word. One should hear a discussion on some important political measure which stirs the passions of the deputies. It is a veritable battle! There are no longer speeches, but torrents of words which drive the stenographers mad and confuse the heads of those in the galleries. There are tones, gestures, violent expressions, bursts of inspired eloquence, which remind one of the French Assembly in the turbulent days of the Revolution. There one hears Rios Rosas, a most violent orator, who rules the tumult with a roar; a Martos, an orator of distinguished figure, who destroys by ridicule; a Pi y Margall, a venerable old man, who terrifies by his gloomy predictions; a Colantes, an indefatigable speaker, who crushes the Chamber under an avalanche of words; a Rodriguez, who with marvellous flexibility of argument and illustration pursues, entangles, and strangles his enemies; and, in the centre of a hundred others, a Castelar, who conquers and enslaves both friends and enemies by a flood of poetry and harmony. And this Castelar, famous throughout Europe, is really the most perfect expression of Spanish eloquence. He carries the cultivation of form almost to idolatry; his eloquence is music; his argument a slave to his ear; he says a thing or leaves it unsaid, or says it in one sense rather than in another, according as it turns or fails to turn a period; there is a harmony in his mind which he follows and obeys, and to which he sacrifices everything that can possibly offend; with him a period is a strophe, and one must hear him to believe that human speech without the cadence of poetry and the aid of song is able to approach so closely to the harmony of song and poetry. He is more of an artist than a politician, and he has not only the genius, but the heart, of an artist—the heart of a child incapable of anger or resentment. In all his speeches no one can find a ground of offence; in the Cortes he has never provoked a serious dispute of a personal nature; he never has recourse to satire and never uses irony; in his most violent philippics there is no touch of bitterness; and this is a proof of these assertions: although he is a Republican, an opponent of all the ministers, an aggressive journalist, a continual adversary to every one who exercises any power, and of every one who is not a fanatic on the subject of liberty, he has never had an enemy. Consequently, his speeches are enjoyed and are not feared; his words are too beautiful to terrify; his character too ingenuous for him to exercise a political influence; he does not know how to fight, to conspire, and to accomplish his ends through bribery; it is his function only to please and to shine: his eloquence even at his grandest is tender, his most beautiful speeches make one weep. To him the Chamber is a theatre. Like an improvisatore, to have a full and serene inspiration he is obliged to speak at a given hour, at a predetermined moment, and with a certain period of time at his disposal. Accordingly, on the day when he wishes to speak he makes his arrangement with the president of the chamber; the president so disposes the business that his speech may begin when the galleries are crowded and all the deputies are in their seats; his papers announce his speech on the previous evening in order that the ladies may procure tickets, for he must have popular attention. Before speaking he is restless and cannot be still for an instant; he enters the Chamber, goes out, comes back, turns to go out again, hurries along the corridors, goes to the library to consult a book, rushes into a café for a glass of water, seems to be stricken with fever: he imagines that he will not be able to pronounce two words—that he will appear ridiculous and be hissed: not a single idea of his speech remains clear in his mind; he has confused and forgotten everything. “How is your pulse?” his friends ask him with a smile. The solemn moment arrives; he rises from his seat with bowed head, trembling and pale, like a man condemned to death, resigned to lose in a single day the glory won in so many years and with so great labor. At that moment his very enemies pity his condition. He raises his head, casts a glance around, and says, “Señores!” He is saved; his courage is renewed; his mind clears, and his speech takes form again like a forgotten air; the president, the Cortes, the galleries vanish; he feels only the irresistible flame which burns within him—the mysterious force which sustains him. It is fine to hear him say these words. “I no longer see the walls of the Chamber,” he says; “I see distant lands and people never seen before.” He speaks hour after hour, and not a deputy leaves the hall, not a person moves in the galleries, not a voice interrupts, not a motion disturbs him; not even when he transgresses the rules has the president courage to stop him; he pictures at his pleasure the image of his republic clothed in white and crowned with roses, and the monarchists do not rise in protest, for when so clothed they too find her beautiful. Castelar is the ruler of the Assembly; he thunders, lightens, sings, roars, and flashes like fireworks, provokes laughter, calls forth shouts of enthusiasm, ends in a tremendous tumult of applause, and disappears with head erect. Such is the famous Castelar, professor of history in the university—a most fertile writer on politics, art, and religion; a publicist who annually receives fifty thousand francs from the journals of America; an academician unanimously elected a member of the Academia española—pointed out in the streets, hailed with joy by the people, loved by his enemies, noble, vain, generous, and happy.

While we are on the subject of political eloquence let us glance at literature.

Imagine a hall in the Academy full of noise and confusion. A crowd of poets, novelists, and writers of every sort, nearly all of them having a French air in their expression and manner, although very studious to conceal it. They are reading and declaiming from their own works, each one trying to drown the voice of the others, to the end that he may make himself heard by the people who crowd the galleries, while they, on their part, put through the time by reading the papers and discussing politics. Now and then a clear, sonorous voice rises above the tumult, and then a hundred voices burst forth together from one corner of the room, crying, “He is a Carlist!” and a flood of hisses drowns the cry; or, on the other hand, “He is a Republican!” and another flood of hisses from the other side drowns the clear, sonorous voice. The academicians crush their papers into balls, throw them at each other, and shout in each other’s ears, “Atheist!”—“Jesuit!”—“Innovator!”—“Weathercock!”—“Traitor!”

By listening attentively to those who are reading one may catch harmonious stanzas, well-turned periods, powerful phrases: the first effect is agreeable; the prose and poetry are indeed full of fire, life, flashes of light, and happy comparisons, drawn from everything that one hears and sees in the sky, the earth, and the sea; and it is all dimly lighted with the colors of the Orient and richly clothed in Italian harmonies. But, alas! it is literature only for the eyes and the ears; it is only music and painting; on rare occasions the Muse drops a gem of thought in the midst of a shower of flowers, and of this bright shower there remains only a lingering perfume in the air and the echo of a dying murmur on the ear.

Meanwhile one hears in the street the shouts of the people, the firing of guns, and the beating of drums; at every moment some artist deserts the ranks and goes to wave a banner among the crowd; they separate in twos and threes and in larger groups and go to swell the crowd of journalists; the turmoil and the continuous turning of Fortune’s wheel dissuade the most industrious from lengthy works; it is in vain that some solitary figure in the crowd cries, “In the name of Cervantes, stop!” A few strong voices are raised above this clamor, but they are the voices of men who hold themselves apart, many of whom will soon make that voyage from which there is no return. There is the voice of Hartzenbusch, the prince of the drama; the voice of Breton de las Herreros, the prince of comedy; the voice of Zorilla, the prince of poetry; there is the Orientalist, Gayangos; the archeologist, Guerra; a writer of comedies, called Tamayo; a novelist, Fernand Caballero by name; Amador de los Rios, a critic; Fernandez y Gonzalez, a novelist; and a host of other able and productive writers. In the midst of these there still lives the memory of Quintana, the great poet of the Revolution; of Espronceda, the Byron of Spain; of a Nicasio Gallego, a Martinez della Rosa, and a duke di Rivas. But the tumult, the disorder, and the discord burst through like a torrent and engulf everything.

To leave allegory, Spanish literature finds itself in a condition similar to ours—a group of illustrious writers whose powers are failing, but who have had two grand sources of inspiration, religion and love of country, or both in one—men who have left a distinct and enduring mark in the field of art; and, on the other hand, a body of young men who are groping their way forward, asking what it is they have to do, rather than actually doing it, wavering between faith and doubt; either possessing faith without courage or taught by custom to simulate it when they have it not; not even certain of their own language, and vacillating between the academies, which cry, “Purity!” and the people, who cry, “Truth!”—hesitating between the weight of traditions and the need of the moment; thrust aside by the thousands who give fame or spurned by the few who seal it; obliged to think in one way and to write in another—to conceal their inmost self, to let the present escape so as not to break with the past, to steer as best they can between opposing obstacles. Good fortune may be able for a few years to keep their names afloat amid the torrent of French books which is pouring in upon the country. Hence arises the discouragement, first to their own individual effort, and then to the national genius; and from this follow imitation which sinks into mediocrity, and the abandonment of the literature of broad scholarship and large hopes for the ease and profitable scribbling for the newspapers.

Alone among so many ruins stands the theatre. The new dramatic literature lacks the marvellous invention, the splendid form, and the pristine impress of the nobility and grandeur of the old, which was the expression of a people who ruled Europe and the New World. Still less does it possess the incredible productiveness and the endless variety; but, in compensation, it possesses a more wholesome influence, a deeper observation, a finer delicacy, and a greater degree of conformity to the true scope of the theatre, which is to purify manners and to ennoble the heart and mind.

In all the forms of literature, moreover, as in the drama, in the novels, the popular songs, the poems, and histories, there always lives and rules the sentiment which informs the literature of Spain more powerfully indeed than any other European literature, from the first rude lyrics of Berseo to the noble martial hymns of Quintana—the sentiment of national pride.

And here it is appropriate to speak of the Spanish character. The national pride of the Spaniards is still so great to-day, after so many misfortunes and so grave a fall, that the stranger who lives among them is doubtful whether they are the Spaniards of three centuries ago or the Spaniards of the nineteenth century. But it is an inoffensive pride, a pride which runs to harmless rhetoric. They do not depreciate the other nations which seem to rise higher than themselves. No; they respect, praise, and admire them, but show a feeling of superiority which draws a clear inference contradictory to their praise. They are benevolent toward other nations, with that benevolence which Leopardi justly remarks is peculiar to men full of self-conceit, who believe that they are admired by all, and love their avowed admirers because they think that a duty attendant upon the superiority with which they imagine fate has blessed them. Surely there has never existed in the world a people with greater enthusiasm for their history than the Spanish. It is incredible. The boy who shines your boots, the porter who carries your valise, the mendicant who begs for alms, raises his head with flashing eyes at the names of Charles V., Philip II., Hernando Cortez, and Don John of Austria, as if they are heroes of his own time, and as if he had witnessed their triumphal entry into the city only the day before. The people pronounce the word España with an accent like that with which the Romans of the most glorious times of the Republic would have pronounced Roma. When they speak of Spain modesty is thrown aside, even by men of extremely modest nature, without the least indication in their faces of that exaltation because of which one may sometimes pardon intemperate speech. They boast in cold blood, from habit, without being conscious of so doing. In the speeches of Parliament, in the newspaper articles, in the writings of the Academy, they speak of the Spanish people without circumlocution as a nation of heroes, the great nation, the wonder of the world, the glory of the ages. It is a rare thing to hear any one speak or read a hundred words before an audience without sooner or later recognizing the burden of the song in Lepanto, the Discovery of America, or the War of Independence, the mention of which always elicits a burst of applause.

And it is precisely this tradition of the War of Independence that constitutes to the Spanish people a powerful inherent force. One who has never lived in Spain for a long or short period cannot believe that a war, however fortunate and glorious, could leave to the people so steadfast a faith in their national valor. Baylen, Victoria, San Marcial, are throughout Spain even more potent traditions than are Marengo, Jena, and Austerlitz in France. Even the martial glory of the armies of Napoleon, seen through the War of Independence, which shrouds it like a veil, appears to the eyes of the Spanish less splendid than to any other people in Europe. The idea of a foreign invasion provokes among the Spaniards a smile of proud disdain; they do not believe it possible to be conquered in their own country; one should hear the tones in which they speak of Germany when it is rumored that the emperor William has determined to uphold the throne of the duke d’Aosta with his arms. And doubtless if they were obliged to fight a new war of independence, they would fight, possibly with less fortunate success, but with a bravery and constancy equal to those which they once so marvellously displayed. 1808 is the ’93 of Spain; it is a date which stands out before the eyes of every Spaniard in letters of fire; they glory in it, from the women and the boys to the babies who are just learning to lisp; it is the war-cry of the nation.

And they have a similar pride in their writers and artists. The beggar, instead of saying España, says sometimes the country of Cervantes. No writer in the world has ever gained such popularity among his own people as the author of Don Quixote in Spain. I believe that there is not a peasant or a shepherd from the Pyrenees to the Sierra Nevada, from the coast of Valencia to the hills of Estremadura, who if asked about Cervantes will not reply with a smile of complacence, “He is the immortal author of Don Quixote!” Spain is perhaps the country where the anniversaries of the great writers are most generally celebrated; from Juan de Mena to Espronceda, each one has his solemn day, when they offer at his tomb a tribute of song and flowers. In the squares, the cafés, the railway-carriages, wherever you are, you hear lines of the famous poets repeated by all sorts of people; he who has not read them has heard another read; he who has not heard them read repeats the quotation as a proverb learned from others; and when any one repeats a verse, they all prick up their ears. Any one who knows a little Spanish literature may make a journey in that country with the assurance of always having something to talk about and something with which to inspire sympathy wherever and in whatever company he may happen to be. The national literature is truly national.

The defect of the Spanish which from the first strikes the stranger is this—that in their estimate of the affairs, the men, and the achievements of their time and their country they over-estimate their measure, if one may so speak. They exaggerate everything, they see everything, as it were, through a lens that magnifies to vast proportions. For a long time they have had no immediate part in the common life of Europe, and hence they have lacked opportunity for comparing themselves with other states and of judging themselves by such comparison. On this account their civil wars, the wars in America, Africa, and Cuba, are to them not what the little war of 1860 and ’61 against the Papal army, or even the revolution of 1860, are to us, but what we regard the great Crimean War and the wars of 1859 and of 1866. They speak of the combats—which exalt the Spanish armies in those wars, sanguinary doubtless, but not great—as the French speak of Solferino, the Prussians of Sadowa, and the Austrians of Custozza. Prim, Serrano, and O’Donnell are generals who in comparison dwarf the most illustrious commanders of other countries. I remember the to-do made at Madrid over the report of the victory gained by General Merriones over four or five thousand Carlists. The deputies in the lobby of the Cortes exclaimed emphatically, “Ah! Spanish blood!” Some even said that if an army of three hundred Spaniards had found itself in the position of the French in 1870, it would have marched straight to Berlin. Certain it is, that one cannot doubt the valor of the Spanish, which has been proved on so many occasions, but one may safely assert that there is a great difference between disorganized Carlists and Prussians in battle array—between the soldiers of Europe, to speak more comprehensively, and the soldiers of Africa—between great pitched battles, where canister sweeps away its thousands, and the combats of ten thousand soldiers on either side with great disparity in equipment and discipline. And as they speak of war, so they speak of everything else; and this is true not only of the common people, but of the upper classes as well. They lavish high-sounding praises upon their writers; they give the title of grande poeta to many whose names are never heard outside of Spain; adjectives of exalted sublimity and wonder are current coin given and taken without the least doubt of its value as legal tender. One may say that Spain regards and judges everything like an American, rather than a European, people, and that it is separated from Europe by an ocean instead of the Pyrenees, and joined to America by an isthmus.

In other points how similar they are to us! To hear the people talk of politics, one would think one was in Italy: they do not argue, they express opinions; they do not censure, they condemn; a single argument is enough for any judgment, and to form an argument an inference alone is sufficient. As for this minister, he is a rascal; that one, a traitor; and this one a hypocrite: they are all a pack of thieves. One has sold the trees in the gardens of Aranguez; another has robbed the Escurial of its treasures; a third has drained the coffers of the state; a fourth has sold his soul for a bag of money. They have lost all faith in the very men who have had a hand in all the political movements of the last thirty years; even among the lowest people there is creeping in a spirit of discouragement which gives rise to the expressions that one hears very often and on every side: “Poor Spain! Unhappy country! Wretched Spaniards!”

But the violence of the political passions and the fury of the civil struggles have not changed the foundation of the ancient Spanish character. Only that part of society known as the political world, only this is corrupt; the people, though always inclined toward those blind and at times savage impulses of passion which betray the mingling of the Arabian and Latin blood, are good and loyal and capable of magnanimous action and sublime bursts of enthusiasm. “The honor of Spain” is still a motto which quickens every pulse. And, moreover, their manners are frank and refined; perhaps less polished, but certainly more amiable and ingenuous, than those for which the French are praised. Instead of smiling at you, they offer you a cigar; instead of paying you a compliment, they press your hand, and are more hospitable in actions than in protestations. Nevertheless, the forms of address still preserve their ancient courtliness; the gentleman says to the lady, “I am at your feet;” the lady to the gentleman, “I kiss your hand.” Among themselves the gentlemen sign their letters Q. B. S. M.—que besa sus manos (I kiss your hands), like a servant to his master; only friends say Adios; and the people preserve their affectionate salutation, Vaya Usted con Dios! (God be with you!), which is worth more than all the kissing of the hands.

With the warm, generous nature of this people it is impossible to spend a month in Madrid without making a hundred friends, even though one does not seek them. Think how many one might make if one did seek them! This was my case. I cannot say that they were real friends, but I was acquainted with so many persons that it did not seem at all like being in a foreign city. Even the illustrious men are very easy to approach, and hence there is no need, as elsewhere, of a pile of letters and messages from friends in order to meet them. I had the honor of knowing Tamayo, Hartzenbusch, Guerra, Saavedra, Valera, Rodriguez, Castelar, and many others, some famous in letters and some in the sciences, and I found them all alike—open, cordial, fiery; men with silvered hair, but with the eyes and voices of young men of twenty; passionately devoted to poetry, music, and art; cheerful and animated, with a fresh, ringing laugh. How many of them did I see, as they read the lines of Quintana or Espronceda, grow pale, weep, and spring to their feet as though touched by an electric spark, revealing their whole soul in a radiant glance! What youthful spirits! What ardent hearts! How delighted I was to see and hear them—to belong to that same poor Latin race of which we now say such hard things! and how happy I was in the thought that to a greater or less degree we are all formed in the same mould, and that, although we may accustom ourselves, little by little, to envy the qualities of others, yet we are never wholly successful in obliterating our own!

After three months and more of sojourning in Madrid I was obliged to take my departure, in order that I might not be caught by the summer in Southern Spain. I shall always remember that beautiful May morning when I left, perhaps for ever, my dear Madrid. I was going to see Andalusia, “the promised land” of travellers, the ideal Andalusia, whose wonders I had so often heard sung by poets and romancers in Italy and Spain—that Andalusia for whose sake, I may say, I had undertaken the journey; and yet I was sad. I had passed so many happy days in Madrid! I was leaving so many dear friends! On my way to the station to take the noon train I passed along the Alcalá, saluted from a distance the gardens of the Recoletos, passed the Museum of Painting, stopped to take a last look at the statue of Murillo, and reached the station with an aching heart. “Three months?” I asked myself a few moments before the train started. “Have three months passed already? Has it not been a dream? Yes, it seems as if I have been dreaming. Perhaps I shall never again see my good landlady, nor Señor Saavedra’s little daughter, nor the sweet, serene face of Guerra, nor my friends of the Café Fornos, nor any one else. But what is this? Shall I not return? Return! Oh, no! I know well that I shall not return. And so ... farewell, my friends! farewell, Madrid! farewell, my little room in the street of Alduana!” At this moment my heartstrings seem to be breaking and I must hide my face.

End of Vol. I.

INDEX.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
All instances of Alcalá and Alcala changed to=>Alcalá
All instances of Espana changed to=>España
All instances of Calderon changed to=>Calderón
All instances of Zurbaran changed to=> Zurbarán
Gothic facade of the Chapel=> Gothic façade of the Chapel {pg 26}
there is in Barcleona=> there is in Barcelona {pg 20}
gypsy or a Basque mountainer=> gypsy or a Basque mountaineer {pg 23}
paintings by Villadomat=> paintings by Viladomat {pg 26}
officials or secret emmisaries=> officials or secret emisaries {pg 52}
Let Don Amadens make it plain=> Let Don Amadeus make it plain {pg 80}
there lines of varid green break=> there lines of varied green break {pg 92}
Alas for the supurb=> Alas for the superb {pg 133}
Architectually, it is dignified=> Architecturally, it is dignified {pg 137}
traicion=> traición {pg 148}
casa de huespedes=> casa de huéspedes {pg 157}
I ate it like an out-and-out glutten=> I ate it like an out-and-out glutton {pg 161}
Gutierrez=> Gutiérrez {pg 169}
pay double, treble, quardruple=> pay double, treble, quadruple {pg 208}
Poltroon! imposter! assasin!=> Poltroon! imposter! assassin! {pg 224}
Café at the Puerto del Sol=> Café at the Puerta del Sol {pg 242}
los pasgos sublimes=> los rasgos sublimes {pg 275}
the achivements of their time=> the achievements of their time {pg 287}
Hatzenbusch=> Hartzenbusch {pg 291}