DRAMATIC MORALISTS IN SPANISH AMERICA.
The truth is slowly dawning, at least to curious minds, that the people of the southern half of our New World have tastes not dissimilar to our own. Indeed, they seek other arts than those of revolution, and, here and there, have other stages and actors than those which represent the pronunciamiento, with all its malicious bombast and insignificant "sound and fury." We can count poets, novelists, painters, sculptors, scientists in the ranks of the most distinguished men of our nearest sister republic. Cuba, too, rejoices in the genius of her philosophic scholar, Caballero de la Luz, and of her poets, Heredia and Gertrudiz de Avellañeda, with the same spirit which Mexico brings to her admiration of the scientific versatility of Siguenza, the quaint ideality of Sor Juana Inez, and the literary culture of Carpio and Pesado. Nevertheless, such facts as these have aided but little in forming the common estimate of Spanish-American peoples, who are to some of us scarcely more than a Bedouin rabble fighting problematic wild-beasts in the shape of pronouncers, and struggling through clouds of desert-dust and battle-smoke to the light of freedom. That great rude reserve of race, the Indians, without which the business of one-half the continent could not be carried on, seems to be swept out of our moral consideration as with a broom; yet we must think hopefully of a race which has produced an artist so extraordinary as Cabrera and a ruler so enduring and persistent as Juarez—hopefully, at all events, of their mere abilities, if mother church does not teach us to look with a shrewder and kindlier eye upon their moral capabilities. In more than one country of Spanish America we find Indians among presidents, judges, governors, congressmen, writers, artists; and this being the case, historically or actually, why should it be a matter of surprise that Spanish America, with whatever Old World culture she may possess in union with native aptitude, should have some claims upon our attention on the score of taste and intelligence? Part of these claims we propose to set forth.
The present writer has sat in the orderly theatres of Vera Cruz and Mexico, and seen performances substantially as good as those of our northern capitals. The Zarzuelas, or operettas, of Barbieri and Gatzambide were as pleasant in 1868-69 to their hearers in the southern republic as the French comic opera to New Yorkers, and nevertheless seemed decent and spirited; besides, the Mexicans had the good fortune to enjoy Gatzambide's personal direction of his Zarzuelas, and Gatzambide (now deceased) was one of the most popular musicians of Spain. Another celebrity the Mexicans honored in the person of José Valero, a gentlemanlike Spanish actor, whose superior in versatile genius as tragedian and comedian it would be difficult to find anywhere. Entertainments were plentiful in Moctezuma's city, though subsisting, so to speak, upon diminished rations. Round about all these flickering pleasures flowed the strange dark tide of Mexican life—its ragged multitude, its concealed miseries, its settled and common melancholy, not to be dissipated by any class of illusions, not to be shaken off in a day, or a year, or any brief term of years. Nevertheless, the misfortunes of a war-worn people found as tasteful and respectable a solace as their theatres could afford. Their scholars were even encouraged to revive and celebrate some ancient glories of the Mexican stage; and at the opening of a season they crowned the bust of one of the fathers of the Spanish drama, whom with reason they regard as among the greatest of the small band of very eminent Mexicans. This laurelled bust was but one of a number to be seen in the various theatres, in several instances perpetuating the memory of Mexico's own dramatic authors. On the occasion referred to, poems by well-known poets—and, among the rest, if the writer remembers correctly, an eloquent composition by the highly-esteemed blind poet, Juan Valle—preluded the revival of that celebrated comedy, La Verdad Sospechosa, or, The Truth Suspected.