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.