Opposite the library's façade is a statue of one of the University's noted men, that attractive personality, Fray Luis de León. Tall, stalwart, for he came of a warrior race of Spanish grandees, ascetic, with intellectual forehead, a man capable of sainthood, of the type noble, he faces the school where he studied as a youth and passed a later life in research and teaching. In Luis de León is found an equilibrium of character, a magnanimity united with genius, which often distinguished the men born in the siglo de oro. This Augustinian monk was a deep theologian, ahead of his times, as most deep thinkers are; he made a translation of the Songs of Songs too advanced for the age, and his enemies accused his orthodoxy to the Inquisition. For five years he lived in confinement, and it was during this semi-imprisonment that he wrote his great mystic book, "Los Nombres de Cristo," and also some of his lyrics. The University remained loyal to him by refusing to place another lecturer in his seat; then when he had justified himself before the Holy Office, he was set at liberty, and a host of friends accompanied him back to his post. He entered the lecture hall quietly, after his five years of absence, and opened the discourse with rare tact, a generous, high-minded overlooking of personal rancour: "Gentlemen, as we were saying the other day." This famous mot of Luis de León, "como decíamos ayer," shows a quality unexpected in Spain, but characteristic often of her sons, that of amenity, a kindly tolerance of the world's foibles, found in Cervantes, and to show it has not died out, this same amenity was a predominating trait of the late distinguished novelist, Don Juan Valera. Luis de León, true follower of his patron Augustine, knew that there is no sin that one man commits that all men are not capable of, if not helped by God. "Even while he aspires, man errs."
Had the erudite monk been merely a scholar, he had been a personality in his own day, but would not be alive for us; but he can claim an enduring fame. Professor Menéndez y Pelayo calls him the most exalted of Spanish lyric poets, and names his "Ascensión," "Al Apartamiento," "A Salinas," "A Felipe Ruiz," "Alma Región Lucient," "La Noche Serena," as the six most beautiful of Spanish lyrics. Learn them by heart, he says, and they will astonish you with each repetition. Luis de León had the Wordsworthian note of simple living and high thinking, of a personal love of nature, long before the Lake School: the "Ode to Retirement" might have been penned at Grasmere. Everything led his soul to God; he fed on the mystics and rose to their height and serenity of thought. From his love of the classics came his sobriety of form and purity of phrase; he is a true Horacian, penetrated as well by the spirit of the great Hebrew writers, with the espíritu cristiano added, yet though drawing his culture from many sources he is personal and modern. Such praise from the great critic sends one to an enthusiastic study of Fray Luis, and a knowledge of his poems makes the visit to his tomb in Salamanca more than one of mere curiosity.
Like most of the cities and villages of León province, this one too lies asleep, resting on its former honors, though there are hints, such as the new hospital, that she is rousing herself to life. She feels a confidence in her own future, as is subtly shown in the decoration of the plaza, where empty spaces are left for the names of coming great men. It is with this city of the past that the most homelike memory of our tour in Spain is associated, the happy hour round an English tea-table eating bread and butter, and chatting at last, oh so eagerly, in one's native tongue. It was the rector of the Irish college who gave us this delightful taste of home, and fresh from six weeks of freezing, stone-paved rooms, of cinnamon-flavored chocolate, how we appreciated his hospitality! The school of young seminarians is housed in one of the five remaining of the University buildings, but only moved here when the original college, founded by Philip II and dedicated to St. Patrick, was demolished by Ney and Marmont's soldiery.
We found our host in his library poring over a Greek book with a professor from the University, and we were welcomed with the heart-warming kindness of his native land. The professor obviously hoped the invading Americans would not tarry long, but he little knew that a Celtic host in the heart of Spain and a cozy tea-table at the critical hour of a raw, bleak day made a combination not to be resisted; we lingered into the late afternoon and left reluctantly indeed. I would wish for all travelers a friendly visit to the Colegio de Nobles Irlandeses, that they might see the tall, northern-looking lads pacing up and down the sculptured sixteenth-century courtyard, might pause in the Chapel, and look out from the library windows over the city, with a genial cicerone to name the churches and colleges; then Salamanca would not seem a dead city, but a peaceful, contented survival of the past.
SEGOVIA.
"No hay un pueblo esclavo
Si no lo quiere ser:
¡Cantad, españoles!
Cantad! Cantad!"
(Hymn sung May, 1908, for the centenary of Dos de Mayo.)
WE reached Segovia at five o'clock in the early morning of November first after an indescribably fatiguing day and night of travel, the one confusion of our tour in Spain, and partly owing to a mistake in the usually reliable guide book. It may be of help to other travelers if I describe this misadventure. On returning from Galicia, we had left the express route at Astorga, and pausing there a night, took the local line south to Zamora and Salamanca. After a stay of some days in the old university city, we were lured out to a small town, fifteen miles away, Alba de Tormes, where St. Teresa died. It seemed unnecessary to return to Salamanca in order to go on to Avila, since a diligence ran to Avila from a town not far from Alba de Tormes. Our book gave the distance of this ride as fourteen miles, whereas fourteen leagues, more than three times fourteen miles, would be nearer the truth. For, on reaching Alba we found it was a diligence journey of over ten hours; with the roads in a frightful condition after a month's rain, the trip was out of the question. So spending the night at Alba de Tormes, we went back to Salamanca, there to find it was not the special day for the train that connects directly with the express route south. Whereupon it seemed best, rather than to wait a couple of days for this train, to take the long trip round by Zamora and Toro to the junction Medina del Campo, whence the express route to Madrid branches, one line passing by Avila, another by Segovia.
It happened to be eight minutes before the starting of the train, when I went to the ticket office at Salamanca with my carnet kilométrique, yet nevertheless the agent refused me the tickets, saying that his office closed five minutes before the starting of each train. "But there are yet eight minutes," I exclaimed. His personal watch said five; so we were obliged to start without the usual complementary tickets. We decided to descend at the first stop and there have our kilometrics torn off, but before reaching this station the conductor came to collect tickets, and by his face, false and mobile, we knew we were in for a struggle. We explained our dilemma and offered the one peseta, ninety centimes, which was marked in his book and our own, as the full first class tariff for twelve kilometers. He contemptuously refused and demanded eight pesetas each for that short ride of eight miles. We did not hesitate to refuse; whereupon when we reached the stopping station he tried by confused explanations to prevent the agent there from giving us the necessary complementary tickets. But fortunately in the hurry to procure them during the few minutes of our pause, I had stumbled in stepping from the carriage and slightly cut my hand on the pebbles. This roused the Spanish sense of chivalry and the agent moved aside the conductor and gave me what I asked. We again offered this latter the lawful fare for the eight miles we had ridden without tickets, and again he demanded eight pesetas. On reaching Zamora, he boldly brought up the Chief of that station, a trickster in league with him, and both demanded the unjust fare. A Spanish gentleman was passing, and seeing two ladies in trouble, stopped to ask if he could be of assistance. When we explained the case, he asked us to give him the lawful fare and turning to the station-master and the conductor, presented it to them with a scathing rebuke: like beaten dogs they slunk away. Several times gentlemen came to our aid in this way, as if it hurt their pride to have their race so misrepresented.