“The day was as disagreeable as the Prince of the Powers of the Air could make it, even with special reference to a festival. A furious and bitterly cold wind discharged volleys of coarse dust, which stung like sleet, in every direction at once, and seemed always to threaten rain or snow, but, unable to make up its mind as to which would be most unpleasant, decided on neither. Yet the broad avenue to the amphitheatre was continually blocked by the swarm of vehicles of every shape, size, color, and discomfort that the nightmare of a bankrupt livery stabler could have invented. All the hospitals and prisons for decayed or condemned carriages seemed to have discharged their inmates for the day, and all found willing victims. And yet all Madrid seemed flocking toward the common magnet on foot also.
“I attended officially, as a matter of duty, and escaped early. It was my first bull-fight, and will be my last. To me it was a shocking and brutalizing spectacle in which all my sympathies were on the side of the bull. As I came out I was nearly ridden down by a mounted guard, owing to my want of any official badge. For the moment I almost wished myself the representative of Liberia. Since this dreadful day 16,000 spectators who were so happy as to be present have done nothing but blow their noses and cough.”
In a private letter written after the festivities, Lowell refers to a diplomatic dinner and reception which came at the close, and says: “The uniforms (there are six special embassies here with very long tails) and diamonds were very brilliant. But to me, I confess, it is all vanity and vexation of spirit. I like America better every day.” The picturesqueness soon satisfied, and he shows in this despatch how his mind dwelt rather on the life which gave rise to and was typified in the ceremonial. He read it not at all as a supercilious American, whose pride in the barrenness of show at home might be as great as Castilian pride in superfluity of decoration, but as a scholar intent on discovering those fundamental truths of history which are seen all the more clearly through the medium of a mind at home in the rarefied air of a genuine American freedom.
Meanwhile his personal tastes led him to the book-shops and he fell to buying books, easily pardoning any extravagance he might be led into by the reflection that his treasures would go ultimately to the library of his college, where indeed they did finally rest. These dips into the refreshing waves of literature made him conscious of where his real interest lay, but he was nevertheless not a perfunctory giver of his service. “I try to do my duty,” he writes to his friend Child, “but feel sorely the responsibility to people three thousand miles away, who know not Joseph and probably think him unpractical.” By necessity of his office, he was compelled to a good deal of social activity, and this, though it brought him in contact with interesting persons, was so opposed to a long habit that it wearied him. He found himself looking critically at the society into which he was thrown. He saw little evidence of exact scholarship in the educated men, and a general disposition toward an indolent attitude regarding all important matters. But the engaging side of the Spanish character appealed to him. As he wrote to Child: “There is something oriental in my own nature which sympathizes with this ‘let her slide’ temper of the hidalgos.”
At this time he began confidentially to whisper to friends at home that he doubted if he could stand it much more than a year; but from the middle of April, 1877, he took a two months’ leave of absence and with Mrs. Lowell made an agreeable journey which brought him back in better content to his life in Madrid. They travelled first from Madrid to Tarbes, thence to Toulouse, Carcassonne, Nismes, Avignon, and Arles. From France they went to Genoa, to Pisa and to Naples, whence they took steamer to Athens, where they stayed a week or so. Lowell’s official position not only drew upon him a little official ceremony, but it tinctured his reflections also, leading him to observe and note matters which might have some bearing upon international questions or might affect in a way his own special function as minister to Spain.
“I have just come back from the Palace,” he writes to Mr. Norton from Athens, 31 May, 1878, “where I was presented to the King, a fine young Dane, good-looking and intelligent, and with whom I cannot help feeling a great deal of sympathy just now. For never was man or kingdom in a more difficult position. Greece was quite willing to make a snatch at the chestnuts in the fire, even at the risk of burning her own fingers, and they wouldn’t let her. I have seen decayed gentlemen who lived very comfortably on the former glories of their family, and drove about in an imaginary coach of their grandfathers’—but with Greece, if one can’t say exactly noblesse oblige, it at least makes her uneasy, and the laurels of Miltiades are a wakeful bed. She has an immense claim, and no resources to make it good—not even the documents that prove clear descent. It is curious, but I have not seen a face of the type that statues and medals have taught us to consider Greek. In a regiment that marched by yesterday at least seven eighths of the men, perhaps nine tenths, had the nose of the dying gladiator, which I take it is Slavonic. Yet continuity of language is certainly something, and I am so stupid that I can’t get over my astonishment at seeing the street-signs, and hearing the newspapers cried in Greek.”
A sudden opportunity to go to Constantinople shortened the stay in Athens, and Lowell had a glimpse of the Orient. “My Eastern peep,” he wrote after his return to Madrid, “has been of service in enabling me to see how Oriental Spain still is in many ways. Without the comparison I couldn’t be sure of it.”
The return of the Lowells to Madrid was just before the death of the young Queen Mercedes, and both in his despatch to the government, dated 3 July, 1878, and in his private letters, Lowell gave expression to more than merely official concern over the sudden taking-off. His despatch, in particular, is full of such details as would be noticed by one genuinely alert, and not merely carrying out the performance of official etiquette. Here, for example, are a couple of passages which show the artist and the man of feeling much more than the diplomat:—
“During the last few days of the Queen’s illness, the aspect of the city had been strikingly impressive. It was, I think, sensibly less noisy than usual, as if it were all a chamber of death in which the voice must be bated. Groups gathered and talked in undertone. About the Palace there was a silent crowd day and night, and there could be no question that the sorrow was universal and profound. On the last day I was at the Palace, just when the poor girl was dying. As I crossed the great interior courtyard, which was perfectly empty, I was startled by a dull roar, not unlike that of the vehicles in a great city. It was reverberated and multiplied by the huge cavern of the Palace court. At first I could see nothing that accounted for it, but presently found that the arched corridors all around the square were filled, both on the ground floor and the first story, with an anxious crowd, whose eager questions and answers, though subdued to the utmost, produced the strange thunder I had heard. It almost seemed for a moment as if the Palace itself had become vocal.
“At the time of the royal marriage I told you that the crowd in the streets was indifferent and silent. My own impression was confirmed by that of others. The match was certainly not popular, nor did the bride call forth any marks of public sympathy. The position of the young Queen was difficult and delicate, demanding more than common tact and discretion to make it even tenable, much more, influential. On the day of her death, the difference was immense. Sorrow and sympathy were in every heart and on every face. By her good temper, good sense, and womanly virtue, the girl of seventeen had not only endeared herself to those immediately about her, but had become an important factor in the destiny of Spain. I know very well what divinity doth hedge royal personages, and how truly legendary they become even during their lives, but it is no exaggeration to say that she had made herself an element of the public welfare, and that her death is a national calamity. Had she lived she would have given stability to the throne of her husband, over whom her influence was wholly for good. She was not beautiful, but the cordial simplicity of her manner, the grace of her bearing, her fine eyes, and the youth and purity of her face, gave her a charm that mere beauty never attains.” How the death of the Queen affected Lowell’s imagination may further be seen in the sonnet which he then wrote, but which was not published till he collected his final volume of poetry.