Miguel de los Santos Álvarez (1818-1892) was a friend and imitator of Espronceda and the last surviving member of his school. He was one of several who attempted the vain task of completing the "Diablo Mundo." He was a guest of honor with Espronceda at the first reading of "El Estudiante de Salamanca" at Granada in 1837. His verse is mediocre, and he is best known for the Cuento en prosa here quoted. This Fitzmaurice-Kelly terms "a charming tale," and Piñeyro praises it for the grace and naturalness of its irony. Rubén Darío gives some interesting reminiscences of Santos Álvarez in his old age, "La vida de Rubén Darío escrita por él mismo", Barcelona, n.d., chap. xxvii. Apparently Santos Álvarez never outgrew the bohemianism of his youth.
The second quotation is from Mark xiv, 38: "The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak."
[693. ]The narrative begun in Part First is now resumed at the point where it was interrupted. We now know that it was Don Diego Pastrana who lost his life in the duel described in the opening lines.
[717. ]The omission of the usual accent of impio is intentional and indicates how the word should be stressed in this verse. Impío is a "word of double accentuation". See Introduction.
[729. ]Notice how the absolute phrase Los ojos fijos is broken by the insertion of the proper name. Poets depart from the usual word-order with the utmost freedom.
[737. ]néctar jerezano: sherry wine.
[738, ]740. bastara, intentara: to be translated as pluperfects.
[766. ]It is necessary to supply a que to serve as the object of achaca. This is readily to be inferred from the que in the verse before, which is, however, used as a subject.
[793. ]In this speech of Don Felix's there is rapid alternation between direct address, in the second person, and side remarks in the third person about the person addressed.