The
Grandniece of the Grand
Inquisitor
I have a fair daughter formed like a golden flower.—Sappho.
The Spanish Inquisitor is one character of the past who has been spared the mockish attentions of writers of historical romance. But he, too, has suffered from the on dit of history, history as she is taught. However, he had his day. Once as the impersonation of “correct sentiment,” he dealt his decrees from a palace and had the double honor of representing Church as well as State. As times grew gentler, the Inquisition was directed against books rather than men. Now, certainly, something may be accorded to those who dispose of polemic literature, even though they be as innocent as earthworms of their ultimate use to humanity; therefore, let us try to look upon the Grand Inquisitor, Miguel de Carpio, as a Spanish gentleman of an exceedingly old school—as a man perhaps much less bloodthirsty than some of the good and perfect knights, though abominably technical regarding certain points. As theatre-goers we are in the gentleman’s debt, for it was he who educated his nephew, Lope de Vega de Carpio, who in his turn was a positive factor in the development of the modern drama.
Lope Felix de Vega de Carpio was of a mental mixture that has more than passed away; it has been relegated to the incomprehensible,—at once a graceful poet and a soldier, a past master of euphuism and a coarse dramatist; an officer of the Church; “a servant of the Inquisition” or a “familiar of the holy office,” as he fluently termed it (an honorary escort of the victim to the stake); finally, chaplain of the monastic order into which he retired; and, unquestionably, the most voluminous of writers.
A Peep Into the Cranium of a Bible Reader
in Lope de Vega’s Time.
But his most poetic gift to the world was his love-child, Sister Marcela de Felix of the Convent of the Ladies of the Trinity at Alcala. Of all his children, legitimate or illegitimate, this daughter, by the lady who inspired the best of his sonnets, was to him dearest. He takes little Marcela to live with him as soon as ever his wife dies, and dedicates a drama to the little girl; so does another poet. She seems to be her father’s comrade, for when she is only eleven years old he uses her to get back some letters that he has written to one of his various mistresses; but when a relative of the husband of this mistress makes improper overtures to Little Marcela, Lope de Vega rises like a man “in spite of his age and holy orders,” and chastises the villain.
At sixteen, to the little maid comes a craving for an exalted purity, a reaction of her beautiful soul from its coarse, immoral surroundings. Being a woman, her ideal also calls for a lover, but he must be pure and more beautiful than any one she has ever known, and he must love her as she will him, “better than life.” It is the Age of Faith. Her bridegroom awaits; she leaves her father to join him.