Luis Gonzales Obregón, one of the best known of living Mexican writers, was born in Guanajuato, August 25, 1865. After studying under private teachers at his home, he went to Mexico, where he completed his preparatory studies in the Seminario and in the Colegio de San Ildefonso. Ill health interfered with his further education, but he had already developed a strong affection for literary, and particularly for historical, pursuits, which has motived his whole life work. He is a devoted student of the national history of his country and particularly delights in the investigation of obscure and curious incidents. So far as a feeble physical constitution has allowed, he has given himself up to such researches and to writing. In 1889 he published a useful little volume, entitled Novelistas Mexicanos en el Siglo XIX (Mexican Novelists in the Nineteenth Century). In an introductory section he briefly characterizes the Mexican novel; he then presents a complete list of the novelists of the century, to the time of his writing, with the names of their novels and a few discriminating words regarding their place in the national literature. Our author’s best known work is certainly México Viejo (Old Mexico), of which a “first series” was printed in 1891 and a “second series” in 1895. These have recently been republished, in a single volume, in Paris. The work consists of essays, each dealing with some special event in Mexican history, or sketching the life of some eminent person, or depicting some old custom or popular practice. Usually they contain information derived from unpublished manuscripts or rare and ancient works. Among the many other writings of our author, two biographical sketches demand particular mention, on account of the interest and prominence of the men who form the subjects. These are Don José Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi famous as a writer, early in the last century, under the nom-de-plume of El Pensador Mexicano (the Mexican thinker), and Vida y Obras de Don José Fernando Ramirez (Life and Works of José Fernando Ramirez), the eminent literary man, historian, and statesman. The selections, which we here present, are from México Viejo. They do not as satisfactorily represent Señor Obregón’s style as longer passages would, as he is at his best when he narrates some ancient legend or describes some popular festival.
CHANGES IN MEXICO.
For some years past Mexico has been undergoing a slow, but evident, transformation. Everywhere the modern spirit modifies what is old. Customs, types, dress, monuments, and buildings are completely losing the long-fixed physiognomy of the colonial days.
The customs of our ancestors, half Spanish, half indigenous, are disappearing, replaced by a mixture of European practices, and now, in the same house, one prays in the old fashion, clothes one’s self after the French style, and eats after the Italian manner; one mounts his horse or enters his coach a la English, and conducts his business a la Yankee, in order to lose no time.
The fountains, those ancient fountains of the colonial epoch, have been replaced by hydrants and troughs at every corner, and the traditional type of the aguador (water-carrier) is eclipsed and forced to betake himself to those sections where the deep shadows of the electric lights fall, and where the precious fluid does not flow of itself, except when it pleases heaven to inundate the streets and alleys.
The china[10] has died, to live only in the beautiful romances of the popular Fidel; the chiera[11] yields her gay and picturesque puesto of refreshing waters, to the experienced señorita, who in high-heeled shoes and tightly-laced bodice serves us iced drink in vessels of fine crystal; the sereno,[12] with his shining, varnished hat, his ladder on his shoulder and his lantern in his right hand, withdraws shame-faced before the gendarme,[13] and thus with other types, whom the curious investigator now encounters only in the pictures of forgotten books.
Who now remembers the habits of the humble friars, who once traveled through the streets amid the respectful salutations of the faithful?
The coaches slung on straps, the gigs, the omnibuses—are all passing away, all are forgotten in the noisy whirl of English and American carriages and the confusion of the tranvias,[14] which rapidly slip over their steel rails.
Mexico changes, principally, in its material part. The old houses fall daily, façades change, the ancient wooden roofs give way to iron sheeting.
The streets are being lengthened, their names are expressed in cabalistic signs, and their historic and traditional associations are relegated to the verses of our poets.