Sr. Valdés celebrated his admission to the bar by the publication of several articles on philosophic and political subjects which attracted the attention of the proprietor of the Revista Europea, at that time the most important scientific periodical in Spain. In spite of his extreme youth—he was then but twenty-two years of age—the editorship of this review was entrusted to him, and he successfully fulfilled its duties for three years.
Nothing as yet made the young editor imagine that he was to become a novelist. But in order to add to the interest of his publication he began to produce a series of literary portraits of orators, poets and novelists. This task revived the literary inclinations of his early years, and abandoning the control of the Revista, he wrote his first novel, El Señorito Octavio, a work which the author himself regards as of little merit, too lyric, and marred by a straining after effect. His friends, however, were quick to see the talent displayed, and their encouragement stimulated the production of a second novel, Marta y María, which is perhaps the best known of all. It was the occasion of the author's introduction to the American public through an article by Mr. W. Dean Howells in Harper's Magazine.
Since then Sr. Valdés has continued to produce new novels at the rate of one each year or every two years. Those which have enjoyed the greatest popularity in Spain are La Hermana San Sulpicio and Los Majos de Cádiz, novels of Andalusian life, in spite of the author's not being a native of that province.
In the summer of 1882 Sr. Valdés met, in the small coast-town of Candás, Asturias, a young lady of fifteen, Luisa Prendes of Gijón (the Sarrió of El Cuarto Poder), who in the year following became his wife. The newly wedded pair established their household in Madrid, but were not destined long to enjoy their happiness, for eighteen months after their marriage Sra. Valdés expired in the arms of her husband, leaving him an infant son nine months old. This fatal event is the most important in the life of our author. From this time on he has lived devoted to his son, reading, writing, and retired from all political and literary commotion.
Such are the biographical data which Sr. Valdés has thought fit to give to the public. More personal details he has not divulged, such "confessions" appearing to him both absurd and a profanation. But there is a key of which those who are interested in the life and character of the novelist may avail themselves, without violating his reserve. This key he gives us himself in a sentence which vindicates the personality of all art, "subjective" or "objective," realistic or romantic. "We novelists," he says, "write our biography, though disguisedly, in the works which we create." And he adds: "In mine is found almost all that has affected me in my life, but most particularly in Maximina."
The following are, in chronological order, the novels of Valdés, produced between the years 1881-1899; El Señorito Octavio, 1 vol.; Marta y María, 1 vol.; El Idilio de un enfermo, 1 vol.; José, 1 vol.; Aguas fuertes (novelas y cuadros), 1 vol; Riverita, 2 vols.; Maximina, 2 vols.; El Cuarto Poder, 2 vols.; La Hermana San Sulpicio, 2 vols.; La Espuma, 2 vols.; La Fe, 1 vol.; El Maestrante, 1 vol.; El Origen del Pensamiento, 1 vol.; Los Majos de Cádiz, 1 vol.; La Alegría del Capitán Ribot, 1 vol.
Beside these he has written the following critical works: Los Oradores del Ateneo, 1 vol., 1878: Los Novelistas Españoles, 1 vol., 1878; Nuevo Viaje al Parnaso, 1 vol., 1879; La Literatura en 1881, 1 vol., in collaboration with Leopoldo Alas.
Valdés, if we must classify him, belongs to the ranks of realism. In fact, Mr. J. Fitzmaurice Kelly declares that "he has a fair claim to rank as the chief of the modern naturalistic school." But we must hasten to modify this definition by restriction in one direction, amplification in another. This modification is necessary because Valdés has known how to maintain his originality amid the strife of schools, the seductions of praise, and the onslaught of adverse criticism. Blanco García speaks of him as a convert to naturalism, but we feel that his literary creed as manifested practically in his novels, theoretically in the prefaces to Marta y María and La Hermana San Sulpicio, is the result of a natural bent of mind foreshadowed in his early affection for science, just as we may trace much of his fine description and character-drawing to his early observation of city, sea and country. To differentiate in the novelist what he derives from the general point of view which he has adopted from the measure of originality which marks his work, is the real difficulty in attempting to characterize Valdés.
He chooses his material throughout from contemporary Spanish life. His work is based on an exactness of observation that shows him to have thoroughly studied the milieux which he describes. His tertulias, aristocratic or plebeian, the envies and vanities, the petty intrigues, the fervors of religion, feigned or real, the flirtations and grand passions, all pulsate with life and truth, no less than the setting of nature with which his characters are so intimately interwoven that it seems as much a part of them as their words and acts. "The labor of Palacio amounts to cutting from the immeasurable canvas of reality heterogeneous portions, of warp coarse or fine, smooth or rough, according to the order in which they attract his eye, and demand the embroidery of his fancy and his pen."[B] In the choice of these "sections" we can divine the predilections of the artist. He is an optimist at heart and believes in the possibility of human nobleness, and so prefers the brighter colors of his palette. Not that his pictures lack in shadow: as a faithful novelist he does not hesitate to describe scenes of gloom and even horror, when they form naturally part of the story; he does so undeterred by any scruple. But though he believes that everything is worthy of being painted, he does not insist too much upon unpleasant detail, and often, as in the account of the quarrel between the mothers of José and Elisa in the present novel, cuts short a description of the ugly and sordid and turns with relief to brighter things. Even his baser characters, whose defects are brought out with remorseless justice, are not lacking in all human virtue and not seldom are explained, if not excused, by heredity or the circumstances of their environment. Valdés has a wide knowledge of life and though as a true realist he abstains from personal comment, we feel that he deeply sympathizes with human nature. For him tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. It is with shafts of gentle irony that he transfixes human foibles, an irony softened by the play of a delicate humor which is one of the most potent charms of his work. Valdés too, is a poet and knows how, not to idealize, but to emphasize the ideal and æsthetic elements that exist already in the most ordinary life, to weave from them a veil of poetry which softens the too familiar features of prose.
There has been a steady development in the work of this author. Not so much in style, of which he has shown himself a master almost from the outset of his literary career. Not so much, either, in ideas, literary or general, though he never repeats himself, and each succeeding work brings to light new treasures of his mind. Rather should we say that his understanding of life has grown more comprehensive and more calm, and that he gives us more and more of his originality and less and less of the phase of literature which he still undoubtedly represents. In a recent letter to the present editor he says, apropos of El Capitán Ribot: "Verá V. que me aparto cada día más del gusto predominante en la literatura moderna." There is more synthesis of character, less analysis, and a distinct philosophy, indicated in earlier works, begins to stand out clearly as the final rounding of his view of life. It is a philosophy of sublime morality for its own sake and because immorality is fatal, the philosophy of a man who believes in the sanity of virtue and the wholesomeness of work, and who abhors sin without the hopes and fears inspired by theology. For Valdés is not orthodox; more than one of his novels is iconoclastic in this respect; but such is his sympathetic comprehension of attitudes of faith that we feel that his religion is deep and pure in spite of its dispensing with creed.