So long ago as 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President Monroe: "The addition of the island of Cuba to our Confederacy is exactly what is wanted to round our power as a nation to the point of its utmost interest." John Quincy Adams went so far as to state that "Cuba gravitates to the United States as the apple yet hanging on its native trunk gravitates to the earth which sustains it"—a statement which has the more force when it is remembered that for over fifty years the Cuban insurgents had been liberally supplied with arms, ammunition, stores, and troops from the United States whenever they required them! And this, not because Cuba was mismanaged by Spain, but because America coveted her as "the most interesting addition that could be made to our system of States," to quote Jefferson once more.

Nevertheless, the heroic sons of Spain were offered up as an expiation for the sins of her political jugglers for generations past. With the knowledge that America had at least for seventy years been seeking an excuse for "rounding her power as a nation" by the seizure of Cuba, no real effort was made to redress the grievances of her native population, nor to efficiently defend her coasts.

The state of affairs in Manila was still worse. The culpable neglect of the Government had resulted in the so-called squadron not being possessed of one single ship of modern construction or armament; and when the unfortunate marines and their heroic commanders had been immolated by the overwhelming superiority in numbers and efficiency of the Americans, the noisy injustice and anger of a senseless crowd at home were allowed to compass the lasting disgrace of casting the blame for the foreseen disasters on Admiral Montojo, who was thrown as a victim to the jackals.

To-day, we find Spain absolutely without a navy. Two second- or third-class ships—and they not even properly found or armed—are all she possesses. Men she has, however, with the traditions of a great past, while the officers of her navy are thoroughly alive to the class of ships and the armament which are needed to give their country the protection, and their foreign policy the dignity, which other countries of far less importance are able to sustain. No wonder that her writers are pointing out that instead of being satisfied with immense long-winded despatches and notes, couched in grandiloquent language, which Spanish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply sufficient, strong nations have a habit of sending an iron-clad, or two or three cruisers to back up their demands, and that no other European country but Spain thinks it safe or wise to leave her coasts and her commerce entirely without protection in case of a European war breaking out. Will the nation itself take the matter in hand, and in this, as in so many other matters, advance in spite of its Government? If it waits for the political seesaw by which both parties avoid responsibility, there will be small chance of a navy. The same ministry is in power to-day which landed the country in the Spanish-American War, and it would seem as if the nation considers it the best it can produce. Manana veremos?



CHAPTER XII

RELIGIOUS LIFE

The natural bent of the Spanish mind is religious. Taking the nation as a whole, with all its marvellous variations in race and character, no portion of it has ever been reproached for insincerity in its religious beliefs. It has been often held up to reproach for bigotry and superstition; but the people have in past ages been penetrated by a sincere reverence for what they have believed to be religion, and perhaps no other nation has been more thoroughly imbued with an unwavering faith in the dogmas taught by its religious instructors. English Roman Catholics—especially those who have seceded from the Anglican Church—are fond of declaring that Spain is "a splendid Catholic country," "the home of true Catholicism," and so forth. To a certain extent this has been true of it in the past, and "dignity, loyalty, and the love of God" are still the ideals of the people at large, although in Spain, as in some other Continental nations, the practice of religious duties is now, to a great extent, left to the women of the family and to the peasantry. Young Spain, and the progressive party in it, can no longer be said to be under the domination of the Church, even in outward appearance. It will be well if the swing of the pendulum does not carry them very far from it, and into open revolt.

The history of the Church in Spain and of its relations with Rome is a curious one. It can scarcely be said to have been much more amenable to the Papacy than that of the Church of England, though it has remained always within the pale of the Roman Catholic persuasion. In the old time the kings aspired to be the head of the Spanish Church, and were none too subservient to the Pope. The Inquisition and the Society of Jesus were distinctly Spanish, and not Roman, and were at times actually at variance with the Vatican. Probably from their long struggles with the barbarians, and later with the Moors, Spaniards have a habit of always speaking of themselves as Christians rather than Catholics, which strikes strangely on one's ears.

The evils which have been wrought in Spain by the terrible incubus of the Inquisition, and by the domination of the Jesuits and other orders, who obtained possession of the teaching of youth, have been little less than disastrous, because their power has been deliberately used for ages past to keep the lower classes in a state of absolute ignorance, slaves of the grossest superstition, and mere puppets in the hands of the priesthood. Even well within the memory of living people it was thought a pity that women should be allowed to learn even to read and write,—safer to have them quite ignorant,—while the peasantry and the inferior classes believed anything they were told, and could be excited to any pitch of fanaticism by the preaching of their religious teachers. The Inquisition was often used as a political machine, and was sometimes only clothed with the semblance of religion; but by whomsoever it was directed, and for whatsoever purpose, it was a vile and soul-destroying institution. It deliberately ground down and destroyed every spark of intelligence, of liberty, of attempt at progress; it dominated the whole nation like the shadow of the upas tree, manufactured hypocrites, and led to the debasing of a naturally fine people of good instincts to an ignorant and fanatical mob, who, in the name of religion, were entertained with gigantic autos-da-fe, as the Roman populace were with the terrible spectacles of their gladiatorial shows and the immolation of Christian victims in the arena.

It was the people themselves who rose against this hateful tyranny; it was their better instincts that put an end to the "Holy Office" and its enormous crimes. Shortly after the Revolution of 1868, when religious liberty had been established, and the people, for the first time in their long history of disaster, were breathing the air of freedom, certain improvements which were being made, in the shape of laying out new streets, pulling down old rookeries, and building better houses, led to a new road being cut through the raised ground outside the Santa Barbara Gate. The exact spot of the great Quemadero—the oven of the Inquisition—was not known, but it chanced that the workmen cut right through the very centre of it. A more ghastly sight, or an object-lesson of more potency, could scarcely be imagined. The Government of the day found it advisable to cover it up as quickly as possible; the excitement of the people was thought to be dangerous; and though those at the head of affairs were no friends to the priests or the Jesuits, there was no desire to reawaken the passions and let loose the vengeance which led the populace in 1834 to murder them wholesale.

I happened to be returning from a ride with a companion when, quite accidentally, we came upon this excavation, and even passed down the new road before we realised where we were. The Quemadero had evidently been in the shape of an immense basin. There in the banks at each side were the stratified layers of human ashes; between each auto-da-fe it was evident that the remains had been covered with a thick layer of earth; finally, at the top of all these smaller bands of black, horrible ashes, came one huge deposit, which marked the awful scene of the last gigantic auto. This ghastly bonfire was sixty feet square, and seven feet high, as history records, when one hundred and five victims were slowly tortured to a frightful death in the name of Christ, while the King, Charles II., and his Court and the howling rabble of Madrid looked on with savage enjoyment. Nothing can ever obliterate the impression of that scene, nor make one forget the deadly clinging of those ghastly black ashes, which the wind scattered about, and which it was impossible to escape or to get rid of. The fell work of the "religious" authors of the holocaust had been well done—nothing was left but ashes; and the next day, by order of the Government, sand or soil had been thrown over all that could bear witness to this horrible episode in the history of the Church in Spain, while the people who inhabit the houses built over the spot probably know nothing of the records of human agony and brutal bigotry that still lie beneath their homes.

We hear of these things and read of them in history, but one needs to have seen that awful memorial to realise what share the Inquisition has had in transforming a naturally heroic and kindly people into the inert masses which nothing, or almost nothing, would move so long as they had pan y toros (bread and bulls). Thanks to the horrors of the Inquisition and the Autos-da-fe, the whole people have acquired a character which assuredly they do not deserve. The blind bigotry and cynical cruelty of Philip II. and his lunatic successors have been identified with the races over which, unfortunately for Spain, they ruled for so many years. When one remembers that this is the view taken of the Inquisition, and of the domination of the Church in effacing all kinds of culture, by the liberal and educated Spaniard of to-day, and that there is, even now, an extreme party which would fain see the "Holy Office" re-established, with all its old powers, it is easy to understand at what a critical point the clerical question has arrived in Spain; nor need one wonder at the feeling which in all parts of the kingdom has been aroused by the recrudescence of the religious orders, more especially of the determined struggle of the Jesuits to retain and even to reassert their power.

The Madonna, who is always spoken of as "La Virgen," never as "Santa Maria," is the great object of love and of reverence in Spain, while the words Dios and Jesus are used as common exclamations in a way that impresses English people rather unfavourably. It is a shock to hear all classes using the Por Dios! which with us is a mark of the purest blackguardism, and the use as common names of that of Our Lord and of Salvador, or Saviour, always strikes a disagreeable note. There is in Madrid a "Calle Jesus," and the sacred name, used as a common expletive, is heard on all sides. One of the most charming of Yradier's Andalusian songs, addressed by a contrabandista to his novia, runs thus:

Pero tengo unas patillas. Que patillas punala! Es lo mejor que se ha jecho En de Jesu Cristo aca![2]

[2] "But I have such a stunning pair of whiskers! The best that have ever been seen since those of Jesus Christ!"

And no one is offended; in fact, no irreverence is probably meant.

But the innumerable "Virgenes" which abound throughout the country, and all seem different, have the heartfelt devotion of all classes. To one or other of them the bull-fighter goes for protection and aid before he enters the arena; the mother whose child lies sick vows her magnificent hair to the Virgin of the Atocha, or of the Pillar, or some of the many others scattered about the country, if only she will grant what she asks; and you may see these marvellous locks, tied with coloured ribbons, hanging amongst the motley assemblage of votive offerings by the side of her altar, when the prayer has been answered. It is difficult for us, with the best intentions, not to let prejudice colour our judgment, and to understand what we are told—that these are really all the same "Mother of God"; for, if so, one would imagine that she would hear the devout prayers of her worshippers, to whichever of the wooden images—most of them said to have been carved by St. Luke, and black by age, if not by nature—they are addressed. But no, the Virgen del Carmen is only efficacious in certain circumstances; and in the time of Isabel II. she used to be taken down from her altar and placed in the Queen's bedroom whenever an addition to the Royal Family was imminent. Those in the other parts of Spain have each their specialty, and pilgrimages are necessary to their shrines before the prayers addressed to them can be listened to by the original.

The various saints in their way are wooed with candles burnt before their images, or little altars set up to them at home; but they are sometimes treated with scant courtesy if they do not answer the expectations of their worshippers. On one occasion in Madrid, I remember, San Isidro, who is the patron of the labouring classes, had the bad taste, as his votaries considered, to send rain on his own fiesta—a thing unknown before. Lest he should err in this way again, the mob went to his church, at that time the principal one in Madrid, smashed the windows, and did all the damage they could compass before the Civil Guards came to the rescue. A servant-girl I knew, had for a long time been praying to San Antonio to send her a novio (sweetheart), expending money in tapers, and otherwise trying to propitiate the saint. At last, finding him deaf to all entreaties, she took the little wooden image she had bought, tied a string round his neck, and hung him in the well, saying: "You shall stop there till you send me what I want." Some little time after, she actually found a novio, and hastened gratefully to take San Antonio out of his damp quarters, set him up on his altar again, and burn tapers for his edification. I had thought this an example of special ignorance and superstition; but the other day, in reading some of the papers of the Spanish Folklore Library, I found there is a widespread belief that if San Antonio, and probably some other saints, do not answer the prayers of their votaries who burn candles before them, it is a good thing to hang them in a well till they come to their senses! It is difficult for any unbiassed person to understand that this is not fetish worship, as it would certainly seem to be, but we are told that it is something quite different.

The religious fiestas, as I have said, may be classed among the amusements of the people. During the warm season they invariably end with a bull-fight. In winter there are no bulls. Whether it be the Romeria of Santiago de Compostelo, the Santa Semana in Toledo or Seville, Noche-Buena and the Day of the Nativity in Madrid or Barcelona, gaiety and enjoyment seem to be the order of the day. Even Lent is not so bad, for just before it comes the Carnival and the grotesque "Burial of the Sardine" by the gente bajo, and of the three great masked balls, one is given in mid-Lent, to prevent the Lenten ordeal being too trying, and Holy Thursday is always a fiesta and day of enjoyment. On this day, in Madrid, takes place the washing of the feet of the poor in the Royal Palace—a function that savours a good deal of the ridiculous, but which was never omitted by the piadosa Isabel II., and was revived by her son. For forty-eight hours the bells of all the churches remain silent, no vehicles are allowed in the streets, which are gravelled along the routes Royalty will take to visit on foot seven of the churches, where the Holy Sepulchres are displayed; and in the afternoon all Madrid resorts to the Plaza del Sol and the Carrera San Geronimo, to show off their gayest costumes in a regular gala promenade. Finally, on Saturday morning—why forty-eight hours only is allowed for the supposed entombment does not quite appear—the bells clang forth, noise and gaiety pervade the whole city, and the day ends with a cock-fight and the reopening of the theatres, and the first grand bull-fight of the season is held on Easter Sunday. Verily, the Church is mindful of the weakness of its vassals, and shows as much indulgence as is thought needful to keep the people amused and careless of all else. I remember, when I first noticed this wearing of the most gaudy colours on Maundy Thursday, a day one would naturally expect to be one of special mourning, I was told it was allowed by the Church because on that day Pilate put the purple robe on Our Lord!

The processions and functions of Holy Week and other fiestas have been so often and so fully described that there is no need to refer to them; but there are several curious survivals and religious customs in out-of-the-way places which seem to have escaped notice. I have not been able to find in any book on Spain a description of the strange dance which takes place in the cathedral of Seville on, I think, three days in the year, of which two are certainly the day of the Virgin and that of Corpus Christi. The origin of the dance seems to be lost, nor is its special connection with Seville known. All that one can hear of it is that one of the archbishops of Toledo objected to the dance as being irreverent and unusual, and ordered it to be stopped. The indignant people referred the matter to the Pope, but even the date of this appeal seems to be dubious, if not unknown. His Holiness replied that he could not judge of the matter unless he himself saw the dance. Accordingly, the boys who figure in this strange performance were taken to Rome, and they solemnly danced before the Pope. His verdict was that there was nothing irreverent about the dance, but he thought, as it was known only to Seville, it would be better eventually to discontinue it; but so long as the dress worn on the occasions when it is practised, lasted, the dance might continue. The dresses have lasted to the present day, and will always continue to last, say the Sevillanos, for as one part wears out it is renewed, but never a whole garment made. The dress is peculiar: it consists of short trousers to the knees, and a jacket which hangs from one shoulder, stockings and shoes with large buckles or bows, and a soft hat, somewhat of the shape of a Tam-o'-shanter, with one feather—that of an eagle, I think. The dress is red and white for the day of Corpus, and blue and white for the day of the Virgin, covered with the richest gold embroidery, for which Spain has always been famous. The boys, holding castanets in each hand, advance, dancing with much grace and dignity, until they reach the front of the High Altar; there they remain, striking their castanets and performing slow and very graceful evolutions for some time, gradually retiring again as they came in, dancing, down the nave. The boys are regularly instructed in the dance by the priests, and the number is kept up, so that neither dancers nor garments ever fail. The Pope's order is obeyed, while the Sevillanos retain their strange religious function. The fact of the performance taking place in the evening perhaps accounts for its being so little known, but it would seem also as if the authorities of the cathedral do not care to have attention drawn to it. The dance is called los seises, and even the origin of the name is unknown.

In Holy Week and at Christmas are performed passion plays at some of the theatres, strangely realistic, and sometimes rousing the audience to wild indignation, especially against Judas Iscariot, who is hissed and hooted, and is often the recipient of missiles from the spectators, while interspersed with this genuine feeling one hears shouts of laughter when anything occurs to provoke it. On one occasion one of the Roman soldiers (always unpopular in the religious processions) appeared on the stage, dragging, by a cord round the neck, a miserable-looking man carrying a huge cross, so heavy that it caused him continually to fall. As the soldier kicked him up again, and continued to drag him along by the neck, the audience became ungovernable in their rage. "Dejale! Dejale! Bruto! Bruto!" they yelled; and, finally threatening to storm the stage and immolate the offending soldier, the play had to be stopped and the curtain rung down.

In villages too poor to possess pasos—the beautifully modelled life-size figures which form the tableaux in the rich churches and processions—human actors take their place. In Castellon de la Plana, where there is a yearly procession in honour of Santa Maria Magdalena, somewhat curious scenes take place. The Magdalen, in the days of her sin, is acted by a girl chosen for her beauty, but not for her character. She is gorgeously attired, and is allowed to retain her dress and ornaments after the performance. She is installed in state in a cart decorated with palms and flowers, and is surrounded by all the men of the village on foot, for it is part of the performance that they are allowed to say what they please to her. She acts the part to perfection apparently, and enjoys it, to boot. In another car comes the penitent Magdalen, dressed in pure white, and decorated with flowers. This part may be taken only by a young girl of unblemished character. It is thought the greatest honour that can be paid to her, and you are told by the people that she is always married within the year. This procession winds its way up the mountain to a small shrine of Santa Maria Magdalena, where it is said that her church once stood; but finding the climb up the hill was inconvenient to the lame and the aged, she very considerately, one night, moved the whole edifice down intact to Castellon de la Plana, where it now stands.

Going by rail once, many years ago, to Toledo, to see the processions on Good Friday, the train was accidentally delayed for some time a little distance from one of the stations, and there, in a small garden by the roadside, was being enacted the scene of the Crucifixion by human actors. A full-size cross was erected, and on it, apparently, hung a man crowned with thorns, and with head bowed upon his breast. In reality he was kneeling on two ledges placed for the purpose at a convenient distance from the cross-bars. It was cold, and the actor was covered by an old brown tattered cloak, such as the peasants wear now, and which we see in Velasquez's pictures. His feet stuck out behind the cross, but his arms were tied in a position which must soon have become painful. Around lay a cock tied by his legs, a ladder, a sponge tied on a stick, a sword, a lantern, and all the usual emblems of the Passion. The holy women and the Roman soldiers with their spears were just coming out of the cottage near by to take up their positions in this strange and pathetic tableau. The face of that peasant in the tattered brown cloak, not less than the spectacle of the people kneeling around in evident sorrow and worship, haunted me for many a day.



CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD

Education, especially that of the masses, has made great strides since the Revolution. At that time perfect liberty of religion and of instruction was established, and in this particular the somewhat retrograde movement at the Restoration, in allowing the return of the religious orders banished in the early years of the century, has only resulted in a greater number of private schools being established by the Jesuits and other teaching orders. With the public instruction they have never been allowed to interfere.

Every town and village has now its municipal and free schools, kept up by the Diputacion provincial. In all the chief towns there are technical and arts and crafts schools, also free, the expenses being borne by the Ministry of Fomento. Besides these are many private schools, taught by Jesuits and other teaching orders. The Ministry of Fomento is at present trying to bring in a law making education compulsory, and bringing all schools under State control. There are numerous girls' schools, managed by committees of ladies, as well as the convent schools and other private establishments. There are also normal schools, maintained by the Ministry of Fomento, where women and girls, as well as men, can take degrees and gain certificates for teaching purposes. In every capital of Spain one of these schools is established. There are ten universities, of which the principal is that of Madrid. In some of these only medicine and law are studied, but others are open for every class of learning. In all these numerous schools and colleges great advance has been made in late years; in the department of science, electricity has taken a very noticeable step forward, and in applied electricity Spain probably compares favourably with any of the European nations. Even the small towns and some villages are lighted by electricity, having gone straight from petroleum to electric light. Most of the large towns have, besides the light, electric tramways, telephones, etc., the engineers and artisans employed in these works being of a very high class. Electrical engineers are not under Government control, as the civil and mechanical engineers are, and have therefore better chances of coming to the front and making a career for themselves. The Government engineers, however, are kept up to the mark of other countries, and an attempt has been made by the present Minister to alter the system by which civil and mechanical engineers are compulsorily a body appointed and controlled by Government.

Medical science has made great strides during the last ten or twelve years. The hospitals are reformed, and all sanitary and antiseptical arrangements are now strictly attended to, and brought into line with the latest developments of science. A fine new hospital, San Juan de Dios, has been built in Madrid, on the plan of St. Thomas's in London, and this is only one of many improvements. The reorganisation of all scientific teaching is now engaging the attention of the Minister. An excellent sign of the present state of medical science in Spain—which only a few years ago was so far behind the age—is the fact that the International Congress of Medicine is fixed to meet in Madrid, for the first time, in 1902.

Since the establishment of religious liberty, the Americans seem to have made themselves very busy in missionary work. Mrs. Gulick, the wife of the American missionary in San Sebastian, claims to have "proved the intellectual ability of Spanish girls," and has secured State examination and recognition of her pupils by the National Institution of San Sebastian, and a few have even obtained admission to the examinations of the Madrid University, where they maintained a high rank. One always has a feeling that missionaries might easily find a field for their zealous labours in their own country; but if an impulse was needed from a foreign people for the initiation of a higher education among the daughters of Spain, they will certainly be able to carry on the work themselves, with such women as Emelia Pardo Bazan to lead the way. Mrs. Gulick is said to project a college for women in Madrid without distinction of creed. The whole affair sounds a little condescending, as though America were coming to the aid of a nation of savages; but if the Spaniards themselves do not object, no one else has any right to do so.

The Protestant movement has made but little progress in Spain. The religion is scarcely fitted to the genius of the people, and the Anglican Church has shown no desire to proselytise a nation which has as much right to its own religious opinions and form of worship as the English nation. The Americans and English Nonconformists are very busy, however, and talk somewhat largely of the results of their labours. In most of the large towns there are English chapels and schools, and a certain number among the lower classes of Spaniards have joined these communities. A private diary of a visit to Madrid so long ago as 1877 describes the English service there. The congregation numbered "quite five hundred." "They were of the poorer classes of both sexes, with a sprinkling of well-dressed men and women. They seemed to perform their devotions in a spirit of entire reverence and piety, not unlike a similar class in our churches at home. The clergyman delivered an impressive and forcible discourse, chiefly on the honour due to the name of God, and reprobated the profane use of the most sacred names, so common among the Spanish people.... Altogether I look upon the congregation at the Calle de Madera as a nucleus of genuine Protestantism in Spain."

As this is the opinion of a perfectly unbiassed onlooker, and has nothing of the professional element about it, it may be taken as absolutely reliable. In the towns, such as Bilbao, where there is a large English colony, there are various churches and chapels, and considerable numbers of communicants and Sunday scholars. Looking back, as I am able to do, to the days when there was no toleration for an alien faith; when even Christian burial for the "heretic" was quite a new thing, and living people could tell of the indignities heaped on the corpse of any unlucky English man or woman who died in "Catholic" Spain; when to have omitted, or even hesitated about, any of the religious actions imposed by the Church would have exposed one to gross insult, and perhaps injury; the progress towards enlightened toleration of the opinions of others seems to have been remarkable. It is, perhaps, more significant that the members of the new congregations should be generally of the lower classes, because it is precisely these people who have always been mere unthinking puppets in the hands of their priests.

Although there is at the present moment such a deep and widespread revolt against the Jesuits and some of the other orders, especially among the students and the better class of artisans and workmen, there is not, so far as a stranger may judge, a revolt against the Church itself, nor even against the parochial clergy. It would seem rather that there is a fixed determination that the priests shall keep to their business, that of the service of religion, and shall not be allowed to interfere in secular education, or, by use of the confessional, to dominate the family; and, above all, that the convents shall not be filled by force, undue persuasion, or cajolery. The state of the Roman Catholic religion and its priesthood in England is constantly being held up as the ideal of what the Church in Spain should be.

Almost all the modern novelists of Spain show us characters of priests with whom every reader must feel sympathy. Valera, Galdos, Pardo Bazan, and others depict individual clerics who are simple, straightforward, pious, and in every way worthy men, the friend of the young and the helper of the sorrowful. Sometimes they are not very learned, and not at all worldly-wise, but they show that the type is largely represented amongst the priesthood of Spain, and there are not wanting some of distinctly liberal tendencies. There was a remarkable article in a Madrid paper of radical, if not socialistic, tendencies, the other day, by one who signed himself "A priest of the Spanish Catholic Church." Lamenting over the sentimentalism of modern religion, and the distance it had travelled from its old models, he says: "Instead of the Virgen being held up to admiration as the Mother of Our Lord, and as an example of all feminine perfection, the ideal woman and mother, the people are called on to worship the idea of the Immaculate Conception, an abstract dogma of recent invention, and in place of showing us the perfect man in the Son of God, they are asked to worship a 'bleeding heart,' abstracted from the body, and held up as an object of reverence, apart from the living body of Jesus Christ." It is the reform of the national religion still ardently loved in spite of all the crimes that have been committed in her name, that the liberal-minded Spaniard wants, not the substitution of a foreign church; although no doubt the opportunity, now for the first time possible, of learning that there are people every whit as good and earnest as themselves, who yet hold religious opinions other than theirs, is bound to have a widening and softening effect on the narrowness of a creed which has hitherto been regarded as the only one.

The extraordinary outbreak against the Jesuits and the religious orders of the last year had many causes, and had probably long been seething, and waiting for something to open the floodgates. That something came in the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, and the coincidence, accidental or otherwise, of the production of Galdos's play of Electra. The marriage was a love match; the two young sons of the Count of Caserta, who were nephews of the Infanta Isabel on her husband's side, had been constantly at the Palace in Madrid, companions of the boy King. An attachment sprang up between Don Carlos, the elder of the two, and the King's elder sister, the Princess of Asturias. In every way the projected marriage was obnoxious to the people. The Count of Caserta himself had been chief of the staff to the Pretender, Don Carlos, and though he and his sons had taken the oath of allegiance to the young King, Spaniards have learned to place little reliance on such oaths. Had not Montpensier sworn allegiance to his sister-in-law Isabel II.? and of how much was it worth when the time came that he thought he could successfully conspire against her? To allow the heiress to the Crown to marry a Carlist seemed the surest way to reopen civil war, and upset the dynasty once more. Moreover, the Jesuits were supposed to be behind it all. The Apostolic party was apparently scotched and Carlism dead, but was not this one more move of the hated Jesuits to resuscitate both? The Liberal Government refused to allow the marriage; the Queen Regent, actuated, it is said, solely by the desire to secure what she considered the happiness of her daughter, who refused to give up her lover, was obstinate; and rather than give in, Sagasta and his Ministers resigned. A Conservative Ministry was formed—the methods of manipulating elections must be borne in mind—and the marriage was carried out. Even before the wedding-day the storm broke, and things looked ugly enough. Riots and disturbances occurred all over the country, as well as in Madrid itself; attacks were made on the houses of the Jesuits, who were credited with being the authors of the situation; and then followed the Government's suicidal step of suspending the constitutional guarantees over the whole country. Absolutism had once more raised its head! The Conservative Ministers, or many of them, were accused of being mere tools in the hands of the Jesuits, and it was complained that the confessor of the young King was one of the hated order.

For a time Spain seemed to be on the verge of one of her old convulsions. It appeared doubtful if the Queen Regent had not sacrificed the crown of one child to gratify the obstinacy of another. Fortunately, a catastrophe was averted. After vain efforts to retain the Conservative party in power, or to form a coalition, which all the best public men refused to join, Sagasta was once more recalled to power, the constitutional guarantees were restored, and the sharp crisis passed. But the attention of the nation had been attracted to what it considered the machinations of the Jesuits; order was indeed restored in Madrid and the provinces, but the "clerical question" had come to the front, and there was no possibility of allowing it to slumber again. It was discovered that not only had many of the religious orders, whose return had been allowed by convention after the Restoration, under certain limitations, largely increased their numbers beyond the limits allowed them, but that others had established themselves without any authorisation from the Government; also that considerable properties were being acquired in the country by the orders, though, of course, held under other names. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid petitioned the Government to order an inquiry into the affairs of these religious bodies, pointing out that they were establishing manufactories of shoes, chocolate, fancy post-cards, and other objects of commerce, interfering with the ordinary trades, and underselling them, because, under the plea of being charitable institutions, they evaded duty. The heads of colleges and the Society of Public Teachers also asked for Government interference and the reassertion of the laws of 1881 and 1895, guaranteeing perfect liberty of instruction, because they affirmed that the Fathers, Jesuit and others, undermined the teaching of science in the schools by means of tracts distributed to the pupils, and also by using the power they obtained in the confessional to set aside the lessons in science given in the colleges.

The action of the Government was prompt and judicious. Strict inquiries were at once made into the question of the manufacturing orders, and those not paying the duty were reminded of the immediate necessity of doing so, and of furnishing to the Ministry of Fomento full particulars of the trades carried on by them. Houses that were permitted by convention were warned to reduce their numbers to those allowed by law, and all unauthorised orders were warned at once to leave the country. The Press took a dignified and moderate position in the matter. It pointed out that perfect religious liberty existed, and that all that was needful was to see that the religious orders obeyed the law of the country as other people did; but that to inaugurate a system of persecution would be to return to the Dark Ages, and to follow the bad example set by the Church itself in former years.

Meanwhile, a clear intimation had been given by the Government that public instruction was absolutely free, and that no interference would be allowed with the teaching of science in the public schools. After all, public opinion alone can deal with the question of the confessional and the occult influence of the priest, for the remedy lies in the hands of those who place themselves under the domination of the confessor.

So far, well! The riots were at an end, and the more sensible and law-abiding people were satisfied that the ground stealthily gained by the Jesuits had been cut from under their feet as soon as the full light of day had been let in on their proceedings. Then came the extraordinary excitement caused by Galdos's play. To a stranger reading it, it is obvious that the public mind must have been in a strange condition of alarm and distrust to have had such an effect produced upon it by a drama which has no great literary worth, and which appears commonplace and harmless to an outsider. The story is simply that of a young orphan girl, who, according to Spanish ideas, is extremely unconventional, though nothing worse. There is nothing of the emancipated young woman about her as the type is known in England; in fact, she has a perfect genius for those domestic virtues which "advanced" English women regard with disdain. The villain of the piece, is a certain Don Salvador, who, though the fact is never mentioned, is obviously a Jesuit, and the interest of the play consists in the efforts made by this man, first by fair means and then by foul, to separate Electra from her fiance, and immure her in a convent. He succeeds, to all appearance, by at last resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made known, and the girl is rescued.

"You fly from me, then?" exclaims Don Salvador.

"It is not flight, it is resurrection!" replies the lover, in the last words of the play.

This drama ran an unprecedented number of nights in Madrid, over fifteen thousand copies of the book were sold in a few weeks, and it is still running in the provinces. Some of the bishops and the superior clergy have had the folly to denounce the play and to forbid their congregations to witness or to read it. There is not an objectionable word or idea in it from first to last, except such as may be disagreeable to the Church—as that women should be educated so as to be the intellectual companions of their husbands, and should not be entrapped into convents by foul means and against their will. The action taken by the clergy in this matter has not only largely advertised the play, but has led to angry demonstrations against them, and has strengthened the temper of the people to resist all clerical domination in temporal matters.

There have not been wanting from time to time signs, especially in the large manufacturing towns, of a spirit of revolt against all religion. Socialism, atheism, and even anarchism are all in the air, and if these are to be counteracted by religious teaching at all, it will certainly not be by the narrow dogmatism of the old school. There is a deep fund of religious feeling in the Spanish character which it would take a great deal to uproot, but it must be a wide-spirited and enlightened faith which will retain its hold over the people, who are everywhere breaking their old bonds and thinking for themselves.



CHAPTER XIV

PHILANTHROPY—POSITION OF WOMEN—MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

Travellers complain somewhat bitterly of the increase in the numbers and the importunity of beggars in Spain; but wherever monks abound, beggars also abound, and the long-unaccustomed sight of the various religious habits naturally brings with it the hordes of miserable objects who afford opportunities for the faithful to exercise what they are taught to believe is charity—loved of God. This, however, is more especially the case in Granada, or those favoured spots affected by the rich tourist, who has not always the same opinion about indiscriminate charity as the native Spaniard. In old days, the wise policy of Charles III. had reduced very greatly the swarm of beggars. A certain number of terrible-looking objects—the fortunate possessors of withered limbs, sightless eyeballs, or other disqualifications for honest work—still ostentatiously displayed their badges of professional mendicancy, and lived, apparently quite comfortably, on the alms of the passers-by. But the enormous competition which has since sprung up in this "career" must interfere a good deal with its lucrativeness.

There is no poor law as yet in Spain. Philanthropy is left to voluntary effort; but the list of charities is so great, and so widely spread over the whole country, that one would think wholesale beggary would be superfluous. Madrid is divided into thirty-three parishes, each having a board of Beneficencias, the Government holding a fund which these boards administer. The Queen is the President of the whole. Each board has its president and vice-president—generally ladies of the aristocracy—a treasurer, vice-treasurer, secretary, and vice-secretary, and a body of visitors; accounts are rendered monthly to the governing board, whose vice-president presides in the name of the Queen. There are also the confraternities of St. Vincent and St. Paul, the members of which are gentlemen and ladies who work independently of each other. These, however, have no established funds, but depend on voluntary subscriptions and gifts. Both these associations visit the poor in their own homes. The Pardo and the San Bernadino are societies and homes for benefiting men, women, and children; they have been founded by ladies. For boys there is the School of the Sacred Heart, and the Christian Brothers. The School of San Ildefonso belongs to the Ayuntamiento, and has secular masters. There is a small asylum, with chaplaincy attached, for architects. Santa Rita is a reformatory for boys in Carabanchel, under a religious brotherhood. For girls there is the Horfino, the Mercedes Asylum—founded in memory of and kept up by the rents of Queen Mercedes—Santa Isabel and San Ildefonso, the French St. Vincent de Paul, San Blas, on the same lines as the Mercedes, Santa Cruz, the Inclusa, and the Spanish Vincent de Paul. For fallen girls there are the Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, the Ladies of the Holy Trinity, and the Oblates of the Holy Redeemer.

In all parts of the country branches of these or similar institutions abound. None are more liberal to the funds of these voluntary charities than the bull-fighters, who, if they make large fortunes, never forget the class from which they sprang, and are most generous in their donations. When occasion demands an extra effort, a fiesta is given at the Plaza de Toros, and the whole of the profits go to the charity for which it has been held. No doubt these schemes have their faults in operation, and Galdos in some of his popular novels does not fail to hold up—not exactly for admiration—the fashionable ladies who think it "smart," as we should say, to join these boards and societies, and talk with much unction of their public good works and the statistics of their pet societies, while neglecting the poor and the needy at their own doors, or trying to send into "Homes" those who have no desire or need to go there if a little Christian charity were only shown them by their neighbours. Nevertheless, there is a large amount of organised philanthropy in Spain to-day, and it appears to be of a wise and efficient kind. One should not forget to mention also the workshops for the lowest orders, established by the Salerian Fathers, to which the attention of the Government has been called by late events.

The general position of women in Spain and their influence in public life cannot be described as of an advanced order. As a rule, they take no leading part in politics, devoting themselves chiefly to charitable works, such as those already named. There is, as we have seen, a general movement for higher education and greater liberty of thought and action amongst women, and there is a certain limited number who frankly range themselves on the side of so-called "emancipation," who attend socialistic and other "meetings"—a word which has now been formally admitted into the Spanish language—and who aspire to be the comrades of men rather than their objects of worship or their playthings. But this movement is scarcely more than in its infancy. It must be remembered that even within the present generation the bedrooms allotted to girls were always approached through that of the parents, that no girl or unmarried woman could go unattended, and that to be left alone in the room with a man was to lose her reputation. Already these things seem to be dreams of the past; nor could one well believe, what is however a fact, that there were fathers of the upper classes in the first half of the last century who preferred that their daughters should not learn to read or write, especially the latter, as it only enabled them to read letters clandestinely received from lovers and to reply to them. The natural consequence of this was the custom, which so largely prevailed, of young men, absolutely unknown to the parents, establishing correspondence or meetings with the objects of their adoration by means of a complaisant doncella with an open palm, or the pastime known as pelando el pavo (literally plucking the turkey), which consisted of serenades of love-songs, amorous dialogues, or the passage of notes through the reja—the iron gratings which protect the lower windows of Spanish houses from the prowling human wolf—or from the balconies. Many a time have I seen these interesting little missives being let down past my balcony—how trustful the innocents were!—to the waiting gallant below, and his drawn up. Only once I saw a neighbour, in the balcony below, intercept the post, and I believe substitute some other letter. Cruel sport!

Perhaps born of this necessity of making acquaintance by fair means or foul comes the custom, which appears to savour of such grossly bad manners to us, of a man making audible remarks on the appearance of a girl he has never seen before as she passes him in the street. Ay! que buenos ojos! Que bonita eres! Que gracia tienes! and the like. Far from giving offence, the fair one goes on her way, perhaps vouchsafing one glance from those lovely eyes of hers, with only a sense that her charms have received their due tribute—not much elated, perhaps, but certainly by no means offended; nor, indeed, was offence intended. The fixed stare, which to us would mean mere ill-bred ignorance, is only another ordinary tribute to the passing fair one from the other sex.

Marriage customs have changed much in the last few decades, and even civil marriages are now not wholly unknown. In old days, if the ceremony was performed in church, the bride and all the ladies must be attired in black, for which reason the fashionable world established marriages in the house, where more brilliant costumes might be displayed. These generally take place in the evening, and the newly married couple do not leave the house, unless the new home happens to be close by. In any case, honeymoon tours are, or were, unusual. The velada is the ceremony in church, which must take place before the first child is born, to legalise the marriage, but it does not necessarily immediately follow the other ceremony. At it the ring is given. When the two ceremonies take place at the same time it must be in the morning, because the bride and bridegroom partake of the Holy Sacrament fasting. From the description of a boda in Galicia, in one of Pardo Bazan's novels, it would seem that the bride there wears white, even at the church. The wedding is a portentous affair, lasting all day from early morning, and the bride and bridegroom remain in the house. Fernan Caballero devotes some pages in Clemencia to showing how preferable is the Spanish custom of "remaining among friends" to that of the newly married couple, as she says, "exposing themselves to the jeers of postilions and stable-boys." Yet the English custom is in fact gaining ground, even in conservative Spain.

Although marriages are often made up by the parents and guardians, as in France, without any freedom on the part of the bride at least, custom or law gives the Spanish woman much more power than even in England. A girl desiring to escape from a marriage repugnant to her can claim protection from a magistrate, who will even, if necessary, take her out of her father's custody until she is of age and her own mistress. More than that, if a girl determines to marry a man of whom her parents disapprove, she has only to place herself under the protection of a magistrate to set them at defiance, nor have they the power to deprive her of the share of the family property to which by Spanish law she is entitled. I do not know if these things are altered now,—one does not hear so much of them,—but I know of several cases where daughters have been married from the magistrate's house against the wishes of their parents. In one case, the first intimation a father received of his daughter's engagement was the notice from a neighbouring magistrate that she was about to be married, and in another, a daughter left her mother's house and was married from that of the magistrate to a man without any income and considerably below her in rank. In all these cases, the contracting parties were of the upper classes.

While on this subject, I must mention what seems to us the barbarous manner in which infants are clothed and brought up, though the English fashions of baths, healthy clothing, and suitable food are now largely followed amongst the upper classes. When the King was still an infant a great deal of his clothing came from England, and he was brought up in the English method. This probably set the fashion, and the little ones playing in the Park now are much like those one is accustomed to see in London. But among the poor, and even some of the bourgeois class, the old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its limbs, so that it presents the appearance of a mummy, swathed in coarse yellow flannel, only its head appearing. So stiffly are they rolled up that I have seen an infant only a few weeks old propped up on end against the wall, or in a corner, while the mother was busy. There is a superstition, too, about never washing a child's head from the day it is born. The result is really indescribable. When it is about two years old, a scab, which covers the whole head, comes off of its own accord, and after that the head may be cleansed without fear of evil consequences. Some English servants who have married in Spain set the example of keeping their infants clean, and, therefore, healthy, from the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children, a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the sacred superstitions of ages—and the mother-in-law!

One wonders, not that Spanish men grow bald so early, and not bald only, but absolutely hairless, but that they ever have any hair at all; for after all the troubles of their infancy their heads are regularly shaved, or the hair cut off close to the skin all the summer. On the principle of cutting off the heads of dandelions as soon as they appear, as a way of exterminating them, the surprising thing is that the hair does not become too much discouraged even to try to sprout again. Funny little objects they look, with only a dark mark on the skin where the hair ought to grow in summer, and at most a growth about as long as velvet in the winter, until they are quite big boys! The girls generally wear their hair so tightly plaited, as soon as it is long enough to allow of plaiting at all, that they can scarcely close their eyes. Young Spanish women, however, have magnificent hair; though they, too, grow bald when they are old, in a way that is never seen in England.



CHAPTER XV

MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA

One is apt to forget how much the history of music owes to Spain. The country was for so long considered to be in a state of chronic political disturbance that few foreigners took up their abode there, except such as had business interests, and for the rest the mere traveller never became acquainted with the real life of the people, or entered into their intellectual amusements. It is quite a common thing to find the tourist entering in his valuable notes on a country which he has not the knowledge of the world to understand: "The Spaniards are not a musical people," and remaining quite satisfied with his own dictum. Yet Albert Soubies, in his Histoire de la Musique, says, in the volume devoted to Spain: "Spain is the country where, in modern times, musical art has been cultivated with the greatest distinction and originality. In particular, the school of religious music in Spain, thanks to Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria, will bear comparison with all that has been produced elsewhere of the highest and most cultivated description. The national genius has also shown itself in another direction, in works which, like the ancient eglogas—the contemporary zarzuelas of Lope de Vega and Calderon—and the torradillas of the last century shine brilliantly by the verve, the gaiety, the strength, and delicacy of their comic sentiment.... The works of this class are happily inspired by popular art, which in this country abounds in characteristic elements. One notes how much the rhythm and melody display native colour, charm, and energy. In many cases, along with vestiges of Basque or of Celtic origin, they show something of an Oriental character, due to the long sojourn of the Moors in this country."

As regards this pre-eminence, it is enough to remember that Spain was anciently one of the regions most thoroughly penetrated by Roman civilisation. It is not too much to say that this art has never sunk into decadence in Spain. During the sixteenth century the archives of the Pontifical chapel show the important place occupied by Spanish composers in the musical history of the Vatican, and among the artists who gained celebrity away from their own country were Escoledo, Morales, Galvey, Tapia, and many others. To the end of the seventeenth century a galaxy of brilliant names carried on the national history of Spanish music, both on religious and secular lines; and though in the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries there was a passing invasion of French and Italian fashion, the true and characteristic native music has never died out, and at the present time there is a notable musical renaissance in touch with the spirit and natural genius of the people.

A Royal Academy of Music has, within recent times, been added to the other institutions of a like kind, and native talent is being developed on native lines, not in imitations from countries wholly differing from them in national characteristics. Spaniards are exacting critics, and the best musicians of other countries are as well known and appreciated as their own composers and executants. Wagner is now a household word among them, where once Rossini was the object of fashionable admiration. The national and characteristic songs of Spain have been already referred to. They are perfectly distinct from those of any other nation. There is about them a dainty grace and pathos, combined frequently with a certain suspicion of sadness, which is full of charm, while those which are frankly gay are full of life, audacity, and "go," that carry away the listeners, even when the language is imperfectly understood. The charming songs, with accompaniment for piano or guitar, of the Master Yradier, are mostly written in the soft dialect of Andalucia, which lends itself to the music, and is liquid as the notes of a bird. The songs of Galicia are, in fact, the songs of Portugal; just as the Galician language is Portuguese, or a dialect of that language, which has less impress of the ancient Celt-Iberian and more of French than its sister, Castilian, both being descendants of Latin, enriched with words borrowed from the different nations which have at one time or another inhabited or conquered their country.

The guitar is, of course, the national instrument, and the songs never have the same charm with any other accompaniment; but the Spanish women of to-day are prouder of being able to play the piano or violin than of excelling in the instrument which suits them so much better. The Spaniard is nervously anxious not to appear, or to be, behind any other European nation in what we call "modernity," a word that signifies that to be "up-to-date" is of paramount importance, leaving wholly out of the question whether the change be for the better or infinitely towards the lower end of the scale.

The records of Spain in art, as in literature, are so grand, so European, in fact, that it is much if the artists of to-day come within measurable distance of those who have made the glory of their country. Nevertheless, the modern painters and sculptors of Spain hold their own with those of any country. After the temporary eclipse which followed the death of Velasquez, Ribera, and Murillo—the eighteenth century produced no great Spanish painter, if we except Goya, who left no pupils—Don Jose Madrazo, who studied at the same time as Ingres in the studio of David, began the modern renaissance. He became Court painter, and left many fine portraits; but, perhaps, as Comte Vasili says, "La meilleure oeuvre de Don Jose fut son fils, Federico; de meme que la meilleure de celui-ci est son fils Raimundo."

Raimundo Madrazo and Fortuny the elder, who married Cecilia Madrazo, Raimundo's sister, have always painted in Paris, and have become known to Europe almost as French artists. Fortuny, by his mariage Espagnol, became the head of the Spanish renaissance. Unfortunately, he has been widely imitated by artists of all nations, who have not a tithe of his genius, if any. Pradilla, F. Domingo, Gallegos, the three Beulluire brothers, Bilbao, Gimenez, Aranda, Carbonero, are only a few of the artists whose names are known to all art collectors, and who work in Spain. Villegas has settled in Rome. The exhibition of modern Spanish paintings in the London Guildhall last year (1901) was a revelation to many English people, even to artists, of the work that is being done at the present day by Spanish painters, both at home and in Paris and Rome. In sculpture, also, Spain can boast many artists of the highest class.

The drama in Spain has in all times occupied an important place. The traditions of the past names, such as Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Moreto, and others, cannot exactly be said to be kept up, for these are, most of them, of European fame; but in a country where the theatre is the beloved entertainment of all classes, and perhaps especially so of the poor or the working people, there are never wanting dramatists who satisfy the needs of their auditors, and whose works are sometimes translated into foreign languages, if not actually acted on an alien stage. It would be impossible and useless to give a mere list of the names of modern dramatists, but that of Ayala is perhaps best known abroad, and his work most nearly approaches to that of his great forerunners. His Consuelo, El tejado de Vidrio, and Tanto por ciento show great power and extraordinary observation. His style, too, is perfect. Senor Tamago, who persistently hides his name under the pseudonym of "Joaquin Estebanez," may also be ranked amongst the leaders of the modern Spanish drama, and his Drama Nuevo is a masterpiece. Echegaray belongs to the school of the old drama, whose characteristic is that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished. His plays are very popular because they touch an audience even to tears, and he has several followers or imitators. The comedies of manners and satirical plays are generally the work of Eusebio Blasco, Ramos Carrion, Echegaray the younger, Estremada, Alverez, though there are others whose names are legion. Echegaray is really a man of genius. A clever engineer and professor of mathematics, he was Minister of Finance during the early days of the Revolution. His first play took the world of Madrid by surprise and even by storm. La Esposa del Vengador had an unprecedented success, and at least thirty subsequent dramas, in prose and in verse, have made this mathematician, engineer, and financier one of the most famous men of his day. His art and his methods are purely Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez Galdos's Electra within the last few months. It must, however, be ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. To the state of the popular temper, however, and the coincidence of the political events already referred to must be ascribed the fact that a piece like Electra should cause the fall of a Government, and bring within dangerous distance the collapse of the monarchy itself. The excitement which it still produces, wherever played, is now in a great part due to the foolish action of some of the bishops and the fact that individual clerics use their pulpits to condemn it, and attempt to forbid its being read or seen.

Spain is not particularly rich in great actors, although she has always a goodly number who come up to a fair standard of excellence. The great actors of the day in Madrid are Maria Guerrero and Fernando Diaz de Mendoza. They obtained a perfect ovation during the last season in the play, El loco Dios, of Echegaray—a work which gives every opportunity for the display of first-class talent in both actors, and which led to a fury of enthusiasm for the popular dramatist, which must have recalled to him the early days of his great successes.

Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Spain has had three great Academies, which, even in the troublous times of her history, have done good work in the domains of history, language, and the fine arts; but it is since the Revolution that they have become of real importance in the intellectual development of the nation, and other societies have been added for the encouragement of scientific research and music. The earliest of her academies was that of language, known as the Royal Spanish Academy. It is exactly on the lines of the Academie Francaise. Founded in 1713, its statutes were somewhat modified in 1847, and again in 1859. There are only thirty-six members, about eighty corresponding members in different provinces of Spain, and an unlimited, or at least undetermined, number of foreign and honorary correspondents. Besides the Central Society in Madrid, the Royal Spanish Academy has many corresponding branches in South America, such as the Columbian, the Equatorial, the Mexican, and those of Venezuela and San Salvador. The existence of academies of language in the South American States does not appear to effect much in the way of maintaining the purity of Castilian among them, for South American Spanish, as spoken at least, is not much more like the original language than the South American Spaniard is like the inhabitant of the mother country. The dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spain, like that of France, is not yet completed.

Philip V. founded the Royal Academy of History in 1738. Under its auspices, especially of late years, much valuable work has been done in publishing the original records of the country, to be found at Simancas and other places; but the authentic history of Spain is still incomplete. Up to the time of his assassination, Don Antonio Canovas del Castillo was its director, and Don Pedro de Madrazo its permanent secretary. The society, now known as the Real Academia de San Fernando, founded in 1752, under the title of Real Academia de las tres nobles Artes, has now had a fourth added to it—that of music. The functions of its separate sections are much the same as those of the English Academy of Painting and the sister arts. A permanent gallery of the works of its members exists in Madrid, and certificates, diplomas, honourable mention, etc., are distributed by the directors to successful competitors.

Later societies are the Academies of Exact Science, Physical and Natural, of Moral and Political Science, of Jurisprudence and Legislation, and last, but by no means least, the Royal Academy of Medicine, under whose auspices medical science has of late years made immense strides, and is probably now in line with that of the most advanced of other countries.



CHAPTER XVI

MODERN LITERATURE

The name of Pascual de Gayangos is known far beyond the confines of his own country as a scholar, historian, philologist, biographer, and critic. Although now a man of very advanced age, he is one of the most distinguished of modern Orientalists, and his History of the Arabs in Spain, Vocabulary of the Arabic Words in Spanish, and his Catalogue of Spanish MSS. in the British Museum are known wherever the language is known or studied. He has published in Spanish an edition of Ticknor's great work on Spanish literature, and has edited several valuable works in the Spanish Old Text Society besides innumerable other historical and philological books and papers, which have given him a European reputation. His immense store of knowledge, his modesty, and his genuine kindness to all who seek his aid endear him as much for his personal qualities as for his learning.

Next to Gayangos in the same class of work, Marcelino Menendez y Palayo may perhaps be mentioned. His History of AEsthetic Ideas in Spain has been left unfinished so far, owing to the demands made on his time by his position in the political world as one of the Conservative leaders. Don Modesto Lafuente, though scarcely possessing the qualities of a great historian, is accurate and painstaking to a great degree; but in the field of history many workers are searching the archives and documents in which the country is so rich, and throwing light on particular periods. Canovas del Castillo, in spite of his great political duties, was one of the most valuable of these; and the eminent jurist, Don Francisco de Cardenas, and the learned Jesuit, Fidel Fita, and other members of the Academy of History are constantly working in the rich mine at Simancas. New papers and books are continually being brought out under the auspices of this society, throwing light on the past history of the country.

Fernan Caballero, a German by race, but married successively to three Spanish husbands, may be said to have inaugurated the modern Spanish novel de costumbres, and her books are perhaps better known in England than those of some of the later novelists. By far the greater writer of the day in Spain, however, in light literature, is Juan Valera, at once poet, critic, essayist, and novelist. His Pepita Jimenez is a remarkable novel, full of delicate characterisation and exquisite style, second to none produced in any country—a novel full of fire, and yet irreproachable in taste, handling a difficult subject with the mastery of genius. It has been translated into English; but however well it may have been done, it must lose immensely in the transition, because the Spanish of Valera is the perfection of a perfectly beautiful language. In this novel we have the character of a priest, who, while we know him only through the letters addressed to him by the young student of theology, the extremely sympathetic hero of the story, lives in one's memory, showing us the best side of the Spanish priest. Other novels of Valera's, Dona Luis and El Comendador Mendoza, a number of essays on all sorts of subjects, critical and other, and poems which show great grace and correctness of style, have given this writer a high place in the literature of the age.

Perez Galdos is a writer of a wholly different class, although he enjoys a very wide reputation in his own country and wherever Spanish is read. His Episodes Nacionales, some fifty-six in number, attract by their close attention to detail, which gives an air of actuality to the most diffuse of his stories. They are careful and very accurate studies of different episodes of national life, in which the author introduces, among the fictitious characters round whom the story moves, the real actors on the stage of history of the time. Thus Mendizabal, Espartero, Serrano, Narvaez, the Queen of Ferdinand VII., Cristina, and many other persons appear in the books, giving one the impression that history is alive, and not the record of long-dead actors we are accustomed to find it. Galdos appears to despise any kind of plot; the events run on, as they did in fact run on, only there are one or two people who take part in them whom we may suppose to be creations of the author's brain. Certainly, one learns more contemporary history by reading these Episodes of Perez Galdos, and realises all the scenes of it much more vividly than one would ever do by the reading of ordinary records of events. As the tendency and the sympathy of the writer is always Liberal, one fancies that Galdos has written with the determined intention to tempt a class of readers to become acquainted with the recent history of their country who would never do so under any less attractive form than that of the novel. His works must do good, since they are very widely read, and are extremely accurate as history. His play, Electra, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have always enjoyed, or, at least, since mediaeval times, and has nothing in common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves. Galdos, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction.

Pedro Alarcon is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His Sombrero de Tres Picos is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet grace, while El Escandalo and La Prodiga are of the sensational order. He writes, like Galdos, in series, such as Historietas Nacionales, Narraciones Inverosimiles, and Viajes por Espana. Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen. Sotilezas, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town. Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible for foreign readers.

The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company subjects which it would not be thought good taste to mention under the same circumstances with us. Una Cristiana and La Prueba, its sequel, are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand, if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her articles on intellectual and social questions show an amount of education and a breadth of view which place her among the best writers of her nation. She is not in the least blinded by her patriotism to the faults of her country, especially to the hitherto narrow education of its women. She holds up an ideal of a higher type—a woman who shall be man's intellectual companion, and his helper in the battle of life. She is by no means the only woman writer in Spain at the present time; but she is the most talented, and occupies certainly the highest place. Her writings are somewhat difficult for anyone not conversant with Portuguese, or, rather, with the Galician variety of the Spanish language, for the number of words not to be found in the Spanish dictionary interfere with the pleasure experienced by a foreigner, and even some Castilians, in reading her novels. Pardo Bazan was an enthusiastic friend and admirer of Castelar, and belongs to his political party. A united Iberian republic, with Gibraltar restored to Spain, is, or was, its programme.

Hermana San Sulpicio, by Armando Palacio Valdes, is one of the charming, purely Spanish novels which has made a name for its author beyond the confines of his own country; but since that was produced he has gone for his inspiration to the French naturalistic school, and, like some English writers, he thinks that repulsive and indecent incidents, powerfully drawn, add to the artistic value of his work. Padre Luis Coloma, a Jesuit, obtained a good deal of attention at one time by his Pequeneces, studies, written in gall, of Madrid society. His stories are too narrowly bigoted in tone to have any lasting vogue, and his views of life too much coloured by his ultramontane tendencies to be even true. Nunez de Arce is, like so many Spaniards of the last few decades, at once a poet and a politician. He played a stirring part from the time of the Revolution to the Restoration, always on the side of liberty, but never believing in the idea of a republic. His Gritos del Combate were the agonised expression of a fighter in his country's battle for freedom and for light. Since the more settled state of affairs, Nunez de Arce has written many charming idyls and short poems. In the Idilio is a wonderful picture of the, to some of us, barren scenery of Castile, in which the eye of the artist sees, and makes his readers see, a beauty all the more striking because it is hidden from the ordinary gaze.

Of Jose Zorilla as a poet there is little need to speak. His countrymen read his voluminous works, but they are not of any real value. Campoamor describes his Dorloras as "poetic compositions combining lightness, sentiment, and brevity with philosophic importance." His earlier works were studied from Shakespeare and from Byron, who was the star of the age when Campoamor began to write. His most ambitious work, the Universal Drama, is "after Dante and Milton." He is a great favourite with his fellow-countrymen, both as poet and companion. He is a member of the Academy and a Senator.

It is impossible, however, to do more than indicate a few of the writers who are leaders in the literature of Spain to-day. There has, in fact, been an immense impulse in the production of books of all classes within the last twenty or thirty years. In fiction, Spain once more aspires to have a characteristic literature of her own, in place of relying on translations from the French, as was the case for a brief time before her political renaissance began.

A notable departure has been the foundation of the Folklore Society, and the publication up to the present time of eleven volumes under the name of Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Espanolas, under the direction of Senor Don Antonio Machado y Alvarez. In the introduction to the first volume, the Director tells us that, with the help of the editor of El Folklore Andaluz and his friends, D. Alejandro Guichot y Sierra and D. Luis Montolo y Raustentrauch, he has undertaken this great work, which arose out of the Bases del Folklore Espanol, published in 1881, and the two societies established in 1882, the Folklore Andaluz and Folklore Extremeno. These societies have for object the gathering together, copying, and publishing of the popular beliefs, proverbs, songs, stories, poems, the old customs and superstitions of all parts of the Peninsula, including Portugal, as indispensable materials for the knowledge and scientific reconstruction of Spanish culture. In this patriotic and historical work many writers have joined, each bringing his quota of garnered treasure-trove, presenting thus, in a series of handy little volumes, a most interesting collection of the ancient customs, beliefs, and, in fact, the folklore of a country exceptionally rich in widely differing nationalities.

Many of the tales, which it would seem even at the present time, especially in Portugal and Galicia, are told in the evening, and have rarely found their way into print, have the strong stamp of the legitimate Eastern fable, and bear a great family resemblance to those of the Arabian Nights. As, in fact, the Thousand and One Nights was very early published in Spanish, it is probable that its marvellous histories were known verbally to the people of the Iberian continent for many centuries, and have coloured much of its folklore. The Ingenious Student is certainly one of these. Barbers also play an important part in many of these tales. It is quite common for the Court barber to marry the King's daughter, and to succeed him as ruler; but the barber was, of course, surgeon or blood-letter as well as the principal news-agent—the forerunner of the daily newspaper of our times. The transmutation of human beings into mules, and vice versa, is a common fable, and we meet with wolf-children and the curious superstition that unbaptised people can penetrate into the domains of the enchanted Moors, and that these have no power to injure them. The story of the Black Slave, who eventually married the King's daughter and had a white mule for his Prime Minister, is very Eastern in character. "From so wise a King and so good a Queen the people derived great benefit; disputes never went beyond the ears of the Chief Minister, and, in the words of the immortal barber and poet of the city, 'the kingdom flourished under the guidance of a mule: which proves that there are qualities in the irrational beings which even wisest ministers would do well to imitate.'" The Watchful Servant is, however, purely Spanish in character, and it closes with the proverb that "a jealous man on horseback is first cousin to a flash of lightning." King Robin, the story of how the beasts and birds revenged themselves on Sigli and his father, the chief of a band of robbers, recalls "Uncle Remus" and his animal tales; for the monkeys, at the suggestion of the fox, and with the delighted consent of the birds and the bees, made a figure wholly of birdlime to represent a sleeping beggar, being quite certain that Sigli would kick it the moment that he saw the intruder from the windows of his father's castle. In effect both father and son became fast to the birdlime figure, when they were stung to death by ten thousand bees. Then King Robin ordered the wolves to dig the grave, into which the monkeys rolled the man and the boy and the birdlime figure, and, after covering it up, all the beasts and birds and insects took possession of the robbers' castle, and lived there under the beneficent rule of King Robin.

Silver Bells is, again, a story of a wholly different type, and charmingly pretty it is, with its new development of the wicked step-mother—in this case a mother who had married again and hated her little girl by the first husband. Elvira, the Sainted Princess tells how the daughter of King Wamba, who had become a Christian unknown to her father, by her prayers and tears caused his staff to blossom in one night, after he had determined that unless this miracle were worked by the God of the Christians she and her lover should be burned.

One fault is to be found with these old stories as remembered and told by Mr. Sellers; that is, the introduction of modern ideas into the Old-World fables of a primitive race. Hits at the Jesuits, the Inquisition, and the government of recent kings take away much of the glamour of what is undoubtedly folklore. The story of the Black Hand seems to have many varieties. It is somewhat like our stories of Jack and the Bean Stalk and Bluebeard, but differs, to the advantage of the Spanish ideal, in that the enchanted prince who is forced to play the part of the terrible Bluebeard during the day voluntarily enters upon a second term of a hundred years' enchantment, so as to free the wife whom he loves, and who goes off safely with her two sisters and numerous other decapitated beauties, restored to life by the self-immolation of the prince. The White Dove is another curious and pretty fable which has many variations in different provinces—a story in which the King's promise cannot be broken, though it ties him to the hateful negress who has transformed his promised wife into a dove, and has usurped her place. Eventually, of course, the pet dove changes into a lovely girl again, when the King finds and draws out the pins which the negress has stuck into her head, and the usurper is "burnt" as punishment—an ending which savours of the Quemadero.

The making of folklore is not, however, extinct in Spain, a country where poetry seems to be an inherent faculty. One is constantly reminded of the Spanish proverb, De poetas y de locos, todos tenemos un poco (We have each of us somewhat of the poet and somewhat of the fool). No one can tell whence the rhymed jeux d'esprit come; they seem to spring spontaneously from the heart and lips of the people. Children are constantly heard singing coplas which are evidently of recent production, since they speak of recent events, and yet which have the air of old folklore ballads, of concentrated bits of history.

Rey inocente—a weak king, Reina traidora—treacherous queen, Pueblo cobarde—a coward people, Grandes sin honra—nobles without honour,

sums up and expresses in nine words the history of Goday's shameful bargain with Napoleon.

En el Puente de Alcolea La batalla gano Prim, Y por eso la cantamos En las calles de Madrid.

At the bridge of Alcolea A great battle gained Prim, And for this we go a-singing In the streets of Madrid.

Senor Don Eugenio de Olavarria-y Huarte, in citing this copla (Folklore de Madrid), points out that it contains the very essence of folklore, since it gives a perfectly true account of the battle of Alcolea. Although Prim was not present, he was the liberator, and without him the battle would never have been fought, nor the joy of liberty have been sung in the streets of the capital. There is seldom, if ever, any grossness in these spontaneous songs of the people—never indecency or double meaning. No sooner has an event happened than it finds its history recorded in some of these popular coplas, and sung by the children at their play.

The Folklore Society has some interesting information to give about the innumerable rhymed games which Spanish children, like our own, are so fond of playing, many of them having an origin lost in prehistoric times. One finds, also, from some of the old stories, that the devils are much hurt in their feelings by having tails and horns ascribed to them. As a matter of fact, they have neither, and cannot understand where mortals picked up the idea! The question is an interesting one. Where did we obtain this notion?



CHAPTER XVII

THE FUTURE OF SPAIN

An Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most valued friends, thus speaks of the national characteristics:

"The Spanish and English characters are, indeed, in many points strangely alike. Spain ranks as one of the Latin nations, and the Republican orators of Spain are content to look to France for light and leading in all their political combinations; but a large mass of the nation, the bone and sinew of the country, the silent, toiling tillers of the soil, are not of this way of thinking.... There is a sturdy independence in the Spanish character, and an impatience of dictation that harmonises more nearly with the English character than with that of her Latin neighbours.... There is a gravity and reticence also in the Spaniard that is absent from his mercurial neighbour, and which is, indeed, much more akin to our cast of temper.

"True it is that our insular manners form at first a bar to our intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful friends than those they have amongst her people."

Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of judging, this writer says:

"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest—perfect gentlemen in their manners, and the lowest labourer has an aplomb and ease of manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to meet with—not free from defects—what race is?—but possessed of excellent sterling qualities, which only require knowing to be appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is, unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."[3]

[3] Commercial and Industrial Spain, by George Higgin, Mem. Inst. C. E., London, 1886.

In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called, and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time; because, after the battle of Alcolea, when the cry raised in the Puerta del Sol, Viva Prim! was answered by the troops shut up in the Government offices, and the people, swarming up the rejas and the balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance, the Queen and her camarilla had fled across the frontier, the Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns, after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo, were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as puppets.

With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this, or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing. The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was begun—in fact, within the last few months—is bringing the northern and western ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing trade with Europe and America. Pontevedra and Vigo, as well as Villagarcia, are improving daily since the railway reached them. Fresh fruit and vegetables find a ready market, and new uses for materials are coming daily to the front. Esparto, the coarse grass which grows almost everywhere in Spain, has long been an article of commerce, as well as the algaroba bean—said to be the locust bean, on which John the Baptist might have thriven—for it is the most fattening food for horses and cattle, and produces in them a singularly glossy and beautiful coat. This bean, which is as sweet as a dried date, is given, husk and all, to the mules and horses at all the little wayside ventas, and is now used in some of the patent foods for cattle widely known abroad. The stalk of the maize is used for making smokeless powder, and the husks for two kinds of glucose, two of cotton, three of gum, and two of oil. Glucea dextrina paste is used as a substitute for india-rubber. These products of the maize, other than its grain, are employed in the preparation of preserves, syrup, beer, jams, sweets, and drugs, and in the manufacture of paper, cardboard, mucilage, oils and lubricants, paints, and many other things. The imitation india-rubber promises to be the basis of a most important industry. Mixed with equal portions of natural gum, it has all the qualities of india-rubber, and is twenty-four per cent. less in cost.

A great deal has been said about the depreciation of the value of the peseta (franc) since the outbreak of the war with America, but this unsatisfactory state of affairs is gradually mending; and the attention of the Government is thoroughly awakened to it. The law of May 17, 1898, and the Royal decree of August 9 provide that if the notes in circulation of the Bank of Spain exceed fifteen hundred millions, gold must be guaranteed to the half of the excess of circulation between fifteen hundred and two thousand, not the half of all the notes in circulation. The metal guarantee, silver and gold, must cover half of the note circulation, when the latter is between fifteen hundred and two thousand millions, and two-thirds when the circulation exceeds two thousand. But the Bank has not kept this precept, and there has, in fact, been an illegal issue of notes to the value of 6,752,813 pesetas. So states the Boletin de la Camara de Comercio de Espana en la Gran Bretana of April 15, 1901.

The Boletin, after giving an account of the English custom of using cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were not current outside the walls of Madrid, and had only a limited currency within.

Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is no longer the case. Although the capital of Cataluna has made enormous strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.

It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician, still less Basque, is a dialect—they are all more or less languages in themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a difference both by the pueblo bajo of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal peculiarities are the omission of the d—prado becomes praoe—in any case the pronunciation of d, except as an initial, is very soft, similar to our th in thee, but less accentuated. The final d is also omitted by illiterate speakers; Usted is pronounced Uste, and even de becomes e. B and v are interchangeable. One used to see, on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion of Madrid, Serbicio de omnibus quite as often as Servicio. Over the venta of El Espirito Santo on the road to Alcala—now an outskirt of Madrid—was written, Aqui se veve bino y aguaardiente—meaning, Aqui se bebe vino, etc. (Here may be drunk wine).

The two letters are, in fact, almost interchangeable in sound, but the educated Spaniard never, of course, makes the illiterate mistake of transposing them in writing. The sound of b is much more liquid than in English, and to pronounce Barcelona as a Castilian pronounces it, we should spell it Varcelona; the same with Cordoba, which to our ears sounds as if written Cordova, and so, in fact, we English spell it.

Spaniards, as a rule, speak English with an excellent accent, having all the sounds that the English possess, taking the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, into account.

Our th, which is unpronounceable to French, Italians, and Germans, however long they may have lived in England, comes naturally to the Spaniard, because in his own d, soft c, and z he has the sounds of our th in "thee" and "thin." His ch is identical with ours, and his j and x are the same as the Irish and Scotch pronunciation of ch and gh.

The Spanish language is not difficult to learn—at any rate to read and understand—because there are absolutely no unnecessary letters, if we except the initial h, which is, or appears to us, silent—and the pronunciation is invariable. What a mine of literary treasure is opened to the reader by a knowledge of Spanish, no one who is ignorant of that majestic and poetic language can imagine. With the single exception of Longfellow's beautiful rendering of the Coplas de Manrique, which is absolutely literal, while preserving all the grace and dignity of the original, I know of no translation from the Spanish which gives the reader any real idea of the beauty of Spanish literature in the past ages, nor even of such works of to-day as those of Juan Valera and some others.