_socarrón_ as “a crafty, subtle fellow; an arch wag.”
[92] On the road from Tortosa to Valencia there is a stone cross with
the pathetic, ill-spelt inscription: “Aqui murió instantáneamente al
tirarse del carro por habersele desembocado el mulo Domin^{co} Cugat
Jardi el 30 agosto de 1894. R.I.P. Carrateros ya veis lo que paso este
infelis.” “Carters, you see what happened to this unhappy man.” But
the carters throughout Spain continue to sleep away the long hours of
the road.
[93] The latest statistics available show that, while 90 and 80 per
cent. of the electors in some northern provinces of Spain can read and
write, in Andalucía the highest averages are 51 and 50 (provinces of
Cadiz and Seville), that of the province of Córdoba being but 41, of
Almería 38, of Granada and Jaen 35, of Málaga 34.
[94] “Chapters on Spanish Literature.” 1908.
[95] “N’uma mão a penna e n’outra a lança.”
[96] M. Boris de Tannenberg, speaking of “Sotileza,” has said
excellently: “C’est que plus une œuvre a un caractère local marqué,
plus elle a de chance de devenir universelle, à condition que
l’écrivain, sous la particularité des mœurs et du langage, ait pénétre
jusqu’au fond commun d’humanité.” And Don Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo,
who represented King Alfonso on January 23, 1911, in the ceremony of
unveiling at Santander the statue of Pereda by Señor Collaut Valera
(nephew of the novelist, Juan Valera), said in his speech: “His
books, so local that even the inhabitants of the mountain require a
glossary, and as Spanish as the most Spanish writings since Cervantes
and Quevedo, are profoundly human owing to the intensity of life which
they contain, and the quiet majesty with which it is developed.”
[97] We are apt to forget that men in the Middle Ages, if they dwelt
insistently on the sinister “Dance of Death,” also felt to the full
the joys of living. The “Poema del Cid” sings no variations on the
theme “How good is man’s life, the mere living,” but the feeling
itself appears in every line.
[98] The King had sent “letters to León and Sanctiague, to Portuguese
and Galicians, to those of Carrión and the Men of Castille,” to
announce a _Cort dentro en Tolledo_, in order to judge between the Cid
and the Counts of Carrión. “Since I was King,” he says, “I have held
but two _Cortes_, one in Burgos, the other in Carrión, this third in
Tolledo have I come to hold to-day.”
[99] James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 231.
[100] See pp. 151, 222-238. Pereda is, perhaps, the least read outside
Spain of all Spanish novelists; yet it is scarcely too much to say
that he who cannot appreciate Pereda cannot understand the spirit or
feel the true savour of Spain.
[101] “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 246.
[102] Andrés González-Blanco, “Historia de la novela en España desde
el romanticismo hasta nuestros días.” Madrid. 1909.
[103] La Primera República. Madrid. 1911.
[104] See page 214.
[105] Señor Picón, whose writings are rather exquisite than
voluminous, is the author of “Dulce y Sabrosa,” and several short
stories. A Spanish critic, Señor Gómez de Baquero, has said of him
that while “his thoughts look to the future, his style listens to the
golden music of the past.” His latest work is “Juanita Tenorio,” a
long novel (published as vol. 3 of his Complete Works in the autumn
of 1910), in which his art, skilful and delicate as it is, has not
been entirely successful in eclipsing the sordidness of the subject
by the magic of the style. The following quotation--a description of
Madrid seen from an attic-window at night--will give some idea of his
restrained and clear-cut style: “Era noche cerrada. En primer término
no percibía la vista más que las grandes masas angulosas y obscuras de
muros, parodones y tejados: descollando por encima de ellos surgían
los contornos de torres y campanarios, cuyos puntiagudos chapiteles,
cubiertos de pizarra, recogían el escaso claror de las estrellas; acà
y allà rompían la superficie negra de las fachadas los rectángulos de
luz amarillenta que forman los balcones alumbrados interiormente, y al
través de algun vidrio brillaba el resplandor solitario de una lámpara
con su pantalla de color; de las chimeneas salían nubecillas de humo,
que, flotando como manchas fugaces en la lobreguez del ambiente, se
desvanecían en la altura; por entre las manzanas de casas, á lo largo
de las calles rectas, divisabanse las hileras de los faroles, cuyas
llamas reverberaban en cristales y vidrieras, ó á trechos algún arco
voltáico irradiaba intenso fulgor blanquecino; y de aquel conjunto de
sombras esmaltadas de toques luminosos so alzaba el rumor confuso de
mil ruidos diversos; rodar de vehículos, vocear de vendedores, gritar
de chicos y cantar de criadas; ya el tecleo de un piano, ya el lento
sonar de las campanadas de un reloj.”
[106] “César ó Nada” is the first of a trilogy entitled “Las
Ciudades”; another trilogy, “El Mar,” is begun with “Las Inquietudes
de Shanti Andía” (1911), a vivid disconnected narrative concerning
the lives of adventurous sailors of the Basque coast in the little
fishing-harbour of Luzaro and in their distant voyages. The style,
or absence of style, is clear, transparent, as it were brittle with
the shock of abrupt short sentences, interspersed with sonorous
Basque names and rough snatches of Basque song. In Basque, too, are
the indications of the site in which lie buried the coffers of gold
coins hoarded by a miserly slave trader. But the book ends with the
sad reflection: “No one now in Luzaro is willing to be a sailor. Los
vascos se retiran del mar.”
[107] Six years after Galdós, sixteen before Blasco Ibáñez, one before
Alas and Picón, and two before Palacio Valdés.
[108] F. Vézinet, “Les Maîtres du Roman Espagnol Contemporain,” Paris,
1907.
[109] Indeed, in reading the more recent novels by Señora Pardo Bazán,
“La Quimera,” or “La Sirena Negra,” or “Dulce Dueño” (1911), striking
and original as they are, one cannot help looking back from them
somewhat regretfully to her Galician novels of the eighties.
[110] “Le trait essentiel du réalisme de Pereda c’est la sympathie
avec laquelle il décrit les mœurs populaires, sans optimisme outré,
mais avec une divination profonde de leur poésie intime. Pereda
aime le peuple par tempérament d’artiste, pour ce que celui-ci a de
pittoresque et d’original; il l’aime aussi en homme et en chrétien,
comme une humanité plus simple, aux sentiments spontanés et naïfs.
Il ne nous dissimule pas sa grossièreté et ses misères mais il nous
ouvre les yeux sur ses vertus ignorées; jusque chez les êtres dégradés
par le vice, il nous montre quelque noble instinct qui survit et se
réveille à l’occasion. Et ce réalisme, qu’illumine toujours un rayon
d’idéal, respecte l’homme en le peignant même dans ses vulgarités ou
ses laideurs.” Boris de Tannenberg. L’Espagne littéraire. Paris, 1903.
[111] The country between Burgos and the Atlantic, known as the
“_Montaña_” with Santander for its capital, is a district of
continuous mountains and hills and steep meadows and maize-fields,
with scarcely an inch of level ground. The hills far up are covered
with chestnut and oak, beech, walnut and sycamore; rushing streams are
hidden in deep wooded clefts, and rough walls of stones divide field
from field, where the reapers, with difficulty wielding their scythes,
have but a precipitous foothold. The villages and scattered farms
are of massive yellow stone, with roofs of deep-brown tiles and wide
balconies suspended by grey wooden posts from the projecting eaves.
[112] Even so, however, the clear splendour of the sky of Castille
must have cast a charm over the place. The dominant impression at
Madrid to-day is, indeed, that of light and of open spaces, the
Puerta del Sol in a radiance of sunshine, the Carrera de San Jeronymo
going off apparently into space, the surrounding country far-seen and
treeless, the clear blue mountains, and the sky from verge to zenith
clothed with a brilliance of dazzling light so that “ogni parte ad
ogni parte splende.”
[113] “La Montálvez” (1888) and “Nubes de Estío” (1891) are perhaps
his weakest works. “Nubes de Estío” is rather wearisome till the Duque
de Cañaveral arrives, “falling like a Jupiter among little gods.” “Al
Primer Vuelo” (1890) is a novel of the Cantabrian coast, but without
the full salt and vigour of “Sotileza.”
[114] M. Boris de Tannenberg speaks of “l’âpre saveur de sa langue, un
peu rude et fruste, mais solide, musclée et haute en couleur.”
[115] The difference between these artists in prose may be best
illustrated by quotation: “El Cura abrió la ventana y miró al cielo.
Apenas brillaban las estrellas. Estúvose quieto y meditando, con los
ojos fijos en la sombra de los montes. Bajo la bóveda de la noche,
todos los rumores parecían llenos de prestigio. El ladrido de los
perros, el paso de las patrullas, el agua del río en las presas,
eran voces religiosas y misteriosas, como esos anhelos ignotos que
estremecen á las almas en su noche oscura.” (Valle-Inclán, “Gerifaltes
de Antaño.”) Here we have the clear thin outlines, the studied
restraint of the admirer of El Greco. In the following passage, from
León’s “Alcalá de los Zegríes,” we find the more sensuous glowing
imagination of the Andalusian novelist: “Fué Alfonso hacia la ventana
y apoyó la ardorosa frente en los cristales. Todo era silencio y
soledad. Las estrellas oscilaban en el cielo; la ancha bóveda, oscura,
estaba acribillada de lucecillas trémulas. Una fogata brillaba á lo
lejos en el campo. Y en el silencio grave, en la callada sombra, las
puertas de bronce del misterio se abrían de par en par.” In the hands
of both writers Castilian yields a full measure of its magic.
[116] Señor Cossío published his well-known work, “El Greco,” 2
tom. Madrid, in 1908. The second volume consists of illustrations
of El Greco’s pictures; most of the reproductions are, however,
unfortunately somewhat indistinct. The reproductions from photographs
in a little book, “El Greco,” by A. F. Calvert and C. Gasquoine
Hartley. London: John Lane, 1909, are much clearer. The illustrations
are excellent in “Le Greco.” Par Maurice Barrès et Paul Lafond.
Paris: Floury, as also those of pictures by El Greco in Herr Meier
Graefe’s “Spanische Reise,” Berlin, 1910. In October, 1910, appeared
a short scholarly study, “El Greco en Toledo.” Por Francisco de Borja
de San Román y Fernández. Madrid: Suárez. It contains eighty-eight
original documents of great interest, especially the inventory of El
Greco’s possessions (_vienes_), drawn up by his son, Jorge Manuel, on
April 12, 1614, five days after El Greco’s death, the discovery and
publication of which will, as the author says, give intense pleasure
to all lovers of El Greco. This contains over 100 pictures by El
Greco (some unfinished), 200 prints, 150 drawings, 15 sketches, 20
plaster models, 30 models in clay and wax, etc. Among the Greek books
are Josephus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Homer, Aristotle’s
Politics and Physics, the Old and New Testaments, Lucian, Plutarch
(bite di Plutarco), Æsop, Euripides. The Italian include Petrarca and
Ariosto, but fifty more Italian books, with seventeen in romance and
nineteen on architecture, are uncatalogued. The commonest articles
receive a quaint dignity in the old ringing Castilian, as “quatro
pares de escarpines” (four pair of socks), “un cajón grande de pino
con cinco gabetas” (a large chest of pine with five drawers), “una
alacena de madera grande” (a large wooden cupboard), “una espada y una
daga con tiros y pretina” (a sword and dagger with their belts).
[117] Cf. his dispute with the Church of Santo Tomé as to the price of
“El Entierro,” of which dispute a most interesting account is to be
found in the documents of Señor San Román’s book.
[118] The temptation is great to quote the _Coplas_ from beginning to
end. They have been excellently translated by Longfellow, but all who
read them in the original will be ready to say with the shepherd of
Camões: “Quam bem que sôa o verso castelhano.”
[119] “Son tan disonantes unas de otras que no parecen ser de la misma
mano” (Jusepe Martínez).
[120] Or Dominico. Sometimes he signed Domy^{co} or Dom^{co} at
the end of documents. The fourth letter of the signature (in Greek
characters) on the “Baptism” in the Prado Gallery has all the air of a
Greek _eta_.
[121] Even though the house now known and shown as “la Casa del
Greco” is not that in which El Greco lived, it occupies very much the
same open situation; for by the disappearance of the block of houses
belonging to the Marqués de Villena, El Greco’s landlord, it steps
into the first place above the river.