than an eastern rug. Leo, the Christian Emperor on the Bosphorus, sent
Byzantine workmen to teach the Caliph this art. The enclosing carvings
have the distinction of being in marble, not in the customary plaster,
also a Christian innovation. "Let us rear a mosque which shall surpass
that of Bagdad, of Damascus, and of Jerusalem, a mosque which shall
become the Mecca of the West," said the founders in the eighth century;
and there is a tradition that the Caliph himself worked an hour a day
with the builders. It is truly "unique in the world," for nothing was
ever like these myriad aisles, forty in one direction crossed by twenty
in another, with nine hundred short pillars of every kind of
marble--green, red, gray, brown, fluted white--holding up the roof.
These pillars are baseless and only thirteen feet in height; and arches
of an ugly red and yellow spring in two tiers from column to column. The
effect is incredibly original and eccentric,--a veritable forest of
pillars. The fatalist spirit of Mohammed, the acceptance of life's
limitation, is insistent here, the desert Arab's attitude of adoration,
forehead prone to earth, is forced on you: to kneel with upraised face
is impossible under so low a roof; were there the usual hanging balls
and roc's eggs, even the Inquistor-General himself would have
genuflected toward Mecca! As I wandered about the Mezquita, the two
creeds seemed to formulate themselves more distinctly for me: one,
soaring and idealistic, channel for the loftiest aspirations of the
soul, the other a magnificent step forward from the lower forms of
worship about it in the East, nevertheless limited, so far and not
beyond, not cleaving to the impossible, to the unattainable. "Be perfect
even as your Father in heaven is perfect" was not taught by Mohammed.
Islamism is a very noble average, and perhaps because men in general are
the average, it may seem better to satisfy them. Christianity is a
religion for the chosen souls of humanity, only by aiming at the
impossible can the best in man develop. The majority of us are not
chosen souls, hence we have the bitter inconsistencies between the
theory and the practice of our faith to-day; and yet, once the vision of
the unspeakable soul-paradise of the mystic has been conceived of, to
rest satisfied with an average religion is impossible. Islam makes men
happy with a dreaming bliss that veils the sun, Christianity bids you
look up at the sun whether it blinds you or not, and here and there
arise souls that can bear the vision and help weak eyes to see.
When we left the Mosque, the obsession of the East still continued in
the courtyard, where about the fountain sat groups of idlers only
wanting the fez and turban for completion. Once the Mezquita opened on
this court, there was no dividing wall, the trees planted in symmetrical
lines carried on the rows of columns within, and an absolutely
enchanting sight it must have been to look from this orange grove far
into the dim interior of the Mosque, lighted every evening with some
five thousand hanging lamps.
All tourists in Spain go to Granada, so they know the confusing station
of Bobadilla where trains from north, south, east, and west, meet and
exchange passengers; the journey from there on to Granada gives a
beautiful glimpse of Andalusia; picturesquely set towns, scattered white
villas, olive groves, even in winter the grass as green as spring. As
apples, in the Basque provinces, and carrots at Toledo, so here oranges
were piled up in masses. The last thirty miles of the journey were
through the historic _vega_, a veritable garden of Eden in fertility.
Before we reached Granada it was dark and above the city was rising an
early moon as big as one in a Japanese print. The proprietor of the
Pension-Villa Carmona in the Alhambra grounds was there to meet us, and
we soon rattled off for the long drive up to the Moorish citadel.
A night arrival at Granada enhances the romantic effect. It is
mysterious to turn in from the noisy streets of the town at the Carlo
Quinto gate and under the heavy foliage of elm trees slowly to mount the
Alhambra hill; there is a gurgle and rush of running water on every
side, one has the feeling of being in a thick Alpine forest. The horses
mount slowly, wind and turn, pass through various gates and at length
you are in the small village of the citadel, and in three minutes can
walk right into the Caliph's palace. Spain cannot show many such
beautiful northern parks, with a growth of ivy and a shimmer of
arrow-headed leaves under the elm trees where nightingales sing in
season.
It was Ford I think who started the statement which most guide books
have gone on repeating that the Duke of Wellington planted these elms
("the Duke" occupies more space in Murray's Hand-book than _los Reyes
Católicos_ themselves!) He may have planted some, but a certain old book
of travels, yellow with age, tell us that just these same elm trees were
growing and just the same kind of songster singing in 1789. "The ascent
toward the Alhambra," wrote the Rev. Joseph Townsend in that year, "is
through a shady and well watered grove of elms abounding with
nightingales whose melodious warbling is not confined to the midnight
hour; here, incessant, it is equally the delight of noon."
This part of Granada is charming. But the city below is so dirty and
ill-conditioned that it would spoil the Alhambra for a long stay. Even
in the darkness on the night of our arrival it was easy to discern what
a different aspect it had from most Spanish towns, which, while they are
often poor, are frugally clean and self-respecting. In Granada the
people appeared ill-tempered, if you paused anywhere, diseased children
gathered in a persistent begging circle, and the fierce copper-colored
gypsies were so diabolically bold in glance and act that they made a
walk in any of the suburbs too dangerous to be repeated. We had often
turned off the beaten track in the Asturias, in Galicia, and Castile,
without the least fear, but Granada will remain for me the one
thoroughly disagreeable, frightening spot in Spain.
Described as the Alhambra has been, it would be fatuous to try it again.
I can only give superficial personal impressions. There is no use in
disguising that this style of architecture disappointed me enormously. I
could admire its extreme elegance, the details of the _artesonado_
ceilings, the _ajimez_ windows, I could acknowledge it was fairy-like, a
charming caprice, exquisite jewel-box work: as a whole it left me quite
cold. It was too small, it lacked height, there was no grandeur about
it,--and all so newly done up with restorations! The first visit gave me
an effect of trumpery, and even after I had seen it daily for two weeks,
I could not forget that these mathematically correct designs, one yard
very like the next, were imprinted by an iron mold on wet plaster. This
was skilled artisan's work, not the intellectual thought of the
architect; here was no cutting of enduring, masculine stone with the
individual freedom of genius. Decorations of Cufic mottoes are
effective, but they can never compete with a Parthenon frieze, with a
Chartres or Santiago portal. Fantasy was here, not imagination; again I
felt the bound limit of Islam.
Enough for the negative side. For praise, if the Alhambra itself is
disappointing, its setting is imperial. The view on which you look out
from its romantic _ajimez_ windows has few equals in the world, and
accounts easily for the supremacy of this spot in man's thought. You
look down on the ravine of the Darro, the white Generalife near by,
across the river, the piled-up houses of Granada backed by near hills
covered with cactus. From the Torre de la Vela is a grander view. The
_vega_ with towns and historic battlefields lies below, and you try to
pick out Santa Fé, which sprang up in eighty days to house the Christian
troops, or Zubia, where Isabella was almost captured, or Puente de
Pinos, which the discouraged Columbus had reached when the Queen's
messenger brought him back to arrange for the great voyage. On this
tower, after seven and a half centuries of Moorish rule, the first
Christian standard was hoisted by Cardinal Mendoza, on January 2d, 1492,
festival still of the countryside, when the fountains play again in the
Alhambra, and down in the Royal Chapel the Queen's illuminated missal is
used on the altar. All Christian Europe rejoiced with Spain, and Henry
VII in England had a special _Te Deum_ chanted in gratitude. While on
one side is this tropical _vega_ on the other is the glorious Sierra
Nevada, clothed in perpetual snow. So close are the mountains that on
certain days it seemed as if a short hour's walk could reach them,
closer than the Jungfrau to Mürren. It is the most untarnished expanse
of snow I have seen on any mountains. We often climbed the tower for the
sunset, and one evening a genuine Alpine glow made the Sierras
magnificent past description. "Ill-fated the man who lost all this!"
Charles V exclaimed.
There was a lesser view we grew attached to, that from the strip of
garden called the _Adarves_, warm in the sun under the vine-covered
bastions. It was laid out by the Emperor, and it fronts the snow range
looming above the green mass of park trees. Almost every day we would
bring books and sewing there--December, with mountains 12,000 feet high
beside us!--and the gardener would set chairs for us at the stone table.
Work and books would be dropped for long minutes to look out on those
astonishingly noble mountains. If only the city below were well-ordered
and clean like Avila or Segovia or Seville, this would be the spot of
all Spain for a long stay.
We had to descend at times to the repulsive town for sightseeing. We
hunted up the Church of San Gerónimo, where the Gran Capitán, that true
Castilian knight alike renowned as general and diplomatist, Gonsalvo de
Cordova, was buried. Once around his tomb seven hundred captured banners
were ranged, but the church since it was sacked in the French invasion
has been unused. It was appropriate that the Great Captain found burial
in Granada, since it was here he trained the famous legions he was to
lead to victory in Italy. Isabella on her deathbed listened with
thrilled interest to the news of Gonsalvo's exploits at Naples. Another
day, to see the view of the Sierras from the Church of San Nicolás, we
climbed the Albaicín quarter, so squalid and poverty-stricken that the
very sheets hung out to dry were a fretwork of patches, and the smells
of goats and pigs were awful. A swarm of deformed beggars gathered round
us, and I must confess to driving them off indignantly. Then as we
descended the hill, down the twisting oriental passages, I was
reproached by a little episode that showed a charity wider than
mine--not good utilitarian ethics perhaps, but good early
Christianity--a woman, poorest of the poor, at a turning of the lane was
giving her mite to one more stricken in misery. Is it any wonder Spain
can win affection with her good and her evil lying close beside each
other in a grand primitive way? Whenever I joined her detractors and
abused her, within the hour she would offer some silent rebuke.
Still another walk was the beautiful one along the Darro, then up the
steep hill between the Generalife and the Alhambra. In that deserted
lane one morning as I was passing alone, suddenly the gypsy king stepped
out, a startling image of brutal, manly beauty, with his blue-black hair
topped by a peaked hat. He approached insolently, with a glance of
contemptuous, piercing boldness, struck an attitude, and holding out a
package, commanded: "Buy my photograph." With beating heart I hurried
by, to turn into the safe Alhambra enclosure with a tremor of relief.
The Cathedral of Granada is a pretentious Greco-Roman building, good of
its kind, but I do not like that kind. Out of it leads the Royal Chapel,
where "_los muy altos, católicos, y muy poderosos Señores Don Ferdinando
y Doña Isabel_" lie buried with their unfortunate daughter, Juana la
Loca, and her Hapsburg husband. These two elaborate Renaissance tombs,
the wood carved _retablo_ and a notably fine _reja_, make this _Capilla
Real_ a unique spot. Isabella the queen left a last testament that
breathes the fine sincerity of her whole life: "I order that my body be
interred in the Alhambra of Granada in a tomb which will lie on the
ground and can be brushed with feet, that my name be cut on a single
simple stone. But if the king, my lord, choose a sepulchre in any other
part of our kingdom, I wish my body to be exhumed and buried by his
side, so that the union of our bodies in the tomb, may signify the union
of our hearts in life, as I hope that God in his infinite mercy may
permit that our souls be united in heaven." It seems as if a king whose
life-long mate had been an Isabella of Castile might have had more
dignity of soul than to give her a trivial successor. When Ximenez heard
of her death, sternly-repressed man of intellect though he was, he burst
into lamentation. "Never," he exclaimed, "will the world again behold a
queen, with such greatness of soul, such purity of heart, with such
ardent piety and such zeal for justice!" And the Cardinal had known her
in the undisguised intimacy of the Confessional and stood side by side
with her through years of difficult state guidance. The astute Italian
scholar, Peter Martyr, who lived at her court, said that at the end of
the fifteenth century Isabella had made Spain the most orderly country
in Europe, and another foreign scholar, Erasmus, tells us that under
her, letters and liberal studies had reached so high a state that Spain
served as a model to the cultivated nations.
From one end of her land to the other this incomparable woman has left
her mark; at Valladolid the remembrance of her marriage; Segovia whence
she started out to claim her kingdom; at Burgos the tomb of her parents;
Salamanca where her son was educated, and whose library façade is in her
grandiose style; Avila where this only son lies buried; Santiago where
her hospice still harbors the needy; Seville where she gave audience in
the Alcázar; her refuge for the insane here in Granada;--hardly a city
that she did not visit and endow:
"If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government
Obeying in commanding, and thy parts
Sovereign and pious, else could speak thee out
The Queen of earthly queens."
VIGNETTES OF SEVILLE
"Mi vida está pendiente
Solo en un hilo,
Y el hilo está en tu mano, dueño querido.
Mira y repara,
Que si el hilo se rompe
Mi vida acaba."
CANTAR ANDALUZ.
"El secreto de la vida consiste en nacer todas las mañanas."--RAMÓN
CAMPOAMOR.
The outburst of spring in Seville is something unforgettable. With roses
in bloom during December and January, the winter was like the summer of
some places, and so we realized with surprise during February that a
genuine spring was beginning. The bushes and hedges put on fresh coats
of green, and barely a month after the trees had been stripped of their
myriad oranges, the same trees were covered with white blossoms. To sit
beside the lake in the park on a sunny March morning seemed like being
in an ideal scene of the theater; hard, white pathways wound in every
direction between miles of rose hedges; an avenue of vivid Judas trees
led to a blue and white tiled Laiterie, where society came each morning
to drink a hygienic glass of milk, and the graceful girls played
_diavolo_ with young officers; the groves of orange trees filled the air
with an almost overpowering scent; children threw crumbs to the ducks in
the pond; high up in the palm trees they were doing the parks' spring
cleaning by cutting away the spent leaves.
With such a winter climate it is strange that Seville was deserted by
foreigners till the Easter rush. During the four months of our stay we
had no need of fires, and sometimes there were days so warm that we did
not start for the customary constitutional till toward evening. Every
single day of the winter we took a walk in the same direction,--to the
_Delicias_ parks. Such monotony at first seemed a very limited pleasure,
but before the winter ended we had grown to be such true Sevillians that
we liked the placid regularity, and whenever we went further afield the
roads were so abominably kept that we were glad to return to the shady
fragrance of the park. We gradually learned to sit on the benches with
the contented indolence of the southerner, watching the carriages roll
by, family coaches a bit antiquated, the women well-dressed but not with
the Madrileña's elegance. As the same people passed day after day, we
soon had favorites among them. One young girl, like a rose in her bloom
of quick blushes, was having the golden hour of her life; all winter we
watched her in the _Delicias_, at the theater, in church, and she never
appeared without her cavalier somewhere in sight: a man in love here,
like a man at his prayers, has no false pride to disguise his devotion.
His carriage openly pursued hers in the park, the coachman an eager
abettor of the romance. They would often alight, and while her mother
and small sister loitered far behind, the happy _novios_ were allowed to
ramble side by side through the lovely paths. It seemed to us that we
were no sooner settled in some retired nook of the pleasure grounds than
these two sympathetic young people would come strolling past, and her
sudden blush in recognition of the two strangers whose interest she
felt, was very charming to see,--so too thought the young man at her
side, for he always paced with his head bent irresistibly to hers. Life
can offer worse fates than to be in love in the springtime, under
Seville's flowering trees.
This happy starting with romance has much to do with the contented
marriages of the race: here, as I said before, is little of the
pernicious "dot" system of France and Italy; good looks and attractive
personal qualities win a husband. Spanish women make excellent wives,
their first fire and passion turning to self-abnegation. They are
spared the ignoble competition that luxury brings; except in Madrid and
among a small set in a couple more of the big cities, most Spanish
ladies dress with extreme simplicity in black; the mantilla having more
or less equalized conditions. It is still the custom for a mother and
her daughters to go to church before eight every morning; often I saw
them returning as I sat drinking my coffee on the hotel balcony. For
church they wear the black veil that so much better becomes them than
the big hats donned for the afternoon drive. Strangers are inclined to
take for granted the idleness of women's lives in a city like Seville. I
had slight opportunity of judging for myself. From a friend, however,
who happened to have letters of introduction to a Sevillian whom she
thought a mere social butterfly after seeing her drive by idly every
afternoon, I learned that being taken into the intimacy of this pretty,
fashionable woman, it appeared that she rose before seven every day and
had never once missed giving each of her four children his morning bath.
When we occasionally lingered late in the _Delicias_ at noon, we would
see the _cigarreras_ from the great tobacco factory come out to spend
their siesta. The proverbial beauty of these girls is much exaggerated,
but the fresh flower in the hair worn by every woman of the people, old
and young alike, gives a decided charm. Sometimes they would dance
together under the trees, just for the mere pleasure of motion, and sing
the passionate _coplas_ of the province, of the very essence of a
people, impossible to translate:
"Nor with you nor without you
My sorrows have end,
For with you, you kill me,
And without you, I die."
Or this other, a _majo_ to his chosen one:
"Take, little one, this orange
From my orchard grove apart,
Be careful lest you use a knife
For inside is my heart."
The _majo_ of Andalusia is the peasant dandy of Spain, and truly he is
superb. As he gallops in from the country on his proud-necked stocky
Andalusian horse--by instinct he knows how to sit a horse--or when he
walks by jauntily in his short bolero jacket, with the springing gait of
youth and dominating manhood, a duchess must look at him with
admiration. The city loafer of Seville is a miserable specimen, and his
insolence on the street is a constant outrage, but the country
_labrador_ does much to redeem him. One day we walked back across the
fields from Italica, and passed many of these self-respecting peasants
who gave us the proud, courteous salute of the north, but no sooner
were we within the city limits than began the bold staring, the jostling
and remarks peculiar to Seville alone.
All classes and conditions are met with in the park. Once a week the
black soutanes and red shoulder scarfs of the seminarists of San Telmo
give an added note of color. One of the lads, happening to know a
Spanish acquaintance of ours, often stopped to chat. He told us details
of their life, that at Easter and for the summer each returned in
secular dress to his family, and if, during his years of preparation, he
found he was not suited to the priesthood, he was free to leave at any
time. Thus this lad had entered with ten others, of whom only three
remained. "Soon only two, I fear," he added, with his clever mundain
smile. "They tell me I'm too fond of society." Yet I have seen English
ladies, true to their Invincible Armada traditions, shake their heads in
pity when the seminarists passed, and sigh: "Poor young prisoners!"
We made other acquaintances in the placid Seville parks; the venders of
peanut candy, of the delicious sugar wafers for which you gamble on a
revolving machine, above all our _Agua! Agua!_ friend. This last would
polish the glass with an agile turn of the wrist, then bend slightly and
from his shoulder pour down the crystal stream with undeviating aim. No
people on earth drink water like the Spanish; it is a national love. A
tot of four will stand spellbound before the fat dolphin of a park
fountain, calling in beatific ecstasy, "_Hay agua!_"
Though the _Delicias_ is the favorite haunt, one can while away an
afternoon in the garden of the Alcázar, on its pretty tiled seats. When
we went through the Moorish palace, its restorations seemed so gaudily
done that again I felt the sensation that this was trumpery. As at the
Alhambra the fact of its medium being plaster, not enduring stone,
spoils Moorish art for me. Some evenings for the sunset we climbed the
Giralda, the only height from which a view over the fertile country can
be got, for Seville's great drawback is its flatness; there is not one
high spot for loitering at the close of day as in most Italian towns.
From this cathedral tower, the view down on the white roofs of the city
holds one spellbound; groves of palms show the parks, neat terrace
gardens on the tops of the houses, and not a vestige of a street. No
wonder, for the passages called streets are barely wide enough for three
to walk abreast, and they twist and bend in true oriental fashion. We
used to turn in behind the Alcázar, and wander hap-hazard, past
Murillo's house, round and about north of that chief thoroughfare, the
_Sierpes_. For surprises and romance this town has no equal. Tucked
away in the narrow lanes is patio after patio, not, like those of
Cordova, merely spotless and tranquil, but imposing with white marble
columns and pavements, for Italica, nearby, an obliterated city that
lays claim to three of Rome's emperors, Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius,
was stripped to adorn the younger Seville. The exterior of the houses is
insignificant, just two or three stories of plain plaster walls, all
beauty being kept for the inside, for the patio, with its central
fountain and walls of colored tiles. We used often to pause at the open
grille to gaze in with delight, agreeing with the old German proverb,
"Whom God loves has a house in Seville." They say that in summer-time
the family moves down from the upper story to live around the patio,
over which an awning is stretched, and every evening animated
_tertulias_ are held there. A June walk at night in these lanes must be
paradise: "_Quien no ha visto á Sevilla, no ha visto á maravilla_."