The ramparts have been turned into esplanades, where it is a joy to
walk, for the views are beautiful past description; now across the bay
to the mainland and the mountains of Ronda, and down on the quay of the
town itself with its bay full of fishing boats; then to the north the
eye seeks farther along the coast toward Palos whence three caravels,
the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa María turned westward on a memorable
third of August, 1492. On the other side of Cadiz is the ocean itself
and I hope the enterprising town will some day carry the park along this
western wall, where the rollers break so magnificently. Just past the
public gardens, a narrow causeway leads to the lighthouse of San
Sebastián, set well out to sea, a favorite walk for us at sunset time to
watch the fishing boats with their high prows come sailing back to the
harbor each evening. The sunsets we saw in Cadiz were flaming pink and
gold and red like those of the world on the other side of the Atlantic;
also we saw a sunrise exquisite as a dream. It was here the ancients
first met the suggestive wonder of the open ocean, and their
philosophers pondered over the phenomenon of the tides. They thought
that subterranean animals or winds sucked them in; and the sun, they
said, when it had sunk in the western ocean, returned to the east by
subterranean passages,--guesses about as wise as some that we are making
to-day on phenomena of the soul.
I do not know if it was just chance good fortune, but Cadiz will always
be an exhilarating memory. Its air was so bracing, balmy yet full of
vitality. The moral atmosphere seemed joyous and contented; a
hurdy-gurdy would strike up below in the street with the bang of a
tambourine, and from all the windows near, pennies would gayly rattle
down. The people were courteous without second thought. A working man
walked out of his way for ten minutes to direct us through the
complicated streets, and then ran off with a laugh to avoid the fee; a
shopman straightened eye-glasses and genuinely refused to be paid for so
small a service; wonder of wonders when our luggage got carried in the
wrong hotel diligence, the landlord refused to let us pay. Three such
episodes of disinterestedness in one morning give one a pleasant
impression of a place; and this town has presented itself to other
travelers as happily. Byron, to whom this "renowned romantic land" as he
called her, was eminently sympathetic, wrote to his mother, in 1809,
"Cadiz, sweet Cadiz! it is the first spot in the creation. The beauty of
its streets and mansions are only excelled by the loveliness of its
inhabitants, the finest women in Spain."
Cadiz is enough of a place, with a bishopric and a garrison, to have the
air of a capital; we noticed many men of the best hidalgo type, like
those who stand behind Spínola in the "Surrender of Breda." In the park
was an outdoor theater; children played _diavolo_; and nice little
Spanish girls walked up and down with their English governesses. One
could write or sew outdoors without exciting a glance of surprise. We
used to spend hours under the palm trees of the _Alameda_ sewing and
reading and watching the groups about us, for in spite of its being
mid-winter, the air was warm enough for spending the day out-of-doors.
Cleanliness and godliness: Cadiz can boast of excellent public
institutions. The new hospital that faces the Atlantic breezes, and
where only a fraction of a franc is paid daily, could well be envied by
the rich of new world cities. Its poor house is noted, and it has a host
of minor charities; a _Casa de Viudas_ for widows, a _Casa de Hermanos_,
a _Casa de Locos_ for the insane, tended, as are the others, by alert,
willing nuns. It is a public-spirited little city, with a school of
music and art, an _Instituto_ whose physical laboratory is the best in
Spain, two Public Libraries, for that of the Bishop is also open free to
the people.
The tourist sights here are soon seen; the Capuchin church where Murillo
painted his last picture, and where he fell from the scaffold, soon
after dying in Seville from the accident. There are two Cathedrals, one
so sacked by English bucaneers that there is little to be seen, and the
other a quite dreadful eighteenth century affair. The dull _Museo_ has
some good modern works, a bishop's head in profile by García y Ramos
that is first rate art; and there is a triptych by a very early painter,
Gallegos, the Spanish Primitive, which to my mind is more religious than
the Murillos and the Zurbarans. It is a _Pietà_, and the eyes of the
mourners are naïvely red from weeping, like Francia's _Pietàs_ in Parma.
Almost impregnable walls and moats shut off the isthmus that leads to
the mainland, and their strength explains how Cadiz could have defied
the French for two years during the War of Liberation, without suffering
the horrors of the Gerona siege. The blockade began in 1808, soon after
the heroic _Dos de Mayo_ in Madrid. Quintana's poem rang like a trumpet
call over the land: "_¡Antes la muerte que consentir jamás ningún
tirano!_" No idle boast! Spain was celebrating the centenary of the
second of May during our visit, and the scenes were moving and
patriotic. You realized Lord Peterborough's remark, that this was an
unconquerable land if her people resisted the invader. Statues and
tablets for the war heroes were unveiled, and songs and marches composed
for the anniversary. The artillery officers organized a splendid parade
of children that marched under the arch of Montleón, where Ruiz, and
Velarde, and Daoiz fought, and there the King, holding the baby Prince
of Asturias in his arms, showed him how to kiss his country's flag.
Memorial Mass was said in the street outside the house where Velarde
died, and toward evening one of the Madrid parishes marched out, its
priests leading, to the cemetery where the _Dos de Mayo_ victims were
buried, and deposited wreaths in patriotic reverence.
Cadiz' old church, St. Philip Neri, is where the permanent endurance of
the first outburst of patriotism in 1808 was made possible. Here the
Cortes met again after three hundred years' suppression under the
Hapsburgs and Bourbons, here they abolished the Inquisition, and here
they drew up the Constitution of 1812, which was to be tossed backward
and forward during the next half century of disorders, to emerge finally
with victory.
An eloquent priest was the first speaker to open the historic meeting,
and as he laid down the program, the sovereignty of the nation to lie
in the Cortes, and the King to exist for the people, not the people for
the King as heretofore, Spain again had her foot on the ladder of
progress. No wonder that the national military air of Spain is the
_Marcha de Cádiz_. The clean, smokeless, plucky little city has right to
a proud stand out in the Atlantic. Her age-long enemy, the ocean, had
trained her well to strike a first blow for freedom.
A FEW MODERN NOVELS
"Don Quixote is not, as Montesquieu pretended, the only good
Spanish book, which in reaction against the national spirit,
ridiculed the others. It is rather the epitome of our national
spirit, war-like and religious, full of sane realism and none the
less enthusiastic for all that is great and beautiful."--DON JUAN
VALERA.
It was the German philosopher Hegel who called the "Romancero del Cid"
the most nobly beautiful poem, ideal and real at the same time, that the
Epic Muse had inspired since Homer. _Ideal and real at the same time_,
herein lies the first characteristic of Spanish literature, of to-day as
well as of the past. No keener realistic pictures of a nation were ever
drawn than in "Quixote," yet no book was ever more idealistic; and the
path plowed so deeply by Cervantes, has been followed by the modern
novelists of Spain. Their feet are well planted on the ground, but they
do not think it necessary to prove they walk the earth by wallowing in
its mud. These modern Spanish romances tell of the passions and sorrows
of virile men and women, and at the same time they can boast that they
are free from the moral evil so rampart in French novels. "Quixote" is
not exactly a prude's book, yet the "jeune fille" can read it
unharmed and Cervantes has served in this point as a standard.[32]
[Illustration: ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
A wood-carving by Carmona, Museum of León]
Few realize the delightful field of modern fiction that lies ready to be
explored once enough Spanish has been mastered for reading. After three
months' study only we found we could take up and enjoy "Don Quixote,"
for contrary to the popular idea, its language is no more archaic than
is the English of Hamlet or Henry IV; a great genius fixes the tongue in
which he writes.
The best of the novelists of this last half century, when the revival
came about, are Valera and Pereda. Some would make a triology by placing
Pérez Galdós side by side with them. For instance the historian
Altamira, being in sympathy with the frankly revolutionary theories
which Galdós advocates, calls him the first, the Balzac of Spain, but
the Balzac of a people is never against the traditions of his race as
Galdós often is. "_Toda comparación es odiosa_" the dear Don warns us.
Personally I give the first place to Valera and Pereda, in whose work is
found the note of literature; Pereda the strength of the northern
mountains, Valera the allurement of the south. Happily for their
permanence and their value as human documents, the Spanish writers are
local. Each describes his own province, his own _paisanos_. Doña Emilia
Pardo Bazán paints her Galicia; Alacón his Andalusia; Valdés and Pérez
Galdós are more cosmopolitan and I should say lose by it; Blasco Ibáñez
writes of Valencia, Leopoldo Alas has vivified the Asturias.
The revival of the _novela de costumbres_, which suits the Spanish
temperament, just as the romantic or fantastic tale suits the German,
may be said to have been started by that talented Sevillian authoress
who wrote under the name of Fernán Caballero. She had not the gift of a
good style, and most of her books are already of the past, but in "La
Gaviota," published in 1849, her passionate love for Spain and its ways
has made a novel that is likely to endure. The tale tells of many old
customs: how on the night of November 2d, the Brotherhood of the Rosary
of the Dawn rises to pray for the souls in Purgatory, how one of the
sodality goes from house to house to rouse the others, striking a bell
and singing:
"I am at your door with a bell;
I do not call you; it does not call you;
'T is your mother, 't is your father who call you,
And they beg you to pray for them to God."
And each member rises and follows the fraternity. A land does not lose
that has such customs among its peasantry, that weaves in its religious
belief with the inextricable souvenirs of home and childhood. A Spanish
child is brought up on songs of the Passion and the Virgin as naturally
as we on Mother Goose. When he sees a chimney-sweep he exclaims "_El Rey
Melchor!_" for the visit of the Three Kings of the East is real to him.
He knows the owl was present at the Crucifixion, whence his
terror-stricken cry of "_Crux! Crux!_" that the kindly swallows relieved
the Saviour of the thorns, and the gold-finches of the three agonizing
nails:
"En el monte Calvario En el monte Calvario
Las golondrinas Los jilgueritos
Le quitaron á Cristo Le quitaron á Cristo
Las cinco espinas. Los tres clavitos."
The serpent according to Spanish lore, went proudly erect after his
success with Eve, until down in Egypt one day, he tried to bite the
little Infant Jesus, whereupon St. Joseph indignantly rebuked him and
ordered him never to rise again. The rosemary is loved and given away as
presents because when formerly a common plant, once the Blessed Virgin
hung out on it to dry the clothes of her divine Infant, and it became
forever green and fragrant. The children at play sing these legends and
folk-songs; on Christmas eve they dance their "Alegría! Alegría!
Alegría!" A suggestive young writer of Granada, Angel Ganivet, says that
in Spain Christian philosophy did not remain hidden in books, but worked
its way into the very life of the people, where it is found in the
popular songs and customs: "_Nuestra_ 'Summa' _teológica y filosófica
está en nuestro 'Romancero_.'"
Fernán Caballero started the revival of the novel and its flowering soon
followed. Don Juan Valera, though always interested in literature, had
been prevented by his active life from himself writing till middle age.
When in 1874 "Pepita Jiménez" appeared, it took his countrymen by storm,
and this first novel, written by chance, was soon followed by others; a
true creative artist had tardily discovered his genius. I cannot speak
of Don Juan Valera without an admiration which to those who do not know
his works may seem extreme. From his books his personality stands out as
clearly as that of Cervantes, equable, high-minded, with that mellow
wisdom which has gleaned the best from a life full of opportunities. In
his "Discursos Academicos," two volumes that make enchanting
reading--enchanting and academical do not often go together--he
disclaims the title of thinker, yet he was a profound observer. His
satire is of that kindly quality that leaves no sting. He has charm,
that salt of the writer; he is never exaggerated nor embittered. This
quality of amenity he shares too with his master, whom he can write of
with an absolute comprehension just as Cervantes himself could make a
Quixote because he was akin. It was a happy chance that the last words
of the modern novelist (over eighty and blind, yet alert in mental
interests) should have been the unfinished paper for the Royal Academy,
to celebrate in 1904 the three hundredth anniversary of "Don Quixote."
His Spanish blood let Valera understand the heights of mysticism,
skeptic though he was by force of circumstances; he could write with
enthusiasm of St. Teresa. On woman he held advanced ideas, he advocated
her highest education, especially the cultivation of letters, for he
said that if man alone wrote half the knowledge of the human soul would
be lost; civilizations where women are not given education and knowledge
never arrive at their full flowering; it is as if the collective soul of
the nation had clipped one of its wings. His own culture was an
all-round one. He had the intimate knowledge that residence in foreign
lands gives: English thought, German, Italian, Austrian, American north
and south, the Orient and its religions, in every country his literary
interests had been alert. Thus he had a curiously minute knowledge of
the North American poets. Of his own race essentially, he yet was
cosmopolitan in the higher meaning of the word. All that went to make up
dislike and division between nations he deplored as ignorance of man's
higher destiny of brotherhood. It is not hard to read between the lines
sometimes of his sensitive shrinking in his travels under the
uncomprehending criticism of his native land; the world, especially the
English-speaking world, has but a veiled contempt for things Spanish. He
has righted his country in his books without a touch of aggressive
impatience, by simply describing things as they are.
Valera has set his romances in the Andalusia he knew best. He was born
at Cabra in the province of Cordova in 1824, the son of a naval officer
and the Marquesa de Paniega. He received the best of educations and when
twenty-two accompanied the Spanish ambassador, the poet-duke de Rivas to
Naples. Then followed half a life-time of diplomatic posts: Lisbon, Rio
de Janeiro, Dresden, St. Petersburg, as Minister Plenipotentiary to
Washington in 1883 and later to Brussels, finally as Ambassador to
Vienna. He was also a member of the Cortes, a Councilor of State, and
was one of the embassy sent to Florence to offer the Crown to Amadeus
I. During the two years of the Republic he retired, but returned to
active life on the advent of Alfonso XII. Although a man of the world
Valera was a born artist. Only in his first romance did he show the hand
of the novice. His literary style is a simple and limpid medium that
leaves behind unfading pictures of country and town; he has done what
Balzac calls adding new beings _à l'état civil_.
"Pepita Jiménez" came out in 1874, "Doña Luz" in 1879, two vignettes of
Andalusian women immortalizing two very different types; Pepita of
grace, passion, charm, compact, of the very heart of femininity,
adorable despite her failings, achieving her own happiness against all
odds; Doña Luz, idealistic, dignified in mind and manner, of the type of
a Vittoria Colonna, proudly bearing the heart-outrage fate sent her,
since her soul, for her the essential, had found its mystic way out. I
do not think that in any fiction there is a more subtly given
relationship than that of this noble creature Luz and the Dominican
missionary from the Philippines, Padre Enrique, scholar and dumb poet.
What with a Zola had been revolting, with Valera is humanly
heart-breaking and spiritually ennobling, it could shock no piety; only
a man of elevated character and the most sensitive discernment could so
touch on undefined emotions. The friendship of Doña Luz and the
doctor's captivating daughter is a warm-hearted relationship of two
young and pretty women declared impossible by many novelists. This tale
of beautiful and tragic sincerity had been preceded by another, also set
in one of the smaller Andalusian towns, and written with the lightness
of manner and seriousness of matter that show the master hand: "El
Comendador Mendoza," I cannot help feeling veils much of the author's
own self. These stories show the soundness of the simple people. Swift
marriages are looked on with disapproval; how, they ask, can esteem or
true knowledge of character be gained in a few months.[33] So in Spain
the opportunities allowed the _novios_, the young people who choose each
other from mutual attraction, are unheard of in France or Italy.
High-born or lowly, a Spanish girl can savor the romance of life,
without disrepute, by talking at the _reja_ during the midnight hours;
before marriage she is allowed a freedom of speech, a _sal_, a
self-development, denied her sisters in other Latin countries.
It is not possible to touch on all of Valera's stories, for his vein
once discovered, proved a rich one. His longest novel has a
poorly-chosen name, "Las Ilusiones del Doctor Faustino" and is not very
well constructed, not enough is eliminated for art; but always there is
the charm of the south, the midnight talking at the _reja_--those happy
_novios_ of Spain!--the drowsiness of the noontime siesta, the vivacity
of the evening _tertulia_, that innocent way of diverting themselves
every night from nine to twelve, the same group of friends meeting year
after year. Constantly, as I read Spanish novels, I say a people that
get so much out of so little are a lovable people, wholesome and of
vigorous promise.
It was indeed with very different eyes that I looked out on the distant
towns as we passed in the train, they were peopled now with living
people, a Pepita, a high-minded Luz, a philosophic Don Fresco, a kindly
Doña Araceli, I felt that I was not quite a stranger here, now that Don
Juan Valera had lifted from me the curtain of ignorance and prejudice
that hides the everyday life of Spain.
The same year that saw the appearance of "Pepita Jiménez" brought to
light another tale that will last as long, it does not seem too much to
say, as the "Quixote" itself. In "El Sombrero de Tres Picos," Alacón has
achieved a masterpiece. It is a slight tale of a few hundred pages, in
the genre style, a picture of the old régime before the French invasion
of 1808 broke down the Chinese wall of the Pyrenees. No description can
do justice to its crisp, sparkling charm, to Frasquita, beautiful as a
goddess, Eve herself, with a laugh like the _repique de Sábado de
Gloria_; to her ugly, ironical, adorably malicious and sympathetic
husband Lucas, the vibrant note of whose voice won all hearts, to whom
his Frasquita was _más bueno que el pan_. Lucas and his wife are
Shakespearean creations. Then there is that pompous vanity, the
Corregidor, Don Eugenio de Zúñigo y Ponce de León, in his red cape, gold
shoe buckles, and hat of three peaks. What a scene is that of the
Bishop's visit to the miller's garden! And in what country but
democratic Spain would a bishop stroll out with canons and grandees to
while away a friendly hour with a miller? Inimitable tale, Spanish to
the core, it is this that make a nation's glory, a "Don Quixote," a
"Sotileza," a "Doña Luz," a "Sombrero de Tres Picos."
Don Pedro Antonio de Alacón belonged, like Valera, to an old family of
Andalusia, but not in the elder novelist's fortunate circumstances; one
of ten sons, he had more or less to place himself in life. He was born
in Gaudix in 1833; studied law at the University of Granada; and
naturally gravitated toward Madrid, the center of political and literary
interests. He flung himself headlong into the republican anti-clerical
ideas of that troubled time, but in later life his theories toned down
so that he ended as a believer and a liberal conservative. Throughout a
long political career Alacón kept his honor unstained; although often
with friends in power, it was only after twenty-one years of politics
that he accepted a post, on the advent of Alfonso XII, whose return he
had advocated long before it came about. He had begun writing when very
young, thus "El Clavo," a powerful sketch, was done when barely twenty.
Like many of Spain's authors, he turned soldier when the call came, and
served in the 1860 campaign in Africa of which he has left a vivid
chronicle, "Diario de un Testigo de la Guerra en Africa." "El Sombrero"
was followed by "El Escándalo," a novel widely discussed in Spain. The
story opens strongly, but it scatters toward the end; Alacón is better
in the tale than in sustained work. He can snap his fingers at our
criticism, his Corregidor and his Molinera have made him one of the
immortals.