Benito Perez Galdos was born May 10th, 1845, in the Canary Islands.
Las Palmas, his birthplace, capital of the Grand Canary, is a
well-built little town of about eighteen thousand people, and the
island is the most fertile of the group. In climate and situation the
islands belong rather to Africa than Europe. The people are considered
descendants of the Gothic inhabitants of Spain, who sought refuge
there from the Saracen invasion. Their existence was all but lost to
sight for some centuries, and they were only brought under European
sway about the time of the discovery of America. These Fortunate
Islands, the somewhat unusual scene where Galdos was born and passed
his youth, would seem to offer a fresh literary field, yet no word of
description or reminiscence concerning them appears in any of his
books. This is perhaps part of the policy of reserve that induces him
to deny, even by implication, any biographical details concerning
himself,--a reserve so marked as to have been generally noted as an
eccentricity. Leopoldo Alas, his biographer, in the 'Celebridades
Espaniolas Contemporaneas,' assures us that it was only with the
greatest difficulty he drew from him the bare admission that he was
born in the Canary Islands. He made his studies there in the State
college, and came to Madrid at the age of eighteen to study law. He
had no great liking for it, and did not follow it further, unless as
it became a step for entrance into political life, for he has been a
deputy in the National Cortes, for Porto Rico. He did not acquire
skill in forensic eloquence; his biographer, above, states that he
cannot put four words together in public, nor in private either. A
reticent man, he is forced to write in order to find expression.
He wrote his first book in 1867 and '68, but it was not published till
1871. In the mean time the revolution of 1868 took place, which
enlarged the boundaries of freedom in literature as in many other
directions; and Galdos at Barcelona had some small part in it. The
book was 'La Fontana de Oro' (The Fount of Gold). It treats of the
aspirations of the "ardent youth" of 1820, who rebelled against the
reactionary policy brought in by Ferdinand VII. after the expulsion of
the French from the country; and in the student hero Lazaro he perhaps
displays his own ideas at the period. Violent political clubs were
formed, on the model of the Jacobin Clubs of the French Revolution,
and it is from the name of a cafe that was the meeting-place of the
most famous of these clubs that the name of the story is derived. His
next book was 'El Audaz' (The Fearless: 1872). The period is the same.
The hero is an utterly fearless young radical, who has been driven to
revolt through wrongs done his family by the Count de Cerezuelo. By a
peculiar hazard, though far below her in social station, he meets the
daughter of the count, a very proud and disdainful beauty. It is her
caprice to fall in love with him, and she remains true to him to the
end, when he dies in a street tumult, having first gone mad with his
superheated enthusiasm. These early books are conceived upon
conventional romantic lines, and hardly gave promise of their
author's future fame. They contain however passages of strong
character-drawing, like that of the Porrenos, three ancient spinster
sisters of a fallen patrician house in 'El Audaz,' which are equal to
his later work.
He next entered upon an extensive enterprise which soon began to give
him both reputation and profit. This was the writing of a score of
historical romances, after the model of those of Erckmann-Chatrian,
called 'Episodios Nacionales' (National Episodes). They are divided
into two series, the first beginning with 'Trafalgar' (1873), the
second with 'El Equipaje del Rey Jose' (King Joseph's Baggage: 1875).
They deal with the two modern periods comprising the deliverance of
the country from the usurpation of the French, and the more obscure
struggles against Ferdinand VII., who sought to reduce the country
under the same absolutist rule that had prevailed before the ideas of
the French Revolution liberalized the whole of Europe. The history in
these romances is intermingled with personal interests and adventures,
to give it an air of informality; and though each is complete in
itself, some knowledge of Spanish history is desirable as an aid to
understanding them. They are considerably interlinked among
themselves, the same characters appearing more or less in successive
volumes. The hero of the first series is one Gabriel, who narrates
them all in the first person. He is a poor boy who becomes servant to
a family near Cadiz. He accompanies his master on board the huge
Santissima Trinidad, the largest ship of her age, and is able to
describe in detail the action of Trafalgar, the description being the
more interesting for us as coming from the Spanish point of view. In
'La Corte de Carlos IV.' (The Court of Charles IV.: 1873), we find him
page to a leading actress, and an eye-witness to the degeneracy of
that monarch and his favorite Godoy, which resulted in the seizure of
the country by Napoleon for his brother Joseph. In 'La Batalla de los
Arapiles' (translated by Rollo Ogden as 'The Battle of Salamanca':
1875), the last of the series, the same Gabriel is a major, and
performs an important commission for Wellington. He has risen to this
level step by step, and on the way has had as many adventures as one
of Dumas's guardsmen, and has carried them off as gallantly. In the
second series of 'Episodios,' Salvador Monsalud is the principal
character. He is a young fellow who is led by dire want--and also by
sharing the liberalized French view of the decadence and
worthlessness of the Spanish form of rule--to take service in the
body-guard of Joseph Bonaparte. A chapter full of strength and pathos,
in 'King Joseph's Baggage,' shows him disowned by his mother and cast
off by his village sweetheart on account of such service, both of them
frantic with a spirit of independence like that which animated the
Maid of Saragossa. A feature of this book that gives it originality is
that the action turns not upon the usual principal features of battle,
but upon the fate of the rich baggage train of booty with which Joseph
Bonaparte had hoped to escape to France after his brief, disastrous
reign.
The 'Episodios' have had an extensive influence, and have been
imitated, under a like title, in the Spanish Americas. The author's
tone toward the past is generally severe and disdainful. "Had Spain,
perchance, a 'constitution' when she was the foremost nation in the
world?" he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, with sardonic
intent. He has been called unappreciative, and his attitude towards
Spanish antiquity has been protested against by other leading writers,
of more conservative feeling, as unwarranted. These romances contain
some passages showing aversion to the barbarities of war, but in
general they are less humanitarian than those of Erckmann-Chatrian:
they are principally devoted to glorifying Spanish fortitude and
courage. These books are a great advance upon the two earlier novels;
from the first they showed literary workmanship of a high order: they
possess ingenuity of plot, sufficient probability, and graphic power
of description, movement, and conversation. In the latter respects,
indeed, they surpass some of the author's later works that make more
serious pretensions.
The wider and more definitely literary reputation of Perez Galdos
rests upon more than a score of other works, in addition to the above.
These are distinctly novels, as contrasted with romances; and they
treat of contemporary life, in a method that aims to be
conscientiously observant and impartial. It is often said, without
much reflection, that we see enough of the things close about us, and
need our literary recreation in the remote and strange. But it must be
recalled that we see those things without the eyes of genius, and he
is a true benefactor who poetizes and dignifies life in making evident
that all of life is vivid with interest, even that part of it nearest
to us, which without such illumination we may have thought devoid of
it. The words in which the ostensible narrator of 'Lo Prohibido'
(Forbidden Fruit: 1885), explains the purpose of his journal may well
enough be taken to exhibit the method of Galdos. It was to set down
"my prosaic adventures, events that in no way differ from those that
fill and make up the lives of other men. I aspire to no further
effects than such as the sincere and unaffected presentation of the
truth may produce; and I have no design upon the reader's emotions by
means of calculated surprises, frights, or conjurer's tricks, through
which things look one way for a time and then turn out in a manner
diametrically opposite."
The titles of a number of his principal books, not hitherto given,
with dates, are as follows. The dates are those when they were
written, and they were generally published shortly after: 'Dona
Perfecta,' 1876; 'Gloria,' 1876; 'Torquemada en la Hoguera'
(Torquemada at the Stake: 1876); 'Marianela,' 1878; 'La Familia de
Leon Roch' (Leon Roch's Family: 1878); 'Los Cien Mil Hijos de San
Luis' (The Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis: 1877) of the
Episodios; 'Un Faccioso Mas' (A Rebel the More: 1879) the completion
of the Episodios; 'La Desheredada' (The Disowned: 1881); 'El Amigo
Manso' (Friend Mildman: 1882); 'El Doctor Centeno,' 1883; 'Tormento,'
1884; 'La de Bringas' (That Mrs. de Bringas: 1884); 'Fortunata y
Jacinta,' 1886; 'Miau,' 1888; 'La Incognita' (The Unknown: 1889);
'Realidad' (Reality: 1890); 'Angel Guerra,' 1891; 'Torquemada en la
Cruz' (Torquemada on the Cross: 1894); 'Torquemada en el Purgatorio'
(Torquemada in Purgatory: 1894); 'Torquemada y San Pedro,' 1895;
'Nazarin,' 1895; 'Halma,' 1896.
Even in his new departure, Galdos did not at once enter upon his final
manner. 'Dona Perfecta,' 'The Family of Leon Roch,' and 'Gloria' are
quite distinctly didactic, or "novels with a purpose"; while
'Marianela' is somewhat cloyingly sentimental, a prose poem after the
manner of Ouida. In spite of all this, however, 'Dona Perfecta' has
been pronounced by many his best work. It is the one that has obtained
greatest celebrity abroad, and it is the one, all things considered,
likely to be the most satisfactory example of his work to the English
reader. 'La Desheredada' marks the transition to his final period, and
he has put it upon record that with this book the real difficulties of
his vocation began. It is a poignantly affecting story of a poor girl
who was brought up, by a parent half knave and half insane, to believe
that she was not his daughter but that of a noble house. After his
death she undertakes in all good faith to prosecute her claim, and is
thrown into prison as an impostor. Her heart is broken by the
disillusionment; she cannot adjust herself to life again without the
sweetness of that beguiling belief, and so, in the end, not having the
boldness to die, she throws herself upon the street, a social outcast.
Both in the person of Isidora and others, the book is a moving
treatise on false education. Other leading figures are her brother, a
young "hoodlum" and thief, the burden of whose career she has also to
bear upon her slender shoulders, and the pampered son of the poor
Sastres, who have denied themselves bread that he might have an
education and luxuries. He has a hundred fine schemes for getting a
living, but never a one of them includes turning his hand to a stroke
of honest labor.
'El Amigo Manso' is an extended piece of character-drawing, self-told,
in a gently humorous vein. It gives an account of a college
instructor, very benevolent, very methodical and prudent, and a trifle
conceited and patronizing, who is in love with a pretty governess. By
the time he has settled all his judicious pros and cons, the pretty
governess, who really cared nothing about him, is engaged to a suitor
of a more dashing sort. The scenes of 'Tormento,' 'La de Bringas,' and
'Miau' are laid chiefly among the class of minor office-holders, with
whose manners the author shows an exhaustive familiarity, and each has
its peculiar tragic situation in itself. 'Realidad,' written once in
the form of a novel, and again as a drama, treats of the subject of a
wife's infidelity, as it might pass in real life, instead of in the
conventional and hackneyed way. Its title seems to propose to adhere
even closer to the exact truth than do the others. There come to mind,
in its suppressed passion and its calm, intellectual, and bitter
philosophy, suggestions both of Ibsen and Suderman. The banker Orozco,
a noble and reserved nature, does not slay his wife, does not banish
her from him, nor even make her reproaches. Augusta, on her side,
wonders if his mind is not giving way. This bitter commentary on life
is as near as her smaller mind can approach to a comprehension of his
magnanimous conduct. The same Augusta, earlier, has said in
conversation, "Real life is the greatest of all inventors; the only
one who is ever ready, fresh, and inexhaustible in resource." In these
books, however serious, the purpose does not obtrude to the detriment
of art; the reader is left free to draw his own conclusions, as from
events in actual life; the author ostensibly is neither for nor
against, and yet he leaves us in no doubt as to his decision, always a
moral and stimulating one.
The favorite scenes of Galdos's books are in Madrid and the small
suburban resorts round about it, or at the numerous mineral springs
which are so important a feature of Spanish summer life. He himself
lives at Madrid, but goes for the season to a summer place he owns on
the bold cliffs of the Bay of Biscay, at Santander. There, too he is
near to Pereda, between whom and himself a remarkable friendship
exists. A friendship so strong, warm, and long continued has been
recognized as a notable feature in the careers of both. It is the more
remarkable because except in literature, which both set above
everything else, he is violently opposed to most of the views of
Pereda--a conservative of the conservatives, even to the point of
preferring the absolutist pretender Don Carlos for king. Even at
Madrid and at Santander, however, Galdos's scenery is mere stage
setting; he does not describe nature sympathetically nor aim to
render local color in an accurate way. As the action must pass
somewhere, he gives it just as much of a setting as will suffice, and
seems satisfied with that. The impression of his books, on the whole,
is a gloomy one. He who sees life clearly must perchance see it
darkly, and few see it more clearly than Galdos. Yet his admirers will
not have it that he is pessimistic, because Nature herself is not
pessimistic. Even the sadness of nightfall ought not to be considered
gloomy, they say, with much show of reason, since it is only the
preparation for another day.
[Signature: William Henry Bishop]