"I left, I suppose, scarcely a street in Madrid which I did not
traverse, or a church which I did not enter. The result is hardly
worth the trouble. One street and church are exactly like another
street and church. In the latter, one always finds the same profusion
of wooden Christs, and Madonnas in real petticoats, on the walls, and
the same scanty sprinkling of worshipers, also in petticoats, on the
floor. The images outnumber the devotees here, as in all other Roman
Catholic countries (except Ireland, which is an exception to every
rule.) To a stranger, the markets are always the most interesting
haunts. A Spaniard, he or she, talks more while making the daily
bargain than in all the rest of the twenty-four hours. The fruit and
vegetable market was my especial lounge. There is such a fresh, sweet
smell of the country, and the groups throw themselves, or are thrown,
into such pretty tableaux after the Rubens and Snyders fashion. The
shambles one avoids instinctively, and fish-market there is none,
for Madrid is fifty hours' journey from the nearest sea, and the
Manzanares has every requisite for a fine trout stream, but water.
"Madrid has one peculiarity which conduces very much to the visitor's
comfort, namely, that there are very few inevitable 'sights' to be
gone through. The armory said to be the finest in the world; the
palace, ditto (which people who are addicted to upholstering may
go and see, if they don't mind breaking the tenth commandment); the
museum of natural history, where is the largest loadstone in active
operation between this and Medina; and the Academia, nearly complete
the list. Everybody should devote a morning to the last-named, were it
only for the sake of the Murillos. The famous picture of 'St. Isabel
giving alms to the sick' has been arrested at Madrid on its return
from Paris to Seville. As the Sevilians have instituted a 'process'
for its recovery, it is likely to stay there for some time longer.
'The Patrician's Dream' is quite cheering to look upon, so rich and
glowing it is. Shut your eyes to the semi-ludicrous effect of husband,
wife, and dog, in a decreasing series, like the three genders in
Lindley Murray, all asleep.
"The gardens of the queen, sunk in a deep hollow below the palace,
deserve a visit. The head-gardener, of course a Frenchman, struggles
gallantly against all kinds of difficulties of soil, climate, and lack
of water. By a series of ingenious artifices he has concocted a plot
of grass, some ten feet square, to the great astonishment of all
natives."