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Title: Heroic Spain
Author: O'Reilly, Elizabeth Boyle, 1874-
Language: English
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HEROIC SPAIN
[Illustration: A SPANISH HIDALGO, BY EL GRECO]
HEROIC SPAIN
BY
E. BOYLE O'REILLY
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1910
BY DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION: PRACTICAL HINTS 1
ESPAÑA LA HEROICA: VERSES 12
IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY: LOYOLA 13
BURGOS AND THE CID 33
VALLADOLID 55
OVIEDO IN THE ASTURIAS 79
THE SLEEPING CITIES OF LEON 104
GALICIA 121
SALAMANCA 142
SEGOVIA 159
SAINT TERESA AND AVILA 183
EVENING IN AVILA: VERSES 212
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL 213
TOLEDO 229
CORDOVA AND GRANADA 258
VIGNETTES OF SEVILLE 274
A CHURCH FEAST IN SEVILLE 293
HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE 302
CADIZ 316
A FEW MODERN NOVELS 326
ESTREMADURA 351
ARAGON 369
MINOR CITIES OF CATALONIA 385
BARCELONA 395
GERONA AND FAREWELL TO SPAIN 420
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
A Spanish Hidalgo, by El Greco Frontispiece
Burgos Cathedral from the Castle Hill 36
The Façade of San Gregorio, Valladolid 58
The Cathedral of León 108
View of Salamanca from the Roman Bridge 142
Façade of the University Library, Salamanca 154
The Alcázar of Segovia 182
House of the Duque de la Roca, Avila 196
Isabella of Portugal, by Titian 223
Prado Gallery, Madrid
Tomb of Bishop San Segundo, by Berruguete, Avila 256
Los Seises, Cathedral of Seville 299
St. Francis of Assisi 327
A wood-carving by Carmona, Museum of León
A Roadside Scene in Spain 354
The Cathedral of Sigüenza 374
Cloisters of San Pablo del Campo, Barcelona 403
A Street Stairway, Gerona 420
_HEROIC SPAIN_
"_Let nothing disturb thee,_
_Nothing affright thee,_
_All things are passing,_
_God never changeth._
_Patient endurance_
_Attaineth to all things,_
_Who God possesseth_
_In nothing is wanting,_
_Alone God sufficeth._"
MAXIMS OF SAINT TERESA
"All national criticism in bulk is misleading and foolish, and I look on
the belief of Spaniards that Spain ought to be great and strong as the
most promising agency of her future regeneration."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
_As Minister to Spain, in a letter Oct. 20, 1877_
INTRODUCTION
PRACTICAL HINTS
Travel in Spain to-day is attended with little hardship and no danger
whatever. Even if one barely knows a word of the language, it is not
foolhardy to explore the distant provinces. Commit a few simple
sentences to the memory and have courage in using them, for Spanish is
pronounced just as it is spelled, with a few exceptions soon observed.
The merest beginner is understood.
When a trip into Spain is planned it would be well to send for
information about the kilometric ticket to the _Chemins de Fer
Espagnols_, 20 Rue Chauchat, Paris. They will mail you, gratis, a
pamphlet with a map of the country, where is marked the number of
kilometers between the cities; from this it is easy to calculate how
large a ticket to buy. The more kilometers taken at one time, the
cheaper it is. Thus a ticket of 2,000 k. costs 165 pesetas; one of 5,000
k. costs 385 p., and so on. We got a 10,000 kilometric ticket for two
people, first class, good for ten months, paying for it 682 pesetas. If
the ticket is bought outside of Spain you pay for it in francs, whereas
if bought in Spain, you pay in pesetas, which are about fifteen per cent
less than francs. Provide yourself with your photograph, and at the
first Spanish town--Irún, if you come from Paris, and Port-Bou if from
Marseilles--as there is always a pause of some hours on the frontier for
the customs, it is a simple matter to buy your _carnet kilométrique_ in
the station. It is only on one or two short local lines that these
tickets are not accepted. Unfortunately the new rail from Gibraltar up
to Bobadilla, by way of which many tourists enter Spain, is one of these
disobliging minor lines. In fact many who start their trip from the
south have found difficulty in procuring a kilometric ticket till they
reached Seville or Granada; this confuses the traveler, and makes him
decide the ticket is too complicated for practical use. If he comes to
visit merely the southern province of Andalusia, which is what most
people see of Spain, with a run up to Madrid for the pictures, then,
unless several are traveling as one family, there is little gained by
the _carnet_, since a few hundred unused miles are sometimes wasted. But
for the complete tour of Spain the kilometric ticket is the most
satisfactory arrangement. Besides the reduction it makes in the fare, it
saves the confusion of changing money in the stations. You go to the
ticket office before boarding a train, have the coupons to be used torn
off, and are given a complementary ticket to hand to the conductor on
the train. It is well to buy the official railway guide as it saves
asking questions, for Spanish trains, though they crawl at a snail's
pace, start at the hour announced, and arrive on the minute set down in
the time-table.
Thirty kilos, about sixty-six pounds, are allowed free in the luggage
van, but for an extensive tour it is better to send trunks ahead by some
agency, and travel with only the valises taken with you in the carriage.
These the _mozo_, or porter, carries directly from the train to the
hotel omnibus, which--another good custom of the country--is always in
waiting, no matter at what hour the arrival. First class travel in Spain
is about the same as second class elsewhere; second class is like third
class in France, except on the express route from Paris to Madrid, and
in Catalonia, where second class is comfortable.
A hasty sketch of our tour may help later travelers. We entered from the
north, by Biarritz, a far better way of seeing the country in its
natural sequence than the usual landing at Gibraltar. One feels that the
north of Spain, in the truest degree national, untouched by the Moor,
has never had justice done it. If a transatlantic liner touched at one
of the northern ports, such as Vigo, Santander, Bilbao, it would open
up an untrodden Switzerland with fertile valleys and noble hills. No
pleasanter summer tour, on bicycle or afoot, could be made than through
the Basque provinces, Asturias, the national cradle of Spain, or in
beautiful Galicia with its trout rivers. In summer the climate is cool
and pleasant, and the most isolated valleys are so safe that any two
women could travel alone with security.
Our first stop was at Loyola in the Basque country; then a week in
Burgos; a short stay at Valladolid and Palencia; over the Asturian
Mountains to Oviedo; back to León City, and from there across other
hills to Galicia, seeing Lugo, Coruña, and Santiago in that province;
from Coruña to Santiago by diligence, as no rail yet connects the two
cities. We returned to León province from Galicia, skirting the Miño
River which divides Spain and Portugal; stopped a night at Astorga, some
days in Salamanca, and made a short pause in Zamora.
Time must not be a consideration in touring these unfrequented cities of
middle Spain, for their local trains are few and far between. Only twice
a week is there direct communication between Salamanca and Medina del
Campo, the junction station on the express route. But if you accept once
for all the slowness of the trains, the occasional odd hour of arrival
or starting, the inconvenience of a distantly-set station, you cease to
fret and scold as do most hurried travelers. We ended by finding the
long railway journeys rather restful than otherwise. Usually we had the
_Reservado para Señoras_ carriage to ourselves, except on the express
line from Paris to Madrid, and we soon learned how to make ourselves
comfortable for a whole day's journey, seizing the chance of taking
exercise during the long pauses in the stations, and enjoying the
human-hearted scenes there witnessed; for a Spaniard greets and bids
farewell with the same unconsciousness, the same absence of mauvaise
honte as when he prays or makes love.
Also I found the topography of the country of endless interest during
the long train trips; to climb up to the great truncated mountain which
is central Spain, to see how the still higher ranges of mountains
crossed it, how the famous rivers flowed, the setting of the historic
cities,--I never tired of looking out on it all. Somehow I have got
tucked away a distinct picture of Spain's physical geography, no doubt
due to the leisurely railway journeys, which are not so slow that the
proportion of the whole is lost, as foot or horse travel would be, nor
yet so fast as to jumble the picture, as with the express trips in some
countries.
Spain is not beautiful like Italy, nor of the orderly finished type of
England or France; she has few of Germany's grand forests. There is no
denying she is a gaunt, denuded, tragic land; the desolation of the vast
high steppes of Castile is terrible. Only the fringing coasts along the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean are fertile. Nevertheless, unbeautiful as
is the landscape, it possesses an unaccountable magnificence that grips
the mind; we never took a night trip unless forced to it, so strangely
interesting were the hours spent in looking from the car window.
After Salamanca we went to Segovia, then across the Guadarramas to the
Escorial, and slightly back north by the same mountains to Avila.
Segovia and Avila are true old mediæval cities of the inmost heart of
the race, _España la heróica_ incarnate. Again passing through the
hills, whose cold blue atmosphere Velasquez has made immortally real, we
went to Madrid. From there, south, we struck the beaten tourist track
with pestering guides and higher prices in the hotels. Up to this we had
driven, on arrival in a town, to the first or second hotel mentioned in
Baedeker, and the average charge had been seven pesetas a day, all
included. The provincial hotels gave a surprisingly good table;
excellent soups, fresh fish, the meats fair, and all presented in a
savory way; the fact that many men of the town use the hotel as a
restaurant has much to do with the generous menu. The rooms were cold
and bare, but clean, for not one night of distress did we spend during
the eight months' tour. Of course certain modern comforts were
completely lacking, but we were grateful enough for clean beds and
wholesome food. The taking of money for hospitality is thought degrading
by this chivalrous people, so the traveler should not judge them by the
innkeeper class with whom he comes in contact. I found courtesy as a
rule and honesty even in the inns; having valises that could not lock, I
yet lost nothing. From Toledo on, we began to go, not to the best hotel
mentioned in the guide book, for that now had an average charge of
twenty-five francs a day, but we chose some minor inn, such as the Fonda
da Lino, in Toledo, once the first hostelry in the city before the
"Palace" variety was started for the American tourist.
We had spent October and November in seeing the northern provinces whose
piercing cold made us only too glad to settle for the four winter months
in Andalusia; a day at Cordova, a fortnight in Granada, a trip to Cadiz,
and the bulk of the time in Seville, the best city in Spain for a
prolonged stay, though Barcelona also can offer good winter quarters. In
April we went north into Estremadura to see the Roman remains, then
returned to Madrid for another sight of its unrivaled gallery, and also
because all routes focus from the capital like the spokes of a wheel. We
continued east to Guadalajara and Sigüenza, stopped some days at
Saragossa, then descended by Poblet to the warm fertile coast again, to
tropical Tarragona and that industrial anomaly in an hidalgo land,
Barcelona. After spending some weeks there, in the beginning of June we
left Spain by the Port-Bou frontier, stopping at Gerona on the way out.
Thus we had seen some twenty-five Spanish cities--some twenty-five
glorious cathedrals!--in a leisurely journey of eight months. Any spot
along the southern fringe is suitable for the winter, any spot along the
northern coast for the summer, but in high cold middle-Spain travel for
pleasure must be limited to early autumn or late spring: we froze to
death in Burgos and Salamanca during October, and again shivered and
chattered with the April cold of Guadalajara and Sigüenza.
As to guide books, Baedeker is as good as any, though the Baedeker for
Spain is not equal to that firm's guides for the rest of Europe.
Murray's "Hand-book" is more entertaining, but is rather to be kept as
amusing literature than used as a guide book, much of it being the
personal opinions and prejudices of Richard Ford, and bristling all over
with slurs at Spain's religion. It does not seem reasonable for
English-speaking travelers to see this original country through the eyes
of a clever but crochety Englishman who wandered over it on horseback
eighty years ago: we should not like a European to judge America by
Dickens' notebook dating back to the forties.
There are two bits of advice I would give to those who would thoroughly
enjoy traveling in the Peninsula. Pick up as soon as possible something
of the tongue or you miss shadings that give depth and strength to the
impression. If one knows Latin or French or Italian, it is easy to read
Spanish. And I would beg every unhurried traveler to carry in his pocket
the "Romancero del Cid," Spain's epic, and "Don Quixote," her great
novel, the truest-hearted book ever written. I defy a man to while away
a winter in Spain with _el ingenioso hidalgo_ his daily companion, or
sit reading the "Cid" above the Tajus gorge at Toledo, and not learn to
love this virile, ascetic, realistic, exalted, and passionate land,
where a peasant is instinctively a gentleman, where a grandee is in
practice a democrat, where certain small meanesses, such as
snobbishness, close-fisted love of money, are unknown.
The second advice is to bring to Spain some smattering of architectural
knowledge, or half the charm of lingering in her old cities is
lost,--also is lessened one's chance to catch unaware the soul of this
mystic, profoundly religious race. Here I should end, as I head these
lines of introduction with the words: _Practical hints_. And yet, just
as it is well nigh impossible in Spain to dissociate the churches
themselves from the religious scenes daily witnessed under their
Romanesque or Gothic arches, so I cannot help begging the traveler,
along with his smattering of architecture to bring a little liberality
toward a faith different perhaps from his own, a little openness of
mind. To one who goes to Spain in the holier-than-thou attitude, she is
dumb and repellent,--she who can be so eloquent!
In each of her cities is a cathedral built when faith was gloriously
generous and untamable, and in them one feels, unless blinded by
prejudices of early environment or birth, that here indeed man is bowed
in the humble self-abasement of worship, here is not only æsthetic
beauty but a burning soul; the incense, the lights, the inherited lavish
wealth speak with the spirituality of symbols, of ritual, that utterance
of the soul older than hymns or voiced prayer.
This record of the journey through Spain will be called too partial, and
yet I started without the slightest intention of liking or praising her.
A month before going to Spain, on reading in the Bodleian Library
certain accounts of St. Teresa, about whom I had but vague ideas, I
exclaimed in distress, "What a morbid mind!" I went far from
sympathetic, but bit by bit my prejudices dropped away. With the cant
and smug self-conceit of northern superiority, I expected among other
jars a shock to my religious belief. And after eight months I left Spain
with the conviction that magnificently faulty though she is with her
bull-fights, a venal government, and city loafers, she can give us
lessons in mystic spirituality, in an unpretentious charity, in heroic
endurance, in a very practical not theoretic democracy.
ESPAÑA LA HEROICA
Deep learned are the poor in many ways,
Their hearts are mellowed by sweet human pain,
And she has learned the lesson of the waifs,
This sadly-ravaged, stern, soul-moving Spain!
Rugged and wild, wind-swept, and bleak, and drear,
She has a ruined splendor all her own,
It seizes even while you ask in fear
The reason man should choose this waste for home.
Her cities rise, ascetic, lofty, proud,
Forever haunted by high souls that dare,
And from her wondrous churches rings aloud
A heaven-storming radiance of prayer;
With psalm, with dance, with ecstasy's white thrill,
Her mystics dared to lose themselves in God,
Theirs was unflinching faith, fierce, _varonil_,
A force as true to nature as the sod.
Reward must come: perhaps from her to-day
May spring the needed saint, to think, to feel,
To grope triumphantly, to point the way
To altars where both Faith and Science kneel.
Upon her ashy mountain height she stands,
Eager to step into the forward strife,
Her eyes are wide with hope, outstretched her hands
To meet the promise of new coursing life:
Steadfast her cities to the desert face,
Snow mountains loom across the silent plain:
Take courage, O exalted tragic race!
Courage! Christ's always faithful grand old Spain!
Castile, 1908.
IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY: LOYOLA
"The only happy people in the world are the good man, the sage, and
the saint; but the saint is happier than either of the others, so
much is man by his nature formed for sanctity."--JOUBERT.
"Whoever has been in the land of the Basques wishes to return to
it; it is a blessed land."--VICTOR HUGO.
The Basque is still one of the sturdy untouched peoples of the earth;
they make still the unmixed aborigines of Spain. Their difficult dialect
remains a perplexity to the etymologist, some believe it to be of Tartar
origin. They themselves claim to be the oldest race in Europe and that
their language came to Spain before the confusion of tongues at Babel.
They derive their name from a Basque phrase meaning "We are enough,"
that fittingly describes their character of self-sufficiency; the mere
fact of being born in the province confers nobility. Life for centuries
in the isolated valleys that never were conquered by Moor or foreign
invader has bred in the Basque a passionate independence. He would never
join with the neighboring kingdoms of Navarre and León until his
special privileges were ratified; and though these privileges were the
important ones of exemption from taxes and military service, he
succeeded in keeping them intact until his sympathies with the
Pretenders in the Carlist wars lost him his ancient rights. To-day the
Basques must pay taxes and serve in the army like the rest of Spain, but
their soldiers are usually employed in the customs, or as aids to the
local police. Their red cap, like the French béret, and brilliant red
trousers are a familiar sight among the valleys.
Of the three Basque provinces with their 600,000 people, the smallest,
Guipúzcoa, is a good epitome of national characteristics. The sinuous
valleys now serve as the passageway for the rushing mountain river, now
spread out into a plain where the villages are set. Each town has its
shady _alameda_, its plaza, and a court for playing _pelota_, a kind of
tennis, the game of the province. There are frequent _casas solares_,[1]
or family manor houses; one of these I remember wedged in with its
neighbors, in Azcoitia, unnoticed by the guide book, only by chance we
looked up and found it looming above the narrow pavement; blackened with
age and scarred as if crashed with blows of warring times, it was a
speaking record of old Basque life. In any other country but Spain, the
carelessly rich and unrecorded, such a fortress-house would be a lion in
the district,--from this very unexpectedness Spanish travel is of
unflagging charm. The strong primitive Guipúzcoans cling to their
patriarchal customs. The men and boys sit before their doors making the
cord soles used in peasants' shoes; the women in groups of twenty or
more, wash clothes in the public trough or down by the river. The
industry of all is unflagging. The roads are among the best built in
Spain, along them go creaking carts, each wheel made of a solid block of
wood bound in iron and emitting a prolonged agonizing squeak. The
cream-colored oxen that drag them have their yokes covered with
sheepskin, another century-old custom. The carts sometimes carry
pigskins filled with wine, three legs in the air, and the unique casks
are mended with a kind of pitch that lends a disagreeable flavor to the
wine, but these highlanders will not yield an old usage.
No sooner did we cross the _Puente Internacional_ that connects France
with its neighbors over the Bidassoa River--scene of historic
meetings--than we found ourselves in the wooded Basque provinces of the
northern Pyrenees. The country was fertile, the small farms cultivated
with activity; on the hills were heavily-laden chestnut trees, in the
valleys, orchards: we often passed trainloads of red apples carried
unpacked in the open cars like coal. Not far from the frontier the train
skirted what appeared to be an inland lake surrounded by hills, when
suddenly I noticed an ocean steamer and some fishing smacks lying at
anchor, and looking closer I saw that a narrow passage led through the
hills to the ocean breaking outside,--another of Spain's unheralded
effects. This was the beautiful inland Bay of Pasajes, the port from
which young Lafayette sailed for America.
At San Sebastián, the most fashionable summer resort in Spain, and still
gay with Madrid people, for the season holds till October, we saw the
first bull-ring, a circular building of red and yellow brick in the
Moorish style. To find a _plaza de toros_ here in the north was
disconcerting. Spain's national game has withstood the will of kings,
Papal bulls, the dislike of a large proportion of the Spanish people who
petitioned the Cortes in 1878 for its abolishment, and the odium of
foreign races. Until this debased _cosa de España_ is done away with it
will remain a stumbling block to even the most sympathetic of travelers.
At Irún, the frontier town behind us, we had taken our tickets for
Zumárraga, two hours away. There we were to leave the railway and drive
into the valleys to Loyola, where in an old castle the hidalgo
vizcaíno, Don Iñigo de Loyola, was born. Our guide book gave but the
slightest information. It was raining drearily. With trepidation and
sinking hearts we looked out at Zumárraga as the train drew near. Would
this, the first night in Spain, cold and wet, be spent in some miserable
tavern in a town of a thousand inhabitants, and perhaps the next morning
would a rickety diligence take us up the valley? We stepped from the
train reluctantly; at the last minute we were tempted to turn back. But
a porter had seized our valises, and muttering something
incomprehensible about Loyola and an automobile hurried us through the
station. And there, beyond, stood the wonderful thing, sign manual of
modern comfort--a great red automobile with a gallant chauffeur! We sat
down on our luggage and burst into a hearty laugh. It began to dawn on
us that perhaps the tour of Spain was not going to be the series of
hardships and privations we anticipated.
For the sum of three pesetas each (fifty-four cents) we were whirled up
the winding valley. The mountains rose precipitously from the road and
its accompanying river, reminding me of the valley in the Pistoiese
Apennines that leads down to the Bagni di Lucca. In the motor diligence
with us were a few courteous Basques; an elderly architect, with the
finely-chiseled features of the country, pointed out a sight here and
there, among others the birthplace and statue of Legazpi, conqueror of
the Philippines. I think he took us for countrywomen of his young queen,
and, trying to emulate his politeness, we were silent as to our
nationality; later we discovered that this was quite unnecessary, for
there is not the slightest prejudice in Spain against the United States.
We passed a building by the river and were told it was an electric
power-house; almost every part of the country is now lighted by
electricity. "You are very up-to-date!" we exclaimed. He replied by a
shrug of delighted self-depreciation, a proud smile of conscious
superiority aping the humble, not out of place in a Basque whose
mysterious language Adam spoke, so ancient and difficult a tongue that
the devil who once tried to learn it, they say, had to give up in
despair. Our opposite neighbors in the diligence, countrymen whose loss
of teeth made them appear aged, sought also to show some courtesy. Each
wayside shrine was named with glistening eyes,--St. Anthony; the
hermitage on the hill above, St. Augustine; here, St. John. One began to
understand religion was no mere Sunday morning service with this people.
After six miles the valley opened out and we came to Azcoitia, a town of
some five thousand inhabitants where is manufactured the _bóina_, the
typical cap of the province. The automobile went slowly through the
narrow cobbled streets, under the high houses and the cliff-like church,
then sped over two miles of a beautiful valley, with mountain rising
behind mountain in the evening light, and at length we reached Loyola.
Here one of the great discoverers of new strength, of untried powers in
the human soul, one of the holiest men of Christendom, saw the light in
1491, the year before the discovery of America: in the life of St.
Ignatius are several coincidental dates to give us pause. Surely it was
to these peaceful Basque hills that his thoughts turned when, a knight
in the worldly court that surrounded Ferdinand and his second wife
Germaine de Foix, Ignatius in gazing at the stars would feel with sudden
potency the pettiness of man's grandeur, and during his religious life,
when he craved at the sunset hour to be alone to meditate, he must have
recalled this lovely valley of his birth. With emotion I saw in the
distance the huge quadrangle of the convent that now surrounds the
_Santa Casa_: the thought of what this spot has given to the world, of
the thousands of chosen souls linked to-day by one will to work for good
in every land, can well make Loyola a place to stir the heart.
At a little past six we left the automobile which was to run farther up
the valley, and a porter from the inn led us through the park the
Jesuits have planted for the people. The _Hospedería de Loyola_ was a
large building with a porticoed entrance at right angles to the convent,
more like a monastery than a hotel, with polished staircase and
corridors, neat bare rooms, and a long white refectory. The table was
excellent, one course followed another at the one o'clock luncheon and
the eight o'clock dinner. There was fresh fish from San Sebastián (to
which daily another motor diligence ran), there were home-made
preserves, and we had our first taste of the universal _garbanzos_[2] of
Spain, a chickpea shaped like a ram's head. The waitress, the first of
many Carmens and Dolores, was a wonderful old woman who grew so intent
on teaching us her language that she would insistently repeat the name
of each dish she passed. She managed to convey to us by pantomime, for
our Spanish as yet was of the meagerest, that there were eight ladies
from Madrid in the hotel, living upstairs in retirement as they were
making a Retreat. They had come last Saturday;--talk, talk, talk,--and
the animated little woman gesticulated to show. Then the Retreat
began,--did we know what "the Exercises" were? Off she walked with bowed
head and downcast eyes. So it would be all week. The next Monday we
should see them, they would come to table with us, and it would be talk,
talk, talk again. During the week we occasionally saw a lady in black,
her head covered with a veil, cross from the hotel to the _Santa Casa_
where the meditations were held. In the convent the Jesuits were
conducting another Retreat attended by fifty men from different Spanish
cities: these lived in the seminary with the priests.
At table with us were some Spanish people of a kind the tourist does not
usually meet. One of them, a deeply religious man from Barcelona, on his
first visit to the _Santa Casa_, following the example of St. Francis
Borgia, knelt to kiss the floor of the room in which the patron of the
Basques was born. Another, an elderly woman fond of lace and jewels, and
probably longing for the gayeties of San Sebastián, was waiting in this
quiet spot while her daughter made the Retreat. When the eight days were
ended we met this daughter, a beautiful girl with the charm of manner
and quickness of intelligence that we found as a rule among Spanish
women. The afternoon the two Retreats closed was a pleasant sight. The
valley was fragrant from the rain, on the mountains the chalets stood
out strangely near in the clear air. Carriages and touring-cars rolled
up, pretty wives to fetch their husbands to claim their wives. All were
happy and natural, but one felt around one the atmosphere of the higher
things of life, an exaltation that only religion can give. Religion is
ineradicably woven into the every-day life of this race: a Spaniard is
half mystic by inheritance. The power to understand the spiritual is not
the gift of a few but of all. It gives to the peasant woman, to the
uncouth lad serving Mass, an intelligence above themselves.[3] Before
the late dinner that last evening in Loyola, a tall Spanish woman with
her four daughters automobiled over from San Sebastián; she came to join
her husband who had been following the "Exercises." He now sat with us
at table, a man of the grave dignity and fine presence we were later to
meet frequently. That night when passing through the corridors we heard
the sounds of prayer in their rooms, the wife and children making the
responses to the man's deeper voice.
The convent of Loyola is the center of civilization for the countryside.
All day there is a ceaseless come and go to the church, or to the
_Santa Casa_ for silent prayer. At one each day troops of children go to
the door of the convent with baskets and tins, and food is given them to
carry to the aged and decrepit of the town. An hour later some dozens of
lads in blue smock and _bóina_, playing their ceaseless _pelota_, flock
into the building for a half hour of _doctrina_. Then at three the young
novices come out gayly for their ramble over the mountains and as they
pass before the church each instantly removes his hat as walking they
repeat together a prayer. Happy those whose formative years are passed
in hardy discipline among these uncontaminated Basque hills! The
peasants of the valley, when the bell sounds the hours, pause to remove
their caps in salutation. Every morning they cross the fields from
Azpeitia on the raised path beside the river, or they come from
Azcoitia, two miles down the valley, to attend the morning services. No
one who has not seen a Spanish priest's attitude of devotion can
understand its appealing beauty. These Jesuits and their attendant young
novices (there are about two hundred students in the seminary) approach
the altar with solemn reverence, without a trace of self-consciousness,
and slowly and beautifully say the Mass. "The Jesuit seems to love God
from pure inclination, out of admiration, gratitude, tenderness, for the
pleasure of loving Him," wrote that subtle critic, Joubert: "In their
books of devotion you find joy because with them nature and religion go
hand in hand." A Basque congregation is worthy of such ministers. All
kneel without bench or chair, the men on folded handkerchiefs, the women
on the circular straw mats scattered over the pavement. We were
fortunate enough to attend a late Benediction, not a customary service
in Spain as we found later. The thrilled exaltation of the singing in
which all joined, the aged as well as children, is impossible to
describe. It was a triumphant full-hearted adoration trying to voice the
inexpressible; the organ ran riot, strained to its utmost, to accompany
the ecstatic singing.
Every Sunday the peasants drive in from the mountains to attend the
afternoon service, and after it they stand to chat for a placid hour on
the wide steps of the church. Arm in arm the young girls stroll up and
down in the park before the convent. I looked on at this scene of
contentment that told of frugal, upright living, with the sad thought of
France deprived of such wholesome beauty, of the peasants round the
Grande-Chartreuse, poverty-stricken and desolate since the industrial
monastery was closed. Happily for the future of Spain, she has at hand a
neighbor to give her the lesson in time.
The convent of Loyola was built by the Austrian wife of Philip IV to
enclose and preserve the _Santa Casa_, and it was by her presented to
the Jesuits. The church whose dome overtops the convent is in imitation
of the Pantheon. Unfortunately, as are most Jesuit churches in Europe,
it was erected in a bad period, and overloaded with ornament. The
Company of Jesus was not founded until the golden age of architecture
was well past; Churriguera, archmaster of bad taste, was in vogue when
they built. But at Loyola if the twisted pillars of decorated marble are
hideous, the ample flowing staircase that leads to the church is a
beautiful feature, reminiscent of Italian villas.
The soul of the valley is naturally the _Santa Casa_ itself, the _casa
solar_ of the saint's fore-fathers. The lower story is of rough-hewn
stone, and once the whole building was the same, but a jealous king
leveled the fortress-houses of the Basque nobles and the upper stories
were rebuilt in ancient brick. Above the entrance door the arms of the
family are carved, two wolves and a pot. The tradition is that the
knights of Loyola were so generous to their retainers that even the
wolves came to share their hospitality. In many of the rooms daily
Masses are said; the four stories have been inlaid with mosaic, carved
wood, and gold leaf, the gifts of devotees of the Basque patron. One
room is pointed out as the saint's before his conversion, another as
the one in which St. Francis Borgia said his first Mass, giving up a
brilliant career, as viceroy, admiral, Duke of Gandía by inheritance,
favorite of Charles V, to consecrate himself to the service of the
altar. At this memorable Mass he gave communion to one of his sons,
married to an inheritor of the _Santa Casa_, a niece of St. Ignatius. So
many were the communicants another day that the Mass lasted from nine to
three. Such rare instances of Christian perfection make the ancient
house a chosen spot.
The story of St. Ignatius' life is told throughout his _casa solar_. On
the staircase is a window showing him as a courtier. He was skilled in
knightly exercises, fond of the saddle and equally fond of rich attire:
good-looking, high-spirited, truthful, and brave, he was a favorite with
his soldiers. The scene of his wounding at the siege of Pamplona is
given; he lies on the ground with his leg shattered. A long year of
convalescence followed, and we see him reading the books that wrought
his marvelous change of heart. He sought the monastery of Montserrat,
above Barcelona, to beg counsel of a learned man concerning the vocation
he felt within him. His military training made him dream of forming a
spiritual knighthood to battle for the salvation of souls: "Company of
Jesus" is a military term. At Montserrat he performed the vigil of the
armor, like a true knight watching till dawn before the altar; then
exchanging his fine robes with a beggar he went forth, "_el pobre ignoto
peregrin_." In a cave of Manresa he lived in seclusion and prayer,
verifying on himself in agony of spirit the knowledge which was later to
guide the troubled souls of others who sought light. "His experience in
this solitude was an epitome of the psychology of the saints; and it
smote him all the more intimately because he was utterly without
foreknowledge of the spiritual life, and fought out his fight alone,
like the first Fathers of the Desert." In the cave of Manresa was forged
his Excalibur (to use again the vivid phrase of Francis Thompson, own
brother to Crashaw in his flashes of celestial intuition), there
originated the "Spiritual Exercises," the work used to-day in the
Retreats. "It has converted more souls to God," wrote St. Francis de
Sales, "than it contains letters."
Eighteen years were to pass before St. Ignatius founded his Order. They
were years filled with wanderings in Spain and Europe, a student at
universities, a humble but joyous pilgrim to Jerusalem. One day while he
was reading the eighteenth chapter of St. Luke the words, "And they
understood none of these things" brought before him with sudden force
the realization of his own untrained mind, the fact that he must be
educated himself before he could help others. So at thirty this
remarkable man began his scholastic studies in Barcelona, in Cardinal
Ximenez's famous university of Alcalá, in Salamanca. One day, in the
streets of Alcalá, as he was led to prison on a false accusation, the
proud young grandee of Gandía passed him. This was the first sight
Francis Borgia had of the man who later was to lead his life. Then
followed some years of study in Paris. 1530 found him in London at the
time of the agitation of Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon,
again a coincidence in Ignatius' life that he should visit at this
critical moment the land soon to desert a church for which he was
destined to raise so powerful a defense. There was another notable
Spaniard in England then, not a humble summer student begging his way
like the Basque hidalgo, but a scholar of Corpus Christi College,
distinguished and lauded, to attend whose lectures the King and Queen
used sometimes to spend a few days in Oxford. This was Juan Luis de
Vives, born in the great year 1492, the precursor of Bacon and
Descartes, a man of such vast erudition and impartial judgment that he
has been called with Erasmus and the French prodigy, Budé, the intellect
of his century. Vives stood forth courageously as defender of his
country-woman when the divorce question arose; he was imprisoned for a
short time, forfeited his position and pension, and finally left England
altogether.
Loyola now took his degree as Master of Arts in Paris, and gathering
round him some young men of earnest life--among them the future apostle
and martyr in the East, St. Francis Xavier from Navarre--the memorable
band of seven students made the vows of poverty and chastity in the
crypt of a church on Montmartre on the Feast of the Assumption, 1534.
Thirty years later the remembrance of that hour made one of the seven,
Rodríguez, feel his heart swell with ineffable consolation. Literally
these ardent souls fulfilled the letter of the Gospel for the way of
perfection: "If thou wilt be perfect go sell what thou hast, and give to
the poor." "If any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take
up his cross and follow me." "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's
sake." Their founder with superhuman perspicacity prayed it might be so.
The world's hate is their alembic of purification.
Ignatius returned to Spain to arrange with Xavier's family--he also was
of the northern mountain race of Spain--and with the kindred of three
others of his followers. He crossed the Pyrenees by footpaths, and
descending to his own valley of Loyola preached down by the river in
Azpeitia. Later in Italy the band of Montmartre met again, working in
hospitals, preaching, and converting souls to God. It was in Venice,
many years after his wounding at Pamplona, that Ignatius Loyola was at
length ordained priest, and in Rome, in the church of Santa Maria
Maggiore said his first Mass. When the projects of the small band were
submitted to the Pope, he had the inspired wisdom to discern in humble
beginnings a future great movement and exclaimed: "_Digitus Dei est
hic!_"--truly the finger of God. The new Order approved, Loyola was
elected its general; like a military company, the first law was the
unhesitating obedience of the soldier to his leader, the unbreakable
power that lies in many working as one. The _Compañía_ spread over the
world, reforming monasteries, giving help to the poor, persuading the
rich to purer lives, reconciling husbands and wives. Within a few years
Francis Borgia gave up his dukedom to join them, and his accession
brought to the Order many Spaniards of high rank. The founder continued
to live in Italy between Rome at the Gesù and Tivoli: he died in Rome in
1556.
In the _Santa Casa_ we followed this remarkable life in scene after
scene. There is a touching picture of the grown man at school among
lads half his age, of the crypt of Montmartre, and of the final scene
in Rome. His face was said by St. Philip Neri to have shone with
compelling personality. In speech he was grave and admirable, a
never-tiring student of the Bible; that, and the "Imitation of Christ"
were the only books he much valued. "To see Father Ignatius was like
reading a chapter of the 'Imitation,'" they used to say of him.
We lingered for some days in the beautiful Basque valley, following the
winding paths among the mountains, loitering in the two little towns
near by in the pleasant discovery of rare old windows and portals. Most
of the houses had a picture of the Saviour on the entrance door. Each
new-born child is brought to the parish church of Azpeitia where St.
Ignatius was baptized, and each boy is called by his name, though only
the eldest in a family has the privilege of using it. The saint's hymn
is the national hymn of the Basques.
It was a raw autumn morning when we left Loyola. The light was just
filling the valleys as we passed the sweeping steps of the church up
which the peasants were mounting to beg a blessing on their working
hours. The influence of their loved patron is as vivid as if he had
lived but yesterday, so truly can one human mind, touched by divine
grace, with no thought of self, in sublime earnestness, rouse mankind
to shake off its apathy, to aspire to the highest. If only another such
knight might arise to-day to fight the modern battle of Christianity!
BURGOS AND THE CID
"The epochs in which faith prevails are the marked epochs of human
history, full of heart-stirring memories and of substantial gains
for all after times. The epochs in which unbelief prevails, even
when for the moment they put on the semblance of glory and success,
inevitably sink into insignificance in the eyes of posterity which
will not waste its thoughts on things barren and
unfruitful."--GOETHE.
Passing through the fertile Basque valleys, the train mounts the
Pyrenees by a series of skillfully-engineered tunnels. This natural
barrier between France and Spain, is far from being the straight rampart
of school geographies. It is a wide expanse of ramifying hills and
intricate valleys, a jumble of mountains that explains why Spain
remained isolated from northern Europe until the days of the railway.
When we reached the crest of this watershed between the Bay of Biscay
and the Mediterranean, we had a noble view of the villages far beneath.
Around us was a strange outcrop of white rock, and the descent to
Vitoria was barren too: with every mile the scene grew bleaker till the
rustling woods of the Basque valleys behind seemed a dream.
Beyond Miranda, the first town of old Castile, the desolate scene
appeared in its full awfulness. The plain lay like brown dunes of sand,
"as for the grass, it grew as scant as hair in leprosy." It was indeed
the haunting landscape of "Childe Roland." Passing over this wide
stretch, the train again mounted, this time not to cross another range
of hills, but to climb to the great truncated mountain which forms the
center of Spain. Three-fourths of the area of this imagined orange-laden
land is this tragic central plateau, comprising Old and New Castile,
León, and Estremadura. Most of the historic cities are on this bleak
upland, almost 3,000 feet above the sea, wind-swept, wintry, and made
still colder by the snow mountains that cross it from east to west.
Riding for days through the monotonous scene you begin to wonder not
that Spain should be poor, but rather that she, an agricultural land,
should have made so good a fight against such heavy odds. The guide
books that so harshly criticise, saying hers is a land where Nature has
lavished her prodigalities of soil and climate yet shiftless man has
refused her bounty, seem to forget that only one-fourth of the country
is the traditional rich south. The fruitful provinces form but the
fringe of the Peninsula.
It was early October when we mounted the Pass of Pancorbo. A fierce wind
was blowing. It suddenly blew open the door of our compartment, and
flung it back, smashing the glass. It was impossible to draw it to in
the fierce gale, and this little incident added to the desolation round
us. We looked down through the open door on the white road of the Pass,
over which Napoleon's armies poured a hundred years before to plunder
Spain with ruthless cruelty, and yet, so hidden is the guidance of
things, that seeming disaster waked the country from its long abasement.
Having reached the great central steppes, the same melancholy scene
continued. The land was scorched and calcined. Everything was a dull
brown. Villages were undistinguishable from the plain, and the churches
from the villages; man, his ass, and his dog, were all the same dull
tone. Even the brown deserts of Egypt failed to give me as powerful a
sensation of the forsaken. The plateau was treeless, except for an
occasional wind-threshed poplar, and an isolated moth-eaten poplar can
be the final touch of desolation. At times, miles from any village, a
solitary figure guided his oxen and plow in a stony field, or
silhouetted against the sky a tandem of five or six mules slowly crawled
along. Since the villages are far apart, each worker must leave his home
long before dawn to reach his distant field, and after sunset plod back
patiently to the _aldea_.
Forlorn as it all appeared one saw that every inch of the soil was
under cultivation. The peasants are as attached to their cheerless
tract, which has its one hour of green bloom in the spring, as are the
Basques to their beautiful valleys. The fields are passed from father to
son, and are acquired with the same zest as are teeming English farms; a
stern soil and still sterner climate has made a peasantry full of grit
and courage. Hardy and undepressed they gathered round the train with
pleasant greetings, for the long pauses in the stations are moments of
sociability from one end of Spain to another. The sad landscape
continued up to Burgos, one might say to its very gates if it were not
that the townspeople have planted avenues of trees near the city.
As we approached we had a splendid view of the Cathedral towers
dominating the town. There was something magnificent in the souls of the
old builders who made a temple such as this in the midst of a desert, as
if they defied the arid desolation to conquer their soaring faith. The
great structure rose doubly impressive from the juxtaposition of
richness and sterility, of the spirit's triumph over the material that
makes Burgos as impressive in its way as Toledo with its more imposing
setting.
[Illustration: _Copyright, 1910 by Underwood & Underwood_
BURGOS CATHEDRAL FROM THE CASTLE HILL]
"_Nuestro país es el país de las anomalías_" says the critic De Larra,
and the first step in Spain strikes this note. She is a land of
violent contrasts; level plain and broken sierra, elysian garden of
Andalusia and tractless wastes of Castile, frosty Burgos and sunny
Seville. She is the home of the hidalgo and home of the strongest
existing democracy between man and man, only equaled by early Rome. It
was in Burgos we first noticed what we later saw frequently, the
_labrador_ who drove his master's carriage, enter the inn with him and
sit at the same table to eat, master and man alike in their dignity. She
has a peasantry beyond praise for its virile industry, and she has a
class of city loafers the idlest that ever encumbered a plaza. Cradle of
exalted mystics and mother of realistic painters, this land of racy
personalities never allows one's interest to flag.
We spent a week in Burgos, and not once did the sun shine. The cold was
piercing. At the corner of every street a biting wind seized and
buffeted one about; besides being on a mountain, there are still higher
mountains near, and snow has been known to fall in June. Wind and cold,
however, were soon forgotten once inside the Cathedral. Our first visit
was within the hour of arrival, at dusk when details were hidden. The
great temple rose around us mysterious and awe inspiring. Though almost
with the first breath of wonder came a sense of bewilderment,--what was
this heavy wall rising some thirty feet in the center of the church,
that hid the altar and blocked up the nave so that only an encircling
aisle was left free? So confusing was it I could not at first tell by
what door we had entered, where was the east, where was the west end?
Books of travel all tell of this placing of the choir, or _coro_, in the
nave of Spanish cathedrals, but one can read them and imagine nothing
like the reality. I had pictured an open platform running down the
center of the church, whereas high walls are built round the _coro_ as
well as round the _capilla mayor_, thus making a smaller church within a
larger one. Wherever the inner church opens on the other, they have
placed a towering metal screen called a _reja_. A narrow passageway,
fenced by an open rail, usually runs from the altar enclosure to the
_coro_, and the people gather close to this, under the transept-crossing
tower; thus, practically, the priest at the altar and the canons
chanting in the choir are separated by the congregation. It is hard to
make the picture clear. I feel that no explanation can prevent this
arrangement of Spanish cathedrals coming as a surprise to the traveler.
The evening of our first visit, we wandered round in the dusk bewildered
by the blocking _coro_, and at length entered the chapel of St. Anne,
where a service was going on. The side chapels of Burgos are churches in
themselves, they often belong to private individuals, this of St. Anne
being, for instance, the property of the Duke of Abrantes. It was now
crowded with people of all kinds,--officers in uniform, a few ladies in
hats but the bulk of the women in black veils. From a small balcony on
one side the litany was sung.
Before the altar was what appeared to be a black covered bier, so I
thought we must have stumbled on some special service for the dead. This
would account for so large a gathering on a weekday, for at first one
fails to grasp the every-day religious attitude of the Spaniard. Looking
closer at the bier before the lighted altar a human figure was outlined
under the dark pall. How displeasing, I thought, not to use a coffin!
Suddenly the head of this recumbent figure unmistakably moved. With a
shiver I looked round me. No one appeared to notice what was to me so
terrifying, yet they were gazing over the bier at the altar. Strange
visions floated through my imagination, made up of memories of Charles
V's funeral before his death, and of contorted accounts of Spain and her
ways. Perhaps it was not an unusual custom here, thus morbidly to sample
beforehand one's own funeral service. Then, as the litanies continued,
now the solo from the choir, now the full-voiced responses of the
people, I realized these sweet evening melodies could hardly be the
dirges of a burial. The supposition of a living corpse was too bizarre
in the midst of this composed crowd.
I fastened my eyes on the round head of the bier, and again it moved,
but this time so thoroughly moved that the mystery was solved. With a
breath of relief I knew this was indeed a quiet evening service and what
had seemed a bier was merely one of the many marble tombs before the
altars of old churches, covered over with a dark mantle as they
sometimes are. What I had imagined the round head of a corpse, or future
corpse, was the veil-draped head of a living woman, seated on a higher
chair than usual between the tomb and the lighted altar. So ended my
first and only romantic episode in Spain.
I mention it as showing with what vague notions of terror the average
English-speaking tourist enters this harmless land. He comes full of the
prejudices inherited from the days of the Invincible Armada, when a
Spaniard was to an Englishman his satanic majesty incarnate, and this in
an age of which Froude himself, the enthusiastic chronicler of Drake,
says: "Perhaps nowhere on earth was there a finer average of
distinguished and cultivated society than in the provincial Castilian
cities."
Strange how tenaciously we cling to disproved ideas, I thought, as the
next day we examined the beautiful tomb of Bishop Acuña which had
caused my fright. Spain is as safe to-day as any civilized country. Yet
we met two Californian ladies traveling with pistols, about as needed
here as firearms in the lanes of Surrey or the brigand-infested hills of
Massachusetts. Little by little the traveler who keeps an open mind
learns that the cruel and morbid Spaniard of the popular fancy has no
existence except in his imagination. Unfortunately there will always be
some travelers here who see the heads on death biers move and carry away
the gruesome tale to swell the old prejudices, who will not wait long
enough nor look deep enough to find their living corpse a noble old
bishop in alabaster who has lain in peace some hundred years.
Every day of our week in Burgos found us several times in the Cathedral.
I used to arrive for the High Mass at nine, though before daybreak until
nine there had been many services in the side chapels; it is still the
custom with most Spaniards to kneel in recollection every morning.
Strangely enough, I soon grew reconciled to the clumsy _coro_. It
enabled the people to approach close to the altar in a peaceful secluded
spot. Here at Burgos one can kneel on the altar's very steps, beside the
big sanctuary lamp and the silver candlesticks that rise higher than a
man. The onlooking tourist, who often spoils Italian churches for those
who go to pray not to sightsee, in Spain is not permitted his ill-timed
liberty. He can wander freely through the outer cathedral, but during
the Mass, he cannot enter this inner temple unless he conforms to the
accustomed usages. All must kneel at the moment of the Elevation or else
leave. The lesson was taught us soon, for when the first morning in
Burgos a lady near by in the chancel inadvertently began to read in her
guide book, a verger in red plush cloak, bearing an authoritative silver
staff, approached, and kindly but firmly showed her out.
The richness of Spanish cathedrals at first is overpowering, that they
are too rich and overloaded is a criticism which is quite justified, but
it is the profusion of strength, not the cluttering of details to hide a
weak understructure; it is a profusion that speaks the nation's
character, her burning faith, her oriental generosity. In antique
silver, jewels, vestments, wood carvings, tombs, they are veritable
museums of art. A Spaniard has given generously to the church in all
ages. Though even when prosperous he is content to live with a frugal
simplicity hardly understood by our luxury-loving time, it is a law of
his nature that his ideas of grandeur and of beauty should find their
free expression in the House of God. I often had the sensation that the
beggar kneeling in these truly royal churches felt himself a part of
them; his own poor home was but one side of the picture, he could claim
this other home as well.
It was at Burgos we first met in the churches minor features that are
essentially Spanish. The organ pipes flare out like trumpets; the
reredos, or _retablo_, made up of carved wood panels, rises sometimes to
a hundred feet behind the altar; and there is the metal-work of the
great screens or _rejas_. This last was an art _de propia España_, and
her churches would lack half their sublimity without the massive
fretwork of iron or brass that shuts in the richly-decked altars. At
Burgos we especially noticed the _reja_ of the Condestable chapel, with
graceful wind-blown figures at the top. In the choir, round the lectern
were piled ancient psalm books, some of them three feet high, their
calfskin covers strengthened with metal claspings. The naturalness with
which these priceless books are treated shows how happily bound to
preceding generations, with no break of revolution and destruction, is
this old land. This thought of the antiquity of her usages is a very
potent one to every Spaniard, and the stranger too finds the purple
robed canons chanting in their choir-stalls more impressive because for
six hundred years in this same Cathedral they have intoned daily these
same psalms.
Another national talent is her carving in wood. The choir-stalls here
were a revelation. The masters of this art, Berruguete, Vigarni,
Montañés, may not be known to the rest of Europe, but they are locally
very famous. Their intense realism appeals to the popular mind, and
though in later centuries this realism degenerated into the bad taste of
hanging the statues with robes, enough of earlier art remains to make
one overlook these lapses. Should not a poet be judged by his best
lines? Why must an image in wig and jewels blind one to the remarkable
carved statues found side by side with it?
The wood carvers of Spain speak the same language of sincerity as the
mystic writers, and a knowledge of Luis de León, St. John of the Cross
and St. Teresa, makes one better appreciate the sculptors. Not that they
too are mystical. They do not soar so high. It is only a few chosen
souls here and there through the centuries who can walk that perilous
path, and probably they can express themselves only through the more
intangible medium of speech. But these wood carvings are the fruit of
men who understood the mystics and who worked in a like spirit of
intense faith. I should say it was not in her paintings that the
religious essence of this race was to be found, not in the somewhat
posing monks of Zurbaran, nor in the gentle religiosity of Murillo's
madonnas. Though a master of color, Murillo is too often akin in spirit
to Carlo Dolce and Sassoferrato. It is the fashion to call these
typically religious painters. But in the carved biblical scenes of
_retablo_ and _sillería_ is shown more truly the inner spiritual
intelligence of the serious Spaniard. Velasquez spoke for the reality of
his time, its chivalry, its material force; and these masters of wood
carving in more halting speech expressed the religious aspirations of
the people. They worked with a realism that is often painful, yet the
intensity with which they felt the scenes they depicted links them with
the mystics. The wood carvings have not had justice done them, perhaps
because they are for the most part painted, which certainly detracts
from them. Fortunately choir-stalls were left in the natural wood, those
at Burgos being a rich dark walnut with the polish that time only can
give. We spent many happy hours studying this twelve years' work of the
sculptor Vigarni. The seats are carved with grotesque, fantastic
creatures, half man, half beast, the arm of the chair now made by an
acrobat bent double backward, now by a monster with a tail in his mouth,
or some bat-like demon. There is a frieze of Old Testament scenes too
high to be well seen, but below them the New Testament story is told
from the Annunciation to the Doubting Thomas after the Resurrection.
Though the simpleness of earlier times is shown in the miniature devil
that passes from the possessed man's lips, and in Mary Magdalene's
dropped jaw of surprise when she meets her risen Lord, these carvings
are not merely curious, they are soul-touching and beautiful. The type
of face is the high-boned one the Spaniard prefers, with well-cut brows
and aquiline nose. Notice the solemn beauty of Christ's face in the _qui
ci ne pecato_. In the panel, the blind cured, seldom has the expression
of absolute faith been better rendered than in the raised face of the
old blind man. Do not pass by the Garden of Gethsemane with the three
Apostles lying heavily asleep, the human shrug of the shoulder and
outstretched hand of the Master: "Could ye not watch with me one hour?"
While the Cathedral of Burgos shows much florid later work, especially
the central tower and that of the Condestable chapel, under the too
ornate additions the ancient purer church is plainly perceptible. It
belonged to the Gothic of the Northern-France type, for pilgrims to her
shrines and to fight in her crusades, brought foreign ideas to Spain at
so early a date that it is useless to speculate about what a native
architecture might have been.
Some of the smaller churches of the town are worth visiting, such as San
Nicolás, with a stone _retablo_ which is a tour de force of handicraft;
San Lermes, and facing it the hospital of San Juan, where we first met
the escutcheoned doorways of Spain, which, if kept within bounds, are
arrogantly effective and national. Throughout the city are good examples
of domestic architecture, such as the Casa del Cordón, built by the
Constable of Castile, Don Pedro Fernández de Velasco, whose sumptuous
tomb lies in the center of the Condestable Chapel, and whose pride as a
Castilian speaks in the family proverb:
"_Antes que Dios fuese Dios,_
_O que el sol iluminaba los peñascos,_
_Ya era noble la casa de los Vélascos._"
"Before God was God, or the sun shone upon the rocks, already was the
house of Velasco noble."[4] Above the entrance to his house the girdle
of St. Francis connects his arms with those of his wife, as proud as he,
for she was a Mendoza. One rainy afternoon we spent in the _Museo_ over
the Gateway of Santa María, and there, step by step, traced Spain's art
history,--statues from the former Roman city of Clunia in this
province, a remarkable enameled altar-front of the Byzantine period,
Romanesque and Gothic relics from the monasteries out on the plains, a
Moorish arch found _in situ_, and tombs of that transition time from
Gothic to Renaissance which in Spain was so flourishing a phase of art.
Much as there is to hold one in the town, the bleak uplands outside have
a desolate fascination that calls one out to them. There is an excursion
to be made not far away to the Monastery of Miraflores, where Isabella
built for her parents "the most perfectly glorious tomb in the world."
Personally I prefer the quieter art of a Mino da Fiesole to this work of
Gil de Siloe, rich though it is. The tomb is white marble, octagonal in
shape, with sixteen lions supporting it. The weak Juan II lies by the
side of his queen, who is turned slightly from him to read in her Book
of Hours, in a natural attitude, as if she said pleasantly, "Now do be
silent, I must read in peace for a few minutes." At Miraflores is a
wooden statue of St. Bruno, with a keen and subtle face of the same
ascetic type as that of the young monk we watched praying quite
oblivious of the gaping tourists. It is of this statue that Philip IV
remarked: "It does not speak, but only because he is a Carthusian monk."
The indifference to strangers in the mystic young penitent before the
altar was our second meeting with a trait found in the average
Spaniard. He does not care an iota what the stranger thinks of him. He
is not like the Italian, inclined to put his best foot forward. He will
not change his ways because they are criticised; you can admire or you
can dislike, it makes little difference to him; and this quiet poise, in
peasant as well as grandee, is not fatuous, for its root lies in an
innate self-respect. He feels he is loyal to his God, to his King, and
to himself,--what better standards can you have?
Avenues of trees lead out to another house of the Benedictine rule, a
convent for nuns founded by the sister of Richard C[oe]ur de Lion. Many
ladies of the royal line have retired to Las Huelgas, the nuns brought
their dowries, and the mitered abbess held the rank of Princess-Palatine,
with the power of capital punishment. The church has outside cloisters
for the laity; the cloisters within the convent are never seen except on
the rare occasions of a king's visit, when all who are able crowd in at
the moment he enters. We were standing before the chancel where so many
knights had performed the vigil of the armor--among others Edward I of
England was knighted here--when a nun entered the _coro_, and in her
trailing white robes bowed toward the altar--rather it was the slow
courtesy of a court lady. We shrank away with the feeling that we had
intruded uninvited on a ceremony, that the days of the abbess,
Princess-Palatine, were the reality and we, inquisitive guide-book
tourists, the anacronism, a sensation not uncommon in Spain.
Burgos is the birthplace of the national hero, the Cid Campeador, "God's
scourge upon the Moor." This contemporary of William the Conqueror, whom
the erudites of the eighteenth century tried in vain to prove a mythical
character,[5] may be said to dominate Spanish literature. Spain's epic,
the "Romancero del Cid," has made its hero the historic Cid for all
time, just as Shakespeare's genius vitalized a Henry V. Don Roderick
Díaz de Bivar was born under the castle hill of Burgos in 1026, some
small monuments standing on the site of his _casa solar_. He was a
champion of popular rights, generous, chivalrous, faithful ever to his
wife Jimena, a true guerrilla warrior, like the men of his age,
sometimes crafty and cruel. The Cid was every inch a man, as his fellow
countrymen are eminently _varonil_, his hold on the heart of the people
is secure. There are no poems in the world whose lines ring and clang
more valiantly than the "Romancero." Here is untamed red blood and
courage:
"With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low,
With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow,
All firm of hand and high of heart, they roll upon the foe.
And he that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,
And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,
'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for love of charity!
The Champion of Bivar is here--Ruy Díaz--I am he!'
Then bearing where Bermúez still maintains unequal fight
Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;
Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;
And when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.
It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;
The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;
The pennons that went in snow-white came out a gory red;
The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;
While Moors called on Mohammed, and 'St. James' the Christians cry."[6]
Wandering minstrels sang these _chansons de gestes_ for centuries, till
they were a very part of the nation. The wooing of Jimena is strong with
the unconscious vigor of those times. The Cid had slain her father in
combat:
"But when the fair Jimena came forth to plight her hand,
Rodrigo gazing on her, his face could not command;
He stood and blushed before her; then at the last said he,
'I slew thy sire, Jimena, but not in villany:
In no disguise I slew him, man against man I stood,
There was some wrong between us, and I did shed his blood.
I slew a man, I owe a man; fair lady, by God's grace,
An honored husband thou shalt have in thy dead father's place.'"
And to the end the free-lance warrior proved a gallant husband. The
ballad of their wedding feast was often in my mind in the silent streets
of Burgos.
"Within his hall of Burgos the king prepares the feast,
He makes his preparation for many a noble guest,
It is a joyful city, it is a gallant day,
'Tis the Campeador's wedding, and who will bide away?
They have scattered olive branches and rushes on the street,
And the ladies flung down garlands at the Campeador's feet,
With tapestry and broidery their balconies between,
To do his bridal honor, their walls the burghers screen.
They lead the bulls before them all covered o'er with trappings,
The little boys pursue them with hootings and with clappings,
The fool with cap and bladder upon his ass goes prancing
Amid troops of captive maidens with bells and cymbals dancing."[7]
The old poet must have written with his eye straight on his subject;
those eleventh century urchins baiting the bulls are startlingly
realistic. When the Cid died, at Valencia, in 1099, still called on the
maps Valencia del Cid, he was placed in full armor on his battle horse,
Bavieca, and brought to San Pedro de Cardeña, eight miles from Burgos.
Thither Jimena retired, and on her death was laid with her husband. The
faithful horse, famous in the "Romancero" as Jimena herself, was buried
under a tree of the convent near his master. For the Cid had left word,
"When you bury Bavieca, dig deep. For shameful thing were it that he
should be eaten by curs who hath trod down so much currish flesh of
Moors." To-day Bavieca's master does not lie in the quiet dignity of San
Pedro. After various vicissitudes his remains are kept in a chest in
the city hall of Burgos, not the most appropriate of sepulchers for a
national hero.
On the last day of our stay in the old Gothic city, we climbed the hill
from which it doubtless got its name, Burg, a fortified eminence. The
castle where the Cid was married is a complete ruin, for when the French
evacuated the fort in 1813 they blew it up. On every side stretched the
level melancholy plain, and silhouetted against it was the elaborate
stone lace-work of the Cathedral. For long I looked out on the
remarkable landscape, so far from beautiful yet so thought arousing.
Little by little I was learning how a race can be ascetic to its inmost
core yet express itself in grandiose architecture; exalted in soul yet
the most realistic people in Europe; serious and dignified, yet
childlike in their zest of life. Here was man in his unsubtle vigor, not
so liberal that he had no creed left, not so polished that he had lost
the power of first wonder and emotion. Life was lived here, not analyzed
and missed.
VALLADOLID
"They have no song the sedges dry
And still they sing,
It is within my heart they sing as I pass by,
Within my heart they touch a spring,
They wake a sigh,
There is but sound of sedges dry
In me they sing."
GEORGE MEREDITH.
From Burgos to Valladolid the monotonous Castile plain continued,
unbroken by any hill and hardly a tree. Yet evening on the level steppes
has a charm of its own. Like sunset at sea, nature has a free sweep of
canvas on which to paint her pageant; details eliminated, the essential
remains. One carries away many such memories from the silent plateau,
till little by little the affection of the grave Castilian for his home
is understood.
On leaving Burgos there had occurred an amusing station scene. The man
at the ticket office told us we could not start till the following day,
as the train, on the point of arriving, was already full. So in
discouragement we turned back to the distant hotel. Half way there a
messenger from the station overtook us to say they had telegraphed
ahead that there would be a few seats in the second class. We returned
in time to board the packed train, and since it was the express to
Madrid the second class carriages were excellent. As was the custom all
over Spain, the hotel bus at Valladolid was waiting, and drove us
immediately to the inn, where we had the usual bare but clean rooms, and
the usual well-cooked generous dinner: if the trains were to pick us up
as they chose, at any rate we were not going to starve or be eaten
alive.
It is well to have the first view of Valladolid by night as we did,
under an early moon, for in the daytime it is modern, flat, and
unpicturesque, a sharp contrast to Burgos. The moonlight soon tempted us
out to explore the town. In the Plaza Mayor all was animation, an
unbroken promenade of people under the arcades before the gay shops,
officers in bright uniforms, and ladies in Parisian hats; it might have
been any provincial city in Europe. Apart from this active lung of the
town, the quiet streets were so deserted that our footsteps roused a
startling echo. We passed under the huge fragment of the Cathedral, a
nave only; the transepts stand roofless, and a new ruin is as depressing
a thing as there is in life. The architect of the Escorial who designed
this, Herrera, gave his name to the pseudo-classic style, "art made
tongue-tied by authority," that followed the Plateresque abuse of
ornament, just as his in turn was succeeded by the fantastic prancing
art of Churriguera, again a reaction. An example of this last, the
University, stood in the square near the Cathedral, and even the kindly
moonlight could not soften the overladen meaningless mass; the cold
severe lines of Herrera were dignified and regrettable in comparison.
For me a Churrigueresque building is the ne plus ultra of bad taste in
architecture, and Spain has a wealth of them. That man can raise a
Santiago and a León, and some four hundred years later a San Isidro of
Madrid, that the same race can carve a Pórtico de la Gloria and the
Transparente of Toledo, show interesting possibilities of retrogression!
Alas! we thought, after the strong old Gothic of Burgos, is Valladolid
going to be just barren like its Cathedral and chaotic like its
University? We went on in the moonlight and came to a white gleaming
plaza where a church of the thirteenth century stood isolated, Santa
María la Antigua, with a beautiful Lombard tower, and also that feature
peculiar to Romanesque art in Spain, an outside cloister for the laity.
This was decidedly better.
The next morning when we came to explore the town, though we found no
Gothic, we had our first introduction to a phase of architecture which
is confined to the Peninsula. It coincided with Isabella's reign, and
was a characteristic outburst of its new wealth and conquests,
appropriately efflorescent and grandiose, though if carried one step
beyond it would be decadent. This short period is called Plateresque,
from _platero_, silversmith, for its elaborate surface decoration of
scrolls, medallions, and heraldic ornament is sublimated smith's work.
It occurred during the transition from Gothic to Renaissance, so it
combined itself with either one or the other of these styles. It may be
dull to give these pedagogical details and yet, as I hinted, if one is
to understand Spain, one must have some smattering of architecture.
Valladolid is worth stopping to see on one's entrance to Spain, if it
were only for the clear-cut summary it gives of the different schools,
always excepting Gothic. As it and Salamanca were the two places where
the silversmith's art flourished, so they are the two centers for the
best Plateresque buildings. They happen to be, unfortunately, the two
cities that suffered most from the French invasion. Their churches and
colleges were pillaged and battered, and though in modern times they
have been restored, the first touch of perfection, "the first fine
careless rapture" can never be recaught.
[Illustration: THE FAÇADE OF SAN GREGORIO, VALLADOLID]
Valladolid has three notable examples of Plateresque, San Pablo, San
Gregorio, and the Colegio de Santa Cruz. If you have a weakness for
the art of the builder this introduction to the rich and admirable
expression of Spain at the zenith of her material power is an occasion.
There is an excitement in coming on something original which has not
been hackneyed by photograph. Thus, when I first entered the square
where San Pablo's façade rises, I stood still in astonishment; I had
never seen anything like this, and at first I could not tell if I liked
it or not. Tier on tier soared the carved shields and crests, bizarre
but nevertheless stately. Close by was the even stranger façade of San
Gregorio, one vast crest with elaborate arabesques and statues. Being
founded by the great primate of Toledo, Cardinal Ximenez, it was
appropriate to meet here in the courtyard with some Mudéjar work,
Christian and Moorish elements combined. It was in this convent that the
Dominican, Bartolomé Las Casas, "Apostle of the Indians," spent the last
twenty years of his energetic, troubled life, writing his history of the
Colonies. He died at the advanced age of ninety-two, "A man who would
have been remarkable in any age of the world," says Ticknor, "and who
does not seem yet to have gathered in the full harvest of his honours."
The third of the Plateresque buildings, well within Renaissance lines
this last, the College of the Holy Cross founded by Cardinal Mendoza,
now contains a grammar school, a library of some thousand volumes open
to the public, and the Museum of the city.
On no account should the _Museo_ be missed, for it holds a wonderful
collection of wood carvings, an art which is to Spain what Italy's
frescoes are to her: these statues were gathered chiefly from convents
sacked by the French. Valladolid was personally associated with this
national development, for most of the master-carvers lived at one time
or another in the city. Spain's best sculptor, Berruguete, worked for
years for the monks of San Benito, the _retablo_ of whose church is now
in detached statues in the museum. He had studied under Michael Angelo,
and though he had a distinct personality of his own, he plainly showed
Italian influence. His pupil, Esteban Jordán, lived here, also the
exaggerated Juan de Juní, and a more famous master, Alonzo Cano, painter
and architect too. Cano, who died a canon in Granada Cathedral, is said
to have fled the town--his house is still pointed out--when accused of
the murder of his wife, though later investigations have thrown doubt on
the whole story. This irascible master, one of the warmest hearted of
men underneath, taught drawing to the Don Baltasar Carlos whom Velasquez
painted, and I fear the infante found him very cross at times. Velasquez
and Cano were friends and must have talked over that charming little
prince. Cano was indeed a character. When a corporation demurred at the
price of a statue he had made for them he shattered the image with a
blow; and on his death bed he could not bring himself to kiss an
inartistic crucifix, saying, "Give me a plain cross that I may venerate
_Jesucristo_ as he is pictured in my own mind."
The room of coarsely-carved statues, formerly used in the Holy Week
processions, should be passed with a glance, but the collection of
smaller works deserves long study. The most beautiful group I thought
was the Baptism in the Jordan by a later carver, Gregorio Hernández, of
Galicia, who died in Valladolid in 1636. His art is not classic, indeed
most Spanish sculptors cared little for the ideal perfection of the
human body, their strength lay in the individual portrait, not in
rendering a type. Hernández softened the crudity or the realist school
to which he belonged by depicting nobility of face and bearing. The
scene of the Jordan is a panel with the two chief figures life-sized in
full relief. The Baptist, his well-modeled limbs strong from life in the
desert, leans forward to pour the river water on the head of his Lord,
with an expression of such vivid rapture and awe that it holds you
spellbound. There is little in art that can surpass this in emotional
sincerity. The story of the Gospel is told to its fullest possibility.
What the sculptor felt in every fiber he has succeeded in making others
feel, and though an expression so poignant may not be highest art, it
justifies itself by its direct appeal to the human heart. It is told of
Hernández that he never undertook a work till he had first prayed. He
has here also a statue of St. Teresa, spoiled by the heavy paint, and a
bust of St. Anne, successfully colored. Even if you are prepared to find
the wood carvings painted it frets you; it almost spoils the statues,
but it was the custom and must be accepted. "_Es la costumbre_" is a
closing argument in a country whose link with the past has never been
rudely broken.
If her remarkable wood carvings come as a surprise, so will some of the
practical developments of this small progressive city. The hospital that
looks out on the leafy park of the Magdalena is run in approved modern
fashion. A brisk young doctor who spoke English, having learned from a
friend in the English College here, showed us over the wards with
legitimate pride. They radiated from a big central rotunda; on both
sides of each ward were large windows and at the end of each a pretty
altar. There were five hundred public beds, and private rooms were to be
had for the sum of two dollars a week! The greeting between doctor and
patients was a pleasant thing to see,--he chatted and joked with the
children, and, as we left, stopped at the door to lift with real
kindness an ill man who had just arrived in a gayly-painted country
cart. The newcomer was a gentle-faced Castilian, whose sons had brought
him in from the plains; as the stalwart boys carried the trembling old
man I thought of another touching hospital scene. Perhaps Rab and his
friends came to my mind because bounding round us on our visit to the
hospital was a beautiful Scotch collie. "Laddie" was an unfamiliar sight
on a Spanish street; he belonged to the English College and is a great
pet of the seminarians.
In Valladolid are two foreign institutions: the Scotch college, founded
by a Colonel Semple in 1627; and the English, which continues the
foundation of St. Albans, and has relics of its name-saint of the third
century. It was endowed in Spain by Sir Francis Englefield, who retired
here after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Some forty English
students are educated for the priesthood and return on their ordination
for work in their native land. Naturally the great hour of this college
was during the religious persecutions under Elizabeth, when it was death
to be a priest in England. Twenty-seven from this one small group were
executed. Their portraits hang along the cloisters: Cadwallader, Stark,
Bell, Walpole, Weston, Sutheron,--each of the heroic band started from
these quiet halls to meet a martyr's death.
Controversy is out of date, I hope, to-day. But there is such a thing as
fair-mindedness, and a visit to Spain at every step shows she has not
had her share of it from English-speaking peoples. With every chapter of
our guide book railing at the Inquisition, I could not help feeling that
these martyred Englishmen should not be so completely forgotten. Not
that the _tu quoque_ argument excuses persecution on either side. But an
age should be judged by its own ethics or true views of history are
impossible. The New Englanders who, two hundred years later than
Isabella's institution, hanged a few Quakers on Boston Common were none
the less moral men; and General Robert E. Lee fighting for slavery in
the nineteenth century is a man we have a right to admire. The mere fact
of the Inquisition being founded by that magnanimous woman called by
Bacon "an honor to her sex and the cornerstone of the greatness of
Spain" should tell us its motives were sincere. Her age had not yet
learned the lesson, which we have acquired slowly, bit by bit through
experience, that political or religious existence is possible with
divided factions, not only possible but that a nation is more vigorous
because of them. As Bishop Creighton wisely says: "The modern conception
of free discussion and free thought is not so much the result of a
firmer gasp of moral principles as it is the result of the discovery
that uniformity is not necessary for the maintenance of political
unity." Isabella's age agreed that persecution was necessary to preserve
Christianity. And since only Spain was in immediate contact with Islam,
and centuries of crusade against the invading infidel had the natural
result of making the Spaniard sternly orthodox, it was there that the
Inquisition flourished.
It dragged on for over three centuries, and from 1481 to 1812, 35,000
people were burned,[8] these numbers being Richard Ford's, to whom the
Inquisition was as a red rag to a bull. The German scholar Schack
acknowledges that all the Moors and heretics burned in Spain by the
Holy Office do not equal the women witches burned alive in Germany
during the seventeenth century alone. In France, in the one night of St.
Bartholomew, almost as many victims fell as during the whole three
hundred years of the Inquisition. Of England the publishing of recent
investigations makes it needless to speak; blood flowed in torrents
there. Besides those well known ones who met death under Mary Tudor, the
Catholic martyrdoms give such details as the "Scavenger's Daughter,"
that cramping circle of iron; "Little Ease," where a prisoner, could not
sit or stand or lie down; needles thrust under the nails; the
rack-master of the Tower boasting he had made Alexander Briant longer by
a foot than God had made him; the general custom of cutting down the
victim from the gallows while still alive to tear out his heart and
quarter him,--accounts that put the _Autos da Fé_ in the shade. In the
annals of Spain is not a scene that equals the blood curdling horror of
the martyrdom in Dorchester, England, of Hugh Green in the year 1642.[9]
Yet an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, if fanaticism or cruelty are
mentioned, makes his inevitable trite reference to the Spanish
Inquisition. It has been made the scape-goat of all religious
persecution. Abuse has so fixed the idea that it was a barbarous machine
controlled by contorted natures to whom bloodshed was a revelry that any
effort to place it in a truer light is sure to be called retrogression.
I am far from attempting a defense of this painful aberration of the
Christian mind, but what I hold is, if a student went to the records of
Alcalá and Simancas, open free to all, not to search out the hundred
mistaken cases from the ten thousand proven ones, the method up to this,
but, following the first law of intellectual work, investigation without
preconceived bias, if he tried to understand this phase of man's slow
development _per errorem ad veritatem_, then the thin-lipped,
gleaming-eyed, bloodthirsty Inquisitor of the popular fancy would be
taken from the pillory where he has been pelted these centuries past,
and his mistaken sincerity stand justified by the conditions of his
time.
The records prove that the Holy Office was used seldom against scholars
but against relapsed Mohammedans and Jews, false _beati_, sorcerers, and
witches. "_Ningún hombre de mérito científico fué quemado por la
Inquisición_," is the clear statement of one of the greatest of living
scholars, Menéndez y Pelayo, and he who would cross swords with that
erudite champion must be sure indeed of his assertions. Not one Spanish
thinker or statesman, such as Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, the
Carthusian priors, Houghton, Webster, and Laurence, the poet Robert
Southwell, the scholarly Edmund Campion, and a host of others,[10]
graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, executed for their faith during the
hundred and fifty years of religious persecution in England, not one man
of like standing was put to death in Spain. Had he been, some righteous
hater of the "ferocious Inquisitors," would ere this have produced his
name and works. Archbishop Talavera was accused but was finally
justified; if the poet Luis de León was imprisoned, he was set free on
examination. It was not his own countrymen but Calvin in Geneva, who had
the Spanish scholar, the Unitarian, Miguel Servet burned alive, and it
was the mild Melanchthon who wrote to the reformer saying: "The Church
owes thee gratitude. I maintain that the tribunal has acted in
accordance with justice in having put to death a blasphemer." In Germany
at that period the civil courts inflicted capital punishment on sorcery,
blasphemy, and church robbery; had the same law held in Spain the
number of the Inquisition executions would be appreciably lowered. Lord
Bacon, who was a just and humane man, mentions as a matter of course
that in his time the English civil courts used torture: the Peninsula
was not ahead of its time in this respect.
As for that debated subject the effect on the Spanish character of the
_Santo Oficio_, prejudices have built up so twisted a labyrinth that the
best way out for one who would keep his level-headed balance is to hold
fast to the thread of internal evidence. Unconscious of writing history
for the future, hence his unassailable veracity, Cervantes tells in
detail of the life in court and tavern, in the town and on the desolate
highways after the Inquisition had flourished for more than a century.
Does he portray a degraded race, finger on lips whispering, "Hush, or
you will be overheard"? If the Spaniard was ground down in fear and
deceit why is it that to-day, of all the peoples of the continent, he is
the most independent in character? It has been said that a burgher of
Amsterdam does not differ more from a Neapolitan, than a Basque from an
Andalusian, yet in this trait of sturdy independence all Spaniards are
alike; the historian Ticknor wrote during his stay in Spain, "The lower
class is, I think, the finest _material_ I have met in Europe to make a
great and generous people." If under the Inquisition "every
intellectual impulse was repressed,"[11] how dared theologians and
philosophers, such as Vives, Isla, and Feijóo boldly attack with their
pens superstitions and degenerated religious customs? Is the poetry of
Juan de la Cruz, Luis de León and the prose of Teresa, the work of souls
who feared to adore their God freely? And is it not undeniable that the
two golden centuries of Spanish art and literature flourished under this
bugbear horror, this "_coco de niños y espantajo de bobos_," as Menéndez
y Pelayo calls it?
Used chiefly against Judaism and Islamism, occasionally the Inquisition
became the tool of a tyrannic king for private vengeance. Indeed, there
are some historians such as von Ranke, Lenormant, de Maistre, who hold
it to have been more a royal than an ecclesiastic instrument, fostered
by the Hapsburgs to augment their autocratic rule.[12] Certainly all
confiscated property went to the Crown.
Man's slow development _per errorem ad veritatem_, slow indeed one may
say, in the face of certain realities of our own time. Happily the
generations of cant and holier-than-thou are passing, and we are looking
history more honestly in the face. It is dawning on us that religious
persecution in 1492 is no more frightful than slavery in 1860 or an
Opium War in 1843.
Modern Spain realizes the wrong of persecution, the farce of a religion
of love using the sword, as thoroughly as does every other civilized
country. Outside the church of St. Philip Neri in Cadiz is a tablet
proudly commemorating the abolition of the Inquisition within its walls
in 1812.
To return to less nettlesome themes. The little English College, so
interesting a memorial of past history, a forgotten haven of refuge in
Old Spain, must be a peaceful memory to look back on by priests whose
later lives are spent in Birmingham or London slums. The pleasant
sitting-room of each inmate, the recreation hall with its theater, the
library, with the latest English books jostling old Spanish tomes,--all
spoke of contented full days. We turned the parchment leaves where the
college records for its three hundred years in Spain have been kept,
where each student is mentioned, from the troubled first days down to
the group of ten who had arrived from England a week before our visit,
among them a young Reginald Vaughan, nephew of the Cardinal.
With up-to-date hospital and busy manufactures, Valladolid does not seem
like an ancient capital of the Spanish court. We would read in our guide
book that the miserable Juan II had his favorite of a lifetime, Álvaro
de Luna, beheaded in the big square; that here Juan's noble daughter
married Ferdinand of Aragon; and that, seated on a throne in the Plaza
Mayor, Charles V pardoned the remaining Comuneros, the rebels who had
dared assert the federal principle against his centralization of
government, Spain's last outcry before she sank under the blighting
tyranny of her Hapsburg and Bourbon rulers. Such past happenings were
interesting, but they would have the same meaning if read of in London
or Boston. However, there were two memories of Valladolid that were
vivid enough to haunt one as one walked about its hum-drum streets: they
are associated with the saddest hours of two supreme men.
No. 7 Calle de Cristóbal Colón is the insignificant house where
Isabella's High Admiral died in 1506, in obscurity and neglect, his
patroness dead, and Ferdinand ungrateful. A hundred years later, in
another small house, now owned by the government, Cervantes lived in
poverty. Unknown and undivined he walked these streets, looking at the
passers-by with his wise, tolerant eyes. Fresh, perhaps, from writing
the monologue on the Golden Age, delivered by the Don over a few brown
acorns of inspiration, Cervantes in threadbare cape went to his humble
scrivener's work, the golden time of justice and kindness existing only
in his own gallant heart. It was in Valladolid that the ladies of his
household, widowed sisters, niece, his daughter and wife, sewed to gain
their daily bread, and as if penury were not enough, here they were
thrown into prison because a young noble, wounded in a street brawl, was
carried into their house to die.
Cervantes' life reads like one of the romantic tales he loves to digress
with in his great novel, when grandee, barber and priest, court lady,
Eastern damsel, and _labrador's_ daughter, gather round the inn
table--the servants a natural part of the group--in the easy meeting of
the classes which is still a reality in Spain. Born at Alcalá,
Cervantes' first bent was toward literature, but having gone to Rome in
the suite of a cardinal, in Italy he joined the army against the
infidel. He fought at Lepanto, where his bravery drew on him the notice
of Don John of Austria, that alluring young leader of whom one of his
state council wrote, "Nature had endowed him with a cast of countenance
so gay and pleasing that there was hardly anyone whose good-will and
love he did not immediately win." It makes a pleasant picture, the visit
of this high-spirited young hero to his wounded soldier in the hospital
of Messina. Later, Cervantes fought at Naples, at Tunis, in Lombardy,
making part of his century's stirring history, and all the while storing
his mind with the culture of Italy. It was when returning to Spain that
some Algerian pirates took him prisoner. His five years' captivity in
Africa stand an unsurpassed exhibition of grandeur of character, proving
that the highest gifts of mind and heart go together in perfect accord.
Loaded with chains, twice brought to be hanged with a rope around his
neck, his knightly spirit rose above all misery. There were twenty-five
thousand wretched Christians then in bondage in Algiers. Cervantes
waited on the sick, shared his food with the more destitute, encouraged
the despairing,--a Christian in the fullest sense of the word is the
testimony of a Fray Juan Gil, who, belonging to a brotherhood for the
redemption of prisoners, worked for his release. In this harsh school
"_donde aprendió a tener paciencia en las adversidades_"--the
adversities that were to follow him all his life--was chastened to
self-effacement and a sublime patience an ardent spirit that by nature
chafed against wrong.
What wonder that the late flowering of this man's soul, the book written
when past middle age, should be of chivalry all compact, a nobility of
sentiment exposed half seriously, half in jest! What wonder that in the
midst of laughter the voice breaks with tenderness for the lovable
_caballero andante_! His Quixote is Cervantes' own unquenchable spirit.
A bitter experience of life never deadened his faith in man nor dulled
his heroic gayety. With exquisite humor he realized the alien aspect of
such trust and love and faith in the disillusioning realities of life,
so he veiled it all under the kindly cloak of a cracked-brained knight.
The wandering adventures of a fool make the wisest, most human-hearted
book ever written.
Toward the end of his slavery, when Cervantes passed into the hands of
the viceroy of Algiers, Hassan Pasha, his force of character gained
influence over the tyrant. But he asked too high a ransom for the
captive's family to pay. The priest who had watched the young soldier on
his deeds of mercy, worked indefatigably for his release. A letter was
sent to Philip II to beg aid for a soldier of Lepanto. At length three
hundred ducats were raised. Hassan Pasha asked a thousand. Already was
Cervantes chained to the oar of a galley, bound for Constantinople, when
at the last hour Father Gil, helped by some Christian merchants,
succeeded in raising five hundred ducats, which ransom the Viceroy
accepted.
At thirty-four years of age, Cervantes again stepped on Spanish soil.
But the world was then much as it is now; years had passed since
Lepanto,--he was forgotten. His patron Don John of Austria had died in
Flanders two years before his release. He joined the army once more and
fought in the expedition against the Azores; then seeing there was no
chance of advancement, he returned to his first career, that of letters.
His plays and poems had small success: a pathetic phrase in the scene
where the _cura_ burns Quixote's books and comes on an epic by one,
Cervantes, "better versed in poverty and misfortunes than in verses,"
has deeper meaning when his checkered career is known.
Twenty-five years of obscurity and abject poverty succeeded each other,
his lot so lowly it is hard to trace his steps. Whole years remain a
blank. The brave heart never flagged, no bitterness tinged his kindly
tolerance. This Castilian hidalgo of ripe culture earned his bread in
the humblest ways. 1588 found him in Seville as commissary victualer for
the Great Armada. Tradition says he visited La Mancha, the desert he was
to immortalize, to collect tithes for a priory of St. John, and that the
villagers in anger cast him into prison, where he conceived the idea of
his novel. This child of his wit he hints to us was born in a jail. The
sad years in Valladolid followed, and there in 1605, at fifty-eight
years of age, he published the first part of "Don Quixote."
Its success was immediate. The grace of the style, the inimitable humor,
and the underflowing current of mellow wisdom, made it from the start,
what Sainte-Beuve called it, "the book of humanity." However, its
publication did not much better Cervantes' fortunes. He retired to
Madrid, where he lived on a small pension from the Archbishop of Toledo.
A French noble visiting Spain asked for the famous author, and was told,
"He who had made all the world rich was poor and infirm though a soldier
and a gentleman."
In 1613 appeared his "Novelas Exemplares," a remarkable collection of
tales which gave Scott the idea of the Waverley novels. The second part
of "Don Quixote," equal to the first in vigor and charm, appeared when
Cervantes was sixty; "his foot already in the stirrup," he gives us in a
preface, the moving description of himself. In the latter part of his
life, according to a custom of the time, he became a tertiary of the
Franciscan Order, and on his death in 1616 they buried him humbly in the
convent of nuns in Madrid, where his daughter was a religious. Ill
fortune still pursued him, for to-day there is no trace of his last
resting-place.
It is with thoughts of this heroic life--this man lovable as his own
Don, with a gentle stammer in his speech, and the kindly wise look in
his eyes, his left hand maimed from Lepanto, his shoulders bowed and his
chestnut hair turned to silver by the ceaseless calamities of life--it
is with such memories one looks down from the high-road on the small
house where he wrote his masterpiece. Columbus on his deathbed, and
Cervantes in poverty writing "Quixote"--two such associations make a
visit to Valladolid memorable.
OVIEDO IN THE ASTURIAS
"It is perfectly ridiculous to pretend that, because they dress the
Madonna and saints in rich robes, the Spaniards are ignorant that a
statue is but a symbol. They sing their faith, we whisper ours, but
the words have the same meaning, and the same thought is in the
mind ... Draw a bias line enclosing the Basque provinces,--Navarre,
Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and you have there old religious Spain
as she appears in history, with a vivid and practical faith, an
irreproachable clergy, a piety of the heart reflected in the
manners."--RENÉ BAZIN.
We left Valladolid toward evening, in order to stop over a night in
Palencia, before going north to Asturias. The cathedral of Palencia is
well worth the pause, even though the visit may be limited to a night in
the Continental Inn and a hasty daybreak visit to the church; the small
cities of central Spain are of so individual a character that each
stamps itself separately and indelibly on the memory.
The dawn was just breaking on a raw, rainy morning when we walked
through the silent streets of the town. In spite of the early hour, near
each of the water fountains stood a long row of antique-shaped jars,
some of red clay, some like old silver. For each housewife places her
jar in line, and when the drinking water is turned on, each fills her
crock in turn, according as it was put in the row. At the biblical wells
of Palestine the Syrian women to-day use ugly, square Rockefeller oil
cans, but happily conservative Spain is not partial to innovations. It
was on this early morning walk that I first noticed the white palm
leaves, some six feet in length, fastened to the balconies or above a
window. One finds them all over the country. They are from the palm
forests of Elche in the south, and each Easter new ones are blessed and
hung out on the houses, some say to guard against lightning. Later, in
Madrid, we saw one decorating the King's palace.
The Cathedral of Palencia is of the same tawny yellow as the plains
about it. The east end is early Gothic, the western part of a later,
weaker period. Like Salisbury it has the uncommon feature of two sets of
transepts; the clearstory is carried round the church, unbroken by rose
windows at the west or transept ends. The interior in the dim light of a
rainy October morning was picturesque past description. There are times
when the chances of travel bring one to a spot at just its perfect hour.
Thus we saw this church in a moment of such exquisite half light and
quietude that its memory is a possession for life. Behind the High Altar
rose an isolated chapel, set detached in the midst of the ambulatory,
and through its iron _rejas_ were seen the blurred glimmer of candles,
the veiled kneeling figures of the people, an aged white-haired priest
at the Altar; high upon the wall the coffin of the ancient Queen Urraca.
The effect was indescribable,--austere, ascetic, yet with a passionate
glamour essentially Spanish. A masterpiece could an artist make of this
detached chapel, lighted for divine service each day at dawn with such
unconscious naturalness.
Architects may say that Spanish cathedrals are exaggerated and
overloaded, that they lack the restraint and purity of line of Chartres,
Amiens, and the Isle de France churches which are the world's best
Gothic. All this may well be true, yet Spain can smile securely at
criticism. She has a soul in her places of worship, a soaring exaltation
of the imagination that imparts the assurance of a living faith. Firmly
and ardently she believes in Jesus Christ, her Redeemer, and with all
her lofty intensity she prostrates herself in worship.
We wandered round the dusky aisles, deciphering tombs, some of whose
effigies held their arms raised in prayer,--only a Spaniard could endure
to look even at such a tiring attitude! But the time for loitering was
limited. The transept clock, a knight, a Moor, and a lion, sounded the
warning we must heed if we were to catch the early train for the North.
The thoughtful innkeeper had saved us some precious minutes by sending
the hotel omnibus to wait outside the Cathedral, and we rattled--in its
literal sense--to the distant station. The city was at last fully awake,
and each water jar had now an owner; one by one they followed each other
at the pump, with pleasant greetings and chatter.
Then again stretched the tawny plains. The fields of León were tractless
wastes of mud from the rain of the past weeks. Seen from the car window,
each village on the truncated mountain was the exact copy of its
neighbor, the same monotonous note of color in adobe wall and denuded
steppe. It was in vain to look for some distinction to mark one group of
mud houses, called Paredes de Nava, birthplace of Spain's best sculptor
Berruguete, from a similar mud-emblocked place called Cisneros, feudal
home of Cardinal Ximenez's family; the imagination had to supply the
difference.
Every one must come prepared for Spanish trains to go at a leisurely
pace--about fifteen miles an hour is the average of the express route.
From Palencia to Oviedo was a twelve-hour trip, and the distance covered
was a hundred and sixty miles. Of course one crossed the Cantabrian
mountains, the continuation of the Pyrenees along the northern coast,
and they are no slight barrier since they sometimes rise to a height of
8,000 feet.
We passed the city of León toward noon, when there came a respite from
the dull treeless plain, for, beyond the town stretched a thinly-wooded
district which gave the first reminder since leaving the Basque valleys
that the season still was autumn. After central Spain, the bleak hills
that now began seemed positively beautiful,--so many pleasures are
relative.
Slowly the train climbed the mountain wall that from earliest times has
protected the Asturian principality from the invader. Near the summit,
emerging from a tunnel several miles long, we looked out over a glorious
panorama, the beauty not being relative this time, but as truly
magnificent as some of Switzerland's show views. The storm had covered
the peaks with freshest snow, the sky was a frosty dark blue, mountain
rose behind mountain for miles, the white road was flung a sinuous
ribbon round the folds of the hills; below lay fertile valleys of
greenest grass with greenest trees and happy nestling farms. The secure
mountain wall gave the Asturian courage to build a home wherever his
whim chose. He was not forced like the Castilian by centuries of Moorish
inroads to herd in a compact town.
As the puffing train waited for breathing space on the crest of the
pass, a group of peasants boarded it. They wore the white wooden clogs
of the province that differ from ordinary clogs by having stilts, a
couple of inches high, to lift them above the mud; and they brought with
them, on a sledge, as wheels are of no use up these steep hills, an
antique curiosity of a trunk. We began to hope that old costumes and
customs still held in this isolated corner of the world, though the
engineering of the road in the descent was disturbingly up-to-date,--a
series of loops, cuts, and sharp turns; sometimes three parallel lines
of rail over which we were to pass lay one below the other, sometimes
directly across the valley we saw our trail; a distance of twenty-six
miles is covered where a crow would fly seven.
The principality of Asturias has given its name to the heir apparent of
the Spanish crown since the 14th century, when a daughter of the Duke of
Lancaster married the Spanish king's eldest son, and her father claimed
for her a title equal to that of Prince of Wales to the English throne.
The connection by marriage between Spain and England has been a frequent
one. It began in the 12th century, when Henry II's daughter married
Alfonso VIII of Castile; later the Plantagenet Edward I had for wife a
Spanish infanta. From the two daughters of Pedro the Cruel, who married
into the English royal family, on one side descended Henry VIII, from
the other, by a marriage back again in Spain, sprang Isabella the
Catholic. After the ill-fated union of Isabella's daughter with Henry
VIII and that of Mary Tudor and Philip II, connection by marriage
between Spain and England ceased for centuries. To-day, as all the world
knows, the young queen of Spain, Doña Victoria, with the same blonde
hair as Isabella, is an Englishwoman, and a rosy little prince bears the
title of these distant mountains.
It is a fitting title for the heir to the throne, since this province is
the cradle of Spanish nationality, and never was vassal to Roman or
Moor. The people are a mixture of the aboriginal Iberians and the
Visigoths who were here finally merged in one people and here
reconstructed the Spanish monarchy. So proud is an Asturian of his
origin that he thinks, like the Basques, that his mere birth confers
nobility; every native of the province is an hidalgo. Did not the
Asturian lady, the duenna of the Duchess, remark to Don Quixote that her
husband was _hidalgo como el Rey porque era montañés_?
When in 711 the last of the Gothic kings, Roderick, was defeated by the
Moors who had lately crossed from Africa, a remnant of the Christian
army took refuge in these northern mountains. At Cavadonga, an historic
defeat was inflicted on the Moslem army in 718, by Pelayo, Spain's
first king, chosen leader because he was the bravest of the people. The
Moorish chronicle, too close to the struggle to see its vital issues,
speaks of "one Belay, a contemptible barbarian who roused the people of
Asturish."
Without Cavadonga the face of Europe had been changed. Had not the
Mussulmans from Africa met this repulse, they had pushed on beyond the
Pyrenees before the Franks were strong enough to withstand them. Often
rose this thought when reading the sentimental regrets for the Moors in
Spain found in guide books and histories. Had Spain not warred for eight
hundred years against the invader, had she not endured with such Spartan
courage the insecurity of life and property caused by ceaseless forays
from the south, European civilization had been put back for centuries.
Like most virile nations, she has the defect of her qualities, and when
the final victory was hers she went too far. But this should not blind
us to the nobility of the _Reconquista_.
Within reach of Cavadonga, sacred to every Spaniard as the cradle of his
race and religion, I could not help asking the cause of the ceaseless
regret for the Moor. A lover of the picturesque, like Washington Irving,
has a right to gloss over the days of the Alhambra, but it seems strange
for serious history to hold up the Mohammedan in Spain as a model of
cleanliness, industry, and tolerance in contrast to the Christian, in
face of the centuries of piracy by sea, the barbarity of African prisons
where thousands of Spaniards languished in chains, and also--a thought
that often came to me when walking through the filthy, narrow streets in
Moslem countries--if the Moor in Spain is to be so regretted, why are
not the northern cities of Africa models for modern Christians to
emulate? The Moor came from them, and many of his race left Spain to
return to them. I would not belittle the Arab civilization in the
Peninsula, for under the Ommiade dynasty, Cordova reached a
distinguished height of culture, but what I object to is the partisan
spirit that places Moors on one side to be praised and extenuated, and
Spanish Christians on the other to be condemned. Facts are so distorted
that many think the re-conquest of Andalusia meant the substitution of
backward ignorance for an enlightened rule, whereas the Moors
themselves, long before the coming of their northern conquerors, had
destroyed their own higher civilization. The flower of their culture
(always an exotic, for Islamism as hitherto interpreted is incapable of
strengthening it) was withered before Alfonzo VI and the Cid had set
foot further south than Toledo.
Under the Ommiade caliphs, for about five generations, life probably
resembled the golden picture drawn for us as typical of Moorish sway. A
few able rulers disguised the fact that the government was never
anything else but a despotism. This _siglo de oro_ was well over by
1030. Some barbarous warrior tribes, from Africa, the Almoravides, swept
away the feeble remains of Ommiade rule, to be in their turn routed by
other African invaders, the fanatic Almohades. These last persecuted
Averroës as holding views too liberal for a true Mohammedan, and the
scholar died in misery and exile, just as in the same century the
remarkable Spanish-Jew, Maimonides, was accused of teaching atheism by
his fellow Israelites. Rejected by his own people, the fame of Averroës
came later through his study by European Schoolmen. His teachings, like
most of what is of value in Arab learning, was of Greek origin, and had
reached him by way of Persia, which never wholly conformed to the set
tenets of Islam. Why do the anti-Spanish historians never mention that
in the same era in which Averroës, the philosopher, was persecuted by
his fellow-believers, a college of translators under the patronage of
the Archbishop Raimundo of Toledo, from 1130 to 1150, put into Latin the
most scientific works of the Moors?
Mohammedan civilization in Spain, from decay within, was completely
disintegrated by 1275. The caliphs of Granada led the lives of weak
voluptuaries, artistic but decadent; no rose-colored romancing can veil
their essential decline. Isabella's court, traveling with its
university, with the learned Peter Martyr instructing the young nobles
in Renaissance lore, so that a son of the Duke of Alva, and a cousin of
the King are to be found among the lecturers of Salamanca, presents a
noble contrast. When the _Reconquista_ was achieved, and after three
thousand seven hundred battles, the Spaniard was again master in his own
land, grievous mistakes were made, until finally, in 1609, in a panic of
fear that the corsairs of Africa were uniting with their co-religionists
along the Spanish coasts, the Moriscos were expelled. Spain inflicted
this blow on herself at an ill moment, since already from the enormous
emigration to the New World, her crying need was population. But this
act of bad government whereby she threw away over half a million of her
inhabitants (always remember, however, far more Moorish blood remained
than was lost, for nine centuries of occupation had well infiltered it
through the southern provinces) did not drive out the intellectual and
moral backbone of the land as we are given to understand. The Moors of
Isabella's day were not the liberal-minded, cultivated people they had
been under the Ommiade caliphs four centuries earlier, and the
persecuted Moriscos of Philip III's time were far lower in standing.
Also it cannot be questioned that Valencia, the province that expelled
them, whose rich soil to-day supports a crowded population, quickly
filled up, and soon showed with its irrigation the same industry that
seemed peculiar to the Moors. It was central Spain, eminently "old
Christian," that when its people flocked as adventurers to America,
could offer neither fertile soil nor inviting climate to lure new
settlers. The quotations usually cited to prove that Valencia was
irremediably devastated by the Expulsion are taken from men who wrote
within a few years of the disaster; it would be an easy matter,
following the same sophistry to quote aspects of our South a generation
ago that could make the Civil War appear an irremediable blight.
Seeking for the cause of the tendency to overrate the Moor at the
expense of his hereditary enemy, it seems to me it is to be traced to
that period of rancor, the Invincible Armada, when religious and
political passions ran so high that it was forgotten that the hated
Spaniard was before all else a Christian, and on his heroic struggle for
the Cross had hung the civilization of Europe.
The capital of the Asturian province is Oviedo. Alfonso II, the eighth
king that followed Pelayo, made it his chief city, but in spite of its
antiquity it is a disappointing town. I had pictured an unspoiled bit
of the past, locked in as it is by mountains whose valleys reach to the
city gates, with curiously-named saints still serving as titulars, with
the oldest remains of Christian architecture in the Peninsula. But the
reality is a smug, commonplace, successful little city of slight local
color. The mansions are Renaissance, not mediæval; if you stumble on an
ancient street it soon brings you to a straight new boulevard. Children
in English clothes and ladies dressed like Parisians walk in the park
facing a line of pretentious apartment houses. I asked in the shops for
pictures of the _Cámera Santa_. They could only give me postcards of the
model prison and the model insane asylum. Sleepy little Palencia, with
its rows of classic water jars waiting--time no consideration--till the
water was turned on in the fountains, it seemed hardly possible we had
left it only that morning. The remote old world may be found in central
Spain, but as this is the land of anomalies, the mountain provinces of
the north are busy to-day with mines and commerce. It remains but a
question of time for Bilbao, Santander, Gijón, Coruña, and Vigo, the
northern harbors, to become commercial centers. They are awake at last
and keen to enter the struggle.
This industrial tendency is what we agree in calling progress, and Spain
has been censured for her backwardness in entering the world's
competition, so it is not justifiable to regret the unambitious past.
But who can be consistent in the home of _el ingenioso hidalgo_! From
the moment of entering Spain till we left I leaned now to one side, now
to the other, glad and proud one day to see her new industries, a model
hospital or asylum, and scoffing the next, at a hideous new boulevard
that had relieved a congested district. This land of racy types and
vigorous humanity may be doomed to have factory chimneys belching smoke,
to have lawless mobs of socialists and pitiful slums in cities where now
is frugal poverty, where a beggar lives contentedly next door to a
prince, because he feels the prince recognizes him as his fellow
countryman and fellow Christian: progress and wealth are bought with a
price. Oviedo, just entering the competition, and fast sweeping away its
picturesque past, made me glad to be in time to see something of the old
ways of Spain.
The lion of the city, the Cathedral, adds to this inconsistent feeling
of disappointment. It is the only cathedral of the twenty and more we
were to see that has removed the choir from the nave and placed pews
down the center of the church. At Burgos the heavy blocking mass of the
_coro_ in the nave had startled and bewildered me, but soon I grew so
accustomed to this Spanish usage that a church without it seemed
incomplete. Oviedo has modernized its side chapels, recklessly sweeping
away carvings and sarcophagi. It thought the tombs of Pelayo's
successors, the early kings, were cluttering rubbish, so a good plain
stone, easy to decipher, has been put up in place of the ancient
memorials!
The Cathedral is perpendicular Gothic of the 14th century. The west
façade has a spacious portico, whose effect, however, is lessened by the
church being set so that you descend to it from the street. On one side
of the portico rises the tower, bold and graceful, showing from its base
to its open-lace stone turret an easy gradation of styles. This is the
tower that runs like an echo through a powerful modern novel set in
Oviedo, "La Regenta," by Leopoldo Alas. "_Poema romántica de piedra_,"
he calls it, "_delicado himno de dulces líneas de belleza muda_." Out of
the south transept open cloisters that made, the first day of our visit,
a charming picture in the sunshine after the weeks of cold rain; the red
pendants of the fuschia bushes caught the long-absent warmth with
palpable enjoyment. The shafts of the pillars here were oval shaped, not
a wholly successful change, as in profile view they appeared
unsymmetrical. Out of this south transept also opens the gem of the
church, the _Cámera Santa_, which has escaped the general renovation as
being too closely bound to the historical and religious past of Spain to
be tampered with. Alfonso _el Casto_ in 802 built this shrine, raised
twenty feet from the church pavement to preserve it from damp. A small
room with apostle-figures serving as caryatids leads to the sanctum
sanctorum where the famous relics are kept. They were brought here in a
Byzantine chest from Toledo when the Moors conquered that city, and
probably there are few collections of old jewelers' work equal to them.
Here is kept the cross Pelayo carried as a standard at the battle of
Cavadonga more than eleven hundred years before. Few can help feeling in
Spain the charm of continuous tradition. Never were her treasures
scattered by revolution; that this was Pelayo's very cross is not
problematic but a fact assured by unbroken record.
A printed sheet describing the sacred objects in the _Cámera Santa_ is
given to each visitor. It would be easy to turn many of these relics of
a more naïve, less logical age, into ridicule. To one, however, who
tries to see a new land with comprehending sympathy, to which alone it
will reveal itself, these relics, brought back from the Holy Land by
crusading knight or warrior bishop, are tender memorials of a great hour
of Christian enthusiasm. One of the strongest traits of Spanish
character is reverence for all links that bind it to its past,
especially its religious past, and happy it is for such old treasures
that they find shelter in a land where a _Cámera Santa_ is still a
shrine, not a museum. "_¡Triste de la nación que deja caer en el olvido
las ideas y concepciones de sus majores!_"
If Oviedo itself is disappointing to those who seek the antiquely
picturesque, the countryside that encircles it is doubly lovely. On a
bright Sunday morning we walked out a few miles to see the church of
Santa María de Naranco, built by Ramiro I back in 850. It was a steep
scramble up the mountain side, for the road was like a torrent bed.
Peasants on donkeys passed, on their way into the town for their day of
rest, some with brightly decorated bagpipes groaning out their
merriment. To avoid the sea of mud in the high road, we took short-cuts
up the hills, following a peasant who, seated sideways on her donkey,
balanced on her head a huge loaf of bread. And her bread, round and
flattened in the center, was the exact shape of the loaves chiseled,
centuries before, in the Bible scenes of Burgos choir-stalls. The old
woman smiled and nodded as she smoked her cigarettes, watching us pick
our way with difficulty where the tiny hoofs of her ass trod lightly.
What cares a Spanish peasant whether the road is good or bad when he has
a sure-footed donkey to carry him!
At length we reached the small church built by the third king after
Pelayo. It is a room thirty-six by fifteen feet, with a chamber at the
east and another at the west end. Along the north and south walls are
pillars from which spring the arcades, and these pillars and arches make
the support of the building; the walls merely fill in. This is the
earliest example in Spain of the separation into active and passive
members; whether the idea came from Lombardy or was of native birth is
not known.
We climbed still higher up the red sandstone hill, among gnarled old
chestnut trees, to where the ancient church of San Miguel de Lino
stands. The oriental windows, being in Spain, would naturally be thought
of Moorish origin, but their Eastern source antedates the Moor. They
came from the Byzantine East, by way of the Bosphorus, not the Straits
of Gibraltar. They are reminiscent of the time when the Goths, before
their invasion of Spain, lived around the Danube.
On July 25th the scene near these two churches is a striking one. The
village of Naranco is emptied of its folk that pious morn, as the
peasants, in the same tranquil beauty as in old Greece, lead their
garlanded oxen and heifers up to San Miguel. So unchanging are Spain's
customs that the festival is paid for out of the spoils taken at the
battle of Clavigo (in 846), where tradition says the loved patron of the
Peninsula, the Apostle St. James, "_él de España_," came to fight in
person. We were not so fortunate as to see this feast of Sant Jago, but
we stumbled on a beautiful minor scene. As we returned by Santa María de
Naranco, a group of peasants stood round the priest on the raised porch
of the church, the center of interest being a baby three days old. Few
women can resist a baptism, that solemn first step in a Christian life,
so we drew near. The father was a superb-looking youth of about twenty,
in a black velvet jacket; his crisp curly hair, his glow of color, and
the proud outline of his features made him fit subject for the artist.
The godmother, his sister it seemed from the resemblance, was a buxom
girl in Sunday finery; the godfather was a younger brother of fourteen,
who awkwardly held the precious burden. The old priest wore the wooden
clogs of the people and made a terrible racket with every step. From the
porch he led the way into the church, and after pausing half way to read
prayers,--a scuffling old sexton held aslant a dripping candle,--they
came to the baptismal font in the raised chamber at the west end. The
young father went forward to the altar steps to kneel alone, and the
godfather, with great earnestness, gave the responses. Then the _cura_
poured the blessed water on the tiny head, and to prevent cold wiped it
gently. The ceremony over, his wooden shoes clattered into the
sacristy, the sexton blew out the candle, and the agile godmother
claimed her woman's prerogative and tossed and crooned to the young
Christian as she tied ribbons and cap-strings. The two strangers who had
witnessed this moving little scene under the primitive carving of the
Visigothic church wished to leave a good-luck piece for the small
Manuela. But when they put the coin into the hand of the young parent
who still knelt before the altar, he returned it with a beautiful,
flashing smile. In halting Spanish they explained their good-luck
wishes, and in that spirit the gift was accepted.
Seen from Naranco, the red-tiled roofs of Oviedo encircled by
far-stretching mountains made a romantic enough scene. Seated on the
trunk of a chestnut tree we watched the sun set over the exquisite
valley. Immediately round us on the hillside had once stood the city of
King Ramiro, obliterated as completely as the earlier Ph[oe]nician and
Roman settlements in Spain. The dead city where we sat, the town below,
distant from the bustle of the world yet fast approaching it, the glow
and sweep of the sunset,--it is at moments such as these that the mind
enlarges to a swift comprehension, untranslatable in speech, of the
passing breath the ages are. The mountains change, the rivers
capriciously leave their beds,--especially in Spain, where bridges
stand lost in green meadows and are left undisturbed, for does not a
proverb say, "Rivers return to forsaken beds after a thousand years?"
And Spain has patience to wait! Whether it was the new-born child, the
forgotten city, the up-to-date town below, or just the sun setting over
that illimitable expanse of mountains, Santa María Naranco gave one an
hour of the higher philosophy.
In the after-glow we walked back to Oviedo. Along the way the returning
country people greeted us with ease and dignity: "_Vaya Usted con
Dios_," the beautiful salutation, "Go thou with God," heard from one end
of the land to the other. The beggar gives you thanks with it, the shop
man dismisses you, the friend takes farewell, but its pleasantest sound
is in the country, heard from the lips of clear-eyed peasants passing in
the evening light.
This peasantry is by instinct well-bred, proud of a pure descent, by
nature a gentleman, a _caballero_. A traveler's life and pocket are
absolutely secure in these unfrequented northern provinces of "dark and
scowling Spain." For a century those who have turned aside from the
beaten track have brought back the same tale of courtesy and
hospitality. There is much of Arcadian gentleness among these unlettered
people. The Spanish _labrador_ may not read or write, but he cannot be
called ignorant; statistics here do not guide one to a true knowledge.
The country people hand down in the primitive way, from one generation
to the other, a ripe store of human wisdom, that often gives them a
wider outlook on life and a deeper strength of character than that of
the educated man who shallowly criticises them. They are unspoiled and
very human, the women essentially feminine, the men essentially manly;
daily this note of virility strikes one,--one grows to love their
expressive, beautiful word, _varonil_. "The man in the saloon steamer
has seen all the races of men, and he is thinking of the things that
divide men,--diet, dress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, or in
the ears as in Europe. The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at
all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men,--hunger, and
babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky."
When one can say a thing like that, one is born to appreciate Spain.
Will not Mr. Gilbert Chesterton go there and study some day her
untamable grand old qualities and describe her as she should be
described? If such a country population had had good government during
the past three hundred years instead of the worst of tyrannies, where
would it stand to-day? Though such a surmise is foolish, for perhaps it
is because of its isolation that the Spanish peasantry is racy and
vigorous. Knowing the hopelessness of battling against corruption in
high places in Madrid, it lived out of touch with modern life, elevated
by its intense faith, the hard-won inheritance from the
_Reconquista_,--and a peasant's faith is his form of poetry and
ideality, which when taken from him makes him lose in refinement and
charm.
Back in the Basque provinces the new idea had dawned on us that this was
not a spent, degenerate race, but a young unspoiled one, and every
excursion in the country parts of Spain made deeper the assurance of red
blood coursing in her veins. Corrupt government has deeply tainted the
city classes, has made loafers, and men who open their trusts to the
silver key, but the heart of the people is sound. It has been tragically
wounded by rulers to whom, an heroic trait, it has ever been loyal. If a
country after centuries of misrule had the same power to govern herself
as a nation that had had enlightened government for the same length of
time, would not one of the best arguments for good government be lost?
It may be a long time before Spain learns the restraint of self-rule.
But go among the vigorous mountaineers of the north, talk with the
patient, sober Castilian _labrador_, watch the Catalan men of industry
and you will see the possibility of her future. A noble esprit de corps
controls the Guardia Civil who are the keepers of law and security in
Spain, to whom a bribe is an insult. Let the same spirit extend to the
other departments,--to the post, to the railway, the civil government;
let the judge sit on an impregnable height; let the priest of Andalusia
have as solemn a realization of his office as the priest of Navarre, of
Aragon, of old Castile; let the women be given a wider education (though
may nothing ever change their present qualities as wives and mothers),
and Spain is on the right road.
Cavadonga was merely a two days' trip from Oviedo, yet we had to forego
it. The weather was too abominable; while Málaga on the southern coast
of Spain has an average of but fifty-two rainy days in the year, this
city on the northern coast has only fifty-two cloudless days. The
thought of a rickety diligence over miles of muddy roads kept enthusiasm
within bounds. After a short pause in the Asturian capital we took the
train back to León. The valleys were a veritable paradise; now we
skirted a wide river flowing under heavily-wooded hills, now we crossed
fields covered with the autumn crocus, and saw from the balconies of the
farmhouses yellow tapestries of corn cobs hung out to dry.
Some day, not so far distant as an ideal government in Spain, the lover
of independence and untouched nature will come to these northern
provinces instead of going to hotel-infested Switzerland. The temperate
climate, the trout and salmon rivers, the courtesy of the people, make
these valleys between the mountains and the sea an ideal tramping and
camping ground for the summer.
THE SLEEPING CITIES OF LEÓN
"I stood before the triple northern porch
Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings,
Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch,
Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say:
'Ye come and go incessant; we remain
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past;
Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot
Of faith so nobly realized as this.'"
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
There have been many efforts to divide Spain into right-angled
departments similar to those of her neighbor France. The individual land
throws off such efforts to bring her into geometric proportion: never
can her thirteen immemorial divisions, her thirteen historic provinces
be wiped out. Each is an entity with ineradicable characteristics and
customs. Their boundaries may seem confused on a paper map, but they are
reasonable in the flesh and blood geography of mountains and river
valleys, or the psychological geography of early affiliation and
conquest.
No Alfonso or Ferdinand will ever be King of Spain, but King of the
Spains, _Rey de las Españas_. _Mi paisano_, the term which stands for
the closest bond of fellowship, is used by an Aragonese of an Aragonese,
by a Catalan of a Catalan, never by an Aragonese of an Andalusian, or a
Catalan of a Castilian. The independent Basque provinces, (where the
monarch is merely a lord) the free mountain towns of Navarre,
stiff-necked Aragon, these never will merge themselves in Old Castile.
Nor can Catalonia, self-centered, humming with manufactures and seething
with anarchy, understand pleasure-loving Andalusia, that basks under
fragrant orange trees as it smiles its ceaseless _mañana_. Valencia and
Murcia, where crop follows crop in prodigal fruitfulness are the
antithesis of desolate Estremadura, and of that immortal desert of Don
Quixote the denuded steppes of New Castile, to their north. And the
mountain provinces of Galicia and the Asturias, of idyllic hill and
dale, yet with seaports fast awakening to commercial life, look with
little sympathy on the sluggish province of León that borders them.
Industrial advancement is on its gradual way in Spain, but there is not
a hint of its movement in this oldest of the separate kingdoms. Zamora,
Astorga, León, Salamanca, the romantic cities of the earlier days of
chivalry, lie asleep; the whistle of the railways has failed to rouse
them. You must lay aside all theories of modern comfort here, and make
the tour in the spirit of a pilgrim lover of the antique and
picturesque. What else could be expected in a province where the
peasantry still embroider their coarse linen sheets with castles and
heraldic lions, in a land where even the blazonry of a city rings with a
psalm, _Ego autem ad Deum clamavi_. The centuries of forays have
bequeathed a hardy endurance to the people, but they are the cause at
the same time of the scanty population of the plains, the tragic evil of
central Spain.
We got to the city of León the day of a horse fair. Fresh from
wide-awake Oviedo, it was like stepping back into an older world; here
was old Spain much as it was in the time of Guzmán[13] the Good, the
defender of Tarifa in 1294, whose _casa solar_ faced the plaza where the
fair was held. The peasants who bargained in groups, wore toga-draped
capes and wide-brimmed felt hats edged with an inch of velvet; every
horse in Spain must have been gathered there, and an equal number of
kind-eyed woolly little donkeys, essential factors of a Spanish scene.
"The Castilian donkey has a philosophic, deliberate air," wrote
Théophile Gautier on his sympathetic tour in the Peninsula seventy years
ago, "he understands very well they can't do without him; he is one of
the family, he has read 'Don Quixote,' and he flatters himself he
descends in direct line from the famous ass of Sancho Panza."
A step beyond the horse fair brought us to massive Roman walls with
frequent semi-circular towers; León's name comes from Augustus' 7th
Legion who fortified it against the highlanders of the north. Built into
the walls is the remarkable church of San Isidoro encrusted with later
work, but with the strong Romanesque lines still prominent. The pilgrims
who flocked from Europe to Santiago Compostella in the Middle Ages were
partly the means of bringing this style into Spain; thus San Isidoro is
of Burgundian origin, just as Santiago Cathedral resembles Saint-Sernin
in Toulouse, and the Catalan churches show Lombard features. Though the
Spaniard adapted the style to his own character, adding the original
feature of outside cloisters for the laity, its importation nipped in
the bud a just beginning national architecture, whose loss cannot but be
regretted. San Isidoro has a privilege seldom given, the Blessed
Sacrament being exposed every day of the year, and always before its
lighted altar one sees veiled figures kneeling. It served as the
pantheon for the kings who followed Ordoño II--twelfth in descent from
Pelayo--who removed his capital from Oviedo here, and the ancient burial
chamber still has ceilings painted in the stiff Byzantine manner with
obscure color, hard lines, and lack of perspective, probably the oldest
paintings in Spain. The "Romancero" tells how Jimena, the gallant,
golden-haired wife of the Cid, came here after the birth of her child to
attend Mass. She wore the velvet robes given her by the king on the day
of her marriage, a richly jeweled hair-net, gift of the Infanta Urraca,
her rival; around her neck painted medals of San Lázaro and San Pedro,
_santos de su devoción_, and so beautiful was she that the sun stood
still in his course to see her better. At the church door the king met
her and escorted her in honor, for was not her husband away fighting the
infidel for his monarch? There is so true a ring to the old ballads that
Jimena lives a real personage.
"_Oviedo la sacra, Toledo la rica, Sevilla la grande, Salamanca la
fuerte, León la bella_" runs an old verse on Spanish Cathedrals. And the
Cathedral of León merits its name. It is harmoniously beautiful, pure
French-Gothic, graceful and elegant, classic if the word is permissible
for the unrestrained individualism of Gothic art. Built in one age
without intermission, in 1303 the Bishop announced that no further
contributions were needed, and the centuries since have left the church
untouched. Here no cold Herrera portal usurps some lovely pointed work
and Churrigueresque extravagancies are not prominent: the late
restorations have followed the first plans.
[Illustration: _Copyright, 1910, by Underwood & Underwood_
THE CATHEDRAL OF LEÓN]
Always excepting the _Pórtico de la Gloria_ in Santiago, the west
doorways of León Cathedrals stand for the best in Spanish sculpture. The
statue of the _Virgen Blanca_ in the center is famous. Around her the
saints and apostles are grouped in appealing attitudes;--out of
proportion though they may be as to hands and feet, their sincerity
covers all flaws: here, a homely face with care-worn wrinkles of
goodness; there, one beaming in satisfaction to be standing in such a
chosen band. The lunette over the central door is delightful. On one
side, in Heaven, a clerk plays the organ, while a boy blows the bellows,
and groups stand chatting near, for a Spaniard's idea of bliss, in those
days also, took the form of ease and desultory talk. Hell, on the
opposite side, not to be outdone, has two urchins blowing bellows as
well, not to make music but to quicken a fiery caldron into which devils
are thrusting the sinners. The enjoyment of the old sculptor in his
Heaven and Hell was too keen to be confined in the lunette and he has
spread himself over the curving of the arches; in spite of time and
retouching these three doorways show exquisite detail chiseling.
"About their shoulders sparrows had built nests
And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch,
Now on a miter poising, now a crown,
Irreverently happy."
Within León Cathedral all is quiet and solemn, a true beauty of
holiness. There is no clutter of side chapels in the nave but a sheer
sweep of windows filled with the jeweled glass of Flemish masters.[14]
These windows come as a surprise in a land where churches are guarded
from the sun, and often the open triforium and clearstory, as at Avila,
are walled up later to darken the interior. The chancel and choir are
worth detail study. The _coro_ seats have panels carved with single
figures,--saints with their emblems, warriors with raised visors,
placid-faced nuns, thoughtful bishops, gallant pages with their crossed
feet gracefully poised,--all of a noble type, with high brow and
aquiline nose. Spain has comparatively nothing to show in the way of
frescoes, she had no early Masaccio, no Giotto, no Filippo Lippi, to
paint the costumes and features of his generation, but wood carvings are
her substitute; in them, and in her unrivaled tombs can be read the
contemporary history of warrior, bishop, and page. The _retablo_ of the
High Altar is of the same simple elegance as the rest of the church. The
usual towering one of carved scenes would have been singularly out of
place, it is appropriate for the big dark interior of Seville Cathedral,
but here are grace and restraint instead of grandeur and mystery, and
most suitable are the ancient paintings of varying sizes, gathered from
scattered churches and framed together. Radiating round the chancel are
chapels that give to the exterior view of the apse a truly French-Gothic
air, flying buttresses supporting the cap of the _capilla mayor_.
Romanesque, Gothic, and Plateresque are each well represented in León
City. In the last style is the noticeable convent of San Marcos that
stands isolated outside the town beside the swift blue-green river. The
Knights of Santiago built a resting-place on their pilgrimage route back
in the 12th century, but the present building is of Isabella's day, and
the architect has given free rein to his silversmith's arabesques and
medallions, and scattered pilgrim shells all over the façade of the
church. We tried to get into the Museum, now in the convent, as it
contains some good wood carvings, but an aged beggar at the door
explained "_Mañana_," the easy "to-morrow," as prevalent in León as in
Andalusia,--then rising to the occasion as only an Italian or Spanish
beggar can, he swept open his toga-draped cape, smiling as he pointed to
the entrance door: "To-morrow, after your morning chocolate, it will be
open for you."
It was sunset as we turned away. The long mass of San Marcos stood
boldly against the red glow of the sky. The horizon was outlined by the
blue mountains of Asturias. With our imagination filled with the old
days when pilgrims flocked here from England, from the forests of
Germany, from the Po and the Danube, suddenly over the ancient bridge
rode a troop of cavaliers on prancing steeds, in cloaks and plumed hats.
The kindly blessed illusion hid the fact that our pilgrim-knights were
sturdy peasants in the national _capa_, riding their long-haired horses
back from the city fair.
"Sin el vivo calor, sin el fecundo
Rayo de la ilusión consoladora
¿Que fuera de la vida y del mundo?"
asks one of Spain's poets of the 19th century, Núñez de Arce, and in his
native country it takes but little effort of the imagination to repeople
the solemn churches, the narrow city streets, or the treeless plain
with the romantic figures of the past.
The following day at dawn, after a miserable night in rooms like icy
death, a true pilgrim night of endurance, we took the train for the
west. As we entered the railway carriage _Reservado para Señoras_ a
sleepy railway-guard stumbled out of the further door; all through the
journey in the north, we roused these cozily-ensconced railway-officials,
for so rare are ladies alone on this route, that the conductors have
fallen into the habit of sleeping in the carriage reserved for them.
When our tickets were collected we were given many a severe look for
daring to upset a _cosa de España_.
On the way from León to Astorga, little over thirty miles, the
realization of the old pilgrim route is vivid. Before reaching Astorga
comes the paladin's bridge,[15] of Órbigo, where in the reign of
Isabella's father ten _caballeros andantes_ challenged every passing
pilgrim to a bout of arms; if a lady came without a cavalier to fight
for her, she forfeited her glove, if any knight declined to fight he
lost his sword and spur. The age of knight errantry which Cervantes has
haloed with a deathless charm, breathes in this historic Pass of Honour.
The leader, Suero de Quiñones, came of the great Guzmán family, to which
St. Dominic belonged, and of which the Empress Eugénie was a scion. To
show his captivity to his lady, every Thursday he wore an iron chain
round his neck, but when victor in this tourney, it was removed with
solemnity by the heralds. Suero's sword is to be seen to-day in the
Madrid Armory where in an hour more of Spain's real history is learned
than in years of reading.
The Roman walls of Astorga, seen from the railway present an imposing
appearance: here, as at León and Lugo, the frequent half-circular towers
do not rise above the crest of the walls. Astorga must have looked just
like this when the pilgrims rode by to the shrine of St. James. A closer
inspection spoils the illusion however, for the proud city that once
ranked as a grandee of Spain is to-day a very tattered and worn hidalgo,
and there is a sad air of desolation about its plaza and crumbling
walls. Whether or not it was because our ramble was by early morning
before the inhabitants were astir, at any rate I brought away a picture
of a depopulated town. There were but a few silent worshipers under the
clustered piers of the late-Gothic Cathedral, whose reddish tower is
the important feature of the distant view. What had tempted us to pause
a night in Astorga was the wood-carved _retablo_ by Becerra in the
Cathedral, but we found it by no means equal to the work of the carvers
in Valladolid. Becerra had studied under Vasari in Rome, and the
influence is shown too plainly. There is a curious weather cock on the
church, a wooden statue called Pedro Mata, dressed in the costume of a
singular tribe that lives in some thirty villages near by. The origin of
the Maragatos is involved in mystery; some say they are the descendants
of Moors taken in battle, some of Goths who sided with the Moors. During
all these centuries they have kept separate from the people about them,
like gypsies they marry only with themselves. They should not be
confounded with _gitanos_, however, for the Maragatos are honest and
industrious; they are the carriers of the countryside, with the
privilege of taking precedence on the road. Here and there in Spain one
stumbles on a strange, isolated relic of the past such as this. Astorga
was still sleeping, in the literal as well as figurative sense, when we
left; a walk on top of the walls looking out over the León plain, a
regret that we could not sketch the artistic church of San Julián, with
its faded green door and crumbling portal, and we turned south. On the
train I discovered that a five franc piece given me in change by the
innkeeper, was nothing but a bit of silver-washed brass advertising the
cakes of one Casimiro in Salamanca, and I, seeing the king's effigy, had
thought it a genuine Spanish dollar,--it is easy to be caught napping in
León.
Zamora is not many miles from Astorga and like the other sleepy towns of
the province, it too seems to feel it has a right to a long pause in
obscurity after its heroic centuries of Moorish warfare. The great hour
of the city was the time of the Cid; the "Romancero" should be in one's
pocket here. One of its stirring incidents is the death of King
Ferdinand I, in 1065, and its sequel of battles and sieges. The king
lies on his deathbed, holding a candle, great prelates at his head and
his four sons on his right hand. With the fatal propensity of Spanish
rulers to bequeath discord, he divides his kingdom among his sons; to
Don Sancho, Castile; León to Alfonso; the Basque provinces to García;
the fourth son already was of enough importance, "_Arzobispo de Toledo,
Maestre de Santiago, Abad en Zaragoza, de las Españas, Primado_." The
king's daughter Urraca, she who had given the Cid's wife, Jimena, her
jeweled hair-net, now complains bitterly that she is left out of the
inheritance, so her dying father gives her the fortress-city of Zamora,
"_muy preciada, fuerte es á maravilla_," and "who takes it from you let
my curse fall on him." In spite of which threat her wicked brother
Sancho, besieges the city,--a Spanish proverb for patience runs: "_No se
ganó Zamora en una hora._" With Sancho comes his chief warrior Roderick
Díaz de Bivar, given the title of Cid Campeador, Lord Champion, by the
Moorish envoys who here met him. The Cid had wellnigh fought an entrance
into the city when the intrepid Urraca ascends a tower--to-day called
the Afuera Tower--and delivers her famous scolding.
"¡Afuera! Afuera! Rodrigo,
El sóberbio Castellano!"
"Out! Out! Rodrigo, proud Castilian! Remember the past! When you were
knighted before the altar of Santiago, and my father, your sponsor, gave
you your armor, my mother gave you your steed, and I laced on your
spurs! For I thought to be your bride, but you, proud Castilian, set
aside a king's daughter to wed that of a mere Count!" And the ballad
tells how the Cid, hearing her upbraiding with emotion, retired with his
men.
The only present attraction of the decayed town is its Cathedral, set
high above the Duero on the edge of the bluff along which Zamora
stretches. It was built by the Cid's confessor, Bishop Gerónimo, the
dome above the transept crossing being an original feature which the
bishop was to elaborate later in the old Cathedral of Salamanca; as
Trinity Church, Boston, is copied from this last, Zamora has a special
interest for the visitor from New England. We had a four hours' pause
there, ample time to see the city. It was raining so dismally that my
fellow traveler decided not to face a certain drenching, as the
long-drawn-out town had to be traversed before reaching the Cathedral.
In an unfortunate moment I started out alone for what I supposed would
be a leisurely exploring of a venerable city. Fleeing in distress would
better describe the reality, for every hooting boy and girl in Zamora
followed at my heels. Whether it was a white ulster or an automobile
veil tied over my hat as the wind was high, or just the unaccustomed
figure of a stranger in those narrow streets, an excited crowd pursued
me the whole length of the town. In front, walking backward,
open-mouthed, went a dozen urchins, and behind came a long brigade I
hardly dared look back on, it so increased with every step. Men hastened
to their shop doors to wonder at the crowd, and the passers-by stood
still in astonishment; a feeling of horror came over me at such
publicity. In vain I fled into churches in the hope of escaping the
relentless little pests; when I emerged they greeted me with howls of
pleasure. I angrily shook my umbrella at them, but that only added to
the glorious excitement. Here and there a kind woman came to the
bothered stranger's help, and scattered the crowd. The children merely
scampered down side streets to meet me again in still greater numbers at
the next corner. It is easy to laugh now that it is over, but at the
time there is small amusement in fleeing through a foreign city pursued
by forty hooting youngsters, to have them press round you in a stifling
circle when you pause to look in your book, to have them gaze long and
seriously at you, then burst into uncontrollable laughter so that in
desperation you begin to feel if you have two noses or six eyes. We had
decided that in most of the unfrequented towns of Spain, the children
were a nuisance; in Zamora they were positive vampires. A visitor in the
future had best wear black, a black veil on the head, a black
prayer-book in the hand, as if on the way to church, then resembling
other people, the children may let her pass. But a white ulster and a
red guide book are magic pipes of Hamelin to lure every idle child in
Zamora. In spite of wind and rain, and a lengthy disappearance within
the Cathedral, it was only on reëntering the station, several hours
after they had first seized on their prey, that the unsolicited escort
left me, and even then they hung round the door till the shriek of the
engine told them the escaped lunatic who had given them so splendid an
afternoon's entertainment was out of reach.
GALICIA
"Blessed the natures shored on every side
With landmarks of hereditary thought!
Thrice happy they that wander not lifelong
Beyond near succour of the household faith,
The guarded fold that shelters, not confines!
Their steps find patience in familiar paths
Printed with hope by loved feet gone before
Of parent, child or lover, glorified
By simple magic of dividing Time."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago,--perhaps this claims too much for the Spanish
pilgrimage shrine? It would not in the Middle Ages, when the Christians
of all Europe flocked there to pray beside the tomb of St. James the
Elder, the patron of Spain invoked in the battle cry of her chivalry for
a thousand years, "_¡Santiago y cierra España!_"--"St. James and close
Spain!" A Latin certificate used to be given to every pilgrim, and it
was kept among family records, for there were properties that could only
be inherited if one had gone to Santiago Compostella. To-day Spaniards
are the only devotees, though as I write I see that a band of English
pilgrims with the Archbishop of Westminster at its head is visiting the
far-off corner of Galicia. Though few travelers turn out of their way
there, it is one of the most characteristic spots to be seen in Spain, a
solemn old granite city, with arcaded streets and vast half-empty
caravansaries darkened with humidity and age.
It takes over fifteen hours to go from León to Santiago, but the journey
is a beautiful one, with mountains and fertile valleys, and rivers such
as the Sill and that gem of the province, the Miño. At Monforte the
railway branches, one line goes to Túy and Santiago, and the other turns
up to Lugo and Coruña. We took this last, tempted by accounts of Lugo.
It is indeed a unique little city, walled around without a break by
Roman battlements forty feet high, on the top of which is the
fashionable promenade of the town. With its walls and the view from
them, it closely resembles Lucca. Lugo was a surprise in various ways.
It had a hotel, the "Fernán Núñez," so up-to-date that it boasted a
tiled bathroom with hot water and a shower bath. Not only the
comfortable inn but the streets of the town were a model of propriety.
As always, our steps turned first to the Cathedral, spoiled outside, as
is unfortunately the way in Spain, by those two disastrous centuries,
the seventeenth and eighteenth, but within being of the lovely
transition period, Romanesque as it merged into Gothic, with the arches
just slightly pointed. The irrepressible Churriguera has worked himself
into the inside of the church too; his canopy over the High Altar is
abominable, though it would take more than that to detract from the
simple solemnity of such a church. Lugo is one of the holiest spots in
the Peninsula, like San Isidoro in León, it claims the privilege of
perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, only more privileged than
León, exposed night as well as day. So proud is the province of this
ancient custom that the Host is represented on the shield of Galicia.
No matter at what hour you enter the Cathedral, there are worshipers;
two priests always kneel before the tabernacle, and they never kneel
alone. The scenes of humble piety drew me back to the church again and
again with compelling attraction. To me a Spaniard praying unconsciously
before the altar is unequaled by any act of worship I have witnessed;
not even the touching Russian pilgrims in Jerusalem kissing the pavement
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, nor the Arab at sunset kneeling
alone in the desert, can impress more powerfully. It seemed as if this
tranquil shrine of Lugo spread an influence of uplifting thought through
the whole contented little town; in the quiet afternoon a withered
grandmother knelt with her hands on the head of a little tot of six who
repeated the prayers that fell from the old lips, or three young women
of the upper class sought a retired corner of the church to repeat
together their daily chaplet; now in a side chapel, a peasant thinking
herself unobserved, in a glow of devotion, encircled the altar on her
knees.
On leaving the west door of the Cathedral, we ascended the inclined path
that leads to the promenade on top of the walls. It was sunset, an
exquisite hour to look out on the well-wooded countryside, through which
meandered the trout-filled Miño. In the distance were mountains. No
wonder the Romans, who ferreted out most of the choice spots of Europe,
used to come to this city for the thermal baths. The handsome modern
Lugonians strolled around the ramparts, pausing to chat here and there
in the semicircles made by the numerous towers of the wall. Now a
white-haired matron draped in the national mantilla, loitered leisurely
by, with some of the higher ecclesiastics of the Cathedral; now a mother
and two grave, pretty daughters passed, watched discreetly by the young
beaux. Evidently far-off little Lugo, tucked away in the unknown
northwestern corner of Spain, had a social life that sufficed for
itself, with no envy of Madrid and San Sebastián. The local contentment
found everywhere in the country struck me as admirable. Will "progress"
unsettle it? We could have stayed a month in Lugo. To fish in the Miño,
to ramble over the fertile country, to feel about one peaceful,
contented human beings, would make a summer there a happy experience.
When we went on to Coruña, a commercial town that, like seaports the
world over, has a rough populace, we were glad to have first seen Doña
Emilia Pardo Bazán's loved province at pretty Lugo. In travel there must
always be, I suppose, some places that one slights; one knows if one
stayed long enough they might show a pleasanter side. We treated Coruña
in this way. Sir John Moore, buried at midnight during the Peninsula
War, was our association with the town before going there, and for all
we saw of it Sir John will remain the chief association of the future.
We only saw the flat, commercial district that skirts the bay, not the
headland where the old town lies. Slatternly beggars pestered us, bold,
bare-legged girls stood mocking at the unaccustomed sight of foreign
women traveling; it was with relief we took the diligence that started
at noon for Santiago.
I shall never cease regretting that we did not wait till the following
day, when an electric diligence makes the journey, for that eight hours'
trip over the hills to the capital was for us the only horrible
experience of our tour in Spain. I wish I might blot out its memory, but
as I am setting down frankly everything that occurred, this scene of
cruelty must be told of, too. In the omnibus with us were but two other
people, and there were five horses; there seemed no reason to foresee
trouble. For the first relay of twelve miles all went well, and we
enjoyed looking back from the hills on the blue Atlantic where the
headland of Coruña jutted boldly out. Our drivers treated the horses
with consideration and dismounted at every ascent. But, alas, for the
second relay, we changed men and changed animals. Two young vagabonds
were now on the box, driving four such miserable, bony nags that it tore
the heart to see the sores the rope harness had made. We protested at
the use of such horses, but in vain. Twelve miles lay behind,
twenty-four were ahead, there were no inns, so we hesitated to desert
the diligence, but had we realized the two hours of purgatory we were to
face, we had dismounted and walked back to Coruña.
One young wretch drove with loud cries and slashing blows; the other
alighted to beat the quivering animals up the hills. They guided so
recklessly that we were once dashed down the bank into the gutter, and
soon after run into a hay-cart and the wheels unlocked with difficulty.
When at length they began to strike the spent beasts over the eyes our
anger burst all bounds. In a heat of fury never before experienced, and
I hope never again, we attacked those two brutal boys. I do not think
they will soon forget that scene. At first they replied with impudence
and went on lashing the horses. But impudence soon ceased. When two
women are in earnest and are fearless of consequences, and have stout
umbrellas, they win the day. The twelve miles of their escort over, and
new horses harnessed to the diligence--those four pitiful, bleeding
victims led away!--the two scoundrels slunk off, sore on arms and
shoulders as well as shamed in spirit, for the country people who
gathered round supported our protest. The remaining miles to Santiago
finished well, with good drivers and stout horses. But never will the
horror of those two hours leave me. In fairness I must add that this was
the only scene of cruelty I saw during the eight months in Spain, and
again and again I noticed plump happy donkeys who were treated as
members of the family. It is far-fetched to account for this unfortunate
instance by the bull-fight, since in countries that have no such
spectacles, veritable skeletons are made to haul cabs, and poor jades
are used for drag horses. But I cannot help seizing on this opening for
a little tirade against the national game of Spain, which Fernán
Caballero, who loved her home with passionate affection called,
"inhuman, immoral, an anachronism in this century." The sports of other
lands are open to harsh criticism. I do not think a Spaniard is more
cruel by nature than an Englishman; in both nations is a certain
proportion of coarsened characters,--the northern country may keep them
better out of sight in the slums.
Northern Europe is to-day more humane to animals than southern Europe,
because the women of the north have had greater freedom and have entered
into philanthropic interests such as this. Kindness to animals is a
modern movement everywhere (may the shade of St. Francis of Assisi
forgive this half statement!) Spain need not be too discouraged by being
behindhand. The bony exhausted horses used within my own remembrance on
our American street-car lines, to drag cars laden each evening to twice
the beasts' strength, would not be tolerated to-day, and this change has
been wrought by societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, the
membership made up chiefly of women and children. Would that Spanish
ladies could be pricked to action by the statement of a living French
novelist, made in ignorance of late conditions in America and England,
that kindness to animals is a Protestant virtue. It is neither
Protestant nor Catholic, but common to all human societies where women
are allowed to aid with their gentler instincts in the public welfare of
their country. The bull and the man are sport and skill, that part I
can understand. It is the agony of the horses that is a disgrace to
these shows, worn-out nags who can make no resistance are used, and when
the bull gores them, their entrails are thrust back and the dying beasts
pricked on to the fray. Herein lies the great difference between
bull-fights to-day, which are debased money-making spectacles only taken
part in by professionals, and the more chivalrous sport of earlier times
when the hidalgo was _toreador_, and proper steeds that could defend
themselves were used.
The bull-fight is found in Spain so early that its origin from the Roman
period in the Peninsula, or from the first Mohammedan conquerors, is
disputed. The Cid took part in a game, and games celebrated the marriage
of Alfonso VII's daughter Urraca to the king of Navarre. During the
reign of Isabella's father, Juan II, the _corrida de toros_ was much in
vogue. Queen Isabella herself disliked the sport, and in one of her
letters she vows never to witness it. On the birth of Philip II in
Valladolid, Charles V killed a bull in the arena. The _fiestas_
continued under the Hapsburg Philips, until the advent of the French
Philip V, in 1700. He so slighted this national sport that gentlemen
ceased to take part in it, and it sank to its present level. It is now
so well paying an affair that the only way to reform it would be
through concerted action on the part of Spanish women. It is a crusade
worthy of them.
A night of rest in the hotel at Santiago and the painful scene of the
day before was somewhat dimmed. Early in the morning I started out to
explore the old pilgrim city. It has a distinct character of its own,
seldom have I felt so decided a place-influence. It is very solemn, very
gray, very stately and aloof. On many of the houses the pilgrim shell is
carved; the streets are paved with granite and the vast hospices are of
the same severe stone, moss-grown and damp; grass also grows between the
big granite slabs of the silent, imposing squares. Santiago does not
belong to our age. Modern towns do not name their streets after
twelfth-century prelates, "Street of Gelmúrez, 1st Archbishop of
Compostella," makes a novel sign.
Here, as all over the land, the Cathedral was the magnet. I walked along
the dark, arcaded streets in a Scotch drizzle, passed under Cardinal
Fonseca's college and came out in the plaza before the west entrance.
The west front is a baroque mass which those who can endure that style
say is most successful. I cannot endure that style. It seemed to me
doubly a pity that this late front should mask the chief treasure of
Galicia, the _Pórtico de la Gloria_, which stands as an open portico to
the church, fifteen feet within this west door.
Enthusiastic description had led us to expect much of what may be called
the supreme work of Romanesque sculpture, in fact, it was this portico
that had decided us for the long trip to Galicia. We were not
disappointed. "_Es la oración más sublime que ha elevado al cielo el
arte español._" Neither photograph nor words can describe it; it is one
of those matchless works that body forth the best of an age. The model
of South Kensington does not give its nobility, for it is the setting
before the lofty dim Romanesque nave that makes it a unique thing. When
later, in Constantinople, I saw Alexander's sarcophagus, the thought of
Santiago sprang instantly to my mind. Both bring a feeling of
sadness;--one, simple flowing Greek of the best period, the other,
crabbed, original, mediæval,--they are alike in the absolute sincerity
with which each embodied the highest then attainable. Over the carvings
of both are faded traces of color that give the finishing touch of the
exquisite.
The Archbishop, Don Pedro Suárez, in 1180 gave the commission for this
portico to a sculptor named Mateo, whether Spanish or foreign is not
known; he lived in Santiago till 1217. He must have been a close student
of the Bible, for his symbolism is profound and harmonious. Above the
central arch is a solemn Christ, of heroic size, at his side the four
Evangelists, figures of youthful beauty: the lion and the bull have
settled themselves cozily in their patron's lap. Large angels on either
side carry the instruments of the Passion. Very fine statues of the
Apostles stand against the pillars of the central doorway. In the
tympanum are small figures typifying the Holy City of Isaiah, and on its
arch are seated, on a rounding bench, the twenty-four ancients of the
Apocalypse, with musical instruments and vases of perfume. This is
perhaps the most beautiful part of the portico. For hours one can study
it. Some of the heads are thrown back in revery, some turned together in
conversation. "The four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb
having everyone of them harps and golden vials full of odours, which are
the prayers of the saints" (St. John, Rev. V, 8). The carvings of that
age were somewhat grotesque, but here the types are ideal, as beautiful
in their way as Mino da Fiesole or Rossellino. When Master Mateo had
finished his work, he made a statue of himself below the central column
of the portico, kneeling toward the altar and humbly beating his breast;
on this figure was written "architectus." Humility and a consummate
profession of faith such as this went hand in hand.
It is anticlimax, after the _Pórtico de la Gloria_, to speak of the
other sights of Santiago. On the plaza before the west end of the
Cathedral stands the dignified Hospital Real, founded by Isabella and
Ferdinand as a pilgrim inn. Two of the four patios are quaintly carved,
and probably amuse the convalescents of the modern hospital lodged now
in the building. It was a joy to find so many of Isabella's good deeds
still bearing fruit. The nuns took us down to the big kitchen,
white-tiled and spotless, where we saw the four hundred fresh eggs that
arrive daily from the country; the tidy patients on the verandas showed
clearly that no one suffered privations here. As we were leaving, the
old chaplain of the institution ran after us to beg us to return to see
something of which he was evidently vastly proud. When he ushered us
into a tiled bathing room and turned on the water that dashed up and
down and round about from every kind of new contrivance, he looked at us
with a self-complacency that was adorable, as if he said: "There, you
water-loving English, we're just as fond of it as you!" The excellently
managed institution reminds one that this province produced Doña
Concepción Arenal, sociologist and political economist, and withal a
most tender-hearted Christian, whose books on prison organization and
reform have been widely translated, and are quoted as authorities by the
leading criminologists of Europe. For thirty years this admirable woman
was inspector of prisons. She died at Vigo in 1893, and Spain has since
erected statues in her honor.
In Galicia, as in Catalonia, there has been a revival of dialect
literature. The Gallego tongue was the first in the Peninsula to reach
literary culture, and in the Middle Ages two ideal troubadours wrote in
it. Had not Alfonso _el Sabio_ written chiefly in Castilian, thereby
fixing that as the leading tongue, as Dante did the Tuscan in Italy, it
is probable that the dialect of Galicia had prevailed. Portuguese and
Gallego were the same language up to the fifteenth century, hence it is
that the great critic Menéndez y Pelayo always includes Portuguese
writers in his studies of Spanish literature.
Galicia is fortunate in having an able living exponent, the Señora
Emilia Pardo Bazán, whose novels are full of the charmed melancholy of
the province. The Gallego is derided in other parts of Spain, his name
is synonymous with boor, for he is judged by the clumsy _mozo_ who seeks
work in the south. "The more unfortunate a country the greater is the
love of its sons for it. Greece, Poland, Hungary, Ireland, prove this,
and the nostalgia is strongest in those of Celtic origin. Ask the rude
Gallegos of South America what is their ambition--'To return to the
_terriña_ and there die' is the answer."
In a collection of essays "De mi Tierra," Madam Pardo Bazán has told of
the learned Benedictine, Padre Feijóo, the Bacon of Spain, whose caustic
pen did away with so many of the superstitions of his age. It may be a
bit pedantic for me to give biographies in these slight sketches, but it
seems as if a truer idea of the race is conveyed in such lives than
could be given in any other way. This native of Galicia, Padre Feijóo,
had few equals in the Europe of his time in liberality of view. He was
born of hidalgo parents near Orense, where his _casa solar_ stands,
still lived in by a Feijóo of to-day. He entered the Benedictine Order
and in their cloisters passed most of his long life of eighty years, for
half a century living in their Oviedo house. His unflagging industry,
his clear intellect, and simple uprightness, won the admiration of all
who knew him. "After fifteen years' intimate acquaintance with Feijóo,"
wrote a scientist of the day, "never have I met, inside religion or out,
a man more sincere, more candid, more declared enemy of fraud and
deceit." Not till he was fifty did Feijóo commence to write. In 1731
appeared the beginning of his "Teatro Crítico," essays that have been
called the first step of Spanish journalism, written as they eminently
were to communicate ideas to others. He had the passion to know why, a
never-tiring love of investigation. Adopting the Baconian experimental
method, he attacked the superstitions and pseudo-miracles around him.
_¡Ay! de mí Inquisición_! Were you asleep that you did not clap this
independent thinker into your capacious dungeons? So strong was Feijóo's
influence that Benedict XIV curtailed the number of feast days on his
mere suggestion.
This learned Benedictine monk was ahead of his age in many ideas. Are
the stars not inhabited? he asked. Before Washington, he maintained that
the Machiavellian theory of government, intrigue and diplomacy, which
was then universally accepted in Europe, was inferior to friendly
loyalty and honor. He preached compassion to animals generations before
the age of our modern, humanitarian theories. With the painful
remembrance of the diligence ride in Galicia, I was glad to find one of
her sons advocating this. Feijóo stands out more prominently because of
the intellectual desert around him. "The eighteenth century was an
erudite, negative, fatigued." The Bourbons brought formality and
sterility to spontaneous Spain. A dry soulless learning killed the
creative power, and in every branch, art, music, and literature, the
artificial rococo flourished. The two exceptions of vitality were Feijóo
and the painter Goya. Had Padre Feijóo lived in our age, he might have
been that great man hailed by De Maistre: "Attendez que l'affinité
naturelle de la science et de la religion les ait réunies l'une et
l'autre dans la tête d'un homme de génie! Celui-là sera fameux et mettra
fin au dix-huitième siècle qui dure encore." How much longer are we to
wait for him,--this great man!
If the only harrowing scene of the tour in Spain is to be associated
with Galicia, so is one of the happiest, a day of such kindly chivalry
that we felt the spirit of Isabella's time still endured. It was the
chance of railway travel that introduced a modern knight to us. The
journey back to Castile from Galicia is a most trying one. Some day
perhaps an enterprising ocean line will put in at Vigo and run an
express directly across country to Madrid; we were too early for such
ease. From Santiago we had to take an afternoon train to Pontevedra, and
there spend the night. At 5 A.M. (oh, those unforgettable, dark, cold
railway stations of Spain!) we again took the train. It was dawn before
Redondela was reached, and exquisite as a dream seemed the _rías_, the
fiords of Galicia, with wooded mountains sloping to their shores. It is
not hard to prophesy that this will be a great summer resort of the
future.
At Redondela we changed trains, getting into the express for Monforte,
the only other occupant of the carriage being an elderly man, blue-eyed,
very tall and erect, with the air of distinction so frequently found
among Don Quixote's countrymen. We had noticed him the night before in
the Pontevedra hotel, and had thought him an Englishman, till in
offering some service about our luggage he spoke in Spanish. As we were
to spend fifteen hours in the same railway carriage, we soon entered
into conversation. He came from Madrid each summer with a family of sons
and daughters to spend some months in a castle among the mountains of
Galicia. Evidently he was a lover of sport and of country life, for as
we ran alongside the Miño River, with Portugal just across on the
opposite bank, for hours he sat gazing out in enjoyment, and drew each
beautiful thing to our notice. At noon we reached Monforte, where we had
dinner in the station buffet. When we called for our account, to our
astonishment the waiter told us it was settled already. We could not
understand what had been done, till the proprietor himself came to
explain. It seems it is a custom all over this generous land, for a man
when he is with a lady or has spoken to her, to pay for everything she
orders; tea, luncheon, even her shopping purchases. He does this with no
offensive ostentation, but so quietly that he often slips away unnoticed
and unthanked. Several travelers have since told me that they too met
this hospitality; it had at first embarrassed them, but as there was
not the slightest impertinence nor even the personal about it, as it was
merely an act of chivalrous respect, done with superb detachment, when
the confusion of being paid for by a stranger was over, they remembered
only the charming courtesy.
The attentions of our kind host, for he seemed to look on two strangers
in his land as his guests, did not stop at noontime, at tea he brought
us platefuls of hot chestnuts. He tried to while away the hours
pleasantly, playing games on paper in French and English; with all his
dignified gravity the Spaniard is not blasé. Our struggles to learn his
tongue rousing sympathy, it was from him we first heard of the pretty
high-flown phrases still in daily use, how you bid farewell with, _Beso
à V. la mano_ (I kiss your hand), or _A los pies de V._ (I am at your
feet); that the _Usted_, shortened to _V._, with which you address high
or low, is a corruption of "Your Majesty." Somehow there seems nothing
absurd in addressing a Spanish peasant as "Your Majesty." The love of
abbreviations is a curious trait in a people with such leisurely ways;
thus, a row of cabalistic letters ends a letter: _S. S. S. Q. B. S. M._,
which means that your correspondent kisses your hand--_su seguro
servidor que besa su mano_.
Then the interest which we evinced in the institutions and progress of
Spain made him put his cultivated intelligence at our service, and we
learned more in a day than in all the previous weeks. When I inquired
into the vexed religious question he was able to explain much. As a
rule, republicanism in Spain means avowed atheism and socialism; it has
been well said that the republicanism of all Latin countries turns to
social revolution. The socialists are a small, but well-organized band,
international in character since their movements are directed from
centers like Paris. They are chiefly in industrial cities such as
Barcelona, Valencia, and Bilbao, where secret societies of anarchists
abound, disguised as clubs for scientific study. The majority being of
the rabble, repudiating all authority, ("civilization, that is the
enemy!") their disorders would be called mob uprisings did they occur in
Chicago, but deceived by the term "republicanism," the journals of
England and America gave them too lenient a consideration. By no means
devout himself, he assured us that what we saw on every side was for the
most part very genuine religion, not sentiment with no result; for in
those places where observance had slackened there was a marked
difference in moral restraint, so potent a factor for morality was
religion still in Spain. That there were faults none denied, but he had
traveled enough to know the flaws of other countries too well to be
despairing of his own.
He wrote for us a card of introduction to the big hospital of Madrid; he
sought out a friend in another carriage, the son of the Admiral in
Ferrol, who was rather up in statistics. Had we seen the asylum near
Santiago where the insane are treated with such success that noted cures
had been obtained? Had we met the archæologist of the province, a canon
in the Cathedral? In short, from the questions and suggestions we
realized that the average tourist goes through this reserved country
half blind. Glad were we for this chance of insight. When in the dusk of
evening it came time to descend at Astorga, our stopping-place for the
night, and our fellow-traveler stood there shaking hands, with warm
friendliness in his blue eyes, we felt there was no more thoroughbred
specimen of manhood than a Spanish hidalgo.
SALAMANCA
"L'homme n'est produit que pour l'infini."
"Il y a des raisons qui passent notre raison."
"Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosopher."
PASCAL.
Salamanca is in León province, and in comparison with the hour of its
prime, as it is to-day it too is very like a sleeping city. It is hard
to realize that this dull, small town was a _grandeza de España_,
ranking with Oxford, Paris, and Bologna, that once 10,000 students
flocked here from all over Europe, and every young Spaniard turned here
as naturally as a modern Englishman to Oxford or Cambridge; Cervantes'
"Novelas Exemplares" give the picture. To-day there are barely a
thousand students, chiefly from its own province; among the ten
universities of Spain the former leader takes a very lowly place.
Madrid, the continuation of Cardinal Ximenez' University of Alcalá, may
be called the modern Salamanca in intellectual leadership.
[Illustration: _Copyright, 1910, by Underwood & Underwood_
VIEW OF SALAMANCA FROM THE ROMAN BRIDGE]
In the Spanish Oxford one looks in vain for the numerous colleges of the
city on the Isis. Alas! Salamanca is half a ruin. The French, in the
Napoleonic invasion, destroyed the whole northwest quarter of the
town to make fortifications, undoing in a few brutal hours the work of
centuries of culture and piety. In his despatches of 1812 the Duke of
Wellington wrote: "The French among other acts of violence have
destroyed thirteen out of twenty convents and twenty out of the
twenty-five colleges which existed in this seat of learning." Twenty out
of twenty-five colleges! The thought of Oxford's tranquil, age-crowned
buildings makes one grasp the tragic wreck of the Spanish university;
never while in Salamanca could I forget the desolate tract to the west,
lying still a heap of ruins, untenanted save by wandering goats, those
nomad creatures that give the culminating note of squalor to deserted
districts.
Our train approached the city across the plains from Zamora, through
plantations of isolated trees and past droves of black sheep whose
guardian stood patiently under the rain. For some time in the distance
we saw the prominent church towers. Salamanca lay on the old Roman road,
the Via Lata, that connected Cadiz with the north, but the Roman
associations here are slight. As in Zamora, the Cid and his feats dwarf
other interests, so here it is the picturesque days of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries that fill the mind.
Go down to the Roman bridge over the Tormes and while away an hour
watching the passers-by, and the old times seem to live again. Below in
the river bed women wash and chatter from morning till night, spreading
the gayly-colored clothes, red, yellow, and purple, over the stones to
dry. If it is Sunday, into the city pour the hardy peasants for their
one day of rest from the ungrateful work of the fields: girls in pale
blue woolen stockings and smart, black pumps sit sideways behind their
cavaliers on the long-haired nags whose backs are often shaved into a
pattern; now out of the city jogs a brisk old woman on her donkey, laden
with a month's purchases, an unpainted rush-bottom chair topping the
pile; she nods to the strangers, _franceses_, she thinks, for a Spaniard
takes all foreigners for his neighbors over the frontier: now a cart
passes, whose shape and hue seem taken out of a romantic watercolor;
then a young peasant in wide-brimmed sombrero, leather gaiters, silver
buttons as big as dollars on his vest, clear-eyed and proud of carriage:
then, salt to the picture, rides a burly _cura_, sitting well back on
his tiny ass, a ridiculous figure were it not for his sublime
unconsciousness, his innate self-respect. Ever the unspoiled, the
vigorous, the untamed! Just so they came into Salamanca in the past when
students with swords and velvet capes walked the streets, and so I hope
they may do some hundred years from now, for such lives of frugal
contentment are unequaled. Localism and provinciality have been forced
on Spain by nature, and it is this very provincialism which is her charm
for the traveler. Fresh from a prosperous, new world, he may often long
for certain changes here, for more widely diffused education, for free
libraries, a more secure self-government; but such material prosperity
is bought with a price. Remember that not in the length or breadth of
this land are to be found the degraded human beings, vicious in soul and
brutalized in shape of skull and feature, such as exist by the thousands
in the slums of industrial countries. If the Spanish peasant must lose
his hardy independence, if his frugal contentment, his heroic patience
must pass with the old order of things (that lets a heap of ruins in the
heart of a city lie untouched during a hundred years!) I cannot help
wondering whether the price is not too high to pay. I am repeating
myself, but the words come to one each day--it is beyond human nature to
be consistent in Spain; she has the faculty, despite her glaring faults,
of battering down one's Philistine certainty of northern superiority.
The bridge, the plaza, and the cathedral; study your types there and you
begin to know the real Spaniard. Not soon shall I forget, at Mérida, in
wild Estremadura, as I loitered on the bridge, a countryman stepping
forward with the dignified, proud look of his class: "_¿Es más bonita
que París?_" he asked, the interrogatory note added only in courtesy, so
sure was he of my affirmative. Sleepy little Mérida, all a ruin, Knights
Templars' castle as well as Roman theater and aqueduct, to the fellow
_paisano_ of Pizarro and Cortés, was finer than Paris. It is glimpses
like this that make the prejudiced stranger judge the so-called
backwardness of the country in kinder fashion. Where else could one see
stately-moving cream-colored oxen pass unnoticed through the chief
thoroughfare of a capital, a common sight in the Puerta del Sol of
Madrid, where else will the customs officer of a big town stand to count
with a pointing finger the skipping sheep driven past him, as on the
Alcántara bridge at Toledo, where else will groups of goats be milked
from door to door in a great commercial city like Barcelona? Salamanca,
being the center of an agricultural district and off the express route,
presents daily, scenes from the Georgics.
Architecturally the old university city, despite her disasters, is of
first importance. She has two Cathedrals, the smaller more perfect one
of 1100, finding shelter by the side of its huge successor, to whom it
yielded its rights as metropolitan in 1560. The exterior of the new
Cathedral is over-rich and meaningless, it promises little for what it
holds within, where the lofty Gothic piers and arches have so impressive
an air of majesty that architectural flaws are forgotten. It proves how
much longer Gothic lasted in Spain than elsewhere in Europe. The
triforium here is replaced by an elaborately-carved balcony that runs
round the church, and high up are medallions colored with gold and
Eastern hues, an enamel-like decoration which has been beautifully and
sparingly used; the inner circle of the clearstory window and the round
windows of the west end, have jeweled chains of color that modern
churches could well imitate. As usual, the side chapels are full of
treasures, and the sacristy boasts the very crucifix the Cid carried in
battle. There is one bad defect: its apse has not the dim, mysterious
curve of a cathedral, the east end being square, like a cold secular
hall. Nestling under this gigantic pile is the loveliest thing in all
Salamanca, the _catedral vieja_, its title in the old Latin proverb
"fortis Salmantina." It is a small, Romanesque-transition church,
unused, but in good repair, left unchanged by a sensible bishop when the
services were removed to its more pretentious rival. The carvings of the
capitals are boldly massive, there is a noticeably good, painted
_retablo_, and among the numerous tombs--a Gregorovius could make a
fascinating volume of Spain's alabaster knights and bishops!--there is
one that is specially appealing. It is in a chapel opening off the
cloisters; a warrior in armor lies on his sarcophagus, beside him his
wife, with a child's innocence of face, dressed in the nun's robe worn
while her lord was fighting the Moors, with high pattens on her feet, a
dainty little Castilian gentlewoman, mother of the prelate whose stately
tomb fills the center of the chapel. The old Cathedral is so tucked in
among buildings, that only one view of the exterior can be got, from a
terrace leading from the south door of the later church, a view that a
New Englander will return to often with a homesick feeling, for just
such a scaly-tiled tower, window for window, line for line alike, rises
in Copley Square, Boston. This cupola shows Byzantine influences since
Spanish Romanesque was orientalized through Mediterranean trading.
Of all the memories of a journey in Spain the happiest are the hours
spent in her cathedrals, the starting out expectant, often with no map
or book, for there are frequent glimpses of the church towers to guide;
the first entering the noble structure which man's living enthusiasm
raised, the first passing from one chapel to another in astonishment at
the treasures they guard. Pierre Loti has a sketch on Burgos Cathedral,
seen once only on a late afternoon, just as the verger was closing it,
and he describes how unhappily he was affected by the lavish material
wealth. Pure artist that he is in his theory of seizing on a swift
impression, the test may be successful for Philae or for the Parthenon,
but it will not do for a Spanish cathedral, which is too complex, and
can well hide its soul from the hasty tourist. May M. Loti forgive me
for saying it, but certainly the way in which he saw Burgos differs
little from the lightning-flash method of the Yankee tourist he
despises. I think he must have had a cross indigestion that late
afternoon, or perhaps it was his Huguenot blood rising in protest.
Another of his countrymen, equally sensitive, "le délicat Joubert,"
gives a less on-the-surface judgment: "The pomp and magnificence with
which the Church is reproached are in truth the result and proof of her
incomparable excellence. From whence, let me ask, have come this power
of hers and these excessive riches except from the enchantment into
which she threw all the world? She had the talent of making herself
loved, and the talent of making men happy ... it is from thence she drew
her power."
Spain is richer than all other lands in church furniture: except for the
uprising of 1835 against the monasteries, a movement more political than
religious, there has been no terrible iconoclastic mania, such as in
France and England; the cities which were looted, like Valladolid and
Salamanca, during the French invasion, suffered in a different way.
Then, too, Spanish cathedrals do not part with their art treasures; the
gifts of personal and inappropriate jewels when they have accumulated
too needlessly are sometimes sold for the benefit of the church, but the
art treasures made for the service of the Altar are not parted with. In
Valencia it is told that Rothschild's agent tried in vain to buy
Benvenuto Cellini's silver pax there: $10,000 $15,000, $20,000, he
offered: "_Las cosas de la catedral no se venden_," was the answer.
"$50,000," said the agent. The Cathedral was poor and needed repairs.
"It is useless," was the firm answer of the Chapter, "We do not sell the
things of the Altar." In Salamanca the verger told us that an Englishman
had offered an immense sum for the iron screen round the tomb of Bishop
Anaya (his mother the dainty little lady in pattens) and though the
screen was in an unused chapel of the _catedral vieja_, it was refused.
These unsullied temples of the Holy Spirit, where stately ceremonials
are still an every-day occurrence, differ in every city, the carven
wealth of Burgos, the soaring grace of León, the solid grandeur of
Santiago, Toledo, a dream of His House, Seville, rising imposing past
expectation, the small, dark symmetry of Barcelona, the solemn space of
prayer before Avila's high altar, Sigüenza's tomb-filled chapels,
Saragossa, draped with priceless Flemish tapestries for the feast,
Palencia dim and holy at daybreak, worship-bowed Lugo,--indelible
memories of beauty and exaltation, the cathedrals of Spain are not mere
artistic memorials of the past, their soul is not fled. Such churches
cannot but have an influence on the people among whom they rise. If on
one of different race they impress themselves with the actuality of a
living experience, what must they mean to those whose childhood and old
age have known them in solemn moments. I came across an autobiographical
bit by the novelist Alacón, describing the influence on him of one of
these great churches of the past. He grew up in the small Andalusian
city of Gaudix, like many Spanish towns its great day being well over;
the only grandeur left, the only palace inhabited, was the _iglesia
mayor_: "From the Cathedral I first learned the revealing power of
architecture, there first heard music and first grew to admire pictures;
there also in solemn feasts, mid incense, lights, and the swell of the
organ, I dreamed of poetry and divined a world different from what
surrounded me. Thus faith and beauty, religion and inspiration, ambition
and piety were born united in my soul."
On the way to the Cathedrals each day we passed through the arcaded
plaza, which at the noon and evening hours was thronged with an
animated crowd; we noticed once more the democratic relation between the
classes, smart officers in pale blue uniforms strolled up and down
chatting with plain countrymen whose capes, tossed over the shoulder,
let the gaudy red and green velvet facing be seen. The daily walk
brought us past the House of the Shells, whose walls are studded with
the pilgrim emblem, and one day as I paused to look into the lovely
inner court, the owner came out, prayer-book in hand, on her way to
church, and with the grave courtesy of her race, she invited the
stranger in to examine her romantic dwelling. Most of the buildings in
the city are a light brown sandstone that suits the gorgeous surface
decoration of Isabella's period, here seen in its full glory. There is
no pure early-Gothic in the city; Romanesque-transition is found in the
old Cathedral, and late florid-Gothic in the new Cathedral, later still
some baroque extravagances, since Salamanca claims a doubtful honor as
the birthplace of that exponent of bad taste, José Churriguera. But the
style that is supreme here is the Plateresque, the silversmith period
when late-Gothic and Renaissance met: the façades seem as if molded in
clay, so lavish is their work. In one respect Salamanca has been more
fortunate than its rival Oxford, in having used a stone soft in
appearance, but so durable that the chiseling is almost as finished
to-day as when first cut. Everywhere in the town this Plateresque work
is found; at times more Renaissance than Gothic, as in Espíritu Santo, a
convent like Las Huelgas for noble ladies, or as in the beautiful patio
of the Irish College; the Dominican church of San Esteban is more Gothic
than Plateresque.
Like the Jesuits, the second of the monastic orders whose cradle is
Spain, may well be proud of the record in its native land. The society
of Ignatius can boast besides its saints, scholars like Ripalda, Lainez,
Salmerón, Isla, Suárez, Mariana, the great historian, and Hervás y
Panduro, "the father of philology," who has been credited by Professor
Max Müller with "one of the most brilliant discoveries in the history of
the science of language." And the Dominicans can claim a de Soto, a
Melchor Cano, Luis de Granada, Las Casas, defender of the Indians, and,
fame of this special monastery of Santo Domingo, a Diego de Deza, the
protector of Columbus. With this learned man, tutor to Isabella's only
son, lodged the discoverer years before his memorable voyage, and it was
in a room called De Profundis, leading from the cloisters, that he first
explained his theories to the community who espoused his cause with
perseverance, in opposition to the stupid savants of the University.
They, appointed by the Queen to investigate his claims, found them
"vain and unpractical," not worthy of serious notice. On the 400th
anniversary of Columbus' discovery, a memorial statue was put up in the
square near the mediæval tower of Clavero: on the pedestal are reliefs
of his two patrons, Isabella, and Fray Diego de Deza, "_gloria de la
orden de Santo Domingo, protector constante de Cristóbal Colón_."
Imposing as is San Esteban, the triumph of the Catholic Kings' heraldic
style of architecture is the façade of the University Library, as
autobiographic of its age as is Santiago's _Pórtico de la Gloria_ of an
earlier century. It is one mass of delicate carving, badges, medalions,
and scrolls, increasing in size as it rises, so that an effect of
uniformity is obtained. There is the true ring of that chivalrous
generation in the inscription, "The Kings to the University, and this to
the Kings," you raise your head proudly with a flash of the eye, feeling
for a moment that you are almost a Spaniard yourself.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, SALAMANCA]
Opposite the library's façade is a statue of one of the University's
noted men, that attractive personality, Fray Luis de León. Tall,
stalwart, for he came of a warrior race of Spanish grandees, ascetic,
with intellectual forehead, a man capable of sainthood, of the type
noble, he faces the school where he studied as a youth and passed a
later life in research and teaching. In Luis de León is found an
equilibrium of character, a magnanimity united with genius, which often
distinguished the men born in the _siglo de oro_. This Augustinian monk
was a deep theologian, ahead of his times, as most deep thinkers are; he
made a translation of the Songs of Songs too advanced for the age, and
his enemies accused his orthodoxy to the Inquisition. For five years he
lived in confinement, and it was during this semi-imprisonment that he
wrote his great mystic book, "Los Nombres de Cristo," and also some of
his lyrics. The University remained loyal to him by refusing to place
another lecturer in his seat; then when he had justified himself before
the Holy Office, he was set at liberty, and a host of friends
accompanied him back to his post. He entered the lecture hall quietly,
after his five years of absence, and opened the discourse with rare
tact, a generous, high-minded overlooking of personal rancour:
"Gentlemen, as we were saying the other day." This famous mot of Luis de
León, "_como decíamos ayer_," shows a quality unexpected in Spain, but
characteristic often of her sons, that of amenity, a kindly tolerance of
the world's foibles, found in Cervantes, and to show it has not died
out, this same amenity was a predominating trait of the late
distinguished novelist, Don Juan Valera. Luis de León, true follower of
his patron Augustine, knew that there is no sin that one man commits
that all men are not capable of, if not helped by God. "Even while he
aspires, man errs."
Had the erudite monk been merely a scholar, he had been a personality in
his own day, but would not be alive for us; but he can claim an enduring
fame. Professor Menéndez y Pelayo calls him the most exalted of Spanish
lyric poets, and names his "Ascensión," "Al Apartamiento," "A Salinas,"
"A Felipe Ruiz," "Alma Región Lucient," "La Noche Serena," as the six
most beautiful of Spanish lyrics. Learn them by heart, he says, and they
will astonish you with each repetition. Luis de León had the
Wordsworthian note of simple living and high thinking, of a personal
love of nature, long before the Lake School: the "Ode to Retirement"
might have been penned at Grasmere. Everything led his soul to God; he
fed on the mystics and rose to their height and serenity of thought.
From his love of the classics came his sobriety of form and purity of
phrase; he is a true Horacian, penetrated as well by the spirit of the
great Hebrew writers, with the _espíritu cristiano_ added, yet though
drawing his culture from many sources he is personal and modern. Such
praise from the great critic sends one to an enthusiastic study of Fray
Luis, and a knowledge of his poems makes the visit to his tomb in
Salamanca more than one of mere curiosity.
Like most of the cities and villages of León province, this one too lies
asleep, resting on its former honors, though there are hints, such as
the new hospital, that she is rousing herself to life. She feels a
confidence in her own future, as is subtly shown in the decoration of
the plaza, where empty spaces are left for the names of coming great
men. It is with this city of the past that the most homelike memory of
our tour in Spain is associated, the happy hour round an English
tea-table eating bread and butter, and chatting at last, oh so eagerly,
in one's native tongue. It was the rector of the Irish college who gave
us this delightful taste of home, and fresh from six weeks of freezing,
stone-paved rooms, of cinnamon-flavored chocolate, how we appreciated
his hospitality! The school of young seminarians is housed in one of the
five remaining of the University buildings, but only moved here when the
original college, founded by Philip II and dedicated to St. Patrick, was
demolished by Ney and Marmont's soldiery.
We found our host in his library poring over a Greek book with a
professor from the University, and we were welcomed with the
heart-warming kindness of his native land. The professor obviously hoped
the invading Americans would not tarry long, but he little knew that a
Celtic host in the heart of Spain and a cozy tea-table at the critical
hour of a raw, bleak day made a combination not to be resisted; we
lingered into the late afternoon and left reluctantly indeed. I would
wish for all travelers a friendly visit to the _Colegio de Nobles
Irlandeses_, that they might see the tall, northern-looking lads pacing
up and down the sculptured sixteenth-century courtyard, might pause in
the Chapel, and look out from the library windows over the city, with a
genial cicerone to name the churches and colleges; then Salamanca would
not seem a dead city, but a peaceful, contented survival of the past.
SEGOVIA.
"No hay un pueblo esclavo
Si no lo quiere ser:
¡Cantad, españoles!
Cantad! Cantad!"
(Hymn sung May, 1908, for the centenary of _Dos de Mayo_.)
We reached Segovia at five o'clock in the early morning of November
first after an indescribably fatiguing day and night of travel, the one
confusion of our tour in Spain, and partly owing to a mistake in the
usually reliable guide book. It may be of help to other travelers if I
describe this misadventure. On returning from Galicia, we had left the
express route at Astorga, and pausing there a night, took the local line
south to Zamora and Salamanca. After a stay of some days in the old
university city, we were lured out to a small town, fifteen miles away,
Alba de Tormes, where St. Teresa died. It seemed unnecessary to return
to Salamanca in order to go on to Avila, since a diligence ran to Avila
from a town not far from Alba de Tormes. Our book gave the distance of
this ride as fourteen miles, whereas fourteen leagues, more than three
times fourteen miles, would be nearer the truth. For, on reaching Alba
we found it was a diligence journey of over ten hours; with the roads in
a frightful condition after a month's rain, the trip was out of the
question. So spending the night at Alba de Tormes, we went back to
Salamanca, there to find it was not the special day for the train that
connects directly with the express route south. Whereupon it seemed
best, rather than to wait a couple of days for this train, to take the
long trip round by Zamora and Toro to the junction Medina del Campo,
whence the express route to Madrid branches, one line passing by Avila,
another by Segovia.
It happened to be eight minutes before the starting of the train, when I
went to the ticket office at Salamanca with my _carnet kilométrique_,
yet nevertheless the agent refused me the tickets, saying that his
office closed five minutes before the starting of each train. "But there
are yet eight minutes," I exclaimed. His personal watch said five; so we
were obliged to start without the usual complementary tickets. We
decided to descend at the first stop and there have our kilometrics torn
off, but before reaching this station the conductor came to collect
tickets, and by his face, false and mobile, we knew we were in for a
struggle. We explained our dilemma and offered the one peseta, ninety
centimes, which was marked in his book and our own, as the full first
class tariff for twelve kilometers. He contemptuously refused and
demanded eight pesetas each for that short ride of eight miles. We did
not hesitate to refuse; whereupon when we reached the stopping station
he tried by confused explanations to prevent the agent there from giving
us the necessary complementary tickets. But fortunately in the hurry to
procure them during the few minutes of our pause, I had stumbled in
stepping from the carriage and slightly cut my hand on the pebbles. This
roused the Spanish sense of chivalry and the agent moved aside the
conductor and gave me what I asked. We again offered this latter the
lawful fare for the eight miles we had ridden without tickets, and again
he demanded eight pesetas. On reaching Zamora, he boldly brought up the
Chief of that station, a trickster in league with him, and both demanded
the unjust fare. A Spanish gentleman was passing, and seeing two ladies
in trouble, stopped to ask if he could be of assistance. When we
explained the case, he asked us to give him the lawful fare and turning
to the station-master and the conductor, presented it to them with a
scathing rebuke: like beaten dogs they slunk away. Several times
gentlemen came to our aid in this way, as if it hurt their pride to have
their race so misrepresented.
It is this petty thieving among a class that should be above it, such
as postal clerks and railway officials, that rouses the traveler's harsh
criticisms of Spain and makes him so unjust to her. The radical cure
lies in the men being better paid, for their salaries are such pittances
that many of them look on extortion as their right. The tourist can do
something toward lessening the abuse, by firmly refusing to be cheated.
Our experience was that firmness always won the battle; if one is of a
fiery temperament there is a scene, if one is phlegmatic, one sits
immovable as a rock and lets the other storm. If one yields finally one
has the scene as well as the putting of oneself in the wrong.
To continue our day of ill-luck. From Zamora, we crawled along the dull,
local line to the junction Medina del Campo, which we reached at eleven
at night. We then changed our plans and got tickets for Segovia,
deciding to leave Avila till later. At Medina we spent six weary hours
in the waiting room, strolling up and down the windy platform, entering
the buffet now and then to drink coffee, trying to rouse imaginative
interest by thinking this was the spot where Isabella the Queen had
died. But in vain, it was too dismal. How we abused Baedeker! And how we
abused Spain and her railway system! Trains came and went, men muffled
in their cloaks entered and left the dark waiting room, we the only
impatient ones. A Spaniard accepts such things in full piety. Whoever
heard of going faster than twenty miles an hour and what more natural
than to wait in a station between trains half a night?
At two o'clock that raw windy morning we boarded the express to Segovia
and finding the ladies' compartment full, for we were now on the direct
route from Paris, we had to force ourselves into the carriage with two
furiously cross, sleepy Frenchmen.
High, cold Segovia, almost 3,000 feet above the sea! A wind, _de todos
los demonios_, was blowing that bleak first of November, and to give the
final small touch of ill-luck, it lifted and bore away to the mysterious
darkness outside, a treasured veil that the sun had at length toned to a
rare tint. We stumbled into the ill-lighted station-buffet for more hot
coffee, sending the luggage ahead to the sleeping hotel; for the
faithful hotel-omnibus had been there waiting as usual. Strange memories
remain of Spain's station restaurants,--the flitting waiters filling the
bowls of coffee for the silent travelers, (no man is more silent than a
traveling Spaniard);--frugal enduring scenes, not a touch of comfort,
one eats to live indeed. "The French taste, the Germans devour, the
Italians feast, the Spaniards _se alimentan_!"
As the dawn was breaking we left the station and walked, buffeted by the
gale, through the mournful streets that lead to the town, passing on the
way the Artillery Academy, where the country's crack regiments are
trained. As we descended to the market place below the steep hill on
which Segovia is built, a sight greeted us that repaid a thousand fold
for the dreary day and night of unnecessary travel, for guide-book
blunders, personal stupidity, dishonest officials, collarless, cross
Frenchmen and even lost automobile veils. For there, rising one hundred
and fifty feet in noble dignity and proportion, its boulders held
together by their own weight, without cement or clamping, stood the
giant Roman aqueduct that Trajan left his native land, and framed by its
arches were hills, villages, and churches, under a sky of delicate rose.
Never was there a lovelier sunrise, fragile, shell-like, dewy.
We climbed the steps that mount to the city beside the aqueduct, pausing
again and again to look at the stupendous thing. Then we passed through
quiet streets, with Romanesque doorways at every step (Segovia with
Avila has the best portals in Spain) till we reached the hotel. Though,
later, the night in Medina del Campo station revenged itself in a twenty
hours' sleep, we were now too deeply fatigued to rest, and so soon were
afoot again. A stone's throw brought us to the central square of
Segovia, on one side of which is prominent the apse of the late-Gothic
Cathedral. We pushed beyond it, here and there pausing to study some
ancient doorway or to enter a carved courtyard, till at length the
street ended in the big open space before the superbly set Alcázar, and
we looked out on that memorable view.
With the towering Roman aqueduct on one side of the town and this Castle
at the other, Segovia may claim to be one of the most picturesquely set
cities in the world. The view from the Plaza de la Reina Victoria before
the Alcázar is one of the unforgettable sights of the Peninsula, of the
inmost fiber of Castile. On the horizon lies one of Spain's sad,
isolated villages. A winding road leads to it, along which plod the
familiar carriers of the land, brothers of Sancho's patient Rucio; the
rocky hills stretch away, dotted with ancient churches. Close to the
city lie oases of trees and gardens such as the monastery enclosure of
La Parral, with its noticeable stone pines. The Alcázar with its
bartizan towers is built on a lofty crag that rises like the prow of a
giant ship above the meeting of two bosky little streams, the Eresma
which yielded the "trout of exceeding greatness" whereon Charles I of
England supped in this castle, and the peaceful brook, Clamores. Thus in
one landscape are united hardy uplands, leafy parks, a mediæval town
with church towers and fortified castle, making a scene whose
individuality is beyond beauty, whose profound charm never palls. Here
one communes with the silent, inner soul of Spain, the land of Isabella,
of Garcilaso, of Teresa, of Cervantes, not a trace of whose spirit is
found in Madrid, but in such spots as Toledo and Avila and this.
Segovia merits a prolonged stay. There were two Englishwomen in our
hotel, who had passed months painting in the unfrequented city and found
it a treasure house for the artist. It is full of Romanesque churches of
the 11th and 12th centuries; so many are there that some are unused and
falling into decay. The two best are San Martín and San Millán; the
first, in the center of the town, surrounded by noticeable houses, has
outside cloisters, that serve as a sunny lounging place for the people.
From San Martín you can descend to San Millán by the steps beside the
Plaza Isabel II. Apart from the church itself, with colossal animals
carved on its capitols, the view from its porch is a most beautiful one,
including the aqueduct, the Cathedral, and climbing houses, part of
whose foundations it is plain to see are the apses of ancient churches.
Segovia's Cathedral is not Romanesque like most of her churches, but
late-Gothic, designed by the same architect who did Salamanca's new
Cathedral, and like it, though a poor thing exteriorly, the inside is
dignified and effective: it is more fortunate than its sister church in
having a curved east end, not Salamanca's cold hall-like apse. The
cloisters of Segovia belonged to the earlier Cathedral; they were taken
down and skillfully reset here; the pillars being elliptical in shape
like Oviedo, are not thoroughly pleasing. In a chapel opening out of the
cloisters is the touching, small tomb of the prince whose nurse dropped
him by accident from a window of the Alcázar, back in the 14th century;
and a good example of the countless rare tombs of Spain is the bishop,
with an exquisite ascetic face of chiseled marble, who lies in the
passage leading to the cloisters.
As we were in Segovia on All Saints' Day, we went to the celebration in
the Cathedral, saw the prelate--the train of his red robe held by
bearers--met at the church door by the canons and conducted in state to
his throne. The vergers were very gorgeous; the leader carried a silver
staff and wore a white wig and a white robe, his two assistants also in
white wigs but with red velvet robes. The following day, All Souls',
these vergers were dressed in mourning, and in the center of the
black-draped church was placed, with true Spanish realism, a covered
bier. On All Saints' Day there was really good music on the organ whose
pipes flared out over aisles and choir; also an excellent sermon to
which all listened in rapt attention, officers, peasants, and grave
faced hidalgos standing in a characteristic group around the pulpit. The
best way to learn Spanish and to learn more than the lip language of
this race, is to listen to the sermons. Their eloquence is natural and
contagious, and the peroration, delivered with _brio_, is often an
artistic treat. Attend the sermons and frequent the early morning
services, and you stumble on scenes of unobtrusive piety that tell you,
despite some Spanish pessimists, that the soul of religion still lives
in this land of the latest crusaders. As Sunday was the day we had set
for the trip to La Granja, I went early to the Cathedral, and at Mass in
a dark chapel of the apse, I watched long two gallant little lads of
twelve and fourteen, smart in their artillery uniforms, swords, and
white gloves. They went to Communion with their mother, who, like most
Spanish women in church, was dressed in black with a draped veil, a
fashion that lends an air of distinction to the plainest. This group of
three remained to pray after the others had left the chapel, remained as
a pleasure really to pray, the serious, high-browed, little faces bent
over their books of devotion as they read the After-Communion devotions
by the light of a tall candle placed on the floor beside them; then
their blue eyes closed in such sweet, unconscious piety that it touched
the heart strangely. And when, their prayers over, they left the
Cathedral, each seized the mother's arm with a gay scamper of
delight--she probably on a visit to them--and now for a whole day of
vacation and enjoyment!
In the same uniform as the small Communicants of Segovia Cathedral,
other embryo artillery officers fill the city. At our hotel was a table
where a number of the older students dined each day. They were well-bred
lads with inborn sedateness, never boorish nor loud-voiced; noblesse
oblige still is a reality in spite of the dissipated, smart set in
Madrid by which we too often generalize. I shall not soon forget the
look of pained displeasure with which they watched the over familiar
treatment of the waiter by a foreign lady.
It does not seem to me too harsh a statement to make that Spain's
neighbor across the Pyrenees, has little of this chivalrous idealism
among her boys. There are exceptions of course; the manly carriage of
the _brancardiers_ of Lourdes, those bands of young men who voluntarily
serve as bearers of the crippled and stricken, show that a remnant still
exists of the race of the Rochejacqueleins, of the Montalemberts, of
those who can serve, unpaid, an ideal. Frenchmen themselves will not
maintain that such are the average. Whereas the average Spanish, like
the average English lad, has a strong dash of the Quixote and is capable
of disinterested enthusiasm. Proof of this radical difference is that
first important step in manhood, marriage. In Spain there is not the
pernicious system of dowries; as a rule it is personal attraction that
wins a husband. French people will assure you, that though one may be
hump-backed and villainously ill-tempered, if there is a dot one is
married; one may be grace and intelligence incarnate, without the dot
one goes unwedded to the grave; the shrewd, interested love of money is
in young as well as old. Spanish young people are romantic. Midnight
serenades and evening hours of chatting by the _reja_ are signs that
hint marriage here is more than material settlement, love more than an
impulse of nature; Spain's novels tell of this idealism. In many vital
points the Spanish people are more akin to the English than to their
Latin brothers.
The Sunday morning that we took the diligence for our country excursion
started cloudless. La Granja lies seven miles outside Segovia, on the
Guadarrama Mountains, and is the residence of the Court for part of each
summer. The diligence rattled down the precipitous streets of Segovia,
passed under the towering aqueduct, "the devil's bridge" the peasantry
call it, then mounted the swelling hills to the palace at San
Ildefonso. It had formerly been a farm belonging to the monks of La
Parral; Philip V turned it into an artificial French pleasure ground,
and built a formal chateau, a Bourbon creation that is strangely out of
place on the rugged hills. The park is well-wooded but all rural charm
is spoiled by the neo-classic fountains, some of them like monstrous
dreams. Before we reached the leafy avenues of San Ildefonso, the sky
became overcast and a heavy rain began. Five minutes after leaving the
diligence we were so drenched that it seemed as sensible to explore the
palace grounds as to pause chilled and wet in a miserable hotel. Then
when we found the diligence did not return to Segovia till the evening
and that no carriage would start in the storm, in an ill moment we
decided to walk back to the city. A wind that cut like a knife made it a
feat beyond our strength, and some miles along that bleak way, when a
cart passed, we abjectly begged a passage. Yet, standing patiently under
the drenching rain, oblivous to the tearing wind, the contented young
shepherd girls watched their flocks.
If this poor imitation of Versailles has little in itself to charm the
tourist, La Granja has been the scene of so many striking events in
modern Spanish history that it merits a visit. It was there that Godoy,
favorite of Charles IV's wife, signed away Spain to Napoleon, the
criminal act that led to such glorious consequences. For then Spain, the
country which had lain downtrodden under three centuries of misrule,
shedding her blood in wars for her wretched kings' personal ambitions
and giving her treasure for their extravagance, awoke suddenly to life
when she found the king had outraged her. Two young heroes, Daoiz and
Velarde, artillery officers, turned the cannon on the French invaders in
Madrid, that memorable _Dos de Mayo_, 1808, and the War of Independence
began, the starting point of regeneration, the second Cavadonga.
That outburst of national vigor has never had justice done it. We know
the Peninsula War from the English point of view, a ceaseless
disparagement of Spain's part in it.[16] It is true that without the
English armies the war would have dragged on in disorderly, guerrilla
fashion, for misrule had robbed the people of skill in self-government
and organization. But remember the glorious year 1808, whose centenary
all Spain was celebrating during the months of our visit, was before the
arrival of Wellington's troops. The _Dos de Mayo_, the Battle of Bailén,
where a Spanish general with Spanish troops brought about the surrender
of twenty thousand of Napoleon's trained soldiers, and the sieges of
Saragossa and Gerona, unmatched in all modern history for heroism, were
in 1808-1809. It is just to remember that when Germany, Austria, Italy,
and Russia yielded in part to the invader, Spain stood firm against him,
and the nation that Europe thought unnerved and debased "presented a
fulcrum upon which a lever was rested that moved the civilized world."
La Granja has witnessed later historic scenes. When Charles IV betrayed
his people, the nation chose as their king his son, the miserable
Ferdinand VII, who ungratefully repaid their loyalty. Poor Spain, she
has had kings who would have wrecked a less vigorous race. At La Granja,
in 1832, Ferdinand VII changed his will and made his infant daughter,
Isabel II, his heir, instead of his brother, Don Carlos, whom he had
previously acknowledged, thus leaving behind him an inheritance of civil
war. From the days of Urraca and Isabella the Catholic, women could
inherit the throne in Spain, just as they can in England. But in the
18th century under the Bourbon kings, who loved all things French, the
Salic Law was introduced and continued in force till Ferdinand VII
changed it at La Granja. The king had a full right to revert to the
earlier custom, as the Salic Law was an innovation in Spain, and the
grandson of Ferdinand's daughter, Isabel II, the present young Alfonso
XIII, is in truth the legitimate king of the Spains. Don Carlos, on
Ferdinand's death, rose in rebellion, and for seven years a frightful,
fraticidal struggle ravaged the country. This civil war, stamped out in
1840, again burst into flames during the disorders of 1872. To-day,
however, the Carlist faction claims but scattered adherents, chiefly in
the northern provinces. The peaceful termination of these troubles has
been solidified by that noble and truly wise woman, the present queen
dowager, María Cristina, whose strength of character and sincerity of
aim may be said to have safeguarded her son's inheritance during his
long minority.
Another scene took place at La Granja in the early years of Isabel II'
reign, while her mother was regent, a far different regent from the
later Cristina. Though the Constitutional factions had rallied round
Isabel, as the Absolutists had gathered about Don Carlos, it was only
through force, inch by inch, that the Spanish Crown yielded to the
people's demand for a constitutional monarchy. Thus, at La Granja in
1836, the queen mother was intimidated by the army into affirming again
the Constitution of 1812.
This last century in Spain has been a period of such ceaseless
insurrection, such rapid, ill-considered changes of ministries, that it
seems, on hasty survey, to be a hundred years of political chaos.
Perhaps a slight sketch of the events may help to a better
understanding, for running through the century, a thread to the
labyrinth, is the nation's slow, stumbling, but ever forward advance to
constitutional rule. With each disorderly, seemingly unconnected
insurrection, a step ahead was taken, so that to-day an absolute
monarchy is an impossibility in Spain. She may have taken longer than
many European powers to shake off the incubus of the divine right of
kings, but on the other hand, she has achieved her comparative
independence without a king's execution or a terrible, bloody cataclysm.
There has never been in Spain the bitter separation of nobles and
people; together they both worked for their freedom, keeping a fraternal
relationship that is uncommon in history. The Spanish temperament, like
the English, has an intense loyalty and love of tradition; it finds its
happiest condition under a monarchy, but the history of the 19th century
shows it must be a constitutional monarchy; a modern king rules for the
good of the people since he rules by will of the people.
To give a hasty sketch of political progress. Godoy, Charles IV's
unscrupulous minister, brought Napoleon's armies into Spain under the
pretext that they were on their way to conquer Portugal. When some
seventy thousand French troops were on Spanish soil and the people found
their king a slave to the so-called visitors, they suddenly awoke to the
truth, the tocsin of alarm sounded in Madrid, and from one end of the
land to the other they took up arms. Then followed the Guerra de la
Independenzia, 1808 to 1814, that proved to Europe Spain was alive and
vigorous, again in the arena of the world's struggle. During the war a
representative body met at Cadiz, thus renewing the Cortes that had
flourished before the Hapsburg dynasty stamped it out. At Cadiz, in an
outburst of patriotism, the Constitution of 1812 was drawn up: for the
invader, war to the knife; Ferdinand VII to be their lawful king; abuses
such as the Inquisition abolished; the sovereignty of the people upheld;
"_religión y rey, patria é independencia_," truly Spanish watchwords.
When in 1814 Napoleon was forced to accept Ferdinand VII as King of
Spain, that ungrateful king came back to his loyal people, and his first
act was to restore the absolute monarchy of his ancestors, to declare
the Constitution of 1812 null and void, to try to galvanize the
Inquisition into life. It was not long before the disorders of his
government led some of the colonies in America to declare their
independence, and finally Spain too uprose. The Riego insurrection of
1820, proclaiming again the Constitution of 1812, was the first of the
frequent _pronunciamientos_ (the uprising of the army against absolute
monarchy) that continued down to 1870. Louis Philippe declared this
insubordination of the army a menace to other thrones of Europe, and
took this pretext to send French troops into Spain to uphold Ferdinand's
absolutism: the Trocadero defense was during this second invasion of the
French.
Always ceaselessly agitating, despite temporary defeat, went on the
people's struggle for a constitution. While Ferdinand VII lived there
was little hope for modern ideas, but when he died, the
Constitutionalists espoused the cause of his infant daughter, Isabel II.
All advance was retarded by the Carlist War that followed Isabel's
accession, during which war occurred what a Spanish quaker has called
the "_pecado de sangre_," the brutal massacre of the monks and
destruction of such unrivaled centers of art as Poblet in Catalonia,
more a political act than a religious, as the monks were Carlists. This
war so confused and embittered the issues at stake that it is difficult
to follow with consistency the political parties. The government was
consistent only in its instability, having now a Queen Regent, now an
Espartero, banishments, executions, riots, barricades, revolts,--it
seemed indeed as if Spain were sown with Cadmus teeth.
Still through the darkness one can follow a light. The Constitution of
1837 asserted boldly the sovereignty of the people. Though the
Constitution of the forties was lenient to absolute power, the Cortes
was now included in the government, a marked advance since Ferdinand
VII's day. The Constitution of the fifties was a further advance toward
national independence. In the midst of political rancors, the war with
Africa, 1860, came as a noble interval when feuds were put aside and all
fought together against a common enemy. As in the old days, poets and
novelists enrolled themselves in the army, and the young grandees served
as common soldiers, in fidelity to the vow of their ancestors, knights
of Santiago, of Calatrava, and of Alcántara, that when Spain was
threatened by the Saracen, their descendants would serve _in the ranks,
on foot, and in person_.
Then, this brilliant war over, the old strifes returned in force, Prim,
O'Donnell,[17] and twenty minor parties. Queen Isabel II was banished
in 1868, and the first interregnum since Spain was a monarchy occurred.
Then followed the short-lived rule of Amadeus I, Duke of Aosta and son
of Victor Emmanuel, called by invitation to rule in Spain. His chief
upholder, Prim, was assassinated before Amadeus reached Madrid, and the
new king found himself in so equivocal a position, that after two
unhappy years he resigned gladly. Under the influence of Castelar, most
brilliant of orators and a man who sincerely loved his country, a
Republic of two years' duration followed. Spain was never intended for a
republic; discontent continued general, the ministry changed eight times
in this short period, and at length all warring factions agreed that the
only hope for stable government lay in the restoration of Spain's lawful
king, Isabel II's eldest son.
Isabel in Paris abdicated in his favor, and in 1875 Alfonso XII returned
to his native land. He came not in the same spirit as had Ferdinand VII
in 1814. The sixty years of disorders had led to a solid result, Alfonso
XII came back as a constitutional king. The Constitution of 1876 was a
reconciliation of monarchical principles and those of a democracy. The
new king died before he had reached the age of thirty, and his son
Alfonso XIII, born after his father's death, was represented by his
mother till his majority. To María Cristina of Austria, Spain owes an
unending debt of gratitude. Under her wise rule the country had some
years of the peace she so needed; and even what is termed disaster, the
recent loss of colonies, is a blessing in disguise. Spain to-day needs
all her strength for herself.
As the abuses of centuries are not reformed in a year and as nothing on
earth can be perfect, there is much to be desired still in Spain's
political life. Her constitution is an excellent one in theory, but in
practice it is crippled by the dishonest elections. Political power is
left in the hands of an unscrupulous minority who work for personal, not
national aggrandizement, and the distrust such elections have engendered
keeps the better element of the people aloof from the government. Only
fifteen per cent of the Spanish people vote. The king has, like
England's ruler, the right of absolute veto. If Spain is now so blessed
as to have for her king a worthy descendant of Isabella the Catholic,
the remedy for the political dishonesty may be close at hand. Young
Alfonso XIII has an intelligence of the first order; he has been trained
under a high-minded and truly Christian woman; he has married the
daughter of a race that well understands constitutional rule; personally
he is loved by his people with an affection not hard to understand, for
despite his thin, plain face, the young king is eminently distinguished
and _simpático_. Often in Seville, seeing him galloping back from polo,
or returning from a week's hunt in the wilds of the sierras, our intense
hopes went out to him. In his hands, it is slight exaggeration to say,
lies Spain's future. If Alfonso XIII gives his intelligence and
life-blood to his people, who can foresee to what heights this strong,
uncontaminated race may climb? The past century's outburst in literature
and art hint the possibility of a second _siglo de oro_.
La Granja has led me far afield. It does not stand for Spain's best, an
artificial, foreign creation where passed hours of the nation's
abasement. Segovia is the real Spain. Descend from the Alcázar to the
river, cross the bridge, mount to the ten-sided chapel of the Knights
Templars, and sitting on the steps of the granite cross, look back on
the stretching city. There lies the Spain whose fiber is capable of
regeneration: generous, patient, indomitable, faulty, but with manly
faults, untouched by taint of luxury and greed, with blood in her veins,
and ideals in her soul. Wander down by the Eresma past the hermitage,
and encircle the town by the footpath beside the tree-hidden Clamores.
High above, its yellow stones gleaming in the sunset light, rises the
fortress which stood firm for Isabella in her critical hour, and from
whence she started in state to claim her heritage. Will the young king
of Spain to-day show the world that Isabella's heritage is worth the
claiming?
[Illustration: THE ALCÁZAR OF SEGOVIA]
SAINT TERESA AND AVILA
"All great artists are mystics, for they do but body forth what
they have intuitively discerned: all philosophers as far as they
are truly original are mystics, because their greatest thoughts are
not the result of laborious efforts but have been apprehended by
the lightening flash of genius, and because their essential theme
is connected with the one feeling, only to be mystically
apprehended, the relation of the individual to the Absolute. Every
great religion has originated in mysticism and by mysticism it
lives, for mysticism is what John Wesley called 'heart religion.'
When this dies out of any creed, that creed inevitably falls into
mere formalism."
W. S. LILLY.
Mysticism is St. Teresa's highest glory. To write of her with admiration
and even enthusiasm, leaving untouched this acme of her genius, as
certain of her biographers have done, is to describe the shape, the hue,
the grace of a rose and omit to tell of its scent. On all sides her
character was notable; in strength of will, in that most uncommon of
qualities, common sense,[18] in vigorous administration, in sincerity of
purpose. Carmelite nun and restorer of the strictest order of
Carmelites, she was not in the least a withered ascetic but a well-bred
Castilian lady of winning manners and pleasing appearance, who in
courtesy, dignity, and simplicity, embodied in herself the best of
Castile. From every word she wrote breathes a generous character. Her
robust virility of mind, her complete absence of sophistry or of
self-consciousness, help us to understand the love she roused among her
nuns, and the respect she gained from the foremost men of her time.
"We cannot stir ourselves to great things unless our thoughts are high,"
wrote this soul of heroism. Yet, with all her supremacy of intellect,
Teresa was so delicately witty, so gay--peals of laughter were often
heard in her cloisters--so shrewd, that never in her was found the least
trace of the pretentious. Anecdotes are told of her practical good
sense. The first night of the foundation in Salamanca, in the solitary
garret when the frightened little nun, her companion, exclaimed, "I was
thinking, dear Mother, what would become of you, if I were to die,"
"Pish," said Teresa, who disliked the exalté, "it will be time to think
of that when it happens. Let us go to sleep." Then her vehement protest
to those who thought prayer alone sufficient for salvation: "No,
sisters, no: our Lord desires works!" Her swift sweeping aside of the
aristocratic spirit in her convents; let there be no talk of
precedence, "which is nothing more than to dispute whether the earth be
good for bricks or for mortar. O my God, what an insignificant subject!"
"I have always been friendly with learned men," she wrote, and pleasant
milestones in her burdened life are her interviews with some remarkable
minds of the time. "Knowledge and learning are very necessary for
everything, alas!"--This last exclamation made in naïve apology that she
could only translate in halting language her inner life of the spirit,
she whose witchery of style makes her read to-day even by the scoffer.
The human personality of the saint lives in her writing, where is found
the fragrance of her own special soul. "I cannot see anyone who pleases
me but I must instantly desire that he might give himself entirely to
God, and I wish it so ardently that sometimes I can hardly contain
myself." "Humility alone is that which does everything, when you
comprehend in a flash to the depth of your being, you are a mere nothing
and that God is all." "Oh, Lord of my soul! Oh my true Lord, how
wonderful is Thy greatness! Yet here we live, like so many silly swains,
imagining we have attained some knowledge of Thee; and yet it is indeed
as nothing, for even in ourselves there are great secrets which we do
not understand." "Do you know what it is to be truly spiritual? It is
to be the slaves of God; those who are signed with His mark which is
that of the Cross." And that supreme cry of the saints in all ages:
"_¡Señor! ¡O morir ó padecer!_ My God! either to suffer or to die!"
It is inevitable sacrilege for anyone in this generation, which has
traveled so far from the days of faith, to touch on Teresa's raptures
and locutions, for in sheer ignorance we profane what is holy. The saint
herself foresaw our difficulty. "I know that whoever shall have arrived
at these raptures will understand me well; but he who has had no
experience therein, will consider what I say to be foolish.... However
much I desire to speak clearly concerning what relates to prayer, it
will be obscure for him who has no experience therein.... Some may say
these things seem impossible, and that it is good not to scandalize the
weak.... I consider it certain that whoever shall receive any harm by
believing it possible for God in this land of exile to bestow such
favors, stands in great need of humility; such a person keeps the gate
shut against receiving any favors himself." So unparalleled was her life
of ecstasy that at first the saint doubted if it were heaven sent or
not; she submitted herself humbly to the tests of that inquisition age
till at length her own good judgment told her that this "joy surpassing
all the joys of the world, all its delights, all its pleasures," was
from God, because of its after-effects, an added peace, a deeper
humility, a more ardent and practical love of souls. But her clear brain
and transcendent honesty made her see the risk for weaker minds: "The
highest perfection," she warns, "does not consist in raptures nor in
visions, nor in the gift of prophecy, but in making our will so
conformable with the will of God that we shall receive what is bitter as
joyfully as what is sweet and pleasant."
Mysticism skirts indeed perilous precipices, but St. Teresa walked the
narrow path securely, her eyes uplifted, oblivious of the dangers below.
I dare not touch on her marvelous life of the spirit.[19] All I can say
is, go to her own works, read them in their pure, native Castilian, do
not be content with the few extreme quotations given perhaps by those
who would discredit her; read her in various moods, as you do the
"Imitation," and I doubt if she fails to convince you that there are
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our negative
philosophy, that a few rare souls have risen to supreme heights because
they were really humble and really holy, that religion has preserved
from total loss the subtlest faculty of man, and faith stood up bravely
through centuries of intellectual contempt to battle for it. Recently I
came across a review of some works on psychology by that able young
English novelist, Robert Hugh Benson; it ended with these suggestive
words:
"In Psychology, science and religion are very near to one another,
for its subject is nothing else than the soul of man. Science in
her winding explorations has been for centuries drawing nearer to
this center of the maze: she has traversed physical nature, the
direct work of God, and philosophy, the direct product of man....
Is it too much to hope that when science has advanced yet a few
steps more she may have come to Faith with the human soul newly
discovered in her hands: 'Here is a precious and holy thing that I
have found in man, a thing which for years I have denied or
questioned. Now I hand it over to the proper authority. It has
powers of which I know little or nothing, strange intuitions into
the unseen, faculties for communication which do not find their
adequate object in this world ... a force of habit which is
meaningless if it ends with time; an affinity with some element
that cannot rise from matter as its origin. Take it from my hands
for you alone understand its needs and capacities. Enliven it with
the atmosphere it must have for its proper development, feed it,
cleanse it, heal its hurts, train it to use and control its own
powers, and prepare it for Eternity.'"
Let the reader before he opens the "Way of Perfection" know the saint's
"Life"[20] which she wrote, by the advice of her superior, when
forty-six years of age; it is an autobiography worthy to rank with
Augustine's "Confessions." Read also the few hundred racy letters
written after the press of the day while the convent slept. Chief of
all, let the reader, if he is practical, know that inimitable book of
her fifty-eighth year, the "Foundations," with its Cervantes-like
pictures of the people and customs of the time. Perhaps only those who
have traveled on Spanish country-roads, those tracts of mud or rocks,
can appreciate the hardships endured by this aged woman as she went from
city to city to found her houses; in heavy snows to Salamanca; to
Seville in a covered cart turned to purgatory by the direct rays of the
Andalusian sun, with fever and only hot water to drink; rivers
overflowed by heavy rains; boats upset in the rivers. The last
foundation was at Burgos, barely four months before her death, the
jolting cart in which she rode from Palencia having to be pulled out of
the ruts and she entered the coldest city in the Peninsula on a raw
January day in a heavy rain, there to find further troubles.
Familiar with Teresa's physical endurance, her cool-headed business
ability, her candid hatred of shams and pretence, then approach her
loftier self and read the "Camino de Perfección." The treatise on prayer
in the "Life," (Chap. XI to XXII) prepares one for this second book,
which she wrote for her sisters and daughters of "St. Joseph's" in
Avila, "those pure and holy souls whose only care was to serve and
praise Our Lord, so disengaged from the things of the world, solitude is
their delight." Through the "Way of Perfection" runs her beautiful
exposition of the Pater Noster, with digressions to right and left as
her thoughts arose. She tells of the intangible land of worship in
magic-laden words that draw the cold heart to the far realm of
contemplation wherein lay the source of her strength. The "Camino" leads
one to her last book, the "Interior Castle," a glorious pæan to God, a
courageous exploring of the untrodden realms of the soul that is truly
one of the triumphs of the spirit, and when we consider it was written
by a woman of sixty-two, worn out with labors and penance, living in a
poor little convent, it is an incredible feat of genius. In all
literature is found nothing loftier nor more ethereal: "Oh, 'tis not
Spanish but 'tis Heaven she speaks!"
Teresa belonged to the race of the true mystics because she was a great
saint. It has been said that sainthood, the divine hunger of the soul to
do or to suffer _pro causa Dei_ is as difficult to define to the
imagination as genius. The materialist may scoff at it, but it remains a
primitive part of human nature against which argument beats itself in
vain. Its form may change with the times, the Eastern anchorite and the
mediæval ascetic may give way to the administrative bishop needed in his
age; to a knightly paladin such as that "Raleigh among the Saints" who
led his Free Lances to the fight for the salvation of souls; to a
large-hearted philanthropist like Vincent de Paul, with his unresting
Sisters of Charity; to a scholar of the schools, a Newman; to the
reformer in our ugly modern cities; under varying vestures the spirit is
the same. In the compelling power of her saints lies the force of the
Church; to the saints of the Catholic Reformation, to Philip Neri,
Charles Borromeo, Francis Borgia, Francis de Sales, Francis Xavier,
Ignatius Loyola, the Church owes her rehabilitation. These great souls
rose in every land to purify abuses, to drive the money changers from
the temple: they were the leaven in the hundred measures of meal.
Macaulay noted the fact that since the middle of the sixteenth century
Protestantism has not gained one inch of ground, and this is due to
these saints of the Catholic Reformation; for deep in man's heart lies a
reverence for simple goodness that overrides all disputes, and when such
saints arose in the church that was called a sink of iniquity, men
paused; those who had passed from her ranks did not return, but none
after followed them. Had Luther been gifted with more of this personal
sainthood, the fatal division that bequeathed centuries of hate and
warfare might have been avoided, and the simpler method of example, of
holiness of life, have sufficed for reforming Renaissance Rome
intoxicated with the revival of pagan culture. Such regrets are futile,
a mere weighing the weight of the fire, a measuring the blast of the
wind; and they are ungrateful, too, since the spirit of that troubled
time roused among other great souls, a Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada.
The writings of this remarkable woman have the same allurements for us
to-day as when they flowed almost unconsciously from her pen, for
besides her mysticism and her sainthood, she was a poet, of the race of
those whose thoughts make rich the blood of the world. Her little nuns
tell that when she wrote her hand moved so rapidly, it seemed hardly
possible it could form human words, while in her face was an expression
of exaltation. "She ranks as a miracle of genius, as perhaps the
greatest woman who ever handled pen, the single one of all her sex who
stands beside the world's most perfect masters," is the testimony of the
ablest English critic of Spanish literature. She wrote with her eye
direct on her soul's experience, with the glorious courage to give the
naked truth regardless of consequences, and she will be read as long as
sincerity of soul-expression is the poet's best gift and while the
conflict of faith and unbelief remains the highest of human themes.
Mystic, saint, and poet, she can claim yet another title, that of
philosopher. By the road of self-study, she reached that sublime height
of metaphysics, the intellectual vision of the Absolute. The further
Psychology advances, the more wonderful is found her knowledge of the
soul and its moods and powers. "The highest, most generous philosophy
that ever man imagined," wrote the scholar, Luis de León. "Sainte Térèse
a exploré plus à fond que tout autre les régions inconnues de l'âme, ...
elle explique savamment, clairement, le mécanisme de l'âme évoluant dès
que Dieu la touche ... une sainte qui a vérifié sur elle-même les phases
sur-naturelles qu'elle a décrites, une femme dont la lucidité fut plus
qu'humaine" is the appreciation of Huysmans. Not only orthodox believers
yield her this preëminence: Leibnitz read and deeply admired her; a
recent French critic of the skeptic school compares her to Descartes.
Hyperbole is inevitable in speaking of this "sweet incendiary," and all
who know her books feel the same enthusiasm. "A woman for angelical
height of speculation, for masculine courage of performance, more than a
woman," wrote the old English poet, Richard Crashaw, whose "Flaming
Heart" is touched with her own potency:
"Oh thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
And by thy lives and deaths of love,
By thy large draughts of intellectual day;
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;...
By all the Heav'n thou hast in Him,
(Fair sister of the seraphim!)
By all of Him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of myself in me,
Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die."
Spain may claim the glory of having appreciated this her greatest
daughter. She is a colonel of artillery; she is a doctor in Salamanca;
the manuscript of her "Life" was placed in the Escorial and the King
carried the key; at country inns they tell of the night she rested
there, as if it had been yesterday; her devotees to-day sign their
letters "_su amigo teresiano_." It was reserved for later generations of
different race to explain what they could not understand by calling it
hysteria and epilepsy. Richard Ford's account of the saint is so wide of
the original that Froude, no lover of Catholic Spain, says it is not
even a caricature; the article on her in the Encyclopedia Brittanica is
a disgrace to intellectual thought.
Spain stands indifferent to such criticism. She knows herself secure in
her mystics who seem to have left the race an intuitive understanding of
the life of the soul. This inherited intuition has, of course, its
dangers, for all intelligences are not those of a Teresa de Jesús. It
needs indeed "large draughts of intellectual day" to be a mystic.
Valdés' novel, "Marta y María" shows this mistaken insisting in the
nineteenth century on conditions of life suitable to the sixteenth. But
because smaller minds have imitated her disastrously, their
neo-mysticism need not be considered a serious menace in modern Spain,
since following a saint, even haltingly, is not by any means an easy
life to choose.
St. Teresa and Avila: her name evokes that of her native city as
instantly as St. Francis' that of Assisi; every stone in Avila breathes
of the heroic woman. Our first visit was to the small plaza under the
city walls, where the _casa solar_ of the Cepeda family stood. Teresa
came of the untitled gentry of Castile, _de sangre muy limpia_, and a
Spaniard's pride in his blood, untouched by Moorish taint, by crime, or
illegitimacy, is as strong to-day as then: perhaps it is this pride, in
peasant as well as noble, that makes the democratic relation of the
classes in the Peninsula.
At right angles to the mediocre church built in commemoration, on the
site of the Cepeda house, stands the mansion of the Duque de la Roca,
which gives a good idea of the solid escutcheoned homes of the hidalgo.
Many such dignified houses are scattered over Avila, making a stroll in
her streets full of the charm of surprise; their chief adornments are
the doorways, truly splendid old portals with coping stones sometimes
nine feet deep radiating round the entrance. In one of these solid
Romanesque houses Teresa was born in 1515. Through a city gate before
her house, I looked out on just the same scene she had known during the
first eighteen years of her life; the rocky plain, through which the
river wound, stretched to a spur of the Guadarrama mountains, capped
already with the winter's snow. Leaving the venerable little plaza, I
descended the steep street that led to the river bridge, in the spirit
of pilgrimage still, for the child Teresa and a small brother wandered
here alone one day on their way to seek martyrdom among the infidels.
Met by an uncle beyond the bridge, the runaways were brought home. Truly
in the saint's life, the child was father to the man, her days bound
each to each in natural piety, despite that short period which her too
tender conscience ever regretted when, as a pretty girl, love of fine
clothes and flattery allured her. It is told of these remarkable
children, that, hearing the word "Forever," they clasped their little
hands and gazed wide-eyed in each other's faces, overcome by its
stupendous meaning.
[Illustration: HOUSE OF THE DUQUE DE LA ROCA, AVILA]
When Teresa was eighteen she went to visit a married sister who lived at
a distance, and on her return stopped to see an uncle who had just taken
the resolution of entering a monastery. The religious feeling in her
partly awoke, and she too desired the life of the cloister, but her
parents not finding strength to part with her, one morning she and a
brother slipped away from home, and after he had conducted her to the
Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation outside the walls, he went on
himself to beg admittance at the Dominican Convent of St. Thomas. For
over twenty-five years Teresa lived in the _Encarnación_: during the
first twenty years she was miserable in bodily health and as miserable
in spirit, for the saint had not yet found her vocation, and the laxity
of the rule allowed the nuns to see much of the world, to receive
visitors and hear the gossip of the town. "I was tossed about in a
wretched condition, for if I had small content in the world, in God I
had no pleasure. At prayer time I watched for the clock to strike the
end of the hour." Strange words for this future great genius of prayer!
Her conversion, the change of heart that sooner or later, disregarded or
welcomed, comes to all who live with any depth, came to Teresa as she
was approaching her fortieth year. She had been roused to more serious
thoughts by her father's death, and one day in the oratory she suddenly
seemed to realize in a figure of her crucified Saviour the unspeakable
wonder of his sacrifice:
"Thy hands to give Thou can'st not lift.
Yet will Thy hand still giving be,
It gives, but O, itself's the gift,
It gives tho' bound, tho' bound 'tis free."
"Love touch't her heart, and lo! it beats
High, and burns with such brave heats
Such thirst to die, as dares drink up
A thousand cold deaths in one cup."
With the inflowing of true religion, Teresa longed for a stricter life,
for the original rule of Mount Carmel as conferred by Innocent IV in
1248. She was misunderstood by those around her, her locutions and
visions doubted; as a natural result of the false _beata_ of that day,
she was considered a woman who for the sake of notoriety pretended to
sainthood. Only after years of semi-persecution did the ring of truth
and the ethical fervor of Teresa's words convince the learned men who
examined her, and she was allowed to leave the _Encarnación_ to found
the convent of St. Joseph, her first house of the barefoot or
_descalzos_ Carmelites.
Associated so closely as is the _Encarnación_ with the saint, it is with
emotion one looks down from the city on the pleasant oasis it makes in
the rocky plain. Teresa had there the memorable interviews with St.
Francis Borgia, just returned from a visit to his friend and former
lord, Charles V at Yuste; with the mystic poet, St. John of the Cross
(whom Coventry Patmore has followed in his "Unknown Eros"); with St.
Peter of Alcántara, who too held that "the cornerstone and chief
foundation of all is humility." These devout men confirmed Teresa in her
belief in the divine origin of her prayer: "There is no pleasure or
comfort which can be equal to meeting with another person to whom God
has given some beginnings of the same dispositions," she wrote,
harrassed by the petty suspicions around her.
A tenderer association than the _Encarnación_ is that of _San José_, her
first foundation. The convent lies outside the Puerta del Alcázar, Gate
of the Castle, past the plaza where the townspeople stroll under the
arcades, and peasant women sell fragrant celery from the big
saddle-baskets they lift from their donkeys' backs to the pavement. The
visitor is shown treasured relics by the nuns, the quaint musical
instrument their mother played on, her drinking jug, and wooden pillow,
a letter in her strong, clear hand-writing. During the later strenuous
years of her life the saint ever looked back lovingly here. "I lived for
five years in the monastery of St. Joseph at Avila, and those now seem
to me to be the most peaceful part of my life, the want of which repose
my soul often feels." From the age of fifty-two to her death at
sixty-six (1582) this wonderful woman traveled over Spain, founding her
reformed order, sixteen convents for women and fourteen monasteries for
men. While on a visit of inspection at Alba de Tormes the end came; with
her favorite words of the Psalmist, "A contrite and humbled heart, O
God, Thou wilt not despise," she passed, as she had written in her "Way
of Perfection," "not to a strange country, but to her native land."
Avila is worthy of her saint, Avila of the Knights, Avila the Loyal, the
King's Avila. It is one of the most perfect examples existing of the
fortified towns of chivalry. Built on an eminence, it is completely
encircled by grand old walls, forty feet high, whose sameness is broken
by some eighty-six towers; two of these here and there are placed close
together and arched, so as to make a gateway. Below the town on every
side stretches a plain, so strewn with shattered rocks that it is easy
to picture it the scene of some battle of giants. The Cathedral may be
called part of the city ramparts, since its apse forms one of the eighty
encircling towers; the walls are so thick that the radiating chapels
round the chancel are not seen in the exterior view, being quite lost in
the depth of stone and mortar. Our inn, the _Fonda Ingles_, looked out
on the square before the Cathedral, a windy spot, where the gusts from
the mountains seized and tossed the men's long capes. Like Burgos and
Salamanca, Avila is on the truncated mountain of central Spain, and one
is reminded of its 3,500 feet of altitude by the bitter cold. Nothing
can pierce so sharply as the wind of the Castile plains. Each day we
crossed the gusty plaza to the church and so grew to know it with the
heart-affection Spanish cathedrals win. The large windows have been
walled up to darken the interior, for Spain, the hardy, the
all-enduring, ignores the frosts of eight months of the year to provide
against the summer heats. The details of Avila Cathedral are truly
lovely; a double-aisled ambulatory round the warm space of the High
Altar, a _retablo_ of ancient pictures, isolated marble shrines between
chancel and choir near which kneel groups of black-veiled worshipers,
gleaming brass _rejas_, a carved _coro_ where the canons chant and where
are massive illuminated hymnals on the lectern, all make up one's ideal
of a house of God. Do not miss the sacristy, one's ideal too of what a
sacristy should be, with antique silver wrought by the De Arfe family,
with painted and gilded cabinets, and alabaster altars cut like ivory.
St. Teresa's city is small: one can encircle its walls several times in
a constitutional, yet every walk discovers new treasures. We were
constantly stumbling on yet other of the imposing portals that exist in
their perfection only here and at Segovia, and in the sleepy squares or
courtyards we found some of the roughly-hewn stone animals, the
primitive god of Druid days, used later by the Romans as milestones.
From these comes another title for Avila, _Cantos y Santos_. An easy
afternoon walk can be taken to Son Soles, a hermitage on the lower slope
of the mountains, whither the saint must have gone in the summer
evenings when the sunset glorified the plain and hills, for the customs
of Avila to-day are those of Avila in the sixteenth century. A path led
us across the aromatic fields, and country men in wide-brimmed velvet
hats gazed at us with clear, fearless eyes, grave yet courteous, like
true Castilians. In the meadows we met a gentleman of the town pacing
slowly, book in hand; one would have time in the home of the mystic for
such fruitful hours of pause, such sessions of sweet silent thought. On
the way to Son Soles, just on the outskirts of the town, stands Santo
Tomás, the Dominican monastery that long supplied missionaries to the
Philippines. Before the High Altar is a white marble mausoleum of
Isabella's period, worthy to rank with that of her parents at
Miraflores,--the truly touching tomb of her only son. He lies with calm
upturned face, a crown on his thick locks, his gauntlets thrown beside
him. The royal prince was educated with ten young nobles in a former
palace near this church. Generous, handsome, a scholar and musician,
with the fair future stretching before him of the first king to rule the
_Españas_ rich and united, he died suddenly at Salamanca in 1497,
turning all the conquests, all the discoveries of his parents' reign to
dust and ashes. The Queen bowed her head in submission, saying "The Lord
giveth and the Lord taketh away, Blessed be his name": but it is told
that she often came to sit in her special stall of the raised choir
here, to gaze with broken heart on the white tomb of her son. Had he
lived would Spain's evil day have been averted? One can almost believe
so; for tyrannic government came in with the Austrian, who ruled here
because of Don Juan's death. Charles V, Isabella's grandson, was not a
Spaniard; he could little understand the system of individual city
rights that prevailed in the country he came to govern. Spain can boast
she was one of the earliest of European nations to teach the municipal
doctrine that the state has freedom if the town is free. We too
completely forget that it was nearly a century before the celebrated
Leicester Parliament that Burgos in 1169 had popular representation.
When the Austrian arrived, with his autocratic idea that all power
should be concentrated, the Castilian cities rose in the Comuneros
rebellion, but they were ruthlessly put down and for three hundred years
the land's vigor and wealth were exploited for the benefit of one
family. I am sure that as she sat pondering in the choir stall of Santo
Tomás Isabella foresaw what a tragic loss to her cherished land was the
death of her only son. Avila can link the names of Isabella la Católica
and Teresa de Jesús, the two most incomparable women in whom the sex has
culminated, both born on the bleak invigorating steppes of Castile, in
the same province, within the same hundred years, both making an
indelible impression on their race, both leaving a deathless heritage of
aspiration and onspurring pride. Is there any wonder that a people who
can claim two such heroines look at one with fearless eyes?
Avila is rich in tombs. There is a second lovely one in Santo Tomás,
that of Prince John's attendants, and down by the river bridge, the
picturesque chapel of San Segundo holds a most beautiful work by Spain's
best sculptor, Berruguete. The kneeling bishop has so gentle an
expression that it is hard to believe he could hurl a Moslem chief from
the city walls above this hermitage. In the Cathedral, behind the High
Altar, is another Berruguete tomb, Bishop Tostado, whose industry has
passed into a proverb; he is here represented with speaking, alert
expression, leaning forward, this tireless pen suspended in his hand.
The tomb of St. Teresa is not found in her native city, for she was
buried where she died, at Alba de Tormes, some miles from Salamanca. Not
long after her death Avila stole the saint's body--strange to our modern
notions are those old disputes over relics--but through the influence of
the Duke of Alva it was restored to his town.
Admiration for St. Teresa tempted me to Alba de Tormes, but to those who
would go thither I must say, resist the temptation. Unfortunately, the
spirit of religiosity, which is to religion what sentimentality is to
sentiment, has taken possession of her burial place. If you do go to
Alba, however, make it a day's excursion from Salamanca. The evening
was over before we reached the town, and we drove in darkness from the
station, bumping over the ruts of an awful road. Railway and villages
seem often at enmity in Spain; though we had passed directly by the
gleaming lights of Alba, we ran on some miles further before stopping in
its station, hence the necessity of a drive of several kilometers back
to the town. The inn was most primitive, being merely the poor house of
a country woman, our waiter at table her ten-year old son dressed in
corduroys. A friendly pig met us in the front hall, coming out from the
kitchen to look at the unaccustomed foreigners; nevertheless, the house
was clean and the landlady got out fragrant linen for the bedrooms. On
our admiring a picture of their great patroness, the kindly woman, after
dusting it, presented it with the customary polite phrase of "this your
picture," which was no mere formality, since the next morning when she
found it secretly restored to its former place, she rushed out to thrust
it again on us as we were stepping into the diligence. This generous
landlady, our grave little garçon, the night watchman the _sereno_,
calling the hours, a daybreak view from the plaza of the vivid green
meadows along the river, these are the pleasant reminiscences of Alba.
Opposite the inn stood the church where the saint is buried, but
willingly would I blot out its memory. An excitable monk was our guide.
He turned on the electric light with a spectacular air, as if that, not
the great relic, was the boast of the church; he showed the saint's
silver tomb, her heart hung round with votive gifts, archbishop's rings
and diamond coronets, then he led us to the revolving door of the
convent, whence personal mementoes were passed us for inspection.
Lowering the lights, he bade us look through a grating at the back of
the church, and suddenly the electricity was turned on in an interior
room, and there on the cot lay the image of a Carmelite nun asleep. The
whole thing was in the worst possible taste, on a level with the bad
Churrigueresque architecture of the same period. A spot worthy of silent
pilgrimage, where one of God's greatest saints breathed her last prayer,
"Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies," this solemn cell of
her death-bed has been turned to a vulgar show. How Teresa's intelligent
simplicity would sweep aside such ill-judged honors! In silent protest
at the tawdriness surrounding them, lie the patrons of this Alba
foundation, Don Francisco Velasquez and his wife Doña Teresa,
distinguished, superb effigies in stone, _hidalgo como el Rey_. Doña
Teresa, in the delightful way of Spanish ladies on tombs, is reading
tranquilly in her book of devotions.
With this example before us of the pass to which religious extravagance
can be carried, it may be time to touch on a tendency in Spain that is a
distress to the northern Catholic who is less childlike in his inward
life. Of course, since there is every kind of temperament, there must be
every kind of taste; perhaps I am too much guided by personal likes or
dislikes. However, I feel that those who crave the appropriate and
simple will agree with me that making allowance for an emotional people,
a coquettish shepherdess under a glass case on a church altar, (such as
I saw in Cadiz,) is misunderstood religion. One of Spain's wisest sons,
the philosopher Vives, agitated against the dressing of statues, and the
Council of Trent later prohibited the bad usage. Why is not their advice
followed? I do not mean to criticise the little country shrines whose
inartistic decoration is often most heart-moving; in a remote village
certain things are touching which elsewhere are displeasing. It should
be the effort of the Spanish clergy to discourage the extreme devotion
to special altars and statues. Artificial and roccoco in sentiment and
expression, it is a menace to religion in the Peninsula. Spain has the
vital Christian faith, she is unspoiled by the tinsel, beneath the
symbol is a soul; but, if she insists on clinging to what the modern
mind finds ugly and insincere, she may lose many to whom the inner
religion of a St. Teresa would appeal. People seldom will see both sides
justly; to rid themselves of an irritating detail, some will throw away
the whole. There are not a few whose antipathy to religion has been
caused by this blind clinging to the non-essential: the novelist Pérez
Galdós, I should say was such a case. Though his stories prove that he
has never grasped what interior religion means, has never gone to the
fountain head and drank of the pure, mystic waters, but has tasted only
the contaminated streams of the valley, yet it cannot be denied that
some of the religiosity he depicts is a phase that exists only too
truly. The evil is the result of ignorance, not of malice. For this
reason it would die a natural death were the Spanish clergy given a
wholly rounded education. I do not refer here to the learned canons or
monastic orders, but to the parochial clergy. Spain watches her neighbor
France too closely, let her look further afield and she will lose her
fear that education and skepticism go hand in hand; in England and
America the priesthood is with the advancing tide, not against it:
knowledge never yet harmed religion, but ignorance cripples her. Science
should have no silly terrors for priests whose church is the greatest
proof of evolution through the ages, advancing relentlessly so that
what is worth retaining of man's increasing knowledge finds its
inevitable place in her body, but advancing slowly, (impatient abuse
cannot hurry her magnificent conservatism); a complete organism, a
living entity ever changing, yet ever the same.[21] We can hardly expect
the clergy of a land where tradition is a sacred thing, to be in the
vanguard of modern thought, but they at least should not forget their
own noted men of learning. Ximenez, Luis de León, Feijóo, Isla, Suárez,
Balmes,--the names come crowding--all of them churchmen, who, the more
they knew, the deeper grew their faith.
After this vexatious visit to Alba de Tormes, it was with trepidation
that I came to Avila, there to find Teresa's vigorous, truly-spiritual
personality the living presence of the proud, high-minded little
Castilian city. And a happy coincidence the night of our arrival gave
proof that her generous enthusiasm, her unresting love of souls, were
not things of the past. Having spent the day at the Escorial, at ten in
the evening we took the express to Avila. In the carriage _Reservado
para Señoras_, we found ourselves with three religious of the
Sacred-Heart; a touch of home for me were their familiar fluted caps,
buttoned capes, and silver crosses. The few hours of the journey fled
all too swiftly in delightful talk; like nuns the world over, they were
gay and happy as children, with the serene youth of the convent life in
their faces. One of them was so distinguished a woman that it was a
fascination to look at her.
These fragile nuns were to travel through the cold night--and a raw
November gale was blowing over the uplands of Castile--to take a steamer
at Bordeaux, for they were pioneers, on their way to found a house in a
distant part of South America, where education was backward. Three weeks
of winter sea, then some tropical days on horseback, before they reached
their desolate new home! Truly the heroic spirit of St. Teresa is alive
to-day, and fair sisters of the seraphim still walk among us.
EVENING IN AVILA
Around about the town stand eighty gray stone towers,
That make a fitter crown, a hardier show than flowers
For what is high and brave--the tawny Castile plain--
So patient and so grave, incarnate soul of Spain.
You have made sweet the ways of penury and care
With dawn and sunset praise and white still hours of prayer,
Old town of mystic saint! Secure you ask: Does peace,
Or restless seeking plaint come with your wealth's increase?
An answering sound of bells across the upland goes,
To each field-toiler tells a message of repose,
And mounting to the sky's slow-darkening, tranquil dome
The heart-calm echoes rise of peasants lingering home.
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL
"They who wrought wonders by the Nile of old,
Bequeathing their immortal part to us,
Cast their own spirit first into the mould,
And were themselves the rock they fashioned thus."
GEORGE SANTAYANA.
These two spots, products of men of small idea and nature, are happily
so close together that they can fall under the same abuse. Coming from
the north, to stop at the Escorial either from Avila with its grand
walls of the eighty towers, or from the crag-set castle of Segovia, is
such an abrupt transition from heroic times to the doctrinaire centuries
that followed them that it is but too easy to be unfair to Philip II's
huge pile. A better way is to go out to it from Madrid; then, somewhat
accustomed to cold commonplace, the Escorial gives less of a jar.
We descended to it from Segovia. Knowing Herrera's lifeless
architecture--"a syllogism in stone" it has wittily been called--on that
side I did not expect much, but accounts of the setting of the Escorial,
of its grand solitary position in the mountains, made me hope for some
kind of effect. People see things in such different ways. I could
discover no grandeur whatever in the position of the rectangular
ashy-colored building. The lower slopes of the Guadarramas rise behind
it, but at a little distance, and the town comes between it and the
sierras. It was not solitary, it was not imposing. At close range, after
we had walked up the leafy avenue from the station, even the appearance
of unity was lost, and it seemed nothing but a big block of good town
houses like many that fill the square between four city streets. Window
after window, alike inadequately small and unadorned; just like any
monotonous line of town houses. We stood aghast at the pretentious,
ineffectual mass which they call the eighth wonder of Spain. For us
to-day there is little wonder in spending fifty millions in one lifetime
to put up myriads of doors, stair-cases, and courtyards, to use two
thousand pounds of iron to make the door-keys; we are accustomed to the
feat. The pity is that every tourist in Spain comes here, and one in a
thousand goes to Poblet or León, those other pantheons that are proper
burial places for sturdy old kings. I am not sure that the Hapsburgs in
Spain merit anything worthier than an Escorial.
At first we thought it might be the side which we approached that gave
so poor an effect, so we proceeded to encircle the building; on all
four sides passing by window after window we saw not one inch of stone
carved worthily, and to our astonishment we found it faced the
mountains. Fancy a blank, rocky wall, a quarter of a mile away and fancy
such a stupidity as choosing this to open on, instead of the wide
horizon of the opposite side. Does this not give the key to the
Escorial? It and its builder had no imagination. Since we were here we
had to see it all, so we let ourselves be guided hither and thither,
through courtyard after courtyard, down one dull corridor after another,
in and out of rooms where little interested,--a dreary waste of a place.
In the picture gallery overlooking the gardens we got our first
introduction to that eccentric genius, El Greco, at his worst here, with
sick color and elongated figures; we thought him quite mad.
Nevertheless, the picture gallery was a respite; it was good to meet
again Tintoret's rich visions of Venice, the full superb shoulders of
his women, the gold brown of the robes. Ranged in cases there were also
some embroidered vestments that were noticeable.
The church of the Escorial is so coldly formal and pretentious that it
lay like a load on our spirits. There is something frightening in the
way man unconsciously expresses his own nature in the material work of
his hand; he may think himself very big, unless he really is he is
certain to betray himself, if he paints or writes or builds. This
correct, somber church exactly represents the religious ideal of a
Philip II. Heaven, so close to one under the soul-feeding Romanesque
vault of Santiago, in Seville or Toledo's Gothic aspiration, is very far
away under this limited dome; the propriety here is that of a bigot, who
would see heresy in the soar of Gothic, and backwardness in the bare
solemnity of Romanesque.
We were shown the usual tourist-sights, the seat in the choir where
Philip sat when news was brought of the Battle of Lepanto, which broke
another inroad of the Mohammedan on Europe; also the life-size marble
crucifix (spoiled by too long an upper lip) which Benvenuto Cellini
made, and which was carried on men's backs from Barcelona to Madrid.
Statues of Philip and his father, with the ladies of their households,
kneel on either side of the altar, rich bronze-gilt work, but hardly in
character with a church. Then we descended to that acme of dreariness
and morbid misanthropy, the sunken chamber where are buried the royal
family of Spain since Charles V; one somber coffin rose above another in
the dark place. And art can make death so beautiful, art like the tombs
at Miraflores and Avila! Happy beings to have escaped this dreadful hole
of burial, we exclaimed. Could only a century separate Isabella in her
Castle of Segovia, or in the white marble peace of her sepulcher at
Granada, from her descendants' costly ideal of a palace and a mausoleum?
As we stood shivering with the formality and melancholy of it all, with
sympathy for the present happy young King and Queen who must lie here
some day, a little touch of sentiment took away some of the oppression.
We saw on the tomb of Alfonso XII a fresh wreath of chrysanthemums.
Then, feeling that any more subterranean darkness was insupportable, we
hurried up the steep staircase from the Pantheon, through the
heavy-bound church, and out in the courtyard--dreary enough,
too!--breathed the fresh air with relief.
In the library of the Escorial was the first place where I had seen the
gilt edges of books, not their leather backs, presented to the reader, a
rich, strange effect which later in the Seraglio at Stamboul I noticed
again. We stopped long to examine the portraits that stand between the
book-cases. Philip II was pale-eyed, anæmic and white-visaged, with
drooping, hypochondrical corners to his mouth. And I had pictured him
scowling and black and forceful! The Escorial should have told me that
not a forceful personality could have built it but rather a stubborn
ability and dogged patience, a narrow consistency, all in character with
his pale eyes. The swift degeneration of the Hapsburg line is easily to
be read in these portraits. Charles V (in Spain Charles I), keen of face
and energetic, has a great-great-grandson, Charles II, last of the line,
so rickety and idiotic that no caricature of used-up royal blood could
go further.
Weary of sight-seeing where so little roused the imagination, we
descended to the gardens, stiffly restrained too, but pleasant to loiter
in. So close was the monotonous mass of gray stone above us, one did not
have to look at it, but could gaze out on the wide view toward Madrid.
Then at sunset we went back to the church for an evening service, that
hour of prayer, restful and beautiful all over Spain. The Pater Noster
was recited, a litany was chanted, a meditation was read slowly with
pauses while the people listened with bowed heads and closed eyes. Then
followed the primitive, centuries-old Latin hymns, the glory of the
church, in which is incorporated for all time the piercing piety of the
Middle Ages. I too closed my eyes to shut out the formal church, and for
some forgetful moments I could dream that those quavering voices of old
and young, so simple, so sincere, were in some unspoiled mountain
village, perhaps in that most soul-satisfying temple of all the world,
the Lower Church of St. Francis:--Assisi and the Escorial,--the human
mind is capable of wide deviations, from the religion of humble love to
this haughty contortion of it.
The most fatal effect of the Escorial was to fix the capital in Madrid,
a spot, as Ford observed, that had been passed over in contempt by
Iberian, Roman, Goth, and Moor. Up to the building of the Escorial the
choice of a capital had wavered, at times, in Valladolid, in Toledo, or
in Seville. Philip's mountain palace caused to be the chief city one of
the worst situated towns in Spain, on a waterless river, with no
commercial prospects, roasting in summer, swept by icy winds the rest of
the year. It too, like the Escorial, lacks all soul for the traveler.
Not a church worth looking at, all of them seventeenth and eighteenth
century abominations with fat cupids, prancing angels, and posing,
self-glorifying saints, not a cathedral in the capital of a country
which has the largest number and most heart-satisfying cathedrals of the
world.
I daresay if one lived in Madrid and had a full active or social life
one might like it; there must be some cause for the proverb "From Madrid
to heaven, and in heaven a peep-hole to look down on Madrid." As a city
it can never be anything but second-rate; the new residential part near
the parks is like the good districts of any average town. The famous
Puerta del Sol is filled at every hour of the day and night with such a
rabble of loafers and vociferating peddlers that it takes courage to
push one's way through. As the Court was absent we missed seeing the
brilliant morning hour of guard mounting before the Royal Palace.
Occasionally some local sight would remind us we still were in Spain,
the original and untamed. Ladies in mantillas would pass on their way to
the late Mass at midday, a brougham drawn by handsome mules would go by,
or, if it were a holiday, a few girls of the people wore embroidered
shawls. But taken as a whole, for the sightseer Madrid is just a
weariness of the spirit.
Except, of course, the pictures, and I must add, the Armory. We hurried
off to the Prado, up the steps past the bust of the vigorous saturnine
Goya, along the far-stretching hall, with hardly a glance for the white
monks of Zubaran, or El Greco's strange canvases, till midway, we turned
to the left into the large hall that holds the Velasquez masterpieces.
It is a sensation in one's life, this first meeting with Velasquez at
the height of his powers. The wonderful Doria Pope in Rome, the few
pictures in London and Vienna whet the appetite for the supreme feast in
Madrid. It is an unprecedented collection of one master that no glow of
enthusiasm can exaggerate. Canvas follows canvas, all the work of
secure, triumphant genius, with brush handling so free that it seems
impossible he painted more than two hundred years ago. Don Carlos stands
dangling a glove in an absolutely natural moment of nonchalance, Philip
IV and the pompous Duke of Olivares ride their proud steeds out of
magnificent skies, the gallant little Don Baltasar Carlos dashes at us
on his pot-bellied pony, or stands a baby hunter in the Guadarramas.
Velasquez painted him later, a grave, dignified lad of about fourteen,
always with a fearless, straight look, and he also painted his piquant
Bourbon mother, Philip IV's first wife; his second a wooden-faced
Austrian, mother of the doll-like, big-skirted infantas. Had Don
Baltasar Carlos lived, surely the race had not ended in a Charles II.
You walk about the Velasquez room bewildered, sorry for the copyists who
have set up their easels before work that tells so unflinchingly each
slip of a talent what it is to be a master. Portraits and genre studies;
the lovely bent neck of the weaving girl, the breathing livingness of
the Maids of Honor, the displeasing dwarfs,--each canvas is an achieved
success.
At the end of the hall hangs what swiftly became my favorite of all
pictures seen, the "Surrender of Breda," called "Las Lanzas," from the
soldiers' spears ranged against the sky. It is a canvas about the size
of the "Night Watch" in Amsterdam. The two armies fill the background
under a sky that is a glorious harmony of cold blue and rose. In the
foreground the Fleming, Justin of Nassau, advances to surrender the keys
of Breda to its conqueror, the Marquis Spínola, general of the Spanish
forces, though by birth a Genoese. Spínola has dismounted, and bends to
meet his enemy, vanquished now, hence in his knightly creed, his friend.
With a subtle, delicate shrinking he has placed his hand on his
opponent's shoulder, and in his face is an expression of such high
chivalry, of such generous effacement of self, of all that is best in
man of courtesy and noble-mindedness, that the tears spring to the eyes.
You return to it again and again and come away refreshed and ennobled.
Only a man loyal himself to the core could render such an emotion, only
a technical genius of the first rank could fix so fleeting an instant;
this truly is thinking in paint, and it places Velasquez side by side
with Leonardo da Vinci as a master of the intellect. I think it is very
pleasant to learn that Velasquez knew the General he has immortalized,
and you feel he must have known, too, the superb Spanish hidalgos who
stand in the group behind the Marquis. On his first trip to Italy, the
painter sailed in the same vessel to Genoa with Spínola, and probably
sketched him then. I like to imagine the meeting of two such spirits of
chivalry.
[Illustration: ISABELLA OF PORTUGAL, BY TITIAN. PRADO GALLERY, MADRID]
Were the Prado only Velasquez and the Spanish artists, it would be
among the first of galleries, but it is astonishingly rich in Italian
masters as well. It has the best equestrian portrait in the world,
Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg, a picture to be studied long and
often. The Emperor has risen from illness, he has had to be lifted upon
his horse, but he has pluckily girded himself to take command. The
Venetian red of his plumes and scarf is splendid. Titian has another of
the Emperor, standing with his Irish hound, near it a gem of woman
portraiture, Charles' lovely wife, Isabella of Portugal. It seems a
strange irony for such an exquisite creature to have been the mother of
a Philip II. Philip was fortunate in his daughters, too, demure, formal
little maidens, who stand with the sedate propriety of Spanish infantas,
and in his sisters, whose long, aristocratic faces Antonio Moro has left
us. Charles V sent Moro to England to paint Queen Mary for her young
bridegroom, and here she sits in her rich crimson leather chair, erect
and stiff and insignificant, her auburn hair and homely face not one to
charm her future husband still in his twenties, she not far from the
fatal forty. A deeply pathetic portrait this. Good woman she was
personally, despite having been made the scape-goat for a system, yet
one can read in the pinched shrewdness of her mouth that she lacked her
grandmother's height of brain, nor was she capable of her mother's
dignity of sorrow, whose grand insulted womanhood Shakespeare has
rendered so magnificently.[22] There are many other notable portraits in
the Prado; a stately matron and her three sons by Parmigianino; a rich
pigment of color, Rembrandt's wife; Raphael's Cardinal,--the acute,
keen, Italian face so different from the Spanish type; a striking Count
de Berg by Van Dyke. Mantegna has a small canvas, the "Tránsito de la
Virgen," with the apostles gathered round the couch, a graphic glimpse
through the window behind of Mantua. Mantegna put thought into his work,
and he compels thought from others; this "Tránsito" drew me to it in the
same browsing study as that small triptych in the Uffizi.
Then upstairs are more Italians. The facile Veronese has here, curiously
enough, a really impressive scene, Christ and the Centurion. There are
many Rubens, and some peaceful Claude Lorraine sunsets and sunrises,
offering the needed siesta of quiet in a full collection. And downstairs
in the basement are the primitives, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Memling,
mystical enough to refresh the soul of a Huysmans. The gilded
backgrounds of these celestial annunciations, these interiors of so
intense and breathless a reverence, have always seemed to me a pure
symbol of the uncomplicated perfection of their faith, the unquestioning
mental background of the age.
After Velasquez it is not easy to feel much enthusiasm for the other
Spanish painters. Murillo can only be really known in Seville, in whose
gallery he predominates as does Velasquez here. It is a coincidence that
both of Spain's first painters should have been born in the same
Andalusian city, within twenty years of each other, and that the ashes
of both should have been scattered to the wind in the French invasion.
Zurbaran's white-robed monks,--he painted Carthusians as Murillo did
Franciscans, and Roelas the Jesuits,--are always effective, but they
miss being taken seriously by a dash of pose in them. As for Ribera's
martyrdoms, (his portraits are very fine,) if chance led us into his
room, one glance and we fled; it is not pleasant to see people
disemboweled. The same shuddering horror you feel before some of Goya's,
as for instance that awful but tremendously moving blood-red _Dos de
Mayo_. Goya is almost too crabbedly individual to be liked unreservedly.
He is in a way the Hogarth of the South, with a gruesome, fantastic
imagination, quite pitiless to the vices or follies of his generation;
witness the portrait of the Infanta María Josefa, or the appalling group
surrounding Charles IV, "a grocer's family who have won the big lottery
prize," Gautier cleverly said of it. At times you think Goya had no
elevation of soul, then you come on a portrait that shows he could see
something besides the weakness of human nature. He was a true Aragonese,
stubborn, energetic, analytic. And it should never be forgotten that he
painted in that desert of art, the eighteenth century, and swept aside
the weak methods of generations to return to Velasquez's vigor of
technique.
No visitor in Madrid can possibly miss the Prado gallery, but it is not
difficult to omit the Armory; for, discouraged by going to see sights
not worth the effort, you may think the _Armería_ just the usual dull
collection found in capitals, of interest only to the specialist. No
greater mistake could be made. This Madrid museum is like nothing of its
kind in Europe, it is an unrivaled show, one hour there and you learn
volumes of Spanish history.
It consists of a large hall, down whose center is massed a splendid
array of horsemen, caparisoned in historic armor. The manikins have been
fitted out thoroughly. Their gauntleted hands hold the polished spears,
and ostrich plumes wave from their helmets; they give an astonishing
effect of life. Among the thirty-odd suits worn by Charles V, here is
the identical one Titian painted in the equestrian portrait, decked with
the similar doge-red scarf and plumes. There is the gallant little
Baltasar Carlos' suit of mail; the armor of that Bayard of Spain,
Garcilaso de la Vega; of the hero of Lepanto, Don John of Austria, and
some of the banners and ship-prows of his victory; the suit of Charles'
general, the Marquis of Pescara, Vittoria Colonna's husband; the tent of
Francis I at the battle of Pavia; the arms of Juan de Padilla, who led
the uprising of the independent cities against Charles. History is
followed from earliest times in raw gold Visigothic crowns, the sword of
Pelayo at Cavadonga, the sword of the great slayer of Moors, King
Ferdinand _el Santo_ of Castile, and the winged-dragon helmet of as
mighty a battle leader, King Jaime _el Conquistador_ of Aragon, down to
the last stage of the seven hundred years' crusade, in Isabella's armor;
that of the Gran Capitán; Boabdil's engraved with Moorish letters; and,
finally, the surrendered keys of Granada. Spain's majestic hour lives
again here.
As we left the Armoury, a present-day scene presented itself and it
struck me as very characteristic of a country where the grandee,
shopkeeper, and peasant live side by side in friendliness. Before us lay
the big courtyard of the Royal Palace, the King's very doorstep as it
were, and it overflowed with hundreds of children, nursemaids, families,
and soldiers; the crowd being chiefly of a popular character. They tell
of strict Spanish etiquette, but it appears to me as if the people here
get nearer to their king than elsewhere. Rough boys and men were pouring
into the Armoury to wander with pride among the plumed knights, and by
their glance they showed they felt themselves part of the stirring past.
Each knew himself a _cristiano viejo_[23] whose forebears had struck a
blow for the _Reconquista_.
TOLEDO
"But changeless and complete
Rise unperturbed and vast
Above our din and heat
The turrets of the Past,
Mute as that city asleep
Lulled with enchantments deep
Far in Arabian dreamland built where all things last."
WILLIAM WATSON
Toledo has been compared to Durham, but it is the similarity between a
splendid lean old leopard and a beautiful domestic cat. The largest
river of Spain, the Tagus, without a touch of England's lovely verdure
to soften it, sweeps impetuously round the Spanish ecclesiastic city,
through a wild gorge from which it derives its name (_tajo_, cut) and
above the river-cliffs rise sun-whitened houses, innumerable
monasteries, and church towers, in a compact, imposing mass. Across the
river is a barren wilderness, solitary as if never trod by foot of man,
and this, close to an historic city. Stern and a bit fanatic,--for she
has lived for generations, with sword in hand to guard her
altars,--Toledo represents ascetic, exalted Castile as completely as
palm-crowned Seville, stretching out in the meadows by the winding
Guadalquivir sums up the ease-loving character of Andalusia. The thought
of the Moor is never long absent in the fertile southern province, but
here, though for a time he ruled as conqueror, every stone of the city
tells of crusading Christian ideals.
Most travelers run down to Toledo from Madrid for merely a day, whereas
it is eminently a spot for a pause of several days. Not only once but a
second and a third time should you cross the Alcántara bridge and climb
the silent hills beyond it. From there Toledo stands up in haunting
majesty, one of the imperial things in the world. Wild footpaths lead
along the hills, so you can follow the immense loop of the river and
return to the city by St. Martin's bridge.
The desolate Tagus is as unchanged by the centuries as the hills
confining it. Toledo's first mayor, the Cid, looked on much the same
scene that we know, nor could it have been very different when, earlier,
the last of the Gothic kings, Roderick, saw the fair Florinda bathing by
St. Martin's bridge,--which untimely spying the legend says brought the
African invasion on Spain; the same as when King Wamba ruled here, and
his name is synonymous with "as old as the hills"; the same as when the
city's patron, Leocadia, was hurled down from the cliffs in Dacian's
persecution.
Once inside the Puerta del Sol (a real gateway, not a plaza where a gate
once stood, like its Madrid namesake), we found ourselves in a fretwork
of narrow streets where we got lost at every turning. These twisting
passages were so built that if the city walls were captured, the people
could still offer a stiff resistance. Zig-zag up and down the lanes go,
every few yards coming to a small triangle, out of which lead three
narrow ways,--which to choose is ever the bewildering question. Push on
boldly, the tortuous streets are worth exploring at random, and if you
wander long enough you are sure to find yourself before the Cathedral or
in the famous Zocodover Square. Morning and afternoon we were out
exploring, with a good map to guide us, yet up to the very last day, we
lost the way half a dozen times. The constant uncertainty was
fascinating; only in such unhurried rambles does the _genius loci_
reveal itself. Now we stumbled on San Cristo de la Luz, in whose
diminutive chamber are Visigothic capitals, Moorish arches, and a
Christian _retablo_; it was here Alfonso VI heard his first Mass in the
conquered city, the Cid Campeador at his side. Now we stopped to see the
empty church of El Tránsito, in the Mudéjar style, built originally as
a synagogue, and we found there an astonishingly beautiful arabesque
frieze. This Mudéjar style (Moorish and Christian architecture mixed)
has here what I think is its most perfect example, Santa María la
Blanca, also a former synagogue, then a church, and at present national
property.
As usual, our first visit after arrival, was to the Cathedral, not so
easy to find as in most places, since it is not set on the highest part
of the city, and is shut in with cluttering houses. As usual, too, like
most Spanish churches, the exterior is meaningless; but the interior is
a vigorous, pure Gothic, which is called the most national expression of
this style in Spain. Like Seville, the ground plan is a _sala_, or hall;
though the aisles here lessen in height so rapidly that they give a far
different effect from Seville's lofty nave. The double-aisled ambulatory
as at Avila is unique and beautiful in its effect. Spanish Gothic may be
less artistically faultless than that of France, but certainly its
massive grandeur and even its very extravagance render it many times
more picturesque.
The primate of Spanish cathedrals is the richest in tombs, paintings,
_rejas_, carvings, vestments, and jewels, even after the French carried
away some hundred weight of silver treasure. Unfortunately, it was here
we began to feel like tourists and to experience the jaded weariness of
the personally conducted. We had wandered freely over the churches of
the north, for a slight fee the verger had unlocked the choir and
separate chapels, and then had gone off to let us examine them
undisturbed. Here the flocking tourist has brought about the pest of
tickets for each separate part of the church, and the guide, when one
pauses to loiter, impatiently rattles his keys. And one longs to loiter
in the most perfect _coro_ of Spain, where Maestro Rodrigo, and
Berruguete, and Vignani carved; in the _sala capitular_, or the Alvaro
de Luna chapel of florid Gothic, where the beheaded Grand-Constable lies
guarded by four stone knights of Santiago.
Since Spanish cathedrals were gradual growths, here is to be found, in a
mass of violent sculpture called the _Transparente_, the bad taste of
the eighteenth century. The bishop who erected the _Transparente_ lies
buried near by, covered by a mammoth slab of brass, on which, in bold
letters, you read, "Here lies dust, ashes, nothing," an epitaph whose
ironic, fatigued simplicity does not ring true; very different from that
genuinely humble epitaph in Worcester Cathedral, that one impressive
word "Miserrimus." _Transparente_ and tombstone are subtly allied, not
inappropriate memorials of one who was instrumental in bringing the
academic Bourbons to the Spanish throne in 1700.
In the sacristy is a beautiful picture, the _Expolio_, "Stripping Our
Lord before the Crucifixion," by El Greco, the strange Byzantine Greek
who drifted to Toledo and in his forty years there because more Spanish
than the Spaniards. In his case the accident of birth was nothing;
though born in Crete of Greek parents, refugees from Constantinople, El
Greco was a true Castilian soul. He had known Venice in the days of
Tintoret and Titian, but it was only when he came to Toledo that he
found the atmosphere, mystic and chivalrous, in which his genius could
develop. His was the spiritualized mysticism of a Teresa or a John of
the Cross, with little of the conventional piety of Murillo. And he has
rendered the Spanish hidalgo as has none other, on his canvas "they live
an inner life, indifferent to the world; sad with the nostalgia for a
higher existence, their melancholy eyes look at you with memories of a
fairer past age that will not return. They are the dignified images of
the last warrior ascetics."[24]
There is no denying that some of El Greco's pictures are aberrations;
when I first saw him in the Escorial gallery, I thought him eccentric to
madness. Thanks to Professor Raphael Domenech of the Prado School of
Art, I looked a second time and learned to appreciate him. "What he did
ill, no one did worse, but what he did well, no one did better." Toledo
has many of his masterpieces. In the Church of Santo Domingo is his
"Ascension" and the two Saint Johns; in Santo Tomé, his splendid "Burial
of Count Orgaz." The chapel of San José and the churches of San Vicente
and San Nicolás have some good examples of his, and the Provincial
Museum has a remarkable series of the apostles with a truly noble
representation of their Master. El Greco--by the way, his real name was
Domenikos Theotokopoulos--lived with princely magnificence, his
friendship sought by the cultivated society round him, and on his death
he was buried in San Bartolomé, regretted by the whole city. His
sumptuous way of life was continued by his son, who built the cupola
that covers the Mozarabic Chapel of the Cathedral.
This brings us to perhaps the most interesting survival of the past that
exists in Spain, the Mozarabic Mass, said every morning in the western
end of Toledo Cathedral. Mozarabic means Mixt-Arab, and is the name
applied to the Christians who were under Moorish rule. Living isolated
from their fellow-believers they kept to the old Gothic ritual. In the
eleventh century the Christian conqueror of Toledo, Alfonso VI, after
an artless trial by fire of the rival books, introduced the Gregorian
liturgy, used by the rest of Europe. The learned Archbishop of Toledo,
Cardinal Ximenez, thought the Gothic ritual too interesting a national
memorial to be lost, so he endowed a chapel with its own chapter of
canons.
The morning after our arrival, I hastened down to the Cathedral to hear
a Mozarabic Mass. It puzzles me how Ford, the traveler, could have
written of it as he did, as if its simplicity put to shame the later
rite, for a Catholic could to-day attend the Mozarabic service with no
striking feeling of difference. In some respects it is simpler than the
Gregorian Mass, in others more elaborate; thus, for instance, the Host
is divided into nine parts, to represent the Incarnation, Epiphany,
Nativity, Circumcision, Passion, Death, Redemption, Ascension, and
Eternal Kingdom. The kiss of peace is given before the Consecration; the
Credo is recited after the offertory.
In my eagerness to be in time, I arrived half an hour too early, so I
whiled away the minutes watching the altar boys prepare for the
ceremony. It was easy to read, in their air of proprietorship that their
duties were an achieved ambition, the reward of good conduct. One of
the lads climbed up on the big brass eagle of the lectern and gave it an
affectionate polish; then, having partly illuminated the altar,--during
the ceremony more candles were lighted,--they whipped out their smart
red cassocks, and stood side by side in severe precision, to salute the
eight canons, "_Buenos Días!_" altar boys and dignitaries bowed with
leisurely Spanish courtesy. In their preparations the small acolytes had
found the supply of altar wine somewhat short, so more was sent for.
During the solemn moments of the Mass, a messenger arrived with an
offensive flask. With rustling dignity in his trailing red gown, the
majordomo of ten swept across the chapel to thrust out the tactless
blunderer, and the look of apologetic confusion on his cherub face, as
he returned to his post of honor, was adorable.
Some German tourists noisily came into the chapel, and refusing to kneel
at the moment of the elevation, the verger, in a spirit the founder
would have applauded, pointed with his silver wand, a silent but
inflexible dismissal. This first morning of my visit, too, a group of
hardy countrymen came to the Mozarabic Mass; with cap in hand and cloak
flung toga-like over their muscular shoulders, they knelt on one knee,
as instinctively graceful as the shepherds in Murillo's "Nativity." When
the service was over, in respectful quiet despite their arrogant
carriage, these unlettered men rose and passed out to loiter in the
Cathedral for a half hour. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, the
man's the gold for a' that," rings often in the ear in Castile.
Cardinal Ximenez, founder of the Chapel, was Castilian to the core, and
Toledo for him, just as for El Greco, was fittest home. He was born in
1436 in the province of Madrid of an old family that had fallen in his
day on moderate circumstances. In Spain, Ximenez is often called
Cisneros, for there two surnames are used; the first following the
Christian name is the patronymic name of the father, the second that of
the mother. Sometimes a man uses his paternal surname alone, more seldom
his mother's family name alone, as in the case of Velasquez, whose
father was a de Silva.
A studious disposition early destined Ximenez to the priesthood, and
following a few years' study in Alcalá, which he was to raise to a
world-known university, he went to Salamanca. After a long stay in Rome,
on his return to Spain he wasted some precious years in an unfortunate
ecclesiastic dispute. His true worth was not discovered till he went,
when over forty, to serve in the Cathedral of Sigüenza, where Cardinal
Mendoza, the future "Rex Tertius," was then bishop. Recognizing the new
chaplain's remarkable powers, he made him his vicar-general. But
Ximenez, in the face of every chance of rapid advancement in the Church,
felt within him a longing for the retired life of prayer. He chose the
strictest order of his day, and entered the Franciscan monastery of San
Juan de los Reyes at Toledo. All who know Toledo will remember it, built
in the bizarre, flamboyant, often overladen but always grandiose style
of Isabella and Ferdinand. On its outer walls hang iron chains, the
votive offerings of Christian captives ransomed from the Moors in
Africa, and one cannot help thinking that the concentrated mind of the
new novice received an indelible impression from these souvenirs of
Moslem barbarity, a bias that found later expression in his stern
treatment of the Moors of Granada and his crusading siege of Oran.
Ximenez had sought a life of prayer in San Juan de los Reyes, but a
personality such as his could not help but rise in acknowledged
supremacy above those around him. The fame of his intellect and holiness
soon drew to his confessional the leading minds of Toledo, and he found
himself, to his distress, again in touch with the world. He retired to a
more isolated Franciscan monastery, and gave himself up to years of
study and prayer. Men seemed then to find time for the long spaces of
tranquil thought that solidify character; holding the highest posts that
ambition could achieve, they seemed to know themselves as dust before
the wind. The key-note of to-day is breadth not intensity, and it
sometimes seems as if our scattered knowledge leads to a more
superficial outlook on the elemental and eternal verities, that
universal education tends to universal mediocrity. Why have so few
to-day the old-time spaciousness of vision? Is it because education then
meant the development of the soul as well as of the intellect, because
in acknowledging that there are an infinite number of things beyond
reason they attained what Pascal calls the highest point of reason?
"Ever learning and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth" we
seem indeed. Wholly-rounded opportunities were given in that age. Poets
and novelists then were soldiers in the roving wars of Europe,[25]--Garcilaso,
Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón, these last two priests as well, and
Garcilaso making a holy end helped by a grandee who was a saint, and
Cervantes dying in the habit of the Assisian. But I suppose this carping
comparison is just the never-ending tendency to look on a previous day
as better than one's own. Jorge Manrique felt the same way:
"á nuestro parecer
Cualquiera tiempo pasado
Fué mejor"
and he wrote his immortal "Coplas" in the golden age of Isabella
herself.
To return to Ximenez. After a long period of retirement he was made,
against his will, confessor to the Queen at Valladolid. There exists an
account by a witness of the sensation his thin, ascetic face caused in
the court, as if an early Syrian anchorite had wandered thither. Three
years later, on the death of Mendoza, the Queen's influence in Rome had
Ximenez named his successor in Toledo. So angry was her confessor that
he left the court. Isabella, gallant woman of heart and brain, who so
enthusiastically perceived greatness in others, appealed to the Pope to
order Cisneros to accept his see.
Up to this the Archbishops of Toledo had been men of great lineage who
lived with splendor. And a striking succession of master minds they
make, lying ready for an historian to group in a remarkable record;
scholars, statesmen, founders of hospitals and schools, now a prelate of
saintly life, now a leader of armies like Archbishop Rodrigo, who having
borne the standard of the Cross in the thick of the fight at Las Navas
de Tolosa, chanted the Te Deum of victory on that memorable field, the
first Christian foothold in Andalusia. Of all the primates of Toledo,
Mendoza, "Tertius Rex," had been highest in rank and power. The monk who
succeeded this prince of the church dropped all pomp and lived like a
humble Franciscan. Again the undaunted Isabella appealed to her friend
the Pope to advise the new Archbishop to keep up the dignity of his see
before the people. Cisneros yielded outwardly, but under the veneer of
display he led the ascetic life.
The Queen's insight into character had judged right. Mystic contemplator
though he was, Ximenez was a born ruler: prudent, courageous, and firm.
He straightened difficulties and reformed abuses. As his own moral
character was stainless and his disinterestedness well proven, there was
happily no inconsistency in his preaching. Gomez tells that the moral
tone of society, lay and ecclesiastic, was so improved by the energetic
bishop that "men seemed to have been born again."
As to Ximenez' much criticised attitude toward the Moors, it was at one
with its age. To reproach him with it is as unreasonable as to condemn
Marcus Aurelius for having persecuted the Christians, or George
Washington for having silently accepted negro slavery. A man, no matter
how great his character, is limited somewhere by the standards of his
period. The fifteenth century was far from being radical in the
privileges it extended to free opinion. Even some generations later we
find, in the Palatinate, when the Elector Frederick III turned from
Lutheranism to Calvinism, in 1563, he forced all his subjects under pain
of banishment, to turn with him. Within a few years his son changed them
back to Lutheranism, only to have them, under the next ruler,
constrained with severe punishments to again accept the Heidelberg
catechism. The religious history of most of the states of Europe prove
that the same theory was held: "cujus regio, ejus religio." Ximenez can
plead more excuse for his attitude since in Spain was the problem of the
more radical difference of Christianity and Islam. He felt, and the
constant later revolts somewhat justified the idea, that a newly
conquered people is not likely to remain loyal, when they are bound
together against their ruler in an antagonistic creed. So he went to
Granada in 1499 to labor for the conversion of the people.
At first he used much the same methods that prevail to-day in some of
our cities, what we may call the soup-kitchen missionary system to
evangelize the emigrant. Ximenez instructed the Mohammedan in doctrine,
and he also gave presents to impress the oriental mind. So effectively
did the method work that immense numbers of citizens embraced the faith.
On one day four thousand were baptized. So far the treaty of the
Conquest was not violated, since the conversions were voluntary. When,
however, there was a revolt of those Moors who were angered by seeing
the rapid spread of Christianity, harsher methods than persuasion were
resorted to. The letter of the treaty was kept but its spirit, that
reflected Isabella's magnanimous tolerance, was stretched indeed. The
first uprising turned to open rebellion, and when this was put down, the
majority of the citizens let themselves be baptized to avoid exile and
confiscation. Though the two great prelates, the gentle Talavera and the
indomitable Ximenez, burning with zeal, went about the city catechising
and instructing the poorest, there were many thousands of Mohammedans
who hated the religion to which outwardly they conformed. A child to-day
can understand the futility of such conversions. No one denies that
Ximenez was stern. He who loved learning with the passionate devotion of
a Bede or an Erasmus, (we all know the remark of Francis I when confined
at Alcalá, "one Spanish monk has done what it would take a line of kings
in France to accomplish"), this same humanist scholar burned in public
bonfire the Moslem books, only reserving the medical ones for Alcalá:
surely this is proof of his grim sincerity.
When Isabella died, Ximenez took Ferdinand's side against his
impertinent Austrian son-in-law. Philip I did not live long enough to
involve Spain in an internecine war, her curse for ages; and it was the
great statesman's hold on the government, at the time of the young
king's sudden death, that saved the country from a revolution. Ferdinand
had the man to whom he owed Castile, created a Cardinal, and he also
appointed him Grand-Inquisitor.
Many hold the erroneous opinion that Ximenez was one of the founders of
the Holy Office in Spain. It was established ten years before he came to
court as Isabella's confessor, and it was only now, in his sixty-first
year that he had control in it. True to his reforming character he set
about changing what abuses had crept in. He fostered the better
religious instruction of the newly converted; and he prosecuted the
inquisitor Lucero, who had been guilty of injustice.
The great Cardinal-Archbishop was over threescore and ten when he
undertook the expedition to Northern Africa. He had long burned to plant
the Church again where it had flourished under St. Cyprian and St.
Augustine. As the pirates of Oran were a terror in the Mediterranean, it
was against that city he set out in the year 1509. His address to the
troops before the battle, encouraging them against an enemy who had
ravaged their coasts, dragged their children into slavery, and insulted
the Christian name, roused the men to an heroic charge up the hill of
Oran with Spain's battle cry _Santiago!_ on their lips. Of the vast
treasure found in the city, Ximenez who had spent a fortune to fit out
the expedition, only reserved the Moslem books for his University of
Alcalá. For it must not be forgotten that in the midst of state
questions, this remarkable man was carrying on the building and endowing
of an University to whose halls the learned minds of Spain and Europe
were invited. He was printing at his own expense the well-known Polyglot
Bible, the first edition in their original texts of the Christian
Scriptures. From his early years a close student of the Bible, he had
learned Chaldaic and Hebrew for its better study; every day on his knees
he read a chapter of the Holy Word. Besides these interests he found
time to build various hospitals, libraries, and churches, to organize
summer retreats for the health of his professors, to print and
distribute free works on agriculture, to give dowries to distressed
women, to visit the sick in person, and to feed daily thirty poor in his
palace.
Ferdinand, a good ruler, but suspicious and ungrateful, never had much
love for the Cardinal. Yet on his deathbed he left him Regent of
Castile, saying that a better leader on account of his virtues and love
of justice could not be found to reëstablish order and morality, and
only wishing he were a little more pliable. Some idea of Ximenez' genius
may be gathered from a hasty review of his Regency, which covered the
last two years of his life. It stands an astonishing feat of noble
activity. He brought order into the finances and paid the crown debts.
He introduced the militia system into the army, proving that men fight
better when they defend their own homes. He strengthened the navy to
help break the Moorish pirate Barbarossa who controlled the sea. He
restored the dockyards of Seville. He crushed a French invasion in
Navarre, and put down local disorders in Málaga and other places, for
the nobles took this opportunity to again assert themselves. He adjusted
troubles with both the ex-queens, Juana la Loca and Germaine de Foix. It
was just four months before his death that the Polyglot Bible was
finished. When the young son of the printer, dressed in his best attire,
ran with the last sheets to the Cardinal, Ximenez exclaimed fervently:
"I thank thee, O most high God, that thou hast brought this work to its
longed-for end!" To-day the more scientific methods of philology have
put the Complutensian Polyglot in the shade, but none deny that for its
period it was a notable work.
Another of Ximenez' reforms, little known, was his advocacy of Las Casas
in the crusade against Indian slavery in the American colonies. As early
as 1511, a Dominican preacher named Montesino gave a sermon in the
Cathedral of Santo Domingo, before the governor Diego Columbus, in which
he thundered against the ill-treatment of the natives. The monks were
threatened with expulsion by the rich settlers unless Montesino
retracted, whereupon on the following Sunday, the brave reformer not
only repeated his previous attack but added fresh proofs. Against fierce
opposition the Dominicans refused the sacraments to every one who owned
an Indian slave. But they could not end the evil, so the passionate Las
Casas, whose whole life may be said to have burned with fury for this
cause, returned to Spain to plead for the Indians.
The Regent took up the question with interest, and the commission which
he organized and sent out to the Colonies is a model of reforming
government worthy of study. Just as it was about to start, fourteen
pious Franciscans came down to Spain to offer themselves for the good
work. Among them was a brother of the King of Scotland,--a rather
delightful episode of the cosmopolitanism of religion. Ximenez also
issued a proclamation forbidding the importation of negro slaves, for
the colonists had already learned that one negro did the work of four
Indians. Should not this act of farseeing wisdom, be set against his
stern treatment of the Moors?
Ximenez ruled as Regent of Castile from the time of Ferdinand's death to
the coming of Charles V to his distant possessions. The
Cardinal-Archbishop, alert in mind and body though over eighty, was on
his way to meet the young Emperor on his landing in the north, when he
died suddenly at Roa, in the province of Burgos. He was buried in his
loved Alcalá, and his tomb still rests in the dismantled town whose
University has been removed to Madrid. Just thirty years after the
Cardinal's death, one of the world's supreme geniuses was born under the
shadow of his University, as if a compensating Providence would reward
the Franciscan friar's unresting love of letters. Ximenez has received
scant justice, but if the atmosphere of culture which he created at
Alcalá, had aught to do with making Cervantes what he was, the stern
educator did not live in vain.
In Toledo it takes no effort of the imagination to people the streets
with the figures of the past; it is every-day life that drops away, and
the surprise is that one does not meet some intellectual-faced cardinal,
some hidalgo in velvet cloak or chased armor. The stone effigies on the
tombs of Spanish churches make it easy to picture a certain very
splendid presence that once walked, in youth's proud livery, these
silent streets. Garcilaso de la Vega is a pure type of the grandee,
Spain's Philip Sidney, a courtier, a soldier, a poet whose gift of song
made him the idol of the nation, he is one of the alluring figures of
history. By writing in Virgilian classic verse, he changed the rhythm of
Spanish poetry from that of the "Cid," of Juan de Mena and Manrique. "In
our Spain, Garcilaso stands first beyond compare," wrote a contemporary
poet, a judgment held later by Cervantes and Lope de Vega.
This lovable hero was born in Toledo while Ximenez was still its active
if aged Archbishop. He came of distinguished stock, the first Garcia
Laso de la Vega was the favorite of Alfonso XI in 1328. This later
namesake had for father a knight of Santiago, lord of many towns,
ambassador to Rome, and one of Isabella and Ferdinand's councilors of
state; on his mother's side his lineage was still more illustrious, she
was a Guzmán, another of Spain's families whose prominence continued for
centuries.
Garcilaso, who early showed his love for the liberal arts, received a
finished education. At fifteen he became guardsman to Charles V, and his
qualities of heart and brain soon won him the affectionate admiration of
the court. "Comely in action, noble in speech, gentle in sentiment,
vehement in friendship, nature had made his body a fitting temple for
his soul." And Spain can show this harmony in many of her sons. Some
untranslatable words describe Garcilaso, _hermosamente varonil_, the
superb manhood of beauty. During the Emperor's wars in Italy he fought
bravely, and at the Battle of Pavia, where Pescara's lions of Spain
carried all before them, he won distinction. He was not merely a soldier
in Italy, his richly-endowed nature avidly seized on her art and
learning. Cardinal Bembo calls him "best loved and most welcome of all
the Spaniards that ever come to us." Like Sir Philip Sidney, the young
poet was not destined to reach middle age; a short thirty-three years is
his record. At a siege near Fréjus, in the south of France, he fell
wounded into the arms of his dearest friend, the Marquis de Lombay, and
in spite of Charles V sending his skilled physician and coming in
person to visit the wounded knight, he died. He was buried among his
ancestors in the church of San Pedro Mártir, in Toledo, "where every
stone in the city is his monument," wrote the euphuistic Góngora.
Truly that age was past rivalry in the appealingly noble characters it
produced, fine spirits of heroism, fit inheritors of Isabella's period
that had prepared the soil for such a flowering. A Garcilaso de la Vega
is the bosom friend of a Francis Borgia, a Francis Borgia communes with
a Teresa de Jesús with the intense pleasure of feeling souls akin, an
Ignatius Loyola serves as guide to a Francis Xavier, and so on, these
noted lives touch and overlap. What an array the first fifty years of
the sixteenth century can show! 1503 Garcilaso was born, also Diego
Hurtado de Mendoza, the noted diplomat and patron of letters; 1504 Luis
de Granada, the religious writer; 1506 St. Francis Xavier of Navarre,
who died the great missionary of the East; 1510 St. Francis Borgia; 1515
St. Teresa, "fair sister of the seraphim"; 1529 Luis de León, Spain's
best lyric poet; 1534 Fernando de Herrera, another poet; 1542, St. John
of the Cross, that mystic flame of Divine love; 1545, the dashing hero
of Lepanto, Don John of Austria; and final glory of this half century,
and of all centuries, 1547, Miguel de Cervantes. The opening of the
next century was fecund in men of creative genius: 1599, Velasquez;
1616, Calderón; 1617, Murillo, but to one who loves _España la heróica_,
the earlier age is dearer.
The gray city on the Tagus is worthy of such citizens, "fit compeer for
such high company." So many are her associations that one turns aside in
irresistible digressions. In a palace near Santo Tomé, Isabella of
Portugal, Charles V's wife, died: to those who know Titian's portrait of
her in the Prado, she is a beautiful, living presence. Francis Borgia
who in early youth had married one of her ladies in waiting, was the
equerry appointed to escort her dead body to Granada, where it was to be
laid in the Chapel Royal. When the coffin was opened to verify the
Empress, she who had been all loveliness so short a time before was
changed to so horrible a sight that the Marquis de Lombay is said to
have exclaimed, "Never more will I serve a master who can die!" The
Hound of Heaven was in pursuit of grand quarry here. A few years before,
the death of Garcilaso his friend had sobered Francis. Now came the loss
of his cherished wife, with whom he had lived in truly holy wedlock: in
Catalonia where he was the Emperor's viceroy, a lady asked the Marquesa
one day why she of such high standing and beauty dressed so plainly,
and she answered how could she do otherwise when her husband wore a
hair-shirt beneath his velvet. Lombay succeeded to his father's estates
and the title of Duke of Gandía, his children--who eventually rose to
distinction--were a natural temptation to stifle the higher call of
which he was conscious:
"For, though I knew His love who followed,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside."
It was a tremendous decision to make, completely to relinquish a future
of international influence; relentlessly the heavenly Feet pursued:
"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurried chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed,
Majestic instancy,
They beat--and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet--
'All things betray thee who betrayest Me.'"[26]
The compelling Voice won. Having settled his children, the Duke of
Gandía gave up titles and estates to enter the Company of Jesus, of
which he has been called the second founder, so fruitful were the years
of his generalship.
The death of Isabella of Portugal is connected with another foremost
member of the _Compañía_. The Pope sent Cardinal Farnese to carry his
condolences to the Emperor, and the papal suite lodged in a house of
Toledo near that of a widow named Ribadeneyra. Her willful,
high-spirited and captivating boy Pedro attached himself voluntarily to
the embassy, and so won the notice of the Cardinal that he was taken
back to Rome, where, by another hap-hazard in his life, he fell under
the influence of St. Ignatius Loyola, became his loved pupil and future
biographer. The books of this delightful Pedro, telling the early
history of the Jesuit Order make as solidly interesting a bout of
reading as can while away a month. He was not only the confidant of the
first General, but of his two successors, Lainez and Borgia, he helped
St. Charles Borromeo in his reforms at Milan, and lived long enough to
rejoice on the day of his great master's beatification, 1609.
In Toledo many a time Cervantes strolled, here he has set several of the
interesting "Novelas Exemplares"; St. Teresa founded one of her houses
here, described in her "Libro de las Fundaciones," a companion book to
the "Novelas"; that prodigy of improvization, Lope de Vega, also placed
some dramas in these dark winding streets; and in the Jesuit house the
historian Mariana, a friend of Ribadeneyra, browsed over his work,
called by Ticknor "the most remarkable union of picturesque chronicling
with sober fact that the world has ever seen."
Our days in Toledo sped all too fast. For me it is one of those few
fascinating cities of the world that rouses a recurrent longing to
return. The impressive, solitary walk above the Tagus gorge at the hour
of sunset is an unforgettable memory. Another walk leads to San
Cristo-in-the-fields, the legend of whose crucifix, with one arm hanging
pendant, has been told by Bécquer; beyond this church, across the
_vega_, where the Tagus spreads out in relief from the confining gorge
behind, is the _Fábrica de Armas_, where good Toledan blades are made,
so elastic that they are packed in boxes curled up like the mainspring
of a watch. Within the town the rambles are endless, now down the
step-cut hill, past the Plateresque façade of Santa Cruz hospital,
founded by Cardinal Mendoza; now out by the one sloping side of the city
to another hospital, where the sculptor Berruguete died, and lies buried
near his last work, the marble tomb of the founder, Cardinal Tavera. One
day in the narrow street, hearing the sound of singing, I entered a
monastery church, to listen for an enchanted hour to a choir of male
voices admirably trained.[27] There is about this town an atmosphere
that makes you sure that real peace and holiness lie within the looming
convent walls under which you pass. The wise Chinese statesman, Kang Yu
Wei, who has toured the world studying its religions, said he found in a
monastery of Toledo an impressive spirit of devout silence.
[Illustration: TOMB OF BISHOP SAN SEGUNDO, BY BERRUGUETE, AVILA]
We carried away a beautiful last picture of the "Crown of Spain," as her
loyal son Padilla called her. We were to catch the night train to
Andalusia, at Castillejo on the express route. It was a night with an
early moon. So white and romantic lay the city streets that we sent the
luggage by the diligence and went on foot to the distant station. When
we crossed the Alcántara bridge, we turned to look back at the climbing
mass of houses and churches. With a feeling of sadness we gazed at the
old mediæval city, so far from the fret of modern life. This was to be,
we thought, our last impression of the Castiles. Andalusia, enticing,
warm in the sun, facile, impudent, lay ahead. Farewell to the grave,
courteous Castilian! Farewell to the valorous stoic-heart of Spain!
CORDOVA AND GRANADA
"The art of the Alhambra is eminently decorative, light, and
smiling; it expresses the well being, the repose, the riches of
life; its grace lay almost entirely in its youth. Not having the
severe lines that rest the eye, these works paled when their first
freshness faded. Theirs was a delicate beauty that has suffered
more than others from the deterioration of its details."
RENÉ BAZIN.
In his "Terre d' Espagne," M. René Bazin speaks of the faded city of
Cordova, and the term is singularly exact. It is a tranquil, faded
ghost, not a nightmare ghost, but an aloof, melancholy specter. I have
been haunted by it often since the day and night spent there. Dull and
unimportant as it now is, hard to be imagined as the Athens of the West
with almost a million inhabitants and an enlightened dynasty of Caliphs,
yet, like a true ghost, vague in feature, Cordova succeeds in making
itself unforgettable. The past covers it like a mist. It gave me more
the sensation of the Moslem than any other spot in Spain: Allah, not
Christ, is its brooding spirit.
We strolled hither and thither through its preternaturally quiet streets
which are lined with two-storied white or pinkish houses. Every few
minutes we stopped with exclamations of delight to gaze through the iron
grilles at the tiled and marble patios, here seen for the first time. "A
patio! How shall I describe a patio!" exclaimed De Amicis, when he first
came into Andalusia. "It is not a garden, it is not a room, it is not a
courtyard, it is the three in one,--small, graceful, and mysterious."
They are so spotless a king could eat off their paving-stones. Isolated
from the stir of the world, they breathe that intimate quiet of the
spirit felt in the pictures of the Primitives. To wander for the first
time over a city filled with these oases, gives that exhilaration of
novelty which as a rule the traveler has long since lost with his first
journeys.
I should not say our very vivid impression of Cordova depended on chance
details,--the hour of arrival, a personal mood, the weather. Of course
the strangeness was heightened by our coming from the north, through a
cold night of travel on the train that made the transition from the
central plateau of the Castiles to the semi-tropical coast belt of
Andalusia, an abrupt one. Toledo, the last seen Castilian town, had been
so distinctly Christian in spite of Moorish remains, and our
night-flitting over the level sea of La Mancha was so possessed by that
_español neto_, the adventuresome Don, that suddenly to awake among
palm trees and oranges gave the sensation of another race and climate.
It was this province with its astonishing fertility that had been the
land of Elysium of the ancients.
Having grown familiar with the orderly streets of Cordova by day, it was
quite without fear that we took a night ramble. Not a soul was astir.
What were they doing, these cloistered people? It was as deserted as
Stamboul at night, more lonely even, for here was not a single yellow
cur to bay the moon, nor the iron beat of the watchman's staff; and
though like the Orient in some aspects, these streets were far too
orderly and the houses too spotless. Perhaps there lay the source of the
indefinable fascination; this was neither East nor West, but a place
stranded in time, made by circumstances that never will be repeated. The
Oriental influenced the Spaniard deeply, a psychological as well as a
racial influence. I often felt that the dignified gravity which so
distinguishes a Spaniard from his fellow Latins is a trait acquired
unconsciously from his Arab neighbors: nothing like it is found except
among races whose ancestors dwelt in the desert. Also the excessive
generosity and hospitality of the Spaniard are oriental virtues, just as
the Andalusian procrastination and acceptance of fate are oriental
failings. We too often forget that there were generations when,
religious hatred quieting down, the two peoples lived side by side in
friendly consideration. If the Christian gained from the Moslem, the
Moor in Spain was influenced no less potently by the standards of the
European. He became a very different being from his brother in northern
Africa. He learned to gather libraries, to express himself in buildings
where he translated his nomad carpet into colored stucco; much of his
traditional jealousy was laid aside and Moorish ladies appeared at the
tournaments to applaud their Moorish cavaliers who tilted with the same
rules of romantic chivalry as the Christian knights. Moslem civilization
could even boast some femmes savantes. The stimulus of the two opposing
races gave Spain just the impetus she needed, and the conqueror lost
with his very victory. When all men think the same way without the spur
of competition, inaction and ill-health are sure to follow. Perhaps the
upholders of law and order need not worry too much to-day over the
anarchists and socialists in the commercial districts of Spain: is not
the health of a nation quickened by struggle?
The soul of a Spanish city is always the Cathedral, and Cordova has what
it called one, but it is no more a Christian church than the Caaba at
Mecca. The canons in Charles V's time tore out the center of the Mosque
and built a Plateresque-Gothic _capilla mayor_ and _coro_. It was an
ignorant thing to do, and when the Emperor saw their work he exclaimed
in disgust, "You have built here what anyone might have built elsewhere,
but you have destroyed what was unique in the world!" Nevertheless,
those old canons had some excuse. They felt that they could not pray in
a proper Christian manner under the low, oppressing roof of Islam.
Instead of "Christe Eleison," it was "Allah illal allah, ve Mahommed
recoul" that came to their lips in abominable heresy, so in desperation
they put up the incongruous enclosure and tried to shut Islam out.
A building every one of whose stones has been laid in earnest faith,
seems to have a spirit that will never desert it, let the ritual change
as it may. Santa Sophia is Christian in spite of eight thousand
Mussulmans prostrated there on the 27th of Ramazan: the Gregorian chant
still echoes in Westminster Abbey. So here the canons' efforts were in
vain, the Mezquita makes heretics of us all, we turn to the Mihrab as
the holy of holies, not to the High Altar.
The Mihrab is a dream of art, the mosaics are richer and softer in hue
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_."
All over the city are small churches that antedate the Cathedral, with
noticeable twelfth century portals, timber roofs, and often a Moorish
tower. The best are Omnium Sanctorum and San Marcos: and a lovely bit to
sketch is the façade of Santa Paula with its Italian faience decoration.
The peaceful patio of the chief Hospital--a church in the center--must
be a nook of repose loved by the convalescent. I could not see that the
ill or aged suffered in Spain, despite the general abuse of her
institutions. What is it about Spanish ways that makes most Englishmen
so pessimistic over her? It seems to me that an Englishman should be
sympathetic here, for so many of his traits he has in common with the
Spaniard, such as sincerity, independence, loyalty to national ideals,
to their rulers and creed. A prominent London publisher, in a new series
of travel books, has lately reprinted Richard Ford's "Wanderings in
Spain," thereby perpetrating a grave injustice, for in this book is
gathered, with no sense of proportion, the abuse expurgated (chiefly
because of its length) from his "Murray's Hand-book of Spain." Ford
visited Spain when she was torn by the disorders of civil war, after
three centuries of ill-government. A sad picture of England could be
made by the foreign visitors who happened to witness the Lord George
Gordon riots or the industrial agitations of the Midlands, or who
visited the poorhouses, schools, and prisons described by Dickens and
Charles Reade, yet who would maintain that such a picture was true as a
whole, or print such a book to represent England to-day? Why must a
different justice be meted out to Spain? Ford could be enthusiastic over
the Castilian peasants' manhood, over the security of life and purse
throughout the northern provinces, and the gentle kindness of the
country women, the hospitality of whose kitchens he sought, but when it
comes to the national religion he fills his pages with false statements.
"One never pelts a tree unless it has fruit on it," a Spaniard will say
as he shrugs his shoulders.
There is no doubt that the travelers in Spain then as well as the
travelers of to-day see many things that have cause to distress them,
but it should never be forgotten that in cities like Seville, the
disease and vice which are kept out of sight in a distant slum in
northern towns, are here right in the open eye. The poorest here live in
the same block with the rich, a juxtaposition that may lead the outsider
to see only the evil of a place, but for the native has the happier
result of a more human primitive relationship between the classes than
in most countries: poverty has never been looked on as pitiable in
Spain: haughtiness and snobbishness are almost unknown here.[28]
I must also add, to be quite honest, that, often, the impudence of the
Sevillian street loafer and the exasperating pursuance of the beggar
children, made me break out in Invincible Armada abuse myself; then some
slight episode would occur to reprove me. One day we paused to watch a
very ugly little girl of five nurse her wounded dog. She was pity
incarnate, she had rolled it in her poor shawl and rocked it backward
and forward. When she gently touched the bandaged paw tears came to her
eyes. We often passed her during the winter, and feeling our sympathy,
unconscious of its first cause, the little tot would wait shyly till we
had gone by, then dash after us to thrust into our hands two tiny
bunches of orange blossoms or violets, and then tear away in confusion,
refusing to be thanked. That she so ugly and poor had won two friends
intoxicated her warm little heart, and she regularly prepared her
offerings of answering affection, to have ready when the strangers
passed: every characteristic of this untrained child of the street was
admirable. Another time a stationer sent his young apprentice of
fourteen to show us the way to a book-binder's. We offered the boy the
usual fee, when he flung back his head proudly with a flush; his name
was Emilio Teruel y Nobile, and the high-minded young descendant of
Aragonese or Castilian blood bore it worthily. Having shown us the shop
we sought, and realizing that we now recognized him as an equal, he made
his farewell with a poise and reserved grace that were splendid. Later
we occasionally passed Emilio, and the equality of the greetings
exchanged, not the slightest presumption on his part, is a thing only
to be found in _caballero_ Spain.
To follow the church feasts that so diversify and brighten the year for
these southern countries, also helps one to see them more justly. On the
19th of March, St. Joseph's Day, a large crowd filled the Cathedral to
listen to a sermon, almost the best I have ever heard, wherein the
sanctity of the family and the dignity of labor were held up as needed
models in the world to-day. Before the lighted altar of St. Joseph I
noticed a magnificent looking hidalgo, _muy hijo de algo y de limpia
sangre_, with three equally grandly built young sons beside him. Such
men had never been raised amid city temptations. The line of the four
profiles was so similar it was striking. When they rose from prayer, the
self-forgetful prayer of the Spaniard with bowed head and closed eyes,
the lads pressed about the father they revered, they laid their hands
lovingly on his shoulder, the youngest stroked his back as he talked to
him; two of the group were probably named José, and the father had come
in from a country town to pass his saint's day with his boys at the
University. All over the city, cakes and presents were carried openly,
for everyone named Joseph (and the Pepes are legion) was keeping open
house, and his friends were pouring in to offer congratulations.
In Spain moving scenes are witnessed when the Viaticum is brought to the
dying: the inmates of the house go to the church to escort the priest
back in procession, the sacristan gives each a lighted candle, then at
the door on their return, the servants kneel to receive "_el Señor, su
Majestad_." Sir William Stirling-Maxwell has told of a duchess in
Madrid, returning from a ball past midnight, that when a priest passed
carrying the sacrament to the dying, she resigned her carriage to him
and returned home on foot. It is said that if in a theater the tinkle of
a passing bell is heard, actors and audience fall on their knees.
In Seville, in spite of there being none of the mild festivities the
foreigner finds in Rome or Florence--not a single tea party!--we never
had time to be bored. No sooner were the celebrations for December 8th
over than the Christmas _fiestas_ began. Flocks of turkeys were driven
through the streets and sold from door to door, and it was comical to
see one of the awkward creatures step stiffly into the corridor leading
to a patio, gravely crane his neck about to observe the romantic
white-marble propriety within the gate, and his stupefaction when the
iron _reja_ opened to him with too warm a welcome, alas! In the shop
windows were exposed all sorts of useful gifts, silver-necked flagons
full of yellow oil, and ornate boxes of cakes. The Midnight Mass on
Christmas Eve was very solemn under the lofty piers of the Cathedral.
The people gathered there seemed to be meditating on the mystery they
commemorated, and at the words of the Gospel, "Et Verbum caro factum
est," all fell spontaneously to their knees.
Not long after the New Year, the King and Queen, to escape the icy winds
of Madrid, came to pass a month in the sun-warmed Alcázar. It was Doña
Victoria's first visit to Seville, so the city made it an occasion;
triumphal arches were put up across the streets, the fences of the parks
were painted crimson and gold, there was a great clipping of trees and
repairing of roads,--a bit late this last (but truly Andalusian) for the
royal carriages had to grind down the scattered stones,--also, the
private houses put on new coats of whitewash. Platforms for seats were
built along the route from the station to the Alcázar. We hired chairs
on the steps of the Lonja opposite the Cathedral, as it did not seem
likely that the old custom of going direct to the church to sing a _Te
Deum_ of thanksgiving would be set aside. We were in place early and
watched the animated crowds passing,--there was no pushing or crowding.
Deputaries in gold lace and medals dashed by; the balconies on all
sides, hung with the national colors, were filled with pretty women.
The clamor of the Giralda bells told the waiting people the train had
arrived; then, as the royal carriage passed, Doña Victoria was given an
enthusiastic reception: her bright golden hair and brilliant complexion
won cries of "_Bonita_!" "_Simpática_!" "_Guapa_!" Before the cigar
factory, where its five thousand employees were grouped, a band of the
handsomest _cigarreras_, in red and yellow silk shawls, stepped forward
to present the Queen with a fan made of flowers, on whose floating
ribbon was painted a genuine Andalusian welcome:
"Tienes el mismo nombre "Thou hast the same name
Que la Patrona,[29] As our patroness,[29]
Tienes 'ange' en la cara, Thou hast the face of an angel,
Tienes corona, Thou art a queen,
Dios te bendiga! May God bless thee,
Eres la más hermosa The fairest that has come
Que entró en Sevilla." to Seville!"
The loud exclamations of delight in the robust health of the little
Prince of Asturias pleased the Queen, and as she passed through the
cheering mass of people, she made very gracefully the foreign gesture of
greeting, the fingers bent back rapidly on the palm. As the night
journey had tired her, the doctors ordered her immediate entrance into
the Alcázar, postponing the _Te Deum_ till the afternoon; and Seville,
who clings tenaciouly to old customs, was distinctly displeased.
The group that stood on the Cathedral steps later in the day was superb.
There was the Archbishop in cope and miter, with his silver crozier, the
canons in purple robes, the acolytes bearing the historic crosses
carried on festivals, and all the chief citizens of the town. For just
this occasion the huge western doors were thrown open, giving a new
aspect to the nave; through this door the King is the only one
privileged to pass, but on this her _first_ entrance, the Queen too. The
Archbishop on first coming to his church and when carried out to his
burial passes under this portal. The King and Queen, led by the
Archbishop, now walked up the nave, chanting _Te Deum laudamus_, and
before leaving they went to kneel in the Royal Chapel where, before the
High Altar, lies King Ferdinand the Saint who conquered Seville in 1248,
after five hundred years of Moorish rule. Here on November 23d,
anniversary of his entrance to the city, a Military Mass is said, and
the colors are lowered as the garrison files past. To a Sevillian that
day of 1248 is as alive as the Battle of Lexington to a New Englander.
This being a first visit, some brisk sightseeing was done. They
automobiled out to Italica to see the Roman amphitheater there; and the
day after her arrival Doña Victoria redeemed the good-will of the
Sevillians by driving, in black mantilla, to visit a church in a poor
part of the city where is an altar to Our Lady of Hope, dear to
expectant mothers. In the Lonja, where the Indian archives are kept, Don
Alfonso pored over the maps of Mexico and the autographs of Cortés and
Pizarro; in the _Museo_, the Queen again touched the sentiment of the
Spanish women by preferring Murillo's realistic "Adoration of the
Shepherds." The Duke of Medinaceli got up some splendid provincial
dances and tableaux in his Mudéjar _Casa de Pilatos_, one of the show
places of the town. We happened to meet the pretty peasant girls who had
taken part returning home, singing and waving to the crowd, like birds
of paradise, in their rose and lemon silk shawls. There seemed to be a
congenial companionship between the young royal people. They were at
ease together. The King, extremely fragile-looking, has a thin Hapsburg
face so eminently sympathetic that sometimes when he would give an
affectionate grin at his applauding subjects he made one rather wish to
be a Spaniard one's self. With the irresistible impulses of youth he
would sally out from the Alcázar to explore the city on foot, like any
other happy, free mortal, but sooner or later the cry "_El Rey!_" would
gather a crowd and force him back to his state. One day he had to jump
into a fiacre to escape the crush, and it was very jolly to see the
descendant of the severe Philip II, of the inflated, pompous Bourbons,
dashing through Seville, laughing at the good sport. We often met him
riding back from Toblada in the late afternoon from polo, and it
certainly appeared as if the affection of his countrymen went with him.
I should say few kings are loved as is young Alfonso XIII, and Seville
especially prides herself on being _muy leal_. Did not Alfonso _el
Sabio_ (tenth of the name, as this Alfonso is the thirteenth) give the
city the famous _nodo_, seen everywhere as the town crest, for just this
trait of loyalty six centuries ago? So several times a day an eager
crowd gathered to watch the King pass, or to cheer for the rosy little
Prince of Asturias who drove out with his titled governess and two
nurses,--one of severe English propriety, the other a romantic Spanish
peasant--behind four big mules decked with Andalusian red trappings and
bells. A whole series of fêtes were preparing when the tragic
assassination of the King of Portugal and his eldest son at Lisbon put a
stop to the rejoicing. The sensation in Seville was enormous, as the
Portuguese Queen had brought her two sons the year before to follow the
services of Holy Week here, and her mother, the Countess of Paris,
lives in an estate near the city. Don Alfonso had just gone for a week's
big-game hunting to the Granada mountains, when he hurried back to take
part in the funeral service held in Madrid at the same hour as that in
Lisbon. On his return to Seville his changed appearance showed what a
shock the tragedy had been; not relationship alone but friendship united
him to Portugal.
Before the Royal visit ended there was a grand review of the troops in
the park, where Don Alfonso wore a new uniform, that of the Hussars of
Pavia, in commemoration of the great victory of Charles V in Italy four
centuries before. Audience was given the envoys from the new King of
Sweden in the Ambassador's hall of the Alcázar, which it was said had
not been so used since Isabella's day. A mild form of carnival was
followed by Ash Wednesday, when the King and Queen and court attended
the services in the _Capilla Real_ of the Cathedral, before St.
Ferdinand's silver tomb. As they passed out between the dense mass of
people, my heart sprang to my mouth when I saw a man struggling to reach
the King,--fortunately only a humble petitioner, but the Lisbon
assassinations had filled everyone with terror. The royal visit over,
came Holy Week, but that and the dancing of the _seises_ merit some
pages to themselves.
A CHURCH FEAST IN SEVILLE
"I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house; and the place where
thy glory dwelleth."--PSALMS XXV, 8.
"When after many conquerors came Christ
The only conqueror of Spain indeed,
Not Bethlehem nor Golgotha sufficed
To show him forth, but every shrine must bleed,
And every shepherd in his watches heed
The angels' matins sung at heaven's gate.
Nor seemed the Virgin Mary wholly freed
From taint of ill if born in frail estate,
But shone the seraph's queen and soar'd immaculate."
GEORGE SANTAYANA.
The eighth of December is a great day in Spain, but more especially in
Seville where they look on the Immaculate Conception as their special
feast, symbolized, hundreds of years before the dogma was defined, by
their fellow townsman Murillo, in the seraphic purity of his
_Concepción_. The celebration began on the day preceding the eighth with
an early-morning peal of bells that lasted half an hour, and was
frequently repeated during the day. Nothing can express the mad,
exultant peal of Spanish bells: one strong metallic dong backward and
forward,--or rather over and over, for the bells are balanced with
weights and make the complete circle when in motion,--with a running
carillon of more musical minor notes. We mounted to a roof terrace to
watch the ringers in the Giralda, who in reckless enjoyment, let the
rope of the revolving bell toss them aloft, a perilous feat that has led
to fatal accidents, but high up in that Moorish tower, above the palm
and orange-growing city, a triumphant tumult filling the air, it must be
easy to lose one's balance of common-sense.
Toward evening of the _Víspera de la Pureza_, every one placed lights
along the balconies, which were draped with blue and white, those of the
Archbishop's palace, under the Giralda, being hung in red and yellow,
the national colors. A military band played in one of the smaller
plazas, and the Seville girls flocked out in full enjoyment, each with
the customary rose or bright ribbon in her hair. The people of the upper
classes entertained their friends in open booths around the square.
Then on the eighth itself, the bells fairly out-did themselves in
tumultuous clamor, calling all to the Cathedral, that haunting soul of
the city, _La Grandeza_, the noble, the solemn, its special title.
Sevillians love to boast that it is bigger than St. Peters in Rome and
cite its 15,642 square meters of ground area to St. Peter's 15,160. It
is truly one of the most imposing churches in the world; vast and dim,
the lofty Gothic piers make double aisles as they rise in springing
arches to the roof. I have seen tourists enter laughing and chatting,
but before they take ten steps instinctively their voices are lowered
and they walk reverently with half-bowed heads. This serious temple to
God is worthy of the men of big ideas who decided "to construct a church
such and so good it never should have its equal," to accomplish which
vow the canons sacrificed their personal revenues, and for a century the
Cathedral Chapter ate in common.[30]
December eighth I was in place early, in time to see each lady carry in
her own folding chair and set it up in the matted space between the
altar and choir: surely it is in church that the Spanish woman is at her
best, in her severe black gown, with her veil draped over a high hair
comb and gathered gracefully about the shoulders and waist. When she
kneels she makes a sign of the cross, which has national additions.
After the usual sign from forehead to breast, left shoulder to right,
she carries her thumb crossed over her first finger to her lips. I am
told this is a token of fidelity to the faith of the cross, and is
often a way by which Spaniards recognize their countrymen in foreign
countries. And since Seville out-does Spain in most customs, here are
still other additions. They precede the sign of the cross by making a
small cross on the forehead, lips, and breast; and there are many who
even precede _this_ by a first regular sign of the cross, thus making
two signs of the cross with the gospel symbol between. All this is done
so rapidly that it takes several days of close observation to decipher
it.
Gradually the church filled for the great feast, until a solid mass of
people knelt or stood in the transepts, covering every foot from which
the High Altar could be seen; there was no crowding or impatience, for
this was not for them a show, but their daily place of prayer. The
onlooking tourist too often forgets this vital difference. In most cases
he is ignorant of the meaning of church ritual; mental prayer,
meditation on the feast celebrated, the unspeakable spirituality of the
Mass are undivined by him; it is curiosity or æsthetic pleasure that
usually brings him there. As I thought later during the Holy Week, it
must be a soul weariness to sit during long hours, through ceremonies
one cannot follow intelligently. On this festival, first there was a
procession round the church to bless the various altars dedicated to
the Blessed Virgin ("For behold, from henceforth all generations shall
call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things."
St. Luke i, 48-49). Over the first altar visited hung Luis de Vargas'
celebrated picture of Adam and Eve, the _Generación_, painted in the
sixteen century to symbolize to-day's doctrine. Before the procession
walked officers in uniform, then groups of acolytes, bearing antique
silver crosses and the six-foot silver poles that end in handsome candle
shrines. Seville gentlemen in dress suits followed, and then the
Archbishop in cope and miter, with canons, beneficiaries, and choristers
in vestments rich in gold and embroidery. The long imposing train passed
slowly round the outer aisle. To those who remained before the altar,
the chanting of the procession came but faintly, so colossal is the
church, though like all well-proportioned things it is only from effects
such as this that one realizes its size. The solemn High Mass proceeded,
now the deep magnificently male voice of the organs, now the delicate
stringed instruments, with human voices, for the Spaniard fearlessly
follows his impulses of worship and presses every talent into the
service of the altar. Twenty laymen were grouped in the _coro_ about a
priest who led with his baton, and beside them stood the chorister lads
who were to dance that afternoon before the tabernacle, as David once
danced before the Ark of the Covenant. Their mediæval dress, a
singularly pleasing Russian blouse of blue and white, with white
breeches and slippers, was worn with so unconscious a grace that they
were a charming sight as they sang in clear childish treble.
The altar, one blaze of light, was approached by twelve steps, up and
down which the bishop and canons swept in their gorgeous robes. Below
the steps stood twelve silver candlesticks higher than a man, and close
by were displayed the priceless flagons and trays used on high feasts.
Every accessory of Seville's Cathedral is on a vast scale; the _retablo_
of carved scenes towers to a hundred feet; the gilded _rejas_, wrought
by the monk of Salamanca in the same disregard for man's limitations in
which the whole Cathedral was built, and whose dark fretwork enhances
the brilliant scenes they enclose, all tell of an age of ardent faith
when men gave of their best.
[Illustration: LOS SEISES, CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE]
The service over, the Archbishop passed to the sacristy which for this
day was thrown open to the people, and they thronged in to kiss the
episcopal ring, and to gaze at the Murillos and other masters. Then his
vestments laid aside, the prelate, accompanied by a dense crowd, crossed
the square to his palace, but before leaving the church, he paused by
the chapel of Gonsalvo Núñez de Sepúlveda, who in 1654 left a fortune to
the Cathedral that this Octave of the Immaculate Conception should be
fitly celebrated. Even after the three-hour service some people lingered
in the side chapels, and the choristers, in their picturesque costume,
gathered in the _capilla mayor_ of the partly deserted church to
continue their songs of praise: not for outer effect alone had these
hymns been taught them, but to glorify One unseen but all-seeing. The
spirit of inner worship was not lost in its outward symbolization.
During the Octave, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and unceasing were
the offices of praise and song. In the late afternoon of each day came
the dance of _los seises_ before the Altar, perhaps one of the most
poetic customs remaining in Christendom. The Archbishop, in red robes,
again entered the chancel surrounded by the canons, and they all knelt,
some here, some there, in unconsciously artistic groups,--the strong
firm profiles like those of the donors in Italian pictures. Some knelt
in meditation, others affectionately watched the dance of the lads; they
too, as boys, may have been choristers. It is more a quiet rhythmic
stepping to music than a dance, and all the while they sing in their
clear, high voices. Twice the music stopped, and for a few seconds the
lads moved slowly to the sound of their own castanets. This unique
custom commemorates the Christian's entry into the conquered Moslem town
more than six hundred years ago, when the children are said to have
danced and sung for joy. These twentieth century Christian lads, their
part now over, passed up the steps of the altar into a small sacristy
behind it; and the musicians continued a lovely concert of sacred music,
a last half hour of peace and prayer that seemed like the benediction of
the great darkened church on the bowed groups of worshipers.
I came away from the Cathedral every evening with the feeling that there
are many and various ways of praising God. Yet so much criticism has
this Seville custom roused, that, a few hundred years ago, the Pope
ordered its discontinuance, allowing the dance to go on only as long as
the costumes then in use should last, but the people, who love their old
usages, succeeded in evading the decision by successive patching of the
suits. This is the story. Certainly the graceful costumes to-day show no
tatters, and they are worn so carelessly that they make no suggestion of
masquerade. For the many who crave a quieter form of worship, the grave
cathedral services of Northern Spain may be more congenial, but when as
many desire magnificence and display, why should not they too be
satisfied? The church allows for all tastes and temperaments, knowing
man is not cast in one mold. The Puritan in her midst does not have to
turn Dissenter; she has her Salvation Army--so I call the
pilgrimage-going crowds; the ascetic fulfils the hard law of his nature
side by side with the enjoyer of human affections and graces. Seville's
feast, rich with old traditions, is appropriate in this southern city.
To linger each evening in the vast church lighted only by solitary
candles against each pier, to wander behind the kneeling groups
listening to the soaring voices of man and violin, to pause beside a
certain tomb in the south transept where four mammoth figures of bronze,
ungainly on close view but in a half light majestic, bear on their
shoulders a bier which holds the remains of Cristóbal Colón,--such hours
of loitering quicken the imagination and leave behind them memories of
beauty.
HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE
"A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time
to dance."
ECCLES. iii, 4.
An overcrowded picture rises with the thought of Seville's _Semana
Santa_,--glittering lights, statues laden with jewels, weird masked
figures in _nazareno_ costume marching to the sound of funeral dirges,
cries of street vendors and children,--all is noise, movement, color, a
true Andalusian scene. Spectacular effect is the first impression of the
week, a gorgeous pageantry that suits the Sevillian's temperament but is
not so congenial perhaps to the northerner, who would have the
commemoration of his religion's solemn hour a more tranquil time of
prayer.
Happily there are other memories carried away as well as this chief one
of noisy confusion. Never to be forgotten was the Cathedral echoing at
midnight to the sound of Eslava's "Miserere" sung by hundreds of trained
voices. Every inch of the vast church was packed. Men and women stood in
silence, with upraised faces, as they listened to the music of the old
canon who once sat in this choir. The lightest mocker would be awed to
silence under those soaring arches. For majesty, for a contagious
religious emotion, the Cathedral of Seville at the time of its feasts is
only to be rivaled by Santa Sophia during Ramazan, on that memorable
Night of Power when eight thousand Mussulmans kneel prostrate under the
floating circles of lamps. These two stand supreme; so different in the
setting,--the one rich with color, an open blaze of light beneath the
wide Byzantine dome, the other dim, mysterious Gothic,--they are alike
in the genuine thrill of worship they give the onlooker of every creed.
Familiar with her Cathedral in its every-day aspect, having seen the
celebrations of December 8th, the Christmas Midnight Mass, Epiphany, Ash
Wednesday, it was cruel to find its grand tranquillity violated during
the Holy Week. It is the processions, called the _pasos_, that are the
cause of the disorder. A _paso_ is a huge platform, on which are placed
carved statues representing scenes of the Passion. Each float is carried
by some thirty men, and its weight must be enormous, for besides the
statues there are silver candelabra, gold and silver vases, and usually
a canopy of embroidered velvet upheld by silver poles. Could one but
look on them as mere spectacular shows, they would be most picturesque
pageants, but to dissociate them from religion is impossible. The custom
is an ancient one and is still prevalent in many towns of Spain,
through happily, in the smaller places, its original purpose to edify
and rouse the people to rememberance of the holy season, has not been
lost sight of in extravagant display as at Seville.
Each of Seville's numerous parishes has one or two of these _pasos_, and
an unworthy rivalry exists between them as to which will make the best
show. They are supposed to be scenes of the Passion, such as the
Flagellation, Christ before Pilate, the Descent from the Cross, but for
the most part they consist of single figures--a Crucifixion followed by
a _Nuestra Señora de Dolores_, another Crucifixion followed by another
single representation of Our Lady, and so on in monotonous sequence, a
repetition that makes the spectator fix his attention, not on the scene
represented but on details such as the embroidery of the robes, the
display of rare jewels, the elaborate canopy. The _pasos_ struck me as
the result of that regrettable tendency in Spain, the accentuated
devotion to a special shrine or statue. No doubt it arose in reaction
against the Moorish enemy's hatred of images, but the patriotic tendency
has been carried too far. It will ever misrepresent the Spaniard's
innate Christian belief. As these processions blocked the city streets,
one heard on every side, not alone from those of differing creed,
exclamations of "Pomp! Show! Childishness!" And the criticism was
almost justified. Many strangers leave Seville confirmed in the wrong
idea that its religion is an affair of tinsel and lights. Spain cares
little what outsiders think of her, but here is a case in which she
should consider the discredit that a degenerated custom brings on her
religion; she should sacrifice an old tradition. Like the processions of
Havana, the _pasos_ should go. The northern Spaniard agrees with the
stranger in his dislike of the noisy spectacles that so incongruously
commemorate the saddest death-scene of the ages, and there are many
Andalusians, too, who wish for their abolition. In fact, it is the
rabble and the innkeepers who agitate in their favor; these last keep
petitions for their foreign guests to sign, begging that the processions
be continued. Seville need not fear she will lose prestige should she
drop them, that the tourists will no longer flock to her each spring;
she is only beginning to be known for having a winter climate surpassing
that of Rome and Naples; _pasos_ or not, visitors will inevitably
increase.
The objectionable processions began to march late in the afternoon of
Palm Sunday, and it is hardly much of an exaggeration to say they went
on marching night and day throughout the following week. They were so
long that they took five or six hours to pass a given spot. Starting
back in the narrow streets of the town, they passed down the _Sierpes_
which was lined with spectators' chairs, defiled before the City Hall,
where the Mayor rose to salute each _paso_ in turn, then went on to the
Cathedral,--entering by a west door, crossing before the altar, and
leaving by the door near the Archbishop's palace. With each _paso_
marched the religious confraternity of its parish, a secular brotherhood
of men belonging to all ranks, who are banded together for charitable
work. The King belongs to one of these fraternities and when in Seville
marches in line, but the year of our visit he was represented by the
military governor of the province. The officers of the army also
marched. Most of these brotherhoods wore Nazarene costume, in white,
purple, or black, with the high-peaked head gear through which only the
eyes showed. Some walked devoutly, others in disorder. Membership in
religious brotherhoods is often hereditary, and it was touching to see a
little child of four, in full regalia, marching with the grown men,
planting his silver staff at each slow pace with the gravity of a
majordomo. A band of music went with each fraternity, and the blare of
brass instruments, the torches, the masked faces, make indeed a
confused, wearying spectacle.
Most of the onlookers hired chairs for the week along the streets, on
balconies, or in that most chosen spot, the square by the City Hall; the
populace thronged to the Cathedral, where the procession could be seen
free, and there the crowd was dense to suffocation, chiefly made up of
the disorderly element from Triana. The chatter and movement made me
ask, could this be a Spanish church, where irreverence is unknown?
Everyone seemed oblivious of the Tenebræ in the _coro_. They buzzed and
moved about in an unseemly scramble for seats, so that only faintest
echoes of Jeremiah's gloriously intoned Lamentations could be heard. The
sexton rose now and then from the noisy groups on the choir steps to
extinguish one by one the candles on the big triangular candlestick, a
noble object of bronze used only at this season. And I had looked
forward for months to hearing, in this grand Gothic Cathedral, my
favorite service of the church year, the solitary service that haunts
one with its subtle beauty from one's childhood. The disappointment was
keen, it gave just the final touch to my dislike of the _pasos_.
There were times when I tried to be just. Seeing the men lift their hats
respectfully as each group went by, the women cross themselves with
tears in their eyes, the babies look on in awed wonder, I tried to drop
prejudice and to see the spectacle as does a southern Spaniard: the
noisy scene is so associated with his earliest, tenderest memories that
he cannot but look at it in a different way. One evening near me, a
handsome young countryman,--moved out of all self-consciousness by the
_Virgen santísima_ he so loved, in her wonderful robe and jewels, under
a canopy richer than any earthly queen's,--this gallant young _majo_
stood forward suddenly from the crowd and, with his eyes fastened on the
glittering mass, sang a _copla_ of praise with the heart-piercing note
of the folk-song. So faultlessly artistic a moment made me look
leniently on the _pasos_ for a time, warning me, "Lest while ye gather
up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them." But to be consistent
in this home of untamed personalities is impossible! For soon a float of
extravagant bad taste would go by; horses with tails of real hair;
clumsy velvet robes hiding the excellent carving of the statues (and
some of them are the work of the best sculptor of Seville, Montañés,
whose portrait by Velasquez hangs in the Prado); worst of all the _Mater
Dolorosa_, covered with inappropriate jewels, some willed her by former
generations, others lent by rich Sevillian ladies of to-day, in her hand
the lace handkerchief of a coquette: criticism would leap to full life
again.
That the _pasos_ violated the quiet of the Cathedral, that they reeked
of the baroque period of bad art, these are not the only complaints
against them. They turn all Seville into a picnic week. We began to ask
ourselves if this noisy excitement commemorated a solemn time, what
would the following week of the Fair be like? The Andalusian can hold
revelry with zest and vigor for fourteen unbroken days. Easter week was
to open with the Italian opera and the first bull-fight of the year;
there were to be three days of horse and cattle show, followed by three
days of the grand _Feria_, when the whole province pours into Seville,
and the nights are one glare of fireworks; _maja_ and _majo_ are then
out in all their finery, and the families of the upper classes live in
open booths on the fair grounds, where they pay visits and dance the
national dances in public with the easy democracy of true Spaniards.
Much as we hoped to see this typical feast, it began to dawn on us early
in the week that there were limits to endurance. The hurrying crowds,
the blocking of the streets, the noise of vendors, of clashing music,
made the fatigue indescribable. Sleep at night was out of the question,
noisy Triana roamed the streets; brass bands would sound, and in nervous
excitement one would spring to the balcony. The hotels were packed to an
uncomfortable extent. By Good Friday all desire to stay over for the
Fair week was extinguished; we were very close to physical collapse.
So, taking a night train, we slipped away from the turmoil to have a
peaceful Easter Sunday in unspoiled Estremadura. There also they were
having _pasos_, but _pasos_ of such simple devotion, humble, and
primitive, that one knelt with the crowd in prayer as they passed.
Before this final, hasty desertion, however, I had dragged myself, worn
out with a sleepless night, to the lengthy services in the Cathedral
each morning. There, happily, was nothing to criticise. The Holy Week
ceremonies customary to all Catholic Christendom, were carried through
with dignity; only, since this was irrepressible Spain, there were some
local additions, and most beautiful ones. Such was the waving of a huge
flag, black, with a large red cross, like the banner of some military
order, before the High Altar, while some special prayers were read; love
of country and love of God seem so inextricably interwoven here. On Palm
Sunday the Cathedral was filled with the stately white leaves, six and
ten feet long, from the palm forest of Elche; each canon carried one and
each verger; the priests and acolytes who served the Mass bore each his
palm, and they waved and swayed around the altar in lovely symbolization
of the Entry into Jerusalem twenty centuries before. Pictures like that
never fade. A year later in Palestine, it rose vividly before me, while
driving out to Bethany, when we passed some hundreds of humble Russian
pilgrims tramping back from the Dead Sea, each of whom bore a palm. For
in very reality they were following the route of entry into the Holy
City. Seville Cathedral on Palm Sunday morning was not unworthy to be
grouped with that moving scene. The excessively long Gospel was chanted
in the customary different keys by three canons, one standing in the
Epistle pulpit, one in the Gospel, and the third on a rostrum erected
between the two. Near me several Spaniards of the artisan class followed
in Latin every word of the lengthy chanting. The tourists present who
knew not what was read, fretted and moved incessantly. No intelligent
person should attend a Holy Week in either Seville or Rome without a
special book, picked up anywhere for a couple of francs, in which the
services are given in Latin and English, or Latin and French. Without
the liturgy to voice these ceremonies, they must be weary hours indeed.
And yet of the hundreds of visitors on this Palm Sunday, literally, not
one followed with a book, and many perhaps held themselves competent to
criticise what they had seen.
Expectant of the sensational, the tourists filled the great church on
Holy Thursday morning, when the white veil was withdrawn: it was done
so swiftly, at the opportune words of the Gospel, that there was nothing
spectacular about it. Two days later, at the moment in the Mass when
every bell in the city bursts out in joyous acclamation of the
Resurrection, the black veil was rent; that we missed seeing. Some days
before Holy Week a towering temple of wood, white and gilt, a hundred
feet high, had been erected in the nave over the tomb of Columbus' son.
This pseudo-classic temple, completely out of touch with the Gothic
church, was to serve as the repository of the Blessed Sacrament on Holy
Thursday, and it was for the center of such shrines that the old
silversmiths of Spain, the de Arfe family, made their priceless silver
_monumentos_. Such repositories are customary in all Catholic lands on
Thursday of Holy Week, for in the midst of sorrow, the Church celebrates
the foundation of the Sacrament that has brought joy and solace to
mankind. She commemorates the events of the week chronologically. Before
the altars are dismantled for Good Friday, she typifies by lights and
flowers, her gratitude for that passover supper in the upper room. It is
a general Catholic custom to visit a number of these lighted shrines on
Holy Thursday, and in Seville this usage leads to one of the charming
things of the week, like an oasis of peace in the midst of the arid
_pasos_. Everyone pays these visits on foot. During two days not a
carriage is allowed in the city, the King himself must walk. Their silk
mantillas, black or white, draped high over their combs, wearing jewels
and carrying flowers, the ladies of Seville went from church to church,
to kneel in graceful groups around the exposed Host, and the men in
frock coats and high hats stood in the rear, in simple attitudes of
prayer: the Spaniard and the Mussulman are alike in their
unconsciousness at their devotions. The next day all would wear deep
mourning, but to-day is a feast of rejoicing. Each one goes in quiet
composure, as if her mind dwelt on the hours of peace her communions had
brought her. Again I felt the same impression that the Christmas
midnight Mass had given me; that the imagination of this people was busy
with the past event they were celebrating. Does not lack of
comprehension of old usages often mean lack of the shaping power of the
imagination?
From one parish church to another I followed these fascinating women.
Here was true Seville, not seen in the Cathedral's tourist crowd, nor
under Parisian hats on the _Paseo_. Wandering through the network of
streets north of the _Sierpes_, I paused to look into the spotless
patios distant as they ever seem from the fret of life. A touch of
summer was in the air; the marble courtyards were decked with flowers,
and one heard the notes of singing birds. Two dark-eyed ladies came out
from a tranquil patio; they wore white mantillas in honor of their
visits to the Blessed Sacrament. They set me dreaming of Seville in its
summer aspect, when the skies are blue in the fragrant night. Nowhere on
earth are women more alluring and essentially feminine, nowhere has man
fashioned his house so fitly for charm and romance.
By chance, on Holy Thursday, I stumbled on another local usage, full of
the same racial flavor. Returning from the Cathedral, where, amid a
throng of sight seers, the Archbishop had carried the Host to the
lighted _monumento_, I happened to drop into the Church of the
Magdalena. It was filled with its own parishioners, since most Spaniards
leave the Cathedral services of this crowded week to the visitors. Near
the door were seated three separate groups of ladies and young girls,
belonging unmistakably to the aristocracy; each wore a black
mantilla,[31] and in their tight-fitting black gowns and long white
gloves, they were indescribably elegant. They were the ladies in waiting
of the various altars, their duties to tend them, and like the men's
brotherhoods, to help in the charitable work of the parish. The
Magdalena Church is dark, so on the table before these daughters of Eve
stood a pair of high candlesticks, between which lay an open tray
soliciting contributions for their special shrines or charities. Young
beaux entered the church and as they passed the table, dropped a _duro_
or a paper bill in the different trays, according as they felt devotion
to such and such an altar, or to judge by the glances that passed
between the givers and receivers, as they felt devotion to its fair
caretaker. Unexpected scenes like this, unmentioned in the guide books,
give to this city its allurement, enhanced doubly because the actors are
so unconscious of their picturesqueness.
And as unpleasant things fade away, leaving only the happier memories,
two scenes stand out unforgettable in Seville's Holy Week: Eslava's
"Miserere," echoing at midnight through the Cathedral whose name is
fittingly the _Grandeza_, and that other picture, enchantingly
Andalusian, the ladies in mantillas paying their silent visits to the
Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday. The _pasos_ fade to a blurred
background of pomp and glitter.
CADIZ
"Para que yo te olvidará
Era menester que hubiera
Otro mundo, y otro cielo,
Y otro Dios que dispusiera."
CANTAR ANDALUZ.
--"The sea tides tossing free,
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the witchery and beauty of the ships,
And the magic of the sea."
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
In the midst of the warm Seville winter the thought of sea breezes
tempted us to Cadiz for a week. The hundred miles' run down there was
through a charming corner of Andalusia, with orange groves, olive
plantations, woods of stone pines, hedges of cactus, in the meadows
herds of most royal bulls. It was the eighteenth of January, yet the
fruit trees were in blossom, and over the streams floated a lovely
white-flowering verdure. We passed Jerez, source of English sherry,
where on our return to Seville we stopped some hours to see the bodegas
and sample the native wine. As we neared the coast big pyramids of salt
covered the marshes, telling of another industry; in fact, every part
of Andalusia which I saw was well cultivated, despite the guide book
laments over its backwardness.
Soon came whiffs of the sea air. The first view of Cadiz, set right out
to sea, is very striking. Only a narrow strip of sand, eight miles long,
connects it with the mainland, and as we skirted the coast, past San
Fernando,--where there is a naval station and an astronomical
observatory,--the compact, sturdy little city out in the Atlantic made a
stunning picture; the sea so very blue, the town so dazzlingly white.
And inside the treble line of walls and moats that defend its one
land-entrance, the "silver dish," as its citizens love to call it, has
as individual a character as its distant prospect. It is miraculously
clean, its streets seem swept and scrubbed like a Dutch village. Down
these narrow lanes you catch the gleam of the sea to east, to north, to
west. When it rains, Seville turns into a muddy distress, but
well-drained Cadiz grows more proper still in wet weather. The patio of
the rest of Andalusia is not found here, for being confined to its ledge
of shells, the town could not spread itself about, but had to build
itself up in the air. On top of the high houses, whose vivid green
balconies add to the general air of trig neatness, are _miradores_,
small towers formerly built by the merchants as look-outs from which
they could spy their returning galleons. The view of Cadiz from a
_mirador_ is like nothing else ever seen: the clean whiteness of
hundreds of roof terraces, the church towers of colored tiles and a host
of other _miradores_, made it seem like a second city in itself,
suggestive of the Orient; a strange city set in the blinding blue circle
of the ocean.
The town is almost surrounded by high sea walls, four miles of them, and
on the Atlantic side the surf breaks in thundering eternity, throwing up
spray twenty feet high. There is something splendidly plucky about
Cadiz. One of the few spots in Europe forced to battle for her
existence, with a devouring enemy at her door, she thrives and continues
century after century. She is the oldest town in Spain, founded by
Ph[oe]nician mariners more than a thousand years before the Christian
Era.
"Ah when the crafty Tyrian came to Spain
To barter for her gold his motley wares,
Treading her beaches he forgot his gain,
The Semite became noble unawares."
Spain has influenced them all, all the strangers, the heterogeneous
throng, that have gone to the making of the Spanish race. Ph[oe]nician,
Roman, Iberian, Goth, Jew, and Moor, she has imprinted on them all her
own distinguishing mark, has breathed into them her own intense soul.
For this psychological reason it is true to say that Seneca was a
Spaniard, that the wonderful Jew Maimonides and the Moor Averroës, and
the Gothic bishop, Isidoro, Doctor of the Church were all of them
Spaniards. The Catalan, Ramón Lull rang out the national note with no
uncertain sound, mystic hermit and active missionary. And with the
centuries "christened in blood and schooled in sacrifice," the spirit
grew more convincingly apparent: Domingo de Guzmán, Francisco Ximenez,
Gonsalvo de Córdova, Luis de León, Iñigo de Loyola are very brothers
with a like high fealty that tells what majestic mother nurtured them on
her battlefield of ages.
Cadiz, the oldest spot in Spain, has known each of the conquering races
in turn. She was four hundred years old when Rome was founded. She has
had tremendous ups and downs of fortune; at her height during the age of
the Cæsars, who saw her importance as key to Andalusia, then with the
fall of Rome dropped into insignificance, her name almost forgotten. She
rose again with the discovery of the New World, whose ships of treasure
anchored off her ramparts. A strange outlook on the passing of power
lies in the statement that in 1770 this town was a wealthier place than
London. With the loss of the Colonies, Cadiz has sunk back to be a
mediocre city in the world, but she is contented and self-respecting.
Though so remotely ancient, there is nothing of old architecture here.
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.
To another modern novelist, to Pérez Galdós, I feel I am not fair, but I
find so much of his work antipathetic that, as he has not a good style
and often offends good taste, I cannot force a liking. Brunetière speaks
of the intolerance of the naturalist school of novelists, the
intolerance of the free-thinker. Those who advocate the extreme
republican, anti-clerical theories in Spain have this intolerance to a
marked degree. Pérez Galdós is so biassed that he distorts his
characters from their natural evolution by making them voice his own
ideas. The "roman à thèse" may win a greater fame for the first hour,
but it is sure to pass with the changing questions of the time. The
much-praised "Doña Perfecta" struck me as absurdly untrue to human
nature. The heroine is presented as a not uncommon type of religious
development, naturally where there is intense religious feeling there is
a bigot here and there, but this Lady Perfection is not a consistent
human being, but a monster. While anxious for her nephew to leave she
yet urges him to stay, no reason why; she could easily have rid herself
of him yet she brings about his death. Her character of the beginning
does not match with her character of the end (the novelist offends
several times in this way). The thin-visaged, oily priest-villain gives
an aside over the footlights: "I have tried tricks, but there is no sin
in tricks. My conscience is clear": evidently old-fashioned
melodramatics are not yet extinct. It is quite impossible for a
well-bred Spaniard to have insulted his kind hosts, as does Pepe, by
telling them crudely that their Christian belief is a fable as past as
paganism, "all the absurdities, falsities, illusions, dreams, are over,"
to-day there is no more multiplication of bread and fishes, but the
rule of industry and machines. I think most people will feel that the
characters of this book can intrigue and murder and throw in realistic
asides as much as they will, we do not hate them because they fail to
convince us that they ever really existed. They are just mouthpieces for
their author's theories. In another novel, "Gloria," a beautiful
passionate girl of sixteen is incapable of being the pedantic prig
Galdós makes her in the opening chapters. Happily for the romance and
for the weary reader, once the novelist warms to his story, religious
discussions go to the wall and he presents a moving tragedy. Would that
he could have kept up to the level of parts of this novel, that which
presents Gloria's uncles, for instance, but he is very unequal. After
scenes so true to life that they are a joy, he will indulge in the
pseudo-giantesque of some of Hugo's purple patches, and only high genius
can take such liberties. Thus in a tempest a church lamp falls; it
breaks the glass of the urn in which lies the Dead Christ, it slaps St.
Joseph in the face, it knocks the sword from the hand of St. Michael,
and finishes its zig-zag career by crashing into a confessional. Lamps
of anti-clerics only seem to act in this all-round, satisfying way;
realists, like Pereda and Valera, are incapable of such exaggeration.
Some critics hold "Angel Guerra" and "Fortuna y Jacinta" to be the best
of Galdós. His "Episodios Nacionales" are a series of novels on the
events of the past century in Spain. In spite of vivid scenes, they
seemed to me long-winded and confusing; one must be Spanish, they say,
to appreciate them.
Benito Pérez Galdós was born in 1845 in the Canary Islands. He has been
an artist, a lawyer, a politician, and a journalist; in twenty years he
has produced forty-two volumes, a record which makes his inequalities
easy to understand. Personally he is a sincere and upright character.
Although an avowed free-thinker he sits in reverence at the feet of his
fellow novelist, Pereda, an ardent believer, and it was to be near him
that he fixed his home in Santander: "Our master," he calls him, "a
great poet in prose, the most classic and at the same time the greatest
innovator of our writers."
Far below Pérez Galdós, who, if not the first, is a distinguished and
talented novelist, is Blasco Ibáñez, of the same school of anti-clerics
and extreme republicanism. His stories are vigorous, crude studies of
Valencia, that province which the proverb says is "a paradise inhabited
by demons," and because so local, the books are valuable; personally I
lay down such a tale as "Flor de Mayo" or "Arroz y Tartana" depressed
and sick at heart. Ibáñez lacks ideality and elevation of sentiment; he
pictures ignoble lives in monotonous detail, all is labored description,
for the characters never speak themselves, the author _describes_ their
conversation. One sentence of Sancho, one sentence of the Don and you
know who speaks! It is to this minor novelist that a recent French book,
"Les Maîtres du Roman Espagnol Contemporain," by a Monsieur F. Vézinet,
devotes a fourth of its pages, while dismissing Pereda contemptuously,
and not even mentioning "Sotileza," his great sea-masterpiece. Under the
guise of literary criticism, the French writer veils a polemic against
religion: "For Christians actually do find solace in a belief in a
future life," is one of his remarks. On meeting in Spanish fiction a
dignified reserve in scenes of passion, this teacher of young men--he is
professor in the Lycée of Lyons--supplies the pepper lacking by telling
how a French naturalist would have described the same scenes.
Another Spanish writer of the free-thinking school, but of good literary
quality, is Leopoldo Alas, author of "La Regenta," and a caustic,
intelligent critic who under the name of _Clarín_ did much to prick
Spain awake to intellectual interest. Though born in Zamora (1852) he so
associated himself with Oviedo, where he studied and later was professor
in the University, that he may be called a son of the Asturias. "La
Regenta" is a powerful psychological novel, set in Oviedo, somewhat
long drawn out, for the minute following of Ana Ozores in her downfall
too closely approaches pathology. Ana, who resembles a little her
namesake of Russia, (Alas has treated the real issue with the same
uncompromising morality as Tolstoi) is a brilliant, lovable woman,
capable of the highest, a girl who at sixteen can read St. Augustine
with emotion; but she is fatally doomed by the limitations of a woman's
life in her station. The acute Alas here puts his finger on a real evil
in his country, the lack of wide interests for the women of the upper
classes if no family duties are given them. They seem to have forgotten
Isabella's day when Doña Lucía de Medrano lectured on the Latin classics
in the University of Salamanca, and Doña Francesca de Lebrija filled the
chair of rhetoric in the University of Alcalá, when the Queen read her
New Testament in Greek, and her youngest daughter, the unfortunate wife
of Henry VIII, won the admiration of Erasmus by her solid acquirements.
To-day the idleness enforced by fashion leads often to morbid
religiosity or to moral disaster. Toward the end, "La Regenta" like "El
Escándalo" flags, especially is the canon De Pas a failure. Such a man
would have been either a great saint or a great sinner, never could he
have steered the mean middle course he did. In this book, unlike the
average romance, is much of the trail of the serpent of Zola's school,
more the result of a too warm partisanship of the French novelist than
innate in Alas.
The talented Padre Coloma, author of "Pequeñeces," may be called, like
the professor of Oviedo, a man of one novel. Born in Andalusia (1851), a
literary protégé of Fernán Caballero, he led the life of a man of the
world till about twenty-five, when a violent change of heart caused him
to enter the Jesuit Order. There he has passed uneventful, useful years
of study and teaching. His book, which is a harsh satire on the vices of
the smart set of Madrid, made an immediate sensation. I cannot say I
find the Padre Coloma a great writer by any means, he is too unequal;
whole chapters drag heavily. But some of his scenes deserve the highest
praise, such as the presentation of the heroine Currita Albornoz, or
that truly noble description of one of Spain's proud usages, the twelve
grandees of the first rank presenting themselves before their new
monarch, the young Alfonso XII, on his return in 1875, a picture that
rings with the heroic spirit of the past.
We turn next to a novelist with so long a list of books to her credit
that it is impossible to enumerate them, the Señora Emilia Pardo Bazán
who has been called the most notable woman of letters in Europe. Her
salon in Madrid is one of the best known in the capital, but she has so
deeply associated herself with her native province (born in Coruña in
1851) that she is the boast of every Gallego. Mountain lands are noted
for the loyalty they rouse in their sons, but few such enthusiasms equal
that of Doña Emilia. She has told of the lonely hills, the chestnut
forests, the never-failing streams of the Norway of Spain, and made
alive the ancient usages, and the crabbed originality of the peasantry.
"Los Pazos de Ulloa" (_pazos_ is dialect for palace) and its sequel, "La
Madre Naturaleza," have in them the very breath of outdoor life,--the
last is an idyll in prose. She describes the untrained young _cura_
leaving Santiago to step into the unhappy coil of events in the ruined
manor house, his vain efforts to help the pathetic young wife and her
brutalized husband. The tragedy is carried on to the second generation,
and we see the two children growing up in solitude and desertion,
roaming the countryside day and night, Perucho, blue-eyed, handsome as a
Greek statue, the girl Manolita slender and dark; then the
heart-breaking misery of the end. Work such as this is exquisite and
sure to last. Madam Pardo Bazán edits one of the best reviews in Madrid,
and she has written many stories that treat of life in the capital, but,
like the novels of Valdés, they might have been written elsewhere, in
Paris or St. Petersburg. It is in the novels of her loved _paisanos_ she
will live.
English-speaking people probably know Palacio Valdés better than any
other Spanish writer, for his novels, of the regulation Parisian type,
have been repeatedly translated. I care not at all for the Madrid
novels, but sometimes in a dashing local romance he carries all before
him: such is "La Hermana de San Sulpicio," _sal salada_, that
untranslatable phrase of Andalusia where sparkle and verve are
considered as highly as beauty in women. The story is facile, witty,
light both in manner and matter, full of laughter following swift on
tears, like its sprightly chatterbox of a heroine, an alluring creature
who is sincere underneath the sparkle. Seville and the brilliant summer
life of its patios, the sky raining stars, lovers talking all night at
the _reja_ in the scented air,--no one would tell on an _enamorado_, the
very men drinking in a tavern send out a glass to the patient lover to
wish him good luck. The friendly equality of the different classes is
shown again here, and other traits not so praiseworthy, such as the
intensity of local antipathies, the Andalusian's contempt for the
Gallego, the Catalan's for the Andalusian. A Barcelona business man
grumbles all day in Seville: "A glass of cognac 30 c. one day and 35 c.
the next in the same café. Is that business?" Two men from the northern
mountains meet: "You too are from Asturias?" asks one. "No, from
Galicia." "Then you are not _mi paisano_," and the first turns away in
disdain.
While the mundain, easy stories of Palacio Valdés are translated and
widely read, one of the first of Spanish novelists is scarcely known
outside his own country. Don José María de Pereda was born in 1835 and
died in 1906, the year following Don Juan Valera's death. He is a true
son of the _Montaña_, the coast country round Santander, whose Picos de
Europa rise to a height of 9000 feet, and he has described his home with
beautiful realism in some robust and primitive tales: "Escenas
Montañesas; "El Sabor de la Tierruca"; "Sotileza," called his best, a
very strong picture of fisher folk; "De tal Palo tal Astillo," which,
like Galdós' "Gloria," is greatly spoiled by being a "roman à thèse";
"Peñas Arriba," and many others. Pereda is a champion against skepticism
and the weakening luxury of cities: he is so partial to his _patria
chica_ that he often abuses the patience of readers by his too free use
of its dialect. With him, plot and action are of slight account, for his
interest lies in the eternal human characters and in the countryside
that molded them. A realist more exact than Flaubert, he yet fulfills
the prophecy of Huysmans as to the best type of novel for the future:
"The truth of the document, the precision of detail, the condensed,
nervous language of realism must be kept, but it must be clarified with
soul, and mystery must no longer be explained by _maladies of the
senses_. The romance should divide itself into two parts, welded or
interbound as they are in life, that of the soul and that of body, and
it should treat of their reaction, of their conflicts, of their mutual
understandings." M. René Bazin has described a visit to Pereda at
Polanco, his beautiful estate near Santander, where he led a life of
cultured retirement, proving the theory which his books preach, that
one's native home is the best paradise. To the French visitor, with his
nation's swiftness to discern high distinction, it seemed as if it were
Quixote himself, the man who came forward to meet him, of the pure
hidalgo type, long face and aquiline nose, with that noble gesture of
the hand that said, "My house is yours."
Of Pereda's books, my favorite is "Peñas Arriba," which does for the
mountain folk what "Sotileza" does for the coast life of the _Montaña_.
It was while writing this that there fell on him the heart-rending blow
of his young son's suicide, and a cross and date long stood in the
rough draft of the novel to mark the separation of the past from his
saddened later life: only by force of will could he continue. Much of
himself shows in the tale, which would entice a Parisian himself to live
contentedly on a mountain side. There is a scene, the death of the
squire of Tablanca, which indeed proclaims a master hand. Spain's best
critic, Don Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (himself from Santander, born
1856) writes of Pereda: "For me and all born _de peñas al mar_, these
books are felt before judged, they are something of our mountain land
like the breezes of the coast, one loves the author as one does one's
family."
Perhaps it is not fair to speak of a writer who is not a romancist, when
good minor talents among the novelists have to be passed over, but I
cannot resist ending with the name of this famous scholar, Menéndez y
Pelayo,[34] who may be said to be discovering Spain to herself after her
long discouragement. His books are on the history of philosophy and
literature: "Historía de las Ideas Estéticas en España"; "Horacio en
España," being graphic pages on the lyric poets; "Crítica Literaria";
"Ciencia Española," "Calderón y su Teatro," and others. Faithful to the
best traditions of his race, he is boldly asserting her past, her poets,
her scientists, her mystics,--they have been ignored too long; he holds
that the peoples of the _mediodía_ are the civilizing races par
excellence. All the warring factions of Spain agree that here is a man
of stupendous talent. "Every time I meet him, I find him with a new
language. Never have I met a student of such prodigious erudition,"
wrote the skeptic Alas. Menéndez y Pelayo may be called a literary
phenomenon. Before twenty-five he had ransacked the libraries of Spain,
Portugal, France, Italy, and Belgium, and was given a professorship in
the University of Madrid. To-day his reputation is European among
scholars. His profound knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew
literatures, helps a swift, unerring sense to perceive the best. His
work is not only that of a scholar, for it has in it the life-giving
touch of imagination, which is wisdom, and makes a writer a classic.
An anecdote that has the ring of the simplicity of a Cervantes or a
Valera, the self-effacing of a Luis de León, is told of the young
scholar of twenty-two. When spending an evening with some celebrated men
where wit and learning flowed fast and copious, he poured out quotations
so erudite and spontaneous that in modest embarrassment he took a paper
from his pocket as if quoting from it. At the end of the evening a
friend seized on the magic bit of paper, to find it a washerwoman's
bill. Praise cannot hurt such a man. When a race can produce in a short
fifty years a Pereda, a Valera, a Menéndez y Pelayo, have we the right
to call it spent and out of the running?
ESTREMADURA
"I have always felt that the two most precious things in life are
faith and love. As I grow older I think so more and more. Ambition
and achievement are out of the running; the disappointments are
many and the prizes few, and by the time they are attained seem
small. The whole thing is vanity and vexation of spirit without
faith and love. I have come to see that cleverness, success,
attainment, count for little; that goodness, 'character,' is the
important factor in life."
GEORGE J. ROMANES.
Literally worn out with the noise of Seville's Holy Week, we took the
night train, that chill, rainy Good Friday, and left the Andalusian
excitement behind. As carriages are forbidden in the city on both Holy
Thursday and Good Friday, we had expected to walk to the station--they
told us that the King, the year before, had walked to his train--but the
regulation ceased at sunset on Friday and we were able to drive.
As usual we had the _Reservado para Señoras_ compartment to ourselves,
and so exhausted were we that we slept heavily with only an occasional
waking to look out on the cold hills we were crossing. There was a moon
which hurrying black clouds obscured fitfully. Under the somber sky the
desolate hills seemed like the fantastic sepia drawing of a Turner:
swift unforgettable memories one carries away from night journeys in
Spain.
We left the train at Mérida, now a poor place with some few thousand
inhabitants, but up to the fourth century a splendid Roman city, the
capital of Lusitania. The castle built by Romans, Moors, Knights of
Santiago, and bishops; the theater, the aqueduct, the bridge, the
triumphal arch, and the baths show what it once was. We could not have
visited this solitary province at a happier hour. Field flowers made the
countryside as beautiful for the moment as Umbria or Devonshire; the
wheat fields, always so articulate and lovely, had their own charm even
after the magnificent outburst of roses and orange blossoms a month
earlier in Seville.
Mérida is small,--frugal and neat, as are the larger number of Spanish
towns. As we explored it, the people greeted us with kindly "_Vayan
Ustedes con Dios_"; we had left behind the tourist-infested south with
its insolent city loafers. It seemed too good to believe that we had
come again among the grave, dignified Spaniards of the north. In order
not to miss the Holy Saturday services, I hastened to the Cathedral.
There was a cracked old organ and the singing was little better, but
devout, heart-moving peasants rose and knelt, up and down, during the
long Flectamus Genua! Levate! ceremony of that day, and the bells burst
into the riotous clamor they seem to achieve so individually all over
Spain. It may have been ungrateful, but it was without the slightest
regret that I thought of the display going on at the same hour in
Seville.
We had taken the trip into Estremadura to see the Roman remains, the
best in the Peninsula. The ruins are more fortunate in their setting
here than in many places, for there are none of the bustling cafés nor
electric cars of Nîmes or Verona. Paestum is more poetic, Baalbec a
hundred times more grandiose, but Mérida on a showery, sunshiny day in
spring is an ideal spot for musing and rambling. In the city itself are
some ancient remains, such as a temple of Mars, and the fluted columns
of a temple of Diana built into a mediæval house, which, by the way, has
a lovely Plateresque window, but most of the ruins lie completely
outside the present town. The amphitheatre, when we saw it, had a
comfortable troop of goats asleep in the warm shelter of its oval, and
the remarkable theatre, known as _Las Siete Sillas_, from the seven
divisions of its upper seats that crown it like a coronet, was gay with
poppies and buttercups,--the national colors gleamed everywhere.
Swallows in cool, metallic, blue-black coats, dipped and swept in their
swift, graceful way. Looking out on the view which embraced Mérida on
one side and a line of rugged hills on the other, we lingered for hours
in that Theatre of the Seven Seats. Children, like gentle fawns, one by
one crept out from the town suburbs and gathered in a smiling, lovable
circle round the strangers. We talked to them tranquilly, our map of
their city seemed a fascinating wonder to them. They came and went
smiling; now one returned to the town to fetch his mother, now a shy
little girl laid an armful of poppies beside us, with no thought of
pennies, but just out of primitive human kindliness. The dear Don's age
of gold seemed a reality. And a day before we had angrily scattered
those diabolical little pests, the street children of Seville! Could
these enchanting little people belong to the same race, and live only a
hundred and fifty miles away? Journeys in unfrequented parts of Spain
give one a truer picture than is possible for the hurried tourist on the
beaten track; every time we turned aside into the unspoiled country we
met the people and ways which Cervantes has described. Never were
gentler human beings than those little girls of Mérida, those young
mothers, those big half-awkward lads, whose gazelle eyes would gaze
at us inquiringly, then turn to look at the scene we so obviously
admired, then back to us with pleasure at our appreciation of what they
too held most beautiful. We are told that peasants get no æsthetic
pleasure from landscape, but I am sure romantic Roman ruins and perfect
spring-time weather had much to do with giving those children faces of
such pure outline.
[Illustration: _Copyright, 1910, by Underwood & Underwood_
A ROADSIDE SCENE IN SPAIN]
Perhaps later, when the sun scorches the first freshness, Mérida may be
a desolate enough spot; we probably knew her best hour, the lovely April
of her prime. We were loath to tear ourselves away; we read to our
interested audience accounts of their city's past, when Emperors' armies
marched along the Roman road that led from Cadiz north, and alert to
catch the meaning, they listened with that vividness of the eye that
shows the imagination is roused. Then from the daily paper we read to
them that in Madrid on Holy Thursday, two days before, the King had
washed the feet of a dozen poor men, kissed them in humility, then
waited on them at table, assisted by the grandees of Spain; that on Good
Friday he had set free some criminals. When the bishop's words rang
through the church: "Señor, human laws condemn these men to death," Don
Alfonso answered with moved voice: "I pardon them, and may God pardon
me!" And somehow, Alfonso XIII is not jarring or theatric among such
ancient usages of Spanish Christianity. Very modern with his automobile,
his polo, his careless ease, this charming king is one with his people
in a radical sympathy with ways that symbolize soul and heart emotions.
Mérida has a bridge built by the Emperor Trajan. And it has ruins of a
very stately aqueduct standing in wheat and poppy fields. This is built
of stone and brick ranged in regular lines, and though only about a
hundred feet high, is truly majestic, the entrancing touch being given
by the hundreds of storks who have built nests on the top of the arches.
Some of our little friends had accompanied us through the fields to the
aqueduct, and when we took a final ramble through the town, many were
the smiling greetings, "_Buenas Tardes_." Mérida is too small to have
visitors pass a day there without making friends among its courteous
people.
We took an evening train on to Cáceres ten miles away, for its hotels
sounded inviting; and a second happy day, a holy and tranquil _Domingo
de Resurrección_, gave us another memory of Estremadura. Cáceres is an
unspoiled mediæval town climbing up a crag, just such a place as
Albrecht Dürer loved to paint. It is very individual. From the plaza
with its acacia trees we mounted the steep grass-grown streets, past one
baronial mansion after another, with old escutcheoned doorways blazoned
with plumed helmet and shield. In one of them, the house of the
Golfines, _los Reyes Católicos_ stayed on a visit. Nowhere in the world
save in Spain could such a bit of the Middle Ages stand untouched and
unnoticed, giving one that thrilling sensation of the traveler, the
meeting unheralded with a very rare thing. The views caught between the
granite mansions were lovely, for Cáceres lies in the most cultivated
district of the county. Across the river rose another steep crag, turned
into a Way of Calvary, with a picturesque church crowning it.
The town has some excellent hotels, and we were well-fed and slept well
for five pesetas a day in one of them. Easter Sunday morning I awoke to
the sound of bleating animals, and looking out, there at every doorway
was tied a tiny white or black lamb, with a bunch of soft greens to
nibble on. It is the custom for each family to have this symbol of peace
and innocence on the Christian Passover. All day long the children
played with them, and toward evening when the toy-like legs trembled
with fatigue, the little boys carried the lambs across their shoulders
as shepherds do. In the midst of patriarchal ways, we kept
congratulating ourselves that we had escaped the noisy city to the
south, whose Easter crowds were pouring in eager excitement to the
first bull-fight of the year; it was the thought of the scene being
enacted in Seville that made us a little unjust to the city where so
happy a winter had been passed.
After Mass in a gray old church on the hill, a procession formed to
carry the _pasos_ of Cáceres. Each house was hung with the national
colors, and on the balconies tall men of the hidalgo type and proud
Spanish ladies (Madrid has not drained the provincial places of their
leading families) knelt respectfully as the cortège passed. The statues
were simple and poor, they were borne by pious peasants, and the silent
crowd dropped to its knees on the pavement with a prayer. Not a tourist
was there, save two who felt so in sympathy with old Spain that they
disclaimed the title. To think that the gorgeous materialistic _pasos_
of Seville had once begun in this way! Easter afternoon made as pastoral
a memory as the hours in Mérida. We walked out with the people to the
hill of the Stations of the Cross. Life seemed a happy and normal thing
when all, old and young, grandee and peasant, gave courteous greeting to
those who passed; also it was a joy to hear pure Castilian after the
somewhat slovenly Andalusian dialect.
However, the week in Estremadura was not to end on an idyllic note. We
attempted an excursion beyond our strength and got well punished; the
moral is, avoid all diligence journeys in Spain, they are only for those
who have the nerves of oxen. The real reason why we had come into this
little-visited province was because that old emperor born in Italica
near Seville, Trajan, the bridge builder, had in the year A.D. 105 put
up one of his bridges at Alcántara, a town now on the Portuguese
frontier. Such a reason sounds slightly absurd, but many who read
certain descriptions of the bridge must feel the same impulse to hunt it
up. Richard Ford calls it one of the wonders of Spain, "the work of men
when there were giants on the earth," worth going five hundred miles out
of one's way to see as it rises in lonely grandeur two hundred feet
above the Tagus River. So it no doubt appeared to the English traveler
who stumbled on it eighty years ago, for it was then an unrestored,
picturesque ruin, probably unused since one of its arches had been blown
up by the English in the Peninsula War. At any rate, it was such glowing
words that enticed us into the wilderness of Estremadura.
It is strange in Spain how little they know of districts that lie at no
appreciable distance. At the inn at Cáceres we asked for information
about Alcántara, and they could give none. The landlord himself came
over to our table to look at us in astonishment. "But there is nothing
to see there!" he assured us, too polite to ask the question that showed
in his voice,--why were two ladies seeking a dismal spot such as
Alcántara? I positively blushed as I answered there was a bridge. "A
bridge!" He beat a hasty retreat to his wife in the office, where their
merriment burst out. The next day he told us, that having inquired, he
found we could take the train to Arroyo, an hour away, whence a
diligence ran in a short time to Alcántara. We left the train at Arroyo,
and on the other side of the station found the smallest diligence ever
seen, so packed already with big countrymen that we could just force our
unwilling selves in. When we were well started, we found to our
consternation that we did not reach Alcántara before ten hours, the
distance being about thirty miles. _Una legua una hora_ runs the saying,
and this part of the world is ruled by its wise old proverbs. Too late
to turn back, we tried to make the best of it. When in each of the
desolate villages long pauses were made, we got out to visit the market
or church. In the first village the altar was dressed with coarsest but
freshest linen. Artistic pewter, unconscious of its charm, held the
water and wine, and a score of sturdy young peasants came in from
selling in the plaza outside, knelt on the very steps of the altar, then
having made their serious preparation, each bashfully approached a
white-haired priest who sat there all market day in readiness to hear
confessions. The dismallest corner of Spain has compensations.
The first ten miles of the journey reminded me of New England, with its
stone walls and semi-cultivated land. The next ten miles were indeed the
proverbial desolation of Estremadura; hardly an inhabitant was to be
found on those bleak hills. We had stumbled on one of the three days of
the yearly fair of Brozas, so we passed flocks of sheep, cattle with a
royal spread of horns, and dozens of the nervous Andalusian horses. Even
automobiles went by, and one Portuguese noble drove abreast three truly
glorious cream-white mules. Seeing them, one could understand how a mule
here can cost more than a horse. The fair was held in meadows outside
the town, and it looked so animated that we should have liked to stop,
but no time was given us. A mile outside Brozas we found we had to
change from the tiny diligence, a primitive enough way of travel, and to
continue the remaining miles to Alcántara in the mail cart, which
consisted of a board laid across two wheels, and that one seat had to be
shared with the driver. Fuming did no good, not another vehicle would
take us. The cold wind howled across the treeless upland, our umbrellas
could not break its biting force, and we were far too thinly clad from
the warm Seville winter; I could feel the chill seize on me that was to
lead to a month's bad illness. The final touch was when the young scamp
who drove the mail cart found it impossible to forego his eternal
cigarette, which, despite remonstrance, he smoked continuously. That
evening (we had left Cáceres in the pitch dark at 5 A.M.) we were set
down at an inn whose spacious rooms and staircase told of former
prosperity, but so shrunken was its hospitality that it could offer
nothing fit to eat; yet, curiously enough, the old landlady made the
best coffee I have tasted in Europe. We kept her busy grinding and
boiling it.
Alcántara is one of the most God-forsaken places in the world. Pigs walk
the ill-kept streets, and the vast buildings of the monkish-knights who
formerly guarded the frontier pass are crumbling into such universal
ruin that the lanes are a mass of broken rubbish. They are not romantic
ruins, but depressing and almost terrifying. When we climbed down the
precipitous hill that led to the bridge, our shoes were cut to pieces by
the flinty stones.
And the bridge, that lode-star of our pilgrimage, worth going five
hundred miles to see! We thought with exasperation of the sixty we were
wasting on it. No doubt Trajan did build it eighteen centuries ago, but
they have chipped off the beautiful gray toning of ages, filled in with
mortar the boulders after they had stood unaided till our time, and made
a modern boulevard from Portugal. All solitude and sublimity are well
eliminated from the scene. We sat on the benches of that banal little
park and glared at the disappointing thing. The Tagus, Lope de Vega's
_hidalgo Tajo_, was here a low stream, yellow with mud, flowing beneath
bleak, unimposing hills. The bridge, in spite of its two hundred feet of
height, did not appear as high as the aqueduct at Mérida, an effect due
probably to the arches standing on stilts. And it may sound blatant, but
a memory of once passing under that superb thing the Brooklyn Bridge, at
dawn, made this ancient monument suffer in comparison. The ludicrousness
of our having traveled out of our way to see this sight struck us at
last, and when we recalled the Cáceres landlord's astonishment, and that
of Brazilian friends at Seville who had tried to persuade us our
Estremadura plan was quite mad, we too burst into a hearty laugh, soon
sobered at the prospect of the next day's weary return to Arroyo. We
climbed back to the inn and dined on _glasses_ of coffee.
The following morning, after some more glasses of our only modus
vivendi, we explored the decayed town. In it is a pearl of architecture
built by the Benedictine knights in 1506, the now ruined church of San
Benito, with lofty slender piers, one of the most gracefully
proportioned of semi-Renaissance things. Truly was the transition from
Gothic to Renaissance a most harmonious moment in Spanish architecture.
This interesting discovery could not do away with the fever and cold of
the awful drive back to Arroyo. Such petty miseries are best passed
over. More dead than alive, late the second night we reached again the
comfortable hotel at Cáceres, where we were glad to pause a few days to
pick up strength to push on.
Our plans had been to go to Trujillo, the birthplace of Pizarro. It was
Estremadura that produced many of the rude, energetic _conquistadores_
of Peru and Mexico, and the province never has recovered from that drain
on its population. Just as the number of Jewish and Moorish exiles and
the loss to their country's vitality has been exaggerated for partisan
reasons, so there has been an underestimation of the more serious drain
which Spain suffered when hoards of sturdy adventurers set out for the
New World. The emigration was untimely; it came a century too early. The
country had just been brought from political chaos to law and order by
Isabella's great reign; but before the fruit of her planting could ripen
(by peace and its natural sequence of settled trade) it was plucked
from the bough. I have never been able to see that the expulsion of two
hundred thousand Jews, the execution of thirty-five thousand heretics,
and the exile of under a million Moriscoes, are sufficient causes to
explain Spain's decay. Other countries of Europe, prosperous to-day,
suffered from evils quite as bad. Why did Segovia, with an "old
Christian" population independent of Moorish banishment, have
thirty-five thousand weavers of cloth in the beginning of the
seventeenth century and but a few hundred in the next generation? A
score of questions similar to this can be asked to which the hackneyed
explanation of the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Moors gives no
answer.
The causes of Spain's decay must be sought farther afield than in single
acts of bad government which crippled the country for a time but were
not irremediable. Through emigration, just when with the ending of the
seven hundred years' crusade the nation should have turned to peaceful
industries, she lost her agriculturists and her possible traders. And
following swift on this, for emigration does not permanently weaken a
strong race, Spain was bled of her best blood by Charles V's senseless
European wars. She profited nothing by them, in fact they lowered her to
the position of a mere province in the Empire. The treasure that poured
in from the New World was poured out over Europe, it merely passed
through Spain. American gold was a curse for her; it undermined the
national character; the spirit of adventure, not of patient work, was
fostered. The policy of the Emperor was continued by his descendants,
and for two hundred years more Spain was at war. Anæmia of the whole
race followed: so true is it that the nation of fighters to-day runs the
risk of being the nation of weaklings to-morrow.
Good government might have helped the ill, but Charles V pursued in that
line a policy as fatal as his continental wars. He tried to force on
these subjects whom he never understood an iron autocratic rule,
ruthlessly crushing their tenacious spirit of independence. The death of
Ximenez and the execution of the Comuneros leaders may be said to mark
the ending of the sensible old régime of self-centering her resources,
exclusive and provincial perhaps, but it had been Spain's salvation. To
meet the expenses of ceaseless wars in Europe, when the first influx of
colonial gold ceased, the Peninsula was heavily taxed: a fourteen per
cent tariff on all commodities will soon kill trade. For the same
reason, to pay for wars, the currency was debased under Philip III; and
the Crown held monopolies on spirits, tobacco, pottery, glass, cloth,
and other necessities, a system always bad for commerce. The agrarian
laws were neglected, too much land was in pasturage, which tends to
lower the census, and too vast tracts were held by single nobles. The
loss of population went on; in 1649 an epidemic carried off two hundred
thousand people. The economic discouragement was aggravated by a host of
minor reasons, such as the insecurity of property along the coast from
African pirates; a too generous allowance of holidays; the prejudice
against trading inherited from crusading ancestors; and there being no
alien element--for this Moor or Jew would have served--to give the spur
of competition which keeps a nation in health. Hapsburg and Bourbon
misgovernment and wars blighted Spain for three centuries. But to-day
new life is stirring in her. She is returning to Ximenez's wise rule of
not scattering but of concentrating her powers. Happily those unhealthy
growths, the colonies, are lopped off at last:
"Passed into peace the heavy pride of Spain.
Back to her castled hills and windy moors!"
In the mountains, not far from Trujillo, lay Yuste, the solitary
monastery to which retired that dominating figure of his age, Charles V,
who was so decidedly interesting as a man, but so pernicious as a ruler.
When he came to this distant inheritance he could scarcely speak the
Castilian tongue; he did all in his power to stifle the indomitable
character of the race,--and alas! he succeeded but too well in starting
her downward course. Yet the magical something in the soul of Spain
vanquished even him, as it had impermeated the conquering Roman, the
Goth, the Israelite, and the Arab. With all Europe from which to choose,
Charles came back voluntarily to the Peninsula, to its most untamed
province, to spend the last days of his jaded life.
Reading at home accounts of Yuste, it had been easy to plan a trip
there, and to Guadalupe, the famous monastery which also lay among these
hills; but one diligence drive can quench all further foolhardy
adventuring. With a feeling that illness was threatening, and it was
wiser to get away from this "extrema ora," we again took the local line
to Arroyo, and there gladly boarded the express that passed through from
Lisbon to Madrid.
ARAGON
"O World thou chooseth not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
Columbus found a world, and had no chart
Save one that faith deciphered in the skies,
To trust the soul's invincible surmise
Was all his science and his only art.
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine,
By which alone the mortal heart is led
Unto the thinking of the thought divine."
GEORGE SANTAYANA.
If it is one of the coveted sensations of a traveler to stumble
unexpectedly on some rare spot that is overlooked and unheralded, as was
our experience at Cáceres, there is a second emotion that is close to
it,--the return to a favorite picture gallery, especially if in the
meantime one has gone further afield, has learned to know other schools,
and adjusted ideas by comparison. A return to the Prado can give this
coveted sensation.
The winter in the south had familiarized us with the Spanish painters;
Murillo now seemed more than a sentimentalist, had he painted for
different patrons he had been a decided realist; Toledo had showed that
El Greco was to be taken seriously. No sooner were we back in Madrid
than I hurried off to the Museum, and, looking neither to the right nor
left, to give freshness to the impression, walked straight to the
Velasquez room. In the autumn the last look had been for the "Surrender
of Breda," and to that unforgettable, soul-stirring picture I paid my
first return homage. It impressed me even more powerfully than before.
Never was there a more sensitively-rendered expression of a high-minded
soul than that of the Marquis Spínola[35] as he bends to meet his enemy.
It is intangible and supreme, only equalled by some of Leonardo da
Vinci's expressions. For those who hold enshrined a height to which man
can rise, the face of this Italian general will ever be a stimulus; he
would appeal to the English sense of honor, the chivalry of a Nelson;
the heart-history of such a man could be told only by a novelist of true
distinction, such as Feuillet; there is something in Spínola's reserved
tenderness that Loti might seize in words. Velasquez shows us a man of
the world, but he has conveyed as only genius could how this warrior for
_España la heróica_ kept himself unspotted from the world, and this the
painter could convey, because he himself was nobly idealistic, realist
of the realists though he was. Not only in her mystics and novelists but
in her painters and sculptors, Spain shows this union of the real with
the ideal.
Hours in the Velasquez room slip by unnoticed. The portrait of the
sculptor Montañés was of more interest now that we had seen his
polychrome statues in Seville, those especially memorable ones of St.
Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Borgia in the University Church. The
hidalgo heads by El Greco, the flesh tints, alas, turned to a deathly
green, called up Professor Domenech's words on the grave Spanish
gentlemen in their ruffs--"sad with the nostalgia for a higher world,
the light in their eyes holds memories of a fairer age that will not
return; images of the last warrior ascetics." This eccentric artist has
in the Prado a striking study of St. Paul, an intensity in his face on
the verge of fanaticism, a true Israelite, such as only a semi-oriental
like El Greco could seize. Another picture that struck me with even
profounder admiration than before was Titian's Charles V on horseback.
And again I studied long the portraits of the pale Philip II, of his
dainty little daughters, his sisters, his most lovely mother, and that
pathetic English wife of his. Probably no northerner can see fairly both
sides of Philip's strange character, just as I suppose no Spaniard can
judge Elizabeth Tudor as does an Englishman. Nevertheless, there is a
trait in Philip that all can admire--his filial loyalty.
We could have lingered in Madrid for weeks just for this gallery, but we
had to tear ourselves away. A journey south to Murcia and Valencia had
been planned, but the necessity of passing a cold night on the train
made us decide now against it. Those two provinces, with Navarre, are
the gaps of our tour in Spain: health and weather will change the
firmest of plans. We left Madrid for Aragon, pausing in a couple of the
Castilian cities to the east.
In the capital the parks had been bursting into leaf, but it was still
chill winter outside on the plains. Treeless and verdureless Alcalá, the
city of Ximenez and birthplace of Cervantes, looked far from inviting.
When we left the train at Guadalajara, the landscape was so depressing
that its Arab name, "river of stones," seemed dismally appropriate.
Again, as at Segovia in the autumn, a wind _de todos los demonios_ was
blowing over the land,--raging would be the more exact word. The town
was melancholy, so was the weather, and we had a distressing personal
experience. When the diligence set us down at the inn, we were told
there was not a bed to be had that night in all Guadalajara, for it was
the election, and even the hotel corridors would be used; we would have
to go on to Sigüenza by the night train. The wind and the cold made the
prospect a dismal one; early spring travel in northern Spain is not a
bed of roses.
We went out to explore Guadalajara and its chief lion, the Mendoza
palace, built by the Mæcenas family of the Peninsula whose history has
been called the history of Spain for four hundred years, so prominent
were they as statesmen, clerics, and writers. The palace is in the
Mudéjar style, the exterior studded with projecting knobs; the inner
courtyard is coarsely carved with lions and scrolls, capriciously
extravagant and yet within bounds enough to be effective. The Duke del
Infantado entertained Francis I here, and surely the French king with
memories of Blois and the chaster styles which his race follows, must
have examined with curiosity this very different architecture of his
neighbor, the intense individuality of whose conceptions could almost
silence criticism. The Mendoza palace is now a school for the orphans of
officers, and when the little nun, happy and fond of laughter as the
cloistered usually are, showed us about, we saw pleasant circles of
young girls sewing under the forgotten gorgeousness of the _artesonado_
ceilings.
Then at midnight, wind howling and rain pelting, we crossed the muddy
square that lay between the Sigüenza station and the town's most
primitive inn. There they did the best they were able for us, but
nothing could lessen the glacial damp of those linen sheets: the illness
begun at Alcántara went on increasing. With chattering teeth and beating
our frozen hands together to put some sensation into them, we realized
we were back again on the truncated mountain which is central Spain,
thousands of feet above the roses and oranges of Seville.
The following day was Sunday, with a sacred concert of stringed
instruments in the Cathedral, a good Gothic church, noticeably rich in
sepulchers. In one chapel especially, that dedicated to St. Thomas of
Canterbury by an English bishop who accompanied Queen Eleanor to Spain,
when you stand among the tombs of those warriors, bishops, and knights
of Santiago, you feel the thrill of the past. Cardinal Mendoza, "Tertius
Rex," was at one time bishop of this Cathedral, having for vicar-general
the priest Ximenez: Don Quixote's friend, the delightful _cura_, was
"_hombre docto graduado en Sigüenza_."
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF SINGÜENZA]
The chill, little city was far from stimulating; at another time it may
appear differently, impressions are so dependent on weather and health.
The peasants wrapped in their blankets had a beggarly aspect after the
dandy _majo_ of Andalusia. I daresay were Seville three thousand feet
above the sea, the bolero would be worn less jauntily. The Cathedral
visited, there was little to detain us, so we bade a ready farewell to
glacial sheets and ice-crusted water pitchers to continue the route to
Aragon, west past Medinaceli, where a Roman arch stood boldly on the
edge of its hill.
The semi-royal family of Cerda, Dukes of Medinaceli, has possessions all
over the country: forests near Avila, the _Casa de Pilatos_ in Seville,
lands near Cordova, a castle at Zafra, and vast tracts in Catalonia. It
descends from Alfonso _el Sabio_, whose eldest son, called _la Cerda_,
from a tuft of hair on his face, was married to a daughter of St. Louis
of France, and left two infant sons, who were dispossessed by their
uncle, Sancho _el Bravo_. For generations they continued to put forward
their claims on every fresh coronation.
After entering Aragon the climate grew warmer. We were descending
gradually, and soon fruit trees in blossom, and vineyards, appeared
among the broken, irregular hills. Calatayud, birthplace of the Roman
poet Martial, was extremely picturesque, with castle and steeples. The
long hours of the journey were whiled away watching the Sunday crowds in
the stations, many of the men and women in the astonishingly original
costume of the province. By the time we had reached Saragossa we had
descended to about five hundred feet altitude, and it was pleasantly
warm.
The capital of Aragon is commonplace in appearance, flat, modern, and
prosperous. The noisy electric cars and the bustling streets made it an
abrupt change from the small Castilian cities just left. As always, our
first walk was to the Cathedral--Saragossa has two, and the chapter
lives for six months in each alternately. The _Seo_ is an ancient and
beautiful structure, the _Pilar_ is a tawdry, cold-hearted object, such
as the eighteenth century knew how to produce, a mixture of the styles
of Herrera and Churriguera. It is a pity that one of the most revered
shrines in Spain should be housed in such vulgarity. Outside, seen from
the bridge over the Ebro, the many domes of different sizes, covered
with glazed tiles of green, yellow, and white, are not bad, but within
is a soul-distressing mass of plaster walls, and ceilings of
Sassoferrato-blue. The High Altar, however, has a treasure, the
celebrated alabaster _retablo_ of Damián Forment, one of the best of
national sculptors, who worked between the Gothic and Renaissance
periods, and who was helped to ease of expression by Berruguete, lately
returned from Italy.
The holy of holies of this new Cathedral is, of course, the chapel of
the _Pilar_, and about it are always gathered devotional crowds. To a
Spaniard it is naturally a sacred spot, associated as it is with his
earliest memories; there is not a hut in all Aragon that has not an
image of the _Pilar_ Madonna; but to the Catholic of another land, who
never heard of this cult till coming to Spain, it is impossible to feel
the same devotion, especially when it is surrounded with such bad taste.
I tried to arouse imagination by recalling what the _Pilar_ had meant
for this city in its hours of danger, how during the siege of 1808 they
kept up courage by exclaiming, "The holy _Virgen del Pilar_ is still
with us!": one of the witticisms of the siege was:
"La Virgen del Pilar dice,
Que no quiere ser francesa."
Just as in Andalusia the chief ejaculation is "_Ave María Purísima!_"
and in the mountains of the north, "_Nuestra Señora de Nieve!_" so in
Aragon, "_Virgen Mia del Pilar!_" springs to the lips in time of joy or
trouble. However, emotion cannot be summoned on command, and I left
Saragossa unmoved by her special shrine of devotion. Had it been in the
solemn old Cathedral, sympathy had come more readily. The _Seo_, like
most Spanish churches, is spoiled outside by restoration, but within it
is not unworthy of the coronations and councils held there. Ferdinand
_el Católico_ was baptized at its font; and near the altar is buried the
heart of Velasquez's handsome little Don Baltazar Carlos, who died of
the plague at seventeen. The church is high and square, like a hall; it
is rich in mediæval tombs, Moorish ceilings, pictures, and jewels. Some
truly glorious fourteenth century tapestries were still hanging in place
after the Easter festivals, on the day of our visit; and as a council
was to be held in the church on the following day, a row of gold busts
of saints, Gothic relic holders, stood on the altar. The sacristy was a
treasure house, from its floor of Valencian tiles to its vestments heavy
with real pearls. The enthusiasm of the priest who showed us the
Cathedral told of the personal pride most of his countrymen feel in the
house of God; again, as at Burgos, I felt that these people considered
their churches as much their abode as their own simple homes, that one
supplemented the other, and hence much of the contentment of their
frugal lives.[36]
We were stupid enough to go hunting for the leaning tower of Saragossa,
not knowing that it had come down in 1893, and the search led us through
the narrow streets of the older town, where the mansions of dull, small
bricks, as a rule, have been turned into stables and warehouses, like
the former palaces of Barcelona. Outside the city, flat on the plain,
stands what was once the Moorish, later the Christian, palace, the
Aljuferia, now serving as barracks, in which are embedded a few good
remains, such as a small mosque and a noble hall of Isabella's time,
with that suggestive date, 1492,--Granada and America.
On our first arrival at the hotel in Saragossa, they had informed us we
could stay but a few days, as the centenary celebration of May 2d, 1808,
was approaching, and every hotel room was engaged. The town so hum-drum
to-day has a stirring history to look back on. In modern times she has
stood a siege as heroic as any in the Netherlands, but Spain has lacked
a Motley to make her popular. I can only repeat, justice has never been
done to the outburst of patriotism which began in Madrid with the _Dos
de Mayo_, 1808. Murat's savage slaughter on that May day made the whole
of Spain rise in almost simultaneous defense, to the astonishment and
admiration of Europe. Saragossa chose for her leader against the invader
the young Count Palafox, assisted by the priest Santiago Sas, and by Tío
Jorge ("Uncle George") with two peasant lieutenants. The French closed
in round the city, but the victory of Bailén in the south raised this
first siege.
Then in December of 1808 four French marshals with twenty thousand men
again surrounded Saragossa, and it must not be overlooked that, built on
the plain, she had slight natural means of defense. "War to the knife"
was the historic answer of the town when called on to surrender, and the
bones of over forty thousand citizens at the end of the siege bore
testimony to the boast. To embarrass the enemy they cut down the olive
plantations around the city, thus destroying with unselfish courage the
revenue of a generation, for it takes some twenty years for the olive
tree to bear fruit. They sacrificed all personal rights to private
property by breaking down the partitions from house to house till every
block was turned into a well-defended fortress. Organized by the
intelligent Countess of Burita, the women enrolled themselves in
companies to serve in the hospitals and to carry food and ammunition to
the fighters; a girl of the people, Ajustina of Aragon, whom Byron
immortalized as the Maid of Saragossa, worked the gun of an
artillery-man through a fiery assault. Ajustina lived for fifty years
after her famous day, always showing the same vigorous equilibrium of
character; though Ferdinand VII rewarded her with the commission of an
officer, she seldom made use of the uniform of her rank nor let
adulation change the humble course of her life. The siege lasted up to
the end of February. In the beginning of that month the daily deaths
were five hundred, the living were not able to bury the dead, and a pest
soon bred; the atmosphere was such that the slightest wound gangrened.
Sir John Carr, who visited Spain the year of the siege, heard detailed
accounts from officers who had taken part in it: "The smoke of gunpowder
kept the city in twilight darkness, horribly illumined by the fire that
issued from the cannon of the enemy. In the intervals which succeeded
these discharges, women and children were beheld in the street writhing
in the agonies of death, yet scarcely a sigh or moan was heard. Priests
were seen, as they were rushing to meet the foe, to kneel by the side
of the dying, and dropping their sabers, to take the cross from their
bosoms and administer the consolations of their religion, during which
they exhibited the same calmness usually displayed in the chambers of
sickness." Even after the French had forced an entrance into the city,
there continued for weeks a room to room struggle: "Each house has to be
taken separately," Marshall Lannes wrote to Napoleon, "it is a war that
horrifies." "At length the city demolished, the inhabitants worn out by
disease, fighting and famine, the besieged were obliged with broken
hearts to surrender, February 21, 1809, after having covered themselves
with glory during one of the most memorable sieges in the annals of war,
which lasted sixty-three days." (_Travels in Spain_, Sir John Carr
K.C.). Truly can the _testarudo aragonés_ of Iberian blood boast of the
title of his capital, _siempre heróica_!
The Aragonese is manly, enduring, and stubborn; the special laws of this
independent province, the _Fueros_, are worth close study from those
interested in the gradual steps of man's self-government; under an
ostensible monarchy they gave republican institutions. This is an
address to the King: "We, who count for as much as you and have more
power than you, we elect you king in order that you may guard our
privileges and liberties; and not otherwise." Nice language for a
Hapsburg or a Bourbon to hear! Aragon was united early, by a royal
marriage, to Catalonia, and a few centuries later Ferdinand's union with
Isabella bound both provinces to Castile, Ferdinand also conquering
Navarre; it was under the first of the Bourbon kings, Philip V, that
Aragon lost her treasured _Fueros_.
We saw nothing of the neighboring Navarre, and I cannot say we saw much
of sturdy Aragon, since Saragossa was the only stopping-place, but a
long day on the train going south gave us a fair idea of its general
character. And constantly through the day rose the remembrance that it
was here in this kingdom happened the delightful Duchess adventure.
Never has the scene been equaled,--that witty, high-bred lady and
_hermano Sancho_ of the adorable platitudes and proverbs--("_Sesenta mil
satanases te lleven á ti y á tus refranes_"! even the patient Don
exclaimed)--brother Sancho quite unembarrassed--was he not a _cristiano
viejo_?--stooping to kiss her dainty hand.
The landscape of the province was rather desolate, though relieved from
monotony by the snow-covered wall of the Pyrenees that continued
unbroken in the distance to our left. The Spanish side of the great
range of mountains is abrupt in comparison with the French slopes, which
are gay with fashionable spas, and fertile with slow, winding rivers,
such as the Garonne. In Spain the rivers descend with such rapidity that
they pour away their life-giving waters in prodigal spring floods, and
during the rest of the year the land suffers from drought; there is a
saying here that it is easier to mix mortar with wine than with water.
It happened that on our train was a band of young soldiers returning to
their homes after their military service, as irrepressible as escaped
young colts. Such songs and merriment! Such family scenes at each
station! Mothers and little sisters, blushing cousins and neighbors had
flocked down from the villages on the Pyrenees slopes to welcome them. A
touch of nature makes the world akin; we found ourselves waving, too, as
the train drew away, leaving the returned lad in the midst of his
rejoicing family. At the fortress-crowned town of Monzón we saw the last
of our happy fellow travelers. There a young soldier led his comrades to
be presented to a majestic old man with a plaid shawl flung over his
shoulder like a toga, and the son's expression of pride in the noble
patriarch was a thing not soon forgotten. In Spain few journeys lack a
primary human interest, something to give food to heart or soul.
MINOR CITIES OF CATALONIA
Romanesque is the Trappist of architecture, ... on its knees in the
dust, singing with lowered head in a plaintive voice the psalms of
penitence.... This mystic Romanesque suggests the idea of a robust
faith, a manly patience, a piety as secure as its walls. It is the
true architecture of the cloister.... There is fear of sin in these
massive vaults and fear of a God whose rigours never slackened till
the coming of the Son. Gothic on the contrary is less fearful, the
lowered eyes are lifted, the sepulchral voices grow angelic....
Romanesque allegorizes the Old Testament, and Gothic the
New.--J.-K. HUYSMANS.
In his valuable book on Spanish churches, Street is justly enthusiastic
over the form that Gothic architecture took in the province of
Catalonia, and especially over the now unused Cathedral of Lérida, which
he calls the finest and purest early-pointed church in Europe. It was
such praise that induced us to stop over in the dull, little city,
crowned by the hill where the ancient Cathedral stands. Its history of
ten sieges, and Velasquez's "Philip IV on horseback entering Lérida in
triumph," somehow had suggested a grandiose impression that is far from
lived up to by the modern town.
A pause of three hours between trains seemed to give ample time to see
the Cathedral, but the scramble into which the visit to Lérida
degenerated was proof that no limited period is ample time in this
country of leisurely ease. Could we have gone direct to the citadel, all
had been well, but as the hill is now a fort, with the old church turned
into a dormitory for soldiers, much red tape was required to visit it.
We hurried along the interminable crowded street that stretches beside
the river, asking right and left for the office of the military
governor. Wrongly directed, we burst into the somnolent quarters of the
city authorities and made our request for a permit. With a slow dignity
that no flurried haste could move, the provincial governor sent us to
the private house of the military big-wig. There a precious half hour
went by in the drawing-room with his handsome wife, who did not seem
sorry to break the monotony of her exile by the strangers' visit. In
came the genial governor waving the permit backward and forward for the
ink to dry, and another half hour of social chatting went by, the very
ink of Spain being gifted with dignified slowness. A soldier was put at
our disposal to serve as guide, a young man as tranquil as his
superior, for we climbed the hill at a snail's pace, and once inside the
fort were stopped here and there by sentries who, letter by letter, it
seemed to our impatience, spelled out the written paper. When finally we
stood before the Cathedral, the soldier escort told us we must pause
there while he went to seek the commandant of the fort. Precious minute
after minute went by, till at last, the clock telling us we must soon be
starting back to the station, we took the bull by the horns and entered
the church without further delay.
A strange spectacle presented itself. In every direction were ranged
cots, clothes hung about and washing troughs added to the confusion. The
beautiful old church had been floored half way up its piers and down
these improvised rooms we could see other rows of narrow beds. It was so
cluttered that I could hardly get oriented; where was the nave? which
were the transepts? We could see that the capitols of the pillars were
grandly carved, that here was the beautiful clearness of form, the noble
solidity of early Gothic, but the confusion of the soldiers' dormitory
made it impossible to study the church with any satisfaction. Except for
the architect, Lérida to-day hardly repays a visit. The soldiers stood
round in astonishment at such unexpected visitors, so we were soon glad
to confine our examination to the exterior portals and the tower.
Just as we were on the point of leaving, the commandant appeared, shook
us warmly by the hand and prepared to take us over the fort. Like the
military governor and his wife, he beamed with the interest of something
new; the cordiality of all was perfect, but nothing, nothing, could
hurry them. We explained that we had come to see the church alone, that
our time unfortunately was limited, and we must now leave to catch the
train for Poblet. He took a disappointed and bewildered farewell; up on
his citadel in the land of pause and leisure such new-world notions of
speed were disconcerting. With a hasty look at the noblest early-pointed
church in Europe, a grateful handshake to the colonel, we hurried down
the precipitous hill and jumped on the train just as it was moving out,
our valises being flung in to us desperately at the final moment.
Soon the broken, fertile hills of the province of Catalonia closed in
around us, and the country grew so charming that we were glad to have
planned to pass a night near Poblet. From the train we saw the prominent
brown mass of the monastery buildings, but, of course, we ran on some
miles before stopping in a station. There we found a Catalan cart,
two-wheeled with a barrel vaulted awning, and drove to the primitive
hotel at Espluga. The landlord offered us his cart to drive out to
Poblet, two miles away, but the bumps and ruts of the road from the
station made us prefer to walk. The ill-kept roads and the not wholly
cultivated fields told clearly that the industrial monks were no longer
masters of the valley.
Poblet stood for monastic pride, only nobles entered as monks, the
mitered abbot was a count-palatine and ruled the peasantry as their
feudal lord; the revenues were enormous, but as Benedictines are
invariably cultivated men, they were spent on ancient manuscripts, and
in the ceaseless energy of building. When the mob came from the
neighboring towns in 1835 to sack the convent, they shattered the very
treasure they sought. In their blind ignorance they did not know that
chiseled alabaster, wrought doors and windows, and carven cloisters,
represented the hidden gold they were seeking. This uprising in Spain
against the monasteries, the "_pecado de sangre_," was a political more
than a religious affair; in the first Carlist war, the countryside here
was Constitutional, while the monks of Poblet were firm for the
Pretender Don Carlos. The havoc the mob wrought is heart-rending; and
yet though empty and partly destroyed, Poblet is still one of the
finest things in the Peninsula.
On our way out to it we happened to take a wrong turning, which
fortunately led us to encircle the walled-in mass of buildings before
entering, and gave us some idea of their great extent. It was a
veritable town; there were hospices for visitors, hospitals, a king's
palace, an abbot's palace, a village of workshops for the artisans,
since in every age the monks had been builders. Every style was
represented, each stage of Romanesque and Gothic; Poblet is indeed
to-day one of the best places in Europe to study architecture, and the
guardian told us that students from every country flock here in the
summer time. Artists too are a familiar sight sketching the beautiful
vistas, the arched library, the pillared _sala capitular_ where effigies
of the abbots lie so haughtily that one can almost understand the fury
of the rabble, the imposing length and strength of the novices'
dormitory where swallows now flit, the pure early Gothic of King
Martin's palace, the odd little _glorieta_ of the chief cloister.
Pleasant quarters can be found in the caretaker's house, which is more
convenient than living at Espluga down the valley. We wandered for hours
through courtyards and cloisters that show the subtly simple proportions
of Catalan art. The church of the monastery was built during that rare
moment when Romanesque turned to pointed work; it is very narrow and
severe and impressive. The once superb alabaster _retablo_ is mutilated,
and the tombs of the Aragonese kings are scattered. The bones of Jaime
_el Conquistador_ are now in Tarragona Cathedral. Poblet served as the
Escorial of the rulers of Aragon and Catalonia, and is many times more
worth visiting than Philip II's rigid pile in Castile. I strongly urge
everyone who goes to Spain to turn aside from the beaten path to see
this unrivaled Cistercian monastery, which it is no exaggeration to say
is one of the most artistic groups of buildings in the world. The
evening of our visit the sunset glorified the pretty rural valley whose
brooks bounded merrily down the hillside. "Laugh of the mountain, lyre
of bird and tree," Lope de Vega calls the gurgling, clear waters.
We took a long hour to loiter back to Espluga, accompanied by a racy old
character, Sabina, and her tourist donkey. The peasants returning from
cutting wood up in the mountains above us gave a new greeting, "_Santas
Noches_," reminiscent, no doubt, of the former masters of the valley.
Then the following day we took the train south of Tarragona, to the
"Little Rome" that is the reputed birthplace of Pontius Pilate, of
which Martial sang, and where Augustus Cæsar wintered. The landscape was
a delight, showing the most unrivaled cultivation of soil I have ever
seen, flowering orchards, fields of wheat and poppies, the very
vineyards that Pliny has described; the sensation of the earth's lavish
bounty, of the fecundity of the sun and the intoxication of growing
things was overwhelming. And a week before we had been freezing in
Sigüenza!
On the train was an amusing company. Some dozen people came to one of
the stations en route to escort an alert, keen-eyed little bishop, who
mounted nimbly among us. Everyone bent to kiss his episcopal ring, and
even when some shrewd business men entered the carriage later, and saw
that a bishop was its occupant, they too knelt to kiss his hand in
salutation, republican Catalans though they were. I could not take my
eyes off the delightful little prelate, so happily unconscious of his
purple satin skull cap with its St. Patrick's green rosette on top, and
his equally vivid green woolen gloves. Then when we reached Tarragona,
down he stepped briskly, and instead of entering an episcopal carriage
as we expected, he got into a public diligence and drove off like a true
democratic Spaniard.
The Mediterranean at Tarragona was brilliantly, startlingly blue. As it
burst on us in its sun dazzling wonder it seemed as if the bleak high
table-land of the country behind was a nightmare of the imagination.
Surely a whole continent must separate such luxury and such aridness.
We wandered about the white, glaring city, glad to bask in warm sun and
drink in the salt air, happy too to be back again by the inland sea that
has known the great nations of the earth, to be part again of the
marvelous belt of ancient civilization that encircles its blue water.
Tarragona was surrounded by cyclopean walls, the huge boulders of Rome
below, and the smaller mediæval stones above. The blinding sun made the
Cathedral so dark that it was long before we could see our way about. It
is solemn and very earnest, with a fortress-like apse, and with
cloisters the most perfect in the country. The doorways and capitols are
so curiously carved that they merit detail study. The Roman urns, a
Moorish prayer niche, and so on, down through the centuries, showed
again how clearly architecture in Spain tells her history. The chief
_retablo_ is of extreme beauty, with large statues and smaller scenes
combined harmoniously; in it the restraint that distinguishes the
Catalan school is very apparent.
On leaving Tarragona, the railway followed the coast for some time,
then to our disappointment branched inland to loop round to Barcelona.
When we realized that we could have taken the line that runs the whole
way by the sea, we were annoyed at our mistake, though later we were
grateful to it, for the inland route gave a noble view of Montserrat,
that astonishing serrated ridge of gray rock, a cragged comb of stone,
geologically a puzzle of formation, which abruptly rises out of the
plain. For an hour the train drew nearer and nearer to it, so we got an
admirable view. Our proposed ascent of the mountain was never to take
place, and this was to be our only glimpse of the shrine to which
thousands of pilgrims flock each year, where St. Ignatius Loyola sought
counsel and made his vigil of the armor. When Barcelona was reached the
illness which had been fastening itself closer since the unfortunate
drive to Alcántara declared itself unmistakably, and many proposed
excursions, such as Montserrat, Manresa, Ripoll, with its unique portal,
had to be foregone. To leave a country with some of its best things
unvisited is an open invitation to return,--which theory may be good
philosophy, but is not wholly adequate in stifling regrets.
BARCELONA
"He who loves not, lives not."
RAMÓN LULL.
"Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof,
The clustered stems that spread in boughs disleaved,
Through which the organ blew a dream of storm
That shut the heart up in tranquillity."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
I wonder if, to the reader, when hearing the name Barcelona there rises
one sovereign picture,--Isabella and Ferdinand's reception of Columbus
on his return from the New World. It may have been some print seen in
childhood that impressed itself indelibly on my imagination, but always
with the name Barcelona I seemed to see _los Reyes Católicos_ seated on
their throne listening to the man whose genius was so well bodied forth
in his face and bearing. Around stood gentle-eyed natives of the
Antilles, with their ornaments of pearls and gold, lures that were to
rouse the rapacity which exterminated those Arcadian peoples, and to
break the heart of their great discoverer. Heart-break and defeat lay in
the future, this was an hour of enthusiastic hope. When Columbus had
finished his peroration, the Queen and the court fell on their knees in
a spontaneous burst of exaltation, and together intoned that king's hymn
of victory, the _Te Deum_.
It was the unknown Barcelona that called up this scene of Spain's heroic
hour; the city as it is to-day has blurred and dimmed the picture. There
is a striking statue of Columbus on a column that faces the harbor, but
it is not of him nor of his patrons that you think here. The Castle of
Segovia, the walls of Avila or Toledo, the Alhambra hill, Seville's
Alcázar, these are romantic spots that make
"the high past appear
Affably real and near,
For all its grandiose air caught from the mien of kings";
but I defy the imaginative lover of old times to call up the romantic in
the modern capital of Catalonia; seething with industrial life, with
revolutionary new ideas, she is too aggressive and prosperous for
sentimental regrets.
Barcelona's position as an industrial force cannot be called unexpected.
She has ever been in the stir of big events, Italy's rival in commerce
through the Middle Ages, when she served as the port of entry and exit
for the armies and fleets. In all times she has enjoyed a climate that
may well be the despair of commercial cities of the north; the summer
heats are tempered by sea-breezes, the winters are warmer than at
Naples. Hearing reports of roses in bloom there in January, we had
dreaded the heat of a May in the city, but during the five weeks of our
stay, the bracing spring air was like that of New England. Her natural
setting, too, is good; the harbor guarded by the lofty fort of Monjuich,
while behind stretch mountains which lay far from the mediæval town, but
to-day, when Barcelona covers an area twelve times as large, they are
immediate suburbs and their names are familiar signs on the tramcars.
The province of Catalonia is perhaps the most individual of the thirteen
strikingly different provinces of the Peninsula. The Catalan is more
Spanish than French certainly, but he is always more Catalan than
Spanish. Independent, self-interested, intractable, strong-headed as an
Aragonese, industrious, successful, in him is found slight trace of the
hidalgo of Castile. It is hard to believe that this hive of born
business men is in a land whose ideal of happiness is to do nothing. The
idleness, the high-bred courtesy of the Castilian, are as unfamiliar
here as in the Stock Exchange of New York; indeed Barcelona, with her
streets filled with well-dressed, briskly-moving crowds, each intent on
his own business, is more allied to the new world than to the old.
Adieu, indeed, to the toga-like capes, to mantillas, to midnight
serenades. A Catalan has no time to waste chatting by alluring _rejas_.
Catalonia has been called the Lancashire of Spain, and Barcelona its
Manchester. If the comparison is fit in regard to commercial success, it
is inappropriate in one respect, for, built by a Latin race, to whom is
natural a sense of beauty, Barcelona, though as keen after money as the
English town, has cared better for her interests. The sunlight is not
darkened by the miles of factory chimneys that so oppress the heart in
the black country. There are hundreds of belching chimneys, but they are
kept out of sight in the valleys behind, where each factory stands
isolated in the fields, often in a planted enclosure: this leaves the
city proper free of traffic, smoke, and the whirr of machinery. The gay
Rambla is edged with shops, and handsome apartment houses line the
tree-planted avenues. Few towns have the force of will and continued
patience to build themselves symmetrically; they are generally the
result of hap-hazard, and only when too late the possibility of some
river or sea front is discerned. Barcelona realized some fifty years ago
that she was to be one of the conglomerations that modern cities tend to
become, so she called on her engineers for plans, and from one of those
submitted she chose an able design; _Ensanche_, extension, is the name
for the new districts. Of course if a whole city consisted of these
wide, regular streets, it would be monotonous, but here was already
enough of narrow-lane picturesqueness to satisfy the artist. The walls
that encircle the congested older town were pulled down, the opened
space was turned into an esplanade, and radiating from this nucleus,
streets two hundred feet wide were laid and were immediately planted
with double rows of plane trees. To-day the vistas down these
far-stretching avenues, the sunlight filtering through the leaves on
groups of nurses and children, the rapidly-moving crowds, the smart
two-wheeled Catalan carts, the whirling automobiles, give the city an
air of joyous prosperity. Behind the big apartment houses, the law
requires a planted space to be kept open, so that people of very
mediocre income live in houses and in districts that only the rich of
other towns can command.
The material success of the people has found an outlet in their
architecture: Poblet, school for the builder, is not far away. Since
some of the houses were put up during the exaggerated phase of _l'art
nouveau_, they are overloaded with whirling ornament, quite as bad as
Karlsruhe, but the majority are in dignified good taste: take, for
instance, the new University buildings, or that brown stone block near
the beginning of the beautiful Paseo Garcia, Nos. 2 and 4, if I remember
rightly. The sculptors too have inherited the skill of the early masters
of Catalonia. Most of the modern churches (not Señor Gaudi's curious
experiment, the Church of the Holy Family!) are built consistently in
one style, the walls carved _in situ_ as in old times; the effect is
such that one prays the days of painted plaster may never return. It was
good to notice, too, that the new churches discarded the tinsel-decked
altars of the eighteenth century, the bane of Peninsula shrines.
Barcelona builds as a rule in the Catalan manner; the early architects
of the province, though influenced by Lombard and French masters, may be
said to have achieved a national style. It is worthy of enthusiasm with
its singular purity of line, a proportion that is hardly Spanish. Like
Chartres, it has "the distinguished slenderness of an eternal
adolescence." In nothing is it akin to Isabella's efflorescent
Plateresque-Gothic. Its clustered piers, and arches carried high aloft,
have been used as successfully in civil as in religious architecture,
witness the Lonja, or Exchange.
The new town, with its prosperous homes and shady avenues, tended to
make us overlook old Barcelona, yet we only had to step aside from the
thronged Rambla and we found ourselves in dark, narrow streets, that at
dusk especially made us shiver with apprehension. Forcibly they warned
us that this was one of the most turbulent cities in Europe, where
lawless socialists gather and plot, where some recent bomb-throwing
outrages were the reason for groups of the _Guardias Civiles_ on every
corner. The red _gorro_, the Phrygian cap worn by the city porters,
seemed too realistic when met in dark lanes, where the men pushed rudely
by, your sex here no prerogative. With Philistine relief we used to
return to the sanitary, orderly avenues of the _Ensanche_, patrolled by
placid policemen in crimson broadcloth coats. A word of praise must be
given to some of the municipal institutions of Barcelona, such as the
corps of city porters, each with a small district in which to render
help. The _hospicio_, or work-house, is considered one of the best
organized in Europe. As long ago as 1786 an English traveler, the Rev.
Joseph Townsend, wrote of another of Barcelona's institutions: "No
hospital that I have seen upon the continent is so well administered as
the general hospital of this city. It is peculiar in its attention to
convalescents, for whom a separate habitation is provided, that after
they are dismissed from the sick wards they may have time to recover
their strength." Also her excellent city police are worthy of praise.
The rest of Spain could emulate them, for it was our experience that
the local police were an incompetent set; we soon learned never to apply
to them in case of difficulty, but to wait till an alert Civil Guard[37]
passed, when we were sure of intelligent help.
[Illustration: CLOISTERS OF SAN PABLO DEL CAMPO, BARCELONA]
It is the old town, congested and gloomy though it is, that, set side by
side with the new, makes Barcelona unique. There are to be found
primitive churches, such as Santa Ana, or San Pablo del Campo,[38] once,
like St. Martin-in-the-Fields, placed among meadows; dim old churches
similar in design, Byzantine cross form with a low dome over the center
and with cloisters that make solemn oases of repose in the busy city. A
later period built churches whose somber walls tower high above the
crowded houses; such are Santa María del Pino and Santa María del Mar,
characterized by wide hall-like naves. In the width of their nave lay
the triumph of the Catalan masters. It was in the last named church that
a pious woman of the town noticed one day a gray, emaciated man resting,
among a group of children, on the steps of the altar, in his face a
light of convincing holiness. Fresh from the spiritual battle in the
Cave of Manresa, a grand self-mastery the reward of his struggle, no
wonder the face of Ignatius compelled the reverence of the passer by.
The Cathedral of Barcelona is a typically Catalan-Gothic church. For an
_eglesia mayor_ it is small, but so true are its proportions and so
skillfully is it lighted that it gives the effect of grandeur. As the
clearstory windows are mere circles, on first entering one is in
complete darkness, but gradually out of the gloom looms that loveliest
feature of the building, the chancel, lighted by rare old glass, with
slender piers and lofty stilted arches rising from pavement to vaulting
in an unforgettable beauty of symmetry. The _retablo_ of the High Altar
is in character, articulate and graceful, unlike the usual, overladen
reredos of Spain. Incense, prayer, soaring aspiration, the symbolization
of this presbytery is a perfect thing: again vividly came the conviction
that temples such as these have had and ever will have a vital influence
on a race.
Barcelona may be a shrewd commercial center, that in its material pride,
in order not to be classed with the improvident, brutally repudiates
most of the _cosas de España_; she may print books whose every word is
an insult to government and religion; she is still deeply Spanish in the
earnest piety of the larger proportion of her citizens. A Catalan may
tell you, especially if you belong to a northern race and a different
creed, that what you see is all form, lip-religion, that the men here,
like intelligent men the world over, are free-thinkers. It is an easy
matter for the prejudiced visitor to get all his misconceptions
confirmed by a native, no one is more bitter in abuse of his country
than a Catalan. Fortunately, one has one's own eyes wherewith to see.
But first I must quote from a recent letter to the _London Times_ from
the Rev. James R. Youlden, in answer to a pessimist on the religious
condition of Spain:
"In the city of Barcelona, the largest, most modern and most
industrial of Spanish cities, the good attendance at Mass, not only
of women and children but of the men, is most remarkable, as is
also the number of communicants. I have myself often given Holy
Communion on a Sunday morning in the church of San Pedro to such
large numbers, fully one-third of them men, that my arms have ached
in conveying the sacred particles. Masses are celebrated every
hour, and in some churches every half hour from 5 A.M. to 12 midday
in all the twenty-four parish churches of the city (to say nothing
of numerous convent chapels) in the presence of large and often
crowded congregations. A visit to the church at any time from 8
till 12 on any Sunday morning would dispel some of the illusions of
your Madrid correspondent."
A good test of the sincerity of religious conviction is what it costs
the purse; new churches, like those of Barcelona, are not built by
lip-religion. I spent several Sunday mornings sitting on one of the side
benches of the Cathedral, learning that the Catalan, disunited from his
mother land on many points, is ineradicably national in his creed. This
was Spain, with the grave reverence of the smallest child, where the
church is a loved home, a frequented refuge for meditation and
strengthening prayer. Now a handsome and satisfied matron enters,
followed by five or six children, the boys dressed as English sailors,
little Battenbergs, the girls with hats like flower gardens; they
cluster round their mother at the door, and she passes each the blessed
water with which to sign themselves. Behind this group come some alert
young artisans; each instantly drops on both knees to make his
salutation to the Altar--lip-religion does not care to disarray its
Sunday suit like this--and each blesses himself in the swift national
way, with the final carrying to the lips of the thumb and first finger
crossed, a symbol of fidelity to his faith. May this custom never die
out in Spain! From the first hour of her eight hundred years' crusade,
from Cavadonga to Granada, her religion has been her glory, interwoven
with her nationality, like that of the Jews of old, and if she
understands her enduring interests, this Christian faith to which she
has clung so loyally will be her aspiration in the future. When her men
pass the High Altar without salute, when the street children cease to
run in daily to kneel before a shrine, throwing their scanty skirts over
their heads if a handkerchief is lacking, when politics and religion are
synonymous, that day Spain may be called degenerate, but not now, while
lamps of sincere conviction burn before her altars.
Ascension Thursday fell on a perfect day in late May, the warm sunshine
tempered by a sea breeze; everyone was out gallantly in new summer
suits. The houses were hung with the national flag, but the fairest
decoration of the city were the hundreds of First Communicants who
thronged the streets, accompanied by proud mothers and relatives. Each
little girl in her quaint, long, white skirt, tulle veil and wreath of
flowers, carried a new pearl chaplet or prayer book, and each boy wore a
bow of white satin on his left arm. Few things are more appealing than
an innocent-eyed child on this solemn day, and in after years, for those
who have known such hours of purity, few memories are more indelible. As
I passed through the old city, its dark streets lightened by these
groups, I could not help exclaiming, "Why, when she can present a scene
of such loveliness and hope, must Barcelona so blindly envy her neighbor
across the Pyrenees!" Not long after leaving Spain, I stopped in a
village in the mountains of Dauphiny, half Catholic, half Huguenot. Both
churches were practically empty. The children of the town, except those
of a few stanch families, walked in a public procession to honor the
mayor, behind a banner bearing the inscription, "Ni Dieu, ni maître."
One cannot deny there are many in Barcelona whose aspiration would be
satisfied with a similar procession in her streets, but the majority
still prefer an Ascension Thursday of First Communicants.
Before the west door of the Cathedral are remains of ancient houses
which, like Italy, bear the signs of guilds, for this city always
differed from the rest of Spain in looking on trade as an honorable
career. A street behind the Cathedral leads to other specimens of
domestic architecture. Be sure not to be discouraged by the cold Herrara
front of the House of the Deputation. It masks a Gothic building which,
if properly restored, as well as the Casa Consistorial, or Town Hall,
which stands opposite to it, would make of this formal plaza one of the
most interesting squares in Europe. The city's renewed pride in the
Gothic of its province, her skillful architects, her wealth, should
tempt her to the task. Be sure to go into both these buildings. In the
Town Hall are some lovely _ajimez_ windows that show the restraint of
the Catalan style: they attenuated the features as far as strength would
allow, but they knew just where to stop. The result is grace, lightness,
a subtle something of proportion. In the Deputation House hangs the
Catalan painter Fortuny's "Battle of Tetuán," unfinished, with a
dashing rainbow-hued charge of horsemen that stirs the memory of Spain's
grand forays into Africa.
In exploring Barcelona one notices unfamiliar names on the shops, here
are no longer Alvarez, González, Pérez, García, but strange Catalan
names, such as Bosch, Cla, Puig, Catafalch, Llordachs, Petz. On every
side, in shops, in the tramcars, one hears the dialect spoken, rather
rough sounding and wholly unintelligible to the traveler who knows only
Castilian. In no other of Spain's provinces is so much made of local
differences. The names of the streets are written twice on the street
corners, in Catalan and in Castilian, a ridiculous arrangement, for in
these proper names the differences are slight; as _Calle de Cortes_, and
_Correr de les Corts_. To appease his thirst for self-assertion, the
practical Catalan has marked his streets in a less adequate way than the
rest of the Peninsula he looks down on: the clearness of the street
directions, each tile generally holding one bold letter, had been a
satisfaction all over Spain. This brings me into hot water at once, the
vexed ever palpitating Catalan question. Is this province, Spain's
richest and most progressive, to continue under the Spanish crown, to
ally herself with France, or to be independent? She tells us in anger,
she pays more than her share of the taxes, that she is an isolated
commercial and industrial force in a nation that is preëminently
agricultural, whose laws are made to foster the farmer at the expense of
the trader: the loss of the colonies was an advantage for the rest of
the country whose crying need is population, but for Barcelona it was a
severe blow. Spain has hard problems to solve, with thirteen inhabitants
to the square mile in some provinces and one hundred and eight to the
mile here in Catalonia.
Books of open sedition are freely published, one picks them up in the
waiting-room of a doctor's office, in the bank, on the stalls. This is
no new phase. From early times Catalonia has only considered her own
interests, now joining with France against Spain, now changing sides, as
she thought to benefit herself; for her the nation is a secondary
consideration. History proves she has been ineradicably selfish; hence
her success, a sophist may say, but there is something higher than
self-aggrandizement, the success of giving her strength to reforming the
abuses she proclaims. No one denies there is crying need for political
and financial reform at Madrid, though it is not to be brought about by
such a book as Señor Pompeo Gener's "Cosas de España," which but widens
the breach. One discerns it in the ignoble jealousy of the Castilian,
which rankles in the Catalan mind; for instance in speaking of
Castilian literature of the nineteenth century he stops short at Fernán
Caballero and makes no mention of the distinguished modern novelists. A
writer who holds up Herbert Spencer as the ne plus ultra of philosophy
(Spanish free-thinkers are a generation behind in certain phases of
thought) need not be taken too seriously, but the "Cosas de España"
voices what is serious.
"Ah Castillo Castillano! why have we ever known you!" exclaims the
Catalan poet Briz, in his celebrated poem, "Cuatro pals de Sanch," the
blazon of the province, its four red bars. "If to us remains only one of
our four bars of blood, to you we owe the loss, thou kingdom of the
castles and the hungry lions. But, O Castillo Castillano, alas for you,
if you break our last _pals de sanch_!" This bitter spirit of revolt
makes this grand old province that should be Spain's bulwark, Spain's
weakness instead.
Would Catalonia gain by any of the changes she dreams of? Surely under
the formalism of France, her self-willed independence would chafe and
break loose, for independence is a characteristic of all Spaniards, in
all ages, now and always; one cannot exaggerate it. Also the heart of
the province is too deeply religious to live under the "Liberté" of her
neighbor. In the United States religious liberty is little talked of,
but is a solid fact, wherein the new world gives a needed lesson to the
old, with its narrow horizons and petty disputes. In France, where this
liberty is vaunted, it is a farce: no Catalan could long tolerate such
freedom. Again, if this small state were independent, where would she
stand? A thought that strikes one forcibly after a tour of the province,
whose towns, Gerona, Lérida, Tarragona, are of mediocre importance.
Catalonia independent would be practically one city, Barcelona, whose
trade the central government could cripple by prohibitory tariffs. Her
pride would suffer more as one of the smallest, weakest states in
Europe, than it now suffers under its lawful king, part of an old race
that once led the world, and which if only this discontented daughter
would generously help, has red blood enough to again play a prominent
part. Spain needs just such help as the Catalan can give, she needs his
grit, his industry, his progressiveness. Could he now bear the
overweighted burden in a better spirit, before many years it would be
lightened. The north is awakening to industrial life; Bilbao, Santander,
Gijón, Coruña, Vigo, will soon be strong trading centers, and the older
commercial city can gather supporters to work for fiscal autonomy, since
the chief grievance is the centralized system of government in Madrid.
Let her agitate in a constitutional way for a system like the separate
state arrangement of our union. The opposition of two vigorous sides is
a sign of life in a nation. Discussion means change and advancement. For
full vigor both sides are needed, the conservative to serve as brake on
the democrat's too swiftly-turning wheels. An important cause of Spain's
decay,[39] according to Don Juan Valera, came from all classes thinking
the same way; drunk with pride on the ending of the centuries of crusade
against their Moorish invader, with the discovery of a new continent the
people lay back in slothful inertia, without the prick of dispute to
rouse them. Opposition and struggle are essential to vigor, but
disloyalty saps a nation's strength. Let them strike straight-front
blows from the shoulder, for Madrid needs rousing, but let them not stab
in the back. Often when wandering among the old tombs of Spain, those
effigies of the grand-masters of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara, the
plumed and helmeted knights of the noble brows, I recalled some ringing
lines of Newbolt's. Every boy of Barcelona should know them by heart,
they are not so needed in Castile:
"To set the cause above renown,
To love the game above the prize,
To honour while you strike him down
The foe that comes with fearless eyes.
To count the life of battle good,
And dear the land that gave you birth,
And dearer yet the brotherhood
That binds the brave of all the earth."
Her intense local patriotism has a more sympathetic side than
double-naming her streets and bearing a jealous grudge against her
central government. This is the revival of her provincial literature.
The interest in dialects and folk lore is a tendency common to many
countries to-day, but in Catalonia the movement is on a grand scale.
There newspapers and magazines in dialect are circulated, poems and
novels are printed not for the literary alone but for the populace. Men
of undeniable genius have written in the local tongue, one of the first
to use it being that strangely interesting character of the thirteenth
century, Ramón Lull, seneschal of Majorca, troubadour, mystic hermit,
philosopher, missionary, and his final glory, martyr for the Faith; he
is honored in the Church as _el beato_ Raimundo Lulio. By less than ten
years he missed being the contemporary of the gentle Assisian, the habit
of whose tertiaries he wore; he wandered through Italy while Dante was
writing his visions, in that wonderful century called dark, that can
claim a Thomas Aquinas, a Bonaventura, an Abertus Magnus, an Elizabeth
of Hungary, a Dominic, an Anthony of Padua, and that scattered over
Europe such witnesses of its upleap of aspiration as Amiens, Chartres,
Westminster, Salisbury, Cologne, Strasburg, León, Toledo, Siena.
Lull was born in the capital of the Balearic Islands, which lie a day's
sail from Barcelona, and having passed an apprenticeship at court under
Jaime _el Conquistador_ of Aragon, he led in Palma a life of pleasure
and dissipation till his romantic conversion at thirty-two. Núñez de
Arce has enshrined the legend in verse: so violent was the seneschal's
pursuit of a fair lady of the city that he once on horseback followed
her into church to the scandal of the people. The poet gives the final
scene that cured his passion, when she who was so exquisite without, to
repell his advances, exposed to him a hidden cancer. The shock changed
the worldling to a saint. Distributing his goods to the poor, he retired
to a mountain, and spent some years in prayer. Later in his energetic
career he returned to this hermitage to pass again periods in meditation
for his spiritual strengthening, being the first to show that special
faculty of the Spanish mystic, the double life of solitary ecstasy and
active charity. The desire to convert the Mohammedan took such
possession of his soul that at forty he put himself to school, like the
great Basque patron of a later day, and in Paris he studied logic and
Arabic in preparation for his future career.
Lull attained fourscore years, the latter half of his life being
dominated by his burning purpose to convert Islam. One pope after
another as he mounted the chair of Peter was beseiged by this
astonishing man, and he wandered from court to court urging the
universities to teach the oriental languages, that missionaries for the
East might be fittingly prepared. Little success crowned his efforts for
popes and kings had troubles nearer home. The Catalan enthusiast came at
an inopportune moment; the last two Crusades under St. Louis of France
had left discouragement behind. However, before his death he had the
satisfaction of seeing chairs of Hebrew and Arabic founded by a pope, by
a French king, and in Spain and England. The indefatigable man visited
Austria, Poland, and Greece; he advocated the protection of the Greeks
against Moslem incursions, a result only achieved in our own day; he
stopped in Cypress, traversed Armenia, Palestine, and Egypt, zealously
expounding the Gospel. His first visit as an apostle to Northern Africa
was a failure. There is something touching about this old missionary of
six hundred years ago being driven out of Tunis--he and his loved
library--and embarked with harsh orders never to return. Not in any
spirit of patronage did he labor for the conversion of souls, but wiser
than many to-day he carried with him true knowledge and respect for the
Mohammedans. His liberal intelligence assimulated much that was of value
in their ideas, especially from those heretics of Islam, the Persian
Sufis, or mystics.
A second time when over seventy Lull ventured across to Africa, and
again he--and the books--were violently expelled. I fear our blessed
Raimundo was a bit of a visionary, he thought to convince by
intellectual debate. The king of England learning of the old scholar's
chemical studies, with the curiosity of the period in regard to the
philosopher's stone, invited him to London, and lodged him with the
monks of Westminster Abbey. Chemistry was merely a side issue in the
life of the great missionary. Just short of his eightieth year, with
untiring courage and magnificent faith, he set forth once more on his
final apostleship to the Mohammedan, and once more preached in Egypt,
Jerusalem, and Tunis. At Bugia he was stoned by the furious populace,
who left him for dead on the beach, and some Genoese merchants carried
away his almost lifeless body. Before they reached the harbor of Palma
the martyr had died, and his townsmen buried him with honors in the
church of his master, St. Francis.
Lull's books, the "Ars Magna" and the "Arbor Scientiæ," are filled with
the curious system he evolved for reducing discords. He tried to
co-ordinate and facilitate the operations of the mind, to simplify all
sciences by showing them to be branches of one trunk. Much of his theory
may be fanciful and impractical, but it was a truly suggestive idea
based on the profound truth of the unity of knowledge. He explored many
branches of the human mind, and left works on medicine, theology,
politics, jurisprudence, mathematics and chemistry. The accusation of
alchemy is untenable, for he made his experiments in scientific good
faith, and wrote against astrology. For three centuries, down to the
time of Descartes, Lull was considered a leader of the intellect, and
his books were recommended by the universities of Europe.
The Catalan dialect has been used by men of marked talent in our own
time. The whole of Spain should be as proud of Padre Jacinto Verdaguer,
as all France is of their Provençal, Mistral. Verdaguer's "Atlantada,"
called the best epic of the century, was crowned in 1855 at the Floral
Games, festivals which are held in Barcelona each year, for competitions
in verse and prose, and to revive the national dances.
This intellectual movement rouses the stranger's enthusiasm, and if it
keeps itself dissociated from politics,--those abominable politics that
sink every noble thing they fasten on, patriotism, education, religion,
art,--the revival may prove more than a passing phase. Alert in
literature, in music, in the sciences, in municipal progress, and
commercial success, what need has this city to be jealous of the
capital; they are too different for comparison. Madrid lacks much that
Barcelona can claim; a Catalan could emulate some Castilian qualities.
Each vitally needs the other.
GERONA
AND FAREWELL TO SPAIN
"I count him wise
Who loves so well man's noble memories
He needs must love man's nobler hopes yet more!"
WILLIAM WATSON.
"Una restauración de la vida entera de España no puede tener otro
punto de arranque que la concentración de todas nuestras energías
dentro de nuestro territorio. Hay que cerrar con cerrojos, llaves,
y candados todas las puertas por donde el espíritu español se
escapó de España para derramarse por los cuatro puntos del
horizonte, y por donde hoy espera que ha de venir la salvación; y
en cada una de esas puertas no pondremos un rótulo dantesco que
diga: "Lasciate ogni speranza," sino este otro más consolador, más
humano, muy profundamente humano, imitado de San Ajustín: "Noli
foras ire; in interiore Híspaniæ habitat veritas."
ANGEL GANIVET: "_Idearium Español_."
The day drew near for our leaving Spain. Eight months had passed since
we entered from the north of the Pyrenees isthmus, and now we found
ourselves at its southern exit. They had been months filled with an
absorbing and unexpected interest; we had come into Spain for a mere
autumn tour, and she had forced us to linger. And I must repeat that
I came with the average pessimistic idea that she was a spent and more
or less worthless country, till what I saw about me daily changed me to
a partisan. It was a hard farewell to take now. When Spain is allowed to
show herself as she is, she wins a regard that is like an intense
personal affection.
[Illustration: A STREET STAIRWAY, GERONA]
At dawn on the early day in June set for our departure we left
Barcelona; before night we would be in France, but the leave-taking was
to be broken by some hours in Gerona. As usual it was the fact of its
possessing a first-rate church that determined us to stop. This was to
be the last of the grand cathedrals which more than those of any land,
even of France with their purer art, had realized my ideal of worship
and reverence. As Gerona was in Catalonia, good architecture was to be
expected, but this was better than good. The Cathedral which dominates
the town was worthy of its stirring memories. An imposing flight of
eighty steps, like that of the Ara C[oe]li in Rome, ascends to its west
portal. At the head of this staircase we paused to look out on the
panorama of the Pyrenees--mountain rose behind mountain, the foreground
hills well-wooded, those beyond covered with snow. Here was no stupid
Escorial facing in to a blank wall. The old masters with vivifying
imaginations had brought the glories of nature to worship with them,
had hung as it were in their porch, this lovely landscape.
Within the Cathedral the first impression is its spaciousness. The width
is astonishing; indeed the hall-like nave of Gerona is the widest Gothic
vault in Christendom, and were it longer by two bays, no cathedral of
Europe could have surpassed the effect. The wide nave of Catalan
churches is a national feature that here reaches its acme. The choir of
Gerona is on a smaller scale, and the meeting of the two makes a curious
feature, not bad inside, but in the exterior view extremely ugly.
Probably in time the choir would have been enlarged to fit its monstrous
nave. The men in those days started undertakings as if they could never
die, but later generations have lacked their enthusiastic ambition.
By happy chance we were in time to assist at a last High Mass in a
Spanish cathedral. It is no exaggeration to say one's heart felt heavy
in listening to the solemn chanting, watching the reverence of priests,
acolytes, and congregation, to realize that this was for the last time.
The last time we should see the kiss of peace carried symbolically from
the priest at the altar to the canons in the choir, the last time we
should hear the clamor of the wheel of bells. I looked up to where they
hung on the wall and nodded them a little personal farewell, so often
had they charmed me. Farewell to sedate Spanish piety, to the
devotional unconsciousness of individual prayer. Over the frontier,
during the coming summer at Luchon, I was soon to hear wooden signals
clapped during Mass to guide the wandering attention of the people, to
see the children scamper out in obvious relief.
The chancel of Gerona is a gem. The iron _reja_ that shuts in the
_capilla mayor_ is of the plainest, like a wall of stacked spears
guarding the holy of holies. There is no towering _retablo_, which would
be out of character with slender Catalan piers; instead, behind the
altar is a marvelous reredos of silver carved in scenes, and surmounted
by three Byzantine processional crosses,--all ancient and priceless
enough to be the treasure of a national museum. The altar and the canopy
over it are also of silver, _retablo_ and altar being placed where they
now stand in 1346. The effect of iron _reja_ and precious shrine is
faultlessly artistic; we sigh here for a beauty as completely lost for
our copying as is the tranquil perfection of these gravestones, the
sculptured stelæ of Athens.
The service over, we proceeded to examine the church. The cloisters are
oddly irregular in shape, and look out on the snow-topped Pyrenees. So
beautiful was the prospect that I added this cloister setting to the
dream-cathedral Spain tempts one to build. It would have the cloisters
of Tarragona with this outlook of Gerona's; also Gerona's altar and
_retablo_, though the reredos of Avila and that of Tarragona are worthy
rivals. There would be the grand staircase of this Cathedral, and it
would ascend to a western portal like León's, with Santiago's _Pórtico
de la Gloria_ within; the north and south doors would be Plateresque
from Salamanca and Valladolid. The cathedral would be set on Lérida's
crag, with the city of Toledo climbing to it and the Tagus churning
below. The nave would be Seville's, and Seville's windows would light it
and her organ thunder there. The choir would be Toledo's, carved by
Rodrigo, Berruguete, and Vigarni, the chancel Barcelona's stilted
arches. How they could be combined is hard to solve, but round this
_capilla mayor_ would run the double ambulatory of Toledo, and the apse
outside have León's flying buttresses,--the apse which the old mystics
held as symbolic of the crown of thorns about the head of Christ (the
Altar). _Rejas_ from Burgos, Granada, Seville, would guard the chapels,
and tombs of knights and bishops from Sigüenza, from Zamora--from every
town of Spain in fact--would line the walls: tapestries and treasures
from Saragossa; a _via crucis_ by Hernández and portrait statues by
Montañés; a sacristy like that of Avila; a _sala capitular_ copied from
the Renaissance grace of San Benito in Alcántara; and a wealth of side
chapels,--a Condestable chapel, a San Isidoro, a Cámera Santa, a San
Millán, a Santa María la Blanca, and an isolated shrine like Palencia's,
standing in the ambulatory. And always beneath the vault of this
cathedral would be found far-off little Lugo's solemn adoration, and
there would be processions as imposing as Andalusia, with the piety of
Estremadura, or the Basque. The Giralda, built in the warm red stone of
Astorga tower, would stand close by, and not far away, a monastery, line
for line, like Poblet. Sitting in a Spanish cloister looking out on the
Pyrenees, one drifts into dream-pictures of the ideal cathedral.
Gerona has a few other churches worth examining, that of San Feliu, with
two Roman sarcophagi and several early Christian ones with wave-like
lines. We rambled about the plaza where a fair was in progress, and at
every turning kept bidding farewell to familiar scenes of Spanish life;
we were not again to hear the peace-bringing "_Vaya Usted con Dios!_"
not again to assent to the cordial "_Hasta luego!_"
The city is massively built, but it has a battered look, and no wonder.
During the French invasion, Gerona stood a siege as terrific as any in
history, yet who of us has heard of it? In May, 1809, a French army
surrounded the city where there were only three thousand soldiers for
the defense, yet for seven months the town defied the invaders, and that
with half a dozen breaches in the walls. The women shouldered guns and
drilled in a battalion formed by Doña Lucía Fitzgerald; old men and
children piled up the earth of the ramparts; cloistered nuns, at a
higher call, left their convents to nurse the wounded to whom they gave
up their cells, so many priests fell fighting on the walls that no
services were held in the churches, there was only the burning of
candles; no one bought or sold, for every shopman was a soldier. When a
gallant English volunteer died on the ramparts, he exclaimed that he
lost his life gladly in a cause so just for a nation so heroic.
The French drew closer and closer, and slowly the city starved. The
hardships endured were incredible. They ate rats and mice, yet no
thought came of surrender. A hot August dragged by, in September the
French attacked fiercely and on both sides the men fell like flies. Who
was the soul of this indomitable fortitude? The order and subordination
told of a master mind, and Gerona had one, Don Mariano Alvarez de
Castro, the inflexible governor. He it was who enrolled the women and
children in the defense; his lofty spirit never wavered, and his force
of character gave him so accepted an authority that he was able to
direct a hopeless defense without recourse to cruelty. The siege of
Gerona was not stained by any brutal act.
The blockade drew closer. By October literally all food was gone, and
the people began to fall in the streets to a foe more terrible than
bullets. Governor Alvarez stood like a rock of courage. When he passed
up the Cathedral steps where the heart-rending groups of the dying lay,
his very presence gave hope: if there was a faint-hearted citizen in
Gerona, he was more afraid of that iron man than of the French. Never
would the governor have yielded, but toward the close of the year he
fell ill in the infested air, and as he lay in delirium the city
capitulated. With hundreds of dead bodies lying unburied in the streets,
there was nothing else to be done.
Then followed a scene which did honor to the invader; it rings with the
same chivalry that Velasquez painted in the "Surrender of Breda," where
Spínola bends to meet the conquered Nassau, the same spirit that made
those Frenchmen of an earlier day carry a certain wounded knight, their
prisoner, on a litter from Pamplona across the mountains to his castle
of Loyola. The foreign troops marched into Gerona in a dead silence,
with not a gesture of triumph, moved to awe by the corpses that covered
the pavements and to reverence by the few hollow-eyed, living skeletons
that met them. The moral victory lay with the conquered. When food was
offered the starved people, even that was at first refused. Don Mariano
Alvarez, taken prisoner on his bed, died mysteriously, poisoned, some
say, in the fortress of Figueras not long after. And all this horror and
heroism was only a hundred years ago!--we too walked the streets of
Gerona in silent reverence.
Then once again on the train; more volcanic hills, more dry rivers that
showed what the spring torrents must be like, and in a few hours
Port-Bou, the Spanish frontier town, was reached. We stood at the car
window looking out sadly on the last of Spain as the train swept round
the blue inlets of the Mediterranean.
Farewell to this great Christian democracy where the simple title of Don
is borne by king and people alike, to the "nation least material of
Europe," farewell to a grave, contented race, whose leaders left noble
works as noble as their lives, whose writers were soldiers and heroes,
where artists prepared for religious scenes by fasting and prayers,
where mystics were not negative and inert, but emerged from their union
with God with more power for practical life, whose women have by
instinct the dignity of womanhood, untainted yet by luxury, a land that
can boast the two first women of all ages and countries, an Isabella of
Castile, and a St. Teresa.
Some may think I carry admiration too far. Carping criticism of Spain
has been pushed to such an extent that it is time to swing to the other
side: where there can be no joy, no admiration, there can be no
stimulus. I like to take M. René Bazin's words as if addressed to me:
"Vous avez raison de croire à la vitalité de l'Espagne. Elle n'a jamais
été une nation déchue, elle a été une nation blessée."
A wounded nation but not one stricken to death. She is recovering. Let
her but be patient and aspire slowly; disciplined, tried in the fire and
purified, by living without the ceaseless upheavals of the past century,
by industry, by commerce, with no encumbering colonies to drain her
blood, with the Catalans calling the Castilians "_paisanos_," she will
get back her former strength and _brio_. Her literature, her art, are
lifting their heads.
My prayer for Spain in her rehabilitation is, that she may not diverge
from her national spirit and traditions, may modern ideas not change her
unworldliness and her stoical endurance, "_su esencia inmortal y su
propio carácter_." May she guard her faith, her glory in the past and
her aspiration for the future, the faith of the Cross that has struck
deeper root here than in any spot on earth, but remembering always that
her own greatest saint warns her: "In the spiritual life not to advance
is to go back." May she never lose the virile independence of character
that so distinguishes her people, the pride of simple manhood that looks
out of the eyes of her honorable peasantry and makes their innate
courtesy. No nation was ever formed so completely by the chivalry of the
Middle Ages as Spain. May she always be _España la heróica_!
INDEX
Acuña, tomb of Bishop, 40, 41
Africa, 74, 86, 87, 178, 230, 245, 246, 337, 409, 416, 417
Ajustina of Aragon ("Maid of Saragossa"), 381
Alacón, Pedro Antonio de, 151, 328, 335, 336, 337
Alas, Leopoldo, 93, 328, 341, 342, 349
Alba de Tormes, 159, 160, 200, 205-210
Albertus Magnus, 414
Alcalá de Henares, 28, 67, 73, 142, 238, 244, 246, 249, 342, 372
Alcántara, 359-364, 394
Alcántara, St. Peter of, 199
Alfonso II, _el Casto_, 90, 94
Alfonso VI, 87, 116, 129, 231, 236
Alfonso VIII, _él de las Navas_, 50, 84
Alfonso X, _el sabio_, 134, 291, 375
Alfonso XI, 250
Alfonso XII, 179, 180, 217, 333, 337, 343
Alfonso XIII, 50, 174, 180, 181, 182, 217, 287, 289, 290, 291, 292, 351,
355
Alhambra, the, 86, 258, 265-272, 280, 396
Almohades, the, 88
Almoravides, the, 88
Altamira y Crevea, Sr. Rafael, 327
Alva, Duke of, 65, 205
Alvarez de Castro, Mariano, 426, 427, 428
Amadeus I (Duke of Aosta), 179, 333
America, the U. S. of, 9, 16, 18, 41, 64, 128, 140, 209, 332, 370, 397,
411
America, South, 90, 177, 211, 248, 290, 319, 332, 364, 365, 366, 395,
397
Amicis, Edmondo de, 259
Amiens, cathedral of, 81, 415
Andalusia, 2, 37, 87, 102, 105, 112, 151, 178, 189, 225, 230, 242, 257
259, 316, 317, 319, 333, 336, 343
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 187, 414
Aragon, 79, 105, 226, 372, 375-384, 391
Architecture, 9, 36, 42, 43, 48, 54, 81, 91, 147, 151, 232, 295, 385,
393, 400, 403, 421. _See_ Gothic, Romanesque, Plateresque
Arenal, Doña Concepción, 133
Arfe family, the de, 202, 312
Armory, Madrid, the Royal, 114, 220, 226, 227, 228
Arroyo, 360, 363, 368
Astorga, 4, 105, 113-116, 141, 159
Asturias, 4, 79-103, 105, 112, 267, 341, 346
Asturias, Prince of, 84, 85, 288, 291, 324
Athens, 149, 268, 423
Augustine, St., 18, 155, 156, 189, 246, 342
Augustus Cæsar, 107, 392
Averroës, 88, 319
Avila, 6, 159, 160, 162, 164, 166, 195-212, 213, 216, 269, 273, 396
Azcoitia, 14, 18, 23
Azpeitia, 23, 30, 31
Baalbec, ruins of, 353
Bacon, Lord, 28, 64, 69, 135
Bailén, battle of, 172, 380
Balearic Islands, 415
Balmes y Uspia, Jaime, 210
Baltazar Carlos, infante, Don, 60, 221, 227, 378
Balzac, Honoré de, 327, 333
Barcelona, 7, 8, 26, 28, 140, 146, 216, 345, 379, 394, 395-419, 421
Basque Provinces, 4, 13-32, 36, 79, 83, 101, 105
Bazán, Doña Emilia Pardo, _see_ Pardo Bazán
Bazin, M. René, 79, 258, 347, 429
Becerra, Gaspar, 115
Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo, 256
Bembo, Pietro, Cardinal, 251
Benedict XIV, 136
Benedictine rule, the, 48, 49, 135, 136, 225, 364, 389
Benson, Rev. Robert Hugh, 188
Berruguete, Alonso de, 44, 60, 82, 205, 233, _illustration_ 256, 377,
424
Bidassoa, river, 15
Bilbao, 4, 91, 140, 412
Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente, 328, 340, 341
Boabdil, 227
Bobadilla, 2, 265
Bonaventura, St., 187, 414
Borgia, St. Francis (de Borja), 21, 26, 28, 30, 191, 199, 240, 251, 252,
253, 254, 371
Borromeo, St. Charles, 191, 255
Borrow, George, _quoted_, 283
Boston, U. S. A., 64, 118, 148, 224
Bourbon kings in Spain, the, 72, 136, 171, 173, 234, 324, 367
Briz, Francisco Pelayo, 411
Browning, Robert, 34
Brunetière, Ferdinand, 337
Budé, Guillaume, 28
Byron, Lord, 321, 381
Byzantine Influences in Spanish Art, 48, 94, 96, 108, 148, 262, 403, 423
Bull-fight, the, 11, 16, 127, 128, 129, 309, 358
Burgos, 4, 33-54, 55, 56, 57, 92, 95, 148, 189, 201, 204, 273, 424
Caballero, Fernán, _pseud_ (Doña Cecelia B. von F. de Arrom), 127, 328,
329, 330, 343, 411
Cáceres, 356, 357, 358, 359, 362, 364, 369
Cadiz, 7, 71, 143, 176, 178, 316-325
Calatyud, 376
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 240, 253, 327
Calvin, John, 68
Campion, Edmund, 68
Campoamor, Ramón de, 179, 274
Cano, Alonzo, 60, 61
Cano, Melchor, 153
Cantabrian mountains, 82, 83, 84, 102, 112, 122, 124, 347, 348
Carmelite Order, the, 183, 189, 198, 199, 200
Carmona, Salvador, _see_ _illustration_ 327
Carr, Sir John, 381, 382
Castelar y Ripoll, Emilio, 179
Castile, 6, 12, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 54, 55, 79, 83, 101, 105, 165, 184,
196, 201, 204, 211, 212, 228, 229, 238, 245, 247, 257, 259, 267, 282,
397, 411, 429
Catalan language, 409, 414, 418
Catalan question, 409-414
Catalonia, 3, 79, 101, 105, 134, 253, 383, 385, 388, 391, 392, 396, 397,
400, 404, 405, 409, 410, 411, 412, 414, 419, 421, 429
Cathedrals, Spanish, 38, 42, 43, 108, 149, 150, 151, 202, 219, 233, 261,
404, 421, 422, 423, 424.
_Avila_, 110, 150, 201, 205, 232, 425.
_Astorga_, 115, 425.
_Barcelona_, 150, 403, 404, 424.
_Burgos_, 36-48, 54, 148, 150, 424.
_Cadiz_, 323.
_Cordova_, 261-265.
_Gerona_, 421-424.
_Grenada_, 271, 424.
_León_, 47, 57, 108-111, 150, 415, 424.
_Lérida_, 385, 387, 388, 424.
_Lugo_, 122, 123, 124, 425.
_Oviedo_, 92, 93, 94, 108.
_Palencia_, 80, 151, 425.
_Santiago_, 57, 107. 130-133.
_Salamanca_, 108, 146-148, 152.
_Saragossa_, 151, 376, 377, 378, 424.
_Seville_, 111, 150, 216, 232, 285, 287, 289, 292, 293-315, 424.
_Segovia_, 165, 166, 167, 168.
_Sigüenza_, 150, 374, 424.
_Tarragona_, 393, 424.
_Toledo_, 150, 216, 232-238, 415, 424.
_Valladolid_, 56, 57.
_Zamora_, 117, 118, 424
Catherine of Aragon, 28, 224, 342
Cavadonga, 85, 86, 94, 102, 172, 227, 406
Cellini, Benvenuto, 150, 216
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 69, 72-78, 142, 155, 166, 189, 228, 240,
249, 250, 253, 255, 326, 349
Charles I of England, 165
Charles V (Charles I of Spain), Emperor, 26, 39, 72, 129, 199, 204, 216,
218, 223, 227, 249, 251, 253, 261, 265, 269, 292, 365, 366, 367, 368
Charles II, 218, 221
Charles IV, 171, 175, 226
Chartres, Cathedral of, 81, 268, 400, 415
Chartreuse, La Grande, 24
Chesterton, Mr. Gilbert K., 100
Churches, Spanish:
_Alcántara_; S. Benito, 364, 424.
_Asturias_; S. M. de Naranco, 95, 96, 97, 403.
S. Miguel de Lino, 96, 403.
_Avila_; Encarnación, convent of, 197, 199.
S. José, convent of, 190, 199, 200.
S. Segundo, 205.
Son soles, hermitage of, 202, 203.
S. Tomás, 197, 203, 204, 205.
_Barcelona_; S. Ana, 403.
S. M. del Mar, 403.
S. M. del Pino, 403.
S. Pablo del Campo, 403.
_Burgos_; Las Huelgas, convent of, 49, 50.
Miraflores, convent of, 48.
S. Lermes, 47.
S. Nicolás, 46.
_Cadiz_; S. Felipe Neri, 71, 324.
Capuchin church, 323.
_Gerona_; S. Feliu, 425.
_Granada_; S. Gerónimo, 270.
_Madrid_; S. Isidro, 57.
_León_; S. Isidoro, 107, 108, 123, 214, 425.
S. Marcos, 111.
_Salamanca_; S. Esteban, 153, 154.
Espíritu Santo, 153.
_Seville_; S. Magdalena, 314.
Omnium Sanctorum, 281.
S. Paula, 281.
S. Marcos, 281.
University Church, 371.
_Segovia_; S. Martín, 166.
S. Millán, 166, 425.
_Toledo_; S. Bartolomé, 235.
S. Cristo de la Luz, 231.
S. Cristo de la Vega, 256.
S. Domingo, 235.
S. M. la Blanca, 231, 425.
S. Juan de los Reyes, 239.
S. Pedro Mártir, 252.
S. Tomé, 235, 253.
El Tránsito, 231.
_Valladolid_; S. Cruz, 59.
S. M. la Antigua, 57.
S. Gregorio, 59.
S. Pablo, 59
Churriguera, José de, 25, 123, 152
Churrigueresque Architecture, 25, 57, 123, 152, 207, 219, 376
Cid Campeador, the, 50-54, 87, 108, 116, 117, 129, 147, 230, 231
Clavijo, battle of, 47, 96
Coloma, Padre Luis, 343
Colonna, Vittoria, 227, 333
Columbus, Christopher (Cristóbal Colón), 72, 78, 153, 154, 268, 301,
395, 396
Comuneros, uprising of the, 72, 204, 227, 366
Constantinople, 75, 131, 217, 234, 260, 262, 303
Constitutions of Spain, 174, 176-180, 204, 324, 382, 383
Cordova, 7, 87, 258-265, 281, 332
Córdova, Gonsalvo de, _Gran Capitán_, 227, 270, 319
Cortés, Hernán, 113, 146, 290
Coruña, 4, 91, 122, 125, 126, 344, 412
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop, 68
Crashaw, Richard, 27, 191, 194, 198
Creighton, Mandell, Bishop, 64
Cromwell, Oliver, 65
Dante Alighieri, 134, 414
Daoiz, Luis, 172, 324
Darro, river, 268, 271
Democracy, Spanish, 37, 49, 73, 92, 99, 100, 112, 144, 152, 168, 202,
204, 228, 238, 284, 309, 336, 345, 355, 358, 382, 392, 428
Descartes, René, 28, 194, 418
Deza, Diego de, 153, 154
Dickens, Charles, 9, 282
Domenech, Sr. Rafael, 234, 371
Dominic, St. (de Guzmán), 114, 319, 414
Dominican Order, the, 59, 153, 197, 203, 248
"Don Quixote," 9, 75, 76, 77, 85, 92, 105, 107, 138, 170, 259, 326, 327,
328, 331, 335, 341, 347, 354, 374, 383
_Dos de Mayo_ (May 2, 1808), 159, 172, 176, 225, 323, 324, 379, 380
Douro, river, 117
Dupanloup, Félix Antoine, Mgr., 189
Dürer, Albrecht, 356
Durham, 229
Ebro, river, 376
Edward I, of England, 49, 84
Edward VI, of England, 68
Egypt, 35, 417
Elche, 80, 310
Eleanor Plantagenet, Queen of Spain, 49, 50, 374
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), 215, 220, 234, 235, 238, 370, 371
Elizabeth of England (Tudor), 63, 372
Ellis, Mr. Henry Havelock, _quoted_, 314, 379
Emmet, Dr. Thos. Addis, 66
England, the English, 6, 9, 40, 63, 64, 66, 84, 112, 121, 140, 149, 170,
172, 175, 180, 209, 282, 316, 332, 352, 359, 370, 398, 405, 406, 417
English College, Valladolid, 62, 63, 71, 72
Erasmus, Desiderius, 28, 244, 272, 342
Escorial, the, 56, 194, 211, 213-219, 234, 421
Eslava, Miguel Hilarión, 302, 315
Espartero, General, 178
Espluga, 389, 390
Estremadura, 7, 34, 105, 145, 351-368, 425
Eugénie, Empress, 114
Eyck, Jan van, 224
Ferdinand I, _el Magno_, 116
Ferdinand III, _el Santo_, 50, 227, 289, 292
Ferdinand V, _el Católico_, 19, 72, 245, 247, 249, 272, 378
Ferdinand VII, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 381
Feijóo y Montenegro, Benito Gerónimo, 70, 135, 136, 210
Fernán Caballero, _see_ Caballero
Feuillet, Octave, 371
Figueras, 428
Fisher, John, Bishop, 68
Fitzmaurice-Kelley, Mr. James, _quoted_, 193
Flaubert, Gustave, 346
Ford, Richard, 8, 65, 195, 219, 236, 266, 282, 359
Fortuny, Mariano, 408
Forment Damián, 377
France, the French, 6, 24, 33, 46, 66, 104, 108, 144, 149, 163, 169,
189, 251, 276, 347, 349, 371, 383, 397, 400, 407, 410, 421, 423, 427
Francia, Francisco Raibolini, _called_, 323
Francis of Assisi, St. 47, 128, 195, 218, _illustration_ 327
Franciscan Order, the, 77, 225, 239, 240, 249, 414, 417
Francis Borgia, St., _see_ Borgia
Francis I, of France, 244, 227, 373
Francis de Sales, St., _see_ Sales
Francis Xavier, St., _see_ Xavier
French Invasion, the, 35, 54, 58, 65, 142, 150, 157, 172, 176, 177, 232,
270, 323, 335, 380, 382, 425, 426, 427
Froude, James Anthony, 40, 195
Galdós, Benito Pérez, _see_ Pérez Galdós
Galicia, 4, 61, 105, 121-141, 159, 344, 345
Gallegos, Fernando, 323
Gandía, Duke of, _see_ Borgia, St. Francis
Ganivet, Angel, 22, 330, 420
Garcilaso de la Vega, 166, 227, 240, 250-252, 253
Gardner Collection, Boston, Mrs. J. L., 224
Gaudix, 151, 336
Gautier, Théophile, 20, 107, 226, 295
Gener, Sr. Pompeo, 410
Germaine de Foix, Queen of Aragon, 19, 247, 272
Germany, 6, 66, 112, 173, 237, 328
Gerona, 8, 173, 179, 323, 379, 412, 420-428
Gibraltar, 2, 3, 96
Gijón, 91, 412
Godoy, Manuel, Prince of the Peace, 65, 171, 175
Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, _quoted_, 33
Gomez de Castro, Alvaro, 242
Góngora y Argote, Luis de, 252
Gothic Architecture, 46, 57, 80, 81, 93, 108, 111, 115, 123, 147, 153,
165, 167, 201, 216, 232, 233, 261, 303, 307, 364, 374, 385, 387, 391,
393, 403, 422
Goths, in Spain, the, 85, 96, 98, 115, 219, 227, 230, 231, 235, 318,
319, 368, 378
Goya, Francisco, 136, 220, 225, 226
Granada, 7, 60, 88, 217, 227, 239, 243, 244, 253, 265-273, 336, 406, 424
Granada, Luis de, 153, 252
Gregorovius, Ferdinand, 147
Greece, 96, 134, 234, 416, 423
Guadalajara, 8, 372, 373
Guadaloupe, 368
Guadalquivir, river, 230
Guadarrama Mountains, 6, 170, 214, 221
_Guardia Civil_, the, 101, 401, 402
Guipúzcoa, 14, 15
Guizot, François-Pierre-Guillaume, 70
Guzmán _el bueno_, 106
Guzmán family, the, 106, 114, 251
Guzmán, Domingo de, _see_ Dominic, St.
Gypsies, Spanish, 115, 267, 271
Hadrian, Emperor, 281
Hapsburg Kings, in Spain, 70, 72, 129, 204, 214, 324, 367
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrick, 326
Henry II of England, 84
Henry VII of England, 269
Henry VIII of England, 28, 85
Hernández, Gregorio, 61, 62, 424
Herrera, Fernando de, poet, 252
Herrera, Juan de, architect, 56, 57, 213, 376, 408
Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo, 153
Hobson, Lieut. Richmond Pearson, 370
Hogarth, William, 225
Holy Week in Seville, 302-315
Hugo, Victor, 13, 339
Huysmans, Joris-Karl, 183, 187, 193, 225, 347, 385
Ignatius, St., _see_ Loyola
Infantado, Duke del, 373
Inquisition, the, 64-71, 136, 155, 176, 245, 324, 365
Invincible Armada, the, 40, 76, 90, 279, 283
Ireland, 66, 134, 178, 179
Irish College, Salamanca, 153, 157, 158
Irún, 2, 16
Irving, Washington, 86
Isabella I, the Catholic, 48, 64, 72, 85, 89, 129, 133, 137, 154, 162,
166, 173, 180, 182, 203, 204, 217, 227, 241, 242, 244, 245, 252, 268,
272, 273, 292, 342, 379, 402, 429
Isabella II, 166, 173, 174, 177, 179
Isabella of Portugal, Empress, 223, _illustration_ 253, 255
Isidoro, San, 107, 319
Isla, José Francisco de la, 70, 153, 210
Islamism, 65, 87, 88, 243, 262, 263, 264, 268, 417
Italica, 278, 281, 289, 359
Italy, the Italians, 5, 30, 60, 74, 96, 107, 173, 223, 224, 251, 270,
272, 276, 280, 281, 334, 349, 352, 370, 377, 408
Jaime I, _el Conquistador_, 106, 227, 391, 415
James, St., apostle, _él de España_, 97, 114, 121, 246
Jerez de la Frontera, 316
Jerusalem, 27, 121, 123, 263, 310, 311, 417
Jesuit Order, the, 20-32, 153, 225, 255, 343
Jews in Spain, the, 67, 70, 88, 318, 319, 332, 364, 365, 367, 368
Jimena, wife of the Cid, 50, 52, 53, 108, 116
Jimenez de Cisneros, _see_ Ximenez
John of Austria, Don, 73, 76, 227, 252
John of the Cross, St. (Juan de Yepes), 44, 70, 199, 234, 252
Jordán, Esteban, 60
Joubert, Joseph, 13, 24, 149
Juana _la loca_, 247, 271
Juan II, 48, 72, 113, 129
Juan de la Cruz, San, _see_ John of the Cross
Juní, Juan de, 60
Lafayette, General de, 16
La Granja, 168, 170, 171, 173, 174, 181
Lainez, Diego, 153, 255
Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke of, 84
Lannes, Jean, Marshall, 382
Larra, Mariano José de, 36
Las Huelgas, convent of, 49, 50, 153
Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 59, 153, 248
Lea, Henry Charles, 70
Lebrija, Doña Francisca de, 342
Lee, Robert E., General, 64
Legazpi, Miguel Lopez de, 18
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 194
Lenormant, Charles, 70
León, city of, 4, 83, 105, 106-113, 114, 122, 214, 424, 425
León, province of, 4, 14, 34, 82, 104-120, 142, 157
León, Luis de, 44, 68, 70, 154-157, 193, 210, 252, 319, 349
Leonado da Vinci, 222, 370
Lepanto, Battle of, 73, 75, 216, 227
Lérida, 335-388, 412, 424
Lilly, Mr. W. S., _quoted_, 183
Llorente, Juan Antonio, 65
Lockhart, James Gibson, 52, 53
Lombardy, 57, 74, 96, 107, 400
London, 28, 220, 319, 417
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, _quoted_, 316
Lorraine, Claude Gelée, _called_ Claude, 224
Loti, M. Pierre, 148, 149, 371
Louis IX of France, St., 50, 375, 416
Louis Philippe of France, 177
Lowell, James Russell, _quoted_, 104, 110, 121, 395
Loyola, 4, 16, 19-32
Loyola, St. Ignatius, 17, 19-32, 153, 191, 252, 255, 319, 371, 394, 403,
415, 427
Lucca, 17, 122
Lucero, Diego Rodríguez de, inquisitor, 245
Lugo, 4, 114, 122-125, 425
Lull, Ramón (Raimundo Lulio), 319, 395, 414-418
Luna, Alvaro de, 72, 233
Lusitania, 352
Luther, Martin, 192
Macaulay, Thomas Babbington, 191
Madrid, 2, 6, 7, 77, 80, 101, 114, 141, 142, 146, 160, 166, 169, 172,
176, 179, 213, 216, 219-228, 231, 277, 286, 287, 292, 336, 344, 349,
355, 369-372, 410, 412, 419
Maimonides, Moses, 88, 319
Maistre, Joseph de, 70, 136
Málaga, 102, 247
Mallock, Mr. W. H., _quoted_, 210
Manresa, 27, 394, 403
Manrique, Jorge, 241, 250
Mantegna, Andrea, 224
Maragatos, the, 115
Marcus Aurelius, 242
Mariana, Juan de, 153, 256
Maria Cristina of Austria, Queen-Dowager, Doña, 174, 180
Martial, 376, 392
Martyr, Peter, 89, 272
Mary I of England (Tudor), 66, 68, 85, 223, 224, 372
Masaccio, Tommaso Guidi, _called_, 110
Mateo, Maestro, 131, 132
Mecca, 261, 263
Medinaceli, family of, 290, 375
Medina del Campo, 4, 160, 162, 164
Medrano, Doña Lucía de, 342
Melanchthon, Philipp, 68
Memling, Hans, 224
Mena, Juan de, 250
Mendoza, family of, 47, 242, 252, 373
Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, 252
Mendoza, Pedro Gonzales, Cardinal, 60, 238, 241, 242, 256, 268, 374
Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino, 67, 70, 134, 156, 348-350
Meredith, George, _quoted_, 55
Mérida, 145, 352-356, 363
Messina, 74
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 60
Mino da Fiesole, 48, 132
Miño, river, 4, 122, 124, 125, 138
Miraflores, Monastery of, 48, 203, 216
Mistral, Federi, 418
Monforte, 122, 137, 138
Montañés, Juan Martinez, 44, 308, 371, 424
Montesquieu, Charles, 326
Montserrat, 26, 27, 394
Monzón, 384
Moore, Sir John, 125
Moors, the, 3, 13, 50, 51, 53, 67, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 94, 96, 115,
116, 117, 129, 148, 178, 196, 205, 216, 219, 227, 230, 235, 239, 243,
244, 249, 258-270, 289, 300, 304, 313, 318, 352, 364, 365, 367, 369,
393, 415, 417
Moorish Art, 258, 267, 268, 280, 281, 294, 379
Moriscos, Expulsion of the, 86, 89, 90, 365
More, Sir Thomas, 68
Moro, Antonio, 223, 224
Motley, John Lothrop, 224, 380
Mozarabic Mass, the, 235-238
Mudéjar Architecture, 59, 231, 232, 280, 290, 373
Müller, Prof. Friederich Max, 153
Murat, Joachim, Marshall, 380
Murcia, 105, 372
Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban, 44, 225, 234, 237, 253, 280, 293, 298, 323,
370
Mystics, Spanish, 10, 11, 12, 22, 27, 183, 186, 187, 191, 193, 195, 198,
212, 242, 319, 331, 371, 414, 415, 428
Napier, Sir Wm. F. P., 172
Naples, 74, 270, 332, 397
Napoleon I, 35, 172, 173, 176, 382
Navarre, 14, 29, 50, 79, 105, 247, 372, 383
Navas de Tolosa, battle of, Las, 50, 242
Nelson, Horatio, Admiral, 370
Neri, St. Philip, 31, 191
Newbolt, Mr. Henry, _quoted_, 413
New England, 64, 118, 148, 289, 361, 397
Novels, Modern Spanish, 93, 134, 170, 195, 326-350
Núñez de Arce, Gaspar, 112, 415
O'Donnell y Jorris, General Leopoldo, 178
Olivares, Conde Duque de, 221
Ommiade dynasty, the, 87, 88, 89
Oran, siege of, 239, 246
Ordoño II of León, 108
O'Reilly, Count Alexander, 178
Ormsby, John, 51
Osuna, Duke of, 47
Oviedo, 4, 79, 90-103, 106, 108, 135, 341, 342
Oxford, 28, 68, 342, 143, 152
Padilla, Juan de, 227, 257
Paestum, ruins of, 353
Palafox, Count José, 380
Palatinate, the, 243
Palencia, 4, 79, 80, 91, 190
Palestine, 80, 94, 311, 416
Palma, 415, 417
Palos, 320
Pamplona, 26, 30, 427
Pancorbo, Pass of, 34, 35
Pardo Bazán, Doña Emilia, 125, 134, 135, 328, 343-345
Paris, 1, 28, 29, 142, 146, 415
Parma, 323
Parmigianino, Mazzuoli of Parma, _called_, 224
Parthenon, the, 149, 268
Pasajes, 16
Pascal, Blaise, 142, 240
Patmore, Coventry, 199
Pavia, battle of, 227, 251, 292
Pedro I, _el Cruel_, 84
Pelayo, King, 85, 90, 93, 94, 95, 108, 227
Pereda, José María de, 327, 328, 336, 339, 340, 341, 346, 347, 350
Pérez Galdós, Sr. Benito, 209, 327, 328, 337-340, 346
Persia, 88, 417
Pescara, Fernando Francisco d'Avalos, Marquis of, 227, 251
Philip I, _el Hermoso_ (Archduke), 245, 271
Philip II, 75, 85, 129, 157, 213, 216, 217, 219, 223, 291, 372
Philip III, 90, 366
Philip IV, 4, 48, 221, 385
Philip V, 129, 171, 383
Philippines, the, 18, 203, 333
Ph[oe]nicians in Spain, the, 98, 318
Pirates, Moorish, 87, 89, 239, 246, 247, 367
Pizarro, Francisco, 146, 364
Plateresque Architecture, 57, 58, 59, 111, 152, 153, 154, 256, 261, 353,
400
Pliny, 392
Poblet, Monastery of, 8, 106, 177, 214, 388-391, 399, 425
Polyglot Bible, the, 246, 247
Pontevedra, 137, 138
Pontius Pilate, 391
Port-Bou, 2, 8, 428
_Pórtico de la Gloria_, 57, 109, 130, 154, 268, 424
Portugal, 4, 134, 138, 176, 291, 292, 349, 359, 361, 363
Prado Gallery,--Madrid, the, 220-226, 369-372
Prescott, W. H., 113
Prim, Juan, General, 178, 179
Proverbs, Spanish, 108, 117, 156, 219, 228, 240, 257, 281, 283, 328,
334, 360, 383, 413
Pyrenees, the, 15, 29, 33, 86, 383, 384, 420, 421, 422, 425
Quiñones, Suero de, 114
Quintana, Manuel José, 323
Ramiro I of Asturias, 95, 98
Ranke, Leopold von, 65, 70
Raphael Sanzio, 224
_Reconquista_, the, 86, 89, 101, 227, 228, 268, 269, 319
Redondela, 137
Rembrandt van Rijn, 221, 224
Renaissance Art in Spain, 48, 58, 59, 91, 115, 152, 153, 154, 158, 203,
205, 239, 256, 271, 364, 377, 425
_Reyes Católicos, los_, 133, 154, 239, 266, 271, 357, 383, 395
Ribadeneyra, Pedro de, 255, 256
Ribera, José de, _Lo Spagnoletto_, 225
Ripalda, Gerónimo de Martinez de, 153
Ripoll, Abbey of, 394
Rivas, Angel de Sáavedra, Duque de, 332
Roderick, last of the Gothic kings, 85, 230
Roelas, Juan de las, 225
"Romancero del Cid," 9, 50, 51, 52, 53, 108, 116, 250, 326
Romanesque Architecture in Spain, 48, 57, 94, 107, 111, 118, 121, 131,
132, 147, 148, 152, 164, 166, 196, 216, 385, 391, 393, 403
Romanes, George J., _quoted_, 351
Roman remains in Spain, 7, 47, 107, 114, 122, 143, 146, 164, 165, 202,
352-356, 359, 362, 375, 393, 425
Rome, 30, 73, 115, 192, 220, 238, 241, 250, 255, 281, 294, 305, 311, 319
Ruiz de Alarcon, Juan, 327
Ruiz y Mendoza, Lieut. Jacinto, 324
Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustus de, 77
Saints, Spanish, _see headings_, Alcántara, Borgia, Dominic, Ferdinand
III, John of the Cross, Loyola, Xavier, Teresa
Salamanca, 4, 28, 58, 89, 105, 142-158, 160, 167, 184, 189, 194, 203,
205, 273, 298, 342, 424
Sales, St. Francis de, 27, 191
Salic Law, the, 173, 174
Salisbury, cathedral of, 80, 415
Salmerón, Alfonso, 153
_Sancho Panza_, 107, 165, 228, 334, 341, 383
Sancho II, _el Fuerte_, 116
Sancho IV, _el Bravo_, 375
San Sebastián, 16, 20, 21, 22, 124
Santander, 4, 91, 340, 346, 347, 348, 412
Santayana, Prof. George, _quoted_, 213, 293, 318, 367, 369
Santiago, Compostella, 4, 107, 109, 121, 122, 125, 130-134, 141, 273,
344, 424
Santiago, knights of, 111, 178, 250, 352, 374, 413
Saragossa, 8, 173, 376-382
Sassoferrato, Giovanni Battista Salvi, _of_, 45, 376
Schack, Adolf Fred. von, 65
Scott, Sir Walter, 77
Segovia, 6, 159-182, 213, 217, 269, 273, 365, 396
_Seises_, dancing of, _los_, 12, 297, 298, 299, 300
Seneca, 319
Servet, Miguel, 68
Seville, 7, 37, 76, 181, 189, 219, 225, 230, 247, 270, 273, 274-315,
323, 327, 345, 351, 371, 374
Shakespeare, William, 50, 224, 273, 327, 336
Sidney, Sir Philip, 250, 251
Siege of Gerona, 173, 425-428
Siege of Saragossa, 173, 380-382
Sierra Nevada, the, 269, 292
Sigüenza, 8, 238, 373, 374, 375, 392
Siloe, Gil de, 48
Simancas, Archives of, 67
Soldiers in Spanish literature, 73, 240, 250, 252, 337, 414
Soto, Domingo de, 153
Southwell, Robert, 68
Spencer, Herbert, 210, 411
Spínola, Marquis, 222, 322, 370, 427
Stirling-Maxwell, Sir William, 286
Street, George E., 110, 385
Suárez, Francisco, 153, 210
Switzerland, 83, 103, 269
Tagus, river, 9, 229, 230, 256, 359, 363, 424
Talavera, Fernando de, Bishop, 68, 244
Tannenberg, M. Boris de, 348
Tarifa, Siege of, 106
Tarragona, 8, 391, 392, 393, 412, 424
Teresa, Saint, 10, 44, 62, 70, 159, 166, 183-212, 234, 252, 331, 429
Theodosius, Emperor, 281
Theotokopaulos, Domenikos, _see_ El Greco
Thompson, Francis, 27, 254
Ticknor, George, 59, 69, 256
Tintoretto, Jocopo Robusti, _called_, 215, 234
Tirso de Molina (Gabriel Téllez), 327
Titian, Tiziano Vecelli, _called_, 223, 227, 234, 253, 372
Toledo, 7, 9, 36, 57, 87, 88, 94, 108, 146, 219, 229-257, 396, 424
Toledo, Archbishops of, 77, 88, 116, 241, 242
Tolstoi, Count Lyoff, 342
Tormes, river, 143, 206
Tostado, Bishop Alfonso de Madrigal, el, 205
Toulouse, 107
Townsend, Rev. Joseph, 266, 401
Trajan, Emperor, 164, 281, 356, 359, 362
Trujillo, 364, 367
Urraca, of Zamora, Doña, 108, 117
Valdés, Sr. Armando Palacio, 195, 345, 346
Valencia, 53, 90, 105, 140, 150, 340, 372
Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan, 155, 326, 327, 328, 330-336, 339, 346,
350, 413
Valladolid, 4, 55-78, 129, 149, 219, 241
Van Dyke, Sir Anthony, 224
Vargas, Luis de, 297
Vasari, Giorgio, 115
Vega, Garcelaso de la, _see_ Garcilaso
Vega Carpio, Lope Felix de, 240, 250, 256, 327, 363, 391
Velarde, Pedro, 172, 324
Velasco, Pedro Fernández, Constable, 47
Velasquez, Diego de Silva y, 6, 45, 60, 220, 221, 222, 238, 370, 371,
385, 427
Venice, 30, 215, 234
Verdaguer, Jacinto, 418
Veronese, Paolo Caliari, _called_, 224
Vézinet, Monsieur F., 341
Victoria-Eugenia, Queen of Spain, Doña, 18, 85, 165, 181, 287, 288, 289,
290
Vigarni, Felipe de, 44, 45, 233, 424
Vigo, 4, 91, 134, 137
Villena, Marqués de, 47
Vives, Juan Luis, 28, 70, 208
Vincent de Paul, Saint, 191
Wamba, King, 230
Wars, Carlist, 14, 173, 174, 177, 282, 389, 381
War, Peninsula, 125, 172, 323, 359, 379-382, 425-428
War, Spanish-American, 18, 370
Washington, George, 136, 242
Watson, Mr. William, _quoted_, 229, 396, 420
Wellington, Duke of, 143, 172, 266
Westminster Abbey, 262, 415, 417
Wesley, John, 183
Weyden, Rogier van der, 224
Women, Spanish, 21, 100, 102, 117, 130, 133, 184, 204, 206, 272, 276,
277, 290, 295, 313, 314, 328, 333, 334, 342, 354, 381, 426, 428, 429
Wood Carvings, Spanish, 43, 44, 45, 46, 60, 61, 62, _illustration_ 327
Worcester, cathedral, 233
Wordsworth, William, 156, 379
Xavier, St. Francis, 29, 191, 252
Xerez, _see_ Jerez de la Frontera
Ximena, _see_ Jimena
Ximenez de Cisneros, Francisco, Cardinal, 28, 59, 82, 142, 210, 236-250,
272, 319, 366, 374
Yuste, Convent of, 199, 367, 368
Zamora, 4, 105, 116-120, 143, 159, 160, 161, 162, 341, 424
Zaragoza, _see_ Saragossa
Zola, Emile, 333, 343
Zumárraga, 16, 17
Zurbaran, Francisco, 44, 220, 225
* * * * *
The following typographical errors have been corrected by the etext
transcriber:
husbands, husbands to claim their wives.=>husbands to claim their wives.
folded handerchiefs=>folded handkerchiefs
masssive Roman walls=>massive Roman walls
Leôn Cathedral>León Cathedral
direct rout from Paris=>direct route from Paris
Philip V turned into an artificial French pleasure ground=>Philip V
turned it into an artificial French pleasure ground
You walk about the Valasquez room bewildered>=You walk about the
Velasquez room bewildered
one throughly disagreeable=>one thoroughly disagreeable
Chrismas fiestas began=>Christmas fiestas began
á l'état civil=>à l'état civil
a politican, and a journalist=>a politician, and a journalist
good literary quailty=>good literary quality
sense to preceive the best=>sense to perceive the best
and to that unforgetable=>and to that unforgettable
hotel corrridors would be=>hotel corridors would be
where Agustus Cæsar=>where Augustus Cæsar
she is too agressive=>she is too aggressive
Murray's "Handbook"=>Murray's "Hand-book"
Calderon=>Calderón
Portico=>Pórtico
Alba de Tormés=>Alba de Tormes
Oviedo la sacra, Toledo la rica, Sevilla la grande, Salamanaca la
fuerte, León la bella=>Oviedo la sacra, Toledo la rica, Sevilla la
grande, Salamanca la fuerte, León la bella
Parmegianino, Mazzuoli of Parma=>Parmigianino, Mazzuoli of Parma
El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos)=>El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From the Latin word _solum_, ground.
[2] "C'est un pois qui a l'ambition d'être un haricot et qui réussit
trop bien." THÉOPHILE GAUTIER "Voyage en Espagne."
[3] "Las inteligencias más humildas comprenden las ideas más elevadas; y
los que economizan la verdad y la publican sólo cuando están seguros de
ser comprendidos viven en grandisimo error, porque la verdad, aunque no
sea comprendida, ejerce misteriosas influencias y conduce por cáminos
ocultos a las sublimidades más puras, alas que brotan incomprensibles y
espontáneas de las almas vulgares."
Angel Ganivet: "Idearium Español."
[4] When the Duke of Osuna, the Spanish Ambassador to England in
Elizabeth's reign, dropped some pearls of price from his embroidered
cloak, he disdained to pick them up. A nobler form of Castilian
haughtiness was that of the Marqués de Villena who, refusing to live in
his palace after a traitor (the Constable de Bourbon) had been lodged
there, set fire to it. There is something that appeals to the
imagination in many of the privileges of Spanish nobles. Thus the
Marqués de Astorga to-day, is hereditary canon in León Cathedral,
because one of the Osorios fought in the battle of Clavijo, in 846.
[5] The blood of the Cid flows to-day in the veins of Alfonso XIII
through his descent both from the French Bourbons and from Spain's
earlier royal house. A daughter of the Campeador married an infante of
Navarre, whose granddaughter married Sancho III of Castile. The son of
this king was the good and great Alfonso VIII _él de las Navas_, who,
married to Eleanor of England (they both lie buried in Las Huelgas), was
grandfather alike of St. Ferdinand III of Castile and St. Louis IX of
France.
[6] Translated by Ormsby.
[7] "Ancient Spanish Ballads," translated by Lockhart.
[8] Llorente, a bitter assailant of the Inquisition, gives the number of
victims as 31,900. Llorente was traitor to his country during the
invasion of the French and fled ignominiously on their defeat, pensioned
during his later years by the freemasons of Paris; he falsified Basque
history to win the corrupt Godoy's favour (von Ranke's statement); an
ex-priest he assisted in church robbery. Would Benedict Arnold be
accepted as an authority on the American Revolution? The Encyclopedia
Brittanica, even in its ninth edition, has in its sketch on Spain, the
following curious assertion--"bigotry and fanaticism which led to the
destruction of hundreds of thousands of victims at the hands of the
Inquisition." Even the political victims in the Netherlands under the
inexorable Alba, who did to death some 18,000 people, cannot swell the
number to a fraction of this statement. And if the Netherlands' victims
are to be laid to the door of religious persecution, then must the
massacres in Ireland of the inexorable Cromwell come under the same
heading: as an Englishman judges Cromwell apart from his crimes, so a
Spaniard sees more in Alva than his felonies. History presented to us in
parallel columns would do much toward giving us fairer views.
[9] Described by an eyewitness, the brave gentlewoman, Mrs. Willoughby.
See: "English Martyrs," Vol. I and II of the C. T. S. Publications: 22
Paternoster Row: London. Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet in "Ireland under
English Rule" (Putnam's Sons, N. Y. 1903) gives occurrences equally
terrible.
[10] I do not mention in this list Archbishop Cranmer and his fellow
prelates, Latimer and Ridley, since having been persecutors themselves
they may be said to have reaped under Mary Tudor what they had sowed
under Edward VI. They were condemned and executed by the laws which they
had made and put in force against Unitarians and Anabaptists.
[11] H. C. Lea, whose ill-digested mass of facts torn from their proper
context are as representative of Spain as the accounts of a foreigner
who had studied only the police reports of America, would be of us.
[12] "L'Inquisition fût, d'abord, plus politique que religieuse, et
destinée à maintenir l'Ordre plutôt qu'à défendre la foi," says the
Protestant historian Guizot (Hist. Mod. Lect. II).
[13] Every Spanish child knows the story of Guzmán _el bueno_ at Tarifa.
The rebel infante threatened to kill Guzmán's son, were the city not
surrendered, whereupon the hero flung his own knife down from the walls;
rather the death of him he loved best than disloyalty to his trust and
king. The boy was killed under his father's eyes.
When the tomb of this national hero was opened in 1570, the skeleton
discovered was nine feet long, just as Jaime I _el Conquistador_, a
contemporary of Guzmán, was found to be of gigantic proportions when the
pantheon of the Aragonese kings in Poblet was sacked in 1835.
[14] "León Cathedral is indeed in almost every respect worthy to be
ranked among the noblest churches in Europe. Its detail is rich and
beautiful throughout, the plan very excellent, the sculptures with which
it is adorned quite equal in quality and character to that of any church
of the age, and the stained glass with which its windows are filled some
of the best in Europe."
G. E. STREET: "Gothic Architecture in Spain."
[15] "Libro del Paso Honroso" written by an eye witness, Pero Rodríguez
de Lena. Prescott says that no country has been more fruitful in the
field of historical composition than Spain. The chronicles date from the
twelfth century, every great family, every town and every city had its
chronicler. Compare the minute details we have of Cortés in Mexico about
1517, with the meager accounts we find of the North American settlers
some generations later.
[16] It is amusing to find Napier, whose "History of the Peninsula War"
is one of the most one-sided of chronicles, laying down the law in this
fashion: "The English are a people very subject to receive and to
cherish false impressions, proud of their credulity, as if it were a
virtue, the majority will adopt any fallacy, and cling to it with a
tenacity proportioned to its grossness."
[17] Frequently in Spain one comes on Irish names among the leading
families. The O'Donnells, Dukes of Tetuán, have had several generations
of distinguished men. In the 18th century Count Alexander O'Reilly led
the Spanish armies in the New World and the Old, and when Governor of
Andalusia, he so reformed economic conditions in Cadiz that a beggar was
unknown on the streets. He too was followed by an able son. Reading
Spanish books the traces of Irish exiles are many: thus a Doña Lucía
Fitzgerald organized and drilled a woman's regiment during the siege of
Gerona in 1808; and the beautiful wife of the poet Campoamor was a Doña
Guillermina O'Gorman.
"We're all over Austria, France, and Spain,
Said Kelly, and Burke, and Shea."
[18] "L'un des signes distinctifs des mystiques c'est justement
l'équilibre absolu, l'entier bon sens." J.-K. Huysmans: "_En Route_."
[19] "La Mystique est une science absolument exacte. Elle peut annoncer
d'avance la plupart des phénomènes qui se produisent dans une âme que le
Seigneur destine à la vie parfaite; elle suit aussi nettement les
opérations spirituelles que la physiologie observe les états différents
du corps. De siècles en siècles, elle a divulgué la marche de la Grâce
et ses effets tantôt impétueux et tantôt lents; elle a même précisé les
modifications des organes matériels qui se transforment quand l'âme tout
entière se fond en Dieu. Saint Denys l'Aréopagite, saint Bonaventure,
Hugues et Richard de Saint Victor, saint Thomas d'Aquin, saint Bernard,
Ruysbroeck, Angèle de Foligno, les deux Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Denys le
chartreux, sainte Hildegarde, sainte Catherine de Gênes, sainte
Catherine de Sienne, sainte Madeleine de Pazzi, sainte Gertrude,
d'autres encore ont magistralement exposé les principes et les théories
de la Mystique." J.-K. Huysmans: "_En Route_."
[20] It has been said that there never was a spiritually minded man,
who, knowing Saint Teresa's works, was not devoted to them. In his
"Journal Intime," that most distinguished prelate of modern France, Mgr.
Dupanloup, wrote: "La vie de Sainte Térèse m'y a charmé.... J'ai
rarement reçu, dans ma vie, une bénédiction, une impression de grâce
plus simple et plus profonde."
[21] "Just as the Church of Rome has absorbed Platonism in the doctrine
of the Logos and of the Trinity, and has absorbed Aristotelianism in the
doctrine of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, so we may naturally
expect that in its doctrine of its own nature, it will some day absorb
formally, having long done so informally, the main ideas of that
evolutionary philosophy, which many people regard as destined to
complete its downfall; and that it will find in this philosophy--in the
philosophy of the Darwins, the Spencers, and the Huxleys--a scientific
explanation of its own teaching authority, like that which is found in
Aristotle for its doctrine of Transubstantiation.... It may be said that
the Roman Church itself developed without being conscious of its own
scientific character, just as men were for ages unconscious of the
circulation of their own blood.... Like an animal seeking nutriment it
put forth its feelers or tentacles on all sides, seizing, tasting, and
testing all forms of human thought, all human opinions, and all alleged
discoveries. It absorbs some of these into itself, and extracts their
nutritive principles; it immediately rejects some as poisonous or
indigestible; and gradually expels from its system others, condemned as
heresies, which it has accidentally or experimentally swallowed." W. H.
Mallock: "Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption." 1900.
[22] Moro made a replica of this portrait (or perhaps the Prado picture
is the replica) which Mary gave to her Master of Horse. It now
fortunately is in America, in Mrs. J. L. Gardner's notable collection in
_Fenway Court_, Boston. It is hard to recognize in the Mary of the
Flemish Master the queen of whom Motley wrote in his "Dutch Republic":
"tyrant, bigot, and murderess ... small, lean and sickly, painfully
nearsighted yet with an eye of fierceness and fire, her face wrinkled by
lines of care and evil passions."
[23] "Io cristiano viejo soy, y para ser Conde esto me basta"--old
Spanish proverb, quoted by Sancho Panza. Proverbs, which Cervantes
called "short sentences drawn from long experience," often show the
qualities of a race. In many of the popular sayings of Castile is found
the strong feeling of manhood's equality:
"Cuando Dios amanece, para todos amanece."
"Mientras que duermen todos son iguales."
"No ocupo más pies de tierra el cuerpo del Papa que el del sacristan."
[24] See the frontispiece: Portrait of an Hidalgo, by El Greco.
[25] "Nunca la lanza embotó la pluma, ni la pluma la lanza,"--old
Spanish proverb.
[26] "The Hound of Heaven": Francis Thompson.
[27] "Donde hay música, no puede haber cosa mala."--Spanish proverb.
[28] "Spain is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is not
treated with contempt, and I may add, where the wealthy are not blindly
idolized."--George Borrow: "The Bible in Spain."
[29] Our Lady of Victory is the patroness of the _cigarreras_.
[30] "O trois fois saints chanoines! dormez doucement sous votre dalle,
â l'ombre de votre cathédrale chérie, tandis que votre âme se prelasse
au paradis dans une stalle probablement moins bien sculptée que celle de
votre ch[oe]ur!"
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER: "Voyage en Espagne."
[31] "One of the commonest types among the Greek figurines, certainly
representing the average Greek lady, might be supposed to represent a
Spanish lady, so closely does the face, the dress, the mantilla-like
covering of the head, the erect and dignified carriage, recall modern
Spain."
"The Soul of Spain."--HAVELOCK-ELLIS.
[32] The same trait is shown in the astonishingly fecund theater of
Spain, where is found for one golden century the indelible mark of the
race. First came Lope de Vega with his dashing picaresque comedies _de
capa y espada_, that more induce to laughter than to vice, the vigorous
and supple Lope, whom all nations have "found good to steal from." Then
followed the powerful Tirso de Molina, a dramatist of vision and
passion, and Ruiz de Alacón with his high ethical aim and equal
execution, and finally Calderón, who in the midst of his plays shows
himself an exquisite lyric poet. In Seville we used to see what would
here be a dime-museum crowd pouring into an hour's bit of frolic, such
as Benevente's "Intereses Creados," of the true cape-and-sword type.
Those plays which we personally saw proved to us Valera's words, that
erotic literature rises in sadness and pessimism, not in the hearty
bravura and zest of life of the Spanish theater.
[33] "Es menester mucho tiempo para venir á conocer las personas," is
one of Sancho Panza's wise saws.
[34] See "L'Espagne Littéraire" by Boris de Tannenberg (Paris, 1903).
[35] "Surely chivalry is not dead!" exclaimed Lieut. R. P. Hobson when
describing the courteous treatment he, as prisoner, had received from
the Spanish officers: "The history of warfare probably contains no
instance of chivalry on the part of captors greater than that of those
who fired on the 'Merrimac.'" The gallant American's account of his feat
in Santiago harbor proves that Spínola's spirit survives on both sides
of the Atlantic.
[36] "In Gerona Cathedral there was a cat who would stroll about in
front of the _capilla mayor_ during the progress of Mass, receiving the
caresses of the passers-by. It would be a serious mistake to see here
any indifference to religion, on the contrary, this easy familiarity
with sacred things is simply the attitude of those who in Wordsworth's
phrase, "lie in Abraham's bosom all the year," and do not, as often
among ourselves, enter a church once a week to prove how severely
respectable, for the example of others, we can show ourselves."
"The Soul of Spain"--HAVELOCK ELLIS (1908).
[37] An idea of Spain's romance of soul can be gathered from the rules
and regulations of her national police, the Civil Guard, who may be
called the descendants of Isabella's _Santa Hermandad_.
"1. Honour must be the chief motive for the Civil Guard, to be preserved
intact and without a flaw. Once gone, honour can never be regained.
" ... 3. The force must be an example to the country of neatness, order,
bearing, good morals and spotless honour....
"8. The Civil Guard ought to be regarded as the protector of the
afflicted, inspiring confidence when seen approaching.... For the Civil
Guard must freely give his life for the good of any sufferer.
" ... 9. Whenever a member of the Civil Guard has the good fortune to
render a service to anyone, he must never accept, if offered, a reward,
bearing in mind that he has done nothing but his simple duty.
" ... 27. The Civil Guard will refrain with the greatest scrupulousness
from drawing near to listen to any knot of people in street, shop, or
private house, for this would be an act of espionage, altogether outside
the office and beneath the dignity of any member of the force."
That such rules have molded her exemplary constabulary, no one will deny
who has traveled much in Spain. They are loved and respected by the
people; witness this popular song:
"Atenta á la vida humana
Siempre la Guardia Civil ...
Y por eso en todas partes
Benediciones la acompañan,
Por eso Dios la protege
Cuando al peligro se lanza,
Por eso la canto yo
Con el corazón y el alma:
Viva la Guardia Civil
Porque es la gloria de España!"
[38] This most beautiful church, dating before the Crusades, one of the
most ancient, with the Asturian churches, Santa María de Naranco and San
Miguel de Lino, in all the Peninsula, was totally destroyed by the
socialist mob, in the riots of July, 1909.
[39] "El principio de la salud está en conocer la enfermedad."--Old
Spanish proverb.
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