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NOTE
NOTE
T HIS is rather a collection of stray notes on Spain than a connected study—of notes from many pleasant hours of Spanish literature and travel, but perhaps of too individual an interest to appear without some apology. No reference will be found to those great social and political problems which disturb Spanish life. To fill the idler moments of a Spanish holiday, and possibly to help the reader to feel that “parfum du terroir” which pervades Spain, is the unambitious object of these pages. Bette
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PREFACE
PREFACE
I T is not easy in a few words to account for the strange Oriental spell that Spain has exercised over many minds nor to explain the potency of its attraction. For indeed the great Peninsula possesses a special spice and flavour. It has not the immemorial culture of Italy, nor the pleasant smiling landscapes of France with her green meadows and crystal streams. The old Iberia, that dura tellus , has a peculiar raciness. Its colour is often harsh and crude; many of its districts are barren and di
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I.—Stray Opinions
I.—Stray Opinions
T O collect a mass of isolated and contradictory opinions concerning the Spanish is a comparatively simple task, although it is difficult or impossible to derive from them a consistent picture of Spanish character. To Wellington they are “this extraordinary and perverse people,” to whom to boast of Spain’s strength was a natural weakness. “Procrastination and improvidence are their besetting sins,” says Napier, and of their conduct in the Peninsular War: “Of proverbially vivid imagination and qu
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II.—Vain Generalities.
II.—Vain Generalities.
“And indeed,” wrote Pepys, “we do all naturally love the Spanish and hate the French,” and if, since his day, we have learned to love the French, the character of the Spanish has not ceased to attract and interest Englishmen. Yet any attempt to generalize concerning Spanish character would seem a vain and foolish task, since Spain is the country of Europe which has most stringently preserved its local differences of race and language, and it is still true, as in Ford’s time, that “the rude agric
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II TRAVELLING IN SPAIN
II TRAVELLING IN SPAIN
I T was, of course, Samuel Johnson who said, “There is a good deal of Spain that has not been perambulated,” and the remark still holds good for those who, like Don Quixote, wish to “go seeking adventures.” The brigand stories, “got up,” as Ford would say, “for the home market,” are now slightly exploded, and few travellers expect to find at every turn— Yet even to-day few foreigners realize that they may cross and recross the Peninsula from north to south and from east to west in perfect securi
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III ON THE SPANISH FRONTIER
III ON THE SPANISH FRONTIER
T HE Bidasoa, in the last part of its course, divides Spain from France. It further divides Basque from Basque. It has thus a local and an historic interest. It is the scene of smuggling between French and Spanish Basques and, as a frontier river, it has seen many a quaint and solemn episode in the past—the passage of Wellington’s troops, for instance, in 1813, or the exchange in boats of Francis I. against two hostages (his sons) in 1526, the King showing an eager haste to win across the river
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I.—Basque Country
I.—Basque Country
T HERE are few peoples more deserving of study than the Basques, and few countries more pleasant to visit and to live in than the Basque Provinces. After the treeless, unsheltered mountains and plains, and the compact villages of Castille or Navarre, the villages of the Basque country, set in green, and, to quote the phrase of a Spanish novelist, “all in the peace of prayer,” are a delightful contrast. The sky has no longer the harsh intensity of the Castilian, and everywhere is a softness of ou
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II.—Basque Customs
II.—Basque Customs
An old Latin account speaks of the Basques as going nowhere—not even to church—without arms, usually a bow and arrows, and says that they are “gens affabilis, elegans et hilaris—courteous, graceful, and light-hearted;” [66] but, in spite of their known hospitality, their distrust of the foreigner and their hatred of intrusion are shown in more than one of their proverbs, as “The stranger-guest does not work himself, and prevents you from working.” The Basques are, indeed, the most energetic, as
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V IN REMOTE NAVARRE
V IN REMOTE NAVARRE
N AVARRE is held to be one of the chief bulwarks of Clericalism in Spain, and so remote and isolated are its villages, so primitive its life and agriculture, so few its means of communication, that it might seem that no breath of modern times could have penetrated to this province. Lying on the frontier of France, it is defended from the inroads of civilization by its mountains and wide wastes of desert land. In those lonely groups of houses of massive yellow-brown stone, clustered around their
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VI SPANISH CITIES
VI SPANISH CITIES
S PAIN is pre-eminently a land of cities. Often they stand conspicuous in an arid and treeless tract of country, glancing like jewels in a sunburnt land. The pleasant and fertile strip of country, on the French frontier is not properly Spanish, but Basque. On the other hand, nothing could be more Spanish than the little quaint old town of Fuenterrabía. The original name was Basque—Ondarrabia, “The two banks of sand.” The Romans, hearing the name, but ignorant of its meaning and seeing, moreover,
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VII IN OLD CASTILLE
VII IN OLD CASTILLE
I T is with astonishment and a kind of fear that the traveller passes through the high-lying plains of Old Castille, journeying swiftly from city to city, to for in these intervening tracts, sun-parched and windswept, it seems scarcely possible that men should live. The villages are closely huddled together, little compact masses of low, unwhitewashed houses, without a tree or garden, so colourless, and clinging to the soil as sometimes to pass unnoticed. Rivers flow between low, bare banks with
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VIII THE DESERT AND THE SOWN
VIII THE DESERT AND THE SOWN
T HE French soldiers, looking at the trifling Manzanares and its mighty bridges, may have exclaimed, “So even the Spanish rivers ran away.” But those who, at sight of tiny threads of water in immense river-beds, are inclined to ask, with Don Pedro in Much Ado about Nothing , “What need the bridge much broader than the flood?” find their answer after a few days of heavy rain. Marks six feet and more high on houses many hundreds of yards from the banks of the Ebro record the rising of the waters.
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IX THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN
IX THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN
A FIRST view of Catalonia from the sea shows at any rate the stones from which, according to the proverb, the Catalans make bread. For great spines of rust-coloured rock, covered here and there by pines of a crude green, run to the sea and break off in abrupt cliffs. In the valleys of these ridges towns and villages skirt the shore, Rosas, Palamos, San Feliú de Guixols with its cork industry, and lace-making Arenys de Mar. Towards Barcelona both soil and villages become greyer, but Barcelona its
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X AN EASTERN VILLAGE
X AN EASTERN VILLAGE
T HERE is no cloud in the clear March sky, filled with radiant light. Beyond the dark green of orange-trees and grey olives lies the sea, a faint line of blue. And, to the west, the mountains of bare rock are faintly purple, looking frail and brittle in their clear but distant outlines. A herd of goats passes slowly down a wide river-bed of smooth white stones, with no shred or vestige of water. Lines of aloes and tall reeds grow along its banks, and on either side peasants dressed in black are
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XI OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN
XI OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN
T HE Mediterranean off the coast of Spain is not always calm. Sometimes the east wind, the Llevant , lashes the waves to fury, and the shores along the villages and towns are black with lines of fishing-boats that dare not put out to sea. But for weeks together it is “lulled in the coil of its crystalline streams,” and the sun rises and sets across a silken plain of blue. In such weather a journey along the coast has a wonderful freshness and a fascinating charm. Again and again the traveller re
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XII THE JUDGING OF THE WATERS
XII THE JUDGING OF THE WATERS
I T was a cloudless day of November. The Cathedral of Valencia stood grey against a sky of soft blue. In the Plaza de la Constitución the sun shone on the central fountain and marked in dark lines the shadows of the houses and the Cathedral. From the great “Door of the Apostles” came a smell of incense as people went out and in. Surmounted by its large rose-window, the doorway has a worn and ancient air, and the plants growing here and there in the wall add to its look of venerable splendour. So
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XIII SEVILLE IN WINTER
XIII SEVILLE IN WINTER
I T is in spring, from March to May, that Seville is chiefly visited; the warm air and hot sun, the orange-trees in flower, the great religious festivals, the famous bull-fights, attract a host of foreigners, and the city has an animation unwonted even in the gay and lively capital of Andalucía. In winter Seville has a quieter, but perhaps not less potent charm. Winter often brings with it a succession of cool clear days, when the sky is of a serene, almost transparent blue, with golden sunsets.
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XIV FROM A SEVILLE HOUSETOP
XIV FROM A SEVILLE HOUSETOP
I N winter Seville’s sky is sometimes for weeks entirely cloudless. Day after day opens and dies peacefully away like a perfect flower; or, if a strong cold wind drives across the day, it still blows in a heaven of limitless clear blue. But in early spring the sky is often veiled in a floating canopy of grey, or one may watch the white masses of clouds thin and melt on the blue. And the blue is no longer fixed, distant, and serene; even when apparently clear it has a vague movement of dissolving
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XV FEBRUARY IN ANDALUCÍA
XV FEBRUARY IN ANDALUCÍA
N OT one perhaps in a hundred of those who visit Seville and Granada sees more than a glimpse of the beautiful country and curious villages of Andalucía; yet there is much pleasure and interest to be had from a journey through all this region. In February an early start with the sun will enable the traveller on horseback or on foot to accomplish a fair day’s journey, since the sun has not yet begun to burn and force him to rest for some six central hours of the day, as later in the year. And the
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XVI SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH LITERATURE
XVI SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH LITERATURE
T HERE is not a literature in Europe more individual than that of Spain. It has been influenced greatly at various times by other countries, especially Italy and France, but in its many masterpieces it has a flavour of the soil, a local colouring that is all its own. Even when Spanish authors have borrowed most freely they have usually succeeded in casting their own individuality over their “honourable kind of thieving.” Who has a more individual genius than Juan Ruiz, the merry Archpriest of Hi
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1.—A Primitive Masterpiece
1.—A Primitive Masterpiece
T HE national hero of Spain has been presented in many guises, but is nowhere more intensely Spanish than in the “Poema del Cid.” Here are no marvellous events and miracles, no journeyings out of Spain to Paris and Rome; everything occurs naturally and simply in Spanish surroundings, and this the first great masterpiece of Spanish letters has a strong flavour of the soil. After winning a “victory marvellous and great” over the Moors in Spain, the Cid says, “I give thanks to God who is Master of
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II. Valencia del Cid.
II. Valencia del Cid.
The poem opens abruptly with the exile of the Cid from Castille. He rides to his house at Burgos but finds all closed against him. Only a nine-year-old girl is found to tell him that “last night came the King’s letter. We dare not open or receive you, else would we lose our goods and houses, and moreover the eyes of our heads.” To obtain money the Cid fills two chests with sand, and on these “covered with red leather, and studded with nails well-gilt,” he obtains six hundred marks from the Jews
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I.—Novedades
I.—Novedades
T HE poetry of Luis de León is not voluminous; he has no great variety of theme; he sings “the quiet life of him who shuns the world’s uproar;” but there is, as has been said, scarcely a line of it that is not exquisite. And if, as a lyric poet, Luis de León stands in the front of Spanish literature, as a writer of eloquent and well-moulded Castilian prose he has had few equals. His “Nombres de Cristo” is one of the masterpieces of the Spanish language. The sentences are perhaps occasionally too
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II.—Salamanca University
II.—Salamanca University
In the Universities especially accusations of every kind hung fire over men marked out by their position or abilities. The University of Salamanca had always been eminently conservative. Popes and Kings were anxious for its welfare. Philip II. saw in the University a stronghold of religion and loyalty. Pedro Chacon tells how “in the year 1560, on the return of our sovereign Don Philip to Spain after an absence of several years spent in reducing and governing the kingdom of England, he at once co
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III.—In a Valladolid Dungeon.
III.—In a Valladolid Dungeon.
The order of imprisonment was issued on the 26th of February, 1572. His goods were to be confiscated with the exception of a bed and forty ducats to provide for his food in prison. He was to be seized, wherever found, “in church, monastery, or other sacred place,” and he was to bring with him nothing but clothes and linen. A curious clause adds that “beasts of burden to carry him and his bed, etc., are to be provided at the customary price, and the price is not to be raised.” He was thus arreste
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IV.—Ex Forti Dulcedo.
IV.—Ex Forti Dulcedo.
On the 28th September, 1576, the sentence is at length pronounced. The majority of the judges “are of opinion that Fray Luis de León be put to the torture as to his meaning, and as to what has been witnessed against him, and as to the propositions that have been noted as heretical, in spite of the fact that the theologians profess finally to be satisfied with them and to give them the meaning that Fray Luis would have them bear; and that the torture to be applied to him be moderate, seeing that
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I.—Revival. Fernán Caballero
I.—Revival. Fernán Caballero
T HE success of “Don Quixote” might have been expected to fire a host of imitators, but the seventeenth century in Spain was given rather to the drama than to the novel, and the eighteenth century “was an age of barrenness in Spain, so far as concerns romance.” [99] In the first half of the nineteenth century the Spanish novel was for the most part a pale imitation of Sir Walter Scott, and these somewhat insipid romances, in spite of the wealth of subjects afforded by Spanish history, were not g
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II.—1870-1900.
II.—1870-1900.
In 1864 Pereda published his first work, “Escenas montañesas,” and ten years later, and three before the death of Fernán Caballero, appeared Valera’s first novel, “Pepita Jiménez,” and Alarcón’s “El Sombrero de tres picos.” Since 1874 scarcely a year has passed without producing a Spanish novel that deserves a high rank in literature. Yet Pereda [100] did not at once impose himself, and early in 1874 Pérez Galdós could put the following words into the mouth of one of the characters in Napoleón e
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III.—In the Twentieth Century.
III.—In the Twentieth Century.
The novel continues to hold the field in Spanish literature. The early years of the twentieth century saw the death of two splendid writers, Valera (1824-1905), and Pereda (1833-1906), and Leopoldo Alas died in 1901. Of the older novelists, Pérez Galdós, the Condesa Pardo Bazán, [104] Palacio Valdés, and Jacinto Octavio Picón [105] still remain, and a brilliant group of younger writers is ready to pass on the torch undimmed. Pérez Galdós’ “El Caballero Encantado” is dated July-December, 1909. Wr
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XX NOVELS OF GALICIA
XX NOVELS OF GALICIA
T HE inhabitants of Galicia have been held to be the Boeotians of Spain, yet the fact that in the political world many eminent persons are Gallegans seems to show that Galicia has been maligned. To Galicia, too, belong two gifted modern writers, the Condesa Emilia Pardo Bazán and Don Ramón del Valle-Inclán. Señora Pardo Bazán belongs to the older group of Spanish novelists; born in 1851, [107] she published her two well-known novels of Galicia, “Los Pazos de Ulloa,” and “La Madre Naturaleza,” in
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I.—“Savour of the Soil”
I.—“Savour of the Soil”
F IFTY years ago, before Zola and the naturalistic school were on the lips of men, a Spanish novelist, José María de Pereda, was beginning to write who can only not be called a naturalist, because of the associations given to the name in France. Humour and frankness run through Spanish literature; there is less artificial refinement and more vigour and broadly human sympathy than in the literature of France. The very language is frank and outspoken rather than subtle and insinuating. And the nob
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II.—“On the Heights”
II.—“On the Heights”
In “Pedro Sánchez” Pereda, not without trepidation, travelled outside his native region to Madrid, then, in 1854, “a large tumbledown village, parched, old, and dirty;” [112] but Pedro Sanchez is a montañés , and the first part of the book, before he leaves his native Montaña , in style far exceeds the rest. The chief [113] works of Pereda, after “El Sabor de la Tierruca” and “Pedro Sánchez,” were “Sotileza” (1885), “La Puchera” (1889), and “Peñas arriba” (1895). “Sotileza” is a novel of the old
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XXII CASTILIAN PROSE
XXII CASTILIAN PROSE
“ T HE Spanish language,” said an English writer in 1701, “is properly none at all, for if the Spaniards were to restore to the Egyptians, Grecians, Arabians, Moors, Jews, Romans, Vandals, Huns, Goths, French, and, lastly, Italians, the words they have taken from them, they must of necessity remain dumb.” And, again, the Spanish language “consists of a’s and o’s, and nothing else but mouthing and grimace.” Another Englishman, sixty years later, says of the Spanish language, that “As there is som
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XXIII TOLEDO AND EL GRECO
XXIII TOLEDO AND EL GRECO
T HE fame of El Greco [116] has of late years spread and deepened, although the full fascination of his pictures will perhaps never be understood, except by a few. Of his life we have but one or two threadbare details, and this is the more tantalizing because we feel that his life and character were of a strange, alluring interest. Before his coming to Spain, the most interesting fact we learn concerning him is contained in a letter of the artist Julio Clovio, written in November, 1570: “There h
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