the inhabitant of the mother country. The dictionary of the Royal
Academy of Spain, like that of France, is not yet completed.
Philip V. founded the Royal Academy of History in 1738. Under its
auspices, especially of late years, much valuable work has been done in
publishing the original records of the country, to be found at Simancas
and other places; but the authentic history of Spain is still
incomplete. Up to the time of his assassination, Don Antonio Cánovas del
Castillo was its director, and Don Pedro de Madrazo its permanent
secretary. The society, now known as the Real Academia de San Fernando,
founded in 1752, under the title of Real Academia de las tres nobles
Artes, has now had a fourth added to it - that of music. The functions of
its separate sections are much the same as those of the English Academy
of Painting and the sister arts. A permanent gallery of the works of its
members exists in Madrid, and certificates, diplomas, honourable
mention, etc., are distributed by the directors to successful
competitors.
Later societies are the Academies of Exact Science, Physical and
Natural, of Moral and Political Science, of Jurisprudence and
Legislation, and last, but by no means least, the Royal Academy of
Medicine, under whose auspices medical science has of late years made
immense strides, and is probably now in line with that of the most
advanced of other countries.
CHAPTER XVI
MODERN LITERATURE
The name of Pascual de Gayangos is known far beyond the confines of his
own country as a scholar, historian, philologist, biographer, and
critic. Although now a man of very advanced age, he is one of the most
distinguished of modern Orientalists, and his _History of the Arabs in
Spain_, _Vocabulary of the Arabic Words in Spanish_, and his _Catalogue
of Spanish MSS. in the British Museum_ are known wherever the language
is known or studied. He has published in Spanish an edition of Ticknor's
great work on Spanish literature, and has edited several valuable works
in the Spanish Old Text Society besides innumerable other historical and
philological books and papers, which have given him a European
reputation. His immense store of knowledge, his modesty, and his genuine
kindness to all who seek his aid endear him as much for his personal
qualities as for his learning.
Next to Gayangos in the same class of work, Marcelino Menendez y Palayo
may perhaps be mentioned. His _History of Æsthetic Ideas in Spain_ has
been left unfinished so far, owing to the demands made on his time by
his position in the political world as one of the Conservative leaders.
Don Modesto Lafuente, though scarcely possessing the qualities of a
great historian, is accurate and painstaking to a great degree; but in
the field of history many workers are searching the archives and
documents in which the country is so rich, and throwing light on
particular periods. Cánovas del Castillo, in spite of his great
political duties, was one of the most valuable of these; and the eminent
jurist, Don Francisco de Cardenas, and the learned Jesuit, Fidel Fita,
and other members of the Academy of History are constantly working in
the rich mine at Simancas. New papers and books are continually being
brought out under the auspices of this society, throwing light on the
past history of the country.
Fernan Caballero, a German by race, but married successively to three
Spanish husbands, may be said to have inaugurated the modern Spanish
novel _de costumbres_, and her books are perhaps better known in England
than those of some of the later novelists. By far the greater writer of
the day in Spain, however, in light literature, is Juan Valera, at once
poet, critic, essayist, and novelist. His _Pepita Jimenez_ is a
remarkable novel, full of delicate characterisation and exquisite style,
second to none produced in any country - a novel full of fire, and yet
irreproachable in taste, handling a difficult subject with the mastery
of genius. It has been translated into English; but however well it may
have been done, it must lose immensely in the transition, because the
Spanish of Valera is the perfection of a perfectly beautiful language.
In this novel we have the character of a priest, who, while we know him
only through the letters addressed to him by the young student of
theology, the extremely sympathetic hero of the story, lives in one's
memory, showing us the best side of the Spanish priest. Other novels of
Valera's, _Doña Luis_ and _El Comendador Mendoza_, a number of essays on
all sorts of subjects, critical and other, and poems which show great
grace and correctness of style, have given this writer a high place in
the literature of the age.
Perez Galdós is a writer of a wholly different class, although he enjoys
a very wide reputation in his own country and wherever Spanish is read.
His _Episodes Nacionales_, some fifty-six in number, attract by their
close attention to detail, which gives an air of actuality to the most
diffuse of his stories. They are careful and very accurate studies of
different episodes of national life, in which the author introduces,
among the fictitious characters round whom the story moves, the real
actors on the stage of history of the time. Thus Mendizábal, Espartero,
Serrano, Narvaez, the Queen of Ferdinand VII., Cristina, and many other
persons appear in the books, giving one the impression that history is
alive, and not the record of long-dead actors we are accustomed to find
it. Galdós appears to despise any kind of plot; the events run on, as
they did in fact run on, only there are one or two people who take part
in them whom we may suppose to be creations of the author's brain.
Certainly, one learns more contemporary history by reading these
_Episodes_ of Perez Galdós, and realises all the scenes of it much more
vividly than one would ever do by the reading of ordinary records of
events. As the tendency and the sympathy of the writer is always
Liberal, one fancies that Galdós has written with the determined
intention to tempt a class of readers to become acquainted with the
recent history of their country who would never do so under any less
attractive form than that of the novel. His works must do good, since
they are very widely read, and are extremely accurate as history. His
play, _Electra_, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of
the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom
that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have
always enjoyed, or, at least, since mediæval times, and has nothing in
common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves.
Galdós, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if
not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great
pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so
many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction.
Pedro Alarcón is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic
afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most
widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His _Sombrero de Tres
Picos_ is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet
grace, while _El Escándalo_ and _La Pródiga_ are of the sensational
order. He writes, like Galdós, in series, such as _Historietas
Nacionales_, _Narraciones InverosÃmiles_, and _Viajes por España_.
Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen.
_Sotilezas_, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life
among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town.
Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible
for foreign readers.
The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be
said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the
sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is
imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes
the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its
scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not
hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in
Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard
by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a
frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company
subjects which it would not be thought good taste to mention under the
same circumstances with us. _Una Cristiana_ and _La Prueba_, its sequel,
are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of
offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand,
if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her articles on
intellectual and social questions show an amount of education and a
breadth of view which place her among the best writers of her nation.
She is not in the least blinded by her patriotism to the faults of her
country, especially to the hitherto narrow education of its women. She
holds up an ideal of a higher type - a woman who shall be man's
intellectual companion, and his helper in the battle of life. She is by
no means the only woman writer in Spain at the present time; but she is
the most talented, and occupies certainly the highest place. Her
writings are somewhat difficult for anyone not conversant with
Portuguese, or, rather, with the Galician variety of the Spanish
language, for the number of words not to be found in the Spanish
dictionary interfere with the pleasure experienced by a foreigner, and
even some Castilians, in reading her novels. Pardo Bazan was an
enthusiastic friend and admirer of Castelar, and belongs to his
political party. A united Iberian republic, with Gibraltar restored to
Spain, is, or was, its programme.
_Hermana San Sulpicio_, by Armando Palacio Valdés, is one of the
charming, purely Spanish novels which has made a name for its author
beyond the confines of his own country; but since that was produced he
has gone for his inspiration to the French naturalistic school, and,
like some English writers, he thinks that repulsive and indecent
incidents, powerfully drawn, add to the artistic value of his work.
Padre Luis Coloma, a Jesuit, obtained a good deal of attention at one
time by his _Pequeñeces_, studies, written in gall, of Madrid society.
His stories are too narrowly bigoted in tone to have any lasting vogue,
and his views of life too much coloured by his ultramontane tendencies
to be even true. Nuñez de Arce is, like so many Spaniards of the last
few decades, at once a poet and a politician. He played a stirring part
from the time of the Revolution to the Restoration, always on the side
of liberty, but never believing in the idea of a republic. His _Gritos
del Combate_ were the agonised expression of a fighter in his country's
battle for freedom and for light. Since the more settled state of
affairs, Nuñez de Arce has written many charming idyls and short poems.
In the _Idilio_ is a wonderful picture of the, to some of us, barren
scenery of Castile, in which the eye of the artist sees, and makes his
readers see, a beauty all the more striking because it is hidden from
the ordinary gaze.
Of José Zorilla as a poet there is little need to speak. His countrymen
read his voluminous works, but they are not of any real value.
Campoamor describes his _Dorloras_ as "poetic compositions combining
lightness, sentiment, and brevity with philosophic importance." His
earlier works were studied from Shakespeare and from Byron, who was the
star of the age when Campoamor began to write. His most ambitious work,
the _Universal Drama_, is "after Dante and Milton." He is a great
favourite with his fellow-countrymen, both as poet and companion. He is
a member of the Academy and a Senator.
It is impossible, however, to do more than indicate a few of the writers
who are leaders in the literature of Spain to-day. There has, in fact,
been an immense impulse in the production of books of all classes within
the last twenty or thirty years. In fiction, Spain once more aspires to
have a characteristic literature of her own, in place of relying on
translations from the French, as was the case for a brief time before
her political renaissance began.
A notable departure has been the foundation of the Folklore Society, and
the publication up to the present time of eleven volumes under the name
of _Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Españolas_, under the
direction of Señor Don Antonio Machado y Alvarez. In the introduction to
the first volume, the Director tells us that, with the help of the
editor of _El Folklore Andaluz_ and his friends, D. Alejandro Guichot y
Sierra and D. Luis Montolo y Raustentrauch, he has undertaken this great
work, which arose out of the _Bases del Folklore Español_, published in
1881, and the two societies established in 1882, the Folklore Andaluz
and Folklore Extremeño. These societies have for object the gathering
together, copying, and publishing of the popular beliefs, proverbs,
songs, stories, poems, the old customs and superstitions of all parts of
the Peninsula, including Portugal, as indispensable materials for the
knowledge and scientific reconstruction of Spanish culture. In this
patriotic and historical work many writers have joined, each bringing
his quota of garnered treasure-trove, presenting thus, in a series of
handy little volumes, a most interesting collection of the ancient
customs, beliefs, and, in fact, the folklore of a country exceptionally
rich in widely differing nationalities.
Many of the tales, which it would seem even at the present time,
especially in Portugal and Galicia, are told in the evening, and have
rarely found their way into print, have the strong stamp of the
legitimate Eastern fable, and bear a great family resemblance to those
of the _Arabian Nights_. As, in fact, the _Thousand and One Nights_ was
very early published in Spanish, it is probable that its marvellous
histories were known verbally to the people of the Iberian continent for
many centuries, and have coloured much of its folklore. _The Ingenious
Student_ is certainly one of these. Barbers also play an important part
in many of these tales. It is quite common for the Court barber to marry
the King's daughter, and to succeed him as ruler; but the barber was,
of course, surgeon or blood-letter as well as the principal
news-agent - the forerunner of the daily newspaper of our times. The
transmutation of human beings into mules, and _vice versa_, is a common
fable, and we meet with wolf-children and the curious superstition that
unbaptised people can penetrate into the domains of the enchanted Moors,
and that these have no power to injure them. The story of the Black
Slave, who eventually married the King's daughter and had a white mule
for his Prime Minister, is very Eastern in character. "From so wise a
King and so good a Queen the people derived great benefit; disputes
never went beyond the ears of the Chief Minister, and, in the words of
the immortal barber and poet of the city, 'the kingdom flourished under
the guidance of a mule: which proves that there are qualities in the
irrational beings which even wisest ministers would do well to
imitate.'" _The Watchful Servant_ is, however, purely Spanish in
character, and it closes with the proverb that "a jealous man on
horseback is first cousin to a flash of lightning." _King Robin_, the
story of how the beasts and birds revenged themselves on Sigli and his
father, the chief of a band of robbers, recalls "Uncle Remus" and his
animal tales; for the monkeys, at the suggestion of the fox, and with
the delighted consent of the birds and the bees, made a figure wholly of
birdlime to represent a sleeping beggar, being quite certain that Sigli
would kick it the moment that he saw the intruder from the windows of
his father's castle. In effect both father and son became fast to the
birdlime figure, when they were stung to death by ten thousand bees.
Then King Robin ordered the wolves to dig the grave, into which the
monkeys rolled the man and the boy and the birdlime figure, and, after
covering it up, all the beasts and birds and insects took possession of
the robbers' castle, and lived there under the beneficent rule of King
Robin.
_Silver Bells_ is, again, a story of a wholly different type, and
charmingly pretty it is, with its new development of the wicked
step-mother - in this case a mother who had married again and hated her
little girl by the first husband. _Elvira, the Sainted Princess_ tells
how the daughter of King Wamba, who had become a Christian unknown to
her father, by her prayers and tears caused his staff to blossom in one
night, after he had determined that unless this miracle were worked by
the God of the Christians she and her lover should be burned.
One fault is to be found with these old stories as remembered and told
by Mr. Sellers; that is, the introduction of modern ideas into the
Old-World fables of a primitive race. Hits at the Jesuits, the
Inquisition, and the government of recent kings take away much of the
glamour of what is undoubtedly folklore. The story of the _Black Hand_
seems to have many varieties. It is somewhat like our stories of Jack
and the Bean Stalk and Bluebeard, but differs, to the advantage of the
Spanish ideal, in that the enchanted prince who is forced to play the
part of the terrible Bluebeard during the day voluntarily enters upon a
second term of a hundred years' enchantment, so as to free the wife whom
he loves, and who goes off safely with her two sisters and numerous
other decapitated beauties, restored to life by the self-immolation of
the prince. The _White Dove_ is another curious and pretty fable which
has many variations in different provinces - a story in which the King's
promise cannot be broken, though it ties him to the hateful negress who
has transformed his promised wife into a dove, and has usurped her
place. Eventually, of course, the pet dove changes into a lovely girl
again, when the King finds and draws out the pins which the negress has
stuck into her head, and the usurper is "burnt" as punishment - an ending
which savours of the _Quemadero_.
The making of folklore is not, however, extinct in Spain, a country
where poetry seems to be an inherent faculty. One is constantly reminded
of the Spanish proverb, _De poetas y de locos, todos tenémos un poco_
(We have each of us somewhat of the poet and somewhat of the fool). No
one can tell whence the rhymed _jeux d'esprit_ come; they seem to spring
spontaneously from the heart and lips of the people. Children are
constantly heard singing _coplas_ which are evidently of recent
production, since they speak of recent events, and yet which have the
air of old folklore ballads, of concentrated bits of history.
Rey inocente - a weak king,
Reina traidora - treacherous queen,
Pueblo cobarde - a coward people,
Grandes sin honra - nobles without honour,
sums up and expresses in nine words the history of Goday's shameful
bargain with Napoleon.
En el Puente de Alcoléa
La batalla ganó Prim,
Y por eso la cantámos
En las calles de Madrid.
At the bridge of Alcoléa
A great battle gained Prim,
And for this we go a-singing
In the streets of Madrid.
Señor Don Eugenio de Olavarria-y Huarte, in citing this _copla_ (_Folklore
de Madrid_), points out that it contains the very essence of folklore,
since it gives a perfectly true account of the battle of Alcoléa.
Although Prim was not present, he was the liberator, and without him the
battle would never have been fought, nor the joy of liberty have been
sung in the streets of the capital. There is seldom, if ever, any
grossness in these spontaneous songs of the people - never indecency or
double meaning. No sooner has an event happened than it finds its
history recorded in some of these popular _coplas_, and sung by the
children at their play.
The Folklore Society has some interesting information to give about the
innumerable rhymed games which Spanish children, like our own, are so
fond of playing, many of them having an origin lost in prehistoric
times. One finds, also, from some of the old stories, that the devils
are much hurt in their feelings by having tails and horns ascribed to
them. As a matter of fact, they have neither, and cannot understand
where mortals picked up the idea! The question is an interesting one.
Where did we obtain this notion?
CHAPTER XVII
THE FUTURE OF SPAIN
An Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close
connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most
valued friends, thus speaks of the national characteristics:
"The Spanish and English characters are, indeed, in many points
strangely alike. Spain ranks as one of the Latin nations, and the
Republican orators of Spain are content to look to France for light and
leading in all their political combinations; but a large mass of the
nation, the bone and sinew of the country, the silent, toiling tillers
of the soil, are not of this way of thinking.... There is a sturdy
independence in the Spanish character, and an impatience of dictation
that harmonises more nearly with the English character than with that of
her Latin neighbours.... There is a gravity and reticence also in the
Spaniard that is absent from his mercurial neighbour, and which is,
indeed, much more akin to our cast of temper.
"True it is that our insular manners form at first a bar to our
intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of
deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of
mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong
attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the
strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know
the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful
friends than those they have amongst her people."
Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of
labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of
judging, this writer says:
"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not
much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are
exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great
facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest - perfect gentlemen in
their manners, and the lowest labourer has an _aplomb_ and ease of
manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might
envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it
is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real
bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to
meet with - not free from defects - what race is? - but possessed of
excellent sterling qualities, which only require knowing to be
appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and
politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and
debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is,
unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."[3]
[3] _Commercial and Industrial Spain_, by George Higgin,
Mem. Inst. C. E., London, 1886.
In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution
of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called,
and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time;
because, after the battle of Alcoléa, when the cry raised in the Puerta
del Sol, _Viva Prim!_ was answered by the troops shut up in the
Government offices, and the people, swarming up the _rejas_ and the
balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been
intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot
them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and
of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance,
the Queen and her _camarilla_ had fled across the frontier, the
Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet
not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and
quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street
formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their
positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and
institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people
were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went
on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was