Spanish Life in Town and Country Part 8

CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD

Education, especially that of the ma.s.ses, has made great strides since the Revolution. At that time perfect liberty of religion and of instruction was established, and in this particular the somewhat retrograde movement at the Restoration, in allowing the return of the religious orders banished in the early years of the century, has only resulted in a greater number of private schools being established by the Jesuits and other teaching orders. With the public instruction they have never been allowed to interfere.

Every town and village has now its munic.i.p.al and free schools, kept up by the _Diputacion provincial_. In all the chief towns there are technical and arts and crafts schools, also free, the expenses being borne by the Ministry of Fomento. Besides these are many private schools, taught by Jesuits and other teaching orders. The Ministry of Fomento is at present trying to bring in a law making education compulsory, and bringing all schools under State control. There are numerous girls' schools, managed by committees of ladies, as well as the convent schools and other private establishments. There are also normal schools, maintained by the Ministry of Fomento, where women and girls, as well as men, can take degrees and gain certificates for teaching purposes. In every capital of Spain one of these schools is established. There are ten universities, of which the princ.i.p.al is that of Madrid. In some of these only medicine and law are studied, but others are open for every cla.s.s of learning. In all these numerous schools and colleges great advance has been made in late years; in the department of science, electricity has taken a very noticeable step forward, and in applied electricity Spain probably compares favourably with any of the European nations. Even the small towns and some villages are lighted by electricity, having gone straight from petroleum to electric light. Most of the large towns have, besides the light, electric tramways, telephones, etc., the engineers and artisans employed in these works being of a very high cla.s.s. Electrical engineers are not under Government control, as the civil and mechanical engineers are, and have therefore better chances of coming to the front and making a career for themselves. The Government engineers, however, are kept up to the mark of other countries, and an attempt has been made by the present Minister to alter the system by which civil and mechanical engineers are compulsorily a body appointed and controlled by Government.

Medical science has made great strides during the last ten or twelve years. The hospitals are reformed, and all sanitary and antiseptical arrangements are now strictly attended to, and brought into line with the latest developments of science. A fine new hospital, San Juan de Dios, has been built in Madrid, on the plan of St. Thomas's in London, and this is only one of many improvements. The reorganisation of all scientific teaching is now engaging the attention of the Minister. An excellent sign of the present state of medical science in Spain--which only a few years ago was so far behind the age--is the fact that the International Congress of Medicine is fixed to meet in Madrid, for the first time, in 1902.

Since the establishment of religious liberty, the Americans seem to have made themselves very busy in missionary work. Mrs. Gulick, the wife of the American missionary in San Sebastian, claims to have "proved the intellectual ability of Spanish girls," and has secured State examination and recognition of her pupils by the National Inst.i.tution of San Sebastian, and a few have even obtained admission to the examinations of the Madrid University, where they maintained a high rank. One always has a feeling that missionaries might easily find a field for their zealous labours in their own country; but if an impulse was needed from a foreign people for the initiation of a higher education among the daughters of Spain, they will certainly be able to carry on the work themselves, with such women as Emelia Pardo Bazan to lead the way. Mrs. Gulick is said to project a college for women in Madrid without distinction of creed. The whole affair sounds a little condescending, as though America were coming to the aid of a nation of savages; but if the Spaniards themselves do not object, no one else has any right to do so.

The Protestant movement has made but little progress in Spain. The religion is scarcely fitted to the genius of the people, and the Anglican Church has shown no desire to proselytise a nation which has as much right to its own religious opinions and form of worship as the English nation. The Americans and English Nonconformists are very busy, however, and talk somewhat largely of the results of their labours. In most of the large towns there are English chapels and schools, and a certain number among the lower cla.s.ses of Spaniards have joined these communities. A private diary of a visit to Madrid so long ago as 1877 describes the English service there. The congregation numbered "quite five hundred." "They were of the poorer cla.s.ses of both s.e.xes, with a sprinkling of well-dressed men and women. They seemed to perform their devotions in a spirit of entire reverence and piety, not unlike a similar cla.s.s in our churches at home. The clergyman delivered an impressive and forcible discourse, chiefly on the honour due to the name of G.o.d, and reprobated the profane use of the most sacred names, so common among the Spanish people.... Altogether I look upon the congregation at the Calle de Madera as a nucleus of genuine Protestantism in Spain."

As this is the opinion of a perfectly unbia.s.sed onlooker, and has nothing of the professional element about it, it may be taken as absolutely reliable. In the towns, such as Bilbao, where there is a large English colony, there are various churches and chapels, and considerable numbers of communicants and Sunday scholars. Looking back, as I am able to do, to the days when there was no toleration for an alien faith; when even Christian burial for the "heretic" was quite a new thing, and living people could tell of the indignities heaped on the corpse of any unlucky English man or woman who died in "Catholic" Spain; when to have omitted, or even hesitated about, any of the religious actions imposed by the Church would have exposed one to gross insult, and perhaps injury; the progress towards enlightened toleration of the opinions of others seems to have been remarkable. It is, perhaps, more significant that the members of the new congregations should be generally of the lower cla.s.ses, because it is precisely these people who have always been mere unthinking puppets in the hands of their priests.

Although there is at the present moment such a deep and widespread revolt against the Jesuits and some of the other orders, especially among the students and the better cla.s.s of artisans and workmen, there is not, so far as a stranger may judge, a revolt against the Church itself, nor even against the parochial clergy. It would seem rather that there is a fixed determination that the priests shall keep to their business, that of the service of religion, and shall not be allowed to interfere in secular education, or, by use of the confessional, to dominate the family; and, above all, that the convents shall not be filled by force, undue persuasion, or cajolery. The state of the Roman Catholic religion and its priesthood in England is constantly being held up as the ideal of what the Church in Spain should be.

Almost all the modern novelists of Spain show us characters of priests with whom every reader must feel sympathy. Valera, Galdos, Pardo Bazan, and others depict individual clerics who are simple, straightforward, pious, and in every way worthy men, the friend of the young and the helper of the sorrowful. Sometimes they are not very learned, and not at all worldly-wise, but they show that the type is largely represented amongst the priesthood of Spain, and there are not wanting some of distinctly liberal tendencies. There was a remarkable article in a Madrid paper of radical, if not socialistic, tendencies, the other day, by one who signed himself "A priest of the Spanish Catholic Church."

Lamenting over the sentimentalism of modern religion, and the distance it had travelled from its old models, he says: "Instead of the Virgen being held up to admiration as the Mother of Our Lord, and as an example of all feminine perfection, the ideal woman and mother, the people are called on to worship the idea of the Immaculate Conception, an abstract dogma of recent invention, and in place of showing us the perfect man in the Son of G.o.d, they are asked to worship a 'bleeding heart,' abstracted from the body, and held up as an object of reverence, apart from the living body of Jesus Christ." It is the reform of the national religion still ardently loved in spite of all the crimes that have been committed in her name, that the liberal-minded Spaniard wants, not the subst.i.tution of a foreign church; although no doubt the opportunity, now for the first time possible, of learning that there are people every whit as good and earnest as themselves, who yet hold religious opinions other than theirs, is bound to have a widening and softening effect on the narrowness of a creed which has. .h.i.therto been regarded as the only one.

The extraordinary outbreak against the Jesuits and the religious orders of the last year had many causes, and had probably long been seething, and waiting for something to open the floodgates. That something came in the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, and the coincidence, accidental or otherwise, of the production of Galdos's play of _Electra_. The marriage was a love match; the two young sons of the Count of Caserta, who were nephews of the Infanta Isabel on her husband's side, had been constantly at the Palace in Madrid, companions of the boy King. An attachment sprang up between Don Carlos, the elder of the two, and the King's elder sister, the Princess of Asturias. In every way the projected marriage was obnoxious to the people. The Count of Caserta himself had been chief of the staff to the Pretender, Don Carlos, and though he and his sons had taken the oath of allegiance to the young King, Spaniards have learned to place little reliance on such oaths. Had not Montpensier sworn allegiance to his sister-in-law Isabel II.? and of how much was it worth when the time came that he thought he could successfully conspire against her? To allow the heiress to the Crown to marry a Carlist seemed the surest way to reopen civil war, and upset the dynasty once more. Moreover, the Jesuits were supposed to be behind it all. The Apostolic party was apparently scotched and Carlism dead, but was not this one more move of the hated Jesuits to resuscitate both? The Liberal Government refused to allow the marriage; the Queen Regent, actuated, it is said, solely by the desire to secure what she considered the happiness of her daughter, who refused to give up her lover, was obstinate; and rather than give in, Sagasta and his Ministers resigned. A Conservative Ministry was formed--the methods of manipulating elections must be borne in mind--and the marriage was carried out. Even before the wedding-day the storm broke, and things looked ugly enough. Riots and disturbances occurred all over the country, as well as in Madrid itself; attacks were made on the houses of the Jesuits, who were credited with being the authors of the situation; and then followed the Government's suicidal step of suspending the const.i.tutional guarantees over the whole country. Absolutism had once more raised its head! The Conservative Ministers, or many of them, were accused of being mere tools in the hands of the Jesuits, and it was complained that the confessor of the young King was one of the hated order.

For a time Spain seemed to be on the verge of one of her old convulsions. It appeared doubtful if the Queen Regent had not sacrificed the crown of one child to gratify the obstinacy of another. Fortunately, a catastrophe was averted. After vain efforts to retain the Conservative party in power, or to form a coalition, which all the best public men refused to join, Sagasta was once more recalled to power, the const.i.tutional guarantees were restored, and the sharp crisis pa.s.sed.

But the attention of the nation had been attracted to what it considered the machinations of the Jesuits; order was indeed restored in Madrid and the provinces, but the "clerical question" had come to the front, and there was no possibility of allowing it to slumber again. It was discovered that not only had many of the religious orders, whose return had been allowed by convention after the Restoration, under certain limitations, largely increased their numbers beyond the limits allowed them, but that others had established themselves without any authorisation from the Government; also that considerable properties were being acquired in the country by the orders, though, of course, held under other names. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid pet.i.tioned the Government to order an inquiry into the affairs of these religious bodies, pointing out that they were establishing manufactories of shoes, chocolate, fancy post-cards, and other objects of commerce, interfering with the ordinary trades, and underselling them, because, under the plea of being charitable inst.i.tutions, they evaded duty. The heads of colleges and the Society of Public Teachers also asked for Government interference and the rea.s.sertion of the laws of 1881 and 1895, guaranteeing perfect liberty of instruction, because they affirmed that the Fathers, Jesuit and others, undermined the teaching of science in the schools by means of tracts distributed to the pupils, and also by using the power they obtained in the confessional to set aside the lessons in science given in the colleges.

The action of the Government was prompt and judicious. Strict inquiries were at once made into the question of the manufacturing orders, and those not paying the duty were reminded of the immediate necessity of doing so, and of furnishing to the Ministry of Fomento full particulars of the trades carried on by them. Houses that were permitted by convention were warned to reduce their numbers to those allowed by law, and all unauthorised orders were warned at once to leave the country.

The Press took a dignified and moderate position in the matter. It pointed out that perfect religious liberty existed, and that all that was needful was to see that the religious orders obeyed the law of the country as other people did; but that to inaugurate a system of persecution would be to return to the Dark Ages, and to follow the bad example set by the Church itself in former years.

Meanwhile, a clear intimation had been given by the Government that public instruction was absolutely free, and that no interference would be allowed with the teaching of science in the public schools. After all, public opinion alone can deal with the question of the confessional and the occult influence of the priest, for the remedy lies in the hands of those who place themselves under the domination of the confessor.

So far, well! The riots were at an end, and the more sensible and law-abiding people were satisfied that the ground stealthily gained by the Jesuits had been cut from under their feet as soon as the full light of day had been let in on their proceedings. Then came the extraordinary excitement caused by Galdos's play. To a stranger reading it, it is obvious that the public mind must have been in a strange condition of alarm and distrust to have had such an effect produced upon it by a drama which has no great literary worth, and which appears commonplace and harmless to an outsider. The story is simply that of a young orphan girl, who, according to Spanish ideas, is extremely unconventional, though nothing worse. There is nothing of the emanc.i.p.ated young woman about her as the type is known in England; in fact, she has a perfect genius for those domestic virtues which "advanced" English women regard with disdain. The villain of the piece, is a certain Don Salvador, who, though the fact is never mentioned, is obviously a Jesuit, and the interest of the play consists in the efforts made by this man, first by fair means and then by foul, to separate Electra from her _fiance_, and immure her in a convent. He succeeds, to all appearance, by at last resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made known, and the girl is rescued.

"You fly from me, then?" exclaims Don Salvador.

"It is not flight, it is resurrection!" replies the lover, in the last words of the play.

This drama ran an unprecedented number of nights in Madrid, over fifteen thousand copies of the book were sold in a few weeks, and it is still running in the provinces. Some of the bishops and the superior clergy have had the folly to denounce the play and to forbid their congregations to witness or to read it. There is not an objectionable word or idea in it from first to last, except such as may be disagreeable to the Church--as that women should be educated so as to be the intellectual companions of their husbands, and should not be entrapped into convents by foul means and against their will. The action taken by the clergy in this matter has not only largely advertised the play, but has led to angry demonstrations against them, and has strengthened the temper of the people to resist all clerical domination in temporal matters.

There have not been wanting from time to time signs, especially in the large manufacturing towns, of a spirit of revolt against all religion.

Socialism, atheism, and even anarchism are all in the air, and if these are to be counteracted by religious teaching at all, it will certainly not be by the narrow dogmatism of the old school. There is a deep fund of religious feeling in the Spanish character which it would take a great deal to uproot, but it must be a wide-spirited and enlightened faith which will retain its hold over the people, who are everywhere breaking their old bonds and thinking for themselves.

CHAPTER XIV

PHILANTHROPY--POSITION OF WOMEN--MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

Travellers complain somewhat bitterly of the increase in the numbers and the importunity of beggars in Spain; but wherever monks abound, beggars also abound, and the long-unaccustomed sight of the various religious habits naturally brings with it the hordes of miserable objects who afford opportunities for the faithful to exercise what they are taught to believe is charity--loved of G.o.d. This, however, is more especially the case in Granada, or those favoured spots affected by the rich tourist, who has not always the same opinion about indiscriminate charity as the native Spaniard. In old days, the wise policy of Charles III. had reduced very greatly the swarm of beggars. A certain number of terrible-looking objects--the fortunate possessors of withered limbs, sightless eyeb.a.l.l.s, or other disqualifications for honest work--still ostentatiously displayed their badges of professional mendicancy, and lived, apparently quite comfortably, on the alms of the pa.s.sers-by. But the enormous compet.i.tion which has since sprung up in this "career"

must interfere a good deal with its lucrativeness.

There is no poor law as yet in Spain. Philanthropy is left to voluntary effort; but the list of charities is so great, and so widely spread over the whole country, that one would think wholesale beggary would be superfluous. Madrid is divided into thirty-three parishes, each having a board of _Beneficencias_, the Government holding a fund which these boards administer. The Queen is the President of the whole. Each board has its president and vice-president--generally ladies of the aristocracy--a treasurer, vice-treasurer, secretary, and vice-secretary, and a body of visitors; accounts are rendered monthly to the governing board, whose vice-president presides in the name of the Queen. There are also the confraternities of St. Vincent and St. Paul, the members of which are gentlemen and ladies who work independently of each other.

These, however, have no established funds, but depend on voluntary subscriptions and gifts. Both these a.s.sociations visit the poor in their own homes. The Pardo and the San Bernadino are societies and homes for benefiting men, women, and children; they have been founded by ladies.

For boys there is the School of the Sacred Heart, and the Christian Brothers. The School of San Ildefonso belongs to the _Ayuntamiento_, and has secular masters. There is a small asylum, with chaplaincy attached, for architects. Santa Rita is a reformatory for boys in Carabanchel, under a religious brotherhood. For girls there is the Horfino, the Mercedes Asylum--founded in memory of and kept up by the rents of Queen Mercedes--Santa Isabel and San Ildefonso, the French St. Vincent de Paul, San Blas, on the same lines as the Mercedes, Santa Cruz, the Inclusa, and the Spanish Vincent de Paul. For fallen girls there are the Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, the Ladies of the Holy Trinity, and the Oblates of the Holy Redeemer.

In all parts of the country branches of these or similar inst.i.tutions abound. None are more liberal to the funds of these voluntary charities than the bull-fighters, who, if they make large fortunes, never forget the cla.s.s from which they sprang, and are most generous in their donations. When occasion demands an extra effort, a _fiesta_ is given at the Plaza de Toros, and the whole of the profits go to the charity for which it has been held. No doubt these schemes have their faults in operation, and Galdos in some of his popular novels does not fail to hold up--not exactly for admiration--the fashionable ladies who think it "smart," as we should say, to join these boards and societies, and talk with much unction of their public good works and the statistics of their pet societies, while neglecting the poor and the needy at their own doors, or trying to send into "Homes" those who have no desire or need to go there if a little Christian charity were only shown them by their neighbours. Nevertheless, there is a large amount of organised philanthropy in Spain to-day, and it appears to be of a wise and efficient kind. One should not forget to mention also the workshops for the lowest orders, established by the Salerian Fathers, to which the attention of the Government has been called by late events.

The general position of women in Spain and their influence in public life cannot be described as of an advanced order. As a rule, they take no leading part in politics, devoting themselves chiefly to charitable works, such as those already named. There is, as we have seen, a general movement for higher education and greater liberty of thought and action amongst women, and there is a certain limited number who frankly range themselves on the side of so-called "emanc.i.p.ation," who attend socialistic and other "meetings"--a word which has now been formally admitted into the Spanish language--and who aspire to be the comrades of men rather than their objects of worship or their playthings. But this movement is scarcely more than in its infancy. It must be remembered that even within the present generation the bedrooms allotted to girls were always approached through that of the parents, that no girl or unmarried woman could go unattended, and that to be left alone in the room with a man was to lose her reputation. Already these things seem to be dreams of the past; nor could one well believe, what is however a fact, that there were fathers of the upper cla.s.ses in the first half of the last century who preferred that their daughters should not learn to read or write, especially the latter, as it only enabled them to read letters clandestinely received from lovers and to reply to them. The natural consequence of this was the custom, which so largely prevailed, of young men, absolutely unknown to the parents, establishing correspondence or meetings with the objects of their adoration by means of a complaisant _doncella_ with an open palm, or the pastime known as _pelando el pavo_ (literally plucking the turkey), which consisted of serenades of love-songs, amorous dialogues, or the pa.s.sage of notes through the _reja_--the iron gratings which protect the lower windows of Spanish houses from the prowling human wolf--or from the balconies. Many a time have I seen these interesting little missives being let down past my balcony--how trustful the innocents were!--to the waiting gallant below, and his drawn up. Only once I saw a neighbour, in the balcony below, intercept the post, and I believe subst.i.tute some other letter.

Cruel sport!

Perhaps born of this necessity of making acquaintance by fair means or foul comes the custom, which appears to savour of such grossly bad manners to us, of a man making audible remarks on the appearance of a girl he has never seen before as she pa.s.ses him in the street. _Ay! que buenos ojos! Que bonita eres! Que gracia tienes!_ and the like. Far from giving offence, the fair one goes on her way, perhaps vouchsafing one glance from those lovely eyes of hers, with only a sense that her charms have received their due tribute--not much elated, perhaps, but certainly by no means offended; nor, indeed, was offence intended. The fixed stare, which to us would mean mere ill-bred ignorance, is only another ordinary tribute to the pa.s.sing fair one from the other s.e.x.

Marriage customs have changed much in the last few decades, and even civil marriages are now not wholly unknown. In old days, if the ceremony was performed in church, the bride and all the ladies must be attired in black, for which reason the fashionable world established marriages in the house, where more brilliant costumes might be displayed. These generally take place in the evening, and the newly married couple do not leave the house, unless the new home happens to be close by. In any case, honeymoon tours are, or were, unusual. The _velada_ is the ceremony in church, which must take place before the first child is born, to legalise the marriage, but it does not necessarily immediately follow the other ceremony. At it the ring is given. When the two ceremonies take place at the same time it must be in the morning, because the bride and bridegroom partake of the Holy Sacrament fasting.

From the description of a _boda_ in Galicia, in one of Pardo Bazan's novels, it would seem that the bride there wears white, even at the church. The wedding is a portentous affair, lasting all day from early morning, and the bride and bridegroom remain in the house. Fernan Caballero devotes some pages in _Clemencia_ to showing how preferable is the Spanish custom of "remaining among friends" to that of the newly married couple, as she says, "exposing themselves to the jeers of postilions and stable-boys." Yet the English custom is in fact gaining ground, even in conservative Spain.

Although marriages are often made up by the parents and guardians, as in France, without any freedom on the part of the bride at least, custom or law gives the Spanish woman much more power than even in England. A girl desiring to escape from a marriage repugnant to her can claim protection from a magistrate, who will even, if necessary, take her out of her father's custody until she is of age and her own mistress. More than that, if a girl determines to marry a man of whom her parents disapprove, she has only to place herself under the protection of a magistrate to set them at defiance, nor have they the power to deprive her of the share of the family property to which by Spanish law she is ent.i.tled. I do not know if these things are altered now,--one does not hear so much of them,--but I know of several cases where daughters have been married from the magistrate's house against the wishes of their parents. In one case, the first intimation a father received of his daughter's engagement was the notice from a neighbouring magistrate that she was about to be married, and in another, a daughter left her mother's house and was married from that of the magistrate to a man without any income and considerably below her in rank. In all these cases, the contracting parties were of the upper cla.s.ses.

While on this subject, I must mention what seems to us the barbarous manner in which infants are clothed and brought up, though the English fashions of baths, healthy clothing, and suitable food are now largely followed amongst the upper cla.s.ses. When the King was still an infant a great deal of his clothing came from England, and he was brought up in the English method. This probably set the fashion, and the little ones playing in the Park now are much like those one is accustomed to see in London. But among the poor, and even some of the bourgeois cla.s.s, the old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its limbs, so that it presents the appearance of a mummy, swathed in coa.r.s.e yellow flannel, only its head appearing. So stiffly are they rolled up that I have seen an infant only a few weeks old propped up on end against the wall, or in a corner, while the mother was busy. There is a superst.i.tion, too, about never washing a child's head from the day it is born. The result is really indescribable. When it is about two years old, a scab, which covers the whole head, comes off of its own accord, and after that the head may be cleansed without fear of evil consequences. Some English servants who have married in Spain set the example of keeping their infants clean, and, therefore, healthy, from the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children, a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the sacred superst.i.tions of ages--and the mother-in-law!

One wonders, not that Spanish men grow bald so early, and not bald only, but absolutely hairless, but that they ever have any hair at all; for after all the troubles of their infancy their heads are regularly shaved, or the hair cut off close to the skin all the summer. On the principle of cutting off the heads of dandelions as soon as they appear, as a way of exterminating them, the surprising thing is that the hair does not become too much discouraged even to try to sprout again. Funny little objects they look, with only a dark mark on the skin where the hair ought to grow in summer, and at most a growth about as long as velvet in the winter, until they are quite big boys! The girls generally wear their hair so tightly plaited, as soon as it is long enough to allow of plaiting at all, that they can scarcely close their eyes.

Young Spanish women, however, have magnificent hair; though they, too, grow bald when they are old, in a way that is never seen in England.

CHAPTER XV

MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA

One is apt to forget how much the history of music owes to Spain. The country was for so long considered to be in a state of chronic political disturbance that few foreigners took up their abode there, except such as had business interests, and for the rest the mere traveller never became acquainted with the real life of the people, or entered into their intellectual amus.e.m.e.nts. It is quite a common thing to find the tourist entering in his valuable notes on a country which he has not the knowledge of the world to understand: "The Spaniards are not a musical people," and remaining quite satisfied with his own dictum. Yet Albert Soubies, in his _Histoire de la Musique_, says, in the volume devoted to Spain: "Spain is the country where, in modern times, musical art has been cultivated with the greatest distinction and originality. In particular, the school of religious music in Spain, thanks to Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria, will bear comparison with all that has been produced elsewhere of the highest and most cultivated description. The national genius has also shown itself in another direction, in works which, like the ancient _eglogas_--the contemporary _zarzuelas_ of Lope de Vega and Calderon--and the _torradillas_ of the last century shine brilliantly by the verve, the gaiety, the strength, and delicacy of their comic sentiment.... The works of this cla.s.s are happily inspired by popular art, which in this country abounds in characteristic elements. One notes how much the rhythm and melody display native colour, charm, and energy. In many cases, along with vestiges of Basque or of Celtic origin, they show something of an Oriental character, due to the long sojourn of the Moors in this country."

As regards this pre-eminence, it is enough to remember that Spain was anciently one of the regions most thoroughly penetrated by Roman civilisation. It is not too much to say that this art has never sunk into decadence in Spain. During the sixteenth century the archives of the Pontifical chapel show the important place occupied by Spanish composers in the musical history of the Vatican, and among the artists who gained celebrity away from their own country were Escoledo, Morales, Galvey, Tapia, and many others. To the end of the seventeenth century a galaxy of brilliant names carried on the national history of Spanish music, both on religious and secular lines; and though in the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries there was a pa.s.sing invasion of French and Italian fashion, the true and characteristic native music has never died out, and at the present time there is a notable musical renaissance in touch with the spirit and natural genius of the people.

A Royal Academy of Music has, within recent times, been added to the other inst.i.tutions of a like kind, and native talent is being developed on native lines, not in imitations from countries wholly differing from them in national characteristics. Spaniards are exacting critics, and the best musicians of other countries are as well known and appreciated as their own composers and executants. Wagner is now a household word among them, where once Rossini was the object of fashionable admiration.

The national and characteristic songs of Spain have been already referred to. They are perfectly distinct from those of any other nation.

There is about them a dainty grace and pathos, combined frequently with a certain suspicion of sadness, which is full of charm, while those which are frankly gay are full of life, audacity, and "go," that carry away the listeners, even when the language is imperfectly understood.

The charming songs, with accompaniment for piano or guitar, of the Master Yradier, are mostly written in the soft dialect of Andalucia, which lends itself to the music, and is liquid as the notes of a bird.

The songs of Galicia are, in fact, the songs of Portugal; just as the Galician language is Portuguese, or a dialect of that language, which has less impress of the ancient Celt-Iberian and more of French than its sister, Castilian, both being descendants of Latin, enriched with words borrowed from the different nations which have at one time or another inhabited or conquered their country.

The guitar is, of course, the national instrument, and the songs never have the same charm with any other accompaniment; but the Spanish women of to-day are prouder of being able to play the piano or violin than of excelling in the instrument which suits them so much better. The Spaniard is nervously anxious not to appear, or to be, behind any other European nation in what we call "modernity," a word that signifies that to be "up-to-date" is of paramount importance, leaving wholly out of the question whether the change be for the better or infinitely towards the lower end of the scale.

The records of Spain in art, as in literature, are so grand, so European, in fact, that it is much if the artists of to-day come within measurable distance of those who have made the glory of their country.

Nevertheless, the modern painters and sculptors of Spain hold their own with those of any country. After the temporary eclipse which followed the death of Velasquez, Ribera, and Murillo--the eighteenth century produced no great Spanish painter, if we except Goya, who left no pupils--Don Jose Madrazo, who studied at the same time as Ingres in the studio of David, began the modern renaissance. He became Court painter, and left many fine portraits; but, perhaps, as Comte Vasili says, "La meilleure oeuvre de Don Jose fut son fils, Federico; de meme que la meilleure de celui-ci est son fils Raimundo."

Raimundo Madrazo and Fortuny the elder, who married Cecilia Madrazo, Raimundo's sister, have always painted in Paris, and have become known to Europe almost as French artists. Fortuny, by his _mariage Espagnol_, became the head of the Spanish renaissance. Unfortunately, he has been widely imitated by artists of all nations, who have not a t.i.the of his genius, if any. Pradilla, F. Domingo, Gallegos, the three Beulluire brothers, Bilbao, Gimenez, Aranda, Carb.o.n.e.ro, are only a few of the artists whose names are known to all art collectors, and who work in Spain. Villegas has settled in Rome. The exhibition of modern Spanish paintings in the London Guildhall last year (1901) was a revelation to many English people, even to artists, of the work that is being done at the present day by Spanish painters, both at home and in Paris and Rome.

In sculpture, also, Spain can boast many artists of the highest cla.s.s.