Spanish Life in Town and Country Part 9

The drama in Spain has in all times occupied an important place. The traditions of the past names, such as Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Moreto, and others, cannot exactly be said to be kept up, for these are, most of them, of European fame; but in a country where the theatre is the beloved entertainment of all cla.s.ses, and perhaps especially so of the poor or the working people, there are never wanting dramatists who satisfy the needs of their auditors, and whose works are sometimes translated into foreign languages, if not actually acted on an alien stage. It would be impossible and useless to give a mere list of the names of modern dramatists, but that of Ayala is perhaps best known abroad, and his work most nearly approaches to that of his great forerunners. His _Consuelo_, _El tejado de Vidrio_, and _Tanto por ciento_ show great power and extraordinary observation. His style, too, is perfect. Senor Tamago, who persistently hides his name under the pseudonym of "Joaquin Estebanez," may also be ranked amongst the leaders of the modern Spanish drama, and his _Drama Nuevo_ is a masterpiece.

Echegaray belongs to the school of the old drama, whose characteristic is that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished. His plays are very popular because they touch an audience even to tears, and he has several followers or imitators. The comedies of manners and satirical plays are generally the work of Eusebio Blasco, Ramos Carrion, Echegaray the younger, Estremada, Alverez, though there are others whose names are legion. Echegaray is really a man of genius. A clever engineer and professor of mathematics, he was Minister of Finance during the early days of the Revolution. His first play took the world of Madrid by surprise and even by storm. _La Esposa del Vengador_ had an unprecedented success, and at least thirty subsequent dramas, in prose and in verse, have made this mathematician, engineer, and financier one of the most famous men of his day. His art and his methods are purely Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez Galdos's _Electra_ within the last few months. It must, however, be ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. To the state of the popular temper, however, and the coincidence of the political events already referred to must be ascribed the fact that a piece like _Electra_ should cause the fall of a Government, and bring within dangerous distance the collapse of the monarchy itself. The excitement which it still produces, wherever played, is now in a great part due to the foolish action of some of the bishops and the fact that individual clerics use their pulpits to condemn it, and attempt to forbid its being read or seen.

Spain is not particularly rich in great actors, although she has always a goodly number who come up to a fair standard of excellence. The great actors of the day in Madrid are Maria Guerrero and Fernando Diaz de Mendoza. They obtained a perfect ovation during the last season in the play, _El loco Dios_, of Echegaray--a work which gives every opportunity for the display of first-cla.s.s talent in both actors, and which led to a fury of enthusiasm for the popular dramatist, which must have recalled to him the early days of his great successes.

Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Spain has had three great Academies, which, even in the troublous times of her history, have done good work in the domains of history, language, and the fine arts; but it is since the Revolution that they have become of real importance in the intellectual development of the nation, and other societies have been added for the encouragement of scientific research and music. The earliest of her academies was that of language, known as the Royal Spanish Academy. It is exactly on the lines of the Academie Francaise.

Founded in 1713, its statutes were somewhat modified in 1847, and again in 1859. There are only thirty-six members, about eighty corresponding members in different provinces of Spain, and an unlimited, or at least undetermined, number of foreign and honorary correspondents. Besides the Central Society in Madrid, the Royal Spanish Academy has many corresponding branches in South America, such as the Columbian, the Equatorial, the Mexican, and those of Venezuela and San Salvador. The existence of academies of language in the South American States does not appear to effect much in the way of maintaining the purity of Castilian among them, for South American Spanish, as spoken at least, is not much more like the original language than the South American Spaniard is like 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 a.s.sa.s.sination, Don Antonio Canovas 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 t.i.tle of Real Academia de las tres n.o.bles 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 compet.i.tors.

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 cla.s.s of work, Marcelino Menendez y Palayo may perhaps be mentioned. His _History of aesthetic 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 doc.u.ments in which the country is so rich, and throwing light on particular periods. Canovas 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, _Dona 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 Galdos is a writer of a wholly different cla.s.s, 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 fict.i.tious characters round whom the story moves, the real actors on the stage of history of the time. Thus Mendizabal, 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. Galdos 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 Galdos, 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 Galdos has written with the determined intention to tempt a cla.s.s 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 mediaeval times, and has nothing in common with the emanc.i.p.ation which our "new women" claim for themselves.

Galdos, 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 Alarcon 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 Escandalo_ and _La Prodiga_ are of the sensational order. He writes, like Galdos, in series, such as _Historietas Nacionales_, _Narraciones Inverosimiles_, and _Viajes por Espana_.

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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 circ.u.mstances with us. _Una Cristiana_ and _La Prueba_, its sequel, are founded on the s.e.x 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 Valdes, 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 _Pequeneces_, 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. Nunez 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, Nunez 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 Jose 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 cla.s.ses 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 Espanolas_, under the direction of Senor 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 Espanol_, published in 1881, and the two societies established in 1882, the Folklore Andaluz and Folklore Extremeno. These societies have for object the gathering together, copying, and publishing of the popular beliefs, proverbs, songs, stories, poems, the old customs and superst.i.tions 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 princ.i.p.al news-agent--the forerunner of the daily newspaper of our times. The trans.m.u.tation of human beings into mules, and _vice versa_, is a common fable, and we meet with wolf-children and the curious superst.i.tion 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 G.o.d 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 tenemos 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--n.o.bles without honour,

sums up and expresses in nine words the history of G.o.day's shameful bargain with Napoleon.

En el Puente de Alcolea La batalla gano Prim, Y por eso la cantamos En las calles de Madrid.

At the bridge of Alcolea A great battle gained Prim, And for this we go a-singing In the streets of Madrid.

Senor 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 Alcolea.

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 ma.s.s 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 st.u.r.dy 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 cla.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses 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 Alcolea, 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 inst.i.tutions; 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 touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns, after the brutal a.s.sa.s.sination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo, were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of interested demagogues on the pa.s.sions of people misled and used as puppets.

With the advance of commerce and industry, and the ma.s.sing of workers in the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this, or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing.