[94] “Chapters on Spanish Literature.” 1908.
[95] “N’uma mão a penna e n’outra a lança.”
[96] M. Boris de Tannenberg, speaking of “Sotileza,” has said excellently: “C’est que plus une œuvre a un caractère local marqué, plus elle a de chance de devenir universelle, à condition que l’écrivain, sous la particularité des mœurs et du langage, ait pénétre jusqu’au fond commun d’humanité.” And Don Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, who represented King Alfonso on January 23, 1911, in the ceremony of unveiling at Santander the statue of Pereda by Señor Collaut Valera (nephew of the novelist, Juan Valera), said in his speech: “His books, so local that even the inhabitants of the mountain require a glossary, and as Spanish as the most Spanish writings since Cervantes and Quevedo, are profoundly human owing to the intensity of life which they contain, and the quiet majesty with which it is developed.”
[97] We are apt to forget that men in the Middle Ages, if they dwelt insistently on the sinister “Dance of Death,” also felt to the full the joys of living. The “Poema del Cid” sings no variations on the theme “How good is man’s life, the mere living,” but the feeling itself appears in every line.
[98] The King had sent “letters to León and Sanctiague, to Portuguese and Galicians, to those of Carrión and the Men of Castille,” to announce a _Cort dentro en Tolledo_, in order to judge between the Cid and the Counts of Carrión. “Since I was King,” he says, “I have held but two _Cortes_, one in Burgos, the other in Carrión, this third in Tolledo have I come to hold to-day.”
[99] James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 231.
[100] See pp. 151, 222-238. Pereda is, perhaps, the least read outside Spain of all Spanish novelists; yet it is scarcely too much to say that he who cannot appreciate Pereda cannot understand the spirit or feel the true savour of Spain.
[101] “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 246.
[102] Andrés González-Blanco, “Historia de la novela en España desde el romanticismo hasta nuestros días.” Madrid. 1909.
[103] La Primera República. Madrid. 1911.
[105] Señor Picón, whose writings are rather exquisite than voluminous, is the author of “Dulce y Sabrosa,” and several short stories. A Spanish critic, Señor Gómez de Baquero, has said of him that while “his thoughts look to the future, his style listens to the golden music of the past.” His latest work is “Juanita Tenorio,” a long novel (published as vol. 3 of his Complete Works in the autumn of 1910), in which his art, skilful and delicate as it is, has not been entirely successful in eclipsing the sordidness of the subject by the magic of the style. The following quotation--a description of Madrid seen from an attic-window at night--will give some idea of his restrained and clear-cut style: “Era noche cerrada. En primer término no percibía la vista más que las grandes masas angulosas y obscuras de muros, parodones y tejados: descollando por encima de ellos surgían los contornos de torres y campanarios, cuyos puntiagudos chapiteles, cubiertos de pizarra, recogían el escaso claror de las estrellas; acà y allà rompían la superficie negra de las fachadas los rectángulos de luz amarillenta que forman los balcones alumbrados interiormente, y al través de algun vidrio brillaba el resplandor solitario de una lámpara con su pantalla de color; de las chimeneas salían nubecillas de humo, que, flotando como manchas fugaces en la lobreguez del ambiente, se desvanecían en la altura; por entre las manzanas de casas, á lo largo de las calles rectas, divisabanse las hileras de los faroles, cuyas llamas reverberaban en cristales y vidrieras, ó á trechos algún arco voltáico irradiaba intenso fulgor blanquecino; y de aquel conjunto de sombras esmaltadas de toques luminosos so alzaba el rumor confuso de mil ruidos diversos; rodar de vehículos, vocear de vendedores, gritar de chicos y cantar de criadas; ya el tecleo de un piano, ya el lento sonar de las campanadas de un reloj.”