Published November 1903
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
In this Holiday Edition of Castilian Days it has been thought
advisable to omit a few chapters that appeared in the original edition.
These chapters were less descriptive than the rest of the book, and not
so rich in the picturesque material which the art of the illustrator
demands. Otherwise, the text is reprinted without change. The
illustrations are the fruit of a special visit which Mr. Pennell has
recently made to Castile for this purpose.
BOSTON, AUTUMN, 1903
CONTENTS
MADRID AL FRESCO
SPANISH LIVING AND DYING
INFLUENCE OF TRADITION IN SPANISH LIFE
TAUROMACHY
RED-LETTER DAYS
AN HOUR WITH THE PAINTERS
A CASTLE IN THE AIR
THE CITY OF THE VISIGOTHS
THE ESCORIAL
A MIRACLE PLAY
THE CRADLE AND THE GRAVE OF CERVANTES
MADRID AL FRESCO
Madrid is a capital with malice aforethought. Usually the seat of
government is established in some important town from the force of
circumstances. Some cities have an attraction too powerful for the court
to resist. There is no capital of England possible but London. Paris is
the heart of France. Rome is the predestined capital of Italy in spite
of the wandering flirtations its varying governments in different
centuries have carried on with Ravenna, or Naples, or Florence. You can
imagine no Residenz for Austria but the Kaiserstadt, - the gemuthlich
Wien. But there are other capitals where men have arranged things and
consequently bungled them. The great Czar Peter slapped his imperial
court down on the marshy shore of the Neva, where he could look westward
into civilization and watch with the jealous eye of an intelligent
barbarian the doings of his betters. Washington is another specimen of
the cold-blooded handiwork of the capital builders. We shall think
nothing less of the clarum et venerabile nomen of its founder if we
admit he was human, and his wishing the seat of government nearer to
Mount Vernon than Mount Washington sufficiently proves this. But Madrid
more plainly than any other capital shows the traces of having been set
down and properly brought up by the strong hand of a paternal
government; and like children with whom the same regimen has been
followed, it presents in its maturity a curious mixture of lawlessness
and insipidity.
Its greatness was thrust upon it by Philip II. Some premonitory symptoms
of the dangerous honor that awaited it had been seen in preceding
reigns. Ferdinand and Isabella occasionally set up their pilgrim
tabernacle on the declivity that overhangs the Manzanares. Charles V.
found the thin, fine air comforting to his gouty articulations. But
Philip II. made it his court. It seems hard to conceive how a king who
had his choice of Lisbon, with its glorious harbor and unequalled
communications; Seville, with its delicious climate and natural beauty;
and Salamanca and Toledo, with their wealth of tradition, splendor of
architecture, and renown of learning, should have chosen this barren
mountain for his home, and the seat of his empire.
