Of Course
The Action Of Gil Bias Largely Passes There, But Gil Blas In Only
Adoptively A Spanish Novel, And
The native picaresque story is oftener
at home in the provinces; but since Spanish fiction has come to full
consciousness
In the work of the modern masters it has resorted more and
more to Madrid. If I speak only of Galdos and Valdes by name, it is
because I know them best as the greatest of their time; but I fancy the
allure of the capital has been felt by every other modern more or less;
and if I were a Spanish author I should like to put a story there. If I
were a Spaniard at all, I should like to live there a part of the year,
or to come up for some sojourn, as the real Spaniards do. In such an
event I should be able to tell the reader more about Madrid than I now
know. I should not be poorly keeping to hotels and galleries and streets
and the like surfaces of civilization; but should be saying all sorts of
well-informed and surprising things about my fellow-citizens. As it is I
have tried somewhat to say how I think they look to a stranger, and if
it is not quite as they have looked to other strangers I do not insist
upon my own stranger's impression. There is a great choice of good books
about Spain, so that I do not feel bound to add to them with anything
like finality.
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