Castilian Days

Castilian Days

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Title: Castilian Days
Author: John Hay
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7470] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 5, 2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTILIAN
DAYS ***

Produced by Eric Eldred

CASTILIAN DAYS
BY JOHN HAY
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. But when we know
this monkish king we wonder no longer. He chose Madrid simply
because it was cheerless and bare and of ophthalmic ugliness. The royal

kill-joy delighted in having the dreariest capital on earth. After a while
there seemed to him too much life and humanity about Madrid, and he
built the Escorial, the grandest ideal of majesty and ennui that the
world has ever seen. This vast mass of granite has somehow acted as an
anchor that has held the capital fast