Don Francisco de Quevedo | Page 4

published verse after this was deeply
tinged with this side of Heine.
In the spring of 1857 he was in Madrid again, enjoying his prestige as a

poet, diplomat, and political writer. His presence at a gathering of
literary men in May to do honor to the memory of the great Quintana
was an event.[6] A week earlier his translation of fifteen of Heine's
lyrics had appeared in the Museo Universal under the caption "Poesía
Alemana, Canciones de Enrique Heine." What a grateful contrast they
furnish to the undisciplined bursts of romantic thunder that he was
writing only a few years before! Sanz had been completely won over to
the intense refinement of emotion and diction of Heine. From this time
on, the expression of gentle melancholy and spiritual sensitiveness
dominates the few poems that he published.
[Footnote 6: Cf. La Iberia, May 22, 1857.]
The brief taste of diplomatic life which he had had seems to have put
an end to any really creative activity. A tribute to the memory of the
young poet Francisco Zea, written in May, 1858,[7] contains what is
really his farewell to a life of letters. Therein, after discussing the
pessimistic statement of Larra that in Spain "No se lee porque no se
escribe, y no se escribe porque no se lee," he declares that people in
Spain are writing, but that no one is reading. It is not the fault of those
who write, he continues, and waste the treasures of their youth in a
fruitless struggle. In Spain one must write for pure love of letters, and
unfortunately this is the most platonic of loves. There are few readers
of literature in general, and of lyric poetry almost none. He resents the
intrusion of the latter into the drama, where it is heard with pleasure by
people, comfortably seated in stalls, who in the morning could not
endure Fray Luis de León or Francisco de la Torre. His small stock of
patience exhausted, Sanz turned to diplomatic life.
[Footnote 7: "Obras En Verso y Prosa de Don Francisco Zea." Madrid,
pp. 552, 556.]
On the eleventh of August of 1859 he was appointed Minister to the
Empire of Brazil, and on the same day he was named representative in
the Cortes. A month later he wrote to the Secretary of State to say that
he must resign the post "for reasons which I have had the honor to
submit verbally to your Excellency's consideration." At this time he
seems to have gone into complete retirement, resisting the entreaties of

theater-managers and actors to write again for the stage. In the next
fourteen years he published only a half-dozen or more poems, although
his name appeared in the list of colaboradores of several papers,
among them the Gaceta Literaria, España Literaria, and La América.
Apparently his disillusionment was complete. In the Versos a Amalia
(La América, Sept. 8, 1858) are these significant lines:
Sonreí de ambición ante la vana Sombra de mi deseo; Y al despuntar el
sol de mi mañana, Vi mi horizonte azul (¡que ya no veo!)...
* * * * *
Yo fué persiguiendo la límpida estrella Que allá en lontananza
Resplandece entre todas; aquella Que deslumbra con locos reflejos,
Que siempre se sigue, que nunca se alcanza. ¡Pérfida estrella de la
esperanza Que alumbra sólo, sólo de lejos!
* * * * *
Yo en la mar busqué la gloria Y de allí torno sin ella.
In September of 1872 Sanz was drawn from his retreat by an
appointment to Tangier as Minister Plenipotentiary at a salary of
15,000 pesetas annually. He began his duties in December and
continued at his post for exactly a year. Again he pleaded ill health and
was granted two months' leave of absence. That he did not return
immediately to Madrid is clear from his request of February 12 to be
allowed to bring into Cadiz, duty free, a hundred bottles of wine. Early
in January, 1873, his appointment to Tangier was confirmed by
Amadeo. On the establishment of the republic in February Sanz
tendered his resignation, but Castelar himself refused to accept it. In
June he finally left his post at Tangier after having been appointed
Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States of Mexico. As usual he
excused himself on the ground of ill health, and his resignation was
accepted in the following September. Sanz certainly could not
complain that his merits were unrecognized. In the decree appointing
him to the post at Tangier his honors are mentioned as Gran Cruz de la
Real y Distinguida Orden de Carlos III, Orden Civil de Maria Victoria,

Caballero de la Ínclita de San Juan de Jerusalem, ex Diputado a
Cortes.
His movements from this time forward are extremely difficult to follow.
In 1878 his name appears in