It was either my misfortune that I read
Lope and not Calderon, or that I do not recall reading Calderon at all,
and know him only by a charming little play of Madrid life given ten or
fifteen years ago by the pupils of the Dramatic Academy in New York. My
lasting ignorance of this master was not for want of knowing how great
he was, especially from Lowell, who never failed to dwell on it when the
talk was of Spanish literature. The fact is I did not get much pleasure
out of Lope, but I did enjoy the great tragedy of Cervantes, and such of
his comedies as I found in that massive volume.
I did not realize, however, till I saw that play of Calderon's, in New
York, how much the Spanish drama lias made Madrid its scene; and until
one knows modern Spanish fiction one cannot know how essentially the
incongruous city is the capital of the Spanish imagination. 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.
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