... He is
still there alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God. . .
. Even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am feeling sad,
I think of the Escorial, and then look at the walls of my room and
congratulate myself. ... I see again the courtyards of the Escorial.
... I dream of wandering through the corridors alone in the dark,
followed by the ghost of an old friar, crying and pounding at all the
doors without finding a way of escape."
I am of another race both from the Frenchman and the Italian, and I
cannot pretend to their experiences, their inferences, and their
conclusions; but I am not going to leave the Escorial to the reader
without trying to make him feel that I too was terribly impressed by it.
To be sure, I had some light moments in it, because when gloom goes too
far it becomes ridiculous; and I did think the convent gardens as I saw
them from the chapter-house window were beautiful, and the hills around
majestic and serious, with no intention of falling upon my prostrate
spirit. Yes, and after a lifelong abhorrence of that bleak king who
founded the Escorial, I will own that I am, through pity, beginning to
feel an affection for Philip II.
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