urate as history. His
play, _Electra_, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of
the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom
that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have
always enjoyed, or, at least, since mediaeval times, and has nothing in
common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves.
Galdos, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if
not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great
pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so
many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction.

Pedro Alarcon is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic
afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most
widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His _Sombrero de Tres
Picos_ is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet
grace, while _El Escandalo_ and _La Prodiga_ are of the sensational
order. He writes, like Galdos, in series, such as _Historietas
Nacionales_, _Narraciones Inverosimiles_, and _Viajes por Espana_.
Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen.
_Sotilezas_, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life
among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town.
Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible
for foreign readers.

The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be
said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the
sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is
imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes
the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its
scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not
hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in
Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard
by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a
frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company
subjects which it would not be thought good taste to mention under the
same circumstances with us. _Una Cristiana_ and _La Prueba_, its sequel,
are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of
offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand,
if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her article