ideals elsewhere affording profit and pleasure to millions of
men. Otherwise it is a mere coloring, a superficial trace. In
particular, Perez Galdos is fond of introducing English characters.
Some of them have the Dickens-like trait of a beaming, exuberant
benevolence, and the athletic parson in 'Gloria' who risks his life
pulling out to the rescue of a wrecked steamer is like Barrie's Little
Minister. Many of his leading characters are of that mixed blood, at
Cadiz and elsewhere in the South, where one parent is English and the
other Spanish, and the offspring have had the advantage of an
education in England. He admires English types and ways, and yet with
a reluctance too; which brings it about that they are generally
introduced subject to considerable satire and mockery. English
steadiness and thrift,--yes, very well; but he has a lingering
tenderness still for Spanish levity and improvidence. In 'Halma,' all
the Marquis de Feramor's children have English names, as "Sandy"
(_Alexandrito_), "Frank" (_Paquito_), and "Kitty" (_Catalanita_). The
Marquis has been a student at Cambridge, and he imports into his
career in Spanish politics the thorough study of the question at
issue, the conservative temper and abhorrence of extremes, and the
correct "good form" of some finished English statesman. These ideas of
English policy and conservatism are talked over again, in the
_tertulias_ of the amusing family in 'El Amigo Manso,' who have come
back wealthy from Cuba, the head of the household with the purpose of
going into Parliament and securing a title. The English and the
Spanish literary movements may be said to accompany each other
amicably, much as Wellington's red-coats and the Spanish troops
marched side by side in the War of Independence, which has left a
feeling of friendship between the two nations ever since.

At the head of the school of fiction in question are four writers,
namely, Jose Maria de Pereda, Armando Palacio Valdes, Benito Perez
Galdos, and Juan Valera. They may be considered, in their various
ways, as of well-nigh equal merit; each one has some very
distinguished and distinguishing quality, in virtue of which he cannot
justly be rated below the others. De Pereda occupies a position apart
in devoting himself wholly to the lives of humble people, the
mountaineers and fishermen of the Biscayan Provinces. He never
willingly departs from these scenes either in his literary or personal
excursions; he has h