ovement should read Madame Pardo Bazan's valuable critical study,
'La Cuestion Palpitante' (The Vital Question). Various books by the
leading authors named have been well translated into English by Clara
Bell, Mrs. Mary J. Serrano, Mary Springer, Rollo Ogden, Nathan Haskell
Dole, and others.

II

Benito Perez Galdos was born May 10th, 1845, in the Canary Islands.
Las Palmas, his birthplace, capital of the Grand Canary, is a
well-built little town of about eighteen thousand people, and the
island is the most fertile of the group. In climate and situation the
islands belong rather to Africa than Europe. The people are considered
descendants of the Gothic inhabitants of Spain, who sought refuge
there from the Saracen invasion. Their existence was all but lost to
sight for some centuries, and they were only brought under European
sway about the time of the discovery of America. These Fortunate
Islands, the somewhat unusual scene where Galdos was born and passed
his youth, would seem to offer a fresh literary field, yet no word of
description or reminiscence concerning them appears in any of his
books. This is perhaps part of the policy of reserve that induces him
to deny, even by implication, any biographical details concerning
himself,--a reserve so marked as to have been generally noted as an
eccentricity. Leopoldo Alas, his biographer, in the 'Celebridades
Espaniolas Contemporaneas,' assures us that it was only with the
greatest difficulty he drew from him the bare admission that he was
born in the Canary Islands. He made his studies there in the State
college, and came to Madrid at the age of eighteen to study law. He
had no great liking for it, and did not follow it further, unless as
it became a step for entrance into political life, for he has been a
deputy in the National Cortes, for Porto Rico. He did not acquire
skill in forensic eloquence; his biographer, above, states that he
cannot put four words together in public, nor in private either. A
reticent man, he is forced to write in order to find expression.

He wrote his first book in 1867 and '68, but it was not published till
1871. In the mean time the revolution of 1868 took place, which
enlarged the boundaries of freedom in literature as in many other
directions; and Galdos at Barcelona had some small part in it. The
book was 'La Fontana de Oro' (The Fount of Gold). It treats of the
aspirations of the "ardent youth" of 1820, who rebelled against the
reac