bhor the religion of
the Arabs, that they were marvellous builders and profound scholars.
When the Spaniards sent them from their country, after they had lived
there for seven hundred years, they lost their best citizens, and the
most beautiful and highly cultivated part of Spain was henceforth to
be comparatively desolate. On all the great section of Andalusia, the
most southern part of Spain, the Moors left marks in buildings and in
cultivation, that it will take centuries yet to sweep away.

Of all the cities of this division, and it includes a goodly number of
Spain's most important towns, Seville, "the pearl of cities," the
birthplace of both Velazquez and Murillo, appeals most strongly to
everyone. Many superlative adjectives rise to our lips as we think of
its whiteness, of its sunny vineyard slopes, its orange and olive
groves, its salubrious climate, and its ancient associations. We think
of its wondrous cathedral, next in size to St. Peter's, of its storied
bell-tower, the Giralda, of that fairy palace, the home of generations
of Moorish kings, the Alcazar, of the Golden Tower by the river's
edge, where Christian rulers stored their treasure. And then to our
vision of Seville the beautiful, we add the silver Guadalquivir which
divides, and yet encloses this dream city of Andalusia. If we are not
interested in art, still must we be enthusiastic over Seville, for
its bewitching little women with their lustrous eyes, their glossy
dark hair, held by the ever present single rose. If it be
entertainment we seek, then Seville will furnish us the national
bull-fight in all its perfection. If the more refined delights of
music attract us, still more is this our chosen city, for here is the
scene of, Mozart's "_Don Juan_" and "_Figaro_," of Bizet's "_Carmen_,"
and many are the shops that claim to have belonged to the "_Barber of
Seville_."

It is most pleasing to our sense of appropriateness that out of this
beautiful white city of Andalusia, should have come, at about the same
time, the two greatest Spanish painters, the one to give us real
scenes and people, the other to give us ideals of loftiest type.

Here in the closing days of 1617, Murillo was born. His father and
mother were poor people. The house they lived in had formerly belonged
to a convent, and it was rented to them for a very small sum, on
condition that they would keep up the repairs. Even this Murillo's
father found to be a heavy burden. He was a me