Quintana

“ He touched the bush with his rifle barrel, then crouched almost flat.
Suddenly the red crash of a rifle lit up Clinch's visage for a fraction of a second. And Quintana's bullet smashed Clinch between the eyes.
* * * * *
After a long while Quintana ventured to rise and creep forward.
Night, too, came creeping like an assassin amid the ghostly trees.
So twilight died in the stillness of Drowned Valley and the pall of night lay over all things, — living and dead alike. ”

“ You merely robbed Kloon and Leverett. You should have killed them."
"Yes," said Quintana slowly, "I should have. It was my mistake."
"Signor Quintana, it is human for the human crook to err. Sooner or later he always does it. And then the Piper comes around holding out two itching palms."
"Mr. Smith," said Quintana pleasantly, "you are an unusually agreeable gentleman for a thief. I regret that you do not see your way to an amalgamation of interests with myself."
"As you say, Quintana mea, I am somewhat unusual. For example, what do you suppose I am going to do with this packet in my pocket?" ”

“ He moved a little way toward the open trail, stopped, came back, stood his rifle against a tree.
For a while he was busy with his sharp Spanish clasp knife, whittling and fitting together two peeled twigs. A cross was the ultimate result. Then he placed Clinch's hands palm to palm upon his chest, lay the cross on his breast, and shined the result with complacency.
Then Quintana took off his hat.
"L'ami Mike," he said, "you were a man! ... Adios!"
* * * * *
Quintana put on his hat. The path was free. The world lay open before
Jose Quintana once more; — the world, his hunting ground. ”

“ Then, of a sudden, a shaft of flame played over the forest. The sun had risen.
Hastening, she searched the soft path for any imprint of her father's foot. And even in the vain search she hoped to find him at home—hurried on burdened with two rifles and a pack, still all nervous and aquiver from her encounter with Quintana.
Surely, surely, she thought, if he had missed Quintana in Drowned Valley he would not linger in that ghastly place; he'd come home, call in his men, take counsel perhaps——
Mist over Star Pond was dissolving to a golden powder in the blinding glory of the sun. ”

“ But whether in Quintana's direction or no Sard could not tell. He was no woodsman. He was completely turned around.
He looked upward through a dense yellow foliage, but all was grey in the sky — very grey and still; — and there seemed to be no traces of the sun that had been shining.
He looked fearfully around; trees, trees, and more trees. No break, no glimmer, nothing to guide him, teach him. He could see, perhaps, fifty feet; no further.
In panic he started to move on. That is what fright invariably does to those ignorant of the forest. Terror starts them moving. ”

“ Sard, seized with a sort of still terror, regarded Quintana with enormous eyes. Torn between dismay of being left alone in the wilderness, and a very natural fear of any single companion, he did not know what to say or do.
En masse, the gang were too distrustful of one another to unite on robbing any individual. But any individual might easily rob a companion when alone with him.
"Why—why can't we all go together," he stammered. "It is safer, surer——"
"I go with Quintana and you," interrupted Georgiades, [187] smilingly; his mind on the diamond in the muzzle of Quintana's pistol. ”

“ POESÍAS DEL SIGLO XIX MANUEL JOSÉ QUINTANA. A Tyrtæan poet whose lyrics, together with those of his friend Gallego (cf. p. 244) , voice the sentiments of a party sprung up to combat the French invader. As patriots, both Quintana and Gallego were bitterly opposed to French domination; as poets they meekly submitted to the French classic rules and carried on the traditions of Luzán and Meléndez Valdés. The heroic odes of Quintana are the best that he has given us. ”

“ Holding such high opinions in all his writings, it may be seen that the youth of Spain cannot have a better guide to take for private study than those writings, the best preparatives for honourable exertion in life; and Quintana's own history shows, that whatever misfortunes may befall any one individually, he does not labour or suffer in vain, who labours or suffers honestly in a just cause. ”

“ Quintana was born at Madrid, the 11th April, 1772, of a respectable family of Estremadura. He received his primary education in classical learning at Cordova, whence he proceeded to Salamanca, and graduated there in canon and civil law. In this university he had the advantage of studying under Melendez Valdes, by whom he was soon favourably noticed, and was made known to the illustrious Jovellanos, by whose counsels also he had the good fortune to be assisted. ”

“ You didn't mean my 'Dump,' did you? Why, Lord, that ain't no place for no lady.... And now Quintana has went and robbed me of what I'd saved up for Eve.... Does that go with Thee, O Lord? No, it don't. And it don't go with me, neither. I'm a-goin' to git Quintana. Then I'm a-goin' to git them two minks that robbed my girlie,—I am!... Jake Kloon, he done it in cahoots with Earl Leverett; and Quintana set 'em on. And they gotta die, O Lord of Israel, them there Egyptians is about to hop the twig.... I ain't aimin' to be mean to nobody. I buy hootch of them that runs it. ”

“ Why shall I kill you? To say that I am a better man? Yes, perhaps. But also I should be oblige to say that also I am a fool. Yaas! A poor damfool."
Without shifting his eyes he made a motion with one pistol to his men. As they turned and entered the thicket, Quintana's intent gaze became murderous.
"If I mus' kill you I shall do so. Otherwise I have sufficient trouble to keep me from ennui. My frien', I am going home to enjoy my property. If you live or die it signifies nothing to me. No! Why, for the pleasure of killing you, should I bring your dirty gendarmes on my heels?" ”

“ Clinch stepped into view, dug into his pocket, and, cupping both hands, displayed a glittering heap of gems.
"I wanted you should know who's gottem," he said, "before you hop. It'll give you something to think over in hell."
Quintana's eyes had become slits again. Neither man stirred. Then:
"So you are buzzard, eh, Clinch? You feed on dead man's pockets, eh? You find Sard somewhere an' you feed." He held up the morocco case, emblazoned with the arms of the Grand Duchess of Esthonia, and shook it at Clinch. ”

“ Patriotism, politics, philanthropy are his inspirations, and these find utterance in the lofty rhetoric of such pieces as his Ode to Guzmán the Good and the Ode on the Invention of Printing. Unequal, unrestrained, [365] never exquisite, never completely admirable for more than a few lines at a time, Quintana's passionate pride of patriotism, his virile temperament, his individual gift of martial music have enabled him to express with unsurpassed fidelity one very conspicuous aspect of his people's genius. ”

“ As perspectives appear lengthened, according to the number and variety of objects that intervene to the view, so life itself may appear to have been longer or shorter, according to the memory and character of events witnessed in its course. Described as a person of athletic form, yet unbowed by the burden of fourscore years, Quintana, as before observed, still survives, to receive the honour justly due to him for his honourable exertions through life, the remembrances of which may thus give him more pleasurable enjoyments, than can be supposed to fall to the lot of ordinary mortals. ”

“ One of the men who knew why Quintana might come to America was James Darragh, recently of the Military Intelligence, but now passing as a hold-up man under the name of Hal Smith, and actually in the employment of Clinch at his disreputable "hotel" at Star Pond in the North Woods.
The other man who knew why Quintana had come to [34] America was Emanuel Sard, a Levantine diamond broker of New York, Quintana's agent in America. ”

“ At that moment Eve called to him in a clear and steady voice.
The effect on Quintana was instant; he was behind a tree before her voice ceased.
"Hallo! Hi! You over there!" she called again. "This is Eve Strayer. I'm looking for Clinch! He hasn't been home all night. Have you seen him?"
After a moment she saw Quintana's head watching her,—not [247] at the shoulder-height of a man but close to the ground and just above the tree roots. ”

“ The only fault perhaps of this Essay is, that Quintana has judged his native poets too strictly and exclusively by the rules of French criticism and French taste, which ought not I think to be applied as tests to a [Pg xv] literature so wholly national as the Spanish is, so especially coloured by the revolutions that have taken place upon the Spanish soil, and so utterly unlike that of any other European nation. ”

“ On the limited area of Quintána, ibex offer the best chance of stalking.
Mules are marvellous mountaineers. The places that animal surmounted to-day passed belief. Two donkeys that belonged to the local hunters, Abad and Brijido, who accompanied us, soon got stuck, and had to be left below.
By three o’clock we, mule and all, had reached the highest ridge of Quintána, and encamped within a few hundred feet of its top-most riscos.
To set up a tent among rocks is never easy ”

“ Political and moral turbulences are the same as the great physical disorders, in which the elements becoming excited, no one is sheltered from their fury.”
Resigning himself thus to his fate, Quintana seems to have learned the philosophical secret of preserving his equanimity in all the vicissitudes of life, to the enjoyment of a tranquil old age. The privilege of attaining this is a favour to every one, to whom it is granted; but its highest enjoyments must be consequent only on a life of active usefulness, with a conscience void of offence. ”

“ Quintana laughed and seated himself. Sanchez, with a hang-dog glance at him, turned and sneaked back on the trail they had traversed. Before he was out of sight Sard saw him fish out a Spanish knife from his hip pocket and unclasp it.
Almost nauseated, he turned on Quintana in a sort of frightened fury:
"Come on!" he said hoarsely. "I don't want to travel with that man! I won't associate with a ghoul! My God, I'm a respectable business man——"
"Yaas," drawled Quintana, "tha's what I saw always myse'f; my frien' Sard he is ver' respec'able, an' I trus' him like I trus' myse'f." ”

“ No, 'tain't that grudge, you green-livered whelp of a cross-bred, still-born slut! No! It's becuz you laid the heft o' your dirty little finger onto my girlie. 'N' now you gotta hop!"
Quintana's sinister laughter was his retort. Then: "You damfool Clinch," he said. "I got in my pocket what you rob of me. Now I kill you, and then I feel ver' well. I go home, live like some kings; yes. But you," he sneered, "you shall not go home never no more. No. You shall remain in thees damn wood like ver' dead old rat that is all wormy. ... He! I got a million dollaire — five million franc in my pocket. ”

“ Concerning the journey which—according to Remesal—Las Casas made to Spain in 1530, very little is known, and Quintana is as sceptical about this voyage as about the part attributed to him by some biographers in Enrique's subjugation, though there seems as little reason in this instance to doubt the explicit statement of one whose good faith is as far above suspicion as his opportunities for knowing the facts were exceptional. ”

“ Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight." Quintana, whose criticism is rather founded on artificial, rather than genuine and simple taste, as is apt to be the case with critics, is also his great admirer. He considers that he contributed more than any other to elevate, not only the poetic style of the Spanish language, but the essence of its poetry, in gifting it with more boldness of imagination and fire of expression than any preceding poet. ”

“ The charge of writing a memoir of Jovellanos was entrusted by the Historical Society of Madrid to Cean Bermudez, who fulfilled it with affectionate zeal, Madrid, 1814; several other notices of his life have appeared in Spain, including that by Quintana, which has been copied by Wolf. The English reader will find an excellent one in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 10, February, 1830; and the Spanish scholar a further very eloquent encomium on his talents and merits in Quintana’s second Introduction to his collection of Spanish Poetry. ”

“ Quintana, with his philanthropic and liberal note, his solemn, brilliant, and pompous style, and the rigidity and coldness of his classical rhetoric, was perhaps the most typical representative of the age. The most marked achievements in the field of belles lettres were in the drama. At the beginning of the century Spanish theatres had been closed as the result of a moral wave which left only the great cities, like Madrid, Barcelona, Cádiz, and Valencia, with an opportunity to attend dramatical representations. ”

“ The dead don't talk! And that's the wisest wisdom of all.
"If," murmured Quintana fervently, "God gives me further opportunity to acquire a little property to comfort me in my old age, I shall leave no gossiping fool to do me harm with his tongue. No! I kill.
[238] "And though they raise a hue and cry, dead tongues can not wag and I save myse'f much annoyance in the end."
He leaned his back against the trunk of a massive pine. ”

“ The language, in the mean time, condemned for centuries, from the unexampled slavery of our press, to be employed almost exclusively in the daily and familiar intercourse of life, has had its richest ornaments tarnished and soiled, by the powerful influence of mental association. Scarcely one third of its copious dictionary can be used in dignified prose, while a very scanty list of words composes the whole stock which poetry can use without producing either a sense of disgust or ridicule. In spite of these fetters, Quintana’s poetical compositions convey much deep thought and real feeling ”