Toldo

“ This is why El Greco seems to chronicle for us our impressions of Toledo, and of Spain.
Surely no other painter has lived in a city in such strong agreement with his spirit. Think of the place—wind-swept, heat-dried, extraordinarily austere, yet flushed with colour, ochre-red shading to unusual greens; heaped upon its rocky throne above the yellow flowing Tagus, its rugged silhouette straight cut against a sky hard and clear as enamel; and, beyond, the sierra like a great brown sea in which it all stands as an island starting from the waves. ”

“ And his third stage was a fevered expression of his imaginative vision. We have entered a new world of extraordinary restlessness, the restlessness that must exist when spirit struggles from the bonds of the flesh. Toledo, the ardent arid city, burnt fiercely in El Greco’s blood, and, more and more, he seems to have felt that it was not enough to record facts; to have cared less to give æsthetic pleasure; but that the object of his art should be to clothe abstract ideas with life. It is something of all this that we find in his later pictures. ”

“ In modern cities of the New World people live preoccupied exclusively with material things; sensual pleasures, health, fashion, the acquiring of wealth. In the old days, in old cities such as Toledo, people were preoccupied with questions of the soul, God. Today we have the combative man, the pioneer, the self-made. We have epics of multitudes, whose interests are wholly material.”
“Toledo affirms for us the indelible quality of grief. It is one more illustration of the sudden end of things human. ”

“ How happy I should have been if a boy, a beggar, or a policeman had come up and said, "It seems to me that I recognize you, sir"!—"It is impossible, I am a foreigner, I have never been in Toledo before; but it makes no matter; don't go away; stay here, and we will talk a while, for I am lonely."
In a happy moment I remembered that at Madrid48 I had received a letter of introduction to a Toledan gentleman. I hurried to the hotel, took out my letter, and was at once shown to his house. ”

“ Not far off, in the course of time, they founded their great city of Tollan, now Tula, which became the centre of the Toltec nation.
These people built so well and so ruins found at tula.
much that the name became the word to mean builders. The few ruins left of their capital attest their skill. They felt themselves to be a superior race to that they found in their new home. The Toltecs were tall, robust, and well-formed, of light-sallow complexion, with but little hair on their face. They were wonderful for running, and could run at the greatest speed for hours. ”

“ TOLEDO—ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LUNATICS. Ignorant of the state of civilization in the ancient city of Toledo, the capital of Gothic Spain, the glory of the Jews and the Moors when they lived luxuriously on its airy heights, we had imagined it easy enough to find lodgings for a night. Unconscious of the fate awaiting us, we put up at the Hotel Lino, the largest and best in the city; and here we sought sleep. The search was vain. For the fleas are always going about seeking whom they may devour. ”

“ Their progress through the stern passes of the Sierra Morena and across the sun-drenched [297] plains of La Mancha and Castile was slow, but at long last they came in sight of Toledo, at the foot of whose steeps the Tagus rushed in brawling cascades. The garrulous parrot at once pointed out the abode of the Princess Aldegonda, a stately palace rising out of the bowers of a delightful garden.
“Ah, Toledo!” cried the owl in ecstasy. “Toledo, thou city of magic and mystery! What spells, what enchantments of ancient wizardry have not been recited among thy carven shadows! ”

“ If you could think, you would know that you cannot have the words of the King of Spain except when I interpret them to you. This noble gentleman who comes with me speaks more tongues than one, but he has no Irish, and you,—it is well known that you have nothing else. Don Tello has sat at your side for two hours, and you have not observed that each word between him and you came and went through me. Oh, yes; you are a great man, Murty, but your mind is not of a high order.'
The chieftain rose also. ”

“ A short time after the establishment of the despacho at Madrid, I once more mounted the saddle, and, attended by Antonio, rode over to Toledo, for the purpose of circulating the Scriptures, sending beforehand by a muleteer a cargo of one hundred Testaments. I instantly addressed myself to the principal bookseller of the place, whom from the circumstance of his living in a town so abounding with canons, priests, and ex-friars as Toledo, I expected to find a Carlist, or a servile at least. I was never more mistaken in my life ”

“ The Gothic ornamentation will guide you as to date, or mayhap an exquisitely carven Moorish inscription in the wood-work of a half-ruined wall. Ponz called Toledo the city of fine inscriptions, and Latin and Moorish inscriptions everywhere abound. Here is one still quite distinct in the old House of the Templars, near San Miguel: “Blessings come from God. Let us adore Him. Power is God’s the only one. Abundance, wealth, and perfect security assist the master of this house. Power is God’s. Let God’s blessing complete it. God is eternal. His is power. ”

“ Toledo, on its hillside, with the tiny half circle of the Tagus at its feet, has the colour, the roughness, the haughty poverty of the sierra on which it is built, and whose strong articulations from the very first produce an impression of energy and passion. It is less a town, a noisy affair yielding to the commodities of life, than a significant spot for the soul. ”

“ MOORISH ARCH LEADING TO ZOCODOVER
HOUSE CERVANTES STAYED IN, TOLEDO
wonder to us that the spruce young officers of Madrid detest being quartered here. What have they to do in a town where there is not even a decent café, and social existence is not partially understood? And the pleasures of walking round a romantic city cannot be offered them as adequate distraction. For us, of course, it suffices as long as taste keeps us at Toledo, and each walk has its fresh surprise, if not a fresh enchantment. ”

“ TOLEDO UNDER THE MOOR Never again was Toledo to attain to the wealth and splendour it possessed under Wamba and his successors. The invaders, fresh from the conquest of the richest provinces of Africa, were dazzled by the magnificence of the spoils that fell to them in the dark-browed city above the Tagus. The Arabian historians have need of all their powers of hyperbole to over-estimate the richness of the treasure. ”

“ In the Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, now the Museo Provincial, is that ‘Bird’s-Eye View{151} of Toledo,’ the picture in which we have a portrait of George Manuel Theotokopuli, El Greco’s son. At first you will be astonished, it is the strangest landscape in the world. But wait with the picture—always the danger with El Greco is that you will not linger enough. The painter who sees for himself must be studied, not dismissed as he who but sets down the common vision of things. And El Greco does give us the real Toledo in this fantastic landscape. ”

“ The rock has grown into Toledo and Toledo into the rock.
In a land where all is old, men marvel at the antiquity of this city. And when it was younger by centuries, the chroniclers, groping amid legends and fables the wildest and most extravagant, strove to penetrate the darkness of the ages and to discern the pale glimmerings of Toledo’s dawn. ”

“ Farez. After the capture of Toledo, the wise Bishop Talavera, Governor of our city, took a strong fancy to Abou-Abassa because of his great knowledge and made him come here to reside. The daughter, of course, lived with him. The mother is no longer of this earth.
Enrique. Does she reside in Toledo?
Farez. No, my lord; but near here on this mountain-slope in a house built by her father, who died in the past year. She lives there alone with her old servants and her few surviving friends. Her door is always open to those of her race and her religion who appeal to her in need or in sickness. ”

“ Until then the vicissitudes, the fortunes of Toledo were those of all Spain. Even now in her ruin, the violent and imperious character of the race remains imperishably stamped on the harsh, sad mixture of beauty and ugliness of her conservative features. But the country itself takes no note of her. She has lived, she lives no more, except in the memory of historians, for the fugitive admiration of the traveller. ”

“ You seem to look down upon the earth from Alpine heights. Below, through incredible depths of space, flows the Tagus, with its broad horse-shoe curve that makes almost an island of the town, and with charming little breaks in joyous verdure and soft little dashes of blue shade and white mist, the sombre and austere hills of Toledo make an upper and{190} more violent rampart against the world beyond. Such is the sense of imprisonment here, that the eye instinctively seeks, as a chance of escape, the long white way of Madrid. ”

“ The relics and the written works of Saints,
Toledo’s choicest treasure, prized beyond
All wealth, their living and their dead remains;
These to the mountain fastnesses he bore
Of unsubdued Cantabria, there deposed,
One day to be the boast of yet unbuilt
Oviedo, and the dear idolatry
Of multitudes unborn. ”

“ What follows here is translated from the fabulous chronicle of King Don Rodrigo.
“And there came to him the keepers of the house which was in Toledo, which they called Pleasure with Pain, the Perfect Guard, the secret of that which is to come; and it was called also by another name, the Honour of God. And these keepers came before the king, and said unto him, Sire, since God hath done thee such good, and such favour as that thou shouldest be king of all Spain, we come to require of thee that thou wouldst go to Toledo, and put thy lock upon the house which we are appointed to keep. ”

“ Before the Council of Nice, Toledo adopted the belief that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and Son, which doctrine only became universal several centuries later. This is the Toledan Credo of the fifth century: “We believe in one sole and true God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, maker of all things visible and invisible, by whom were created all things in heaven and on earth; that this sole God and this sole Trinity are of divine substance; that the Father is not the same as the Son, but has a Son who is not the Father ”

“ Twenty years ago, this device appeared, in the eyes of Barrès, to declare the secret of the city. They are singular words to adorn a Christian tomb: Hic jacet pulvis, cinis, et nihil.
But see how differently in 1910 our traveller will read the secret of Toledo! Now, as of old, the city on its sun-baked height, with the tawny semicircle of the Tagus at its feet, seems less a dwelling for men than a dreary highplace of the soul, a sanctuary set apart for spiritual exaltation. The dry orange tone of the soil and buildings ”

“ A Spanish friend, whose privilege it is to paint Toledo in all her wild and sad enchantment, in a big house above the Puerta del Cambron, overlooking the wavy water-line from the bridge of San Martin and the exquisite diversity of orchard and meadow-land, has offered me many de{145}lightful moments of contemplation of this unique view from his broad terrace. It combines in the rarest form a light and smiling charm with a superb and matchless melancholy. ”

“ It is not safe to ask a question of even a well-dressed Toledan. If he tells you to take the right instead of the left, he is sure to ask you either for a tip or alms. But you may rest assured he regards himself entitled to one or the other. All the boys of whatever class, bourgeois or artizan, coming out from the Institute with sachels slung over their shoulders, or running errands, well-shod and clothed, along the streets, at the sight of a foreigner shriek out “Un canki sou” if they imagine they know French, and “cinco centimes” when they are content with Castillian. ”

“ The patient uplifted glance will at length be rewarded by learning to decipher from such a distance the legend of these matchless windows, which are wonderfully vivid scenes from the New Testament. A Spanish painter, who has devoted his life to the study of his beloved Toledo, tells me that when you penetrate up to these far-off heights, you will find the scenes in finish and detail and drawing as perfect as paintings, some of the German and Flemish school, some of the richer and suaver Italian. ”

“ No passage of all their texts was more bizarre and tortuous than the mass of intricate lanes which formed then, as they form to-day, the thoroughfares of communication in Toledo. No hidden jewel of knowledge and observation could surprise and reward the translator in the midst of his tedious labours with a flash of sudden light and glory more unexpectedly delicious than that felt by the traveller, when, after long wandering in that maze and labyrinth, he finds a wider air ”

“ When he found himself with diminished property and without his eyesight, in sorrow and disgust he turned into money such part of his patrimony as sufficed to rid him of the hungry herd of scriveners and lawyers, and took his way to Toledo with his daughter, who was already entering upon her sixteenth year, and had matured into one of the most beautiful, graceful, and lovable damsels to be found throughout all Castile and the kingdoms beyond. ”