It is only right to mention that the remarkable evenness of execution in these plays makes the selection of passages for quotation rather difficult. Perhaps the foregoing scene may serve as well as another to illustrate the leisurely, conversational method of the authors. The large-hearted patriarchal country-gentleman and the sturdily independent and self-respecting marketgardener are both of them sympathetic types, drawn without apparent effort-moulds into which skilled actors would, I conceive, find little difficulty in infusing the warmth, geniality, and emotion of life. One criticism, however, cannot be withheld, and it is that, for a centenarian, Papá Juan is almost miraculously free from traces of senility.

Neither Madrid nor the life of the Spanish aristocracy has, so far, figured very largely in the writings of the Señores Quintero, for, when they introduce a Madrileño, it is oftener than not (as in 'Mundo, Mundillo . . .') as a foil to provincial surroundings. It may be that they have regarded these things as belonging by prescriptive right to their more pungent and more cosmopolitan senior, Jacinto Benavente. Upon the life of the middleclasses, however, as upon that of their own native Seville ('El Patio,' 1900), and of the numerous provincial towns of their own invention-such as Guadalema, Arenales del Rio, Puebla de las Mujeres-they have brought their fine observation to bear with masterly effect. And though the life of the smaller Spanish town is admitted to have its full share of the proverbial characteristics of 'Little Pedlington,' its treatment by the Quinteros is ever so much more genial than, say, that meted out by Galdós to the formidable cathedral city to which he introduced us in Doña Perfecta.' The Quinteros temper satire with sympathy and playfulness until its gall disappears. Yet they are far from blinking the dulness of the typical Spanish town, or the fact that this bears hardly on the women. Don Julian, the good parish-priest of Puebla de las Mujeres, says: 'Aquí, en movimiento constante, no hay más que las campanas de las dos iglesias, y las lenguas de las mujeres.' And hear how Currita,

*

*Here the only things in constant motion are the bells of the two churches and the women's tongues.'

the independent girl-secretary of our friend Papá Juan, bears the priest out. She is explaining to her kinsman, the bohemian Trino, that, far from thinking ill of him because he had attempted his own life when crossed in love, she thinks all the better of him for it:

'I tell you that I like what you did-Yes, like it immensely! It's an act that speaks to me of so many things that are outside our humdrum daily life! Ah, Trino! you can have no idea what it is to be of my age and have my illusions, and live in a town such as this! A town where the greatest of expectations when the church clock strikes three consists in waiting till it strikes four, and again when it strikes four in waiting till it strikes five! Ours is a lucky church-bell-it never by any chance rings for a fire. And I am for ever sighing for something out of the common. . . There you have the reason why what you did and are now ashamed of inspires sympathy in me! Apart from that, of course, nobody rejoices more than I do that the bullet missed its mark.'

Perhaps it is in the two-act comedy of 'El Amor que Pasa' ('The Love that passes by '), produced at Buenos Aires in 1904, that this characteristic aspect of the older Spanish life is most sympathetically shown. The play introduces us to Arenales, a little town where men are scarce and disinclined to wed. In fact, for womenkind, to be condemned to live in Arenales is about the same thing as enforced celibacy. And of course there is great plenty of really charming girls. In the first act we find Mamá Dolores, the neglected wife of a bibulous husband, who has lost her own daughters, entertaining a large party of female friends, and endeavouring to satisfy her baulked affections by acting as a sort of general mother to the girls. But in such a place as Arenales, how can she hope to provide them with husbands? The dearth of menkind is exemplified by the fact that the only male creature present is a half-witted fellow frankly spoken of as El Tonto, who, whatever his deficiencies, has at least a keen appreciation of feminine society, and whose remarks relating thereto are apt to be embarrassing. Into the midst of this insipid tertúlia, enters the handsome and dashing Alvaro, come to visit his dead mother's friend, the hostess, who, after making him fondly

welcome, lays plans for his entertainment. Alvaro makes himself extremely agreeable, and impresses every one favourably. But, though he talks in a pleasantly sentimental vein to the girls Socorrito and Clotilde, he has no intentions' whatever, and is far too good a fellow to lead them to believe that he has. The fact is that Alvaro was born at sea and has roving in his blood. To him the stay at Arenales is a jolly interlude between journeys, and he rides away, as he had come, unwitting of the vacuum he leaves, with none but El Tonto to fill it. Esperar, esperar . . tener el alma llena de amor, y pasar sin amor la vida .. That is the prospect left to Socorrito and Clotilde, who go back to fill their lives, as best they may, with childish sports and girlish chatter, until these things shall have become too patent an anachronism.

*

There are writers who would have treated this theme in such a manner as to leave behind an impression of cruel irony. The Quinteros have preferred to expose its pathos with a delicate and sympathetic hand. But, indeed, I question if, in their entire theatre, there is a single passage that could be called harsh. They are optimists, sunny and whole-hearted, and might be trusted, I verily believe, to find a solvent, or at least provide relief, for the cruellest dramatic situation ever concocted by an Ibsen or a Südermann.

The pathos of El Amor que pasa' is, however, exceptional in the Quinteros' plays, and hence a more entirely characteristic example of their art may be found in the two-act comedy of 'Puebla de las Mujeres,' produced at the Teatro Lara, in January 1912. Here all is fine observation, relieved only by the necessary modicum of sentiment, and free from the suspicion of a sigh. Puebla de las Mujeres may be described as the Spanish Cranfordthe small self-centred town, of minute interests and of female domination; but here the tongue of local tattle wags more swiftly, while absorption in the affairs of other people is more exclusive and entire than with ourselves. The whole action of the play takes place in the Parish Priest's parlour, and it is almost needless to

insist that its whole merit consists in accurate realisation of milieu and of local types-for example, Doña Concha, the busybody, or Doña Belén, the oracle of propriety. Those who know the life of southern Spain will recognise their absolute fidelity, while the apparent effortlessness of the performance contrasts finely with the endeavours of certain recent writers to make capital out of the humour and pathos of Scottish life.

To the peculiar genius of the Quinteros, the exceptionally prominent place filled by family-life in Spain offers an attractive opportunity. To say that family affection is stronger in the south than among ourselves might appear invidious and be difficult of proof. Let us say, then, that the hiving off' instinct is weaker there than with us, and that to find whole families-nay, whole colonies of relations-spending the best part of their lives under one roof is not very unusual. One of the plays in which the Señores Quintero have exploited family-life is 'Las de Caín' ('The Caín Girls'), produced simultaneously at Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Vigo, in October 1908-the title, like Los Galeotes' and 'Los Leales,' being probably a device to trick expectation. As this play turns on the marrying off of a large family of daughters, it can scarcely be regarded as an illustration of my point, but it certainly presents an attractive picture of the terms on which members of Spanish middle-class families live together.

Segismundo Caín, teacher of languages, is very much of a family man. He and his wife, Doña Elvira, both of whom are very well drawn, have been blessed, not indeed with riches, but with a family of eight daughters, of whom no less than five still remain to be married. Here is a task for Hercules! But with a little contrivance the girls being willing and charming-it may be accomplished; and this is how it is done. Rosalía, the eldest unmarried daughter, is engaged to a stirring young doctor, Alfredo, who is much in love with her. Well, in collusion with her father, whose confidante she is, Rosalía informs her fiancé of the decision she has come to, not to be married until she has seen her younger sisters provided for. Alfredo is furious, all the more so from having that very day secured an appointment which enables him to marry forthwith. But Rosalía, a girl of

character, is not to be overruled. Then her lover, after the manner of men in love, bows to necessity, sees virtue in his sweetheart's inflexibility, and seeking the quickest way out of his difficulty, takes assiduously to introducing bachelor friends to his prospective sisters-in-law. I need hardly say that his ingenuity meets with its just reward.

A second play of family-life is 'Los Leales,' a threeact comedy, produced at the Teatro Español, in January 1914, and characterised by that greater elaboration and deeper moral significance which seem to mark the authors' development. It exhibits the fall from wealth to poverty of the large, united, genial family of a too confiding business-man, Don Adelardo Leal, and then goes on to show how this seeming misfortune is in reality a blessing in disguise, bringing with it the opportunity of unselfishness and the saving grace of work— the latter being a lesson less trite among Latins than among ourselves. Interwoven with the main theme is the love story of Cristina Leal, whom poverty rids of an unworthy fiancé, while the ingenuity and self-sacrifice of her younger sister, Lucita, provide her with a fitter mate. Among single scenes of the Quintero drama, there are few, if any, finer or more sympathetic than that in which the high-spirited Spanish girl pours scorn upon the faithless lover who has sought to return to her—a dialogue which ranks with the climax of 'Pepita Reyes,' and dwells in the memory as more entirely successful than the culminating dialogue of Malvaloca.' Among the lighter features of the play, the character of the old uncle, Doroteo, deserves mention; and it may be noted that, while the Quintero plays are singularly rich in portraits of finished fatuity, at least three of these are uncles, namely, Jeremías ('Los Galeotes'), Don Dionisio (Mundo, Mundillo '), and, last but not least, Don Lolo (Pepita Reyes').

The moral of Los Leales' is inculcated with characteristic Spanish suavity, and is throughout subordinated to the illustration of character. At first sight the plot may seem almost better suited to a novel than to a play; and, on glancing at the stout volume which contains it, one is inclined to fear that talk may overbear action. But this fear is solely due to long familiarity with the methods of the older school of playwrights. For the