[Footnote 1: Obras, vol. II, p. 251.]
Indeed, in those later days of trial and hardship, he would often look out wearily upon Madrid, the city of his adoption, the scene of his crushing struggle with necessity, as it lay outspread before his windows,--"dirty, black, and ugly as a fleshless skeleton, shivering under its immense shroud of snow,"[1] and in his mind he would conjure up the city of his youth, his ever cherished Seville, "with her Giralda of lacework, mirrored in the trembling Guadalquivir, with her narrow and tortuous Moorish streets, in which one fancies still he hears the strange cracking sound of the walk of the Justiciary King; Seville, with her barred windows and her love-songs, her
iron door-screens and her night watchmen, her altar-pieces and her stories, her brawls and her music, her tranquil nights and her fiery afternoons, her rosy dawns and her blue twilights; Seville, with all the traditions that twenty centuries have heaped upon her brow, with all the pomp and splendor of her southern nature."[2] No words of praise seemed too glowing for her ardent lover.
[Footnote 1: Ibid., vol. III, p. iii.]
[Footnote 2: Obras, vol. III, pp. 109-110.]
By some strange mystery, however, it had been decreed by fate that he should only meet with disappointment in every object of his love. The city of his birth was no exception to the rule: since Becquer's death it has made but little effort to requite his deep devotion or satisfy his youthful dreams. You may search "the bank of the Guadalquivir that leads to the ruined convent of San Jeronimo,"
you may spy among the silvery poplars or the willows growing there, you may thrust aside the reeds and yellow lilies or the tangled growth of morning-glories, but all in vain--no "white stone with a cross" appears. You may wander through the city's many churches, but no tomb to the illustrious poet will you find, no monument in any square. His body sleeps well-nigh forgotten in the cemetery of San Nicolas in Madrid.
If you will turn your steps, however, to the barrio of Seville in which the celebrated D. Miguel de Manara, the original type of Juan Tenorio and the Estudiante de Salamanca, felt the mysterious blow and saw his own funeral train file by, and will enter the little street of the Conde de Barajas, you will find on the facade of the house No. 26 a modest but tasteful tablet bearing the words
EN ESTA CASA NACIO GUSTAVO ADOLFO BECQUER
XVII FEBRERO MDCCCXXXVI.[1]
[Footnote 1: This memorial, which was uncovered on January 10th, 1886, is due to a little group of Becquer's admirers, and especially to the inspiration of a young Argentine poet, Roman Garcia Pereira (whose Canto a Becquer, published in La Ilustracion Artistica, Barcelona, December 27, 1886, is a tribute worthy of the poet who inspired it), and to the personal efforts of the illustrious Seville scholar, Don Jose Gestoso y Perez. It is only fair to add here that there is also an inferior street in Seville named for Becquer.]
Here Gustavo Adolfo Dominguez Becquer opened his eyes upon this inhospitable world. Eight days later he was baptized in the church of San Lorenzo.[1] He was one of a family of eight sons, Eduardo, Estanislao, Valeriano, Gustavo Adolfo, Alfredo, Ricardo, Jorge, and Jose. His father, Don Jose Dominguez Becquer, was a well-known Seville genre painter. He died when Gustavo was but
a child of five, too young to be taught the principles of his art; but he nevertheless bequeathed to him the artistic temperament
3
that was so dominant a trait in the poet's genius. Becquer's mother, Dona Joaquina, survived his father but a short time, and left her children orphaned while they were yet very young. Gustavo was but nine and a half years old at the time of his mother's death. Fortunately an old and childless uncle, D. Juan Vargas, took charge of the motherless boys until they could find homes or employment.
[Footnote 1: The following is a copy of his baptismal record:
"En jueves 25 de Febrero de 1836 anos D. Antonio Rodriguez Arenas Pbro. con licencia del infrascrito Cura de la Parroquial de Sn. Lorenzo de Sevilla: bautizo solemnemente a Gustavo Adolfo que nacio en 17 de dicho mes y ano hijo de Jose Dominguez Vequer (sic) y Dona Juaquina (sic) Bastida su legitima mujer. Fue su madrina Dona Manuela Monchay vecina de la collacion de Sn. Miguel a
la que se advirtio el parentesco espiritual y obligaciones y para verdad lo firme.--Antonio Lucena Cura." See La Illustracion Artistica, Barcelona, December 27, 1886, pp. 363-366. Citations from this periodical will hereafter refer to the issue of this date.]
Gustavo Adolfo received his first instruction at the College of San Antonio Abad. After the loss of his mother his uncle procured for him admission to the College of San Telmo, a training school for navigators, situated on the banks of the Guadalquivir in the edifice that later became the palace of the Dukes of Montpensier. This establishment had been founded in 1681 in the ancient sub-urb of Marruecos as a reorganization of the famous Escuela de Mareantes (navigators) of Triana. The Government bore the cost of maintenance and instruction of the pupils of this school, to which were admitted only poor and orphaned boys of noble extraction. Gustavo fulfilled all these requirements. Indeed, his family, which had come to Seville at the close of the sixteenth century or at the beginning of the seventeenth century, from Flanders, was one of the most distinguished of the town. It had even counted among its illustrious members a Seville Veinticuatro, and no one who was unable to present proof of noble lineage could aspire to that distinction.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Don Martin Becquer, mayorazgo and Veinticuatro, of Seville, native of Flanders, married Dona Ursula Diez de Tejada. Born to them were Don Juan and Dona Mencia Becquer. The latter married Don Julian Dominguez, by whom she had a son Don Antonio Dominguez y Becquer, who in turn contracted marriage with Dona Maria Antonia Insausti y Bausa. Their son was Don
Jose Dominguez Insausti y Bausa, husband of Dona Joaquina Bastida y Vargas, and father of the poet Becquer." The arms of the family "were a shield of azure with a chevron of gold, charged with five stars of azure, two leaves of clover in gold in the upper corners of the shield, and in the point a crown of gold." The language of the original is not technical, and I have translated literally. See Carta a M. Achille Fouquier, by D. Jose Gestoso y Perez, in La Ilustracion Artistica, pp. 363-366.]
Among the students of San Telmo there was one, Narciso Campillo, for whom Gustavo felt a special friendship,--a lad whose literary tastes, like his own, had developed early, and who was destined, later on, to occupy no mean position in the field of letters. Writing of those days of his youth, Senor Campillo says: "Our childhood friendship was strengthened by our life in common, wearing as we did the same uniform, eating at the same table, and sleeping in an immense hall, whose arches, columns, and melancholy lamps, suspended at intervals, I can see before me still.
"I enjoy recalling this epoch of our first literary utterance (vagido), and I say our, for when he was but ten years old and I eleven, we composed and presented in the aforesaid school (San Telmo) a fearful and extravagant drama, which, if my memory serves me right, was entitled Los Conjurados ('The Conspirators'). We likewise began a novel. I wonder at the confidence with which these two children, so ignorant in all respects, launched forth upon the two literary lines that require most knowledge of man, society, and life. The time was yet to come when by dint of painful struggles and hard trials they should possess that knowledge, as difficult to gain as it is bitter!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Article on Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, by Narciso Campillo, in La Ilustracion Artistica, pp. 358-360]
Shortly after the matriculation of young Becquer, the College of San Telmo was suppressed by royal orders, and the lad found himself in the streets. He was then received into the home of his godmother, Dona Manuela Monchay, who was a woman of kind heart and much intelligence. She possessed a fair library, which was put at the disposal of the boy; and here he gratified his love for reading, and perfected his literary taste. Two works that had considerable influence upon him at this time were the Odes of Horace, translated by P. Urbano Campos, and the poems of Zorrilla. He began to write verses of his own, but these he later burned.
"In 1849," says Senor Campillo, "there were two