71
Cf. the similar lesson of Carlos VI en la Rápita, in which the worldly and jovial Archpriest of Ulldecona is favorably contrasted with the idealistic and bookish Confusio.
72
Cf. the similar portrayal of the Spain of the revolutionary period in the fifth series of episodios nacionales. Spain is symbolized in women (Nicéfora, Fernanda) who are idealistic, neurotic, and self-destructive; they, like Gloria, are victims of seduction (Juan de Urriés). Like Juan de Lantigua, the traditionalist paladin of the fifth series (Don Wifredo) is not ignoble, but merely irrelevant to Spanish history.
73
See «Veintiocho cartas», pp. 18-19.
74
The contradictions and jarring elements in Spanish life are expressed in the form of metaphor in Gloria: the handsome head of the statue of Christ and the roughly-carpentered worm-eaten body of this same statue, the stridency of Gloria's piano playing, the cacophony of the Ficóbriga city band. The irruption of foreign ideas leaves Spain in, if anything, a worse state than before; after Gloria's fall, the clocks in the Lantigua house are either stopped or keep false time.
75
This essay is based upon chapters on El amigo Manso from my dissertation «Rhetoric in Three Novels by B. Pérez Galdós: A Study of Narrative Technique» (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1969). I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for the stipend awarded summer, 1976, also the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) for access to the photocopy of the original manuscript and D. Ignacio Aguilera, director of the Biblioteca Menéndez y Pelayo, Santander, for his guidance in the use of primary source material. For definitions of El amigo Manso as a transitional novel, see Robert Kirsner, «Sobre El amigo Manso de Galdós», Cuadernos de Literatura, 8 (1950), 190, 197, Monroe Z. Hafter, «Ironic Reprise in Galdós' Novels», PMLA, 76 (1961), 234.
76
Why did this novel slip into the mainstream so unnoticeably? Perhaps it was because, as Pereda remarked of Narváez, «los libros buenos dan muy poco que decir» (Cartas a Galdós, ed. Soledad Ortega [Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1964], p. 202). H. Chonon Berkowitz cites the death of Manuel de la Revilla (1881) as a factor but notes erroneously that «neither Clarín nor Luis Alfonso nor Palacio Valdés -nor any other of the so-called 'authoritative pens of Spain'- put down in writing their appraisal of the novel. Nevertheless the reception measured in terms of informal and unpublished comment was quite satisfying» (Pérez Galdós, Spanish Liberal Crusader [Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1948], p. 159). However, Clarín did write an extensive and perceptive review of the novel which Kronik has had reprinted along with a commentary in this issue of Anales Galdosianos (pp. 63).
77
Leopoldo Alas, «Del estilo en la novela», Arte y Letra, 1882-1883. Reprinted in Sergio Beser, Leopoldo Alas. Teoría y crítica de la novela española (Barcelona: Editorial Laia, 1972), p. 86.
78
Cartas a Galdós, p. 245.
79
Cartas a Galdós, pp. 90, 98. Photocopies of the manuscript of El amigo Manso are in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid and the Casa-Museo Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas (Gran Canaria). The photocopy consists of 816 sheets, including the drafts («vueltos»), each measuring 14 ½ by 20 ½ cms., with an average of 16 lines of writing -that same spiky, inky script so familiar to Galdós scholars. Montesinos infers from correspondence that Pereda owned the manuscript (Galdós, II [Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1969], p. 28). In fact, on page 1 and continuing across the top margin of page 2 is penned the following note:
The manuscript remains the property of the Pereda family.
80
José Alcázar Hernández, «El amigo Manso, novela del Sr. Pérez Galdós», Revista de España, 87, Nº. 347 (1882), 374, 375.