[93] The latest statistics available show that, while 90 and 80 per cent. of the electors in some northern provinces of Spain can read and write, in Andalucía the highest averages are 51 and 50 (provinces of Cadiz and Seville), that of the province of Córdoba being but 41, of Almería 38, of Granada and Jaen 35, of Málaga 34. [94] “Chapters on Spanish Literature.” 1908. [95] “N’uma mão a penna e n’outra a lança.” [96] M. Boris de Tannenberg, speaking of “Sotileza,” has said excellently: “C’est que plus une œuvre a un caractère local marqué, plus elle a de chance de devenir universelle, à condition que l’écrivain, sous la particularité des mœurs et du langage, ait pénétre jusqu’au fond commun d’humanité.” And Don Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, who represented King Alfonso on January 23, 1911, in the ceremony of unveiling at Santander the statue of Pereda by Señor Collaut Valera (nephew of the novelist, Juan Valera), said in his speech: “His books, so local that even the inhabitants of the mountain require a glossary, and as Spanish as the most Spanish writings since Cervantes and Quevedo, are profoundly human owing to the intensity of life which they contain, and the quiet majesty with which it is developed.” [97] We are apt to forget that men in the Middle Ages, if they dwelt insistently on the sinister “Dance of Death,” also felt to the full the joys of living. The “Poema del Cid” sings no variations on the theme “How good is man’s life, the mere living,” but the feeling itself appears in every line. [98] The King had sent “letters to León and Sanctiague, to Portuguese and Galicians, to those of Carrión and the Men of Castille,” to announce a _Cort dentro en Tolledo_, in order to judge between the Cid and the Counts of Carrión. “Since I was King,” he says, “I have held but two _Cortes_, one in Burgos, the other in Carrión, this third in Tolledo have I come to hold to-day.” [99] James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 231. [100] See pp. 151, 222-238. Pereda is, perhaps, the least read outside Spain of all Spanish novelists; yet it is scarcely too much to say that he who cannot appreciate Pereda cannot understand the spirit or feel the true savour of Spain. [101] “Chapters on Spanish Literature,” p. 246. [102] Andrés González-Blanco, “Historia de la novela en España desde el romanticismo hasta nuestros días.” Madrid. 1909. [103] La Primera República. Madrid. 1911. [104] See page 214.