[105] Señor Picón, whose writings are rather exquisite than voluminous, is the author of “Dulce y Sabrosa,” and several short stories. A Spanish critic, Señor Gómez de Baquero, has said of him that while “his thoughts look to the future, his style listens to the golden music of the past.” His latest work is “Juanita Tenorio,” a long novel (published as vol. 3 of his Complete Works in the autumn of 1910), in which his art, skilful and delicate as it is, has not been entirely successful in eclipsing the sordidness of the subject by the magic of the style. The following quotation--a description of Madrid seen from an attic-window at night--will give some idea of his restrained and clear-cut style: “Era noche cerrada. En primer término no percibía la vista más que las grandes masas angulosas y obscuras de muros, parodones y tejados: descollando por encima de ellos surgían los contornos de torres y campanarios, cuyos puntiagudos chapiteles, cubiertos de pizarra, recogían el escaso claror de las estrellas; acà y allà rompían la superficie negra de las fachadas los rectángulos de luz amarillenta que forman los balcones alumbrados interiormente, y al través de algun vidrio brillaba el resplandor solitario de una lámpara con su pantalla de color; de las chimeneas salían nubecillas de humo, que, flotando como manchas fugaces en la lobreguez del ambiente, se desvanecían en la altura; por entre las manzanas de casas, á lo largo de las calles rectas, divisabanse las hileras de los faroles, cuyas llamas reverberaban en cristales y vidrieras, ó á trechos algún arco voltáico irradiaba intenso fulgor blanquecino; y de aquel conjunto de sombras esmaltadas de toques luminosos so alzaba el rumor confuso de mil ruidos diversos; rodar de vehículos, vocear de vendedores, gritar de chicos y cantar de criadas; ya el tecleo de un piano, ya el lento sonar de las campanadas de un reloj.” [106] “César ó Nada” is the first of a trilogy entitled “Las Ciudades”; another trilogy, “El Mar,” is begun with “Las Inquietudes de Shanti Andía” (1911), a vivid disconnected narrative concerning the lives of adventurous sailors of the Basque coast in the little fishing-harbour of Luzaro and in their distant voyages. The style, or absence of style, is clear, transparent, as it were brittle with the shock of abrupt short sentences, interspersed with sonorous Basque names and rough snatches of Basque song. In Basque, too, are the indications of the site in which lie buried the coffers of gold coins hoarded by a miserly slave trader. But the book ends with the sad reflection: “No one now in Luzaro is willing to be a sailor. Los vascos se retiran del mar.” [107] Six years after Galdós, sixteen before Blasco Ibáñez, one before Alas and Picón, and two before Palacio Valdés. [108] F. Vézinet, “Les Maîtres du Roman Espagnol Contemporain,” Paris, 1907.