Spanish literature owes him a great gratitude for having written in Spanish, contrary to the prejudices of the learned, who held that a writing to be profound must be obscure, and “marvelled that a theologian of whom they expected some great treatise full of deep questions had ended by writing a book in romance.” But Luis de León wished, he says, to open the “new path” of good style, that consists “both in what is said and in the way of saying it, and in the task of choosing the best words of those in common use, and considering the sound of them, and even at times of counting the letters, and weighing and measuring and mingling them, that the matter be presented not only with clearness but with softness and harmony.” Nearly five years after his arrest Luis de León returned to Salamanca. He returned entirely justified, and the University welcomed him back with rejoicing. Over the Augustinian Order especially his trial had hung like a cloud, and the condemnation of so distinguished a professor must have been felt as a disgrace by the whole University. The legend is well known. When Luis de León resumed his lectures the entire University thronged to hear him. He was enjoined by the Inquisition to preserve complete silence as to its proceedings, but this was an occasion at least for subtle and indirect allusions, and for the excitement of general sympathy. Luis de León rose in the crowded room and began his lecture with the words: “Gentlemen, we were saying yesterday,” and so continued his course. The intervening five years were obliterated. The story is so thoroughly in keeping with the character of the man, whose simplicity and sincere humility produced an effect unattainable by the most studious artifice, that we would willingly maintain its truth. We would thrust aside the prosaic facts that Luis de León did not resume his lectures, the chair having been occupied in his absence, and he acquiescing in this on his return (_la daba por bien empleada_), and that, when he was assigned another course of lectures, a long dispute arose in the University as to the hour at which he should deliver them. We may say at least that, if the story is not literal in the facts, in spirit it is essentially true. The quaint kind of pulpit from which the words were spoken, and the lecture-room with its rough-hewn benches, are still preserved in the University at Salamanca, and the sublime words, “_Decíamos ayer_,” form part of the _repertoire_ of the tourist’s cicerone.