The present edition of El Sombrero de tres picos is designed to make the book accessible as a text for use in college classes as early as the second or third semester of Spanish study. The plan of the edition needs no special comment. The editor has made the effort to include in the notes and the vocabulary explanation sufficient to cover all difficulties reasonably to be attributed to students who have done careful work in the elements of Spanish grammar, and the usual elementary reading. The numerous references in the notes are addressed more particularly to the teachers.

In the use of the vocabulary, it should be borne in mind that the latter is designed for this text alone, and is in no sense a dictionary. It may be said also that an effort has been made to exclude from the notes all puerilities, and the explanation of commonplaces, whether of history, grammar, or mythology.

Grateful acknowledgment is made here to the friends who have helped the editor in whatever way in the preparation of this book, and in especial to Professor De Haan of Bryn Mawr College; to Professor Caroline B. Bourland of Smith College, the editor's sister; to Professor William D. Briggs, of the Leland Stanford, Jr. University; to Professor Christian Gauss, of Princeton University; to the Rev. Gilbert P. Jennings, Rector of St. Agnes' Church in Cleveland, and to Don Adolfo Bonilla y San Martín, of Madrid; and lastly, and most of all, to the editor's friend and pupil, Mr. Gustav G. Laubscher, of Adelbert College, whose work on the vocabulary was more nearly collaboration than assistance.

B. P. B.

Cleveland, December, 1906.

INTRODUCTION

Índice

I. Alarcón's Life

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón was born at Guadix in the province of Granada, the 10th of March 1833, the fourth of ten children of an old and noble family, whose wealth had been lost in the wars of the Napoleonic period and the disorders that had followed. His father destined him for the bar, and after reaching the baccalaureate at the age of fourteen, at the seminario of Guadix, he went to Granada to begin his professional studies, only to be recalled by the res angusta domi to his home, where perforce he exchanged jurisprudence for theology, and began preparation for the priesthood.

The boy's heart was not in his professional studies, and his best efforts were given to other matters; he taught himself French and Italian, began to write, and formed the project of going to Madrid, to set up as a man of letters. His parents declined to support him in this ambition, but Alarcón persisted. Through Torcuato Tárrago, a young writer at that time living in Guadix, he was introduced to a Cadiz publisher, who undertook the issuing of a weekly journal, El Eco de Occidente, which was to appear at Cadiz and Granada, and whose literary redaction was to be entrusted to the two young men. The venture was successful. After three years' work the savings seemed sufficient, and on the 18th of January, 1853, Alarcón left home.

He went first to Cadiz, where he gave his attention to matters concerning the journal, and a month later he reached Madrid,—without introduction or friends, but with some little money and with a goodly sheaf of verses, notably an ambitious continuation of Espronceda's Diablo Mundo, all of which he burned, after much interviewing of publishers. In short, he did not get along at all at the capital, and when his money was gone and the husks were sour, he made his own the immemorial custom of the prodigal, and went back to his father's house. A complete reconciliation followed his return. He had been drawn for military service: his father purchased his release, and gave him permission to live in Granada, where he renewed his connection with the Eco de Occidente. In Granada also he found agreeable literary society, and the year spent there was one of profit to himself and of success for his journal, in whose management he had an increasing influence and part.

His first mingling in politics was in 1854, when he took open and active part in the rebellion that culminated in the mutiny of Vicálvaro (the 30th of June), distinguishing himself by his noisy and militant radicalism, and gaining the ill-will of many of the elements whose favor, in his later life, he found it wise to win—the clergy, the army, the national militia. Before the end of the year he was in Madrid, where he became the editor of El Látigo, the most extreme of the anti-royalist periodicals. This connection was ended by a duel, and Alarcón gave up politics for the time, and retired to Segovia, to restore health broken by irregular living, and to write. El Final de Norma was the most ambitious work that dates from this time, with a very great number of short stories and miscellaneous articles published in various journals, all of which brought him a considerable reputation throughout Spain. In 1856 he visited Paris and "wrote up" the exposition of that year for the Spanish press. Towards the end of 1857 he made his appearance at the theatre of the Circo at Madrid, with his one play, El Hijo Pródigo. The première was riotously successful, but the critics were against the author, whose personality seems to have been a large factor in the matter, and the piece was soon withdrawn. In 1859 Alarcón volunteered for the campaign in Morocco, and after doing excellent service, was honorably discharged in April, 1860, when he returned to Spain. The fruit of this military experience was the Diario de un testigo de la Guerra de África, which is of his best work. The book was exceedingly successful commercially, and the author's profits permitted him the journeying in France, Switzerland, and Italy, whose story is told in De Madrid a Nápoles, two volumes of fairly acute observation and superior literary worth. (August, 1860—February, 1861).

From this time until 1873 Alarcón was devoted to an active political life, into whose details we need not follow him. He was deputy from Guadix much of the time, and was prominent as a writer for the Época, then as now the first conservative newspaper of Spain, and later as one of the founders and editors of La Política. He had much success, and we are told that only feelings of personal

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