; they will learn what real ennui is and they will enjoy
themselves all the rest of their lives in reflecting that they might be
in the Escorial and that they are not."

That was well toward a century ago. It is not quite like that now,
but it is something like it; the human race has become inured to the
Escorial; more tourists have visited the place and imaginably lightened
its burden by sharing it among their increasing number. Still there is
now and then one who is oppressed, crushed by it, and cannot relieve
himself in such ironies as Gautier's, but must cry aloud in suffering
like that of the more emotional De Amicis: "You approach a courtyard and
say, 'I have seen this already.' No. You are mistaken; it is another....
You ask the guide where the cloister is and he replies, 'This is it,'
and you walk on for half an hour. You see the light of another world:
you have never seen just such a light; is it the reflection from the
stone, or does it come from the moon? No, it is daylight, but sadder
than darkness. As you go on from corridor to corridor, from court to
court, you look ahead with misgivings, expecting to see suddenly, as you
turn a corner, a row of skeleton monks with hoods over their eyes and
crosses in their hands; you think of Philip II.... You remember all
that you have read about him, of his terrors and the Inquisition; and
everything becomes clear to your mind's eye with a sudden light; for the
first time you understand it all; the Escorial is Philip II.... He is
still there alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God... .
Even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am feeling sad,
I think of the Escorial, and then look at the walls of my room and
congratulate myself.... I see again the courtyards of the Escorial. ...
I dream of wandering through the corridors alone in the dark, followed
by the ghost of an old friar, crying and pounding at all the doors
without finding a way of escape."

[Illustration: 18 THE PANTHEON OF THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF SPAIN]

I am of another race both from the Frenchman and the Italian, and
I cannot pretend to their experiences, their inferences, and their
conclusions; but I am not going to leave the Escorial to the reader
without trying to make him feel that I too was terribly impressed by it.
To be sure, I had some light moments in it, because when gloom goes too
far it becomes ridiculous; and I did think the convent gardens as I saw
them from the chap