period of comparative comfort seemed to open up before
them. This period was of short duration, however; for Gustavo (who was
never strong) soon fell ill, and was obliged to withdraw from the
capital, in search of purer air, to the historic monastery of Veruela,
situated on the Moncayo, a mountain in northern Spain. His brother
Valeriano accompanied him, and there they passed a year in complete
isolation from the rest of the world. The spur of necessity, however,
compelled them both to keep to their work, and while Gustavo was
writing such legends as that of _Maese Perez_, and composing his
fascinating _Cartas desde mi Celda_, Valeriano was painting Aragonese
scenes such as La _Vendimia_ ("The Vintage") or fanciful creations
such as _El Barco del Diablo_ or La _Pecadora_.

The next year the two brothers returned to the capital, and Gustavo,
together with his friend D. Felipe Vallarino, began the publication of
_La Gaceta literaria_, of brief but brilliant memory. During this same
year and during 1863 Gustavo continued on the staff of _El
Contemporaneo_, enriching its pages with an occasional legend of
singular beauty.

At the Baths of Fitero in Navarre, whither, with his inseparable
brother, he had gone to recuperate his health in the summer of 1864,
Gustavo composed the fantastic legend of the _Miserere_, and others no
less interesting. On his return from Fitero he continued in _El
Contemporaneo_, and shortly after entered a ministerial daily, the
irksome duties of which charge he bore with resignation.

At this time Luis Gonzalez Bravo, a man of _fine_ literary
discrimination, whatever may be thought of him politically, was prime
minister under Isabel II. He had become interested in the work of
Gustavo, and, knowing the dire financial straits in which the young
poet labored, he thought to diminish these anxieties and thus give him
more time to devote to creative work by making him censor of novels. A
new period of calm and comparative comfort began, and for the first
time in his life Becquer had the leisure to carry out a long-cherished
project, at once his own desire and the desire of his friends: that of
gathering together in one volume all his scattered verse and of adding
to the collection other poems as well that had not yet seen the light.
This he did, and the completed volume so charmed his friend and
patron, Gonzalez Bravo, that he offered of his own accord to write a
prologue for the work and to print it