Op. cit.

Discursos leídos ante la Real Academia Española en la recepción pública del Sr. D...., el domingo 7 de febrero de 1897, edición académica (Madrid: Tello, 1897); accentuation modernized.

In the essay, «Historical Perspective and Political Bias...» written in 1968, these complexities were not entirely apparent to the writer. This was due primarily to the author's reacting first to Regalado's book, and only secondly to Galdós' non-fictional prose. If we are to avoid one of Regalado's most serious flaws, we must not fall into the trap of over simplifying the issues or separating and comparing them, weighing one egainst the other. They are all important to Galdós, who attempts to blend them in his fictive portraits of society so that the ultimate solution is harmonious for all. E.g., the social question cannot be resolved without resolution, simultaneously and compatibly, of, for example, the religious question. However, Galdós' problem, certainly part of his Liberal, middle class bias, was that he had too much faith in the power of spiritual regeneration, and to little in that of socio-economic change; v also n. 17 and the text to nn. 18 and 19, above.

On marginality, margination and their effects on the value systems of the lower classes, v pp.448-449 of the extraordinary work by the Fundación FOESSA, Informe sociológico sobre la situación social de España, 1970 (Madrid: Euramérica, 1970). While it must be kept in mind that their assertions pertain to the Spanish lower classes in 1970, there can be no doubt that their conclusions, with appropriate modifications, may be fruitfully applied to end-century Madrid.

José Luis L. Aranguren, Moral y sociedad: Introducción a la moral social española del siglo XIX (Madrid: Edicusa, 1967).

For the early years and Galdós' attitudes, v Goldman, «Galdós and the Politics of Conciliation». Because he was no fool, Galdós easily discerned what has come to be called an «escape valve mechanism», that is, the palliative actions that produced immediate but highly circumscribed effects. An example from our own America of the 1960's and 1970's would be the Presidential Commissions. In Galdós' time, it was the International Conference. One, specifically designed to deal with the social problem (in the economically advanced European countries- Spain, Portugal and Russia were not invited) seemed designed more to deflate the reform movement than anything else. It was to be held in Berlin, and Galdós, understanding the rantifications for Spain, caustically concludes that no European leaders wish to help the lower classes («Alemania y la cuestión socialista», 4 marzo, 1890: C-2, 235-238): «Es opinión corriente que la conferencia... no tendrá efectos de ninguna clase en la práctica... y cuando los conferenciantes se retiren a sus respectivos países, después de haber expuesto doctrinas muy sabias y observaciones muy juiciosas, los obreros alemanes y no alemanes seguirán lo mismo que están ahora, y los gravisimos problemas de la relación entre el capital y el trabajo continuarán insolubles, envueltos en el pavoroso misterio del porvenir. (238, our italics)» This cynicism is directed in a more general way at his own country and its leaders in «La ola oratoria», AyC, 197-200 (the article, though undated, is among the group listed under «Inquietudes fin de siglo»).

Glenn A. Waggoner has made it perfectly clear that «small, acceptable reforms», as stated in the text, were all that the ruling classes permitted. He examines the forty-year period 1880-1920, concentrating specifically on the organization which was established by the Cortes to create meaningful change, but which, from the beginning, was hamstrung by the very body which brought it life in the first place («Engineering Social Change: The Comisión and Instituto for Social Reforms», a paper presented at the Annual Meeting, American Historical Association, Boston, Mass., December, 1970).

This point is made with lucid precision by Ricardo Gullón, «Estructura y diseño en Fortunata y Jacinta», PSA, XLVIII, cxliii-iv (febrero-marzo, 1968), 223-316, esp. 274-275.

Galdós uses the term, «figura evangélica», to describe these «saints». He so designates Benina, for example, in his prologue to the edition of Misericordia published in 1913 by Thomas Nelson and Son, London; the prologue is reproduced in William H. Shoemaker, Los prólogos de Galdós (México: Ediciones de Andrea, 1962), pp. 108-110.

The pages of C-2 in particular are full of these considerations, as a rapid perusal of its table of contents reveals. See, e.g., «El crimen del cura Galeote», 21 abril - 9 octubre, 1886: C-2, 145-182.

«Santos modernos», 15 febrero, 1886: C-2, 7-17; «El crimen de la calle de Fuencarral», 19 julio,1888 - 30 mayo, 1889: C-2, 87-144. Obviously, Galdós is eminently skillful also in blending both the saintly and the sinful in the same individual. Mauricia la Dura is far more human than Guillermina Pacheco, who sometimes falls short herself, particularly in her lack of patience with fallen angels. Gullón's essay is eloquent concerning Guillermina's character and «bourgeois saintliness», 250-256, 310-312.