Emilia Pardo Bazán and Gabriela Cunninghame Graham: A Literary and Personal Friendship

Maryellen Bieder

Remarkably little trace remains of Emilia Pardo Bazán's literary and social friendships with other women. There is a real paucity of surviving correspondence with women, despite the substantial documentation, including exchanges of letters, of her literary friendships with other intellectuals, authors, politicians and public figures. The twenty-two letters from Pardo Bazán to Gabrielle Cunninghame Graham help fill this gap with fascinating details of her life and thoughts, as well as her actions as a friend and, to some degree, mentor. Among its collection of Cunninghame Graham Papers, the National Library of Scotland houses twenty-six letters penned in Spanish to or about Gabrielle Cunninghame Graham¹. Juan Valera wrote a letter to Pardo Bazán that she evidently passed on to her friend; another is a letter of introduction penned by Pardo Bazán for Cunninghame Graham. Two longer letters are from people Cunninghame Graham met on her travels in Spain. In 1986 Maurice Hemingway observed that 'very little is known about Emilia Pardo Bazán's contacts among intellectual circles in Madrid and Galicia'². Twenty-five years later scholars have partially filled in that panorama, as demonstrated by Dolores Thion Soriano-Mollá's indispensible overview of Pardo Bazán's correspondence³. Among the extant letters sent to Pardo Bazán that her article documents, only five authors are women, with one or two letters each. Thion also identifies letters written by Pardo Bazán to three other women. The only evidence of an extensive exchange of letters are her forty-four letters to Blanca de los Ríos, nine years her junior, from which Carmen Bravo-Villasante quoted in her biography of Pardo Bazán⁴. This article adds to the known corpus of letters written by Pardo Bazán by studying her little-known correspondence with a British traveller and author.

In truth Gabrielle Cunninghame Graham was born Caroline Horsfall and she came from Yorkshire, facts not known by anyone except her husband until the 1980s⁵. She married as 'Gabrielle Marie de La Balmondière, age 19', while on her death certificate her name appeared as 'Gabrielle Mary Cunninghame Graham'⁶. Anne Taylor has verified that she signed her will with a further invention: 'Gabrielle Chideock Cunninghame Graham', Chideock being a reference to her husband's pet name for her⁷.

Gabrielle Cunninghame Graham's life is a curious mixture of fiction, roleplaying, and a sincere dedication to scholarship. Both Yeats, who called her 'the bright little American' (since early in their marriage the Cunninghame Grahams lived for several years in the United States), and Engels, for whom she was 'La Espagnola', commented on her performance of her identity⁸. The authorized biography of her husband, Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, published at his death by his friend, A. F. Tschiffely, recounted the version of her early life apparently accepted by family and friends throughout the life of the couple: born in Chile of a French father and a Spanish mother, at age twelve she came to Paris, where her aunt put her in a convent⁹. That she had been living in a convent, albeit in Paris, helped suggest to British society that she was a suitable match for the future laird of the Gartmore estate in Scotland, although it also created the inconvenience to her husband's family of her being, at least ostensibly, Catholic. Successive biographers transmitted the account of a chance meeting between the future couple in Paris in 1877, when Gabrielle de la Balmondière claimed to be eighteen and Robert was twenty-five. Being raised in Chile accounted for her spoken Spanish, while her years in France made sense of her knowledge of French; Robert also spoke both languages.

The 2004 biography of Robert by his grand-niece, Jean Cunninghame Graham, Lady Polwarth, draws on the family archive to provide a documented identity for Gabrielle that differs dramatically from this romance. She establishes that Robert met Caroline (Carrie) Horsfall in Paris where, having run away from her Yorkshire home at age sixteen, she had spent several years working as an actress¹⁰. In all versions of her biography, Robert and Gabrielle marry at a London registry office on 25 October 1878. A 2007 article provided for the first time her precise date of birth: 22 January 1858¹¹. Thus she was in fact twenty when she and Robert met in June 1878 and 'three months short of twenty-one' when they married in October 1878¹². Her age at death in 1906 was consequently forty-eight, although the inscription on the bronze plaque on her grave gives her age as forty-five¹³. According to Taylor, '[i]t has been said that the purpose of the masquerade as Gabrielle de la Balmondière was to spare Robert's family, especially his mother, the pain of knowing that he had married out of his social class'¹⁴.

The letters give evidence of a friendship that embraced the two women's writing careers, travels, health, family, lifestyle and advocacy of women's rights. Since Pardo Bazán addresses her friend as 'Gabriela', the name subsequently used by several of her biographers, and since both women have dual last names, this article will take the liberty of referring to them as Emilia and Gabriela¹⁵. When Gabriela published her two-volume Santa Teresa she wished her name to appear as 'Mrs Cunninghame Graham'; however, her editors preferred to feature her Christian name¹⁶. She eventually agreed to the name Gabriela, and one biographer avers that 'those who made her acquaintance from this time on knew her as Gabriela'¹⁷. In any event, she maintained this name in all her publications. It would be interesting to know to what extent Pardo Bazán was aware of Gabriela's personal history and what she made of her supposedly 'native' Spanish. Gabriela's admiration for Santa Teresa and the months she and her husband had spent living in Vigo prior to meeting Emilia in Madrid would surely have formed the basis for a bond with the Galician author.

Both Emilia and Gabriela were, in fact, although in varying degrees, self-made women; each invented a public persona at odds with the circumstances into which she was born. 'Gabrielle Cunninghame Graham' was a product of the imagination of husband and wife that family and public apparently accepted at face value, while 'Emilia Pardo Bazán' was a creation of her own intellect, determination and writing career. Living apart from her husband, Emilia gained increasing freedom of movement and ideas in a household presided over and managed by her mother. Both Gabriela and Emilia travelled widely, devoted themselves to literature, research and publication, interested themselves in national politics and social issues, and came to live largely independent lives. Emilia separated from her husband after 1883, while Gabriela lived apart from her husband for months at a time, especially during his parliamentary career, 1886-1892. But whereas there was almost nothing of the circumstances of the original Carrie Horsfall in Gabriela, Emilia integrated her inherited position into the public intellectual she became. Less than seven years separate the two women in age, while their very different upbringing and experiences appear to offer little common ground between them. They do share the Catholic faith, Gabriela having declared herself to be Catholic upon marriage, which was doubtless very useful when travelling in Spain¹⁸. The correspondence reveals the commonalities that lay at the heart of their friendship. Both women possessed a talent for literary expression, a passion for travel, and financial acumen -a desire to pay her own way- that gave them shared values.

Then there is the less weighty matter, not mentioned in the letters, of Gabriela's addiction to smoking, which her biographers estimate at anywhere from a fifty- to a two-hundred-a-day habit¹⁹. If anything, the long periods of time she spent in Spain probably exacerbated the practice. We know that Emilia was also fond of smoking whenever possible. Writing from La Coruña to Isaac Pavlovsky in Paris in 1886, she makes plain her love of cigarettes and laments the impossibility of smoking in the family home in that city. If she were in Paris, 'vous me trouveriez (espagnolisme) dan votre potage en vous demandant un cigarrillo. Je n'en ai plus, pas moyen d'en avoir ici, ni d'en fumer'²⁰. Pressing him to visit her at the Granja de Meirás, where presumably she enjoyed more freedom to smoke, she asks him to bring some of her favourite cigarettes: 'Apportez-moi deux boîtes de cigarettes, j'en ai plus (de vraies)'. Thion concludes that this is further proof that 'en privado y clandestinamente, doña Emilia fumaba'²¹.

The archived Pardo Bazán letters begin with an intense exchange in 1890 between two women in their thirties, Emilia in Madrid or La Coruña and Gabriela in England, Scotland, or elsewhere in Spain. This initial flow of correspondence gradually tapers off, with only sporadic indications of contact in later years. Gabriela writes more frequently than Emilia, hence the latter's repeated apologies for her silence. The letters initially demonstrate an increasing degree of intimacy between the two friends, both in forms of address and subject matter. Two of Emilia's letters to Gabriela record invitations to her home, one to dine with the family. In her 1892 essay, 'Emilia Pardo Bazán', Gabriela describes both the Pardo Bazán home in La Coruña and Emilia's 'Mondays' in Madrid, giving evidence that she visited both places and met the household comprised of mother, aunt, daughter Emilia and three children, although she gives the wrong name for Emilia's Aunt Vicenta. Gabriela characterizes the Madrid home on San Bernardo as: 'A little household, kind, generous, and hospitable to a degree; [...] and in which I have enjoyed genuine hospitality and kindness which it is impossible for me ever to forget'²².

The earliest letter in the collection is a formal note from Pardo Bazán to 'Sra. Cunningham [sic] Graham', addressed as 'Distinguida Señora' and giving no date, that invites her to the author's home at two-thirty in the afternoon, presumably in response to a prior note from Gabriela, since there is no mention of a third-party introduction (#1)²³. The note provides the only information on the circumstances of the initial contact between the two women. Given the exchange of letters that follows, it seems probable that they first met in 1889. According to Taylor, '[b]eginning in May 1889 [Gabriela] made two, sometimes three, visits a year to Spain, staying in fondas, often in very poor and remote parts of the country'. In 1889 Gabriela arrived at La Coruña on 6 May²⁴. Some time later that Spring she could well have sought an introduction to the well-known Coruñesa. The first dated letter from Pardo Bazán comes from La Coruña on 1 April 1890 (#2) with the salutation 'Mi querida amiga' and signed again with her full name. She is writing shortly after the death of her father on 26 March that provoked her unexpected trip from Madrid to Galicia²⁵. Both Emilia's salutation and the fact of her writing at this difficult time indicate that the relationship between the two women has taken root. Gabriela is apparently already an assiduous correspondent whose letters -'sus amables y cariñosos pliegos'- Emilia acknowledges not having answered in a timely fashion (#2).

The literary basis of the communication between the two authors is also firmly established. Emilia's letter of 1 April 1890 refers to the newspaper clippings that Gabriela has sent about the lecture she gave earlier in 1890 entitled simply 'Spain'; it appeared in print in London the same year²⁶. With gentle irony Pardo Bazán takes credit for Gabriela's triumph since she is one of the authors discussed: 'éxito del cual nos toca buena parte a los tres novelistas españoles por V. elogiados' (#2). In fact, Gabriela comments on Galdós, Pereda, Valera, Alas and Menéndez Pelayo before naming 'la más grande escritora de España, acaso de Europa -en Inglaterra no puedo nombrar ninguna que se le acerque,- a Emilia Pardo Bazán'²⁷. Emilia offers to have the lecture translated and to publish 'algunos trozos ó la conferencia entera si ha lugar en la única revista importante que aquí se publica, La España Moderna' (#2). By August 1890 this literary magazine, to which Pardo Bazán had close connections, has published a translation of Gabriela's lecture as 'España'²⁸. Emilia has also sent the newspaper reviews of it to Clarín -Gabriela praises his criticism and fiction- in an effort to further recognition in Spain of Gabriela as an author. On a more personal level, Gabriela has clearly invited her new friend to visit her in England or Scotland, an offer Emilia rejects in her present state of mourning. Gabriela has also requested her photograph, a customary token of friendship. Only much later does Emilia comply. She has dictated the letter 'porque estoy enferma de los ojos', as she herself pens in a postscript (#2). References to trouble with her eyes recur in later letters, including the last one.

A letter from Juan Valera to Pardo Bazán on 4 June of the same year offers further evidence of her efforts on behalf of her new acquaintance. Following an apology for not having written when Emilia's father died some ten weeks earlier, he broaches the subject at hand with typically ironic false modesty: 'le escribo para agradecerle su buen deseo de presentarme á esa Srã inglesa, de cuya amabilidad formo el mejor concepto pues no le disgustan. [sic] mis obrillas' (#3).

By 20 June 1890, Emilia's investment in the friendship becomes evident when she addresses Gabriela not only with the formulaic 'Mi querida amiga' but as 'señora Chid', using Robert's affectionate nickname (#4)²⁹. She signs herself 'Emilia', as she will almost invariably do until the end of the correspondence. Apparently writing from Madrid, she laments the 'calor de Senegal', a recurrent phrase she uses to characterize the summer heat in Madrid (#4)³⁰. The degree of friendship between the two women extends to Emilia contacting pawnbrokers on Gabriela's behalf in an attempt to sell some furniture for her. This involves talking to the police in order to locate the pawnshop owner. Undaunted, Emilia promises: 'vuelvo a mi tema: llamar prenderos, y vender esos muebles lo menos mal posible' (#4). Gabriela may possibly be selling furniture she and her husband had in their Galician home, La Graña, an abandoned convent near Vigo where they ceased living when in 1883 Robert inherited the family estate. Or it may constitute recent acquisitions. Both Cunninghame Grahams repeatedly hatched schemes to improve their financial position and pay off the debts inherited with the entailed estate. The financial theme recurs throughout the correspondence. Cunninghame Graham biographers uniformly make the point that for the couple living abroad was a money-saving strategy, cheaper than maintaining a home in London or, once Robert inherited, living at Gartmore while meeting the estate's financial obligations to dependent family members. According to Alexander Maitland, '[b]y travelling abroad the Cunninghame Grahams were actually economising. The cost of even quite lengthy journeys across Europe was small [...]. [c]ompared to the cost of living at Gartmore, or indeed in London [...]'³¹.

Despite the heat the page proofs for La prueba keep Emilia in Madrid well into June 1890. Her condemnation of Spanish editorial practices is brutal, an echo of Larra: 'Así son los españoles: dos meses para lo que puede despacharse en 15 días' (#4). She again requests copies of Gabriela's lecture on Spain to distribute to Valera and others. Perhaps a clue to the attraction, even affinity, between the two women comes in the letter's closing line: 'Dígame V. el final de sus aventuras de viaje y creame siempre su amiga, Emilia', indicative of a mutual love of travel, especially in Spain, and the lure of adventure (#4).

The following letter dated 6 July [1890] and addressed to 'Amiga Chid', the usage Emilia adopts for the remainder of 1890 and into 1891, renews the business theme, and introduces a new one, women's rights (#5). Gabriela is apparently interested in a £1,500 carpet (£15 new pounds), while for her part Emilia requests a catalogue of photographic equipment from London, or at least England, for Jaime to select a camera (#5). By August Emilia has the catalogue with her at the Granja (#9). Of greater interest is her promise, clearly in response to an earlier request from Gabriela, to endorse the goals of the 'Woman's [sic] franchise league', querying '¿Es así como se pone?' (#5). Emmeline Pankhurst and her husband were early members of the Women's Franchise League established in London in July 1889 as an organization dedicated to 'women's suffrage and the removal of the disabilities of married women', since married women had even less legal standing than widows and unmarried women of legal age³². Over the decade of its existence, the League 'held resolutely to the principle of championing the cause of married women' and supporting the right to vote for all women³³. As one of the founders proclaimed, it advocated 'full and equal justice for women with men'³⁴. The 'Radical-Liberal current' out of which the League arose led it to espouse '[e]qual divorce and inheritance rights for women' and to defend 'trade unionism and socialism'³⁵. The goal of equal rights for women with men, that is, 'full legal enfranchisement for all women', had evident appeal for Pardo Bazán³⁶. However, the League as 'the voice of Radical suffragism' whose '[r]adical agitation was what gave the League both its identity and its rationale', if known to her, perhaps would have proved less attractive³⁷.

Several other letters deal with the matter of the Emilia's support for the League. Later in July she promises to send Gabriela that day her letter enunciating her commitment to the ideals of the organization: 'hoy envio a V. ese mensaje ó lo que sea en favor de los propósitos de la Liga, que me son altamente simpáticos' (#6)³⁸. This suggests that Gabriela has sent or given her a document, perhaps the League's programme, detailing its founding principles. Nevertheless, one wonders whether Pardo Bazán was fully apprised of the organization's platform, since, as we shall see later, adherence to socialism divided the two women. However, socialism, divorce and the franchise abroad is a different matter from a public stance in their defence at home. Concerned about the impression her letter makes, in an anxious postscript Emilia asks Gabriela to use her translation of the letter into English to improve it: 'P. S. Mi carta va muy desordenada (hablo de la carta á la Liga) y ruego a V. que la ponga en un inglés muy bonito y muy peinado' (#6). In the same postscript she again mentions the camera catalogue. On 17 July, not having heard from Chid, with unaccustomed anxiety or excessive modesty she excuses the style of her letter to the League, alleging that she penned it 'muy deprisa y chapuceramente' (#8). Writing from La Coruña on 27 September 1890 she still has not heard whether her letter to the Liga reached Gabriela, who is still at home, and frets self-effacingly that it may not have met expectations: 'me temo que haya llegado tarde, y que además, por la prisa con que / (2) la escribí, fuese unicamente un conjunto de disparates' (#10).

The letter itself, dated 12 July 1890 and addressed to Gabriela, expresses to the League her 'adhesion explícita y formal á sus generosos fines' (#7). Again there are echoes of Larra in Emilia's disillusioned lament that 'me considero [la] única persona viva entre una muchedumbre de muertos', the latter unable to see the new future that is dawning (#7). She takes her belief in a better future from an examination of history which assures her that the woman of the future will be 'más libre, más feliz y más digna de la humanidad' (#7). Noting that a woman reigns in both Spain (the Queen Regent María Cristina) and England (Queen Victoria), she concludes optimistically that reason will triumph over custom: 'La valla que nos oponen tiene más parte de estupidez que de malevolencia: infiltremos la razon en las multitudes, y obtendremos el derecho' (#7).

I have not yet found confirmation that Pardo Bazán's letter, if indeed translated by Gabriela, came to the notice of the League in London. Emilia's heading designates Gabriela as a member of the organization's Consejo. Her name does not appear, in that capacity or any other, in the Women's Franchise League minutes book that runs from 25 July 1890, the League's second year of life and the month when Emilia wrote her formal letter of acceptance, through 7 February 1895³⁹. Nevertheless, the letter is worth quoting in full for the clarity and elegance of its exposition and her forthright and unqualified endorsement of equal rights for women:

LETTER TO LEAGUE (#7)

Sra. Da. Gabriela Cunnighame [sic] Graham
del Consejo de la Liga a favor de los
derechos de la mujer
Madrid, Julio 12 de 1890

Amiga y Señora

Sirvase V. manifestar en mi nombre á la Liga cuanta es mi gratitud por la invitacion que me dirije para formar parte de ella. No pudiendo asistir personalmente, en las actuales circunstancias, valga esta epístola como adhesion explícita y formal á sus generosos fines.

Desde mi niñez, e inculcada por el amadisimo Padre mio que acaba de bajar al sepulcro, he profesado la conviccion de que las diferencias injustas y arbitrarias entre la condicion social y política del varon y de la hembra tenian que desaparecer al advenimiento de tiempos más racionales y más cristianos de lo que son los presentes, y de lo que fueron los pasados ya. Mi fé en esta transformacion futura es tan grande y completa, / (2) que a veces la creo ya sucedida, y me considero [la] única persona viva entre una muchedumbre de muertos: porque los que me rodean y desconocen la luz que ya brilla en el porvenir, pertenecen al pasado: moralmente no existen.

Armémonos de paciencia y energía para apresurar el fin de nuestra esclavitud: Seamos fuertes contra la fuerza brutal, contra la ciega rutina, contra la injusticia doméstica, contra el ofensivo galanteo y contra la insípida burla. Seamos invencibles por la conciencia, que es la victoria segura: y si el desaliento nos ataca, leamos la historia. Ella nos mostrará siempre el triunfo de las ideas, la satisfaccion de todo postulado justo. Comparemos la condicion de la mujer primitiva, considerada botin de guerra ó / (3) bestia que podia venderse en el mercado, y la de la mujer actual, y vivamos seguras de la redencion definitiva... para nosotras? ¡Qué importa! Para la mujer futura, más libre, más feliz y más digna de la humanidad.

En mi país, señora, [correction] reina hoy una mujer, lo mismo que en Inglaterra. Los que ven sin asombro que una hembra ocupa el trono de Recaredo, se horripilan si se les dice que una mujer puede defender pleitos o despachar expedientes en una oficina pública. La valla que nos oponen tiene más parte de estupidez que de malevolencia: infiltremos la razon en las multitudes, y obtendremos el derecho.

Saludo fraternalmente á los individuos de la Liga y a V. en representacion de todos [.]

                 De V.
                 Emilia Pardo
                 Bazán

The same undated letter to Gabriela stating she has sent her the letter to the League also mixes familial considerations with financial ones concerning the purchase of a carpet. Jaime is with Emilia: 'ya es todo un bachiller: me ocupa muchísimo' (#6). Nevertheless, she offers to purchase the rug Chid has requested: 'sin embargo procuraré cobrar la letra y despachar la alfombra á la mayor brevedad' (#6). Her inquiry about Gabriela's business venture -'¿Que tal le ha resultado a V. el negocio de las alfombras?'- suggests that this purchase is part of a larger enterprise (#6). Maitland theorizes that Gabriela had a dual purpose for her many trips to Spain: not only research for her book on Santa Teresa but a quest for funds to help maintain Gartmore by trading for goods that would sell well in England⁴⁰. Pardo Bazán was a necessary collaborator in Gabriela's business plan, and it is clear that without her at least some of the transactions had no chance of success. In this second July 1890 letter the furniture has not sold, although Pardo Bazán has managed to get pawnbrokers to come and examine the items. Ever practical, she proposes a combination of the two ventures, the purchase of carpets and the sale of furniture, calling the objects vejestorios:

Uno de los que vinieron dice que acaso se los tomaria a V. á cambio de alfombras ó telas viejas. Este trato no me parece mal, siempre que V. pudiese elegir las alfombras ó telas y quedar conforme con el ajuste, y siempre que le dé a V. resultas la venta de esos vejestorios en país inglés.

At the end of November 1890 Gabriela's furniture remains unsold, although Emilia has received one offer from a prendera, obviously amounting to less than Gabriela had expected, and inquires whether she should sell at that price: 'Con tanta ocupacion como he tenido, me fué imposible ver prenderos y tratar de negociar sus benditos muebles de V. Una sola vino aquí' (#11). The decision remains Gabriela's: '¿Qué dice V? [...] ¿vendo?' (#11). Taylor contends that 'Gabrielle had a good eye for furniture, carpets and objets d'art which she picked up cheaply while researching her biography of Santa Teresa in the remoter parts of Extremadura and Castille'. For his part, Robert apparently purchased 'tapestries in Seville, some of which were auctioned at Christies [sic]'⁴¹.

Maitland cites correspondence between Robert and Gabriela about her financial dealings. In a 27 June 1891 letter to her husband she sets out the terms of one such purchase. Maitland quotes from her letter: 'From Cuenca, Gabriela had telegraphed to Robert for money to guarantee her purchase of ''The most magnificent ARABIC!! embroidered quilt you can imagine. It cost me £60 & hope to get £120 for it'''. Maitland remarks that 'Gabriela had gambled with one-tenth of their entire annual income'⁴². Having assured Robert that '[t]he profits are enormous', she subsequently thanks him for sending £100 and predicts: 'I think I shall double it. [...] I shall not lose it, I will return it to you with 10 percent interest'. Maitland concludes, without substantiation, that 'by the spring, 1892, she had made some ''2 or £3000'' from buying and selling antique tapestries'⁴³. If the 'tapestries' Maitland cites equate to the alfombras Pardo Bazán mentions, these letters may bear out the biographer's thesis, if not the profits he projects. Such high stakes may explain some of the urgency Pardo Bazán recognized in carrying out her friend's requests and some of their importance to Gabriela's financial solvency in Spain⁴⁴. Other letters speak of more immediately dire circumstances Gabriela faced.

Emilia's second July letter also attempts to advance Gabriela's book on Santa Teresa. She promises Gabriela a copy of Ramón León Máinez's book on Santa Teresa that Antonio Sánchez Moguel will lend her, along with a substantial bibliography, all of which Emilia refers to casually as 'este bagaje' (#6)⁴⁵. A noted scholar and historian, Sánchez Moguel (1816-1898) was a member of the Real Academia de la Historia and at the time of this letter President of the Ciencias Históricas section of Madrid's Ateneo. Pardo Bazán draws here on important contacts to further Gabriela's progress while she is away from Spain.

Emilia's adoption of Gabriela's nickname Chid early in the correspondence recalls her playfulness with names in her letters to Galdós. Her use of multiple epithets is, however, less expected in this correspondence, as when she signs off in a mixture of English and Spanish: 'Adios querida. Fly, Mosquita o Pajarita' (#6). The pseudonym Pajarita recurs a few months later, in her 27 September 1890 letter: 'Adios Pajarita' (#10). In another undated letter, Emilia adds a nickname to her own signature: 'Emilia ó Lid.', reinforcing the sense of a private language between friends (#8).

This undated letter of 17 [July 1890] continues the saga of the alfombra. Gabriela has apparently cancelled the sale, leaving Emilia to return her cheque to her. The previous negotiation remains unresolved: 'La dueña, la prendera, a pesar de conocer mis señas, tampoco ha venido por aquí, ni he preguntado nada' (#8). Her curiosity aroused by the aborted contact with the prendera and the failure of the carpet sale, Emilia queries her friend, again in casual language: '¿Le ha ido a V. mal, por lo visto, en la venta de los otros trapos? Tengo curiosidad de saberlo' (#8).

In this letter literary matters come second after these commercial ones. Gabriela seems to have challenged the ending of Emilia's novella, 'El destripador de antaño', first published in La España Moderna in January 1890⁴⁶. Emilia's promise gives evidence of how much she values her friend's opinion: 'En Galicia escribiré otro desenlace para el Destripador y se lo mandaré en seguida' (#8). In August Pardo Bazán is at the Granja de Meirás without a copy of the 'Destripador', which remains in the La Coruña house, now closed. Once she retrieves it, 'lo primerito que haré será escribir el nuevo desenlace y enviárselo a V. certificado' (#9). However, it is her letter of 27 September 1890 that reports she has just finished rewriting the ending, which accompanies her letter, together with a copy of her just published novel, La prueba. Affirming that critics have praised the novel, she solicits Gabriela's opinion: 'V. me dirá si la segunda parte le agrada como la primera' (#10). In early 1892 Novel Review publishes in three instalments Gabriela's translation of 'El destripador', with its new ending, under the title, 'Minia'⁴⁷. Presumably at her friend's suggestion, Emilia has changed Minia's death to a rescue by the priest and sanctuary in a convent. In one of the same issues of Novel Review in which 'Minia' appears, Gabriela publishes her biographical sketch, 'Emilia Pardo Bazán'.

The undated 1890 letter also addresses the appearance of Pardo Bazán's short story, 'Travesura pontificia', in the London magazine, The Review of Reviews (a title that confuses Emilia). The story originally appeared in La España Moderna in March 1890⁴⁸. Emilia requests impatiently of Gabriela: 'Hagame V. el favor de decirme inmediatamente de qué Revista es la hoja que V. me envió con un elogio a mi Pontifical Fancy. Allí no dice más que The Reviews Reviewed' (#8). In the April 1890 issue of The Review of Reviews, in the column 'Some Spanish Reviews', someone unnamed, presumably Gabriela, cites the March issue of the Revista Ibero-Americana (obviously an error for La España Moderna) that opens with a story entitled 'A Pontifical Fancy', describing it as 'a pretty little morsel of humour of the most innocent type'⁴⁹. A translation into English of the story's opening paragraph follows as does, in a second paragraph, a summary of the story. The column offers no further praise; Pardo Bazán may have considered the descriptive sentence adulatory. Two months later, on 27 September 1890, Emilia thanks Gabriela more explicitly for publicizing her story: 'Muy agradecida por la Revista de Revistas, y por todo' (#10). Aware of not sustaining her side of the correspondence, in the same letter Emilia promises with a flourish that once out of Madrid's terrible heat and back in Galicia 'yo sostendré la péñola con más garbo' (#8). Indeed, and not surprisingly, she suffers greatly from the summer heat: 'Ay! Me derrito. Quisiera estar en el Polo' (#8). She also asks Gabriela's opinion of the translation of 'España': '¿Está V. contenta de como le tradujeron su conferencia?' (#10). She signs off with evident affection and pleasure in their mutually beneficial exchanges: 'Escriba a su amiga, Emilia' (#10).

Writing from the Granja de Meirás on 2 August 1890, Emilia confesses: 'Yo aquí no hago nada. Leo filósofos, y reposo sub tegmine fagi. La naturaleza tiene siempre la virtud de sosegarme y hacerme, si cabe, más optimista' (#9). The reference to Virgil's 'beneath the canopy of the spreading beech' melds erudition with the pleasure of summer idleness. Gabriela's letters, in contrast, have recounted her travel adventures, in this case to Huesca, and there is a sense of identification in Emilia's response to her friend's active life: 'La vida está en esas emociones -la vida verdadera, no como la entienden los philistino [sic]' (#9). Nevertheless, Emilia equates the summer months with a return to nature. Still at the Granja on 27 September, she reinvents herself for 'Mi querida Chid' as a child of nature preparing to face the demands of urban intellectual life:

errante desde hace mes y medio por Galicia, tomando aguas y haciendo excursiones, entregada completamente al desarrollo físico ó, por mejor decir, á la carena que necesitamos cuando el invierno se aproxima, y hemos de hacer frente á múltiples tareas intelectuales.

She justifies this seasonal evasion of intellectual work as a physical necessity in preparation to survive winter. She expresses the same idea more baldly to Luis Vidart in a letter of 14 August (no year given) from Mondariz to the point of calling intellectual activity a vice:

Con felicidad inefable me entrego a la madre naturaleza esta temporada: un bienestar físico inmenso que me impide y veda todo pinito intelectual, y voy perdiendo el vicio de pensar en cosa alguna. Aire, comida, paseo, campo, respirar y dormir, es ahora la dicha suprema⁵⁰.

It may say something about the calming effect of Galicia that her 27 September letter to Gabriela offers the clearest, most easily decipherable example of her handwriting. Some years later, looking ahead to an escape from Madrid, on 13 June [1895] she anticipates the welcome change: 'Y dentro de pocos días, a fin de mes, nos iremos á Galicia, donde respiraré aire puro, no trasnocharé, leeré mucho y tendré tiempo para escribir más despacio', thus contradicting her earlier declaration that summer brings an exclusive immersion in nature (#23).

By 23 November [1890], Emilia is in Madrid and genuinely concerned about Chid's whereabouts on her andanzas: 'V. no acostumbra a dejar transcurrir tantos dias sin darme noticia de sus andanzas' (#11). This statement gives a clear indication of the frequency of their exchange of letters at this time. Emilia's September letter had stated that she would leave La Coruña for Madrid by mid October. As she writes in November, she is still occupied decorating and furnishing the house on San Bernardo purchased by her mother just before her father's death. In fact, the same day as she pens her letter to Gabriela El Heraldo de Madrid announces that Pardo Bazán 'se ha instalado definitivamente en Madrid, en la casa de su madre, la señora condesa viuda de Pardo Bazán, que ha adquirido recientemente en la calle de San Bernardo, núm. 37'. The news item informs her friends that, '[e]n tanto que se concluye la decoración de aquélla, no se reanudarán las reuniones á que por la noche invitaba la señora Pardo Bazán á sus amigos'⁵¹. Gabriela's anticipated arrival in Spain promises a change of pace: 'Deseo mucho verla a V. por acá y que realicemos alguna excursion' (#11). The new living arrangement frees Emilia to travel, leaving her children in her mother's care: 'Yo ahora estoy más libre: mamá dirige y cuida la casa y aunque me ausente, no [corrected word] altera el orden' (#11). Speaking in a romantic mode, she declares herself prepared to share Gabriela's spartan life in fondas: 'Aguantaremos el frio como dos heroinas: prescindiremos de las chimeneas' (#11). In her 1892 biographical essay, 'Emilia Pardo Bazán', Gabriela recalls that Emilia 'once came to pay me a visit at Avila'⁵². Maitland reports that May 1890 found Gabriela 'in Madrid, once more en route for the Teresian backwater between Avila and Cacéres [sic], travels she repeated during the spring and summer of 1891'⁵³. We know from Gabriela's letters to Robert that she was in Ávila in July 1891⁵⁴. This is probably the year that Emilia visited her there.

Gabriela has inquired about the news that the writer Marie Rattazzi, will marry the Spanish statesman, Emilio Castelar; Emilia squashes the rumour calling it 'un magnífico canard que dio mucho juego' (#11)⁵⁵. In the same letter, a further divergence between the two friends is evident. Emilia fails to share Gabriela's enthusiasm for the works of Pierre Loti, whom she calls 'muy francés, en medio de sus pretenciones exóticas' (#11). In contrast, in Gabriela's essay on Pardo Bazán, Loti figures among the odd assortment of contemporary authors that she considers the most universal, affirming, regarding Pardo Bazán, that 'her books, like those of Pierre Loti, Renan, Tourgenieff, Maupassant, Becquer are for the whole world'⁵⁶. She opines that Emilia's taste in literature is so catholic that she can extend 'her admiration to Baudelaire's ''Fleur de [sic] mal'' and even to the works of Oscar Wilde and Andrew Lang, supposing her to be aware of the existence of those gentlemen'⁵⁷. On the other hand, Gabriela openly voices her belief that Emilia's best work is behind her: 'For my own part I fancy that I see a distinct falling off in the novels that have come from her pen since she fixed her residence decidedly in Madrid', that is, opted for immersing herself in and depicting modern society over traditional, rural Spain⁵⁸.

Gabriela also occasionally requests help with financial matters from Emilia on her travels through the provinces. Money is the central motivation for Emilia's undated Sunday letter addressed to 'Mi querida Gabriela' and written in response to a plea for money sent from Plasencia and received the day before (#12). Gabriela requires cash and Emilia has no cash on hand but attempts to get it from Crédit Lyonnais, 'a ver se me descontaban su letra de V. y podrán ponerla en Plasencia los fondos' (#12). Currency conversion between pesetas and libras makes this impossible. Gabriela's location also creates a problem for sending funds: 'No hay sobre Palencia [error for Plasencia] crédito; el Credit me dice que solo a Cáceres puede remitir fondos' (#12). Fortuitously Emilia's publisher is sending her 250 pesetas which she will transmit por letra del giro mutuo on Monday, leaving the balance of the original 500 pesetas to come either from her publisher, perhaps José Alcalá Galdiano, or from the original bill of exchange which Crédit Lyonnais has now sent to London. She expresses genuine regret for the delay and sympathy for Gabriela's circumstances: 'comprendo lo aburrida que estará V. ahí y sin fondos' (#12). In the second undated letter Emilia is again unable to send money on a Sunday (#13). Her publisher will not advance her the money -'no quiere adelantar por ahora, o no puede' (#13). Her promise to visit the Banco Lyonnais on Monday to learn whether it has 'negociado la letra pa. [sic] remitirle el resto de ella' suggests that this letter follows up on the previously cited one (#12), while the salutation to 'Mi querida Gabriela', rather than 'Chid', is at odds with her previous usage, perhaps an indication of haste or even annoyance (#13).

The two undated Sunday letters (#12 and #13) and a further undated letter (#14), all involving financial transactions, appear to date from Spring 1891. We know from a letter written from Plasencia to Gabriela by Pedro Ripole on 6 June 1891 that she had spent enough time there to leave behind an infatuated friend (#14). In addition, a woman named Luisa, responding from Cuacos on 20 April 1891 to a letter from Gabriela, evokes a friendship established during the latter's recent visit to Yuste (#25). According to Maitland, quoting a letter from Gabriela to her husband, she was in Plasencia during Holy Week 1891, as she had been in 1890⁵⁹. All three sources suggest an 1891 date for Emilia's attempts to resolve Gabriela's cash embarrassment.

Emilia's second undated letter, addressed to 'Mi querida Gabriela', also deals with politics. Gabriela has asked Emilia to help arrange for her to make a speech to the socialists (in Madrid, one supposes), perhaps on May Day (#13). Both Gabriela and her husband were 'active socialists'⁶⁰. Curiously, Gabriela's diary reports that during their visit to Madrid in December 1888 Robert 'made contact with Spanish socialists and anarchists with whom he kept in touch after returning home'⁶¹. Curious because Gabriela does not follow up on those contacts but requests that Emilia get in touch with Pablo Iglesias. Pardo Bazán's somewhat tetchy response does not surprise:

Lo de su discurso de V., veremos; no le puedo a V. decir nada aun, pues yo, personalmente, no quiero entenderme con el compañero Iglesias, por temor a que aquí la gente diga tonterías y me crea socialista. Si lo fuese, nada me importaba, pero el caso es que no lo soy, y debo evitar interpretaciones erróneas.

Tschiffely recounts, without specifying the date, that '[w]hile Don Roberto was in Paris, his wife went to Madrid where she spoke in favour of an eight-hour working day, and she also informed her listeners that the English Socialist Party was opposed to a general strike'⁶². Perhaps this is the speech Gabriela proposes making in her letter. The two women differ in their appraisals of the political climate. Emilia, citing accepted opinion, does not foresee the demonstrations that Gabriela anticipates: 'No habrá manifestaciones en la calle. Unos cuantos meetings privados, en teatros &ª. Esto es lo que hoy se cree' (#13)⁶³. This gives us some idea of Gabriela's more dramatic expectations and world view. In contrast, Gabriela recalls in her 1892 article on Pardo Bazán that her friend

even professed a strong desire to become acquainted with my socialist friend, Pablo Iglesias, not with the slightest view to studying his doctrines, but to study the man with a possible view to insert him in a book. In fact, the only approach to humbug in which I ever heard her indulge was when she said to me: '... when I see Iglesias travelling through Spain like a mendicant friar of the Middle Ages, living on alms, and preaching, then I will join you'⁶⁴.

Gabriela's anecdote anticipates Emilia's creation of the character 'el compañero Sobrado' in her 1896 novel, Memorias de un solterón, described as an 'amigote y corresponsal del célebre Pablo Iglesias'⁶⁵. Despite rejecting Gabriela's petition to contact Iglesias, Pardo Bazán promises her friend, 'Mañana diré a V. algo' (#13). Her solution to the political dilemma Gabriela has posed is to send Gabriela's letter that day to her good friend from La Coruña, Daniel López -a translator, historian, politician and newspaper editor- who presumably can contact Iglesias without incurring any negative consequences.

The third undated letter seems to follow up on the financial matters initiated in the previous two. However, the salutation 'Mi querida Chid' recuperates the intimacy of 1890, although the closing 'De V.' is more formal than usual, perhaps as a result of haste or the commercial nature of this missive (#14). Emilia sends 'la libranza de 245 ptas del giro mutuo'; the giro itself costs the remaining 5 pesetas (#14). This seems to complete the transaction initiated in the first undated letter (#12), placing all three letters in Spring 1891. As in the previous two letters Emilia avoids sending cash through the mail to avert 'el peligro de ser robada en correos' (#14).

Emilia writes a further undated letter dealing with money, in this case addressed to Gabriela in Scotland on paper bearing a crown: 'adjunto el talon, que iba á dirigir al Sr. Robert Christie, y que en vista de su carta de V. dirijo a Gartmore' (#15)⁶⁶. She restates her commitment: 'Hoy mismo irá el talon' (#15). Her brief note closes with an expression of interest in Gabriela's book: 'ya veremos como adelanta esa Santa Teresa' (#15).

Gabriela is still 'Mi querida Chid' in another letter written from La Granja de Meirás, undated but doubtless from 1891. Chid is once again in Ávila, so the month may be July. The closing is again affectionate and personal: 'Su amiga' (#16). Emilia's response to Gabriela's travel adventures, including the threat of being eaten by wolves, is initially humorously ironic: '¡Qué argumento, si se la hubiesen comido, para los providencialistas, que dirian ''Dios la castiga por sus publicaciones y sus diabluras!''' (#16). Then turning serious she cautions her to take care of herself: 'la vida es hermosa, y que merece la pena de conservarla' (#16). The fact that Emilia is reading proofs for La piedra angular, which appears in 1891, and has received copies of the English translations of Una Cristiana and Un viaje de novios, both published in 1891, confirms the year⁶⁷. Since she includes A Christian Woman and A Wedding Trip in the 'Índice de libros recibidos' of her Nuevo Teatro Crítico for August 1891, the letter must date from July⁶⁸. Emilia inquires with renewed curiosity about Gabriela's latest enterprise: 'Y los tapices de Pastrana? ¿Qué hace V. con ellas? Ya tengo curiosidad de verdad' (#16). She reports exploring the province of Valladolid, a trip that has given her material for a series of articles for El Imparcial (#16), which start to appear in August 1891, and two further essays in her Nuevo Teatro Crítico⁶⁹.

There is a series of brief, undated letters in response to others from Gabriela, all written on paper with a crown. In some, Emilia simply apologizes for not having time to write, albeit commenting on Gabriela's improved health (#17). In another, with Gabriela writing from Madrid, she makes time in her busy schedule to meet her friend: 'haré lo posible por ver á V. á eso de las 5 en su hotel; si no puedo ir, vengase V. á comer; comemos á las 7 y cuarto, ó 7 ½ lo más tarde, y es la unica hora libre del dia' (#18). The invitation to dine with the family indicates a continuing friendship, as do Emilia's efforts to arrange for Gabriela's stage debut in Spain with the theatre director Emilio Mario: 'Escribo á Mario pidiendole rendez vous en mi casa mañana' (#18). A longer, similarly undated, letter follows up on Emilia's contact with Mario, who came to see her the day before (#19). Since Mario will take his company on tour to the provinces the following April, Gabriela would have to be in Madrid by the end of March to try out for him. Gabriela is apparently committed to launching a second stage career, perhaps as an answer to her financial situation: 'si ya [by winter] no ha conseguido V. un debut en Inglaterra, creo que a Mario tendrá V. que apelar' (#19). No other company, Emilia avers, is willing to admit another dama. Her frustration is apparent at Gabriela's impatience to put her plan into action and her admonitory tone verges on the maternal: 'Como V. ve, esto no es cosa de arreglar con la rapidez que V. desea: todo en este mundo, quiere tiempo y paciencia, y solo con tiempo se consigue algo' (#19). Emilia and Mario have selected appropriate plays and roles for Gabriela to rehearse and Emilia promises to send her the Spanish texts: Juliet, with Thuillier as Romeo; Alicia in Tamayo y Baus' Drama nuevo; and the title role in Ayala's Consuelo. In a postscript Emilia thoughtfully advises: 'Es mejor papel el de Alicia que el de Consuelo, para lucimiento' (#19). Emilia's collaboration in this venture perhaps gives the best indication of the quality of Gabriela's spoken Spanish. Despite the demands Gabriela is making on her, she signs off affectionately from the whole family: 'Cariños de todos y soy de V. muy verdadera amiga' (#19).

In another favour to advance Gabriela's research Pardo Bazán writes a letter to her friend Luis Martínez de Velasco requesting that he help Gabriela arrange a visit to the Guadalupe monastery: 'La Sra. Cunninghame es persona de mucho mérito, y creo que agradará a V. el conocerla' (#20).

Two letters on Nuevo Teatro Crítico letterhead, penned and signed by Emilia's older daughter, Blanca, date from 1892. In the first, from 20 January1892, Blanca writes a brief note because her mother is busy to tell Gabriela that she does not require permission to use the Simancas archive: 'Si quiere V. alguna recomendación para el archivero Sánchez Moguel se la facilitara [sic]' (#21). Two previous letters have mentioned Sánchez Moguel (#6, #8). A further indication of the friendship and respect between him and Pardo Bazán occurs shortly after this letter, when he was one of two Ateneo members who in April escorted Pardo Bazán to the dais to give her lecture on Columbus⁷⁰. A second, longer letter, dated 5 February 1892, responds to requests from Gabriela and recognizes a favour she has done Emilia (#22). In Blanca's handwriting, the letter explains that Carmen's illness has required her mother's attention and put her well behind schedule and that Jaime is now also ill. The newspaper confirms Carmen's illness: 'A causa de tener su hija menor bastante grave, hoy no recibirá á sus amigos doña Emilia Pardo Bazán'⁷¹. The letter acknowledges receipt of the magazine containing the first part of Emilia's short story, doubtless Gabriela's translation of 'Minia' (#22). Emilia reciprocates by sending Gabriela a copy of her latest novel, La piedra angular; a book by Mme. Aulnoy requested by Gabriela; and the photograph of herself, which Gabriela had mentioned and Emilia promised to send as far back as April 1890. The portrait accompanying Gabriela's 1892 essay on 'Emilia Pardo Bazán' is presumably taken from the photograph that accompanies Blanca's letter.

After a gap of more than three years, a letter from Madrid on 13 June [1895], again written on paper with a crown, repeats the theme of how busy Emilia is as an explanation for her silence. Although in the salutation Gabriela is no longer 'Chid', as she ceased to be by the end of 1891, Emilia signs herself affectionately 'Suya siempre' (#23). Not only intellectual activities consume her time but also the requisite social activities to launch her daughters, now seventeen and fourteen, into society: 'La sociedad me roba mucho tiempo, y no veo camino de prescindir de ella, ahora que mis hijas van á ser grandes y tendré que presentarlas en el mundo' (#23). One of the most fascinating dimensions of Pardo Bazán's correspondence is her discussion of her own publications. In this letter she sympathizes with an observation by Gabriela, whose Santa Teresa appeared in 1894, about forgetting her book once published: 'Lo unico que me obliga á recordarlos es cuando los atacan: entonces, el natural cariño del padre me hace sentir los dolores de mi progenitura' (#23). She also describes the vicissitudes provoked by the publication of a short story, 'La sed de Cristo':

de él se ha hablado todos los días durante dos meses. Los periódicos han venido llenos de artículos, caricaturas, rencor, defensas, ataques, &ª. &ª. Los obispos todos se han ocupado, privadamente, del dichoso cuento.

The irony of the public's hyper-fixation on religious orthodoxy in a time of national crisis strikes her: 'Yo que creía que hoy por hoy en España lo unico de que debía hablarse es de la guerra de Cuba!' (#23). Then she draws a comparison, noting that in England as well 'dan más importancia á una aberración sexual, que á mi juicio no debiera ser cosa del pais, sinó á lo sumo del médico, que á las cuestiones sociales graves y sérias' (#23). She refers to the Oscar Wilde scandal, arguing quite openmindedly that it casts no reflection on British society as a whole: '¿Qué importan las aficiones de Oscar Wilde? Menos que nada para la marcha de la sociedad. Si a él le gustan tales fealdades... peor para él' (#23).

Pardo Bazán sent a defence of her story to Madrid newspapers upholding the orthodoxy of its representation of Christ. El Siglo Futuro gleefully reported that none of the six or more newspapers that ran it 'ha salido á la defensa de su personalidad moral'⁷³. On 20 April 1895 La Correspondencia de España continued the controversy by challenging Pardo Bazán to submit her story for ecclesiastical approval, reiterating the position taken by El Movimiento Católico. The newspaper will drop the issue if church authorities declare 'que no es contrario á la verdad histórica, á la verdad dogmática y á la verdad moral, ó sea á las buenas costumbres, ni por la letra ni por el espíritu'⁷⁴. In his discussion of the scandal provoked by the story, Juan Paredes Núñez notes that the bishop of Jaca, Antolín López Peláez, ultimately came to her defence. The controversy still rankled sufficiently that when in 1899 Pardo Bazán included the story in the collection Cuentos sacroprofanos she added an epilogue that set forth clearly 'el sentido doctrinal del relato'⁷⁵.

In the same 1895 letter Pardo Bazán informs Gabriela that currently she is finishing a volume of Novelas ejemplares and will shortly send her a copy, adding not so much with false modesty as with an uncustomary absence of confidence, or perhaps simple exhaustion: 'para que se distraiga con su lectura, si al menos sirviese para eso' (#23). In fact, La España Moderna had already published one of the three novelas ejemplares and was currently publishing the second⁷⁶. Darío Villanueva and José Manuel González Herrán affirm that all three novellas were written in 1895 and published together in 1906 as volume 13 of her Obras completas. They report an earlier edition 'que otros críticos como Julia Biggane mencionan, pero que nosotros no hemos llegado a encontrar'⁷⁷. Pardo Bazán's letter provides evidence of the 1895 edition of the three novellas; ample documentation exists for the 1906 edition.

Emilia's curiosity and concern for Gabriela are evident in her question in the same letter as to why Gabriela speaks of selling the estate in Scotland, and in her interested query: '¿Proyecta V. acaso trasladar á España la residencia?' (#23). Gabriela's husband Robert seems to have broached selling Gartmore for the first time in 1891; in 1893 there was more talk of a sale and Gabriela wrote to her mother-in-law making the case in the starkest terms for the need to sell the entailed estate: 'Mr. Graham and I have learned in the severest school, that of poverty, to be economical'⁷⁸. Family finances eventually forced Robert to sell the estate in 1901⁷⁹.

The tone and warm closing of Emilia's letter, written in response to one or more from Gabriela, seem to belie Taylor's assertion that Gabriela had a serious falling out with Emilia following the 1894 publication of Santa Teresa: 'The book was not well received in Spain; the Church frowned upon it and nothing came of the plan that Emilia should translate it into Spanish'. The extant letters make no mention of a proposed translation of the two thick tomes. Interpolating from letters between spouses, Taylor offers another of her unsubstantiated hypotheses: 'Gabrielle even seems to have suspected [Emilia] of being involved in a plot by Spanish writers to have the book put on the Index; her letters to Robert in the summer of 1894 warned him to stay away from her'⁸⁰.

There is another gap of almost three years before the final letter, again written on paper with a crown, dated Madrid, 12 March 1898. Emilia complains of problems with her eyesight and her handwriting is noticeably larger and the letters more unformed than usual. She has nevertheless responded to Gabriela's request for help and recounts the resulting 'pesquisas y trabajos' at Correos trying to obtain letters for Gabriela that the post office initially denies having at all (#24). Evidently Gabriela had also lamented the wretched conditions in England or Scotland, to which Emilia replies with surprise and sympathy:

es bien triste todo lo que V. me cuenta de la miseria que ahí reina, no se comprende que en un pais tan rico acontezca esto, yo si no fuera la dema / (3) cracion que indica que es verdad me figuraria que en ello podia haber algo de aficion a la vagancia y especulación con los Estranjeros pero el Semblante no deja duda y es de sentir tan gran mal.

Although Emilia closes with the affirmation 'sabe que la quiere', for the first time she signs her name with her title, La Condesa de Pardo Bazán (#24).

Clearly these letters represent only a fragment of the correspondence between the two women, although the frequency of their communication seems to have dwindled sharply after 1891. Early in the 1890s the circumstances of each changed markedly. Emilia gained greater personal independence, enhanced income, increased visibility, and became a well respected, if also frequently denigrated, public figure. She moved in élite intellectual and social circles that included royalty. Gabriela and her husband, having inherited overwhelming debts with the Gartmore estate, continued to strive to make it produce the requisite income to meet their obligations. The struggle transformed their lives. Nevertheless, both partners continued to travel, if not together. In 1906 following yet another trip to Ávila Gabriela becomes gravely ill in Hendaye on her way home to Gartmore and, after nine days, dies there accompanied by her Spanish maid and her husband⁸¹.

Perhaps the lukewarm reception of Gabriela's book on Santa Teresa affected their friendship. Emilia expressed interest and practical support during the research and writing process, but there is no record of her receipt of or response to the published book. In an undated letter prior to its publication Gabriela wrote optimistically to Robert: 'Everyone looks forward to Sta. Teresa with great interest. Emilia is going to wait until my book comes out, to use it for her study on the Spanish mystics'⁸². The fact that her book received less favourable reviews than did her husband's publications doubtless also distressed her⁸³.

From reading Pliny the Elder the Cunninghame Grahams identified an abandoned Roman gold mine in the Médulas near Villafranca del Bierzo, and they somewhat surreptitiously attempted to work it, in an extravagantly romantic gesture, with the goal of making their fortune. Taylor theorizes that they wanted to keep information about the literal gold mine from Pardo Bazán and hence took the somewhat paranoid determination to maintain their distance from her⁸⁴. This attitude, if true, evinces the stark contrast between the characters of the two women. Nostalgic, self-dramatizing Gabriela loved Spain's past, the rural Spain of donkeys and modest lodgings, and manifests an aversion to modern inventions. Her essay 'The Best Scenery I Know' gives poetic expression to her attachment to the Castilian plains⁸⁵. Emilia penned paeans to nature but preferred to live and entertain in spacious, modern surroundings, as evinced by the Torres de Meirás, begun in 1895 to replace the old Granja. She was not one to eschew the modern or reject a new invention. In her 1892 essay on Pardo Bazán Gabriela condemns 'the horrid railway train' and 'the new electric light', in this case street lights installed in Ávila by an English company 'magnanimously interested in filling its own pockets'⁸⁶. Two years later Emilia installed 'luz eléctrica' in her house and celebrated the occasion with an evening reception announced in several Madrid newspapers⁸⁷.

Despite such diverging attitudes and world views, for several years the two women enjoyed a warm, mutually supportive friendship that brought both of them rewards, stimulation, and entertainment. Because of Gabriela, Emilia became better known on the London literary scene and perhaps also in suffrage circles. For her part, Emilia took the initiative in presenting Gabriela to writers and scholars and publishing her essay on Spain in Madrid's top literary magazine. Gabriela also received welcome help in Spain with her book and domestic economy. She in turn published her translation of Emilia's short story and an essay on her in London periodicals. The letters document a friendship that survived nearly a decade, although sadly after the early years the remaining traces are tantalizingly sporadic⁸⁸.