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."

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 chapter-house window were beautiful, and the hills around
majestic and serious, with no intention of falling upon my prostrate
spirit. Yes, and after a lifelong abhorrence of that bleak king who
founded the Escorial, I will own that I am, through pity, beginning to
feel an affection for Philip II.; perhaps I was finally wrought upon by
hearing him so endearingly called Philly by our guide.

Yet I will not say but I was glad to get out of the Escorial alive; and
that I welcomed even the sulkiness of the landlord of the hotel where