Doña Clarines y Mañana de Sol | Page 2

a
livelihood, they held positions in the Treasury department (_Hacienda_). During this
period they labored desperately at writing, rising at dawn to get in some hours before the
office work began at eight. They founded a weekly paper, El pobrecito hablador, which
was respected and admired, but was not a financial success. Their writing was done at
first over the signature El diablo cojuelo. In the _Autobiografía_ they speak in feeling
terms of the ten years of severe and unrewarded labor which laid the foundation of their
later popularity. Before the appearance of El ojito derecho, their first hit, they had only

three plays produced in Madrid, all very ordinary farces. But they must have been storing
up material for future use, for in 1900 they declared[B] that they had 51 plays on hand in
manuscript. In 1897 the "entremés" El ojito derecho and the one-act comedy La reja
attracted favorable notice; they were both in the vein which has given them most
popularity, namely, the depiction of Andalusian customs. In 1898 a musical comedy, La
buena sombra, completed the victory, and since that date they have seen produced,
between long and short, an average of nearly five plays a year. In 1900 Los galeotes, a
four-act comedy, and their first full-sized piece, was crowned with the approbation of the
Spanish Academy, but not until about 1904 do we find the brothers Quintero accepted on
a par with Benavente as entitled to rank among the chief figures of modern Spanish
literature. In 1907 they were both presented with the cross of Alfonso XII. Don Serafín
was elected to the Academy on March 27, 1913. The brothers spend their winters in
Madrid, and their summers in the quaint northern town of Fuenterrabía, where they find
ideal conditions for composition and rest.[C]
[Footnote B: In a letter to the Heraldo de Madrid. See _Ilustración española y
americana_, 1900 (II) p. 258.]
[Footnote C: The Teatro Álvarez Quintero, which has recently been founded in Madrid,
receives from them only its name; they have neither financial nor managerial connection
with it.]
The collaboration of the two brothers has excited wonder in many, for it approximates to
mutual thought. It is so intimate that it can hardly be imagined possible in any but two
persons who have been accustomed to work and think together from childhood. Their
intellectual harmony is so perfect that on one occasion, as a test, the younger composed a
copla of four lines; the first two were then given to the elder, who completed the stanza
with the identical words of his brother. Their method of composition is described by them
as a continuous conversation. They plan their plays while walking out of doors, in the
morning; thus they discuss characters, outline the plot, division into acts and scenes, and
even dialog. When the whole and the details are well in mind, the actual writing is done
by don Serafín. He reads the result to his brother as he proceeds, and the latter comments
or corrects. Details of style are settled in the same viva voce way, better adapted to the
drama than to other forms of composition.
II
When we look over the whole work of these men, we are struck first by their tremendous
productivity. The elder of the brothers is now 44, but it is 27 years since their first play
was presented. Up to the latest advices (Jan. 1, 1015), they have had performed 91
dramas, comedies, farces and operettas, called by the various names of _comedias,
juguetes cómicos, entremeses, sainetes, pasos de comedia, zarzuelas_, and still others.
From 1900 to 1914 they averaged _5 estrenos_ a year, a record which one knows not
whether to commend or to reprove. The conditions of the stage in Spain are such to-day
that dramatists are spurred to turn out novelties in order to earn a living. A popular hit
may remain on the boards for some time, but after its initial run is over, it is seldom
returned to the repertory. But it would be a mistake to ascribe to commercial motives
what is a trait of national genius. The race of Lope is not that of Molière, and Spanish
literature, in its most characteristic phases, is the work of brilliant improvisers. That
exuberance of creation of which Lope de Vega was the perfect exemplar is continued
undiminished to-day in Pérez Galdós, Echegaray, Benavente and the Quinteros.

The enormous output of the Quintero brothers includes an equally impressive variety.
They have attempted almost every known kind of comedy in prose (never in verse) from
the screaming farce (_Las casas de cartón_, _El nuevo servidor_) to the grand comedy in
which there is a strong tragic element (_La casa de García_, _La zagala_). One may very
roughly divide the mass into plays