So we drank Dickens' health in the rosy wine of friendship. The second toast was in honour of Ribera, that great gloomy spirit, whom the Englishman admired, chiefly because he possessed one of his pictures. After that we toasted the masters of Spanish painting, and seeing that the Englishman divided mankind into bad fellows and good fellows, I proposed the health of the good fellow whose name was Domenico Theotocopuli, El Greco. The Englishman bowed, and we drank the health. After that we drank to Zurbaran, to Berruguete, to Pantoja de la Cruz, to Goya, and finished two bottles of sherry. Finally Bothwell Crawford, standing up glass in hand and asking me to stand, said: "Let us now drink to that great gentleman, that great fellow, that unique painter called Diego Velazquez de Silva." With this toast we finished the last bottle, and the Englishman confided to me that as to Spanish literature it seemed to him contemptible.
"But Cervantes . . ."
"Bah!"
"Quevedo . . ."
"Pah! Of Spanish writers the only ones I care for are the author of La Celestina, the nobleman of the ode on the death of his father and that priest who tells how he arrives at a meadow:
For wearied man an enviable retreat."
