AN overcrowded picture rises with the thought of Seville's Semana Santa,—glittering lights, statues laden with jewels, weird masked figures in nazareno costume marching to the sound of funeral dirges, cries of street vendors and children,—all is noise, movement, color, a true Andalusian scene. Spectacular effect is the first impression of the week, a gorgeous pageantry that suits the Sevillian's temperament but is not so congenial perhaps to the northerner, who would have the commemoration of his religion's solemn hour a more tranquil time of prayer.

Happily there are other memories carried away as well as this chief one of noisy confusion. Never to be forgotten was the Cathedral echoing at midnight to the sound of Eslava's "Miserere" sung by hundreds of trained voices. Every inch of the vast church was packed. Men and women stood in silence, with upraised faces, as they listened to the music of the old canon who once sat in this choir. The lightest mocker would be awed to silence under those soaring arches. For majesty, for a contagious religious emotion, the Cathedral of Seville at the time of its feasts is only to be rivaled by Santa Sophia during Ramazan, on that memorable Night of Power when eight thousand Mussulmans kneel prostrate under the floating circles of lamps. These two stand supreme; so different in the setting,—the one rich with color, an open blaze of light beneath the wide Byzantine dome, the other dim, mysterious Gothic,—they are alike in the genuine thrill of worship they give the onlooker of every creed.

Familiar with her Cathedral in its every-day aspect, having seen the celebrations of December 8th, the Christmas Midnight Mass, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, it was cruel to find its grand tranquillity violated during the Holy Week. It is the processions, called the pasos, that are the cause of the disorder. A paso is a huge platform, on which are placed carved statues representing scenes of the Passion. Each float is carried by some thirty men, and its weight must be enormous, for besides the statues there are silver candelabra, gold and silver vases, and usually a canopy of embroidered velvet upheld by silver poles. Could one but look on them as mere spectacular shows, they would be most picturesque pageants, but to dissociate them from religion is impossible. The custom is an ancient one and is still prevalent in many towns of Spain, through happily, in the smaller places, its original purpose to edify and rouse the people to rememberance of the holy season, has not been lost sight of in extravagant display as at Seville.

Each of Seville's numerous parishes has one or two of these pasos, and an unworthy rivalry exists between them as to which will make the best show. They are supposed to be scenes of the Passion, such as the Flagellation, Christ before Pilate, the Descent from the Cross, but for the most part they consist of single figures—a Crucifixion followed by a Nuestra SeÑora de Dolores, another Crucifixion followed by another single representation of Our Lady, and so on in monotonous sequence, a repetition that makes the spectator fix his attention, not on the scene represented but on details such as the embroidery of the robes, the display of rare jewels, the elaborate canopy. The pasos struck me as the result of that regrettable tendency in Spain, the accentuated devotion to a special shrine or statue. No doubt it arose in reaction against the Moorish enemy's hatred of images, but the patriotic tendency has been carried too far. It will ever misrepresent the Spaniard's innate Christian belief. As these processions blocked the city streets, one heard on every side, not alone from those of differing creed, exclamations of "Pomp! Show! Childishness!" And the criticism was almost justified. Many strangers leave Seville confirmed in the wrong idea that its religion is an affair of tinsel and lights. Spain cares little what outsiders think of her, but here is a case in which she should consider the discredit that a degenerated custom brings on her religion; she should sacrifice an old tradition. Like the processions of Havana, the pasos should go. The northern Spaniard agrees with the stranger in his dislike of the noisy spectacles that so incongruously commemorate the saddest death-scene of the ages, and there are many Andalusians, too, who wish for their abolition. In fact, it is the rabble and the innkeepers who agitate in their favor; these last keep petitions for their foreign guests to sign, begging that the processions be continued. Seville need not fear she will lose prestige should she drop them, that the tourists will no longer flock to her each spring; she is only beginning to be known for having a winter climate surpassing that of Rome and Naples; pasos or not, visitors will inevitably increase.

The objectionable processions began to march late in the afternoon of Palm Sunday, and it is hardly much of an exaggeration to say they went on marching night and day throughout the following week. They were so long that they took five or six hours to pass a given spot. Starting back in the narrow streets of the town, they passed down the Sierpes which was lined with spectators' chairs, defiled before the City Hall, where the Mayor rose to salute each paso in turn, then went on to the Cathedral,—entering by a west door, crossing before the altar, and leaving by the door near the Archbishop's palace. With each paso marched the religious confraternity of its parish, a secular brotherhood of men belonging to all ranks, who are banded together for charitable work. The King belongs to one of these fraternities and when in Seville marches in line, but the year of our visit he was represented by the military governor of the province. The officers of the army also marched. Most of these brotherhoods wore Nazarene costume, in white, purple, or black, with the high-peaked head gear through which only the eyes showed. Some walked devoutly, others in disorder. Membership in religious brotherhoods is often hereditary, and it was touching to see a little child of four, in full regalia, marching with the grown men, planting his silver staff at each slow pace with the gravity of a majordomo. A band of music went with each fraternity, and the blare of brass instruments, the torches, the masked faces, make indeed a confused, wearying spectacle.

Most of the onlookers hired chairs for the week along the streets, on balconies, or in that most chosen spot, the square by the City Hall; the populace thronged to the Cathedral, where the procession could be seen free, and there the crowd was dense to suffocation, chiefly made up of the disorderly element from Triana. The chatter and movement made me ask, could this be a Spanish church, where irreverence is unknown? Everyone seemed oblivious of the TenebrÆ in the coro. They buzzed and moved about in an unseemly scramble for seats, so that only faintest echoes of Jeremiah's gloriously intoned Lamentations could be heard. The sexton rose now and then from the noisy groups on the choir steps to extinguish one by one the candles on the big triangular candlestick, a noble object of bronze used only at this season. And I had looked forward for months to hearing, in this grand Gothic Cathedral, my favorite service of the church year, the solitary service that haunts one with its subtle beauty from one's childhood. The disappointment was keen, it gave just the final touch to my dislike of the pasos.

There were times when I tried to be just. Seeing the men lift their hats respectfully as each group went by, the women cross themselves with tears in their eyes, the babies look on in awed wonder, I tried to drop prejudice and to see the spectacle as does a southern Spaniard: the noisy scene is so associated with his earliest, tenderest memories that he cannot but look at it in a different way. One evening near me, a handsome young countryman,—moved out of all self-consciousness by the Virgen santÍsima he so loved, in her wonderful robe and jewels, under a canopy richer than any earthly queen's,—this gallant young majo stood forward suddenly from the crowd and, with his eyes fastened on the glittering mass, sang a copla of praise with the heart-piercing note of the folk-song. So faultlessly artistic a moment made me look leniently on the pasos for a time, warning me, "Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them." But to be consistent in this home of untamed personalities is impossible! For soon a float of extravagant bad taste would go by; horses with tails of real hair; clumsy velvet robes hiding the excellent carving of the statues (and some of them are the work of the best sculptor of Seville, MontaÑÉs, whose portrait by Velasquez hangs in the Prado); worst of all the Mater Dolorosa, covered with inappropriate jewels, some willed her by former generations, others lent by rich Sevillian ladies of to-day, in her hand the lace handkerchief of a coquette: criticism would leap to full life again.

That the pasos violated the quiet of the Cathedral, that they reeked of the baroque period of bad art, these are not the only complaints against them. They turn all Seville into a picnic week. We began to ask ourselves if this noisy excitement commemorated a solemn time, what would the following week of the Fair be like? The Andalusian can hold revelry with zest and vigor for fourteen unbroken days. Easter week was to open with the Italian opera and the first bull-fight of the year; there were to be three days of horse and cattle show, followed by three days of the grand Feria, when the whole province pours into Seville, and the nights are one glare of fireworks; maja and majo are then out in all their finery, and the families of the upper classes live in open booths on the fair grounds, where they pay visits and dance the national dances in public with the easy democracy of true Spaniards. Much as we hoped to see this typical feast, it began to dawn on us early in the week that there were limits to endurance. The hurrying crowds, the blocking of the streets, the noise of vendors, of clashing music, made the fatigue indescribable. Sleep at night was out of the question, noisy Triana roamed the streets; brass bands would sound, and in nervous excitement one would spring to the balcony. The hotels were packed to an uncomfortable extent. By Good Friday all desire to stay over for the Fair week was extinguished; we were very close to physical collapse. So, taking a night train, we slipped away from the turmoil to have a peaceful Easter Sunday in unspoiled Estremadura. There also they were having pasos, but pasos of such simple devotion, humble, and primitive, that one knelt with the crowd in prayer as they passed.

Before this final, hasty desertion, however, I had dragged myself, worn out with a sleepless night, to the lengthy services in the Cathedral each morning. There, happily, was nothing to criticise. The Holy Week ceremonies customary to all Catholic Christendom, were carried through with dignity; only, since this was irrepressible Spain, there were some local additions, and most beautiful ones. Such was the waving of a huge flag, black, with a large red cross, like the banner of some military order, before the High Altar, while some special prayers were read; love of country and love of God seem so inextricably interwoven here. On Palm Sunday the Cathedral was filled with the stately white leaves, six and ten feet long, from the palm forest of Elche; each canon carried one and each verger; the priests and acolytes who served the Mass bore each his palm, and they waved and swayed around the altar in lovely symbolization of the Entry into Jerusalem twenty centuries before. Pictures like that never fade. A year later in Palestine, it rose vividly before me, while driving out to Bethany, when we passed some hundreds of humble Russian pilgrims tramping back from the Dead Sea, each of whom bore a palm. For in very reality they were following the route of entry into the Holy City. Seville Cathedral on Palm Sunday morning was not unworthy to be grouped with that moving scene. The excessively long Gospel was chanted in the customary different keys by three canons, one standing in the Epistle pulpit, one in the Gospel, and the third on a rostrum erected between the two. Near me several Spaniards of the artisan class followed in Latin every word of the lengthy chanting. The tourists present who knew not what was read, fretted and moved incessantly. No intelligent person should attend a Holy Week in either Seville or Rome without a special book, picked up anywhere for a couple of francs, in which the services are given in Latin and English, or Latin and French. Without the liturgy to voice these ceremonies, they must be weary hours indeed. And yet of the hundreds of visitors on this Palm Sunday, literally, not one followed with a book, and many perhaps held themselves competent to criticise what they had seen.

Expectant of the sensational, the tourists filled the great church on Holy Thursday morning, when the white veil was withdrawn: it was done so swiftly, at the opportune words of the Gospel, that there was nothing spectacular about it. Two days later, at the moment in the Mass when every bell in the city bursts out in joyous acclamation of the Resurrection, the black veil was rent; that we missed seeing. Some days before Holy Week a towering temple of wood, white and gilt, a hundred feet high, had been erected in the nave over the tomb of Columbus' son. This pseudo-classic temple, completely out of touch with the Gothic church, was to serve as the repository of the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday, and it was for the center of such shrines that the old silversmiths of Spain, the de Arfe family, made their priceless silver monumentos. Such repositories are customary in all Catholic lands on Thursday of Holy Week, for in the midst of sorrow, the Church celebrates the foundation of the Sacrament that has brought joy and solace to mankind. She commemorates the events of the week chronologically. Before the altars are dismantled for Good Friday, she typifies by lights and flowers, her gratitude for that passover supper in the upper room. It is a general Catholic custom to visit a number of these lighted shrines on Holy Thursday, and in Seville this usage leads to one of the charming things of the week, like an oasis of peace in the midst of the arid pasos. Everyone pays these visits on foot. During two days not a carriage is allowed in the city, the King himself must walk. Their silk mantillas, black or white, draped high over their combs, wearing jewels and carrying flowers, the ladies of Seville went from church to church, to kneel in graceful groups around the exposed Host, and the men in frock coats and high hats stood in the rear, in simple attitudes of prayer: the Spaniard and the Mussulman are alike in their unconsciousness at their devotions. The next day all would wear deep mourning, but to-day is a feast of rejoicing. Each one goes in quiet composure, as if her mind dwelt on the hours of peace her communions had brought her. Again I felt the same impression that the Christmas midnight Mass had given me; that the imagination of this people was busy with the past event they were celebrating. Does not lack of comprehension of old usages often mean lack of the shaping power of the imagination?

From one parish church to another I followed these fascinating women. Here was true Seville, not seen in the Cathedral's tourist crowd, nor under Parisian hats on the Paseo. Wandering through the network of streets north of the Sierpes, I paused to look into the spotless patios distant as they ever seem from the fret of life. A touch of summer was in the air; the marble courtyards were decked with flowers, and one heard the notes of singing birds. Two dark-eyed ladies came out from a tranquil patio; they wore white mantillas in honor of their visits to the Blessed Sacrament. They set me dreaming of Seville in its summer aspect, when the skies are blue in the fragrant night. Nowhere on earth are women more alluring and essentially feminine, nowhere has man fashioned his house so fitly for charm and romance.

By chance, on Holy Thursday, I stumbled on another local usage, full of the same racial flavor. Returning from the Cathedral, where, amid a throng of sight seers, the Archbishop had carried the Host to the lighted monumento, I happened to drop into the Church of the Magdalena. It was filled with its own parishioners, since most Spaniards leave the Cathedral services of this crowded week to the visitors. Near the door were seated three separate groups of ladies and young girls, belonging unmistakably to the aristocracy; each wore a black mantilla,[31] and in their tight-fitting black gowns and long white gloves, they were indescribably elegant. They were the ladies in waiting of the various altars, their duties to tend them, and like the men's brotherhoods, to help in the charitable work of the parish. The Magdalena Church is dark, so on the table before these daughters of Eve stood a pair of high candlesticks, between which lay an open tray soliciting contributions for their special shrines or charities. Young beaux entered the church and as they passed the table, dropped a duro or a paper bill in the different trays, according as they felt devotion to such and such an altar, or to judge by the glances that passed between the givers and receivers, as they felt devotion to its fair caretaker. Unexpected scenes like this, unmentioned in the guide books, give to this city its allurement, enhanced doubly because the actors are so unconscious of their picturesqueness.

And as unpleasant things fade away, leaving only the happier memories, two scenes stand out unforgettable in Seville's Holy Week: Eslava's "Miserere," echoing at midnight through the Cathedral whose name is fittingly the Grandeza, and that other picture, enchantingly Andalusian, the ladies in mantillas paying their silent visits to the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday. The pasos fade to a blurred background of pomp and glitter.