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Fortuny, whose full name was Mariano José Maria Bernardo Fortuny y Carbó, was born at Reus, a little town in the province of Tarragona, near Barcelona. He was very poor, and at the age of twelve an orphan. His grandfather, a carpenter, went with the lad on foot through the towns of Catalonia exhibiting a cabinet containing wax figures painted by Mariano and perhaps modelled by him.
Now, once upon a day there was a swart, stubby boy by the name of Mariano Fortuny. He was ten years old, going on 'leven, and lived with his grandfather away up and up four flights of rickety stairs in an old house at the village of Reus, in Spain. Mariano's father had died some years before died mysteriously in a drunken fight at a fair, where he ran a Punch and Judy show.
Indeed, as time goes on, one learns to regard this Almend as the complete expression and final summing up of all that is best in Altdorf, the reconciliation of all its inconsistencies. How fine that great pasture beside the River Reus, with its short, juicy, Alpine grass, in sight of the snow-capped Bristenstock, at one end of the valley, and of the waters of Lake Lucerne at the other!
The former comprised Provençe, Dauphiné, the Lyonese, Franche-comté, Bresse, Bugey, and a part of Savoy; the latter comprised the countries between Mount Jura and the Pennine Alps, or the part of Switzerland between the Reus, the Valais, and the rest of Savoy. Such was the geographical state of Germany at the close of the Carlovingian Dynasty. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.
But he now found that his penitence had never been sincere and efficacious. This one damning sin obscured all his good actions; and he felt if he died unconfessed, and with the weight of guilt upon his soul, he should perish everlastingly. Again he fled from the torment of retrospection, and again heard the choir thundering forth Lacrymosa dies illa, Quâ resurget ex favillâ Judicandus homo reus.
In so doing I feel that I not only fulfil a duty, but that I obey the great, noble, and respectful attachment which I feel for the person of your Imperial Majesty. "Comte de Reus, "General Prim." Such warnings, however, were lost amid the glittering possibilities of so glorious an achievement.
Mariano made the ship himself, and painted it, adding the yellow pennant of Spain to the mainmast. This piece of work caused a quarrel between Grandfather Fortuny and Father Gonzales. The priest declared that a boy like that shouldn't waste his youth in the shabby, tumble-down village of Reus he should go to Barcelona and receive instruction in art.
"Lacrymosa dies illa, Qua resurgat ex favilla Judicandus homo reus Huic ergo parce, Deus: Pie Jesu Domine Dona eis requiem!" But Varillo still shrieked "Help!" and his frenzied cries were at last answered. The great bell overhead ceased ringing suddenly, and its cessation created an effect of silence even amid the noise of the crackling fire and the continued grave music of the organ.
Mariano had now a trade who in Reus could make an image of the Virgin and color it in green, red and yellow so it would sell on sight for two pesetas? Father Gonzales smiled and said something about images at two pesetas each as compared with the work of Murillo and Velasquez. He laughed at the old man's fears of starvation, and defied him to name a single case where any one had ever starved.
The giants in the preceding line are the rocks that overhang the pass which winds now to the right, now to the left, of a roaring stream. The Devil's Bridge. The four rivers, in the next stanza, are the Reus, the Rhine, the Tessin, and the Rhone. The everlasting glacier. See William Tell, act v, scene 2. This has been paraphrased by Coleridge. Ajax the Less. Ulysses. Achilles. Diomed. Cassandra.
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