The Fourth Estate (Complete)

THE early writings of this distinguished native of Asturias partake of a peculiar interest, strongly appealing to one's human sympathies. On his thirtieth birthday Señor Valdés married a young lady scarcely more than half his age. She was very frail, and after eighteen months of tenderly devoted love on both sides, the husband was left alone with an infant son. The charming and pathetic little tale "The Idyl of an Invalid" describes the earlier portion of the author's brief wedded life, and in fact was written during that happy period. The year after his wife's death he published "Riverita," in which novel his late partner was made to appear as a child, and in the sequel to "Riverita," "Maximina," published still a year later, we find her depicted as ripening to womanhood. Thus, out of Valdés's early novels three bear this melancholy yet attractive personal quality.