Calderon the Courtier, a Tale

The moonlight shone with exceeding lustre through the tall casements, and lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble images of saint and martyr, that threw their long shado...

The Tragi-Comedy of Court Intrigue, which had ever found its principal theatre in Spain since the accession of the House of Austria to the throne, was represented with singular...

Meanwhile Fonseca had reached the convent; had found the porter gone; and, with a mind convulsed with apprehension and doubt, had flown on the wings of love and fear to the hous...

Fonseca, always blunt and impatient of mood, was not in a humour to receive and return compliments; but the governor had scarcely seated himself ere he struck a chord in the con...

The next day, to the discomfiture of the courtiers, Calderon and the Infant of Spain were seen together, publicly, on the parade; and the secretary made one of the favoured few...

“Great contrasts among men!” said he, half aloud. “All the classes into which naturalists ever divided the animal world contained not the variety that exists between man and man...

In the royal chamber, before a table covered with papers, sat the King and his secretary. Grave, sullen, and taciturn, there was little in the habitual manner of Philip the Thir...

Calderon received the young soldier at the door of his chamber with marked and almost affectionate respect. “Don Martin,” said he, and there seemed a touch of true feeling in th...

The next day, at noon, Calderon visited Fonseca in his place of confinement. The young man was seated by a window that overlooked a large dull court-yard, with a neglected and b...

“No, father, no; I never more desired your presence--your counsel. It is not often that I stand halting and irresolute between the two magnets of interest and conscience: this i...

With emotions of joy and triumph, such as had never yet agitated his reckless and abandoned youth, the Infant of Spain bent his way towards the lonely house on the road to Fuenc...