Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/884

Rh Jiménez (1874) is a recital of the fall of Luis de Vargas, a seminarist who conceived himself to be a mystic and a potential saint, and whose aspirations dissolve at the first contact with reality. It is easy to point out blemishes: the story is not well constructed, and it has pauses during which the writer's fantasy plays at pleasure over a hundred subjects not very germane to the matter; but its characters are as real as any in fiction, the love story is told with the most refined subtlety and malicious truth, while page upon page is written in such Spanish as would do credit to the best writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Unquestionably Pepita Jiménez is a very remarkable achievement—so remarkable, that contemporaries were reluctant to admit the superiority of its successors. It is certain that Valera's second novel, Las ilusiones del Doctor Faustino (1875), was received with marked disfavour, and that it has the faults of over-rehnement and of cruelty; yet in keen analysis and in humour it surpasses Papita Jiménez. The Comendadar Mendoza (1877) is more pathetic and of a profounder significance; and if Doña Luz (1879) repeats the situation' and the general idea already used in Papita Jiménez, it strikes a deeper and more tragic note, which ca'me as a surprise to those familiar only with the lighter side of Valera's genius. Besides these elaborate psychological studies, Valera issued a volume of Cuentos (1887), some of these short tales and dialogues being marvels of art and of insight. Thenceforward he was silent for eight years, but after his retirement from politics he published several good books—El hechicero (1895), Juanita la larga (1896), Genio y figura (1897), De varios colores (1898) and Morsamor (1899). These are not all of equal excellence, but they are characteristic of their author, and abound in understanding, humorous comment and sympathetic creation.

At the close of the 19th century Valera was recognized as the most eminent man of letters in Spain. He had not Pereda's force nor his energetic realism; he had not the copious invention nor the reforming purpose of Pérez Galdés; yet he was as realistic as the former and as innovating as the latter. And, for all his cosmopolitan spirit, he fortunately remained intensely and incorrigibly Spanish. His aristocratic scepticism, his strange elusiveness, his incomparable charm are his own: his humour, his Bashing irony, his urbanity are eminently the gifts of his land and race. He is by no means an impersonal artist; in almost every story there is at least one character who talks and thinks and subtilizes and refines as Valera himself wrote in his most brilliant essays. This may be a fault in art; but, if so, it is a fault which many great artists have committed, from Cervantes to Thackeray. It is dangerous to attempt a forecast of Valera's final place in literary history, yet it seems safe to say that, though his poems and essays will be forgotten, Pepita Jiménez and Doña Luz will survive changes of fashion and of taste, and that their author's name will be inseparably connected with the renaissance of the modern Spanish novel.

VALERIA, VIA, an ancient highroad of Italy, the continuation north-eastwards of the (q.v.). It probably owed its origin to M. Valerius Messalla, censor in 154 It ran first up the Anio valley past  (q.v.), and then, abandoning it at the 36th mile, where the Via Sublacensis diverged, ascended to  (q.v.), and then again to the lofty pass of Monte Bove (4003 ft.), whence it descended again to the valley occupied by the  (q.v.). It is doubtful whether it ran farther than the eastern point of the territory of the Marsi at Cerfennia, to the N.E. of the Lacus Fucinus, before the time of Claudius. Stiabo states that in his day it went as far as Corfinium, and this important place must have been in some way accessible from Rome, but probably, beyond Cerfennia, only by a track. The difficult route from Cerfennia to the valley of the Aternus—a drop of nearly 1000 ft., involving too the crossing of the main ridge of the Apennines (3675 ft.) by the Mons Imeus (mod. Forca Caruso)—was, however, probably not made into a highroad until Claudius's reign: one of his milestones (Corp. Inscr. Lat. ix. 5973) states that he in 48–49 made the Via Claudia Valeria from Cerfennia to the mouth of the Aternus (mod. Pescara). He also constructed a road, the Via Claudia Nova, connecting the Via Salaria, which it left at Foruli (mod. Civitatomassa, near Amiternum) with the Via Valeria near the modern Popoli. This road was continued south (we do not know by whom or when) to Aesernia. From Popoli the road followed the valley of the Aternus to its mouth, and there joined the coast-road at Pescara. The modern railway from Rome to Castellammare Adriatico follows closely the line of the Via Valeria.

VALERIAN, a genus of herbaceous perennial plants of the natural order Valerianaceae. Two species—Valeriana officinalis and V. dioica—are indigenous in Britain, while a third, V. pyrenaica, is naturalized in' some parts. The valerians have opposite leaves and small flowers, usually of a white or reddish tint, and arranged in terminal cymes. The limb of the calyx is remarkable for being at first inrolled and afterwards expanding in the form of a feathery pappus which aids in the dissemination of the fruit. The genus comprises about 150 species, which are widely distributed in the temperate parts of the world. In medicine the root of V. officinalis is intended when valerian is mentioned. The plant grows throughout Europe from Spain to the Crimea, and from Iceland through northern Europe and Asia to the coasts of Manchuria. Several varieties of the plant are known, those growing in hilly situations being considered the most valuable for medicinal purposes. Valerianis cultivated in England (in several villages near Chesterfield in Derbyshire), but to a much greater extent in Prussian Saxony (in the neighbourhood of Colleda, north of Weimar), in Holland

EB1911 Fig. 1.-Valerian (Valeriana officinalis).png

1.-Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), one- third natural size. 1, flower; 2, flower after removal of corolla; 3, fruit crowned by the feathery pappus. 1, 2, 3 enlarged.

and in the United States (Vermont, New Hampshire and New York). The dried root or rhizome consists of a shorticentral erect portion, about the thickness of the little finger, surrounded by numerous rootlets about $1⁄10$ of an inch in diameter, the whole being of a dull brown colour. When first taken from the ground it has no distinctive smell; but on drying it acquires a powerful odour of valerianic acid. This odour, now regarded as intolerable, was in the 16th century considered to be fragrant, the root being placed among clothes as a perfume (Turner, Herbal, 1568, part iii. p. 76), just as V. celtica and some Himalayan species of the genus are still used in the East. By the poorer classes in the north of England it was esteemed of such medicinal value that "no broth, pottage or physical meat" was considered of any value without it (Gerard, Herball, 1633, p, 1078).

The red valerian of gardens is Centranthus ruber, also belonging to the Valerianaceae; but Greek Valerian is Polemonium coeruleum, belonging to the natural order Polemoniaceae. Cats are