Coping with Victorian prose

You can find Well's entire book online where I found it, at Project Gutenberg. A warning, though. Wells was a Victorian, so he wrote Victorian prose.  It can be daunting, especially if you strike something like this in the opening sentence:

"The author of the following letters is aware that his publication would have possessed greater utility, had the architectural descriptions been more minute. He ventures to hope, however, that this imperfection may be in some measure balanced by the more extended sphere opened to whatever information it may contain."

All he means is, he knows he hasn't written the Ultimate Guide to Spanish Architecture, because though that might have been very, very useful for a few architecture fans, this way at least his book will reach a wider audience.

Don't be intimidated by his prose. It's only English.

He warns us that, while not a primer on Spanish architecture, his book is also not some titillating account drooling over 'exotic' Spain. It does not contain Men In Pointy Hoods Doing Weird Catholic Stuff. Instead he claims to stick to honest facts:"...it was his wish to paint what he saw as he saw it."  But without being dull, because even though avoiding deliberate romantic invention he hopes "to enliven it by the introduction of any incidents worthy of notice which came under his observation".

He explains his book is based on letters he sent during two separate journeys to Spain made three years apart, and admits to a change made in the chronological sequence to shape his volume better.

The explanatory Preface is over, and we're into Letter I.

This is addressed to a lady, 'Mrs C-----r', and he is writing to her from the Rue de Richelieu, the most fashionable street in Paris (I told you the Wells family was rich).  From his remarks to her we can build up a picture of what sort of lady Mrs C-----r is.  She attends balls: between quadrilles she makes sparkling conversation with her partners, who have all been to smart places like Biarritz: and she is certainly no blue-stocking, as she blithely admits she knows nothing at all about Spain :  "You professed also, with a modesty always becoming to talent and worth, a complete ignorance respecting Spain...Indeed, the ignorance you profess with some exaggeration, is more or less general in our country."

- So Mrs C----r too is British?

"Spain has been unnoticed and unknown—laid on the shelf with the Arabian Nights—considered a sort of fabulous country, which it would be charming to know, but with which there would never be a chance of forming an acquaintance; and you have contented yourself with a sort of general information respecting it, derived from a few romances and poems...with the addition of some confused visions, in which autos-da-fé and dungeons contrast in a rather gloomy background with laughing majas, whirling their castagnettes to the soft cadences of guitars..."  

(Bullseye, Nathaniel. Women in frilly frocks doing stampy dancing, and the Inquisition lurking in the background. This remained the basic British idea of Spain until the day of the cheap package holiday arrived.)

He reflects with mock-solemnity on how wrong it would be for him to deliberately fool her about this unknown country, because there is absolutely no chance she will ever go there herself to check.  Spain is hot.  Mrs C-----r doesn't do heat.  She nearly had a meltdown recently during a brief spell of warmish weather in Normandy, remember? The time when she was staying in that old wood-panelled chateau, and insisted he shout his conversation to her from a different room entirely because it was so hot she couldn't bear to have any other living being in the same chamber. She even banned her pet dog: "...your favourite of favourites, Caliph, repulsed and uncaressed, hung his silken ears, as he solemnly retreated to coil himself on a distant rug..."

At this point it crosses my suspicious mind that 'Mrs C-----r' may be a literary fiction.  Is Nathaniel just inventing her to provide an excuse for his decision to publish a book about Spain?  To impress us that he is not writing for cash, god forbid, or for personal prestige because, oh no no, he is an English Gentleman Amateur! he wouldn't care about such things.  He is writing to amuse this charming, bored lady stretched on her chaise-longue amid the fatiguing Parisian heat.  He is her Knight Errant, adventuring to Spain for the pleasure of his capricious dame. So he would not dream of boring her (or us) with long, confusing lists of kings called Juan. Instead he is giving her a virtual tour of Spain c. 1842. He can do the same for us.

No, actually I do believe she exists, with her draughty chateau, her shared enthusiasm for Gothic monuments and aversion to heat.  So: he has recently been keeping company with a quadrille-loving but languorous British lady who can afford the rent of a Louis XIV house in or near Caen; she has at least one upmarket pet, the adored Caliph (probably a spaniel - the silken ears give it away); and apparently she and Nathaniel have been enjoying not only the summer "season of insects and al-fresco suppers" together, but "the autumnal equinox" too, complete with its roaring fires and roaring draughts. Cosy.

I notice there doesn't seem to be any Mr C-----r  mentioned.

Not Mrs C-----r, but from the same period.