Castalia

“ You are so young, that even after ten or fifteen years' work you would be in the prime of all your faculties and powers. And ten or fifteen years' good work might give you an excellent position. As to Castalia, I cannot help feeling a conviction that her discontent is chiefly reflected, and that if she saw you cheerful and active in your daily business, she would not repine at her lot. ”

“ Wiser folks than Castalia are apt to anticipate exceptions to general laws in their own favour.
Castalia was undoubtedly in love with Algernon. That is to say, she would have liked better to be his wife in poverty and obscurity, than to accept a title and a handsome settlement from any other man whom she had ever seen ”

“ Algernon Ancram Errington?"
"Why, Castalia is not very well, I think, although I don't know what is the matter. She grows thinner and thinner, and sallower and sallower. Entre nous, Minnie, she frets and chafes against our life here. She has not the gift of looking on the bright side of things. She is rather peevish by nature. ”

“ Rose McDougall had drawn near his wife, and after very stiffly returning his bow, had ceased to take any notice of him, markedly avoiding his eye, and keeping silence after he had spoken. Violet was divided between listening to the elder Mrs. Errington and watching her sister. Castalia was more lazy, more silent, more indifferent than usual. Algernon was as unaccustomed as a spoiled child to be taken no notice of. He to stand among those women as a person of secondary importance, not greeted, not flattered, not smiled upon! ”

“ FROM Burgos to Valladolid the monotonous Castile plain continued, unbroken by any hill and hardly a tree. Yet evening on the level steppes has a charm of its own. Like sunset at sea, nature has a free sweep of canvas on which to paint her pageant; details eliminated, the essential remains. One carries away many such memories from the silent plateau, till little by little the affection of the grave Castilian for his home is understood. ”

“ Castile's proud monarch to the nuptial bed
In happier days her royal daughter led:
To him the furious queen for vengeance cries,
Implores to vindicate his lawful prize,
The Lusian sceptre, his by spousal right:
The proud Castilian arms and dares the fight.
To join his standard as it waves along,
The warlike troops from various regions throng:
Those who possess the lands by Rodrick given,
What time the Moor from Turia's banks was driven;
That race who joyful smile at war's alarms,
And scorn each danger that attends on arms ”

“ It has been said with truth that it was almost impossible to persuade the mediæval Castilian noble to act with his fellows. Pride, ambition, the courage that vaunts itself in duels, the revenge that lurks, dagger-drawn, in back streets or lonely roads: these were the source of constant feuds and internecine warfare, incapable of a final settlement save by the pressure of some outside force.
Nor could the noble, who distrusted the members of his own class, rely in times of danger on the co-operation of his humbler neighbours. ”

“ As we came nearer to Old Castile, the ancient land of many castles, I felt as a man must when at last he comes to a house which is his, though never until now has he held the key and been free to enter.
The northern provinces, peopled by mysterious Basques alien to us in blood and language, I could scarcely look upon as Spain. But in Castile I saw the heart and citadel of my native country. My father was Andaluz; my mother Castiliana, and she used to say that in my nature were united the qualities of the two provinces—Castilian pride and stubbornness ”

“ The Castilian is submissive to his king and his priest, haughty and inflexible with his equals. But his own house is a refuge from the contests of out of doors. The reflex of absolute authority is here observed, it is true. The Spanish father is absolute king and lord by his own hearthstone, but his sway is so mild and so readily acquiesced in that it is hardly felt. The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it, and the Spanish family seldom calls for the harsh exercise of parental authority. ”

“ She was struck with admiration at the graceful and dignified bearing of the Castilian, which, while it showed all the deference and respect due to her sex and her rank, had nothing in it, of that abject servility, which placed an impassable barrier between the Aztec noble and his monarch, and made them appear to belong to distinct races of being. To the chivalrous, impassioned Castilian, accustomed to worship woman, and pay an almost divine homage to beauty, in the courtly halls and sunny bowers of Spain, the scene presented a perfect constellation of grace and loveliness. ”

“ France, Holland, Germany, convulsed and desolated by civil wars and religious dissensions; the Ottoman power rolled away on the waters of Lepanto; Portugal falling in Africa, to be then united to Castile; the Spanish sword agitating the whole world with the spirit of heroism, of religion, of ambition, and of avarice;—when was there ever a time more full of astonishing events, or more suited to sublime the fancy? Yet the Castilian muses, deaf and indifferent to this universal agitation, could scarcely inspire their favourites with aught but moralities, rural images, gallantry, and love. ”

“ Not one hair of their heads shall be harmed. San Jago and Spain! When was Castilian ever known to turn his back upon a foe? Up the pyramid we go, leaping from step to step, though with no better weapon than a sun-umbrella in hand, to their deliverance. ”

“ Such was Castilian faith in the olden time, which kept its word, even beyond the grave.
If any one should doubt of the miraculous apparition of these phantom knights, let him consult the History of the Kings of Castile and Leon, by the learned and pious Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, bishop of Pamplona, where he will find it recorded in the History of King Don Alonzo VI., on the hundred and second page. It is too precious a legend to be lightly abandoned to the doubter. ”

“ Castile!” and rushing forward, broke through the squadrons of Navarre. Then followed a fight so pitiless and deadly, says an old chronicler, that the strokes of their weapons resounded through the whole country. The count sought King Sancho throughout the whole field; they met and recognized each other by their armorial bearings and devices. They fought with fury, until both fell from their horses as if dead. The Castilians cut their way through the mass of the enemy, and surrounded their fallen chief. Some raised him from the earth while others kept off the foe. ”

“ The rivalries between Castile and Aragon were of old standing, and no sharper contrast is to be found in Europe than that which existed between the primitive and poverty-stricken population of the Asturias, the proud Castilian noble, and the busy trader of Barcelona, the democratic capital of Catalonia. Nor was there more unity within the separate kingdoms themselves. The social divisions were deepest in Castile. There the nobles enjoyed numerous exclusive privileges, notably that of freedom from taxation. ”

“ And in spite of all that we, her counsellors, could do to impose some check upon her speech—for the Castilian had the name of being as proud a prince as there was on the earth—she refused to soften her words, and insisted that the envoy should bear them to his master.
“And further, Don Jose de Fermosilla,” said she, “I would have you bid Castile, our cousin, assemble all his hosts and bring them hither, and they shall not lack for a welcome. ”

“ The necessities of the city dominated by them had made them pick up all the professions, becoming artisans, fishermen, boatmen, porters and stevedores of the harbor. They still kept the Castilian tongue as the language of the hearth like an original flag whose waving reunited their scattered souls,—a Castilian in the making, soft and without consistency like one newly-born.
"Are you a Spaniard?" they said brokenly to Captain Ferragut. "My ancestors were born there. It is a beautiful land." ”

“ But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian or the Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican or the Peruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the Castilian. Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage of races and languages. Castile sent out governors to Brussels, Milan, Naples, Mexico, Lima. To Castile came the annual galleons laden with the treasures of America. In Castile was ostentatiously displayed and lavishly spent great fortunes made in remote provinces by oppression and corruption. In Castile were the King and his Court. ”

“ Camels, llamas, and kangaroos have been introduced, but their number has never been large, and the fauna as well as the flora of the Castiles bears the stamp of monotony.
As is the land, so are its inhabitants. The men of Leon and the Castiles are grave, curt of speech, majestic in their gait, and of even temper. Even in their amusements they carry themselves with dignity, and those amongst them who respect the traditions of the good old time regulate every movement in accordance with a most irksome etiquette. The Castilian is haughty in the extreme, and Yo soy Castellano ! ”

“ It is, too, no less national, Christian, and loyal. It breathes everywhere the true Castilian spirit, such as the old chronicles represent it amidst the achievements and disasters of the Moorish wars; and has very few traces of an Arabic influence in its language, and none at all in its imagery or fancies. ”

“ With the Castilian occupation of every city, a crowd of industrious exiles, bearing their household goods, was added to the already numerous population of Granada; accessions which brought with them no inconsiderable wealth and many qualities more valuable than wealth to a declining empire,—habits of industry and thrift, a capacity to adapt themselves to new conditions, the memory of former injuries, the melancholy experiences of persecution, the hope of retribution, and an unconquerable hatred of the Christian name. ”

“ The Moorish warriors, who fell on the battlefield or retreated southwards before their foes, left in Christian territory a large residue of the more peaceful Arabs and Berbers, willing to till the fields, work at the looms, and fulfil all those other tasks of civilized national life that 16the Castilian was inclined to imagine degrading to his own dignity. Left behind also were colonies of prosperous Jews, whose ancestors, hounded from every Christian court, had found a home under the tolerant rule of the caliphs of Cordova. ”

“ Archbishops, bishops, and abbots, were for the most part younger sons of wealthy nobles and shared the outlook and ambitions of their class. The Castilian prelate of the early fifteenth century found it as natural to don his suit of mail and draw his sword as to celebrate Mass or hear confessions. It would 14not be dislike of shedding blood nor a faint heart that would distinguish him from laymen on the battlefield, but the surcoat embroidered with a cross, that he wore in deference to his profession. ”

“ Around it, on each anniversary of his death, a detachment of Granadan Moors, with lighted tapers in their hands, once stood motionless and in silence. To-day, three times in every year, the body of Castile’s most famous sovereign is exposed to public view adorned with all the pomp of royalty,—with the crown, the sceptre, the robes; mass is said, and a regiment of soldiers salute the mouldering remains of one of the most eminent and successful commanders of his time. ”

“ Two months ago, this licentiate, who is an academician of Toledo, published a work on morals, which shocked the orthodox opinions of all your grey-headed authors of Castile: they found it full of vigorous expressions and words newly introduced. It required no more to unite them against so singular a production; and they therefore instantly assembled, and agreed upon a petition to his majesty, praying him to condemn the book as one written in a style dangerous to the purity and simplicity of the Spanish tongue. ”

“ For she was no inheritance from Celts or Romans, but was born in the Dark Ages, waxed prosperous within them, and declined with the Renaissance and the dawn of the modern era. There is nothing that is classical, little that is modern, about this old capital of Castile. All her memories are of Gothic, mediæval, romantic Spain. To her belong knights and barons, shield and helm and lance, tournaments and jousts, soaring Gothic spires, and the quiet of the cloister—all the pageant and panorama of mediævalism. ”

“ The civil wars that devastated Castile had taught the people that their most dangerous enemies were not their kings but the turbulent aristocracy; and they often looked to the former as allies against a common foe. In the same way the more patriotic of the nobles and ecclesiastics saw in the building up of the royal power the only hope of carrying the crusade against the Moors to a successful conclusion, or of establishing peace at 21home. At this critical moment in the history of Castile, national progress depended on royal dominance ”

“ When they were about to sail there came to the Castilians a Portuguese, named Juan de la Rosa, who had come to Ternate, saying he was a pilot, and would take them to Castile, upon which they agreed with him to give him fifty quintals of cloves in each ship, because he said he would take them to the island of Banda, which had more riches than Maluco. So the Castilians rejoiced greatly at taking this man back to the emperor, for the greater certainty as to their discovery. ”