Spain

“ Spain stood out as one of the greatest states in Europe. With her close approximation to a united nationality, her all-powerful monarchy, her highly elaborate bureaucracy, her increasing body of law, soon to be codified into a great whole, her nascent literature, her military gifts and resources, the wealth and romance of the Indies, she stood on the threshold of the sixteenth century with imposing power and dignity. ”

“ Man and Woman
Queen Isabel may rest in peace. She is having her will although she would not recognize its way. Her conscious will was to make Spain one: it has become the unconscious will of every Spaniard. Her concept of the State of Spain has become a universal state of mind. Here was Spain, this sea of elements tossing and titanic. Here was the Spaniard, pressed by the amorphous world in which he lived to establish unity within himself: to become a person, in defense from the chaos that was Spain. In his will to create Spain, he could not change the theater of his action. ”

“ Spain is one of those rare, dry countries where the very air changes color. The whole valley seemed to fill slowly with a golden mist, the snow on the great peak and on the Pyrenees beyond glittered like the fabled sands, and even the villas clinging to the steep mountain-side, the palaces in their groves of palm-trees 45and citron, orange, and pomegranate, all seemed to move and sway as in the depths of shimmering tides. ”

“ Red-legged partridges abound throughout the length and breadth of wilder Spain—not, as at home, on the open corn-lands, but amidst the interminable scrub and brushwood of the hills and dales, on the moory wastes, and palmetto-clad prairie. ”

“ With the solace of such a treasure-house of poetic and romantic wealth as she possesses, Spain may well rest in assured hope of the return of the brave days in praise of which her trovadores struck the lyre and her poets sang in stately [405] epic. Poor Spain! Nay, golden Spain—enchanted cavern, glowing with the spoil of song, the rainbow treasure of legend, and the gem-like radiance of immortal romance!
Her citizens, imperial spirits,
Rule the present from the past;
On all this world of men inherits
Their seal is set. ”

“ Each is imbued with Spain’s imperious will to be whole and one: each grows great with this spirit: each wars upon them all. Spain was chaotic and diverse. Her will to be one serries her into antitheses. Her will to union breaks her into extremes. Irony works on Isabel’s fair fabric.
Perhaps the land itself is symbol of the process. Spain is desert—and garden; flat plain—and mountain; great heat—and winter. Spain is Europe—and Africa. In her events, she reveals this first ironic state of fusion—the splitting up into opposites of action. ”

“ For Spain, most westerly of European countries, lies under the blight which has for centuries sapped the energies of the East. Her glance, like that of the Orient, is directed backwards, and drugged with indolent pride in what has gone, she has lost zest to strive for what is to come. ”

“ The best histories are those which treat of single episodes or periods, such as Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, Irving’s Conquest of Spain, Spanish Voyages, and Conquest of Granada. To these, in truth, I would refer my young readers for a more extended acquaintance with Spain and her fascinating history. In those charming narratives the dry bones of fact are clothed in graceful drapery, and the reader moves and acts with their heroes, kings, and queens, in most distinguished company. ”

“ And this is the tragedy of Spain to-day—a great-hearted people in the toils of civilization. In Pérez Galdós’ “El Caballero Encantado,” the spirit of Spain thus addresses one of her sons: “The capital defect of the Spaniards of your time is that you live exclusively the life of words, and the language is so beautiful that the delight in the sweet sound of it woos you to sleep. You speak too much; you lavish without stint a wealth of phrases to conceal the poverty of your actions.” ”

“ Spanish prose sheds much of its uncouthness, and takes its definitive form in such a passage as that upon the Joys of Spain: "More than all, Spain is subtle,—ay! and terrible, right skilled in conflict, mirthful in labour, stanch to her lord, in letters studious, in speech courtly, fulfilled of gifts; never a land the earth overlong to match her excellence, to rival her bravery; few in the world as mighty as she." ”

“ The seal of Spain is upon everything that she has touched. The Spaniard has left his religion, language, and social creed all over the New World south of the Rio Grande, and his mark can be traced upon face, laws and landscape. ”

“ We had tasted of Spain before ever we had crossed her frontiers. Indeed, perhaps Spain is the easiest country to obtain samples from without the fatigue of travelling. The Spaniard carries his atmosphere with him: wherever he goes he re-creates in his immediate surroundings more than a hint of his national existence. The Englishman abroad may be English—more brutally and uncompromisingly English than the Spaniard is Spanish—yet he does not carry England with him. ”

“ It is of course easy for us to see Spain in a way in a few weeks, but if one does not go in a cockney spirit, but really wishing to learn, to open one’s eyes to the glorious past of Spain, the story of Isabella, the Moorish dominion, the boundless wealth of its legends, its proverbs, its poetry—all that makes it different from any other country—we must begin in a different way, and our chief interest will be found in the grand old cities which the English generally do not visit—Leon, Zaragoza, Salamanca ”

“ But henceforth, German blood suffuses like a golden glow the flesh of{53} Iberia which has already drunk the Celt, the Semite, the Greek, the Latin.
There has been no drama. This process is instinctive. Spain lives like a tree with her roots close and her branches harboring the seasons. She has taken to herself the nourishment of wind and rain, the steadfastness of sun. All Spain takes in is Spain. In her own vague life, an Idea has been born, expressive of her chaos. ”

“ But in justice to the national genius of Spain we trust that it has been made abundantly clear that the cantares speedily cast off the northern mode and robed themselves in Castilian garb. Some lands possess an individuality so powerful, a capacity for absorption and transmutation so exceptional, that all things, both physical and spiritual, which invade their borders become transfigured and speedily metamorphosed to suit their new environment. ”

“ It epitomizes the whole strange history of Spain in a manner so vivid, that he who visits its old nooks and corners carefully and thoughtfully, can work out, almost unassisted, the strange variety which that history affords. ”

“ Yet in this stifled frame, an artist quickens a magnificent world. The monks with their conventional background, the old town in flame of summer, the river panting through its fringe of trees,{164} the athletic freedom of the mind in search, the passionate reality of God—all Spain is in this antiquated book. Her extremes of waste and verdure, her turmoil of race, her traffic and speculation, her panoply of vision—Jew, Christian, warrior, priest—converge into the substance of prose. ”

“ And herein rests the fascination of Spain—this conservatism which has lasted into an age of hurrying progress. It is a fascination that everyone will not feel, but for those whom it touches the glamour is more permanent and irresistible than that of any other country I know. ”

“ Thank Heaven, Spain has not yet awakened to the commercial advantages of moulding her national characteristics into the groove of the common-place, and her soul has not yet been cut out and thrown away in the pursuit of filthy lucre. ”

“ And Spain, more than any other land, is now hopelessly given up to legends and doubtful chronicles, modern and antique, so that one who reads must have either the credulity of a devotee, or the indifference of folly, to read with satisfaction the ancient history of the Peninsula. ”

“ And at the period that a few scanty bands of expatriated malefactors, and of refugees for opinion’s sake, flying from persecution to the wilderness, toiled out a scanty and laborious existence in the forests and prairies of North America, and alone represented the Anglo-Saxon race in the New World, Spain was in secure and undisturbed enjoyment of two vast and productive empires. To-day, how great the contrast! The unwieldy Spanish colonies have crumbled and fallen to pieces, the petty English settlements have grown into a flourishing and powerful nation. ”

“ Throughout the palace the appointments are of extreme richness, and remind one of a time when Spain was in the zenith of its glory. All the countries of Europe have been laid under tribute for the art treasures that crowd every corner. ”

“ We do unto the body of our beloved land as Christ did unto the possessed: we have cast out devils. But this is not enough. True disciple of our Lord, Spain must take up her burden and go forth: must forsake comfort and family and the long-sued peace: must bring His Word to all that dwell on earth. Spain is Christ’s true apostle. France turns away in trickery and ambition. Henri IV, Louis XI—how far they are from Saint Louis! Italy is helpless. Spain is the well-beloved: Spain is Israel, and Rome’s right hand. Let my king, Ferdinand, go with his hardened troops to Sicily and Naples. ”

“ Whilst knowing and not forgetting that the nineteenth century is not the sixteenth, Spain is resolved to preserve from every danger Catholic unity—the symbol of our glories, the essence of our laws, and the holy bond of concord between all Spaniards. ”

“ As a geographical and political fact, Spain dates from the earliest times, and the Spanish people gather within themselves the blood and the traditions of the three great continents of the Old World—Europe, Asia and Africa—united to produce the mighty Spaniard of the 15th and 16th centuries. ”

“ I have wandered for hours through the dazzling white streets, sniffing the diffused odour of oranges, and watching the handsome and picturesque peasantry as they revel through life. To the Englishman, no city in Spain presents more novel sights and historic contrasts. Having been successively a Phœnician, Greek, Roman, Gothic, Moorish, and Catholic city, it preserves traces and monuments of almost all these dynasties. ”

“ Yet Spain is far from unhappy. It is beautiful to see out of what scant allowance of that which we call well-being, may be evolved wisdom and joy, poetry and religion. Wearied as 443 we two bookish travellers were with lectures and libraries, we rejoiced in this wild Galician lore that lives on the lips of the people. The written Spanish literature, like other Spanish arts, is of the richest, nor are its laurels limited to the dates of Cervantes and Calderon. ”

“ Out upon the poor fool! He know Spain! Why, that is more than I could dare to say, and I have had experience of it under Monarchy and Republic, in peace and in war; have mixed with Carlists in the field, and Intransigentes in the fortress; have traversed it from Irun to Gibraltar, from Santander to Malaga. ”

“ The land of Spain, bountifully blessed by Nature, still holds a people grovelling in the dust of ignorance and superstition. At that time it is difficult to overstate, though not to believe, the utter detestation in which the Spaniards were held by all true-hearted Englishmen, and in which the Portugals over whom they held sway had to share. ”

“ A prospect such as is seen nowhere but in Spain, where the plains take the semblance of an earthy sea, in the large lines of alternate sun and shade and streaks of vivid colour that undulate as on the perpetual agitation of the waves. ”

“ The courteous Spaniard conceals his contempt for the foreigner, but were he privileged to read the numerous sketches, scenes, and saunterings published yearly of Spain, he would have some scope for legitimate amusement. A faint remonstrance has indeed been heard in the Peninsula against the idea of Spanish grandees lying in wait at dark corners to rob a French journalist of his fortune. But mostly they are content to let the foreigner continue in his ignorance. For stern and melancholy Spain retains her secret, and is not to be won from her Oriental impenetrable mystery by any wiles. ”

“ Let him, in fine, observe the commerce of the country destroyed, its manufactures ruined, its Army disorganized, and its Treasury penniless; and, whilst he learns what Spain has been, he will see to what a lamentable state she is reduced.
Nor to the Traveller alone is the contemplation of Spain, in her fallen greatness, a source of interest and instruction. The Philosopher, the Statesman, the Philanthropist, and the Patriot, may all draw from it serious matter for reflection. ”

“ Those who aspire to the romantic, the poetical, the sentimental, the artistical, the antiquarian, the classical, in short, to any of the sublime and beautiful lines, will find both in the past and present state of Spain subjects enough, in wandering with lead-pencil and note-book through this singular country, which hovers between Europe and Africa, between civilisation and barbarism ”

“ How strangely Spain had fallen from its high estate in Europe the wars of Lewis had abundantly shown, but so vast was the extent of its empire, so enormous the resources which still remained to it, that under a vigorous ruler men believed its old power would at once return. Its sovereign was still master of some of the noblest provinces of the Old World and the New, of Spain itself, of the Milanese, of Naples and Sicily, of the Netherlands, of Southern America, of the noble islands of the Spanish Main. ”