Spanish

“ Certainly, the national character, which is so essentially different from the English that Spanish and French influences may well be most healthy, is at present like one of those miserable thorn bushes by the sea that are all twisted to one side by some prevailing wind. ”

“ The whole Spanish People are to be treated not as a mighty multitude with feeling, will, and judgment; not as rational creatures;—but as objects without reason; in the language of human law, insuperably laid down not as Persons but as Things. ”

“ The French, too, at least as the language of society, moves with an unequalled freedom, while, for precision and distinctness of expression, its prose has attained to an unparalleled height of excellence. The Spanish also, besides being praised for the excellence of its prose, as admirably suited either for the dignity of serious narrative or the ingenious play of wit, is in poetry distinguished above most of its sister dialects by a wonderful richness and peculiar grace in the playful sallies of the fancy. ”

“ At the same time I was reading Spanish, more or less, but neither wisely nor too well. Having had so little help in my studies, I had a stupid pride in refusing all, even such as I might have availed myself of, without shame, in books, and I would not read any Spanish author with English notes. I would have him in an edition wholly Spanish from beginning to end, and I would fight my way through him single-handed, with only such aid as I must borrow from a lexicon. ”

“ Our aim should be to think for ourselves in our own language—to think, I say, and express our thoughts with clearness, force, and precision; not to imitate the mere sound of the empty periods which generally swell the pages of the old Spanish writers. ”

“ Those dark eyes may indeed be Spanish in color, with a gleam of bull-fighting in their cruel depths, but they are set in the head after an English pattern, and have an English solidity of Philistine hardness. ”

“ The defect of the Spanish which from the first strikes the stranger is this—that in their estimate of the affairs, the men, and the achievements of their time and their country they over-estimate their measure, if one may so speak. They exaggerate everything, they see everything, as it were, through a lens that magnifies to vast proportions. ”

“ Bright is perhaps a misleading term, for the whole is tinged with the profound melancholy that strikes us in the Spanish gaze, in its character and in the tristful note of its popular songs and dances. The English are supposed to take their pleasures sadly. ”

“ Some studied Spanish with a view to advancing in their profession, others in order to master Spanish literature and promote their careers, and others for the purpose of obtaining further pleasure by travelling in countries where Spanish was spoken.
No one felt the absurdity of the contradictions between belief and knowledge; hardly one cared to give a just and rational form to human society, in order that all the members of each generation might have a proportionate share in the advantages created by earlier generations. ”

“ Hear Spanish spoken; have a master who speaks to you in Spanish—very slowly at first, and then more quickly,—on subjects which are familiar to you.Oír hablar español; tener un profesor que le hable en español—muy lentamente al principio, y después más de prisa,—sobre asuntos que le sean a V. familiares. Is it then more useful to listen, and to try to understand what is said in a language, than to try to speak it one's self?¿Es, pues, más útil oír y tratar de comprender lo que se dice en una lengua, que tratar de hablarla por sí mismo? ”

“ One can find something like a palliation for people making themselves somewhat foolish about particular languages, literatures, and people. The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and there is something wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its literature contains the grand book of the world. ”

“ When we converse—in their own language—with the educated Spanish American folk, we find them full of wise saws and modern instances. They are shrewd and philosophical, and the Spanish language abounds with proverbs and aphorisms applicable to the things of everyday life. ”

“ Spanish alone was understood or spoken here; our friend, the countryman, stuck to us most nobly, he understood us not a bit better than the rest but saw that we were in distress and would not desert us. ”

“ So much of this superior merit seemed to me to exist in modern Spanish literature, that I ventured to think the English public would receive favourably this attempt to make them acquainted with it. If it should fail, the blame must attach to the translator; if it be received favourably, there is yet a rich mine of intellectual wealth in store to reward the labours of those who choose to undertake it. ”

“ Our style, in fact, is, at present, quite unsettled—fluctuating between the wordy pomposity of our old writers, without their ease, and the epigrammatic conciseness of second-rate French writers, stripped of their sprightliness and graces. As long, however, as we are condemned to the dead silence in which the nation has been kept for centuries, there is little chance of fixing any standard of taste for Spanish eloquence. ”

“ To a true student study in itself is a delight—still more that study which makes the realization of a long-cherished purpose possible. The señor, I know, reads Spanish, since so perfectly he speaks it"—this with a gracious movement of the hands and a courteous inclination of the body that enhanced the value of the compliment—"but does the señor read with ease our ancient Spanish script?" ”

“ You are letting yourselves be deceived by big words and never go to the bottom of things to examine the results in their final analysis. Spanish will never be the general language of the country, the people will never talk it, because the conceptions of their brains and the feelings of their hearts cannot be expressed in that language—each people has its own tongue, as it has its own way of thinking! ”

“ We are not slaves, and we desire to say that the Spanish custom is not to our liking,—for every one to take care of himself, instead of assisting one another in their daily labours. [55] This is the plain truth which we say to your Excellency, that it may be attended to:—if it is not, this people, like the rest, will be lost. ”

“ Zounds, comrades, come with me, and within a fortnight your pockets shall be full of Spanish doubloons, and the pretty girls, who today are so coy, will then lavish their most charming smiles on you—down with the Spaniards, brothers! ”

“ It has been observed that no European language possesses a true equivalent for your English word comfort; and, considering the state of this country, Spanish would have little chance of producing a similar substantive, were it not for some of our nuns, who, as they make a constant practical study of the subject, may, at length, enrich our dictionary with a name for what they know so well without it. Their comforts, however, poor souls! ”

“ Let us all make the most of our time before we start. In the first place, the language of the people among whom we are going is Spanish, and we must all learn to speak it well before we leave. For the next three months we will work together at grammar and exercises, and then I will try and get some Spanish teacher to live in the house, and speak the language with us until we go. ”

“ They were surprised to find there a lad as dark-skinned as themselves, who in a resistless flood of Spanish welcomed them like brothers, assuring them in the most high-flown terms of Spanish courtesy that the office and all it contained was theirs, and would be honored by suffering destruction at their hands. ”

“ Oh! let but any man, who has a care for the progressive happiness of the species, peruse merely that epitome of Spanish wisdom and benevolence and 'amplitude of mind for highest deeds' which, in the former part of this investigation, I have laid before the reader: let him listen to the reports—which they, who really have had means of knowledge, and who are worthy to speak upon the subject, will give to him—of the things done or endured in every corner of Spain ”

“ I could but admire the facility and ease with which these South American men of affairs expressed themselves in English, and I thought, how few there were of us who could thus readily express ourselves in Spanish. It came to me forcibly that the American who is truly far-sighted, is the one who is acquiring, and having his children acquire, a good speaking knowledge of Spanish; for the time is surely coming when our need of Spanish will be far greater than to-day. ”

“ Folktale themes abound in Spanish literature and offer a great and fruitful field of study; and may, together with Spanish American tales, throw considerable light on the history and development of the Spanish folktale. A thesis [3] has been placed at my disposal which cites published texts of tales from Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico and Porto Rico of fifty types. I include these references under type headings without checking or analyzing them. I wish to express my thanks to Miss Dean for permission to use this material. ”

“ If you insist upon being English and doing as you would in England you will have a very bad time among a people who are the proudest and the most sensitive in Europe. Cast your British prejudices to the wind, and try to be Spanish, and you will carry home with you pleasant memories which will last you all your life. We decided to be Spanish down to the ground, to treat every man as a grandee, and to praise every{34}thing we saw with all the adjectives we could find the Spanish for in our dictionary. ”

“ It's just because I have mastered one language besides my own. I've spoken Spanish ever since I can remember, first with the little Mexican children around the ranch, and later I learned it properly with a teacher who wanted to pick it up. ”

“ Unfortunately for the development of Spanish countries the mental activity of the people is principally manifested in an exuberant imagination which finds expression in superlative and poetical language. ”

“ A Spanish proverb says, "El cielo y suelo es bueno, el entresuelo malo"—The sky is good, the earth is good; that only is bad which lies between the sky and the earth. Continuous effort, or patient labour, is for the Spaniard an insupportable thing. Half through indolence, half through pride, he cannot bend to work. ”

“ The cares of life apparently rest very lightly on them, while their clothing is more airy than all—the little baby-girls with only a pair of ear-rings, the boys dressed in the shadow of the nurse, or night falling softly on them. What a multitude of unformed thoughts enter our minds as we look at the novel sights appearing before us, where only a foreign language is sounding in our ears! They all speak the Spanish, which is derived mostly from the Latin, and resembles it, except some words from the Arabic, which came into use with them after Spain was conquered by the Moors. ”

“ Their language (if one may call such jargon language) is very poor, seeing one word signifies abundance of things. There are none but those born in the country that can understand it; and I am told that to the end it may be more particularly theirs they make no use of it in writing: they make their children learn to read and write French and Spanish according to which King’s subjects they are. ”

“ I cherish a hope which, perhaps, may be chimerical and ridiculous, that the Spanish reader thirty or forty years hence, who takes up my books, whose sensibilities, it may be, have been a little less hardened into formalism than those of the reader of today, will both appreciate and dislike me more intelligently. ”

“ This phrase often occurs in Spanish chronicles, after a long description of a man's virtues, his charity, love of the church, and kindness to the poor, and it is apparently inserted as at least as important a statement as any of the others. ”

“ Also all the English are very rich, for they come here from a long distance, and they paint pictures, and all that is very expensive. Another thing that I can tell you about the English is that they are all very tall. Every Englishman that I have seen (she had seen four) is much taller than we Spanish are. ”

“ A beautiful trait of character and a lovely custom of the Spanish peasantry appear in their love for parents. They yield to them obedience, respect, veneration, and love, after they are aged, and the children are men and women grown. ”

“ What a name! Was it love or praise?
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name's sake. ”

“ Two of P. Silverio’s five volumes are entirely filled with commentaries and documents. I have selected from the documents those of outstanding interest to readers with no detailed knowledge of Spanish religious history and have been content to summarize the editor’s introductions to the individual works, as well as his longer footnotes to the text, and to omit such parts as would interest only specialists, who are able, or at least should be obliged, to study them in the original Spanish. ”

“ I don't travel on stilts much, yet it does a man good to play pretty now and then; besides, you can say things in the Spanish that are all right, but would sound simple-minded in English. English is the tongue to yank a beef critter out of an alkali hole with, but give me Spanish when I want to feel dressed up. ”

“ Spanish, on the real dignity which there often is in doing things for ourselves, rather than in standing by and suffering others to do them for us: Who has a mouth, let him not say to another, Blow. [170] And as a part of this which I have called the manliness of proverbs, let me especially note the noble utterances which so many contain, summoning to a brave encountering of adverse fortune, to perseverance under disappointment and defeat and a long-continued inclemency of fate; breathing as they do, a noble confidence that for the brave and bold the world will not always be adverse. ”