THE MAGIC OF SPAIN
THE MAGIC
OF SPAIN
BY AUBREY F. G. BELL
Or vous aurez loisir
Cheminant en Espagne
Bien que maintes montagnes
Il vous faudra monter.
_Pilgrims’ Song._
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD,
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXII.
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
NOTE
This is rather a collection of stray notes on Spain than a connected
study--of notes from many pleasant hours of Spanish literature and
travel, but perhaps of too individual an interest to appear without some
apology. No reference will be found to those great social and political
problems which disturb Spanish life. To fill the idler moments of a
Spanish holiday, and possibly to help the reader to feel that “parfum du
terroir” which pervades Spain, is the unambitious object of these pages.
Better still, if he turns from them in dissatisfaction to authoritative
writers on Spanish life and letters, and to the magic-land of Spanish
literature itself. For permission to reprint some of these short essays
in slightly altered form the author has to thank the Editors of the
_Morning Post_, the _Outlook_, and the _Queen_.
PREFACE
It is not easy in a few words to account for the strange Oriental spell
that Spain has exercised over many minds nor to explain the potency of
its attraction. For indeed the great Peninsula possesses a special spice
and flavour. It has not the immemorial culture of Italy, nor the
pleasant smiling landscapes of France with her green meadows and crystal
streams. The old Iberia, that _dura tellus_, has a peculiar raciness.
Its colour is often harsh and crude; many of its districts are barren
and discomfortable. The bleak and rocky uplands and the ragged sierra
ridges cut the country into sharp divisions and cause it to be thinly
and variously populated. On those uplands the breath of the wind is
often icy and the sun strikes with a biting force. Great parched and
desolate plains extend treeless and unprotected two thousand feet above
the sea. The villages at distant intervals are of the colour of the
soil, and scarcely to be distinguished from a mass of yellow-brown
rocks. Morning and evening a string of mules may be seen outlined on the
horizon, for the peasants set out in bands to till their distant fields;
or a shepherd with his flock of sheep, or goats, relieves the strange
monotony of this dust-laden windy desert. Nothing could be sadder or
less harmonious than the peasants’ harsh and strident singing, the very
peculiarity of which has, however, a piquancy and charm. Hard too is
their language, with its clean gutturals, far rougher and manlier than
the musical sister-tongue of Italy. All points to a like conclusion,
that this is no country of comfort and soft languorous delight, but of a
quaint and forcible originality, where the most jaded mind may be braced
and inspirited and find a fresher and more stirring life.
In Spain the sharpness of contrasts precludes any feeling of weariness
or satiety. There are regions of luxuriant growth and African sun
bounded by mountains of eternal snow. Through the plain a river glides
among orange groves and grey olives; in the shaded _patios_ of the city
silver fountains keep the air cool and fresh, and on the coldest night
in winter the temperature is still some degrees above the
freezing-point. Yet here, in the most fiery heat of summer, we may lift
up our eyes to the hills and look on the snowy sierra against the deep
blue of the sky; and if a shower, in this region of little rain, falls
upon the low-lying districts, it adds but another coat of whiteness to
the neighbouring range. It is indeed a strange and fascinating land, a
_Land voll Sonnenschein_ and fierce blinding light, yet a land of
shrill, piercing blasts and icy air, a land of many various elements
both of climate and population. It is no wonder that its inhabitants are
of a character strongly individual and preserve the original Iberian
strain. A racy pithiness of speech is theirs. In no country are proverbs
more common, and a string of them can indeed form a peasant’s
conversation, pungent as the rosaries of red _piments_ that hang on the
balconies of farms.
It was in Spain that the rogue-story, the _novela de pícaros_,
originated, and the Spanish novelists of the last thirty years have
given free rein to the local types of various parts of Spain. Nowhere
has provincialism continued to be so clearly marked. In other countries
better communications have corrupted the local manners into a conformity
of excellence. In Spain the nature of the country, with its rough
mountain barriers and turbulent unnavigable rivers, still protects
originality and keeps the character of the provinces distinct, and the
native of Andalucía continues to despise the native of Galicia and to be
ridiculed by the native of Castille. This does not make for material
prosperity, but it constitutes a country of the picturesque and
unexpected, a country where imagination is not dead, and where the
artist and poet find their true home. Not the least attraction to them
perhaps is the Spanish improvidence and absence of method, and the gay
living from hand to mouth. An unwary traveller in the wilder districts
may easily find himself half-perishing from scarcity of food, and lost
in an intricate labyrinth of ways between far-distant villages. “A bad
thing, sirs, it is to have a lack of bread,” sang the poet of the
twelfth-century _Poema del Cid_. The hardy peasant of the poorer
regions lives scantily from day to day on the product of the niggard
soil, won by patient labour. The peasant in more fertile parts does not
necessarily fare better, but he labours magnificently less. The
deliberate method of prosperity and success is held in small esteem. The
mighty Empire of Spain was in fact the affair of a generation only. From
the time of Philip II. onwards the Spanish Empire might aptly be
compared with the Cid’s corpse, for, though by its prestige and the
favour of heaven it might continue to reap fresh victories, it was
nevertheless irrevocably dead and awaiting dissolution. And it is the
improvidence of Spain that has charmed the foreigner. For, eager as he
is to admire its poetic aspects, in his inmost soul he often regards
himself as incomparably superior, and hurries home to civilization with
a sheaf of curious details negligently gleaned.
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. Unchanging and impassive, her cities
seem to mock the stranger, and the roughness of the intervening
wildernesses discourages him. But he returns again and again to this
remote and mediæval country, that in his practical eyes should be so
rich and is so poor. The repulses he receives whet his curiosity and
increase his ardour. Yet Spain is not, in spite of its many tourists, a
country of foreign colonies. To the Englishman this fact brings a
striking novelty, for he may visit Switzerland and Italy and France and
scarcely leave the atmosphere of England, but in Spain he will find no
difficulty in following Bacon’s advice to the traveller in foreign
countries to “sequester himself from the company of his countrymen.”
CONTENTS
PAGE
NOTE v
PREFACE vii
I. SPANISH CHARACTER--
i. Some Stray Opinions 17
ii. Vain Generalities 25
II. TRAVELLING IN SPAIN 47
III. ON THE SPANISH FRONTIER 57
IV. ESKUAL-ERRIA--
i. Basque Country 66
ii. Basque Customs 72
V. IN REMOTE NAVARRE 80
VI. SPANISH CITIES 85
VII. IN OLD CASTILLE 92
VIII. THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 97
IX. THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN 104
X. AN EASTERN VILLAGE 108
XI. OFF THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN 112
XII. THE JUDGING OF THE WATERS 120
XIII. SEVILLE IN WINTER 125
XIV. FROM A SEVILLE HOUSETOP 129
XV. FEBRUARY IN ANDALUCÍA 134
XVI. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH LITERATURE 142
XVII. THE POEM OF THE CID--
i. A Primitive Masterpiece 153
ii. Valencia del Cid 157
XVIII. A PRISONER OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION--
i. Novedades 163
ii. Salamanca University 165
iii. In a Valladolid Dungeon 169
iv. Ex forti dulcedo 178
XIX. THE MODERN SPANISH NOVEL--
i. Revival. Fernán Caballero 185
ii. 1870-1900 191
iii. In the Twentieth Century 201
XX. NOVELS OF GALICIA 214
XXI. NOVELS OF THE MOUNTAIN--
i. “Savour of the Soil” 222
ii. “On the Heights” 231
XXII. CASTILIAN PROSE 239
XXIII. TOLEDO AND EL GRECO 244
INDEX 259
THE MAGIC OF SPAIN
I
SPANISH CHARACTER
I.--STRAY OPINIONS
To collect a mass of isolated and contradictory opinions concerning the
Spanish is a comparatively simple task, although it is difficult or
impossible to derive from them a consistent picture of Spanish
character. To Wellington they are “this extraordinary and perverse
people,” to whom to boast of Spain’s strength was a natural weakness.
“Procrastination and improvidence are their besetting sins,” says
Napier, and of their conduct in the Peninsular War: “Of proverbially
vivid imagination and quick resentments, the Spaniards act individually
rather than nationally, and, during this war, what appeared constancy of
purpose was but a repetition of momentary fury generated like electric
sparks by constant collision with the French.” “The Spaniards are
perfect masters of saying everything and doing nothing.” They have
dignified sentiments and lofty expressions, but taken with their deeds
these are “but a strong wind blowing shrivelled leaves.” “In the
arrangement of warlike affairs difficulties are always overlooked by the
Spaniards, who are carried on from one phantasy to another so swiftly
that the first conception of an enterprise is immediately followed by a
confident anticipation of complete success.” Though they are “hasty in
revenge and feeble in battle,” they are “patient to the last degree in
suffering.” To the peasants he allows “a susceptibility of grand
sentiments.” They “endure calamity, men and women alike, with a singular
and unostentatious courage. But their virtues are passive, their faults
active, and, instigated by a peculiar arrogance, they are perpetually
projecting enterprises which they have not sufficient vigour to
execute.” “To neglect real resources and fasten upon imaginary projects
is peculiarly Spanish.” A French writer of the same period, General
Marbot, contents himself with observing that the Spanish “ont beaucoup
conservé du caractère des Arabes et sont fatalistes; aussi
répétaient-ils sans cesse ‘Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar,’” but adds
that “ils ont un mérite immense, c’est que, bien que battus, ils ne se
découragent jamais.” Turning to earlier centuries we find that in Livy
and Strabo the Spaniards are obstinate, unsociable, silent, dressed in
black, despisers of death, very sober. In the centuries of Spain’s
greatness the comments naturally thicken, although they are often not
easily reconcilable. To an Italian, Paolo Cortese, at the beginning of
the sixteenth century the Spanish are, in a shower of epithets,
“ambitious, good-natured, curious, greedy, contentious, tenacious,
magnificent, suspicious, sly.” Another Italian, Paolo Tiepolo, later
draws a distinction[1] between those who have travelled and those who
have not left Spain, those former being “per la maggior parte avvisati,
diligenti, tolleranti.” In Pepys we read of the “ceremoniousness of the
Spaniards,” and that “the Spaniards are the best disciplined foot in the
world; will refuse no extraordinary service if commanded, but scorn to
be paid for it as in other countries,” and of “the plain habit of the
Spaniards, how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak of
Colchester bayze, and the ladies mantles in cold weather of white
flannell.” To a learned Spaniard, Masdeu, they are, to quote but a few
of his judgments, “lively, swift in conception, slow and thoughtful in
coming to a resolution, active and effectual in carrying it into
execution. They are the stoutest defenders of religion, and masters in
asceticism.” “Their disinterestedness and honesty in commerce is known
to all. They are frugal at table, especially averse from any excess in
drinking. In conversation they are serious and taciturn, not giving to
biting speech, courteous, affable, and pleasant; they hate flattery, but
they respect others and look to be respected themselves. They speak with
majesty, but without affectation. They are generous, serviceable,
kindly, and have a pleasure in conferring benefits, and they exalt
things foreign more than their own. They have envy, pride, and a love of
glory, but with noble, redeeming qualities. In their attire they are
neat and moderate; when they go abroad they are dressed well and
smartly, but with a befitting gravity.” “They spend with magnificence
and extravagance.” A French traveller, Mme. d’Aulnoy,[2] in the
seventeenth century, says of the Spanish that “Nature has been kinder to
them than they are to themselves; they are born with more wit than
others; they have a great quickness of mind join’d with great solidity;
they speak and deliver their words with ease; they have a great memory;
their style is neat and concise, and they are quick of apprehension; it
is easie to teach them whatever they have a mind to; they are perfect
masters in Politicks, and when there is a necessity for it they are
temperate and laborious.”... “They are patient to excess, obstinate,
idle, singular philosophers; and, as to the rest, men of honour, keeping
their words tho’ it cost them their lives.” She considers their greatest
defect to be a “passion for revenge,” and speaks of “their fantastick
grandeur.” A short account by an Englishman in 1701, has little good to
say of the Spanish, except that they “have an incomparable Zeal to plant
the Catholick Religion.” He notes their sluggishness, their immorality,
and it is, moreover, impossible to distinguish a Spanish Cavalier from a
Cobler, while most of their houses are “of earth and like Mole-hills,
but one storey high.” They have an “esprit orgueilleux,” and treat
strangers “de turc à maure,” says a Frenchman of the same period,[3] so
that the Englishman may have had some slight, some _turc à maure_
experience in Spain. Another Englishman,[4] half a century later, writes
that the Spanish are “generous, liberal, magnificent, and charitable;
religious without dispute, but devout to the greatest excess of
superstition.”... “If they have any predominant fault it is perhaps
that of being rather too high-minded; hence they have entertained, at
different times, the most extravagant conceits.”... “Their cloaths are
usually of a very dark colour, and their cloaks almost black. This shows
the natural gravity of the people.”... “There are no soldiers in the
whole world braver than the Spanish.” Reclus, in his estimate of the
Spanish, has boldly allowed the contrasts and contradictions of Spanish
character to stand side by side. They are “apathetic in daily life, but
of a quick resolution, persistent courage and unwearying tenacity. They
are vain, but if any one has a right to be so, they have. In spite of
their pride they are simple and pleasant in their manners. They esteem
themselves highly, but they are equally ready to recognize the merit of
others. They are very swift and keen to lay a finger on the weak side or
the vices of other people, but never bemean themselves by despising
them. They have a great store of seriousness, a rare firmness of
character. They are contented with their lot and are fatalists. A
mixture of superstition and ignorance, common-sense, and subtle irony;
they are at times ferocious, though naturally of a magnanimous
generosity, fond of revenge, yet forgetting injuries, fond of equality,
yet guilty of oppression.” The verdicts of modern Spanish thinkers have
been mostly pessimistic.[5] Spaniards in the twentieth century have been
busily occupied with analytical introspection, the result of their
national misfortunes and injured pride. They prefer to speak atrociously
of themselves than that foreigners should speak of them only moderately
well. Señor Mallada holds[6] his countrymen to be “idle, unpractical
dreamers.” In Spain, says Ángel Ganivet,[7] “there are many who have no
will, _hay muchos enfermos de la voluntad_”--there is a lack of
concentration, that is of persistent concentration, and a lack of
proportion, of the power to consider more than one idea, more than one
aspect of a question. So _Azorín_ complains that “there is plenty of
insight and rapid vision, but no co-ordination of ideas or steady
fulfilment or will.”[8] In a book by Ricardo León[9] we read that the
Spanish are hostile to their rulers, whoever they may be, and of the
evils of _el Caciquismo_. But the author sees little hope of change in a
country where men live between two extremes, “two fires, two
fanaticisms,” either reactionaries or demagogues; where the currents of
activity and passion are unregulated, where thought is either stagnant
or enmeshed in a gossamer woof of subtle distinctions, and the golden
mean of common-sense is not attained. The inhabitants of Alcalá are
“strong, hard, brave, and stubborn, rigorous in their virtues and their
vices, violent in their loves and hates, tenacious alike of good and of
evil.” To counterbalance their clear intelligence, greatheartedness,
quick imagination and eloquence they have serious defects, “and
especially a certain unrestfulness of spirit, a nervous irritability
which prevents them from living in peace or comfort with themselves or
with others, a true Spanish failing, peculiarly attached both of old and
at the present day to that harsh, turbulent, strongly original character
of the race which has never allowed us rest, but kept us perpetually at
strife, taking umbrage at our very shadows.”... “While there were
infidels to fight, strongholds to defend, vows to fulfil, or even when
there were civil wars and vigorous smuggling and bands of brigands,”
there was scope for the virtues and vices of a people “born and bred
for action and passionate deeds,” “fashioned in battle”; but “on the
advent of the moderate customs of modern times” they find themselves
“out of their natural atmosphere, idle, poor, disconcerted, cramped.”
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.”[10]
In an earlier book[11] Señor León deplores the fashion prevailing in
Spain “to depreciate all that is Spanish, and to bestow great praise on
all that is foreign. A wave of moral cowardice and utilitarian baseness
is passing over Spain.” But Spanish character is not permanently
weakened nor shorn of its dignity and independence, the eclipse is but
temporary and, indeed, partial, not affecting the humbler classes. The
spirit of Spain will revive, as in “El Caballero Encantado,” when it is
being carried from the death-bed to the grave,[12] and may be aptly
likened, as by Don Rafael Altamira, to the waters of the Guadiana which,
after flowing for a space underground, return once more to the surface.
II.--VAIN GENERALITIES.
“And indeed,” wrote Pepys, “we do all naturally love the Spanish and
hate the French,” and if, since his day, we have learned to love the
French, the character of the Spanish has not ceased to attract and
interest Englishmen. Yet any attempt to generalize concerning Spanish
character would seem a vain and foolish task, since Spain is the country
of Europe which has most stringently preserved its local differences of
race and language, and it is still true, as in Ford’s time, that “the
rude agricultural Gallician, the industrious manufacturing artisan of
Barcelona, the gay and voluptuous Andalucian, the sly vindictive
Valencian are as essentially different from each other as so many
distinct characters at the same masquerade,” and the Basque[13] and
_andaluz_, for instance, are as far apart as Frenchman and Spaniard. It
is possible to take the various ingredients, Castilian pride,[14]
Catalan thrift,[15] Andalusian imagination, Gallegan dullness,[16] the
grimness of Navarre, the stubbornness of Aragon,[17] Valencian or
Murcian cunning, and, tying them into a convenient bundle, to speak of
the Spanish as proud, thrifty, etc., or, in a more pessimistic key, as
haughty, avaricious, untruthful, stolid, cruel, obstinate, malicious.
But, though such a judgment is notoriously false, a few qualities may
perhaps be attributed to the whole of Spain as in some measure common to
her various peoples. Foremost among these qualities are independence and
personal dignity. The Spaniards are a nation of individualists, each a
law unto himself, and they are thus as a nation frequently misunderstood
and their pride has not suffered them to correct errors concerning them,
while at the same time it would perhaps be difficult to find in any
other nation so great a number of individuals whom one may admire and
respect. The dramatist Don Jacinto Benavente has said[18] that in Spain
“each of us would like to be the only great man in a nation of fools,
the only honest man in a tribe of knaves,” and speaks of “our unbridled
individualism.” No one is a more thorough individualist than Don Pío
Baroja, and the principal character of his novel, _César ó Nada_,
declares that the Spanish, “as individualists require, more than a
democratic, federal organization, an iron military discipline.”
“Democracy, Republicanism, Socialism have in reality little root in our
country.... Moreover we admit no superiorities and do not willingly
accept king or president, priest or prophet.” It is this refractoriness
which has made the Spanish so hard a people to govern, and wrought
permanent mischief to their prosperity as a nation. They would seem to
have still to learn the true dignity of loyalty and service. Every
Spaniard, of however humble a position, considers that he is well
qualified to criticize the measures of his rulers, and still more the
fancied measures that he chooses to attribute to them. Thus in a
Republic every citizen would believe himself to be capable of conducting
the affairs of the nation better than the President, as Sancho was
convinced that he could govern his island as well or better than any;
nevertheless Spaniards are inclined to acquiesce in a firm unquestioned
authority with a kind of heroical submission, accepting its decisions as
they accept the inevitable decrees of fate, and for this reason an
old-established system of government, such as the Monarchy, is
infinitely the best suited to the Spanish temperament. No doubt they
would prefer to have no system of government, if that were possible,
being restive and tumultuous under restraint. On one occasion a Spanish
_chauffeur_ while driving his mistress considered that he had been
insulted by a passer in the street and, leaving mistress and motor,
proceeded to punish the offender till the police interfered.[19] And if
the Spanish find it difficult to work harmoniously under the orders of
others, it is no easier for them to maintain a joint authority; they can
never co-operate for long, their political parties and commercial unions
rapidly fall asunder like the seeds of a pomegranate. Similarly one may
see at a glance of any Spanish crowd that it is not a fused mass but a
collection of units remaining aloof and separate; if the individual
gains, the State suffers, and Spanish politics sometimes have an air of
cramping angularities and crude ambitions. But this individualism and
independence has its nobler and more pleasant side, for even in extreme
poverty and distress, dignity and an accompanying courtesy, honesty, and
sobriety,[20] rarely desert the Spaniard. Each is king in his own
house, be it miserable attic or merely the space of sun that his shadow
covers; _mientras en mi casa me estoy rey me soy_. The following
dialogue bears intrinsic evidence of its nationality, it could not
belong to any country but Spain: “Is your worship a thief?”--“Yes, to
serve God and all good people.”[21] Thus personal dignity and individual
pride may be said to be the dominant notes of Spain. So the beggars in
the street address one another as Sir, _señor_, lord, and if you cannot
give them an alms for the good of your soul you must at least give
excuses--_perdone Vd. por Dios_. While we admire this independence we
cannot help seeing that it is a false dignity, which prefers to starve,
like one of the characters in Pérez Galdós’ _Fortunata y Jacinta_,
because “_mi dinidá y sinificancia no me permiten_--my dignity and
importance do not allow me,” to accept employment. The fair outward show
given to garret poverty is pathetic, but it is liable to deceive and to
create distrust. Mme. d’Aulnoy remarked that the Spanish “bear up under
this Indigency with such an air of gravity as would cheat one.”
In _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ Don Adriano de Armado says to Moth that he is
“ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster,” but to Moth’s
observation, “You are a gentleman and a gamester, Sir,” he answers
well-pleased, “I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete
man” (_todo un hombre_). The Spanish have ever shown themselves to be
ill at reckoning, they are careless of details and have indeed an
Oriental incuriousness of facts and figures; in no country is it more
difficult to obtain accurate returns or consecutive statistics. Against
all drudgery the Spanish temperament rebels[22]; they act by impulse, in
disconnected moments without persistency; their concentration is of
instants,[23] without consequence; and it has been observed that “Spain
has developed her life and art by means of spiritual convulsions.” What
is said in one of Pérez Galdós’ novels[24] of Narváez might with truth
be applied to many Spaniards: “He has a great heart and a great
intelligence, but they manifest themselves only by fits and starts, by
impulses, _por arranques_.” There is plenty of intelligence among
Spaniards but little continuity of judgment; no perseverance. They are
enthusiastic for a project and, their thoughts outrunning action, they
see the matter begun, in progress, finished, so that their very keenness
prevents accomplishment, and finally nothing is done. Don Quixote, we
remember, thought little of the winning of a kingdom and cutting off a
giant’s head: “all that I consider already done, _que todo esto doy ya
for hecho._” Or sometimes their intelligence mars their labour and, not
content with doing a simple thing simply, they spoil it by being a
little too clever, or decide a matter too readily by a swift judgment
that may happen to be false. The Spanish are a people of immense and
abiding energy,[25] but their energy is often dormant or misdirected.
Two Spaniards in the twentieth century have been seen to converse with
so fierce an intensity that it seemed over and over again in the course
of a protracted and loud discussion that they must come from words to
blows; and the matter in dispute, conducted with a heat that would have
exhausted less energetic natures, was whether it was right or wrong to
expel the Moriscos from Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. Yet it is not certain that the Spanish can be called
unpractical; they are often idle, indifferent, aloof from the events of
daily life, but when a matter truly interests them, they would seem to
be sufficiently shrewd and practical. King James I. of Aragon aimed an
accusation at the Castilians which has often been applied to all
Spaniards: “You do nothing without extravagance.[26]” But a fundamental
ingredient of Spanish character is realism and clear vision; it is
their birthright of transparent subtle air and unclouded skies. They are
keen to detect all falseness and hypocrisy, and display a shrewd insight
into character; but their study has been ever of persons rather than of
books and things,[27] so that they may act extravagantly themselves even
while they are the first to see another’s extravagance, keenly
practical, it may be said, in the affairs of others, strangely abstract
and improvident in their own. Their realism, if it drives them by
reaction into a barren love of words and visions of impossible ideals,
expresses itself in a directness which is very characteristic of all
classes of Spaniards, in the pregnant brevity of countless proverbs, in
concentrated intensity at a given moment, in humour and satire and a
strong love of ridicule. Their proverbs show a thriftiness and practical
good sense very different from the prudence that enriches, but equally
far removed from the romantic view of Spaniards sometimes held by
foreigners. In noble lines Calderón has said of life that it is “a
shadow, a fantasy, and the greatest good is of small worth, since all
life is a dream and dreams themselves a dream”:--
¿qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño,
que toda la vida es sueño
y los sueños sueño son;
but we may doubt whether the following lines of Lope de Vega are not as
truly Spanish in spirit:--
Nada me parece bien,
Todos me son importunos.--
¿Teneis dineros?--Ningunos.--
Pues procurad que os los den.
“I see no good in anything; all men weary me.--Have you
money?--None--Then see that you get some given you.”[28] An almost harsh
flavour of originality is found in Spanish humour, a sly and malicious
irony, a biting wit, full of gaiety and good-humour, but of great force
and directness. Their courtesy is proverbial, and it is not simply a
superficial politeness, brittle as glass, but goes to the very core of
the man. A knowledge of Spain would seem to show that the mere forms of
politeness have no little effect in maintaining the dignity of a nation.
The Spaniard, writing from his own house, speaks of it as _esta su
casa_, this your house, and to a tradesman he will sign himself, “Your
sure servant, who kisses your hands” (S.S.S., Q.B.S.M. which is shorter
than the corresponding English, “Yours faithfully”); mere forms, it will
be said, but forms that show the spirit and betray the lordly and
generous magnificence of the men who once ruled the world, and of whom
Bacon wrote: “I have marvelled sometimes at Spain, how they clasp and
contain so large dominions with so few natural Spaniards.” As a kind of
magnificent disregard of human life has earned for Spaniards the charge
of cruelty, so their attitude towards time has led many to look upon
them as lazy and utterly unbusinesslike.[29] “The Spartans and Spaniards
have been noted to be of small dispatch,” says Bacon, and this
procrastination and delay was as prominent in the spacious times of
Spain’s greatness as at the present day. We need but think of the
endless trailing procedure of Inquisition trials, or of books waiting on
the frontier for inspection with a man hired to dust them once a month.
In ordinary life it is due perhaps rather to indifference and disdain
than to an innate sluggishness; in official transactions formalism, and
the inability to co-operate with others often bring matters to an
intricate pass of papers, from which there is no issue but by a patient
and slow unravelling. Even to-day a rigid centralization carries the
pettiest affair to Madrid for settlement, and lays upon the Prime
Minister a crushing load of work. Etiquette is carried to excess, and
there are in Spain many “formal natures,” men who would perish upon a
ceremony rather than come to a quick and common-sense conclusion. But
the true defect of Spanish politics is that they have a tendency to
become abstract, with many excellent formulas and catchwords, but
divorced from reality, a kind of up-to-date scholasticism. Sometimes
they appear to be a game of dialectics, carried on by a few skilful
players, sometimes a “rushing splendour of rhetoric,” carrying away
many. Spaniards are fond of what Butler calls “that idle and not very
innocent employment of forming imaginary models of the world and schemes
of governing it.” Spanish politicians, says Señor Pérez Galdós, “live in
a world of rituals and formulas, recipes and expedients. The language
has filled with aphorisms and mottos and emblems. Ideas become
stereotyped, and contemplated actions go seeking to embody themselves in
words and cannot make their choice of them.”[30] It would seem indeed
that reality has shown itself so angular and hard-featured to the
Spanish that they gladly make efforts to escape from it. While no nation
shows so great a courage, endurance and patient endeavour in misfortune
and defeat, they are not equally successful in success, they are often
spoilt by prosperity and become weak, dissolute and frivolous; they must
have something to fight, and fall when they no longer press against
opposition. This may account for the fact that the poorer classes are
still, as in Ford’s time, “by no means the worst portion of the
population.” The peasants are courteous, intelligent, patient, energetic
and persevering: their praises have been sung by many writers.[31] But a
pathetic fatalism and apathy prevail, and a great bitterness against
those in authority. _Pobreza nunca alza cabeza_, poverty never raises
its head, they say, _la cárcel y la cuaresma para los pobres es hecha_,
prison and Lent are for the poor; they look for no bettering of their
lot, but for _pan y paciencia y muerte con penitencia_--bread and
patience and death with repentance. But it must be said that the fault
is not only of those “on top,” but of those also who, brooking no
superiorities of any kind,[32] thus reduce differences between man and
man to the brutal divisions of wealth and poverty and make life a race
for riches. It remains true, however, that the peasants of Spain are
ground down by taxes,[33] and work incessantly only to hover on the
fringes of starvation; _todo sea por Dios_, they say, and content
themselves with the observation that honesty and riches do not fit into
one sack--_honra y provecho no caben en un saco_. There is a certain
elemental hardness in the Spanish which helps them to support hardships
stoically and, indeed, to be scornful of modern comforts and luxury.
Their indifference towards disquiet and discomfort and noisy uproar[34]
often dismays the foreigner, but it is not that they are inconsiderate
of the feelings of others, they have a deep sensitiveness and
refinement, but they have not been enervated and rendered over-sensitive
by a luxurious civilization. Their climate, with its harsh extremes of
cold and heat,[35] produces a people like that of León’s _Alcalá de los
Zegríes_, “rigorous in their virtues and their vices, violent in their
loves and hates.” They go easily to extremes; Spanish intellects are apt
to be either totally undeveloped, or else over-subtle in nice
distinctions, and action in the same way, when it comes, comes with
violence and excess, like the rivers of Spain which, parched all summer,
pour down after rain in rushing torrents. The charges of cruelty and
fanaticism, the bull-fight and the _auto-de-fé_, have fixed themselves
upon the Spanish. They are by nature inflexible and uncompromising, and
like to carry out their principles without looking to the many delicate
shades of grey between white and black. But they are not by nature
cruel; they support bodily sufferings with courage and inflict them upon
others as the lesser of two evils, burning the heretics to prevent the
spread of their heresy; and indeed to men convinced that these
“pertinacious schismaticks” were to burn for ever and ever in another
place, a touch of fire in this life could hardly seem an excessive
punishment.[36] Cruelty to animals on the roads of Spain is extremely
rare, and at the bull-fights[37] it is only fair to observe that, while
the foreigner’s attention is directed to the sufferings of the horses,
the whole mind of the Spaniard is bent on intricacies of the conflict
between man and bull, and nice passes which escape the foreigner.[38]
The _autos-de-fé_ and the Inquisition have cast over Spain a reputation
for fanaticism and obscurantist bigotry. But the Spanish, while eager
supporters of their faith, are too independent to bow down for long to a
Clerical predominance; they cannot be called a priest-ridden nation.[39]
_Ni buen fraile por amigo, ni malo por enemigo_, says one of their
proverbs--make no friend of a good monk, nor enemy of a bad; and again,
_Haz lo que dice el fraile no lo que hace_--follow the monk’s precept,
not his example. They believe uncompromisingly in the Roman Catholic
religion, but have a ready eye for the faults of its ministers; they
love and reverence the Church as a refuge from reality, but continue to
be realists in their mysticism. The Church in Spain has done noble work,
but it has been a retreat more than a morality, encouraging hollow shows
rather than love of truth,[40] patience and submission rather than
enterprise and a persistent search for remedies. The anti-Clericals
complain that the influence of the priest in the family is excessive,
but when the women are kept in a semi-Oriental seclusion, while the men
chatter together in street and casino and café, as still happens in many
parts of Spain,[41] it is but natural for the women to turn from the
discomfort and isolation of their homes to the magnificent ceremonies of
the Church.[42] The Spaniards are naturally inclined to generosity and a
love of magnificence, but, their poverty preventing, this too often
degenerates to shams and hollowness. To poverty and the proud
concealment of poverty, much of the feeling of suspicion which prevails
in Spain may be attributed. A large number of Spaniards may be said to
be well-to-do in the street, poverty-stricken in the home. The family
in Pereda’s _Bocetos al temple_ which chooses without a moment’s
hesitation to live on potatoes in order to be able to dress luxuriously,
is no solitary instance, and in Madrid many live in bare rooms who drive
abroad in carriages. The Spanish are more careful of outward show than
any other nation. The universal neatness and soldierly smartness of
their dress must excite admiration. But watch a poor man fold and refold
the brilliantly lined outer edge of his _capa_ that the more worn
portions of the velvet may not appear--the _capa_ which may itself cover
a multitude of sins (_la capa todo lo tapa_) that recalls the passage in
Shakespeare:--
“_Armado_: The naked truth of it is I have no shirt. I go woolward
for penance.
_Boyet_: True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen.”
Or follow a smart officer through the streets to his house. The position
and entrance of the house will not prepare you for its decreasing
splendour as you climb stair after stair to the bare rooms where he
lives. There is much that is _postizo_, false and artificial, in the
exterior view, as Spaniards will themselves bitterly confess.
Appearances must be maintained. So Bacon says that “It hath been an
opinion that the Frenchmen are wiser than they seem and the Spaniards
seem wiser than they are,” and many of their houses are built not to
live in but to look on. Hence, partly, a disquieting element of
mistrust, of “suspicions that ever fly by twilight” foreign to the
frank and open nature of true Spaniards. “Of every Spanish undertaking,”
writes Señor Benavente in 1909, “it may be said as of the famous
_Cortes_ that it is ‘dishonoured while yet unborn.’ The result is that
he who is jealous of his good name shuns contact with all business
affairs like pitch, and the affairs fall into the hands of men who are
untroubled by scruples.... All these suspicions and distrusts are a sign
rather of our poverty than of our morality. There is so great a scarcity
of money that it becomes unintelligible that any one who has the
handling of it should fail to keep a part for himself.... We are,
moreover, so firmly attached to old-fashioned ideas of
nobility--_rancias hidalguías_--that, in spite of our pressing need of
money, we still consider its acquisition contemptible; so we prefer to
seek it by subterranean channels as if it were a crime to seek it in the
light of day.”
Suspicion of new things has ever been at once the strength and the
weakness of Spain.[43] In the nineteenth century this suspicion
expressed itself in patriotism carried to its extreme logical
conclusion. Were Napoleon’s reforms of a nature to benefit Spain in an
inestimable degree? To the Spaniard they were the tyrannical and
insidious measures of a usurper. Was his brother Joseph intelligent,
well-intentioned, conciliatory? To the Spaniard he was ever the
squint-eyed drinker, _Pepe Botellas_, and it was idle to insist that he
did not squint, and did not drink. Was King Amadeo an enlightened,
courageous, and self-effacing ruler? To the Spaniard he was an intruder,
to be treated with neglect, insolence or disdain. This distrust may have
been foolish and harmful to the interests of Spain, but it was in many
respects noble and admirable. To-day, however, we have rather the
reverse side of the picture, a pessimism about all things Spanish, and a
foolish tendency to imitate things foreign. Beneath his outer _capa_ of
haughty pride the Spaniard is keenly aware of his limitations; he has no
confidence in his own actions or in his country, or, rather, his
confidence is merely momentary and is never sustained. It is, no doubt,
a sign not of progress but degeneracy to exchange the Spanish _capa_,
peculiarly suited to a climate of hot sun and cold air, for English
overcoats or the becoming mantilla for the newest fashion in Parisian
hats. It is not necessarily a sign of progress to exchange old-fashioned
Spanish piety for the latest shades of scepticism, or to leave the
simple life of an _hidalgo_ in the provinces for the idler, dissipated
life in the only capital and court. The desire to be very modern is at
present a good thing in Spain, yet it need not consist in casting aside
old traditions and diffidently rejecting Spanish customs that are
excellent. This exalting of foreign customs and depreciation of their
own which has been frequently observed of Spaniards, is due rather to
an inverted pride than to humility; at the beginning of the nineteenth
century it was considered a mark of culture in Spain to despise things
Spanish and to worship things French, but all the time the Spanish
believe at heart in themselves,[44] they praise foreign countries with
their lips, but continue to place Spain first, and if they imitate, they
cast a peculiarly Iberian flavour over their imitations. The late Bishop
Creighton, looking at Spain historically, remarked that it “leaves the
curious impression of a country which never did anything original--now
the Moors, now France, now Italy, have influenced it.” If this is so,
certainly the Moors, and France, and Italy have wrought some of their
most original works in Spain; and it can hardly be said that the great
Spanish discoverers and conquerors, painters, philosophers, and poets of
the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries were not original,
whether they were influenced by Moors, Frenchmen, or Italians.[45] But,
indeed, the Spaniard more readily repels than assimilates, it is his
virtue and his defect; he remains isolated and alone, difficult to
convince, impossible to govern. New political and social theories from
France are spread in Spain, but they there serve progress less than
disquiet and the rancour of those who have not towards those who have.
The reforms needed by Spain will not be furthered by riots and disorder,
and the demagogues who encourage them are perhaps less patriotic than
they profess to be. For Spain needs peace, long periods of tranquillity
in which to develop her resources and to learn the more difficult task
of maintaining in prosperity that strength and independent nobility of
character which have shone out so clearly in misfortune. The conclusion
then, if so desultory a study warrants a conclusion, is that the Spanish
are a fundamentally noble, courteous, and independent people, energetic
and brave, with a natural tendency to grandeur and generosity, whom
poverty often leads to hollow display and the consequent suspicion and
distrust. They will be at immense pains to “bear up under their
indigency,” but have a greater consideration for the semblance than for
the reality and substance of well-being, for artificial show, supported
by infinite care and ingenuity, than for a more solid prosperity, based
on serious effort. Their realism, throwing into relief the apparent
pettiness of daily life, causes them to dream dreams and weave fragile
abstract palaces of fair-sounding phrases; they have not that useful
quality of accuracy, an understanding of the value and importance of
details and gradual effort, of pennies and minutes: they will smite a
stone in twain at a great blow, but the idea that it might be pierced by
drops of water _saepe cadendo_ is foreign to them, and often they aim
at a million and miss a unit. They are a nation of strongly original
characters, acting on impulses and intermittently, and thinking in
extremes; often failing in the face of prosperity, but proud, resolute,
and patient in misfortune; often magnificently imprudent, but never
despicable, except to those whose worship is of riches and success; an
admirable but discomfortable people, not adapting itself readily to
modern conditions, but ever to be reckoned with as an energetic, vital
force, not bowing permanently before defeat.
II
TRAVELLING IN SPAIN
It was, of course, Samuel Johnson who said, “There is a good deal of
Spain that has not been perambulated,” and the remark still holds good
for those who, like Don Quixote, wish to “go seeking adventures.” The
brigand stories, “got up,” as Ford would say, “for the home market,” are
now slightly exploded, and few travellers expect to find at every turn--
“Cent coupe-jarrets à faces renégates
Coiffés de montéras et chaussés d’alpargates.”
Yet even to-day few foreigners realize that they may cross and recross
the Peninsula from north to south and from east to west in perfect
security. They will meet with no cloak-and-sword episodes; their
adventures must be of another order. It is true that the Spaniard can
use his knife, but the knife comes into play in quarrels of cards and
love and jealousy, in which the passing traveller can have no part.
Those, however, who measure culture by comfort, and wish to journey as
consistent first-class passengers through life, should certainly narrow
their Spanish travels to the round of a few cities--
“Erret et extremos scrutetur alter Iberos,”