neighbor across the Pyrenees, has little of this chivalrous idealism
among her boys. There are exceptions of course; the manly carriage of
the _brancardiers_ of Lourdes, those bands of young men who voluntarily
serve as bearers of the crippled and stricken, show that a remnant still
exists of the race of the Rochejacqueleins, of the Montalemberts, of
those who can serve, unpaid, an ideal. Frenchmen themselves will not
maintain that such are the average. Whereas the average Spanish, like
the average English lad, has a strong dash of the Quixote and is capable
of disinterested enthusiasm. Proof of this radical difference is that
first important step in manhood, marriage. In Spain there is not the
pernicious system of dowries; as a rule it is personal attraction that
wins a husband. French people will assure you, that though one may be
hump-backed and villainously ill-tempered, if there is a dot one is
married; one may be grace and intelligence incarnate, without the dot
one goes unwedded to the grave; the shrewd, interested love of money is
in young as well as old. Spanish young people are romantic. Midnight
serenades and evening hours of chatting by the _reja_ are signs that
hint marriage here is more than material settlement, love more than an
impulse of nature; Spain's novels tell of this idealism. In many vital
points the Spanish people are more akin to the English than to their
Latin brothers.
The Sunday morning that we took the diligence for our country excursion
started cloudless. La Granja lies seven miles outside Segovia, on the
Guadarrama Mountains, and is the residence of the Court for part of each
summer. The diligence rattled down the precipitous streets of Segovia,
passed under the towering aqueduct, "the devil's bridge" the peasantry
call it, then mounted the swelling hills to the palace at San
Ildefonso. It had formerly been a farm belonging to the monks of La
Parral; Philip V turned it into an artificial French pleasure ground,
and built a formal chateau, a Bourbon creation that is strangely out of
place on the rugged hills. The park is well-wooded but all rural charm
is spoiled by the neo-classic fountains, some of them like monstrous
dreams. Before we reached the leafy avenues of San Ildefonso, the sky
became overcast and a heavy rain began. Five minutes after leaving the
diligence we were so drenched that it seemed as sensible to explore the
palace grounds as to pause chilled and wet in a miserable hotel. Then
when we found the diligence did not return to Segovia till the evening
and that no carriage would start in the storm, in an ill moment we
decided to walk back to the city. A wind that cut like a knife made it a
feat beyond our strength, and some miles along that bleak way, when a
cart passed, we abjectly begged a passage. Yet, standing patiently under
the drenching rain, oblivous to the tearing wind, the contented young
shepherd girls watched their flocks.
If this poor imitation of Versailles has little in itself to charm the
tourist, La Granja has been the scene of so many striking events in
modern Spanish history that it merits a visit. It was there that Godoy,
favorite of Charles IV's wife, signed away Spain to Napoleon, the
criminal act that led to such glorious consequences. For then Spain, the
country which had lain downtrodden under three centuries of misrule,
shedding her blood in wars for her wretched kings' personal ambitions
and giving her treasure for their extravagance, awoke suddenly to life
when she found the king had outraged her. Two young heroes, Daoiz and
Velarde, artillery officers, turned the cannon on the French invaders in
Madrid, that memorable _Dos de Mayo_, 1808, and the War of Independence
began, the starting point of regeneration, the second Cavadonga.
That outburst of national vigor has never had justice done it. We know
the Peninsula War from the English point of view, a ceaseless
disparagement of Spain's part in it.[16] It is true that without the
English armies the war would have dragged on in disorderly, guerrilla
fashion, for misrule had robbed the people of skill in self-government
and organization. But remember the glorious year 1808, whose centenary
all Spain was celebrating during the months of our visit, was before the
arrival of Wellington's troops. The _Dos de Mayo_, the Battle of Bailén,
where a Spanish general with Spanish troops brought about the surrender
of twenty thousand of Napoleon's trained soldiers, and the sieges of
Saragossa and Gerona, unmatched in all modern history for heroism, were
in 1808-1809. It is just to remember that when Germany, Austria, Italy,
and Russia yielded in part to the invader, Spain stood firm against him,
and the nation that Europe thought unnerved and debased "presented a
fulcrum upon which a lever was rested that moved the civilized world."
La Granja has witnessed later historic scenes. When Charles IV betrayed
his people, the nation chose as their king his son, the miserable
Ferdinand VII, who ungratefully repaid their loyalty. Poor Spain, she
has had kings who would have wrecked a less vigorous race. At La Granja,
in 1832, Ferdinand VII changed his will and made his infant daughter,
Isabel II, his heir, instead of his brother, Don Carlos, whom he had
previously acknowledged, thus leaving behind him an inheritance of civil
war. From the days of Urraca and Isabella the Catholic, women could
inherit the throne in Spain, just as they can in England. But in the
18th century under the Bourbon kings, who loved all things French, the
Salic Law was introduced and continued in force till Ferdinand VII
changed it at La Granja. The king had a full right to revert to the
earlier custom, as the Salic Law was an innovation in Spain, and the
grandson of Ferdinand's daughter, Isabel II, the present young Alfonso
XIII, is in truth the legitimate king of the Spains. Don Carlos, on
Ferdinand's death, rose in rebellion, and for seven years a frightful,
fraticidal struggle ravaged the country. This civil war, stamped out in
1840, again burst into flames during the disorders of 1872. To-day,
however, the Carlist faction claims but scattered adherents, chiefly in
the northern provinces. The peaceful termination of these troubles has
been solidified by that noble and truly wise woman, the present queen
dowager, María Cristina, whose strength of character and sincerity of
aim may be said to have safeguarded her son's inheritance during his
long minority.
Another scene took place at La Granja in the early years of Isabel II'
reign, while her mother was regent, a far different regent from the
later Cristina. Though the Constitutional factions had rallied round
Isabel, as the Absolutists had gathered about Don Carlos, it was only
through force, inch by inch, that the Spanish Crown yielded to the
people's demand for a constitutional monarchy. Thus, at La Granja in
1836, the queen mother was intimidated by the army into affirming again
the Constitution of 1812.
This last century in Spain has been a period of such ceaseless
insurrection, such rapid, ill-considered changes of ministries, that it
seems, on hasty survey, to be a hundred years of political chaos.
Perhaps a slight sketch of the events may help to a better
understanding, for running through the century, a thread to the
labyrinth, is the nation's slow, stumbling, but ever forward advance to
constitutional rule. With each disorderly, seemingly unconnected
insurrection, a step ahead was taken, so that to-day an absolute
monarchy is an impossibility in Spain. She may have taken longer than
many European powers to shake off the incubus of the divine right of
kings, but on the other hand, she has achieved her comparative
independence without a king's execution or a terrible, bloody cataclysm.
There has never been in Spain the bitter separation of nobles and
people; together they both worked for their freedom, keeping a fraternal
relationship that is uncommon in history. The Spanish temperament, like
the English, has an intense loyalty and love of tradition; it finds its
happiest condition under a monarchy, but the history of the 19th century
shows it must be a constitutional monarchy; a modern king rules for the
good of the people since he rules by will of the people.
To give a hasty sketch of political progress. Godoy, Charles IV's
unscrupulous minister, brought Napoleon's armies into Spain under the
pretext that they were on their way to conquer Portugal. When some
seventy thousand French troops were on Spanish soil and the people found
their king a slave to the so-called visitors, they suddenly awoke to the
truth, the tocsin of alarm sounded in Madrid, and from one end of the
land to the other they took up arms. Then followed the Guerra de la
Independenzia, 1808 to 1814, that proved to Europe Spain was alive and
vigorous, again in the arena of the world's struggle. During the war a
representative body met at Cadiz, thus renewing the Cortes that had
flourished before the Hapsburg dynasty stamped it out. At Cadiz, in an
outburst of patriotism, the Constitution of 1812 was drawn up: for the
invader, war to the knife; Ferdinand VII to be their lawful king; abuses
such as the Inquisition abolished; the sovereignty of the people upheld;
"_religión y rey, patria é independencia_," truly Spanish watchwords.
When in 1814 Napoleon was forced to accept Ferdinand VII as King of
Spain, that ungrateful king came back to his loyal people, and his first
act was to restore the absolute monarchy of his ancestors, to declare
the Constitution of 1812 null and void, to try to galvanize the
Inquisition into life. It was not long before the disorders of his
government led some of the colonies in America to declare their
independence, and finally Spain too uprose. The Riego insurrection of
1820, proclaiming again the Constitution of 1812, was the first of the
frequent _pronunciamientos_ (the uprising of the army against absolute
monarchy) that continued down to 1870. Louis Philippe declared this
insubordination of the army a menace to other thrones of Europe, and
took this pretext to send French troops into Spain to uphold Ferdinand's
absolutism: the Trocadero defense was during this second invasion of the
French.
Always ceaselessly agitating, despite temporary defeat, went on the
people's struggle for a constitution. While Ferdinand VII lived there
was little hope for modern ideas, but when he died, the
Constitutionalists espoused the cause of his infant daughter, Isabel II.
All advance was retarded by the Carlist War that followed Isabel's
accession, during which war occurred what a Spanish quaker has called
the "_pecado de sangre_," the brutal massacre of the monks and
destruction of such unrivaled centers of art as Poblet in Catalonia,
more a political act than a religious, as the monks were Carlists. This
war so confused and embittered the issues at stake that it is difficult
to follow with consistency the political parties. The government was
consistent only in its instability, having now a Queen Regent, now an
Espartero, banishments, executions, riots, barricades, revolts,--it
seemed indeed as if Spain were sown with Cadmus teeth.
Still through the darkness one can follow a light. The Constitution of
1837 asserted boldly the sovereignty of the people. Though the
Constitution of the forties was lenient to absolute power, the Cortes
was now included in the government, a marked advance since Ferdinand
VII's day. The Constitution of the fifties was a further advance toward
national independence. In the midst of political rancors, the war with
Africa, 1860, came as a noble interval when feuds were put aside and all
fought together against a common enemy. As in the old days, poets and
novelists enrolled themselves in the army, and the young grandees served
as common soldiers, in fidelity to the vow of their ancestors, knights
of Santiago, of Calatrava, and of Alcántara, that when Spain was
threatened by the Saracen, their descendants would serve _in the ranks,
on foot, and in person_.
Then, this brilliant war over, the old strifes returned in force, Prim,
O'Donnell,[17] and twenty minor parties. Queen Isabel II was banished
in 1868, and the first interregnum since Spain was a monarchy occurred.
Then followed the short-lived rule of Amadeus I, Duke of Aosta and son
of Victor Emmanuel, called by invitation to rule in Spain. His chief
upholder, Prim, was assassinated before Amadeus reached Madrid, and the
new king found himself in so equivocal a position, that after two
unhappy years he resigned gladly. Under the influence of Castelar, most
brilliant of orators and a man who sincerely loved his country, a
Republic of two years' duration followed. Spain was never intended for a
republic; discontent continued general, the ministry changed eight times
in this short period, and at length all warring factions agreed that the
only hope for stable government lay in the restoration of Spain's lawful
king, Isabel II's eldest son.
Isabel in Paris abdicated in his favor, and in 1875 Alfonso XII returned
to his native land. He came not in the same spirit as had Ferdinand VII
in 1814. The sixty years of disorders had led to a solid result, Alfonso
XII came back as a constitutional king. The Constitution of 1876 was a
reconciliation of monarchical principles and those of a democracy. The
new king died before he had reached the age of thirty, and his son
Alfonso XIII, born after his father's death, was represented by his
mother till his majority. To María Cristina of Austria, Spain owes an
unending debt of gratitude. Under her wise rule the country had some
years of the peace she so needed; and even what is termed disaster, the
recent loss of colonies, is a blessing in disguise. Spain to-day needs
all her strength for herself.
As the abuses of centuries are not reformed in a year and as nothing on
earth can be perfect, there is much to be desired still in Spain's
political life. Her constitution is an excellent one in theory, but in
practice it is crippled by the dishonest elections. Political power is
left in the hands of an unscrupulous minority who work for personal, not
national aggrandizement, and the distrust such elections have engendered
keeps the better element of the people aloof from the government. Only
fifteen per cent of the Spanish people vote. The king has, like
England's ruler, the right of absolute veto. If Spain is now so blessed
as to have for her king a worthy descendant of Isabella the Catholic,
the remedy for the political dishonesty may be close at hand. Young
Alfonso XIII has an intelligence of the first order; he has been trained
under a high-minded and truly Christian woman; he has married the
daughter of a race that well understands constitutional rule; personally
he is loved by his people with an affection not hard to understand, for
despite his thin, plain face, the young king is eminently distinguished
and _simpático_. Often in Seville, seeing him galloping back from polo,
or returning from a week's hunt in the wilds of the sierras, our intense
hopes went out to him. In his hands, it is slight exaggeration to say,
lies Spain's future. If Alfonso XIII gives his intelligence and
life-blood to his people, who can foresee to what heights this strong,
uncontaminated race may climb? The past century's outburst in literature
and art hint the possibility of a second _siglo de oro_.
La Granja has led me far afield. It does not stand for Spain's best, an
artificial, foreign creation where passed hours of the nation's
abasement. Segovia is the real Spain. Descend from the Alcázar to the
river, cross the bridge, mount to the ten-sided chapel of the Knights
Templars, and sitting on the steps of the granite cross, look back on
the stretching city. There lies the Spain whose fiber is capable of
regeneration: generous, patient, indomitable, faulty, but with manly
faults, untouched by taint of luxury and greed, with blood in her veins,
and ideals in her soul. Wander down by the Eresma past the hermitage,
and encircle the town by the footpath beside the tree-hidden Clamores.
High above, its yellow stones gleaming in the sunset light, rises the
fortress which stood firm for Isabella in her critical hour, and from
whence she started in state to claim her heritage. Will the young king
of Spain to-day show the world that Isabella's heritage is worth the
claiming?
[Illustration: THE ALCÁZAR OF SEGOVIA]
SAINT TERESA AND AVILA
"All great artists are mystics, for they do but body forth what
they have intuitively discerned: all philosophers as far as they
are truly original are mystics, because their greatest thoughts are
not the result of laborious efforts but have been apprehended by
the lightening flash of genius, and because their essential theme
is connected with the one feeling, only to be mystically
apprehended, the relation of the individual to the Absolute. Every
great religion has originated in mysticism and by mysticism it
lives, for mysticism is what John Wesley called 'heart religion.'
When this dies out of any creed, that creed inevitably falls into
mere formalism."
W. S. LILLY.
Mysticism is St. Teresa's highest glory. To write of her with admiration
and even enthusiasm, leaving untouched this acme of her genius, as
certain of her biographers have done, is to describe the shape, the hue,
the grace of a rose and omit to tell of its scent. On all sides her
character was notable; in strength of will, in that most uncommon of
qualities, common sense,[18] in vigorous administration, in sincerity of
purpose. Carmelite nun and restorer of the strictest order of
Carmelites, she was not in the least a withered ascetic but a well-bred
Castilian lady of winning manners and pleasing appearance, who in
courtesy, dignity, and simplicity, embodied in herself the best of
Castile. From every word she wrote breathes a generous character. Her
robust virility of mind, her complete absence of sophistry or of
self-consciousness, help us to understand the love she roused among her
nuns, and the respect she gained from the foremost men of her time.
"We cannot stir ourselves to great things unless our thoughts are high,"
wrote this soul of heroism. Yet, with all her supremacy of intellect,
Teresa was so delicately witty, so gay--peals of laughter were often
heard in her cloisters--so shrewd, that never in her was found the least
trace of the pretentious. Anecdotes are told of her practical good
sense. The first night of the foundation in Salamanca, in the solitary
garret when the frightened little nun, her companion, exclaimed, "I was
thinking, dear Mother, what would become of you, if I were to die,"
"Pish," said Teresa, who disliked the exalté, "it will be time to think
of that when it happens. Let us go to sleep." Then her vehement protest
to those who thought prayer alone sufficient for salvation: "No,
sisters, no: our Lord desires works!" Her swift sweeping aside of the
aristocratic spirit in her convents; let there be no talk of
precedence, "which is nothing more than to dispute whether the earth be
good for bricks or for mortar. O my God, what an insignificant subject!"
"I have always been friendly with learned men," she wrote, and pleasant
milestones in her burdened life are her interviews with some remarkable
minds of the time. "Knowledge and learning are very necessary for
everything, alas!"--This last exclamation made in naïve apology that she
could only translate in halting language her inner life of the spirit,
she whose witchery of style makes her read to-day even by the scoffer.
The human personality of the saint lives in her writing, where is found
the fragrance of her own special soul. "I cannot see anyone who pleases
me but I must instantly desire that he might give himself entirely to
God, and I wish it so ardently that sometimes I can hardly contain
myself." "Humility alone is that which does everything, when you
comprehend in a flash to the depth of your being, you are a mere nothing
and that God is all." "Oh, Lord of my soul! Oh my true Lord, how
wonderful is Thy greatness! Yet here we live, like so many silly swains,
imagining we have attained some knowledge of Thee; and yet it is indeed
as nothing, for even in ourselves there are great secrets which we do
not understand." "Do you know what it is to be truly spiritual? It is
to be the slaves of God; those who are signed with His mark which is
that of the Cross." And that supreme cry of the saints in all ages:
"_¡Señor! ¡O morir ó padecer!_ My God! either to suffer or to die!"
It is inevitable sacrilege for anyone in this generation, which has
traveled so far from the days of faith, to touch on Teresa's raptures
and locutions, for in sheer ignorance we profane what is holy. The saint
herself foresaw our difficulty. "I know that whoever shall have arrived
at these raptures will understand me well; but he who has had no
experience therein, will consider what I say to be foolish.... However
much I desire to speak clearly concerning what relates to prayer, it
will be obscure for him who has no experience therein.... Some may say
these things seem impossible, and that it is good not to scandalize the
weak.... I consider it certain that whoever shall receive any harm by
believing it possible for God in this land of exile to bestow such
favors, stands in great need of humility; such a person keeps the gate
shut against receiving any favors himself." So unparalleled was her life
of ecstasy that at first the saint doubted if it were heaven sent or
not; she submitted herself humbly to the tests of that inquisition age
till at length her own good judgment told her that this "joy surpassing
all the joys of the world, all its delights, all its pleasures," was
from God, because of its after-effects, an added peace, a deeper
humility, a more ardent and practical love of souls. But her clear brain
and transcendent honesty made her see the risk for weaker minds: "The
highest perfection," she warns, "does not consist in raptures nor in
visions, nor in the gift of prophecy, but in making our will so
conformable with the will of God that we shall receive what is bitter as
joyfully as what is sweet and pleasant."
Mysticism skirts indeed perilous precipices, but St. Teresa walked the
narrow path securely, her eyes uplifted, oblivious of the dangers below.
I dare not touch on her marvelous life of the spirit.[19] All I can say
is, go to her own works, read them in their pure, native Castilian, do
not be content with the few extreme quotations given perhaps by those
who would discredit her; read her in various moods, as you do the
"Imitation," and I doubt if she fails to convince you that there are
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our negative
philosophy, that a few rare souls have risen to supreme heights because
they were really humble and really holy, that religion has preserved
from total loss the subtlest faculty of man, and faith stood up bravely
through centuries of intellectual contempt to battle for it. Recently I
came across a review of some works on psychology by that able young
English novelist, Robert Hugh Benson; it ended with these suggestive
words:
"In Psychology, science and religion are very near to one another,
for its subject is nothing else than the soul of man. Science in
her winding explorations has been for centuries drawing nearer to
this center of the maze: she has traversed physical nature, the
direct work of God, and philosophy, the direct product of man....
Is it too much to hope that when science has advanced yet a few
steps more she may have come to Faith with the human soul newly
discovered in her hands: 'Here is a precious and holy thing that I
have found in man, a thing which for years I have denied or
questioned. Now I hand it over to the proper authority. It has
powers of which I know little or nothing, strange intuitions into
the unseen, faculties for communication which do not find their
adequate object in this world ... a force of habit which is
meaningless if it ends with time; an affinity with some element
that cannot rise from matter as its origin. Take it from my hands
for you alone understand its needs and capacities. Enliven it with
the atmosphere it must have for its proper development, feed it,
cleanse it, heal its hurts, train it to use and control its own
powers, and prepare it for Eternity.'"