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Title: Things seen in Spain
Author: Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine), 1867-1928
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Things seen in Spain" ***
[Picture: Women at the Al-Mida Fountain in the Patio De Los Naranjos,
Cordova]
THINGS SEEN IN
SPAIN
* * * * *
BY
C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY
AUTHOR OF
“RECORD OF SPANISH PAINTING,” “MOORISH CITIES
IN SPAIN,” ETC.
* * * * *
WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS
* * * * *
LONDON
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET
1912
* * * * *
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
Cloth, 2s. net; leather, 3s. net; velvet leather, in a box, 5s. net
THINGS SEEN IN VENICE
By CANON LONSDALE RAGG & LAURA M. RAGG
_With 50 Illustrations_
THINGS SEEN IN NORTHERN INDIA
BY T. L. PENNELL, M.D., B.Sc. _With 50 Illustrations_
THINGS SEEN IN SPAIN
BY C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY. _With 50 Illustrations_
“A successful series by capable writers.”—_Times_.
THINGS SEEN IN HOLLAND
BY C. E. ROCHE. _With 50 Illustrations_
“A charming addition to the series . . . eminently readable.”—_The
Morning Post_.
THINGS SEEN IN EGYPT
BY E. L. BUTCHER. _With 50 Illustrations_
“Mrs. Butcher is thoroughly conversant with her subject . . .
excellently written.”—_The Globe_.
THINGS SEEN IN CHINA
BY J. R. CHITTY. _With 50 Illustrations_
“By a writer who adds grace and style to entire familiarity with the
country and people.”—_The Birmingham Post_.
“A racy description of the social life of the Chinese.”—_The
Scotsman_
THINGS SEEN IN JAPAN
BY CLIVE HOLLAND. _With 50 Illustrations_
“A delightful little book.”—_The Church Times_.
“An attractive volume; the photographs with which it is illustrated
are admirable. The subjects give a very fair idea of the beauty and
charm of a fascinating country.”—_The Manchester Guardian_.
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
CONTENTS {0}
PAGES
CHAPTER I
THE FASCINATION OF SPAIN
Spain the Home of Romance—The Conservatism of the 13–57
People—Spain the most Democratic of Countries—The
Tradition of Chivalry—The Cid—Spain the Connecting Link
between Europe and Africa—The Place of the Moor in the
Country To-day—The Gardens of Granada—The Bull-fight: its
National Importance—Spanish Dancing
CHAPTER II
THE SPANISH PEOPLE
The Character of the People—Their Quietness and 58–92
Sobriety—Their Cruelty—This the Result of their Stoicism
and Indifference to Pain—These the Qualities of a Strong
and Primitive People—The _Feria_, the Holiday of the
Sevillians—Religion: its Place in the National Life—The
Dance of the _Seises_—Holy Week in Seville—Religious
Processions—The _Paseos_
CHAPTER III
TOWN LIFE IN SPAIN
Toledo, the Type of the Spanish City—Its Architectural 93–129
Monuments—The Intermingling of Arab and Christian
Art—Granada—The Alhambra—Cordova—The Great
Mosque—Seville, the City of Pleasure—The Special
Character of the Streets—The _Café’s_ and Shops—The
Typical Andalusian—The Parks—The _Sevillanas_—Spanish
Courtship—The Houses of Seville—The _Patios_—The
Home-life of the Sevillians—Spanish Hospitality
CHAPTER IV
TOWN LIFE IN SPAIN (_continued_)
Madrid: its Situation—The Old Town—The Rastro—The New 130–152
Town—The Puerta del Sol—_Cafés_—The _Aguadores_—The Prado
Park—The Theatre—Spanish Children—The Museums—The
Picture-galleries
CHAPTER V
COUNTRY LIFE IN SPAIN
Life in a Spanish _Posada_—Spanish Peasants—The Toilers 153–203
of the Field and other Workers—The _Cigarreras_ of
Seville—The _Kermesse_ in the Esclava Gardens—The Love of
Festivals—Easter Day in a Spanish Village—Third-class
Travelling—Wild Life in Spain—Fishing in the Country
Districts
CHAPTER VI
SPANISH ART
Spanish Art the Reflection of the Spanish Temperament—The 204–231
Great Buildings of Spain—Spanish Gothic—Its Realistic
Naturalness, its Massiveness and Extravagance—The
Churches, the Real Museums of Art Treasures—Polychrome
Sculpture—Spanish Painting—Its Late Development—Its
Special Character—Its Strength, its Dramatic and
Religious Character
CHAPTER VII
ABOUT MANY THINGS
The Real Spirit of Spain—The Spiritual Instinct of the 232–252
Race—The Escorial—Spanish Beggars—The Spaniard belongs to
the Past, but also to the Future
INDEX 253–254
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Women at the Al-Mida Fountain in the Patio de los _Frontispiece_
Naranjos, Cordova
A Peasant of Andalusia 12
A Busy Street leading to the Market, Valencia 14
The Puerta Visagra Antigua, Toledo 20
Pastimes of the Gitanos in the Camino del Sacre 26
Monte, Granada
Walls and Towers of the Alhambra on the Bank of 33
the Darro, Granada
A Glimpse of Granada from the Walls of the 36
Generalife, the Summer Palace of the Moors
A Group of Dancers at the _Feria_, Seville 43
The Old Town of Ronda 46
The Falls of the Guadalevin, the Great Gorge, and 50
the New Bridge, Ronda
Spanish Dancers, Seville 54
The Cave of the Doves 60
The Limestone Quarries, Almeria 64
A Gipsy House at Coria 68
Interior of the Same House 74
A Village _Pasos_ 80
A Rope and Matting Factory, Seville 84
Sacristy of the Convent of the Cartuja, Granada 88
Bridge of Alcantara and the Alcázar, Toledo 94
A Street in Cordova 100
Puerta del Perdon 107
The Queen’s Chamber, Alhambra 110
Court of Lions, Alhambra 116
A Group of Workers in a _Patio_ 120
“Las Planchadoras” 129
The Throne-Room, Royal Palace, Madrid 133
The Rastro Market, Madrid 134
Mounting Guard in the Plaza de Armas 143
Children at Play 147
A Bridge and Country Homes 154
The Village _Posada_ 158
A Medieval Ox-Cart 164
Harvesting Wheat 168
An Orange-Picker 172
Pottery Vendors 178
A Basque Peasant-Girl driving an Ox-Cart 184
Sherry a Half-Century Old 191
Ruins of an Old Aqueduct 194
Beaching Fishing-Boats 198
Choir-Stalls in the Mosque, Cordova 207
Burgos Cathedral 210
Residence of the Mexican Minister, Madrid 214
The Old Aqueduct of Trajan 218
Main Gallery in the Museo del Prado 222
The Cross by the Wayside 226
Town and Monastery of the Escorial 234
Puerta Judiciana, or Gate of Justice 238
Municipal Plaza and Cathedral, Toledo 242
The Valley of the Guadelevin River 246
Flamenco Dance of a Gitana, Seville 249
[Picture: A Peasant of Andalusia]
CHAPTER I—THE FASCINATION OF SPAIN
Spain the Home of Romance—The Conservatism of the People—Spain the most
Democratic of Countries—The Tradition of Chivalry—The Cid—Spain the
Connecting Link between Europe and Africa—The Place of the Moor in the
Country To-day—The Gardens of Granada—The Bull-fight: its National
Importance—Spanish Dancing.
Coming into Spain by any of the chief portals—at Port Bou, at Algeciras,
or at Irun—one finds oneself in a totally new country. You cast much
behind you as you come, for instance, from France; you will be impressed
by a certain strangeness of aspect far different from all you have learnt
to expect in other countries. You will feel transplanted back into
another world. It is as if Spain had sat aside waiting, indifferent and
proud, while elsewhere life has rushed onwards.
The conservatism of Spain may be gathered from the old impressions we
find in the pages of writers describing the people and the country of
more than a century ago, which are still true in so much as they refer to
what is essential in the national spirit, and to the survival of the
customs of mediæval Europe. “I regard the Spanish people,” says
Stendhal, “as the living representatives of the Middle Ages.”
[Picture: A Busy Street Leading to the Market, Valencia]
Spain is still the home of the romance which belonged to an age that has
passed. And although the more flourishing Spanish towns are nowadays
full of animation—factories are springing up and signs of commercial
activity are not wanting—this new movement of progress has not destroyed
this romance. The Spain which Cervantes immortalized still lives. We
may still take Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as typical figures, whom you
may see any day in the towns of Castile or walking on the roads of La
Mancha. These are the types that have remained unchanged.
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.
Many details of life, and especially in the smaller towns still unvisited
by the tourist, remind us of a past that other countries have left
behind. The _serenos_, or night watchmen, with long hooded cloaks,
tipped staves, and lanterns, are familiar figures in every town. In the
country the shepherd is seen, wrapped in his coloured blanket, leaning on
his tall staff in the midst of his flock. The wandering palmer with his
cockle-shell, known to the England of Chaucer, may still be met in Spain.
You realize how far you are from the present when you enter a Spanish
town. You pass under a Moorish gateway, dark and imposing, with a
suggestion of savage strength in its gaunt yellow masonry that carries
memories of battles that have been fought. Here you wait for the
_consumos_ to examine your luggage, which, if they doubt your honesty,
they will probe with their long steel prong. The dull jangle from the
bells of your straining mules gives an unaccustomed sound as you drive
upwards, for almost every Spanish town is set upon a hill.
If the town is small, the _posada_ where you seek for lodging will have a
wineshop below. You will see a crowd of wild-looking men, with great
cloaks and _sombreros_ pulled low upon their foreheads, seated at a rude
table. They are taking wine from the _bota_, the long-spouted leather
bottle from which only the Spaniard has the skill to drink. Thoughts of
brigands will crowd your mind. But you need have no fear; these are
simple townsmen. Savage looks and this strange, wild appearance cover
the simple friendliness of the child. The excited conversation will
cease as you enter. Most likely you will hear the word “Francéses”
muttered by one and another, for in Spain every foreigner is first taken
to be French. You answer, “No, Ingléses.” At once an atmosphere of
friendliness springs up, and an exchange of greetings will be made. No
one will take any further notice of you. It is not the custom of the
Spanish landlord to force his attentions upon his guests. He is
constitutionally incapable of the obsequious fussiness that belongs to
commercial hospitality. You will be accepted as one of the family, and
the friendly trustfulness that is one characteristic of the fine Spanish
courtesy will soon cause the foreign _caballero_ to feel at home.
Spain is still the most democratic of countries. Every Spaniard expects
as a matter of right to be treated as an equal. It is significant that
the title _Señor_ is given alike to God and to a beggar. Your host at
the _posada_ will sit down with you to meals, and his son, who waits upon
you, will slap you on the back with easy friendliness as he makes plans
for your enjoyment. These familiar and intimate relationships, which
once were common in every country, are found to-day nowhere so
universally practised as in Spain. Each Spaniard that you meet gives the
greeting which commends you to God. And no native ever eats in company
without first uttering the customary _gusta_, an invitation to share in
the repast, which is a survival, most probably, of the belief of
primitive peoples in the evil eye that poisons the food of those who eat
alone.
[Picture: The Puerta Visagra Antigua, Toledo]
The snobbery that has arisen out of modern progress is unknown to the
Spanish man and woman. Business is not here the highest aim of life.
The Spaniard still feels true what Ganivet made Hernan Cortes say: “The
grandest enterprises are those in which money has no part, and the cost
falls entirely on the brain and heart.” The hustling, besmirching spirit
of commercialism is absent from the Spanish character; and for this
reason, although Spain belongs to the past, the country, to those who
have eyes to see, will seem to belong also to the future.
El Mitayo Cid Campeador, as the old chronicles affectionately call the
Spanish hero, with his democratic manners, his rough-and-ready justice,
and his acts at once ideal and yet practical in achievement, is the
supreme representative of chivalry. Valour and virtue, the qualities
peculiarly identified with the Spanish romantic spirit, were his. His
energy in warfare, his power in love, his childlike religious faith, and
his fearlessness in facing pain and also death, are characteristics that
belong to all the men who have made Spain great.
Spain was the land of the sword, and the business of the true Spaniard
was war. And this love of action, strange as it may seem to those
accustomed to think of the lazy Spaniard, is a very real trait in the
Spanish character. But the action must be connected with romance. It
has nothing at all to do with the idea of working for the gain of money
which belongs to the “getting on” spirit of modern civilization. The
Spaniard works as the child works, for joy, and not for gain.
Living in Spain, you come to understand that this land is really the
connecting link between Europe and Africa. Both in his physical traits
and in his character, the Spaniard shows his relation to the North
African type—“the child of a European father by an Abyssinian mother” he
has been called. This is true. Lithe and vigorous, with long-shaped
heads and rich pigmentation of skin—the type is clearly seen in the
pictures of Murillo and Zurbaran, and with a more vivid expression in the
portraits of El Greco—the Spaniard has more points of contact with the
Eastern than with the Western races. Seldom indeed is he entirely a
European.
But it is among the women that the resemblance stands out most clearly.
There are women with dark long African faces. You will see them among
the _flamencas_ of Seville, or in the gipsy quarter of the Camino del
Sacro Monte at Granada—women with slow, sinuous movements, which you
notice best when you see them dance, and wonderful eyes that flash a slow
fire, quite unforgettable in their strange beauty.
In dress we still find the Oriental love of bright and violent colours.
The elegant Manilla shawls and the mantilla, which give such special
distinction to the women of Spain, are modifications of the Eastern veil.
The elaborately dressed hair, built up with combs, with the rose or
carnation giving a note of colour, has also a very ancient origin. Then,
the men in some districts still retain the fashion of loose, baggy
trousers such as women wear in the East.
We see the Moorish influence in the Oriental seclusion of the houses,
with the barred windows and high gates, often studded with bosses,
seeming to forbid an entrance. The Spaniard still constructs his house
as the Moors built their houses, around the inner court, or _patio_,
those gardens of colour and rest, sometimes quite hidden from the
passer-by, as at Toledo; sometimes visible through an openwork iron
gateway, like the gay _patios_ of Seville. Each house still has its
_buzon_, and is fronted with a _zaguán_, or vestibule of wood.
In every department of Spanish life we meet with this persistence of the
Moorish influence. This need not surprise us.
The coming of the Moors into Spain was a civilizing expedition more than
a conquest. It was the Orient entering Europe. The invaders—for the
most part Berbers with a few Arabs—were a race of young and vigorous
culture, of such astonishing and rapid growth that, although in Africa
they had hardly emerged from savagery, in Spain they manifested a truly
wonderful receptivity, and absorbed and developed the best elements they
found in the life of the country.
[Picture: Pastimes of the Gitanos in the Camino Del Sacre Monte, Granada]
In two years the Moors became masters, and under their dominion, from the
eighth to the fifteenth century, the most elevated and opulent
civilization flourished. All the arts, sciences, industries, inventions,
and culture, of the old civilization budded out into fresh discoveries of
creative energy. Religious toleration came with them, and was lost with
them. The spirit of chivalry arose among the Moors, and was afterwards
appropriated by the Christian warriors of the North. A Moorish knight
was in every respect like a Spanish knight. It was religion alone that
divided them—one called on the name of Allah, the other on that of
Christ.
We must remember that the primitive Iberians of Spain were themselves of
Berber stock, and this affinity in racial origin explains the peaceful
amalgamation of the conquerors with the conquered. Afterwards by the
constant mingling of their bloods the Moors and the old Spaniards became
one. The Moor gave to the Spaniard and he took from him, and they
contributed to the same work of national civilization.
Ganivet has said truly that those who deny the Moorish influence show
themselves unable to comprehend the Spanish character. The Moorish
dominion ended, passing almost as swiftly as it came. But the spirit of
their exquisite civilization, perhaps the most exquisite that the world
has yet seen, moulded their Christian conquerors into its likeness. And
penetrating the Spanish character, and the daily life and habits of the
people, this influence remains; indeed, it is not overstating the truth
to say that to-day the pulse of the land still beats with Moorish life.
It is in the gardens of Spain that the stranger will find best the
reflection of the Moorish spirit. The Moors made their cities places of
gardens and waters. The very names that they gave to their pleasure
places speak of joy. “The Meadow of Murmuring Waters,” “The Garden of
the Water-wheel”—what magic lingers in the suggestion of the words!
Many of these old gardens have perished. Cordova has lost all except its
Orange Court and the old garden of the ruined Alcázar. In Seville the
parks are new. But in Granada the gardens have triumphed over the
devastations of the Christians; and it is one of the exquisite surprises
of the place to come suddenly on some fragment of a delicious garden
where the Moorish tradition lives almost undisturbed.
[Picture: Walls and Towers of the Alhambra, on the banks of the Darro,
Granada]
There are few cities, even in Spain, that hold so many gardens. There is
the Alameda of the Alhambra, the green garden which lies around the
Moorish citadel; the _paseos_ on the banks of the Genil, planted with
trees and cooled by fountains, the pleasure-grounds of the people; and
the Jardín de los Adarves, on the south terrace of the Alhambra hill, a
trellised retreat, with climbing vines and flowers, and splendid view of
Vega and distant snow-capped hills. Everyone will find in these gardens
something that makes special appeal to him.
But the most exquisite haunt even among the gardens of Granada is the
Generalife—the summer palace of the Moorish Princes, at the foot of the
Cerro de Sol, and to the east of the Alhambra hill. Here you have the
charm of small and perfect gardens laid out in terraces, with great
clipped cypresses, myrtles, and orange-trees, and the glow of flowers,
with that of the delicate Moorish architecture, of richly coloured tiles
and rare inscriptions. And everywhere is the joyous sound of flowing
water; the fountains are always playing, and water runs in channels made
of inverted tiles placed on the top of the balustrades. One of the
charms of Moorish life was the love of pure water.
An old legend says that the name Generalife in Arabic signifies the
“house of love, of dancing, and of pleasure,” and, further, that it was
built by one Omar, a passionate lover of music, that he might retire here
and entirely give himself up to that amusement. The story is probably
untrue, and the name, as the chronicles state, is a corruption of the
Arabic “Djennat-al’-Arif,” which means “the garden of Arif.” But romance
so often is more beautiful than fact. One likes to think that this
exquisite palace and gardens were designed as a place wherein a man could
give his soul to music.
“Charming place! Thy garden is embellished with flowers which repose
upon their stalks and exhale the sweetest perfumes; fresh air agitates
the orange-trees and spreads abroad the sweet odour of its blossoms. I
hear voluptuous music joined to the rustling of the leaves of thy grove.
Everything around is harmonious, green, and flowering.”
Such is part of the inscription upon the arcades of the Garden of the
Pond, and how perfectly the rich imagery of the words conveys the charm
of the garden! The Generalife has kept more than any place in Spain its
Moorish character, combining in its palace and garden, in spite of decay
and alterations, much of that full suggestion of all beautiful things
that was their gift.
In Spain dancing is something more than an amusement; it is a serious art
closely connected with religious ritual, which expresses, perhaps as
nothing else does, if we except the bull-fight, the true spirit of the
people. The dances are Eastern in their origin; they are dramas of love,
and especially those of the Gitanas, who have adopted and kept living the
ancient dances of the country.
Seville, the joyous southern capital, is the city that has given its own
spirit to the most beautiful of the Spanish dances. Granada and Malaga
are also centres of dancing, and sometimes good performances may be
witnessed at Madrid. But the best _cafés cantantes_, where the true
Spanish dancers perform, are hidden in back streets where the foreigner
does not readily find them. These dances are national ceremonies and
belong to the people, and are far different from the dances, often quite
modern in character, that are given at the popular _cafés_. The
varieties are numerous, and the names are often confusing. Many dances
date back far into antiquity, while almost all owe their special
character to Arabic influences.
[Picture: A Glimpse of Granada from the walls of the Generalife]
The _bolero_ is the most aristocratic dance. “What majesty, what
decorum, what distinction!” cried Valera, speaking of the dances of Ruiz
and his daughter Conchita. It is danced by a man and a woman, and is a
kind of drama between them; both use castanets. It is a slow dance of
deliberate grace and fascination. The _jota_ is danced by a woman alone.
This dance, too, is a love drama of intense passion, but always decorous,
always beautiful. Both these dances are native to Andalusia, the
province of Spanish dancing. Outside of Andalusia, the most famous dance
is the Aragonese _jota_. This is danced by a man and a woman, and the
castanets are used. But the drama is different, the movements are
quicker and less varied, and there is great vivacity. It seems a kind of
combat between the two dancers; it is more a drama of battle than a drama
of love.
But the most typical of all Spanish dancing is the _flamenco_ dance of
the Gitanas, which you will see best at Seville; it is the most primitive
and the most African of all. A group of performers sit in a semicircle
upon a small stage. The spectators all take their part by a rhythmic
clapping of hands and stamping feet. One of the performers—generally a
man—plays the guitar and sings an accompanying song. A dancer rises
suddenly, spontaneously, as if seized by the passion of the music. She
wears a long dress, usually of white, and a beautiful Manilla shawl is
folded on her shoulders. How can one describe the dance which is so
unlike all other dances? It is not a dance of the feet; every part of
the body plays its share in the performance: the swaying figure, the
beckoning hands, the glittering smiles that come and go in the dark
eyes—all contribute. The dancer is alive to her fingertips, and every
expressive movement has the Spanish simplicity of emphasis. At first the
movement is slow, then faster, and now increases and rises to a passion
of intensity. And all the time the spectators are actively
participating, their emotion rising with the dancer’s emotion; their
rhythmic clapping and beating of feet grows louder as the drama proceeds,
and cries of long-drawn-out _oles_ stimulate the dancer. The dance ends
as unexpectedly as it began: a pause comes, and the swaying body is
still, as if languor had followed on strong emotion. There is silence;
the dancer goes back to her seat. Then the singer starts a new song, the
clapping is taken up again, another dancer comes forward, and a new drama
is acted.
[Picture: A group of dancers at the “Feria,” Seville]
The foreigner who would understand Spain must see these dances; then he
will come to know yet another characteristic of the people—their love of
strong, quite elemental sensation. It is this that so often makes them
seem cruel to us.
This delight of the Spaniard in all emotions that make sharp appeal to
the senses explains the existence of the bull-fight, the national sport,
which is so much a part of the life of the people that, although to-day
there is a widespread movement to repress, or at least to mitigate, its
cruelty, it seems unlikely that its real attraction will cease.
It is impossible not to condemn the bull-fight; its cruelty cannot be
denied. It is brutal, as the most cultivated Spaniards themselves admit.
And yet there are certain facts that the stranger must remember before he
condemns. The bull-fight, like the dance, is a solemn ritual rather than
an amusement. The combats take place on Sunday, while the most famous
form part of the ceremonies of Holy Week. Part of the proceeds are
devoted to some religious object—a charity or other holy work. Almost
all the great bull-rings have a chapel where the fighters first prepare
themselves in prayer and partake of the Holy Eucharist. To the foreigner
it may seem that this union of religion and bull-fighting is incongruous,
but to most Spaniards it does not appear so.
The bull-fight is the Spaniard’s strongest, most characteristic
intoxication. The poor man will sell his shirt to buy a ticket for the
bull-ring. They are a profoundly serious people, but every incident
connected with their national sport arouses them into vivid life. I
remember on one occasion, when travelling in Andalusia in an open
third-class railway carriage, the train passed a _vacada_, or
training-place of bulls to be used in the ring. The effect was magical.
These quiet, sombre people sprang upon the seats, some leaned far out of
the windows; they gesticulated, they waved their sombreros, they called
the names of the bulls, they cheered, they shouted. Never had I seen the
decorous Spaniard so strongly moved.
The _toreros_ are the idols of the Spanish people. You will see them
best at Seville, in their faultless tight _majo_ costumes and frilled
shirts, fastened with diamond studs, and diamond rings on the fingers of
their faultless hands, and with their pigtail fastened upon the top of
their heads. There is something splendidly attractive in their perfect
bodily equipoise, with every muscle trained to faultless precision. The
_toreros_ have in the highest degree strength, agility, and grace. Even
women have been _toreros_ and Madame Dieulafoy tells of one _Doña_, Maria
de Gaucin, who left her convent to become a _torero_; then, after gaining
renown throughout Spain for her exploits in the bull-ring, returned to
the practices of religion. Only in Spain would such division of a life
be thought perfectly natural, perfectly seemly.
[Picture: The old town of Ronda]
The bull-fight was established in Spain in the eleventh or twelfth
century, and is of Moorish origin. The bull would also seem to have come
first from Africa. But the spectacular and ceremonial character of the
contest is certainly adapted from the Roman combats, the influence of
which had survived among the old Spaniards.
Every Spanish town has its Plaza de Toros. Here, and especially at
Seville during the Easter festival, you will see all the population of
the place, a motley crowd of men and women. Señoras in white lace
_mantillas_ and white dresses, and their cavaliers, the gay _Sevillanos_,
side by side with the _gente flamenca_ and the _cigarreras_ in lovely
shawls, their hair elaborately arranged, with a white flower showing
against its blackness; for the bull-fight is a democratic institution,
where the greatest foregather with the people. The patience of the vast
crowd is perfect as they await the advent of the appointed hour. All are
animated with a suppressed seriousness, the prelude to violent emotion
which is so characteristic of the Spaniard.
The entire performance is carried out with an elaborate ceremony of
detail which the stranger often finds difficult to appreciate. The
President enters his _palco_. Then follows the _paseo de la cuadrilla_,
the processional entrance of the bull-fighters, grave, handsome men, in
their beautiful and varied costumes of yellow and violet, gold and green,
or whatever the chosen colours may be. The procession moves slowly
across the ring; there is no haste. Each one in turn gravely and with
perfect grace salutes the President, who then throws down the key of the
bulls’ den, the _toril_. In a few moments the first bull rushes into the
arena. The combat has begun.
The fight is divided into three acts. In the _Suerte de Picar_, the
first, the _picadores_, dressed in round felt hats, short cloaks, and
long leggings of plaited steel, and mounted on blindfolded horses, in
turn receive the charge of the bull, thrusting him aside with their long
pikes. Sometimes they come to close quarters, a _picador_ is thrown, his
horse is wounded, or perhaps killed. The shouts of the now excited crowd
show that this is the critical moment. The _picador_ rises quickly,
another horse is brought, while the _chulos_ divert the attention of the
bull by dexterous waving of their brightly coloured cloaks. When the
bull is sufficiently wearied—for this is the object of the first act in
the drama—the President gives a signal, and the _picadores_ retire.
[Picture: The Falls of the Guadalevín, the Great Gorge and New Bridge,
Ronda]
The _banderilleros_ take their place. This is the _Suerte de
Banderillear_, the second act, the object of which is to inflame the
bull. The _banderilleros_ place the barbed darts, or _banderillas_, in
the shoulders of the bull. Each is about 2 feet long, of curious device,
and ornamented with long coloured streamers. It is the most exciting
part of the combat. The utmost skill, agility, and daring, are needed to
plant the darts. There must be no bungling, no second of hesitation. It
is now that the excitement of the spectators is really aroused, for a
sense of solemnity is given by the possible presence of death. A
_banderillero_ may be seen to seize hold of the lashing tail, swing
himself along the beast’s side, and plant his dart between its horns. It
is done with surprising skill, with delight, and with passion; and the
applause of the spectators swells to a great roar, which refuses to be
silenced.
The last act is the _Suerte de Matar_. The chief _espada_ comes into the
ring; to him belongs the honour of the death. First he approaches the
President, and solemnly dedicates to him the slaying of the bull. He is
armed with a short Toledan blade and the _muleta_, a small red cloth.
Calmly he walks towards the bull. And now a silence falls upon the
hitherto raging crowd. It is the moment of pause, of silent waiting for
the most violent emotion of all. First he plays with the now infuriated
and wearied beast. There is still no hurrying. The Spaniard wishes
always to gain the very utmost out of his sensations. The bull is teased
by the waving of the red cloth, and in this way is made to take the
proper position for the death-blow. The _espada_ watches his moment;
then, with unerring decision, he buries the blade in the bull’s neck
between the shoulders, and walks slowly to the President’s box, with
absolute composure and a dignity that is almost defiant. Deafening
cheers greet him, rewards and costly tributes are thrown, and he is
presented with a great bouquet of flowers. How Spanish is this ending,
which rewards the slayer with flowers!
It is over; the ring is cleared, sand is raked over the pools of blood, a
new bull is driven forward, again the drama begins. Six times the scene
is re-acted, and a seventh bull, a _toro de gracia_, is added at the
first bull-fight of the year.
[Picture: Spanish Dancers, Seville]
In this repetition of emotions, this delight in heaping up sensations, we
have a very real revelation of the Spanish temperament. And this
explains the devotion of the people to the bull-fight. When we come to
estimate the Spanish character, we shall find that the Spaniard has the
qualities which belong to all primitive people. The sentiment of
sympathy with suffering is essentially a modern one. The Spaniard is
still the Moor, his ancestor. He is cruel because he is indifferent to
pain, his own or another’s.
CHAPTER II—THE SPANISH PEOPLE
The Character of the People—Their Quietness and Sobriety—Their
Cruelty—This the Result of their Stoicism and Indifference to Pain—These
the Qualities of a Strong and Primitive People—The _Feria_, the Holiday
of the Sevillians—Religion: its Place in the National Life—The Dance of
the _Seises_—Holy Week in Seville—Religious Processions—The _Pasos_.
The character of the Spaniard, as one gradually learns to know it, not
from a brief visit spent tourist fashion in hurrying from one city to
another, but from living among the people, sharing their common life and
entering into their spirit, is a very positive character. And this
character, though at first seemingly full of contradictions, is one of an
almost curious uniformity, strongly individual, and not easy to
comprehend.
A significant quality of the Spaniard is his quietness—the grave
enjoyment which he retains even under the influence of strong emotion,
such as we have seen in the dances and in the national pastime of the
bull-fight. His countenance will keep its accustomed gravity even whilst
his mind is inflamed. The Spaniard has what one would like to call an
active languor. On the one hand we find in his character a deeply rooted
dislike, which is almost a contempt, for useful work, with, on the other
hand, a reserve of untiring energy and a special aptitude for violent and
emotional action.
In Spain work is not the highest aim of life. This is the reason why
time is of so much less value. It explains the tendency to delay
everything to a convenient to-morrow—that annoying _mañana_ with which
the Spaniard cheerfully responds to every demand.
One of the first lessons I learnt in Spain was the unimportance of time.
We were staying in a country village off the beaten tracks of travel, and
had to drive a long distance to meet the train which was to take us to
Madrid. When we arrived at the small wayside station, we found we had
three hours to wait. There was no waiting-room, no refreshments could be
procured, and it was raining and very cold. I felt angered at the
discomfort and waste of time; but the Spaniards who were our companions
accepted the delay with true philosophy. They were genuinely distressed
at my annoyance—the Spaniard is always courteous to the foreigner—but
they did not at all share it. They wrapped their great cloaks around
them, and walked up and down the wind-driven platform for three hours,
calmly indifferent.
I understood their acceptance of life on its own terms, which is the very
root of the Spanish character, at once its strength and its weakness, the
cause of its beauty and of its defects.
[Picture: The Cave of the Doves, “El Chorro,” between Boladilla and
Malaga]
A charge of cruelty is often made against this people. But the cruelty
which one meets so often, and especially in the treatment of animals, is
almost always misunderstood by the stranger. It arises from a certain
hardness of fibre, which makes the Spaniard indifferent to pain. And if
he is cruel to others, the Spaniard is also cruel to himself. I know of
no people who are as little careful of personal comfort. Stoicism may be
said to be the religion of the true Spaniard. Every form of asceticism
has been practised by him, and to-day there exist brotherhoods whose
members flagellate themselves with special instruments made of sharp
broken glass till the blood flows, just in the same way as the
_banderilleros_ prick the bulls in the ring.
The Spaniards have always shown an interest in blood and a satisfaction
in shedding it. Two centuries ago it was a common custom for lovers to
scourge themselves in the streets during Holy Week, to win admiration
from their mistresses. The Spaniard still gains the approval of his
women by feats of daring, and the bull-fighter is the idol of the people.
We find an expression of this insistence on pain in the Spanish pictures
and sculpture. Artists in no other country have depicted the sufferings
of the Christ and the tortures of martyrs with the same delight of
detail. I recall the pictures of Zurbaran and Ribera, or those agonized
images of the Christ by Juan Juni at Valladolid, in which sorrow is
carried to a distortion that is almost caricature. The Spaniard accepts
these images; he clothes them with little embroidered skirts and lace
petticoats with the _naïveté_ of a child; to him they are the most
poignant expression of his religious emotion.
[Picture: The Limestone Quarries, Almeria]
It would seem, then, that in the Spanish character there is not only an
indifference to pain, but an actual delight in the emotion of suffering,
which prevents an understanding of cruelty. It is the temperament that
makes the martyr and the fanatic. I remember on one occasion some boys
were torturing a young bird, which one boy held by a string tied to its
leg. I offered to buy the bird for a few _reales_. At once it was given
to me, and I set it free. But what was the result? In less than an hour
some twenty birds had been caught, fastened to strings, and were brought
to me. No payment was asked: the birds were a gift to the foreign
señora. The boys had not understood at all that I disliked their
cruelty; they thought that I had a strange fancy for captive birds.
The incident is characteristic of what the stranger will meet constantly
in Spain. Your driver will flog his mules with the butt-end of his
whip—yes, beat them till they fall. If you remonstrate, he will smile,
rarely will he be angry; but never will you make him understand. Once
during a long drive I gained respite for a team of mules at the cost of a
bribe of two pesetas. I know that driver pitied my foolishness.
Yet, let there be no mistake, the Spaniard is not without the tenderer
emotions of humanity. And, after all one has heard of Spanish cruelty,
it is interesting to note the signs of gentleness and kindness that meet
one in many unexpected ways. I have never seen any other people so
friendly with one another. The home life of the people, be they rich or
poor, is charming, with a standard of kindness that compares favourably
with that of other countries. Domestic crimes are comparatively
infrequent. The Spaniard is known for his considerate love for children,
and the relations between parents and children are universally happy. In
no country does less stigma fall upon a child who is born out of wedlock.
One of the strongest impressions I gained during my stay in the Peninsula
was the happiness of the charming children. It is noteworthy that the
first hospital for the insane was established in the country of the
bull-ring. The practice of allowing counsel to poor persons in criminal
cases is of much older origin than in our own country. The pest of
beggars is another witness to this softness in their character; the
Spaniard feels that it is inhuman to refuse alms.
[Picture: A Gipsy house at Coria]
It is when the Spaniard comes into personal relationships that his real
native kindness appears. For his friend he is ready to sacrifice his
life—a quality which Strabo notes as belonging to the ancient Iberians.
You will often meet with a curious mingling of cruelty and kindness in
the same individual. I recall a characteristic incident. An artist
friend was sketching in a small town in the province of Old Castile, and
upon one occasion was greatly annoyed by a lad who threw sand upon the
wet canvas, thereby showing, I suppose, his hostility to the foreigner,
whose actions he did not understand and therefore disliked. The artist,
rather than contend with his rudeness, left the spot and returned home.
By mistake a small purse-bag was left behind. The boy found it, and
followed with it to the hotel. What a change! There was no rudeness
now; instead, a real pleasure in rendering a service. Smiling and
bowing, the persecutor of half an hour before returned the purse with the
fine Spanish courtesy, refusing to receive any reward.
It is these seemingly contradictory impulses that puzzle the stranger in
estimating the Spanish character. But the truth is, that the deep-rooted
conservatism of the race has kept alive in the Spaniard of to-day the
qualities that belong to primitive peoples. Mr. Havelock Ellis, the
English writer who has best understood the Spanish spirit, says truly:
“The Spaniard is, and remains to-day, in the best sense of the word, a
savage.” The Spanish nature is elemental, and responds to all the
emotions that touch the elemental passions: love, religion, war—these are
the emotions that stir life into action.
Much of what is characteristic of the life of the people may be studied
in the _Feria_, the great spring festival, which is held at Seville each
year in the middle of April. From all parts of Spain people flock to the
southern city, and for three days at this national picnic they make
holiday together. In the Prado de San Sebastian streets of wooden
pavilions, or _casetas_, have been erected, consisting mainly of one
room, which is furnished with chairs, a piano, and beautiful flowers.
Here on each day the families of Seville assemble in their own _caseta_,
and pass the joyous hours in receiving guests, dancing, guitar-playing,
and singing. One side of the _caseta_ is entirely open, so that all can
see the company within. The women and the older men sit upon the chairs;
the _majos_, in faultless costume, stand about, each smoking his
cigarette; the children, brilliant, fascinating little people, play in
front. Some of the women, and many children, are dressed in the old
Andalusian costume, with black lace over bright yellow silk; all the
women wear _mantillas_ upon their hair. Fans are fluttering everywhere;
there is a soft tinkling of guitars. Dark eyes flash upon you, and red
lips part in smiles as you stand and look within. It is a family party,
carried out with a publicity that seems strange to us, but is perfectly
natural to the Spaniard. At the _Feria_ everyone is accepted as a
friend. Someone clicks a pair of castanets, and a beautiful girl gets up
to dance the _seguidilla_, that most graceful dance which every
Andalusian child is taught. The effect on the company is magical. How
animated they are! every face is smiling. Their chairs are drawn in a
circle around the dancer, whom they applaud with rhythmic clapping. It
is the _seguidilla_, with its gracious memories, which gives life to the
_Feria_.
In another part of the fair the Gitanas have their tents. All the women
from Triana and the Macarena are here, amusing themselves simply and
quietly with a joyous decorum. Some of the Gitana women are remarkably
handsome; all have superb hair, and the gay colours of their dresses give
brightness to the scene. There is dancing here, too, the _flamenco_
dances, with slow movements and passionate suggestion of love, and the
noise of the constant clapping of the spectators.
[Picture: Interior of the same house at Coria]
On the outskirts, in the open space of the Prado, are flocks of sheep and
goats, and droves of bullocks, horses, mules, and donkeys, tended by
picturesque herdsmen and muleteers in the dress of the several provinces.
_Caballeros_ ride their horses up and down to show off their points. The
vendors haggle and chaffer with the buyers, for all the animals are for
sale; but all is good-natured, there is no quarrelling. At intervals
there are little _ventas_, or refreshment booths, where the people buy a
_refresco_. Families are camping and picnicking on the grass. Others
are seated on chairs arranged in a circle around the couple who rise to
dance. At a little distance there are swings for the children. The
noise is great—the Spaniards delight in loud sounds—concertinas and
barrel-organs, the sounds from the castanets of the dancers, and the loud
clapping of hands, mingling with the cries of the _aguadores_ and the
vendors of shell-fish and chestnuts. Here, too, everyone is happy; but
you will not see one drunken or quarrelsome person; among all the people
there is a friendly, good-natured content.
“Seville,” it has been said, “lights up for a _fiesta_ as a face lights
up with a smile.” And evening is the time at which the _Feria_ looks its
best. The great iron tower in the centre of the park is brilliantly
illuminated, and the avenues of _casetas_, radiating in every direction,
are softly lighted with thousands of fairy lights, electric lamps, and
Chinese lanterns; in each a different scheme of colour prevails. The
soft warm air is fragrant with the scent of the blossoming orange-trees.
In each _caseta_ there is a dancer, and from the open doors eager faces
look out upon the passers-by. The sound of castanets and guitars is
heard in every direction. The broad walks are filled with people, an
unending stream, slowly walking up and down. This is the true Spain,
idle, joyous, brilliant, happily content, making the very most of life
with the fine acceptance that is the gift of the Sevillians.
It is this spirit which the Spaniards have brought into their
religion—the understanding that joy is a part of worship. And although
Seville is not a religious city as Toledo and Valencia are, it is here
that the splendid ceremonies of the Church are carried out with more
detail and spectacular appeal than in any city in Spain. The Sevillians
have made the ritual of their religion a part of their life’s enjoyment.
Nothing shows this better than the strange mediæval custom of the
_Seises_, the sacred dances which take place in the cathedral on the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and on that of Corpus Christi. The
sixteen _seises_, or choristers, dance in front of the high-altar, using
castanets and singing in the most charming and graceful minuet fashion.
It is perfectly dignified, perfectly religious, and the young dancers
perform without a suspicion of levity. There is something specially
characteristic of the Spaniards’ attitude towards religion in thus making
dancing a part of the sacred ritual of the Church. Just as the
bull-fight is carried out as a solemn ceremony, so dancing, the people’s
strongest passion, finds its place in the service of the house of God.
To the stranger it is an astonishing ceremony, a witness to the pagan
element that lives so persistently in the Spaniard—the cause of those
sharp contrasts that surprise us in his character.
All Spain gathers in Seville to take part in the great festival, which is
held during the _Semana Santa_, the Holy Week of Easter. It is the
people’s holiday as truly as is the _Feria_; both are “holy days.”
[Picture: A Village “Pasos.”]
The most characteristic of the ceremonies are the religious processions,
which take place on each day during the week, and all day long on Good
Friday. At Granada and many other towns the Church processions have been
given up; but at Seville the custom remains unchanged from the Middle
Ages. The whole city is given up to the _pasos_, vehicular traffic is
stopped, all business ceases. Everyone, from the Archbishop and the
_Alcalde_ downwards, assembles in the public squares, where seats are
erected, in the streets, or in the balconies and windows of the houses,
to witness the performance. It is an amazing sight, this multitude
gathered to watch the procession of an image! But the Spaniards give
themselves up to it with simple abandonment. Nothing seen in Spain will
give so true an impression of the part that religion takes in the life of
the people. The stranger will feel himself carried back at least three
centuries.
The _pasos_, which are carried in these processions, consist of a single
sacred figure, or a group of figures illustrating a scene from the
Passion. Many of the statues have real beauty; they are the work of
Montañés, the seventeenth-century sculptor, whose polychrome carvings
express so perfectly the Spanish religious spirit. Borne by twenty-five
invisible carriers, at an extremely slow pace, the sacred groups pass
through the streets of the city. Each _paso_ is followed by the members
of the _cofradia_, or brotherhood, to whom the statue belongs. They are
dressed in the costume of their Order, the long gown, usually of white
cloth, with the peaked cowl covering the head. Each brother carries a
lighted candle. Companies of acolytes, white and scarlet robed, swing
censers and chant anthems. A line of gendarmes, in capes of vivid red,
march in advance to clear the way. Women clad in white walk beside them;
barefooted, they are fulfilling a vow. The sacred figures, and
especially the Virgin, to whom the chivalrous Spaniard has always
rendered his homage, are vested in rich gowns of silk and velvet,
enriched with jewels of such great price that a soldier with drawn sword
walks on guard behind. The platforms on which the statues rest are
thickset with lighted tapers and laden with flowers.
[Picture: A rope and matting factory, Seville]
The slow procession proceeds through the densely crowded streets and
squares to the accompaniment of solemn music, with which mingle the
_vivas_ and _bravas_ of the spectators. Before the doors of the City
Hall there is a pause to greet the _Alcalde_, who rises from his velvet
chair. Then the procession passes onwards through the reverent,
bare-headed crowd to the cathedral. The women, black-robed and with
black _mantillas_, in the balconies, where rows of lamps and candles
burn, rise in reverence. One and another sings an ardent petition, with
eyes fastened on the sacred figure. Now a young girl presses forward in
the crowd with a gift of marigolds, which are placed at the Virgin’s
feet.
There is a completeness and simplicity in the worship, the great crowd,
rich and poor, women and men, all moved by one strong emotion. And the
spell of the strange scene penetrates the spirit; one forgets its pagan,
mediæval childishness; one begins to understand how these outward symbols
have had power to hold the faith of the people.
The cathedral is the chief centre of all the ceremonies; and the vast
edifice—Santa Maria is the largest Gothic church in the world—which is
not too vast for its part in the great functions, is seen best on these
days of festival. The gold and silver plate, all the splendid Church
treasures—silver candelabra beyond counting, jewelled censers, chalices,
and crosses, golden keys and diamond stars, Arfe’s rich and delicate
monstrance—have been laid out by the side of the great altar. Crimson
drapings cover the walls; the priests wear their _terno celeste_,
vestments of blue and gold. The great doors are wide open, and all day
long the people come and go in endless procession, as the pageants of the
_pasos_ arrive and then depart. The Mass, with its elaborate ritual, is
sung to the Spanish music of Eslava; the Sacrament is borne in priestly
procession. Each day has its special function. On Palm Sunday is the
consecration of the palms and olive branches; on Maundy Thursday the
typical Spanish ceremony of the washing of feet takes place; on Good
Friday there is the Passion Sermon; and on Saturday the _Cirio Pascual_,
the great candle, 25 feet high and 770–880 pounds in weight, is
consecrated.
[Picture: Sacristy of the Convent of the Cartuja, Granada]
All the days the cathedral is filled with relays upon relays of
worshippers: some kneel upon the bare stones, one by one or in groups
together; some stand; others sit on the chairs they have brought with
them. The black dresses and _mantillas_ of the women mingle with the
bright colours of the peasants who have come from the country districts.
There is something social, well-nigh domestic, in the scene. In the
intervals between their devotions the women chatter loudly together and
use their fans; children play about as if in their own homes; even dogs
and cats are there, quite unmolested. The Spaniard is wholly at home in
his church, which to him is so much a part of the world and his daily
life that he can talk, eat, sleep, and transact business, there.
As the week advances an indescribable emotion grows, which culminates on
the Saturday, when, at ten o’clock in the morning, the Veil of the Temple
is rent in twain. The great purple curtain, which has hung in front of
Roldan’s beautiful Christ upon the Cross, is sharply drawn by hidden
cords. The signal is given; all the bells of the city ring out joyously,
the great organ peals forth jubilees of victory, _Gloria in Excelsis_
soars out in choral chants. It is the moment of supreme emotion. The
multitude falls upon its knees before the great symbol of the
accomplished Passion.
This is the end of the Holy Week ceremonies. The women put off their
black, and now appear in white lace _mantillas_ and dresses predominantly
white. In the afternoon the children’s festival of the lambs takes
place. Then on Easter Sunday the bull-fight is celebrated.
CHAPTER III—TOWN LIFE IN SPAIN
Toledo, the Type of the Spanish City—Its Architectural Monuments—The
Intermingling of Arab and Christian Art—Granada—The Alhambra—Cordova—The
Great Mosque—Seville, the City of Pleasure—The Special Character of the
Streets—The _Cafés_ and Shops—The Typical Andalusian—The Parks—The
_Sevillanas_—Spanish Courtship—The Houses of Seville—The _Patios_—The
Home-life of the Sevillians—Spanish Hospitality.
Toledo has kept, perhaps, more than any city in Spain its mediæval
aspect, combining in its buildings of so many civilizations that here
remain together; churches, convents, mosques, Gothic walls and ornaments,
Moorish houses and steep passages—everywhere the Moorish design is
evident—and a great Christian cathedral—much of what is most typical of
the genuine Spanish civilization. I know of no city that can give a more
poignant emotion than Toledo.
A great town, set on its rough and elevated rock of granite in the midst
of the blue Sierra, closely ringed by the deep brown water of the Tajo,
it is like no other city in the world. The national character, strong
and aloof, passionate and brilliant, and the nation’s history, are here
epitomized before you. And coming to the city, as the stranger does,
from Madrid, blatant, noisy, and modern, you will feel transplanted back
into an older world.
Your first impression is of something extraordinarily austere. You seem
to have passed into silence and an almost painful absence of life.
[Picture: Bridge of Alcantara and the Alcázar, Toledo]
Toledo has remained as the Moors built it, a tortuous network of cobbled
alleys, as was most fitting in a city built upon rock, scorched by sun in
summer, and in winter swept with icy winds. The tall houses, rising in
straight upward lines like an arrangement of flat walls, are almost all
windowless on the side next to the street; where there is a window it is
barred and closely latticed, and the high gates are studded with iron
bosses and seem to forbid an entrance. No sight of the tree-shaded court
is given, as at Seville and Cordova. No one appears to go in and out of
these doors. Every house has the aspect of a prison; they all look as if
they had histories.
There is the same absence of bustling modern life in the streets. In the
Calle del Comercio there are shops, but the wares are simple, having an
old-world air; only specially interesting is that of Alvarez, the best
maker of damascene. Even in the Zocodover, the centre of the city’s
business, all is sedate. You will see the water-carriers driving their
mules up the steep streets from the _vega_, a peasant whose beast is
laden with bright-coloured fruits and vegetables, or a group of goats
that supply the milk for the city. Yet often the streets seem deserted.
Only the companies of beggar children, who clamour incessantly around you
with their strange cry, “Un caukie sou! Un caukie sou!” remind you of
the life hidden in the sleeping city.
Romance lives in Toledo. How many scenes and how many figures famous in
Spain’s history are recalled to our memory here. In no other city are
there the same number of architectural monuments. It is the chief centre
of the two great elements of Spanish civilization, the Christian and the
Arab, which makes it the place where the native art can best be studied.
Its cathedral and churches are furnished with the most perfect examples
of the industrial arts that have been produced in the Peninsula. El
Greco, who adopted Toledo as his home, expresses in his pictures, which
are one of the great possessions of the city, the Toledan spirit, which
is the spirit of Spain. The churches are the museums and
picture-galleries of the city; each one has its special appeal—its
precious mosaics, its ironwork, its glass windows, its cloisters, its
tombs, its beautiful carvings, or its pictures.
In Toledo you understand the part that religion has taken in the history
of the country. You can hardly walk for five minutes in any direction
without coming upon some church; they stand at the corner of almost every
square, many are embedded between the brown walls of the houses.
Its architecture shows a curious mingling of Arab, Gothic, and
Renaissance work. Christian and Moor overlap in many buildings, while in
others the art of each emerges isolated and independent. In the great
cathedral, the perfection of Gothic in Spain, we see nothing of the Moor,
while in the mosque of Bel-el-pardon, now called El Cristo de la Luz, and
in the ancient mosque in the Calle de las Tornarias, which has never been
converted to Christian uses, and retains its original character almost
unimpaired, we can with difficulty trace the Christian. But in other
buildings—the Sinagoga del Tránsito, for instance—we find the Moorish
traditions persisting with the Christian. And it is this intermingling
and absorption of the Moorish civilization with the Christian that gives
the real character to Toledo. Not only in the churches that once were
mosques does the passage of that great people remain, but in the houses,
austere without but beautiful within, in ancient palaces, in fragments of
gardens that still are places of rest, in embattled bridge and arch, in
exquisite harmonies of ornament that meet you everywhere, and, more than
all, we find this gracious influence in the spirit of the city itself.
Toledo is a living picture, a city in which each building is a voice that
speaks the history of Spain.
In Cordova, and even in Granada, you are less sharply conscious of the
Moorish influence.
[Picture: A street in Cordova, looking towards the Mosque]
Time, the tamer of proud cities, has shadowed Granada, and to visit it is
to understand the desolation of conquest. The big hotels, placed so
incongruously near to the Alhambra, the clamorous guides, the beggars—all
the disagreeable conditions of a show city that trades on its past are
here. The efforts of recent years, that have developed a certain amount
of industrial activity, have not lessened this impression; for modern
enterprise seems strangely out of place in Granada, while the attempts to
improve the old city, such as the boulevard which has been driven through
its centre, have been left unfinished, with a result of added desolation.
In the air itself there seems something of decay, as the white mists from
the snowy heights of the Sierra Nevada rest shroud-like upon the _vega_.
Always you seem to catch an echo of that _ultimo suspiro del Moro_.
Ruins meet you everywhere; only the gardens in Granada have kept the
charm of their exquisite beauty.
But there is one possession that conquest has left to Granada. It is to
see the Alhambra that everyone comes to the city, which is but a setting
to this Moorish jewel. And in the wooded garden, which lies around the
citadel, where nightingales sing, and flowers embroider the grass, and
the sound of running water is always heard, Granada, with its memories of
ruin, seems shut off as by a veil of quiet. The Alhambra is the supreme
pearl of Moorish art in Spain. It is bewildering in the appeal of its
strange beauty. It is like an invocation of an Eastern sorcerer, and as
you wander in its courts and halls the Thousand and One Nights seem true.
It is hardly conceivable that people lived here. You seem to understand
the brilliant dominion of the Moors in Spain. Only people with a history
like theirs could have reigned here; life lived here could but have been
a romance.
The first impression you gather from the almost bewildering beauty is how
any building so seemingly fragile can be so strong. More than five
centuries have passed since the Alhambra was built. The repeated
earthquakes which did so much damage to Granada, and laid in ruin the
Renaissance palace of Charles V., have been powerless to destroy this
most delicate of architectural structures. To-day the Alhambra is kept
as a show-place, rejuvenated by the restorer. But even this has not been
able to dim the exquisite beauty of its courts and halls. And all the
jewelled weaving of ornaments, so difficult to grasp as being quite real,
have kept much of their splendour. It almost seems as though the common
superstition were true, and that the charm of Fate does guard the Red
Palace of the Moors.
Cordova suffers from the memory of a past greatness which she cannot now
support. Gautier describes the city as _le squelette blanché et
calciné_. Cordova is a city in sleep; it rests in a quiet and beautiful
dream. Here the Eastern spirit of acceptance echoes with an unsilenced
voice. And this is why the sensitive stranger will find such perfect
satisfaction in the white city’s sleeping peace. Cordova was the town
that I most loved in Spain.
But the tourist goes to Cordova in haste to visit the mosque. “Mezquita?
Mezquita?” Each Cordovese you encounter will surmise your desire and
direct you without question. They know that this imperishable building
is the one interesting lion in their city; it is to visit it that the
stranger comes to Cordova.
The great mosque is a “wonder of the world,” the one perfectly satisfying
building left in the city of the Khalif, the Cordova that was known as
“the Bride of Andalusia.” This Church of the Divine Wisdom is the most
complete expression in building that the Moors have left in Spain, more
even than the Alhambra. It is one of the buildings that sum up the
genius of a people, the experience of a race, and the teaching of a
school.
In the Outer Court of Oranges, where the water of the fountains and the
leafy shade of the orange-trees give delicious coolness from the blazing
heart of the sun, you will find the untiring charm and dreamy peace of
Oriental repose. You will see the women of Cordova gathered around the
great _almîda_ fountain with their red-brown pitchers to fill. You will
hear them chattering, telling the news of the day. Now and then will
come a sound of laughter as a youth, also with a vessel to fill, joins
them. The women will leave their pitchers and go into the mosque, one by
one or in groups together, for prayer is a part of the day’s work.
Figures move slowly up and down the cloisters; they are the Canons; each
will be smoking a cigarette. Groups of beggars crouch on the low stone
seats; they seem quite content in the sun. At the hour of service a band
of acolytes will come from the chancery and cross the court slowly to the
mosque, making a line of scarlet. And presently there will be a soft
sound of music as the boys sing the _coplas_ in honour of the Virgin.
Yes, the Court of Oranges is the most perfect spot in Cordova, to which
the stranger will come again and again.
[Picture: Puerta Del Perdón (Gate of Pardon) the Mosque, Cordova]
And when you go into the mosque itself, you will pass out of the
colonnades of orange-trees into colonnades of stone. Before you, around
you, everywhere, a forest of columns; and the canopy of curves above you,
formed by the double rows of crossed fantastic arches, will seem like the
interlacing branches of great trees. You will remember those enchanted
forests you dreamed of as a child. In truth, the architecture of the
mosque is like a living thing. The light, entering from above, plays
upon the arches, causing the red stones to gleam like fire; it frets the
thousand columns with moving patterns; it catches the glass mosaics in
jewelled brilliance, and makes a soft shining upon the marble pavement,
in which, as you look up and down, you see the long arcades reflected
until the distance dies away, mysterious and apparently unending.
[Picture: The Queen’s Chamber, Alhambra, Granada]
But words cannot describe this wonderful temple. The Moorish houses of
prayer will bring you a sense of joy: there is nothing of the mystic
suggestion of a Gothic cathedral—that of Seville, for instance; your
spirit is freed, not awed. The mosque was to the Moor this world as well
as the next. Here is the message of a race who understood the fulness of
living so well that they knew how to be joyously at home with their God;
and you realize more fully this lesson that the Moors gave to Spain,
which finds its expression to-day in the Spaniard’s happy familiarity
with his God.
The stranger will now be ready to understand the special atmosphere of
Seville, for it is this frank acceptance of joy as the gold thread of
life which gives the southern city its charm. It is not shadowed with
memory like sleeping Cordova, nor is it overburdened with heroic
monuments like Toledo; there are no ruins such as give sadness to
Granada; it is still a living city whose blood is pulsing with the joy of
life lived in the sunshine.
The buildings for which the city is famous all have this aspect of
joy—the Moorish Tower of Gold; the Alcázar, with its flower-crowded
gardens; the Giralda Tower, which is so old, and yet in its glittering
whiteness looks so new. There is a joyousness in these buildings that I
have never seen in the buildings of any other city.
Then, Seville is alive commercially, and from its wharves among the
orange-trees which line the banks of its rivers vessels carry away its
wine, its oil, and its oranges.
Seville has no rival among the cities of Spain. The old saying is still
true: “To him whom God loves He gives a home in Seville.”
In Seville you are happy without seeking to be so, and when the stranger
has learnt this he has learnt the secret of the _Sevillanos_.
Seville has the aspect of a city given up to a holiday humour; and if I
wished to describe the special quality of her happy people, I should say
that they understood perfectly the difficult art of loafing. You must be
happy to loaf successfully; that is why Northern people find it so
difficult. But not even the Venetians loaf as well as the _Sevillanos_.
Go to the Calle de las Sierpes, that narrow, animated street, the centre
of Seville’s joyous life; it is different from other streets; its gay
shops, with the double row of irregular, close-drawn windows that make a
sinuous line of light—certainly it is like a serpent. All day and far
into the night people saunter up and down its pavements or sit in one of
the many _cafés_, which are always filled with crowds of unoccupied
persons. You will seem to be watching a stage play. It is here that you
will see best the _majos_, or dandies of Seville; in springtime there is
sure to be a _matador_ strolling about in splendid costume, and women in
_mantillas_ saunter to and fro with their slow, graceful walk.
In the _cafés_ you will have an opportunity of studying the typical
Andalusian. He wears a short coat and very tight trousers of a light
colour, and a felt hat with a broad, flat brim. He is always
clean-shaven, and his hair is cut very short. These men are often
handsome, and have a striking expression of strength; the faces,
dignified and always humorous, often resemble a comic actor. They are an
affectionate and friendly company, and their conversation echoes with a
deafening buzz. Notice the way in which they smoke their cigarettes, and
at intervals drink their _refrescos_ or sip from their small glasses of
_aguardiente_. Their enjoyment is so Spanish, so epicurean. And women
in the street fan themselves in the same way. All these people are happy
in the frank acceptance of life as it is.
Inside the shops, which have doors wide open to the street, groups of
women sit to buy fans and _mantillas_. Making purchases is a delightful
game, in which all Spanish women excel. They smile, and chatter, and use
their fans, bargaining with delicious grace, while the salesman,
cigarette in hand, shrugs his shoulders and gesticulates.
“But the _mantilla_ is dear, señor.”
He throws out his hands in protest.
“No, señorita; I am giving it away at ten _pesetas_.”
“Is the quality good?” and she raises her eyebrows in bewitching
incredulity.
“As good as God’s blessing.”
And with mutual smiles and salutations the purchase is made.
[Picture: Court of Lions, Alhambra, Granada]
It is in the Paseo de las Delicias—the name will tell you of the beauty
of this park, with its orange-groves, hedges of blue aloes, and all
manner of tropical trees and flowers—that the ladies of Seville drive and
promenade each afternoon. The _majos_ cast languishing glances upon them
as they walk to and fro, and compliments are given: “Oh, Jesus, what an
air!” “Happy is the mother that bore thee!” “Your eyes are as runaway
stars that would rather shine in your face than in the heavens!”
The _Sevillanas_ smile and chatter together; this play of love is a part
of the accustomed homage which is their due.
There is a fascination about Spanish women not easy to define. Many of
them are not beautiful, but they are always graceful, and they all walk
beautifully. Then, most of them have the soft, expressive eyes which the
East has bequeathed to Spain. There is a quality and certain finish
about them which is unique; each one looks as if she understood that she
was a woman, and was very glad that this was so. Perhaps this is why
they are so attractive; this is the reason, too, why the old women are so
good-humoured, smiling, and gay. The indefinite unquietness that so
often characterizes English and American women is entirely absent. These
Spanish señoras, for their happiness, have kept the pagan content.
[Picture: A group of workers in a “patio” at Seville]
Much of what is characteristic of the home life of the Sevillians may be
gathered from the arrangement of their houses. They are all—the houses
of the poor as well as those of the rich citizens—built around the
_patio_, or shaded court, where palms, myrtles, pomegranates, and
jasmines grow, and the singing of caged birds mingles with the sound of
the playing fountains. Into this _patio_ all the windows of the house
open and the rooms lead. The doors are of open ironwork—no two doors are
alike—and often, even in the small houses, the grating is of exquisite
workmanship. One door, which also has an open _reja_, or grating, leads
into the street. It is in these _patios_ that the Sevillians spend their
lives, and this throwing open of their homes to the gaze of all who pass
in the streets is exactly characteristic of this simple, happy people.
Every afternoon and evening the youth of the family laugh and sing and
dance to the rattle of the castanets. It is against the _rejas_ that the
lovers stand at night and sing their serenades, and so persistent is
their patience that they have gained the title of “iron-eaters.” All
Andalusians are musical; even the beggar thrums his guitar, which he will
not part with for bread; to him music is a necessity, and bread a luxury
with which he can dispense.
The Andalusian’s leisure is a perpetual source of delight. What
impresses the serious foreigner, who is so fortunate as to become an
inmate of a Sevillian home, is the mirth and courtesy of the family, who
all seem to enjoy endless leisure. Spanish households have a
pleasantness quite their own. The men are never preoccupied with
business; smoking cigarettes, they will pass hours chattering to the
women of the family, who spend the greater part of the day working their
beautiful embroideries. Few books are read, and talking is the chief
occupation. No people can talk like the Spaniards, and the excitement is
so spontaneous that often the conversation is carried on far into the
night. The slightest incident gains a poetic vividness from their
dramatic telling. Cigarette-smoking and talking are the only indulgences
which the Sevillians carry to excess.
In their home life there is a love of visiting and a love of receiving
visitors. _Tertulias_, or parties, are frequent. But a Spanish party
differs materially from an English, in so far as there are no
refreshments—if we except the glasses of pure water and plate of
_azucarillos_ to sweeten the water, which are placed upon a side-table.
This is an instance of the sobriety of the Sevillians. The guests dance
and sing and talk incessantly, and are perfectly satisfied to enjoy
themselves without eating.
The Spaniards are good hosts; the exquisite politeness which is natural
to them, even to those of the very lowest classes, causes them to lay
themselves out to entertain; boredom would seem to be unknown to the
native host and hostess. They make a pleasure of the slightest social
intercourse. I recall one occasion in Seville, when I asked permission
to enter the house of a poor woman in the Macarena quarter, in order that
my artist friend might make a drawing from her balcony of a building of
which a satisfactory view could not be obtained in the street.
“My house is yours, señoras; make whatsoever use of it you will,” was her
answer to my request. And during the hours that my friend was at work
she put aside her occupations—she was a _planchadora_, and was ironing
with her assistants on our entrance—and gave herself up solely to help
and entertain us. A _refresco_ was brought to us; _calientes_, the
twisted doughnuts which are made in every Andalusian house, were fried
for us. Nor would she consent to receive the payment which we, with our
foreign stupidity, offered to her on our departure. No, the kindly,
cheery woman did not understand payment for hospitality.
But it is during the days of festival at Easter and the _Feria_ that the
fine hospitality of the Sevillians is seen at its best. The houses are
filled to overflowing, and hospitality is taxed to a degree that only the
most perfect courtesy and good-nature could endure. Every corner is
received with a chorus of welcome, and embraced like a brother. Beds are
surrendered, even sofas are given up, and as fresh strangers arrive,
unable to gain accommodation in the crowded inns, mattresses, pillows,
and rugs are brought out of cupboards, and beds are made upon the floor.
All the members of the family, and even the tired servants, who are
always joyously ready to help, sit up, because there is literally
_nowhere_ for them to sleep. The difficulty of obtaining provisions in
these seasons of festivity is very great: the butcher cannot provide
meat; even bread is hard to buy. But the señora of the house is never
troubled; she tells you her woes, and then goes smiling to fry
_calientes_ and prepare other delicacies for the refreshment of her
guests. The constant Spanish courtesy never fails, and the foreigner who
happily chances among this crowded joyous party can but wonder.
[Picture: “Las Planchadoras” (laundresses) at work, Seville]
CHAPTER IV—TOWN LIFE IN SPAIN (_continued_)
Madrid: its Situation—The Old Town—The Rastro—The New Town—The Puerta del
Sol—_Cafés_—The _Aguadores_—The Prado Park—The Theatre—Spanish
Children—The Museums—The Picture-galleries.
The contrast is great from Seville to Madrid, which is less distinctly
Spanish than any city in the Peninsula. The royal capital, established
by the decree of Philip II., has the appearance of an accidental growth
on the harsh Castilian slopes. The climate is the worst of any town in
Spain. Madrid suffers all the oppressions of the sky—baked by fierce
summer suns, and chilled by the ice of treacherous winds. In point of
distance it is only some twenty leagues, in one direction, from Toledo,
and in the other from beautiful Avila; but in its life it is separated by
centuries from the old Spanish cities. It is the strangest
transformation to come from them into the eager, bustling life of the
modern capital. There are no antiquities here, no great memories, no
romance, nothing but what the people and the natural brightness in the
air give to it.
[Picture: The Throne-Room, Royal Palace, Madrid]
To stay in Madrid is to undergo the most absorbing fatigue. The
Madrileño lives with a speed that in Spain startles. The city never
sleeps, never stays its chatter; its inhabitants are apparently so full
of business that they turn day into night, yet no one seems to work. It
thus comes about that the lover of Spain, who has become used to the
untroubled content of happy Seville or the sleeping peace of Cordova and
Toledo, can with difficulty find himself at home in Madrid.
Madrid is a city of contrasts. Treasures of art abound in its museum,
yet of all cities it is surely the least influenced by the spirit of
beauty and design. Its splendid bridge which gives entrance to the city
has been ridiculed with the question, “Where is the river?” It misses
all charm of environment; the city has no suburbs, and the country around
is barren and without trees and verdure. Yet the Madrileños cannot be
persuaded that any other city is its equal. It is a capital in
transition of a country in transition, and as such it must be regarded.
[Picture: The Rastro Market, Madrid]
The old part of the town, such as the Rastro and surrounding narrow
streets, where on each Sunday is held the market, the largest rag-fair in
the world, still bring one a sensation of living in the Middle Ages. The
wares are laid out in most primitive fashion in the narrow streets in
great piles; all kinds of antiquities are sold, as well as clothes and
wonderful peasant jewellery. The low stalls are piled up with flowers,
fruits, and vegetables, of all colours, in confused abundance. Women and
girls stand in groups of twos or threes, or sit beside their wares,
bundled in bright-coloured shawls, and all with kerchiefed heads. They
talk incessantly; they do not seem to care whether their goods are sold
or not, but they chaffer noisily over every sale. Some of the women have
perfectly-shaped faces with magnetic eyes that recall the East. It was
here once that I saw a _manola_, beautifully attired with a white
_mantilla_, silk shoes, gaily coloured dress and jewellery. She reminded
me of Goya’s pictures.
Fine savage old men in tattered cloaks wander on the outskirts of the
market asking alms, and beautiful, bewitching children play their games
unchecked.
But the Rastro is not the real Madrid. The modern town, with its aspect
of a city still in the making, so that one thinks not so much of what it
is as of what it may become, has grown up in the image of Paris, with
boulevards, wide streets, tall characterless houses and modish shops. It
is to be feared that this new Madrid will overgrow all that is left of
the old city.
The Madrileños spend their lives in the streets and squares, almost all
of which are wide, clean, and well paved. The houses are ornamented with
balconies, the first of which, supported by pillars, forms in many parts
of the city a piazza where the inhabitants may walk under cover. The
Puerta del Sol, the largest and most animated _plaza_, and the centre of
Madrid, is the rendezvous of the idlers of the city. From eight o’clock
in the morning, and far into the night, it is thronged with groups of men
wrapped in their cloaks, which they wear to protect them from the
treacherous winds that sweep the city even in summer. Furnished with
several dozen cigarettes and coppers for _azúcar_ and water, they pass
the hours in endless talking. Politics form the chief subject of
conversation, and the progressive element in Spanish society discusses
here.
Most of the _cafés_ are in this quarter, and they are always filled.
They are less attractive in their outside appearance than the _cafés_ of
Seville, but the refreshments served are excellent. The Madrileños, like
all Spaniards, drink more water than wine. In every street and _paseo_
you see the picturesque _aguadore_, with his _cántaro_ of white or brown
clay and reed basket, containing glasses, sticks of _azucarillos_, and
oranges or limes. He has not changed from the day when Velazquez painted
him; he still wears a loose jacket of snuff-coloured cloth, breeches,
leather gaiters, and a peaked hat.
Perhaps it is the climate which causes the Madrileños always to suffer
thirst. The _bebidas heladas_, or iced drinks, flavoured with orange,
lemon, strawberry, cherries, or almond, which are sold in every _café_,
are far superior to any English or American beverages. Spanish preserves
also deserve to be mentioned, and there is one variety, known by the name
“angel’s hair,” _cabello de angel_, which is delicious.
Madrid is so much a modern city that at first the stranger hardly
realizes how pleasantly its inhabitants live. It is most fortunately
rich in well-shaded parks and beautiful green promenades.
The Prado is the evening gathering-place of the fashionable Madrileños,
and the tree-shaded promenade, from seven o’clock onwards, affords the
most animated sight. An astonishing number of people collect here. In
the crossways which intersect the carriage-drive, all the families of the
city walk to enjoy the cool of the evening. The Madrileños are seen at
their finest here. The _majos_, resembling plates of fashion in their
tight, faultless clothes, stand about in groups admiring the ladies who
roll past in landaus, for carriages are essential to fashionable Madrid.
Some of the men ride the splendid Andalusian horses; with manes, long
sweeping tails, and gay trappings, like the horses that Velazquez
painted. The Madrileñas have adopted the costumes of Paris, and in
fashionable attire Spanish women always look badly dressed. The
_mantilla_ is, however, worn by most women, and even a plain face looks
beautiful in this fascinating head-dress. Like all Spanish women, each
Madrileña carries a fan, which is held open as a parasol to give shade
from the sun. A woman without a fan is unknown, and there is something
truly Spanish in the use these vivid, bewitching women make of them. The
Madrileña collects fans as an English lady collects jewels; she will
often own more than a hundred of various colours and patterns.
[Picture: Mounting guard in the Plaza De Armas, Royal Palace, Madrid]
During summer this outdoor parade in the Prado is in gay career until
midnight; and as the night advances the promenades are full of gay noise.
There are open-air concerts, and dancing takes place upon the open spaces
of grass. Around the stalls of the _refresco_ sellers, families are
seated talking gaily together. The greatest animation prevails. The
Madrileños never seem to be tired. The abandonment to happiness is
contagious, and the stranger will gain a sense of the joy of life as he
sees the ardent faces of men, women, and children, in whom mirth is never
vulgar, but as natural as speech.
In the winter season the Madrileños visit the theatre, which every
Spaniard adores. Gautier writes that “long before Shakespeare the
Spaniards invented the drama.” Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries produced an almost countless number of dramatic works, and a
passion for the drama still animates the people. Spanish women, as we
should expect, are first-rate actresses; they mark all shades of
character with appreciation and fine delicacy. It is interesting to note
that it was in Spain that women first played women’s parts, which in
England at the same period were entrusted to boys.
The Teatro Real at Madrid is devoted to Italian opera, but at the more
popular Teatro Español, where La Guerrero, the Bernhardt of Spain holds
sway, there is an opportunity of witnessing the native dramas of Zorilla,
Hartzenbusch, and Tirso de Molina, or the modern society plays of
Echegaray and Galdos. The _sainete_, which takes the place of our
“curtain-raiser,” is usually comic, and those that are most popular are
adapted from the farces of Cervantes and Lope de Rueda.
Even in the heat of summer the Madrileños visit the theatres, but at this
season the performances are limited to the popular _zarzuelas_,
operettas, four of which are given in each evening.
Spanish children share the love of the theatre which belongs to their
elders. At the afternoon performances, which are given on every Sunday
and _fiestas_, half the house is occupied by child ticket-holders, whose
interest in the action of the piece is astonishing. They applaud with
cries of “_bonito_”; they ask questions, and the house is never still for
a single instant.
Spanish children are already grown up when quite young, but they are the
most fascinating little people, at the same time natural and
self-conscious, with a sort of precocious winsomeness. Their bodies are
so full of energy that they give an impression of more vivid life than
the children of Northern countries.
Nowhere are children happier and more loved than in Spain; the _niños_
are the idols of their parents, and are universally treated with
indulgence. Yet the Spanish child is not spoilt, and the obedient spirit
is never lacking. Even the poorest child is taught to practise those
courtesies of life which in Spain are never forgotten. Ask a child his
name, and after the answer he will always add, “at the service of God and
yourself.” No child forgets the “_mil gracias_” with which a benefit is
accepted. I recall a small boy of peasant parentage who acted as my
guide upon one occasion, and who, when asked what gift he would like for
his service, answered: “I shall like best, señora, what pleases you most
to give me.” Even in the prayer which Spanish children offer at night
you find an expression of this quaint, delicious politeness:
“Jesus, Joseph, Mary,
Your little servant keep,
While, _with your kind permission_,
I lay me down to sleep.”
Those who have taught Spanish children all praise their intelligence.
During the first twelve years of life both girls and boys develop more
rapidly than other European children.
[Picture: Children at play in the park of the Buen Retiro, Madrid]
This precocious understanding is manifest in their games. Go to the
great park of the Buen Retiro, where during each afternoon the young
Madrileños are busy with their plays of bull-fighting, politics, and
flirtations. The children are attended by their nurses, who most
frequently are the _pasiegas_ from Santander, who wear the charming
national costumes of a pleated red petticoat with silver-lace border,
velvet bodice, and brightly coloured handkerchief as head-dress.
_Al toro_ is the favourite game. The _niños_, using a mask for the bull
and the capes of red and yellow which are sold on the stalls, go through
the whole pantomime of the bull-ring with a vivid and quite grown-up
delight in the sharp appeal made to their sensations. Another group play
at soldiers, armed with sticks for swords and holding a great flag.
Other children, a little older, pass the time in flirtations. The boys
pay the extravagant Spanish compliments to little girls, or in the wooded
groves they sing the native melodies to the answering songs of the
nightingales.
I talked with one young singer, who told me he had reached his fifteenth
year, and already was betrothed. I asked him if he were not too young.
“No, señora,” was his answer; “God is good, and my parents have money to
maintain us.” Afterwards he took up his song, that had something wild
and Oriental in its passionate notes.
Among the excellences of Madrid must be counted her Museums. The Armeria
with its fine collection of arms and weapons, the Museo Naval, and the
Museo Arqueologico, furnish effective mementoes of the entire tragedy of
Spain’s history. Of her art galleries who can say praise enough? It is
only in Madrid that it is possible to realize, to the full extent of
their gifts and limitations, the artists of Spain. The Academia de
Bellas Artes and the Museo de Arte Moderno are rich in pictures. And it
is to see the Museo del Prado that the stranger visits Madrid; no
picture-gallery in the world contains a more wonderful collection of
masterpieces.
It is a splendid art inheritance that is enshrined in the Prado. Spain
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was closely connected with the
countries that were then the centres of art. The Catholic Sovereigns had
a fine taste for pictures, and to them we owe largely the collection of
the great works which, after the pictures of Velazquez, are the glory of
the Prado.
The building, of pale brick and white stone, placed in a tree-shaded
park, is well designed, and on the whole well lighted. Externally it is
a model of what a picture-gallery should be. A bronze statue of
Velazquez stands before the entrance. This is fitting. The Prado is in
a very special way the home of Velazquez. No other nation has been so
supremely fortunate in preserving almost intact the work of her greatest
painter. No picture is wanting to the complete understanding of his
exquisite art.
In the Prado there are masterpieces by the world’s great painters—by
Titian, by Rubens, by Raphael, by Albrecht Dürer, by Holbein, and how
many others? But even in the presence of these masters we seek
Velazquez. Here, too, Goya astonishes us with his vigorous and wonderful
art; there are admirable paintings by El Greco, by Ribera, by Murillo;
but we can see nothing but Velazquez. And the emotion of first seeing
these pictures is one of awe. We are not in the presence of an Old
Master, but of a painter who in his perfect art forestalled every modern
movement in painting. This is why Velazquez stands alone among artists.
And the lover of art journeys to the Prado that he may study his
pictures, as the pilgrim journeys to the shrine of his saint.
CHAPTER V—COUNTRY LIFE IN SPAIN
Life in a Spanish _Posada_—Spanish Peasants—The Toilers of the Field and
other Workers—The _Cigarreras_ of Seville—The _Kermesse_ in the Esclava
Gardens—The Love of Festivals—Easter Day in a Spanish Village—Third-class
Travelling—Wild Life in Spain—Fishing in the Country Districts.
To know Spain it is not enough to visit the towns. It is when the
stranger leaves the beaten tracks of travel, and goes to the country
districts, where the outcome of modern progress is still unknown, that he
sees the life of ancient Spain almost unchanged. I know of no experience
more necessary to the understanding of the country and its people than a
lengthened stay in a village _posada_. The life, indeed, will be hard in
many ways, and it will be wise for the stranger to cultivate the stoicism
and indifference to personal comfort that characterize the Spaniards
themselves; but the experience is excellent, and the people you meet are
charming in their kindness and perfect courtesy.
The _posada_ is the _casa huéspedes_, or house of hospitality for the
neighbourhood. The title is no misnomer, but stands for what the village
_posada_ truly is. To stay there is to find a new meaning in the word
“hospitality”; it is to know willing service, restrained by the fine
Spanish courtesy from offensive attention.
[Picture: A bridge and country homes in the mountains of Northern Spain]
It is more than probable that the first sight of the _posada_ may disturb
the stranger. It is built with a spacious vestibule. On one side of the
stone staircase, which gives entrance to the upstairs living-rooms, is a
dark wineshop, where the men of the village foregather to talk and drink
the black native wine; while the other side serves as the stable, in
which the mules, donkeys, oxen, and other animals belonging to the house,
have their home. Many odours cling about the dark staircase; the scent
of closely packed animals mingles with that of garlic, while the air
reeks with the fumes of rancid _aceite_, or oil—the never-to-be-forgotten
smell that belongs to every _posada_. The noise in the vestibule is
deafening and incessant; the men talk in loud voices which are piercingly
vibrant and metallic. Cackling hens, with maybe a fat black pig or
little woolly lamb, block the way as one climbs the staircase to the
living-room.
This room is bare, but never dirty; the filth which I had been led to
expect from my experience of some of the smaller inns in the towns does
not exist in the village _posadas_. The large windows open on to wooden
balconies which look out on to the tree-shaded _plaza_. The walls are
freshly whitewashed, and the bare boards of the floor are scrubbed to
snowy whiteness by their daily scouring with sand; the curtains, too,
when there are any, are always white. Sometimes a few highly coloured
and amazing religious prints in black frames hang upon the walls, but,
fortunately, more often they are bare. The furniture is of the simplest
description—a large table, bare of any cloth, that fills most of the
room, wooden chairs and a Spanish press, a great cupboard which holds the
linen of the family. The beds are placed in small alcoves which lead out
of the living-rooms; and these beds are always comfortable, with spotless
linen, embroidered, lace-trimmed, and brought from the lavender-scented
chest. There is no fireplace in the living-room, and if, as often
chances in winter and early spring, the weather is cold, the only heat is
gained from the _brasero_, whose charcoal ashes give the very faintest
glow of warmth. The Spaniards accept cold without murmur; they wrap
themselves in their cloaks, and wait till God sends out the sun.
[Picture: The Village Posada at Matarosa]
The _posada_ is ruled by the señora. She sways a rod of iron over her
husband, relatives, servants, guests, and the arrangements of the house,
being full of energy and the vigour of character that is common to
Spanish women even in old age. She is the characteristic type of the
Spanish woman of the people, her face a formidable mass of wrinkles;
_jamona_, or stout in body, but of surprising agility; she is witty,
smiling, and contented. From break of day until late evening she bustles
about, shouting orders as she goes from one task to another, yet she
seems never hurried, never overburdened. How happy she is if her efforts
are appreciated and her guests enjoy the fare she has provided! how her
face saddens and clouds if any dish is sent from the table uneaten.
“Mas, mas!” (More, more!), is her constant cry as she enters the room at
the beginning of every course to urge her guests to eat.
To have English visitors staying at her posada filled the good señora
with pride. Her satisfaction reached its zenith when letters arrived
from England. She was loath to yield them up. “The great English people
will know of my _posada_ now,” she said on one occasion, pointing to the
address in triumph. With comical humility she asked that, in my
goodness, I would give her the envelope. How well do I remember the joy
with which she carried away the torn trophy!
Nothing was too good for these strangers who had come from a foreign land
to stay at her _posada_. The best of everything the house contained was
given up for our use, special food was cooked, and the village was
ransacked to provide things fitting for _los Ingléses_. On one occasion,
when I had asked for a certain food not to be obtained in the
neighbourhood, a messenger was sent on horseback twenty miles over the
mountains to the nearest town to procure it. Nor was any payment allowed
for the service. No, the English señora was her guest; she had asked for
something, it was her duty to provide it. The trouble! the expense! she
did not understand. In the old Spain service is not rendered for
payment.
It is in the villages that one is best able to study the peasants and the
gipsies. Sunday is the _dia festivo_, when the youths and maidens,
dressed in the picturesque native costumes, dance and sing to the music
of the village piper, who plays the _dulzaina_, a kind of clarionet. He
marks the time by beating on a drum which is slung around his waist. The
singing is the tuneless chanting heard so often in Spain, a kind of
interminable dwelling on one piercing note, not beautiful to unaccustomed
ears, but disturbing in its strange appeal, which so persistently recalls
the East. The dances are danced by boys and girls and men and women
grouped in couples of four or six. There is a great deal of movement;
the hands keep time with the feet, playing castanets hung with
bright-coloured ribbons.
In all parts of Spain there are gipsies, but it is in the districts of
the south that the stranger will see them best, for there would seem to
be a special affinity between the Andalusian and the gipsy character.
The Gitanas and Gitanos live in communities, often in houses carved out
of the mountain sides. It is among them that we find the most typical of
the Spanish dancers. Dancing is a universal accomplishment, a part of
life, in which every girl and boy takes his or her share.
[Picture: A mediæval ox-cart, Province of Guipúzcoa]
On one day in the week the market is held in every small town, on the
open ground of the _plaza_, under the overspreading trees. Let us look
at the market-place at Ampuero, a large village in the Basque province of
Guipúzcoa. The whole ground space is filled with booths that are piled
up with fruit and vegetables, with dress-stuffs, pots, water-jugs,
furniture, and a medley of wares that give bright colour to the scene.
Peasants from the surrounding hamlets have all come to buy and sell.
They are dressed in the native costume—the men with the _boina_, or cap
of dark blue wool, shaped like a Scotch tam-o’-shanter, short smock
jackets, trousers of bright blue linen, and red or black body sashes; and
the women with their many-coloured handkerchiefs of silk, bright skirts
that are short and very wide, and still brighter blouses. The Spanish
peasants have the delight in vivid colour that belongs to all primitive
and happy people.
The sellers and buyers stand about in groups talking in the ancient and
mysterious Basque language, which once, as place-names prove, was spoken
over the greater part of the Peninsula. All business is carried out in
the vivid, primitive Spanish manner. And what impresses the stranger
most is the courtesy and happy good-nature, which makes the universal
bargaining a game enjoyed alike by buyer and seller.
In one corner of the _plaza_, under an archway, is a stone image, beneath
which burns a sacred lamp, and always, as they pass, the men and women
pause, cross themselves, and make a genuflection; religion is part of
business. The mules and ox-carts stand at the outskirts of the plaza.
The mules are shaved on the upper part of their bodies and their tails
and ears, and have a curious appearance; they are thin and badly cared
for, but this is hidden by their gay trappings. The ox-waggons are
exceedingly primitive, and as each one arrives a hoarse and deafening
noise pierces the air. The peasants leave the wheels of the cart
unoiled, and delight in the frightful music, which can be heard half a
league away; they believe that the sound drives off demons. A peasant
would not own a cart that did not “play.”
The Basques claim to be the oldest race in Europe; and it is now
generally acknowledged that they represent the primitive Iberians of
Berber stock, who form the fundamental population of all Spain. Many
primitive customs survive among them, and one of the most interesting is
that by which the eldest daughter in some districts takes precedence over
the sons in inheritance. They are a people of the mountains, and to know
the Basques you must live in their villages; even their one town, Bilbao,
in spite of its industrial and commercial prosperity, is really an
overgrown village more than a city. It offers a striking contrast to
Barcelona, the other great Spanish seaport, and the most perfect example
of a commercial city.
[Picture: Harvesting wheat in the Basque Province of Guipúzcoa]
To see the Basques at their finest you must watch them in the fields,
where the women work side by side with the men, and appear to have equal
strength with them. They use a large and primitively-shaped fork on
which both feet are placed to force the implement into the ground, and
the work is carried out with surprising rapidity.
Great flocks of sheep are reared in Spain, especially in Estremadura;
each flock belonging to one proprietor is called a _cabaña_, and many
contain 50,000 sheep. The shepherd who guards the _cabaña_ is one of the
most constant figures in the country districts. A million arrobes of
wool—an arrobe is about 25 pounds—are said to be obtained in each year,
and the wool is famed throughout Europe. Although manufactures are not
extensively developed, I have seen cloth made at Guadalajara that for
beauty of colour and quality would compare favourably with the
manufactures of England or France. It is worth noting that in some
manufactories it is the custom to set aside a portion of the wool to be
sold for the benefit of souls in purgatory—an instance of how in Spain
religion is connected with everything.
The most important industries of Spain are wine-making and fruit-growing.
The country makes all the common wines for her own consumption, and the
brandies, rich wines, and fruits exported form a considerable source of
wealth. Many thousands of men, women, and children, are employed in
these industries. At Seville and other towns in the south, the women
pick the oranges ready to be taken to the ships. Great heaps of golden
fruit line the groves, which are afterwards sorted, the better fruit
being wrapped in paper before it is packed.
One of the oldest industries is pottery. The _jarro_, or earthen pots
used for water, are made of white or red clay, unglazed, and very
beautiful in shape. The _jarro_ are sold by women in the markets of the
towns for a few reales—that is to say, about five or six English pence.
[Picture: An orange-picker, Seville]
Spanish workers are universally poor, receiving wages so low that it is
surprising how they live. But they are thrifty and sober, while their
needs are simple, and their hardships are mitigated in some measure by
the fact that almost all industries are carried on out of doors. In the
streets of the towns you see men and women at work at the edge of
pavements, making and mending boots, working sewing-machines, preparing
leather goods, ironware, and other commodities. The shops and small
manufactories are open to the street; you can see the occupants within
making ropes and baskets, saddlebags, brushes, and a variety of wares.
What impressed me was that these workers always looked happy.
Women play an important part in the life of workaday Spain, and the
splendid types of these women workers make the foreigner think deeply.
They are full of energy and vigour even in old age. They work as well as
the men in the fields, turning the soil with forks, training the vines,
and garnering the grapes and chestnuts. I have seen women carrying
immense burdens, unloading boats, acting as porters, removing household
furniture. I saw one woman with a chest of drawers easily poised upon
her head; another, who was quite old, carried a bedstead. A beautiful
woman porter in one village carried our heavy luggage, running with it on
bare feet, without sign of effort. For what surprised me most was that,
in spite of hard physical labour, these women are beautiful. They are
always happy and contented; in their faces, and especially in their eyes,
is that indescribable expression, the wonderful smile of Spanish women.
A visit to the _fábrica de tabacos_ at Seville will show the stranger a
charming scene of labour. The rooms of the factory are large, and,
although low, are airy. They open into outer courts, and the great
chambers, supported by pillars, resemble a church. Each room has its
altar, which is decorated with flowers and offerings. As the workers
pass they cross themselves, and never fail to make the customary
genuflection. Yet, with the easy familiarity which is the special
feature of the Spaniard’s religion, they will often place their outer
garments upon the altar. The _cigarreras_ are deeply religious, and at a
recent Easter festival one of the _pasos_ of the Virgin was presented
with a splendid new mantle at a cost of 9,000 dollars, for the purchase
of which the 7,000 workers had each contributed two _centimos_ a week
during the preceding year.
The _cigarreras_, in brightly coloured costumes, sit at work making
_polvo de Sevilla_ and _tabaco de fraile_. A skilful worker can easily
accomplish ten _atados_, or bundles of fifty cigars, daily. The murmur
of conversation never ceases; talking seems to aid the Spaniards in work.
Many of the women have their babies with them, whom they tend in the
intervals of work; children a little older play happily together in
groups. It is enough to have seen these smiling, contented, industrious
women to know that life is happy to most women in Spain.
The _Kermesse_, which is held each year in the Esclava Gardens, is the
festival of the _cigarreras_; it is a kind of fair. The stalls and
booths, where every variety of wares are sold, are presided over by the
_cigarreras_, dressed in the beautiful Andalusian attire. They chaffer
over every sale, but they do not seek customers, and appear to be more
occupied in talking than in selling their goods. All day long the
gardens are full of gay noise. The women pass to and fro; some sit on
seats, some rest upon the grass under the trees. In the centre of the
gardens a platform is erected, where in turn the women dance the
_sevillanas_ and other dances with charming spontaneous enjoyment. The
sound of castanets and clapping of hands never ceases; the talking is
deafening. Sometimes there is a quarrel, but this is rare. There is a
natural refinement in these women, and because they are really happy they
have no need of riot to convince themselves that life is pleasant.
[Picture: Pottery vendors in a Spanish Market]
Their love of festivals is shared by all Spaniards, and everywhere
holiday-making is a part of life. In the country districts, as in the
towns, the _Pascua de Resurrección_ of Easter is the most popular
festival, when the days are spent in a curious combination of religious
ceremonial and holiday-making.
It was my good fortune to spend one Easter in a mountain village, where I
had an opportunity of seeing the customs of the people of old Spain. On
Palm Sunday the village was filled to overflowing with peasants, many of
whom had travelled long distances, riding on mules or driving in the
wooden ox-carts, from the hamlets among the mountains. They were dressed
in the native costumes. The men wore velvet breeches adorned with silver
buttons, and leather gaiters, open to show the calves; bright sashes of
red or yellow silk; jackets of brown cloth, with embroidered cuffs and
collars; blue or maroon cloaks, brightly lined; and pointed hats, adorned
with silver tassels. The fantastic dress gave the scene an aspect more
African than European. The women were not so gay, and were almost
universally attired in black; but the _mantilla_ with the white flower,
which all wore, gave them an incomparable grace. All day the streets
were filled with bustle and life. Vendors of palms were stationed in
every corner selling their wares, while boys ran to and fro among the
crowds with arms full of olive branches.
The great function was the procession, when the _pasos_ were carried
through the streets after the celebration of Mass. In the _plaza_ a
stand had been erected, and every seat was filled; people crowded the
pavements, and in the balconies of every house men and women were closely
packed. The gendarmes of the little town walked first, marching gravely,
the representatives of law and order; then followed the children, clad in
white, and bearing the consecrated palms and olive branches; while after
them came the priests, dressed in robes richly embroidered and trimmed
with lace. Upon the shoulders of hidden bearers was carried the litter,
illuminated with hundreds of candles, upon which rested the figure of the
Virgin, the patron saint of the village. The image was hideous, quite
without beauty, and decked out in cheap tawdry finery, strangely
incongruous. But to the peasants she was the Mother of God. I saw no
sign of levity; the attitude of the men as well as of the women was
perfectly dignified, perfectly religious. All eyes were riveted upon the
sacred figure, heads were bared, and each man and woman bowed and made
the sign of the cross as the lighted litter passed. Prayers were
murmured and blessings invoked. “Holy Mother, cause the crops to ripen,”
“the sick child to be healed,” “the lover’s heart to soften”—such were
the cries of the women. Children pressed forward, dodging unchecked
among the gendarmes and priests, clamouring for a blessing. One small
_niña_ knelt upon the pavement in front of the _pasos_, holding up a
white carnation in offering. A priest stepped forward, took the flower,
and placed it upon the litter.
To the children of the village the Easter days brought special enjoyment.
The part they played in the festival was a strange one, giving an example
of the old-world customs that live so persistently in Spain. On the
_Viernes Santo_, or Good Friday, each boy and girl went to church armed
with a horn and large wooden clapper, upon which strange instruments they
played to frighten the spirit of the traitor Judas Iscariot, who betrayed
Señor Dios, the name by which they quaintly designate the Saviour. They
blew and rattled with a will, and the hideous, deafening noise mingled
strangely with the music of the Mass, for the evil spirit must not
escape. Incomprehensible survival of an old superstition, blending the
grotesque with the most sacred service of the Church—how often the
stranger is surprised in Spain!
[Picture: A Basque peasant-girl driving an ox-cart]
The Spaniards are more friendly with one another than any people that I
know. The stranger will realize this travelling in the third-class
trains, as he must in the country districts, where the expresses do not
stop. These trains are known as _mixto_, and convey luggage as well as
passengers. The carriages are uncomfortable, and not always clean, and
the speed is very slow. Patience is a quality that the visitor to Spain
must cultivate. The train may start before the advertised time; it may
be an hour late. No Spaniard is disturbed by such trifles. At the
stations there is always a crowd of people waiting. There is a kind of
fatalistic patience in their appearance; they seem not so much to be
waiting for a particular train, as hoping that presently a train will
come that will take them to their destination. Even when the train
arrives there is no hurrying; a start will not be made until everyone is
ready, for punctuality is a small virtue compared with politeness. The
long-drawn cry of _A-a-gua fresco_! is always heard. Much time is
occupied, as everyone in the train seems to want to drink.
In the carriages the company talk together with excessive volubility, and
have the appearance of being members of one family. As soon as you enter
questions will be asked. “Where are you going to?” “Are you Francéses
or Ingléses?” “Why have you come to visit their country?” “Are you
married, and is the señor who is with you your husband?” “How many
children have you?” “How old are you?” “Why do you wear a hat, and not
a _mantilla_?” “And how is it you have no earrings and no fan?” You
will soon become accustomed to this interrogation, which is made with no
hint of familiarity, and is the outcome of a friendliness that wishes to
make the stranger at home.
The natives seem to be without a thought of themselves, and incapable of
considering personal comfort. They will crowd upon one seat of the
carriage to give the English strangers more room. If the weather is
cold, they will insist upon giving you their cloaks. They talk to you
incessantly, explaining to you the scenery and various places through
which the train passes, with delightful childish enthusiasm. They will
offer you everything in their possession that you chance to admire.
[Picture: Sherry a half-century old, Jerez]
I remember saying to a little Spanish maid, “What a beautiful carnation
in your hair!” Off came the flower. “It is at your disposal, señora.”
I protested with the fitting answer: “A thousand thanks, but, no, I could
not accept.” But the offer was quite sincere, and, in spite of protest,
the flower was fastened into my hair, amidst the compliments and
congratulations of every occupant of the carriage. On another journey a
fan and a beautiful peasant brooch, which I rashly admired, were pressed
upon me with the same delightful politeness.
When meal-time arrives, each peasant brings out the _alforja_, or
embroidered wallet, which Sancho Panza kept so well filled. A huge
Spanish loaf is produced, and some of the long thin garlic sausages.
Slices of the bread are cut to serve as plates. But before the meal is
begun a hearty _gusta_ invites all the other occupants to share in the
feast. It is customary at this stage to refuse, and “Muchas gracias” is
politely murmured. Soon the black-leather wine-bottle is brought out of
the wallet and a packet of some kind of sweetmeat. Now is the time for
acceptance; the bottle is handed round for everyone to drink, and small
pieces of the sweetmeat are divided. It is a charming experience,
provided that you have acquired the skill to drink from that curious
long-spouted bottle of leather. And if you fail, the Spaniards will
enjoy the task of teaching you the art.
But, indeed, there is no limit to the helpful friendliness of these
simple happy people. On one occasion a workman abandoned his own
journey, and, in spite of our protests, came with us. When we arrived at
our destination, he spent several hours in assisting us to find suitable
lodgings in the village in which we had planned to stay, where there was
no regular house of hospitality. He introduced us to the inhabitants of
the place as his friends, and expended much energy to insure our comfort.
It is only when work is profitable that the Spaniard is ever lazy. He
delights to expend an immense amount of effort, which may not be
considered useful, so long as the work makes appeal to his Spanish love
of romantic effects. It is because this trait is so often overlooked by
the stranger, who too quickly condemns “the lazy Spaniards,” that I
recount this characteristic incident. Our friend was genuinely surprised
when we offered payment for his services; there was a note of dignified
sorrow in the “Muchas gracias” of his refusal. It had been a privilege
to assist _los Ingléses_, whom he admired. Had he not once visited our
country? We were a great people. He desired that we should think well
of his country. All he would accept was to share our meal, after which
he left us—I suppose, to continue his own journey.
Among the mountains and in many country districts there are still no
railways. The stranger who travels here has to use the diligences, which
on certain days in the week run from the nearest town to the outlying
hamlets. The diligence is a kind of coach without springs. I know of no
other conveyance so uncomfortable, except the long car of Ireland. It is
drawn by a team of gaunt mules, usually six in number, with gay harness,
and each animal has jangling bells around its neck. The driver wears a
picturesque dress: a brown jacket with coloured collar, a red sash and
knee-breeches, and a peaked hat adorned with tassels. He drives with a
tremendous amount of noise, stamping his feet, shouting, and brandishing
his whip. He beats incessantly the wretched mules. The coach is kept at
full gallop, and ascends and descends the steep hills with a rapidity
which is often alarming; but accidents are rare, owing to the
sure-footedness of the mules.
[Picture: Ruins of the Old Aqueduct, which supplied the Alhambra with
water, Granada]
It was when travelling in these mountainous districts that we gained some
knowledge of the wild animals of Spain. We were often near to the haunts
of boars, wolves, and deer. Bears are common in many hilly districts,
and that fine wild creature, the ibex, ranges the peaks of the higher
mountains. Foxes are plentiful everywhere, and the wild-cat is far from
scarce. The marten is often found, and otters live in most of the
rivers.
The swamps and ponds are filled with big green frogs, and lizards of the
same colour are common. The frogs are much larger than the English frog,
and their peculiar cry, a sort of monotonous rumbling, is so loud that it
can be heard a mile away. The legs of these green frogs are a table
delicacy much esteemed in many districts.
In the country hamlets the stranger must be prepared to meet discomfort.
One of the trials will be hunger. In the _fondas_ of the Basque
provinces and in the smaller towns the fare is ample, and as a rule well
cooked. But the peasants of Central and Southern Spain are the most
frugal people, who subsist on a diet that would be refused by the poorest
workers in England. For the stranger the peasants do their utmost, but
the diet is limited to eggs, leathery, quite tasteless beef, hard stale
bread, and thin wine. The cooking is always indifferent. The first meal
of the day consists of a cup of chocolate or coffee, often without milk,
and a lump of dry bread. There is no butter, and no milk except goat’s
milk, and, strange as it seems in this fertile land, vegetables and fruit
are always scarce in the country villages. The universal dish is
_garbanzos_, a large dried pea, which is cooked with garlic as a flavour.
We spent several months fishing in these districts, and, although
sometimes we fared tolerably well, more often we had to be content with
indifferent and inadequate meals. But for the sake of experience the
stranger can endure discomfort with fortitude.
[Picture: Beaching fishing-boats: the Blue Mediterranean]
There are numerous sport-giving rivers in all parts of Spain, which
possess all the qualities for the production of fish-life. Such rivers
as the Sil and Minho contain trout as big as any in Europe. The fishing
is free, except for a licence costing about three shillings. There can
be no doubt that with proper cultivation these rivers might become a
fisherman’s paradise in the course of a few years. But a complete
revision of the _ley de pesca_—fishing law—is necessary. Rivers are not
stocked, and trout hatcheries are almost unknown. The poacher is
everywhere, using snares, spears, and the deadly dynamite. Thousands of
small fish are scooped out of the small pools of the tributaries with
pole-nets during dry seasons. But, on the other hand, Spain is, happily,
almost free, except in the mining districts of the north, from poisoned
and contaminated waters. There are thousands of miles of beautiful
rivers with no factories, works, or big cities within many leagues of
their lengths. Then, the fish in the Spanish rivers are splendidly
prolific. Trout teem in many rivers, where the deep pools baffle the
poachers, who devote their attention to the shallows and tributaries.
Salmon are found in many rivers; shad or sábalos, escalos—a kind of cross
between a chub and a dace—barbel, bogas, and other coarse fish, and eels,
are plentiful. The barbel is different from the barbel of England, being
a handsomer fish and not so coarse; it is more golden in colour, and the
scales are less thick. The beautiful silvery sábalos are caught in sunk
nets, whose opening is concealed by a green bough which looks like
water-weed, and so deceives the travelling fish. The sábalos will not
rise to any bait. They vary from 4 pounds to 12 pounds in weight, and
are an excellent fish to eat, resembling the salmon.
In all parts of Spain there are native anglers. The tackle they use is
of the rudest description—a rod made of maize stalks, with a hazel switch
for the top, coarse casts, and flies clumsy and big. But they are all
keen, and many of them are clever fishermen. At Materosa, a small hamlet
on the wild Sil, some leagues from the town of Ponferrada, the peasants
gain their living by fishing with the rod for trout, which they send to
the market at Madrid.
I recall Estanislao, a _chico_ who fished with a great bamboo rod, which
he looked too small to handle.
We talked to him.
“You are also a fisherman?”
“Yes, señora; I have fished all my life, and my father before me.”
This _chico_ was a good angler. Standing on a great boulder, he cast
with a loud swishing noise across the river, letting his dozen flies swim
on the rough water. At each cast the weight of his great rod nearly
threw him into the whirling current. But he caught more fish than we
did.
We offered him a present of some of our flies. He looked at them and
smiled.
“Muchas gracias, they are very pretty. But how can I catch big trout
with these little hooks?”
He laughed till the tears ran down his face. But in a minute he
remembered the good manners in which every Spanish child is trained. He
added:
“Mil gracias, señora! Es favor que usted me hace (A thousand thanks,
señora! It is a favour you make me). _I will keep them as toys_!”
CHAPTER VI—SPANISH ART
Spanish Art the Reflection of the Spanish Temperament—The Great Buildings
of Spain—Spanish Gothic—Its Realistic Naturalness, its Massiveness and
Extravagance—The Churches, the Real Museums of Art Treasures—Polychrome
Sculpture—Spanish Painting—Its Late Development—Its Special Character—Its
Strength, its Dramatic and Religious Character.
To understand Spain you must know her architecture, her sculpture, and
her pictures. For in Spain, perhaps to a greater extent than in any
country, art is the reflection of the life and temper of the people. And
this is true although the essential ideas of her art in building, in
carving, and in painting, have all been borrowed from other nations. It
is the distinctive Spanish gift to stamp with the seal of her own
character all that she learns from without.
The first, as it has remained the strongest, expression in art of this
people was in building and in sculpture, which gave opportunity for
emphasis to their special dramatic temperament. We must go back to Rome
for another country that has spoken in its buildings with the same
overwhelming force.
The cathedrals which arose in the period of the nation’s greatest
prosperity were the chief point of attraction—the theatre, the centre, of
all life. They were built for the honour of God, but also for the
enjoyment of the people themselves; religion was joyful,
popular—democratic, one might say. All the exuberant life garnered by
Hispano-Arab culture lives in the Spanish buildings. Here Roman,
Byzantine, and Arab art have passed, and also the Mudejar, the Gothic,
and the Renaissance—in fact, all the styles of Europe. For this reason
there is no native school of architecture. Spain possesses few pure
Gothic, Romanesque, or Renaissance buildings.
But it is just this complexity which gives to the Spanish buildings their
special character. The Spanish artists, though they lacked creative
genius, were no base imitators; they sought to combine, and they gave to
the temples they had to construct that massive, strong, and exuberant
spirit that was in harmony with their own temperament. In such a
cathedral, for instance, as that of Burgos we find vigour and joyous
exuberance rather than reserve and beauty—a confused richness that has a
flavour of brutality almost. The sombre Gothic can be traced in the
older portions of the building, but everywhere it has been seized upon by
the restless fancy of later workers. Spanish architecture is like the
Spanish manners. The Spaniard can use a floridity of expression that
would be ridiculous in England.
[Picture: Choir stalls in the Mosque, Cordova]
The carving and moulding of wood and stone and iron in the fifteenth
century had reached a high level of accomplishment. And although none of
the world’s famous sculptors have been Spaniards, the amount of strong
and beautiful carvings to be found in every part of the Peninsula is
amazing; in no country can they be surpassed. Every great church and
cloister contains carvings in wood—a material chosen by the Spaniards for
the freedom and facility it gave for expression—which are treasures of
delight. The immense and amazing retablos and the carved walnut-wood
choir-stalls which every great church contains cannot be matched
elsewhere. It is a pity that these characteristic works are hardly
known; they are the basis of all Spanish art. In no country in Europe
can be seen more wonderful carvings than on the monumental tombs of such
cathedrals as Toledo, Zamora, and Leon. Again, the ironwork church
screens, notably those of the cathedrals of Seville, Granada, and Toledo,
cannot be surpassed. In these works, with their dramatic conceptions,
finding expression in a wealth of interesting details, never without the
tendency to over-emphasis of statement which marks the art of this
people, the Spanish character speaks. Æsthetic sensibility is almost
always absent; the art here is vigorous and romantic, frankly expressive,
with a kind of childlike, almost grotesque, naturalism that shows a
realistic grasp of all things, even of spiritual things. I recall the
polychrome sculpture of this people; the images of the anguished Virgin,
in which sorrow is carried to its utmost limit of expression; the
bleeding heads of martyred saints, such, for instance, as those terrible
yet moving heads of the Baptist by Alonso Cano at Granada, or the
poignantly lifelike polychrome carvings of the Crucified Christ by
Montañes, Gregorio Hernandez, Juni Juanes, and other sculptors, which are
seen in many churches, and which are carried in procession in the Easter
_pasos_ at Seville and elsewhere, images in which all the details of the
Passion are emphasized with an emotional delight in the presentment of
pain. And when I think of these images I understand the bull-fight.
[Picture: Burgos Cathedral]
Until the fifteenth century painting found no home in Spain. Placed as
she is almost midway between the art centres of Flanders in the North and
of Italy in the South, Spain has geographically a position of equipoise
between these conflicting art influences. But this balance of influence
was modified by the bent of the Spanish character, and the true affinity
of Spain in art has always been with the Flemings. No one can doubt this
who has a knowledge of the Spanish Primitives. The art of Spain is
Northern in its literalness, in its dramatic force, and deep and singular
gravity.
Jan van Eyck in 1428 visited Portugal and Spain, and, incited by the
brilliant reception accorded to the great Flemish master, other
enterprising Netherland painters flocked to the Peninsula. From this
time the native artists gave their attention to painting, and on this
Flemish foundation arose a really capable group of painters. The
essential ideas in the pictures of these early masters are all borrowed;
but, though Flemish in their inspiration, they yet retain an attractive
Spanish personality of their own. The Spanish painters, more perhaps
than the painters of any other school, have imitated and absorbed the art
of other nations without degenerating into copyists.
[Picture: Residence of the Mexican Minister, Madrid]
But this development of a national art on the basis of Flemish influence
was not of long duration, and before the fifteenth century closed the
newly-born Spanish school was rudely disturbed by the introduction into
Spain of the Italian influences of the Renaissance. The building of the
Escorial brought a crowd of artists from Italy—not the great masters, for
they were no longer alive, but pupils more or less mannered and decadent.
Spain was overrun with third-rate imitators of the Italian grand styles,
of Michael Angelo, of Raphael, and their followers. This is not the
place to speak of the blight which fell upon the native painters. The
distinctive Italian schools were an influence for evil, fatal to the
expression of the true genius of the people; for the deep-feeling,
individualistic temper of the Spaniards could not be reconciled with the
spirit of Italy.
But the Spanish temper is strong. The native painters used Renaissance
forms, but they never worked in the Renaissance spirit. And it was not
long before Spanish artists were turning to Venice, where they found a
new inspiration in an art suited to their temperament in its methods, and
in its spirit. El Greco, who had received his first inspiration from
Tintoretto, the mighty master of the counter-Reformation, came as a
liberating force to Spain. The torch he had lighted at Tintoretto’s fire
burnt in Toledo with splendid power. El Greco is the first great Spanish
painter.
And the seventeenth century witnessed in the art of the Spanish school
one of those surprising outbursts of successful life that meet us now and
again, in every department of enterprise, in this land of fascinating
contradictions, which give so strange a denial to the usual limit of her
attainment. It was the century of Velazquez and Murillo, of Ribera and
Zurbaran. In Velazquez, Spanish painting gained its crown of
achievement.
In the period after his great inspiration, imitation seemed inevitable to
his successors. Spanish painting apparently was dead. Yet it was just
in this time of degradation that the Spanish school was surprised
suddenly by the remarkable art of Goya. Again a great personality filled
the Spanish art stage, forcing a reversal of judgment. We forget the
usual level of the period’s achievement; we remember only Goya. With
him, once more, we are face to face with a new force in art. Spain
challenges the world again; and she gives it its most personal, its most
daring genius.
Such, in briefest outlines, is the history of Spanish painting.
[Picture: The Old Aqueduct, known as “El Pueute,” of Trajan, Segovia]
It will be seen that Spain is not an art-lover’s paradise. There has
never been a time when the accomplishment of the Spanish school is really
comparable to what the Italian and Flemish schools have achieved. Spain
is not a land of great painters. Murillo has sunk to the rank of a
second-rate master; Ribera and Zurbaran are yet hardly known outside
Spain. El Greco, Velazquez, Goya—these are the only really great names;
and Velazquez towers as much above his fellow-artists as Cervantes above
his fellow-novelists. Spain’s claim to the world’s attention in the
arts, as also in literature, rests upon the accomplishment of individuals
more than upon the general average of her work. It is the result of that
personal quality—the predominance of character—which rules every
department of Spanish achievement. It still lives in the vigorous and
characteristic Spanish painters of to-day—such, for instance, as Zuloaga,
Anglada-Camarasa, and Sorolla, artists who take high rank among European
painters.
It is often contended that Spanish paintings, if we except the works of
the masters El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya, are wanting in dignity,
wanting in beauty. But are we not too apt to confine beauty to certain
forms of accepted expression? Surely, any art that interprets life has
beauty; and no one can doubt, who knows the Spanish pictures, that life
was the inspiration of these painters.
[Picture: The main gallery in the Museo Del Prado, Madrid]
The Spanish character speaks in every Spanish picture. There is one
quality, which at a first knowledge will impress the careful observer, in
all these pictures, which, though different, all have one aim—it is their
dramatic seriousness. Rarely do you meet with a picture in which the
idea of beauty, whether it be the beauty of colour or the beauty of form,
has stood first in the painter’s mind. Almost in vain will you search
for any love of landscape, for any passage of beauty introduced for its
own sake. Pictures of Passion scenes, of Assumptions, of martyrdoms and
saintly legends, were painted with a vivid belief in the reality of these
things, by men who felt the presence of the Divine life as a part of
human life. To see these pictures in which homely details are introduced
into the most sacred themes is to understand the Spaniard’s easy
familiarity with his religion.
This is the reason why the Spanish painters always treat a vision as a
real scene, and why, too, they present religious and saintly characters
by Spanish models. There is a Spanish picture by Zurbaran in the
National Gallery of London; it is entitled “St. Margaret.” You look at
the picture; you see a Spanish lady, her face powdered, as was the
fashion; an embroidered saddle-bag hangs on one arm, in the other hand
she holds a rosary. She is dressed in the picturesque Andalusian
costume. I always smile when I look at this picture, it is so truly
Spanish. The incongruity of clothing saintship in the garb of fashion
would not be evident to Spanish Zurbaran; he could not see a saint,
therefore he painted a woman, but in accordance with the custom of the
day he called her a “saint.”
All the Spanish pictures tell stories. The successes of her painters are
due to this aim; their failures, to the sacrifice of beauty of ideal to
this—a danger from which, perhaps, no painter except Velazquez quite
escaped. He alone, faultless in the balance of his exquisite vision, was
saved quite from this danger of overstatement. It is the special gift of
the whole school, from the time of the early painters of Andalusia to the
time of Goya, to present a scene just as the painter supposed it might
have happened. Was not their aim to translate life—the life of earth and
the truer life of heaven? And to the Spaniard, we must remember, life
was always dramatic.
[Picture: The Cross by the Wayside, Granada]
We find a sort of wild delight in martyrdom, as, for instance, in the
pictures of Ribera—a joy that is perfectly sincere in pain and in the
scourging of the body. There are pictures horrible with the sense of
death and human corruption. Again and again is enforced the Catholic
lesson of humility, expressing itself in acts of charity to the poor,
such as exists to-day in the custom of the washing of feet at the Easter
celebrations in Seville. There is a childlike sincerity in these
pictures which compels us to accept and realize what the painter himself
believed in.
I recall the pictures of Zurbaran in the museum of Seville, pictures
which carry you into a world of realism, a world in which visions are
translated into the facts of life, set forth with a childlike simplicity
of statement. Each picture is a scene from the life of old Spain. What
honesty is here, what singular striving to record the truth! (The word
“truth” is used in a restricted sense. Zurbaran understood nothing of
the inner suggestiveness of art; to him art meant facts, not vision.)
The peasants in his religious scenes are almost startling in their
outward resemblance to life. How simple is his rendering of the
Scriptural scenes, his conceptions of the Christ! With what poignant
reality he depicts the Crucifixion, a subject exactly suited to his art!
His saints are all portraits, faces caught in a mirror, the types of old
Spain. No one has painted saints as Zurbaran has done. Before his
saints gained their sanctity they must have struggled as men; and as we
look at the cold, strong faces we come to know the spiritual instinct
that belongs to every true Spaniard.
Among the Spanish priests to-day, and especially in those living in the
country districts of Castile, the observant stranger will see the types
represented in Zurbaran’s pictures. In the faces of these men, as,
indeed, in their whole appearance, there is a profound asceticism, a sort
of energy concentrated in a white heat of devotion. I have never seen
the same type in Italy, or among the priests of any country. But often
when watching a Spanish priest, in the services of the Church or walking
alone on the roads, I have felt that I understood the meaning of the
phrase, “This man has embraced religion.”
To all the Spanish painters art was serious—a matter of heaven, not of
earth. Each painter was conscious of the presence of the Divine life,
giving seriousness as well as joy to earthly life. It is this which
gives Spanish painting a special interest to the student of Spain. In
their ever-present religious sense, in their adherence, almost brutal at
times, to facts, as well as in those interludes of sensuous sweetness
which now and again, as, for instance, in the facile and pleasing art of
Murillo, burst out so strangely like an exotic bloom, the Spanish
pictures reflect the temper of Spain.
No one can understand Spanish painting who does not know the Spanish
character. I think, too, that nothing reveals to the stranger more truly
the Spanish character, which is at once so simple and yet so difficult,
in its apparent contradictions, to comprehend, as a knowledge of the art
of her painters.
CHAPTER VII—ABOUT MANY THINGS
The Real Spirit of Spain—The Spiritual Instinct of the Race—The
Escorial—Spanish Beggars—The Spaniard belongs to the Past, but also to
the Future.
What is the real spirit of Spain? We are now in a better position to
attempt an answer. The word which I should use to represent the main
impression made upon me by the character of the average Spaniard, the
soldier, the bull-fighter, the priest, the gentleman, the peasant, is
individualism; and it seems to me that this attitude explains Spain’s
greatness in the past, and also her position to-day. A love of
independence, a kind of passionate egotism, and a clannish preference for
small social groups, has always distinguished this race. To his friends,
even when they have injured him, the Spaniard is invariably indulgent;
but those who are outside his circle he regards with indifference, which
quickly rises to enmity.
Spain has always been the country of great personalities. Her brilliant
achievements in every department of life—in warfare, in travel, in
politics, in literature, and in the arts—have ever been the result of
individual, and not of collective, genius. Velazquez is the world’s
greatest painter; Cervantes, the world’s greatest story-teller. The
Spanish spirit, with its wide-ranging energy for dramatic enterprise and
its passion for personal freedom, has filled Spain in the past with
martyrs and heroes.
The Spaniard has two devotions: his observance of the traditions of his
race, and his religion. The ceremonies of life, which he never forgets
to practise, are so real in his hands that they become quite simple and
natural. He may commit a crime sooner than forget to behave gracefully.
Every Spaniard, be he beggar, peasant, or prince, acts in the tradition
of his race, by which every man is equal and a gentleman.
There is an inscription on the staircase of the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall)
of Toledo which is worth quoting as an instance of the Spanish attitude
to duty: “Noble and judicious men who govern Toledo, leave your passions
on this staircase—leave there love, fear, and desire of gain. For the
public benefit forget every private interest, and serve God; He has made
you the pillars of this august place, be firm and upright.”
[Picture: Town and Monastery of the Escorial]
Religion is the great devotion of the Spaniard: it is much more than an
attendance upon forms; it is a profound sentiment, which in him is the
spirit of acceptance. In the sphere of devotion this people know no
limit to self-sacrifice. It is not without significance that Ferrer, the
greatest of later-day martyrs, was a Spaniard. The spiritual instinct is
the deepest instinct of the race. In the faces of many peasants, and in
some of the dwellers in the towns, I have seen often the making of
martyrs and fanatics. The gloom, so helpful to the emotion of worship,
which pervades all Spanish churches is one instance of how truly they
comprehend the needs of the devotional spirit. The ecstatic attitudes
which may be noted almost everywhere in the worshippers in the churches
is quite unlike anything that will be seen in other countries—in Italy,
for example, or in France. And religion is so real a thing, so truly a
part of life, that immediately after this absorbed prayer they will talk
and laugh together.
But if you would understand the spiritual instinct which so remarkably
unites the life of this world with the after-life—the instinct which is
really at the root of the true nature of the Spaniard—there is one
building that the stranger must not fail to visit: it is the Escorial,
the Royal Temple to Death. The spirit of the Escorial is in one aspect
the spirit of Spain. There is nothing in the country more impressive
than this mighty Palace of the Dead. It was built, as all the world
knows, by Philip II., the richest and most powerful of Kings, in
fulfilment of a vow made on the day of the Battle of St. Quentin. We see
the suite of small dark rooms which he prepared for himself, wherein he
might make ready for death. And how Spanish are these barely furnished
rooms set in the midst of a palace—this withdrawal from all the things of
this world to prepare for the life of the next world!
[Picture: Puerta Judiciana, or Gate of Justice]
It is in the Pantheon of the Escorial that the Spanish Kings are buried.
The great outer doors of the palace are never opened except when the
Sovereigns come for the first time to the Escorial, and when their bodies
are brought there to the vault which awaits them. The Pantheon is a
small octagon; it is lined with polished marbles, which are crumbling
away with a strange decomposition. The sarcophagi, all exactly alike,
are placed in niches that cover all the wall space; almost every niche is
occupied, but a few empty ones await the living. An altar with a
crucifix of black marble upon a pedestal of porphyry stands opposite the
doorway. The chamber is very cold, and is penetrated only by a few rays
of half-extinguished light.
To-day tourists flock to the Escorial: English, American, French—a
strange procession! They seem curiously out of place; their expressions
of admiration are grotesque in their incongruity. There is a deathly
solemnity about this mighty palace that has something ferocious, almost,
in its suggestion. Yes, to see this immense building, with its simple
structure which corresponds so perfectly with the emotion of the place,
set in such splendid isolation amidst the grey and sombre mountains of
Old Castile, where it seems but a part of the desolate landscape, is to
realize that insistence on death and acceptance of pain which is so real
a part of the Spanish spirit—the shadow which, in spite of all her joyous
life, haunts this romantic and fascinating land. And the sensitive
stranger will feel again that he understands the cruelty that has
surprised him sometimes in the character of her people.
It was from the Moors that the Spaniards inherited their readiness to
sacrifice themselves for a cause, and this genius for sacrifice has made
them heroes, martyrs, and conspirators; it has given them their strength,
and also their weakness. This people can resign themselves to anything,
and resignation can just as easily be heroism or mere apathy. The heroic
side of this power gave Spain the greatness of her past history; the
other side, the resignation that is apathy, may be seen everywhere in
Spain to-day. One instance is the beggars who follow you in the streets
of every town, with their incessant cry for alms. There is terrible
poverty in Spain, of which these hordes of beggars are but a too genuine
sign.
[Picture: Municipal plaza and south façade of the famous old
cathedral-seat of the Primate of Spain, Toledo]
Begging is a profession of which no one is ashamed. And what impressed
me most was that only rarely did the beggar appear unhappy. They all
seemed to find their own enjoyment in that open-air life in the sun which
is the happiness of Spain. I recall one beggar who always sat at the
door of the Cathedral of Leon. He was very old. The cloak in which he
was wrapped was so worn and threadbare that one wondered how the rags
held together. He never appeared to move; through each day he kept the
same position. His face was a mass of wrinkles which showed strongly
from the ingrained dirt. There was a patient humour in his eyes, which
were still bright. His face reminded me of Velazquez’ picture. He
seemed quite content when I refused his cry for alms, so that I gave the
answer that Spanish courtesy demands, “Perdone usted, por el amor de
Dios!” (Excuse me, brother, for the love of God!). He hardly troubled to
hold out his hand. It was warm where he sat in the sunshine; a shadow
from the sculptured figures of saints and angels, which ornamented the
portal, fell on him pleasantly. Someone will give to him some day; he
was quite content. He was a man of Spain.
Spain has something from of old, which the younger countries of the
world, with all their headlong progress, have as yet only begun to gain.
That something is tradition. It is interesting to note for one’s self
the signs of this tradition in the daily life of the people—in their fine
understanding of the art of living, in their unfailing courtesy, in their
kindness in all personal relationships. I have never known a people with
so little thought of themselves or care for personal gain. The greatest
gift of their inheritance is a splendid capacity for sacrifice. And if,
as must be acknowledged, this quality has led them often into evil,
nevertheless it will, with awakened knowledge, gain their redemption.
[Picture: The valley of the Guadalevín River, Ronda]
In England, and even more in America—the newest as Spain is one of the
oldest of civilizations—business is the only respectable pursuit,
including under business literature and the arts, which in these
countries are departments of business. In Spain this is not so; there
are other aims and other traditions, havens of refuge from the prevalent
commercialism.
The duty of expending great labour to gain the little good of money is
not as yet understood by the Spaniards. They have always been, and still
are, a people who stand definitely for art and the beauty of life—men and
women whose spiritual instinct enables them to open windows to the stars,
and through these windows, in passing, the stranger sometimes looks.
[Picture: Flamenco dance of a Gitana, Seville]
Literature and art in Spain rest on a long tradition which has not only
produced pictures, carvings, splendid buildings, and books, but has left
its mark on the language, the manners, the ideas, and the habits of the
people. And even though in every art the technical tradition has been
interrupted, there remains the tradition of feeling. Spain is one of the
few uncommercial countries where the artist and the author are still
esteemed as worthy and profitable members of the community. Spanish
paper money bears the portraits of men of letters and great painters.
Goya’s etchings are reproduced on the pictures used as stiffeners in the
packets of cigarettes.
It is this ever-present consciousness of a great tradition, which we may
call an understanding of “good manners,” meaning by this the art of
beautiful living, finding its expression as it does in the common life of
the people, that makes it true that, though the Spaniard belongs to the
Past, he belongs also to the Future. He has the qualities which younger
nations now are striving to gain.
Side by side with the new growth of material prosperity, which has been
so marked in the country in recent years, there is to-day a corresponding
movement of spiritual reawakening. When education spreads among the
people, when the over-scrupulous submission to authority, which has given
power to the officialism of Church and State, shall have found new
channels of duty, we shall cease to hear dismal prophecies of Spain’s
downfall. By the splendid spiritual qualities of her people Spain will
be saved. She will be born again before many years have passed.
INDEX
_Al toro_, the game of, 149
Alcázar, the, 113
Algeciras, 13
Alhambra, the, 103
Andalusian, the typical, 115
“Angel’s hair,” 139
Architecture, 205
Architecture in Toledo, 99
Art, 204
Art galleries, 150
_Banderilleros_, the, 50
Basques, the, 168
Beggars, 68, 242
_Boina_, the, 164
_Bolero_, the, 36
_Bota_, or leather bottle, 18
Bull-fight, the, 43
Burgos Cathedral, 206
Business v. Art, 249
_Cabaña_ a, 170
_Cafés cantantes_, 36
Cafés in Madrid, 138
_Calientes_, 125
Carvings, 206
_Casetas_, 72
Children, Spanish, 145
_Chulos_, the, 50
_Cigarreras_, 46, 177
Climate of Madrid, the, 139
Conservatism of Spain, 14
_Consumos_, or Customs officers, 18
Cordova, 105
Court of Oranges at Cordova, 106
Cruelty in the Spanish nature, 60
Dancing, 35
Democracy in Spain, 19
Diligences, 193
Dress, 25
_Dulsaina_, the, 163
El Greco, 98, 217
Escorial, the, 237
_Espada_, the, 53
_Fábrica de Tabacos_, 176
Family life, 72
Fans, 140
_Feria_, the, 72
Fishing, 198
_Flamenco_ dance of the Gitanas, 39
Food, indifferent, 198
Friendliness, 188
Frogs as a delicacy, 197
Fruit-growing, 172
Ganivet on Moorish influence, 29
Gardens, 30
_Generalife_ of Granada, the 33
_Gente flamenca_, 46
Giralda Tower, the, 113
Gitana women, 74
Gitanas, the, or gipsies, 36, 163
Goya, 218
Granada, the gardens of, 33, 103
Hair, elaborately dressed, 25
Hospitality of the Spaniards, 125
Households, Spanish, 123
Houses, construction of, 25
Indifference to pain, 63
Irun, 13
Jan Van Eyck, 213
_Jarro_, the, 172
_Jota_, the, 39
_Kermesse_, the, 178
Kindliness of the Spanish nature 68
Madrid, 130
_Majos_, 115, 140
Manaña, 59
Maria de Gaucin, torero, 45
Market, a, 164
Montanés, the sculptor, 83
Moorish influence, 25
Moors in Spain, the, 26
Mosque at Cordova, 106
_Muleta_, the, 53
Museo del Prado, 150
Museums, 150
Ox-waggons, 167
Pain, the Spaniard’s indifference to, 64
Painting, 213
_Pascua de Resurrección_, the, 181
_Paseo de la Cuadrilla_, the, 49
_Pasos_, the, 80, 182
_Patio_, the, 25, 120
Peasants, Spanish, 164
Physical traits, 24
_Picador_, the, 50
Plaza de Toros, the, 46
Port Bou 13
_Posada_, the, 18, 153
Prado, the, 139
Puerta del Sol, the 138
Railway trains, 184
Rastro of Madrid, the, 134
_Reja_, the, or grating, 120
Religion and dancing, 78
Religious processions, 83
Romance, Spain the home of, 14
_Sainete_, or “curtain-raiser,” 144
Santa Maria, Cathedral of, 87
Seguidilla, the, 73
_Seises_, the, 79
Semana Santa, the, 80
_Serenos_, or night watchmen, 17
Seville, 36, 46, 80
Spanish character, the, 20
Stendhal on the Spanish people, 14
_Suerte de Banderillear_, the, 50
_Suerte de Matar_, 53
_Suerte de Picar_, the, 50
Teatro Real at Madrid, 144
_Tertulias_, or parties, 124
Theatre in Spain, the, 145
Thrift and sobriety, 175
Toledo, 93
Toreros, the, 45
_Toro de gracia_, 54
Tower of Gold, the, 113
Unpunctuality, 187
_Vacada_, the, 45
Velazquez, 151
_Ventas_, 77
Wild animals, 194
Wine-making, 172
Women, fascination of Spanish, 119
Women, Spanish, 24
Women workers, 175
_Zeguán_, the, 26
Zurbaran, 225
* * * * *
* * * * *
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
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