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 thehigher 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 thefondasof 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 thinwine. 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 isgarbanzos, 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.
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 mightbecome a fisherman’s paradise in the course of a few years. But a complete revision of theley 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 fromthe 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, achicowho 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.”
Thischicowas 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!”
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 theseal 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 fewpure 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.
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 thetendency 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 Easterpasosat 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.
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.
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 tothe 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 tothe 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.
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 Italianand 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 wenot 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.
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 whichhomely 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.
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 Eastercelebrations 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 asZurbaran 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 asjoy 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.
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 hisfriends, 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 soonerthan 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.”
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 thecountry 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!
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 thesensitive 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.
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; hewas 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.
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 aredepartments 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.
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 profitablemembers 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 shallcease 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.
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
Cabañaa,
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
Flamencodance of the Gitanas,
39
Food, indifferent,
198
Friendliness,
188
Frogs as a delicacy,
197
Fruit-growing,
172
Ganivet on Moorish influence,
29
Gardens,
30
Generalifeof 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