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.”

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.