23 chapters
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23 chapters
INTRODUCTION PRACTICAL HINTS
INTRODUCTION PRACTICAL HINTS
T RAVEL in Spain to-day is attended with little hardship and no danger whatever. Even if one barely knows a word of the language, it is not foolhardy to explore the distant provinces. Commit a few simple sentences to the memory and have courage in using them, for Spanish is pronounced just as it is spelled, with a few exceptions soon observed. The merest beginner is understood. When a trip into Spain is planned it would be well to send for information about the kilometric ticket to the Chemins d
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IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY: LOYOLA
IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY: LOYOLA
"The only happy people in the world are the good man, the sage, and the saint; but the saint is happier than either of the others, so much is man by his nature formed for sanctity."— Joubert. "Whoever has been in the land of the Basques wishes to return to it; it is a blessed land."— Victor Hugo. T HE Basque is still one of the sturdy untouched peoples of the earth; they make still the unmixed aborigines of Spain. Their difficult dialect remains a perplexity to the etymologist, some believe it
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BURGOS AND THE CID
BURGOS AND THE CID
"The epochs in which faith prevails are the marked epochs of human history, full of heart-stirring memories and of substantial gains for all after times. The epochs in which unbelief prevails, even when for the moment they put on the semblance of glory and success, inevitably sink into insignificance in the eyes of posterity which will not waste its thoughts on things barren and unfruitful."—G OETHE . P ASSING through the fertile Basque valleys, the train mounts the Pyrenees by a series of skill
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VALLADOLID
VALLADOLID
F ROM Burgos to Valladolid the monotonous Castile plain continued, unbroken by any hill and hardly a tree. Yet evening on the level steppes has a charm of its own. Like sunset at sea, nature has a free sweep of canvas on which to paint her pageant; details eliminated, the essential remains. One carries away many such memories from the silent plateau, till little by little the affection of the grave Castilian for his home is understood. On leaving Burgos there had occurred an amusing station scen
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OVIEDO IN THE ASTURIAS
OVIEDO IN THE ASTURIAS
"It is perfectly ridiculous to pretend that, because they dress the Madonna and saints in rich robes, the Spaniards are ignorant that a statue is but a symbol. They sing their faith, we whisper ours, but the words have the same meaning, and the same thought is in the mind ... Draw a bias line enclosing the Basque provinces,—Navarre, Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and you have there old religious Spain as she appears in history, with a vivid and practical faith, an irreproachable clergy, a piety of
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THE SLEEPING CITIES OF LEÓN
THE SLEEPING CITIES OF LEÓN
T HERE have been many efforts to divide Spain into right-angled departments similar to those of her neighbor France. The individual land throws off such efforts to bring her into geometric proportion: never can her thirteen immemorial divisions, her thirteen historic provinces be wiped out. Each is an entity with ineradicable characteristics and customs. Their boundaries may seem confused on a paper map, but they are reasonable in the flesh and blood geography of mountains and river valleys, or
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GALICIA
GALICIA
J ERUSALEM , Rome, Santiago,—perhaps this claims too much for the Spanish pilgrimage shrine? It would not in the Middle Ages, when the Christians of all Europe flocked there to pray beside the tomb of St. James the Elder, the patron of Spain invoked in the battle cry of her chivalry for a thousand years, " ¡Santiago y cierra España! "—"St. James and close Spain!" A Latin certificate used to be given to every pilgrim, and it was kept among family records, for there were properties that could only
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SALAMANCA
SALAMANCA
S ALAMANCA is in León province, and in comparison with the hour of its prime, as it is to-day it too is very like a sleeping city. It is hard to realize that this dull, small town was a grandeza de España , ranking with Oxford, Paris, and Bologna, that once 10,000 students flocked here from all over Europe, and every young Spaniard turned here as naturally as a modern Englishman to Oxford or Cambridge; Cervantes' "Novelas Exemplares" give the picture. To-day there are barely a thousand students,
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SEGOVIA.
SEGOVIA.
(Hymn sung May, 1908, for the centenary of Dos de Mayo .) W E reached Segovia at five o'clock in the early morning of November first after an indescribably fatiguing day and night of travel, the one confusion of our tour in Spain, and partly owing to a mistake in the usually reliable guide book. It may be of help to other travelers if I describe this misadventure. On returning from Galicia, we had left the express route at Astorga, and pausing there a night, took the local line south to Zamora a
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SAINT TERESA AND AVILA
SAINT TERESA AND AVILA
"All great artists are mystics, for they do but body forth what they have intuitively discerned: all philosophers as far as they are truly original are mystics, because their greatest thoughts are not the result of laborious efforts but have been apprehended by the lightening flash of genius, and because their essential theme is connected with the one feeling, only to be mystically apprehended, the relation of the individual to the Absolute. Every great religion has originated in mysticism and b
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MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL
T HESE two spots, products of men of small idea and nature, are happily so close together that they can fall under the same abuse. Coming from the north, to stop at the Escorial either from Avila with its grand walls of the eighty towers, or from the crag-set castle of Segovia, is such an abrupt transition from heroic times to the doctrinaire centuries that followed them that it is but too easy to be unfair to Philip II's huge pile. A better way is to go out to it from Madrid; then, somewhat acc
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TOLEDO
TOLEDO
T OLEDO has been compared to Durham, but it is the similarity between a splendid lean old leopard and a beautiful domestic cat. The largest river of Spain, the Tagus, without a touch of England's lovely verdure to soften it, sweeps impetuously round the Spanish ecclesiastic city, through a wild gorge from which it derives its name ( tajo , cut) and above the river-cliffs rise sun-whitened houses, innumerable monasteries, and church towers, in a compact, imposing mass. Across the river is a barre
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CORDOVA AND GRANADA
CORDOVA AND GRANADA
"The art of the Alhambra is eminently decorative, light, and smiling; it expresses the well being, the repose, the riches of life; its grace lay almost entirely in its youth. Not having the severe lines that rest the eye, these works paled when their first freshness faded. Theirs was a delicate beauty that has suffered more than others from the deterioration of its details." R ENÉ B AZIN . I N his "Terre d' Espagne," M. René Bazin speaks of the faded city of Cordova, and the term is singularly e
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VIGNETTES OF SEVILLE
VIGNETTES OF SEVILLE
"El secreto de la vida consiste en nacer todas las mañanas."—R AMÓN C AMPOAMOR . T HE outburst of spring in Seville is something unforgettable. With roses in bloom during December and January, the winter was like the summer of some places, and so we realized with surprise during February that a genuine spring was beginning. The bushes and hedges put on fresh coats of green, and barely a month after the trees had been stripped of their myriad oranges, the same trees were covered with white blosso
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A CHURCH FEAST IN SEVILLE
A CHURCH FEAST IN SEVILLE
"I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house; and the place where thy glory dwelleth."—P SALMS XXV , 8. T HE eighth of December is a great day in Spain, but more especially in Seville where they look on the Immaculate Conception as their special feast, symbolized, hundreds of years before the dogma was defined, by their fellow townsman Murillo, in the seraphic purity of his Concepción . The celebration began on the day preceding the eighth with an early-morning peal of bells that lasted half a
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HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE
HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE
"A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance." E CCLES . iii, 4. A N overcrowded picture rises with the thought of Seville's Semana Santa ,—glittering lights, statues laden with jewels, weird masked figures in nazareno costume marching to the sound of funeral dirges, cries of street vendors and children,—all is noise, movement, color, a true Andalusian scene. Spectacular effect is the first impression of the week, a gorgeous pageantry that suits the Sevillian's temp
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CADIZ
CADIZ
I N the midst of the warm Seville winter the thought of sea breezes tempted us to Cadiz for a week. The hundred miles' run down there was through a charming corner of Andalusia, with orange groves, olive plantations, woods of stone pines, hedges of cactus, in the meadows herds of most royal bulls. It was the eighteenth of January, yet the fruit trees were in blossom, and over the streams floated a lovely white-flowering verdure. We passed Jerez, source of English sherry, where on our return to
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A FEW MODERN NOVELS
A FEW MODERN NOVELS
"Don Quixote is not, as Montesquieu pretended, the only good Spanish book, which in reaction against the national spirit, ridiculed the others. It is rather the epitome of our national spirit, war-like and religious, full of sane realism and none the less enthusiastic for all that is great and beautiful."— Don Juan Valera. I T was the German philosopher Hegel who called the "Romancero del Cid" the most nobly beautiful poem, ideal and real at the same time, that the Epic Muse had inspired since H
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ESTREMADURA
ESTREMADURA
"I have always felt that the two most precious things in life are faith and love. As I grow older I think so more and more. Ambition and achievement are out of the running; the disappointments are many and the prizes few, and by the time they are attained seem small. The whole thing is vanity and vexation of spirit without faith and love. I have come to see that cleverness, success, attainment, count for little; that goodness, 'character,' is the important factor in life." G EORGE J. R OMANES .
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ARAGON
ARAGON
I F it is one of the coveted sensations of a traveler to stumble unexpectedly on some rare spot that is overlooked and unheralded, as was our experience at Cáceres, there is a second emotion that is close to it,—the return to a favorite picture gallery, especially if in the meantime one has gone further afield, has learned to know other schools, and adjusted ideas by comparison. A return to the Prado can give this coveted sensation. The winter in the south had familiarized us with the Spanish pa
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MINOR CITIES OF CATALONIA
MINOR CITIES OF CATALONIA
Romanesque is the Trappist of architecture, ... on its knees in the dust, singing with lowered head in a plaintive voice the psalms of penitence.... This mystic Romanesque suggests the idea of a robust faith, a manly patience, a piety as secure as its walls. It is the true architecture of the cloister.... There is fear of sin in these massive vaults and fear of a God whose rigours never slackened till the coming of the Son. Gothic on the contrary is less fearful, the lowered eyes are lifted, the
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BARCELONA
BARCELONA
"He who loves not, lives not." R AMÓN L ULL . I WONDER if, to the reader, when hearing the name Barcelona there rises one sovereign picture,—Isabella and Ferdinand's reception of Columbus on his return from the New World. It may have been some print seen in childhood that impressed itself indelibly on my imagination, but always with the name Barcelona I seemed to see los Reyes Católicos seated on their throne listening to the man whose genius was so well bodied forth in his face and bearing. Aro
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GERONA AND FAREWELL TO SPAIN
GERONA AND FAREWELL TO SPAIN
"Una restauración de la vida entera de España no puede tener otro punto de arranque que la concentración de todas nuestras energías dentro de nuestro territorio. Hay que cerrar con cerrojos, llaves, y candados todas las puertas por donde el espíritu español se escapó de España para derramarse por los cuatro puntos del horizonte, y por donde hoy espera que ha de venir la salvación; y en cada una de esas puertas no pondremos un rótulo dantesco que diga: "Lasciate ogni speranza," sino este otro más
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