“Como quier que los frayles et clerigos disen que aman a Dios servir
Si barruntan que el rico está para morir
Quando oyen sus dineros que comienzan a retenir
Qual de ellos lo levará comienzan luego a rennir.”
But recently the number of those believing in religion has diminished, and the anti-Clericals have been driven by certain abuses of the Church to a more or less crude parade of atheism. It is felt that the Church has crushed life rather than sought its fuller, nobler expression. Thus a writer, E. L. André (“Ética Española,” 1910), says: “We conceive life solely as a preparation for death,” and speaks of the slight espíritu territorial possessed by Spaniards. Cf. Berceo, in the 13th century: “Quanto aquí vivimos en ageno moramos”—our life on earth is a sojourn in a strange land.
[40] Honesty is a common attribute of Spaniards, but they have perhaps no very accurate regard for the value of truthfulness or honesty in words.
[41] La mujer y el fraile mal parecen en la calle. In the South, as at Seville, the percentage of women to be seen in the streets is noticeably small.
[42] “El consejo de la mujer es poco,” said Sancho, “y el que no lo toma es loco.” The women maintain their influence, but it is thus not properly their own, but rather that of the Church.
[43] The phrase Seguir sin novedad is still used to imply that everything is going on well. But an ever-increasing number of politicians are now advocating “new things” with a somewhat crude violence. It is a reaction against the apathy that waited with crossed hands—
“Vuolsi così colà dove si puote
Ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”
[44] Cf. the characteristic trait mentioned by Samuel Pepys: “They will cry out against their King, and Commanders, and Generals, none like them in the world, and yet will not hear a stranger say a word of them but will cut his throat.”
[45] It is true, however, that the mass of the Spanish nation has still to develop on really Spanish lines: hence its present weakness and its potential strength in the future, when a civilization of a truly national character shall have imposed itself upon the artificial civilization of culture imported from France, and religion imported from Rome.
[46] The ethereally lovely Cathedral of León is more remote.