Things seen in Spain

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

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.

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.