The demeanour of men towards women could not fail to engage attention in the birthplace of chivalry, as among the orientals men and women salute in the same manner. It was some time before I could have said, “The women in Spain do not curtsey;” yet I should have been shocked to see a Spanish lady do so. I have been looking over a book entitled, “Travels in the land of Monkeys,” meaning England and France. It is uncertain whether the work is originally Spanish or Italian. I am satisfied that it is not Spanish, for it does not notice what a Spaniard could not have failed to set down in those lands—a different salutation for males and females. Can one imagine a Roman matron curtseying? A bobbing up and down of the body, a salutation with the legs, and no inclination of the head? Surely it was invented for quadrupeds. It has only a foreign name in English, and that too absurd to have been applied to the antic in its native tongue. A courtesy (courtoisie) is a thing courteous; and a curtsey was a step in a French dance. The ladies of Spain can dance, but cannot curtsey.[103] To salute—to reverence, requires that the noble parts of the body should be called into play. There is nothing so good that it may not be perverted, and the best then becomes the worst. Curtseying is now respectable because men have taken to nodding, and poking their hat with the forefinger. How great would their surprise be, if they heard that the dominion of the world may hinge on a form of salutation. “Language,”. said Ali, “is the mirror of the understanding; manners, of the man.” Bacon tells us that “Reason may affect the judgment, interest the conduct, but manners alone touch the heart.” It is by manners that the teaching of the child begins before he has learnt his letters. Manners are the curb on the passions. They are the guide of life from the cradle to the tomb, and by them you judge of the nation as well as of the man. A people’s history is written in a salutation. Alwakide, in the early days of Islam, records as an event, that a man receiving sentence of death had not saluted the judge.
In the secluded places of Spain, even yet, on the bell tolling at “oration,” whoever is walking, stops; whoever is seated, rises; the prayer concluded, each turns round and salutes those around him. What can be more impressive than this sudden and simultaneous act of adoration of a whole people, followed by a mutual expression of goodwill from man to man. This could not survive. From the forms of salutation meaning is not yet expelled. No one sends as a message, “Give my compliments.” It would be asked, “What compliments?” The Spaniard, like the Eastern, says, “I kiss such a one’s hand, or I lay myself at such a lady’s feet.” Our word compliment is equal to their word ceremony; and our compliments they render espressiones. These matters are, however, abridged. The espressiones are run up in an unintelligible articulation when spoken, and when written are reduced to a cypher. You may receive a letter ending “S. S. S. Q. S. M. B,”[104] and take it, as I once did, for a charade instead of a compliment.
Unlike the Eastern, the Spaniard has the word “thanks;” but it is not his sole resource in the embarrassment occasioned among some nations by every act or speech of civility. When one Spaniard says to another, “Do you please to eat with me?” the other does not say, “No, I thank you;” but, “may it do you good.” When he says, “This house is at your disposal,” the answer is not, “I thank you,” or “I am much obliged to you,” but “You know me to serve you.”
Civility and ceremony do not belong to particular classes. There is not a refined and a vulgar class. The humblest address each other with the forms of the highest. Two human beings do not require an introduction to know each other; they never pass without salutation. No one breaks bread in the presence of another, whatever the difference of rank, without an invitation to partake. The title of the pastrycook on his sign-board is no other than that of the king. The master is as courtier-like to his servant as to his equal. The beggar is not turned away, even from the door of a tavern, and when he is refused by a prince, it is with the words, “Pardon me, brother.”
“To the honour of Spain,” says even Borrow, “be it spoken, it is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is never insulted, nor looked on with contempt. In their social intercourse no people exhibit a juster feeling of what is due to the dignity of human nature. I have said that it is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is not treated with contempt: I may add, where the wealthy are not blindly idolized.”
Riches and poverty are deprived of their peculiar qualities; the first losing the value which they owe to exclusiveness, the other, sufferings contingent on privation. By the facile interchange which these habits have established, their circumstances are influenced no less than their minds, and the extremes of fortune are modified and equalised.
The earth may not be scientifically compressed into the rendering of its fatness. Man’s muscle may not be condensed into minted gain; but what is gathered from nature’s bounty is not refused to man’s wants. If Spain produces less from her soil than any other country of Europe, the Spaniard enjoys a larger share, and more equable distribution of the produce than any other people.
It may not be uninteresting to place beside this a passage descriptive of the Moors: it speaks of the law, but the remark is prompted by the practice.
“The acts of common charity or casual alms are almost of injurious obligation on a Mussulman; he dares not sit down to dinner without inviting those who are near him to partake of it, of whatever condition or religion they may be, and he cannot refuse assistance to any poor person who may apply to him, if he have the means. Hospitality is to be exercised towards every one who claims it,[105] without regard to religion.”—Ali Bey’s travels, i. 95.
It would require no further evidence than this, that in Spain is to be found domestic affection, attachment of servants and master, charitable dispositions, tenderness for the afflicted, and aid for the necessitous. A man here truly woos, not his wife only, but her relatives, if they are less fortunate than himself; and, when families fall into distress, they are supported with a generosity that is only outdone by the delicacy with which it is applied:—those who sink in the world, instead of losing caste are the more tenderly considered.