With psalm, with dance, with ecstasy's white thrill,
Her mystics dared to lose themselves in God,
Theirs was unflinching faith, fierce, varonil,
A force as true to nature as the sod.
Reward must come: perhaps from her to-day
May spring the needed saint, to think, to feel,
To grope triumphantly, to point the way
To altars where both Faith and Science kneel.
Upon her ashy mountain height she stands,
Eager to step into the forward strife,
Her eyes are wide with hope, outstretched her hands
To meet the promise of new coursing life:
Steadfast her cities to the desert face,
Snow mountains loom across the silent plain:
Take courage, O exalted tragic race!
Courage! Christ's always faithful grand old Spain!
Castile, 1908.
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.
THE 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 to be of Tartar origin. They themselves claim to be the oldest race in Europe and that their language came to Spain before the confusion of tongues at Babel. They derive their name from a Basque phrase meaning "We are enough," that fittingly describes their character of self-sufficiency; the mere fact of being born in the province confers nobility. Life for centuries in the isolated valleys that never were conquered by Moor or foreign invader has bred in the Basque a passionate independence. He would never join with the neighboring kingdoms of Navarre and León until his special privileges were ratified; and though these privileges were the important ones of exemption from taxes and military service, he succeeded in keeping them intact until his sympathies with the Pretenders in the Carlist wars lost him his ancient rights. To-day the Basques must pay taxes and serve in the army like the rest of Spain, but their soldiers are usually employed in the customs, or as aids to the local police. Their red cap, like the French béret, and brilliant red trousers are a familiar sight among the valleys.