It seems to be true that, while the Greek spirit transferred itself to Italy in the days of Augustus, renewing its influence at the period of the Renaissance, and leaving upon people and manners an impress never since quite effaced—an influence tending toward a certain feminine refinement—the spirit of Rome also transferred itself to the subject country, Hispania, and imbued that region with the strong, austere, or wilful characteristics of purely Latin civilization, which are still traceable there.
But, however we may account for the phenomena, it is likely that the mingled contrasts and resemblances of Italy and Spain will more and more induce travellers to visit the Iberian Peninsula. Italy has now been so thoroughly depicted in all its larger phases, from the foreigner's point of view, that investigation must hereafter chiefly be concerned with the study of special and local features. Spain, on the other hand, offers itself to the general observer and to the tourist as a field scarcely more explored than Italy was forty or fifty years ago; and the evidence is abundant that the current of travel is setting vigorously in this direction. With the extension of a railroad system and the incursion of sight-seeing strangers in larger number, we must of course expect that many of the most interesting peculiarities of the people will undergo modification and at length disappear. This, however, cannot be helped; and the following chapters, at the same time that they may encourage and aid those who are destined to bring about such changes, may also serve to arrest and preserve for future reference the actual appearance of Spain to-day.
Much might be written, with the certainty of an eager audience, concerning the present political condition of the country, by any one who had had opportunities for examining it; and Mr. John Hay, a few years ago, gave some glimpses of it in his charming volume, "Castilian Days." My own brief sojourn afforded no adequate opportunity for such observation. But it may be not inadmissible to record here one of the casual remarks which came to my notice in this connection. On a Mediterranean steamer I met with an exceedingly bright and healthy man of the middle class, fairly well educated—one of those specimens of solid, temperate, active manhood fortunately very common in Spain, on whom the future of the country really depends—and, noticing from my lame speech that I was not a native, he asked me, guardedly, if I was an Englishman.
"No," I said; "I am an American of the North, of the United States."
His manner changed at once; he thawed: more than that, his face lighted with hope, as if he had found a powerful friend, and he gazed at me with a certain delighted awe, attributing to my humble person a glory for which I was in no way responsible. "You are a republican, then!" he exclaimed.
"Yes."
He gave me another long, silent look, and then confessed that he, too, was a firm believer in republicanism.
"Are there many Spaniards now of that party?" I inquired.
His reply showed that he appreciated the difficulties of the national problem. "Party!" he cried. "Listen: in Spain there is a separate political party for every man." After a slight pause he added, bitterly, "Sometimes, two!"
It may still be said with a good deal of accuracy, though not of course with the literalness and the sweeping application that Paul de Saint Victor gave the words, in speaking of the French Charles II.'s reign, that "Spain no more changes than the arid zone that encircles a volcano. Kings pass, dynasties are renewed, events succeed each other, but the foundation remains immobile, and Philip II. still rules."