It dawned upon me that Spaniards, although enjoying the reputation of being quick with lethal weapons under the spur of sudden passion, were very slow in taking ordinary resolutions. "Mañana" is the watchword of the nation: a favourite proverb is twisted into "Never do to-day what you can possibly put off till to-morrow." As a French writer wittily observed, the chariot of State in Spain is fashioned of tortoise-shell and drawn by snails.
"What do you think of Castelar?"
"Castelar!" echoed the Mentor, with a shoulder-movement of compassionate irony, "honest, but weak. He is too good, too single-minded, too amiable, too much of a student to play the Cæsar. Picture to yourself a doctrinaire who can quote Aristotle in the Chamber, while his country is travelling the road to ruin. Poor Señor Castelar is not the coming man."
"And where may we look for him?" I asked.
"Quien sabe? At this moment he may be waxing his moustache in the Balearic Islands, or sipping chocolate in the coffee-house on the ground-floor."
That coffee-house was always full at the juncture. Indeed, to one who had not been made stoical by familiarity with excitements, the tokens of the atmosphere were portentous. Congress often sat under the protection of an armed guard. The crowds in the streets were always large. The talk was of bloodshed; but I had grown so sceptical that I would hardly believe in bloodshed in Madrid until what looked a liquid red had been chemically analyzed and proved to be blood. We had false alarms every other night, and shops were shut for an hour or two; but we got no nearer to revolution than the discussions of sundry excited parliaments over the marble-topped tables. There Spaniards flushed purple, and gesticulated violently over their temperate glasses of sweetened water. What a blessing this is not a whisky-drinking country!
"No," continued the Mentor; "Castelar is the least of all fitted to govern Spain. This people requires to be ruled by stern will and strong grip. The result of handing it over to a weak administration is palpable. Of all nations of the world, Spain is least prepared for Republicanism, and the theoretical Republicans who essayed to control her, in an evil moment for themselves, must before this have discovered the gross blunder they have made. The Republic is a splendid word; but Order is a word more wholesome. The present so-called rulers are incapable of preserving order. They sowed the wind when they taught the soldiers to be malcontent under the Monarchy, because an army was an artificial need in a free nation. Now that the soldiers are taking them at their word, they are reaping the whirlwind. They promised Spain liberty, and Spain, from every indication, is about to enjoy a spell of license. Heaven knows how it will all end; but those who have acutely watched changes like this in other countries are not slow to tell us that we shall have anarchy first to the full."
"And then?" I inquired, "for anarchy is no remedy. It is never final. What shall we have after that?"
"Perhaps a Conservative Republic, but more likely an iron despotism, the dominance of some successful General who has the knack of answering his opponents by ordering their heads to be sliced off."
"Is not that General as likely as not to come from the Carlist camp?" I demanded.