21.—A MADRID WINE-SHOP.
Political insurrections are an amusement to this impressionable and hasty people. In the twinkling of an eye bands of armed men overrun the country. The great want of discipline among the soldiers and non-commissioned officers, conduces to desertion to these irregular bodies, and the result is that unhappy Spain is continually in a state of local insurrection, the suppression of which invariably leads to bloodshed without producing any permanent settlement.
The passion which a Spaniard evinces in all he does, is not wanting in his religion. His piety is exalted, and the violence to which this piety frequently leads him, has had mournful results. It is this religious fury which accounts for the cruelty of the Spaniards to the Saracens and Jews; and which, later on, lit the faggots of the Inquisition, and produced the most savage intolerance. Spain has burnt, in the name of a God of peace and love, thousands of innocent creatures; and for the honour and good of the Catholic faith, has proscribed, strangled, and tortured.
This passionate exaggeration of Catholicism has proved the ruin of Spain in modern times. It is marvellous to see how this nation, so powerful in the sixteenth century, and which, under Charles V., dictated laws to all Europe, has fallen; until at the present day, it ranks among the states of the lowest class in this part of the world. But it will be seen that the multiplication of convents, both for men and women, has had the effect of rapidly depopulating the country; that the proscription of the Moors, the Jews, and lastly, of the Protestants, has proved destructive of productive industry; that the courts of the Inquisition, and the auto-da-fé, have led to a feeling of sadness and mistrust among the people; that the abuse of religion and its symbols, has produced a bigotry which can be likened only to idolatry; and that the fear of offending an intolerant and self-asserting religion, has arrested all moral progress, and effectually set aside all development of science, which of necessity presupposes free investigation.
This is how progress, activity, and thought, have met with their end, and how material prosperity has become extinguished in that portion of Europe, most marvellously endowed with natural gifts. Thus it is that commerce has become a bye-word in a land, whose geographical position is unrivalled, and which possessed in the New World the most flourishing and powerful colonies; and that literature and science, the two great words which indicate liberty and progress, have fallen away in the home of Michael Cervantes.
How is Spain to recover her former splendour? What remedies must be applied to these crying evils? We reply, religious toleration, and political liberty.
The type of the Spanish woman is so well known, that we need hardly recall it. She is generally brunette, although the blond type occurs much more frequently than is usually supposed. The Spanish woman is almost always small of stature. Who has not observed her large eyes, veiled by thick lashes, her delicate nose, and well-formed nostrils. Her form is always undulating and graceful; her limbs are round and beautifully moulded, and her extremities of incomparable delicacy. She is a charming mixture of vigour, languor, and grace.
Love is the great object of the Spanish woman. She loves with passion but with constancy, and the jealousy she feels is but the legitimate compensation for the attachment she bestows.
The Spanish woman, faithful as a wife, is an excellent mother. Few women can equal her as a nurse, or in the attention and patience which are called for by the care of children. The mother lavishes upon her young family her whole life, and if she fails to instruct them, it is, alas! that she lacks the power to do so; for she is no better educated than the French woman, and, as regards ignorance, is a meet companion for her in every respect.