In the province of Salamanca there was a remarkable man who rose from the greatest poverty to be a millionaire. The peasants of the district, with the sheep-like instincts of their kind, were only able to explain his success by supposing that in his younger days he had embezzled money, for these wretched peasants, crusted over with common sense and entirely lacking in moral courage, believe only in theft and the lottery. But one day I was told of a quixotic feat which this cattle farmer had performed. It seems that he had brought sea-bream’s spawn from the Cantabrian coast to put in one of his ponds! When I heard that, I understood everything. He who has the courage to face the jeers which are bound to be provoked by bringing the spawn of a salt-water fish to put in a pond in Castile, he who does that deserves his fortune.
But it was absurd, you say? And who knows what is absurd and what is not? And even if it were! Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. There is only one way of hitting the nail on the head and that is by hammering on the shoe a hundred times. And there is only one way of achieving a real triumph and that is by facing ridicule with serenity. And it is because our agriculturists haven’t the courage to face ridicule that our agriculture languishes in its present backward condition.
Yes, all our ills spring from moral cowardice, from the individual’s lack of staunch resolution in affirming his own truth, his own faith, and defending it. The soul of this people, this flock of somnolent sheep, is smothered and swathed in falsehood, and their stupidity proceeds from their very excess of prudence.
It is claimed that there are certain principles that are beyond discussion and when anyone attempts to criticize them the air rings with shouts of protest. Not long ago I proposed that we should demand the abolition of certain of the articles of our law of Public Instruction, and a pack of poltroons began to bellow that such a course was inopportune and impertinent, not to mention stronger and more offensive epithets that were used. I am sick of hearing everything that is most opportune called inopportune, everything that tends to disturb the digestion of the full-bellied and infuriates fools. What are they afraid of? That it will result in a brawl? that a new civil war will break out? Better and better. That’s what we need.
Yes, that’s what we need—a new civil war. It is necessary to assert that basins ought to be and are helmets and to get up a fight about it like the fight they got up at the inn. A new civil war, let the weapons be what they will. Can’t you hear those spiritless creatures whose hearts are dried and shrivelled up reiterating that these kinds of disputes lead to nothing practical? What do they understand by practical? Can’t you hear them reiterating that there are discussions which ought never to be broached?
There are plenty of cowardly spirits who are always drilling it into us that we ought to leave religious questions on one side, that the first thing to do is to become powerful and wealthy. And the poltroons don’t see that it is just because we ignore what concerns our inward well-being that we are not and never shall be wealthy and powerful. I repeat it yet again, there will never be any agriculture or industry or commerce in our country, nor roads where there ought to be roads, until we have discovered our Christianity, which is Quixotic Christianity. We shall never have a powerful and splendid and glorious and strong external life until we have kindled in the hearts of our people the fire of the eternal disquietudes. We cannot be rich so long as our life is nothing but deceit, and deceit is our spirit’s daily bread.
Can’t you hear the solemn ass that opens his mouth and says: “It’s forbidden to say that here”? Can’t you hear all those who are bound with the fetters of falsehood talking about peace, a peace that is more deadly than death itself? That terrible and ignominious rule which figures in the list of regulations of almost all the social clubs in Spain, “political and religious discussions prohibited”—does that say nothing to you?
Peace! peace! peace! all the frogs of our national pond croak in chorus.
Peace! peace! peace! Yes, but peace established upon the triumph of sincerity, peace established upon the overthrow of falsehood. Peace, but not a peace of compromise, not a hollow political agreement, but a comprehensive peace. Peace, yes, but only after the pursuivants have recognized Don Quixote’s right to assert that the basin is a helmet; and, furthermore, only after the pursuivants themselves have admitted and affirmed that in the hands of Don Quixote the basin is a helmet. And the wretched crowd that shout “Peace! peace!” dare to take upon their lips the name of Christ! They forget that Christ said that He came not to bring peace but war, and that because of Him they of the same household should be divided against one another, father against son and brother against brother. And this should be because of Him, because of Christ, that His kingdom might be established, the social kingdom of Jesus—which is the very reverse of that which the Jesuits call the social kingdom of Jesus Christ—the kingdom of real sincerity and real truth and real love and real peace. In order that the kingdom of Jesus may be established, there must be war.