As for the spirit of the city, it is lamentable. There is no interest in science, art, literature, history, politics, or anything else. All that the inhabitants think about are the King, the Queen Regent, yachts, bull fights, and the latest fashions in trousers.
San Sebastian is a conglomeration of parvenus and upstarts from Pamplona, Saragossa, Valladolid, Chile and Chuquisaca, who are anxious to show themselves off. Some do this by walking alongside of the King, or by taking coffee with a famous bull-fighter, or by bowing to some aristocrat. The young men of San Sebastian are among the most worthless in Spain. I have always looked upon them as infra human.
As for the ladies, many of them might be taken for princesses in summer, but their winter tertulias are on a level with a porter's lodge where they play julepe. It is a card game, but the word means dose, and Madame Recamier would have fainted at the mention of it.
When I observe these parvenus' attempts to shine, I think to myself: "The ostentation of the freshman year at college. How unfortunate that some of us have moved on to the doctorate!"
No one reads in San Sebastian. They run over the society news, and then drop the paper for fear their brains will begin to smoke.
This city, imagining itself to be so cultivated, although it really is a new town, is under the domination of a few Jesuit fathers, who, like most of the present days sons of Loyola, are coarse, heavy and wholly lacking in real ability.
The Jesuit manages the women, which is not a very difficult thing to do, as he holds the leading strings of the sexual life in his hands. In addition he influences the men.
He assists the young who are of good social standing, who belong to distinguished families, and brings about desirable matches. The poor can do anything they like. They are at liberty to eat, to get drunk, to do whatever they will except to read. These unhappy, timid, torpid clerks and hangers-on imagine they are free men whenever they get drunk. They do not see that they are like the Redskins, whom the Yankees poisoned with alcohol so as to hold them in check.
I inspected a club installed in a house in the older part of the city some years ago.
A sign on one door read "Library." When it was opened, I was shown, laughing, a room filled with bottles.