And far above all other immediate causes of insanity in northern climes, is the use of spirituous liquors. The scholar drinks to keep up his mental fire, and when he becomes insane his malady is marked “excessive study.” The banker or merchant drinks too much, and when he is put into an asylum his madness is ascribed to his devotion to his business. The millions of our people drink, drink, drink,—and this vice of the north of Europe and of America yields thousands on thousands of cases of insanity every year. But in those countries where cheap wines, with little alcohol in them, are the common drink of the people, intemperance is comparatively rare. An English engineer, employing hundreds of men in building and repairing Spanish railways, assured me that intemperance is wholly unknown among them. The class of men who would be the most addicted to the vice with us in the United States, are here more temperate than any class of people in England or America. It is not to be supposed that this temperance is the result solely of the culture of the vine and the abundance of weak wine. It would be a false conclusion, from very inadequate premises, to infer such an idea. It is due in most part to the climate itself, which is at once favorable to the vine, and unfavorable to that elevation or excitement which strong drink begets. And in this delightful clime, where to live and breathe is a luxury, and to keep cool is at once a virtue and a joy, the heating stimulus of ardent spirits would not be sought as one of the pleasurable vices of the land.
Therefore, and to this conclusion we are easily led, the people here in Spain are not likely to be, as a general thing, insane. And if we of colder climes could be so humble as to take a lesson from poor, old, decrepit Spain, we might learn from these facts to moderate our desires, to pursue the good we seek with less haste and more speed, to use the world as not abusing it, and resting now and then, avoid the lunatic asylum on our journey to the grave.
At dusk we went to the station to take our departure from Toledo. In the train going up to Madrid was a large party of young men. Noisy, boisterous, rude, they cheered every lady who came to the cars, calling out to the good-looking ones to come to their apartment, and making sport of others; and all this with a freedom and indecorum that would not be tolerated even in our land of universal liberty. I was surprised both at their impudence and its impunity, and asked who the fellows were.
“Oh,” said Antanazio, “they are college boys: the same all the world over!”
Even so, I do believe.
CHAPTER VII.
LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA.
AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?”
It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no one pretends to ask the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels, I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” But nobody heeds it. An attempt to enforce it would probably lead to the sudden departure of all Spanish guests from the house. At the largest and best hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and gentlemen, were at dinner, (table-d’hôte), and in the midst of dinner, between the courses, gentlemen lighted their cigarettes, smoked them, and resumed their eating. Yet the notice forbidding smoking was in full view, or was until the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms of the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of ten are smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs to one of them that this may be a nuisance to others. I am told, that at the theatres in Spain, in the midst of the play, the audience smoke in their seats, and if any managers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of Spain pay no sort of attention to it. All attempts at reform end only in smoke.
I asked Antanazio if smoking is allowed in the churches of Spain. “Oh no, no,” he answered, with a pious horror; “it was shocking to think of such a desecration.” “Then,” said I, “when I come to Spain to live, I will get a little church for myself, for nowhere else in this country can a man find refuge from this intolerable nuisance.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied; “but perhaps the incense will make a smoke quite as disagreeable as the American weed.”