The Moors, when they abandoned Andalusia, left it their architecture and much of their manners. Since it is impossible for me to speak of the latter in the language of Madame de Sévigné, I'll at least say this of Moorish architecture:—its principal trait consists in providing every house with a little garden surrounded by an elegant and graceful portico. There, during the unbearable heat of summer, when for whole weeks together the Réaumur thermometer never falls below a constant level of thirty degrees, a delicious obscurity pervades these porticoes. In the middle of the little garden there is always a fountain, monotonous and voluptuous, whose sound is all that stirs this charming retreat. The marble basin is surrounded by a dozen orange-trees and laurels. A thick canvas, like a tent, covers in the whole of the little garden, and, while it protects it from the rays of the sun and from the light, lets in the gentle breezes which, at midday, come down from the mountains.
There live and receive their guests the fair ladies of Andalusia: a simple black silk robe, ornamented with fringes of the same colour, and giving glimpses of a charming ankle; a pale complexion and eyes that mirror all the most fugitive shades of the most tender and ardent passion—such are the celestial beings, whom I am forbidden to bring upon the scene.
I look upon the Spanish people as the living representatives of the Middle Age.
It is ignorant of a mass of little truths (the puerile vanity of its neighbours); but it has a profound knowledge of great truths and enough character and wit to follow their consequences down to their most remote effects. The Spanish character offers a fine contrast to French intellect—hard, brusque, inelegant, full of savage pride, and unconcerned with others. It is just the contrast of the fifteenth with the eighteenth century.
Spain provides me with a good contrast; the only people, that was able to withstand Napoleon, seems to me to be absolutely lacking in the fool's honour and in all that is foolish in honour.
Instead of making fine military ordinances, of changing uniforms every six months and of wearing large spurs, Spain has general No importa.[1]
[1] See the charming Letters of M. Pecchio. Italy is full of people of this wonderful type; but, instead of letting themselves be seen, they try to keep quiet—paese della virtù scunosciuta—"Land of mute, inglorious virtue.