Spanish Life in Town and Country. L. Higgin
dangers and in all its woes, is a religion in itself.
CHAPTER III
NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Certain strong characteristics of the Spanish people, with which the history of the world makes us well acquainted, are as marked in this hurrying age of railway and telegraph as ever they were in the past. One of the stupid remarks one constantly hears made by the unthinking tourist is: "Spain is a country where nothing ever changes." This is as true of some of the national traits of character as it is false in the sense in which the speaker means it. He has probably picked it out of some handbook.
Chief among these traits is dignity. The most casual visitor is impressed by it, sometimes very much to his annoyance, whether he finds it among the unlettered muleteers of Castile, the labourers of Valencia, or the present proprietor of some little Old-World pueblo off the ordinary route. The mayoral of the diligence in the old times, the domestic servant of to-day, the señora who happens to sell you fish, or the señor who mends your boots, all strike the same note—an absolute incapacity for imagining that there can be any inequality between themselves and any other class, however far removed from them by the possession of wealth or education. Wealth, in fact, counts for nothing in the way of social rank; a poor hidalgo is exactly as much respected as a rich one, and he treats his tenants, his servants, all with whom he comes in contact, as brothers of the same rank in the sight of God as himself.
Bajo el Rey ninguno is their proverb, and its signification, that "beneath the King all are equal," is one that is shown daily in a hundred ways. The formula with which you are expected to tell the beggars—with whom, unfortunately, Spain is once more overrun—that you have nothing for them, is a lesson in what someone has well called the "aristocratic democracy" of Spain: "Pardon me, for the love of God, my brother," or the simple Perdone me usted, using precisely the same address as you would to a duke. It is no uncommon thing to hear two little ragged urchins, whose heads would not reach to one's elbow, disputing vigorously in the street with a Pero no, Señor, Pero si, Señor, as they bandy their arguments.
English travellers are sometimes found grumbling because the señor who keeps a wayside posada, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the towns, does not stand, hat in hand, bowing obsequiously to the wayfarer who deigns to use the accommodation provided.
This is one of the things in which Spain, to her honour, is unchanged. The courtesy of her people, high or low, is ingrained, and if foreign—perhaps especially English and American—travellers do not always find it so, the fault may oftenest be laid to their own ignorance of what is expected of them, and to what is looked upon as the absolute boorishness of their own manners.
When a Spaniard goes into a shop where a woman is behind the counter, or even to a stall in the open market, he raises his hat in speaking to her as he would to the Duquesa de Tal y Fulano, and uses precisely the same form of address. The shopman lays himself at the feet of his lady customers—metaphorically only, fortunately, Á los pies de V., Señora!—with a bow worthy of royalty. She hopes that "God may remain with his worship" as she bids him the ordinary Adios on going away, and he, with equal politeness, expresses a hope that she may "go in God's keeping," while he once more lays himself at the señora's feet. All these amenities do not prevent a little bargaining, the one asking more than he means to take, apparently for the purpose of appearing to give way perforce to the overmastering charms of his customer, who does not disdain to use either her fan or her eyes in the encounter. The old woman will bargain just as much, but always with the same politeness. When foreigners walk in and abruptly ask for what they want with an air of immense superiority, as is the custom in our country, they are not unnaturally looked upon as muy bruto, and at the best it is accounted for by their being rude heretics from abroad, and knowing no better.
In Madrid and some of the large towns it is possible that the people have become accustomed to our apparent discourtesy, just as in some places—Granada especially—spoiled by long intimacy with tourists, the beggars have become importunate, and to some extent impudent; but in places a little removed from such a condition of modern "civilisation," the effect produced by many a well-meaning but ordinary Saxon priding himself on his superiority, and without any intention of being ill-bred or ill-mannered, is that of disgust and contemptuous annoyance.
No Spaniard will put up with an overbearing or bullying manner, even though he may not understand the language in which it is expressed; it raises in him all the dormant pride and prejudice which sleep beneath his own innate courtesy, and he probably treats the offending traveller with the profound contempt he feels for him, if with nothing worse. A little smiling and good-natured chaff when things go wrong, as they so often do in travelling, or when the leisurely expenditure of time, which is as natural to the Spaniard as it is irritating to our notions of how things ought to move, will go infinitely farther to set things right than black looks and a scolding tongue, even in an unknown language.
When English people come back from Spain complaining of discourtesy, or what they choose to call insult, I know very well on whose head to fit the accusing cap, and it is always those people whose super-excellent opinion of themselves, and of their infinite importance at home, makes them certain of meeting with some such experience among a people to whom the mere expression "a snob" is by no means to be understood.
That railway travelling in Spain calls for a great exercise of patience from those accustomed to Flying Dutchmen and such-like expresses is quite true; though, by the way, many of the lines are in French hands, and served by French officials. It may safely be said, however, even at the present day, that those who are always in a hurry would do well to choose some other country for their holiday jaunt. A well-known English engineer, of French extraction, trying to get some business through in Madrid, once described himself as feeling "like a cat in hell, without claws." Perhaps the ignorance of the language, which constituted his clawless condition, was a fortunate circumstance for him. But that was a good while ago, and Madrid moves more quickly now.
Another characteristic of the Spaniard which awakens the respect and admiration of those who know enough of his past and present history to be aware of it is his courage: not in the least resembling the excitement and rush of mere conflict, nor the theatrical display of what goes by the name of "glory" among some of his neighbours; but the cool courage, the invincible determination which holds honour as the ideal to be followed all the same whether or not any person beyond the actor will know of it, and an unquestioning obedience to discipline, which call forth the ungrudging admiration of Englishmen, proud as we are of such national stories as that of our own Little Revenge, The Wreck of the "Birkenhead," or of "plucky little Mafeking," amongst hundreds of others. Spaniards are rich in such inspiring memories, reaching from the earliest days of authentic history to the terrible episodes of the late war with America. The story of Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba is one to make the heart of any nation throb with pride in the midst of inevitable tears.
Again and again in reading Spanish history do we come upon evidences of this nobility of courage and disinterested patriotism. It was the Spaniard Pescara who brushed the French army of observation from the line of the Adda, and marched his own forces and the German troops to the relief of Pavía. All were unpaid, unclothed, unfed; yet when an appeal was made to the Spaniards, Hume tells us that they abandoned their own pay and offered their very shirts and cloaks to satisfy the Germans, and "the French were beaten before the great battle was fought." They did precisely the same in the days of Mendizábal.
Again, in the height of Barbarossa's power, when Charles V., hoisting the crucifix at his masthead, led his crusading Spaniards against Goletta, and it fell, after a month's