The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1898-04-13
ANALYSIS OF A
SPANISH CHARACTER

From the DIARY of an Idle oman IN Spain,"
by Frances Elliot, published In 1884.
In Spain you must learn to wait The
first word I heard at Irun was manana
tomorrow in everybody's mouth. Man
ana, manana--no use to hurry; needless to
reproach; ridiculous to scold; dangerous to
swear Time is made for slaves Now,
your Spanlard may be poor, starving even,
but he is no slave. Time is his property,
and he will enforce his rights to 1t.
Spanish pride is proverbal. 1t has one
good slde which results in every man
thinking himself a gentleman. You speak
to your servant, to a. shopman, to an ar
tisan-as to an equal. Even a trouble
some beggar is addressed as a brother and
adjured in the name of God to remove
himself out of the way" all, including the
beggar, replying with equal courtesy and
respect. People may draw knives and
kill each other, but their language Is po-
lite; they only wrangle and call names IN
the cortes All this is so singular, so
thoroughly national, I quite despair OF
making 1t comprehensive; 1t is the manner
of a people who respect themselves, ana
by the action of this feeling impose re-
spect on others.
Tt is also true that the pride of the Span
lard blinds him to the truth-that he thinks
or affects to think, his country is still the
first in Europe; and passing with flowing
brush over the political insigniffcance into
which Spain has fallen for centuries, ana
is only now slowly recovering from, goes
back in fancy to the glorious days when
the red and yellow flag waved over two
hemispheres and her fleet ruled the world s
seas. And as to the history of the past,
which is at the bottom of these hallucina-
lions, every one knows it. Not educated
men merely, but the boy who cleans your
shoes. The porter who carries your lug
gage, the peasant with his striped scarf,
who tills the ground, the water carrier,
the laborer in vineyard and olive ground,
the swarthy torero who fights the bull, the
dark gitano who plays the guitar, the
peaceful serene who PAGES the silent street.
the very beggar who bothers you for aims.
Each and all raise their heads and their
eyes glitter at the old names of yore, the
Cid. King Jaime, Ferdinand Isabella, Co
lumbus, Pizzaro, Cortez, Ximenes, ana
that incarnation of Spanish greatness the
Emperor Charles v. Not, mind you, as
heroes of old tales, to be read of in chroni-
cles but as actual living men in whose
renown and glory they themselves share.
caress his foibles and you will find your
Spaniard charitable and charming. lie
does not exalt himself upon others ruin,
nor discuss European calamitfes the Is 100
proud for that, to compare them with
his own. On the contrary, he Is as Wiling
to applaud as he would himself be praised.
Always with a reservation, uneXpressed,
and perhaps, hardly admitted even to him
self that the Spaniard is so immensely
superior to all others, no comparison can
possibly exist. But when he speaks OF
his country, he is insolent, overbearing, I'M
reasoning. For Spain, he will sing hymns
of triumph all day long-in parliament, IN
journals, In speeches. pamphlets. books
Spain, people of heroes, the great nation,
the glory of centuries. past present, and
to comet Such is the Spaniard. The last
to learn, the first to forget always begin
ming, never ending; taking no lessons from
the past, despisng the future; brave indo-
lent, frugal, honora BILE. .vain with faith
to remove mountains, with practice to let
a molehill lie.
None such pessimists in politics as
Spaniards With their arrogant self-esteem
and inflexible character this is remarkable.
but public confidence has been so effec-
tually shaken by centuries of misrule under
the sway of incapable ministers and weak
sovereigns-not to mention bloody civil
wars; greedy, superstitious clergy, in
triguing courtiers, and military dictators-
that under the most prosperous conditions
it will take long time to restore.