The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-06-04
KINGS AND QUEENS

N history of the country seems
written on the rugged face of the
land. Almost everywhere noun
tains: in the north the Cantabrians
and the Pyrenees; in the center the
Gredos and the Guadarrama; and
all along the soutren coast a range
of dark sierras.
All these vistaS are dark, with
heavy threatening colors, and SOM
Der sunsets, predicting and deter
mining the background of Spanish
paintings, the fiery flame of Spanish
eyes and dress, and the eternal hea'
Of the Spanish soul.
Across these contorted hills COM
munication is difficult; trains move
through long, hot tunnels and
emerge on terrible precipices or I'M
der rocky crags that seem poised to
fall; consider the barriers these
mountains raised when rails had
not yet made roads over their
passes, and rebelliouS authors could
not scatter a million copies of for
hidden tract in one days flight
through thelair.
Ignorance and superstition were
inevitable~here; ideas could not
travel fast enough to outrun their
own mortality; only dead truth
could permeate those hills. There
could be no reformation here and
no enlightenment.
But what magnificent .coast-line,
north and south and to the east!
No wonder the Phoenicians came
here, a thousand years before Christ
and then the Greeks and Cartha-
ginianS and Romans and then. leap
ing the sea from Africa, the Moor5
and the Jews. opening new routes,
and making Spain for time rich
with trade. For half millennium
the little kingdoms of CASTLE, Ara
gon and Navarro fought to drive out
these invaders of exotic faith; at
last, in 1892, they won Granada, the
last stronghold of the Moors.
The warm southern sea lay open
now, with a hundred splendid ports,
to Spanish galleys; into the Medi-
terranean and out into the Atlantic
they sailed, until the wealth of
America poured into the lap Of
Spain, and even in the midst of
obscurantism art and literature
bloomed. For a century Spain
financed great armies, overran Italy
and the Netherlands, gave emperors
to the Holy Roman Empire and,
through Charles V and Philip II,
dominate Europe.
A FTER 1850 came the Golden
"A Age Of Spain, almost as fertile
as the Age Of Elizabeth in England.
Lope de Vega and Calderon made
drama the fashion, Ell Greco plag-
iarized the moderns, Velasquez i'm
mortaliZed moron realities, Murillo
wrote tender romances with the
brush, literature invented the mod
ern novel, created romantic, picares-
que and satiric fiction and gave the
world Don Quixote and Don Juan.
But let us on to the man whom
his time endowed with all the privi-
legeS of poverty and whom the
tardy world now honors with empty
blasts Of unfelt fame. His life was
a romance stranger than those of
chivalry. No wonder his Spanish
biographers provide him with the
genteelest genealogy, continuing af-
ter centuries the romantic traditions
he sought to destroy; he lived like
knight-how could he have been
born but in some knightly rank?
Nevertheless, the raw fact seems
to be that he was born Gin 154D Of
parents who had the good fortune
to be quite undistinguished. They
called him Miguel by the Spanish
custom of naming child from the
saint whose feast fell on the day
Of its birth. 1t is an economical
custom, whose universal adoption
would spare us many debates.
In those days, as in ancient Ath-
ems, every man was a soldier, de
Vega, Calderon and Cervantes like
the rest. The Holy War against the
Moors was still af1ame, though the
Moors had been expelled; for now
the rising government of Spain,
growing by what it fed on, was de-
termined to destroy the Mosleln
power everywhere. In 1871 Austria,
Spain and the Papacy sent great
fleet to drive the Turks from the
Mediterranean.
Cervantes was so i'll as the battle
of Lepa1to began that his comman-
der ordered him below decks; but he