Even At An Inn, The Poor
Man Is Never Spurned From The Door, And If Not Harboured, Is At
Least Dismissed With Fair Words, And Consigned To The Mercies Of
God And His Mother.
This is as it should be.
I laugh at the
bigotry and prejudices of Spain; I abhor the cruelty and ferocity
which have cast a stain of eternal infamy on her history; but I
will say for the Spaniards, that in their social intercourse no
people in the world exhibit a juster feeling of what is due to the
dignity of human nature, or better understand the behaviour which
it behoves a man to adopt towards his fellow beings. I have said
that it is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is not
treated with contempt, and I may add, where the wealthy are not
blindly idolized. In Spain the very beggar does not feel himself a
degraded being, for he kisses no one's feet, and knows not what it
is to be cuffed or spitten upon; and in Spain the duke or the
marquis can scarcely entertain a very overweening opinion of his
own consequence, as he finds no one, with perhaps the exception of
his French valet, to fawn upon or flatter him.
During my stay at Salamanca, I took measures that the word of God
might become generally known in this celebrated city. The
principal bookseller of the town, Blanco, a man of great wealth and
respectability, consented to become my agent here, and I in
consequence deposited in his shop a certain number of New
Testaments.
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