Of Pizarro and Almagro, and the revolt of the bloodthirsty volunteers of
the Havana is only a question of time.
It is true that in later years there has been the beginning of a better
system of thought and discussion in Spain. But the old tradition still
holds its own gallantly in Church and state. Nowhere in the world are
the forms of religion so rigidly observed, and the precepts of Christian
morality less regarded. The most facile beauties in Madrid are severe as
Minervas on Holy Thursday. I have seen a dozen fast men at the door of a
gambling-house fall on their knees in the dust as the Host passed by in
the street. Yet the fair were no less frail and the senoritos were no
less profligate for this unfeigned reverence for the outside of the cup
and platter.
In the domain of politics there is still the lamentable disproportion
between honor and honesty. A high functionary cares nothing if the whole
Salon del Prado talks of his pilferings, but he will risk his life in an
instant if you call him no gentleman. The word "honor" is still used in
all legislative assemblies, even in England and America. But the idea
has gone by the board in all democracies, and the word means no more
than the chamberlain's sword or the speaker's mace. The only criterion
which the statesman of the nineteenth century applies to public acts is
that of expediency and legality. The first question is, "Is it lawful?"
the second, "Does it pay?" Both of these are questions of fact, and as
such susceptible of discussion and proof. The question of honor and
religion carries us at once into the realm of sentiment where no
demonstration is possible. But this is where every question is planted
from the beginning in Spanish politics. Every public matter presents
itself under this form: "Is it consistent with Spanish honor?" and "Will
it be to the advantage of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church?" Now,
nothing is consistent with Spanish honor which does not recognize the
Spain of to-day as identical with the Spain of the sixteenth century,
and the bankrupt government of Madrid as equal in authority to the
world-wide autocracy of Charles V. And nothing is thought to be to the
advantage of the Church which does not tend to the concubinage of the
spiritual and temporal power, and to the muzzling of speech and the
drugging of the mind to sleep.
Let any proposition be made which touches this traditional
susceptibility of race, no matter how sensible or profitable it may be,
and you hear in the Cortes and the press, and, louder than all, among
the idle cavaliers of the cafes, the wildest denunciations of the
treason that would consent to look at things as they are. The men who
have ventured to support the common-sense view are speedily stormed into
silence or timid self-defence. The sword of Guzman is brandished in the
Chambers, the name of Pelayo is invoked, the memory of the Cid is
awakened, and the proposition goes out in a blaze of patriotic
pyrotechnics, to the intense satisfaction of the unthinking and the
grief of the judicious. The senoritos go back to the serious business of
their lives - coffee and cigarettes - with a genuine glow of pride in a
country which is capable of the noble self-sacrifice of cutting off its
nose to spite somebody else's face.
But I repeat, the most favorable sign of the times is that this tyranny
of tradition is losing its power. A great deal was done by the single
act of driving out the queen. This was a blow at superstition which gave
to the whole body politic a most salutary shock. Never before in Spain
had a revolution been directed at the throne. Before it was always an
obnoxious ministry that was to be driven out. The monarch remained; and
the exiled outlaw of to-day might be premier to-morrow. But the fall of
Novaliches at the Bridge of Alcolea decided the fate not only of the
ministry but of the dynasty; and while General Concha was waiting for
the train to leave Madrid, Isabel of Bourbon and Divine Right were
passing the Pyrenees.
Although the moral power of the Church is still so great, the
incorporation of freedom of worship in the constitution of 1869 has been
followed by a really remarkable development of freedom of thought. The
proposition was regarded by some with horror and by others with
contempt. One of the most enlightened statesmen in Spain once said to
me, "The provision for freedom of worship in the constitution is a mere
abstract proposition, - it can never have any practical value except for
foreigners. I cannot conceive of a Spaniard being anything but a
Catholic." And so powerful was this impression in the minds of the
deputies that the article only accords freedom of worship to foreigners
in Spain, and adds, hypothetically, that if any Spaniards should profess
any other religion than the Catholic, they are entitled to the same
liberty as foreigners. The Inquisition has been dead half a century,
but you can see how its ghost still haunts the official mind of Spain.
It is touching to see how the broken links of the chain of superstition
still hang about even those who imagine they are defying it. As in their
Christian burials, following unwittingly the example of the hated Moors,
they bear the corpse with uncovered face to the grave, and follow it
with the funeral torch of the Romans, so the formula of the Church
clings even to the mummery of the atheists. Not long ago in Madrid a man
and woman who belonged to some fantastic order which rejected religion
and law had a child born to them in the course of things, and determined
that it should begin life free from the taint of superstition.
