Nunca
se disputo en Espana, - "There has never been any discussion in
Spain," - exclaims proudly an eminent Spanish writer. Spectacles like
that which we have just seen were one of the elements which in a
barbarous and unenlightened age contributed strongly to the
consolidation of that unthinking and ardent faith which has fused the
nation into one torpid and homogeneous mass of superstition. No better
means could have been devised for the purpose. Leaving out of view the
sublime teachings of the large and tolerant morality of Jesus, the
clergy made his personality the sole object of worship and reverence. By
dwelling almost exclusively upon the story of his sufferings, they
excited the emotional nature of the ignorant, and left their intellects
untouched and dormant. They aimed to arouse their sympathies, and when
that was done, to turn their natural resentment against those whom the
Church considered dangerous. To the inflamed and excited worshippers, a
heretic was the enemy of the crucified Saviour, a Jew was his murderer,
a Moor was his reviler. A Protestant wore to their bloodshot eyes the
semblance of the torturer who had mocked and scourged the meek Redeemer,
who had crowned his guileless head with thorns, who had pierced and
slain him. The rack, the gibbet, and the stake were not enough to glut
the pious hate this priestly trickery inspired. It was not enough that
the doubter's life should go out in the blaze of the crackling fagots,
but it must be loaded in eternity with the curses of the faithful.
Is there not food for earnest thought in the fact that faith in Christ,
which led the Puritans across the sea to found the purest social and
political system which the wit of man has yet evolved from the tangled
problems of time, has dragged this great Spanish people down to a depth
of hopeless apathy, from which it may take long years of civil tumult to
raise them? May we not find the explanation of this strange phenomenon
in the contrast of Catholic unity with Protestant diversity? "Thou that
killest the prophets!" - the system to which this apostrophe can be
applied is doomed. And it matters little who the prophets may be.
THE CRADLE AND THE GRAVE OF CERVANTES
In Rembrandt Peale's picture of the Court of Death a cadaverous shape
lies for judgment at the foot of the throne, touching at either
extremity the waters of Lethe. There is something similar in the history
of the greatest of Spanish writers. No man knew, for more than a century
after the death of Cervantes, the place of his birth and burial. About a
hundred years ago the investigations of Rios and Pellicer established
the claim of Alcala de Henares to be his native city; and last year the
researches of the Spanish Academy have proved conclusively that he is
buried in the Convent of the Trinitarians in Madrid. But the precise
spot where he was born is only indicated by vague tradition; and the
shadowy conjecture that has so long hallowed the chapel and cloisters of
the Calle Cantarranas has never settled upon any one slab of their
pavement.
It is, however, only the beginning and the end of this most chivalrous
and genial apparition of the sixteenth century that is concealed from
our view. We know where he was christened and where he died. So that
there are sufficiently authentic shrines in Alcala and Madrid to satisfy
the most sceptical pilgrims.
I went to Alcala one summer day, when the bare fields were brown and dry
in their after-harvest nudity, and the hills that bordered the winding
Henares were drab in the light and purple in the shadow. From a distance
the town is one of the most imposing in Castile. It lies in the midst of
a vast plain by the green water-side, and the land approach is fortified
by a most impressive wall emphasized by sturdy square towers and
flanking bastions. But as you come nearer you see this wall is a
tradition. It is almost in ruins.
The crenellated towers are good for nothing but to sketch. A short walk
from the station brings you to the gate, which is well defended by a
gang of picturesque beggars, who are old enough to have sat for Murillo,
and revoltingly pitiable enough to be millionaires by this time, if
Castilians had the cowardly habit of sponging out disagreeable
impressions with pennies. At the first charge we rushed in panic into a
tobacco-shop and filled our pockets with maravedis, and thereafter faced
the ragged battalion with calm.
It is a fine, handsome, and terribly lonesome town. Its streets are
wide, well built, and silent v as avenues in a graveyard. On every hand
there are tall and stately churches, a few palaces, and some two dozen
great monasteries turning their long walls, pierced with jealous grated
windows, to the grass-grown streets. In many quarters there is no sign
of life, no human habitations among these morose and now empty barracks
of a monkish army. Some of them have been turned into military casernes,
and the bright red and blue uniforms of the Spanish officers and
troopers now brighten the cloisters that used to see nothing gayer than
the gowns of cord-girdled friars. A large garrison is always kept here.
The convents are convenient for lodging men and horses. The fields in
the vicinity produce great store of grain and alfalfa, - food for beast
and rider. It is near enough to the capital to use the garrison on any
sudden emergency, such as frequently happens in Peninsular politics.
The railroad that runs by Alcala has not brought with it any taint of
the nineteenth century.
