That Was Nonsense, And Could Not Survive
The Time Of Cervantes.
Life is too short to learn bull-fighting.
A
grandee of Spain, if he knows anything else, would make a sorry torero.
The good times of the art are more modern. I saw the short day of the
glory of the ring when I was a boy. There was a race of gladiators then,
such as the world will never see again, - mighty fighters before the
king. Pepe Illo and Costillares, Romero and Paco Montes, - the world does
not contain the stuff to make their counterparts. They were serious,
earnest men. They would have let their right arms wither before they
would have courted the applause of the mob by killing a bull outside of
the severe traditions. Compare them with the men of to-day, with your
Rafael Molina, who allows himself to be gored, playing with a heifer;
with your frivolous boys like Frascuelo. I have seen the ring convulsed
with laughter as that buffoon strutted across the arena, flirting his
muleta as a manola does her skirts, the bewildered bull not knowing what
to make of it. It was enough to make Illo turn in his bloody grave.
"Why, my young friend, I remember when bulls were a dignified and
serious matter; when we kept account of their progress from their
pasture to the capital. We had accounts of their condition by couriers
and carrier-pigeons. On the day when they appeared it was a high
festival in the court.
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