I Will As Little Pretend That My
Attitude Toward Spain Was Ever That Of The Impartial Observer After I
Crossed The Border Of That Enchanted Realm Where We All Have Our
Castles.
I have thought it best to be open with the reader here at the
beginning, and I would not, if I could, deny him the pleasure of
doubting my word or disabling my judgment at any point he likes.
In
return I shall only ask his patience when I strike too persistently the
chord of autobiography. That chord is part of the harmony between the
boy and the old man who made my Spanish journey together, and were
always accusing themselves, the first of dreaming and the last of
doddering: perhaps with equal justice. Is there really much difference
between the two?
II
It was fully a month before that first night in Granada that I arrived
in Spain after some sixty years' delay. During this period I had seen
almost every other interesting country in Europe. I had lived five or
six years in Italy; I had been several months in Germany; and a
fortnight in Holland; I had sojourned often in Paris; I had come and
gone a dozen times in England and lingered long each time; and yet I had
never once visited the land of my devotion. I had often wondered at
this, it was so wholly involuntary, and I had sometimes suffered from
the surprise of those who knew of my passion for Spain, and kept finding
out my dereliction, alleging the Sud-Express to Madrid as something that
left me without excuse.
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