er struck you that Spain is
sad, and has not the sweet sentimentality of true poetry? She is not
melancholy, she is sad, with a wild and savage silence. She either
laughs in wild peals, or weeps moaning. She has not the gentle smile,
the joyful brightness that distinguishes the man from the animal. If
she laughs it is showing all her teeth; her inner meaning is always
gloomy, with the obscurity of a cavern in which all passions rage like
wild beasts seeking for an outlet."

"You say truly, Spain is sad," replied Luna. "She does not now go
dressed in black, with the rosary hanging to the pommel of her sword
as in former years. Still in her heart she is always dressed in
mourning and her soul is gloomy and wild. For three hundred years the
poor thing has endured the inquisitorial anguish of burning or being
burnt, and she still feels the spasm of that life of terror. There is
no joy here."

"There certainly is not, and you find this more in music than in any
other phase of Spanish life. The Germans dance the gay and voluptuous
waltz with a 'bock' in their hand, singing the _Gaudeamus igitur_,
that students' hymn glorifying the material life free from care. The
French sing amid rippling laughter, and dance with their free and
elastic limbs, greeting with rapturous applause their fantastic and
monkey-like movements. The English have turned their dance into
gymnastics, with the energy of a healthy body delighting in its own
strength. But all these people, when they feel the sweet sadness of
poetry, sing Lieds, romances, ballads, something soft and flowing,
that rests the soul and speaks to the imagination. Here even the
popular dances have much that is priestly, recalling the priestly
stiffness of the sacred dances, and the circling frenzy of the
priestess, who ended by falling in front of the altar with foaming
mouth and bloodshot eyes. And our songs? They are most beautiful, the
products of many civilisations, but most sad, despairing, gloomy,
revealing the soul of a sick and tainted people, who find their
greatest pleasure in human bloodshed, or urging on dying horses in the
enclosure of a circus. Spanish joy! Andalusian merriment! I cannot
help laughing at it. One night in Madrid I assisted at an Andalusian
fete, all that was most typical, most Spanish. We went to enjoy
ourselves immensely. Wine and more wine! And accordingly the bottle
went round, with ever frowning brows, gloomy faces, abrupt gestures.
'Ole! come al