Heroic Spain

At San Sebastián, the most fashionable summer resort in Spain, and still gay with Madrid people, for the season holds till October, we saw the first bull-ring, a circular buildi...

I shall never cease regretting that we did not wait till the following day, when an electric diligence makes the journey, for that eight hours' trip over the hills to the capita...

We had to descend at times to the repulsive town for sightseeing. We hunted up the Church of San Gerónimo, where the Gran Capitán, that true Castilian knight alike renowned as g...

Truly that age was past rivalry in the appealingly noble characters it produced, fine spirits of heroism, fit inheritors of Isabella's period that had prepared the soil for such...

Having reached the great central steppes, the same melancholy scene continued. The land was scorched and calcined. Everything was a dull brown. Villages were undistinguishable f...

Just as in Andalusia the chief ejaculation is "_Ave María Purísima!_" and in the mountains of the north, "_Nuestra Señora de Nieve!_" so in Aragon, "_Virgen Mia del Pilar!_" spr...

When Teresa was eighteen she went to visit a married sister who lived at a distance, and on her return stopped to see an uncle who had just taken the resolution of entering a mo...

Go down to the Roman bridge over the Tormes and while away an hour watching the passers-by, and the old times seem to live again. Below in the river bed women wash and chatter f...

Lull was born in the capital of the Balearic Islands, which lie a day's sail from Barcelona, and having passed an apprenticeship at court under Jaime _el Conquistador_ of Aragon...

The old poet must have written with his eye straight on his subject; those eleventh century urchins baiting the bulls are startlingly realistic. When the Cid died, at Valencia,...

Another Spanish writer of the free-thinking school, but of good literary quality, is Leopoldo Alas, author of "La Regenta," and a caustic, intelligent critic who under the name...

Mohammedan civilization in Spain, from decay within, was completely disintegrated by 1275. The caliphs of Granada led the lives of weak voluptuaries, artistic but decadent; no r...

In the sacristy is a beautiful picture, the _Expolio_, "Stripping Our Lord before the Crucifixion," by El Greco, the strange Byzantine Greek who drifted to Toledo and in his for...

Barcelona's position as an industrial force cannot be called unexpected. She has ever been in the stir of big events, Italy's rival in commerce through the Middle Ages, when she...

The objectionable processions began to march late in the afternoon of Palm Sunday, and it is hardly much of an exaggeration to say they went on marching night and day throughout...

The church of the Escorial is so coldly formal and pretentious that it lay like a load on our spirits. There is something frightening in the way man unconsciously expresses his...

It is strange in Spain how little they know of districts that lie at no appreciable distance. At the inn at Cáceres we asked for information about Alcántara, and they could give...

It is this petty thieving among a class that should be above it, such as postal clerks and railway officials, that rouses the traveler's harsh criticisms of Spain and makes him...

A step beyond the horse fair brought us to massive Roman walls with frequent semi-circular towers; León's name comes from Augustus' 7th Legion who fortified it against the highl...

Almost impregnable walls and moats shut off the isthmus that leads to the mainland, and their strength explains how Cadiz could have defied the French for two years during the W...

Isabel in Paris abdicated in his favor, and in 1875 Alfonso XII returned to his native land. He came not in the same spirit as had Ferdinand VII in 1814. The sixty years of diso...

Cathedrals, Spanish, 38, 42, 43, 108, 149, 150, 151, 202, 219, 233, 261, 404, 421, 422, 423, 424. _Avila_, 110, 150, 201, 205, 232, 425. _Astorga_, 115, 425. _Barcelona_, 150, 4...

"Tienes el mismo nombre "Thou hast the same name Que la Patrona,[29] As our patroness,[29] Tienes 'ange' en la cara, Thou hast the face of an angel, Tienes corona, Thou art a qu...

With up-to-date hospital and busy manufactures, Valladolid does not seem like an ancient capital of the Spanish court. We would read in our guide book that the miserable Juan II...

"All national criticism in bulk is misleading and foolish, and I look on the belief of Spaniards that Spain ought to be great and strong as the most promising agency of her futu...

[5] The blood of the Cid flows to-day in the veins of Alfonso XIII through his descent both from the French Bourbons and from Spain's earlier royal house. A daughter of the Camp...