Spanish Life in Town and Country

Commerce and industry had progressed by leaps and bounds even during the disastrous and troublous years between the expulsion of Isabel II. and the restoration of her son. The p...

The Portuguese army is raised by conscription, each parish, according to size, having to contribute an annual quota of young men between twenty and twenty-one years of age. Thes...

Only in comparatively late years has the Iberian Continent been added to the happy hunting-grounds of the ordinary British and American tourist, and somewhat of a check arose af...

There is something specially charming about Spanish society, its freedom from formality, the genuine pleasure and hospitality with which each guest is received, and the extreme...

Madrid has grown out of all knowledge in the last thirty years. No one who had not seen it since the time of Isabel II. would recognise it now, and even then much had been done...

It has been said, and it is often repeated, that if you strip a Spaniard of his virtues, the residuum will be a Portuguese. This cruel statement is rather the result of prejudic...

Nothing strikes one so much in studying the popular customs and pleasures of Spain as the antiquity of them all. Constantly one finds one's self back in prehistoric times, and t...

Certain strong characteristics of the Spanish people, with which the history of the world makes us well acquainted, are as marked in this hurrying age of railway and telegraph a...

The natural bent of the Spanish mind is religious. Taking the nation as a whole, with all its marvellous variations in race and character, no portion of it has ever been reproac...

It is not necessary to say to anyone who has the smallest acquaintance with history that Spaniards are naturally brave and patriotic. The early history of the Peninsula is one o...

It is the fashion to-day to minimise the influence of the Goths on the national characteristics of the Spaniard. We are told by some modern writers that their very existence is...

An Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most valued friends, thus speaks of th...

During the reign of Don Alfonso XII., except during the interval when the melancholy death of his first beloved Queen, Mercédes, plunged King, Court, and people into mourning, M...

The name of Pascual de Gayangos is known far beyond the confines of his own country as a scholar, historian, philologist, biographer, and critic. Although now a man of very adva...

The Government of Spain ever since the restoration of Don Alfonso XII. has been in reality what it was only in name before--a constitutional monarchy. During the first years of...

Education, especially that of the masses, has made great strides since the Revolution. At that time perfect liberty of religion and of instruction was established, and in this p...

Perhaps there are few countries where the influence of the Press is greater than in Spain, and this is largely due to the fact that while the journals are read by everyone, for...

Travellers complain somewhat bitterly of the increase in the numbers and the importunity of beggars in Spain; but wherever monks abound, beggars also abound, and the long-unaccu...

One is apt to forget how much the history of music owes to Spain. The country was for so long considered to be in a state of chronic political disturbance that few foreigners to...