Spanish Romance

by Washington Irving

　　TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.Sir,I have already given you a legend or two drawn from ancient Spanishsources, and may occasionally give you a few more. I love these oldSpanish themes, especially when they have a dash of the Morisco in them,and treat of the times when the Moslems maintained a foot-hold in thepeninsula. They have a high, spicy, oriental flavor, not to be found inany other themes that are merely European. In fact, Spain is a countrythat stands alone in the midst of Europe; severed in habits, manners,and modes of thinking, from all its continental neighbors. It is aromantic country; but its romance has none of the sentimentality ofmodern European romance: it is chiefly derived from the brilliantregions of the East, and from the high-minded school of Saracenicchivalry.The Arab invasion and conquest brought a higher civilization anda nobler style of thinking into Gothic Spain. The Arabs were aquick-witted, sagacious, proud-spirited, and poetical people, and wereimbued with oriental science and literature. Wherever they established aseat of power, it became a rallying place for the learned and ingenious;and they softened and refined the people whom they conquered. Bydegrees, occupancy seemed to give them a hereditary right to theirfoothold in the land; they ceased to be looked upon as invaders, andwere regarded as rival neighbors. The peninsula, broken up into avariety of states, both Christian and Moslem, became for centuriesa great campaigning ground, where the art of war seemed to be theprincipal business of man, and was carried to the highest pitch ofromantic chivalry. The original ground of hostility, a difference offaith, gradually lost its rancor. Neighboring states, of oppositecreeds, were occasionally linked together in alliances, offensive anddefensive; so that the cross and crescent were to be seen side by sidefighting against some common enemy. In times of peace, too, the nobleyouth of either faith resorted to the same cities, Christian or Moslem,to school themselves in military science. Even in the temporary trucesof sanguinary wars, the warriors who had recently striven together inthe deadly conflicts of the field, laid aside their animosity, met attournaments, jousts, and other military festivities, and exchanged thecourtesies of gentle and generous spirits. Thus the opposite racesbecame frequently mingled together in peaceful intercourse, or if anyrivalry took place, it was in those high courtesies and nobler actswhich bespeak the accomplished cavalier. Warriors of opposite creedsbecame ambitious of transcending each other in magnanimity as well asvalor. Indeed, the chivalric virtues were refined upon to a degreesometimes fastidious and constrained; but at other times, inexpressiblynoble and affecting. The annals of the times teem with illustriousinstances of high-wrought courtesy, romantic generosity, loftydisinterestedness, and punctilious honor, that warm the very soul toread them. These have furnished themes for national plays and poems, orhave been celebrated in those all-pervading ballads which are as thelife-breath of the people, and thus have continued to exercise aninfluence on the national character which centuries of vicissitude anddecline have not been able to destroy; so that, with all their faults,and they are many, the Spaniards, even at the present day, are on manypoints the most high-minded and proud-spirited people of Europe.It is true, the romance of feeling derived from the sources I havementioned, has, like all other romance, its affectations and extremes.It renders the Spaniard at times pompous and grandiloquent; prone tocarry the "pundonor," or point of honor, beyond the bounds of sobersense and sound morality; disposed, in the midst of poverty, to affectthe "grande caballero," and to look down with sovereign disdain upon"arts mechanical," and all the gainful pursuits of plebeian life; butthis very inflation of spirit, while it fills his brain with vapors,lifts him above a thousand meannesses; and though it often keeps him inindigence, ever protects him from vulgarity.In the present day, when popular literature is running into the lowlevels of life and luxuriating on the vices and follies of mankind, andwhen the universal pursuit of gain is trampling down the early growthof poetic feeling and wearing out the verdure of the soul, I questionwhether it would not be of service for the reader occasionally to turnto these records of prouder times and loftier modes of thinking, and tosteep himself to the very lips in old Spanish romance.For my own part, I have a shelf or two of venerable, parchment-boundtomes, picked up here and there about the peninsula, and filled withchronicles, plays, and ballads, about Moors and Christians, which I keepby me as mental tonics, in the same way that a provident housewife hasher cupboard of cordials. Whenever I find my mind brought below par bythe commonplace of every-day life, or jarred by the sordid collisionsof the world, or put out of tune by the shrewd selfishness of modernutilitarianism, I resort to these venerable tomes, as did the worthyhero of La Mancha to his books of chivalry, and refresh and tone up myspirit by a deep draught of their contents. They have some such effectupon me as Falstaff ascribes to a good Sherris sack, "warming the bloodand filling the brain with fiery and delectable shapes."I here subjoin, Mr. Editor, a small specimen of the cordials I havementioned, just drawn from my Spanish cupboard, which I recommend toyour palate. If you find it to your taste, you may pass it on to yourreaders.Your correspondent and well-wisher,GEOFFREY CRAYON.

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