But recently the number of those believing in religion has diminished, and the anti-Clericals have been driven by certain abuses of the Church to a more or less crude parade of atheism. It is felt that the Church has crushed life rather than sought its fuller, nobler expression. Thus a writer, E. L. André (“Ética Española,” 1910), says: “We conceive life solely as a preparation for death,” and speaks of the slight _espíritu territorial_ possessed by Spaniards. Cf. Berceo, in the 13th century: “Quanto aquí vivimos en ageno moramos”--our life on earth is a sojourn in a strange land.
[40] Honesty is a common attribute of Spaniards, but they have perhaps no very accurate regard for the value of truthfulness or honesty in words.
[41] _La mujer y el fraile mal parecen en la calle._ In the South, as at Seville, the percentage of women to be seen in the streets is noticeably small.
[42] “El consejo de la mujer es poco,” said Sancho, “y el que no lo toma es loco.” The women maintain their influence, but it is thus not properly their own, but rather that of the Church.
[43] The phrase _Seguir sin novedad_ is still used to imply that everything is going on well. But an ever-increasing number of politicians are now advocating “new things” with a somewhat crude violence. It is a reaction against the apathy that waited with crossed hands--
“Vuolsi così colà dove si puote Ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”
[44] Cf. the characteristic trait mentioned by Samuel Pepys: “They will cry out against their King, and Commanders, and Generals, none like them in the world, and yet will not hear a stranger say a word of them but will cut his throat.”
[45] It is true, however, that the mass of the Spanish nation has still to develop on really Spanish lines: hence its present weakness and its potential strength in the future, when a civilization of a truly national character shall have imposed itself upon the artificial civilization of culture imported from France, and religion imported from Rome.
[46] The ethereally lovely Cathedral of León is more remote.
[47] Some of the secondary roads of Andalucía are excellent, and motorable, though narrow. But between the roads of most provinces there is little to choose. No wonder that there is in Spain a saint invoked as the protector of “way-farers and the dying.” Ford remarked that while the rest of Spain calls the Milky Way “the road to Santiago,” the Gallegans themselves know better, and call it “the road to Jerusalem.” The roads from small towns to their stations, at charge of the _municipios_, are notably bad, and amaze the newly arrived foreigner. But, indeed, the roads in the immediate neighbourhood of such important industrial cities as Valencia and Barcelona are often in a deplorable state, and it is no infrequent sight to see carts of fruit or vegetables stuck fast in deep ruts of mud.
