The men who
have ventured to support the common-sense view are speedily stormed into
silence or timid self-defence. The sword of Guzman is brandished in the
Chambers, the name of Pelayo is invoked, the memory of the Cid is
awakened, and the proposition goes out in a blaze of patriotic
pyrotechnics, to the intense satisfaction of the unthinking and the
grief of the judicious. The senoritos go back to the serious business of
their lives--coffee and cigarettes--with a genuine glow of pride in a
country which is capable of the noble self-sacrifice of cutting off its
nose to spite somebody else's face.
But I repeat, the most favorable sign of the times is that this tyranny
of tradition is losing its power. A great deal was done by the single
act of driving out the queen. This was a blow at superstition which gave
to the whole body politic a most salutary shock. Never before in Spain
had a revolution been directed at the throne. Before it was always an
obnoxious ministry that was to be driven out. The monarch remained; and
the exiled outlaw of to-day might be premier to-morrow. But the fall of
Novaliches at the Bridge of Alcolea decided the fate not only of the
ministry but of the dynasty; and while General Concha was waiting for
the train to leave Madrid, Isabel of Bourbon and Divine Right were
passing the Pyrenees.
Although the moral power of the Church is still so great, the
incorporation of freedom of worship in the constitution of 1869 has been
followed by a really remarkable development of freedom of thought.
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