INTRODUCTION

I. THE GENIUS OF SPAIN

THE political decadence of what once was the greatest Empire of modern times has led uninformed people to underestimate, and even to neglect altogether, one of the richest amongst those national essences the synthesis of which we call European genius. Yet the Spanish language should be a sufficient sign of its importance. Le style, c'est l'homme,' said Buffon. He might just as aptly have said : The language is the nation. But here a word of caution may be permitted. A language is not a mere mob of words drilled into logical order by means of a grammar. It is a living natural phenomenon the evolution of which is determined by the action of inner or psychological forces on outer or philological matter. For our present purpose, therefore, what is important in a language is its soul, not its body. Hence the classification of peoples according to the philological origin of the language they speak cannot but be misleading. It rests on the assumption that community of origin is more important than the differences evolved in centuries of use ; whereas the first is a purely accidental phenomenon (generally due to common conquest by a more civilized people) while the latter are essential, and flow from differences in national character. It is obvious that a red-haired citizen of Aberdeen and a negro from Richmond (Virginia) have but little in common, though they both speak languages which can be traced back to Chaucer. Similarly, though less obviously, the fact that the