Note 1520 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

‘This is the most wonderful country under the sun; for here, intellect wields no power.’ Inglis' Spain, London, 1831, vol. i. p. 101. ‘Tandis que l'activité publique, en Espagne, se porte depuis quelques années dans la sphère des intérêts pratiques et matériels, il semble, au contraire, qu'il y ait une sorte de ralentissement dans la vie intellectuelle.’ Annuaire des Deux Mondes for 1850, p. 410. ‘La vie intellectuelle n'est point, malheureusement, la sphère où se manifeste le plus d'activité en Espagne.’ Ibid. for 1856–1857, p. 356. Now, listen to the practical consequences of not giving free and fearless scope to the intellect. ‘It is singular, upon landing in the Peninsula, and making a short excursion for a few miles in any direction, to see reproduced the manners of England five centuries back,—to find yourself thrown into the midst of a society which is a close counterpart of that extinct semi-civilization of which no trace is to be found in our history later than the close of the fourteenth century and the reign of Richard the Second.’ Revelations of Spain in 1845 by an English Resident, vol. ii. p. 1.