Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/398

354 at the moment when the Duke of Montpensier entered Madrid to marry the Infanta. The Spanish nation were averse to this marriage, and though they treated the Duke with courtesy and offered him no insult, it was easy to see their want of sympathy. The ancient splendors of the national customs were invoked to cover this wound to their national pride. Royal bull-fights, which always take the Spanish people off their feet, were instituted with the most gorgeous displays, and the spectacles brought out all the Argentine poetry and the native brilliancy of our author's pen.

Señor Sarmiento's insight into the sorrows and evils of Spain was undoubtedly such as few travellers were prepared to exercise, and he saw very plainly that the Spain of to-day was the Spain of three centuries ago. More interesting to him than all the remains and the momentary resuscitation of ancient splendor, was his interview with Cobden in Barcelona, which he must describe in his own words, for the impulse it gave to his life and labors was very great, giving him a method which he has since used with great effect to breathe the breath of life into the apathetic children of the Spanish colony, that incubus upon the souls of men.

"Barcelona. Here I have had the felicity of being presented to Cobden, the great English agitator, and I assure you that after Napoleon there is no man I so much wished to see. You know the long struggle of the league against the corn-laws in England, a glorious struggle of ratiocination, discussion, speech, and will, which unrooted the English aristocracy, sapping at the base its power over the land,