Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/132

106 106 INSANITY OF JOANNA. PART II. But the results of the campaign are, after all, less worthy of notice as indicating the resources of the country, than as evidence of a pervading patriotic feeling, which could alone make these resources available. Instead of the narrow local jealousies, which had so long estranged the people of the separate provinces, and more especially those of the rival states of Aragon and Castile, from one another, there had been gradually raised up a com- mon national sentiment, like that knitting together the constituent parts of one great commonwealth. At the first alarm of invasion on the frontier of Aragon, the whole extent of the sister kingdom, from the green valleys of the Guadalquivir up to the rocky fastnesses of the Asturias, responded to the call, as to that of a common country, sending Ppeculativc writers. the voice of departed years ; and when, as in Martyr's case, they proceed from one whose acuteness is combined with singular opportu- nities for observation, they are of inestimable value. Instead of ex- posing to us only the results, they lay open the interior workings of the machinery, and we enter into all the shifting doubts, passions, and purposes, which agitate the minds of the actors. Unfortunate- ly, the chain of correspondence here, as in similar cases, when not originally designed for historical uses, necessarily suffers from oc- casional breaks and interruptions. The scattered gleams which are thrown over the most prominent points, however, shed so strong a light, as materially to aid us in groping our way through the dark- er and more perplexed passages of the story. The obscurity, which hangs over the period, has not been dispelled by those modern writers, who, like Variilas, in his well-known work. Politique de Fa-dinand le Catholique, affect to treat the sub- ject philosopliically, paying less attention to facts than to their causes and consequences. These ingenious persons, seldom willing to take things as they find tliem, seem to think that truth is only to be reached by delving deep below the surface. In this search after more profound causes of action, they reject whatever is natural and obvious. They are inexhaustible in conjectures and fine-spun con- clusions, inferring quite as much from what is not said or done, as from what is. In short, they put the reader as completely in posses- sion of their hero's thoughts on all occasions, as any professed ro- mance-writer would venture to do. All this may be very agreeable, and to persons of easy faith, very satisfactory ; but it is not history,