Two or three centuries ahead of the rest of Europe, Spain was for the world of those days what England is for our own times.

If we had followed the same policy of religious toleration, of fusion of races, of industrial and agricultural work in preference to military enterprises, where should we not be now?
Gabriel asked this question, interrupting his ardent description of the past.
"The Renaissance," continued Luna, "was more Spanish than Italian.

In Italy the literature of antiquity, and Greco-Roman art revived, but the Renaissance was not entirely literary.

The Renaissance represents the springing into life of a new and cultivated society, with arts and manufactures, armies and, scientific knowledge, etc.

And who accomplished this but Spain, that Arab-Hebrew-Christian Spain of the Catholic kings?
The Gran Capitan taught the world the art of modern warfare; Pedro Navarro was a wonderful engineer; the Spanish troops were the first to use firearms, and they created also the infantry, making war democratic, as it gave the people the superiority over the noble horsemen clad in armour; finally, it was Spain who discovered America." "And does all this seem little to you ?" interrupted Don Antolin.