While humanity, warmed by the soft breath of the Renaissance, was admiring the Apollos and adoring the Venus' discovered by the plough amid the ruins of mediaeval catastrophes, the type of supreme beauty for the Spanish monarchy was the criminal of Judea.

The black and dusty Christs in the old cathedrals, with the livid mouth, the skeleton and distorted body, the feet bony, and dripping with blood, much blood,--that liquid so loved by the religious when doubt begins and faith weakens, and to impose dogma they place their hand on the sword.
"For this reason the Spanish monarchy has been steeped in gloom, transmitting its melancholy from one generation to another.

If by any chance there appeared among them anyone happy and pleased with life, it was because in the blue blood of the maternal veins there was a plebeian drop, which pierced like the rays of the sun into a sick room." Don Luis listened to Gabriel, receiving his words with affirmative gestures.
"Yes, we are a people governed by gloom," said the musician.

"The sombre humour of those dark centuries lives in us still.

I have often thought how difficult life must have been to an awakened spirit.