We are a gloomy people, Gabriel, we have it in our very marrow, we do not know how to sing unless we are threatening or weeping, and that song is the most beautiful which contains most sighs, most painful groans and gasps of agony." [Footnote 1: Highwaymen.] "It is true, the Spanish people must necessarily be so.

It believes with its eyes shut in its kings and priests as the representatives of God, and it moulds itself in their image and likeness.

Its merriment is that of the friars--a coarse merriment of dirty jests, of greasy words and hoarse laughs.

Our spicy novels are stories of the refectory composed in the hours of digestion, with the garments loosened, the hands crossed on the paunch, and the triple chin resting on the scapulary.

Their laughter arises always from the same sources--grotesque poverty, the troublesome hangers on, the tricks of hunger to rob a companion of his provision of begged scraps.