Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
By John Hay
Note to Revised Edition
The Publishers of this volume, desiring to print it in an improved form,have asked me to write something by way of preface or supplement to thenew edition. After some deliberation I have found myself unable to complywith this request. These pages were written in the first half of the year1870, a time of intense interest and importance, to Spain. I left Madridin the memorable August of that year, passing through Paris when thatbeautiful city was lying in the torpor which followed the wild excitementof the declaration of war, and preceded the fury of despair that came withthe catastrophe of Sedan. I then intended to return to Spain before long;and, in fact, few years have passed since that time in which I have notnourished the dream of revisiting the Peninsula and its scenes of magicand romance. But many cares and duties have intervened; I have never goneback to Spain, and I have arrived at an age when I begin to doubt if Ihave any castles there requiring my attention.
I have therefore nothing to add to this little book. Reading it againafter the lapse of many years, I find much that might be advantageouslymodified or omitted. But as its merits, if it have any, are merely thoseof youth, so also are its faults, and they are immanent and structural;they cannot be amended without tearing the book to pieces. For this reasonI have confined myself to the correction of the most obvious and flagranterrors, and can only hope the kindly reader will pass over with anindulgent smile the rapid judgments, the hot prejudices, the pitilesscondemnations, the lyric eulogies, born of an honest enthusiasm andunchecked by the reserve which comes of age and experience. I venture tohope, though with some anxiety and uncertainty, that the honest enthusiasmmay itself be recognized, as well as the candor which the writer tried topreserve in speaking of things which powerfully appealed to his loves andhis hates.
I therefore commit this book to the public once more with itsimperfections on its head; with its prophecies unfulfilled, its hopesbaffled, its observations in many instances rendered obsolete by the swiftprogress of events. A changed Europe—far different from that which Itraversed twenty years ago—suffers in a new fever-dream of war andrevolution north of the Pyrenees; and beyond those picturesque mountainsthe Spanish monarchy enjoys a new lease of life by favor of circumstanceswhich demand a chronicler of more leisure than myself. I must leave what Iwrote in the midst of the stirring scenes of the interregnum between thesecular monarchy and the short-lived Republic—whose advent I foresaw, butwhose sudden fall was veiled from my sanguine vision—without defense orapology, claiming only that it was written in good faith, from a heartfilled with passionate convictions and an ardent love and devotion to whatis best in Spain. I recorded what I saw, and my eyes were better then thannow. I trust I have not too often spoken amiss of a people whose art,whose literature, whose language, and whose character compelled my highestadmiration, and with whom I enjoyed friendships which are among thedearest recollections of my life.
John Hay.
Lafayette Square, Washington,April, 1890.
Contents.
The Pike County Ballads.
Jim Bludso
Little Breeches
Banty Tim
The Mystery of Gilgal
Golyer
The Pledge at Spunky Point
Wan