IT is not easy in a few words to account for the strange Oriental spell that Spain has exercised over many minds nor to explain the potency of its attraction. For indeed the great Peninsula possesses a special spice and flavour. It has not the immemorial culture of Italy, nor the pleasant smiling landscapes of France with her green meadows and crystal streams. The old Iberia, that dura tellus, has a peculiar raciness. Its colour is often harsh and crude; many of its districts are barren and discomfortable. The bleak and ...
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IT is not easy in a few words to account for the strange Oriental spell that Spain has exercised over many minds nor to explain the potency of its attraction. For indeed the great Peninsula possesses a special spice and flavour. It has not the immemorial culture of Italy, nor the pleasant smiling landscapes of France with her green meadows and crystal streams. The old Iberia, that dura tellus, has a peculiar raciness. Its colour is often harsh and crude; many of its districts are barren and discomfortable. The bleak and rocky uplands and the ragged sierra ridges cut the country into sharp divisions and cause it to be thinly and variously populated. On those uplands the breath of the wind is often icy and the sun strikes with a biting force. Great parched and desolate plains extend treeless and unprotected two thousand feet above the sea. The villages at distant intervals are of the colour of the soil, and scarcely to be distinguished from a mass of yellow-brown rocks. Morning and evening a string of mules may be seen outlined on the horizon, for the peasants set out in bands to till their distant fields; or a shepherd with his flock of sheep, or goats, relieves the strange monotony of this dust-laden windy desert. Nothing could be sadder or less harmonious than the peasants' harsh and strident singing, the very peculiarity of which has, however, a piquancy and charm. Hard too is their language, with its clean gutturals, far rougher and manlier than the musical sister-tongue of Italy. All points to a like conclusion, that this is no country of comfort and soft languorous delight, but of a quaint and forcible originality, where the most jaded mind may be braced and inspirited and find a fresher and more stirring life.
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Add this copy of The Magic of Spain to cart. $8.76, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2018 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of The Magic of Spain to cart. $19.72, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2021 by Legare Street Press.
Add this copy of The Magic of Spain to cart. $28.21, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
Add this copy of The Magic of Spain to cart. $29.16, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2021 by Legare Street Press.
Add this copy of The Magic of Spain (Classic Reprint) to cart. $34.50, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2010 by Forgotten Books.
Add this copy of The Magic of Spain to cart. $59.74, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by Palala Press.
