The Spanish nation boils the same peas for its dinner the whole year round; it has only one religion, if it has any; the pious part of it recites the same prayers fifty or one hundred and fifty times daily, almost in one breath; the gay and sentimental part never ceases to sing the same _jotas_ and _malagueñas_. Such constancy is admirable. If a dish is cheap, nutritious, and savoury on Monday, it must be so on Tuesday, too; it was a ridiculous falsehood, though countenanced by some philosophers, which pretended that always to feel (or to eat) the same thing was equivalent to never feeling (or eating) anything. Nor does experience of a genuine good really have any tendency to turn it into an evil, or into an indifferent thing; at most, custom may lead people to take it for granted, and the thoughtless may forget its value, until, perhaps, they lose it. Of course, men and nations may slowly change their nature, and consequently their rational preferences; but at any assigned time a man must have some moral complexion, or if he has none, not much need be said about him. But there is another point to be considered. Need human nature's daily food be exclusively the Spanish pea? Might it not just as well be rice, or polenta, or even beef and bacon? Much as I admire my countrymen's stomachs for making a clear choice and for sticking to it, I rather pity them for the choice they have made. That hard yellow pea is decidedly heavy, flatulent, and indigestible. I am sure Pythagoras would not have approved of it; possibly it is the very bean he abhorred. Against the _jota_ and the _malagueña_ I can say nothing; I find in them I know not what infinite, never-failing thrill and inimitable power, the power which perfection of any kind always has; yet what are they in comparison to all the possibilities of human music? Enjoyment, which some people call criticism, is something aesthetic, spontaneous, and irresponsible; the aesthetic perfection of anything is incommensurable with that of anything else. But there is a responsible sort of criticism which is political and moral, and which turns on the human advantage of possessing or loving this or that sort of perfection. To cultivate some sorts may be useless or even hostile to the possible perfection of human life. Spanish religion, again, is certainly most human and most superhuman; but its mystic virtue to the devotee cannot alter the fact that, on a broad view, it appears to be a romantic _tour de force,_ a desperate illusion, fostered by premature despair and by a total misunderstanding of nature and history. Finally, those lyrical ladies and entranced gentlemen of the Spanish drama are like filigree flowers upon golden stems; they belong to a fantastic ballet, to an exquisite dream, rather than to sane human society. The trouble is not that their types are few and constant, but that these types are eccentric, attenuated, and forced. They would not be monotonous if they were adequate to human nature.