The Church in Spain has done noble work, but it has been a retreat more than a morality, encouraging hollow shows rather than love of truth,[40] patience and submission rather than enterprise and a persistent search for remedies. The anti-Clericals complain that the influence of the priest in the family is excessive, but when the women are kept in a semi-Oriental seclusion, while the men chatter together in street and casino and café, as still happens in many parts of Spain,[41] it is but natural for the women to turn from the discomfort and isolation of their homes to the magnificent ceremonies of the Church.[42] The Spaniards are naturally inclined to generosity and a love of magnificence, but, their poverty preventing, this too often degenerates to shams and hollowness. To poverty and the proud concealment of poverty, much of the feeling of suspicion which prevails in Spain may be attributed. A large number of Spaniards may be said to be well-to-do in the street, poverty-stricken in the home. The family in Pereda’s _Bocetos al temple_ which chooses without a moment’s hesitation to live on potatoes in order to be able to dress luxuriously, is no solitary instance, and in Madrid many live in bare rooms who drive abroad in carriages. The Spanish are more careful of outward show than any other nation. The universal neatness and soldierly smartness of their dress must excite admiration. But watch a poor man fold and refold the brilliantly lined outer edge of his _capa_ that the more worn portions of the velvet may not appear--the _capa_ which may itself cover a multitude of sins (_la capa todo lo tapa_) that recalls the passage in Shakespeare:-- “_Armado_: The naked truth of it is I have no shirt. I go woolward for penance. _Boyet_: True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen.”