The first myth rests upon ignorance of psychological mechanics. The second is a confusion of words. The philology of the term _romance_ is clear. In the formative eras of modern Europe, the Latin dialects which were to become French, Italian, Castilian, Portuguese, Galician, Provençal, etc., were lumped as the _romance_ to distinguish them from the pure tongue of Latin. They were popular vernaculars and despite the early instance of such men as Dante and Petrarca, or the Arcipreste de Hita, they were not deemed worthy vehicles of exalted thought. The writer whose ideas were holy or philosophic was supposed to clothe them in Latin. Only if he treated of such vulgar subjects as earthly love, might he employ the vulgar language. By association, _romance_ was transferred from the tongue to the subject for which it was disposed: a story of profane love or profane adventure became _romance_; and becoming so, remained trivial and vulgar. The essential attitude of the Spaniard toward the subjects of romance was, however, the very contrary of what we mean by romantic. Now came the hour of confusion. The knights of Portugal and Spain fought for God, for Mohammed, for the King: for anything but what we call _romantic_ reasons. The Iberian north is Celt and is contiguous with the Celtic cultures of Britain and of France. The Iberian knight went northward out of Spain; and when he returned he had become what today we call a “nordic.” He was sentimental, tender, monogamous, and chaste. He was the very converse of the old Spanish knight, Arab or pagan-Christian whose canny materialism speaks so clear in the _Poema del Cid_. He was, indeed, Tristan, Arthur, Lancelot, or Amadís of Gaul. The books that were written about him were published in romance: so that the qualities of passionate devotion which in Spain has been confined to the religious--to subjects too high for romance--became romantic. The romance, therefore, is of the south: the romantic is of the north; and they negate each other. It is the German metaphysicians who invented the romanticism of Calderón; it is Byron and the French æsthetes who created romantic Spain. But the best efforts of Schlegel, Goethe, Mérimée, Gautier, Byron have failed to make the Spanish man or woman in the least romantic. * * * * *