The Catalan of Spain is an outsider within the gates. Ere Spain stratified her chaos into locked unity, Catalonia was free to be exploited by the hardier will of Aragon. But as Aragon was set within the grip of Isabel of Castile, Catalonia became an irrepressible motion--needing to be repressed. Its flow of energy in an immobile State meant anarchy: its lyrism was discord within Spain whose counterpoint of themes summed into silence. Spain achieved her union. Madrid on the roof of Castile became the symbol of union: Barcelona, at the half open gate which led to Italy and France, to Greece and Africa, became the symbol of disruption. Castile tried to woo this province, as it wooed Valencia, Galicia, Extremadura, Andalusia. But the Catalan blood could not respond to the immobile ecstasy of Castile: nor could the winds and the songs which blew in at the door of Barcelona be shut out. The Catalan remained light, moving, gay. When the unity of Spain was strong, the Catalan was a tonic discord. Now that Spain’s unity is flaccid, the Catalan is a menace. But if Barcelona is not Spain, neither is it France. The Catalan is a unique organic compound of the Mediterranean, of the Mountain and of Spain. His cathedral is set in a town that beats with a rich fervor. The _Ramblas_--wide, gay avenues--descend to the sea and the town faces with them from the wooded hills. It is an old ripe city: a labyrinth of streets that are fresh with the salt, dark with the feudal yoke, yet glamorously flowing as if in cognizance of the genius of this people to outlast all yokes. This is no strong race, as the Aragonese or even the Basques are strong. It is a subtle and a gracious people. Its secret of survival is manifest in the women: delicate daughters of Eve, perhaps the fairest of all Europe, hued like April orchards, and with eyes like twilight. They have the permanence not of the eternal, but of the evanescent which returns. The flower that was Greece has been cast here upon a coast of Spain and has grown afresh. This life does not resist: it returns. France mastered the Catalans: and they returned. Aragon used them ruthlessly in war: they returned. Castile stifles and racks them: they are returning. For they are like the Spring, the evanescent Spring--which returns....