Gatherings From Spain - Richard Ford - Bog

To boast of Spain's strength, said the Duke of Wellington, is the national weakness. Every infinitesimal particle which constitutes nosotros, or ourselves, as Spaniards term themselves, will talk of his country as if the armies were still led to victory by the mighty Charles V., or the councils managed by Philip II. instead of Louis-Philippe. Fortunate, indeed, was it, according to a Castilian preacher, that the Pyrenees concealed Spain when the Wicked One tempted the Son of Man by an offer of all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. This, indeed, was predicated in the mediæval or dark ages, but few peninsular congregations, even in these enlightened times, would dispute the inference. It was but the other day that a foreigner was relating in a tertulia, or conversazione of Madrid, the well-known anecdote of Adam's revisit to the earth.