EMILIO CASTE LAIL THERE is probably no man who ever
lived who, how- 1 ever far he may have risen above the general standard of his nation, does not in some degree partake of its qualities. Philosophers are, doubtless, the least racial and most uni- versal of men, since they have cast aside the wrappings of their race and country, and have made a great intellectual effort to see things as they really are. Yet even the philo- sopher is at once classified ; of one we say that he is Greek, of another that he is German, with scarcely any hesitation. The artist is also cosmopolitan, yet we never confound Dutch and Italian ; we not only see the essential difference in their respective works, but in their respective personalities. When we come to statesmen and politicians, all traces of cosmopolitanism disappear, and the racial and national characteristics suffuse the entire human being. The success- ful statesman must not only be what we call a patriot, he must be so in virtue of being a kind of incarnation of the essential nature of his people.
The late Senor Castelar attempted to be a philosopher. An enthusiast for the principles of 1789, he deduced from those principles a general doctrine of Republican political philosophy. It was a high and' noble doctrine unsullied by any vulgar element ; on its ethical side it left nothing to be desired, for it set forth liberty as man's highest good, and left him free to pursue his activities unhampered by civil or religious tyranny. Senor Castelar also plunged into the great sea of metaphysics. He studied German philosophy and English psychology, and he tried, in his vague though brilliant way, to work out a kind of philosophy of history. We doubt whether any trained thinker would make much of his writings on these high themes, though so brilliant a mind could scarcely fail to impart hints and suggestions in this held of inquiry. But while Castelar was thus apparently a citizen of the world and a cosmopolitan seeker after truth, he was yet a Spaniard with the singular dominant weakness of the Spanish race as satirised and portrayed for all time by the greatest of Spanish writers. What, above all things, is it that Cervantes intends us to see in. " Don Quixote " ? The story was written as a satire on the absurdities to which chivalry had been carried in Spain ; but it is more than that. It is the analysis of a mind unable - to see things as they are, and it may be believed that in set- ting forth this type of mind, Cervantes was as truly analysing . the leading weakness of his countrymen as was Goethe in " Werther " when exhibiting the ridiculous sentimentalism of young Germany in the latter half of the last century. Whatsoever the cause may be, Spain has been afflicted beyond any other Western nation with the capacity for self-delusion, with the inability to see things as they are.
In so far as Castelar shared with his countrymen this • serious defect, he was a source of weakness. That he did share it is quite certain, though no doubt he often dwelt in that dim and perilous region where it is hard to distinguish between a noble idealism which cannot yet be realised, and a quixotism which never was, and never will be, realised- so long as the world lasts. He took a promi- nent part, as is well known, in rousing the youth of Spain to a sense of the national degradation into which the land had sunk - under Isabella's rei°u. That was indeed a great and worthy undertaking which will redound to Castelar's credit so long as his name is remembered.. But it is one thing to educate and awaken the mind, of a youth long held in servitude, and quite another to deduce from abstract principles the rights of millions of ignorant and superititious-peasants and labourers to establish a republic on.the basis of universal suffrage, and to suppose that that republic will usher in a new age. It was in this latter delusion that what we may call the Spanish element par tweelletta in Castelar's mind operated. He could not see the facts in a dry medium, but through the gorgeous golden mists of an exuberant fancy. We admit that he must have possessed that national element to make him a repre- sentative Spaniard, and so to impress his personality on the mass of his fellow-countrymen. But it was, in a sense, a fatal element, which prevents us from rank- ing him with the great, positive, practical statesmen of Western Europe. He had some qualities in common with Gambetta, but who can imagine Gambetta living for years in such a world of day-dreams as Castelar ? The same weakness lay in his attempts to captivate the Spanish Republicans to his beautiful programme of what Carlyle might have called all the virtues and none of the strengths. His Federalism was easily twisted into an argu- ment for communal autonomy, and before he knew what he was about, he found the Communists of Cartagena engaged in setting up a separate State. Then, indeed, Castelar acted with vigour. Endowed by the Cortes with unlimited power, he cast off the Spanish side of his disposition, earned the curses of revolutionary Europe, and was bold enough to sacrifice at one stroke his Republican reputation, by asserting the primary rights of government and public order against a little knot of Anarchist enthusiasts. It was, indeed, a tremendous trial and tragedy for such a man Emilio Castelar's great claim to admiration and to fame was his oratorical power. Doubtless it was an oratory that would not have appealed to an English audience, for it. was glowing hot with the Southern sun, and luxuriant as a tropical forest. The ideal English oratory is a speech made up in the main body of solid argument enlivened here and there by good stories, and with a peroration whose dominant note is moral feeling. But the most passionate declamation of Fox, the most tremendous whirlwind of eloquence of O'Connell, the most fervid moral appeal of Bright, were cold, were almost like scientific demonstrations, when compared with the habitual style and tone of Castelar. We cannot quarrel with such speeches, however they may disagree with our taste. The business of the orator is to make an imme- diate impression, to dominate absolutely the thoughts, feel- ings, aspirations, of hishearers, to compel them by a hypnotic influence to share in the unseen emotions and convictions of his own personality. This Castelar did. He knew his countrymen, and he knew what would appeal to them. He achieved instant success, and that can alone be the test of oratory. It is recorded that after his noble and wonder- ful speech in favour of religious liberty, delivered in the Cortes in 1876, even his Clerical opponents hung on his words and greeted him with enthusiastic applause, while his friends embraced him in the tribune. In a sense, no such orator has lived in our time ; and while we may differ from many of Castelar's specific opinions, and may criticise some episodes in his career, we may also with full conviction and much thankfulness say that his brilliant oratory was always dedicated to noble and generous ideals. He scorned materialism, he had faith in liberty, he loved his fellOw-man. Which of us can desire or deserve a higher tribute ?
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