No one can doubt what Spanish intellect and energy are capable of; and
their faults as a people are chiefly those for which freedom and
industrial ardour are a real specific.
There are, no doubt, in all countries, really contented
characters, who not merely do not seek, but do not desire, what they
do not already possess, and these naturally bear no ill-will towards
such as have apparently a more favoured lot. But the great mass of
seeming contentment is real discontent, combined with indolence or
self-indulgence, which, while taking no legitimate means of raising
itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level. And if we
look narrowly even at the cases of innocent contentment, we perceive
that they only win our admiration when the indifference is solely to
improvement in outward circumstances, and there is a striving for
perpetual advancement in spiritual worth, or at least a
disinterested zeal to benefit others. The contented man, or the
contented family, who have no ambition to make any one else happier,
to promote the good of their country or their neighbourhood, or to
improve themselves in moral excellence, excite in us neither
admiration nor approval. We rightly ascribe this sort of contentment
to mere unmanliness and want of spirit. The content which we approve
is an ability to do cheerfully without what cannot be had, a just
appreciation of the comparative value of different objects of
desire, and a willing renunciation of the less when incompatible
with the greater.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81