Unamuno in England: Four Unpublished Articles (1909)

Abstract

The second batch of Unamuno's four articles published in The Englishwoman in No. 11, December 1909, is introduced in the ‘Preface’ as follows: The second half of ‘The Spirit of Spain’ appears in this number … The first two articles on ‘The Spirit of Spain’ by Don Miguel de Unamuno have aroused widespread interest and elicited controversy and comment. These will complete the outline of the views of their distinguished author. (121),THE SPIRIT OF SPAIN [pp. 199–212],III.—SPANISH RELIGION I do not believe that we Spaniards are morally worse than the other European nations, I do not think that we possess, in as high a degree as some of them, the specifically ethical preoccupation which breeds cant. The haunting dread of sin is Protestant, not Catholic. And it is not auricular confession that frees us from this dread, but, on the contrary, the merely relative importance we give to sin that made us adopt auricular confession. A man gets dirty? Very well, let him wash himself and have done with it. Then he can go and get dirty again. Of course, you will tell me that the clean man is not he who washes well and often, but he who does not get dirty; but this prettiness is for refined gentlemen, who do not have to handle dirty things. Those who let their nails grow and always have them clean do not earn their living with their hands. The Puritan dread of sin is a pseudo-aristocratic refinement of souls who have not to toil amidst life's dirt.