Excerpt from The Spaniard in History But that something is wrong with Spain must be apparent, it would seem, even to her own people. How else should her once splendid, world-wide empire have so fallen into decay? N ow her possessions have dwindled to a frac tion of the Iber1an Peninsula and three muti nous colonies, one of which already lies under American guns. Spain herself has declined to the position of a fourth-rate European power, scarcely able to bolster up by ruinous loans her exhausted finances. Here are effects for which there is surely a cause. That cause 1s not in any desolating foreign invasion, and - must be in some qualities of the Spanish people. What are some at least, of those fateful traits, it is believed that this brief sketch will make evident. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.