SPANISH INQUISITION

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21536, 27 July 1935, Page 19

SPANISH INQUISITION

Tnimp-Royal in Spain. By Matt Marshall. Blackwood and Sons. 313 pp. (5/- net.) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. Since walking tours are popular and have their surprises, they nu.st dc written abou : aru since there were adventures both amusing and harrowing on this thousand- mi. e walk through Spain, the chromcie of them is worth reading on the score of excitement alone. But Mr Marshall's—or "Tramp-Royal's '— book has more to it than vicissitude. In the first place he went arrogantly to Spain although that fact he attempts to hide under the gathered mass of his impressions. It is obvious, too, that his arrogance was in some part apprehension, for he had heard much of modernism's seduc!ion of the country. He was fearing the distortion of those obscure Spanish essentials which already have been cheapened by the ] films. And the thought of a tawdry Sna'n sickened him: worried him; he went to find out the truth for himself. His fears were sometimes quelled, sometimes stimulated. For he saw there a curious meeting face : to face of old and new. Translations of Edgar Wallace were prominent, guitars twanged jazz, Spaniarcs in motor-cars. Yet beyond the obviousness of modern things Mr Marshall came to detect the old Spain. Quixote, he found, is not forgotten, and save when he is motoring the Spaniard is still a procrastinator, clinging fast to his innate creed of "manana." His observations became intensified; and ultimately he was convinced that Spain, after all. finds only novelty in things from the outer world, and nas no intention of allowing them to oeguile away her native dignity and picturesque indolence.

There have been less diffuse travel books than this, and books more delicately written. But few have so incisively analysed the subtle mingling of a people's traits with the innovations of a civilisation not their own.