I had lived five or
six years in Italy; I had been several months in Germany; and a
fortnight in Holland; I had sojourned often in Paris; I had come and
gone a dozen times in England and lingered long each time; and yet I had
never once visited the land of my devotion. I had often wondered at
this, it was so wholly involuntary, and I had sometimes suffered from
the surprise of those who knew of my passion for Spain, and kept finding
out my dereliction, alleging the Sud-Express to Madrid as something that
left me without excuse. The very summer before last I got so far on the
way in London as to buy a Spanish phrase-book full of those inopportune
conversations with landlords, tailors, ticket-sellers, and casual
acquaintance or agreeable strangers. Yet I returned once more to
America with my desire, which was turning into a duty, unfulfilled; and
when once more I sailed for Europe in 1911 it was more with foreboding
of another failure than a prescience of fruition in my inveterate
longing. Even after that boldly decisive week of the professor in London
I had my doubts and my self-doubts. There were delays at London, delays
at Paris, delays at Tours; and when at last we crossed the Pyrenees and
I found myself in Spain, it was with an incredulity which followed me
throughout and lingered with me to the end.
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