If ever a memory merited the right to levy tribute on all comers to the
place it haunts, Washington Irving's is that memory. His _Conquest of
Granada_ is still the history which one would wish to read; his _Tales
of the Alhambra_ embody fable and fact in just the right measure for the
heart's desire in the presence of the monuments they verify or falsify.
They belong to that strange age of romance which is now so almost
pathetic and to which one cannot refuse his sympathy without sensible
loss. But for the eager make-believe of that time we should still have
to hoard up much rubbish which we can now leave aside, or accept without
bothering to assay for the few grains of gold in it. Washington Irving
had just the playful kindness which sufficed best to deal with the
accumulations of his age; if he does not forbid you to believe, he does
not oblige you to disbelieve, and he has always a tolerant civility in
his humor which comports best with the duty of taking leniently a
history impossible to take altogether seriously. Till the Spaniards had
put an end to the Moorish misrule, with its ruthless despotism and
bloody civil brawls, the Moors deserved to be conquered; it was not till
their power was broken forever that they became truly heroic in their
vain struggles and their unavailing sorrows.
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