Not till it was
extorted by events could the secret be discovered.
In the second place, Philip, as a Spaniard, and one whose manners were
to furnish a model for the Spanish court, had, of course, been trained
to that demeanor which was regarded in Spain as the distinctive mark of
high breeding. "All the nobles of this court," writes an Italian
contemporary, "though amazingly ignorant and unlettered, maintain a
certain haughty tranquillity of manner which they term _sosiego_."
Foreigners found it difficult to define a quality which differed as
much from the composure and self-possession everywhere characteristic
of the gentleman as Spartan endurance or Stoical apathy from ordinary
fortitude or self-control. It was a glacier-like repose, incrusting a
mountain of pride. The beams, that gilded, might not thaw it; the storm
did but harden and extend it. It yielded only to the inner fires of
arrogance and passion, bursting through, at times, with irrepressible
fury.
These occasional outbreaks were never witnessed in Philip.[2] He was
exempted from them by the third element which we proposed to notice,
and which, as nature takes precedence of habit, ought perhaps to have
been the first.
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