To be provincial has its virtues as well as its defects. At times the
provincial are accompanied by universal elements, which blend and form a
masterpiece. This was the case with _Don Quixote_, with the
etchings of Goya and the dramas of Ibsen. Similarly, among new peoples,
provincial stupidity will often form a blend with an obtuseness which is
world-wide. The aridness and infertility characteristic of the soil
combine with the detritus of fashion and the follies of the four
quarters of the globe. The result is a child-like type, petulant, devoid
of virtue, and utterly destitute of a single manly quality. This is the
American type. America is _par excellence_ the continent of
stupidity.
The American has not yet outgrown the monkey in him and remains in the
imitative stage.
I have no particular reason to dislike Americans. My hostility towards
them arises merely from the fact that I have never known one who had the
air of being anybody, who impressed me as a man.
You frequently meet a man in the interior of Spain, in some small
village, perhaps, whose conversation conveys the impression that he is a
real man, wrought out of the ore that is most human and most noble. At
such times one becomes reconciled to one's country, for all its
charlatans and hordes of sharpers.
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