M E A NEW SPAIN WITH OLD E by J. B. TREND NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN
COMPANY CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1940 PRINTED IN
GREAT BRITAIN For CARLETON, ELIZABETH AND DAMARIS in New York
CONTENTS Chapterl. Introduction page 1 ydfl. Travelling to Mexico 6
I HI. Arrival 12 IV. Trees, Bookshops and Colonial Architecture 23
V-Pyramids 35 VI. Toltec Legends 44 I. Christmas in Mexico 53 .
Excursion with Emma 60 EX. Second Arrival 72 X. Reflections in
Merida 79 XI. Maya 89 XII. Ophelia, Donna Anna, Elvira and the
Pedregal 102 Xin. Lecture Tour without Lectures 116 XIV. Alphabets
for Indians 128 XV. Mexican Spanish 142 XVI. The New Pilgrim
Fathers 161 XVIL Mixed Memories 171 Index 181 ILLUSTRATIONS I.
Mexico, from Chapultepec facing page 16 Mexico Monument to Obregon
H. Chichen Itza Yucatan Toltec Ball-court 44 Mexico Aztec Calendar
Stone EOL Puebla Tiled House 64 Puebla Casa de Alfenique IV.
Tarascan Indian dug-out Lake of Pdtzcuaro 70 Taxco On the roof of
the Cathedral V. Merida Iron rejas supported on ledges 80 Merida
Curved reja supported on step VI. Chicken Itza Temple of the
Bas-reliefs 94 Chichen Itzd Player in the Ball-game VH. Chichen
Itza Temple of the Two Lintels 96 Uxmal Yucatan Gateway Vffl.
Chichen Itza Human face in jaws of Plumed Serpent . 100 Chich6n
Itzd Mask of Itzamna The Hook-nosed God Temple of the Two Lintels
MAP OF MEXICO at end Chapter I INTRODUCTION JVLodern Mexico has
been described in all its aspects. The work has been done partly in
Mexico, partly in England, but mainly in the United States and the
best informed American writers have shown that rare sympathy with
Mexican things which only comes with real understanding of Mexican
aspirations. I cannot hope orattempt to do better what has already
been done in America. I could not, if I tried while my ever
increasing admiration for the United States, and the innu merable
friendly people who live there, would prevent me from intruding on
what, after all, is more their concern than mine. Mexico may have
been the New Spain, la Nueva Espafta but its people are not now
Europeans but Americans whilst I feel myself to be incurably
European, and my only qualifications for writing about the New
Spain are that I have had more experience than most people of the
old on, and can overhear most things that are said in most kiUds of
Spanish. I have known Spain intimately for twenty years, and have
been fortunate enough to make a large number of Spanish friends and
when I think of Spain of the Spain I Joaew of what it has been and
what it may be again, the words Spain and Spanish clearly mean a
great deal more to me than they do to most modern writers on
Mexico, who have never been in Spain in their lives. To me, of
course, there is another Spain, just as in 1919 we became aware
that there was another France which was not exactly that of M.
Clemenceau and as I try to suggest 2 INTRODUCTION sometimes to
those who raise their eyebrows at the rulers of modern England
there is still another England a country which once produced
statesmen and administrators, and still produces writers and men of
science a country, above all, of poetsof Promethean poets, to
borrow the phrase of a Spanish poet now resident in Mexico
including not only Shakespeare and Keats, but Langland and Milton,
Shelley, Byron and Swinburne men who not only wrote poetry, but who
protested in poetry, as well. When I am alone in another country,
avoiding English people and English news papers, enjoying the
society of other friends and the intel lectual exercise of
speaking, thinking and writing in another language, it is the poets
whom I most like to think of as English the poets, and then the
eccentric, quixotic English men, the mad Englishmen, the type which
everyone in other countries has known or heard of, and which may
be, after all, the only type of Englishman which anybody in another
country can really admire. It was the other Spain which first took
me to Mexico...
