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Updated: June 16, 2025
With a civilization which had been ripening for centuries under Oriental skies, rich in wisdom, learning, culture, science, and in art, they had come into Europe, infidels though they were, to build up and not to destroy. The Roman conquest of Spain had civilized a barbarous race. The Gothic conquest of Romanized Spain had converted an effete civilization into a strong semi-barbarism.
Cary's excellent translation of "amoroso drudo." But what a minion, and how loving! St. Dominic was a Spaniard. So was Borgia. So was Philip the Second. There seems to have been an inherent semi-barbarism in the character of Spain, which it has never got rid of to this day. If it were not for Cervantes, and some modern patriots, it would hardly appear to belong to the right European community.
The semi-barbarism of merely giddy communities, and feverish emotional periods, repel him; and also a state of marked social inequality of the sexes; nor can he whose business is to address the mind be understood where there is not a moderate degree of intellectual activity. Moreover, to touch and kindle the mind through laughter, demands more than sprightliness, a most subtle delicacy.
In the course of time, however, the Christians could not avoid feeling some respect for the courage, and admiration for the polished manners and advanced civilization of the Saracens, so much superior to the rudeness and semi-barbarism of Europe at that day. Difference of faith did not prevent them from forming alliances with the dark-eyed maidens of the East.
That we emerged slowly from a semi-barbarism in which all the power and wealth were in the hands of Kings and a few nobles; that the King's power was broken first and then in due time that of the nobles, that this piece-meal improvement was brought about by one class after another waking up to a sense of citizenship and demanding a place in the national councils, frequently by riot or violence; and that in consequence of such menacing popular action, the franchise was granted to one class after another and used more and more to improve the social conditions of those classes, until we practically became a democracy, save for such exceptions as that of the women.
The splendid but mysterious fabric of Asiatic power and science is seen for age after age, like the fairy castle of St John, exalted far above the rugged plain of Frank semi-barbarism till the spell is at last broken by the iron prowess of Christian chivalry; and the glittering edifice vanishes from the land as though it had never been, leaving, like the fabled structure of the poet, only a wreath of laurel to bind the brows of the victor.
She had come a matter of four hundred miles in the clothes on her back and they bore unequivocal evidence of the journey. "I'm a perfect fright," she repeated pettishly. "I don't wonder that people lapse into semi-barbarism in the backwoods. One's manners, morals, clothing, and complexion all suffer from too close contact with your beloved North, Bill." "Thanks!" he returned shortly.
Civilization had developed there when surrounding peoples had not emerged from semi-barbarism. Like the Troy beneath Troy in the Ilium ruins, we find here successive civilizations resting each upon the debris of an earlier order. The descriptions of ancient historians, together with the explorations of late years, make very vivid the scenes amid which the captive Israelites walked.
What if we are even now in a state of semi-barbarism? Medicine has a good deal to answer for! Perhaps some think we ought not to talk at table about such things. I am not so sure of that. Religion and government appear to me the two subjects which of all others should belong to the common talk of people who enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, one moment.
They were very fond of ornaments and gay dresses; and so were their lords on festive occasions, for semi-barbarism delights in what is showy and glittering, purple, and feathers, and trinkets. Feudalism was intensely aristocratic. A line was drawn between the noble and ignoble classes almost as broad as that which separates liberty from slavery.
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