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Updated: May 27, 2025
Take away the bull-rings, make an end of the toreros, and Spain is no longer Spain perhaps a country counting more highly in the evolution of humanity as a whole, but it will need another name if that day ever comes, of which there does not now seem to be the remotest possibility.
In other countries the gift that children love best is a box of soldiers, but in Spain it is a miniature ring with tin bulls, picadors on horseback and toreros. From their earliest youth boys play at bull-fighting, one of them taking the bull's part and charging with the movements peculiar to that animal, while the rest make passes with their coats or handkerchiefs.
The "Hotel Soledad" asserted its selectness by the announcement: "En este hotel no se admiten companias de comicos ni toreros," but the solitude of its wooden-floored beds at least was distinctly broken and often.
The picadores remained close to the walls while the toreros ventured a bit nearer to the beast and waved their red flags, at once rushing back. This was hardly anything like the picture Manuel had conjured up for himself, or like what he had seen in the coloured illustrations of La Lidia.
Hail to you, beggars of La Mancha! men and women, who, wrapped in coarse blankets, demand charity indifferently at the gate of the palace or the prison. Hail to you, valets from the mountains, mayordomos and secretaries from Biscay and Guipuscoa, toreros from Andalusia, riposteros from Galicia, shopkeepers from Catalonia! Hail to ye, Castilians, Estremenians and Aragonese, of whatever calling!
There had been a bull-fight, and Isabel was making him describe to her the chulos, in their pale satin breeches and silk waist-scarfs; the toreros in their scarlet mantles, and the picadores on their horses. "And I assure you," he said, "the company of ladies was very great and splendid. They were in full dress, and the golden-pinned mantillas and the sea of waving fans were a sight indeed.
It is quite impossible to over-estimate the popularity of the toreros with the Spanish people. They are the friends and favourites of the aristocracy, the demi-gods of the populace. You never see one of them in the streets without an admiring circle of worshippers, who hang on every word and gesture of the great man; and this is no cult of the hour, it is unceasing.
Almost every Sunday afternoon throughout the year, and at holiday times, there is a "corrida" or bullfight, and everybody goes to see the toreros fight the bulls. Bullfighters in Spain are the same heroes to Spanish boys and girls that baseball players are to American youngsters. This is the reason why you'll see all the little Spanish boys playing Torero.
The idlers who have been lounging in the arena are swept out by the alguaciles, and the hum of conversation gives way to an expectant silence. When the last loafer has reluctantly retired, the great gate is thrown open, and the procession of the toreros enters.
Little boys are most interested in games with balls, like jai alai or football. The favorite game of most little boys in Spain is "Torero." In this game they pretend they are bullfighters, who are called "toreros." Every boy in Spain dreams of growing up to be the greatest bullfighter in the world. Bullfighting is one of the most exciting things in life to every Spaniard.
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