It is impossible to believe the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure, classic beauty that can be produced by a man, and animal and a piece of scarlet serge draped over a stick. If you do not choose to believe it possible and want to regard it all as nonsense you may be able to prove you are right by going to a bullfight in which nothing magical occurs; and there are many of them; enough always so you will be able to prove it to your own satisfaction. But if you should ever see the real thing you would know it. It is an experience that either you will have in your life or you will never have. However, there is no way you can be sure you will ever see a great faena in bullfighting unless you go to many bullfights. But if you ever do see one, finished by a great estocada, you will know it and there will be many things you will forget before it will be gone.


Ernest Hemingway. Death in the Afternoon. Simon & Schuster. 1932. p.207