This facile language thus becomes the
missionary of mental equality,--the principles of '89 applied to
conversation. All men are equal before the phrase-book.
But this is hypercritical and ungrateful. We do not go to balls to hear
sermons nor discuss the origin of matter. If the young grandees of Spain
are rather weaker in the parapet than is allowed in the nineteenth
century, if the old boys are more frivolous than is becoming to age, and
both more ignorant of the day's doings than is consistent with even
their social responsibilities, in compensation the women of this circle
are as pretty and amiable as it is possible to be in a fallen world. The
foreigner never forgets those piquant, _mutines_ faces of Andalusia and
those dreamy eyes of Malaga,--the black masses of Moorish hair and the
blond glory of those graceful heads that trace their descent from Gothic
demigods. They were not very learned nor very witty, but they were
knowing enough to trouble the soundest sleep. Their voices could
interpret the sublimest ideas of Mendelssohn. They knew sufficiently of
lines and colors to dress themselves charmingly at small cost, and their
little feet were well enough educated to bear them over the polished
floor of a ball-room as lightly as swallows' wings. The flirting of
their intelligent fans, the flashing of those quick smiles where eyes,
teeth, and lips all did their dazzling duty, and the satin twinkling of
those neat boots in the waltz, are harder to forget than things better
worth remembering.
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