historic forms, may be instanced as honorable exceptions.

There can be no doubt of it; a woman whose position gives her leisure and who is relieved from the necessity of dedicating much time to domestic affairs by the perfect organization of her household; who no longer lives a cloistered life as in the eighteenth century; whose "house falls in upon her," as we say here, because her husband deserts her, to pursue his amusements and business; requires a great moral superiority to enable her to escape the purposeless life of visits, the park, the opera, and the ball-room, to have other thoughts than the changes of fashion and to be strong and self-contained. It is often the vanity of her husband which incites her to extravagance and ostentation, even if his indifference and desertion do not drive her to seek forgetfulness in excitement. All these are extenuating circumstances inadmissible by those who would have the woman faultless and impassive, but not to be ignored by the student of human nature.

In appearance the ladies of the nobility are handsome and stately; but the national type of beauty is becoming scarcer. The woman of middle height, slight and rounded form, undulating and languid or swift and stately movements; black, expressive eyes fringed with long lashes, somewhat colorless lips, dark complexion and hair of jet, is giving place, little by little, to the fleshy blonde, known here as the Rubens type. There are many blondes in Madrid. The truth is that a great part of them are blondes only by the help of dyes.

Another type which abounds in the aristocracy, and seems to me very ancient in that class, is the fair woman, pale, anæmic, with long face, and projecting and scornful under lip, such as were painted by great portrait-painters like Pantoja and Velasquez. This type, though not beautiful, is full of distinction. It is thought that the bringing of the water from Lozoya and the climatic change which ensued have changed the appearance of the ladies of Madrid, making them fresher and rounder. To me it is evident that the loss of the national type is to a great degree the result of the change in dress and the adoption of fashions created by other nations widely different from ours, which, though they may suit their invent

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ors, render us ridiculous. The Spanish woman had hit upon the costume most becoming to her in the fashions of the time of Carlos IV. The short satin skirt, the low slipper, and above all, the mysterious, voluptuous and poetical black or white mantilla, are unequalled in setting off a type of woman who is pleasing rather than really handsome. The present fashion, rough stuffs, dull colors, tailor-made garments of English production, long waterproofs and cloaks; the double-soled, broad-heeled boot; and above all, the French capote-hat, are so many dangers for Spanish beauty. A long-necked, straight-backed woman like the Englishwoman looks quite well in a man's tunic and tie. A woman of very pure and fresh complexion would lose nothing by employing half tones, gray, otter, or beige.' A tall woman might look stately in a cloak that covered her from head to foot, but the Spaniard-short, dark, with rounded* form and curving lines-needs garments of another kind and fashion, suited to her natural shape. The classic type seems better preserved among the "chulas" of the lower quarters of Madrid than among the higher classes, and this is due to the fact that the "chula" dresses in a way that follows the fashions of the past her shoes are made and her hair is arranged in the Spanish manner, and she wraps around her the Manila shawl embroidered with bright colors. When the ladies of the aristocracy bring out the mantilla during Holy Week, the classic type shines forth immediately in all its genuine brilliancy like a diamond in its setting.

On visiting Spain every tourist of artistic instincts laments the disappearance of the mantilla. Formerly a hope remained for him outside Holy Week, namely, the bull-fights.

But even from this last stronghold the mantilla has been cast out by fashion. Nowadays the proper thing is to go to the bull-fight in hats, the more exaggerated the better; and, if the simple truth must be told, the right thing is not to go to the bull-fight at all, but to prefer the race course, with its ins and outs of betting, its rivalry of ostentation in the rows of carriages and its exhibition of loud summer costume. The taste for bull-fighting, which is the true Spanish taste, with which the whole nation is deeply imbued, is now to be found almost exclusively among the men, the chulas," and the

common people. The middle class, which always follows in the steps of the upper, has deserted the bull-ring; and the Spanish woman, whose nerves are getting so highly strung that she cannot stand a sad play, cannot now endure the emotions of the bull-fight, which the philanthropic propaganda has represented to her as similar to those experienced in the Coliseum

of old.

In Spain, middle class has a very wide signification. Its boundaries are so illdefined that it embraces on the one hand the wife of the rich banker, who is middle class only because she is not of the aristocracy; and, on the other, the wife of the telegraph clerk or sub-lieutenant, who belongs to it only because she cannot be classed among the common people. To make the classification somewhat more precise, we must base it on external circumstances, and say that the woman who does not dress like the lower orders, who pays a man or maidservant to wait upon her, and owns a little drawing-room in which to receive visitors, belongs to the middle class. The smallest position under Government held by a member of the family, the very shadow of a claim, is seized on by the Spanish woman as a means of reckoning herself among the " gentry," and escaping from the ranks of the " people" properly so called.

Every Spanish woman is anxious to prove that she is "come of decent people," and considers that a Government clerk on a very small salary, whose very means of existence are precarious, fulfils this condition better than any artisan whose skill lies in his hands, as, for instance, a silversmith, watchmaker, or cabinet-maker. Even though in the house of the artisan life is easy while in that of the Government clerk or soldier sordid pov. erty and hardships are the order of the day, the Spanish woman prefers the lat ter because, married to a captain or civil service clerk, she considers her position as a lady'' assured. In this respect also the woman only adopts the masculine opin

ion.

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A civil service clerk with a salary of £60 a year can "cut a figure" in the "beau monde," can go to a ball and dance with duchesses. A cabinet-maker or grocer who gains by his work £200 or £400 a year will never be looked upon as a "gentleman."

The antipathy which she feels to me

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chanical or mercantile employments sets the Spanish woman of the middle class against the idea of gaining her own living by her industry. Nor did this idea spring up spontaneously within her, she only judges by the standard that has been inculcated from her youth up. The daughter of the people when still a child learns already to gain her piece of bread, by running errands, domestic service, sewing, manufacturing, making cigars, selling fish or vegetables or tending cattle. But imagine a shabby-genteel family favored by nature with five or six sons and condemned to live on a miserable salary or income. What will the daughters do? Go behind a counter? Exercise some profession, business, or occupation? No. They would thus cease ipso facto to be " ladies. The distinguishing mark of a "lady" is to do nothing at all. And so, the daughters must remain mouldering under the paternal roof, forming a sort of convent of nuns without vocation; watching their youth slide by in sadness, knowing that it will be followed by an old age still more sad, reduced to live on bad and scanty food, so as to attain the two objects on which they found their sole hopes of a better future. Firstly, that their brothers may get a start in life, so as to be able "some day" to assist them. Secondly, that they may not be without the amount of dress necessary to enable them to present themselves sent themselves respectably" in public, and await the advent of the long-hopedfor husband who is to come to their relief. If he does not put in an appearance, no life can be more wretched than that of this young lady, condemned to poverty and idleness, or, at the best, to shame-faced labor, concealed as a crime, because the class in society to which she belongs would expel her from its ranks if it knew that she demeaned herself by any other work than that of managing her household. Few, indeed, are the avocations which are open to women in Spain, but fewer still are the women of the middle class who can make up their minds to exercise them. A few years ago, a lady, Martina Castells, graduated in medicine. The illustrated papers published her portrait as that of a remarkable and singular female. At the present time there exists between the woman of the middle class and the woman of the people the profound difference that, whereas the latter considers it her duty to

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men.

gain her living, the "bourgeoise" is under the impression that she ought to be maintained entirely by the work of the This is why women in the middle class are more dependent, more conventional, and less spontaneous. The woman of the people may be a somewhat coarse figure, but she is certainly much more of a figure than the bourgeoise. This latter -she must not be offended, it is her teacher's fault, not her own-passes her life expecting, one might almost say lying in wait for, a husband. From her earliest years she has continually had it dinned into her that the only career open to her is matrimony, and she acts on the advice. I will not say that love, so natural and amiable in youth, has nothing to do with it; what I do say is, that this love savors of utilitarianism, as it is the only form of the struggle for existence in which women may compete. The modest middle-class family stints its meals to enable the daughters to present themselves on the promenade, at the theatre, or evening party, suitably got up and well equipped in all the weapons suitable for husband hunting. Marriage, and the advantages that ensue from it, being the one aspiration of the bourgeoise, her parents do their best to educate her conformably to masculine ideas and prejudices, and to keep her in that just mean with a tendency to impassiveness which, as I have already said, is desired by Spaniards in their better halves. Although there still exist men who commend absolute ignorance in women, the majority are beginning to prefer, at least in practical life, a wife who, without being ambitious of solid and serious instruction, has a shadow, veneer, or varnish of schooling which makes her "presentable." He who does not wish for learning in his wife, wishes for "education," especially in all that is showy and ornamental. Progress is no vain word, seeing that nowadays a middle-class husband would blush that his wife should not know how to write or read. History, elocution, astronomy, mathematics are studies still looked upon with some suspicion by men; philosophy and the dead languages would be excessive. On the other hand an agreement has been arrived at, and modern languages, geography, music, and drawing are looked upon with favor, provided they are taken up in a purely amateur spirit and do not become serious pur

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suits. Painting on china, decorating cups. and saucers, daubing moonlight effects," is regarded favorably. Frequenting museums, studying nature, sketching from the living model, is looked upon with disfavor. To be able to read the Figaro in French and Walter Scott in English, good. To read Horace in Latin, dreadful!

This system of education in which half shades prevail, and in which solidity and depth are regarded as improper, has the inevitable result of limiting, checking, and narrowing women, dwarfing their natural growth, and keeping them in continual childhood. Its character is purely superficial, it is at the most a whitewash of education, and even where it can infuse some traces and scraps of knowledge, it can never give a proper stimulus to intellectual activity.

While female education is so weak intellectually it is not much better practically. The knowledge of the facts of hygiene and physiology, so necessary for the preservation of health, and the bringing up of children; the rudiments of the culinary art; the practice of scrupulous cleanliness and rigorous order; the comprehension of that poetry which is communicated to the home by the delicate taste of a woman; none of these form part of the dowry brought by the "bourgeoise" to her husband. Sometimes she is ignorant of even the most simple details of actual life, and does not know how to arrange linen in the press or how to keep the lamp clean. More than this; even in making her own person attractive, the woman of the middle classes does not give proof of that energy and intelligence which are, paradoxical as it may seem, the result of culture rather than of vanity. Listlessness, carelessness, lymphatic limpness, lack of cold water, badly-cared-for hair, teeth, and hands, bad taste in the choice of dress and ornaments, the want of the intellectual element in life betrayed by the meaningless or coarse expression of eyes and features; all this contributes to make the middle-class Spaniard attractive only during a short period of girlhood, during which, bright, trim, and engaging, she awaits the husband who is to end her troubles."

In expressing myself thus, I must again repeat, I am indicating general tendencies, not invariable facts. It would be easy to

dispute my assertion by quoting instances. And I must again remind the reader of a fact that must never be lost sight of, that the woman is as the man deliberately makes her, and that, considering her disadvantages, the Spanish woman's energy and initiative show the admirable material which enters into her composition. Many of the good things that are not taught her she guesses and attains by virtue of mother wit. And on subjects which are within her reach, and on which she is allowed to have an opinion, she almost always surpasses the stronger sex in sagacity and good sense.

Some attribute to the climate, others to the intellectual inequality that prevails between the two sexes, the fact that the home life in Spain is wanting in intimacy. The husband sallies forth to his business or amusement; he passes his evenings in the café, the casino, or even in the street, rarely or never accompanied by his wife. One of the things that struck me most on my first visit to France, was to see so many couples in the streets of Paris. In Spain this is not the custom, and to give the arm to one's companion is considered bad taste. Among us the stay-at-home man is looked down upon; he would be considered as spiritless; the life which women are obliged to lead being so circumscribed, and the sphere of their activity so restricted, a man cannot without danger impose the same limitations upon himself.

Abandoned by their husbands the wives are driven to the same courses, and the Spanish woman so devoted to home during the last century is becoming a great gadabout. This is one of the points in which the change has been most radical. In small places she has no excuse for passing her time in the streets; in large cities a pretext is easily found, shops, visits, church-going, this or that sight to be seen. It cannot be doubted that this taste for gadding about reveals some deficiency in the family life. I do not believe, like Luis Vives, that women danger their fair fame by going out often, I only say that going out so as to get away from home" shows a want of domestic life and a sort of horror of solitude which is an unmistakable sign of an empty head.

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en

With regard to the reputations of Spanish women of the middle class it may be

said that there is more virtue than vice in them, that in general they are faithful to their husbands; and even if they have once made a false step it is exceptional to see one abandon herself to a worthless and licentious life. In spite of this it is my opinion that if statistics could be got together on a subject naturally so delicate and difficult, the backslidings of the middle class would be found to be more frequent than those of the highest. The reason is simple. The wife of the Government clerk, solicitor, or doctor is less observed and enjoys greater liberty than the lady of high lineage, well known, surrounded by servants, and accustomed never to go out except in her carriage. Nobody talks about the bourgeoise, or if they do talk it is only in a restricted circle; on the lady of high position all eyes are fixed. The former is more exposed to danger, because she is easier of access, less noticed, and her intrigues make no scandal. I allude, of course, to the inhabitant of populous centres who occupies no lofty position, for a woman of political notoriety will be observed as much in her smallest actions as a princess of the blood. Nor do the women of the middle class enjoy this immunity in small places. Every "lady" who wears silk is a matter of remark in a little village; for this reason, the standard of morality among the middle class in the provinces is fairly high.

We

Even in the capital, in spite of the passionate nature of the Spanish nation, I do not notice any relaxation of morals. This question of morality between the two sexes requires most careful treatment. must not allow ourselves to be frightened by ridiculous bugbears, or be led to take up the cry that the world is going to the bad because of matters as old as the world itself, and which are perhaps less prevalent, less shameless, and less coarse than at other periods of history. Woman in Spain is not depraved, though she is very much dwarfed, very wanting in ideal.

tion in politics, and the consecration of her mental activities to trifles and details, have produced a woman of dwarfed stature, good at the bottom, of pleasing and amiable exterior, naturally acute and witty, but lacking in earnestness, often less disinterested, and always more poor-spirited than the man. Her character sometimes possesses delightful by-ways, but she is lacking in what painters call "boldness." Without being either stupid or bad, she

is, I repeat, "outrée" and vulgar. As the springs of feeling are not dried up within her, she is capable of transformation when her affections are at stake, and rises to grandeur at the bedside of her sick child or dying parent. Instinct is for women of this kind a better guide than understanding.

Another cause of vulgarity in the middle class is its eagerness to imitate the nobility, what we call here "the wish without the power." From this eagerness results the curiosity and interest with which they read the "fashionable news," a species of literature formerly only cultivated by "La Epoca," the organ of the Conservative party, but now run after by all the papers. Ladies there are who learn by heart the list of the jewels of the Marquesa de la Laguna, and are thoroughly conversant with the favorite colors of the Duquesa de Alba, whom they familiarly call Fernan Nuñez.

Last year, at the Barcelona Exhibition, I had an opportunity of noticing the feverish interest taken by women of the middle class in the most insignificant actions of ladies of high rank. When the Queen went out for a walk, when she entered the theatre, thousands of ladies awaited her in eager expectation (the men were conspicuous by their absence), and this not from any sympathy with Royalist ideas, but simply from female curiosity. They waited standing for hours and hours to seize and comment on the details of her dress and the manner in which her hair and that of her ladies-in-waiting was arranged."Fernan Nuñez is wearing a cloak like the one you ordered in Paris." "Look at La Condesa de Sastago, her capote is wider than the Queen's." "What a beautiful sunshade, with an ivory handle!" Such was the gist of the remarks all the time till the carriage came in view; and all this with the anxiety of people studying a model which they in

tend to imitate to the utmost of their power.

Any one who saw in the park two young ladies, one the daughter of a police-magistrate and the other heiress to a title and £4,000 a year would take them at first for two sisters. The same hat, the same cut of dress, the same dark parasol, and` above all the same frank and lofty bearing, the same reserved and side-long bow. Look closer, however, at these two figures which seem so similar, and you will see that they resemble each other as the modern cast resembles the coin of ancient stamp. Their dresses are similar in shape, but in one the cut of the fashionable dressmaker is apparent, in the other the laborious arrangement made by the light of the paraffin lamp at home. The walk and movements of the one are only a poor imitation; in the girl of the middle class a certain amount of timidity is noticeable combined with a certain amount of stiffness and affectation, which she can never shake off because the freedom and ease bestowed by a brilliant position are unattainable by those who do not possess it and cannot be replaced by a careful education and a wide and agreeable culture. This stiffness, which is in reality only produced by the fear of appearing ridiculous and the lack of the candor necessary for remaining contentedly in one's true position, is what betrays the middleclass woman in certain circles of society.

The desire to imitate the aristocracy shows a want of independence and energy in the woman of the middle class. It may be answered that it is better to imitate countesses and duchesses than "cocottes" and actresses, as is done in France. I answer that all imitation is undesirable, and if neither bad women nor actresses are copied here (and heaven forfend that I should confound the one with the other), it is because among us they do not arouse the same amount of curiosity as in Paris. This is proved by reading the daily press. No reporter informs the public of how the Duke of X.'s or the banker Z.'s mistress dresses; nor breaks through the privacy which enwraps the life of Madame Mendoza Tenorio or Madame Tubau when off the stage. On the other hand, we are regularly regaled with accounts of the dresses, jewels, sayings, thoughts, dinners, and journeyings of the ladies of the nobility.