Saturday, 11th.—The rejoicings profess to have reached a patriotic climax,—a grand display of all the troops on the island, which is twice the number of the whole military force of the United States. With the only vacant seat in our English carriage filled at last by our venerable friend Mr. N——, we drove out to the Campo del Marte. We found it difficult and delightful, steering our way through the archipelago of carriages and volantes filled with ladies in full ball costume, many of the faces and figures striking, a few very handsome; so that with well-rewarded patience and time, we obtained a good position.
The poverty of republican eyes is imbibantly observant of all appurtenances of royalty. First dashes past the knighted Governor-General, doffing cap and plume, and bowing with great dignity to the bowing multitude. Following are body-guard and staff, counts, marquises, and other nobility in uniform, crosses and decorations of honor.
The gentlemen informed me that the troops marched well. I am sure the regiments of negroes thought so, and enjoyed the supposition. We returned home to whist and delightful conversation on all things new and old, followed by the most cordial imaginable of good-nights and hand-shakings.
Sunday.—Early this morning to a Jesuit mass—low mass, and so very low that it could not be heard at all. Two priests only officiated, both meek-faced, keeping “custody of eyes;” one of them with the most remarkable intellectual and characteristic head I ever saw, the other with the devoutest, purest face. All the devotees, mostly women and girls, and liveried servants, knelt upon mats placed over the marble floor. All the ladies were gracefully arrayed in black lace Spanish veils, which, like moonlight on the Coliseum, “leaves that beautiful which still was so, and makes that which was not.” They were repeating their prayers; those who could read, from books, those who could not, from memory; and all the time the young and pretty ones were rolling their dark fascinating eyes around upon my escort of gentlemen, except when the moment came for crossing themselves and looking devoutly towards an image of the Virgin execrably done in wax.
I find the only way to extract good instead of disgust from scenes like this, is to ignore the wax and the tawdry ornaments, and to remember only the divinely sweet woman who loved Christ as I fear none of us have loved him; who suffered for him as none of us shall be honored by suffering for him; the only woman who united to the virgin’s charm the mother’s hallowing rapture; the woman whom God loved more than all earthly women, making her the mother of his son. You must think of the sanctity she has given to all motherhood. You must remember the elevation and delicacy she has given to the love of many pure and wise priests, who through the dark centuries loved no woman but her; who centred in her the love that might not be human nor for the human. Think of all this, and then see if you can wonder that the devout imaginations of the learned as well as of the ignorant Romanist have found a female element in the Trinity, and in worshipping the Father and Son have also most tenderly adored her who was a link between them; her through whom God is no longer an avenging God, and through whom Christ longs and makes ready for us.
The church, to my great surprise, though belonging to the Jesuits, displays no wealth and no taste; forlornly ugly pictures, clumsy tawdry flowers, and atrocious statues everywhere. Many things, however, were interesting enough to repay us for the trouble of getting up so early and walking so far.
Nothing could surpass the extremely graceful attitude of the ladies, or the universal beauty of the children, especially of the boys. How exquisitely regular and clear cut are their features! how transparent their large, soft, black eyes! how intelligent their whole expression! I am told that all Spanish boys and girls are remarkably precocious. At thirteen they promise to be geniuses, sing, paint, even write poetry that would not only startle a Northern mother, but frighten her with a certainty of the imminent dissolution of her cherub. After that age the tropical child remains savingly in statu quo, if he does not perceptibly degenerate.
Having still twenty minutes before breakfast, we drove quickly to the fashionable church of San Filipo. Found it having more pretension than the Jesuit (“Belen”) church, but not more taste. Abundance of tinsel, plenty of yellowed grotesque, semi-arabesque carvings on tinselled columns and what-not, but no beauty, unless, perchance, under the happy veil of some worshipping angel.
Sunday evening.—Is it a question of piety, or of taste, that so many places have holy names? “Jesus dil monto” “Jesus Maria,” “Las dace Apostles;” the latter being a battery of guns under the Morro, intended to convert enemies’ ships into enemies’ wrecks—a highly apostolic mode of conversion.
To end our Sabbath we ascended the Mount of Jesus and walked in a garden of cocoa-trees supposed to occupy relatively the position of Gethsemane.