Yes, now I have come to think about cats, I am filled with adoration. With every force against her the cat has kept her power! Her rudeness is sublime! Her aloofness is adorable! You may scratch her chin, she will permit this if she feels inclined, but the allowing of this familiarity does not forward your intimacy with her in the least—she knows what your advances mean. Sometimes she will not respond to your supplications—you cannot compel her. She wishes to sit upon your lap, a dozen times you send her down and each time she returns; you want her to sit upon your lap, and a dozen times she refuses and jumps down. She imposes her will upon you with a lordship that admits of no dispute. The personality of the cat is persistent and overwhelming, she is inconceivably herself. Nothing living—no, not even woman—is so self-supporting—I do not mean this economically, but artistically,—and self-centred as the cat. She is the great ego—the supreme type of the Super-Me.
I have said almost nothing at all about the character of woman. Is it necessary? I think not.
THE WOMEN OF SPAIN
Wherever I go in Spain, in the streets of the towns, in the churches, in the work-rooms, I am impressed with the fine types of the women; their strength and quietness—the same quality which Valeria, the Spanish novelist, speaks of as “a notable robustness.”
There is a fascination about Spanish women not easy to define. Not all of them are beautiful, and it is, of course, easy to find women of all degrees of ugliness, but the proportion of those who are strong and beautiful seems to me to be very large. There is greater variety of types in northern than in southern Spain. While there are many women who are dark, with golden complexions, and quite Arabian eyes, a proportion of fair women will be found with bright brown, auburn, and some, even golden hair. One sees rosy complexions and blue eyes that remind one of England; though mixed grey eyes are more frequent. Many of the faces have finely modelled features, quite classic in outline. Certainly the most beautiful and distinguished faces are not found among the women of the so-called upper classes, but belong to the fish-girls and market-women of the towns and the peasants of the rural districts. And this presence of a really fine type among the workers of a race is a certain indication of an old civilisation.
Many of the women workers in northern Spain are singularly individual. They are usually tall, and have very distinct features, especially the nose. It is a face in which every line has character, much strength, and also humour, rising quickly to the beautiful eyes, but slowly to the mouth, lengthening it into a smile. They all look like women whom no man could venture to insult. I do not know whether one must attribute it to their dress—the vivid coloured handkerchiefs which set their faces, as it were, in an Oriental frame—but these women have a serious, passionate look, which is completely fascinating. They are different from the women of southern Spain, who are smaller, more graceful, perhaps more piquant, but certainly less beautiful.
Living in Spain, you come to understand that this land is really the connecting link between Europe and Africa. Both in their physical traits and in their character, the Spaniards show their relation to the North African type; seldom, indeed, is a Spaniard entirely a European. And it is amongst the women that the resemblance stands out most clearly. There are women with dark long African faces. You will see them among the flamencos of Seville or in the gipsy quarter of the Camino del Sacre-Monte at Granada,—women with slow sinuous movements, which you notice best when you see them dance, and wonderful eyes that flash a slow fire, quite unforgettable in their strange beauty. In dress you still find the Oriental love of bright and violent colours. The elegant Manilla shawls and the mantillas which give such special distinction to the women of southern Spain, are modifications of the Eastern veil. The elaborately dressed hair, built up with combs, with one rose or carnation giving a note of colour, has also a very ancient origin.
Racial types may nearly always be best studied in the women of a nation, and this is certainly so in a very old civilisation like Spain, where many forces have combined to waste the men of the race. Representing as they do both on the physical and psychic side a conservative tendency, and with a lower variational aptitude than men, women preserve more markedly primitive racial elements of character. This may possibly explain why the women of Spain, on the whole, are finer than the men.