The other night, hearing the sound of music, I stepped out on the balcony. Behold! there were the outlines of some kind of Romeo playing the mandolin, in front of that window. It's so complete, so ridiculously like what it ought to be, you will think I have added something, but you don't have to add anything here; it's always all there. That end of the street is where the offices of La Prensa and of La Semana Ilustrada are, and the little newsboys (papeleros) bring things quite up to date when they dash past crying out new editions.
The other end of the street, which is short, gives on the Plaza de la Reforma, where the new, handsome Foreign Office is, and the beautiful equestrian statue of Charles the Fourth of Spain, which Humboldt said could only be compared to that of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio. There are two or three handsome houses belonging to Mexicans between me and the Plaza. The Suinagás', whose daughter is married to a French diplomat, and the Saldivars', next the Finance Ministry, are other houses in the good old style of several generations ago. In former days the streets were familiarly spoken of as calles de Dios (streets of God); pious, picturesque, but probably not resembling those of our eternal abiding-place!
NELSON O'SHAUGHNESSY
(Secretary of the American Embassy, Mexico, 1911-1912)
PAUL LEFAIVRE
(French Minister to Mexico, 1911)
