Byron, in Childe Harold, waxes enthusiastic over the Spanish woman’s “fairy form, with more than female grace”—
“Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much
Hath Phœbus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek,
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch!
Who round the North for paler dames would seek?
How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and weak!”
But in a letter from Cadiz Byron notes the weak as well as the strong points of Spanish women. “With all national prejudice, I must confess, the women of Cadiz are as far superior to the English women in beauty, as the Spaniards are inferior to the English in every quality that dignifies the name of man.... The Spanish women are all alike, their education the same.... Certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue.... Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman used to the drowsy, listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a Spanish beauty irresistible.”
“Their minds have only one idea,” is an exaggeration, for the Andalusian women are famed for a considerable amount of innate wit, rivalling the brightness of their eyes. Yet of deeper intellectual interests there are none. Of the total population of Spain only a quarter can read and write; for although schools exist in abundance, they are very generally neglected; and the estimation in which teachers are held is seen from the fact that out of 15,000 one half receive an annual salary of less than twenty pounds sterling.
Mental Culture avenges itself bitterly on the women of Spain, as of other Southern countries, for this neglect of its claims. While the freshness of youthful Beauty remains, all is well, for then the sensuous charms are so great that intellectual claims can be ignored. But when this freshness fades, then it is that the features begin to show a lack of mental training. Intellectual apathy masks the face, and gives it an expression of vacuity; exercise is neglected, and indolence, combined with excessive indulgence in fattening food, soon destroy the lovely contours of the figure and the fairy-like gait. “A Spanish woman of forty appears twice as old,” says Goltz.
Thus we see that for perfect and permanent Beauty all its sources must be kept open and utilised.