Or leave sops in his wine glass:
"Se tu fais souppes en ton verre
Boy le vin ou le gette à terre."
But by implication he may spurt and throw remnants on the floor, as much as he pleases.
Even in their use of tobacco, of which they are excessively fond, the Spaniards are temperate. Though they smoke it almost constantly, it is in such small quantities, and in so mild a form, that tobacco does them less injury than it inflicts on many other nations. It was the custom to carry a daily supply wrapped in a lettuce or cabbage leaf to preserve it moist. The cigarette was prepared for smoking by taking a small quantity of tobacco, finely cut, rolling it in a piece of corn-husk or paper, and lighting with flint, steel, and punk. Though the tobacco may be strong, prepared in this way the effect is less injurious than when rolled in larger quantities into a cigar, or cut from a plug and smoked from a pipe or chewed.
Noble youths of both sexes were accustomed, to serve a sort of apprenticeship for a number of years in the king's household. In like manner the sons and daughters of gentlemen served in the houses of the nobility, and common people in the houses of gentlemen, that each might be benefited by the knowledge and refinement of his superior.
Spaniards, as I have said, are called inhospitable; but this charge must be taken with allowance. Every phase of human nature has its generous quality; locked in every heart is a wealth of kindliness which opens to him who holds the key. By nature these people are reserved, suspicious. They carry no window in their breast. In their domestic affairs they are specially reticent before strangers. Their wives and daughters they hide away; their troubles they cover within the ashes that preserve them; their sensibilities shrink from cold contact with the world. If some find certain Spaniards at given periods inhospitable, others at other times and places find them very generous. In early times inns were not common in Spain, and we are told that in certain places every private house had its guest's quarters consisting of one or more rooms according to the opulence of the owner. To this apartment every stranger of whatsoever degree was welcome. There he lived as long as he pleased, fed and cared for by the host; and—you may call it pride—if through poverty provisions grew scarce, the family would undergo the greatest privation rather than the guest should suffer want, or be forced to hasten his departure. Furthermore all was free; to offer pay for entertainment was deemed an insult, though a present might be given and accepted.
AMUSEMENTS.
While called a melancholy people, amusement appeared at times to be the life of the nation. Royalty and religion at rest, peace here and hereafter secured, there was nothing more of life than to enjoy it. To labor when one might repose; to sigh when one might sing; to undergo the pains of culture when sweet pleasure temptingly proposed a holiday—ah no! Fools attempt to better their condition and make it worse. Let those who need improving scour themselves; we know enough.
So lazily lapped in stupidity, beside their feast-days and bull-fights, their passions and passion-plays, they lolled upon the greensward and danced to tambourine and castanets, and wrestled, and ran races; they fenced, fought, played cards, shook dice, and enlivened home monotony by all sorts of games and gymnastic exercises. Dancing was carried to such excess as to lead to dissoluteness and occasional death, even as it does to-day. The dances of the peasantry in many instances bear a striking resemblance to those of the native races of America. In Asturias, men, and sometimes men and women, form a circle joining hands by the little finger. A leader sings in plaintive monotone a description of some Spanish feat of arms prior to the eleventh century, or of a tournament of later days, or of some unhappy love adventure, or of a thrilling incident in the conquest of America. At the end of every strophe, all sing in chorus the refrain which sometimes terminates in an invocation, as for example, May Saint Peter be with me! May the Magdalen protect us! The dance is a long step forward, and two short steps backward and laterally to the right, so that the circle keeps constantly moving in that direction, meanwhile keeping time to the music with arms as well as feet. These dances take place on Sunday afternoons, and on feast-days, and when the priest is present men and women are separated in the dance. The fandango, danced by two persons with castanets to the music of the guitar, is peculiar to the south of Spain.