The saints are not in bliss;
They have not looked into your eyes,
Nor felt your burning kiss."
Then comes a "New Dictionary of Love," defining some two hundred doubtful terms in Cupid's lexicon, as forever, no, unselfish. After this we are treated to the language of fan flirtation, of handkerchief flirtation, of flower flirtation, and "the clock of Flora," by which lovers easily make appointments,—one, two, three, being numbered in rose, pink, tulip, and so on. A cut of a youth toiling at a manuscript-laden desk introduces some fifty pages of model love-letters, which seem, to the casual eye, to cover all contingencies. A selection of verses used for adding a grace to birthday and saint-day gifts comes after, and this all-sufficient compendium concludes with a "Lovers' Horoscope."
A single illustration of the sort of reading that Spanish girls find in their way should not, of course, be pressed too far, and yet any one who had seen the pretty group of heads clustered for hours over these very pages on that shaded balcony would not deny the book significance. A taste for the best reading is not cultivated in Spanish girls, even where the treasures of that great Castilian literature are accessible to them. Convent education knows nothing of Calderon. As for books especially adapted to girlhood, we have just examined a sample.
Love and religion are the only subjects with which a señorita is expected to concern herself, and the life of the convent is often a second choice. Even when a Spanish girl wins her crown of wifehood and motherhood, her ignorance and poverty of thought tell heavily against the most essential interests of family life. The Spanish bride is often a child in years. Pacheco's direction for painting the Immaculate Conception ran, "Our Lady is to be pictured in the flower of her age, from twelve to thirteen." This was three centuries ago, but Spain changes slowly. The girl of to-day, nevertheless, marries later than her mother married. I remember one weary woman of forty with eighteen children in their graves and the three who were living physical and mental weaklings. She told us of a friend who married at fourteen and used to leave her household affairs in confusion while she stole away to a corner to play with her dolls. Her husband, a grave lawyer in middle life, would come home to dinner and find his helpmeet romping with the other children in the plaza.
The Spanish girl is every whit as fascinating as her musical, cloaked gallant confides to her iron-grated lattice. Indeed, these amorous serenades hardly do her justice, blending as she does French animation with Italian fervor. In Andalusia she dances with a grace that makes every other use of life seem vain. And when she bargains, there is nothing sordid about it. Her haggling is a social condescension that at once puts the black-eyed young salesman at her mercy.
"But the fan seems to me the least bit dear, señor."
He shrugs his shoulders and flings out his arm in protest.
"Ah, señorita! You see not how beautiful the work is. I am giving it away at six pesetas."