THE PROCESSION OF BULL FIGHTERS.
even in France—are beautiful women more appreciated than in Spain, and Queen Victoria is lovely to look upon. She is tall and of majestic bearing. She has an abundance of golden hair which she wears in long rich braids wound about the back of her head and generally loosely dressed in front. She has eyes of a singularly clear blue and quite as sharp and twinkling as are the King’s snapping brown eyes,—and his are famous.
“Such exquisite colouring!” is an exclamation frequently heard concerning her. At nineteen she combined all the freshness of youth with the dignity of maturity, and to-day, though she is three times a mother, she retains the high colour characteristic of English women, and set against a clear white skin. The first time I saw her close, her cheeks reminded me of charming porcelain—if it were not trite, I would say a bit of Dresden.
With all her instinctive charm she has a genius for dressing well. In this, again, she easily and naturally excels her sister Queens.
When first she went to San Sebastian, the fashionable mid-summer watering resort of Spain on the west coast near the northern border, she appeared like a modern Gainsborough duchess. Her stylishly cut gowns worn with grace and perfect naturalness were offset by great hats which were much in vogue at that time and which resemble the picturesque Gainsboroughs. She is a woman who can carry any amount of tasteful dressing, but her own preference seems to be toward simplicity.
A more elegant woman one rarely sees anywhere in the world. The eye of the Spanish people, quick and sensitive to taste and beauty instantly caught all these details, and even if her nature, disposition and character were not as they are, she would still be idolised for her beauty alone.
At Seville, in the south of Spain, where beauty is worshipped even more than in the north the people went mad over her on her very first ride through the streets—from the railroad station to the Alcazar, as the ancient Moorish palace there is called. Throughout southern Spain—Andalusia—there is a Moorish strain noticeable in the people. The women are of the swarthy type, with large lustrous eyes, hair of ebony, and deep passionate natures that one senses almost tangibly. As with most people of this type and character, the opposite type makes a tremendous appeal to them. The golden beauty of the fair young Queen took Seville by storm. To this day, and probably for all time, she is and will be known in the south as the “Idol of Andalusia.”