If You Happen Upon Any Spaniard,
Of Whatever Class, At The Hour Of Repast, He Always Offers You His
Dinner;
If you decline, it must be with polite wishes for his digestion.
With the Spaniards, no news is good news;
It is therefore civil to ask a
Spaniard if his lady-wife goes on without novelty, and to express your
profound gratification on being assured that she does. Their forms of
hospitality are evidently Moorish, derived from the genuine open hand
and open tent of the children of the desert; now nothing is left of them
but grave and decorous words. In the old times, one who would have
refused such offers would have been held a churl; now one who would
accept them would be regarded as a boor.
There is still something primitive about the Spanish servants. A flavor
of the old romances and the old comedy still hangs about them. They are
chatty and confidential to a degree that appalls a stiff and formal
Englishman of the upper middle class. The British servant is a chilly
and statuesque image of propriety. The French is an intelligent and
sympathizing friend. You can make of him what you like. But the Italian,
and still more the Spaniard, is as gay as a child, and as incapable of
intentional disrespect. The Castilian grandee does not regard his
dignity as in danger from a moment's chat with a waiter. He has no
conception of that ferocious decorum we Anglo-Saxons require from our
manservants and our maidservants.
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