The Duke Eats The
Bourbon Leek With Inward Profanity, And Feels That He Has Done A Most
Clever And Proper Thing.
This performance is apparently his only object
and mission in life.
This one sacrifice to tradition is what he is born
for.
The most important part of a Spaniard's signature is the rubrica or
flourish with which it closes. The monarch's hand is set to public acts
exclusively by this parafe. This evidently dates from the time when
none but priests could write. In Madrid the mule-teams are driven tandem
through the wide streets, because this was necessary in the ages when
the streets were narrow.
There is even a show of argument sometimes to justify an adherence to
things as they are. About a century ago there was an effort made by
people who had lived abroad, and so become conscious of the possession
of noses, to have the streets of Madrid cleaned. The proposition was at
first received with apathetic contempt, but when the innovators
persevered they met the earnest and successful opposition of all
classes. The Cas-tilian savans gravely reported that the air of
Madrid, which blew down from the snowy Guadarra-mas, was so thin and
piercing that it absolutely needed the gentle corrective of the
ordure-heaps to make it fit for human lungs.
There is no nation in Europe in which so little washing is done. I do
not think it is because the Spaniards do not want to be neat.
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