The fighters of that day were high priests of
art; there was something of veneration in the regard that was paid them.
Duchesses threw them bouquets with billets-doux. Gossip and newspapers
have destroyed the romance of common life.
"The only pleasure I take in the Plaza de Toros now is at night. The
custodians know me and let me moon about in the dark. When all that is
ignoble and mean has faded away with the daylight, it seems to me the
ghosts of the old time come back upon the sands. I can fancy the patter
of light hoofs, the glancing of spectral horns. I can imagine the agile
tread of Romero, the deadly thrust of Montes, the whisper of
long-vanished applause, and the clapping of ghostly hands. I am growing
too old for such skylarking, and I sometimes come away with a cold in my
head. But you will never see a bull-fight you can enjoy as I do these
visionary festivals, where memory is the corregidor, and where the only
spectators are the stars and I."
RED-LETTER DAYS
No people embrace more readily than the Spaniards the opportunity of
spending a day without work. Their frequent holidays are a relic of the
days when the Church stood between the people and their taskmasters, and
fastened more firmly its hold upon the hearts of the ignorant and
overworked masses, by becoming at once the fountain of salvation in the
next world, and of rest in this.
