The Argosy — page 338: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters from Majorca. 319 to be seen in Palma to-day. It is a thousand pities, and a hundred thousand more, that nearly every trace of the Moorish rule and reign has disappeared from Palma; that what remained to refine and beautify the town—and a great deal did remain—was barbarously destroyed at the beginning of this century, by a people who for once took upon themselves to become energetic, and for that once made a fatal mistake. But I don’t think they regret it. A few enlightened souls, such as our artistic photographer, mourn the desecration and speak of it with tears in their eyes, but the greater portion of the inhabitants naturally concern themselves only with the affairs of to-day : buying and selling and getting gain. This Moorish fountain is further made picturesque by the open roof of the house behind it, and the red pantiles that give to this place such exquisite tone. On either side rises an orange tree, which enlivens it with its green verdure and golden fruit. Altogether it is a charming little bit. I should like to transport it to England, and place it in some favourite old nook, where I might pay it the devo- tion of a daily visit. But in our insular climate, tone and beauty would disappear ; the orange trees would die; it could never be the same thing. The climate of England, like its people, was never made for romance, the delight of the imagination. The gorgeousness of the sunny South, its glamour and splendour, its torrent of passion, and its fierce loves, hates, impulsive sacrifices and mad revenges: of all this England knows nothing. Better for her, no doubt. The intensity of life she loses; of the devotion of a Romeo and Juliet she is incapable; but her calm and even tenor is more to be desired : ‘love deep and temperate, that longer lives.” Autres peuples, autres moeurs, I do not know whether I have told you that Palma is aristocratic and exclusive ; broken up into sections of society, each section refus- ing to meet the other. The nobility are poor and proud, and live much upon their pedigrees and their ancestral greatness. This is exceedingly good in its way, but after all it does not make one’s daily life pass pleasantly or atone for the absence of society and intimate com- panionship and all their attendant charms. The great Palma distraction is a walk up and down the Rambla before dinner in the middle of the day, and before supper at night. Here the ladies flourish their fans, and adjust their mantillas, and the young men air their canes and walk about in trousers in which I am quite sure, like Lord L— at Bath, they would not for the world sit down. But I am sorry to say that the mantilla is giving way very much to the more modern hat and bonnet; and where this is the case, the ladies lose all their grace and most of their charm. If they are wise they will keep to that which becomes them most. Society here is not given to entertaining. Everyone dines at two, and everyone takes supper at ten. Many go to bed directly CORMNELMOO© SS (C©)