confessor obeys the injunctions of this high ecclesiastical authority,
his fair penitents will have nothing to learn from a diligent perusal of
Faublas or Casanova. It would, however, be unjust to the priesthood to
consider them all as corrupt as royal chaplains. It requires a
combination of convent and palace life to produce these finished
specimens of mitred infamy.

It is to be regretted that the Spanish women are kept in such systematic
ignorance. They have a quicker and more active intelligence than the
men. With a fair degree of education, much might be hoped from them in
the intellectual development of the country. In society, you will at
once be struck with the superiority of the women to their husbands and
brothers in cleverness and appreciation. Among small tradesmen, the wife
always comes to the rescue of her slow spouse when she sees him befogged
in a bargain. In the fields, you ask a peasant some question about your
journey. He will hesitate, and stammer, and end with, "_Quien sabe?"_
but his wife will answer with glib completeness all you want to know. I
can imagine no cause for this, unless it be that the men cloud their
brains all day with the fumes of tobacco, and the women do not.

The personality of the woman is not so entirely merged in that of the
husband as among us. She retains her own baptismal and family name
through life. If Miss Matilda Smith marries Mr. Jonathan Jones, all
vestige of the former gentle being vanishes at once from the earth, and
Mrs. Jonathan Jones alone remains. But in Spain she would become Mrs.
Matilda Smith de Jones, and her eldest-born would be called Don Juan
Jones y Smith. You ask the name of a married lady in society, and you
hear as often her own name as that of her husband.

Even among titled people, the family name seems more highly valued than