character, for which, over all other people I have ever met, I think the best of them are remarkable." . . . "The fine benevolence of ancient friendship, the universal respect for genius, a competent knowledge of the laws and institutions of other countries, a perfect acquaintance with the cause of Mexican decadence, and a charming regard for all those domestic rites which cement the affections of a home circle may all be observed and admired within the walls of a Mexican dwelling."
[1]Brantz Mayer, above all other writers, not even excepting Madame Calderon de la Barca, has observed more closely and written more sympathetically and faithfully of Mexican characteristics. In dealing with this subject, it will be understood that reference is had only to the higher and more cultured classes of society.
During the more than forty years intervening since this distinguished writer gave expression to these views, ten years only of which have brought to Mexico the precious boon of peace, the changes occurring and the onward march of events in that country have proved the correctness of his assertions. With every possible distracting cause, calculated to foster and encourage ignoble traits and retrograde ideas, they have not only continued brave and patriotic, but their social and domestic institutions have remained sacredly intact. Let the unsympathizing comment as they may upon the hapless fate of poor Mexico, it is not to be gainsaid that perhaps no country in the world has politically presented a more desolate picture, nor yet one that speaks a nobler lesson.
But by sympathetic intuition a woman attributes to the women of Mexico that undercurrent of social and domestic regeneration which has purified and preserved her institutions. While the men have been engrossed in war and revolution, with their train of direful results, the women, in the seclusion of their homes, have kept an ever-
- ↑ Mexico as it Was and as it Is, by Mayer, and Madame Barca's Life in Mexico, were published about the same time, the former in 1844, Madame B.'s in 1843. Mayer was Secretary of the American Legation under the Hon. Powhatan Ellis, and the latter was the wife of the first Spanish Minister who was sent to Mexico after the War of Independence.
