CHAPTER III
SOCIETY HIGH AND LOW
As has been said, Mexican society of the highest class is chiefly remarkable for its exclusiveness, especially towards foreigners. Even when well accredited, the stranger is seldom received with open arms by the Mexican aristocracy, who seem to believe in the adage that "there are no friends like old friends" and through their habit of living en famille rarely lack society, seeming to find the companionship of their own relations sufficient. When greeting or entertaining strangers, they are effusive and seemingly enthusiastic; but most distinguished travellers have put it on record that those Mexicans who appeared to take most pleasure in their company and expressed the deepest friendship for them, were usually those who later most studiously avoided them. This queer dislike of new-comers has been commented upon by nearly all British visitors to Mexico, who have placed their experiences on record. Does it arise from the custom of the Old Colonial times when each man's house was his castle, and when the fear of the savage or the bandit lay heavy upon the community? Surely not, or our cousins of North America would also have evolved the cult of the family nucleus! No; it is a legacy from the customs of old Spain, where family life (as in most Latin countries) is still more patriarchal than gregarious.
However sincere or otherwise they may be, the Mexicans of the upper classes are delightful people socially once the ice of their reserve is really broken. Courtesy and sympathy are their outstanding characteristics; social faux pas are rare because of a rigorous breeding and training, and gaucherie is unheard of among them. They have, however, an almost Oriental symbolism of speech, which at first puzzles the
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