A Poet’s Theme.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 22, 27 May 1908, Page 11

A Poet’s Theme.

And what about the Spanish woman—--I’Andalouse aux seins bruniA? W ell, she is a poet's theme, for she is beautiful—simple, natural, primitive, caressing, radiant. It is not that her features are good —as often as not they are even ugly- It is not her presence, her height, her beauty at all. Her supreme charm is her little/personality, and . the atmosphere of grace she casts about her. She is simply radiantly feminine; intensely proud and sensitive. She i s a child, absolutely unpretentious, absolutely loving and lovable. Her soul Hutters and Hashes in her lustrous black eyes, which ring all changes of poor human emotion. Her little hands and arms and' feet, beautifully moulded, invest her with a toylike frailty and simplicity; yet when she moves and dances she is queen—ah! divinely queen—of all her sex. As often as not she cannot write; she lives completely in the moment : but she has a quick and salty wit. an 1 her little sallies are celebrated in all Spain for their priZcling, picturesque conceit- To see little Lola, with the Howers of Spain m her blue-black hair, and the gay mantle of Manilla about her, to see her walk and dance, to listen to her quips and lisping, childish voice, is to behold an entirely beautiful, natural and sincere thing. But there are classic beauties in Spain, too, faces of matcidess (harm and contour. And* then one just goes down before hem in a “simply-can’t-help-it” sort of way, and after that one is apt to think that all Spanish women are lovely. In Spain all extremes meet. Even Tommy, doing sentry-go on the “ Rock,” feels this. Even the “ Rock ” itself seems to. For ever hanging over that beetling precipice there broods a lowering c’otid for months together the only’uloud in all sunlit Spain; fit symbol of ini|M*rious and imperial England. And now cloud and sun are joined, and they say in Spam that it is a happy and popular union.—“ In Andalusia.” by Austin Harrison, in ’* The National Review.”