Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/131

Rh of Mexican life, which is excessively small, entirely valueless except after a sentimental fashion, but intensely satisfactory to yourself. Then your mind begins to be harrowed by dark hints about duties, and whispered suspicions about right of search. Stories are told of this one who had to leave his goods in bond, and that one who had to forfeit them altogether. At last you are confronted by a formidable legal document, as vague and stilted as legal documents always are, which demands in the usual solemn and priggish manner to know whether you declare on oath that you have or haven't such or such manufactures of wool, etc., subject to such and such laws and by-laws. Being a woman, you treat this with the contempt it deserves, and cut the Gordian knot by declining to read it at all. Likewise, being a woman, you are a consistent and conservative free trader (unless your husband happen to be a manufacturer), and you would scorn to yield your principles to any such base persuasion. Shall you, forsooth, strike your colors because there are some paltry odds and ends in your trunk in danger of confiscation? The spirit which animated the Revolutionary heroes animates you.