Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/54

Rh satisfaction. Happening to hold up a rose which I held in my hand, its hue absolutely appeared pale beside the highly-coloured cheek of the lady.

After regarding herself in a French circular hand-glass with all the delight with which the most self-satisfied northern beauty can linger on her charms, she turned quickly to me, and, in the enthusiasm of the moment, asked me if ever the English ladies were got up so well. What could I say to her? Should I conceal the truth, or honestly tell her my opinion? This was one of those dilemmas in which it is exceedingly difficult to avoid throwing in a little flattery, even though that agreeable commodity be as little justified by truth as it can well be. Alas, although moralists, with their scholastic pedantry, will say, Dicatur veritas, ruat cœlum, circumstances will occasionally occur in every-day life, in which we find it convenient to forget that our moral code has such strict maxims. Besides, as they are generally in Latin, ladies, unless they are blue-stockings―and they are not asked for their opinion of beauty―are not expected to understand them. I may whisper my opinion, however, to the reader; and when I tell him or her that it amounted to this, that a more repulsive bedaubed figure than that which she presented cannot be imagined, I am sure he will be inclined to treat me with indulgence