Morning journal and courier., 1888-02-11

| in thought. Melody in word, laugh anc song, and from musical instruments of ev
 cry nature and in every plaee-nothine loud and sonorous, but everything soft anc l dreamful-pulses in harmonious chords
 above and over aad through the streets | You may be alone and not of it, as I am but it is all-compassing and it possesses l you. You know it not; yet it has in it the loving familiarity of the universal voice ot mirth and music. It is in & strange l tongue; yet it is as plain to you as the un- taught joy of childhood. For you are with ! i'll the influence and charm of three hun dred thousand souls given up wholly to deli cious dallianee, melodious words and sounds, l to the half-tones of eoquettish pleasure, to the eloquence of bright eyes, and the passion~ ate passiveness of night in tropio-land, where nature glows beneath, as glow the stars above.
 The whole city is as fairy-land by night It is the more beWildering to the beholder, because there are in it one-mindedness and one-heartedness that make melody and gaiety not only with the well-conditioned, but as truly within the grimy walls of the charcoal mans little stall; down at the waterside among the swarthy boteros; over there in Regla with the toil-scourged stevedores and lancheros; up Balquarte way among the labor-bent lavenderas and in every odd and moldy corner where human life lasts in liars it lights up the face as free of care as if ever unknown. All this comes to you, and you know the fact. You leave those who like to quarrel over the involved ethics. But all this time, when entire great city has suddenly resolved itself into a vast pleasure-garden so completely that it's in huence seems even to have touched and transformed, without exception, the direst conditions, the gayer and more restless ele- ments swarm the paseos and plazas and no European city presents more brilliant scenes. For instance. in Paris, on Sunday afternoon and evening, the Champs Eiysees may furnish the gayest pictures in the world. Of an ev- ening the boulevards are filled with vast throngs. Down in the Place de ia Concorde you may find half hundred thousand souls But on the Champs, Dives rides, and Lazarus walks, this once week; in the boulevards are simply crowds of the worlds everybodies, with whom Paris is always filled; while in the Place de Ia Concorde the wild throngs are lowly bourgeoisie and villainous canaille, in whose faces you find hate and worse But in this one city of the world, this single rich blossom of the tropics, all it's people, in these hours, are pleasure-givers and pleasure receivers; and that, too, whatever the in- dividual condition. There is none so high and naughty, or low and listless, as to think, or dare, refusal of this individual concession, or gift of word and way, to this universal something we would be quick to call among our own good selves true evidence of true light heartedness and joy. I do not believe
 
 study.
 RIDING AND WALKING.
 In these nightly carnivals fully ten thou- sand equipages filled with richly attired and merry occupants may be seen. During the early evening the favorite drive is along Gale Ancha del Nerte by the sea. Later, the Calzada de Ia Reina and the Paseo de Tacon are sought. As the night advances, the great center of this brilliant life and luxurious activity is in the vicinity of the larger city parks to which the paseos and the Prado lead, where military bands discourse the lively or sensuous airs of Spain. Here throng hosts of pedestrians; but instead of the rudeness and clamor usual in such con- courses in other cities, every frequenter of the locality only intensifes the everywhere manifest chivalrous courtesy and charming consideration that so distinguish them. It is as though here were a mammoth reception of the courtiest of men and women. Indeed, it is the great outdoor parlor of great city, where every citizen is a noble guest. In the pauses of the music promenading is contin- uous. It would not then be uncommon for you to see at one time, and in one place on the globe where that is possible, ten thou sand women of surpassing beauty, of won deIful winsomeness, of marvellous grace. It is not until some time after midnight that the crowds seem to diminish; for at some hour of the evening every gentleman and every senora and senorita in the city makes it 8 social obligation or pleasure to be present. But from midnight until morning, by an un- written law, the parks and paseos are in possession of less dense gatherings, though an intenser and far more questionable charac- ter of pleasure seekers. And yet, because the latter are of that way of their world, and because that does not here form the material for agonized philosophies, it is just as much part of the tropical cline and night, as the Cuban galen de noche, which only exhales odor from the brown blossoms of it's dropping foliage by moonlight and starlight, is an en- chanting and sensuous type of cline and nature that in no hour cease their warm and glowing activities.
 EDGAR L. WAKEMAN