The companies are reported
very good: but the reader must take this from me at second hand, as he
must take the general society fact. I only know that people ask you to
dinner at nine, and if they go to the theater afterward they cannot well
come away till toward one o'clock. It is after this hour that the
_tertulia,_ that peculiarly Spanish function, begins, but how long it
lasts or just what it is I do not know. I am able to report confidently,
however, that it is a species of _salon_ and that it is said to be
called a _tertulia_ because of the former habit in the guests, and no
doubt the hostess, of quoting the poet Tertullian. It is of various
constituents, according as it is a fashionable, a literary, or an
artistic _tertulia,_ or all three with an infusion of science.
Oftenest, I believe, it is a domestic affair and all degrees of
cousinship resort to it with brothers and sisters and uncles, who meet
with the pleasant Latin liking of frequent meetings among kindred. In
some cases no doubt it is a brilliant reunion where lively things are
said; in others it may be dull; in far the most cases it seems to be
held late at night or early in the morning.
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