to any amount, generally cards, music, and, when there are sufficient
young people, a dance.

There is no exclusiveness and no caste about Spanish society; all the
houses are open, and the guests are always welcome. There are, of
course, the houses of the nobility, and there are many grades in this
_Grandeza_, some being of very recent creation, others of the
uncontaminated _sangre azul_; but there is no hard-and-fast line. The
successful politician or the popular writer has the entrée anywhere,
and there is no difficulty about going into the very best of the Court
society, if one has friends in that _tertulia_. One guest asks
permission to present his or her friend, the permission is courteously
granted, and the thing is done. Poets and dramatists are in great
request in Madrid society. It is the custom to ask them to recite their
own compositions, and as almost every Spaniard is a poet, whatever else
he may be, there is no lack of entertainment. All the popular
authors--Campoamor, Nuñez de Arce, Pelayo, Valera, and many others--may
thus be heard; but the paid performer (so common in London
drawing-rooms) of music, light drama, or poetical recitation, is
probably absolutely unknown in Madrid society.

During the season balls are given occasionally at the Palace, and at the
houses of the great nobility, the Fernan-Nuñez, the Romana, the
Medinaceli, and others, whose names are as well known in Paris and
London as in Madrid. Dinner-parties are also becoming much more common
in private houses than they were before the Restoration, and as for
public dinners, they are so frequent that they bid fair to become of the
same importance as the like institution in England. Costume balls,
dances, dinners, and evening entertainments among the _corps
diplomatique_ abound. Everyone in Madrid has a box or stall at the