Excerpts from selected Susan Hale texts

By Raquel Boix

Here first the Horners observed the «cooling-drinks shops», -booths where all sorts of refreshing and not intoxicating drinks are sold. The Spanish have an extreme fondness for this harmless refreshment. The number of such places shows the demand for them. The venders call out, «Agua fresca como la nieve» (water cool as snow), and for a very small coin they will furnish a glass of something cold and sweet, flavored with strange essences. Tommy's favorite was horchata de chufas, a very superior beverage of a milky appearance, and a flavor something like orgeat. All these drinks are very mild, and are but slightly tinged with the flavoring substance. There has to be a good deal of «make-believe», as in the case of the lemonade of the Marchioness, in order to discover what one is tasting. It gives a pleasant impression of the moderation in the taste of a people which contents itself with such mild refreshment, instead of the heavy lager which the German loves, or the fiery drinks of all Northern nations.

Source: Hale, S., 1883, A Family Flight through Spain, Boston, D. Lothrop & Company, p. 63.

In this passage, Bessie writes to her sister Mary about the family's journey from Granada to Madrid, passing through Jaén. She vividly describes the landscape from the Vega and its cultivated areas to the winding mountain roads highlighting the vibrant colors, flowers and a charming local scene they encounter:

Meanwhile the scenery was wonderful. After we had crossed the Vega with its huertas scattered along, the road wound about in zigzags like a Swiss pass. The mountains took on beautiful pink tints with blue shadows, and always such flowers! poppies, bluets, -things we knew, things we did not know. I saw a little boy sitting under an olive-tree, beside a basket full of apricots, with his face smeared from ear to ear with mulberry-juice. Once, when we stopped, I gathered a spray of white clematis, just like ours at home, growing on a pomegranate-tree all in blossom.

Source: Hale, S., 1883, A Family Flight through Spain, Boston, D. Lothrop & Company, p. 267.

The Horners loved it [Madrid]. No other foreign city, -and they had passed the same length of time on many-, gave them the same sense of homelike, cheerful friendliness. The people in the streets were always kindly and gay. Politeness is a custom, not a matter of choice. Even the lazy fellow who sells cooling drinks at the street corner, touches his cap, and offers conscientious change for the smallest of coins. There is much life and movement in the streets, and though, as is constantly said, the national costume is disappearing, some picturesque figures are yet to be seen here and there. The mantilla and manta have not given place altogether to the French bonnet and tight-fitting coat. In fact, the Horners, in Spain, became so familiar with short breeches, and buttons up the leg, of all good Spaniards, that it was almost a shock to them to see the draggling trousers hanging about the feet of the inhabitants of the rest of Europe.

Source: Hale, S., 1883, A Family Flight through Spain, Boston, D. Lothrop & Company, pp. 297-298.