Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1883 — “At Your Disposition.” [ARTICLE]

“At Your Disposition.”

Spanish courtesy is extravagant in its expression. If you are a guest at a Spaniard’s house, and admire anything, the polite host at once says, with a bow, “It is at your disposition. ” But you are expected to decline it. The author of “Spain in Profile,” tells an amusing story of an American Admiral, which grew out of this custom: The Admiral had just ai-rived with the fleet at one of the Mediterranean porta, and a hospitable Spaniard, learning of his arrival, sent him an invitation to dinner, which was accepted with Jonathanian readiness. Dinner over, the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where Admiral Jonathan, after the fashion of his country, began to admire first one thing and then another, especially one object of great beauty and costliness, thinking all the while merely to compliment his host on his taste. “It is at the disposition of your Grace,” replied the courteous host. Stares, polite excuses, refusals, apologies, proved vain; the object was packed up and sent to the Admiral’s ship, who, happy in the possession of a rare work of art, took no thought for the morrow —when the Spaniard sent for-it! This empty phrase, “At the disposition of your Grace,” is all that survives of a once princely custom. One of the Spanish Kings gave Charles I. the jewel of his picture-gallery because he had carelessly admired it.