Brantz Mayer

“ All the mornings of this elevated region, even in the rainy season, are bright and charming; the sun rises in unclouded splendor, gilding one of the most magnificent landscapes the imagination can conceive, whilst the atmosphere is so pure and elastic that it is a positive pleasure to breathe it. On such a morning, in company with the 4th regiment of artillery, acting as infantry, and a squadron of horse, we sallied from the city through the garita of Cholula, and soon found ourselves in the extensive plain skirting the base of the volcanoes of Puebla—Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl. ”

“ Familiar as we are with the campaigns of Frederick and Napoleon, and willing to record as classical the great deeds of the old world's heroes, we are still often loath to do justice to the brave men in our own country who have served the State so zealously in Florida and Mexico. It is not simple bravery in battle that commends a soldier to admiration, for few are cowards when the excitement of action hurries them headlong among their foes amid the shouts and thunder of actual carnage. But it is the preparatory discipline that tests a military character. ”

“ Losing Texas, which in her hands had been, for all this time, a howling wilderness possessed by beasts and savages, she sees that state become, under the magic influence of another race, an independent nation, a maritime power, a commercial territory yielding millions annually for the trade of the world. Surrendering California as a boon for peace, she beholds in a single year, the sands that had been trodden by her own people for several centuries, turn to gold in the developing hand of the energetic emigrants to whom it was given up. ”

“ It is rare to see men persecute each other about individual rights or properties. Yet, such is not the case when a right or an interest is the religious property of a multitude. Then, community of sentiment or of risk, bands them together in fervent support, and when the thing contended for is based on conscience and eternal interest, instead of personal or temporary welfare, we behold its pursuit inflame gradually from a principle into a passion,—from passion into persecution, until at length, what once glimmered in holy zeal, blazes in bigoted fanaticism. ”

“ Imagination was not a predominant quality of Mr. Sparks's mind. Its cool precision so curbed the exercise of the ideal faculty that it was unjustly subdued if not absolutely stifled; and thus we do not always discern in him that creative power, so rarely found combined with sagacity in gathering and marshalling details, which, while it apprehends the true relation of men and circumstances, masses the historic groups with picturesque effect, delineates character with intuitive insight, gives soul to the moving drama of national life, and vividly realizes the scenes and personages of the past. ”

“ When men were starving though weighed down with gold,—when all the necessaries of life rose to twice, thrice, tenfold, and even fifty or a hundred times their value in the Atlantic States,—that distant province demonstrated the intrinsic worthlessness of the coveted ore, and the permanent value of every thing produced by genuine industry and labor. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the new State will not degenerate into a mere mining country, or be forever a prey to that feverish excitement in the pursuit of sudden wealth which is fed or frustrated by the contemptible accidents of luck. ”

“ I have thus succinctly narrated the events that led to the war between the United States and Mexico. The annexation of Texas, without the previous assent of Mexico, may have annoyed that government. It was mortifying to patriotic pride, and we should laud the republic for manifesting a proper sensibility. But true national pride is always capable of manly and dignified opposition. It does not expend itself in bravado, petulance or querulousness. It does not assail by threats, but by deeds; and never provokes an attack until it is prepared to return the blow with earnest force. ”

“ The inseparable fan,—her constant companion, play thing and interpreter, in the saloon, the ball room, the theatre or the church,—rests carelessly, in her right hand, which coquettishly clasps the folds of her mantilla; and, from beneath its silken folds, her large lustrous eyes gleam soft and languishingly above her pale but healthful cheeks. If Mexican ladies are not so variously beautiful as the women of northern lands, in whose veins the blood of many nations has mingled, they are most loveable creatures in spite of the uniformity of their national type. ”

“ The short, imperfect navigation of the Greeks, along the shores and among the islands of their inland sea, made colonization rather a diffusive overflow, than an adventurous transplanting of their people. They were urged to this oozing emigration either by personal want, by the command of law, or by the oracles of their gods, who doubtless spoke under the authority of law. Where the national religion was a unit in faith, there was no persecution to drive men off, nor had the spirit of adventure seized those primitive classics with the zeal of "annexation" that animated after ages. ”

“ A People is not a mere aggregation of human beings. A nation, in the true sense of nationality, is only a great family, for whose strength and power it is necessary that all its individual members should be intimately united by the bonds of interest, sympathy and affection. Such a nation may form a government, but it is difficult for a government to form such a nation. And this was the peculiarly fortunate position of our North American states at the period of Independence, for we had no political and social revolution to effect. ”