“ Starei sang like the Mexican zenzontl, and her song soothed like the seabreeze which kisses the palms in hot evenings, and in laughing she opened her red lips like the wings of the ipiri and her bosom rose and let fall in enticing folds, the fine web of cotton that covered it. Men on seeing her wept, kneeling, and women wept also, seeing their palm huts deserted and their beds of rushes chilled and untouched. ”

“ God, who holds aloft with his right hand a torch to light the way of his creatures and to fructify, in the very field of death, the germs of life; behind the bearded divinities with dress of steel and armed with thunderbolts; from the region of light, the east, that they might anoint with the oil of charity, the victims of greed, and resuscitate for Heaven those dead for the world, sent the friars, shorn and shaven, unshod, clad in sackcloth, with no shield but their faith, with no weapon but the Gospel. ”

“ The sweet trills of the goldfinch, the warbling of other birds, the harmonious sound of bells, which announce in the towns the hour of dawn, and the laborer, who betakes himself to the field, with his oxen, to begin his daily labors, mark the moments in which the splendid rays of the sun, which precede the rising of the luminary, diffuse themselves through the transparent fluid of the atmosphere. Before the sun mounts above the horizon the eastern heavens are successively colored with the brilliant tints of red, orange, yellow, green, and purple ”

“ In a word, the revolution is a daughter of the world’s progress and of an inexorable law of humanity; the bola is daughter of ignorance and the inevitable scourge of backward populations.
We know revolutions well, and there are many who stigmatize and calumniate them; but, to them{384} we owe the rapid transformation of society and of institutions. They would be veritable baptisms of regeneration and advancement, if within them did not grow the weed of the miserable bola. Miserable bola? Yes! There operate in it as many passions as there are men and leaders engaged ”

“ PLEA FOR A MEXICAN SCHOOL OF WRITING.
We do not deny the great utility of studying all the literary schools of the civilized world; we would be incapable of such nonsense, we who adore the classical memories of Greece and of Rome, we who ponder long over the books of Dante and Shakespeare, who admire the German school and who should desire to be worthy to speak the language of Cervantes and of Fray Luis de Leon. ”

“ And in Mexico the genius enwraps himself yet in the shades of the invisible, or does not belong to the new generation.
Those of us who penetrate, with timidity and difficulty, into the sacred enclosure of poetry and literature, belong to the crowd of mortals; and scarcely may we aspire to the character of second rate workers in the family of those who think.
Thus for us are heavy those chains which for geniuses would be but spider webs ”

“ In the New, as in the Old World, in the deserts as in the cities, in the mountains as in the plains, the Gospel,—light and truth, refreshment, hope and delight at once,—has to subjugate all peoples, to soften the fierce and uncultured and to reduce to peace, order, and progress, whatever may be the language in which it be announced. ”

“ For the rest, it is easy to divine what elements Peon y Contreras employs in his dramatic romances; love with all its tendernesses, jealousies with their terrible ravages, virtue with its power and its struggles against temptation and vice, the energy of a manly heart, the storms resulting from defiled honor, from violated faith, from lost hope ... all that which the soul feels in its hours of joy or despair. ”

“ How wise! how humble and good he is! he refuses no one. If, on the contrary, the student is timid and only desires to speak of matters with which he is acquainted; if he refuses to decide a law-suit, to cure a sick man, to preach a sermon, then—who so ignorant as he, he knows nothing, he is good for nothing!
CRITICISM OF THE NEW SCHOOL OF MEXICAN WRITERS.
Well, then, in my opinion the new literary generation has no importance; I discover no virtues in it, neither love for study, nor noble tendencies favoring the advancement of our literature. ”

“ Never, in past times nor in modern ages, could history record in its pages so noble an action; and never has human magnanimity expressed its lofty deeds with more sublime simplicity than that of the Mexican hero in the document, which we have just copied. In the midst of that war of extermination, Bravo displays the noble sentiment of forgiveness as a supreme protest of humanity whose laws were being disregarded and trampled under foot; he condemns the barbarous system of reprisals ”

“ But, above all, Señor Olmedo, in hurling the darts of his censure upon the Indian woman, should remember that all those faults, which we today count as such, committed by her, are explained by saying, supported by the testimony of historians, that Malintzin loved Cortes blindly, from her first meeting him. Señor Olmedo is intelligent enough to know that love is the most enthralling of human passions. ”

“ The waves tossed, the wind whistled, and while, on the one hand, I promised Felipe de Jesús, if he saved me from peril, to honor him in an especial manner on the next centenary of his martyrdom, on the other hand, my thoughts transported me to that galleon of imperishable memory, which, through these same seas, bore the saint, three hundred years ago, to the very coasts whither we were bound. Before entering fully upon the brilliant epic, which through good fortune, it falls to me to narrate to you this happy day, I desire to carry you also on board of it. ”

“ To me, nailed to my chair, that scene appeared for some minutes the horrible illusion of a cruel nightmare. I was perspiring and choked.
The door suddenly opened and the three actors{389} in the comedy entered the writing-room. Trying to compose myself, and rising, I heard Albar, who, pointing at me, said:
“Here is the best pen on my staff; this young man will be charged with writing all relative to your life.”
Don Mateo and I faced each other, exchanging a glance of profound hatred; hatred, kneaded with the passion of purest love, as mud is kneaded with water from the skies. ”

“ How many years has the chair of the Aztec language been established in the Seminario at Guadalajara?”
“About thirty.”
“And during about thirty years has some priest gone forth from the institution to preach to the Indians in their native language?”
“Why, no sir! During the thirty years what has been, and is, learned is the philosophy and richness of the Aztec language. You must have seen the precious little work, by my professor, upon the beauty and richness of the Aztec language, elegantly bound, which was sent to the Paris Exposition.” ”

“ Its theatre is the corner of some outlying district; its heroes, men who perhaps at first accepting it in good faith, permit that which they had to be torn to tatters on the briers of the forest. Honorable labor is suspended, the fields are laid waste, the groves are set on fire, homes are despoiled, at the mere dictate of some brutal petty leader; tears, despair, and famine are the final harvest. And yet the population, when this favorite monster, to which it has given birth, appears, rushes after it, crying enthusiastically and insanely, bola! bola! ”

“ To soil one’s hands with the blood and secretions of an animal; occupation, to all appearance, vile; to take the pen for explaining the Holy Scriptures; occupation, sacred and sublime. And yet, Domingo Soto with his scholastic commentaries on the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans was of no use to humanity; and Harvey, presenting himself in the great theater of the scientific world, with a frog in his hand, discovering the circulation of the blood, rendered an immense service to mankind. ”

“ In 1892 and 1893 the drought was general and desolated a great part of the Central Plateau.
When the season of rains arrives, the fields are transformed in a single week, and where was a barren and arid horizon, there extends itself a mantle of tender verdure with corn-fields and springing wheat, which from day to day develop, open their spikes to the sun, and seem to cast back to it its last rays, as golden oceans, ruffled by the evening breeze. The laborers busy themselves in guarding them ”

“ Starei paused; she was upon the summit of a rock, from which the whole coast was visible.
“Look,” continued Zekom, “this will be our kingdom.” And before the fascinated eye of the daughter of the Gulf there was spread out a surprising panorama. In the midst of an emerald prairie, a cu or teocalli reared its high pyramid of gold, which shed its light around, even to the distant horizon. Over that gleaming plain were prostrated innumerable people with fear depicted on their faces. ”

“ Being of versatile genius Echave displayed varied characteristics; sometimes we see him most painstaking in outlines; sometimes easy and firm in handling the brush; now varied in types and attitudes and again attentive to the arrangement of draperies; now skillful in the nude, of which but few examples are found in the Mexican school; now notable as a colorist, worthy of comparison with the Venetians. When it suits him, he can give beauty of expression, but he does not so persistently seek it, that it becomes a mannerism. ”

“ In the midst of the Gulf, surmounted by a yellow crown, which gilded the sea around like an enormous sunflower which reflects itself in a flower of water, arose a barren island of the color of impure gold, where currents deposited the seaweeds like the wrappings which swathe Egyptian mummies. Above that rocky mass the sun gleamed like copper, the rapid moon passed veiled by livid vapors, and on days of tempest the storm-birds described wide circles around it, uttering direful croakings. ”

“ Do not let us pass to a serious occasion without some rational cause.”
“Pretext,” cried Gonzalo; “you do not desire to fight. You are a coward.” Saying this he placed his hand upon his pistol for a moment. Luis was livid and acted as if he would follow his example; but he stopped and left his arm in place, recalling his promise to Ramona at the ball.
“One moment,” he said, “only one moment; if you are a man and not a brute, as you seem to be, you must first hear me. By my mother’s honor, I assure you that I am disposed to fight; but not before we understand each other. ”

“ The gigantic efforts of that immortal lay brother cause genuine admiration—who without other resources than his indomitable energy, born of his warm charity, reared from the foundations and sustained for so many years a magnificent church, a hospital and a great establishment, which was at once a primary school, a college of higher instruction and religious teaching, an academy of the fine arts, and a trades school, in fine a center of civilization. ”

“ No, my dear lady, pray tell Loreto that, decidedly and against all wind and sea, I will marry her, and that in the quickest possible time.”
“Marquis! tempt not God’s patience! Now that a door is opened, escape by it without looking back and consider yourself lucky. Moreover, although Loreto babbles in Latin and writes distiches, she is not so stupid as you think, and knows well how to take care of herself. She has understood conditions perfectly and knows her advantage; a single glance has sufficed to draw to her feet the grocer, more attentive and enamored than ever.” ”

“ What folly to think that a woman like Clothilde could ever care for a man like me! What can I offer her?—A worthless trifle, an illegal love, a legitimate wife, children, poverties! How could I pay her house rent, the most necessary expenses, the most trifling luxuries? Better, much better, that they despise me, the more I will occupy myself with my wife and my children, what is earned they will have ”

“ The burning of villages and executions en masse present themselves at the turning of every page like the funeral refrain of an infernal poem; and, if it be true, that there are not lacking some superior souls—as Don Nicolás Bravo, who set at liberty three hundred Spanish prisoners, although he knew the Spanish leader had just shot his father—many other leaders, of that and later epochs, systematically executed all who fell into their hands. ”

“ Sometimes it seemed to spare the Indians, only to return later and make a clean sweep of them.
There were great sadness and horror in Merida when notice was brought of the rapid, frequent, and painful deaths, which were taking place in Campeche, and which suggested the existence of the plague; the more so as an effort was made to minimize the reports of conditions. The pest, the sombre and frightful pest, which brings death as a daily thought to the minds of all; and not sweet and peaceful death, but the most distressing of all, death in solitude and abandonment! ”

“ In instigating foreign warships to seize vessels in Mexican waters, the government of Juarez permitted the national independence, sovereignty, and dignity to be outraged by the soldiers, officers, and warships of the United States; it betrayed its country, permitting an assault against its sovereignty and humiliated the nation by invoking foreign mercenaries to assist it and to treat Mexicans with profound contempt, and to shed Mexican blood, since those wounded on board the Miramon were compatriots ”

“ In fine, and ever due, wholly or in part, to the atmosphere, the Mexican of the Central Plateau—and so much the less as the altitude of the region where he lives is greater—has never been able to count upon the future, either for his life, or for his health, or for his fields, or for his mines, or for his daily bread ”

“ He knows that martyrdom upon a cross, such as he has seen in the sky, awaits him; martyrdom, the supreme recompense to which we, who run the race of life, aspire, but which the Lord grants to few; the martyrdom which Francis Xavier and his companions in religion and apostolic labors, sought with longing, but which God in His lofty purposes refused to them, to give it to Felipe de Jesús and to some companions, who arrived but yesterday, who did not seek it. ”

“ We, the inventors of the thing itself, have given it a name without having recourse to Greek or Latin roots, and we have called it bola. We hold the copyright; because, while revolution, as an inexorable law, is known in all the world, the bola can only be developed, like the yellow fever, in certain latitudes. Revolution grows out of an idea, it moves nations, modifies institutions, demands citizens; the bola requires no principles, and has none, it is born and dies within short space, and demands ignorant persons. ”

“ Herrera y Cairo followed, his secretary, Aristeo Moreno signing beside him; General Julio García was called and I felt a shiver run through me from head to foot, because I ought to follow him as his secretary, and, no less, the secretary of the republican government of Colima.... In that moment of supreme anxiety, I felt it the height of folly to publicly oppose the signing of that infernal abortion, which would be the same as to provoke an undesirable quarrel in which the probabilities were that we who were decent men, being few, would perish at the hands of the bandits, who were many. ”