Part 27 (1/2)
I have not read many books of philosophy, because when I tried to be a philosopher ”happiness was always breaking in,” as someone says; also because I have loved to study men rather than books; but in the little I have read there occurs a passage I remember well, and this I shall quote as my answer to anyone who may call me an immoral person because my passions have not always remained in a quiescent state, like hounds--to quote the si at the feet of the huntsard the perturbations of the ht of vices of human nature, but as properties just as pertinent to it as are heat, storms, thunder, and the like, to the nature of the ath inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the ht as in knowing such things as flatter the senses” Let me have the phenos which flatter the senses, and the chances are that my life will be a healthier and happier one than that of the person who spends his tihtiness
It is often said that an ideal state--a Utopia where there is no folly, criular fascination for the reat persons who proclaim it may be, I do not try to like it or believe it or mimic the fashi+onable prattle of the world about it I hate all dreams of perpetual peace, all wonderful cities of the sun, where people consume their joyful, ht, like Buddhist enerations of devotees
The state is one unnatural, unspeakably repugnant: the drearave is more tolerable to the active, healthy nor Gaudentio di Lucca, still keeping hie of the secrets of Nature, were to appear before me now on this mountain to inform me that the sacred community he resided with in Central Africa was no mere dreao with hih by so doing I should grow at last to be as bad as any person in it, and ready to ”wade through slaughter” to the Presidential Chair For even in land, which is not so perfect as old Peru or the Pophar's country in Central Africa, I have been long divided from Nature, and now in this Oriental country, whose political land and impure Brazil, I have been reunited to her For this reason I love her with all her faults Here, like Santa Coloht kiss the breast that feeds it; here, fearless of dirt, like John Carrickfergus, I will thrust my hands into the loose brown soil to clasp the hands, as it were, of dearseparation
Farewell, beautiful land of sunshi+ne and storm, of virtue and of crime; may the invaders of the future fare on your soil like those of the past and leave you in the end to your own devices; may the chivalrous instinct of Santa Colo-kindness of Candelaria still live in your children to brighten their lives with roht of our superior civilisation never fall on your wild flowers, or the yoke of our progress be laid on your herds as the birds--to make him like the sullen, abject peasant of the Old World!
CHAPTER XXIX
Theof my fellow-travellers took place next day on board the shi+p, where we three were the only cabin passengers On going down into the little saloon I found De for us, considerably i pale and anxious, for she probably found thisone The tomen looked earnestly at each other, but Demetria, to hide her nervousness, I suppose, had framed her face in the old, impassive, almost cold expression it had hen I first knew her, and Paquita was repelled by it; so after a so they sat down and made commonplace remarks
Tomen more unlike each other in appearance, character, education, and disposition it would have been difficult to find; still, I had hoped they ht be friends, and felt keenly disappointed at the result of their firstAfter an uncomfortable interval we all rose I was about to proceed to the deck, they to their respective cabins, when Paquita, without any warning of as co, suddenly burst into tears and threw her arms about Demetria's neck
”Oh, dear Demetria, what a sad life yours has been!” she exclaimed
That was like her, so iht thing always! The other gladly responded to the eling their tears
When I got out on deck I found that ere already on our way, sails up, and a fresh wind sending us swiftly through the dull green water
There were five steerage passengers, disreputable-looking fellows in _ponchos_ and slouch hats, lounging about the deck sot outside the harbour and the shi+p began to toss a little, they very soon dropped their cigars and began igno sailors Only one reaucho, who firmly kept his seat at the stern, as if determined to see the last of ”The Mount,” as the pretty city near the foot of Magellan's Hill is called by the English people in this region
To satisfy myself that none of these felloere sent in pursuit of De they had been on board, and was itives--rebels probably--and had all been concealed for the past three or four days in the shi+p, waiting to get away froh, the wind veering to the south and blowing half a gale, a very favourable wind, as it happened, to take us across this unlovely ”Silver Sea,” as the poets of the Plata insist on calling it, with its villainous, brick-red, chopping waves, so disagreeable to bad sailors Paquita and Deed to keep with theood deal I very i--_only sea-sickness_--and I verily believe they both hated me with all their hearts for a little while in consequence Fortunately I had anticipated these harrowing scenes, and had provided a bottle of chane for the occasion; and after I had consu how easy this kind of medicine is to take, I prevailed on theth, about ten o'clock in the evening, they began to suspect that theirtheet some fresh air
There at the stern still sat the stoical old gaucho, looking extre, old cohis head at the proffered cigar, ”do, for God's sake, getto war round like a top, but nothing can I get fron brutes on board”
”Yes, why not,to thea pint of ruer delight and took a long draught
”Ah!” he said, patting first the bottle, then his stoe never end, et that I am old, but these cursed waves rear and sat down to have a talk with hiners it is just the same--land or water,” he continued ”You can even smoke--what a calm head and quiet stomach you must have! But what puzzleswith native wo senora with the violet eyes, who can she be?”
”She is , a little amused at his curiosity
”Ah, you are raceful, well educated, the daughter of wealthy parents, no doubt, but frail, frail, senor; and some day, not a very distant day--but why should I predict sorrow to a gay heart? Only her face, senor, is strange to me; it does not recall the features of any Oriental family I know”
”That is easily explained,” I said, surprised at his shrewdness, ”she is an Argentine, not an Oriental”
”Ah, that explains it,” he said, taking another long pull at the bottle