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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

followed. The government of Buenos Ayres published the letter, made a requisition for me upon the government of Chili, and sent the diplomatic note and the letter with a circular to the confederate governors. The governor of Chili answered, Rosas replied, the circulars were repeated, the answers of the governors of the interior were received; the system of giving publicity to all those meannesses which disgrace the human race more than they can any government, was continued, and apparently the farce will go on without its being possible for any one to foresee the denouement. The presses of all the neighboring countries have reproduced the publications of the government of Buenos Ayres, and in those thirty or more official notes, the name of D. F. Sarmiento has always been accompanied with the epithets, 'infamous, unclean, vile, savage,' with variations such as, 'traitor, madman, contemptible, arrogant' etc. I am thus characterized by men who do not know me, before people who hear my name for the first time. The desire of every good man not to be despised, the aspiration of a patriot to preserve the esteem of his fellow citizens, have induced me to publish this little book, which I abandon to its fate. It is difficult to speak of one's self, one's own good qualities, without exciting contempt and attracting criticism, sometimes with good reason; but it is more difficult to consent to dishonor, and to let even one's own modesty conspire to one's injury, and I have not hesitated a moment which to choose between these opposite extremes."


THE HISTORY OF MY MOTHER.

"I feel an oppression of the heart when I approach the facts I am now to record. The mother is to the man the personification of Providence; is the living earth to which the heart clings as roots to the soil. All who have written