he was always there defending me against the rich young men who wished to throw obstacles in my path. I have owed to this good man, even the marrow of my bones. He was full of energy without the appearance of it, humble even to self-annihilation. To him, and to another man in Chili, I owed still later my own self-estimation, by the proofs they lavished upon me of theirs, both serving and upholding me more than a fortune could have done. The esteem of the good acts as galvanism. A glance of benevolence from them can say to Lazarus, 'Arise and walk!' I have never loved any one as I loved Aberastain; no man has left deeper traces of respect and admiration upon my heart.
"After he left San Juan, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice was administered by men without professional education, and often so unfit, poor fellows, that they would have been stupid mule-drivers. Ultimately the honorable House of Representatives declared that even in default of Sanjuanino advocates, no foreigner could be a judge, that is to say, no individual of another confederate province, and this legislative act shows the perversion of mind into which these people have fallen."[1]
On the occasion of laying the corner-stone of the "Sarmiento School" in San Juan, in 1864,—a splendid edifice built within the walls of an abandoned church, partly erected many years before,—Colonel Sarmiento thus speaks of the influence of school-days upon his life.
- ↑ In his biography of his friend, he relates that such was the common feeling of respect for Aberastain among his fellow-pupils in childhood, such his almost morbid conscientiousness, that he went by the soubriquet of "God-the-Father." We can hardly appreciate this Spanish custom of nicknaming, as we call it. In those communities, half the people are known by some fancy name growing out of personal or accidental or characteristic qualities.
