Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/397

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
EUROPEAN TOUR.
353

going to Bolivar, under whom he had been promised place, Montt decidedly opposed it; he told him it would look like a defeat (for he had again resigned the post of public writer to escape persecution); he said Bolivar's cause was like a game of cards "and did you not think of going to Europe?" The European expedition was decided upon, and when he took leave of his friend, the latter said to him, "You will return to your own country according to present appearances; if you ever wish to return to Chili, you shall take any place you wish. Undeceive yourself; these enmities which trouble you are wholly upon the surface. No one despises you, many esteem you."

"Such a statesman," to use the words of Señor Sarmiento, in speaking of this true and appreciative friend, whose words on their first meeting were, "Sir, ideas are of no country," "can, like Deucalion, make men out of stones. In Europe his letters followed me everywhere, even more constantly than those of my own family, and in every one was a suggestion of some point to be studied, or a hope that I should do such or such a thing, which hope was a sure indication that I would do it."

Colonel Sarmiento's "Travels in Europe, Algiers, and America," are full of lively pictures of all that is most interesting and instructive to observe in other lands. He studied not only education, but legislation, and all the nations he visited seemed to yield up to his well-prepared inspection the secret of their being for evil or for good. In France he saw and conversed with Thiers, Guizot, and Humboldt, and was made a member of the Historical Society. He visited Spain

23