CHAPTER II.
ORIGINALITY AND PECULIARITIES OF THE ARGENTINE PEOPLE.
"Ainsi que l'ocean, les Steppes remplessent l'esprit du sentiment de l'infini."—Humboldt.
"Like the ocean, the Pampas fill the mind with the impression of the infinite."—Humboldt.
If from the conditions of pastoral life, such as colonization and neglect have constituted it, rise serious obstacles in the way of creating any political organization, and much more for the introduction of European civilization and institutions, as well as their natural results, wealth, and liberty, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that this state of things has its poetic side, and possesses aspects worthy of the pen of the romancer. If any form of national literature shall appear in these new American societies, it must result from the description of the mighty scenes of nature, and still more from the illustration of the struggle between European civilization and native barbarism, between mind and matter a struggle of imposing magnitude in South America, and which suggests scenes so peculiar, so characteristic, and so far outside the circle of ideas in which the European mind has been educated, that their dramatic relations would be unrecognized machinery, except in the country in which they are found.
