Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
Sulaco regiment in the defence of the reforming government; and when the provinces again displayed their old flags (proscribed in Guzman Bento's time) there was another of those great orations, when Don José greeted these old emblems of the war of independence, brought out again in the name of new Ideals. The old idea of Federalism had disappeared. For his part he did not wish to revive old political doctrines. They were perishable. They died. But the doctrine of political rectitude was immortal. The second Sulaco regiment, to whom he was presenting this flag, was going to show its valor in a contest for order, peace, progress; for the establishment of national self-respect, without which—he declared with energy—"we are a reproach and a by-word among the powers of the world."
Don José Avellanos loved his country. He had served it lavishly with his fortune during his diplomatic career, and the later story of his captivity and barbarous ill-usage under Guzman Ben to was well known to his listeners. It was a wonder that he had not been a victim of the ferocious and summary exe- cutions which marked the course of that tyranny; for Guzman had ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of political fanaticism. The power of supreme government had become in his dull mind an object of strange worship, as if it were some sort of cruel deity. It was incarnated in himself, and his adversaries, the Federalists, were the supreme sinners, objects of hate, abhorrence, and fear, as heretics would be to a convinced Inquisitor. For years he had carried about at the tail of the Army of Pacifica-
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