randiloquent and verbose. He indulges in similes and expressions as
rich and varied as the vegetation of his own tropical lands. The most
profound analogies are called up to prove the simplest fact, not only
in the realm of poetry, or description, but in scientific or business
matters at times, and whether he is writing upon some deep social
problem or reporting upon the condition of the parish pump he will
preface his account with an essay! This, whilst it betrays often an
attractive idealism, is prone at times to lead to the sacrificing of
exact information to elegance of style or diction. The Mexican is never
at a loss for words; his eloquence is native, and whether it be the
impassioned oratory of a political speaker or the society small-talk of
a young man in the presence of ladies, he is never shy, and his flow of
language and gesture is as natural to him as reserve and brevity to the
Englishman. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon, especially the Briton, seems
repellant in comparison with the Spanish-American, and to cultivate
selfishness rather than ceremony in his own social dealings.

This tendency towards idealism becomes exaggeration often, though not
intended for such, and the prefixing of superlatives is very noticeable
in ordinary language. Thus glory is generally "immortal glory";
knowledge "profound knowledge"; every person partaking in public
affairs, if a friend of the speaker, is ever "enlightened and
patriotic," and his intelligence becomes "vast intelligence." "Our
distinguished and universally beloved Governor" would be the customary
reference to such a functionary; and "an era of glorious progress"
would be the only way of characterising his administration. Indeed, a
glance over a Mexican book or article or speech seems to show that the
writer has made use of every elegant and abstruse word in the
dictionary. In a dissertation upon any subject he seems called upon to
begin from the very beginning of things, _desde la creacion del
mundo_--"from the beginning of the world," as the Spanish-American
himself sarcastically says at times. Perhaps this is a habit acquired
from the early Spanish chroniclers, who often began their literary
works with an account of the Creation! The love of linking together the
material and the poetic is, of course, at the basis of this striving
after effect, and no philosophical observer would pretend to hold it up
to ridicule. Anglo-Saxon civilisation grows material and commercial;
t