Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/322

278 wars against the Spaniards in Chili, he had left society and retired to the mountainous region of San Luis, where his nephew, then a boy, followed him, and spent three years in the closest intellectual and affectionate intimacy, studying Latin, and listening to the historical and literary reminiscences of the holy man, who fed the active and open mind of the precocious boy with precious principles and a good store of miscellaneous knowledge. History and the polity of governments grew to be the passion of the young Sarmiento's soul. The appearance of Facundo Quiroga and his hordes in his native province and city had made a profound impression upon him, and with the disastrous history of the colonization and of the internal wars of his own country as a point of departure, and the influence of his uncle's keen and vigorous intellect and free and generous views, he was prepared for that remarkable career which has separated him from the body of his contemporaries in letters, in politics, in the consecration of his life.

But I will not anticipate. The earlier domestic history of his life was a still more remarkable preparation. It is striking to see hoy great natures will mould even the most adverse circumstances. One can conceive of no circumstances more adverse to the growth of fine character than the isolated, provincial life of a Spanish colony, ruled by ecclesiastical domination, exercised over an uneducated mass like the remote descendants of Spaniards who have been cut off for two or three generations from means of improvement, and even from the knowledge of the world's progress. Yet here we find noble natures ready to respond to noble teachings.