Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/72

28 in the fear of bringing upon himself one of the thousand bolts which flash around him. The light is followed by thick darkness; death is on every side; a fearful and irresistible power has instantaneously driven the soul back upon itself, and made it feel its nothingness in the midst of angry nature; made it feel God himself in the terrible magnificence of his works. What more coloring could the brush of fancy need? Masses of darkness which obscure the sun; masses of tremulous livid light which shine through the darkness for an instant and bring to view far distant portions of the pampa, across which suddenly dart vivid lightnings, symbols of irresistible power. These images must remain deeply engraved on the soul. When the storm passes by, it leaves the gaucho sad, thoughtful, and serious, and the alternation of light and darkness continues in his imagination, as the disk of the sun long remains upon the retina after we have been looking at it fixedly.

Ask the gaucho, "Whom does the lightning prefer to kill?" and he will lead you into a world of moral and religious fancies, mingled with ill-understood facts of nature, and with superstitious and vulgar traditions. We may add that if it is certain that the electric fluid enters into the economy of human life and is the same as the so-called nervous fluid, the excitement of which rouses the passions and kindles enthusiasm, imaginative exertion ought to be well suited to the temper of a people living under an atmosphere so highly charged with electricity that one's clothes sparkle when rubbed, like a cat's fur stroked the wrong way.