Note 5 — Chapter III · BUENOS AYRES (continued)

I quote these two names because they are best known among us in France. But Argentine literature cannot be dismissed in a word. The struggle for independence could not fail to inspire songs to be caught up from ear to ear and sung everywhere, and in the same way the spread of education has naturally turned many minds to literary composition. The struggle with the metropolis and the flame of civil war irresistibly impelled the individual into the arena to take public action, and from the vortex there issued a new nationality. It is from such a period of strife that the first history of a people takes its origin, and the record of deeds wrought under the influence of such excitement is the material from which a nation's archives are derived, fixing for ever the memory of actions that will be revered by the generations to come. In this way, the noble harangues of Moriano Moreno to the Provisional Government, the eloquent proclamations made by General Belgrano after the battles of Salta and Tucuman, the noble letters of San Martin are impressive lessons for all humanity; time can have no effect on the exalted nobility of thought and artistic mode of expression that are here held up before us. Under the savage dictatorship of Rosas, all voices were silenced. Still, Sarmiento from his exile in Chili launched from the heights of the Andes his virulent pamphlets against the odious tyrant. When liberty was regained, Press and rostrum sent forth a legion of writers and orators, at whose head we must place Bartolome Mitré and Nicolas Avellaneda. To come down to our own time, the list of distinguished writers meriting each a special notice would be long indeed.