he Spanish-American preserves and cultivates some poetic and cultured
imagery; and perhaps Nature intends the one to affect the other in the
future amalgamation of the world's races.

Less lovable a characteristic of the Spanish-American is the tendency
to fulsome adulation of public or powerful personages in the hope of
winning patronage. The tendency to pander to each other's vanity,
however, shows up in marked contrast to the harshness and abuse of
authority often employed in political matters. The Spanish character,
amiable and courteous in friendship or equality, tends to become
arbitrary when vested with some brief authority, and this has been at
the bottom of much of the political disturbance and bloodshed of the
past. It is characteristic of this race to show a certain "Oriental"
trait--that which gives rise to an acquiescence in successful guile,
rather than an admiration and self-sacrifice for abstract truth. This
is, of course, a characteristic both of individuals and nations before
they reach a certain standard of civilisation. The readiness to follow
the successful cause among the upper class, and the easy regard of the
unpunished criminal, are the outcome of these qualities. In business
matters the Spanish-American, the Mexican, Peruvian, Chilean,
Brazilian, or other has a much less sense of rigid observance of
agreements, and a far greater latitude of expediency and mental
juggling than the Anglo-Saxon. And this insinuation embodies one of the
main defects of the race. Ideas of "mine" and "thine" are much less
strong than with the Briton or American. It has been said of the
Spaniard that he makes excellent laws, but ever considers that he
personally has a right to break them. This sentiment becomes very
evident in America: yet not only with the Spanish-American, for it is a
marked characteristic of the United States, and of all American
republics, where licence is often indulged in under the name of
liberty.

The Mexican character must be summed up as that of a people in the
making. The fact is stamped upon their physiognomies even. Let us turn
over the pages of any book issued in Mexico and observe the portraits
of public men and of their biographies, for it will generally be full
of these, often pandering to their vanity. The features are strongly
pronounced, and at times verge upon the grotesque--we mean it in no
offensive spirit. A high intelligence runs riot, and an idealism
untempered by sobriety