Chapter 6 - Page 2

Americans. I
suppose I really despised him because he was an old Castilian, a
Spaniard born, and a Royalist. Those were certainly no reasons to
scorn a man; but for centuries Spaniards born had shown their contempt
of us Americans, men as well descended as themselves, simply because
we were what they called colonists. We had been kept in abasement and
made to feel our inferiority in social intercourse. And now it was our
turn. It was sale for us patriots to display the same sentiments; and
I being a young patriot, son of a patriot, despised that old Spaniard,
and despising him I naturally disregarded his abuse, though it was
annoying to my feelings. Others perhaps would not have been so
forbearing.

"He would begin with a great yell--'I see a patriot. Another of
them!' long before I came abreast of the house. The tone of his
senseless revilings, mingled with bursts of laughter, was sometimes
piercingly shrill and sometimes grave. It was all very mad; but I felt
it incumbent upon my dignity to check my horse to a walk without even
glancing towards the house, as if that man's abusive clamour in the
porch were less than the barking of a cur. I rode by, preserving an
expression of haughty indifference on my face.

"It was no doubt very dignified; but I should have done better if I
had kept my eyes open. A military man in war time should never
consider himself off duty; and especially so if the war is a
revolutionary war, when the enemy is not at the door, but within your
very house. At such times the heat of passionate convictions, passing
into hatred, removes the restraints of honour and humanity from many
men and of delicacy and fear from some women. These last, when once
they throw off the timidity and reserve of their sex, become by the
vivacity of their intelligence and the violence of their merciless
resentment more dangerous than so many armed giants."

The General's voice rose, but his big hand stroked his white beard
twice with an effect of venerable calmness. "Si, senores! Women are
ready to rise to the heights of devotion unattainable by us men, or to
sink into the depths of abasement which amazes our masculine
prejudices. I am speaking now of exceptional women, you understand. . ."

Here one of the guests observed that he had never met a woman yet who
was not capable of turning out quite exceptional under circumstances
that would engage her feelings strongly. "That sort of superiority in
recklessness they have over us," he concluded, "makes of them the more
interesting half of mankind."

The General, who bore the interruption with gravity, nodded courteous
assent. "Si. Si. Under circumstances. . . . Precisely. They can do an