CHAPTER VIII
BLOSSOMS OF VERSE
Since poetry is the flower of sentiment, and its highest expression of beauty and fragrance, one may be pardoned for closing this very inadequate sketch of picturesque Mexico by a word in its regard. Upon reflection it should not appear strange that a country in which the fiery imagination of the Castilian had been grafted upon the native gentleness of the Aztec, should blossom into verse as naturally as a plant turns toward the light. The love of flowers and birds, which is indigenous here, is always closely allied to that of song, in the heart of a nation; so that one should not be unprepared to find evidence of very general poetic feeling in a race which both history and tradition have dowered with exceptional qualities of sweetness and tenderness, and which since the Conquest has had its native predilections trained into higher literary art by education and
