Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad

The other young ladies of Sulaco stood in awe of her character and
accomplishments. She was reputed to be terribly learned and serious. As
to pride, it was well known that all the Corbelans were proud, and her
mother was a Corbelan. Don Jose Avellanos depended very much upon the
devotion of his beloved Antonia. He accepted it in the benighted way of
men, who, though made in God's image, are like stone idols without sense
before the smoke of certain burnt offerings. He was ruined in every
way, but a man possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life. Don Jose
Avellanos desired passionately for his country: peace, prosperity,
and (as the end of the preface to "Fifty Years of Misrule" has it)
"an honourable place in the comity of civilized nations." In this last
phrase the Minister Plenipotentiary, cruelly humiliated by the bad faith
of his Government towards the foreign bondholders, stands disclosed in
the patriot.