Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains with which Pedro
Montero had helped so much the victorious career of his brother the
general. The influence which that man, brought up in coast towns,
acquired in a short time over the plainsmen of the Republic can be
ascribed only to a genius for treachery of so effective a kind that it
must have appeared to those violent men but little removed from a state
of utter savagery, as the perfection of sagacity and virtue. The popular
lore of all nations testifies that duplicity and cunning, together with
bodily strength, were looked upon, even more than courage, as heroic
virtues by primitive mankind. To overcome your adversary was the
great affair of life. Courage was taken for granted. But the use of
intelligence awakened wonder and respect. Stratagems, providing they did
not fail, were honourable; the easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy
evoked no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and admiration. Not
perhaps that primitive men were more faithless than their descendants
of to-day, but that they went straighter to their aim, and were
more artless in their recognition of success as the only standard of
morality.

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