Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession in Sta. Marta
had credited him with the possession of sane views, and even with a
restraining power over the general's everlastingly discontented vanity.
It could never have entered his head that Pedrito Montero, lackey or
inferior scribe, lodged in the garrets of the various Parisian hotels
where the Costaguana Legation used to shelter its diplomatic dignity,
had been devouring the lighter sort of historical works in the French
language, such, for instance as the books of Imbert de Saint Amand upon
the Second Empire. But Pedrito had been struck by the splendour of a
brilliant court, and had conceived the idea of an existence for himself
where, like the Duc de Morny, he would associate the command of every
pleasure with the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely
in every way. Nobody could have guessed that. And yet this was one of
the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution. This will appear less
incredible by the reflection that the fundamental causes were the
same as ever, rooted in the political immaturity of the people, in the
indolence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of the lower.

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