It is part of the Hero Worship which has so large a place in the Latin nature. A worship none the less fervent because the enjoyment of it by its living object is frequently as brief as it must be sweet. Once dead, of course, a hero is one for ever if he have attained his niche at some prominent period of his country’s history. Great Presidents live perennially in the knowledge of every school child, and one bad one is still honoured by reference to his name and attributes in the comic journals whenever an unflattering comparison to a living politician is sought. Rozas and Artígas have their true meed of mingled praise and blame. But all this digresses from the heading of this chapter; through, perhaps, an unconscious effort on the author’s part to eke out an as yet somewhat barren subject. The truth is that no country nor individual has ever produced much art of any account during its or his infancy. And Argentina and Uruguay are still in the barely adolescent stage of their economic and political development. The many sympathetic, though often contrasted, characteristics of the true Argentine and Uruguayan hold out, however, good hope for artistic achievement in the future. The facts that Argentina has already one truly native sculptress of more than mediocre talent in Lola Mora, and one master of the art of word-painting in illustration of the old-world charm of some of the people and scenery of various distant parts of the Republic in Leopoldo Lugunes must not be lost sight of. Nor must the further one that the poetic spirit of the past which still broods over the wide Pampa has been caught and crystallized by Godofredo Daireaux in his _Tipos y Paisages Argentinos_ and other delicate allegories and sketches. The River Plate awaits a native W. C. Cable to write a rosary of tales of the Old Colonial Days of the Puerto de Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires, of Vice-Regal balls, of high-combed, mantilla-coifed and beflounced belles in seringa and orange blossom scented gardens; of sighs and vows breathed between window bars; of times the politely veneered roughness of which has been softened for us by the haze of remoteness; a haze which soon will have produced complete obliteration if some living, understanding brain does not quickly record their outlines and fill these in with appropriate tints. Someone will, must, do this. But no stranger. Only a native genius, daintily contemplative, can, as a labour of love, bring back to life the _dolce far niente_ days of South America before its Colonists awakened to the shrill call of Liberty and Independence. FOOTNOTES [1] _Tipos y Paisajes Argentinos_, by Godofredo Daireaux. [2] Though see Mr. Herbert Gibson’s opinion, quoted later. [3] Still the following words, which occur in an anonymous work on Uruguay issued by authority of the Consulate-General of that country in London in 1883, are as essentially true to-day as they were then.