A Vanished Arcadia
by R. B. Cunninghame Graham
[Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham. 1852-1936.]
I DEDICATE
THIS SHORT ACCOUNT OF
A VANISHED ARCADIA
TO THE AUTHOR OF
`SANTA TERESA, HER LIFE AND TIMES'',
BEING CERTAIN THAT
THE LIFE OF ALL SAINTS IS TO THEM AND US AN ARCADIA;
UNKNOWN TO THEM AND TO US VANISHED WITH THEIR LIVES,
YET STILL REMEMBERED, FITFULLY AS ARE THE JESUITS
IN PARAGUAY, BY A FEW FAITHFUL,
WHEN THE ANGELUS WAKES RECOLLECTION IN THE INDIANS'' HEARTS.
BUT, THEN, THE ANGELUS (EVEN OF MEMORY)
IS TO THE MOST PART OF MANKIND ONLY
A JANGLING OF AN ANTIQUATED BELL.
Preface
`Historicus nascitur, non fit.'' I am painfully aware that neither
my calling nor election in this matter are the least sure. Certain it is
that in youth, when alone the historian or the horseman may be formed,
I did little to fit myself for writing history. Wandering about
the countries of which now I treat, I had almost as little object
in my travels as a Gaucho of the outside `camps''. I never took a note
on any subject under heaven, nor kept a diary, by means of which,
my youth departed and the countries I once knew so well transmogrified,
I could, sitting beside the fire, read and enjoy the sadness of revisiting,
in my mind''s eye, scenes that I now remember indistinctly as in a dream.
I take it that he who keeps a journal of his doings, setting down day by day
all that he does, with dates and names of places, their longitude and latitude
duly recorded, makes for himself a meal of bitter-sweet;
and that your truest dulcamara is to read with glasses the faded notes
jotted down hurriedly in rain, in sun, in wind, in camps,
by flooded rivers, and in the long and listless hours of heat -in fact, to see again your life, as it were, acted for you
in some camera obscura, with the chief actor changed. But diaries,
unless they be mere records of bare facts, must of necessity,
as in their nature they are autobiographical, be false guides;
so that, perhaps, I in my carelessness was not quite so unwise
as I have often thought myself. Although I made no notes of anything,
caring most chiefly for the condition of my horse, yet when I think on them,
pampa and cordillera, virgin forest, the `passes'' of the rivers,
approached by sandy paths, bordered by flowering and sweet-smelling trees,
and most of all the deserted Jesuit Missions, half buried
by the vigorous vegetation, and peopled but by a few white-clad Indians,
rise up so clearly that, without the smallest faculty for dealing with that
which I have undertaken, I am forced to write. Flowers, scents,
the herds of horses, the ostriches, and the whole charm of that New World
which those who saw it even a quarter of a century ago saw
little altered from the remotest times, have remained clear and sharp,
and will remain so with me to the end. So to the readers
(if I chance to have them) of this short attempt to give
some faint idea of the great Christian Commonwealth of the Jesuit Missions
between the Parana and Uruguay, I now address myself.
He who attacks a subject quite fallen out of date, and still not old enough
to give a man authority to speak upon it without the fear of contradiction,
runs grave risk.
Gentle, indulgent reader, if so be that you exist in these
the days of universal knowledge and self-sufficient criticism,
I do not ask for your indulgence for the many errors which no doubt
have slipped into this work. These, if you care to take the trouble,
you can verify, and hold me up to shame. What I do crave
is that you will approach the subject with an open mind. Your Jesuit is,
as we know, the most tremendous wild-fowl that the world has known.
`La guardia nera'' of the Pope, the order which has wrought
so much destruction, the inventors of `Ciencia media'',*
cradle from which has issued forth Molina, Suarez, and all those villains who,
in the days in which the doctrine was unfashionable, decried mere faith,
and took their stand on works -- who in this land of preconceived opinion
can spare it a good word? But, notwithstanding, even a Jansenist, if such
be left, must yet admit the claim of Francis Xavier as a true, humble saint,
and if the sour-faced sectary of Port Royale should refuse, all men of letters
must perforce revere the writer of the hymn.
-* The doctrine of the `Ciencia Media'' occurs in the celebrated
`Concordia gratiae et liberi arbitrii'', by Luis de Molina (1588).
The concilium de Auxiliis was held to determine whether or not
`concordia'' was possible between freewill and grace. As the Jesuits
stuck by Molina and his doctrines in despite of councils and of popes,
the common saying arose in Spain: `Pasteles en la pasteleria
y ciencia media en la Compan~ia.''
But into the whole question of the Jesuits I cannot enter,
as it entails command of far more foot and half-foot words
than I can muster up. Still, in America, and most of all in Paraguay,
I hope to show the Order did much good, and worked amongst the Indians
like apostles, receiving an apostle''s true reward of calumny,
of stripes, of blows, and journeying hungry, athirst, on foot,
in perils oft, from the great cataract of the Parana
to the recesses of the Tarumensian woods. Little enough I personally care
for the political aspect of their commonwealth, or how it acted
on the Spanish settlements; of whether or not it turned out profitable
to the Court of Spain, or if the crimes and charges of ambition
laid to the Jesuits'' account were false or true. My only interest
in the matter is how the Jesuits'' rule acted upon the Indians themselves,
and if it made them happy -- more happy or less happy
than those Indians who were directly ruled from Spain, or through
the Spanish Governors of the viceroyalties. For theories of advancement,
and as to whether certain arbitrary ideas of the rights of man,
evolved in general by those who in their persons and their lives
are the negation of all rights, I give a fico -- yes, your fig of Spain -caring as little as did ancient Pistol for `palabras'',
and holding that the best right that a man can have is to be happy
after the way that pleases him the most. And that the Jesuits
rendered the Indians happy is certain, though to those men who fudge
a theory of mankind, thinking that everyone is forged upon their anvil,
or run out of their own mould, after the fashion of a tallow dip
(a theory which, indeed, the sameness of mankind renders at times
not quite untenable), it seems absurd because the progress of the world
has gone on other lines -- lines which prolonged indefinitely
would never meet those which the Jesuits drew. All that I know
is I myself, in the deserted missions, five-and-twenty years ago
often have met old men who spoke regretfully of Jesuit times,
who cherished all the customs left by the company, and though they spoke
at secondhand, repeating but the stories they had heard in youth,
kept the illusion that the missions in the Jesuits'' time had been a paradise.
Into the matter of the Jesuits'' motives I do not propose to enter,
holding that the origin of motives is too deeply seated
to be worth inquiry until one has more information about the human mind
than even modern `scientists'' seem able to impart. Yet it is certain
the Jesuits in Paraguay had faith fit to remove all mountains,
as the brief stories of their lives, so often ending with a rude field-cross
by the corner of some forest, and the inscription `hic occissus est''
survive to show. Some men -- such is the complexity of human nature -have undergone trials and persecutions for base motives,
and it is open for anyone to say the Jesuits, as they were Jesuits,
could do nothing good. Still, I believe that Father Ruiz Montoya -whose story I have told, how falteringly, and with how little justice
to his greatness, none knows better than myself -- was a good man -that is, a man without ulterior motives, and actuated but
by his love to the poor Indians with whom he passed his life.
To-day, when no one can see good in anything or anybody
outside the somewhat beefy pale of the Anglo-Saxon race, I do not hope
that such a mere dabbler in the great mystery of history as I am myself
will for an instant change one preconceived opinion; for I am well aware
that speeches based on facts are impotent in popular assemblies
to change a single vote.
It is an article of ...
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