The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

A. First of all, to love his country.

Q. Even before his parents?

A. Before all.

Afterwards, the scholar responds in the following manner to another question from the teacher:

In the veins of no human being ever flowed more generous blood than ours; the origins of no people in the world ever shone with a brighter aureole than that which illuminates the brow of the Argentine Republic. I am proud of my origin, of my race, and of my country.

Whenever the name of General San Martín is mentioned by the teacher in a class, the scholars are expected to bob up and make the military salute, at the same time saying viva la pátria! And very touching the extreme gravity of all classes in uncovering and their prayerful homage when the somewhat bizarre strains of the National Anthem, reminiscent of the Marseillaise mixed with a Sankey hymn, are heard, while the national flag borne through the streets or exhibited on an official occasion involves the doffing of all hats.

All this, to Europeans, exaggerated patriotism, will appear far less so to the citizen of any young country, and is not vastly more pronounced than that of the United States, but it is probably necessary to the fomenting of a proper sentiment of nationality. Time will adjust the untrue perspective of the present day, which elevates the most trumpery shooting affairs into heroic combats and successful soldiers of no dazzling genius with Wellington and Napoleon, if not with Julius Cæsar and Alexander the Great!

These, then, are two very potent factors in the making of the Argentine patriot: the claiming of every male child born in the country as a national unit and the determined inculcation of a vigorous patriotism. We have to add to them the influence of the language and also that natural love of country which makes the human being prefer even the most forbidding and unattractive scenes, if they happen to be the first on which his dawning mind has looked. So strong is this feeling, that I have found it quite impossible to utter a single word in criticism of Buenos Ayres in the presence of young people, the children of British subjects, who had been born there and had never seen a European city. Nay, they are to be met in England, full of contempt for poor old London and all things English, and fired with the most unreasoning love of their native Buenos Ayres. Thus in a country where “the melting pot” so quickly turns all that is thrown therein into the same mould, it is almost futile to go searching for “the real Argentine,” and we must be content to attempt no delicate differentiations, but simply to accept in the broadest and loosest way the Argentine residents as the Argentine people, excluding, perhaps, the larger portion of the British community.

Early discovering the fact that there was no possibility of the average stranger being admitted into the charmed circle of the private family, I turned to other methods of discovering something of the family life, and confess that I did not even despise the observations of English governesses, whose services are in keen demand among the well-to-do. Some of these ladies might do the necessary picture of the inner life of the Argentine family which no ordinary visitor is ever likely to be able to draw from personal observation.

Let me give one glimpse of an Argentine interior, as I had it from a very able teacher of languages—an English lady who had spent a number of years in the homes of different families. Unlike most Argentine families, this was self-contained, the father and mother with their brood of young children, and a considerable retinue of servants, occupying an immense house in the fashionable district, with no other relatives sharing it. The gentleman derived a large income from his estates and was above the need to do more than draw his money periodically from the agents into whose hands he had placed their management. The wife, still under thirty, was the mother of some eight or nine children, and she had already attained to that condition of adipose tissue which is the ambition of every respectable Argentine lady. Her mornings were spent in aimless lolling about the house in a state of undress, her toilet being a matter for the afternoon, when she went for a short run in their big limousine, or visited some lady friends to take afternoon tea. In the evenings, she had her children with her until a comparatively late hour, her husband spending almost every evening at his club, and he too would attend to his toilet in the afternoon, thinking nothing of sitting down to lunch in his shirt-sleeves with his suspenders hanging from the back of his trousers, while his wife would be in her dressing gown. The children were not admitted to meals, but took their food with the governess and one or two nurses in a special dining-room, into which papa would occasionally wander at meal time, still in his shirt sleeves, and help himself to scraps from the dishes on the table or perhaps a spoonful of soup from the tureen! This the governess found somewhat trying in her efforts to instil manners into the children, whose conduct at table was deplorable. Once when one of the elder girls was picking the bread on the governess’s plate, that much-tried lady explained to her gently that such was not considered good manners, to which the bright young girl replied: “In England, yes; but here, no.”