In fact he has many characteristics which are reminiscent of the less objectionable qualities of mediæval nobility, in common with whom he is quick to resent anything he deems intentional insult to or disparagement of himself. He will forgive anyone for having got the better of him in a deal (though it is fair to him to say that it is not often he finds himself the victim of such an offence), but he will not for any consideration brook clumsily bad manners. He is by no means a puritanical moralist nor severe on the moral peccadillos of his neighbours, and he leaves religion pretty much to his women-folk.
In the lower classes he is still always courteous, expects courtesy from others, and resents, quickly and often fiercely, any defect in that respect in his neighbour’s behaviour.
Neither will he brook pretentious arrogance in any man, his social superior or his equal. Such arrogance meets immediately not only with his quick resentment but his profound and evident disdain. Treat him as he will treat you, and you will find him uniformly pleasant, light-hearted and humorous. Obligatory education is slowly freeing him from the illiteracy which until recently was very general, especially outside the limits of the Capital or one or other of the largest towns. Even now the lower-class Argentine is usually an exceedingly poor scholar. Therefore, and because of his rapidly growing admixture of Italian peasant blood, he is superstitious and still often has a deeper faith in fortune-telling quacks than in qualified medical science. Wise men and women are still much consulted for love-potions and cures and curses of all sorts for man and beast in the country districts, but while mere fortune-tellers are not interfered with by the law, penal restrictions are being more and more stringently enforced against quack doctors; most of whose remedies have come direct from mediæval Spain or Italy.
Argentine women? This is a subject on which one is not only tempted but almost forced to confine oneself to the usual platitudes concerning beauty of the Spanish type: large-eyed and opulent and at its apogee during the decade between 15 and 25 years of age.
It is seldom that an Argentine woman of any class troubles her head with business matters; still less with theories concerning the rights of her sex. She is usually content to do her most apparent duty in the sphere to which it has pleased God to call her.