Londres, Inglaterra : Eveleigh Nash, 1915.

xiv, 250 p. ; 22 cm.

Tomado del prefacio: "Few books have had more difficulties to face than had the celebrated History of the Conquest of New Spain, that Bernal Diaz wrote in his old age. The period at which he wrote (1568 circa) is renowned for the difficulties to be encountered in its caligraphy. The handwriting of Bernal Diaz is exceedingly hard to read, twisted and gnarled, and full of strange abbreviations. Moreover, he spells exactly as he must have spoken, setting down aguelo for abuelo (grandfather) and bronsne for bronce (bronze), exactly as a Castilian countryman might do even at the present day. As he was old and war-worn and had been wounded many times, it is not unlikely that his hands were somewhat crippled, or at the least stiff, and anyhow, more used to hold the lance and bridle, than the pen. Although the work was known and appreciated almost as soon as it was finished, for both Herrera in his General History of the Indies, Fray Juan de Torquemeda and the Licentiate Antonio de Leon Pinelo all quote from it, it long remained in manuscript. The original MS. was preserved mot carefully, in Guatemala, first by the descendants of the author, and later by the municipality of the place, where it exists to-day. In this, my little sketch, I am not much concerned with this or that edition; but chiefly with the man. What I discern in him is steadfastness, sincerity, and in the main an absence of the gross superstitions that in his time blinded so many of his contemporaries, though he was ardent in his faith. His style is nervous, and though occasionally involved, remains after so many hundred years a well of pure Castilian, into which when you let down a bucket, it comes up, filled with good water, still sparkling, after the lapse of time. Diaz had, as it were, a foot both in the camps of literature and arms. One was his natural place, the other he made for himself and filled it worthily." --