Even the
material splendors of the monarchy, sufficiently great in this
land of gold, become heightened, under the glowing imagination of
the Inca chronicler, into the gorgeous illusions of a fairy tale.
Yet there is truth at the bottom of his wildest conceptions, and
it would be unfair to the Indian historian to suppose that he did
not himself believe most of the magic marvels which he describes.
There is no credulity like that of a Christian convert, - one
newly converted to the faith. From long dwelling in the darkness
of paganism, his eyes, when first opened to the light of truth,
have not acquired the power of discriminating the just
proportions of objects, of distinguishing between the real and
the imaginary. Garcilasso was not a convert, indeed, for he was
bred from infancy in the Roman Catholic faith. But he was
surrounded by converts and neophytes, - by those of his own
blood, who, after practising all their lives the rites of
paganism, were now first admitted into the Christian fold. He
listened to the teachings of the missionary, learned from him to
give implicit credit to the marvellous legends of the Saints, and
the no less marvellous accounts of his own victories in his
spiritual warfare for the propagation of the faith. Thus early
accustomed to such large drafts on his credulity, his reason lost
its heavenly power of distinguishing truth from error, and he
became so familiar with the miraculous, that the miraculous was
no longer a miracle.
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