When Bravo was here, what balls, what bull-fights, what visiting among the ladies! Indeed there was so much to tell, the tertulia was as necessary as the dinner.

To be sure, the Mexicans are not barbarians; they made a war that had some refinement.
But the Americans! They are savages.

With them it is fight, fight, fight, and if we try to be agreeable, as we were to that outrageous Sam Houston, they say thank you, madam, and go on thinking their own cruel thoughts.

I wonder the gentle God permits that such men live." "Dear mother, refinement in war is not possible.

Nothing can make it otherwise than brutal and bloody." "Antonia, allow that I, who am your mother, should know what I have simply seen with my eyes.