"In a continent but recently settled, many parts of which have as yet little historical or cultural background, the material for this volume has been gathered from a section that was one of the first to be colonized."

"Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits."

"Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be recorded."

"Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it rested."