Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/142

written of in the preceding chapters, is to gather clear impressions of the character of the people we are reading about. For this end it is of vast importance to know whether the native races now forming a large part of the population of Mexico, are descended from a cultivated line of kings, or whether they merely inherit the manners and customs of illiterate tribes. The reader must for himself create from the stories drawn from Spanish accounts, and evidences given by picture-writings, and the description of monuments and ruins, his own idea of the Aztec character, giving due weight to the substance of the legends about Mexican greatness, while he brushes off with modern ruthlessness the cobwebs which obscure the truth of the story, however brightly they may sparkle, and adorn the tale.