There have already been several millionaires killed because of their passion for speed.

Ah! and that Paris-Vienna race, what a talk it has generated! There is no race of that kind without someone dying, or at least being injured. Since those who own automobiles are wealthy people, nobles or bourgeois, it happens that anarchists have in the violent machine an additional collaborator of the brand. Several millionaires have already died because of their passion for speed.

Here, they do confuse haste with speed; and so a Cahan d'Anvers was thrown by his car into the next life; Vanderbilt was in great danger of losing his the other day; and many other prominent drivers, even crowned heads like the King of Italy, have faced certain dangers that the modest and elegant horse, and even better the San Francisco vehicle, do not pose to those who dedicate themselves to them.

Castilla is expanding

I do not deny that there is beauty in the automobile, and that once one is seated, Castilla expands before the formidable contraption and one no longer remembers the crushed, from the moment one feels like the crusher.

The glory of flying in a fabulous manner, dominating space in a nearly mythological or biblical monster, since there have been those who believe that Elisha, when leaving his mantle, did so by going in an avant-la-lettre automobile; the physical pleasure of lightness, of feeling as light as the air itself, are undeniable things, despite those who, like me, cannot see such machines pass without a certain upheaval of spirit.

But, as it is used, it is an unaesthetic and dirty pleasure. Unaesthetic, because never will the best Dion or Mercedes, or Deschamps, match in grace and elegance a splendid carriage drawn by an even more splendid trunk of shining horses; and because to make those dizzying journeys, one must dress in masks, with unusual balandrans or Eskimo-like capes; and dirty, because as long as all the roads in the world are not soaked with oil, anyone daring to race with the hurricane will end up full of dust, black with earth, uncomfortable and ugly.

Not all of us are the cha

And then, it is a sport for privileged people. The cheapest machine costs four thousand, six thousand, and eight thousand francs. There are fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, and I don’t know if two hundred thousand. And not all of us are the cha.

Every sport has its charm, its relative pleasure; swimming, hunting, fishing, rowing, duels to the first blood, billiards, turf, teuf-teuf and company.

The pleasure lies in not reaching excess, in not breaking one's soul to do 101 kilometers; in not drowning oneself trying to pass the English Channel; in not getting sunstroke before catching a trout, rod in hand. Exercise and distraction make life more pleasant as long as it is not exposed uselessly.

If the illustrious Mr. Vanderbilt, known to the fellow Roqué, told me—"I will give you a car, and you will do 103 per hour," I would answer him—"Thank you very much, Mr. Vanderbilt, J'aime mieux ma mie ô gue! J'aime mieux ma mie!"

Summary of the text

This text by the writer Rubén Darío was published in 1902 in The Caravan Passes, one of the books that gathered the chronicles the poet wrote for the newspaper La Nación of Buenos Aires during his stay in Europe at the turn of the century.

The Nicaraguan author reports on the new technological advance that caused amazement in the world, the automobile, its beauty, and its dangers and inconveniences, as usually happens whenever something new and surprising becomes a reality.

Rubén Darío's work belongs to the public domain.

The drawing illustrating the text was made in 1905 by the American artist William Henry Walker.