anuel Ugarte (1878 - 1951), writer and polemicist, was –it has been said- the Argentine of his time who did most for the politic unification of the Spanish American continent. His preaching (nationalist anti-imperialism and Hispanicism with socialist touches) was spread in the continental and European journalism. He had started his public life alongside Lugones, Payró, Gerchunoff, Galvez and Ingenieros. He founded La Revista Literaria, where, among others, Rubén Darío and Ricardo Jaimes Freyre wrote.

During his journeys he interchanged ideas and intellectual actions with important men in the political and cultural fields, attested in a profuse correspondence of marked historical interest kept in the Archivo General de la Nación. Out of that repository -in great part, unpublished-, we rescue the letter we transcribe:

"Guayaquil, 16 may 1930.

Dr.
Manuel Ugarte.
Nice.
Gentleman:

I consider as a very high honor for me to address you because of an unavoidable duty of correctness and honesty, whose fulfillment I cannot elude. But at the same time I allow myself to apologize for bothering you with the reading of the present, and, persuaded of your generous nobleness, I hope that so you will do.

I am a pilgrim of Art and in my pilgrimages towards the Ideal I have always tried to imprison my deep spiritual uneasiness within the notes in the music staff. In time, due to 1928 carnival, "El Telégrafo", newspaper of this city, published, your extremely beautiful poem "Recuerdo de Carnaval" and I, on reading it, felt an intimate shivering of my spirit, sat at the piano and nervously improvised the music I have the pleasure to send so that the eminent poet knows it and honors me with his opinion.

I very well know that I have made a real irreverence, because I haved used the name of your beautiful poem. Recuerdo de Carnaval, my latest tango, has lyrics by Manuel Ugarte, the Emperor of Verse in this Free and Sovereign America ... Because of that I humbly apologize for the fault I incurred into and at the same time I beg your kindness that, if it were possible and you consider me deserving the honor I ask for, to please send me some poems suitable for music.

Respectfully

(signs) Francisco Paredes H. [sic]

¿No te acuerdas, Colombina,
que en un baile de disfraz,
para estar más peregrina,
te quitaste el antifaz
y tu dulce boca extraña
que en silencio yo besé,
me dio gotas de champaña
que bebiste en el bufet?

Son los rápidos amores
como el que hubo entre tu y yo,
serpentinas de colores
que desgarran los Pierrots,
pero guardo en la memoria,
toda losa y todo gris,
el recuerdo de esa historia
que es esencia de París.

Yo di fuego a tus carmines
recostado en el diván,
entre griegos y arlequines
que bailaban el can-can;
y olvidando, por ser buena,
tus temores y tu fe,
aceptaste con la cena
mi cariño y mi cupé.

¿Qué me importa que hoy agraves
tus desdenes ante mí,
si te dije lo que sabes
y tu sabes lo que oí?
Por tu honor, que así lo pide,
tengo trazas de olvidar,
más no temas que te olvide
ni te obligue a recordar.