The Enigma Of Arrival - pg. 132

I was, in 1950, like the earliest Spanish travellers to the New World, medieval men with high faith: travelling to see wonders, parts of God's world, but then very quickly taking the wonders for granted, saving inquiry (and true vision) only for what they knew they would find even before they had left Spain: gold. True curiosity comes at a later stage of development. In England I was at that earlier, medieval Spanish stage -- my education and literary ambition and my academic struggles the equivalent of the Spanish adventurer's faith and traveller's endurance. And, like the Spaniard, having arrived after so much effort, I saw very little. And like the Spaniard who made a long, perilous journey down the Orinoco or Amazon, I had very little to record.