Ricardo Güiraldes, a friend of Jorge Luis Borges –they both founded the legendary magazine Proa– managed to develop a simple and modern language, a high quality mixture of literacy and colourful local camp expressions that earned him a major standing among the best representatives of "criollismo". Even though it may be considered as a continuity with Martín Fierro, more than an extiguished gaucho elegy don Segundo Sombra proposes new ethical examples to a youth that Güiraldes considered disoriented and restless. Basically structured as lessons to be absorbed departing from inexperience, lessons on labour, amusement, morals, camp chores (horse taming, cattle rodeo, raw hide handy work, animal healing, etc.), they become an example of "lo argentino" supported by a very specific and precise lexikon.