{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8148/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8148","id":"gutenberg_8148","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8148","summary":null,"tags":["Baroja, P\u00edo, 1872-1956","Category: Biographies","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Eric Eldred, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nYouth and Egolatry\n\nBy P\u00cdO BAROJA\n\nTranslated from the Spanish By Jacob S. Fassett, Jr. and Frances L.\nPhillips\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION BY H. L. MENCKEN\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nON INTELLECTUAL LOVE\nEGOTISM\n\nI. FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS\n\nThe bad man of Itzea\nHumble and a wanderer\nDogmatophagy\nIgnoramus, Ignorabimus\nNevertheless, we call ourselves materialists\nIn defense of religion\nArch-European\nDionysus or Apollonian\nEpicuri de grege porcum\nEvil and Rousseau's Chinaman\nThe root of disinterested evil\nMusic as a sedative\nConcerning Wagner\nUniversal musicians\nThe folk song\nOn the optimism of eunuchs\n\nII. MYSELF, THE WRITER\n\nTo my readers thirty years hence\nYouthful writings\nThe beginning and end of the journey\nMellowness and the critical sense\nSensibility\nOn devouring one's own God\nAnarchism\nNew paths\nLonging for change\nBaroja, you will never amount to anything (A Refrain)\nThe patriotism of desire\nMy home lands\nCruelty and stupidity\nThe anterior image\nThe tragi-comedy of sex\nThe veils of the sexual life\nA little talk\nThe sovereign crowd\nThe remedy\n\nIII. THE EXTRARADIUS\n\nRhetoric and anti-rhetoric\nThe rhythm of style\nRhetoric of the minor key\nThe value of my ideas\nGenius and admiration\nMy literary and artistic inclinations\nMy library\nOn being a gentleman\nGiving offence\nThirst for glory\nElective antipathies\nTo a member of several academies\n\nIV. ADMIRATIONS AND INCOMPATIBILITIES\n\nCervantes, Shakespeare, Moli\u00e8re\nThe encyclopedists\nThe romanticists\nThe naturalists\nThe Spanish realists\nThe Russians\nThe critics\n\nV. THE PHILOSOPHERS\n\nVI. THE HISTORIANS\n\nThe Roman historians\nModern and contemporary historians\n\nVII. MY FAMILY\n\nFamily mythology\nOur History\n\nVIII. MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD\n\nSan Sebastian\nMy parents\nMonsignor\nTwo lunatics\nThe hawk\nIn Madrid\nIn Pamplona\nDon Tirso Larequi\nA visionary rowdy\nSarasate\nRobinson Crusoe and the Mysterious Island\n\nIX. AS A STUDENT\n\nProfessors\nAnti-militarism\nTo Valencia\n\nX. AS A VILLAGE DOCTOR\n\nDolores, La Sacristana\n\nXI. AS A BAKER\n\nMy father's disillusionment\nIndustry and democracy\nThe vexations of a small tradesman\n\nXII. AS A WRITER\n\nBohemia\nOur own generation\nAzor\u00edn\nPaul Schmitz\nOrtega y Gasset\nA pseudo-patron\n\nXIII. PARISIAN DAYS\n\nEst\u00e9vanez\nMy versatility according to Bonafoux\n\nXIV. LITERARY ENMITIES\n\nThe enmity of Dicenta\nThe posthumous enmity of Sawa\nSemi-hatred on the part of Silverio Lanza\n\nXV. THE PRESS\n\nOur newspapers and periodicals\nOur journalists\nAmericans\n\nXVI. POLITICS\n\nVotes and applause\nPoliticians\nRevolutionists\nLerroux\nAn offer\nSocialists\nLove of the workingman\nThe conventionalist Barriovero\nAnarchists\nThe morality of the alternating party system\nOn obeying the law\nThe sternness of the law\n\nXVII. MILITARY GLORY\n\nThe old-time soldier\nDown goes prestige\nScience and the picturesque\nWhat we need today\nOur armies\nA word from Kuroki, the Japanese\n\nEPILOGUE\nPalinode and fresh outburst of ire\n\nAPPENDICES\nSpanish politicians\nOn Baroja's anarchists\nNote\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nP\u00edo Baroja is a product of the intellectual reign of terror that went on\nin Spain after the catastrophe of 1898. That catastrophe, of course, was\nanything but unforeseen. The national literature, for a good many years\nbefore the event, had been made dismal by the croaking of Iokanaans, and\nthere was a definite _d\u00e9faitiste_ party among the _intelligentsia_.\nBut among the people in general, if there was not optimism, there was at\nleast a sort of resigned indifference, and so things went ahead in the\nold stupid Spanish way and the structure of society, despite a few\ngestures of liberalism, remained as it had been for generations. In Spain,\nof course, there is always a _Kulturkampf_, as there is in Italy,\nbut during these years it was quiescent. The Church, in the shadow of\nthe restored monarchy, gradually resumed its old privileges and its old\npretensions. So on the political side. In Catalonia, where Spain keeps the\nstrangest melting-pot in Europe and the old Iberian stock is almost\nextinct, there was a menacing seething, but elsewhere there was not much\nto chill the conservative spine. In the middle nineties, when the\nSocialist vote in Germany was already approaching the two million mark,\nand Belgium was rocked by great Socialist demonstrations, and the\nSocialist deputies in the French Chamber numbered fifty, and even England\nwas beginning to toy gingerly with new schemes of social reform, by\nBismarck out of Lassalle, the total strength of the Socialists of Spain\nwas still not much above five thousand votes. In brief, the country seemed\nto be removed from the main currents of European thought. There was\nunrest, to be sure, but it was unrest that was largely inarticulate and\nthat needed a new race of leaders to give it form and direction.\n\nThen came the colossal shock of the American war and a sudden\ntransvaluation of all the old values. Anti-clericalism got on its legs\nand Socialism got on its legs, and out of the two grew that great\nmovement for the liberation of the common people, that determined and\nbitter struggle for a fair share in the fruits of human progress, which\ncame to its melodramatic climax in the execution of Francisco Ferrer.\nSpain now began to go ahead very rapidly, if not in actual achievement,\nthen at least in the examination and exchange of ideas, good and bad.\nParties formed, split, blew up, revived and combined, each with its sure\ncure for all the sorrows of the land. Resignationism gave way to a harsh\nand searching questioning, and questioning to denunciation and demand\nfor reform. The monarchy swayed this way and that, seeking to avoid both\nthe peril of too much yielding and the worse peril of not yielding\nenough. The Church, on the defensive once more, prepared quickly for\nstormy weather and sent hurried calls to Rome for help. Nor was all this\nuproar on the political and practical side. Spanish letters, for years\nsunk into formalism, revived with the national spirit, and the new books\nin prose and verse began to deal vigorously with the here and now.\nNovelists, poets and essayists appeared who had never been heard of\nbefore--young men full of exciting ideas borrowed from foreign lands and\neven more exciting ideas of their own fashioning. The national\nliterature, but lately so academic and remote from existence, was now\nfuriously lively, challenging and provocative. The people found in it,\nnot the old placid escape from life, but a new stimulation to arduous\nand ardent living. And out of the ruck of authors, eager, exigent, and\nthe tremendous clash of nations, new and old, there finally emerged a\nprose based not upon rhetorical reminiscences, but responsive minutely\nto the necessities of the national life. The oratorical platitudes of\nCastelar and C\u00e1novas del Castillo gave way to the discreet analyses of\nAzor\u00edn (Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ednez Ruiz) and Jos\u00e9 Ortega y Gasset, to the sober\nsentences of the Rector of the University of Salamanca, Miguel de\nUnamuno, writing with a restraint which is anything but traditionally\nCastilian, and to the journalistic impressionism of Ramiro de Maeztu,\nsupple and cosmopolitan from long residence abroad. The poets now\njettisoned the rotundities of the romantic and emotional schools of\nZorrilla and Salvador Rueda, and substituted instead the precise,\npictorial line of Rub\u00e9n Dar\u00edo, Juan Ram\u00f3n Jim\u00e9nez, and the brothers\nMachado, while the socialistic and republican propaganda which had\ninvaded the theatre with P\u00e9rez Gald\u00f3s, Joaqu\u00edn Dicenta, and Angel\nGuimer\u00e1, bore fruit in the psychological drama of Benavente, the social\ncomedies of Linares Rivas, and the atmospheric canvases which the\nQuinteros have painted of Andalusia.\n\nIn the novel, the transformation is noticeable at once in the rapid\ndevelopment of the pornographic tale, whose riches might bring a blush\nto the cheek of Boccaccio, and provide Poggio and Aretino with a\ncomplete review; but these are stories for the barrack, venturing only\nnow and then upon the confines of respectability in the erotic romances\nof Zamacois and the late enormously popular Felipe Trigo. Few Spaniards\nwho write today but have written novels. Yet the gesture of the grand\nstyle of Valera is palsied, except, perhaps, for the conservative\nQuixote, Ricardo Le\u00f3n, a functionary in the Bank of Spain, while the\nidyllic method lingers fitfully in such gentle writers as Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda\nSalaverr\u00eda, after surviving the attacks of the northern realists under\nthe lead of Pereda, in his novels of country life, and of the less\nvigorous Antonio de Trueba, and of Madrid vulgarians, headed by Mesonero\nRomanos and Coloma. The decadent novel, foreshadowed a few years since\nby Alejandro Sawa, has attained full maturity in Hoyos y Vinent, while\nthe distinctive growth of the century is the novel of ideas, exact,\npenetrating, persistently suggestive in the larger sense, which does not\nhesitate to make demands upon the reader, and this is exemplified most\ndistinctively, both temperamentally and intellectually, by P\u00edo Baroja.\n\nIt would be difficult to find two men who, dealing with the same ideas,\nbring to them more antagonistic attitudes of mind than Baroja and Blasco\nIb\u00e1\u00f1ez. For all his appearance of modernism, Blasco really belongs to\nthe generation before 1898. He is of the stock of Victor Hugo--a\npopular rhapsodist and intellectual swashbuckler, half artist and half\nmob orator--a man of florid and shallow certainties, violent\nenthusiasms, quack remedies, vast magnetism and address, and even vaster\nimpudence--a fellow with plain touches of the charlatan. His first solid\nsuccess at home was made with _La Barraca_ in 1899--and it was a\nsuccess a good deal more political than artistic; he was hailed for his\nfrenzy far more than for his craft. Even outside of Spain his subsequent\ncelebrity has tended to ground itself upon agreement with his politics,\nand not upon anything properly describable as a critical appreciation of\nhis talents. Had _The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse_ been\ndirected against France instead of in favour of France, it goes without\nsaying that it would have come to the United States without the\n_imprimatur_ of the American Embassy at Madrid, and that there\nwould have appeared no sudden rage for the author among the generality\nof novel-readers. His intrinsic merits, in sober retrospect, seem very\nfeeble. For all his concern with current questions, his accurate news\ninstinct, he is fundamentally a romantic of the last century, with more\nthan one plain touch of the downright operatic.\n\nBaroja is a man of a very different sort. A novelist undoubtedly as\nskilful as Blasco and a good deal more profound, he lacks the quality of\nenthusiasm and thus makes a more restricted appeal. In place of gaudy\ncertainties he offers disconcerting questionings; in place of a neat and\nwell-rounded body of doctrine he puts forward a sort of generalized\ncontra-doctrine. Blasco is almost the typical Socialist--iconoclastic,\noratorical, sentimental, theatrical--a fervent advocate of all sorts of\nlofty causes, eagerly responsive to the shibboleths of the hour. Baroja\nis the analyst, the critic, almost the cynic. If he leans toward any\ndefinite doctrine at all, it is toward the doctrine that the essential\nills of man are incurable, that all the remedies proposed are as bad as\nthe disease, that it is almost a waste of time to bother about humanity\nin general. This agnostic attitude, of course, is very far from merely\nacademic, monastic. Baroja, though his career has not been as dramatic\nas Blasco's, has at all events taken a hand in the life of his time and\ncountry and served his day in the trenches of the new enlightenment. He\nis anything but a theorist. But there is surely no little significance\nin his final retreat to his Basque hillside, there to seek peace above\nthe turmoil. He is, one fancies, a bit disgusted and a bit despairing.\nBut if it is despair, it is surely not the despair of one who has\nshirked the trial.\n\nThe present book, _Juventud, Egolatr\u00eda_, was written at the height\nof the late war, and there is a preface to the original edition, omitted\nhere, in which Baroja defends his concern with aesthetic and\nphilosophical matters at such a time. The apologia was quite gratuitous.\nA book on the war, though by the first novelist of present-day Spain,\nwould probably have been as useless as all the other books on the war.\nThat stupendous event will be far more soundly discussed by men who have\nnot felt its harsh appeal to the emotions. Baroja, evading this grand\nenemy of all ideas, sat himself down to inspect and co-ordinate the\nideas that had gradually come to growth in his mind before the bands\nbegan to bray. The result is a book that is interesting, not only as the\nfrank talking aloud of one very unusual man, but also as a\nrepresentation of what is going on in the heads of a great many other\nSpaniards. Blasco, it seems to me, is often less Spanish than French;\nValencia, after all, is next door to Catalonia, and Catalonia is\nanything but Castilian. But Baroja, though he is also un-Castilian and\neven a bit anti-Castilian, is still a thorough Spaniard. He is more\ninterested in a literary feud in Madrid than in a holocaust beyond the\nPyrenees. He gets into his discussion of every problem a definitely\nSpanish flavour. He is unmistakably a Spaniard even when he is trying\nmost rigorously to be unbiased and international. He thinks out\neverything in Spanish terms. In him, from first to last, one observes\nall the peculiar qualities of the Iberian mind--its disillusion, its\npatient weariness, its pervasive melancholy. Spain, I take it, is the\nmost misunderstood of countries. The world cannot get over seeing it\nthrough the pink mist of _Carmen_, an astounding Gallic caricature,\nhalf flattery and half libel. The actual Spaniard is surely no such\ngrand-opera Frenchman as the immortal toreador. I prescribe the\ntreatment that cured me, for one, of mistaking him for an Iberian. That\nis, I prescribe a visit to Spain in carnival time.\n\nBaroja, then, stands for the modern Spanish mind at its most\nenlightened. He is the Spaniard of education and worldly wisdom,\ndetached from the mediaeval imbecilities of the old r\u00e9gime and yet aloof\nfrom the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country.\nVastly less picturesque than Blasco Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez, he is nearer the normal\nSpaniard--the Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure\nof society upon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in\nthe peninsula. Thus his book, though it is addressed to Spaniards,\nshould have a certain value for English-speaking readers. And so it is\npresented.\n\nH. L. MENCKEN.\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nON INTELLECTUAL LOVE\n\nOnly what is of the mind has value to the mind. Let us dedicate\nourselves without compunction to reflecting a little upon the eternal\nthemes of life and art. It is surely proper that an author should write\nof them.\n\nI cultivate a love which is intellectual, and of a former epoch, besides\na deafness to the present. I pour out my spirit continually into the\neternal moulds without expecting that anything will result from it.\n\nBut now, instead of a novel, a few stray comments upon my life have come\nfrom my pen.\n\nLike most of my books, this has appeared in my hands without being\nplanned, and not at my bidding. I was asked to write an autobiographical\nsketch of ten or fifteen pages. Ten or fifteen pages seemed a great many\nto fill with the personal details of a life which is as insignificant as\nmy own, and far too few for any adequate comment upon them. I did not\nknow how to begin. To pick up the thread, I began drawing lines and\narabesques. Then the pages grew in number and, like Faust's dog, my pile\nsoon waxed big, and brought forth this work.\n\nAt times, perhaps, the warmth of the author's feeling may appear\nill-advised to the reader; it may be that he will find his opinions\nridiculous and beside the mark on every page. I have merely sought to\nsun my vanity and egotism, to bring them forth into the air, so that my\naesthetic susceptibilities might not be completely smothered.\n\nThis book has been a work of mental hygiene.\n\n\n\n\nEGOTISM\n\n\nEgotism resembles cold drinks in summer; the more you take, the\nthirstier you get. It also distorts the vision, producing an hydropic\neffect, as has been noted by Calder\u00f3n in his _Life is a Dream_.\n\nAn author always has before him a keyboard made up of a series of I's.\nThe lyric and satiric writers play in the purely human octave; the\ncritic plays in the bookman's octave; the historian in the octave of the\ninvestigator. When an author writes of himself, perforce he plays upon\nhis own \"I,\" which is not exactly that contained in the octave of the\nsentimentalist nor yet in that of the curious investigator. Undoubtedly\nat times it must be a most immodest \"I,\" an \"I\" which discloses a name\nand a surname, an \"I\" which is positive and self-assertive, with the\nimperiousness of a Captain General's edict or a Civil Governor's decree.\n\nI have always felt some delicacy in talking about myself, so that the\nimpulsion to write these pages of necessity came from without.\n\nAs I am not generally interested when anybody communicates his likes and\ndislikes to me, I am of opinion that the other person most probably\nshares the same feelings when I communicate mine to him. However, a time\nhas now arrived when it is of no consequence to me what the other person\nthinks.\n\nIn this matter of giving annoyance, a formula should be drawn up and\naccepted, after the manner of Robespierre: the liberty of annoying\nanother begins where his liberty of annoying you leaves off.\n\nI understand very well that there may be persons who believe that their\nlives are wholly exemplary, and who thus burn with ardour to talk about\nthem. But I have not led an exemplary life to any such extent. I have\nnot led a life that might be called pedagogic, because it is fitted to\nserve as a model, nor a life that might be called anti-pedagogic,\nbecause it would serve as a warning. Neither do I bring a fistful of\ntruths in my hand, to scatter broadcast. What, then, have I to say? And\nwhy do I write about myself? Assuredly, to no useful purpose.\n\nThe owner of a house is sometimes asked:\n\n\"Is there anything much locked up in that room?\"\n\n\"No, nothing but old rubbish,\" he replies promptly.\n\nBut one day the owner opens the room, and then he finds a great store of\nthings which he had not remembered, all of them covered with dust; so he\nhauls them out and generally they prove to be of no service at all. This\nis precisely what I have done.\n\nThese pages, indeed, are a spontaneous exudation. But are they sincere?\nAbsolutely sincere? It is not very probable. The moment we sit for a\nphotographer, instinctively we dissemble and compose our features. When\nwe talk about ourselves, we also dissemble.\n\nIn as short a book as this the author is able to play with his mask and\nto fix his expression. Throughout the work of an entire lifetime,\nhowever, which is of real value only when it is one long autobiography,\ndeceit is impossible, because when the writer is least conscious of it,\nhe reveals himself.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nFUNDAMENTAL IDEAS\n\nThe Bad Man of Itzea\n\n\nWhen I first came to live in this house at Vera del Bidasoa, I found\nthat the children of the district had taken possession of the entryway\nand the garden, where they misbehaved generally. It was necessary to\ndrive them away little by little, until they flew off like a flock of\nsparrows.\n\nMy family and I must have seemed somewhat peculiar to these children,\nfor one day, when one little fellow caught sight of me, he took refuge\nin the portal of his house and cried out:\n\n\"Here comes the bad man of Itzea!\"\n\nAnd the bad man of Itzea was I.\n\nPerhaps this child had heard from his sister, and his sister had heard\nfrom her mother, and her mother had heard from the sexton's wife, and\nthe sexton's wife from the parish priest, that men who have little\nreligion are very bad; perhaps this opinion did not derive from the\npriest, but from the president of the Daughters of Mary, or from the\nsecretary of the Enthronization of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; perhaps\nsome of them had read a little book by Father Ladr\u00f3n de Guevara\nentitled, _Novelists, Good and Bad_, which was distributed in the\nvillage the day that I arrived, and which states that I am irreligious,\na clerophobe, and quite shameless. Whether from one source or another,\nthe important consideration to me was that there was a bad man in Itzea,\nand that that bad man was I.\n\nTo study and make clear the instincts, pride, and vanities of the bad\nman of Itzea is the purpose of this book.\n\n\n\n\nHUMBLE AND A WANDERER\n\n\nSome years ago, I cannot say just how many, probably twelve or fourteen,\nduring the days when I led, or thought I led, a nomadic life, happening\nto be in San Sebastian, I went to visit the Museum with the painter\nRegoyos. After seeing everything, Soraluce, the director, indicated that\nI was expected to inscribe my name in the visitor's register, and after\nI had done so, he said:\n\n\"Place your titles beneath.\"\n\n\"Titles!\" I exclaimed. \"I have none.\"\n\n\"Then put down what you are. As you see, the others have done the same.\"\n\nI looked at the book. True enough; there was one signature, So-and-So,\nand beneath, \"Chief of Administration of the Third Class and Knight of\nCharles III\"; another, Somebody Else, and beneath was written \"Commander\nof the Battalion of Isabella the Catholic, with the Cross of Maria\nCristina.\"\n\nThen, perhaps slightly irritated at having neither titles nor honours\n(burning with an anarchistic and Christian rancour, as Nietzsche would\nhave it), I jotted down a few casual words beneath my signature:\n\n\"P\u00edo Baroja, a humble man and a wanderer.\"\n\nRegoyos read them and burst out laughing.\n\n\"What an idea!\" exclaimed the director of the Museum, as he closed the\nvolume.\n\nAnd there I remained a humble man and a wanderer, overshadowed by Chiefs\nof Administration of all Classes, Commanders of all Branches of the\nService, Knights of all kinds of Crosses, rich men returned from\nAmerica, bankers, etc., etc.\n\nAm I a humble man and a wanderer? Not a bit of it! There is more\nliterary phantasy in the phrase than there is truth. Of humility I do\nnot now, nor have I ever possessed more than a few rather Buddhistic\nfragments; nor am I a wanderer either, for making a few insignificant\njourneys does not authorize one to call oneself a wanderer. Just as I\nput myself down at that time as a humble man and a wanderer, so I might\ncall myself today a proud and sedentary person. Perhaps both\ncharacterizations contain some degree of truth; and perhaps there is\nnothing in either.\n\nWhen a man scrutinizes himself very closely, he arrives at a point where\nhe does not know what is face and what is mask.\n\n\n\n\nDOGMATOPHAGY\n\n\nIf I am questioned concerning my ideas on religion, I reply that I am an\nagnostic--I always like to be a little pedantic with philistines--now I\nshall add that, more than this, I am a dogmatophagist.\n\nMy first impulse in the presence of a dogma, whether it be political,\nmoral, or religious, is to cast about for the best way to masticate,\ndigest, and dispose of it.\n\nThe peril in an inordinate appetite for dogma lies in the probability of\nmaking too severe a drain upon the gastric juices, and so becoming\ndyspeptic for the rest of one's life.\n\nIn this respect, my inclination exceeds my prudence. I have an incurable\ndogmatophagy.\n\nIgnoramus, Ignorabimus\n\nSuch are the words of the psychologist, DuBois-Reymond, in one of his\nwell-known lectures. The agnostic attitude is the most seemly that it is\npossible to take. Nowadays, not only have all religious ideas been\nupset, but so too has everything which until now appeared most solid,\nmost indivisible. Who has faith any longer in the atom? Who believes in\nthe soul as a monad? Who believes in the objective validity of the\nsenses?\n\nThe atom, unity of the spirit and of consciousness, the validity of\nperception, all these are under suspicion today. _Ignoramus,\nignorabimus_.\n\n\n\n\nNEVERTHELESS, WE CALL OURSELVES MATERIALISTS\n\n\nNevertheless, we call ourselves materialists. Yes; not because we\nbelieve that matter exists as we see it, but because in this way we may\ncontradict the vain imaginings and all those sacred mysteries which\nbegin so modestly, and always end by extracting the money from our\npockets.\n\nMaterialism, as Lange has said, has proved itself the most fecund\ndoctrine of science. Wilhelm Ostwald, in his _Victory of Scientific\nMaterialism_, has defended the same thesis with respect to modern\nphysics and chemistry.\n\nAt the present time we are regaled with the sight of learned friars\nlaying aside for a moment their ancient tomes, and turning to dip into\nsome manual of popular science, after which they go about and astonish\nsimpletons by giving lectures.\n\nThe war horse of these gentlemen is the conception entertained by\nphysicists at the present-day concerning matter, according to which it\nhas substance in the precise degree that it is a manifestation of\nenergy.\n\n\"If matter is scarcely real, then what is the validity of materialism?\"\nshout the friars enthusiastically.\n\nThe argument smacks of the seminary and is absolutely worthless.\n\nMaterialism is more than a philosophical system: it is a scientific\nmethod, which will have nothing to do either with fantasies or with\ncaprices.\n\nThe jubilation of these friars at the thought that matter may not exist,\nin truth and in fact is in direct opposition to their own theories.\nBecause if matter does not exist, then what could God have created?\n\n\n\n\nIN DEFENSE OF RELIGION\n\n\nThe great defender of religion is the lie. Lies are the most vital\npossession of man. Religion lives upon lies, and society maintains\nitself upon them, with its train of priests and soldiers--the one,\nmoreover, as useless as the other. This great Maia of falsehood sustains\nall the sky borders in the theatre of life, and, when some fall, it\nlifts up others.\n\nIf there were a solvent for lies, what surprises would be in store for\nus! Nearly everybody who now appears to us to be upright, inflexible,\nand to hold his chest high, would be disclosed as a flaccid, weak\nperson, presenting in reality a sorry spectacle.\n\nLies are much more stimulating than truth; they are also almost always\nmore tonic and more healthy. I have come to this conclusion rather late\nin life. For utilitarian and practical ends, it is clearly our duty to\ncultivate falsehood, arbitrariness, and partial truths. Nevertheless, we\ndo not do so. Can it be that, unconsciously, we have something of the\nheroic in us?\n\n\n\n\nARCH-EUROPEAN\n\n\nI am a Basque, if not on all four sides, at least on three and a half.\nThe remaining half, which is not Basque, is Lombard.\n\nFour of my eight family names are Guip\u00fazcoan, two of them are Navarrese,\none Alavese, and the other Italian. I take it that family names are\nindicative of the countries where one's ancestors lived, and I take it\nalso that there is great potency behind them, that the influence of each\nworks upon the individual with a duly proportioned intensity. Assuming\nthis to be the case, the resultant of the ancestral influences operative\nupon me would indicate that my geographical parallel lies somewhere\nbetween the Alps and the Pyrenees. Sometimes I am inclined to think that\nthe Alps and the Pyrenees are all that is European in Europe. Beyond\nthem I seem to see Asia; below them, Africa.\n\nIn the riparian Navarrese, as in the Catalans and the Genovese, one\nalready notes the African; in the Gaul of central France, as well as in\nthe Austrian, there is a suggestion of the Chinese.\n\nClutching the Pyrenees and grafted upon the Alps, I am conscious of\nbeing an Arch-European.\n\n\n\nDIONYSIAN OR APOLLONIAN?\n\n\nFormerly, when I believed that I was both humble and a wanderer, I was\nconvinced that I was a Dionysian. I was impelled toward turbulence, the\ndynamic, the theatric. Naturally, I was an anarchist. Am I today? I\nbelieve I still am. In those days I used to enthuse about the future,\nand I hated the past.\n\nLittle by little, this turbulence has calmed down--perhaps it was never\nvery great. Little by little I have come to realize that if following\nDionysus induces the will to bound and leap, devotion to Apollo has a\ntendency to throw the mind back until it rests upon the harmony of\neternal form. There is great attraction in both gods.\n\n\n\n\nEPICURI DE GREGE PORCUM\n\n\nI am also a swine of the herd of Epicurus; I, too, wax eloquent over\nthis ancient philosopher, who conversed with his pupils in his garden.\nThe very epithet of Horace, upon detaching himself from the Epicureans,\n\"_Epicuri de grege porcum_,\" is full of charm.\n\nAll noble minds have hymned Epicurus. \"Hail Epicurus, thou honour of\nGreece!\" Lucretius exclaims in the third book of his poem.\n\n\"I have sought to avenge Epicurus, that truly holy philosopher, that\ndivine genius,\" Lucian tells us in his _Alexander, or the False\nProphet_. Lange, in his _History of Materialism_, sets down\nEpicurus as a disciple and imitator of Democritus.\n\nI am not a man of sufficient classical culture to be able to form an\nauthoritative opinion of the merits of Epicurus as a philosopher. All my\nknowledge of him, as well as of the other ancient philosophers, is\nderived from the book of Diogenes Laertius.\n\nConcerning Epicurus, I have read Bayle's magnificent article in his\n_Historical and Critical Dictionary_, and Gassendi's work, _De\nVita et Moribus Epicuri_. With this equipment, I have become one of\nthe disciples of the master.\n\nScholars may say that I have no right to enrol myself as one of the\ndisciples of Epicurus, but when I think of myself, spontaneously there\ncomes to my mind the grotesque epithet which Horace applied to the\nEpicureans in his _Epistles_, a characterization which for my part\nI accept and regard as an honour: \"Swine of the herd of Epicurus,\n_Epicuri de grege porcum_.\"\n\n\n\n\nEVIL AND ROUSSEAU'S CHINAMAN\n\n\nI do not believe in utter human depravity, nor have I any faith in great\nvirtue, nor in the notion that the affairs of life may be removed beyond\ngood and evil. We shall outgrow, we have already outgrown, the\nconception of sin, but we shall never pass beyond the idea of good and\nevil; that would be equivalent to skipping the cardinal points in\ngeography. Nietzsche, an eminent poet and an extraordinary psychologist,\nconvinced himself that we should be able to leap over good and evil with\nthe help of a springboard of his manufacture.\n\nNot with this springboard, nor with any other, shall we escape from the\npolar North and South of the moral life.\n\nNietzsche, a product of the fiercest pessimism, was at heart a good man,\nbeing in this respect the direct opposite of Rousseau, who, despite the\nfact that he is forever talking about virtue, about sensibility, the\nheart, and the sublimity of the soul, was in reality a low, sordid\ncreature.\n\nThe philanthropist of Geneva shows the cloven hoof now and then. He\nasks: \"If all that it were necessary for us to do in order to inherit\nthe riches of a man whom we had never seen, of whom we had never even\nheard, and who lived in the furthermost confines of China, were to press\na button and cause his death, what man living would not press that\nbutton?\"\n\nRousseau is convinced that we should all press the button, and he is\nmistaken, because the majority of men who are civilized would do nothing\nof the kind. This, to my mind, is not to say that men are good; it is\nmerely to say that Rousseau, in his enthusiasm for humanity, as well as\nin his aversion to it, is wide of the mark. The evil in man is not evil\nof this active sort, so theatrical, so self-interested; it is a passive,\ntorpid evil which lies latent in the depths of the human animal, it is\nan evil which can scarcely be called evil.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROOT OF DISINTERESTED EVIL\n\n\nTell a man that an intimate friend has met with a great misfortune. His\nfirst impulse is one of satisfaction. He himself is not aware of it\nclearly, he does not realize it; nevertheless, essentially his emotion\nis one of satisfaction. This man may afterward place his fortune, if he\nhas one, at the disposition of his friend, yes, even his life; yet this\nwill not prevent his first conscious reaction upon learning of the\nmisfortune of his friend, from being one which, although confused, is\nnevertheless not far removed from pleasure. This feeling of\ndisinterested malice may be observed in the relations between parents\nand children as well as in those between husbands and wives. At times it\nis not only disinterested, but counter-interested.\n\nThe lack of a name for this background of disinterested malice, which\ndoes exist, is due to the fact that psychology is not based so much upon\nphenomena as it is upon language.\n\nAccording to our current standards, latent evil of this nature is\nneither of interest nor significance. Naturally, the judge takes account\nof nothing but deeds; to religion, which probes more deeply, the intent\nis of importance; to the psychologist, however, who attempts to\npenetrate still further, the elemental germinative processes of volition\nare of indispensable significance.\n\nWhence this foundation of disinterested malice in man? Probably it is an\nancestral legacy. Man is a wolf toward man, as Plautus observes, and the\nidea has been repeated by Hobbes.\n\nIn literature, it is almost idle to look for a presentation of this\ndisinterested, this passive evil, because nothing but the conscious is\nliterary. Shakespeare, in his _Othello_, a drama which has always\nappeared false and absurd to me, emphasizes the disinterested malice of\nIago, imparting to him a character and mode of action which are beyond\nthose of normal men; but then, in order to accredit him to the\nspectators, he adds also a motive, and represents him as being in love\nwith Desdemona.\n\nVictor Hugo, in _L'Homme qui Rit_, undertook to create a type after\nthe manner of Iago, and invented Barkilphedro, who embodies\ndisinterested yet active malice, which is the malice of the villain of\nmelodrama.\n\nBut that other disinterested malice, which lurks in the sodden sediment\nof character, that malice which is disinterested and inactive, and not\nonly incapable of drawing a dagger but even of writing an anonymous\nnote, this no writer but Dostoievski has had the penetration to reveal.\nHe has shown us at the same time mere inert goodness, lying passive in\nthe soul, without ever serving as a basis for anything.\n\n\n\n\nMUSIC AS A SEDATIVE\n\n\nMusic, the most social of the arts, and that undoubtedly which possesses\nthe greatest future, presents enormous attractions to the bourgeoisie.\nIn the first place, it obviates the necessity of conversation; it is not\nnecessary to know whether your neighbor is a sceptic or a believer, a\nmaterialist or a spiritualist; no possible argument can arise concerning\nthe meaning and metaphysics of life. Instead of war, there is peace. The\nmusic lover may argue, but his conceptions are entirely circumscribed by\nthe music, and have no relation whatever either to philosophy or to\npolitics as such. The wars are small wars, and spill no blood. A\nWagnerite may be a freethinker or a Catholic, an anarchist or a\nconservative. Even painting, which is an art of miserable general ideas,\nis not so far removed from intelligence as is music. This explains why\nthe Greeks were able to attain such heights in philosophy, and yet fell\nto such depths in music.\n\nMusic has an additional merit. It lulls to sleep the residuum of\ndisinterested malice in the soul.\n\nAs a majority of the lovers of painting and sculpture are second-hand\ndealers and Jews in disguise, music lovers, for the most part, are a\ndebased people, envious, embittered and supine.\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING WAGNER\n\n\nI am one of those who do not understand music, yet I am not completely\ninsensible to it. This does not prevent me, however, from entertaining a\nstrong aversion to all music lovers, and especially to Wagnerites.\n\nWhen Nietzsche, who apparently possessed a musical temperament, set\nBizet up against Wagner, he confessed, of course, premeditated\nvindictiveness. \"It is necessary to mediterraneanize music,\" declares\nthe German psychologist. But how absurd! Music must confine itself to\nthe geographical parallel where it was born; it is Mediterranean,\nBaltic, Alpine, Siberian. Nor is the contention valid that an air should\nalways have a strongly marked rhythm, because, if this were the case, we\nshould have nothing but dance music. Certainly, music was associated\nwith the dance in the beginning, but a sufficient number of years have\nnow elapsed to enable each of these arts to develop independently.\n\nAs regards Nietzsche's hostility to the theatocracy of Wagner, I share\nit fully. This business of substituting the theatre for the church, and\nteaching philosophy singing, seems ridiculous to me. I am also out of\npatience with the wooden dragons, swans, stage fire, thunder and\nlightning.\n\nAlthough it may sound paradoxical, the fact is that all this scenery is\nin the way. I have seen King Lear in Paris, at the Theatre Antoine,\nwhere it was presented with very nearly perfect scenery. When the King\nand the fool roamed about the heath in the third act, amid thunder and\nlightning, everybody was gazing at the clouds in the flies and watching\nfor the lightning, or listening to the whistling of the wind; no one\npaid any attention to what was said by the characters.\n\n\n\n\nUNIVERSAL MUSICIANS\n\n\nGerman music is undoubtedly the most universal music, especially that of\nMozart and Beethoven. It seems as if there were fewer particles of their\nnative soil imbedded in the works of these two masters than is common\namong their countrymen. They bring out in sharp relief the cultural\ninternationalism of Germany.\n\nMozart is an epitome of the grace of the eighteenth century; he is at\nonce delicate, joyous, serene, gallant, mischievous. He is a courtier of\nwhatever country one will. Sometimes, when listening to his music, I ask\nmyself: \"Why is it that this, which must be of German origin, seems to\nbe part of all of us, to have been designed for us all?\"\n\nBeethoven, too, like Mozart, is a man without a country. As the one\nmanipulates his joyous, soft, serene rhythms, the other throbs and\ntrembles with obscure meanings and pathetic, heartrending laments, the\nsource of which lies hidden as at the bottom of some mine.\n\nHe is a Segismund who complains against the gods and against his fate in\na tongue which knows no national accent. A day will come when the\nnegroes of Timbuktu will listen to Mozart's and Beethoven's music and\nfeel that it belongs to them, as truly as it ever did to the citizens of\nMunich or of Vienna.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOLK SONG\n\n\nThe folk song lies at the opposite pole from universal music. It is\nmusic which smacks most of the soil whereon it has been produced. By its\nvery nature it is intelligible at all times to all persons in the\nlocality, if only because music is not an intellectual art; it deals in\nrhythms, it does not deal in ideas. But beyond the fact of its\nintelligibility, music possesses different attractions for different\npeople. The folk song preserves to us the very savour of the country in\nwhich we were born; it recalls the air, the climate that we breathed and\nknew. When we hear it, it is as if all our ancestors should suddenly\npresent themselves. I realize that my tastes may be barbaric, but if\nthere could only be one kind of music, and I were obliged to choose\nbetween the universal and the local, my preference would be wholly for\nthe latter, which is the popular music.\n\n\n\n\nON THE OPTIMISM OF EUNUCHS\n\n\nIn a text book designed for the edification of research workers--a\nspecimen of peculiarly disagreeable tartuffery--the histologist, Ram\u00f3n y\nCajal, who, as a thinker, has always been an absolute mediocrity,\nexplains what the young scholar should be, in the same way that the\nConstitution of 1812 made it clear what the ideal Spanish citizen should\nbe.\n\nSo we know now the proper character of the young scholar. He must be\ncalm, optimistic, serene ... and all this with ten or twelve coppers in\nhis pocket!\n\nSome friends inform me that in the Institute for Public Education at\nMadrid, where an attempt is made to give due artistic orientation to the\npupils, they have contrived an informal classification of the arts in\nthe order of their importance; first comes painting; then, music; and,\nlast, literature.\n\nConsidering carefully what may be the reasons for such a sequence, it\nwould appear that the purpose must be to deprive the student of any\noccasion for becoming pessimistic. Certainly nobody will ever have his\nconvictions upset by looking at ancient cloths daubed over with linseed\noil, nor by the bum-ta-ra of music. But, to my mind, in a country like\nSpain, it is better that our young men should be dissatisfied than that\nthey should go to the laboratory every day in immaculate blouses,\nchatter like proper young gentlemen about El Greco, Cezanne and the\nNinth Symphony, and never have the brains to protest about anything.\nBack of all this correctness may be divined the optimism of eunuchs.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nMYSELF, THE WRITER\n\nTO MY READERS THIRTY YEARS HENCE\n\n\nAmong my books there are two distinct classes: Some I have written with\nmore effort than pleasure, and others I have written with more pleasure\nthan effort.\n\nMy readers apparently are not aware of this distinction, although it\nseems evident to me. Can it be that true feeling is of no value in a\npiece of literature, as some of the decadents have thought? Can it be\nthat enthusiasm, weariness, loathing, distress and ennui never transpire\nthrough the pages of a book? Indubitably none of them transpire unless\nthe reader enters into the spirit of the work. And, in general, the\nreader does not enter into the spirit of my books. I cherish a hope\nwhich, perhaps, may be chimerical and ridiculous, that the Spanish\nreader thirty or forty years hence, who takes up my books, whose\nsensibilities, it may be, have been a little less hardened into\nformalism than those of the reader of today, will both appreciate and\ndislike me more intelligently.\n\n\n\n\nYOUTHFUL WRITINGS\n\n\nAs I turn over the pages of my books, now already growing old, I receive\nthe impression that, like a somnambulist, I have frequently been walking\nclose to the cornice of a roof, entirely unconsciously, but in imminent\ndanger of falling off; again, it seems to me that I have been travelling\npaths beset with thorns, which have played havoc with my skin.\n\nI have maintained myself rather clumsily for the most part, yet at times\nnot without a certain degree of skill.\n\nAll my books are youthful books; they express turbulence; perhaps their\nyouth is a youth which is lacking in force and vigour, but nevertheless,\nthey are youthful books.\n\nAmong thorns and brambles there lies concealed a tiny Fountain of Youth\nin my soul. You may say that its waters are bitter and saline, instead\nof being crystalline and clear. And it is true. Yet the fountain flows\non, and bubbles, and gurgles and splashes into foam. That is enough for\nme. I do not wish to dam it up, but to let the water run and remove\nitself. I have always felt kindly toward anything that removes itself.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEGINNING AND END OF THE JOURNEY\n\n\nI formerly considered myself a young man of protoplasmic capabilities,\nand I entertained very little enthusiasm for form until after I had\ntalked with some Russians. Since then I have realized that I was more\nclean cut, more Latin, and a great deal older than I had supposed.\n\n\"I see that you belong to the _ancient r\u00e9gime_,\" a Frenchwoman remarked\nto me in Rome.\n\n\"I? Impossible!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she insisted. \"You are a conversationalist. You are not an\nelegant, sprucely dressed abb\u00e9; you are an abb\u00e9 who is cynical and\nill-natured, who likes to fancy himself a savage amid the comfortable\nsurroundings of the drawing-room.\"\n\nThe Frenchwoman's observation set me to thinking.\n\nCan it be that I am hovering in the vicinity of Apollo's Temple without\nrealizing it?\n\nPossibly my literary life has been merely a journey from the Valley of\nDionysus to the Temple of Apollo. Now somebody will tell me that art\nbegins only on the bottom step of the Temple of Apollo. And it is true.\nBut there is where I stop--on the bottom step.\n\n\n\n\nMELLOWNESS AND THE CRITICAL SENSE\n\n\nWhenever my artistic conscience reproaches me, I always think: If I were\nto undertake to write these books today, now that I am aware of their\ndefects, I should never write them. Nevertheless, I continue to write\nothers with the same old faults. Shall I ever attain that mellowness of\nsoul in which all the vividness of impression remains, yet in which it\nhas become possible to perfect the expression? I fear not. Most likely,\nwhen I reach the stage of refining the expression, I shall have nothing\nto say, and so remain silent.\n\n\n\n\nSENSIBILITY\n\n\nIn my books, as in most that are modern, there is an indefinable\nresentment against life and against society.\n\nResentment against life is of far more ancient standing than resentment\nagainst society.\n\nThe former has always been a commonplace among philosophers.\n\nLife is absurd, life is difficult of direction, life is a disease, the\nbetter part of the philosophers have told us.\n\nWhen man turned his animosity against society, it became the fashion to\nexalt life. Life is good; man, naturally, is magnanimous, it was said.\nSociety has made him bad.\n\nI am convinced that life is neither good nor bad; it is like Nature,\nnecessary. And society is neither good nor bad. It is bad for the man\nwho is endowed with a sensibility which is excessive for his age; it is\ngood for a man who finds himself in harmony with his surroundings.\n\nA negro will walk naked through a forest in which every drop of water is\nimpregnated with millions of paludal germs, which teems with insects,\nthe bites of which produce malignant abcesses, and where the temperature\nreaches fifty degrees Centigrade in the shade.\n\nA European, accustomed to the sheltered life of the city, when brought\nface to face with such a tropical climate, without means of protection,\nwould die.\n\nMan needs to be endowed with a sensibility which is proper to his epoch\nand his environment; if he has less, his life will be merely that of a\nchild; if he has just the right measure, it will be the life of an\nadult; if he has more, he will be an invalid.\n\n\n\n\nON DEVOURING ONE'S OWN GOD\n\n\nIt is said that the philosopher Averroes was wont to remark: \"What a\nsect these Christians are, who devour their own God!\"\n\nIt would seem that this divine alimentation ought to make men themselves\ndivine. But it does not; our theophagists are human--they are only too\nhuman, as Nietzsche would have it.\n\nThere can be no doubt but that the Southern European races are the most\nvivacious, the most energetic, as well as the toughest in the world.\nThey have produced all the great conquerors. Christianity, when it found\nit necessary to overcome them, innoculated them with its Semitic virus,\nbut this virus has not only failed to make them weaker, but, on the\ncontrary, it has made them stronger. They appropriated what suited them\nin the Asiatic mentality, and proceeded to make a weapon of their\nreligion. These cruel Levantine races, thanks only to Teutonic\npenetration, are at last submitting to a softening process, and they\nwill become completely softened upon the establishment in Europe of the\ndomination of the Slav.\n\nMeanwhile they maintain their sway in their own countries.\n\n\"They are quite inoffensive,\" we are told.\n\nNonsense! They would burn Giordano Bruno as willingly now as they did in\nthe old days.\n\nThere is a great deal of fire remaining in the hearts of our\ntheophagists.\n\n\n\n\nANARCHISM\n\n\nIn an article appearing in _Hermes_, a magazine published in\nBilbao, Salaverr\u00eda assumes that I have been cured of my anarchism, and\nthat I persist in a negative and anarchistic attitude in order to retain\nmy literary clientele; which is not the fact. In the first place, I can\nscarcely be said to have a clientele; in the second place, a small\nfollowing of conservatives is much more lucrative than a large one of\nanarchists. It is true that I am withdrawing myself from the festivals\nof Pan and the cult of Dionysus, but I am not substituting for them,\neither outwardly or inwardly, the worship of Yahveh or of Moloch. I have\nno liking for Semitic traditions--none and none whatever! I am not able,\nlike Salaverr\u00eda, to admire the rich simply because they are rich, nor\npeople in high stations because they happen to occupy them.\n\nSalaverr\u00eda assumes that I have a secret admiration for grand society,\ngenerals, magistrates, wealthy gentlemen from America, and Argentines\nwho shout out: \"How perfectly splendid!\" I have the same affection for\nthese things that I have for the cows which clutter up the road in front\nof my house. I would not be Fouquier-Tinville to the former nor butcher\nto the latter; but my affection then has reached its limit. Even when I\nfind something worthy of admiration, my inclination is toward the small.\nI prefer the Boboli Gardens to those of Versailles, and Venetian or\nFlorentine history to that of India.\n\nGreat states, great captains, great kings, great gods, leave me cold.\nThey are all for peoples who dwell on vast plains which are crossed by\nmighty rivers, for the Egyptians, for the Chinese, for the Hindus, for\nthe Germans, for the French.\n\nWe Europeans who are of the region of the Pyrenees and the Alps, love\nsmall states, small rivers, and small gods, whom we may address\nfamiliarly.\n\nSalaverr\u00eda is also mistaken when he says that I am afraid of change. I\nam not afraid. My nature is to change. I am predisposed to develop, to\nmove from here to there, to reverse my literary and political views if\nmy feelings or my ideas alter. I avoid no reading except that which is\ndull; I shall never retreat from any performance except a vapid one, nor\nam I a partisan either of austerity or of consistency. Moreover, I am\nnot a little dissatisfied with myself, and I would give a great deal to\nhave the pleasure of turning completely about, if only to prove to\nmyself that I am capable of a shift of attitude which is sincere.\n\n\n\n\nNEW PATHS\n\n\nSome months since three friends met together in an old-fashioned\nbookshop on the venerable Calle del Olivo--a writer, a printer, and\nmyself.\n\n\"Fifteen years ago all three of us were anarchists,\" remarked the\nprinter.\n\n\"What are we today?\" I inquired.\n\n\"We are conservatives,\" replied the man who wrote. \"What are you?\"\n\n\"I believe that I have the same ideas I had then.\"\n\n\"You have not developed if that is so,\" retorted the writer with a show\nof scorn.\n\nI should like to develop, but into what? How? Where am I to find the\nway?\n\nWhen sitting beside the chimney, warming your feet by the fire as you\nwatch the flames, it is easy to imagine that there may be novel walks to\nexplore in the neighbourhood; but when you come to look at the map you\nfind that there is nothing new in the whole countryside.\n\nWe are told that ambition means growth. It does not with me. Ortega y\nGasset believes that I am a man who is constitutionally unbribable. I\nshould not go so far as to say that, but I do say that I do not believe\nthat I could be bribed in cold blood by the offer of material things. If\nMephistopheles wishes to purchase my soul, he cannot do it with a\ndecoration or with a title; but if he were to offer me sympathy, and be\na little effusive while he is about it, adding then a touch of\nsentiment, I am convinced that he could get away with it quite easily.\n\n\n\n\nLONGING FOR CHANGE\n\n\nJust as the aim of politicians is to appear constant and consistent,\nartists and literary men aspire to change.\n\nWould that the desire of one were as easy of attainment as that of the\nother!\n\nTo change! To develop! To acquire a second personality which shall be\ndifferent from the first! This is given only to men of genius and to\nsaints. Thus Caesar, Luther, and Saint Ignatius each lived two distinct\nlives; or, rather, perhaps, it was one life, with sides that were\nobverse and reverse.\n\nThe same thing occurs sometimes also among painters. The evolution of El\nGreco in painting upsets the whole theory of art.\n\nThere is no instance of a like transformation either in ancient or\nmodern literature. Some such change has been imputed to Goethe, but I\nsee nothing more in this author than a short preliminary period of\nexalted feeling, followed by a lifetime dominated by study and the\nintellect.\n\nAmong other writers there is not even the suggestion of change.\nShakespeare is alike in all his works; Calder\u00f3n and Cervantes are always\nthe same, and this is equally true of our modern authors. The first\npages of Dickens, of Tolstoi or of Zola could be inserted among the\nlast, and nobody would be the wiser.\n\nEven the erudite rhetorical poets, the Victor Hugos, the Gautiers, and\nour Spanish Zorrillas, never get outside of their own rhetoric.\n\n\n\n\nBAROJA, YOU WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING\n\n(_A Refrain_)\n\n\n\"Baroja does not amount to anything, and I presume that he will never\namount to anything,\" Ortega y Gasset observes in the first issue of the\n_Spectator_.\n\nI have a suspicion myself that I shall never amount to anything.\nEverybody who knows me has always thought the same.\n\nWhen I first went to school in San Sebastian, at the age of four--and it\nhas rained a great deal since that day--the teacher, Don Le\u00f3n S\u00e1nchez y\nCalleja, who made a practice of thrashing us with a very stiff pointer\n(oh, these hallowed traditions of our ancestors!), looked me over and\nsaid:\n\n\"This boy will prove to be as sulky as his brother. He will never amount\nto anything.\"\n\nI studied for a time in the Institute of Pamplona with Don Gregorio\nPano, who taught us mathematics; and this old gentleman, who looked like\nthe Commander in _Don Juan Tenorio_, with his frozen face and his\nwhite beard, remarked to me in his sepulchral voice:\n\n\"You are not going to be an engineer like your father. You will never\namount to anything.\"\n\nWhen I took therapeutics under Don Benito Hernando in San Carlos, Don\nBenito planted himself in front of me and said:\n\n\"That smile of yours, that little smile ... it is impertinent. Don't you\ncome to me with any of your satirical smiles. You will never amount to\nanything, unless it is negative and useless.\"\n\nI shrugged my shoulders.\n\nWomen who have known me always tell me: \"You will never amount to\nanything.\"\n\nAnd a friend who was leaving for America volunteered:\n\n\"When I return in twenty or thirty years, I shall find all my\nacquaintances situated differently: one will have become rich, another\nwill have ruined himself, this fellow will have entered the cabinet,\nthat one will have been swallowed up in a small town; but you will be\nexactly what you are today, you will live the same life, and you will\nhave just two pesetas in your pocket. That is as far as you will get.\"\n\nThe idea that I shall never amount to anything is now deeply rooted in\nmy soul. It is evident that I shall never become a deputy, nor an\nacademician, nor a Knight of Isabella the Catholic, nor a captain of\nindustry, nor alderman, nor Member of the Council, nor a common cheat,\nnor shall I ever possess a good black suit.\n\nAnd yet when a man has passed forty, when his belly begins to take on\nadipose tissue and he puffs out with ambition, he ought to be something,\nto sport a title, to wear a ribbon, to array himself in a black frock\ncoat and a white waistcoat; but these ambitions are denied to me. The\nprofessors of my childhood and my youth rise up before my eyes like the\nghost of Banquo, and proclaim: \"Baroja, you will never amount to\nanything.\"\n\nWhen I go down to the seashore, the waves lap my feet and murmur:\n\"Baroja, you will never amount to anything.\" The wise owl that perches\nat night on our roof at Itzea calls to me: \"Baroja, you will never\namount to anything,\" and even the crows, winging their way across the\nsky, incessantly shout at me from above: \"Baroja, you will never amount\nto anything.\"\n\nAnd I am convinced that I never shall amount to anything.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PATRIOTISM OF DESIRE\n\n\nI may not appear to be a very great patriot, but, nevertheless, I am.\nYet I am unable to make my Spanish or Basque blood an exclusive\ncriterion for judging the world. If I believe that a better orientation\nmay be acquired by assuming an international point of view, I do not\nhold it improper to cease to feel, momentarily, as a Spaniard or a\nBasque.\n\nIn spite of this, a longing for the accomplishment of what shall be for\nthe greatest good of my country, normally obsesses my mind, but I am\nwanting in the patriotism of lying.\n\nI should like to have Spain the best place in the world, and the Basque\ncountry the best part of Spain.\n\nThe feeling is such a natural and common one that it seems scarcely\nworth while to explain it.\n\nThe climate of Touraine or of Tuscany, the Swiss lakes, the Rhine and\nits castles, whatever is best in Europe, I would root up, if I had my\nsay, and set down here between the Pyrenees and the Straits of\nGibraltar. At the same time, I should denationalize Shakespeare,\nDickens, Tolstoi and Dostoievski, making them Spaniards. I should see\nthat the best laws and the best customs were those of our country. But\nwholly apart from this patriotism of desire, lies the reality. What is\nto be gained by denying it? To my mind nothing is to be gained.\n\nThere are many to whom the only genuine patriotism is the patriotism of\nlying, which in fact is more of a matter of rhetoric than it is of\nfeeling.\n\nOur falsifying patriots are always engaged in furious combat with other\nequally falsifying internationalists.\n\n\"Nothing but what we have is of any account,\" cries one party.\n\n\"No, it is what the other fellow has,\" cries the other.\n\nPatriotism is telling the truth as to one's country, in a sympathetic\nspirit which is guided and informed by a love of that which is best.\n\nNow some one will say: \"Your patriotism, then, is nothing but an\nextension of your ego; it is purely utilitarian.\"\n\nAbsolutely so. But how can there be any other kind of patriotism?\n\n\n\n\nMY HOME LANDS\n\n\nI have two little countries, which are my homes--the Basque provinces,\nand Castile; and by Castile I mean Old Castile. I have, further, two\npoints of view from which I look out upon the world: one is my home on\nthe Atlantic; the other is very like a home to me, on the Mediterranean.\n\nAll my literary inspirations spring either from the Basque provinces or\nfrom Castile. I could never write a Gallegan or a Catalan novel.\n\nI could wish that my readers were all Basques and Castilians.\n\nOther Spaniards interest me less. Spaniards who live in America, or\nAmericans, do not interest me at all.\n\n\n\n\nCRUELTY AND STUPIDITY\n\n\nIt appears from an article written by Azor\u00edn in connection with a book\nof mine, that, to my way of thinking, there are two enormities which are\nincredible and intolerable. They are cruelty and stupidity.\n\nCivilized man has no choice but to despise these manifestations of\nprimitive, brute existence.\n\nWe may be able to tolerate stupidity and lack of comprehension when they\nare simple and wholly natural, but what of an utter obtuseness of\nunderstanding which dresses itself up and becomes rhetorical? Can\nanything be more disagreeable?\n\nWhen a fly devours the pollen greedily from the pyrethrum, which, as we\nknow, will prove fatal to him, it becomes clear at once that flies have\nno more innate sagacity than men. When we listen to a conservative\norator defending the past with salvos of rhetorical fireworks, we are\noverwhelmed by a realization of the complete odiousness of ornamental\nstupidity.\n\nWith cruelty it is much the same. The habits of the sphex surprise while\nbull fights disgust us. The more cruelty and stupidity are dressed up,\nthe more hateful they become.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ANTERIOR IMAGE\n\n\nI wrote an article once called, \"The Spaniard Fails to Understand.\"\nWhile I do not say it was good, the idea had some truth in it. It is a\nfact that failure to understand is not exclusively a Spanish trait, but\nthe failing is a human one which is more accentuated among peoples of\nbackward culture, whose vitality is great.\n\nLike a child the Spaniard carries an anterior image in his mind, to\nwhich he submits his perceptions. A child is able to recognize a man or\na horse more easily in a toy than in a painting by Raphael or by\nLeonardo da Vinci, because the form of the toy adapts itself more\nreadily to the anterior image which he has in his consciousness.\n\nIt is the same with the Spaniard. Here is one of the causes of his want\nof comprehension. One rejects what does not fit in with one's\npreconceived scheme of things.\n\nI once rode to Valencia with two priests who were by no means unknown.\nOne of them had been in the convent of Loyola at Azpeitia for four\nyears. We talked about our respective homes; they eulogized the\nValencian plain while I replied that I preferred the mountains. As we\npassed some bare, treeless hills such as abound near Chinchilla, one of\nthem--the one, in fact, who had been at Loyola--remarked to me:\n\n\"This must remind you of your own country.\"\n\nI was dumbfounded. How could he identify those arid, parched, glinting\nrocks with the Basque landscape, with the humid, green, shaded\ncountryside of Azpeitia? It was easy to see that the anterior image of a\nlandscape existing in the mind of that priest, provided only the general\nidea of a mountain, and that he was unable to distinguish, as I was,\nbetween a green mountain overgrown with turf and trees, and an arid\nhillside of dry rocks.\n\nAn hypothesis explaining the formation of visual ideas has been\nformulated by Wundt, which he calls the hypothesis of projection. It\nattributes to the retina an innate power of referring its impressions\noutward along straight lines, in directions which are determined.\n\nAccording to M\u00fcller, who has adopted this hypothesis, what we perceive\nis our own retina under the category of space, and the size of the\nretinal image is the original unit of measurement applied by us to\nexterior objects.\n\nThe Spaniard like a child, will have to amplify his retinal image, if he\nis ever to amount to anything. He will have to amplify it, and, no\ndoubt, complicate it also.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGI-COMEDY OF SEX\n\n\nIt is very difficult to approach the sex question and to treat it at\nonce in a clear and dignified manner. And yet, who can deny that it\nfurnishes the key to the solution of many of the enigmas and obscurities\nof psychology?\n\nWho can question that sex is one of the bases of temperament?\n\nNevertheless, the subject may be discussed permissibly in scientific and\nvery general terms, as by Professor Freud. What is unpardonable is any\nattempt to bring it down to the sphere of the practical and concrete.\n\nI am convinced that the repercussion of the sexual life is felt through\nall the phenomena of consciousness.\n\nAccording to Freud, an unsatisfied desire produces a series of obscure\nmovements in consciousness which eat at the soul as electricity is\ngenerated in a storage battery, and this accumulation of psychic energy\nmust needs produce a disturbance in the nervous system.\n\nSuch nervous disturbances, which are of sexual origin, produced by the\nstrangulation of desires, shape our mentality.\n\nWhat is the proper conduct for a man during the critical years between\nthe ages of fourteen and twenty-three? He should be chaste, the priests\nwill say, shutting their eyes with an hypocritical air. He can marry\nafterwards and become a father.\n\nA man who can be chaste without discomfort between fourteen and\ntwenty-three, is endowed with a most unusual temperament. And it is one\nwhich is not very common at present. As a matter of fact, young men are\nnot chaste, and cannot be.\n\nSociety, as it is well aware of this, opens a little loophole to\nsexuality, which is free from social embarrassment--the loophole of\nprostitution.\n\nAs the bee-hive has its workers, society has its prostitutes.\n\nAfter a few years of sexual life without the walls, passed in the\nsurrounding moats of prostitution, the normal man is prepared for\nmarriage, with its submission to social forms and to standards which are\nclearly absurd.\n\nThere is no possibility of escaping this dilemma which has been decreed\nby society.\n\nThe alternative is perversion or surrender.\n\nTo a man of means, who has money to spend, surrender is not very\ndifficult; he has but to follow the formula. Prostitution among the\nupper classes does not offend the eye, and it reveals none of the sores\nwhich deface prostitution as it is practised among the poor. Marriage,\ntoo, does not sit heavily upon the rich. With the poor, however, shame\nand surrender walk hand in hand.\n\nTo practise the baser forms of prostitution is to elbow all that is most\nvile in society, and to sink to its level oneself. Then, to marry\nafterwards without adequate means, is a continual act of self-abasement.\nIt is to be unable to maintain one's convictions, it is to be compelled\nto fawn upon one's superiors, and this is more true in Spain than it is\nelsewhere, as everything here must be obtained through personal\ninfluence.\n\nSuppose one does not submit? If you do not submit you are lost. You are\ncondemned irretrievably to perversions, to debility, to hysteria.\n\nYou will find yourself slinking about the other sex like a famished\nwolf, you will live obsessed by lewd ideas, your mind will solace itself\nwith swindles and cheats wherewith to provide a solution of the riddle\nof existence, you will become the mangy sheep that the shepherd sets\napart from the flock.\n\nEver since early youth, I have been clearly conscious of this dilemma,\nand I have determined and said: \"No; I choose the abnormal--give me\nhysteria, but submission, never!\"\n\nSo derangement and distortion have come to my mind.\n\nIf I could have followed my inclinations freely during those fruitful\nyears between fifteen and twenty-five, I should have been a serene\nperson, a little sensual, perhaps, and perhaps a little cynical, but I\nshould certainly not have become violent.\n\nThe morality of our social system has disturbed and upset me.\n\nFor this reason I hate it cordially, and I vent upon it in full measure,\nas best I may, all the spleen I have to give.\n\nI like at times to disguise this poison under a covering of art.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VEILS OF THE SEXUAL LIFE\n\n\nI am unable to feel any spontaneous enthusiasm for fecundity such as\nthat which Zola sings. Moreover, I regard the whole pose as a\nsuperstition. I may be a member of an exhausted race,--that is quite\npossible,--but between the devotion to our species which is professed by\nthese would-be re-peoplers of countries, and the purely selfish\npreoccupation of the Malthusians, my sympathies are all with the latter.\nI see nothing beyond the individual in this sex question--beyond the\nindividual who finds himself inhibited by sexual morality.\n\nThis question must be faced some day and cleared up, it must be seen\ndivested of all mystery, of all veils, of all deceit. As the hygiene of\nnutrition has been studied openly, in broad daylight, so it must be with\nsex hygiene.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the notion of sin, then, that of honour, and,\nfinally, dread of syphilis and other sexual diseases, rest like a cloud\non the sexual life, and they are jumbled together with all manner of\nfantastic and literary fictions.\n\nObviously, rigid sexual morality is for the most part nothing more than\nthe practice of economy in disguise. Let us face this whole problem\nfrankly. A man has no right to let his life slip by to gratify fools'\nfollies. We must have regard to what is, with Stendhal. It will be\nargued of course that these veils, these subterfuges of the sexual life,\nare necessary. No doubt they are to society, but they are not to the\nindividual. There are those who believe that the interests of the\nindividual and of society are one, but we, who are defenders of the\nindividual as against the State, do not think so.\n\n\n\n\nA LITTLE TALK\n\n\nMyself: I often think I should have been happier if I had been impotent.\n\nMy Hearers: How can you say such a terrible thing?\n\nMyself: Why not? To a man like me, sex is nothing but a source of\nmisery, shame and cheap hypocrisy, as it is to most of us who are\nobliged to get on without sufficient means under this civilization of\nours. Now you know why I think that I should have been better off if I\nhad been impotent.\n\n\nUPON THE SUPPOSED MORALITY OF MARRIAGE\n\nSingle life is said to be selfish and detestable. Certainly it is\nimmoral. But what of marriage? Is it as moral as it is painted?\n\nI am one who doubts it.\n\nMarriage, like all other social institutions of consequence, is\nsurrounded by a whole series of common assumptions that cry out to be\ncleared up.\n\nThere is a pompous and solemn side to marriage, and there is a private\nmuseum side.\n\nMarriage poses as an harmonious general concord in which religion,\nsociety, and nature join.\n\nBut is it anything of the kind? It would appear to be doubtful. If the\nsole purpose of marriage is to rear children, a man ought to live with a\nwoman only until she becomes pregnant, and, after that moment, he ought\nnot to touch her. But here begins the second part. The woman bears a\nbaby; the baby is nourished by the mother's milk. The man has no right\nto co-habit with his wife during this period either, because it will be\nat the risk of depriving the child of its natural source of nutriment.\n\nIn consequence, a man must either co-habit with his wife once in two\nyears, or else there will be some default in the marriage.\n\nWhat is he to do? What is the moral course? Remember that three factors\nhave combined to impose the marriage. One, the most far-reaching today,\nis economic; another, which is also extremely important, is social, and\nthe third, now rapidly losing its hold, but still not without influence,\nis religious. The three forces together attempt to mould nature to their\nwill.\n\nEconomic pressure and the high cost of living make against the having of\nchildren. They encourage default.\n\n\"How are we to have all these children?\" the married couple asks. \"How\ncan we feed and educate them?\"\n\nSocial pressure also tends in the same direction. Religious morality,\nhowever, still persists in its idea of sin, although the potency of this\nsanction is daily becoming less, even to the clerical eye.\n\nIf nature had a vote, it would surely be cast in favour of polygamy. Man\nis forever sexual, and in equal degree, until the verge of decrepitude.\nWoman passes through the stages of fecundation, pregnancy, and\nlactation.\n\nThere can be no doubt but that the most convenient, the most logical and\nthe most moral system of sexual intercourse, naturally, is polygamy.\n\nBut the economic subdues the natural. Who proposes to have five wives\nwhen he cannot feed one?\n\nSociety has made man an exclusively social product, and set him apart\nfrom nature.\n\nWhat can the husband and wife do, especially when they are poor? Must\nthey overload themselves with children, and then deliver them up to\npoverty and neglect because God has given them, or shall they limit\ntheir number?\n\nIf my opinion is asked, I advise a limit--although it may be artificial\nand immoral.\n\nMarriage presents us with this simple choice: we may either elect the\nslow, filthy death of the indigent workingman, of the carabineer who\nlives in a shack which teems with children, or else the clean life of\nthe French, who limit their offspring.\n\nThe middle class everywhere today is accepting the latter alternative.\nMarriage is stripping off its morality in the bushes, and it is well\nthat it should do so.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOVEREIGN CROWD\n\n\nA strong man may either dominate and subdue the sovereign crowd when he\nconfronts it, as he would a wild beast, or he may breathe his thoughts\nand ideas into it, which is only another form of domination.\n\nAs I am not strong enough to do either, I shun the sovereign masses, so\nas not to become too keenly conscious of their collective bestiality and\nill temper.\n\n\n\n\nTHE REMEDY\n\n\nEvery man fancies that he has something of the doctor in him, and\nconsiders himself competent to advise some sort of a cure, so I come now\nwith a remedy for the evils of life. My remedy is constant action. It is\na cure as old as the world, and it may be as useful as any other, and\ndoubtless it is as futile as all the rest. As a matter of fact, it is no\nremedy at all.\n\nThe springs of action lie all within ourselves, and they derive from the\nvigour and health which we have inherited from our fathers. The man who\npossesses them may draw on them whenever he will, but the man who is\nwithout them can never acquire them, no matter how widely he may seek.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE EXTRARADIUS\n\n\nThe extraradius of a writer may be said to be made up of his literary\nopinions and inclinations. I wish to expose the literary cell from the\nnucleus out and to unfold it, instead of proceeding in from the\ncovering.\n\nThe term may seem pedantic and histological, but it has the attraction\nto my mind of a reminiscence of student days.\n\n\n\n\nRHETORIC AND ANTI-RHETORIC\n\n\nIf I were to formulate my opinions upon style, I should say: \"Imitations\nof other men's styles are bad, but a man's own style is good.\"\n\nThere is a store of common literary finery, almost all of which is in\nconstant use and has become familiar.\n\nWhen a writer lays hands on any of this finery spontaneously, he makes\nit his own, and the familiar flower blossoms as it does in Nature.\n\nWhen an author's inspiration does not proceed from within out, but\nrather from without in, then he becomes at once a bad rhetorician.\n\nI am one of those writers who employ the least possible amount of this\ncommon store of rhetoric. There are various reasons for my being\nanti-rhetorical. In the first place I do not believe that the pages of\na bad writer can be improved by following general rules; if they do gain\nin one respect, they lose inevitably in another.\n\nSo much for one reason; but I have others.\n\nLanguages display a tendency to follow established forms. Thus Spanish\ntends toward Castilian. But why should I, a Basque, who never hears\nCastilian spoken in my daily life in the accents of Avila or of Toledo,\nendeavour to imitate it? Why should I cease to be a Basque in order to\nappear Castilian, when I am not? Not that I cherish sectional pride, far\nfrom it; but every man should be what he is, and if he can be content\nwith what he is, let him be held fortunate.\n\nFor this reason, among others, I reject Castilian turns and idioms when\nthey suggest themselves to my mind. Thus if it occurs to me to write\nsomething that is distinctively Castilian, I cast about for a phrase by\nmeans of which I may express myself in what to me is a more natural way,\nwithout suggestion of our traditional literature.\n\nOn the other hand, if the pure rhetoricians, of the national school, who\nare _castizo_--the Mariano de Cavias, the Ricardo Le\u00f3ns--should\nhappen to write something simply, logically and with modern directness,\nthey would cast about immediately for a roundabout way of saying it,\nwhich might appear elaborate and out of date.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RHYTHM OF STYLE\n\n\nThere are persons who imagine that I am ignorant of the three or four\nelementary rules of good writing, which everybody knows, while others\nbelieve that I am unacquainted with syntax. Se\u00f1or Bonilla y San Mart\u00edn\nhas conducted a search through my books for deficiencies, and has\ndiscovered that in one place I write a sentence in such and such\nfashion, and that in another I write something else in another, while in\na third I compound a certain word falsely.\n\nWith respect to the general subject of structural usage which he raises,\nit would be easy to cite ample precedent among our classic authors; with\nrespect to the word _misticidad_ occurring in one of my books, I\nhave put it into the mouth of a foreigner. The faults brought to light\nby Se\u00f1or Bonilla are not very serious. But what of it? Suppose they\nwere?\n\nAn intelligent friend once said to me:\n\n\"I don't know what is lacking in your style; I find it acrid.\" I feel\nthat this criticism is the most apt that has yet been made.\n\nMy difficulty in writing Castilian does not arise from any deficiency in\ngrammar nor any want of syntax. I fail in measure, in rhythm of style,\nand this shocks those who open my books for the first time. They note\nthat there is something about them that does not sound right, which is\ndue to the fact that there is a manner of respiration in them, a system\nof pauses, which is not traditionally Castilian.\n\nI should insist upon the point at greater length, were it not that the\nsubject of style is cluttered up with such a mass of preconceptions,\nthat it would be necessary to redefine our terminology, and then, after\nall, perhaps we should not understand one another. Men have an idea that\nthey are thinking when they operate the mechanism of language which they\nhave at command. When somebody makes the joints of language creak, they\nsay: \"He does not know how to manage it.\" Certainly he does know how to\nmanage it. Anybody can manage a platitude. The truth is simply this: the\nindividual writer endeavours to make of language a cloak to fit his\nform, while, contrarywise, the purists attempt to mould their bodies\ntill they fit the cloak.\n\n\n\n\nRHETORIC OF THE MINOR KEY\n\n\nPersons to whom my style is not entirely distasteful, sometimes ask:\n\n\"Why use the short sentence when it deprives the period of eloquence and\nrotundity?\"\n\n\"Because I do not desire eloquence or rotundity,\" I reply. \"Furthermore,\nI avoid them.\" The vast majority of Spanish purists are convinced that\nthe only possible rhetoric is the rhetoric of the major key. This, for\nexample, is the rhetoric of Castelar and Costa, the rhetoric which\nRicardo Le\u00f3n and Salvador Rueda manipulate today, as it has been\ninherited from the Romans. Its purpose is to impart solemnity to\neverything, to that which already has it by right of nature, and to that\nwhich has it not. This rhetoric of the major key marches with stately,\nacademic tread. At great, historic moments, no doubt it is very well,\nbut in the long run, in incessant parade, it is one of the most deadly\nsoporifics in literature; it destroys variety, it is fatal to subtlety,\nto nice transitions, to detail, and it throws the uniformity of the\ncopybook over everything.\n\nOn the other hand, the rhetoric of the minor key, which seems poor at\nfirst blush, soon reveals itself to be more attractive. It moves with a\nlivelier, more life-like rhythm; it is less bombastic. This rhetoric\nimplies continence and basic economy of effort; it is like an agile man,\nlightly clothed and free of motion.\n\nTo the extent of my ability I always avoid the rhetoric of the major\nkey, which is assumed as the only proper style, the very moment that one\nsits down to write Castilian. I should like, of course, to rise to the\nheights of solemnity now and then, but very seldom.\n\n\"Then what you seek,\" I am told, \"is a familiar style like that of\nMesonero Romanos, Trueba and Pereda?\"\n\nNo, I am not attracted by that either.\n\nThe familiar, rude, vulgar manner reminds me of a worthy bourgeois\nfamily at the dinner table. There sits the husband in his shirt sleeves,\nwhile the wife's hair is at loose ends and she is dirty besides, and all\nthe children are in rags.\n\nI take it that one may be simple and sincere without either affectation\nor vulgarity. It is well to be a little neutral, perhaps, a little grey\nfor the most part, so that upon occasion the more delicate hues may\nstand out clearly, while a rhythm may be employed to advantage which is\nin harmony with actual life, which is light and varied, and innocent of\nstriving after solemnity.\n\nA modern poet, in my opinion, has illustrated this rhetoric of the minor\nkey to perfection.\n\nHe is Paul Verlaine.\n\nA style like Verlaine's, which is non-sequent, macerated, free, is\nindispensable to any mastery of the rhetoric of the minor key. This, to\nme, has always been my literary ideal.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VALUE OF MY IDEAS\n\n\nFrom time to time, my friend Azor\u00edn attempts to analyse my ideas. I do\nnot pretend to be in the secret of the scales, as such an assumption\nupon my part would be ridiculous. As the pilot takes advantage of a\nfavourable wind, and if it does not blow, of one that is unfavourable, I\ndo the same. The meteorologist is able to tell with mathematical\naccuracy in his laboratory, after a glance at his instruments, not only\nthe direction of the prevailing wind, but the atmospheric pressure and\nthe degree of humidity as well. I am able only, however, to say with the\npilot: \"I sail this way,\" and then make head as best I may.\n\n\n\n\nGENIUS AND ADMIRATION\n\n\nI have no faith in the contention of the Lombrosians that genius is akin\nto insanity, neither do I think that genius is an infinite capacity for\ntaking pains. Lombroso, for that matter, is as old-fashioned today as a\nhoop skirt.\n\nGenius partakes of the miraculous. If some one should tell me that a\nstick had been transformed into a snake by a miracle, naturally I should\nnot believe it; but if I should be asked whether there was not something\nmiraculous in the very existence of a stick or of a snake, I should be\nconstrained to acknowledge the miracle.\n\nWhen I read the lives of the philosophers in Diogenes Laertius, I arrive\nat the conclusion that Epicurus, Zeno, Diogenes, Protagoras and the\nothers were nothing more than men who had common sense. Clearly, as a\ncorollary, I am obliged to conclude that the people we meet nowadays\nupon the street, whether they wear gowns, uniforms or blouses, are mere\nanimals masquerading in human shape.\n\nContradicting the assumption that the great men of antiquity were only\nordinary normal beings, we must concede the fact that most extraordinary\nconditions must have existed and, indeed, have been pre-exquisite,\nbefore a Greece could have arisen in antiquity, or an Athens in Greece,\nor a man such as Plato in Athens.\n\nBy very nature, the sources of admiration are as mysterious to my mind\nas the roots of genius. Do we admire what we understand, or what we do\nnot understand? Admiration is of two kinds, of which the more common\nproceeds from wonder at something which we do not understand. There is,\nhowever, an admiration which goes with understanding.\n\nEdgar Poe composed several stories, of which _The Goldbug_ is one,\nin which an impenetrable enigma is first presented, to be solved\nafterwards as by a talisman; but, then, a lesson in cryptography ensues,\nwherein the talisman is explained away, and the miraculous gives place\nto the reasoning faculties of a mind of unusual power.\n\nHe has done something very similar in his poem, _The Raven_, where\nthe poem is followed by an analysis of its gestation, which is called\n_The Philosophy of Composition_. Would it be more remarkable to\nwrite _The Raven_ by inspiration, or to write it through conscious\nskill? To find the hidden treasure through the talisman of _The\nGoldbug_, or through the possession of analytical faculties such as\nthose of the protagonist of Poe's tale?\n\nMuch consideration will lead to the conclusion that one process is as\nmarvellous as the other.\n\nIt may be said that there is nothing miraculous in nature, and it may be\nsaid that it is all miraculous.\n\n\n\n\nMY LITERARY AND ARTISTIC INCLINATIONS\n\n\nGenerally speaking, I neither understand old books very well, nor do I\ncare for them--I have been able to read only Shakespeare, and perhaps\none or two others, with the interest with which I approach modern\nwriters.\n\nIt has sometimes seemed to me that the unreadableness of the older\nauthors might be made the foundation of a philosophic system. Yet I\nhave met with some surprises.\n\nOne was that I enjoyed the _Odyssey_.\n\n\"Am I a hypocrite?\" I asked myself.\n\nI do not find old painters to be as incompatible as old authors. On the\ncontrary, my experience has been that they are the reverse. I greatly\nprefer a canvas by Botticelli, Mantegna, El Greco or Vel\u00e1zquez to a\nmodern picture.\n\nThe only famous painter of the past for whom I have entertained an\nantipathy, is Raphael; yet, when I was in Rome and saw the frescos in\nthe Vatican, I was obliged again to ask myself if my attitude was a\npose, because they struck me frankly as admirable.\n\nI do not pretend to taste, but I am sincere; nor do I endeavour to be\nconsistent. Consistency does not interest me.\n\nThe only consistency possible is a consistency which comes from without,\nwhich proceeds from fear of public opinion, and anything of this sort\nappears to me to be contemptible.\n\nNot to change because of what others may think, is one of the most\nabject forms of slavery.\n\nLet us change all we can. My ideal is continual change--change of life,\nchange of home, of food, and even of skin.\n\n\n\n\nMY LIBRARY\n\n\nAmong the things that I missed most as a student, was a small library.\nIf I had had one, I believe I should have dipped more deeply into books\nand into life as well; but it was not given me. During the period which\nis most fruitful for the maturing of the mind, that is, during the years\nfrom twelve to twenty, I lived by turns in six or seven cities, and as\nit was impossible to travel about with books, I never retained any.\n\nA lack of books was the occasion of my failure to form the habit of\nre-reading, of tasting again and again and of relishing what I read, and\nalso of making notes in the margin.\n\nNearly all authors who own a small library, in which the books are\nproperly arranged, and nicely annotated, become famous.\n\nI am not sentimentalizing about stolid, brazen note-taking, such as that\nwith which the gentlemen of the Ateneo debase their books, because that\nmerely indicates barbarous lack of culture and an obtuseness which is\nKabyline.\n\nHaving had no library in my youth, I have never possessed the old\nfavourites that everybody carries in his pocket into the country, and\nreads over and over until he knows them by heart.\n\nI have looked in and out of books as travellers do in and out of inns,\nnot stopping long in any of them. I am very sorry but it is too late now\nfor the loss to be repaired.\n\n\n\n\nON BEING A GENTLEMAN\n\n\nViewed from without, I seem to impress some as a crass, crabbed person,\nwho has very little ability, while others regard me as an unhealthy,\ndecadent writer. Then Azor\u00edn has said of me that I am a literary\naristocrat, a fine and comprehensive mind.\n\nI should accept Azor\u00edn's opinion very gladly, but personality needs to\nbe hammered severely in literature before it leaves its slag. Like metal\nwhich is removed from the furnace after casting and placed under the\nhammer, I would offer my works to be put to the test, to be beaten by\nall hammers.\n\nIf anything were left, I should treasure it then lovingly; if nothing\nwere left, we should still pick up some fragments of life.\n\nI always listen to the opinions of the non-literary concerning my books\nwith the greatest interest. My cousin, Justo Go\u00f1i, used to express his\nopinion without circumlocution. He always carried off my books as they\nappeared, and then, a long time after, would give his opinion.\n\nOf _The Way of Perfection_ he said:\n\n\"Good, yes, very good; but it is so tiresome.\"\n\nI realized that there was some truth in his view.\n\nWhen he read the three novels to which I had given the general title,\n_The Struggle for Life_, he stopped me on the Calle de Alcal\u00e1 one\nday and said:\n\n\"You have not convinced me.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"Your hero is a man of the people, but he is falsified. He is just like\nyou are; you can never be anything but a gentleman.\"\n\nThis gentility with which my cousin reproached me, and without doubt he\nwas correct, is common to nearly all Spanish writers.\n\nThere are no Spaniards at present, and there never have been any at any\nother time, who write out of the Spanish soul, out of the hearts of the\npeople. Even Dicenta did not. His _Juan Jos\u00e9_ is not a workingman,\nbut a young gentleman. He has nothing of the workingman about him beyond\nthe label, the clothes, and such externals.\n\nGald\u00f3s, for example, can make the common people talk; Azor\u00edn can portray\nthe villages of Castile, set on their arid heights, against backgrounds\nof blue skies; Blasco Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez can paint the life of the Valencians in\nvivid colours with a prodigality that carries with it the taint of the\ncheap, but none of them has penetrated into the popular soul. That would\nrequire a great poet, and we have none.\n\n\n\n\nGIVING OFFENCE\n\n\nI have the name of being aggressive, but, as a matter of fact, I have\nscarcely ever attacked any one personally.\n\nMany hold a radical opinion to be an insult.\n\nIn an article in _La Lectura_, Ortega y Gasset illustrates my\npropensity to become offensive by recalling that as we left the Ateneo\ntogether one afternoon, we encountered a blind man on the Calle del\nPrado, singing a _jota_, whereupon I remarked: \"An unspeakable\nsong!\"\n\nAdmitted. It is a fact, but I fail to see any cause of offence. It is\nonly another way of saying more forcefully: \"I do not like it, it does\nnot please me,\" or what you will.\n\nI have often been surprised to find, after expressing an opinion, that I\nhave been insulted bitterly in reply.\n\nAt the outset of my literary career, Azor\u00edn and I shared the ill will of\neverybody.\n\nWhen Maeztu, Azor\u00edn, Carlos del Rio and myself edited a modest magazine,\nby the name of _Juventud_, Azor\u00edn and I were the ones principally\nto be insulted. The experience was repeated later when we were both\nassociated with _El Globo_.\n\nAzor\u00edn, perhaps, was attacked and insulted more frequently, so that I\nwas often in a position to act as his champion.\n\nSome years ago I published an article in the _Nuevo Mundo_, in\nwhich I considered V\u00e1zquez Mella and his refutation of the Kantian\nphilosophy, dwelling especially upon his seventeenth mathematical proof\nof the existence of God. The thing was a burlesque, but a conservative\npaper took issue with me, called me an atheist, a plagiarist, a drunkard\nand an ass. As for being an atheist, I did not take that as an insult,\nbut as an honour.\n\nUpon another occasion, I published an article about Spanish women, with\nparticular reference to Basque women, in which I maintained that they\nsacrificed natural kindliness and sympathy on the altars of honour and\nreligion, whereupon the Daughters of Mary of San Sebastian made answer,\ncharging that I was a degenerate son of their city, who had robbed them\nof their honour, which was absolutely contrary to the fact. In passing,\nthey suggested to the editor of the _Nuevo Mundo_ that he should not\npermit me to write again for the magazine.\n\nI wrote an article once dealing with Maceo and Cuba, whereupon a\njournalist from those parts jumped up and called me a fat Basque ox.\n\nThe Catalans have also obliged me with some choice insults, which I have\nfound engaging. When I lectured in Barcelona in the Casa del Pueblo,\n_La Veu de Catalunya_ undertook to report the affair, picturing me\nas talking platitudes before an audience of professional bomb throwers\nand dynamiters, and experts with the Browning gun.\n\nNaturally, I was enchanted.\n\nRecently, when writing for the review _Espa\u00f1a_, I had a similar\nexperience, which reminded me of my connection with the smaller\nperiodicals of fifteen years ago. Some gentlemen, mostly natives of the\nprovinces, approached the editor, Ortega y Gasset, with the information\nthat I was not a fit person to contribute to a serious magazine, as what\nI wrote was not so, while my name would ruin the sale of the weekly.\n\nThese pious souls and good Christians imagined that I might need that\nwork in order to earn my living, so in the odour of sanctity they did\nwhatever lay in their power to deprive me of my means of support. Oh,\nnoble souls! Oh, ye of great heart! I salute you from a safe distance,\nand wish you the most uncomfortable beds in the most intolerable wards\nset apart for scurvy patients, in any hospital of your choosing,\nthroughout the world.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRST FOR GLORY\n\n\nFame, success, popularity, the illusion of being known, admired and\nesteemed, appeal in different ways to authors. To Salvador Rueda, glory\nis a triumphant entrance into Tegucigalpa, where he is taken to the\nSpanish Casino, and crowned with a crown of real laurel. To Unamuno,\nglory is the assurance that people will be interested in him at least a\nthousand years after he is dead. And to others the only glory worth\ntalking about is that courted by the French writer, Rabbe, who busied\nhimself in Spain with la _gloire argent comptant_. Some yearn for a\nlarge stage with pennons and salvos and banners, while others are\ncontent with a smaller scene.\n\nOrtega y Gasset says that to me glory reduces itself to the proportions\nof an agreeable dinner, with good talk across the table.\n\nAnd he is right. To mingle with pleasant, intelligent, cordial persons\nis one of the more alluring sorts of fame.\n\nThere is something seductive and ingratiating about table talk when it\nis spirited. A luxurious dining room, seating eight or ten guests, of\nwhom three or four are pretty women, one of whom should be a foreigner;\nas many men, none of them aristocrats--generally speaking, aristocrats\nare disagreeable--nor shall we admit artists, for they are in the same\nclass as the aristocrats; one's neighbour, perhaps, is a banker, or a\nJew of aquiline feature, and then the talk touches on life and on\npolitics, relieved with a little gallantry toward the ladies, from time\nto time allowing to each his brief opportunity to shine--all this,\nbeyond doubt, is most agreeable.\n\nI like, too, to spend an afternoon conversing with a number of ladies in\na comfortable drawing room, which is well heated. I visualize the\nvarious rewards which are meted out by fame as being housed invariably\nunder a good roof. What is not intimate, does not appeal to me.\n\nI have often seen Guimer\u00e1 in a caf\u00e9 on the Rambla in Barcelona, drinking\ncoffee at a table, alone and forlorn, in the midst of a crowd of shop\nclerks and commercial travellers.\n\n\"Is that Guimer\u00e1?\" I asked a Catalan journalist.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAnd then he told me that they had tendered him a tremendous testimonial\nsome months previously, which had been attended by I don't know how many\nhundreds of societies, all marching with their banners.\n\nI have no very clear idea of just what Guimer\u00e1 has done, as it is many\nyears since I have gone to the theatre, but I know that he is considered\nin Catalonia to be one of the glories of the country.\n\nI should not care for an apotheosis, and then find myself left forlorn\nand alone to take my coffee afterwards with a horde of clerks.\n\nI may never write anything that will take the world by storm--most\nprobably not; but if I do, and it occurs to my fellow townsmen to\norganize one of these celebrations with flags, banners and choral\nsocieties, they need not count upon my attendance. They will not be able\nto discover me even with the aid of Sherlock Holmes.\n\nWhen I am old, I hope to take coffee with pleasant friends, whether it\nbe in a palace or a porter's lodge. I neither expect nor desire flags,\ncommittees, nor waving banners.\n\nLaurel does not seduce me, and you cannot do it with bunting.\n\n\n\n\nELECTIVE ANTIPATHIES\n\n\nAs I have expressed my opinions of other authors sharply, making them\npublic with the proper disgust, others have done the same with me, which\nis but logical and natural, especially in the case of a writer such as\nmyself, who holds that sympathy and antipathy are of the very essence of\nart.\n\nMy opponents and myself differ chiefly in the fact that I am more\ncynical than they, and so I disclose my personal animus quite\ningenuously, which my enemies fail to do.\n\nI hold that there are two kinds of morality; morality of work and\nmorality of play. The morality of work is an immoral morality, which\nteaches us to take advantage of circumstances and to lie. The morality\nof play, for the reason that it deals with mere futilities, is finer and\nmore chivalrous.\n\nI believe that in literature and in all liberal arts, the morality\nshould be the morality of play, while my opponents for the most part\nhold that the morality of literature should be the morality of work. I\nhave never, consciously at least, been influenced in my literary\nopinions by practical considerations. My ideas may have been capricious,\nand they are,--they may even be bad,--but they have no ulterior\npractical motive.\n\nMy failure to be practical, together, perhaps, with an undue obtuseness\nof perception, brings me face to face with critics of two sorts: one,\nesthetic; the other, social.\n\nMy esthetic critics say to me:\n\n\"You have not perfected your style, you have not developed the technique\nof your novels. You can scarcely be said to be literate.\"\n\nI shrug my shoulders and reply: \"Are you sure?\"\n\nMy social critics reproach me for my negative and destructive views. I\ndo not know how to create anything, I am incapable of enthusiasm, I\ncannot describe life, and so on.\n\nThis feeling seems logical enough, if it is sincere, if it is honest,\nand I accept it as such, and it does not offend me.\n\nBut, as some of my esthetic critics tell me: \"You are not an artist, you\ndo not know how to write,\" without feeling any deep conviction on the\nsubject, but rather fearing that perhaps I may be an artist after all\nand that at last somebody may come to think so, so among my critics who\npose as defenders of society, there are those who are influenced by\nmotives which are purely utilitarian.\n\nI am reminded of servants shouting at a man picking flowers over the\ngarden wall, or an apple from the orchard as he passes, who raise their\nvoices as high as possible so as to make their officiousness known.\n\nThey shout so that their masters will hear.\n\n\"How dare that rascal pick flowers from the garden? How dare he defy us\nand our masters? Shall a beggar, who is not respectable, tell us that\nour laws are not laws, that our honours are not honours, and that we are\na gang of accomplished idiots?\"\n\nYes, that is just what I tell them, and I shall continue to do so as\nlong as it is the truth.\n\nShout, you lusty louts in gaudy liveries, bark you little lap-dogs,\nguard the gates, you government inspectors and carabineers! I shall look\ninto your garden, which is also my garden, I shall make off with\nanything from it that I am able, and I shall say what I please.\n\n\n\n\nTO A MEMBER OF SEVERAL ACADEMIES\n\n\nA certain Basque writer, one Se\u00f1or de Loyarte, who is a member of\nseveral academies, and Royal Commissioner of Education, assails me\nviolently upon social grounds in a book which he has published, although\nthe attack is veiled as purely literary.\n\nSe\u00f1or de Loyarte is soporific as a general rule, but in his polite\nsortie against me, he is more amusing than is usual. His malice is so\nkeen that it very nearly causes him to appear intelligent.\n\nIn literature, Se\u00f1or de Loyarte--and why should Se\u00f1or de Loyarte not be\nassociated with literature--presents the figure of a fat, pale, flabby\nboy in a priests' school, skulking under the skirts of a Jesuit Father.\n\nSe\u00f1or de Loyarte, like those little, chubby-winged cherubs on sacristy\nceilings, shakes his arrowlet at me and lets fling a _billet doux_.\n\nSe\u00f1or de Loyarte says I smack of the cadaver, that I am a plagiarist, an\natheist, anti-religious, anti-patriotic, and more to boot.\n\nI shall not reply for it may be true. Yet it is also true that Se\u00f1or de\nLoyarte's noble words will please his noble patrons, from whom, perhaps,\nhe may receive applause even more substantial than the pat on the\nshoulder of a Jesuit Father, or the smile of every good Conservative,\nwho is a defender of the social order. His book is an achievement which\nshould induct Se\u00f1or de Loyarte into membership in several more\nacademies. Se\u00f1or de Loyarte is already a Corresponding Member of the\nSpanish Academy, or of the Academy of History, I am not quite sure\nwhich; but they are all the same. Speaking of history, I should be\ninterested to know who did first introduce the sponge.\n\nSe\u00f1or de Loyarte is destined to be a member, a member of academies all\nhis life.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nADMIRATIONS AND INCOMPATIBILITIES\n\n\nDiogenes Laertius tells us that when Zeno consulted the oracle as to\nwhat he should do in order to attain happiness in life, the deity\nreplied that he should assimilate himself with the dead. Having\nunderstood, he applied himself exclusively to the study of books.\n\nThus speaks Laertius, in the translation of Don Jos\u00e9 Ort\u00edz y Sanz. I\nconfess that I should not have understood the oracle. However, without\nconsulting any oracle, I have devoted myself for some time to reading\nbooks, whether ancient and modern, both out of curiosity and in order to\nlearn something of life.\n\n\n\n\nCERVANTES, SHAKESPEARE, MOLI\u00c8RE\n\n\nFor a long time, I thought that Shakespeare was a writer who was unique\nand different from all others. It seemed to me that the difference\nbetween him and other writers was one of quality rather than of\nquantity. I felt that, as a man, Shakespeare was of a different kind of\nhumanity; but I do not think so now. Shakespeare is no more the\nquintessence of the world's literature than Plato and Kant are the\nquintessence of universal philosophy. I once admired the philosophy and\ncharacters of the author of Hamlet; when I read him today, what most\nimpresses me is his rhetoric, and, above all, his high spirit.\n\nCervantes is not very sympathetic to me. He is tainted with the perfidy\nof the man who has made a pact with the enemy (with the Church, the\naristocracy, with those in power), and then conceals the fact.\nPhilosophically, in spite of his enthusiasm for the Renaissance, he\nappears vulgar and pedestrian to me, although he towers above all his\ncontemporaries on account of the success of a single invention, that of\nDon Quixote and Sancho, which is to literature what the discovery of\nNewton was to Physics.\n\nAs for Moli\u00e8re, he is a poor fellow, who never attains the exuberance of\nShakespeare, nor the invention that immortalizes Cervantes. But his\ntaste is better than Shakespeare's and he is more social, more modern\nthan Cervantes. The half-century or more that separates the work of\nCervantes from that of Moli\u00e8re, is not sufficient to explain this\nmodernity. Between the Spain of _Quixote_ and the France of _Le\nBourgeois Gentilhomme_, lies something deeper than time. Descartes\nand Gassendi had lived in France, while, on the other hand, the seed of\nSaint Ignatius Loyola lay germinating in the Spain of Cervantes.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ENCYCLOPEDISTS\n\n\nA French journalist who visited my house during the summer, remarked:\n\n\"The ideas were great in the French Revolution; it was not the men.\" I\nreplied: \"I believe that the men of the French Revolution were great,\nbut not the ideas.\"\n\nOf all the philosophical literature of the pre-revolutionary period,\nwhat remains today?\n\nWhat books exert influence? In France, excerpts from Montesquieu,\nDiderot and Rousseau are still read in the schools, but outside of\nFrance, they are read nowhere.\n\nOnly an extraordinary person would go away for the summer with\nMontesquieu's _Esprit des Lois_, or Jean Jacques Rousseau's\n_Emile_ in his grip. Montesquieu is demonstration of the fact that\na book cannot live entirely by virtue of correctness of style.\n\nOf all the writers who enjoyed such fame in the eighteenth century, the\nonly one who will bear reading today is Voltaire--the Voltaire of the\n_Dictionnaire Philosophique_ and of the novels.\n\nDiderot, whom the French consider a great man, is of no interest\nwhatsoever to the modern mind, at least to the mind which is not French.\nHe is almost as dull as Rousseau. _La Religieuse_ is an utterly\nfalse little book. Some years ago I loaned a copy to a young lady who\nhad just come from a convent. \"I have never seen anything like this,\"\nshe said to me. \"It is a fantasy with no relation to the truth.\" That\nwas my idea. _Jacques, le fataliste_ is tiresome; _Le Neveu de\nRameau_ gives at first the impression that it is going to amount to\nsomething, to something powerful such as the _Satiricon_ of\nPetronius, or _El Busc\u00f3n_ of Quevedo; but at the end, it is\nnothing.\n\nThe only writer of the pre-revolutionary period who can be read today\nwith any pleasure--and this, perhaps, is because he does not attempt\nanything--is Chamfort. His characters and anecdotes are sufficiently\nhighly flavoured to defy the action of time.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROMANTICISTS\n\n\n_Goethe_\n\nIf a militia of genius should be formed on Parnassus, Goethe would be\nthe drum-major. He is so great, so majestic, so serene, so full of\ntalent, so abounding in virtue, and yet, so antipathetic!\n\n_Chateaubriand_\n\nA skin of Lacrymae Christi that has turned sour. At times the good\nViscount drops molasses into the skin to take away the taste of vinegar;\nat other times, he drops in more vinegar to take away the sweet taste of\nthe molasses. He is both moth-eaten and sublime.\n\n_Victor Hugo_\n\nVictor Hugo, the most talented of rhetoricians! Victor Hugo, the most\nexquisite of vulgarians! Victor Hugo--mere common sense dressed up as\nart.\n\n_Stendhal_\n\nThe inventor of a psychological automaton moved by clock work.\n\n_Balzac_\n\nA nightmare, a dream produced by indigestion, a chill, rare acuteness,\nequal obtuseness, a delirium of splendours, cheap hardware, of pretence\nand bad taste. Because of his ugliness, because of his genius, because\nof his immorality, the Danton of printers' ink.\n\n_Poe_\n\nA mysterious sphinx who makes one tremble with lynx-like eyes, the\ngoldsmith of magical wonders.\n\n_Dickens_\n\nAt once a mystic and a sad clown. The Saint Vincent de Paul of the\nloosened string, the Saint Francis of Assisi of the London Streets.\nEverything is gesticulation, and the gesticulations are ambiguous. When\nwe think he is going to weep, he laughs; when we think he is going to\nlaugh, he cries. A remarkable genius who does everything he can to make\nhimself appear puny, yet who is, beyond doubt, very great.\n\n_Larra_ [Footnote: A Spanish poet and satirist (1809-37), famous\nunder the pseudonym of Figaro. He committed suicide. The poet Zorrilla\nfirst came into prominence through some verses read at his tomb.]\n\nA small, trained tiger shut up in a tiny cage. He has all the tricks of\na cat; he mews like one, he lets you stroke his back, and there are\ntimes when his fiercer instincts show in his eyes. Then you realize that\nhe is thinking: \"How I should love to eat you up!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE NATURALISTS\n\n\n_Flaubert_\n\nFlaubert is a heavy-footed animal. It is plain that he is a Norman. All\nhis work has great specific gravity. He disgusts me. One of Flaubert's\nmaster strokes was the conception of the character of Homais, the\napothecary, in _Madame Bovary_. I cannot see, however, that Homais\nis any more stupid than Flaubert himself, and he may even be less so.\n\n_The Giants_\n\nThe good Zola, vigorous, dull and perspiring, dubbed his contemporaries,\nthe French naturalistic novelists, \"Giants.\" What an imagination was\npossessed by Zola!\n\nThese \"Giants\" were none other than the Goncourts, whose insignificance\napproached at times imbecility, and in addition, Alphonse Daudet, with\nthe air of a cheap comedian and an armful of mediocre books--a truly\nFrench diet, feeble, but well seasoned. These poor Giants, of whom Zola\nwould talk, have become so weak and shrunken with time, that nobody is\nable any longer to make them out, even as dwarfs.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPANISH REALISTS\n\n\nThe Spanish realists of the same period are the height of the\ndisagreeable. The most repugnant of them all is Pereda. When I read him,\nI feel as if I were riding on a balky, vicious mule, which proceeds at\nan uncomfortable little trot, and then, all of a sudden, cuts stilted\ncapers like a circus horse.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RUSSIANS\n\n\n_Dostoievski_\n\nOne hundred years hence Dostoievsky's appearance in literature will be\nhailed as one of the most extraordinary events of the nineteenth\ncentury. Among the spiritual fauna of Europe, his place will be that of\nthe Diplodocus.\n\n_Tolstoi_\n\nA number of years ago I was in the habit of visiting the Ateneo, and I\nused to argue there with the habitu\u00e9s, who in general have succeeded in\ndamming up the channels through which other men receive ideas.\n\n\"To my mind, Tolstoi is a Greek,\" I observed. \"He is serene, clear, his\ncharacters are god-like; all they think of are their love affairs, their\npassions. They are never called upon to face the acute problem of\nsubsistence, which is fundamental with us.\"\n\n\"Utter nonsense! There is nothing Greek about Tolstoi,\" declared\neverybody.\n\nSome years later at a celebration in honour of Tolstoi, Anatole France\nchanced to remark: \"Tolstoi is a Greek.\"\n\nWhen this fell from Anatole France, the obstruction in the channels\nthrough which these gentlemen of the Ateneo received their ideas ceased\nfor the moment to exist, and they began to believe that, after all,\nTolstoi might very well have something of the Greek in him.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CRITICS\n\n\n_Sainte Beuve_\n\nSainte Beuve writes as if he had always said the last word, as if he\nwere precisely at the needle of the scales. Yet I feel that this writer\nis not as infallible as he thinks. His interest lies in his anecdote, in\nhis malevolent insinuation, in his bawdry. Beyond these, he has the same\nMediterranean features as the rest of us.\n\n_Taine_\n\nHippolyte Taine is also one of those persons who think they understand\neverything. And there are times when he understands nothing. His\n_History of English Literature_, which makes an effort to be broad\nand generous, is one of the pettiest, most niggardly histories ever\nwritten anywhere. His articles on Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Dickens\nhave been fabricated by a French professor, which is to say that they\nare among the most wooden productions of the universities of Europe.\n\n_Ruskin_\n\nHe impresses me as the Prince of Upstarts, grandiloquent and at the same\ntime unctuous, a General in a Salvation Army of Art, or a monk who is a\ndevotee of an esthetic Doctrine which has been drawn up by a Congress of\nTourists.\n\n_Croce_\n\nThe esthetic theory of Benedetto Croce has proved another delusion to\nme. Rather than an esthetic theory, it is a study of esthetic theories.\nAs in most Latin productions, the fundamental question is not discussed\ntherein, but the method of approaching that question.\n\n_Clarin_ [Footnote: Pseudonym of Leopoldo Alas, a Spanish critic\nand novelist of the transition, born in Asturias, whose influence was\nwidely felt in Spanish letters. He died in 1905.]\n\nI have a poor opinion of Clarin, although some of my friends regard him\nwith admiration. As a man, he must have been envious; as a novelist, he\nis dull and unhappy; as a critic, I am not certain that he was ever in\nthe right.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHERS\n\n\nA thirst for some knowledge of philosophy resulted in consulting Dr.\nLetamendi's book on pathology during my student days. I also purchased\nthe works of Kant, Fichte, and Schopenhauer in the cheap editions which\nwere published by Zozaya. The first of these that I read was Fichte's\n_Science of Knowledge_, of which I understood nothing. It stirred\nin me a veritable indignation against both author and translator. Was\nphilosophy nothing but mystification, as it is assumed to be by artists\nand shop clerks?\n\nReading _Parerga and Paralipomena_ reconciled me to philosophy.\nAfter that I bought in French _The Critique of Pure Reason_, _The\nWorld as Will and Idea_, and a number of other books.\n\nHow was it that I, who am gifted with but little tenacity of purpose,\nmustered up perseverance enough to read difficult books for which I was\nwithout preparation? I do not know, but the fact is that I read them.\n\nYears after this initiation into philosophy, I began reading the works\nof Nietzsche, which impressed me greatly.\n\nSince then I have picked at this and that in order to renew my\nphilosophic store, but without success. Some books and authors will not\nagree with me, and I have not dared to venture others. I have had a\nvolume of Hegel's _Logic_ on my table for a long time. I have\nlooked at it, I have smelled of it, but courage fails me.\n\nYet I am attracted to metaphysics more than to any other phase of\nphilosophy. Political philosophy, sociology and the common sense schools\nplease me least. Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Comte and Spencer I have never\nliked at all. Even their Utopias, which ought to be amusing, bore me\nprofoundly, and this has been true from Plato's _Republic_ to\nKropotkin's _Conquest of Bread_ and Wells's _A Modern Utopia_.\nNor could I ever become interested in the pseudo-philosophy of\nanarchism. One of the books which have disappointed me the most is Max\nStirner's _Ego and His Own_.\n\nPsychology is a science which I should like to know. I have therefore\nskimmed through the standard works of Wundt and Ziehen. After reading\nthem, I came to the conclusion that the psychology which I am seeking,\nday by day and every day, is not to be found in these treatises. It is\ncontained rather in the writings of Nietzsche and the novels of\nDostoievski. In the course of time, I may succeed, perhaps, in entering\nthe more abstract domains of the science.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE HISTORIANS\n\n\nMiss Blimber, the school teacher in Dickens's _Dombey and Son_,\ncould have died happily had she known Cicero. Even if such a thing were\npossible I should have no great desire to know Cicero, but I should be\nglad to listen to a lecture by Zeno in the portico of the Poecil\u00e9 at\nAthens, or to Epicurus's meditations in his garden.\n\nMy ignorance of history has prevented me from becoming deeply interested\nin Greece, although now this begins to embarrass me, as a curiosity\nabout and sympathy for classical art stirs within me. If I were a young\nman and had the leisure, I might even begin the study of Greek.\n\nAs it is, I feel that there are two Greeces: one of statues and temples,\nwhich is academic and somewhat cold; the other of philosophers and\ntragedians, who convey to my mind more of an impression of life and\nhumanity.\n\nApart from the Greek, which I know but fragmentarily, I have no great\nadmiration for ancient literatures. The _Old Testament_ never\naroused any devotion in me. Except for _Ecclesiastes_ and one or\ntwo of the shorter books, it impresses me as repulsively cruel and\nantipathetic.\n\nAmong the Greeks, I have enjoyed Homer's _Odyssey_ and the comedies\nof Aristophanes. I have read also Herodotus, Plutarch and Diogenes\nLaertius. I am not an admirer of academic, well written books, so I\nprefer Diogenes Laertius to Plutarch. Plutarch impresses me as having\ncomposed and arranged his narratives; not so Diogenes Laertius. Plutarch\nforces the morality of his personages to the fore; Diogenes gives\ndetails of both the good and the bad in his. Plutarch is solid and\nsystematic; Diogenes is lighter and lacks system. I prefer Diogenes\nLaertius to Plutarch, and if I were especially interested in any of the\nillustrious ancients of whom they write, I should vastly prefer the\nletters of the men themselves, if any existed, or otherwise the gossip\nof their tentmakers or washerwomen, to any lives written of them by\neither Diogenes Laertius or Plutarch.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROMAN HISTORIANS\n\n\nWhen I turned to the composition of historical novels, I desired to\nascertain if the historical method had been reduced to a system. I read\nLucian's _Instructions for Writing History_, an essay with the same\ntitle, or with a very similar one, by the Abb\u00e9 Mably, some essays by\nSimmel, besides a book by a German professor, Ernst Bernheim,\n_Lehrbuch der historischen Methode_.\n\nI next read and re-read the Roman historians Julius Caesar, Tacitus,\nSallust and Suetonius.\n\n_Sallust_\n\nAll these Roman historians no doubt were worthy gentlemen, but they\ncreate an atmosphere of suspicion. When reading them, you suspect that\nthey are not always telling the whole truth. I read Sallust and feel\nthat he is lying; he has composed his narrative like a novel.\n\nIn the _M\u00e9morial de Sainte H\u00e9l\u00e8ne_, it is recorded that on March\n26, 1816, Napoleon read the conspiracy of Catiline in the _Roman\nHistory_. The Emperor observed that he was unable to understand what\nCatiline was driving at. No matter how much of a bandit he may have\nbeen, he must have had some object, some social purpose in view.\n\nThe observation of this political genius is one which must occur to all\nwho read Sallust's book. How could Catiline have secured the support of\nthe most brilliant men of Rome, among them of Julius Caesar, if his only\nplan and object had been to loot and burn Rome? It is not logical.\nEvidently Sallust lies, as governmental writers in Spain lie today when\nthey speak of Lerroux or Ferrer, or as the republican supporters of\nThiers lied in 1871, characterizing the Paris Commune.\n\n_Tacitus_\n\nTacitus is another great Roman historian who is theatrical,\nmelodramatic, solemn, full of grand gestures. He also creates an\natmosphere of suspicion, of falsehood. Tacitus has something of the\ninquisitor in him, of the fanatic in the cause of virtue. He is a man of\naustere moral attitude, which is a pose that a thoroughgoing scamp finds\nit easy to assume.\n\nA temperament such as that of Tacitus is fatal to theatrical peoples\nlike the Italians, Spaniards, and French of the South. From it springs\nthat type of Sicilian, Calabrian, and Andalusian politician who is a\ngreat lawyer and an eloquent orator, who declaims publicly in the forum,\nand then reaches an understanding privately with bandits and thugs.\n\n_Suetonius_\n\nSuetonius, although deficient both in the pomp and sententiousness of\nTacitus, makes no attempt to compose his story, nor to impart moral\ninstruction, but tells us what he knows, simply. His _Lives of the\nTwelve Caesars_ is the greatest collection of horrors in history. You\nleave it with the imagination perturbed, scrutinizing yourself to\ndiscover whether you may not be yourself a hog or a wild beast.\nSuetonius gives us an account of men rather than a history of the\npolitics of emperors, and surely this method is more interesting and\nveracious. I place more faith in the anecdotes which grow up about an\nhistorical figure than I do in his laws.\n\nPolybius is a mixture of scepticism and common sense. He is what Bayle,\nMontesquieu and Voltaire will come to be centuries hence.\n\nAs far as Caesar's _Commentaries_ are concerned, in spite of the\nfact that they have been manipulated very skilfully, they are one of the\nmost satisfying and instructive books that can be read.\n\n\n\n\nMODERN AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORIANS\n\n\nI have very little knowledge of the historians of the Renaissance or of\nthose prior to the French Revolution. Apart from the chroniclers of\nindividual exploits, such as L\u00f3pez de Ayala, Brant\u00f4me, and the others,\nthey are wholly colourless, and either pseudo-Roman or pseudo-Greek.\nEven Machiavelli has a personal, Italian side, which is mocking and\nincisive--and this is all that is worth while in him--and he has a\npretentious pseudo-Roman side, which is unspeakably tiresome.\n\nGenerally considered, the more carefully composed and smoothly varnished\nthe history, the duller it will be found; while the more personal\nrevelations it contains, the more engaging. Most readers today, for\nexample, prefer Bernal D\u00edaz del Castillo's _True History of the\nConquest of New Spain_ to Solis's _History of the Conquest of\nMexico_. One is the book of a soldier, who had a share in the deeds\ndescribed, and who reveals himself for what he is, with all his\nprejudices, vanities and arrogance; the other is a scholar's attempt to\nimitate a classic history and to maintain a monotonous music throughout\nhis paragraphs.\n\nPractically all the historians who have followed the French Revolution\nhave individual character, and some have too much of it, as has Carlyle.\nThey distort their subject until it becomes a pure matter of fantasy, or\nmere literature, or sinks even to the level of a family discussion.\n\nMacaulay's moral pedantry, Thiers's cold and repulsive cretinism, the\nmelodramatic, gesticulatory effusiveness of Michelet are all typical\nstyles.\n\nHistorical bazaars _\u00e0 la_ Cesare Cant\u00f9 may be put on one side, as\nbelonging to an inferior genre. They remind me of those great nineteenth\ncentury world's fairs, vast, miscellaneous and exhausting.\n\nAs for the German historians, they are not translated, so I do not know\nthem. I have read only a few essays of Simmel, which I think extremely\nkeen, and Stewart Chamberlain's book upon the foundations of the\nnineteenth century, which, if the word France were to be substituted for\nthe word Germany, might easily have been the production of an advanced\nnationalist of the _Action Fran\u00e7aise_.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nMY FAMILY\n\nFAMILY MYTHOLOGY\n\n\nThe celebrated Vicomte de Chateaubriand, after flaunting an ancestry of\nprinces and kings in his _Memoires d'outre-tombe_, then turns about\nand tells us that he attaches no importance to such matters.\n\nI shall do the same. I intend to furbish up our family history and\nmythology, and then I shall assert that I attach no importance to them.\nAnd, what is more, I shall be telling the truth.\n\nMy researches into the life of Aviraneta [Footnote: A kinsman of Baroja\nand protagonist of his series of historical novels under the general\ntitle of _Memoirs of a Man of Action_.] have drawn me of late to\nthe genealogical field, and I have looked into my family, which is\nequivalent to compounding with tradition and even with reaction.\n\nI have unearthed three family myths: the Go\u00f1i myth, the Zornoza myth,\nand the Alzate myth.\n\nThe Go\u00f1i myth, vouched for by an aunt of mine who died in San Sebastian\nat an age of ninety or more, established, according to her, that she was\na descendant of Don Teodosio de Go\u00f1i, a Navarrese _caballero_ who\nlived in the time of Witiza, and who, after killing his father and\nmother at the instigation of the devil, betook himself to Mount Aralar\nwearing an iron ring about his neck, and dragging a chain behind him,\nthus pilloried to do penance. One day, a terrible dragon appeared before\nhim during a storm.\n\nDon Teodosio lifted up his soul unto God, and thereupon the Archangel\nSaint Michael revealed himself to him, in his dire extremity, and broke\nhis chains, in commemoration of which event Don Teodosio caused to be\nerected the chapel of San Miguel in Excelsis on Mount Aralar.\n\nThere were those who endeavoured to convince my aunt that in the time of\nthis supposititious Don Teodosio, which was the early part of the eighth\ncentury, surnames had not come into use in the Basque country, and even,\nindeed, that there were at that time no Christians there--in short they\nmaintained that Don Teodosio was a solar myth; but they were not able to\nconvince my aunt. She had seen the chapel of San Miguel on Aralar, and\nthe cave in which the dragon lived, and a document wherein Charles V.\ngranted to Juan de Go\u00f1i the privilege of renaming his house the Palace\nof San Miguel, as well as of adding a dragon to his coat of arms,\nbesides a cross in a red field, and a _broken_ chain.\n\nThe Zornoza myth was handed down through my paternal grandmother of that\nname.\n\nI remember having heard this lady say when I was a child, that her\nfamily might be traced in a direct line to the chancellor Pero L\u00f3pez de\nAyala, and, I know not through what lateral branches, also to St.\nFrancis Xavier.\n\nMy grandmother vouched for the fact that her father had sold the\ndocuments and parchments in which these details were set forth, to a\ntitled personage from Madrid.\n\nThe Zornozas boast an escutcheon which is embellished with a band, a\nnumber of wolves, and a legend whose import I do not recall.\n\nIndeed, wolves occur in all the escutcheons of the Baroja, Alzate and\nZornoza families, in so far as I have been able to discover, and I take\nthem to be more or less authentic. We have wolves passant, wolves\nrampant, and wolves mordant. The Go\u00f1i escutcheon also displays hearts.\nIf I become rich, which I do not anticipate, I shall have wolves and\nhearts blazoned on the doors of my dazzling automobile, which will not\nprevent me from enjoying myself hugely inside of it.\n\nTurning to the Alzate myth, it too runs back to antiquity and the\nprimitive struggles of rival families of Navarre and Labourt. The\nAlzates have been lords of Vera ever since the fourteenth century.\n\nThe legend of the Alzates of Vera de Navarra relates that one Don\nRodrigo, master of the village in the fifteenth century, fell in love\nwith a daughter of the house of Urtubi, in France, near Urru\u00f1a, and\nmarried her. Don Rodrigo went to live in Urtubi and became so thoroughly\ngallicized that he never cared to return to Spain, so the people of Vera\nbanded together, dispossessed him of his honours and dignity, and\nsequestrated his lands.\n\nIn the early part of the nineteenth century, my great-grandfather,\nSebasti\u00e1n Ignacio de Alzate, was among those who assembled at Zubieta in\n1813 to take part in the rebuilding of San Sebastian, and this\ngreat-grandfather was uncle to Don Eugenio de Aviraneta, a good relative\nof mine, protagonist of my latest books.\n\nSt. Francis Xavier, Don Teodosio de Go\u00f1i, Pero L\u00f3pez de Ayala,\nAviraneta--a saint, a revered worthy, an historian, a conspirator--these\nare our family gods.\n\nNow let me take my stand with Chateaubriand as attaching no importance\nto such things.\n\n\n\n\nOUR HISTORY\n\n\nBaroja is a hamlet in the province of Alava in the district of\nPe\u00f1acerrada. According to Fern\u00e1ndez Guerra, it is an Iberian name\nderived from Asiatic Iberia. I believe that I have read in Campi\u00f3n that\nthe word Baroja is compounded from the Celtic _bar_, meaning\nmountain, and the Basque _otza, ocha_ meaning cold. In short, a\ncold mountain.\n\nThe district of Pe\u00f1acerrada, which includes Baroja, is an austere land,\ncovered with intricate mountain ranges which are clad with trees and\nscrub live oaks.\n\nHawks abound. In his treatise on falconry, Z\u00fa\u00f1iga mentions the Bahari\nfalcon, propagated principally among the mountains of Pe\u00f1acerrada.\n\nMy ancestors originally called themselves Mart\u00ednez de Baroja. One Mart\u00edn\nhad a son who was known as Mart\u00ednez. This Mart\u00ednez (son of Mart\u00edn)\ndoubtless left the village, and as there were others of the name\nMart\u00ednez (sons of Mart\u00edn), they dubbed him the Mart\u00ednez of Baroja, or\nMart\u00ednez de Baroja.\n\nThe Mart\u00ednez de Barojas lived in that country for many years; they were\nhidalgos, Christians of old stock. And there is still a family of the\nname in Pe\u00f1acerrada.\n\nOne Mart\u00ednez de Baroja, by name Juan, who lived in the village of\nSamiano, upon becoming outraged because of an attempt to force him to\npay tribute to the Count of Salinas--in those days a very natural source\nof offence--took an appeal in the year 1616 from a ruling of the\nProsecuting Attorney of His Majesty and the Alcaldes and Regidors of the\nEarldom of Trevi\u00f1o, and he was sustained by the Chamber of Hidalgos at\nValladolid, which decided in his favour in a decree dated the eighth day\nof the month of August, 1619.\n\nThis same hidalgo, Juan Mart\u00ednez de Baroja, moved the enforcement of\nthis decree, as is affirmed by a writ of execution which is inscribed on\nforty-five leaves of parchment, to which is attached a leaden seal\npendant from a cord of silk, at the end of which may be found the\nstipulations of the judgment entered against the Municipality and\nCorporation of the Town and Earldom of Trevi\u00f1o and the Village of\nSamiano.\n\nThe Mart\u00ednez de Barojas, despite the fact that they sprang from the land\nof the falcon and the hawk, in temper must have been dark, heavy, rough.\nThey were members of the Brotherhood of San Mart\u00edn de Pe\u00f1acerrada, which\napparently was of great account in those regions, besides being regidors\nand alcaldes of the Santa Hermandad, a rural police and judicial\norganization which extended throughout the country.\n\nIn the eighteenth century, one of the family, my great-grandfather\nRafael, doubtless possessing more initiative, or having more of the hawk\nin him than the others, grew tired of ploughing up the earth, and left\nthe village, turning pharmacist, setting up in 1803 at Oyarzun, in\nGuip\u00fazcoa. This Rafael shortened his name and signed himself Rafael de\nBaroja.\n\nDon Rafael must have been a man of modern sympathies, for he bought a\nprinting press and began to issue pamphlets and even occasional books.\n\nEvidently Don Rafael was also a man of radical ideas. He published a\nnewspaper at San Sebastian in 1822 and 1823, which he called _El\nLiberal Guip\u00fazcoano_. I have seen only one copy of this, and that was\nin the National Library.\n\nThat this newspaper was extremely liberal, may be judged by the articles\nthat were reprinted from it in _El Espectador_, the Masonic journal\npublished at Madrid during the period. Don Rafael had connections both\nwith constitutionalists and members of the Gallic party. There must have\nbeen antecedents of a liberal character in our family, as Don Rafael's\nuncle, Don Juan Jos\u00e9 de Baroja, at first a priest at Pipaon and later at\nVitoria, had been enrolled in the Basque _Sociedad Econ\u00f3mica_.\n\nDon Rafael had two sons, Ignacio Ram\u00f3n and P\u00edo. They settled in San\nSebastian as printers. P\u00edo was my grandfather.\n\nMy second family name, Nessi, as I have said before, comes out of\nLombardy and the city of Como.\n\nThe Nessis of Como fled from Austrian rule, and came to Spain, probably\npeddling mousetraps and _santi boniti barati_.\n\nOne of the Nessis, who survived until a short time ago, always said that\nthe family had been very comfortably off in Lombardy, where one of his\nrelatives, Guiseppe Nessi, a doctor, had been professor in the\nUniversity of Pavia during the eighteenth century, besides being major\nin the Austrian Army.\n\nAs mementos of the Italian branch of the family, I still preserve a few\nviews of Lake Como in my house, a crude image of the Christ of the\nAnnunziatta, stamped on cloth, and a volume of a treatise on surgery by\nNessi, which bears the _imprimatur_ of the Inquisition at Venice.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nMEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD\n\nSAN SEBASTIAN\n\n\nI was born in San Sebastian on the 28th of December, 1872. So I am not\nonly a Guip\u00fazcoan but a native of San Sebastian. The former I regard as\nan honour, but the latter means very little to me.\n\nI should prefer to have been born in a mountain hamlet or in a small\ncoast town, rather than in a city of summer visitors and hotel keepers.\n\nGarat, who was a most conventional person who lived in Bayonne, always\nused to maintain that he came from Ustariz. I might say that I am from\nVera del Bidasoa, but I should not deceive myself.\n\nThere are several reasons why I dislike San Sebastian:\n\nIn the first place, the city is not beautiful, when it might well be so.\nIt is made up of straight streets which are all alike, together with two\nor three monuments that are horrible. The general construction is\nmiserable and shoddy. Although excellent stone abounds in the\nneighbourhood, no one has had the sense to erect anything either noble\nor dignified. Cheap houses confront the eye on all sides, whether simple\nor pretentious. Whenever the citizens of San Sebastian raise their\nhands--and in this they are abetted by the _Madrile\u00f1os_--they do\nsomething ugly. They have defaced Monte Igueldo already, and now they\nare defacing the Castillo. Tomorrow, they will manage somehow to spoil\nthe sea, the sky, and the air.\n\nAs for the spirit of the city, it is lamentable. There is no interest in\nscience, art, literature, history, politics, or anything else. All that\nthe inhabitants think about are the King, the Queen Regent, yachts, bull\nfights, and the latest fashions in trousers.\n\nSan Sebastian is a conglomeration of parvenus and upstarts from\nPamplona, Saragossa, Valladolid, Chile and Chuquisaca, who are anxious\nto show themselves off. Some do this by walking alongside of the King,\nor by taking coffee with a famous bull-fighter, or by bowing to some\naristocrat. The young men of San Sebastian are among the most worthless\nin Spain. I have always looked upon them as _infra_ human.\n\nAs for the ladies, many of them might be taken for princesses in summer,\nbut their winter tertulias are on a level with a porter's lodge where\nthey play _julepe_. It is a card game, but the word means dose, and\nMadame Recamier would have fainted at the mention of it.\n\nWhen I observe these parvenus' attempts to shine, I think to myself:\n\"The ostentation of the freshman year at college. How unfortunate that\nsome of us have moved on to the doctorate!\"\n\nNo one reads in San Sebastian. They run over the society news, and then\ndrop the paper for fear their brains will begin to smoke.\n\nThis city, imagining itself to be so cultivated, although it really is a\nnew town, is under the domination of a few Jesuit fathers, who, like\nmost of the present days sons of Loyola, are coarse, heavy and wholly\nlacking in real ability.\n\nThe Jesuit manages the women, which is not a very difficult thing to do,\nas he holds the leading strings of the sexual life in his hands. In\naddition he influences the men.\n\nHe assists the young who are of good social standing, who belong to\ndistinguished families, and brings about desirable matches. The poor can\ndo anything they like. They are at liberty to eat, to get drunk, to do\nwhatever they will except to read. These unhappy, timid, torpid clerks\nand hangers-on imagine they are free men whenever they get drunk. They\ndo not see that they are like the Redskins, whom the Yankees poisoned\nwith alcohol so as to hold them in check.\n\nI inspected a club installed in a house in the older part of the city\nsome years ago.\n\nA sign on one door read \"Library.\" When it was opened, I was shown,\nlaughing, a room filled with bottles.\n\n\"If a Jesuit could see this, he would be in ecstasy,\" I exclaimed. \"Yes,\nreplacing books with wines and liquors! What a business for the sons of\nSaint Ignatius!\"\n\nIn spite of all its display, all its tinsel, all its Jesuitism, all its\nbad taste, San Sebastian will become an important, dignified city within\na very few years. When that time comes, the author who has been born\nthere, will not prefer to hail from some hamlet buried in the mountains,\nrather than from the capital of Guip\u00fazcoa. But I myself prefer it. I\nhave no city, and I hold myself to be strictly extra-urban.\n\n\n\n\nMY PARENTS\n\n\nMy father, Seraf\u00edn Baroja y Zornoza, was a mining engineer, who wrote\nbooks both in Castilian and Basque, and he, too, came from San\nSebastian. My mother's name is Carmen Nessi y Go\u00f1i. She was born in\nMadrid.\n\nI should be a very good man. My father was a good man, although he was\ncapricious and arbitrary, and my mother is a good woman, firmer and more\npositive in her manifestations of virtue. Yet, I am not without\nreputation for ferocity, which, perhaps, is deserved.\n\nI do not know why I believed for a long while that I had been born in\nthe Calle del Puyuelo in San Sebastian, where we once lived. The street\nis well within the old town, and truly ugly and forlorn. The mere idea\nof it was and is distasteful to me.\n\nWhen I complained to my mother about my birthplace and its want of\nattractiveness, she replied that I was born in a beautiful house near\nthe esplanade of La Zurriola, fronting on the Calle de Oquendo, which\nbelonged to my grandmother and looked out upon the sea, although the\nhouse does so no longer, as a theatre has been erected directly in\nfront. I am glad that I was born near the sea, because it suggests\nfreedom and change.\n\nMy paternal grandmother, Do\u00f1a Concepci\u00f3n Zornoza, was a woman of\npositive ideas and somewhat eccentric. She was already old when I knew\nher. She had mortgaged several houses which she owned in the city in\norder to build the house which was occupied by us in La Zurriola.\n\nHer plan was to furnish it and rent it to King Amadeo. Before Amadeo\narrived at San Sebastian, however, the Carlist war broke out, and the\nmonarch of the house of Savoy was compelled to abdicate, and my\ngrandmother to abandon her plans.\n\nMy earliest recollection is the Carlist attempt to bombard San\nSebastian. It is a memory which has now grown very dim, and what I saw\nhas been confused with what I have heard. I have a confused recollection\nof the bringing in of soldiers on stretchers, and of having peeped over\nthe wall of a little cemetery near the city, in which corpses were laid\nout, still unburied.\n\nAs I have said, my father was a mining engineer, but during the war he\nwas engaged in teaching natural history at the Institute. I have no idea\nhow this came about. He was also one of the Liberal volunteers.\n\nI have a vague idea that one night I was taken from my bed, wrapped up\nin a mantle, and carried to a chalet on the Concha, belonging to one\nErrazu, who was a relative of my mother's. We lived there for a time in\nthe cellar of the chalet.\n\nThree shells, which were known in those days as cucumbers, dropped on\nthe house, and wrecked the roof, making a great hole in the wall which\nseparated our garden from the next.\n\n\n\n\nMONSIGNOR, THE CAT\n\n\nMonsignor was a handsome yellow cat belonging to us while we were living\nin the cellar of Se\u00f1or Errazu's chalet.\n\nFrom what I have since learned, his name was a tribute to the\nextraordinary reputation enjoyed at that period by Monsignor Simeoni.\n\nMonsignor--I am referring to the yellow cat--was intelligent. A bell\nsurmounted the Castillo de la Mota at San Sebastian, by whose side was\nstationed a look-out. When the look-out spied the flash of Carlist guns,\nhe rang the bell, and then the townspeople retired into the doorways and\ncellars.\n\nMonsignor was aware of the relation of the bell to the cannonading, so\nwhen the bell rang, he promptly withdrew into the house, even going so\nfar sometimes as to creep under the beds.\n\nMy father had friends who were not above going down into our cellar on\nsuch occasions so as better to observe the manoeuvres of the cat.\n\n\n\n\nTWO LUNATICS\n\n\nAfter the war, I used to stroll as a boy with my mother and brothers to\nthe Castillo de la Mota on Sundays. It was truly a beautiful walk, which\nwill soon be ruined utterly by the citizens of San Sebastian. We looked\nout to sea from the Castillo and then we talked with the guard. We often\nmet a lunatic there, who was in the care of a servant. As soon as he\ncaught sight of us children, the lunatic was happy at once, but if a\nwoman came near him, he ran away and flattened himself against the\nwalls, kicking and crying out: \"Blind dog! Blind dog!\"\n\nI remember also having seen a young woman, who was insane, in a great\nhouse which we used to visit in those days at Loyola. She gesticulated\nand gazed continually into a deep well, where a half moon of black water\nwas visible far below. These lunatics, one at the Castillo and the other\nin that great house, haunted my imagination as a child.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HAWK\n\n\nMy latest recollection of San Sebastian is of a hawk, which we\nbrought home to our house from the Castillo.\n\nSome soldiers gave us the hawk when it was still very young, and it grew\nup and became accustomed to living indoors. We fed it snails, which it\ngulped down as if they were bonbons.\n\nWhen it was full-grown, it escaped to the courtyard and attacked our\nchickens, to say nothing of all the cats of the neighbourhood. It hid\nunder the beds during thundershowers.\n\nWhen we moved away from San Sebastian, we were obliged to leave the hawk\nbehind. We carried him up to the Castillo one day, turned him loose, and\noff he flew.\n\n\n\n\nIN MADRID\n\n\nWe moved from San Sebastian to Madrid. My father had received an\nappointment to the Geographic and Political Institute. We lived on the\nCalle Real, just beyond the Glorieta de Bilbao, in a street which is now\na prolongation of the Calle de Fuencarral.\n\nOpposite our house, there was a piece of high ground, which has not yet\nbeen removed, which went by the name of \"_La Era del Mico_,\" or\n\"The Monkey Field.\" Swings and merry-go-rounds were scattered all over\nit, so that the diversions of \"_La Era del Mico_,\" together with\nthe two-wheeled calashes and chaises which were still in use in those\ndays, and the funerals passing continually through the street, were the\namusements which were provided ready-made for us, as we looked down from\nour balcony.\n\nTwo sensational executions took place while we lived here--those of the\nregicide Otero and of Oliva--one following closely on the heels of the\nother. We heard the _Salve_, or prayer, which is sung by the\nprisoners for the criminal awaiting death, hawked about us then on the\nstreets.\n\n\n\n\nIN PAMPLONA\n\n\nFrom Madrid we went to Pamplona. Pamplona was still a curious city\nmaintaining customs which would have been appropriate to a state of war.\nThe draw-bridges were raised at night, only one, or perhaps two, gates\nbeing left open, I am not certain which.\n\nPamplona proved an amusing place for a small boy. There were the walls\nwith their glacis, their sentry boxes, their cannon; there were the\ngates, the river, the cathedral and the surrounding quarters--all of\nthem very attractive to us.\n\nWe studied at the Institute and committed all sorts of pranks like the\nother students. We played practical jokes in the houses of the canons,\nand threw stones at the bishop's palace, many of the windows of which\nwere already paneless and forlorn.\n\nWe also made wild excursions to the roof of our house and to those of\nother houses in the neighbourhood, prying about the garrets and peering\ndown over the cornices into the courtyards.\n\nOnce we seized a stuffed eagle, cherished by a neighbour, hauled it to\nthe attic, pulled it through the skylight to the roof, and flung it down\ninto the street, creating a genuine panic among the innocent passers-by,\nwhen they saw the huge bird drop at their feet.\n\nOne of my most vivid memories of Pamplona is seeing a criminal on his\nway to execution passing our house, attired in a round cap and yellow\nrobe.\n\nIt was one of the sights which has impressed me most. Later in the\nafternoon, driven by curiosity, knowing that the man who had been\ngarroted must be still on the scaffold, I ventured alone to see him, and\nremained there examining him closely for a long time. When I returned\nhome that night, I was unable to sleep because of the impression he had\nmade.\n\n\n\n\nDON TIRSO LAREQUI\n\n\nMany other vivid memories of Pamplona remain with me, never to be\nforgotten. I remember a lad of our own age who died, leaping from the\nwall, and then there were our adventures along the river.\n\nAnother terrible memory was associated with the cathedral. I had begun\nmy first year of Latin, and was exactly nine at the time.\n\nWe had come out of the Institute, and were watching a funeral.\nAfterwards, three or four of the boys, among whom were my brother\nRicardo and myself, entered the cathedral. The echo of the responses was\nringing in my ears and I hummed them, as I wandered about the aisles.\n\nSuddenly, a black shadow shot from behind one of the confessionals,\npounced upon me and seized me around the neck with both hands, almost\nchoking me. I was paralyzed with fear. It proved to be a fat, greasy\ncanon, by name Don Tirso Larequi.\n\n\"What is your name?\" he shouted, shaking me vigorously.\n\nI could not answer because of my fright.\n\n\"What is his name?\" the priest demanded of the other boys.\n\n\"His name is Antonio Garc\u00eda,\" replied my brother Ricardo, coolly.\n\n\"Where does he live?\"\n\n\"In the Calle de Curia, Number 14.\"\n\nThere was no such place, of course.\n\n\"I shall see your father at once,\" shouted the priest, and he rushed out\nof the cathedral like a bull.\n\nMy brother and I then made our escape through the cloister.\n\nThis red-faced priest, fat and ferocious, rushing out of the dark to\nchoke a nine-year-old boy, has always been to me a symbol of the\nCatholic religion.\n\nThis experience of my boyhood partly explains my anti-clericalism. I\nrecall Don Tirso with an undying hate, and were he still alive--I have\nno idea whether he is or not--I should not hesitate to climb up to the\nroof of his house some dark night, and shout down his chimney in a\ncavernous voice: \"Don Tirso! You are a damned villain!\"\n\n\n\n\nA VISIONARY ROWDY\n\n\nI was something of a rowdy as a boy and rather quarrelsome. The first\nday I went to school in Pamplona, I came out disputing with another boy\nof my own age, and we fought in the street until we were separated by a\ncobbler and the blows of a leather strap, to which he added kicks.\nLater, I foolishly quarrelled and fought whenever the other boys set me\non. In our stone-throwing escapades on the outskirts of the town, I was\nalways the aggressor, and quite indefatigable.\n\nWhen I began to study medicine, I found that my aggressiveness had\ndeparted completely. One day after quarrelling with another student in\nthe cloisters of San Carlos, I challenged him to fight. When we got out\non the street, it struck me as foolish to goad him to hit me in the eye\nor else to land on my nose with his fist, and I slipped off and went\nhome. I lost my morale as a bully then and there. Although I was a\nfighter from infancy, I was also something of a dreamer, and the two\nstrains scarcely make a harmonious blend.\n\nBefore I was grown, I saw Gisbert's Death of the Comuneros reproduced as\na chromo. For a long, long while, I always seemed to see that picture\nhanging in all its variety of colour on the wall before me at night. For\nmonths and months after my vigil with the body of the man who had been\ngarroted outside of Pamplona, I never entered a dark room but that his\nimage rose up before me in all its gruesome details. I also passed\nthrough a period of disagreeable dreams. Some time would elapse after I\nawoke before I was able to tell where I was, and I was frightened by it.\n\n\n\n\nSARASATE\n\n\nIt was my opinion then, and still is, that a fiesta at Pamplona is among\nthe most vapid things in the world.\n\nThere was a mixture of incomprehension and culture in Pamplona, that was\ntruly ridiculous. The people would devote several days to going to bull\nfights, and then turn about, when evening came, and welcome Sarasate\nwith Greek fire.\n\nA rude and fanatical populace forgot its orgy of blood to acclaim a\nviolinist. And what a violinist! He was one of the most effeminate and\ngrotesque individuals in the world. I can see him yet, strutting along\nwith his long hair, his ample rear, and his shoes with their little\nquarter-heels, which gave him the appearance of a fat cook dressed up in\nmen's clothes for Carnival.\n\nWhen Sarasate died he left a number of trinkets which had been presented\nto him during his artistic career--mostly match-boxes, cigarette cases,\nand the like--which the Town Council of Pamplona has assembled and now\nexhibits in glass cases, but which, in the public interest, should be\npromptly disposed of at auction.\n\n\n\n\nROBINSON CRUSOE AND THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND\n\n\nDuring my life in Pamplona, my brother Ricardo imparted his enthusiasm\nfor two stories to me. These were _Robinson Crusoe_ and Jules\nVerne's _The Mysterious Island_, or rather, I should say they were\n_The Mysterious Island_ and _Robinson Crusoe_, because we\npreferred Jules Verne's tale greatly to Defoe's.\n\nWe would dream about desert islands, about manufacturing electric\nbatteries in the fashion of the engineer Cyrus Harding, and as we were\nnot very certain of finding any \"Granite House\" during the course of our\nadventures, Ricardo would paint and paint at plans and elevations of\nhouses which we hoped to construct in its place in those far-off, savage\nlands.\n\nHe also made pictures of ships which we took care should be rigged\nproperly.\n\nThere were two variations of this dream of adventure--one involving a\nsnow-house, with appropriate episodes such as nocturnal attacks by\nbears, wolves, and the like, and then we planned a sea voyage.\n\nI rebelled a long time at the notion that my life must be like that of\neverybody else, but I had no recourse in the end but to capitulate.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nAS A STUDENT\n\n\nI was never more than commonplace as a student, inclining rather to be\nbad than good. I had no great liking for study, and, to tell the truth,\nI never entertained any clear idea of what I was studying.\n\nFor example, I never knew what the word preterite meant until years\nafter completing my course, although I had repeated over and over again\nthat the preterite, or past perfect, was thus, while the imperfect was\nthus, without having any conception that the word preterite meant\npast--that it was a past that was entirely past in the former case, and\na past that was past to a less degree in the latter.\n\nTo complete two years of Latin grammar, two of French, and one of German\nwithout having any conception of what preterite meant, demonstrated one\nof two things: either my stupidity was very great, or the system of\ninstruction deplorable. Naturally, I incline toward the second\nalternative.\n\nWhile preparing to take my degree in medicine, when I was studying\nchemical analysis, I heard a student, who was already a practising\nphysician, state that zinc was an element which contained a great deal\nof hydrogen. When the professor attempted to extricate him from his\ndifficulty, it became apparent that the future doctor had no idea of\nwhat an element was. My classmate, who doubtless entertained as little\nliking for chemistry as I did for grammar, had not been able throughout\nhis entire course to grasp the definition of an element, as I had never\nbeen able to comprehend what a preterite might be.\n\nFor my part--and I believe that all of us have had the same experience--I\nhave never been successful in mastering those subjects which have not\ninterested me.\n\nDoubtless, also, my mental development has been slow.\n\nAs for memory, I have always possessed very little. And liking for\nstudy, none whatever. Sacred history, or any other history, Latin,\nFrench, rhetoric and natural history have interested me not at all. The\nonly subjects for which I cared somewhat, were geometry and physics.\n\nMy college course left me with two or three ideas in my head, whereupon\nI applied myself to making ready for my professional career, as one\nswallows a bitter dose.\n\nIn my novel, _The Tree of Knowledge_, I have drawn a picture of\nmyself, in which the psychological features remain unchanged, although I\nhave altered the hero's environment, as well as his family relations,\ntogether with a number of details.\n\nBesides the defects with which I have endowed my hero in this book, I\nwas cursed with an instinctive slothfulness and sluggishness which were\nnot to be denied.\n\nPeople would tell me: \"Now is the time for you to study; later on, you\nwill have leisure to enjoy yourself; and after that will come the time\nto make money.\"\n\nBut I needed all three times in which to do nothing--and I could have\nused another three hundred.\n\n\n\n\nPROFESSORS\n\n\nI have not been fortunate in my professors. It might be urged that I\nhave not been in a position, being idle and sluggish, to take advantage\nof their instruction. I believe, however, that if they had been good\nteachers, now that so many years have passed, I should be able to\nacknowledge their merits.\n\nI cannot remember a single teacher who knew how to teach, or who\nsucceeded in arousing any interest in what he taught, or who had any\ncomprehension of the student mentality. No one learned how to reason in\nthe schools of my youth, nor mastered any theory, nor acquired a\npractical knowledge of anything. In other words, we learned nothing.\n\nIn medicine, the professors adhered to a system that was the most\nfoolish imaginable. In the two universities in which I studied, subjects\nmight be taken only by halves, which would have been ridiculous enough\nin any branch, but it was even more preposterous in medicine. Thus, in\npathology, a certain number of intending physicians studied the subject\nof infection, while others studied nervous disorders, and yet others the\ndiseases of the respiratory organs. Nobody studied all three. A plan of\nthis sort could only have been conceived by Spanish professors, who, it\nmay be said in general, are the quintessence of vacuity.\n\n\"What difference does it make whether the students learn anything or\nnot?\" every Spanish professor asks himself continually.\n\nUnamuno says, apropos of the backwardness of Spaniards in the field of\ninvention: \"Other nations can do the inventing.\" In other words, let\nforeigners build up the sciences, so that we may take advantage of them.\n\nThere was one among my professors who considered himself a born teacher\nand, moreover, a man of genius, and he was Letamendi. I made clear in my\n_Tree of Knowledge_ what I thought of this professor, who was not\ndestitute, indeed, of a certain talent as an orator and man of letters.\nWhen he wrote, he was rococo, like so many Catalans. Sometimes he would\ndiscourse upon art, especially upon painting, in the class-room, but the\nideas he entertained were preposterous. I recall that he once said that\na mouse and a book were not a fit subject for a painting, but if you\nwere to write the words _Aristotle's Works_ on the book, and then\nset the mouse to gnawing at it, what had originally meant nothing would\nimmediately become a subject for a picture. Yes, a picture to be hawked\nat the street fairs!\n\nLetamendi was prolixity and puerile ingenuity personified. Yet Letamendi\nwas no different from all other Spaniards of his day, including even the\nmost celebrated, such as Castelar, Echegaray and Valera.\n\nThese men read much, they possessed good memories, but I verily believe\nthat, honestly, they understood nothing. Not one of them had an inkling\nof that almost tragic sense of the dignity of culture or of the\nobligations which it imposes, which distinguishes the Germans above all\nother nationalities. They nearly all revealed an attitude toward science\nwhich would have sat easily upon a smart, sharp-tongued Andalusian young\ngentleman.\n\nI recall a profoundly moving letter by the critic Garve, which is\nincluded in Kant's _Prolegomena_.\n\nGarve wrote an article upon _The Critique of Pure Reason_, and sent\nit to a journal at G\u00f6ttingen, and the editor of the journal, in malice\nand animosity toward Kant, so altered it that it became an attack on the\nphilosopher, and then published it unsigned.\n\nKant invited his anonymous critic to divulge his name, whereupon Garve\nwrote to Kant explaining what had taken place, and Kant made a reply.\n\nIt would be difficult to parallel in nobility these two letters, which\nwere exchanged between a comprehensive intellect such as Garve and one\nof the most portentous geniuses of the world, as was Kant.\n\nThey appear to be two travellers, face to face with the mystery of\nNature and the Unknown. No such feeling for learning and culture is to\nbe met with among our miserably affected Latin mountebanks.\n\n\n\n\nANTI-MILITARISM\n\n\nI am an anti-militarist by inheritance. The Basques have never been good\nsoldiers in the regular army. My great-grandfather Nessi probably fled\nfrom Italy as a deserter. I have always loathed barracks, messes, and\nofficers profoundly.\n\nOne day, when I was studying therapeutics with Don Benito Hernando, my\nbrother opened the door of the class-room and motioned for me to come\nout.\n\nI did so, at the cost, by the way, of a furious scene with Don Benito,\nwho shattered several test tubes in his wrath.\n\nThe cause of my brother's appearance was to advise me that the Alcald\u00eda\ndel Centro, or Town Council of the Central District, had given notice to\nthe effect that if I did not present myself for the draft, I was to be\ndeclared in default. As I had already laid before the Board a copy of a\nroyal decree in which my name was set down as exempt from the draft\nbecause my father had served as a Liberal Volunteer in the late war, and\nbecause, in addition, I was born in the Basque provinces, I had supposed\nthat the matter had been disposed of. One of those ill-natured,\ndictatorial officials who held sway in the offices of the Board, took it\nupon himself to rule that the exemption held good only in the Basque\nprovinces, but not in Madrid, and so, in fact, for the time it proved to\nbe. In spite of my furious protests, I was compelled to report and\nsubmit to have my measurements taken, and was well nigh upon the point\nof being marched off to the barracks.\n\n\"I am no soldier,\" I thought to myself. \"If they insist, I shall run\naway.\"\n\nI went at once from the Alcald\u00eda to the Ministry and called upon a\nGuip\u00fazcoan politician, as my father had previously advised me to do; but\nthe man was a political mastodon, puffed up with huge pretensions, who,\nperhaps, might have been a stevedore in any other country. So he did\nnothing. Finally, it occurred to me to go and see the Conde de\nRomanones, who had just been appointed Alcalde del Centro, having\njurisdiction over the district.\n\nWhen I entered his office, Romanones appeared to be in a jovial frame of\nmind. He wore a flower in his button-hole. Two persons were with him,\none of whom was no other than the Secretary of the Board, my enemy.\n\nI related what had happened to Romanones with great force. The Secretary\nthen answered.\n\n\"The young man is right,\" said the Count. \"Bring me the roll of the\ndraft.\"\n\nThe roll was brought. Romanones took his pen and crossed my name off\naltogether. Then he turned to me with a smile:\n\n\"Don't you care to be a soldier?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"But what are you, a student?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"In which branch?\"\n\n\"Medicine.\"\n\n\"Good! Very good. You may go now.\"\n\nI would willingly have been anything to have escaped becoming a soldier,\nand so be obliged to live in barracks, eat mess, and parade.\n\n\n\n\nTO VALENCIA\n\n\nI failed in both June and September during the fourth year of my course,\nwhich was a mere matter of luck, as I neither applied myself more nor\nless than in previous years.\n\nIn the meantime my father had been transferred to Valencia, whither it\nseemed wise that I should remove to continue my studies.\n\nI appeared at Valencia in January for a second examination in general\npathology, and failed for the second time.\n\nI began to consider giving up my intended profession.\n\nI found that I had lost what little liking I had for it. As I had no\nfriends in Valencia, I never left the house; I had nowhere to go. I\npassed my days stretched out on the roof, or, else, in reading. After\ndebating long what I should do, and realizing fully that there was no\none obvious plan to pursue, I determined to finish my course, committing\nthe required subjects mechanically. After adopting this plan, I never\nfailed once.\n\nWhen I came up for graduation, the professors made an effort to put some\nobstacles in my way, which, however, were not sufficient to detain me.\n\nAdmitted as a physician, I decided next to study for the doctor's degree\nat Madrid.\n\nMy former fellow-students, when they saw that now I was doing nicely,\nall exclaimed:\n\n\"How you have changed! Now you pass your examinations.\"\n\n\"Passing examinations, you know, is a combination, like a gambling\ngame,\" I told them.\n\n\"I have found a combination.\"\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nAS A VILLAGE DOCTOR\n\n\nI returned to Burjasot, a small town near Valencia, where my family\nlived at the time, a full-fledged doctor. We had a tiny house, besides a\ngarden containing pear, peach and pomegranate trees.\n\nI passed some time there very pleasantly.\n\nMy father was a contributor to the _Voz de Guip\u00fazcoa_ of San\nSebastian, so he always received the paper. One day I read--or it may\nhave been one of the family--that the post of official physician was\nvacant in the town of Cestona.\n\nI decided to apply for the place, and dispatched a letter accompanied by\na copy of my diploma. It turned out that I was the only applicant, and\nso the post was awarded to me.\n\nI set out for Madrid, where I passed the night, and then proceeded to\nSan Sebastian, receiving a letter from my father upon my arrival,\ninforming me that there was another physician at Cestona who was\nreceiving a larger salary than that which had been offered to me, and\nrecommending that perhaps it would be better not to put in appearance\ntoo soon, until I was better advised as to the prospects.\n\nI hesitated.\n\n\"In any event,\" I thought, \"I shall learn what the town is like. If I\nlike it, I shall stay; if not, I shall return to Burjasot.\"\n\nI took the diligence, which goes by the name of \"La Vascongada,\" and\nmade the trip from San Sebastian to Cestona, which proved to be long\nenough in all conscience, as we were five or six hours late. I got off\nat a posada, or small inn, at Alcorta, to get something to eat. I dined\nsumptuously, drank bravely, and, encouraged by the good food, made up my\nmind to remain in the village. I talked with the other doctor and with\nthe alcalde, and soon everything was arranged that had to be arranged.\n\nAs night was coming on, the priest and the doctor recommended that I go\nto board at the house of the Sacristana, as she had a room vacant, which\nhad formerly been occupied by a notary.\n\n\n\n\nDOLORES, LA SACRISTANA\n\n\nDolores, my landlady and mistress of the Sacristy, was an agreeable,\nexceedingly energetic, exceedingly hard-working woman, who was a\npronounced conservative.\n\nI have met few women as good as she. In spite of the fact that she soon\ndiscovered that I was not at all religious, she did not hold it against\nme, nor did I harbour any resentment against her.\n\nI often read her the _A\u00f1alejo_, or church calendar, which is known\nas the _Gallofa_, or beggars' mite, in the northern provinces, in\nallusion to the ancient custom of making pilgrimages to Santiago, and I\ncooked sugar wafers over the fire with her on the eve of feast days, at\nwhich times her work was especially severe.\n\nI realized in Cestona my childish ambitions of having a house of my own,\nand a dog, which had lain in my mind ever since reading _Robinson\nCrusoe_ and _The Mysterious Island_.\n\nI also had an old horse named Juanillo, which I borrowed from a coachman\nin San Sebastian, but I never liked horses.\n\nThe horse seems to me to be a militaristic, antipathetic animal. Neither\nRobinson Crusoe nor Cyrus Harding rode horse-back.\n\nI committed no blunders while I was a village doctor. I had already\ngrown prudent, and my sceptical temperament was a bar to any great\nmistakes.\n\nI first began to realize that I was a Basque in Cestona, and I recovered\nmy pride of race there, which I had lost.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nAS A BAKER\n\n\nI have been asked frequently: \"How did you ever come to go into the\nbaking business?\" I shall now proceed to answer the question, although\nthe story is a long one.\n\nMy mother had an aunt, Juana Nessi, who was a sister of her father's.\n\nThis lady was reasonably attractive when young, and married a rich\ngentleman just returned from America, whose name was Don Mat\u00edas Lacasa.\n\nOnce settled in Madrid, Don Mat\u00edas, who deemed himself an eagle, when,\nin reality, he was a common barnyard rooster, embarked upon a series of\nundertakings that failed with truly extraordinary unanimity. About 1870,\na physician from Valencia by the name of Mart\u00ed, who had visited Vienna,\ngave him an account of the bread they make there, and of the yeast they\nuse to raise it, enlarging upon the profits which lay ready to hand in\nthat line.\n\nDon Mat\u00edas was convinced, and he bought an old house near the Church of\nthe Descalzas upon Mart\u00ed's advice. It stood in a street which boasted\nonly one number--the number 2. I believe the street was, and still is,\ncalled the Calle de la Misericordia.\n\nMart\u00ed set up ovens in the old building by the Church of the Descalzas,\nand the business began to yield fabulous profits. Being a devotee of the\nlife of pleasure, Mart\u00ed died three or four years after the business had\nbeen established, and Don Mat\u00edas continued his gallinaceous evolutions\nuntil he was utterly ruined, and had pawned everything he possessed,\nremaining at last with the bakery as his only means of support.\n\nHe succeeded in entangling and ruining that, too, before he died. My\naunt then wrote my mother requesting that my brother Ricardo come up to\nMadrid.\n\nMy brother remained in Madrid for some time, when he grew tired and\nleft; then I went, and later we were both there together, making an\neffort to improve the business and to push it ahead. Times were bad:\nthere was no way of pushing ahead. Surely the proverb \"Where flour is\nlacking, everything goes packing,\" could never have been applied with\nmore truth. And we could get no flour.\n\nWhen the bakery was just about to do better, the Conde de Romanones, who\nwas our landlord in those days, notified us that the building was to be\ntorn down.\n\nThen our troubles began. We were obliged to move elsewhere, and to\nundertake alterations, for which money was indispensable, but we had no\nmoney. In that predicament, we began to speculate upon the Exchange, and\nthe Exchange proved a kind mother to us; it sustained us until we were\non our feet again. As soon as we had established ourselves upon another\nsite, we proceeded to lose money, so we withdrew.\n\nIt is not surprising, therefore, that I have always regarded the Stock\nExchange as a philanthropic institution, or that, on the other hand, a\nchurch has always seemed a sombre place in which a black priest leaps\nforth from behind a confessional to seize one by the throat in the dark,\nand to throttle him.\n\n\n\n\nMY FATHER'S DISILLUSIONMENT\n\n\nMy father was endowed with a due share of the romantic fervour which\ndistinguished men of his epoch, and set great store by friendship. More\nparticularly, he was wrapped up in his friends in San Sebastian.\n\nWhen we discovered that we were in trouble, before throwing ourselves\ninto the loving arms of the Bourse, my father spoke to two intimate\nfriends of his who were from San Sebastian. They made an appointment to\nmeet me in the Caf\u00e9 Suizo. I explained the situation to them, after\nwhich they made me certain propositions, which were so usurious, so\noutrageously extortionate, that they took my breath away. They offered\nto advance us the money we needed for fifty per cent of the gross\nreceipts, while we were to meet the running expenses out of our fifty\nper cent, receiving no compensation whatever for our services in taking\ncare of the business.\n\nI was astonished, and naturally did not accept. The episode was a great\nblow to my father. I frequently came face to face with one of our\nfriends at a later date, but I never bowed to him. He was offended. I\nwas tempted to approach him and say: \"The reason that I do not bow to\nyou is because I know you are a rascal.\"\n\nIf either of these friends of ours were alive, I should proceed to\nmention their names, but, as they are dead, it will serve no useful\npurpose.\n\n\n\n\nINDUSTRY AND DEMOCRACY\n\n\nThe bakery has been brandished against me in literature.\n\nWhen I first wrote, it was said:\n\n\"This Baroja is a crusty fellow; naturally, he is a baker.\"\n\nA certain picturesque academician, who was also a dramatist, and given\nto composing stupendous _quintillas_ and _cuartetas_ in his\nday, which, despite their flatness, were received with applause, had the\ninspiration to add:\n\n\"All this modernism has been cooked up in Baroja's oven.\"\n\nEven the Catalans lost no time in throwing the fact of my being a baker\nin my face, although they are a commercial, manufacturing people.\nWhether calico is nobler than flour, or flour than calico, I am not\nsure, but the subject is one for discussion, as Maeztu would have it.\n\nI am an eclectic myself on this score. I prefer flour in the shape of\nbread with my dinner, but cloth will go further with a man who desires\nto appear well in public.\n\nWhen I was serving upon the Town Council, an anonymous publication\nentitled \"Masks Off,\" printed the following among other gems: \"P\u00edo\nBaroja is a man of letters who runs a bake-shop.\"\n\nA Madrid critic recently declared in an American periodical that I had\ntwo personalities: one that of a writer and the other of a baker. He was\nsolicitous to let me know later that he intended no harm.\n\nBut if I should say to him: \"Mr. So and So\" is a writer who is\nexcellently posted upon the value of cloth, as his father sold\ndry-goods, it would appeal to his mind as bad taste.\n\nAnother journalist paid his respects to me some months ago in _El\nParlamentario_, saying I baked rolls, oppressed the people, and\nsucked the blood of the workingman.\n\nIt would appear to be more demeaning to own a small factory or a shop,\naccording to the standards of both literary and non-literary circles,\nthan it is to accept money from the corruption funds of the Government,\nor bounties from the exchequers of foreign Embassies.\n\nWhen I hear talk nowadays about the dues of the common people, my\npropensity to laugh is so great that I am apprehensive that my end may\nbe like that of the Greek philosopher in Diogenes Laertius, who died of\nlaughter because he saw an ass eating figs.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VEXATIONS OF A SMALL TRADESMAN\n\n\nThe trials and tribulations of the literary life, its feuds and its\nbackbitings are a common topic of conversation. However, I have never\nexperienced anything of the kind in literature. The trouble with\nliterature is that there is very little money in it, which renders the\nwriter's existence both mean and precarious.\n\nNothing compares for vexation with the life of the petty tradesman,\nespecially when that tradesman is a baker. Upon occasion, I have\nrepeated to my friends the series of outrages to which we were obliged\nto submit, in particular at the hands of the municipal authorities.\n\nSometimes it was through malice, but more often through sheer insentient\nimbecility.\n\nWhen my brother and I moved to the new site, we drew up a plan and\nsubmitted it to the _Ayuntamiento_, or City Government. A clerk\ndiscovered that no provision had been made for a stall for a mule to run\nthe kneading machine, and so rejected it. When we learned that our\napplication had not been granted, we inquired the reason and explained\nto the clerk that no provision had been made for the mule because we had\nno mule, as our kneading machine was operated by an electric motor.\n\n\"That makes no difference, no difference whatever,\" replied the clerk\nwith the importance and obtuseness of the bureaucrat. \"The ordinance\nrequires that there be a stall for one.\"\n\nAnother of the thousand instances of official barbarity was perpetrated\nat our expense while S\u00e1nchez de Toca was Alcalde. This gentleman is a\nSiamese twin of Maura's when it comes to garrulousness and muddy\nthinking, and he had resolved to do away with the distribution of bread\nby public delivery, and to license only deliveries by private bakeries.\nThe order was arbitrary enough, but the manner in which it was put into\neffect was a masterpiece. It was reported that plates bearing license\nnumbers would be given out at the _Ayuntamiento_ to the delivery\nmen from the bakeries. So we repaired to the _Ayuntamiento_ and\nquestioned a clerk:\n\n\"Where do they give out the numbers?\n\n\"There are no numbers.\"\n\n\"What will happen tomorrow then, when we make our deliveries?\"\n\n\"How do I know?\"\n\nThe next day when the delivery men began their rounds, a policeman\naccosted them:\n\n\"Have you your numbers?\"\n\n\"No, sir; they are not ready yet.\"\n\n\"Well, come with me then, to the police station.\"\n\nAnd that was the last of our bread.\n\nThe Caid of Mechuar in Morocco favoured his subjects in some such\nfashion several years since, but the Moors, being men of spirit, fell on\nhim one day, and left him at death's door on a dung heap. Meanwhile,\nS\u00e1nchez de Toca continues to talk nonsense in these parts, and is\nconsidered by some to be one of the bulwarks of the country.\n\nI could spin many a tale of tyranny in high places, and almost as many,\nno doubt, of the pettinesses of workingmen. But what is the good? Why\nstir up my bile? In progressive incarnations, I have now passed through\nthose of baker and petty tradesman. I am no longer an employer who\nexploits the workingman, nor can I see that I ever did so. If I have\nexploited workers merely because I employed them, all that was some time\nago. I support myself by my writings now, although it is quite proper to\nstate that I live on very little.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nAS A WRITER\n\n\nMy pre-literary career was three-fold: I was a student for eight years,\nduring two a village doctor, and for six more a baker.\n\nThese having elapsed, being already close upon thirty, I began to write.\n\nMy new course was a wise one. It was the best thing that I could have\ndone; anything else would have annoyed me more and have pleased me less.\nI have enjoyed writing, and I have made some money, although not much,\nyet it has been sufficient to enable me to travel, which otherwise I\nshould not have been able to do.\n\nThe first considerable sum which I received was upon the publication of\nmy novel _The Mayorazgo of Labraz_. Henrich of Barcelona paid me\ntwo thousand pesetas for it. I invested the two thousand pesetas in a\nspeculation upon the Bourse, and they disappeared in two weeks.\n\nThe money which I have received for my other books, I have employed to\nbetter purpose.\n\n\n\n\nBOHEMIA\n\n\nI have never been a believer in the absurd myth called Bohemia. The idea\nof living gaily and irresponsibly in Madrid, or in any other Spanish\ncity, without taking thought for the morrow, is so preposterous that it\npasses comprehension. Bohemia is utterly false in Paris and London, but\nin Spain, where life is difficult, it is even more of a cheat.\n\nBohemia is not only false, it is contemptible. It suggests to me a minor\nChristian sect, of the most inconsequential degree, nicely calculated\nfor the convenience of hangers on at caf\u00e9s.\n\nHenri Murger was the son of the wife of a _conci\u00e8rge_.\n\nOf course, this would not have mattered had his outlook upon life not\nbeen that of the son of the wife of a _conci\u00e8rge_.\n\n\n\n\nOUR OWN GENERATION\n\n\nThe beginner in letters makes his way up, as a rule, amid a literary\nenvironment which is distinguished by reputations and hierarchies,\nall respected by him. But this was not the case with the young writers\nof my day. During the years 1898 to 1900, a number of young men suddenly\nfound themselves thrown together in Madrid, whose only rule was the\nprinciple that the immediate past did not exist for them.\n\nThis aggregation of authors and artists might have seemed to have been\nbrought together under some leadership, and to have been directed to\nsome purpose; yet one who entertained such an assumption would have been\nmistaken.\n\nChance brought us together for a moment, a very brief moment, to be\nfollowed by a general dispersal. There were days when thirty or forty\nyoung men, apprentices in the art of writing, sat around the tables in\nthe old Caf\u00e9 de Madrid.\n\nDoubtless such gatherings of new men, eager to interfere in and to\ninfluence the operations of the social system, yet without either the\nwarrant of tradition or any proved ability to do so, are common upon a\nlarger scale in all revolutions.\n\nAs we neither had, nor could have had, in the nature of the case, a task\nto perform, we soon found that we were divided into small groups, and\nfinally broke up altogether.\n\n\n\n\nAZOR\u00cdN\n\n\nA few days after the publication of my first book, _Sombre Lives_,\nMiguel Poveda, who was responsible for printing it, sent a copy to\nMart\u00ednez Ruiz, who was at that time in Mon\u00f3var. Mart\u00ednez Ruiz wrote me a\nlong letter concerning the book by return mail; on the following day he\nsent another.\n\nPoveda handed me the letters to read and I was filled with surprise and\njoy. Some weeks later, returning from the National Library, Mart\u00ednez\nRuiz, whom I knew by sight, came up to me on the Recoletos.\n\n\"Are you Baroja?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I am Mart\u00ednez Ruiz.\"\n\nWe shook hands and became friends.\n\nIn those days we travelled about the country together, we contributed to\nthe same papers, and the ideas and the men we attacked were the same.\n\nLater, Azor\u00edn became an enthusiastic partisan of Maura, which appeared\nto me particularly absurd, as I have never been able to see anything but\nan actor of the grand style in Maura, a man of small ideas. Next he\nbecame a partisan of La Cierva, which was as bad in my opinion as being\na Maurista. I am unable to say at the moment whether he is contemplating\nany further transformations.\n\nBut, whether he is or not, Azor\u00edn will always remain a master of\nlanguage to me, besides an excellent friend who has a weakness for\nbelieving all men to be great who talk in a loud voice and who pull\ntheir cuffs down out of their coat sleeves with a grand gesture whenever\nthey appear upon the platform.\n\n\n\n\nPAUL SCHMITZ\n\n\nAnother friendship which I found stimulating was that of Paul Schmitz, a\nSwiss from Basle, who had come to Madrid because of some weakness of the\nlungs, spending three years among us in order to rehabilitate himself.\nSchmitz had studied in Switzerland and in Germany, and also had lived\nfor a long time in the north of Russia.\n\nHe was familiar with what in my judgment are the two most interesting\ncountries of Europe.\n\nPaul Schmitz was a timid person of an inquiring turn of mind, whose\nyouth had been tempestuous. I made a number of excursions with Schmitz\nto Toledo, to El Paular and to the Springs of Urbi\u00f3n; a year or two\nlater we visited Switzerland several times together.\n\nSchmitz was like an open window through which I looked out upon an\nunknown world. I held long conversations with him upon life, literature,\nart and philosophy.\n\nI recall that I took him one Sunday afternoon to the home of Don Juan\nValera.\n\nWhen Schmitz and I arrived, Valera had just settled down for the\nafternoon to listen to his daughter, who was reading aloud one of the\nlatest novels of Zola.\n\nValera, Schmitz and I sat chatting for perhaps four or five hours. There\nwas no subject that we could all agree upon. Valera and I were no sooner\nagainst the Swiss than the Swiss and Valera were against me, or the\nSwiss and I against Valera, and then each flew off after his own\nopinion.\n\nValera, who saw that the Swiss and I were anarchists, said it was beyond\nhis comprehension how any man could conceive of a state of general well\nbeing.\n\n\"Do you mean to say that you believe,\" he said to me, \"that there will\never come a time when every man will be able to set a bowl of oysters\nfrom Arcach\u00f3n upon his table and top it off with a bottle of champagne\nof first-rate vintage, besides having a woman sitting beside him in a\nWorth gown?\"\n\n\"No, no, Don Juan,\" I replied. \"In the eyes of the anarchist, oysters,\nchampagne, and Worth are mere superstitions, myths to which we attach no\nimportance. We do not spend our time dreaming about oysters, while\nchampagne is not nectar to our tastes. All that we ask is to live well,\nand to have those about us live well also.\"\n\nWe could not convince each other. When Schmitz and I left Valera's house\nit was already night, and we found ourselves absorbed in his talents and\nhis limitations.\n\n\n\n\nORTEGA Y GASSET\n\n\nOrtega y Gasset impresses me as a traveller who has journeyed through\nthe world of culture. He moves upon a higher level, which it is\ndifficult to reach, and upon which it is still more difficult to\nmaintain oneself.\n\nIt may be that Ortega has no great sympathy for my manner of living,\nwhich is insubordinate; it may be that I look with unfriendly eye upon\nhis ambitious and aristocratic sympathies; nevertheless, he is a master\nwho brings glad news of the unknown--that is, of the unknown to us.\n\nDoctor San Mart\u00edn was fond of telling how he was sitting one day upon a\nbench in the Retiro, reading.\n\n\"Are you reading a novel?\" inquired a gentleman, sitting down beside\nhim.\n\n\"No, I am studying.\"\n\n\"What! Studying at your age?\" exclaimed the gentleman, amazed.\n\nThe same remark might be made to me: \"What! Sitting under a master at\nyour age?\"\n\nAs far as I am concerned, every man who knows more than I do is my\nmaster.\n\nI know very well that philosophy and metaphysics are nothing to the\ngreat mass of physicians who pick up their science out of foreign\nreviews, adding nothing themselves to what they read; nor, for that\nmatter, are they to most Spanish engineers, who are skilled in doing\nsufficiently badly today what was done in England and Germany very well\nthirty years ago; and the same thing is true of the apothecaries. The\npractical is all that these people concede to exist, but how do they\nknow what is practical? Considering the matter from the practical point\nof view, there can be no doubt but that civilization has attained a high\ndevelopment wherever there have been great metaphysicisms, and then with\nthe philosophers have come the inventors, who between them are the glory\nof mankind. Unamuno despises inventors, but in this case it is his\nmisfortune. It is far easier for a nation which is destitute of a\ntradition of culture to improvise an histologist or a physicist, than a\nphilosopher or a real thinker.\n\nOrtega y Gasset, the only approach to a philosopher whom I have ever\nknown, is one of the few Spaniards whom it is interesting to hear talk.\n\n\n\n\nA PSEUDO-PATRON\n\n\nAlthough a man may never have amounted to anything, and will probably\ncontinue in much the same case, that is to say never amounting to\nanything, yet there are persons who will take pride in having given him\nhis start in the world--in short, upon having made him known. Se\u00f1or\nRuiz Contreras has set up some such absurd claim in regard to me.\nAccording to Ruiz Contreras, he brought me into public notice through a\nreview which he published in 1899, under the title _Revista Nueva_.\nThus, according to Ruiz Contreras, I am known, and have been for\neighteen years! Although it may seem scarcely worth while to expose such\nan obvious joke, I should like to clear up this question for the benefit\nof any future biographers. Why should I not indulge the hope of having\nthem?\n\nIn 1899, Ruiz Contreras invited my co-operation in a weekly magazine, in\nwhich I was to be both stockholder and editor. Those days already seem a\nlong way off. At first I refused, but he insisted; at length we agreed\nthat I should write for the magazine and share in meeting the expenses,\nin company with Ruiz Contreras, Reparaz, Lassalle and the novelist\nMatheu.\n\nI made two or three payments, and moved down some of my pictures and\nfurniture to the office in consequence, until the time came when I began\nto feel that it was humorous for me to be paying for publishing my\narticles, when I was perfectly well able to dispose of them to any other\nsheet. Upon my cutting off payments, Ruiz Contreras informed me that a\nnumber of the stockholders, among whom was Icaza, who had replaced\nReparaz, took the position that if I did not pay, I should not be\npermitted to write for the magazine.\n\n\"Very well, I shall not write.\" And I ceased to write.\n\nPrevious to my connection with the _Revista Nueva_, I had contributed\narticles to _El Liberal_, _El Pais_, _El Globo_, _La Justicia_, and\n_La Voz de Guip\u00fazcoa_, as well as to other publications.\n\nA year after my contributions to the _Revista Nueva_, I brought out\n_Sombre Lives_, which scarcely sold one hundred copies, and, then,\na little later, _The House of Aizgorri_, the sale of which fell\nshort of fifty.\n\nAt this time, Mart\u00ednez Ruiz published a comedy, _The Power of\nLove_, for which I provided a prologue, and I went about with the\npublisher, Rodr\u00edguez Serra, through the bookshops, peddling the book. In\na shop on the Plaza de Santa Ana, Rodr\u00edguez Serra asked the proprietor,\nnot altogether without a touch of malice:\n\n\"What do you think of this book?\"\n\n\"It would be all right,\" answered the proprietor, who did not know me,\n\"if anybody knew who Mart\u00ednez Ruiz was; and who is this P\u00edo Baroja?\"\n\nSe\u00f1or Ruiz Contreras says that he made me known, but the fact is that\nnobody knew me in those days; Se\u00f1or Ruiz Contreras flatters himself that\nhe did me a great favour by publishing my articles, at a cost to me, at\nthe very least, of two or three _duros_ apiece.\n\nIf this is to be a patron of letters, I should like to patronize half\nthe planet.\n\nAs for literary influence, Ruiz Contreras never had any upon me. He was\nan admirer of Ars\u00e8ne Houssage, Paul Bourget, and other novelists with a\nsophisticated air, who never meant anything to me. The theatre also\nobsessed him, a malady which I have never suffered, and he was a devotee\nof the poet, Zorrilla, in which respect I was unable to share his\nenthusiasm, nor can I do so today. Finally, he was a political\nreactionary, while I am a man of radical tendencies.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nPARISIAN DAYS\n\n\nFor the past twenty years I have been in the habit of visiting Paris,\nnot for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the city--to see it once\nis enough; nor do I go in order to meet French authors, as, for the most\npart, they consider themselves so immeasurably above Spaniards that\nthere is no way in which a self-respecting person can approach them. I\ngo to meet the members of the Spanish colony, which includes some types\nwhich are most interesting.\n\nI have gathered a large number of stories and anecdotes in this way,\nsome of which I have incorporated in my books.\n\n\n\n\nEST\u00c9VANEZ\n\n\nDon Nicol\u00e1s Est\u00e9vanez was a good friend of mine. During my sojourns in\nParis, I met him every afternoon in the Caf\u00e9 de la Fleur in the\nBoulevard St. Germain.\n\nWhen I was writing _The Last of the Romantics_ and _Grotesque\nTragedies_, Est\u00e9vanez furnished me with data and information\nconcerning life in Paris under the Second Empire.\n\nWhen I last saw him in the autumn of 1913, he made a practice of coming\nto the caf\u00e9 with a paper scribbled over with notes, to assist his memory\nto recall the anecdotes which he had it in mind to tell.\n\nI can see him now in the Caf\u00e9 de la Fleur, with his blue eyes, his long\nwhite beard, his cheeks, which were still rosy, his calm and always\nphlegmatic air.\n\nOnce he became much excited. Javier Bueno and I happened on him in a\ncaf\u00e9 on the Avenue d'Orleans, not far from the Lion de Belfort. Bueno\nasked some questions about the recent attempt by Moral to assassinate\nthe King in Madrid, and Est\u00e9vanez suddenly went to pieces. An anarchist\ntold me afterwards that Est\u00e9vanez had carried the bomb which was thrown\nby Morral in Madrid, from Paris to Barcelona, at which port he had taken\nship for Cuba, by arrangement with the Duke of Bivona.\n\nI believe this story to have been a pure fabrication, but I feel\nperfectly certain that Est\u00e9vanez knew beforehand that the crime was to\nbe attempted.\n\n\n\n\nMY VERSATILITY ACCORDING TO BONAFOUX\n\n\nSpeaking of Est\u00e9vanez, I recall also Bonafoux, whom I saw frequently.\nAccording to Gonz\u00e1lez de la Pe\u00f1a, the painter, he held my versatility\nagainst me.\n\n\"Bonafoux,\" remarked Pe\u00f1a, \"feels that you are too versatile and too\nvolatile.\"\n\n\"Indeed? In what way?\"\n\n\"One day you entered the bar and said to Bonafoux that a testimonial\nbanquet ought to be organized for Est\u00e9vanez, enlarging upon it\nenthusiastically. Bonafoux answered: 'Go ahead and make the\npreparations, and we will all get together.' When you came into the caf\u00e9\na few nights later, Bonafoux asked: 'How about that banquet?' 'What\nbanquet?' you replied. It had already passed out of your mind. Now, tell\nme: Is this true?\" inquired Pe\u00f1a.\n\n\"Yes, it is. We all have something of Tartarin in us, more or less. We\ntalk and we talk, and then we forget what we say.\"\n\nOther Parisian types return to me when I think of those days. There was\na Cuban journalist, who was satisfactorily dirty, of whom Bonafoux used\nto say that he not only ate his plate of soup but managed to wash his\nface in it at the same time. There was a Catalan guitar player, besides\nsome girls from Madrid who walked the tight rope, whom we used to invite\nto join us at the caf\u00e9 from time to time. And then there was a whole\nhost of other persons, all more or less shabby, down at the heel and\npicturesque.\n\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nLITERARY ENMITIES\n\n\nMaking our entrance into the world of letters hurling contradictions\nright and left, the young men of our generation were received by the\nwriters of established reputation with unfriendly demonstrations. As was\nnatural, this was not only the attitude of the older writers, but it\nextended to our contemporaries in years as well, even to those who were\nmost modern.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ENMITY OF DICENTA\n\n\nAmong those who cherished a deadly hatred of me was Dicenta. It was an\nantipathy which had its origin in the realm of ideas, and it was\naccentuated subsequently by an article which I contributed to _El\nGlobo_ upon his drama _Aurora_, in which I maintained that\nDicenta was not a man of new or broad ideas, but completely preoccupied\nwith the ancient conceptions of honesty and honour. One night in the\nCaf\u00e9 Fornos--I am able to vouch for the truth of this incident because,\nyears afterwards, he told me the story himself--Dicenta accosted a young\nman who was sitting at an adjacent table taking supper, and attempted to\ndraw him into discussion, under the impression that it was I. The young\nman was so frightened that he never dared to open his mouth.\n\n\"Come,\" shouted Dicenta, \"we shall settle this matter at once.\"\n\n\"I have nothing to settle with you,\" replied the young man.\n\n\"Yes, sir, you have; you have stated in an article that my ideas are not\nrevolutionary.\"\n\n\"I never stated anything of the kind.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"But aren't you P\u00edo Baroja?\"\n\n\"I am not, sir.\"\n\nDicenta turned on his heel and marched back to his seat.\n\nSometime later, Dicenta and I became friends, although we were never\nvery intimate, because he felt that I did not appreciate him at his full\nworth. And it was the truth.\n\n\n\n\nTHE POSTHUMOUS ENMITY OF SAWA\n\n\nI met Alejandro Sawa one evening at the Caf\u00e9 Fornos, where I had gone\nwith a friend.\n\nAs a matter of fact, I had never read anything which he had written, but\nhis appearance impressed me. Once I followed him in the street with the\nintention of speaking to him, but my courage failed at the last moment.\nA number of months later, I met him one summer afternoon on the\nRecoletos, when he was in the company of a Frenchman named Cornuty.\nCornuty and Sawa were conversing and reciting verses; they took me to a\nwine-shop in the Plaza de Herradores, where they drank a number of\nglasses, which I paid for, whereupon Sawa asked me to lend him three\npesetas. I did not have them, and told him so.\n\n\"Do you live far from here?\" asked Alejandro, in his lofty style.\n\n\"No, near by.\"\n\n\"Very well then, you can go home and bring me the money.\"\n\nHe issued this command with such an air of authority that I went home\nand brought him the money. He came to the door of the wine-shop, took it\nfrom me, and then said:\n\n\"You may go now.\"\n\nThis was the way in which insignificant bourgeois admirers were treated\nin the school of Baudelaire and Verlaine.\n\nLater again, when I brought out _Sombre Lives_, I sometimes saw\nSawa in the small hours of the morning, his long locks flowing, and\nfollowed by his dog. He always gripped my hand with such force that it\ndid me some hurt, and then he would say to me, in a tragic tone:\n\n\"Be proud! You have written _Sombre Lives_.\"\n\nI took it as a joke.\n\nOne day Alejandro wrote me to come to his house. He was living on the\nCuesta de Santo Domingo. I betook myself there, and he made me a\nproposition which was obviously preposterous. He handed me five or six\narticles, written by him, which had already been published, together\nwith some notes, saying that if I would add certain material, we should\nthen be able to make up a book of \"Parisian Impressions,\" which could\nappear under the names of us both.\n\nI read the articles and did not care for them. When I went to return\nthem, he asked me:\n\n\"What have you done?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I think it would be difficult for us to collaborate; there is\nno possible bond of unity in what we write.\"\n\n\"How is that?\"\n\n\"You are one of these eloquent writers, and I am not.\"\n\nThis remark gave great offence.\n\nAnother reason for Alejandro's enmity was an opinion expressed by my\nbrother, Ricardo.\n\nRicardo wished to paint the portrait of Manuel Sawa in oils, as Manuel\nhad marked personality at that time, when he still wore a beard.\n\n\"But here am I,\" said Alejandro. \"Am I not a more interesting subject to\nbe painted?\"\n\n\"No, no, not at all,\" we all shouted together--this took place in the\nCaf\u00e9 de Lisboa--\"Manuel has more character.\"\n\nAlejandro said nothing, but, a few moments later, he rose, looked at\nhimself in the glass, arranged his flowing locks, and then, glaring at\nus from top to toe, while he pronounced the letter with the utmost\ndistinctness, he said simply:\n\n\"M....\" and walked out of the caf\u00e9.\n\nSome time passed before Alejandro heard that I had put him into one of\nmy novels and he conceived a certain dislike for me, in spite of which\nwe saw each other now and then, always conversing affectionately.\n\nOne day he sent for me to come and see him. He was living in the Calle\ndel Conde Duque. He was in bed, already blind. His spirit was as high as\nbefore, while his interest in literary matters remained the same. His\nbrother, Miguel, who was present, happened to say during the\nconversation that the hat I wore, which I had purchased in Paris a few\ndays previously, had a flatter brim than was usual. Alejandro asked to\nexamine it, and busied himself feeling of the brim.\n\n\"This is a hat,\" he exclaimed enthusiastically, \"that a man can wear\nwith long hair.\" Some months subsequent to his death a book of his,\n_Light Among the Shadows_, was published, in which Alejandro spoke\nill of me, although he had a good word for _Sombre Lives_.\n\nHe called me a country-man, said that my bones were misshapen, and then\nstated that glory does not go hand in hand with tuberculosis. Poor\nAlejandro! He was sound at heart, an eloquent child of the\nMediterranean, born to orate in the lands of the sun, but he took it\ninto his head that it was his duty to make himself over into the\nlikeness of one of the putrid products of the North.\n\n\n\n\nSEMI-HATRED ON THE PART OF SILVERIO LANZA\n\n\nA mutual friend, Antonio Gil Campos, introduced me to Silverio Lanza.\n\nSilverio Lanza was a man of great originality, endowed with an enormous\nfund of thwarted ambition and pride, which was only natural, as he was a\nnotably fine writer who had not yet met with success, nor even with the\nrecognition which other younger writers enjoyed.\n\nThe first time that I saw Lanza, I remember how his eyes sparkled when I\ntold him that I liked his books. Nobody ever paid any attention to him\nin those days.\n\nSilverio Lanza was a singular character. At times he seemed benevolent,\nand then again there were times when he would appear malignant in the\nextreme.\n\nHis ideas upon the subject of literature were positively absurd. When I\nsent him _Sombre Lives_, he wrote me an unending letter in which he\nattempted to convince me that I ought to append a lesson or moral, to\nevery tale. If I did not wish to write them, he offered to do it\nhimself.\n\nSilverio thought that literature was not to be composed like history,\naccording to Quintilian's definition, _ad narrandum_, but _ad\nprobandum_.\n\nWhen I gave him _The House of Aizgorri_, he was outraged by the\noptimistic conclusion of the book, and advised me to change it.\nAccording to his theory, if the son of the Aizgorri family came to a bad\nend, the daughter ought to come to a bad end also.\n\nBeing of a somewhat fantastical turn of mind, Silverio Lanza was full of\npolitical projects that were extraordinary.\n\nI remember that one of his ideas was that we ought all to write the King\na personal note of congratulation upon his attaining his majority.\n\n\"It is the most revolutionary thing that can be done at such a time,\"\ninsisted Lanza, apparently quite convinced.\n\n\"I am unable to see it,\" I replied. Azor\u00edn and myself were of the\nopinion that it was a ridiculous proceeding which would never produce\nthe desired result.\n\nAnother of Lanza's hobbies was an aggressive misogyny.\n\n\"Baroja, my friend,\" he would say to me, \"you are too gallant and\nrespectful in your novels with the ladies. Women are like laws, they are\nto be violated.\"\n\nI laughed at him.\n\nOne day I was walking with my friend Gil Campos and my cousin Go\u00f1i, when\nwe happened on Silverio Lanza, who took us to the Caf\u00e9 de San Sebasti\u00e1n,\nwhere we sat down in the section facing the Plazuela del Angel. It was a\ncompany that was singularly assorted.\n\nSilverio reverted to the theme that women should be handled with the\nrod. Gil Campos proceeded to laugh, being gifted with an ironic vein,\nand made fun of him. For my part, I was tired of it, so I said to Lanza:\n\n\"See here, Don Juan\" (his real name was Juan Bautista Amor\u00f3s), \"what you\nare giving us now is literature, and poor literature at that. You are\nnot, and I am not, able to violate law and women as we see fit. That may\nbe all very well for Caesars and Napoleons and Borgias, but you are a\nrespectable gentleman who lives in a little house at Getafe with your\nwife, and I am a poor man myself, who manages as best he may to make a\nliving. You would tremble in your boots if you ever broke a law, or even\na municipal ordinance, and so would I. As far as women are concerned, we\nare both of us glad to take what we can get, if we can get anything, and\nI am afraid that neither of us is ever going to get very much, despite\nthe fact\"--I added by way of a humorous touch--\"that we are two of the\nmost distinguished minds in Europe.\"\n\nMy cousin Go\u00f1i replied to this with the rare tact that was\ncharacteristic of him, arguing that within the miserable sphere of\ntangible reality I was right, while Lanza moved upon a higher plane,\nwhich was more ideal and more romantic. He went on to add that Lanza and\nhe were both Berbers, and so violent and passionate, while I was an\nAryan, although a vulgar Aryan, whose ideas were simply those which were\nshared by everybody.\n\nLanza was not satisfied with my cousin's explanation and departed with a\nmarked lack of cordiality.\n\nSince that time, Silverio has regarded me with mixed emotions, half\nfriendly, half the reverse, although in one of his latest books, _The\nSurrender of Santiago_, he has referred to me as a great friend and a\ngreat writer. I suspect, however, that he does not love me.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nTHE PRESS\n\nOUR NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS\n\n\nI have always been very much interested in the newspaper and periodical\npress, and in everything that has any connection with printing. When my\nfather, my grandfather, and great grandfather set up struggling papers\nin a provincial capital, it may be said that they were not printers in\nvain.\n\nBecause of my fondness for newspapers and magazines, it is a grief to me\nthat the Spanish press should be so weak, so poor, so pusillanimous and\nstiff-jointed.\n\nOf late, while the foreign press has been expanding and widening its\nscope, ours has been standing still.\n\nThere is, of course, an economic explanation to justify our deficiency,\nbut this is valid only in the matter of quantity, and not as to quality.\nComparing our press with that of the rest of the world, a rosary of\nnegation might easily be made up in this fashion:\n\nOur press does not concern itself with what is of universal interest.\n\nOur press does not concern itself with what is of national interest.\n\nOur press does not concern itself with literature.\n\nOur press does not concern itself with philosophy.\n\nAnd so on to infinity.\n\nCorpus Barga has told me that when Se\u00f1or Groizard, a relative of his,\nwas ambassador to the Vatican, Leo XIII once inquired of him, in a\njargon of Italo-Spanish, in the presence of the papal secretary,\nCardinal Rampolla:\n\n\"Does the Se\u00f1or Ambasciatore speak Italian?\"\n\n\"No, not Italian, although I understand it a little.\"\n\n\"Does the Se\u00f1or Ambasciatore speak English?\"\n\n\"No, not English, I do not speak that,\" replied Groizard.\n\n\"Does the Se\u00f1or Ambasciatore speak German?\"\n\n\"No German, no Dutch; not at all.\"\n\n\"No doubt then the Se\u00f1or Ambasciatore speaks French?\"\n\n\"French? No. I am able to translate it a little, but I do not speak it.\"\n\n\"Then what does the Se\u00f1or Ambasciatore speak?\" asked Leo XIII, smiling\nthat Voltairian smile of his at his secretary.\n\n\"Then Se\u00f1or Ambasciatore speaks a heavy back-country dialect called\nExtramaduran,\" replied Rampolla del Tindaro, bending over to His\nHoliness's ear.\n\nThe Spanish press has made a resolution, now of long standing, to speak\nnothing but a back-country dialect called Extramaduran.\n\n_Our Journalists_\n\nOur journalists supply the measure of our journals. When the great names\nare those of Miguel Moya, Romeo, Rocamora and Don P\u00edo, what are we to\nthink of the little fellows?\n\nSpeaking generally, the Spanish journalist is interested in politics, in\ntheatres, in bull fights, and in nothing else; whatever is beyond these,\ndoes not concern him. Not even the _feuilleton_ attracts his\nattention. A wooden, highly mannered phrase sponsored by Maura, is much\nmore stimulating to his mind than the most sensational piece of news.\n\nThe Spanish newspaper man is endowed with an extraordinary lack of\nimagination and of curiosity. I recall having given a friend, who was a\njournalist, a little book of Nietzsche's to read, which he returned with\nthe remark that he had not been able to get through it, as it was\ninsufferable drivel. I have heard the same opinion, or similar ones,\nexpressed by journalists of Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Dostoievsky, Stendhal\nand all the most stimulating minds of Europe.\n\nThe wretched Saint Aubin, wretched certainly as a critic, used to\nridicule Tolstoi and the illness which resulted in his death,\nmaintaining that it was nothing more than an advertisement. The most\nbenighted vulgarity reigns in our press.\n\nUpon occasion, vulgarity goes hand in hand with an ignorance which is\nastounding. I remember going to a caf\u00e9 on the Calle de Alcal\u00e1 known as\nla Maison Dor\u00e9e one afternoon with Regoyos. Felipe Trigo, the novelist,\nsat down at our table with a friend of his, a journalist, I believe,\nfrom America. I have never been a friend of Trigo's, and could never\ntake any interest either in the man or his work, which to my mind is\ntiresome and commercially erotic, besides being absolutely devoid of all\ncharm.\n\nRegoyos, who is effusive by nature, soon became engaged in conversation\nwith them, and the talk turned upon artistic subjects, in which he was\ninterested, and then to his travels abroad.\n\nTrigo put in his oar and uttered a number of preposterous statements. In\nparticular, he described a ship which had unloaded at Milan. When\nRegoyos pointed out that Milan was not a seaport, he replied:\n\n\"Probably it was some other place then. What is the difference?\"\n\nHe continued with a string of geographical and anthropological blunders,\nwhich were concurred in by the journalist, while Regoyos and I sat by in\namazement.\n\nWhen we left the caf\u00e9, Regoyos inquired:\n\n\"Could they have been joking?\"\n\n\"No; nonsense. They do not believe that such things are worth knowing.\nThey think they are petty details which might be useful to railway\nporters. Trigo imagines that he is a magician, who understands the\nfemale mind.\"\n\n\"Well, does he?\" asked Regoyos, with na\u00efve innocence.\n\n\"How can he understand anything? The poor fellow is ignorant. His other\nattainments are on a par with his geography.\"\n\nThe ignorance of authors and journalists is accompanied as a matter of\ncourse by a total want of comprehension. A number of years ago, a rich\nyoung man called at my house, intending to found a review. During the\nconversation, he explained that he was a Murcian, a lawyer and a\nfollower of Maura.\n\nFinally, after expounding his literary ideas, he informed me that\nRicardo Le\u00f3n, who at that time had just published his first novel,\nwould, in his opinion, come to be acknowledged as the first novelist of\nEurope. He also assured me that Dickens's humour was absolutely vulgar,\ncheap and out of date.\n\n\"I am not surprised that you should think so,\" I said to him. \"You are\nfrom Murcia, you are a lawyer and a Maurista; naturally, you like\nRicardo Le\u00f3n, and it is equally natural that you should not like\nDickens.\"\n\nPersons who imagine that it is of no consequence whether Milan is a\nseaport or not, who believe that Nietzsche is a drivelling ass, and who\nmake bold to tell us that Dickens is a cheap author--in one word, young\ngentlemen lawyers who are partisans of Maura, are the people who provide\ncopy for our press. How can the Spanish press be expected to be\ndifferent from what it is?\n\n\n\n\nAMERICANS\n\n\nUnquestionably, Spaniards suffer much from the uncertainty of\ninformation and narrowness of view inevitable to those who live apart\nfrom the main currents of life.\n\nIn comparison with the English, the Germans, or the French, whether we\nlike it or not, we appear provincial. We are provincials who possess\nmore or less talent, but nevertheless we are provincials.\n\nSo it is that an Italian, a Russian, or a Swede prefers to read a book\nby a mediocre Parisian, such as Marcel Pr\u00e9vost, to one by a writer of\ngenuine talent, such as Gald\u00f3s; it also explains why the canvases of\nsecond rate painters such as David, Gericault, or Ingres are more highly\nesteemed in the market than those of a painter of genius like Goya.\n\nTo be provincial has its virtues as well as its defects. At times the\nprovincial are accompanied by universal elements, which blend and form a\nmasterpiece. This was the case with _Don Quixote_, with the\netchings of Goya and the dramas of Ibsen. Similarly, among new peoples,\nprovincial stupidity will often form a blend with an obtuseness which is\nworld-wide. The aridness and infertility characteristic of the soil\ncombine with the detritus of fashion and the follies of the four\nquarters of the globe. The result is a child-like type, petulant, devoid\nof virtue, and utterly destitute of a single manly quality. This is the\nAmerican type. America is _par excellence_ the continent of\nstupidity.\n\nThe American has not yet outgrown the monkey in him and remains in the\nimitative stage.\n\nI have no particular reason to dislike Americans. My hostility towards\nthem arises merely from the fact that I have never known one who had the\nair of being anybody, who impressed me as a man.\n\nYou frequently meet a man in the interior of Spain, in some small\nvillage, perhaps, whose conversation conveys the impression that he is a\nreal man, wrought out of the ore that is most human and most noble. At\nsuch times one becomes reconciled to one's country, for all its\ncharlatans and hordes of sharpers.\n\nAn American never appears to be calm, serene and collected. There are\nplenty who seem to be wild, impulsive creatures, driven on by sanguinary\nfury, while others disclose the vanity of the chorus girl, or a\nself-conceit which is wholly ridiculous.\n\nMy lack of sympathy for Spanish-Americans extends to their literary\nproductions. Everything that I have read by South Americans, and I bear\nin mind the not disinterested encomiums of Unamuno, I have found to be\nboth poor and deficient in substance.\n\nBeginning with Sarmiento's _Facundo_, which is heavy, cheap, and\nuninteresting, and coming down to the latest productions of Ingenieros,\nManuel Ugarte, Ricardo Rojas and Contreras, this is true without\nexception.\n\nWhat a deluge of shoddy snobbery and vulgar display pours out of\nAmerica!\n\nIt is often argued that Spaniards should eulogize South Americans for\npolitical reasons. This is one of many recommendations which proceed\nfrom the craniums of gentlemen who top themselves off with silk hats and\nwho carry a lecture inside which is in demand by Ibero-American\nsocieties.\n\nI have no faith that this brand of politics will be productive of\nresults.\n\nCitizens of old, civilized countries are still sensible to flattery and\ncompliment, but what are you to tell an Argentine who is fully convinced\nthat Argentina is a more important country than England or Germany,\nbecause she raises a large quantity of wheat, to say nothing of a great\nnumber of cows?\n\nWhenever Unamuno writes he decries Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and\nthen promptly eulogizes the mighty General An\u00edbal P\u00e9rez and the great\npoet Diocleciano S\u00e1nchez, who hail from the pampas. To these fellows,\nsuch praise seems grudging enough. Salvador Rueda himself must appear\ntame to these hide-stretchers.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nPOLITICS\n\n\nI have always been a liberal radical, an individualist and an anarchist.\nIn the first place, I am an enemy of the Church; in the second place, I\nam an enemy of the State. When these great powers are in conflict I am a\npartisan of the State as against the Church, but on the day of the\nState's triumph, I shall become an enemy of the State. If I had lived\nduring the French Revolution, I should have been an internationalist of\nthe school of Anacarsis Clootz; during the struggle for liberty, I\nshould have been one of the _Carbonieri_.\n\nTo the extent in which liberalism has been a destructive force, inimical\nto the past, it enthralls me. The fight against religious prejudice and\nthe aristocracy, the suppression of religious communities, inheritance\ntaxes--in short, whatever has a tendency to pulverize completely the\nancient order of society, fills me with a great joy. On the other hand,\ninsofar as liberalism is constructive, as it has been for example in its\nadvocacy of universal suffrage, in its democracy, and in its system of\nparliamentary government, I consider it ridiculous and valueless as\nwell.\n\nEven today, wherever it is obliged to take the aggressive, it seems to\nme that the good in liberalism is not exhausted; but wherever it has\nbecome an accomplished fact, and is accepted as such, it neither\ninterests me nor enlists my admiration.\n\n\n\n\nVOTES AND APPLAUSE\n\n\nIn our present day democracy, there are only two effective sanctions:\nvotes and applause.\n\nThose are all. Just as in the old days men committed all sorts of crimes\nin order to please their sovereign, now they commit similar crimes in\norder to satisfy the people.\n\nAnd this truth has been recognized from Aristotle to Burke.\n\nDemocracy ends in histrionism.\n\nA man who gets up to talk before a crowd must of necessity be an actor.\nI have wondered from time to time if I might not have certain histrionic\ngifts myself; however, when I have put them to the test, I have found\nthat they were not sufficient. I have made six or seven speeches during\nmy brief political career. I spoke in Valencia, in a pelota court, and I\ndelivered an address at Barcelona in the Casa del Pueblo, in both of\nwhich places I was applauded generously. Nevertheless the applause\nfailed to intoxicate me; it produced no impression upon me whatever. It\nseemed too much like mere noise--noise made by men's hands, and having\nnothing to do with myself.\n\nI am not good enough as an actor to be a politician.\n\n\n\n\nPOLITICIANS\n\n\nI have never been able to feel any enthusiasm for Spanish politicians.\nWe hear a great deal about C\u00e1novas. C\u00e1novas has always impressed me as\nbeing as bad an orator as he was a writer. When I first read his _Bell\nof Huesca_, I could not contain myself for laughing. As far as his\nspeeches are concerned, I have also read a few, and find them horribly\nheavy, diffuse, monotonous and deficient in style. I hear that C\u00e1novas\nis a great historian, but if so, I am not acquainted with that side of\nhim.\n\nCastelar was unquestionably a man of exceptional gifts as a writer, but\nhe failed to take advantage of them, and they were utterly dissipated.\nHe lacked what most Spaniards of the 19th Century lacked with him; that\nis, reserve.\n\nWhen Echegaray was made Minister of Finance, he was already an old man.\nA reporter called one day to interview him at the Ministry, and\nEchegaray confessed that he was without any very clear idea as to just\nwhat the duties of his office were to be. When the reporter took leave\nof the dramatist, he remarked:\n\n\"Don Jos\u00e9, you are not going to be comfortable here; it is cold in the\nbuilding. Besides, the air is too fresh.\"\n\nEchegaray replied:\n\n\"Yes, and your description suits me exactly.\"\n\nThis cynically cheap joke might have fallen appropriately from the\ntongues of the majority of Spanish politicians. Among these male\n_bailarinas_, nearly all of whom date back to the Revolution of\nSeptember, we may find, indeed, some men of austere character: Salmer\u00f3n,\nP\u00ed y Margall and Costa. Salmer\u00f3n was an inimitable actor, but an actor\nwho was sincere in his part. He was the most marvellous orator that I\nhave ever heard.\n\nAs a philosopher, he was of no account, and as a politician he was a\ncalamity.\n\nP\u00ed y Margall, whom I met once in his own home where I went in company\nwith Azor\u00edn, was no more a politician or a philosopher than was\nSalmer\u00f3n. He was a journalist, a popularizer of other men's ideas,\ngifted with a style at once clear and concise. P\u00ed y Margall was sincere,\nenamoured of ideas, and took but little thought of himself.\n\nAs to Costa, I confess that he was always antipathetic to me. Like\nNakens, he was a man who lived upon the estimation in which he was held\nby others, pretending all the while that he attached no importance to it\nwhatever. Aguirre Metaca once told me that while he was connected with a\npaper in Saragossa, he had solicited an interview with Costa, and\nthereupon Costa wrote the interview himself, referring to himself here\nand there in it as the Lion of Graus. I cannot accept Costa as a modern\nEuropean, intellectually. He was a figure for the Cortes of Cadiz,\nsolemn, pompous, becollared and rhetorical. He was one of those actors\nwho abound in southern countries, who are laid to rest in their graves\nwithout ever having had the least idea that their entire lives have been\nnothing but stage spectacles.\n\n\n\n\nREVOLUTIONISTS\n\n\nWhether politicians or authors, the Spanish revolutionists always smack\nto my mind of the property room, and especially is this true of the\nauthors. Zozaya, Morote and Dicenta have passed for many years now as\nterrible men, both destructive and great innovators. But how ridiculous!\nZozaya, like Dicenta, has never done anything but manipulate the\ncommonplace, failing to impart either lightness or novelty to it, as\nhave Valera and Anatole France, succeeding only on the other hand in\nmaking it more plumbeous and indigestible.\n\nSpeaking of Luis Morote, against whom I urge nothing as a man, he has\nalways been a bugbear to me, the personification of dullness, of\nvulgarity, of everything that lacks interest and charm. I can conceive\nnothing lower than an article by Morote.\n\n\"What talent that man has! What a revolutionary personality!\" they used\nto say in Valencia, and once the janitor at the Club added: \"To think I\nknew that man when he was only this high!\" And he held out his hand\nabout a metre above the ground.\n\nSpain has never produced any revolutionists. Don Nicol\u00e1s Est\u00e9vanez, who\nimagined himself an anarchist, would fly into a rage if he read an\narticle which concealed a gallicism in it.\n\n\"Do not bother your head about gallicisms,\" I used to say to him. \"What\ndo they matter, anyway?\"\n\nNo, we have never had any revolutionists in Spain. That is, we have had\nonly one: Ferrer.\n\nHe was certainly not a man of great mind. When he talked, he was on the\nlevel of Morote and Zozaya, which is nothing more nor less than the\nlevel of everybody else; but when it came to action, he did amount to\nsomething, and that something was dangerous.\n\n\n\n\nLERROUX\n\n\nMy only experience in politics was gained with Lerroux.\n\nOne Sunday, seven or eight years ago, on coming out of my house and\ncrossing the Plaza de San Marcial, I observed that a great crowd had\ngathered.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" I asked.\n\n\"Lerroux is coming,\" they told me.\n\nI delayed a moment and happened on Villar, the composer, among the\ncrowd. We fell to talking of Lerroux and what he might accomplish. A\nprocession was soon formed, which we followed, and we found ourselves in\nfront of the editorial offices of _El Pais_.\n\n\"Shall we go in?\" asked Villar. \"Do you know Lerroux?\"\n\nI had met Lerroux in the days when _El Progreso_ was still\npublished, having called once with Maeztu at his office; afterwards I\nsaw him in Barcelona in a large shed, which, if I recall rightly, went\nby the name of \"La Fraternidad Republicana,\" and then I was accompanied\nby Azor\u00edn and Junoy.\n\nVillar and I went upstairs and greeted Lerroux in the offices of _El\nPais_.\n\n\"Est\u00e9vanez has spoken of you to me,\" he said. \"Is he well?\"\n\n\"Yes, very well.\"\n\nA few days later, Lerroux invited me to dinner at the Caf\u00e9 Ingl\u00e9s.\nLerroux, Fuente and I dined together, and then fell to talking. Lerroux\nasked me to join his party, whereupon I pointed out the qualifications\nwhich were lacking in me, which were necessary to a politician. Shortly\nafter, I was nominated as a candidate for the City Council, and I\naddressed a number of meetings, although always coldly, and never at\nhigh tension.\n\nWhile I was with Lerroux, I was never treated save with consideration.\n\nWhy did I leave his party? Chiefly because of differences as to ideas\nand as to tactics. Lerroux wished to organize his party into a party of\nlaw and order, so that it might be capable of governing, and also to\nhave it friendly with the Army. I was of the opinion that it ought to be\na revolutionary party, not in the sense that I was thinking of erecting\nbarricades, but I wished it to contest, to upset things, and to protest\nagainst injustice.\n\nWhat Lerroux wanted was a party of orators who could speak at public\nmeetings, a party of office-holders, councillors, provincial deputies\nand the like, while I held, and still hold, that the only efficacious\nrevolutionary weapon is the printed page. Lerroux was anxious to\ntransform the radical party into something aristocratic and Castilian; I\ndesired to see it retain its Catalan character, and continue to wear\nblouses and rope-soled shoes.\n\nI withdrew from the party for these reasons, to which I may add\nLerroux's attitude of indifference upon the occasion of the execution of\nthe stoker of the \"Numancia.\"\n\nNot many months after, I met him on the Carrera de San Jer\u00f3nimo, and he\nsaid to me:\n\n\"I have read your diatribes.\"\n\n\"They were not directed against you, but against your politics. I shall\nnever speak ill of you, because I have no cause.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied, \"I know that at heart you are one of my friends.\"\n\n\n\n\nAN OFFER\n\n\nA number of years ago, when the Conservatives were in power and Dato was\nPresident of the Ministry, Azor\u00edn brought me word that S\u00e1nchez Guerra,\nthen Minister of the Interior, wished to see me and to have a little\ntalk, as perhaps some way might be arranged by which I might be made\ndeputy. During the afternoon, I accompanied Azor\u00edn to the Ministry, and\nwe saw the Minister.\n\nHe informed me that he would like to have me enter the Congress.\n\n\"I should like to myself,\" I replied, \"but it would appear to me rather\ndifficult.\"\n\n\"But is there not some town where you are well known, and where you have\ninfluence?\"\n\n\"No, none whatever.\"\n\n\"How would you like then to be deputy to represent the Government?\"\n\n\"As a regular?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"As a Conservative?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI thought a moment and said: \"No, I can never be a Conservative, however\nit might suit my interest to be so. Try as hard as I might, I should\nnever succeed.\"\n\n\"That is the only way in which we can make you deputy.\"\n\n\"Well, it cannot be helped! I must resign myself then to amount to\nnothing.\"\n\nThanking the Minister for his kindness. Azor\u00edn and I walked out of the\nMinistry of the Interior.\n\n\n\n\nSOCIALISTS\n\n\nAs for Socialists, I have never cared to have anything to do with them.\nOne of the most offensive things about Socialists, which is more\noffensive than their pedantry, than their charlatanry, than their\nhypocrisy, is their inquisitorial instinct for prying into other\npeople's lives. Whether Pablo Iglesias travels first or third class, has\nbeen for years one of the principal topics of dispute between Socialists\nand their opponents.\n\nFifteen years ago I was in Tangier, where I had been sent by the\n_Globo_, and, upon my return, a newspaper man who had socialistic\nideas, reproached me:\n\n\"You talk a great deal about the working man, but I see you were living\nin the best hotel in Tangier.\"\n\nI answered: \"In the first place, I have never spoken of the workingman\nwith any fervour. Furthermore, I am not such a slave as to be too\ncowardly to take what life offers as it comes, as you are. I take what I\ncan that I want, and when I do not take it, it is because I cannot get\nit.\"\n\n\n\n\nLOVE OF THE WORKINGMAN\n\n\nTo gush over the workingman is one of the commonplaces of the day which\nis utterly false and hypocritical. Just as in the 18th century sympathy\nwas with the simple hearted citizen, so today we talk about the\nworkingman. The term workingman can never be anything but a grammatical\ncommon denominator. Among workingmen, as among the bourgeoisie, there\nare all sorts of people. It is perfectly true that there are certain\ncharacteristics, certain defects, which may be exaggerated in a given\nclass, because of its special environment and culture. The difference in\nSpanish cities between the labouring man and the bourgeoisie is not very\ngreat. We frequently see the workingman leap the barrier into the\nbourgeoisie, and then disclose himself as a unique flower of knavery,\nextortion and misdirected ingenuity. Deep down in the hearts of our\nrevolutionists, I do not believe that there is any real enthusiasm for\nthe workingman.\n\nWhen the bookshop of Fernando F\u00e9 was still fin the Carrera de San\nJer\u00f3nimo, I once heard Blasco Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez say with the cheapness that is his\ndistinguishing trait, laughing meanwhile ostentatiously, that a republic\nin Spain would mean the rule of shoemakers and of the scum of the\nstreets.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONVENTIONALIST BARRIOVERO\n\n\nBarriovero, a conventionalist, according to Grandmontagne--yes, and how\nkeen the scent of this American for such matters!--attended the opening\nof a radical club in the Calle del Pr\u00edncipe with a party of friends. We\nwere all drinking champagne. Like other revolutionists and parvenus\ngenerally, Lerroux is a victim of the superstition of champagne.\n\n\"Aha, suppose those workingmen should see us drinking champagne!\"\nsuggested some one.\n\n\"What of it?\" asked another.\n\n\"I only wish for my part,\" Barriovero interrupted with a show of\nsentiment, \"that the workingman could learn to drink champagne.\"\n\n\"Learn to drink it?\" I burst out, \"I see no difficulty about that. He\ncould drink champagne as well as anything else.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Barriovero the conventionalist, very gravely. \"He has\nthe superstition of the peasant; he thinks he must leave enough wine to\ncover the bottom of the glass.\"\n\nI doubt whether this observation will attract the attention of any\nfuture Plutarch, although it might very well do so, as it expresses most\nI clearly the distinction which exists in the minds of our\nrevolutionists between the workingman and the young gentleman.\n\n\n\n\nANARCHISTS\n\n\nI have had a number of acquaintances among anarchists. Some of them are\ndead; the majority of the others have changed their ideas. It is\napparent nowadays that the anarchism of Reclus and Kropotkin is out of\ndate, and entirely a thing of the past. The same tendencies will\nreappear under other forms, and present new aspects. Among anarchists, I\nhave known Elys\u00e9e Reclus, whom I met in the editorial offices of a\npublication called _L'Humanit\u00e9 Nouvelle_, which was issued in Paris\nin the Rue des Saints-P\u00e8res. I have also met Sebastien Faure during a\nmass meeting organized in the interests of one Guerin, who had taken\nrefuge in a house in the Rue de Chabrol some eighteen or twenty years\nago. I have had relations with Malatesta and Tarrida del Marmol. As a\nmatter of fact, both these anarchists escorted me one afternoon from\nIslington, where Malatesta lived, to the door of the St. James Club, one\nof the most aristocratic retreats in London, where I had an appointment\nto meet a diplomat.\n\nAs for active anarchists, I have known a number, two or three of whom\nhave been dynamiters.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MORALITY OF THE ALTERNATING PARTY SYSTEM\n\n\nThe only difference between the morality of the Liberal party and that\nof the Conservative party is one of clothes. Among Conservatives the\nmost primitive clout seems to be slightly more ample, but not noticeably\nso.\n\nThe preoccupations of both are purely with matters of style. The only\ndistinction is that the Conservatives make off with a great deal at\nonce, while the Liberals take less, but do it often.\n\nThis is in harmony with the law of mechanics according to which what is\ngained in force is lost in velocity and what is gained in intensity is\nlost in expansion. After all, no doubt morality in politics should be a\nnegligible quantity. Honest, upright men who hearken only to the voice\nof conscience, never get on in politics, neither are they ever\npractical, nor good for anything.\n\nTo succeed in politics, a certain facility is necessary, to which must\nbe added ambition and a thirst for glory. The last is the most innocent\nof the three.\n\n\n\n\nON OBEYING THE LAW\n\n\nIt is safe, it seems to me, to assume the following axioms: First, to\nobey the law is in no sense to attain justice; second, it is not\npossible to obey the law strictly, thoroughly, in any country in the\nworld.\n\nThat obeying the law has nothing to do with justice is indisputable, and\nthis is especially true in the political sphere, in which it is easy to\npoint to a rebel, such as Mart\u00ednez Campos, who has been elevated to the\nplane of a great man and who has been immortalized by a statue upon his\ndeath, and then to a rebel such as S\u00e1nchez Moya, who Was merely shot.\nThe only difference between the men was in the results attained, and in\nthe manner of their exit.\n\nHence I say that Lerroux was not only base, but obtuse and absurdly\nwanting in human feeling and revolutionary sympathy, when he concurred\nin the execution of the stoker of the \"Numancia.\"\n\nIf law and justice are identical and to comply with the law is\ninvariably to do justice, then what can be the distinction between the\nprogressive and the conservative? On the other hand, the revolutionist\nhas no alternative but to hold that law and justice are not the same,\nand so he is obliged to subscribe to the benevolent character of all\ncrimes which are altruistic and social in their purposes, whether they\nare reactionary or anarchistic in tendency.\n\nNow the second axiom, which is to the effect that there is no city or\ncountry in the world in which it is possible to obey the law thoroughly,\nis also self-evident. A certain class of common crimes, such as robbery,\ncheating and swindling, murder and the like, are followed by a species\nof automatic punishment in all quarters of the civilized world, in spite\nof exceptions in specific cases, which result from the intervention of\npolitical bosses and similar influences; but there are other offenses\nwhich meet with no such automatic punishment. In these pardon and\npenalty are meted out in a spirit of pure opportunism.\n\nI was discussing Zurdo Olivares one day with Emiliano Iglesias in the\noffice of _El Radical_, when I asked him:\n\n\"How was it that Zurdo Olivares could save himself after playing such an\nactive role in the tragic week at Barcelona?\"\n\n\"Zurdo's salvation was indirectly owing to me,\" replied Iglesias.\n\n\"But, my dear sir!\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed.\"\n\n\"How did that happen?\"\n\n\"Very naturally. There were three cases to be tried; one was against\nFerrer, one against Zurdo, and another against me. A friend who enjoyed\nthe necessary influence, succeeded in quashing the case against me, as a\nmatter of personal favour, and as it seemed rather barefaced to make an\nexception alone in my favour, it was decided to include Zurdo Olivares,\nwho, thanks to the arrangement, escaped being shot.\"\n\n\"Then, if an influential friend of yours had not been a member of the\nMinistry, you would both have been shot in the moat at Montjuich?\"\n\n\"Beyond question.\"\n\nAnd this took place in the heyday of Conservative power.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STERNNESS OF THE LAW\n\n\nThere are men who believe that the State, as at present constituted, is\nthe end and culmination of all human effort. According to this view, the\nState is the best possible state, and its organization is considered so\nperfect that its laws, discipline and formulae are held to be sacred and\nimmutable in men's eyes. Maura and all conservatives must be reckoned in\nthis group, and Lerroux too, appears to belong with them, as he holds\ndiscipline in such exalted respect.\n\nOn the other hand, there are persons who believe that the entire legal\nstructure is only a temporary scaffolding, and that what is called\njustice today may be thought savagery tomorrow, so that it is the part\nof wisdom not to look so much to the rule of the present as to the\nillumination of the future.\n\nSince it is impossible to effect in practice automatic enforcement of\nthe law, especially in the sphere of political crimes, because of the\nunlimited power of pardon vested in the hands of our public men, it\nwould seem judicious to err upon the side of mercy rather than upon that\nof severity. Better fail the law and pardon a repulsive, bloody beast\nsuch as Chato de Cuqueta, than shoot an addle-headed unfortunate such as\nClemente Garc\u00eda, or a dreamer like S\u00e1nchez Moya, whose hands were\ninnocent of blood.\n\nIt was pointed out a long time ago that laws are like cobwebs; they\ncatch the little flies, and let the big ones pass through.\n\nHow very severe, how very determined our politicians are with the little\nflies, but how extremely affable they are with the big ones!\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nMILITARY GLORY\n\n\nNo, I have not made up my mind upon the issues of this war. If it were\npossible to determine what is best for Europe, I should of course desire\nit, but this I do not know, and so I am uncertain. I am preoccupied by\nthe consequences which may follow the war in Spain. Some believe that\nthere will be an increase of militarism, but I doubt it.\n\nMany suppose that the crash of the present war will cause the prestige\nof the soldier to mount upward like the spray, so that we shall have\nnothing but uniforms and clanking of spurs throughout the world very\nshortly, while the sole topics of conversation will be mortars,\nbatteries and guns.\n\nIn my judgment those who take this standpoint are mistaken. The present\nconflict will not establish war in higher favour.\n\nPerhaps its glories may not be diminished utterly. It may be that man\nmust of necessity kill, burn, and trample under foot, and that these\nexcesses of brutality are symptoms of collective health.\n\nEven if this be so, we may be sure that military glory is upon the eve\nof an eclipse.\n\nIts decline began when the professional armies became nothing more than\narmed militia, and from the moment that it became apparent that a\nsoldier might be improvised from a countryman with marvellous rapidity.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD-TIME SOLDIER\n\n\nFormerly, a soldier was a man of daring and adventure, brave and\naudacious, preferring an irregular life to the narrowing restraints of\ncivil existence.\n\nThe old time soldier trusted in his star without scruple and without\nfear, and imagined that he could dominate fate as the gambler fancies\nthat he masters the laws of chance.\n\nValour, recklessness, together with a certain rough eloquence, a certain\nitch to command, lay at the foundation of his life. His inducements were\npay, booty, showy uniforms and splendid horses. The soldier's life was\nfilled with adventure, he conquered wealth, he conquered women, and he\nroamed through unknown lands.\n\nUntil a few years ago, the soldier might have been summed up in three\nwords: he was brave, ignorant and adventurous.\n\nThe warrior of this school passed out of Europe about the middle of the\n19th Century. He became extinct in Spain at the conclusion of our Second\nCivil War.\n\nSince that day there has been a fundamental change in the life of the\nsoldier.\n\nWar has taken on greater magnitude, while the soldier has become more\nrefined, and it is not to be denied that both war and the fighting man\nare losing their traditional prestige.\n\n\n\n\nDOWN GOES PRESTIGE\n\n\nThe causes of this diminution of prestige are various. Some are moral,\nsuch as the increased respect for human life, and the disfavour with\nwhich the more aggressive, crueler qualities have come to be regarded.\nOthers, however, and perhaps these are of more importance, are purely\nesthetic. Through a combination of circumstances, modern warfare,\nalthough more tragic than was ancient warfare, and even more deadly,\nnevertheless has been deprived of its spectacular features.\n\nCapacity for esthetic appreciation has its limits. Nobody is able to\nvisualize a battle in which two million men are engaged; it can only be\nimagined as a series of smaller battles. In one of these modern battles,\nsubstantially all the traditional elements which we have come to\nassociate with war, have disappeared. The horse, which bulks so largely\nin the picture of a battle as it presents itself to our minds, scarcely\nretains any importance at all; for the most part, automobiles, bicycles\nand motor cycles have taken its place. These contrivances may be useful,\nbut they do not make the same appeal to the popular imagination.\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND THE PICTURESQUE\n\n\nUpon taking over warfare, science stripped it of its picturesqueness.\nThe commanding general no longer cavorts upon his charger, nor smiles as\nthe bullets whistle about him, while he stands surrounded by an\nornamental general staff, whose breasts are covered with ribbons and\nmedals representing every known variety of hardware, whether monarchical\nor republican.\n\nToday the general sits in a room, surrounded by telephones and telegraph\napparatus. If he smiles at all, it is only before the camera.\n\nAn officer scarcely ever uses a sword, nor does he strut about adorned\nwith all his crosses and medals, nor does he wear the resplendent\nuniforms of other days. On the contrary, his uniform is ugly and dirt\ncoloured, and innocent of devices.\n\nThis officer is without initiative, he is subordinated to a fixed\ngeneral plan; surprises on either one side or the other, are almost out\nof the question.\n\nThe plan of battle is rigid and detailed. It permits neither originality\nnor display of individuality upon the part of the generals, the lesser\nofficers, or the private soldiers. The individual is swallowed up by the\ncollective force. Outstanding types do not occur; nobody develops the\nmarked personality of the generals of the old school.\n\nBesides this, individual bravery, when not reinforced by other\nqualities, is of less and less consequence. The bold, adventurous youth\nwho, years ago, would have been an embryo Murat, Messina, Espartero or\nPrim, would be rejected today to make room for a mechanic who had the\nskill to operate a machine, or for an aviator or an engineer who might\nbe capable of solving in a crisis a problem of pressing danger.\n\nThe prestige of the soldier, even upon the battle field, has fallen\ntoday below that of the man of science.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT WE NEED TODAY\n\n\nThere are still some persons of a romantic turn of mind who imagine that\nnone but the soldier who defends his native land, the priest who\nappeases the divine wrath and at the same time inculcates the moral law,\nand the poet who celebrates the glories of the community, are worthy to\nbe leaders of the people.\n\nBut the man of the present age does not desire any leaders.\n\nHe has found that when someone wears red trousers or a black cassock, or\nis able to write shorter lines than himself, it is no indication that he\nis any better, nor any braver, nor any more moral, nor capable of deeper\nfeeling than he.\n\nThe man of today will have no magicians, no high priests and no\nmysteries. He is capable of being his own priest, his own soldier when\nit is necessary, and of fighting for himself; he requires no specialists\nin courage, in morals, nor in the realm of sentiment and feeling. What\nwe need today are good men and wise men.\n\n\n\n\nOUR ARMIES\n\n\nPrussian militarism has been explained upon the theory that it was a\ndevelopment consequent upon a realization of the benefits which had\naccrued to Prussia through war. As a matter of fact, however, it is not\npossible to explain all militarism in this way. Certainly in Spain\nneither wars nor the army have been of the slightest benefit to the\ncountry.\n\nIf we consider the epoch which goes by the name of contemporary history,\nthat is to say from the French Revolution to the present time, we shall\nperceive immediately that we have not been over fortunate.\n\nThe French Republic declared war upon us in 1793. A campaign of\nastuteness, a tactical warfare was waged by us upon the frontiers, upon\noccasion not without success, until finally the French army grew strong\nenough to sweep us back, and to cross the Ebro.\n\nWe took part in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Spain presented a fine\nappearance, she made a mighty gesture with her Gravinas, her Churrucas\nand her Alavas, but the battle itself was a disaster.\n\nIn 1808 the War of Independence broke out, providing another splendid\nexhibition of popular fervour. In this war, the regular Army was the\nforce which accomplished least. The war took its character from the\nguerrillas, from the dwellers in the towns. The campaign was directed by\nEnglishmen. The Spanish army suffered more defeats than it won\nvictories, while its administrative and technical organization was\ndeplorable. The intervention of Angoul\u00eame followed in 1823. The Army was\ncomposed of liberal officers, but it contained no troops, so that all\nthey ever did was to retire before the enemy, as he was more numerous\nand more powerful.\n\nThe Spanish cause in America was hopeless before the fighting began. The\nland was enormous, troops were few, and in large measure composed of\nIndians. What the English were never able to do in the fulness of their\npower, was not to be accomplished by Spaniards in their decadence. Our\nFirst Civil War, which was fierce, terrible, and waged without quarter,\ncalled into being a valorous liberal army, and soldiers sprang up of the\ncalibre of Espartero, Zurbano and Narv\u00e1ez, but simultaneously a powerful\nCarlist army was organized under leaders of military genius, such as\nZumalac\u00e1rregui and Cabrera. Victory for either side was impossible, and\nthe war ended in compromise.\n\nThe Second Civil War also resulted in a system of pacts and compromises\nfar more secret than the Convention of Vergara. The Cuban war and the\nwar in the Philippines, as afterwards the war with the United States,\nwere calamitous, while the present campaign in Morocco has not one\nredeeming feature.\n\nFrom the War of the French Revolution to this very day, the African War\nhas been the only one in which our forces have met with the slightest\nsuccess.\n\nNevertheless, our soldiers aspire to a position of dominance in the\ncountry equal to that attained by the French soldiers subsequent to\nJena, and by the Germans after Sedan.\n\nA WORD FROM KUROKI, THE JAPANESE\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said General Kuroki, speaking at a banquet tendered to him\nin New York, \"I cannot aspire to the applause of the world, because I\nhave created nothing, I have invented nothing. I am only a soldier.\"\n\nIf these are not his identical words, they convey the meaning of them.\n\nThis victorious, square-headed Mongolian had gotten into his head what\nthe dolichocephalic German blond, who, according to German\nanthropologists is the highest product of Europe, and the brachycephalic\nbrunette of Gaul and the Latin and the Slav have never been able to\nunderstand.\n\nWill they ever be able to understand it? Perhaps they never will be\nable.\n\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n\nWhen I sat down to begin these pages, somewhat at random, my intention\nwas to write an autobiography, accompanying it with such comments as\nmight suggest themselves. Looking continually to the right and to the\nleft, I have lost my way, and this book is the result.\n\nI have not attempted to correct or embellish it. So many books, trimmed\nup nicely and well-padded, go to their graves every year to be forgotten\nforever, that it has hardly seemed worth while to bedeck this one. I am\nnot a believer in _maquillage_ for the dead.\n\nNow one word more as to the subject of the book, which is I.\n\nIf I were to live two hundred years at the very least, I might be able\nto realize, by degrees, the maximum programme which I have laid down for\nmy life. As it scarcely seems possible that a man could live to such an\nage, which is attained only by parrots, I find myself with no\nalternative but to limit myself to a small portion of the introductory\nsection of my minimum programme, and this, as a matter of fact, I am\ncontent to do.\n\nWith hardship and effort, and the scanty means at my command, I have\nsucceeded in acquiring a house and garden in my own country, a\ncomfortable retreat which is sufficient for my needs. I have gathered a\nsmall library in the house, which I hope will grow with time, besides a\nfew manuscripts and some curious prints. I do not believe that I have\never harmed any man deliberately, so my conscience does not trouble me.\nIf my ideas are fragmentary and ill-considered, I have done my best to\nmake them sound, clear, and complete, so that it is not my fault if they\nare not so.\n\nI have become independent financially. I not only support myself, but I\nam able to travel occasionally upon the proceeds of my pen.\n\nA Russian publishing house, another in Germany, and another in the\nUnited States are bringing out my books, paying me, moreover, for the\nright of translation; and I am satisfied. I have friends of both sexes\nin Madrid and in the Basque provinces, who seem already like old\nfriends, because I have grown fond of them. As I face old age, I feel\nthat I am walking upon firmer ground than I did in my youth.\n\nIn a short time, what a few years ago the sociologists used to call\ninvolution--that is, a turning in--will begin to take place in my brain;\nthe cranial sutures will become petrified, and an automatic limitation\nof the mental horizon will soon come.\n\nI shall accept involution, petrification of the sutures and limitation\nwith good grace. I have never rebelled against logic, nor against\nnature, against the lightning or the thunder storm. No sooner does one\ngain the crest of the hill of life than at once he begins to descend\nrapidly. We know a great deal the moment that we realize that nobody\nknows anything. I am a little melancholy now and a little rheumatic; it\nis time to take salicylates and to go out and work in the garden--a time\nfor meditation and for long stories, for watching the flames as they\nflare upward under the chimney piece upon the hearth.\n\nI commend myself to the event. It is dark outside, but the door of my\nhouse stands open. Whoever will, be he life or be he death, let him come\nin.\n\n\n\n\nPALINODE AND FRESH OUTBURST OF IRE\n\n\nA few days ago I left the house with the manuscript of this book, to\nwhich I have given the name of _Youth and Egolatry_, on my way to\nthe post office.\n\nIt was a romantic September morning, swathed in thick, white mist. A\nblue haze of thin smoke rose upward from the shadowy houses of the\nneighbouring settlement, vanishing in the mist. Meanwhile, the birds\nwere singing, and a rivulet close by murmured in the stillness.\n\nUnder the influence of the homely, placid country air, I felt my spirit\nsoften and grow more humble, and I began to think that the manuscript\nwhich I carried in my hand was nothing more than a farrago of\nfoolishness and vulgarity.\n\nThe voice of prudence, which was also that of cowardice, cautioned me:\n\n\"What is the good of publishing this? Will it bring you reputation?\"\n\n\"Certainly not.\"\n\n\"Have you anything to gain by it?\"\n\n\"Probably not either.\"\n\n\"Then, why irritate and offend this one and that by saying things which,\nafter all, are nobody's business?\"\n\nTo the voice of prudence, however, my habitual self replied:\n\n\"But what you have written is sincere, is it not? What do you care,\nthen, what they think about it?\"\n\nBut the voice of prudence continued:\n\n\"How quiet everything is about you, how peaceful! This is life, after\nall, and the rest is madness, vanity and vain endeavour.\"\n\nThere was a moment when I was upon the point of tossing my manuscript\ninto the air, and I believe I should have done so, could I have been\nsure that it would have dematerialized itself immediately like smoke; or\nI would have thrown it into the river, if I had felt certain that the\ncurrent would have swept it out to sea.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis afternoon I went to San Sebastian to buy paper and salicylate of\nsoda, which is less agreeable.\n\nA number of public guards were riding together in the car on the way\nover, along the frontier. They were discussing bull fighters, El Gallo\nand Belmonte, and also the disorders of the past few days.\n\n\"Too bad that Maura and La Cierva are not in power,\" said one of them,\nwho was from Murcia, smiling and exhibiting his decayed teeth. \"They\nwould have made short work of this.\"\n\n\"They are in reserve for the finish,\" said another, with, the solemnity\nof a pious scamp.\n\nReturning from San Sebastian, I happened on a family from Madrid in the\nsame car. The father was weak, jaundiced and sour-visaged; the mother\nwas a fat brunette, with black eyes, who was loaded down with jewels,\nwhile her face was made up until it was brilliant white, in colour like\na stearin candle. A rather good looking daughter of between fifteen and\ntwenty was escorted by a lieutenant who apparently was engaged to her.\nFinally, there was another girl, between twelve and fourteen, flaccid\nand lively as a still-life on a dinner table. Suddenly the father, who\nwas reading a newspaper, exclaimed:\n\n\"Nothing is going to be done, I can see that; they are already applying\nto have the revolutionists pardoned. The Government will do nothing.\"\n\n\"I wish they would kill every one of them,\" broke in the girl who was\nengaged to the lieutenant. \"Think of it! Firing on soldiers! They are\nbandits.\"\n\n\"Yes, and with such a king as we have!\" exclaimed the fat lady, with the\nparaffine hue, in a mournful tone. \"It has ruined our summer. I wish\nthey would shoot every one of them.\"\n\n\"And they are not the only ones,\" interrupted the father. \"The men who\nare behind them, the writers and leaders, hide themselves, and then they\nthrow the first stones.\"\n\nUpon entering the house, I found that the final proofs of my book had\njust arrived from the printer, and sat down to read them.\n\nThe words of that family from Madrid still rang in my ears: \"I wish they\nwould kill every one of them!\"\n\nHowever one may feel, I thought to myself, it is impossible not to hate\nsuch people. Such people are natural enemies. It is inevitable.\n\nNow, reading over the proofs of my book, it seems to me that it is not\nstrident enough. I could wish it were more violent, more anti-middle\nclass.\n\nI no longer hear the voice of prudence seducing me, as it did a few days\nsince, to a palinode in complicity with a romantic morning of white\nmist.\n\nThe zest of combat, of adventure stirs in me again. The sheltered\nharbour seems a poor refuge in my eyes,--tranquillity and security\nappear contemptible.\n\n\"Here, boy, up, and throw out the sail! Run the red flag of revolution\nto the masthead of our frail craft, and forth to sea!\"\n\nItzea, September, 1917.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\n\nSPANISH POLITICIANS\n\nON BAROJA'S ANARCHISTS\n\nNOTE\n\n\n\n\nSPANISH POLITICIANS\n\n\nThe Spanish alternating party system has prevailed as a national\ninstitution since the restoration of the monarchy under Alfonso XII.\nOstensibly it is based upon manhood suffrage, and in the cities this is\nthe fact, but in the more remote districts the balloting plays but small\npart in the returns. Upon the dissolution of the Cortes and the\nresignation of a ministry, one of the two great parties--the liberal\nparty and the conservative party--automatically retires from power, and\nthe other succeeds it, always carrying the ensuing elections by\nconvenient working majorities.\n\nSpain is a poor country. During the half century previous to the\nrestoration of the Bourbons, she was a victim of internecine strife and\nfactional warfare. She is not poor naturally, but her energy has been\ndrawn off; she has been bled white, and needs time to recuperate. The\nSpaniards are a practical people. They realize this condition. Even the\nlower classes are tired of fine talking. No people have heard more, and\nnone have profited less by it. The country is not like Russia, a fertile\nfield for the agitator; it looks coldly upon reform. Such response as\nhas been obtained by the radical has come from the labour centres under\nthe stimulus of foreign influences, and more particularly from\nBarcelona, where the problem is political even before it is an\nindividual one.\n\nFor this reason the Spanish Republicans are in large part theorists. The\nland has been disturbed sufficiently. They would hesitate to inaugurate\nradical reforms, if power were to be placed in their hands, while the\npossession of power itself might prove not a little embarrassing. Behind\nthe monarchy lies the republic of 1873, behind C\u00e1novas and Castelar, P\u00ed\ny Margall; the republic has merged into and was, in a sense, the\nfoundation of the constitutional system of today. Even popular leaders\nsuch as Lerroux are quick to recognize this fact, and govern themselves\naccordingly. The lack of general education today, would render any\nattempt at the establishment of a thorough-going democracy insecure.\n\nFrancisco Ferrer, although idealized abroad, has been no more than a\nsymptom in Spain. Such men even as Angel Guimer\u00e1, the dramatist, a\nCatalan separatist who has been under surveillance for years, or Pere\nAldavert, who has suffered imprisonment in Barcelona because of his\nopinions, while they speak for the proletariat, nevertheless have had\nscant sympathy for Ferrer's ideas. It would be interesting to know just\nto what extent these commend themselves to Pablo and Emiliano Iglesias\nand the professed political Socialists.\n\nOf the existing parties, the Liberal, being more or less an association\nof groups tending to the left, is the least homogeneous. Its most\nprominent leader of late years has been the Conde de Romanones, who may\nscarcely be said to represent a new era. He has shared responsibility\nwith Eduardo Dato.\n\nAmong Conservatives, the chief figure has long been Antonio Maura. He is\nnot a young man. Politically, he represents very much what the cordially\ndetested Weyler did in the military sphere. But Maurism today is a very\ndifferent thing from the Maurism of fifteen years ago, or of the moat of\nMontjuich. The name of Maura casts a spell over the Conservative\nimagination. It is the rallying point of innumerable associations of\nyoung men of reactionary, aristocratic and clerical tendencies\nthroughout the country, while to progressives it symbolizes the\noppressiveness of the old r\u00e9gime.\n\n\n\n\nON BAROJA'S ANARCHISTS\n\n\nBaroja's memoirs afford convincing proof of his contact with radicals of\nall sorts and classes, from stereotyped republicans such as Barriovero,\nor the Argentine Francisco Grandmontagne, correspondent of _La\nPrensa_ of Buenos Aires, to active anarchists of the type of Mateo\nMorral.\n\nMorral was an habitu\u00e9 of a cafe in the Calle de Alcal\u00e1 at Madrid, where\nBaroja was accustomed to go with his friends to take coffee, and, in the\nSpanish phrase, to attend his _tertulia_. Morral would listen to\nthese conversations. After his attempt to assassinate the King and Queen\nin the Calle Mayor on their return from the Royal wedding ceremony,\nBaroja went to view Morral's body, but was refused admittance. A drawing\nof Morral was made at the time, however, by Ricardo Baroja.\n\nIn this connection, Jos\u00e9 Nakens, to whom the author pays his compliments\non an earlier page, was subjected to an unusual experience. Nakens, who\nwas a sufficiently mild gentleman, had taken a needy radical into his\nhouse, and had given him shelter. This personage made a point of\ninveighing to Nakens continually against C\u00e1novas del Castillo, proposing\nto make way with him. When the news of the assassination of C\u00e1novas was\ncried through the city, Nakens knew for the first that his visitor had\nbeen in earnest. He was none other than the murderer Angiolillo.\n\nThis anecdote became current in Madrid. Years afterwards when the prime\nminister Canalejas was shot to death, the assassin recalled it to mind,\nand repaired to the house of Nakens, who saw in dismay for the second\ntime his radical theories put to violent practical proof. The incident\nproved extremely embarrassing.\n\nThe crime of Morral forms the basis of Baroja's novel _La Dama\nErrante_. He has also dealt with anarchism in _Aurora Roja_ (Red\nDawn).\n\nThe mutiny on the ship \"Numancia,\" referred to in the text, was an\nincident of the same period of unrest, which was met with severe\nrepressive measures.\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\n\nThe Madrid Ateneo is a learned society maintaining a house on the Calle\ndel Prado, in which is installed a private library of unusual\nexcellence. It has been for many years the principal depository of\nmodern books in Spain, and a favourite resort of scholars and\nresearch-workers of the capital.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORKS OF P\u00cdO BAROJA\n\n\nP\u00edo Baroja, recognized by the best critics as the foremost living\nSpanish novelist, is without doubt the chief exponent of that ferment of\npolitical and social thought in Spain which had its inception in the\ncataclysm of 1898, and which gave rise to the new movement in Spanish\nliterature.\n\nOf course this \"modern movement\" was not actually born in 1898. It dates\nback as far as Gald\u00f3s, who is in spirit a modern. But it marked the\nturning point. Benavente the dramatist, Azor\u00edn the critic, Rub\u00e9n Dar\u00edo\nthe poet, P\u00edo Baroja the novelist, all date from this period, belonging\nto and of the new generation, and, together with the Valencian Blasco\nIb\u00e1\u00f1ez, form the A B C of modern Spanish culture.\n\n\"Baroja stands for the modern Spanish mind at its most enlightened,\"\nsays H. L. Mencken. \"He is the Spaniard of education and worldly wisdom,\ndetached from the mediaeval imbecilities of the old regime and yet aloof\nfrom the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country ...\nthe Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure of society\nupon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in the\npeninsular.\"\n\nP\u00edo Baroja was born in 1872 at San Sebastian, the most fashionable\nsummer resort of Spain, the Spanish \"Summer Capital.\" Baroja's father\nwas a noted mining engineer, and while without reputation as a man of\nletters he was an occasional contributor to various periodicals and\ndailies. He had destined his son for the medical profession, and P\u00edo\nstudied at Valencia and Madrid, where he received his degree. He started\npractice in the small town of Cestona, the type of town which figures\nlargely in his novels.\n\nBut the young doctor soon wearied of his profession, and laying aside\nhis stethoscope forever, he returned to Madrid, where, in partnership\nwith an older brother, he opened a bakery. However he was no more\ndestined to be a cook than a doctor, so, encouraged by interested\nfriends, he succeeded in getting a few articles and stories accepted by\nvarious Madrid papers. It was not long before he won distinction as a\njournalist, and he presently abandoned baking entirely, devoting all his\nenergies to writing.\n\nHis first novel, _Camino de Perfecci\u00f3n_, published in 1902, was\nreceived with but little enthusiasm. However he closely followed it with\nseveral others, and Spain soon realized that she had a new writer of\nunusual merit. Today he is pre-eminent among contemporary Spanish\nauthors. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian and\nEnglish.\n\nAlfred A. Knopf, Se\u00f1or Baroja's authorized publisher in the\nEnglish-speaking countries, has published to date two of the novels:\n\nTHE CITY OF THE DISCREET. Translated by Jacob S. Fassett, Jr. $2.00 net.\nAround Cordova, the fascinating and romantic \"city of the discreet,\"\nBaroja has spun an adventurous tale. He gives you a vivid picture of the\ncity with her tortuous streets, ancient houses with their patios and\ntiled roofs and of her \"discreet\" inhabitants. In a style that is\npolished where Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez' is crudely vigorous, and with sympathy and\nunderstanding, he portrays Quentin, the natural son of a Marquis and a\nwoman of humble birth; Pacheco, the ambitious bandit chief; Don Gil\nSabadia, the garrulous and convivial antiquarian, and a host of other\ncharacters.\n\n\"Unforgettable pictures are spread in a rich background for the\naction--Cordova at twilight, with its spires showing against the violet\nsky, the narrow streets with white houses leaning toward each other,\nits squares with sturdy beggars squatting around and its gardens heavy\nwith the scent of orange blossoms, where old fountains quietly drip.\"--\n_Indianapolis News_.\n\n\"This fine novel ... shows us the best features of the modern Spanish\nrealistic school.\"--_The Bookman_.\n\nCAESAR OR NOTHING. Translated by Louis How. $2.00 net.\n\nThis is the story of Caesar Moncada, a brilliantly clever young\nSpaniard, who sets out to reform his country, to modernize it and its\ngovernment. In depicting Caesar's preparation in Rome, where his uncle\nis a Cardinal, for the career he has planned for himself, Se\u00f1or Baroja\netches vividly and entertainingly a typical cosmopolitan society--witty,\nworldly, prosperous and cynical. The second part of the book describes\nCaesar's political fight in Castro Duro.\n\n\"Not only Spain's greatest novelist, but his greatest book. It is the\nmost important translation that has come out of Spain in our time in the\nfield of fiction and it will be remembered as epochal.\"--JOHN GARRETT\nUNDERHILL, Representative in America of the Society of Spanish Authors\nof Madrid.\n\n\"Ranks Baroja as a master of fiction, with a keen sense of character,\nconstructive power and an active, dynamic style.\"--_Philadelphia\nLedger_.\n\n\"I read _Caesar or Nothing_ with a profound admiration for its\npower and skill. It is a great novel, which you deserve our thanks for\npublishing.\"--HAROLD J. LASKI, of Harvard University.\n\n\"A brilliant book--amazingly clever and humorous in its earlier\nchapters, gradually accumulating depth as it moves along until it\nbecomes the stuff of tragedy at the close. The character he has created\nin Caesar Moncada is one of the few really notable portrayals in recent\nfiction.\"--_Chicago Post_.\n\nTranslations of three other novels by Baroja are in preparation in the\ncompetent hands of Dr. Isaac Goldberg. The first, _LA DAMA\nERRANTE_, will be ready in the Fall of 1920. Probable price, $2.00.","title":"Youth and Egolatry","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":44859}