Senor Ruiz Contreras says that he made me known, but the fact is that nobody knew me in those days; Senor Ruiz Contreras flatters himself that he did me a great favour by publishing my articles, at a cost to me, at the very least, of two or three duros apiece.

If this is to be a patron of letters, I should like to patronize half the planet.

As for literary influence, Ruiz Contreras never had any upon me. He was an admirer of Arsene Houssage, Paul Bourget, and other novelists with a sophisticated air, who never meant anything to me. The theatre also obsessed him, a malady which I have never suffered, and he was a devotee of the poet, Zorrilla, in which respect I was unable to share his enthusiasm, nor can I do so today. Finally, he was a political reactionary, while I am a man of radical tendencies.



XIII

PARISIAN DAYS

For the past twenty years I have been in the habit of visiting Paris, not for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the city—to see it once is enough; nor do I go in order to meet French authors, as, for the most part, they consider themselves so immeasurably above Spaniards that there is no way in which a self-respecting person can approach them. I go to meet the members of the Spanish colony, which includes some types which are most interesting.

I have gathered a large number of stories and anecdotes in this way, some of which I have incorporated in my books.



ESTEVANEZ

Don Nicolas Estevanez was a good friend of mine. During my sojourns in Paris, I met him every afternoon in the Cafe de la Fleur in the Boulevard St. Germain.

When I was writing The Last of the Romantics and Grotesque Tragedies, Estevanez furnished me with data and information concerning life in Paris under the Second Empire.

When I last saw him in the autumn of 1913, he made a practice of coming to the cafe with a paper scribbled over with notes, to assist his memory to recall the anecdotes which he had it in mind to tell.

I can see him now in the Cafe de la Fleur, with his blue eyes, his long white beard, his cheeks, which were still rosy, his calm and always phlegmatic air.

Once he became much excited. Javier Bueno and I happened on him in a cafe on the Avenue d'Orleans, not far from the Lion de Belfort. Bueno asked some questions about the recent attempt by Moral to assassinate the King in Madrid, and Estevanez suddenly went to pieces. An anarchist told me afterwards that Estevanez had carried the bomb which was thrown by Morral in Madrid, from Paris to Barcelona, at which port he had taken ship for Cuba, by arrangement with the Duke of Bivona.

I believe this story to have been a pure fabrication, but I feel perfectly certain that Estevanez knew beforehand that the crime was to be attempted.



MY VERSATILITY ACCORDING TO BONAFOUX

Speaking of Estevanez, I recall also Bonafoux, whom I saw frequently. According to Gonzalez de la Pena, the painter, he held my versatility against me.

"Bonafoux," remarked Pena, "feels that you are too versatile and too volatile."

"Indeed? In what way?"

"One day you entered the bar and said to Bonafoux that a testimonial banquet ought to be organized for Estevanez, enlarging upon it enthusiastically. Bonafoux answered: 'Go ahead and make the preparations, and we will all get together.' When you came into the cafe a few nights later, Bonafoux asked: 'How about that banquet?' 'What banquet?' you replied. It had already passed out of your mind. Now, tell me: Is this true?" inquired Pena.

"Yes, it is. We all have something of Tartarin in us, more or less. We talk and we talk, and then we forget what we say."

Other Parisian types return to me when I think of those days. There was a Cuban journalist, who was satisfactorily dirty, of whom Bonafoux used to say that he not only ate his plate of soup but managed to wash his face in it at the same time. There was a Catalan guitar player, besides some girls from Madrid who walked the tight rope, whom we used to invite to join us at the cafe from time to time. And then there was a whole host of other persons, all more or less shabby, down at the heel and picturesque.



XIV

LITERARY ENMITIES

Making our entrance into the world of letters hurling contradictions right and left, the young men of our generation were received by the writers of established reputation with unfriendly demonstrations. As was natural, this was not only the attitude of the older writers, but it extended to our contemporaries in years as well, even to those who were most modern.



THE ENMITY OF DICENTA

Among those who cherished a deadly hatred of me was Dicenta. It was an antipathy which had its origin in the realm of ideas, and it was accentuated subsequently by an article which I contributed to El Globo upon his drama Aurora, in which I maintained that Dicenta was not a man of new or broad ideas, but completely preoccupied with the ancient conceptions of honesty and honour. One night in the Cafe Fornos—I am able to vouch for the truth of this incident because, years afterwards, he told me the story himself—Dicenta accosted a young man who was sitting at an adjacent table taking supper, and attempted to draw him into discussion, under the impression that it was I. The young man was so frightened that he never dared to open his mouth.

"Come," shouted Dicenta, "we shall settle this matter at once."

"I have nothing to settle with you," replied the young man.

"Yes, sir, you have; you have stated in an article that my ideas are not revolutionary."

"I never stated anything of the kind."

"What is that?"

"No, sir."

"But aren't you Pio Baroja?"

"I am not, sir."

Dicenta turned on his heel and marched back to his seat.

Sometime later, Dicenta and I became friends, although we were never very intimate, because he felt that I did not appreciate him at his full worth. And it was the truth.



THE POSTHUMOUS ENMITY OF SAWA

I met Alejandro Sawa one evening at the Cafe Fornos, where I had gone with a friend.

As a matter of fact, I had never read anything which he had written, but his appearance impressed me. Once I followed him in the street with the intention of speaking to him, but my courage failed at the last moment. A number of months later, I met him one summer afternoon on the Recoletos, when he was in the company of a Frenchman named Cornuty. Cornuty and Sawa were conversing and reciting verses; they took me to a wine-shop in the Plaza de Herradores, where they drank a number of glasses, which I paid for, whereupon Sawa asked me to lend him three pesetas. I did not have them, and told him so.

"Do you live far from here?" asked Alejandro, in his lofty style.

"No, near by."

"Very well then, you can go home and bring me the money."

He issued this command with such an air of authority that I went home and brought him the money. He came to the door of the wine-shop, took it from me, and then said:

"You may go now."

This was the way in which insignificant bourgeois admirers were treated in the school of Baudelaire and Verlaine.

Later again, when I brought out Sombre Lives, I sometimes saw Sawa in the small hours of the morning, his long locks flowing, and followed by his dog. He always gripped my hand with such force that it did me some hurt, and then he would say to me, in a tragic tone:

"Be proud! You have written Sombre Lives."

I took it as a joke.

One day Alejandro wrote me to come to his house. He was living on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo. I betook myself there, and he made me a proposition which was obviously preposterous. He handed me five or six articles, written by him, which had already been published, together with some notes, saying that if I would add certain material, we should then be able to make up a book of "Parisian Impressions," which could appear under the names of us both.

I read the articles and did not care for them. When I went to return them, he asked me:

"What have you done?"

"Nothing. I think it would be difficult for us to collaborate; there is no possible bond of unity in what we write."

"How is that?"

"You are one of these eloquent writers, and I am not."

This remark gave great offence.

Another reason for Alejandro's enmity was an opinion expressed by my brother, Ricardo.

Ricardo wished to paint the portrait of Manuel Sawa in oils, as Manuel had marked personality at that time, when he still wore a beard.

"But here am I," said Alejandro. "Am I not a more interesting subject to be painted?"

"No, no, not at all," we all shouted together—this took place in the Cafe de Lisboa—"Manuel has more character."

Alejandro said nothing, but, a few moments later, he rose, looked at himself in the glass, arranged his flowing locks, and then, glaring at us from top to toe, while he pronounced the letter with the utmost distinctness, he said simply:

"M...." and walked out of the cafe.

Some time passed before Alejandro heard that I had put him into one of my novels and he conceived a certain dislike for me, in spite of which we saw each other now and then, always conversing affectionately.

One day he sent for me to come and see him. He was living in the Calle del Conde Duque. He was in bed, already blind. His spirit was as high as before, while his interest in literary matters remained the same. His brother, Miguel, who was present, happened to say during the conversation that the hat I wore, which I had purchased in Paris a few days previously, had a flatter brim than was usual. Alejandro asked to examine it, and busied himself feeling of the brim.

"This is a hat," he exclaimed enthusiastically, "that a man can wear with long hair." Some months subsequent to his death a book of his, Light Among the Shadows, was published, in which Alejandro spoke ill of me, although he had a good word for Sombre Lives.

He called me a country-man, said that my bones were misshapen, and then stated that glory does not go hand in hand with tuberculosis. Poor Alejandro! He was sound at heart, an eloquent child of the Mediterranean, born to orate in the lands of the sun, but he took it into his head that it was his duty to make himself over into the likeness of one of the putrid products of the North.



SEMI-HATRED ON THE PART OF SILVERIO LANZA

A mutual friend, Antonio Gil Campos, introduced me to Silverio Lanza.

Silverio Lanza was a man of great originality, endowed with an enormous fund of thwarted ambition and pride, which was only natural, as he was a notably fine writer who had not yet met with success, nor even with the recognition which other younger writers enjoyed.

The first time that I saw Lanza, I remember how his eyes sparkled when I told him that I liked his books. Nobody ever paid any attention to him in those days.

Silverio Lanza was a singular character. At times he seemed benevolent, and then again there were times when he would appear malignant in the extreme.

His ideas upon the subject of literature were positively absurd. When I sent him Sombre Lives, he wrote me an unending letter in which he attempted to convince me that I ought to append a lesson or moral, to every tale. If I did not wish to write them, he offered to do it himself.

Silverio thought that literature was not to be composed like history, according to Quintilian's definition, ad narrandum, but ad probandum.

When I gave him The House of Aizgorri, he was outraged by the optimistic conclusion of the book, and advised me to change it. According to his theory, if the son of the Aizgorri family came to a bad end, the daughter ought to come to a bad end also.

Being of a somewhat fantastical turn of mind, Silverio Lanza was full of political projects that were extraordinary.

I remember that one of his ideas was that we ought all to write the King a personal note of congratulation upon his attaining his majority.

"It is the most revolutionary thing that can be done at such a time," insisted Lanza, apparently quite convinced.

"I am unable to see it," I replied. Azorin and myself were of the opinion that it was a ridiculous proceeding which would never produce the desired result.

Another of Lanza's hobbies was an aggressive misogyny.

"Baroja, my friend," he would say to me, "you are too gallant and respectful in your novels with the ladies. Women are like laws, they are to be violated."

I laughed at him.

One day I was walking with my friend Gil Campos and my cousin Goni, when we happened on Silverio Lanza, who took us to the Cafe de San Sebastian, where we sat down in the section facing the Plazuela del Angel. It was a company that was singularly assorted.

Silverio reverted to the theme that women should be handled with the rod. Gil Campos proceeded to laugh, being gifted with an ironic vein, and made fun of him. For my part, I was tired of it, so I said to Lanza:

"See here, Don Juan" (his real name was Juan Bautista Amoros), "what you are giving us now is literature, and poor literature at that. You are not, and I am not, able to violate law and women as we see fit. That may be all very well for Caesars and Napoleons and Borgias, but you are a respectable gentleman who lives in a little house at Getafe with your wife, and I am a poor man myself, who manages as best he may to make a living. You would tremble in your boots if you ever broke a law, or even a municipal ordinance, and so would I. As far as women are concerned, we are both of us glad to take what we can get, if we can get anything, and I am afraid that neither of us is ever going to get very much, despite the fact"—I added by way of a humorous touch—"that we are two of the most distinguished minds in Europe."

My cousin Goni replied to this with the rare tact that was characteristic of him, arguing that within the miserable sphere of tangible reality I was right, while Lanza moved upon a higher plane, which was more ideal and more romantic. He went on to add that Lanza and he were both Berbers, and so violent and passionate, while I was an Aryan, although a vulgar Aryan, whose ideas were simply those which were shared by everybody.

Lanza was not satisfied with my cousin's explanation and departed with a marked lack of cordiality.

Since that time, Silverio has regarded me with mixed emotions, half friendly, half the reverse, although in one of his latest books, The Surrender of Santiago, he has referred to me as a great friend and a great writer. I suspect, however, that he does not love me.



XV

THE PRESS

OUR NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

I have always been very much interested in the newspaper and periodical press, and in everything that has any connection with printing. When my father, my grandfather, and great grandfather set up struggling papers in a provincial capital, it may be said that they were not printers in vain.

Because of my fondness for newspapers and magazines, it is a grief to me that the Spanish press should be so weak, so poor, so pusillanimous and stiff-jointed.

Of late, while the foreign press has been expanding and widening its scope, ours has been standing still.

There is, of course, an economic explanation to justify our deficiency, but this is valid only in the matter of quantity, and not as to quality. Comparing our press with that of the rest of the world, a rosary of negation might easily be made up in this fashion:

Our press does not concern itself with what is of universal interest.

Our press does not concern itself with what is of national interest.

Our press does not concern itself with literature.

Our press does not concern itself with philosophy.

And so on to infinity.

Corpus Barga has told me that when Senor Groizard, a relative of his, was ambassador to the Vatican, Leo XIII once inquired of him, in a jargon of Italo-Spanish, in the presence of the papal secretary, Cardinal Rampolla:

"Does the Senor Ambasciatore speak Italian?"

"No, not Italian, although I understand it a little."

"Does the Senor Ambasciatore speak English?"

"No, not English, I do not speak that," replied Groizard.

"Does the Senor Ambasciatore speak German?"

"No German, no Dutch; not at all."

"No doubt then the Senor Ambasciatore speaks French?"

"French? No. I am able to translate it a little, but I do not speak it."

"Then what does the Senor Ambasciatore speak?" asked Leo XIII, smiling that Voltairian smile of his at his secretary.

"Then Senor Ambasciatore speaks a heavy back-country dialect called Extramaduran," replied Rampolla del Tindaro, bending over to His Holiness's ear.

The Spanish press has made a resolution, now of long standing, to speak nothing but a back-country dialect called Extramaduran.

Our Journalists

Our journalists supply the measure of our journals. When the great names are those of Miguel Moya, Romeo, Rocamora and Don Pio, what are we to think of the little fellows?

Speaking generally, the Spanish journalist is interested in politics, in theatres, in bull fights, and in nothing else; whatever is beyond these, does not concern him. Not even the feuilleton attracts his attention. A wooden, highly mannered phrase sponsored by Maura, is much more stimulating to his mind than the most sensational piece of news.

The Spanish newspaper man is endowed with an extraordinary lack of imagination and of curiosity. I recall having given a friend, who was a journalist, a little book of Nietzsche's to read, which he returned with the remark that he had not been able to get through it, as it was insufferable drivel. I have heard the same opinion, or similar ones, expressed by journalists of Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Dostoievsky, Stendhal and all the most stimulating minds of Europe.

The wretched Saint Aubin, wretched certainly as a critic, used to ridicule Tolstoi and the illness which resulted in his death, maintaining that it was nothing more than an advertisement. The most benighted vulgarity reigns in our press.

Upon occasion, vulgarity goes hand in hand with an ignorance which is astounding. I remember going to a cafe on the Calle de Alcala known as la Maison Doree one afternoon with Regoyos. Felipe Trigo, the novelist, sat down at our table with a friend of his, a journalist, I believe, from America. I have never been a friend of Trigo's, and could never take any interest either in the man or his work, which to my mind is tiresome and commercially erotic, besides being absolutely devoid of all charm.

Regoyos, who is effusive by nature, soon became engaged in conversation with them, and the talk turned upon artistic subjects, in which he was interested, and then to his travels abroad.

Trigo put in his oar and uttered a number of preposterous statements. In particular, he described a ship which had unloaded at Milan. When Regoyos pointed out that Milan was not a seaport, he replied:

"Probably it was some other place then. What is the difference?"

He continued with a string of geographical and anthropological blunders, which were concurred in by the journalist, while Regoyos and I sat by in amazement.

When we left the cafe, Regoyos inquired:

"Could they have been joking?"

"No; nonsense. They do not believe that such things are worth knowing. They think they are petty details which might be useful to railway porters. Trigo imagines that he is a magician, who understands the female mind."

"Well, does he?" asked Regoyos, with naive innocence.

"How can he understand anything? The poor fellow is ignorant. His other attainments are on a par with his geography."

The ignorance of authors and journalists is accompanied as a matter of course by a total want of comprehension. A number of years ago, a rich young man called at my house, intending to found a review. During the conversation, he explained that he was a Murcian, a lawyer and a follower of Maura.

Finally, after expounding his literary ideas, he informed me that Ricardo Leon, who at that time had just published his first novel, would, in his opinion, come to be acknowledged as the first novelist of Europe. He also assured me that Dickens's humour was absolutely vulgar, cheap and out of date.

"I am not surprised that you should think so," I said to him. "You are from Murcia, you are a lawyer and a Maurista; naturally, you like Ricardo Leon, and it is equally natural that you should not like Dickens."

Persons who imagine that it is of no consequence whether Milan is a seaport or not, who believe that Nietzsche is a drivelling ass, and who make bold to tell us that Dickens is a cheap author—in one word, young gentlemen lawyers who are partisans of Maura, are the people who provide copy for our press. How can the Spanish press be expected to be different from what it is?



AMERICANS

Unquestionably, Spaniards suffer much from the uncertainty of information and narrowness of view inevitable to those who live apart from the main currents of life.

In comparison with the English, the Germans, or the French, whether we like it or not, we appear provincial. We are provincials who possess more or less talent, but nevertheless we are provincials.

So it is that an Italian, a Russian, or a Swede prefers to read a book by a mediocre Parisian, such as Marcel Prevost, to one by a writer of genuine talent, such as Galdos; it also explains why the canvases of second rate painters such as David, Gericault, or Ingres are more highly esteemed in the market than those of a painter of genius like Goya.

To be provincial has its virtues as well as its defects. At times the provincial are accompanied by universal elements, which blend and form a masterpiece. This was the case with Don Quixote, with the etchings of Goya and the dramas of Ibsen. Similarly, among new peoples, provincial stupidity will often form a blend with an obtuseness which is world-wide. The aridness and infertility characteristic of the soil combine with the detritus of fashion and the follies of the four quarters of the globe. The result is a child-like type, petulant, devoid of virtue, and utterly destitute of a single manly quality. This is the American type. America is par excellence the continent of stupidity.

The American has not yet outgrown the monkey in him and remains in the imitative stage.

I have no particular reason to dislike Americans. My hostility towards them arises merely from the fact that I have never known one who had the air of being anybody, who impressed me as a man.

You frequently meet a man in the interior of Spain, in some small village, perhaps, whose conversation conveys the impression that he is a real man, wrought out of the ore that is most human and most noble. At such times one becomes reconciled to one's country, for all its charlatans and hordes of sharpers.

An American never appears to be calm, serene and collected. There are plenty who seem to be wild, impulsive creatures, driven on by sanguinary fury, while others disclose the vanity of the chorus girl, or a self- conceit which is wholly ridiculous.

My lack of sympathy for Spanish-Americans extends to their literary productions. Everything that I have read by South Americans, and I bear in mind the not disinterested encomiums of Unamuno, I have found to be both poor and deficient in substance.

Beginning with Sarmiento's Facundo, which is heavy, cheap, and uninteresting, and coming down to the latest productions of Ingenieros, Manuel Ugarte, Ricardo Rojas and Contreras, this is true without exception.

What a deluge of shoddy snobbery and vulgar display pours out of America!

It is often argued that Spaniards should eulogize South Americans for political reasons. This is one of many recommendations which proceed from the craniums of gentlemen who top themselves off with silk hats and who carry a lecture inside which is in demand by Ibero-American societies.

I have no faith that this brand of politics will be productive of results.

Citizens of old, civilized countries are still sensible to flattery and compliment, but what are you to tell an Argentine who is fully convinced that Argentina is a more important country than England or Germany, because she raises a large quantity of wheat, to say nothing of a great number of cows?

Whenever Unamuno writes he decries Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and then promptly eulogizes the mighty General Anibal Perez and the great poet Diocleciano Sanchez, who hail from the pampas. To these fellows, such praise seems grudging enough. Salvador Rueda himself must appear tame to these hide-stretchers.



XVI

POLITICS

I have always been a liberal radical, an individualist and an anarchist. In the first place, I am an enemy of the Church; in the second place, I am an enemy of the State. When these great powers are in conflict I am a partisan of the State as against the Church, but on the day of the State's triumph, I shall become an enemy of the State. If I had lived during the French Revolution, I should have been an internationalist of the school of Anacarsis Clootz; during the struggle for liberty, I should have been one of the Carbonieri.

To the extent in which liberalism has been a destructive force, inimical to the past, it enthralls me. The fight against religious prejudice and the aristocracy, the suppression of religious communities, inheritance taxes—in short, whatever has a tendency to pulverize completely the ancient order of society, fills me with a great joy. On the other hand, insofar as liberalism is constructive, as it has been for example in its advocacy of universal suffrage, in its democracy, and in its system of parliamentary government, I consider it ridiculous and valueless as well.

Even today, wherever it is obliged to take the aggressive, it seems to me that the good in liberalism is not exhausted; but wherever it has become an accomplished fact, and is accepted as such, it neither interests me nor enlists my admiration.



VOTES AND APPLAUSE

In our present day democracy, there are only two effective sanctions: votes and applause.

Those are all. Just as in the old days men committed all sorts of crimes in order to please their sovereign, now they commit similar crimes in order to satisfy the people.

And this truth has been recognized from Aristotle to Burke.

Democracy ends in histrionism.

A man who gets up to talk before a crowd must of necessity be an actor. I have wondered from time to time if I might not have certain histrionic gifts myself; however, when I have put them to the test, I have found that they were not sufficient. I have made six or seven speeches during my brief political career. I spoke in Valencia, in a pelota court, and I delivered an address at Barcelona in the Casa del Pueblo, in both of which places I was applauded generously. Nevertheless the applause failed to intoxicate me; it produced no impression upon me whatever. It seemed too much like mere noise—noise made by men's hands, and having nothing to do with myself.

I am not good enough as an actor to be a politician.



POLITICIANS

I have never been able to feel any enthusiasm for Spanish politicians. We hear a great deal about Canovas. Canovas has always impressed me as being as bad an orator as he was a writer. When I first read his Bell of Huesca, I could not contain myself for laughing. As far as his speeches are concerned, I have also read a few, and find them horribly heavy, diffuse, monotonous and deficient in style. I hear that Canovas is a great historian, but if so, I am not acquainted with that side of him.

Castelar was unquestionably a man of exceptional gifts as a writer, but he failed to take advantage of them, and they were utterly dissipated. He lacked what most Spaniards of the 19th Century lacked with him; that is, reserve.

When Echegaray was made Minister of Finance, he was already an old man. A reporter called one day to interview him at the Ministry, and Echegaray confessed that he was without any very clear idea as to just what the duties of his office were to be. When the reporter took leave of the dramatist, he remarked:

"Don Jose, you are not going to be comfortable here; it is cold in the building. Besides, the air is too fresh."

Echegaray replied:

"Yes, and your description suits me exactly."

This cynically cheap joke might have fallen appropriately from the tongues of the majority of Spanish politicians. Among these male bailarinas, nearly all of whom date back to the Revolution of September, we may find, indeed, some men of austere character: Salmeron, Pi y Margall and Costa. Salmeron was an inimitable actor, but an actor who was sincere in his part. He was the most marvellous orator that I have ever heard.

As a philosopher, he was of no account, and as a politician he was a calamity.

Pi y Margall, whom I met once in his own home where I went in company with Azorin, was no more a politician or a philosopher than was Salmeron. He was a journalist, a popularizer of other men's ideas, gifted with a style at once clear and concise. Pi y Margall was sincere, enamoured of ideas, and took but little thought of himself.

As to Costa, I confess that he was always antipathetic to me. Like Nakens, he was a man who lived upon the estimation in which he was held by others, pretending all the while that he attached no importance to it whatever. Aguirre Metaca once told me that while he was connected with a paper in Saragossa, he had solicited an interview with Costa, and thereupon Costa wrote the interview himself, referring to himself here and there in it as the Lion of Graus. I cannot accept Costa as a modern European, intellectually. He was a figure for the Cortes of Cadiz, solemn, pompous, becollared and rhetorical. He was one of those actors who abound in southern countries, who are laid to rest in their graves without ever having had the least idea that their entire lives have been nothing but stage spectacles.



REVOLUTIONISTS

Whether politicians or authors, the Spanish revolutionists always smack to my mind of the property room, and especially is this true of the authors. Zozaya, Morote and Dicenta have passed for many years now as terrible men, both destructive and great innovators. But how ridiculous! Zozaya, like Dicenta, has never done anything but manipulate the commonplace, failing to impart either lightness or novelty to it, as have Valera and Anatole France, succeeding only on the other hand in making it more plumbeous and indigestible.

Speaking of Luis Morote, against whom I urge nothing as a man, he has always been a bugbear to me, the personification of dullness, of vulgarity, of everything that lacks interest and charm. I can conceive nothing lower than an article by Morote.

"What talent that man has! What a revolutionary personality!" they used to say in Valencia, and once the janitor at the Club added: "To think I knew that man when he was only this high!" And he held out his hand about a metre above the ground.

Spain has never produced any revolutionists. Don Nicolas Estevanez, who imagined himself an anarchist, would fly into a rage if he read an article which concealed a gallicism in it.

"Do not bother your head about gallicisms," I used to say to him. "What do they matter, anyway?"

No, we have never had any revolutionists in Spain. That is, we have had only one: Ferrer.

He was certainly not a man of great mind. When he talked, he was on the level of Morote and Zozaya, which is nothing more nor less than the level of everybody else; but when it came to action, he did amount to something, and that something was dangerous.



LERROUX

My only experience in politics was gained with Lerroux.

One Sunday, seven or eight years ago, on coming out of my house and crossing the Plaza de San Marcial, I observed that a great crowd had gathered.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Lerroux is coming," they told me.

I delayed a moment and happened on Villar, the composer, among the crowd. We fell to talking of Lerroux and what he might accomplish. A procession was soon formed, which we followed, and we found ourselves in front of the editorial offices of El Pais.

"Shall we go in?" asked Villar. "Do you know Lerroux?"

I had met Lerroux in the days when El Progreso was still published, having called once with Maeztu at his office; afterwards I saw him in Barcelona in a large shed, which, if I recall rightly, went by the name of "La Fraternidad Republicana," and then I was accompanied by Azorin and Junoy.

Villar and I went upstairs and greeted Lerroux in the offices of El Pais.

"Estevanez has spoken of you to me," he said. "Is he well?"

"Yes, very well."

A few days later, Lerroux invited me to dinner at the Cafe Ingles. Lerroux, Fuente and I dined together, and then fell to talking. Lerroux asked me to join his party, whereupon I pointed out the qualifications which were lacking in me, which were necessary to a politician. Shortly after, I was nominated as a candidate for the City Council, and I addressed a number of meetings, although always coldly, and never at high tension.

While I was with Lerroux, I was never treated save with consideration.

Why did I leave his party? Chiefly because of differences as to ideas and as to tactics. Lerroux wished to organize his party into a party of law and order, so that it might be capable of governing, and also to have it friendly with the Army. I was of the opinion that it ought to be a revolutionary party, not in the sense that I was thinking of erecting barricades, but I wished it to contest, to upset things, and to protest against injustice.

What Lerroux wanted was a party of orators who could speak at public meetings, a party of office-holders, councillors, provincial deputies and the like, while I held, and still hold, that the only efficacious revolutionary weapon is the printed page. Lerroux was anxious to transform the radical party into something aristocratic and Castilian; I desired to see it retain its Catalan character, and continue to wear blouses and rope-soled shoes.

I withdrew from the party for these reasons, to which I may add Lerroux's attitude of indifference upon the occasion of the execution of the stoker of the "Numancia."

Not many months after, I met him on the Carrera de San Jeronimo, and he said to me:

"I have read your diatribes."

"They were not directed against you, but against your politics. I shall never speak ill of you, because I have no cause."

"Yes," he replied, "I know that at heart you are one of my friends."



AN OFFER

A number of years ago, when the Conservatives were in power and Dato was President of the Ministry, Azorin brought me word that Sanchez Guerra, then Minister of the Interior, wished to see me and to have a little talk, as perhaps some way might be arranged by which I might be made deputy. During the afternoon, I accompanied Azorin to the Ministry, and we saw the Minister.

He informed me that he would like to have me enter the Congress.

"I should like to myself," I replied, "but it would appear to me rather difficult."

"But is there not some town where you are well known, and where you have influence?"

"No, none whatever."

"How would you like then to be deputy to represent the Government?"

"As a regular?"

"Yes."

"As a Conservative?"

"Yes."

I thought a moment and said: "No, I can never be a Conservative, however it might suit my interest to be so. Try as hard as I might, I should never succeed."

"That is the only way in which we can make you deputy."

"Well, it cannot be helped! I must resign myself then to amount to nothing."

Thanking the Minister for his kindness. Azorin and I walked out of the Ministry of the Interior.



SOCIALISTS

As for Socialists, I have never cared to have anything to do with them. One of the most offensive things about Socialists, which is more offensive than their pedantry, than their charlatanry, than their hypocrisy, is their inquisitorial instinct for prying into other people's lives. Whether Pablo Iglesias travels first or third class, has been for years one of the principal topics of dispute between Socialists and their opponents.

Fifteen years ago I was in Tangier, where I had been sent by the Globo, and, upon my return, a newspaper man who had socialistic ideas, reproached me:

"You talk a great deal about the working man, but I see you were living in the best hotel in Tangier."

I answered: "In the first place, I have never spoken of the workingman with any fervour. Furthermore, I am not such a slave as to be too cowardly to take what life offers as it comes, as you are. I take what I can that I want, and when I do not take it, it is because I cannot get it."



LOVE OF THE WORKINGMAN

To gush over the workingman is one of the commonplaces of the day which is utterly false and hypocritical. Just as in the 18th century sympathy was with the simple hearted citizen, so today we talk about the workingman. The term workingman can never be anything but a grammatical common denominator. Among workingmen, as among the bourgeoisie, there are all sorts of people. It is perfectly true that there are certain characteristics, certain defects, which may be exaggerated in a given class, because of its special environment and culture. The difference in Spanish cities between the labouring man and the bourgeoisie is not very great. We frequently see the workingman leap the barrier into the bourgeoisie, and then disclose himself as a unique flower of knavery, extortion and misdirected ingenuity. Deep down in the hearts of our revolutionists, I do not believe that there is any real enthusiasm for the workingman.

When the bookshop of Fernando Fe was still fin the Carrera de San Jeronimo, I once heard Blasco Ibanez say with the cheapness that is his distinguishing trait, laughing meanwhile ostentatiously, that a republic in Spain would mean the rule of shoemakers and of the scum of the streets.



THE CONVENTIONALIST BARRIOVERO

Barriovero, a conventionalist, according to Grandmontagne—yes, and how keen the scent of this American for such matters!—attended the opening of a radical club in the Calle del Principe with a party of friends. We were all drinking champagne. Like other revolutionists and parvenus generally, Lerroux is a victim of the superstition of champagne.

"Aha, suppose those workingmen should see us drinking champagne!" suggested some one.

"What of it?" asked another.

"I only wish for my part," Barriovero interrupted with a show of sentiment, "that the workingman could learn to drink champagne."

"Learn to drink it?" I burst out, "I see no difficulty about that. He could drink champagne as well as anything else."

"Not at all," said Barriovero the conventionalist, very gravely. "He has the superstition of the peasant; he thinks he must leave enough wine to cover the bottom of the glass."

I doubt whether this observation will attract the attention of any future Plutarch, although it might very well do so, as it expresses most I clearly the distinction which exists in the minds of our revolutionists between the workingman and the young gentleman.



ANARCHISTS

I have had a number of acquaintances among anarchists. Some of them are dead; the majority of the others have changed their ideas. It is apparent nowadays that the anarchism of Reclus and Kropotkin is out of date, and entirely a thing of the past. The same tendencies will reappear under other forms, and present new aspects. Among anarchists, I have known Elysee Reclus, whom I met in the editorial offices of a publication called L'Humanite Nouvelle, which was issued in Paris in the Rue des Saints-Peres. I have also met Sebastien Faure during a mass meeting organized in the interests of one Guerin, who had taken refuge in a house in the Rue de Chabrol some eighteen or twenty years ago. I have had relations with Malatesta and Tarrida del Marmol. As a matter of fact, both these anarchists escorted me one afternoon from Islington, where Malatesta lived, to the door of the St. James Club, one of the most aristocratic retreats in London, where I had an appointment to meet a diplomat.

As for active anarchists, I have known a number, two or three of whom have been dynamiters.



THE MORALITY OF THE ALTERNATING PARTY SYSTEM

The only difference between the morality of the Liberal party and that of the Conservative party is one of clothes. Among Conservatives the most primitive clout seems to be slightly more ample, but not noticeably so.

The preoccupations of both are purely with matters of style. The only distinction is that the Conservatives make off with a great deal at once, while the Liberals take less, but do it often.

This is in harmony with the law of mechanics according to which what is gained in force is lost in velocity and what is gained in intensity is lost in expansion. After all, no doubt morality in politics should be a negligible quantity. Honest, upright men who hearken only to the voice of conscience, never get on in politics, neither are they ever practical, nor good for anything.

To succeed in politics, a certain facility is necessary, to which must be added ambition and a thirst for glory. The last is the most innocent of the three.



ON OBEYING THE LAW

It is safe, it seems to me, to assume the following axioms: First, to obey the law is in no sense to attain justice; second, it is not possible to obey the law strictly, thoroughly, in any country in the world.

That obeying the law has nothing to do with justice is indisputable, and this is especially true in the political sphere, in which it is easy to point to a rebel, such as Martinez Campos, who has been elevated to the plane of a great man and who has been immortalized by a statue upon his death, and then to a rebel such as Sanchez Moya, who Was merely shot. The only difference between the men was in the results attained, and in the manner of their exit.

Hence I say that Lerroux was not only base, but obtuse and absurdly wanting in human feeling and revolutionary sympathy, when he concurred in the execution of the stoker of the "Numancia."

If law and justice are identical and to comply with the law is invariably to do justice, then what can be the distinction between the progressive and the conservative? On the other hand, the revolutionist has no alternative but to hold that law and justice are not the same, and so he is obliged to subscribe to the benevolent character of all crimes which are altruistic and social in their purposes, whether they are reactionary or anarchistic in tendency.

Now the second axiom, which is to the effect that there is no city or country in the world in which it is possible to obey the law thoroughly, is also self-evident. A certain class of common crimes, such as robbery, cheating and swindling, murder and the like, are followed by a species of automatic punishment in all quarters of the civilized world, in spite of exceptions in specific cases, which result from the intervention of political bosses and similar influences; but there are other offenses which meet with no such automatic punishment. In these pardon and penalty are meted out in a spirit of pure opportunism.

I was discussing Zurdo Olivares one day with Emiliano Iglesias in the office of El Radical, when I asked him:

"How was it that Zurdo Olivares could save himself after playing such an active role in the tragic week at Barcelona?"

"Zurdo's salvation was indirectly owing to me," replied Iglesias.

"But, my dear sir!"

"Yes, indeed."

"How did that happen?"

"Very naturally. There were three cases to be tried; one was against Ferrer, one against Zurdo, and another against me. A friend who enjoyed the necessary influence, succeeded in quashing the case against me, as a matter of personal favour, and as it seemed rather barefaced to make an exception alone in my favour, it was decided to include Zurdo Olivares, who, thanks to the arrangement, escaped being shot."

"Then, if an influential friend of yours had not been a member of the Ministry, you would both have been shot in the moat at Montjuich?"

"Beyond question."

And this took place in the heyday of Conservative power.



THE STERNNESS OF THE LAW

There are men who believe that the State, as at present constituted, is the end and culmination of all human effort. According to this view, the State is the best possible state, and its organization is considered so perfect that its laws, discipline and formulae are held to be sacred and immutable in men's eyes. Maura and all conservatives must be reckoned in this group, and Lerroux too, appears to belong with them, as he holds discipline in such exalted respect.

On the other hand, there are persons who believe that the entire legal structure is only a temporary scaffolding, and that what is called justice today may be thought savagery tomorrow, so that it is the part of wisdom not to look so much to the rule of the present as to the illumination of the future.

Since it is impossible to effect in practice automatic enforcement of the law, especially in the sphere of political crimes, because of the unlimited power of pardon vested in the hands of our public men, it would seem judicious to err upon the side of mercy rather than upon that of severity. Better fail the law and pardon a repulsive, bloody beast such as Chato de Cuqueta, than shoot an addle-headed unfortunate such as Clemente Garcia, or a dreamer like Sanchez Moya, whose hands were innocent of blood.

It was pointed out a long time ago that laws are like cobwebs; they catch the little flies, and let the big ones pass through.

How very severe, how very determined our politicians are with the little flies, but how extremely affable they are with the big ones!



XVII

MILITARY GLORY

No, I have not made up my mind upon the issues of this war. If it were possible to determine what is best for Europe, I should of course desire it, but this I do not know, and so I am uncertain. I am preoccupied by the consequences which may follow the war in Spain. Some believe that there will be an increase of militarism, but I doubt it.

Many suppose that the crash of the present war will cause the prestige of the soldier to mount upward like the spray, so that we shall have nothing but uniforms and clanking of spurs throughout the world very shortly, while the sole topics of conversation will be mortars, batteries and guns.

In my judgment those who take this standpoint are mistaken. The present conflict will not establish war in higher favour.

Perhaps its glories may not be diminished utterly. It may be that man must of necessity kill, burn, and trample under foot, and that these excesses of brutality are symptoms of collective health.

Even if this be so, we may be sure that military glory is upon the eve of an eclipse.

Its decline began when the professional armies became nothing more than armed militia, and from the moment that it became apparent that a soldier might be improvised from a countryman with marvellous rapidity.



THE OLD-TIME SOLDIER

Formerly, a soldier was a man of daring and adventure, brave and audacious, preferring an irregular life to the narrowing restraints of civil existence.

The old time soldier trusted in his star without scruple and without fear, and imagined that he could dominate fate as the gambler fancies that he masters the laws of chance.

Valour, recklessness, together with a certain rough eloquence, a certain itch to command, lay at the foundation of his life. His inducements were pay, booty, showy uniforms and splendid horses. The soldier's life was filled with adventure, he conquered wealth, he conquered women, and he roamed through unknown lands.

Until a few years ago, the soldier might have been summed up in three words: he was brave, ignorant and adventurous.

The warrior of this school passed out of Europe about the middle of the 19th Century. He became extinct in Spain at the conclusion of our Second Civil War.

Since that day there has been a fundamental change in the life of the soldier.

War has taken on greater magnitude, while the soldier has become more refined, and it is not to be denied that both war and the fighting man are losing their traditional prestige.



DOWN GOES PRESTIGE

The causes of this diminution of prestige are various. Some are moral, such as the increased respect for human life, and the disfavour with which the more aggressive, crueler qualities have come to be regarded. Others, however, and perhaps these are of more importance, are purely esthetic. Through a combination of circumstances, modern warfare, although more tragic than was ancient warfare, and even more deadly, nevertheless has been deprived of its spectacular features.

Capacity for esthetic appreciation has its limits. Nobody is able to visualize a battle in which two million men are engaged; it can only be imagined as a series of smaller battles. In one of these modern battles, substantially all the traditional elements which we have come to associate with war, have disappeared. The horse, which bulks so largely in the picture of a battle as it presents itself to our minds, scarcely retains any importance at all; for the most part, automobiles, bicycles and motor cycles have taken its place. These contrivances may be useful, but they do not make the same appeal to the popular imagination.



SCIENCE AND THE PICTURESQUE

Upon taking over warfare, science stripped it of its picturesqueness. The commanding general no longer cavorts upon his charger, nor smiles as the bullets whistle about him, while he stands surrounded by an ornamental general staff, whose breasts are covered with ribbons and medals representing every known variety of hardware, whether monarchical or republican.

Today the general sits in a room, surrounded by telephones and telegraph apparatus. If he smiles at all, it is only before the camera.

An officer scarcely ever uses a sword, nor does he strut about adorned with all his crosses and medals, nor does he wear the resplendent uniforms of other days. On the contrary, his uniform is ugly and dirt coloured, and innocent of devices.

This officer is without initiative, he is subordinated to a fixed general plan; surprises on either one side or the other, are almost out of the question.

The plan of battle is rigid and detailed. It permits neither originality nor display of individuality upon the part of the generals, the lesser officers, or the private soldiers. The individual is swallowed up by the collective force. Outstanding types do not occur; nobody develops the marked personality of the generals of the old school.

Besides this, individual bravery, when not reinforced by other qualities, is of less and less consequence. The bold, adventurous youth who, years ago, would have been an embryo Murat, Messina, Espartero or Prim, would be rejected today to make room for a mechanic who had the skill to operate a machine, or for an aviator or an engineer who might be capable of solving in a crisis a problem of pressing danger.

The prestige of the soldier, even upon the battle field, has fallen today below that of the man of science.



WHAT WE NEED TODAY

There are still some persons of a romantic turn of mind who imagine that none but the soldier who defends his native land, the priest who appeases the divine wrath and at the same time inculcates the moral law, and the poet who celebrates the glories of the community, are worthy to be leaders of the people.

But the man of the present age does not desire any leaders.

He has found that when someone wears red trousers or a black cassock, or is able to write shorter lines than himself, it is no indication that he is any better, nor any braver, nor any more moral, nor capable of deeper feeling than he.

The man of today will have no magicians, no high priests and no mysteries. He is capable of being his own priest, his own soldier when it is necessary, and of fighting for himself; he requires no specialists in courage, in morals, nor in the realm of sentiment and feeling. What we need today are good men and wise men.



OUR ARMIES

Prussian militarism has been explained upon the theory that it was a development consequent upon a realization of the benefits which had accrued to Prussia through war. As a matter of fact, however, it is not possible to explain all militarism in this way. Certainly in Spain neither wars nor the army have been of the slightest benefit to the country.

If we consider the epoch which goes by the name of contemporary history, that is to say from the French Revolution to the present time, we shall perceive immediately that we have not been over fortunate.

The French Republic declared war upon us in 1793. A campaign of astuteness, a tactical warfare was waged by us upon the frontiers, upon occasion not without success, until finally the French army grew strong enough to sweep us back, and to cross the Ebro.

We took part in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Spain presented a fine appearance, she made a mighty gesture with her Gravinas, her Churrucas and her Alavas, but the battle itself was a disaster.

In 1808 the War of Independence broke out, providing another splendid exhibition of popular fervour. In this war, the regular Army was the force which accomplished least. The war took its character from the guerrillas, from the dwellers in the towns. The campaign was directed by Englishmen. The Spanish army suffered more defeats than it won victories, while its administrative and technical organization was deplorable. The intervention of Angouleme followed in 1823. The Army was composed of liberal officers, but it contained no troops, so that all they ever did was to retire before the enemy, as he was more numerous and more powerful.

The Spanish cause in America was hopeless before the fighting began. The land was enormous, troops were few, and in large measure composed of Indians. What the English were never able to do in the fulness of their power, was not to be accomplished by Spaniards in their decadence. Our First Civil War, which was fierce, terrible, and waged without quarter, called into being a valorous liberal army, and soldiers sprang up of the calibre of Espartero, Zurbano and Narvaez, but simultaneously a powerful Carlist army was organized under leaders of military genius, such as Zumalacarregui and Cabrera. Victory for either side was impossible, and the war ended in compromise.

The Second Civil War also resulted in a system of pacts and compromises far more secret than the Convention of Vergara. The Cuban war and the war in the Philippines, as afterwards the war with the United States, were calamitous, while the present campaign in Morocco has not one redeeming feature.

From the War of the French Revolution to this very day, the African War has been the only one in which our forces have met with the slightest success.

Nevertheless, our soldiers aspire to a position of dominance in the country equal to that attained by the French soldiers subsequent to Jena, and by the Germans after Sedan.

A WORD FROM KUROKI, THE JAPANESE

"Gentlemen," said General Kuroki, speaking at a banquet tendered to him in New York, "I cannot aspire to the applause of the world, because I have created nothing, I have invented nothing. I am only a soldier."

If these are not his identical words, they convey the meaning of them.

This victorious, square-headed Mongolian had gotten into his head what the dolichocephalic German blond, who, according to German anthropologists is the highest product of Europe, and the brachycephalic brunette of Gaul and the Latin and the Slav have never been able to understand.

Will they ever be able to understand it? Perhaps they never will be able.



EPILOGUE

When I sat down to begin these pages, somewhat at random, my intention was to write an autobiography, accompanying it with such comments as might suggest themselves. Looking continually to the right and to the left, I have lost my way, and this book is the result.

I have not attempted to correct or embellish it. So many books, trimmed up nicely and well-padded, go to their graves every year to be forgotten forever, that it has hardly seemed worth while to bedeck this one. I am not a believer in maquillage for the dead.

Now one word more as to the subject of the book, which is I.

If I were to live two hundred years at the very least, I might be able to realize, by degrees, the maximum programme which I have laid down for my life. As it scarcely seems possible that a man could live to such an age, which is attained only by parrots, I find myself with no alternative but to limit myself to a small portion of the introductory section of my minimum programme, and this, as a matter of fact, I am content to do.

With hardship and effort, and the scanty means at my command, I have succeeded in acquiring a house and garden in my own country, a comfortable retreat which is sufficient for my needs. I have gathered a small library in the house, which I hope will grow with time, besides a few manuscripts and some curious prints. I do not believe that I have ever harmed any man deliberately, so my conscience does not trouble me. If my ideas are fragmentary and ill-considered, I have done my best to make them sound, clear, and complete, so that it is not my fault if they are not so.

I have become independent financially. I not only support myself, but I am able to travel occasionally upon the proceeds of my pen.

A Russian publishing house, another in Germany, and another in the United States are bringing out my books, paying me, moreover, for the right of translation; and I am satisfied. I have friends of both sexes in Madrid and in the Basque provinces, who seem already like old friends, because I have grown fond of them. As I face old age, I feel that I am walking upon firmer ground than I did in my youth.

In a short time, what a few years ago the sociologists used to call involution—that is, a turning in—will begin to take place in my brain; the cranial sutures will become petrified, and an automatic limitation of the mental horizon will soon come.

I shall accept involution, petrification of the sutures and limitation with good grace. I have never rebelled against logic, nor against nature, against the lightning or the thunder storm. No sooner does one gain the crest of the hill of life than at once he begins to descend rapidly. We know a great deal the moment that we realize that nobody knows anything. I am a little melancholy now and a little rheumatic; it is time to take salicylates and to go out and work in the garden—a time for meditation and for long stories, for watching the flames as they flare upward under the chimney piece upon the hearth.

I commend myself to the event. It is dark outside, but the door of my house stands open. Whoever will, be he life or be he death, let him come in.



PALINODE AND FRESH OUTBURST OF IRE

A few days ago I left the house with the manuscript of this book, to which I have given the name of Youth and Egolatry, on my way to the post office.

It was a romantic September morning, swathed in thick, white mist. A blue haze of thin smoke rose upward from the shadowy houses of the neighbouring settlement, vanishing in the mist. Meanwhile, the birds were singing, and a rivulet close by murmured in the stillness.

Under the influence of the homely, placid country air, I felt my spirit soften and grow more humble, and I began to think that the manuscript which I carried in my hand was nothing more than a farrago of foolishness and vulgarity.

The voice of prudence, which was also that of cowardice, cautioned me:

"What is the good of publishing this? Will it bring you reputation?"

"Certainly not."

"Have you anything to gain by it?"

"Probably not either."

"Then, why irritate and offend this one and that by saying things which, after all, are nobody's business?"

To the voice of prudence, however, my habitual self replied:

"But what you have written is sincere, is it not? What do you care, then, what they think about it?"

But the voice of prudence continued:

"How quiet everything is about you, how peaceful! This is life, after all, and the rest is madness, vanity and vain endeavour."

There was a moment when I was upon the point of tossing my manuscript into the air, and I believe I should have done so, could I have been sure that it would have dematerialized itself immediately like smoke; or I would have thrown it into the river, if I had felt certain that the current would have swept it out to sea.

* * * * *

This afternoon I went to San Sebastian to buy paper and salicylate of soda, which is less agreeable.

A number of public guards were riding together in the car on the way over, along the frontier. They were discussing bull fighters, El Gallo and Belmonte, and also the disorders of the past few days.

"Too bad that Maura and La Cierva are not in power," said one of them, who was from Murcia, smiling and exhibiting his decayed teeth. "They would have made short work of this."

"They are in reserve for the finish," said another, with, the solemnity of a pious scamp.

Returning from San Sebastian, I happened on a family from Madrid in the same car. The father was weak, jaundiced and sour-visaged; the mother was a fat brunette, with black eyes, who was loaded down with jewels, while her face was made up until it was brilliant white, in colour like a stearin candle. A rather good looking daughter of between fifteen and twenty was escorted by a lieutenant who apparently was engaged to her. Finally, there was another girl, between twelve and fourteen, flaccid and lively as a still-life on a dinner table. Suddenly the father, who was reading a newspaper, exclaimed:

"Nothing is going to be done, I can see that; they are already applying to have the revolutionists pardoned. The Government will do nothing."

"I wish they would kill every one of them," broke in the girl who was engaged to the lieutenant. "Think of it! Firing on soldiers! They are bandits."

"Yes, and with such a king as we have!" exclaimed the fat lady, with the paraffine hue, in a mournful tone. "It has ruined our summer. I wish they would shoot every one of them."

"And they are not the only ones," interrupted the father. "The men who are behind them, the writers and leaders, hide themselves, and then they throw the first stones."

Upon entering the house, I found that the final proofs of my book had just arrived from the printer, and sat down to read them.

The words of that family from Madrid still rang in my ears: "I wish they would kill every one of them!"

However one may feel, I thought to myself, it is impossible not to hate such people. Such people are natural enemies. It is inevitable.

Now, reading over the proofs of my book, it seems to me that it is not strident enough. I could wish it were more violent, more anti-middle class.

I no longer hear the voice of prudence seducing me, as it did a few days since, to a palinode in complicity with a romantic morning of white mist.

The zest of combat, of adventure stirs in me again. The sheltered harbour seems a poor refuge in my eyes,—tranquillity and security appear contemptible.

"Here, boy, up, and throw out the sail! Run the red flag of revolution to the masthead of our frail craft, and forth to sea!"

Itzea, September, 1917.



APPENDICES

SPANISH POLITICIANS

ON BAROJA'S ANARCHISTS

NOTE



SPANISH POLITICIANS

The Spanish alternating party system has prevailed as a national institution since the restoration of the monarchy under Alfonso XII. Ostensibly it is based upon manhood suffrage, and in the cities this is the fact, but in the more remote districts the balloting plays but small part in the returns. Upon the dissolution of the Cortes and the resignation of a ministry, one of the two great parties—the liberal party and the conservative party—automatically retires from power, and the other succeeds it, always carrying the ensuing elections by convenient working majorities.

Spain is a poor country. During the half century previous to the restoration of the Bourbons, she was a victim of internecine strife and factional warfare. She is not poor naturally, but her energy has been drawn off; she has been bled white, and needs time to recuperate. The Spaniards are a practical people. They realize this condition. Even the lower classes are tired of fine talking. No people have heard more, and none have profited less by it. The country is not like Russia, a fertile field for the agitator; it looks coldly upon reform. Such response as has been obtained by the radical has come from the labour centres under the stimulus of foreign influences, and more particularly from Barcelona, where the problem is political even before it is an individual one.

For this reason the Spanish Republicans are in large part theorists. The land has been disturbed sufficiently. They would hesitate to inaugurate radical reforms, if power were to be placed in their hands, while the possession of power itself might prove not a little embarrassing. Behind the monarchy lies the republic of 1873, behind Canovas and Castelar, Pi y Margall; the republic has merged into and was, in a sense, the foundation of the constitutional system of today. Even popular leaders such as Lerroux are quick to recognize this fact, and govern themselves accordingly. The lack of general education today, would render any attempt at the establishment of a thorough-going democracy insecure.

Francisco Ferrer, although idealized abroad, has been no more than a symptom in Spain. Such men even as Angel Guimera, the dramatist, a Catalan separatist who has been under surveillance for years, or Pere Aldavert, who has suffered imprisonment in Barcelona because of his opinions, while they speak for the proletariat, nevertheless have had scant sympathy for Ferrer's ideas. It would be interesting to know just to what extent these commend themselves to Pablo and Emiliano Iglesias and the professed political Socialists.

Of the existing parties, the Liberal, being more or less an association of groups tending to the left, is the least homogeneous. Its most prominent leader of late years has been the Conde de Romanones, who may scarcely be said to represent a new era. He has shared responsibility with Eduardo Dato.

Among Conservatives, the chief figure has long been Antonio Maura. He is not a young man. Politically, he represents very much what the cordially detested Weyler did in the military sphere. But Maurism today is a very different thing from the Maurism of fifteen years ago, or of the moat of Montjuich. The name of Maura casts a spell over the Conservative imagination. It is the rallying point of innumerable associations of young men of reactionary, aristocratic and clerical tendencies throughout the country, while to progressives it symbolizes the oppressiveness of the old regime.



ON BAROJA'S ANARCHISTS

Baroja's memoirs afford convincing proof of his contact with radicals of all sorts and classes, from stereotyped republicans such as Barriovero, or the Argentine Francisco Grandmontagne, correspondent of La Prensa of Buenos Aires, to active anarchists of the type of Mateo Morral.

Morral was an habitue of a cafe in the Calle de Alcala at Madrid, where Baroja was accustomed to go with his friends to take coffee, and, in the Spanish phrase, to attend his tertulia. Morral would listen to these conversations. After his attempt to assassinate the King and Queen in the Calle Mayor on their return from the Royal wedding ceremony, Baroja went to view Morral's body, but was refused admittance. A drawing of Morral was made at the time, however, by Ricardo Baroja.

In this connection, Jose Nakens, to whom the author pays his compliments on an earlier page, was subjected to an unusual experience. Nakens, who was a sufficiently mild gentleman, had taken a needy radical into his house, and had given him shelter. This personage made a point of inveighing to Nakens continually against Canovas del Castillo, proposing to make way with him. When the news of the assassination of Canovas was cried through the city, Nakens knew for the first that his visitor had been in earnest. He was none other than the murderer Angiolillo.

This anecdote became current in Madrid. Years afterwards when the prime minister Canalejas was shot to death, the assassin recalled it to mind, and repaired to the house of Nakens, who saw in dismay for the second time his radical theories put to violent practical proof. The incident proved extremely embarrassing.

The crime of Morral forms the basis of Baroja's novel La Dama Errante. He has also dealt with anarchism in Aurora Roja (Red Dawn).

The mutiny on the ship "Numancia," referred to in the text, was an incident of the same period of unrest, which was met with severe repressive measures.



NOTE

The Madrid Ateneo is a learned society maintaining a house on the Calle del Prado, in which is installed a private library of unusual excellence. It has been for many years the principal depository of modern books in Spain, and a favourite resort of scholars and research- workers of the capital.



THE WORKS OF PIO BAROJA

Pio Baroja, recognized by the best critics as the foremost living Spanish novelist, is without doubt the chief exponent of that ferment of political and social thought in Spain which had its inception in the cataclysm of 1898, and which gave rise to the new movement in Spanish literature.

Of course this "modern movement" was not actually born in 1898. It dates back as far as Galdos, who is in spirit a modern. But it marked the turning point. Benavente the dramatist, Azorin the critic, Ruben Dario the poet, Pio Baroja the novelist, all date from this period, belonging to and of the new generation, and, together with the Valencian Blasco Ibanez, form the A B C of modern Spanish culture.

"Baroja stands for the modern Spanish mind at its most enlightened," says H. L. Mencken. "He is the Spaniard of education and worldly wisdom, detached from the mediaeval imbecilities of the old regime and yet aloof from the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country ... the Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure of society upon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in the peninsular."

Pio Baroja was born in 1872 at San Sebastian, the most fashionable summer resort of Spain, the Spanish "Summer Capital." Baroja's father was a noted mining engineer, and while without reputation as a man of letters he was an occasional contributor to various periodicals and dailies. He had destined his son for the medical profession, and Pio studied at Valencia and Madrid, where he received his degree. He started practice in the small town of Cestona, the type of town which figures largely in his novels.

But the young doctor soon wearied of his profession, and laying aside his stethoscope forever, he returned to Madrid, where, in partnership with an older brother, he opened a bakery. However he was no more destined to be a cook than a doctor, so, encouraged by interested friends, he succeeded in getting a few articles and stories accepted by various Madrid papers. It was not long before he won distinction as a journalist, and he presently abandoned baking entirely, devoting all his energies to writing.

His first novel, Camino de Perfeccion, published in 1902, was received with but little enthusiasm. However he closely followed it with several others, and Spain soon realized that she had a new writer of unusual merit. Today he is pre-eminent among contemporary Spanish authors. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian and English.

Alfred A. Knopf, Senor Baroja's authorized publisher in the English- speaking countries, has published to date two of the novels:

THE CITY OF THE DISCREET. Translated by Jacob S. Fassett, Jr. $2.00 net. Around Cordova, the fascinating and romantic "city of the discreet," Baroja has spun an adventurous tale. He gives you a vivid picture of the city with her tortuous streets, ancient houses with their patios and tiled roofs and of her "discreet" inhabitants. In a style that is polished where Ibanez' is crudely vigorous, and with sympathy and understanding, he portrays Quentin, the natural son of a Marquis and a woman of humble birth; Pacheco, the ambitious bandit chief; Don Gil Sabadia, the garrulous and convivial antiquarian, and a host of other characters.

"Unforgettable pictures are spread in a rich background for the action— Cordova at twilight, with its spires showing against the violet sky, the narrow streets with white houses leaning toward each other, its squares with sturdy beggars squatting around and its gardens heavy with the scent of orange blossoms, where old fountains quietly drip."— Indianapolis News.

"This fine novel ... shows us the best features of the modern Spanish realistic school."—The Bookman.

CAESAR OR NOTHING. Translated by Louis How. $2.00 net.

This is the story of Caesar Moncada, a brilliantly clever young Spaniard, who sets out to reform his country, to modernize it and its government. In depicting Caesar's preparation in Rome, where his uncle is a Cardinal, for the career he has planned for himself, Senor Baroja etches vividly and entertainingly a typical cosmopolitan society—witty, worldly, prosperous and cynical. The second part of the book describes Caesar's political fight in Castro Duro.

"Not only Spain's greatest novelist, but his greatest book. It is the most important translation that has come out of Spain in our time in the field of fiction and it will be remembered as epochal."—JOHN GARRETT UNDERHILL, Representative in America of the Society of Spanish Authors of Madrid.

"Ranks Baroja as a master of fiction, with a keen sense of character, constructive power and an active, dynamic style."—Philadelphia Ledger.

"I read Caesar or Nothing with a profound admiration for its power and skill. It is a great novel, which you deserve our thanks for publishing."—HAROLD J. LASKI, of Harvard University.

"A brilliant book—amazingly clever and humorous in its earlier chapters, gradually accumulating depth as it moves along until it becomes the stuff of tragedy at the close. The character he has created in Caesar Moncada is one of the few really notable portrayals in recent fiction."—Chicago Post.

Translations of three other novels by Baroja are in preparation in the competent hands of Dr. Isaac Goldberg. The first, LA DAMA ERRANTE, will be ready in the Fall of 1920. Probable price, $2.00.

THE END