When we left the café, 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 naïve 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 León, 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 He also assured me that Dickens's humour was absolutely vulgar, cheap and out of date.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 León, 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?