MY HOME LANDS
I have two little countries, which are my homes—the Basque provinces, and Castile; and by Castile I mean Old Castile. I have, further, two points of view from which I look out upon the world: one is my home on the Atlantic; the other is very like a home to me, on the Mediterranean.
All my literary inspirations spring either from the Basque provinces or from Castile. I could never write a Gallegan or a Catalan novel.
I could wish that my readers were all Basques and Castilians.
Other Spaniards interest me less. Spaniards who live in America, or
Americans, do not interest me at all.
CRUELTY AND STUPIDITY
It appears from an article written by Azorín in connection with a book of mine, that, to my way of thinking, there are two enormities which are incredible and intolerable. They are cruelty and stupidity.
Civilized man has no choice but to despise these manifestations of primitive, brute existence.
We may be able to tolerate stupidity and lack of comprehension when they are simple and wholly natural, but what of an utter obtuseness of understanding which dresses itself up and becomes rhetorical? Can anything be more disagreeable?
When a fly devours the pollen greedily from the pyrethrum, which, as we know, will prove fatal to him, it becomes clear at once that flies have no more innate sagacity than men. When we listen to a conservative orator defending the past with salvos of rhetorical fireworks, we are overwhelmed by a realization of the complete odiousness of ornamental stupidity.