In literature, Señor de Loyarte—and why should Señor de Loyarte not be associated with literature—presents the figure of a fat, pale, flabby boy in a priests' school, skulking under the skirts of a Jesuit Father.
Señor de Loyarte, like those little, chubby-winged cherubs on sacristy ceilings, shakes his arrowlet at me and lets fling a billet doux.
Señor de Loyarte says I smack of the cadaver, that I am a plagiarist, an atheist, anti-religious, anti-patriotic, and more to boot.
I shall not reply for it may be true. Yet it is also true that Señor de Loyarte's noble words will please his noble patrons, from whom, perhaps, he may receive applause even more substantial than the pat on the shoulder of a Jesuit Father, or the smile of every good Conservative, who is a defender of the social order. His book is an achievement which should induct Señor de Loyarte into membership in several more academies. Señor de Loyarte is already a Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy, or of the Academy of History, I am not quite sure which; but they are all the same. Speaking of history, I should be interested to know who did first introduce the sponge.
Señor de Loyarte is destined to be a member, a member of academies all his life.
IV
ADMIRATIONS AND INCOMPATIBILITIES
Diogenes Laertius tells us that when Zeno consulted the oracle as to what he should do in order to attain happiness in life, the deity replied that he should assimilate himself with the dead. Having understood, he applied himself exclusively to the study of books.
Thus speaks Laertius, in the translation of Don José Ortíz y Sanz. I confess that I should not have understood the oracle. However, without consulting any oracle, I have devoted myself for some time to reading books, whether ancient and modern, both out of curiosity and in order to learn something of life.