"This Baroja is a crusty fellow; naturally, he is a baker."
A certain picturesque academician, who was also a dramatist, and given to composing stupendous quintillas and cuartetas in his day, which, despite their flatness, were received with applause, had the inspiration to add:
"All this modernism has been cooked up in Baroja's oven."
Even the Catalans lost no time in throwing the fact of my being a baker in my face, although they are a commercial, manufacturing people. Whether calico is nobler than flour, or flour than calico, I am not sure, but the subject is one for discussion, as Maeztu would have it.
I am an eclectic myself on this score. I prefer flour in the shape of bread with my dinner, but cloth will go further with a man who desires to appear well in public.
When I was serving upon the Town Council, an anonymous publication entitled "Masks Off," printed the following among other gems: "Pío Baroja is a man of letters who runs a bake-shop."
A Madrid critic recently declared in an American periodical that I had two personalities: one that of a writer and the other of a baker. He was solicitous to let me know later that he intended no harm.
But if I should say to him: "Mr. So and So" is a writer who is excellently posted upon the value of cloth, as his father sold dry-goods, it would appeal to his mind as bad taste.
Another journalist paid his respects to me some months ago in El Parlamentario, saying I baked rolls, oppressed the people, and sucked the blood of the workingman.
It would appear to be more demeaning to own a small factory or a shop, according to the standards of both literary and non-literary circles, than it is to accept money from the corruption funds of the Government, or bounties from the exchequers of foreign Embassies.