Youth and Egolatry Part 12

THE SPANISH REALISTS

The Spanish realists of the same period are the height of the disagreeable. The most repugnant of them all is Pereda. When I read him, I feel as if I were riding on a balky, vicious mule, which proceeds at an uncomfortable little trot, and then, all of a sudden, cuts stilted capers like a circus horse.

THE RUSSIANS

_Dostoievski_

One hundred years hence Dostoievsky's appearance in literature will be hailed as one of the most extraordinary events of the nineteenth century. Among the spiritual fauna of Europe, his place will be that of the Diplodocus.

_Tolstoi_

A number of years ago I was in the habit of visiting the Ateneo, and I used to argue there with the habitues, who in general have succeeded in damming up the channels through which other men receive ideas.

"To my mind, Tolstoi is a Greek," I observed. "He is serene, clear, his characters are G.o.d-like; all they think of are their love affairs, their pa.s.sions. They are never called upon to face the acute problem of subsistence, which is fundamental with us."

"Utter nonsense! There is nothing Greek about Tolstoi," declared everybody.

Some years later at a celebration in honour of Tolstoi, Anatole France chanced to remark: "Tolstoi is a Greek."

When this fell from Anatole France, the obstruction in the channels through which these gentlemen of the Ateneo received their ideas ceased for the moment to exist, and they began to believe that, after all, Tolstoi might very well have something of the Greek in him.

THE CRITICS

_Sainte Beuve_

Sainte Beuve writes as if he had always said the last word, as if he were precisely at the needle of the scales. Yet I feel that this writer is not as infallible as he thinks. His interest lies in his anecdote, in his malevolent insinuation, in his bawdry. Beyond these, he has the same Mediterranean features as the rest of us.

_Taine_

Hippolyte Taine is also one of those persons who think they understand everything. And there are times when he understands nothing. His _History of English Literature_, which makes an effort to be broad and generous, is one of the pettiest, most n.i.g.g.ardly histories ever written anywhere. His articles on Shakespeare, Walter Scott and d.i.c.kens have been fabricated by a French professor, which is to say that they are among the most wooden productions of the universities of Europe.

_Ruskin_

He impresses me as the Prince of Upstarts, grandiloquent and at the same time unctuous, a General in a Salvation Army of Art, or a monk who is a devotee of an esthetic Doctrine which has been drawn up by a Congress of Tourists.

_Croce_

The esthetic theory of Benedetto Croce has proved another delusion to me. Rather than an esthetic theory, it is a study of esthetic theories.

As in most Latin productions, the fundamental question is not discussed therein, but the method of approaching that question.

_Clarin_ [Footnote: Pseudonym of Leopoldo Alas, a Spanish critic and novelist of the transition, born in Asturias, whose influence was widely felt in Spanish letters. He died in 1905.]

I have a poor opinion of Clarin, although some of my friends regard him with admiration. As a man, he must have been envious; as a novelist, he is dull and unhappy; as a critic, I am not certain that he was ever in the right.

V

THE PHILOSOPHERS

A thirst for some knowledge of philosophy resulted in consulting Dr.

Letamendi's book on pathology during my student days. I also purchased the works of Kant, Fichte, and Schopenhauer in the cheap editions which were published by Zozaya. The first of these that I read was Fichte's _Science of Knowledge_, of which I understood nothing. It stirred in me a veritable indignation against both author and translator. Was philosophy nothing but mystification, as it is a.s.sumed to be by artists and shop clerks?

Reading _Parerga and Paralipomena_ reconciled me to philosophy.

After that I bought in French _The Critique of Pure Reason_, _The World as Will and Idea_, and a number of other books.

How was it that I, who am gifted with but little tenacity of purpose, mustered up perseverance enough to read difficult books for which I was without preparation? I do not know, but the fact is that I read them.

Years after this initiation into philosophy, I began reading the works of Nietzsche, which impressed me greatly.

Since then I have picked at this and that in order to renew my philosophic store, but without success. Some books and authors will not agree with me, and I have not dared to venture others. I have had a volume of Hegel's _Logic_ on my table for a long time. I have looked at it, I have smelled of it, but courage fails me.

Yet I am attracted to metaphysics more than to any other phase of philosophy. Political philosophy, sociology and the common sense schools please me least. Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Comte and Spencer I have never liked at all. Even their Utopias, which ought to be amusing, bore me profoundly, and this has been true from Plato's _Republic_ to Kropotkin's _Conquest of Bread_ and Wells's _A Modern Utopia_.

Nor could I ever become interested in the pseudo-philosophy of anarchism. One of the books which have disappointed me the most is Max Stirner's _Ego and His Own_.

Psychology is a science which I should like to know. I have therefore skimmed through the standard works of Wundt and Ziehen. After reading them, I came to the conclusion that the psychology which I am seeking, day by day and every day, is not to be found in these treatises. It is contained rather in the writings of Nietzsche and the novels of Dostoievski. In the course of time, I may succeed, perhaps, in entering the more abstract domains of the science.

VI

THE HISTORIANS

Miss Blimber, the school teacher in d.i.c.kens's _Dombey and Son_, could have died happily had she known Cicero. Even if such a thing were possible I should have no great desire to know Cicero, but I should be glad to listen to a lecture by Zeno in the portico of the Poecile at Athens, or to Epicurus's meditations in his garden.

My ignorance of history has prevented me from becoming deeply interested in Greece, although now this begins to embarra.s.s me, as a curiosity about and sympathy for cla.s.sical art stirs within me. If I were a young man and had the leisure, I might even begin the study of Greek.

As it is, I feel that there are two Greeces: one of statues and temples, which is academic and somewhat cold; the other of philosophers and tragedians, who convey to my mind more of an impression of life and humanity.

Apart from the Greek, which I know but fragmentarily, I have no great admiration for ancient literatures. The _Old Testament_ never aroused any devotion in me. Except for _Ecclesiastes_ and one or two of the shorter books, it impresses me as repulsively cruel and antipathetic.

Among the Greeks, I have enjoyed Homer's _Odyssey_ and the comedies of Aristophanes. I have read also Herodotus, Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius. I am not an admirer of academic, well written books, so I prefer Diogenes Laertius to Plutarch. Plutarch impresses me as having composed and arranged his narratives; not so Diogenes Laertius. Plutarch forces the morality of his personages to the fore; Diogenes gives details of both the good and the bad in his. Plutarch is solid and systematic; Diogenes is lighter and lacks system. I prefer Diogenes Laertius to Plutarch, and if I were especially interested in any of the ill.u.s.trious ancients of whom they write, I should vastly prefer the letters of the men themselves, if any existed, or otherwise the gossip of their tentmakers or washerwomen, to any lives written of them by either Diogenes Laertius or Plutarch.