Youth and Egolatry by Pio Baroja

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Cervantes is not very sympathetic to me. He is tainted with the perfidy
of the man who has made a pact with the enemy (with the Church, the
aristocracy, with those in power), and then conceals the fact.
Philosophically, in spite of his enthusiasm for the Renaissance, he
appears vulgar and pedestrian to me, although he towers above all his
contemporaries on account of the success of a single invention, that of
Don Quixote and Sancho, which is to literature what the discovery of
Newton was to Physics.

As for Moliere, he is a poor fellow, who never attains the exuberance of
Shakespeare, nor the invention that immortalizes Cervantes. But his
taste is better than Shakespeare's and he is more social, more modern
than Cervantes. The half-century or more that separates the work of
Cervantes from that of Moliere, is not sufficient to explain this
modernity. Between the Spain of _Quixote_ and the France of _Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, lies something deeper than time. Descartes
and Gassendi had lived in France, while, on the other hand, the seed of
Saint Ignatius Loyola lay germinating in the Spain of Cervantes.

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS

A French journalist who visited my house during the summer, remarked:

"The ideas were great in the French Revolution; it was not the men." I
replied: "I believe that the men of the French Revolution were great,
but not the ideas."

Of all the philosophical literature of the pre-revolutionary period,
what remains today?

What books exert influence? In France, excerpts from Montesquieu,
Diderot and Rousseau are still read in the schools, but outside of
France, they are read nowhere.

Only an extraordinary person would go away for the summer with
Montesquieu's _Esprit des Lois_, or Jean Jacques Rousseau's
_Emile_ in his grip. Montesquieu is demonstration of the fact that
a book cannot live entirely by virtue of correctness of style.

Of all the writers who enjoyed such fame in the eighteenth century, the
only one who will bear reading today is Voltaire--the Voltaire of the
_Dictionnaire Philosophique_ and of the novels.

Diderot, whom the French consider a great man, is of no interest
whatsoever to the modern mind, at least to the mind which is not French.
He is almost as dull as Rousseau. _La Religieuse_ is an utterly
false little book. Some years ago I loaned a copy to a young lady who
had just come from a convent. "I have never seen anything like this,"
she said to me. "It is a fantasy with no relation to the truth." That
was my idea. _Jacques, le fataliste_ is tiresome; _Le Neveu de
Rameau_ gives at first the impression that it is going to amount to
something, to something powerful such as the _Satiricon_ of
Petronius, or _El Buscon_ of Quevedo; but at the end, it is
nothing.

The only writer of the pre-revolutionary period who can be read today
with any pleasure--and this, perhaps, is because he does not attempt
anything--is Chamfort. His characters and anecdotes are sufficiently
highly flavoured to defy the action of time.

THE ROMANTICISTS

_Goethe_

If a militia of genius should be formed on Parnassus, Goethe would be
the drum-major. He is so great, so majestic, so serene, so full of
talent, so abounding in virtue, and yet, so antipathetic!

_Chateaubriand_

A skin of Lacrymae Christi that has turned sour. At times the good
Viscount drops molasses into the skin to take away the taste of vinegar;
at other times, he drops in more vinegar to take away the sweet taste of
the molasses. He is both moth-eaten and sublime.

_Victor Hugo_

Victor Hugo, the most talented of rhetoricians! Victor Hugo, the most
exquisite of vulgarians! Victor Hugo--mere common sense dressed up as
art.

_Stendhal_

The inventor of a psychological automaton moved by clock work.

_Balzac_

A nightmare, a dream produced by indigestion, a chill, rare acuteness,
equal obtuseness, a delirium of splendours, cheap hardware, of pretence
and bad taste. Because of his ugliness, because of his genius, because
of his immorality, the Danton of printers' ink.

_Poe_

A mysterious sphinx who makes one tremble with lynx-like eyes, the
goldsmith of magical wonders.

_Dickens_

At once a mystic and a sad clown. The Saint Vincent de Paul of the
loosened string, the Saint Francis of Assisi of the London Streets.
Everything is gesticulation, and the gesticulations are ambiguous. When
we think he is going to weep, he laughs; when we think he is going to
laugh, he cries. A remarkable genius who does everything he can to make
himself appear puny, yet who is, beyond doubt, very great.

_Larra_ [Footnote: A Spanish poet and satirist (1809-37), famous
under the pseudonym of Figaro. He committed suicide. The poet Zorrilla
first came into prominence through some verses read at his tomb.]

A small, trained tiger shut up in a tiny cage. He has all the tricks of
a cat; he mews like one, he lets you stroke his back, and there are
times when his fiercer instincts show in his eyes. Then you realize that
he is thinking: "How I should love to eat you up!"

THE NATURALISTS

_Flaubert_

Flaubert is a heavy-footed animal. It is plain that he is a Norman. All
his work has great specific gravity. He disgusts me. One of Flaubert's
master strokes was the conception of the character of Homais, the
apothecary, in _Madame Bovary_. I cannot see, however, that Homais
is any more stupid than Flaubert himself, and he may even be less so.

_The Giants_

The good Zola, vigorous, dull and perspiring, dubbed his contemporaries,
the French naturalistic novelists, "Giants." What an imagination was
possessed by Zola!

These "Giants" were none other than the Goncourts, whose insignificance
approached at times imbecility, and in addition, Alphonse Daudet, with
the air of a cheap comedian and an armful of mediocre books--a truly
French diet, feeble, but well seasoned. These poor Giants, of whom Zola
would talk, have become so weak and shrunken with time, that nobody is
able any longer to make them out, even as dwarfs.

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 god-like; all they think of are their love affairs, their
passions. 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 niggardly histories ever
written anywhere. His articles on Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Dickens
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 assumed 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 Dickens'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 embarrass me, as a curiosity
about and sympathy for classical 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
illustrious 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.

THE ROMAN HISTORIANS

When I turned to the composition of historical novels, I desired to
ascertain if the historical method had been reduced to a system. I read
Lucian's _Instructions for Writing History_, an essay with the same
title, or with a very similar one, by the Abbe Mably, some essays by
Simmel, besides a book by a German professor, Ernst Bernheim,
_Lehrbuch der historischen Methode_.

I next read and re-read the Roman historians Julius Caesar, Tacitus,
Sallust and Suetonius.

_Sallust_

All these Roman historians no doubt were worthy gentlemen, but they
create an atmosphere of suspicion. When reading them, you suspect that
they are not always telling the whole truth. I read Sallust and feel
that he is lying; he has composed his narrative like a novel.

In the _Memorial de Sainte Helene_, it is recorded that on March
26, 1816, Napoleon read the conspiracy of Catiline in the _Roman
History_. The Emperor observed that he was unable to understand what
Catiline was driving at. No matter how much of a bandit he may have
been, he must have had some object, some social purpose in view.

The observation of this political genius is one which must occur to all
who read Sallust's book. How could Catiline have secured the support of
the most brilliant men of Rome, among them of Julius Caesar, if his only
plan and object had been to loot and burn Rome? It is not logical.
Evidently Sallust lies, as governmental writers in Spain lie today when
they speak of Lerroux or Ferrer, or as the republican supporters of
Thiers lied in 1871, characterizing the Paris Commune.

_Tacitus_

Tacitus is another great Roman historian who is theatrical,
melodramatic, solemn, full of grand gestures. He also creates an
atmosphere of suspicion, of falsehood. Tacitus has something of the
inquisitor in him, of the fanatic in the cause of virtue. He is a man of
austere moral attitude, which is a pose that a thoroughgoing scamp finds
it easy to assume.

A temperament such as that of Tacitus is fatal to theatrical peoples
like the Italians, Spaniards, and French of the South. From it springs
that type of Sicilian, Calabrian, and Andalusian politician who is a
great lawyer and an eloquent orator, who declaims publicly in the forum,
and then reaches an understanding privately with bandits and thugs.

_Suetonius_

Suetonius, although deficient both in the pomp and sententiousness of
Tacitus, makes no attempt to compose his story, nor to impart moral
instruction, but tells us what he knows, simply. His _Lives of the
Twelve Caesars_ is the greatest collection of horrors in history. You
leave it with the imagination perturbed, scrutinizing yourself to
discover whether you may not be yourself a hog or a wild beast.
Suetonius gives us an account of men rather than a history of the
politics of emperors, and surely this method is more interesting and
veracious. I place more faith in the anecdotes which grow up about an
historical figure than I do in his laws.

Polybius is a mixture of scepticism and common sense. He is what Bayle,
Montesquieu and Voltaire will come to be centuries hence.

As far as Caesar's _Commentaries_ are concerned, in spite of the
fact that they have been manipulated very skilfully, they are one of the
most satisfying and instructive books that can be read.

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORIANS

I have very little knowledge of the historians of the Renaissance or of
those prior to the French Revolution. Apart from the chroniclers of
individual exploits, such as Lopez de Ayala, Brantome, and the others,
they are wholly colourless, and either pseudo-Roman or pseudo-Greek.
Even Machiavelli has a personal, Italian side, which is mocking and
incisive--and this is all that is worth while in him--and he has a
pretentious pseudo-Roman side, which is unspeakably tiresome.

Generally considered, the more carefully composed and smoothly varnished
the history, the duller it will be found; while the more personal
revelations it contains, the more engaging. Most readers today, for
example, prefer Bernal Diaz del Castillo's _True History of the
Conquest of New Spain_ to Solis's _History of the Conquest of
Mexico_. One is the book of a soldier, who had a share in the deeds
described, and who reveals himself for what he is, with all his
prejudices, vanities and arrogance; the other is a scholar's attempt to
imitate a classic history and to maintain a monotonous music throughout
his paragraphs.

Practically all the historians who have followed the French Revolution
have individual character, and some have too much of it, as has Carlyle.
They distort their subject until it becomes a pure matter of fantasy, or
mere literature, or sinks even to the level of a family discussion.

Macaulay's moral pedantry, Thiers's cold and repulsive cretinism, the
melodramatic, gesticulatory effusiveness of Michelet are all typical
styles.

Historical bazaars _a la_ Cesare Cantu may be put on one side, as
belonging to an inferior genre. They remind me of those great nineteenth
century world's fairs, vast, miscellaneous and exhausting.

As for the German historians, they are not translated, so I do not know
them. I have read only a few essays of Simmel, which I think extremely
keen, and Stewart Chamberlain's book upon the foundations of the
nineteenth century, which, if the word France were to be substituted for
the word Germany, might easily have been the production of an advanced
nationalist of the _Action Francaise_.

VII

MY FAMILY

FAMILY MYTHOLOGY

The celebrated Vicomte de Chateaubriand, after flaunting an ancestry of
princes and kings in his _Memoires d'outre-tombe_, then turns about
and tells us that he attaches no importance to such matters.

I shall do the same. I intend to furbish up our family history and
mythology, and then I shall assert that I attach no importance to them.
And, what is more, I shall be telling the truth.

My researches into the life of Aviraneta [Footnote: A kinsman of Baroja
and protagonist of his series of historical novels under the general
title of _Memoirs of a Man of Action_.] have drawn me of late to
the genealogical field, and I have looked into my family, which is
equivalent to compounding with tradition and even with reaction.

I have unearthed three family myths: the Goni myth, the Zornoza myth,
and the Alzate myth.

The Goni myth, vouched for by an aunt of mine who died in San Sebastian
at an age of ninety or more, established, according to her, that she was
a descendant of Don Teodosio de Goni, a Navarrese _caballero_ who
lived in the time of Witiza, and who, after killing his father and
mother at the instigation of the devil, betook himself to Mount Aralar
wearing an iron ring about his neck, and dragging a chain behind him,
thus pilloried to do penance. One day, a terrible dragon appeared before
him during a storm.

Don Teodosio lifted up his soul unto God, and thereupon the Archangel
Saint Michael revealed himself to him, in his dire extremity, and broke
his chains, in commemoration of which event Don Teodosio caused to be
erected the chapel of San Miguel in Excelsis on Mount Aralar.

There were those who endeavoured to convince my aunt that in the time of
this supposititious Don Teodosio, which was the early part of the eighth
century, surnames had not come into use in the Basque country, and even,
indeed, that there were at that time no Christians there--in short they
maintained that Don Teodosio was a solar myth; but they were not able to
convince my aunt. She had seen the chapel of San Miguel on Aralar, and
the cave in which the dragon lived, and a document wherein Charles V.
granted to Juan de Goni the privilege of renaming his house the Palace
of San Miguel, as well as of adding a dragon to his coat of arms,
besides a cross in a red field, and a _broken_ chain.

The Zornoza myth was handed down through my paternal grandmother of that
name.

I remember having heard this lady say when I was a child, that her
family might be traced in a direct line to the chancellor Pero Lopez de
Ayala, and, I know not through what lateral branches, also to St.
Francis Xavier.

My grandmother vouched for the fact that her father had sold the
documents and parchments in which these details were set forth, to a
titled personage from Madrid.

The Zornozas boast an escutcheon which is embellished with a band, a
number of wolves, and a legend whose import I do not recall.

Indeed, wolves occur in all the escutcheons of the Baroja, Alzate and
Zornoza families, in so far as I have been able to discover, and I take
them to be more or less authentic. We have wolves passant, wolves
rampant, and wolves mordant. The Goni escutcheon also displays hearts.
If I become rich, which I do not anticipate, I shall have wolves and
hearts blazoned on the doors of my dazzling automobile, which will not
prevent me from enjoying myself hugely inside of it.

Turning to the Alzate myth, it too runs back to antiquity and the
primitive struggles of rival families of Navarre and Labourt. The
Alzates have been lords of Vera ever since the fourteenth century.

The legend of the Alzates of Vera de Navarra relates that one Don
Rodrigo, master of the village in the fifteenth century, fell in love
with a daughter of the house of Urtubi, in France, near Urruna, and
married her. Don Rodrigo went to live in Urtubi and became so thoroughly
gallicized that he never cared to return to Spain, so the people of Vera
banded together, dispossessed him of his honours and dignity, and
sequestrated his lands.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, my great-grandfather,
Sebastian Ignacio de Alzate, was among those who assembled at Zubieta in
1813 to take part in the rebuilding of San Sebastian, and this great-
grandfather was uncle to Don Eugenio de Aviraneta, a good relative of
mine, protagonist of my latest books.

St. Francis Xavier, Don Teodosio de Goni, Pero Lopez de Ayala,
Aviraneta--a saint, a revered worthy, an historian, a conspirator--these
are our family gods.

Now let me take my stand with Chateaubriand as attaching no importance
to such things.

OUR HISTORY

Baroja is a hamlet in the province of Alava in the district of
Penacerrada. According to Fernandez Guerra, it is an Iberian name
derived from Asiatic Iberia. I believe that I have read in Campion that
the word Baroja is compounded from the Celtic _bar_, meaning
mountain, and the Basque _otza, ocha_ meaning cold. In short, a
cold mountain.

The district of Penacerrada, which includes Baroja, is an austere land,
covered with intricate mountain ranges which are clad with trees and
scrub live oaks.

Hawks abound. In his treatise on falconry, Zuniga mentions the Bahari
falcon, propagated principally among the mountains of Penacerrada.

My ancestors originally called themselves Martinez de Baroja. One Martin
had a son who was known as Martinez. This Martinez (son of Martin)
doubtless left the village, and as there were others of the name
Martinez (sons of Martin), they dubbed him the Martinez of Baroja, or
Martinez de Baroja.

The Martinez de Barojas lived in that country for many years; they were
hidalgos, Christians of old stock. And there is still a family of the
name in Penacerrada.

One Martinez de Baroja, by name Juan, who lived in the village of
Samiano, upon becoming outraged because of an attempt to force him to
pay tribute to the Count of Salinas--in those days a very natural source
of offence--took an appeal in the year 1616 from a ruling of the
Prosecuting Attorney of His Majesty and the Alcaldes and Regidors of the
Earldom of Trevino, and he was sustained by the Chamber of Hidalgos at
Valladolid, which decided in his favour in a decree dated the eighth day
of the month of August, 1619.

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