Spain, I take it, is the
most misunderstood of countries. The world cannot get over seeing it
through the pink mist of _Carmen_, an astounding Gallic caricature,
half flattery and half libel. The actual Spaniard is surely no such
grand-opera Frenchman as the immortal toreador. I prescribe the
treatment that cured me, for one, of mistaking him for an Iberian. That
is, I prescribe a visit to Spain in carnival time.
Baroja, then, stands for the modern Spanish mind at its most
enlightened. He is the Spaniard of education and worldly wisdom,
detached from the mediaeval imbecilities of the old regime and yet aloof
from the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country.
Vastly less picturesque than Blasco Ibanez, he is nearer the normal
Spaniard--the Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure
of society upon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in
the peninsula. Thus his book, though it is addressed to Spaniards,
should have a certain value for English-speaking readers. And so it is
presented.
H. L. MENCKEN.
PROLOGUE
ON INTELLECTUAL LOVE
Only what is of the mind has value to the mind. Let us dedicate
ourselves without compunction to reflecting a little upon the eternal
themes of life and art.
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