BAROJA, YOU WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING
(_A Refrain_)
"Baroja does not amount to anything, and I presume that he will never
amount to anything," Ortega y Gasset observes in the first issue of the
_Spectator_.
I have a suspicion myself that I shall never amount to anything.
Everybody who knows me has always thought the same.
When I first went to school in San Sebastian, at the age of four--and it
has rained a great deal since that day--the teacher, Don Leon Sanchez y
Calleja, who made a practice of thrashing us with a very stiff pointer
(oh, these hallowed traditions of our ancestors!), looked me over and
said:
"This boy will prove to be as sulky as his brother. He will never amount
to anything."
I studied for a time in the Institute of Pamplona with Don Gregorio
Pano, who taught us mathematics; and this old gentleman, who looked like
the Commander in _Don Juan Tenorio_, with his frozen face and his
white beard, remarked to me in his sepulchral voice:
"You are not going to be an engineer like your father. You will never
amount to anything."
When I took therapeutics under Don Benito Hernando in San Carlos, Don
Benito planted himself in front of me and said:
"That smile of yours, that little smile ... it is impertinent.
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