The
professors of my childhood and my youth rise up before my eyes like the
ghost of Banquo, and proclaim: "Baroja, you will never amount to
anything."
When I go down to the seashore, the waves lap my feet and murmur:
"Baroja, you will never amount to anything." The wise owl that perches
at night on our roof at Itzea calls to me: "Baroja, you will never
amount to anything," and even the crows, winging their way across the
sky, incessantly shout at me from above: "Baroja, you will never amount
to anything."
And I am convinced that I never shall amount to anything.
THE PATRIOTISM OF DESIRE
I may not appear to be a very great patriot, but, nevertheless, I am.
Yet I am unable to make my Spanish or Basque blood an exclusive
criterion for judging the world. If I believe that a better orientation
may be acquired by assuming an international point of view, I do not
hold it improper to cease to feel, momentarily, as a Spaniard or a
Basque.
In spite of this, a longing for the accomplishment of what shall be for
the greatest good of my country, normally obsesses my mind, but I am
wanting in the patriotism of lying.
I should like to have Spain the best place in the world, and the Basque
country the best part of Spain.
The feeling is such a natural and common one that it seems scarcely
worth while to explain it.
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