But why should I, a Basque, who never hears
Castilian spoken in my daily life in the accents of Avila or of Toledo,
endeavour to imitate it? Why should I cease to be a Basque in order to
appear Castilian, when I am not? Not that I cherish sectional pride, far
from it; but every man should be what he is, and if he can be content
with what he is, let him be held fortunate.
For this reason, among others, I reject Castilian turns and idioms when
they suggest themselves to my mind. Thus if it occurs to me to write
something that is distinctively Castilian, I cast about for a phrase by
means of which I may express myself in what to me is a more natural way,
without suggestion of our traditional literature.
On the other hand, if the pure rhetoricians, of the national school, who
are _castizo_--the Mariano de Cavias, the Ricardo Leons--should
happen to write something simply, logically and with modern directness,
they would cast about immediately for a roundabout way of saying it,
which might appear elaborate and out of date.
THE RHYTHM OF STYLE
There are persons who imagine that I am ignorant of the three or four
elementary rules of good writing, which everybody knows, while others
believe that I am unacquainted with syntax. Senor Bonilla y San Martin
has conducted a search through my books for deficiencies, and has
discovered that in one place I write a sentence in such and such
fashion, and that in another I write something else in another, while in
a third I compound a certain word falsely.
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