A lack of books was the occasion of my failure to form the habit of re-
reading, of tasting again and again and of relishing what I read, and
also of making notes in the margin.
Nearly all authors who own a small library, in which the books are
properly arranged, and nicely annotated, become famous.
I am not sentimentalizing about stolid, brazen note-taking, such as that
with which the gentlemen of the Ateneo debase their books, because that
merely indicates barbarous lack of culture and an obtuseness which is
Kabyline.
Having had no library in my youth, I have never possessed the old
favourites that everybody carries in his pocket into the country, and
reads over and over until he knows them by heart.
I have looked in and out of books as travellers do in and out of inns,
not stopping long in any of them. I am very sorry but it is too late now
for the loss to be repaired.
ON BEING A GENTLEMAN
Viewed from without, I seem to impress some as a crass, crabbed person,
who has very little ability, while others regard me as an unhealthy,
decadent writer. Then Azorin has said of me that I am a literary
aristocrat, a fine and comprehensive mind.
I should accept Azorin's opinion very gladly, but personality needs to
be hammered severely in literature before it leaves its slag.
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