I am reminded of servants shouting at a man picking flowers over the
garden wall, or an apple from the orchard as he passes, who raise their
voices as high as possible so as to make their officiousness known.
They shout so that their masters will hear.
"How dare that rascal pick flowers from the garden? How dare he defy us
and our masters? Shall a beggar, who is not respectable, tell us that
our laws are not laws, that our honours are not honours, and that we are
a gang of accomplished idiots?"
Yes, that is just what I tell them, and I shall continue to do so as
long as it is the truth.
Shout, you lusty louts in gaudy liveries, bark you little lap-dogs,
guard the gates, you government inspectors and carabineers! I shall look
into your garden, which is also my garden, I shall make off with
anything from it that I am able, and I shall say what I please.
TO A MEMBER OF SEVERAL ACADEMIES
A certain Basque writer, one Senor de Loyarte, who is a member of
several academies, and Royal Commissioner of Education, assails me
violently upon social grounds in a book which he has published, although
the attack is veiled as purely literary.
Senor de Loyarte is soporific as a general rule, but in his polite
sortie against me, he is more amusing than is usual.
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