The first time that I saw Lanza, I remember how his eyes sparkled when I
told him that I liked his books. Nobody ever paid any attention to him
in those days.
Silverio Lanza was a singular character. At times he seemed benevolent,
and then again there were times when he would appear malignant in the
extreme.
His ideas upon the subject of literature were positively absurd. When I
sent him _Sombre Lives_, he wrote me an unending letter in which he
attempted to convince me that I ought to append a lesson or moral, to
every tale. If I did not wish to write them, he offered to do it
himself.
Silverio thought that literature was not to be composed like history,
according to Quintilian's definition, _ad narrandum_, but _ad
probandum_.
When I gave him _The House of Aizgorri_, he was outraged by the
optimistic conclusion of the book, and advised me to change it.
According to his theory, if the son of the Aizgorri family came to a bad
end, the daughter ought to come to a bad end also.
Being of a somewhat fantastical turn of mind, Silverio Lanza was full of
political projects that were extraordinary.
I remember that one of his ideas was that we ought all to write the King
a personal note of congratulation upon his attaining his majority.
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