incarnates the spirit of modern Spain. His eternal conflict between
faith and reason, between life and thought, between spirit and
intellect, between heaven and civilization, is the conflict of Spain
herself. A border country, like Russia, in which East and West mix their
spiritual waters, Spain wavers between two life-philosophies and cannot
rest. In Russia, this conflict emerges in literature during the
nineteenth century, when Dostoievsky and Tolstoy stand for the East
while Turgeniev becomes the West's advocate. In Spain, a country less
articulate, and, moreover, a country in which the blending of East and
West is more intimate, for both found a common solvent in centuries of
Latin civilization, the conflict is less clear, less on the surface.
To-day Ortega y Gasset is our Turgeniev--not without mixture. Unamuno is
our Dostoievsky, but painfully aware of the strength of the other side
within him, and full of misgivings. Nor is it sure that when we speak of
East in this connection we really mean East. There is a third country in
Europe in which the "Eastern" view is as forcibly put and as deeply
understood as the "Western," a third border country--England. England,
particularly in those of her racial elements conventionally named
Celtic, is closely in sympathy with the "East." Ireland is almost purely
"Eastern" in this respect. That is perhaps why Unamuno feels so strong
an attraction for the English language and its literature, and why, even
to this day, he follows so closely the movements of English thought.[4]
For his own nature, of a human being astride two enemy ideals, draws him
instinctively towards minds equally placed in opposition, yet a
co-operating opposition, to progress. Thus Unamuno, whose literary
qualities and defects make him a genuine representative of the more
masculine variety of the Spanish genius, becomes in his spiritual life
the true living symbol of his country and his time. And that he is great
enough to bear this incarnation is a sufficient measure of his
greatness.