This reminiscence, moreover, which springs up into the light of my
memory every time I think of Don Miguel de Unamuno, has to my mind a
further value in that in it the image of Don Miguel does not appear as
evoked by one man, but by many, though many of one species, many who in
depth are but one man, one type, the Welsh divine. Now, this unity
underlying a multiplicity, these many faces, moods, and movements,
traceable to one only type, I find deeply connected in my mind with
Unamuno's person and with what he signifies in Spanish life and letters.
And when I further delve into my impression, I first realize an
undoubtedly physical relation between the many-one Welsh divines and the
many-one Unamuno. A tall, broad-shouldered, bony man, with high cheeks,
a beak-like nose, pointed grey beard, and a complexion the colour of the
red hematites on which Bilbao, his native town, is built, and which
Bilbao ruthlessly plucks from its very body to exchange for gold in the
markets of England--and in the deep sockets under the high aggressive
forehead prolonged by short iron-grey hair, two eyes like gimlets
eagerly watching the world through spectacles which seem to be purposely
pointed at the object like microscopes; a fighting expression, but of
noble fighting, above the prizes of the passing world, the contempt for
which is shown in a peculiar attire whose blackness invades even that
little triangle of white which worldly men leave on their breast for the
necktie of frivolity and the decorations of vanity, and, blinding it,
leaves but the thinnest rim of white collar to emphasize, rather than
relieve, the priestly effect of the whole. Such is Don Miguel de
Unamuno.

Such is, rather, his photograph. For Unamuno himself is ever changing. A
talker, as all good Spaniards are nowadays, but a talker in earnest and
with his heart in it, he is varied, like the subjects of his
conversation, and, still more, like the passions which they awake in