of the intellectual leaders of the world, and in gathering an
astonishingly accurate knowledge of the spirit and literature of foreign
peoples. It was in his library at Salamanca that he once explained to
an Englishman the meaning of a particular Scotticism in Robert Burns;
and it was there that he congratulated another Englishman on his having
read _Rural Rides_, "the hall-mark," he said, "of the man of letters who
is no mere man of letters, but also a man." From that corner of Castile,
he has poured out his spirit in essays, poetry, criticism, novels,
philosophy, lectures, and public meetings, and that daily toil of press
article writing which is the duty rather than the privilege of most
present-day writers in Spain. Such are the many faces, moods, and
movements in which Unamuno appears before Spain and the world. And yet,
despite this multiplicity and this dispersion, the dominant impression
which his personality leaves behind is that of a vigorous unity, an
unswerving concentration both of mind and purpose. Bagaria, the national
caricaturist, a genius of rhythm and character which the war revealed,
but who was too good not to be overshadowed by the facile art of
Raemaekers (imagine Goya overshadowed by Reynolds!), once represented
Unamuno as an owl. A marvellous thrust at the heart of Unamuno's
character. For all this vitality and ever-moving activity of mind is
shot through by the absolute immobility of two owlish eyes piercing the
darkness of spiritual night. And this intense gaze into the mystery is
the steel axis round which his spirit revolves and revolves in
desperation; the unity under his multiplicity; the one fire under his
passions and the inspiration of his whole work and life.

* * * * *

It was Unamuno himself who once said that the Basque is the alkaloid of
the Spaniard. The saying is true, so far as it goes. But it would be