academic tread. At great, historic moments, no doubt it is very well,
but in the long run, in incessant parade, it is one of the most deadly
soporifics in literature; it destroys variety, it is fatal to subtlety,
to nice transitions, to detail, and it throws the uniformity of the
copybook over everything.

On the other hand, the rhetoric of the minor key, which seems poor at
first blush, soon reveals itself to be more attractive. It moves with a
livelier, more life-like rhythm; it is less bombastic. This rhetoric
implies continence and basic economy of effort; it is like an agile man,
lightly clothed and free of motion.

To the extent of my ability I always avoid the rhetoric of the major
key, which is assumed as the only proper style, the very moment that one
sits down to write Castilian. I should like, of course, to rise to the
heights of solemnity now and then, but very seldom.

"Then what you seek," I am told, "is a familiar style like that of
Mesonero Romanos, Trueba and Pereda?"

No, I am not attracted by that either.

The familiar, rude, vulgar manner reminds me of a worthy bourgeois
family at the dinner table. There sits the husband in his shirt sleeves,
while the wife's hair is at loose ends and she is dirty besides, and all
the children are in rags.

I take it that one may be simple and sincere without either affectation
or vulgarity. It is well to be a little neutral, perhaps, a little grey
for the most part, so that upon occasion the more delicate hues may