Kabyline.

Having had no library in my youth, I have never possessed the old
favourites that everybody carries in his pocket into the country, and
reads over and over until he knows them by heart.

I have looked in and out of books as travellers do in and out of inns,
not stopping long in any of them. I am very sorry but it is too late now
for the loss to be repaired.




ON BEING A GENTLEMAN


Viewed from without, I seem to impress some as a crass, crabbed person,
who has very little ability, while others regard me as an unhealthy,
decadent writer. Then Azorin has said of me that I am a literary
aristocrat, a fine and comprehensive mind.

I should accept Azorin's opinion very gladly, but personality needs to
be hammered severely in literature before it leaves its slag. Like metal
which is removed from the furnace after casting and placed under the
hammer, I would offer my works to be put to the test, to be beaten by
all hammers.

If anything were left, I should treasure it then lovingly; if nothing
were left, we should still pick up some fragments of life.