Galdos, for example, can make the common people talk; Azorin can portray
the villages of Castile, set on their arid heights, against backgrounds
of blue skies; Blasco Ibanez can paint the life of the Valencians in
vivid colours with a prodigality that carries with it the taint of the
cheap, but none of them has penetrated into the popular soul. That would
require a great poet, and we have none.




GIVING OFFENCE


I have the name of being aggressive, but, as a matter of fact, I have
scarcely ever attacked any one personally.

Many hold a radical opinion to be an insult.

In an article in _La Lectura_, Ortega y Gasset illustrates my
propensity to become offensive by recalling that as we left the Ateneo
together one afternoon, we encountered a blind man on the Calle del
Prado, singing a _jota_, whereupon I remarked: "An unspeakable
song!"

Admitted. It is a fact, but I fail to see any cause of offence. It is
only another way of saying more forcefully: "I do not like it, it does
not please me," or what you will.

I have often been surprised to find, after expressing an opinion, that I