One is tempted to dwell upon Pereda’s achievement—first, because his novels are thronged with lifelike personages; and second, because they proved that Spain, though separated from the rest of Europe in sentiment and belief, was not intellectually dead. While Pereda was writing _Pedro Sánchez_ and _Sotileza_, the world north of the Pyrenees was wrangling over naturalism in romance as though it were a new discovery. The critics of London and Paris were clearly unaware that naturalism had been practised for years past in Spain by novelists who thus revived an ancient national tradition. Pereda is still little read out of Spain, and, though attempts to translate him have been made, he is perhaps too emphatically Spanish to bear the operation. Spaniards themselves need some aids to read him with comfort, and the glossary at the end of _Sotileza_ has been a very present help to many of us in time of trouble. A writer who indulges in dialectical peculiarities or in technical expressions to such an extent may be presumed to have counted the cost: and the cost is that he remains comparatively unknown beyond his own frontier. He cannot be reproached with making an illegitimate bid for popularity, nor accused of defection from the cause of realism. Pereda was not indifferent to fame, but he did not go far to seek it. Like the Shunamite woman, he chose to dwell among his own people, to picture their existence passed in contented industry, to exalt their ideals, and to value their applause more than that of the outside world. Fu vera gloria? Ai posteri L’ardua sentenza.