I should like to have Spain the best place in the world, and the Basque country the best part of Spain. The feeling is such a natural and common one that it seems scarcely worth while to explain it. The climate of Touraine or of Tuscany, the Swiss lakes, the Rhine and its castles, whatever is best in Europe, I would root up, if I had my say, and set down here between the Pyrenees and the Straits of Gibraltar. At the same time, I should denationalize Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoi and Dostoievski, making them Spaniards. I should see that the best laws and the best customs were those of our country. But wholly apart from this patriotism of desire, lies the reality. What is to be gained by denying it? To my mind nothing is to be gained. There are many to whom the only genuine patriotism is the patriotism of lying, which in fact is more of a matter of rhetoric than it is of feeling. Our falsifying patriots are always engaged in furious combat with other equally falsifying internationalists. "Nothing but what we have is of any account," cries one party. "No, it is what the other fellow has," cries the other. Patriotism is telling the truth as to one's country, in a sympathetic spirit which is guided and informed by a love of that which is best. Now some one will say: "Your patriotism, then, is nothing but an extension of your ego; it is purely utilitarian." Absolutely so. But how can there be any other kind of patriotism? MY HOME LANDS I have two little countries, which are my homes--the Basque provinces, and Castile; and by Castile I mean Old Castile. I have, further, two points of view from which I look out upon the world: one is my home on the Atlantic; the other is very like a home to me, on the Mediterranean. All my literary inspirations spring either from the Basque provinces or from Castile. I could never write a Gallegan or a Catalan novel. I could wish that my readers were all Basques and Castilians. Other Spaniards interest me less. Spaniards who live in America, or Americans, do not interest me at all. CRUELTY AND STUPIDITY It appears from an article written by Azorín in connection with a book of mine, that, to my way of thinking, there are two enormities which are incredible and intolerable. They are cruelty and stupidity. Civilized man has no choice but to despise these manifestations of primitive, brute existence. We may be able to tolerate stupidity and lack of comprehension when they are simple and wholly natural, but what of an utter obtuseness of understanding which dresses itself up and becomes rhetorical? Can anything be more disagreeable? When a fly devours the pollen greedily from the pyrethrum, which, as we know, will prove fatal to him, it becomes clear at once that flies have no more innate sagacity than men. When we listen to a conservative orator defending the past with salvos of rhetorical fireworks, we are overwhelmed by a realization of the complete odiousness of ornamental stupidity.