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As was natural, this was not only the attitude of the older writers, but it extended to our contemporaries in years as well, even to those who were most modern. Among those who cherished a deadly hatred of me was Dicenta.
"Come," shouted Dicenta, "we shall settle this matter at once." "I have nothing to settle with you," replied the young man. "Yes, sir, you have; you have stated in an article that my ideas are not revolutionary." "I never stated anything of the kind." "What is that?" "No, sir." "But aren't you Pio Baroja?" "I am not, sir." Dicenta turned on his heel and marched back to his seat.
The poets now jettisoned the rotundities of the romantic and emotional schools of Zorrilla and Salvador Rueda, and substituted instead the precise, pictorial line of Ruben Dario, Juan Ramon Jimenez, and the brothers Machado, while the socialistic and republican propaganda which had invaded the theatre with Perez Galdos, Joaquin Dicenta, and Angel Guimera, bore fruit in the psychological drama of Benavente, the social comedies of Linares Rivas, and the atmospheric canvases which the Quinteros have painted of Andalusia.
It was an antipathy which had its origin in the realm of ideas, and it was accentuated subsequently by an article which I contributed to El Globo upon his drama Aurora, in which I maintained that Dicenta was not a man of new or broad ideas, but completely preoccupied with the ancient conceptions of honesty and honour.
Whether politicians or authors, the Spanish revolutionists always smack to my mind of the property room, and especially is this true of the authors. Zozaya, Morote and Dicenta have passed for many years now as terrible men, both destructive and great innovators. But how ridiculous!
This gentility with which my cousin reproached me, and without doubt he was correct, is common to nearly all Spanish writers. There are no Spaniards at present, and there never have been any at any other time, who write out of the Spanish soul, out of the hearts of the people. Even Dicenta did not. His Juan Jose is not a workingman, but a young gentleman.
One night in the Cafe Fornos I am able to vouch for the truth of this incident because, years afterwards, he told me the story himself Dicenta accosted a young man who was sitting at an adjacent table taking supper, and attempted to draw him into discussion, under the impression that it was I. The young man was so frightened that he never dared to open his mouth.
Sometime later, Dicenta and I became friends, although we were never very intimate, because he felt that I did not appreciate him at his full worth. And it was the truth. I met Alejandro Sawa one evening at the Cafe Fornos, where I had gone with a friend. As a matter of fact, I had never read anything which he had written, but his appearance impressed me.
Zozaya, like Dicenta, has never done anything but manipulate the commonplace, failing to impart either lightness or novelty to it, as have Valera and Anatole France, succeeding only on the other hand in making it more plumbeous and indigestible.
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