Youth and Egolatry

Youth and Egolatry

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Title: Youth and Egolatry
Author: Pio Baroja
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8148] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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Youth and Egolatry
By PIO BAROJA
Translated from the Spanish By Jacob S. Fassett, Jr. and Frances L. Phillips

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION BY H. L. MENCKEN
PROLOGUE
ON INTELLECTUAL LOVE EGOTISM
I. FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS
The bad man of Itzea Humble and a wanderer Dogmatophagy Ignoramus, Ignorabimus Nevertheless, we call ourselves materialists In defense of religion Arch-European Dionysus or Apollonian Epicuri de grege porcum Evil and Rousseau's Chinaman The root of disinterested evil Music as a sedative Concerning Wagner Universal musicians The folk song On the optimism of eunuchs
II. MYSELF, THE WRITER
To my readers thirty years hence Youthful writings The beginning and end of the journey Mellowness and the critical sense Sensibility On devouring one's own God Anarchism New paths Longing for change Baroja, you will never amount to anything (A Refrain) The patriotism of desire My home lands Cruelty and stupidity The anterior image The tragi-comedy of sex The veils of the sexual life A little talk The sovereign crowd The remedy
III. THE EXTRARADIUS
Rhetoric and anti-rhetoric The rhythm of style Rhetoric of the minor key The value of my ideas Genius and admiration My literary and artistic inclinations My library On being a gentleman Giving offence Thirst for glory Elective antipathies To a member of several academies
IV. ADMIRATIONS AND INCOMPATIBILITIES
Cervantes, Shakespeare, Moliere The encyclopedists The romanticists The naturalists The Spanish realists The Russians The critics
V. THE PHILOSOPHERS
VI. THE HISTORIANS
The Roman historians Modern and contemporary historians
VII. MY FAMILY
Family mythology Our History
VIII. MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD
San Sebastian My parents Monsignor Two lunatics The hawk In Madrid In Pamplona Don Tirso Larequi A visionary rowdy Sarasate Robinson Crusoe and the Mysterious Island
IX. AS A STUDENT
Professors Anti-militarism To Valencia
X. AS A VILLAGE DOCTOR
Dolores, La Sacristana
XI. AS A BAKER
My father's disillusionment Industry and democracy The vexations of a small tradesman
XII. AS A WRITER
Bohemia Our own generation Azorin Paul Schmitz Ortega y Gasset A pseudo-patron
XIII. PARISIAN DAYS
Estevanez My versatility according to Bonafoux
XIV. LITERARY ENMITIES
The enmity of Dicenta The posthumous enmity of Sawa Semi-hatred on the part of Silverio Lanza
XV. THE PRESS
Our newspapers and periodicals Our journalists Americans
XVI. POLITICS
Votes and applause Politicians Revolutionists Lerroux An offer Socialists Love of the workingman The conventionalist Barriovero Anarchists The morality of the alternating party system On obeying the law The sternness of the law
XVII. MILITARY GLORY
The old-time soldier Down goes prestige Science and the picturesque What we need today Our armies A word from Kuroki, the Japanese
EPILOGUE Palinode and fresh outburst of ire
APPENDICES Spanish politicians On Baroja's anarchists Note

INTRODUCTION
Pio Baroja is a product of the intellectual reign of terror that went on in Spain after the catastrophe of 1898. That catastrophe, of course, was anything but unforeseen. The national literature, for a good many years before the event, had been made dismal by the croaking of Iokanaans, and there was a definite defaitiste party among the intelligentsia. But among the people in general, if there was not optimism, there was at least a sort of resigned indifference, and so things went ahead in the old stupid Spanish way and the structure of society, despite a few gestures of liberalism, remained as it had been for generations. In Spain, of course, there is always a Kulturkampf, as there is in Italy, but during these years it was quiescent. The Church, in the shadow of the restored monarchy, gradually resumed its old privileges and its old pretensions. So on the political side. In Catalonia, where Spain keeps the strangest melting-pot in Europe and the old Iberian stock is almost extinct, there was a menacing seething, but elsewhere there was not much to chill the conservative spine. In the middle nineties, when the Socialist