ESSAYS AND
SOLILOQUIES
_FROM THE SPANISH_
FIGURES OF THE PASSION OF OUR LORD
BY GABRIEL MIRO
_Translated by C. J. Hogarth_
_FROM THE FRENCH_
THE MODERN ENGLISH NOVEL
BY ABEL CHEVALLEY
_Translated by Ben Ray Redman_
_FROM THE GERMAN_
DEATH IN VENICE
BY THOMAS MANN
_Translated by Kenneth Burke_
_FROM THE RUSSIAN_
THE CLOCK
BY ALEKSEI REMIZOV
_Translated by John Cournos_
_TALES OF THE WILDERNESS_
BY BORIS PILNIAK
_Translated by F. O’Dempsey_
_FROM THE NORWEGIAN_
SEGELFOSS TOWN
BY KNUT HAMSUN
_Translated by J. S. Scott_
_FROM THE POLISH_
THE PEASANTS
BY LADISLAS REYMONT
_Translated by Michael H. Dziewicki_
[Illustration]
TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
BY J. E. CRAWFORD FLITCH
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
ALFRED · A · KNOPF
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY
THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, BINGHAMTON, N. Y.
ESPARTO PAPER MANUFACTURED IN SCOTLAND
AND FURNISHED BY W.F. ETHERINGTON & CO.,
NEW YORK.
_Erratum_
The two paragraphs on pages 100-101 beginning:
In “The Tragic Sense of Life” Unamuno says
and:
Readers of Don Quixote will recall
are a continuation of the footnote on page 99.
I am writing these lines, to-day the 6th of June, 1924, in this island
of Fuerteventura, an island that is propitious to calm thinking and to
a laying bare of the soul, even as this parched land is bare, bare even
to the bone. Here I have been confined now for nearly three months, no
reason for my confinement having been given other than the arbitrary
mandate of the military power that is de-civilizing and debasing my
native country.
Hither came my friend Mr. J. E. Crawford Flitch to bear me company.
He was entrusted by Mr. Alfred A. Knopf with the task of making an
anthology or _florilegium_ of my shorter articles and extracts from my
more extensive writings which should present a conspectus of my whole
literary work. It is he, my friend and translator, who is responsible
for the selection of the pieces which form this anthology.
I am in principle an enemy of all such selections or anthologies of
an author’s works, and the more so when the author’s influence is
due primarily not so much to his ideas as to the passionate tone
and gesture with which he expresses them, to his style. This work
of selection appears to me to be as difficult as would be that of
abridging a sonata or a picture. And what appears to me almost
impossible is that the author himself should make the selection. It is
not possible for us to see ourselves from the outside, to become part
of our public.
In any case, a work like this is a kind of index or catalogue, and
its chief utility is to incite in the public a desire to get to know
the author better. It is, to put it bluntly, in the nature of an
advertisement.