The name is absent

Personalities of Modern Spain 65

These tertulias are a very important element in the modern
literary life of Spain’s capital. For the foreign critic who
goes the round of these clubs there is a disconcerting variety
of opinions. As an Irishman I feel inclined to agree that
the greatness of a country depends upon the element of con-
flict or struggle you find existing there. I do not think that
a country really lives when everybody is at peace ; you must
have struggle between the various elements and from the
state of tension we get positive values. If you go to these
tertulias you would find that very few have a charitable atti-
tude towards one another; all are eager to give their own
individual expression.

There is one big personality in Spain today who is not
mediaeval, and he is one of the biggest personalities in the
Spanish world, and that is Ortega y Gasset. He is the one
example in Spain of the great European. He is a penetrating
thinker, and a great German scholar, and also is very well
acquainted with French literature, but above all he is
European-minded, the one European in Spain. He has
turned the minds of his countrymen to big problems of
thought in other countries, and when he writes a definitely
great work he will probably be the biggest of all Spanish
literary men. He is an exception—perhaps the one exception
who will be able to build a school for pupils. As a rule the
greatness of Spain arises out of the primitiveness that exists
in its literature, and it springs from the tense individualism
of the people ; the form it has is always regional. In Europe
we suffer from our literature having lost its sense of nation-
ality, and we do not know where it will go. Some of our
modern novels might be written of any country, and so
have no definite flavor about them.

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