sider this book as a dialectic illustration of the theme treated in the little poem Filosofia : 2111 is one and the same. Belarmino, the shoemaker philosopher, in search of a word which will express all the ideas of man, and Apolonio, the shoemaker poet-dramatist, in search of glory and the majesty of an attitude, may well stand for two opposite principles, two types : the one, eager to understand, the other eager to express ; the one sensitive yet calm, the other interested, yet insensitive. Fortunately, however, these two types are animated with a really individual life which makes of them men of so original and vivid a character that, though in so far as it concerns them the novel is not particularly rich in action, the story is brimful of human interest and sympathy, and we close the book with regret, as one parts with friends. Ayala has embroidered a love-tale into the loose canvas of an artistic rivalry between the two intellectual cobblers. Baldly told, this tale of a young seminarist—the son of Apolonio—who elopes with the niece and adopted daughter of Belarmino, is compelled by a kind but bullying benefactress to abandon the girl, and, when a priest, finds her again and saves her from the abyss of degradation into which she had fallen, contains humorous possibilities of deplorable romance. That Ayala has avoided every single one of the many pitfalls on his path is not enough, for that was to be expected of his mature taste. But he has drawn his story with a hand so sure and firm, yet so light, in a mood so humorous and detached, yet so moving, that what seemed to be ill-chosen material turns out to be the basis for his triumph as an artist—never more skilful than in what he leaves out.

In this mature piece of work Ayala's main characteristics as a creative artist appear mellowed and combined. That tendency to look at the object from different angles, which in his critical work resulted in a somewhat vacillating arrangement, develops here into

an original system of composition which presents the story now acted and in the present, now told and in the past, seen now by one or other of the protagonists, now by the author, now directly by the reader—and all these different perspectives perfectly harmonized. That flow of ideas which we noticed as typical of Ayala's work, appear here as abundant as ever, perhaps we might say a little too abundant, but ordered and canalized and admirably distributed amongst the most intellectual actors in the novel according to their particular natures. The poetical turn of mind of the author is obvious in the spirit which pervades the work. This poetical spirit seems to intensify the human sympathy with which all the characters are treated—a human sympathy exquisitely blended with humour and a keen sense of the comic—in the true Spanish vein. Ayala can love with a smile. It is again this poetic undercurrent which enables him delicately to emphasize the importance which he attaches to sex. The sensuous element in man and nature is a favourite thread in Ayala's discourse, a thread finely spun, with a neatness and a classical pulchritude typified in his frequent use of the adjective venusto. The differences in the quantity and quality of sensuousness in his characters are a striking sign of the discrimination and care with which he treats this all-important aspect of nature. Such types as the French pastrycook, Monsieur Colignon, bursting with joie de vivre, and the old maid Felicita Quemada, consumed with suppressed passion, are admirably observed and rendered, and the contrast is significant between the inflammability of Apolonio, the cobbler-dramatist, and the utter lack of sensuousness in Belarmino, the cobbler-philosopher.

This feature of Ayala's art contributes not a little to enhance the peculiar charm of his treatment of landscape. We all know that un paysage est un etat d'dme, but few of us can apply the dictum to our art.