Although a man may never have amounted to anything, and will probably continue in much the same case, that is to say never amounting to anything, yet there are persons who will take pride in having given him his start in the world—in short, upon having made him known. SeÑor Ruiz Contreras has set up some such absurd claim in regard to me. According to Ruiz Contreras, he brought me into public notice through a review which he published in 1899, under the title Revista Nueva. Thus, according to Ruiz Contreras, I am known, and have been for eighteen years! Although it may seem scarcely worth while to expose such an obvious joke, I should like to clear up this question for the benefit of any future biographers. Why should I not indulge the hope of having them?

In 1899, Ruiz Contreras invited my co-operation in a weekly magazine, in which I was to be both stockholder and editor. Those days already seem a long way off. At first I refused, but he insisted; at length we agreed that I should write for the magazine and share in meeting the expenses, in company with Ruiz Contreras, Reparaz, Lassalle and the novelist Matheu.

I made two or three payments, and moved down some of my pictures and furniture to the office in consequence, until the time came when I began to feel that it was humorous for me to be paying for publishing my articles, when I was perfectly well able to dispose of them to any other sheet. Upon my cutting off payments, Ruiz Contreras informed me that a number of the stockholders, among whom was Icaza, who had replaced Reparaz, took the position that if I did not pay, I should not be permitted to write for the magazine.

"Very well, I shall not write." And I ceased to write.

Previous to my connection with the Revista Nueva, I had contributed articles to El Liberal, El Pais, El Globo, La Justicia, and La Voz de GuipÚzcoa, as well as to other publications.

A year after my contributions to the Revista Nueva, I brought out Sombre Lives, which scarcely sold one hundred copies, and, then, a little later, The House of Aizgorri, the sale of which fell short of fifty.

At this time, MartÍnez Ruiz published a comedy, The Power of Love, for which I provided a prologue, and I went about with the publisher, RodrÍguez Serra, through the bookshops, peddling the book. In a shop on the Plaza de Santa Ana, RodrÍguez Serra asked the proprietor, not altogether without a touch of malice:

"What do you think of this book?"

"It would be all right," answered the proprietor, who did not know me, "if anybody knew who MartÍnez Ruiz was; and who is this PÍo Baroja?"

SeÑor Ruiz Contreras says that he made me known, but the fact is that nobody knew me in those days; SeÑor Ruiz Contreras flatters himself that he did me a great favour by publishing my articles, at a cost to me, at the very least, of two or three duros apiece.

If this is to be a patron of letters, I should like to patronize half the planet.

As for literary influence, Ruiz Contreras never had any upon me. He was an admirer of ArsÈne Houssage, Paul Bourget, and other novelists with a sophisticated air, who never meant anything to me. The theatre also obsessed him, a malady which I have never suffered, and he was a devotee of the poet, Zorrilla, in which respect I was unable to share his enthusiasm, nor can I do so today. Finally, he was a political reactionary, while I am a man of radical tendencies.