There are persons who imagine that I am ignorant of the three or four
elementary rules of good writing, which everybody knows, while others
believe that I am unacquainted with syntax. Señor Bonilla y San Martín
has conducted a search through my books for deficiencies, and has
discovered that in one place I write a sentence in such and such
fashion, and that in another I write something else in another, while in
a third I compound a certain word falsely.
With respect to the general subject of structural usage which he raises,
it would be easy to cite ample precedent among our classic authors; with
respect to the word _misticidad_ occurring in one of my books, I
have put it into the mouth of a foreigner. The faults brought to light
by Señor Bonilla are not very serious. But what of it? Suppose they
were?
An intelligent friend once said to me:
"I don't know what is lacking in your style; I find it acrid." I feel
that this criticism is the most apt that has yet been made.
My difficulty in writing Castilian does not arise from any deficiency in
grammar nor any want of syntax. I fail in measure, in rhythm of style,
and this shocks those who open my books for the first time. They note
that there is something about them that does not sound right, which is
due to the fact that there is a manner of respiration in them, a system
of pauses, which is not traditionally Castilian.
I should insist upon the point at greater length, were it not that the
subject of style is cluttered up with such a mass of preconceptions,
that it would be necessary to redefine our terminology, and then, after
all, perhaps we should not understand one another. Men have an idea that
they are thinking when they operate the mechanism of language which they
have at command. When somebody makes the joints of language creak, they
say: "He does not know how to manage it." Certainly he does know how to
manage it. Anybody can manage a platitude. The truth is simply this: the
individual writer endeavours to make of language a cloak to fit his
form, while, contrarywise, the purists attempt to mould their bodies
till they fit the cloak.