[1] He emphasizes these views in the inaugural discourse he delivered
when he took his seat in the Academy.
[2] That he knew this, and to a degree was willing to admit his
shortcomings, is made clear by his preface to the _Novelas Cortas_,
where he sets up as mitigating circumstance his own youth and the
newness of the short story in modern Spanish literature.
[3] The two may be said to complete each other, the original preface
giving the account of Alarcón's first dealings with the subject, the
other telling of the real writing of the book. In the preface he says
that the material was turned over at first, in conference, by a number
of literary men, at some date not given, but evidently of the earlier
part of Alarcón's career: and that it was "assigned" to José Joaquín
Villanueva, who planned a _zarzuela_ with the title _El que se fue a
Sevilla_, but died before his work was fairly under way. Nothing more
was done until 1866, when José Zorrilla came back to Spain from Mexico.
The matter was suggested to him and he planned a comedy, but did not
write it. In the _Historia de mis libros_ we read that the idea of
working out the theme came back to Alarcón in connection with the
promise of a short story to a popular periodical in Havana; that his
interest grew as he worked at it, and that he was led by the merit
friends found in the story to keep it for the Madrid public.
(_See_ preface to first edition of _El Sombrero de tres picos_, Madrid,
1874, beginning with _chabacanería_; i. e. after p. 4, line 15 of the
present text; Alarcón _Historia de mis libros_, pp. 244-249).
[4] _Revue Hispanique._ _Tome XIII_, 1905, pp. 5-17.