Señor Blasco Ibáñez has asked me to say a few words by way of introduction to The Cabin which shall be both simple and true.

He has watched with conflicting emotions the reception of his words in this country—pleasure as he has realized the warmth of their welcome and the general consensus of critical approval, pleasure not unmixed with other feelings as he has read the notices in which these opinions have been expressed and the accounts of his career which have accompanied them. Few writers during the past twenty years have lived so much in the public eye; the facts of his life are accessible and clear. Then why invent new ones? "It is necessary," he writes, "to correct all this, to give an account of my life which shall be accurate and authentic, and which shall not lead the public into further error."

Why is the American press entirely ignorant in matters pertaining to Spain? It is guiltless even of the shadow of learning. Not one editor in the United States knows anything about the intellectual life of the peninsula. Why print as information the veriest absurdities?