Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/13



, the famous author of that have galloped around the entire civilized world over a path of glory, is easily one of the most interesting personages now before the public. Had he never written a book his name would have gone down in the annals of a race rich in versatile men as one of the most gifted and prolific figures produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is no mere rhetorical phrase to say that he has, in his fifty-two years, lived the lives of a half-dozen men. It is because of this multifarious life, because of his wide travels, his passionate beliefs, his unceasing activity in both the intellectual and the everyday spheres—that he appeals so much to the American reader, who, from the very traditions of the country, admires the writer and the hero of red blood and undaunted courage.

In no uncertain sense is Blasco Ibañez's own life as interesting as any novel that he ever wrote. And it is out of that life that his books have flowered—a life so rich in incident, so varied in scene, yet so potently dominated by a flaming purpose, that it overflowed into some of the most splendid works of literature that our age has brought v