Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/20

, it represents the first of a Spanish American series which the author hopes to complete shortly; it is, indeed, as he has himself told us, the prologue to that series of novels. Filled with the idealism of his two later works, it is replete, too, with an interpretation of human passions such as only this ardent Spaniard could portray. The entire action takes place upon a trans-Atlantic steamer journeying from Spain to the city of hope—Buenos Aires. The vessel becomes a floating symbol of the human race in all its divisions, its baseness, its aspirations, its conquests. From the steerage to the de luxe staterooms wafts one and the same spirit—hope, the radiant future. The book contains some of the most remarkable passages of an author peculiarly wealthy in them; literally and figuratively it is oceanic in conception; no sooner have we opened its pages and witnessed the affecting separation of the passionate Spanish lovers, and followed the hero Fernando Ojeda, on to the steamer, than we ourselves have taken passage and are inscribed upon the purser's list. In one sense, for the moment overlooking the fascinating love adventures which this poet manages to engage in during the short trip across the ocean, the book is a spiritual history of the human race, with the eternal motive of love on the one hand, and gain on the other. In presenting Los Argonautas——to the English-reading public, the publishers feel that they are offering not only one of Blasco Ibañez's masterworks, but one of the greatest novels of human strivings ever penned. In scope, in incident, in background, in effect, it is one of the dominating novels of the present century.

Following directly upon The Argonauts will come a group of novels that display the versatile powers of the noted author.

Thus (Entre Naranjos)