u did not stand in need, either by law or by
treaty, for wishing to make known to your countrymen the least insipid
of the products of my unfruitful genius, and for your generous purpose
of conceding to me author's rights.

This, however, does not preclude the fact that, in thus expressing my
thanks to you publicly, I incur a responsibility which I did not assume
on any other occasion, either in Germany, Italy, or any other country
where my works have been translated; for then, if they failed to please
the public, although the fact might pain me, I could still shrug my
shoulders, and throw the blame of failure on the translator, or the
publisher; but in this case I make myself your accomplice, and share, or
rather receive, all the disgrace of failure, if failure there should be.

"Pepita Ximenez" has enjoyed a wide celebrity, not only in Spain, but in
every other Spanish-speaking country. I am very far from thinking that
we Spaniards of the present day are either more easily satisfied, less
cultured than, or possessed of an inferior literary taste to, the
inhabitants of any other region of the globe; but this does not suffice
to dispel my misgivings that my novel may be received with indifference
or with censure by a public somewhat prejudiced against Spain by
fanciful and injurious preconceptions.

My novel, both in essence and form, is distinctively national and
classic. Its merit--supposing it to have such--consists in the language
and the style, and not in the incidents, which are of the most
commonplace, or in the plot, which, if it can be said to have any, is of
the simplest.

The characters are not wanting, as I think, in individuality, or in such
truth to human nature as makes them seem like living beings; but, the
action being so slight, this is brought out and made manifest by means
of a subtile analysis, and by the language chosen to express the
emotions, both which may in the translation be lost. There is, besides,
in my novel a certain irony, good-humored and frank, and a certain
humor, resembling rather the humor of the English than the _esprit_ of
the French, which qualities, although happily they do not depend upon
puns, or a play upon words, but are in the subject itself, require, in
order that they may appear in the translation, that this should be made
with extreme care.

In conclusion, the chief cause of the extraordinary favor with which
"Pepita Ximenez" was received in Spain is something that