the Vine) than in the other propagandist novels; there is more poetry—and poetry of a very genuine sort. The scenes of life in town and in country, of love among the peasantry, of life and death among the gypsy laborers, are portrayed with a sense of poesy that few would suspect in the author from a cursory acquaintance. For, bear in mind that great as is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the genius of Blasco Ibañez is too expansive to be contained in a single book. La Bodega will first of all present you with an absorbing love story; it will introduce a new aspect of Spanish labor; touches again the religious question; it is an earlier Blasco Ibañez that considers the overthrow of the present order in a manner to make you stop and think hard.
But not all is protest and intellectuality in Blasco Ibañez; by no means. The volumes scheduled for early publication will introduce still another aspect of his versatile spirit: the man of amorous passion, the man of bicontinental vision, the pure fiction writer.
Take, for example, The Argonauts (Los Argonautas). This is easily one of the most important volumes that has come from the prolific author. It summarizes the spirit not of one age but of centuries. The classic symbolism of its name takes us back to the good ship Argos and that Jason who went in search of the golden fleece; and ever since, man has, now hither, now thither, embarked upon a similar unending quest. Now it was a Columbus braving the Sea of Darkness, now it was the great Spanish Conquerors in search of El Dorado, now the Crusaders in quest of the Holy Grail; only yesterday it was the vast hordes of immigrants that sought in the New World what the Old World denied—and found it, too, in the United States, in Argentina … It is this spirit of eternal hope that breathes upon every page of this monumental volume; written just before The Four
