Of the two qualities which the work of art requires
for its inception--earnestness and detachment--both Unamuno and
Wordsworth possess the first; both are deficient in the second. Their
interest in their respective leading thought--survival in the first,
virtue in the second--is too direct, too pressing, to allow them the
"distance" necessary for artistic work. Both are urged to work by a
lofty utilitarianism--the search for God through the individual soul in
Unamuno, the search for God through the social soul in Wordsworth--so
that their thoughts and sensations are polarized and their spirit loses
that impartial transparence for nature's lights without which no great
art is possible. Once suggested, this parallel is too rich in sidelights
to be lightly dropped. This single-mindedness which distinguishes them
explains that both should have consciously or unconsciously chosen a
life of semi-seclusion, for Unamuno lives in Salamanca very much as
Wordsworth lived in the Lake District--
in a still retreat
Sheltered, but not to social duties lost,
hence in both a certain proclivity towards ploughing a solitary furrow
and becoming self-centred. There are no doubt important differences. The
Englishman's sense of nature is both keener and more concrete; while the
Spaniard's knowledge of human nature is not barred by the subtle
inhibitions and innate limitations which tend to blind its more
unpleasant aspects to the eye of the Englishman.
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