We may certainly say of Gracian what Heine by an amiable fiction said of himself: he was one of the first men of his century.
In the seventeenth century arms had yielded to the cassock, and Balthasar and.
For a Spaniard of noble birth only two careers were open, arms and the Church.
By Gracian\'s time it had again been Christian and Spanish for many generations, and Gracian himself was of noble birth.
For he was born 8th January 1601 at Belmonte, a suburb of Calatayud, in the kingdom of Aragon.
We may certainly say of Gracian what Heine by an amiable fiction said of himself: he was one of the first men of his century