work into the Castilian language and the limit of even this great artist to produce an epic body of work. The designation of epic implies the capturing of a universal human condition, both profane and divine. Valera states that this is an impossible task due to the differences in semantics. However, it is possible for great artists like Shakespeare, Goethe, and Cervantes to have fame and universal appeal (like Faust) without quite being able to reach the comprehensive divine level of infinite beauty. All writers, men and women, can strive for and contribute to this transcending verbal process that approaches the divine. This is an excellent collection of intellectually connected works published by AmazonCrossing that illustrates the everlasting human desire for complete understanding of the human condition approached by way of the divine medium of language. You can read my reiews of Valera's novels mentioned above on Amazon. Juan Valera is better known by his novel "Pepita Jimenez". His lesser known works include another novel about a Spanish woman, "Dona Luz", and this volume, "A Bit of Everything", a series of essays. Here the writer covers a wide range of his interests, beginning with a paean on Spring, the season. He indulges somewhat in his usual fashion in heavy helpings of quotations from various classical writers, ranging from Homer, Virgil, to Cervantes and Schiller, and almost every Greek and Roman classic scholar in between. This can become tedious at times, and as in "Pepita Jimenez", occasionally distracts from the narrative.