"José Martí, fulcrum of the revolution that made Cuba free, died in the struggle, but not before he had bequeathed the country which in so large part owes him its independent existence a record in poetry and in prose which is testimony to one of earth's no- blest spirits. Federico de Onís has said of him that his life is among the purest in the history of mankind. Martí's poetry has the seemingly effortless spontaneity of the born lyrist. His prose, as P. Henríquez Ureña has pointed out, was always written either to promote the liberation of Cuba, or earn him enough to live on so that he might continue promoting the liberation of Cuba, and "is thus journalism, but journalism raised to an artistic level that has never been equaled in Spanish, nor probably in any other language.""