 He declared himself to be progressive and anticlerical, but this did not prevent him from forging close friendships with Menéndez y Pelayo and José María de Pereda, of opposite ideologies.Although he defined himself as a republican, little by little his radicalism tempered, and he maintained a personal friendship with Alfonso XIII.In 1910 he began to lose his eyesight, and the expenses of his numerous paramours brought him to near-ruin.