f. 
 
 A 
 
 ^he Quarterly Journal.^ 
 
 Volume b 
 
 APRIL, 1913 
 
 “Don Quixote” — a Book* 
 
 Henry Lampart LeDaum, t 
 Head of the Department of Romance Languages, 
 University of North Dakota 
 
 To Henry LeDaum, Jr., 
 and his wondering friends, 
 Dapple and Rocinante. 
 
 ‘A son nom il grandit encor 
 
 -Edmond Rostand?- 
 
 “Mientras se duerme todos son iguales” . . . ^ 
 
 Don Quixote, Vol. IL, Chap. XLIII. 
 
 I 
 
 D on QUIXOTE” is the book of lives, and the epitome of 
 a race. It justifies the concern of thinking men because it 
 embodies (i) a c riticism of huma n nature as it is, helas, and (2) a 
 sa tire on societ y — a society whose outworn idealism maddens men 
 to this day. 
 
 It is a book new-armed with wholesome wit and good-natured 
 farce to meet the old argument of force and the masque of authority, 
 the smirk of intolerance and the jade of ignorance. It pleads with 
 
 
 Number 3 
 
 ♦ The Ingrenious Gentleman — Don Quixote de la Mancha — of Miguel de 
 Cervantes Saavedra; translated with introduction, notes, and appendices, 
 by J. Ormsby. There is an American edition of this celebrated transla- 
 ion (given to England in 1885), from the press of Thomas J, Crowell 
 both parts in one volume. Professor Ormsby’s, all in all, is the 
 lished “Don Quixote” in print. 
 
 9 -nuscript of this article was submitted by Professor LeDaum 
 iays before he was taken ill. He died before it reached the 
 While he went over it with me with considerable care at the 
 submission, and while I have been very careful to respect his 
 wish, it may, nevertheless, lack some of those “finishing touches” 
 a discriminating author likes to bestow upon such a piece of work 
 en seen in the “proof.” — (Editor.) 
 
 1. Le Contrebandier, stanza XXII of a remarkable poem from Les 
 usardises (1887-1893): New edition, pp. 274-292. Charpentier et Fas- 
 elles, Paris, 1911. 
 
 t While we sleep, as luck would have it, we are all equal. — Proverb 
 of Ormsby’s collection. — Appendix I. 
 
 
 
 Copyright, 1913, University of North Dakota. 
 
 ■JtvIVtRSITY OF 
 ILUNUIS LIBRARY 
 M UKBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
igg The Quarterly Journal 
 
 men — ungrateful task — to divest themselves of pretense and tyranny, 
 of prejudice and perversity. Its humanitarian motives, free from 
 sarcasm or condescension, captivate and fascinate. America is much 
 in need of its purging satire ; and, lest we forget, it is here considered 
 anew and without apology. So much has been said regarding “Don 
 Quixote,” such a wealth of personal opinion lavished on Cervantes, 
 and so many great scholars have honored this dear old classic that 
 little more than opportune restatement is left the new-comer. 
 
 It occurs to many after years of companionship with “Don 
 f Quixote” that this book was written under the greatest political and 
 i social difficulties. It was ; and their solution must be sought in his- 
 tory as well as in the matchless fable which embodies or conceals 
 Cervantes’ ideas. They find that this seditious man escaped from 
 I the fangs of the Inquisition. He did ; and the good Archbishop of 
 Toledo must have trembled at the audacity of his protege! They 
 wonder that Spain tolerated the book, its treasonable utterance and 
 bold symbolism! Why? Was the prophet then not understood in 
 his own country and were Spaniards mystified or lost in conjectures ? 
 Neither! Nor did the message of Cervantes go astray. It could 
 not. The world was ready for it. Consider how, in course of time, 
 the natural man, his social rights, and his personal freedom, hai 
 been abanboned or bartered for a mess of pottage, culture, or impos- 
 ture! I marvel not at the exceeding cunning and dangerous artifice^ 
 required to bring him back to nature and reason. He bows to so 
 many superstitions, obscures his vision with so many idols, pays tri- i 
 bute to so many subtle middle men, and stands inert against so much I 
 tradition: he will long need craft or native sagacity to find his way t 
 out of the toils. Some live to learn that our institutional claptrap 
 does not make a man, and often obliterates his humanity; others, 
 that to live by profession, to carry out an ideal rigorously, to educace 
 away from reality, is to educate falsely, is to neutralize the springs 
 of action, is Quixotic, is fatal ! The ancient, vested interests engen- 
 dered fear of progress; will free thought and free speech, free in- 
 quiry and free education, free superstitions, free heresies, make men 
 cruel cowards still? History will tell. It repeats itself We are^ 
 ever confronted by the same problems ; under a new mask or under 
 the old, the same extortioners and executioners haunt the humai^ 
 race. In their effort to apprehend the real difficulty, men tilt afl 
 ^ many windmills — ^will anyone say that the tilting of Don QuixoteB 
 was profitless, because forsooth windmills stood immovable and selfB 
 complacent, like tradition or conservatism? I do not say that “Doij|| 
 
199 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 Quixote” may not be enjoyed or understood without historical refer- 
 ence; it needs little or none. I wish to make it clear, however, 
 that this plain-spoken book appeared in times so difficult for a plain- 
 speaking writer that its apparent conformity with an impossible state 
 of affairs is the wonder of modern censorship.^ “Great prudence 
 was required to dissemble the joy I felt,” says Cervantes, where he 
 pretends^ that “Don Quixote” is a translation of some old leaves 
 written in Arabic. “A boy was offering them for sale to a peddler; 
 and when, with the aid of a Morisco, I had made out the title I 
 bought the whole bundle for half a penny.” It was Cid Hamet 
 Benegeli’s mirific tale! This naive subterfuge long gave Cervantes* 
 literary offspring a plausible and legitimate paternity. Is it not de- 
 lightful ? 
 
 But I am going ahead of my story. I must here tell something 
 of the plan followed in these pages: — 
 
 My purpose is to awaken the interest of American students in 
 a worthy modern classic produced in the days of Spain’s greatness. 
 No one, I trust, will think it amiss, on the eve of a new Spain and 
 of “Pan-America,” to addle our commercialism with a bit of litera- 
 ture 1 
 
 Without pursuing this great empire with the three-fold for- 
 mality of a learned dissertation, I, nevertheless, do the three things 
 usually done in the study of a great work, and each in its own time 
 and need: I describe the subject; I explain the subject; and I criti- 
 cize the subject; and this, that I may fulfill, like other writers, “the 
 laws of all progress and of all intellectual activity.”^ 
 
 “Don Quixote” is a world concern altho the Spaniards of Cer- 
 vantes’ day knew it as little as the philistines of our own. He might 
 have known, tho, had his institutions found “more method to express 
 him through” and “less system to adapt him to,” — or like crudities 
 of modern pedagogy. We hear much, in this age of relative insignif- 
 icance, of absolute values (as if society were static) and of religious 
 
 2. That Cervantes’ book was closely scrutinized by the Inquisition may 
 be inferred from the “Aprobaciones” — one to the first volume, and three 
 to the second. These with the “tasas,” the certification of copy, and the 
 kingr’s permit to print, constitute the principal documents relating to the 
 censorship of “Don Quixote.” Note that the “Aprobaciones” speak of 
 the moral import of Cervantes’ book, and praise this, saying nothing of 
 the philosophical aspect of the work. Cf. The David Nutt edition of “Don 
 Quixote” — Preliminaries to Vols. I and II. Cf. Also the gossip of the 
 censorship in Aribau, in Vol. 1 of the Rivadeneyra Library, — Vida de Cer- 
 vantes, Obras, etc. 
 
 3. — “Mucha discrecion fu6 menester para disimular el contento que 
 recibi cuando llego a mis oidos el titulo del libro, y salteS,ndosele al 
 sedera, compr6 al muchacho todos los papeles y cartapacios por medio 
 real.” — “Don Quixote,” Vol. L, Ch. IX. 
 
 4. George Brandes, “On Reading,” P. 21. Duffield & Co., N. Y., 1906. 
 
200 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 error (as if the past only were able to think). Conduct (which needs 
 experience) has been too long conditioned by the ruts of prophetic 
 days. Limitation, ignorance, profession and protection had their 
 ‘ place in the economy of Spanish life, but they were a poor substitute 
 for character; and organization, as a substitute for conduct, was the 
 last refuge of an institution morally dead. 
 
 Don Quixote wrecks his life between character and conduct; 
 his life is a detailed confession, with startling revelations, of misfits 
 and makeshifts — disillusions and defeats, in a world — not of his pro- 
 fession! Character had been in the making for ages with seeming 
 small concern for conduct. Since then, character has taken on in- 
 stitutional stamp ; but, from the viewpoint of educational cost, has 
 improved too little or changed too slowly to warrant institutional 
 monopoly. Life must face society, not scholastic abstractions; and 
 society must afford new channels for individual development and 
 personal expression. A new vision — free from ridicule, is needed in 
 an age of tradition and limitation, — the solemn political and theo- 
 logical pronouncements of the hour to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 But this is an essay on “Don Quixote” — the book. So I pass in- 
 continent a number of philosophical considerations, — pressing upon 
 us, as Cervantes would say. 
 
 My “Don Quixote” is not a regular vademecum, tho it bristle 
 with apostil and commentary. It is a cicerone — opinionated and ca- 
 pricious, strong with the conceit of new times and the egotism of 
 new life. This erratic creature of dilletantism and eclecticism shows 
 at times his lack of charity for an older art and his prejudice for a 
 newer craft. Yet, my cicerone is unobtrusive and unpedantic, ex- 
 cept by the contraries of fortune; and, he exercises independence 
 (when he does) according to his own competency on matters under 
 consideration. He is a bit too full, I fear, of the modern self, but 
 respectful withal in the presence of an old master. But neither 
 vademecum nor cicerone, — it is a deplorable fact, has an adequate 
 sense of the other’s humor; and, as with the principals in the book 
 we are about to study, it is the wary champion of both who carries 
 off the prize. My “Don Quixote” is intended to reassure: — in the 
 
 ( silence of great thoughts, and in loneliness of single exploration, 
 
 ^ its thoughtless chatter may even prove companionable! 
 
 * * * 
 
Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 201 
 
 “Buen natural tienes, sin el cual no hay sciencia que valga. 
 ...” Don Quixote, Vol. II, Ch. XLIII. 
 
 II. 
 
 “DON QUIXOTE” is one of the great books of the world and 
 the greatest in Spanish Literature. It is classed among the supreme 
 works of the imagination and ranked high in human intelligence. 
 Altho not in epic form, it is a national literary monument of heroic 
 proportions and of great human interest. It is a simple and whole- 
 some book, philosophical rather than speculative, and so wise as to 
 be undogmatic in tone. Yet it is seldom read outside of Spain by 
 mature readers; its episodic nature, I take it, is exploited so readily 
 for the benefit of children, that it somehow prejudices the adult. We 
 know Don Quixote as a freak acquaintance of our youth; we sus- 
 pect something of him in our young human nature, even in our mock- 
 heroic early manhood, and we often resolve to renew our acquain- 
 tance with him ; but lack of time, interest, or energy hinder. Should 
 we not first read the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Testament? 
 Perhaps; altho few books, Brandes thinks, even if read in the light 
 of our own day, prove so conclusively as these that the bulk of man- 
 kind cannot read at all. » But we have the Iliad and the Odyssey and 
 the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost; we have Ariosto 
 and Tasso, and many more of these man-made books, divinized and 
 then shelved. These should be read too if we would understand the 
 genealogy of books, and appreciate the source of great things in Hugo, 
 Tennyson, and others of our modern writers. In this reading age 
 so full of the present, we have but little time for the old masters. 
 Outside of music and painting, this cult of the masters has gone 
 out of fashion. I venture, nonetheless, to call your attention to one 
 of these. His book is a treasure. It will pay you to bring to it 
 your rare leisure and allegiance, altho much of it may seem unworthy 
 and unintelligible “stuff.” Be persistent! . . . The richest 
 
 ores lie deep within the earth. They are often wedded to stubborn 
 and worthless rock! It is the way of nature. A nameless brook 
 flows immaculate between mud banks; its music springs from sense- 
 less stones! Nature, with all its imperfections, is nature still, and ^ 
 the works of man are man’s work for all that. All the truth is not 
 in them; far from it — and many of them are valued only for the 
 occasional gleams that coax the miner and give him visions of greater 
 things. 
 
202 The Quartely Journal 
 
 “Don Quixote” is among the rare books which have put in a 
 / word of protest in subtle mockery of the petty world of artifice and 
 pious fraud contrived for us since the dawn of the Christian Era. 
 But, even before, man had striven to substitute his own devised 
 world for that of nature; to crown nature with a &upernatural fic- 
 tion; to discount human nature to the credit of a hypothetical, di- 
 vine nature; to dwarf men into ridiculous lunatics, blindly cursing 
 the realities of life, and of mother earth. Where errors have so 
 long held sway as in Spain, the great emancipating book we are 
 about to study castigates too unerringly to be despised or allowed to 
 perish from the earth. Take Don Quixote for health of mind and 
 body; its wholesome humor invigorates, its laughter is contagious, 
 iits satire, ligitimate. Don Quixote, says the book, was a bold Knight 
 of La Mancha; and the discerning hero of an immortal wind-mill 
 fight! His fame has well-nigh eclipsed the name of its author, 
 Cervantes, real hero of Lepanto, and dreaded captive of Turkish 
 pirates. He so singularly endowed this creature of his imagination, 
 that Don Quixote has, if not outlived, at least over-shadowed its 
 paternity. The chivalrous knight still errs undisputed over the wilds 
 of La Mancha, and his record of deeds is yet the golden book of 
 Spanish Romance. It was begun, I am sure, in a fit of fine good 
 humor, with no malice aforethought, only remotely imbued with 
 poetic frenzy or local fanaticism, and when much of life’s fitful 
 fever had already mellowed its author. Here is a book, which in 
 appearance is so peace-abounding, so unmindful of the tumult of 
 crashing empires, so blind to general human agony, as to baffle the 
 modern reader regarding its ultimate purpose. Its deliberate self- 
 control, enticing lengths, and Spanish gravity, are in the light of 
 history, exasperating: it disconcerts even the eager student, who finds 
 in it only evident meaning, reality, and common-places. Yet, it was 
 conceived in the days of Spain’s greatness, and completed amid the 
 most ominous signs of its mighty fall to death and oblivion. I am 
 referring to the XVIth century.® Charles V. (1500-1558), King of 
 Spain, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and Lord of the 
 Americas . . . had brought his eventful reign to a close, em- 
 
 bittered and disgusted with the Dutch in particular, for rejecting 
 the blessings of his divine rule. He had tried hard to bring about 
 religious unity with the help of the state, and had failed as con- 
 
 5 . Concerning this eventful epoch, cf. Martin, A. S., “Hume’s The Span- 
 ish People — Their Origin, Growth, and Influence,” with summaries after 
 each chapter; Index and Bibliography; D. Appleton & Co,, N. Y., 1909. 
 The best short history of Spain written; it abounds in significant chapters. 
 
203 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 spicuously as France in the next century would fail to bring about 
 political unity with the help of the church. It was only despotism 
 in churchly guise now waging a bitter war for world sway and re- 
 incarnation. Philip II (1527-1598) succeeded quite as little in the 
 aims and ambitions of his father. His plan to put all Europe under 
 the yoke of Catholic Rome failed signally in spite of paternal in- 
 struction, imperial resources, threats and force. He died like Charles 
 V, self-immured and sulking. He had found it impossible, im- 
 profitable and inglorious to make Christians out of the English as his ^ 
 august father out of the Dutch. Nor could Philip III (1598-1624), 
 with his reign “a la Louis XV” of France, arrest the downward 
 trend of the mighty empire, and his death witnessed its passing from 
 the great nations of the earth. You would have thought Cervantes, 
 Spaniards, and other Europeans, would have observed and learned 
 the lesson of XVIth century Spain, but not so; where old time 
 royalty and ecclesiastics govern, history repeats itself with singular 
 regularity and fatality. Oriental despotism had taken refuge in the 
 Christian church; it ruled thru the “Holy Inquisition,”® and Luther 
 (1483-1546), had only just proclaimed the individual conscience and 
 the “protesting” reason. And this protesting reason, in so far as 
 superstition is compatible with reason, had not as yet so effectively 
 murmured against medieval Rome! 
 
 Cervantes was born in 1547; he had thus lived .tjiru the event- 
 ful times if this great century when he died in 169 ,4. 
 
 Shakespeare’s death. Nor did he live far from the center of things: 
 Alcala de Henares, his birthplace, is only a few miles northeast of 
 Madrid on the highway to Saragossa and Barcelona. — He must 
 have heard all about him ^the glorious tales of the conquistadors, 
 their discoveries in the New World, their picturesque adventures, 
 and their deeds in all the Americas. He must have seen the soldiers 
 of Charles and Philip march away, each an hidalgo, a Caballero, a 
 matamore or a conquistador, to the subjugation of the Heathen, the 
 Jew, the Moslem, to exterminate the protestant Dutch, the Moor, 
 or the American Indian, or escort suspect fellow Christians to the 
 
 6. Cf. Henry Charles Lea, LL.D.: History of the Inquisition of Spain; 
 
 4 vols. ; only volume 1 and 2 have appeared. Macmillans, N, Y„ 1906. 
 This voluminous, non-controversial writer is perhaps the most complete 
 on the “Inqisition.” Among his eight great works, the History of the 
 Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 vols., is the best known; Harper’s & 
 Brothers, N. T., 1887. Aside from these standard works. Dr. Lea has 
 given: The Moriscoes; Studies in Church History; History of Auricular 
 Confession; Indulgences in Latin Church; a Historical Sketch of Sacer- 
 dotal Celibacy; Superstition and Force, etc. 
 
204 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 quemaderos, to be burned alive.*^ Thru the Holy Inquisition, its 
 Ximenes, Albas* and Torquemados, the flames of the church were 
 richly fed in those good days of religious supremacy. It was a 
 popular delight; eager spectators flocked hither from the ends of 
 the Spanish realm. The victims, clothed in the sambenito — a yellow 
 shroud of infamy, were to be burned, strangled, or otherwise executed 
 in public. This wholesale persecution by their Christian majesties 
 reached apalling figures. Ward^ quoting Galton, says: “The Spanish 
 nation was drained of its brains at the rate of looo persons annually, 
 for the three centuries between 147 1 a nd 1781. . . .” The act- 
 
 ual data during those 300 years are 32,000 burned alive, 17,000 
 burned in effigy, and 291,000 condemned to various terms of im- 
 prisonment, and other penalties. But Clericalism is heir to all that 
 dies in Spain. The church lives by the time-honored conspiracy of 
 its buried hosts. And its thrift and enterprise in Spain are here 
 shown to give the alert reader a clearer sense of the role about to 
 be played by “Sancho Panza” in the affairs of men. These figures 
 do not represent the drain on society by the pacific (and laudable) 
 methods of the church. It bespoke fair daughter and gentle son for 
 its vast organization until it strained the family without economic 
 returns and bred its best strain to a barren social issue. And Spain 
 responded until the nation was deprived of sociable contact with 
 these choice members of its race and the race was denied their better 
 qualities in the breeding strain of the nation. It was this “holy” 
 regime which enslaved South America, which despoiled Mexico, 
 which led to the murder of i,2CX),0C)0 (twelve hundred thousand) 
 harmless Indians in Cuba, Jamaica, and St. Domingo,” hanging 
 them by thirteens in honor of a merry thirteenth apostle.^® Such 
 figures can be matched only in the very Christian France of the next 
 century when from the St. Bartholomew to the close of Louis XIV’s 
 reign, 300,000 or 400,000 Protestants perished in prison, at the 
 galleys, in their attempts to escape, or on the scaffold; and an equal 
 number emigrated. Italy was also frightfully persecuted at an 
 earlier date. Portugal, too, was long aflame with the fires of the 
 
 7. For this relig-ious mania of public stake-burning in the Spanish 
 nation and in its possessions, — Mexico, etc., — cf. Hume, Op. cit. Ch. X. 
 passim. 
 
 8. For Alba’s bloodthirsty career, cf. Hume, Op. cit., P. 372 — footnote 
 especially. 
 
 9. Lester F. Ward; Applied Sociology, P. 162; Ginn & Co., Boston, 1906. 
 
 10. Fox-Reece; Martyrology, Vol. I. Read this work, tho somewhat 
 aged, if you would test the temper of political Christianity. Cf. also 
 the works of Lea., op. cit. in note 6, passim. 
 
Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 205 
 
 Inquisition; but I must return to Cervantes. He must have heard 
 of the Spanish gold-and-silver-laden galleons, for at that time every 
 one had his ship coming in at turreted Sevilla, on the Guadalquivir,, 
 He must have heard of the Invincible Armada (1588) a threatening, 
 murderous cloud, sailing away to scourge England's renegades and 
 antichrists. Spain could hardly endure these Islanders since Henry 
 the VIII had been proclaimed by the E nglish Parliament (1535) , 
 the only supreme Head of the Church in England! Now, Philip 
 would punish this boorish pretense. But the England of virtuous 
 Queen Bess was ready with its good ships and native storms! He 
 must have heard of Luther and the Reformation, of Jerusalem and 
 its unquestioning zeal. He must have heard of King Francis of 
 France, of the Medicis, and later, of St. Bartholomew. He must 
 have heard of these things and was a spectator of some of these! 
 But if so, his book says it not. As a well advised Spaniard, he sees 
 nothing, hears noth ing, knows nothing, at least he says nothing of 
 the boiling cauldron of his day. Yet, he must have felt its muzzling 
 obscurantism, the operations of the church, and its resistance to truth 
 thru press-censorship. Had not Spanish literature as yet discovered 
 its true function, or was it interested in the Ancients only? The 
 latter, I fear. Cervantes had not, nor anyone else, as yet discovered 
 the Spanish people. No one at least had spoken in language meant 
 for men. His outward sympathy with the spiritual system of Spain 
 may have been enlisted thru the national fear of the Moors, or of the 
 Moriscoes, — race hatred being then extensively exploited. Had he 
 not shared the national zest for a raid on the Jews, or a descent on 
 the Turk? But Cervantes is as silent about the church with its ' 
 temporal pretenses as he is about the monarchy with its divine pre- !j 
 tenses. Yet he must have seen that these institutions were enslaving 
 his country with erroneous and stupid dogmas, and unworthy deeds. 
 Cervantes knew that institutions and ideas are man-made, projected 
 by men to emancipate men and not to brand them with a covenant 
 distorted into proprietary rights of divine origin. Even Dante sus- 
 pected this, tho he judge with the reason of his day, err with the 
 conscience of his times, and censure with the appalling severity of : 
 his age. But however much we might expect these things to be 
 dealt with in his great book, Cervantes does it not. We might en- 
 joy contemporaneous comment on Philip II living in his Escorial 
 tomb, studying magic, bending over an alembic seeking to transfuse 
 base metals into gold; or in his crypt, hung with ghoulish shadows 
 and smoking torches, practicing astrology; but Cervantes has not a 
 
2o6 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 word of these royal idiosyncracies.^^ He seems leagued with the 
 shades of night to hide such sinister sinners and keep their painful 
 secrets. Or else, he may have been too busy making history, while 
 a soldier, in his early manhood; or too engrossed with his own 
 Quixotics, as an author, in his decline; for Cervantes had a busy 
 life. 
 
 There are three important epochs in his life: his literary and 
 military career to Lepanto (1571) ; his captivity of five years among 
 Algerian corsairs (1571-1576); his government employ and his in- 
 cidental literary activity thence to his death in 1616. As a soldier 
 he fought at Lepanto in the strait of Corinth, under Don Juan of 
 Austria, to break the ever threatening and tightening crescent of 
 Turkish invasion.^^ The Turks were masters of the Mediterranean, 
 and the Christian shores were constantly and mercilessly pillaged for 
 slaves, captives, ransoms, harems, — all the practices of the pirates of 
 Barbary. Lepanto was a great but late victory for Christendom, 
 and Cervantes gives us an echo^* of it in his famous book. We get 
 a startling insight into the traffic of Barbary and the ways of the 
 semi-orientals of North Africa; we see Cervantes in captivity at 
 Algiers, with a lot of helpless wights, mutilated and in slavery, a 
 grewsome crew, noseless, earless, empaled, in chains, or rowing in 
 the galleys of the Turks in their expeditions against the infidels. 
 The chapters on the “Captive”^^ are of the most vivid in his great 
 work. Upon his return to Spain, Cervantes makes a new start in 
 life, a wiser man despite an inordinate thirst for fame, still a Span- 
 iard in political outlook, full of the Golden Age he has helped to 
 make for romantic Spain, but cured of the visions of his people. In 
 the midst of his varying fortunes, he now gives a leisure hour to 
 literature hoping to achieve fame as a dramatist, the dream of his 
 youth. Incidentally and between the acts that would reform the 
 drama of Spain, he hits off and publishes in chap-book form, they 
 
 11 . (a) On the madness of the age (1) the works of the imagination 
 dealing with madness, and (2), the actual madness of men, — whatever may 
 have been the cause, much has been written. Shakespeare, Calderon, 
 Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Ariosto, Tasso, Philip II., etc., either produced 
 great studies of madness, or were personally mad. 
 
 (b.) Cf. Havelock, Ellis; The Soul of Spain. Houghton, MiflSin & Co., 
 Boston and New York; 1908, P. 226; — “King Lear appeared in the same 
 year as Don Quixote^ — when Shakespeare brought together the madman 
 and the fool on the heath in a concord of divine humour.” Not unlike 
 "Don Quixote” and “Sancho”! Nor was it a mere fad of the Renaissance. 
 It was characteristic of that epoch of classic imitation: "The Wrath of 
 Achilles I sing,” — had said Homer, in the Iliad. 
 
 12. The historic tide is turning. Italy has just closed a victorious 
 campaign in Africa, against Turkey. The Balkan nations are about to 
 complete the work of destiny — and of Italy, by driving the Turk back 
 to g'j ^ 
 
 13. "bon Quixote,” Vol. I., Ch. 39. 
 
 14. Vol. I., Chs. 39-42. 
 
207 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 say, — “Nick Carter” style, a series of jibes and jests against tales 
 of chivalry, and wakes up one morning astounded to find himself 
 read and appreciated for his “Don Quixote” of La Mancha! This 
 celebrated knight might have hailed from any other wilderness of 
 Spain; for it is preposterous that La Mancha in the days of Cer- 
 vantes should own a single knight. To an alert Spaniard, as you 
 see, Cervantes’ book is funny from the start. 
 
 No one was better fitted to write this book; in an age eager for 
 wealth, he was poor; crazy for power, he had such only in his house- 
 hold; longing for landed possessions, he had none; thirsting for im- 
 mortality, he had hardly achieved fame; morose at the inroads of 
 heresy, he was serene. His book reveals this all pervading serenity. 
 
 In spite of oncoming old age, he is in healthy animal spirits, and 
 resourceful in adversity; and if he seems but little concerned with 
 the political or ecclesiastical shams of his day, he sees nevertheless 
 something of his own race, a glimpse of his own people thru the 
 medium of books. I think that Cervantes came to see life thru j 
 books as men sometimes are led to see nature thru art. Taking his 
 cut from Amadis of Gaul, he proceeded to react against romances 
 of chivalry which he considered baneful and the source of much 
 of Spanish madness, if not crime. He would write a true tale, some 
 day, to shame this lying stuff; he at least would write in harmony 
 with the possible if not the probable, and other books of chivalry 
 would fall an easy prey to his pen. In his varied career as retainer, 
 soldier, public servant, and author, he had grown practical, as you 
 see, but not entirely disillusioned. He loved the tales of chivalry; 
 he enjoyed the marvellous and the mysterious quite as much as the 
 native Spaniard likes it today. What came over Cervantes that made 
 him abandon this long cherished hope, and satirize what he loved? ♦ 
 We know only by inference; in his contact with life he had met the 
 world of matter, of reality, of practical morality. He starts “Don 
 Quixote” and Knight-Errantry proves a fallow field for ridicule. 
 He shuns the spheres of direct observation which might lead to dan- 
 gerous reflections and possible recriminations against the established 
 order. He feigns insanity but speaks very rationally and wisely. 
 His knight is as bold and as sane as any maddon, and, of course, un- 
 able to waver from his ethical position. Not so with Sancho! 
 “Squire” Sancho Panza is a startling person, a simple serving man, a 
 devoted companion, our living glebe! His good-humored retainer- 
 ship is the most happy find in literature, and rescues this book from 
 being a mere variation of the Picaresque novel. 
 
208 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 Cervantes, nevertheless, imitates the Picaresque novel and the 
 Romances of Chivalry he ridicules. The chapters on the “Captive,” 
 for instance, open like the Picaresque novels generally. “Don 
 Quixote” bears the same features. Sancho Panza which is often 
 called an irruption of realism in a pure work of the imagination, 
 had worthy antecedents in Spain — ^without, however, so wholesome 
 and contagious a materialism. Imitation with Cervantes is neither 
 a literal obsession nor a neutralizing force; it is reminiscence rather 
 than memory. This fact enabled him to play lightly along the du- 
 bious paths of parody and to transmute unawares much of the baser 
 materials of his vernacular into precious literature. He admired 
 Amadis of Gaul.^® And well he might, for the Amadis of Gaul is 
 the most significant imaginative effort in the literary transition^® 
 from the Middle Ages to Modern times; it was the worthiest book 
 of chivalry and the greatest prose work before “Don Quixote.” 
 Cervantes, it is evident, fused in his masterwork all the chivalry of 
 the Amadis for his Don Quixote, and all the roguery of Lazarillo 
 de Tormes — and other rogues, for his Sancho Panza, the extremes of 
 idealism with the extremes of realism in the same picture.^*^ Now, 
 this admirable Amadis of Gaul, of indefinite authorship, but attri- 
 buted to Lobeira, is said to have originated in Portugal.^® 
 
 But Cervantes was probably not conscious of his indebtedness to 
 the Portuguese. The dead have no proprietary rights in literature; 
 the living only few; and Cervantes, as we shall see, woke up to his 
 only on the brink of the grave. But this is not to our purpose ex- 
 cept that it shows that “little” Portugal was once a force in litera- 
 ture, even in Spanish literature. Ariosto, Tasso, and many others^® 
 borrowed from Camoes, the Quixotic author of the Lusiads! Por- 
 tugal, it must be remembered, had its golden age of Romance with 
 him, before Spain, Italy, France or England had theirs. Indeed, 
 “Don Quixote” has served to perpetuate not only the memory of 
 much literary lore, but particularly the fame of what it intended 
 
 15. Cf. the English translation of Robert Southey, from the Spanish 
 version of G. de Montalvo; 3 vols., London, John Russell Smith, edition 
 of 1872. For the Spanish translation of the Portuguese original, cf. The 
 “Rivadeneyra Library”; Romances of Chivalry. 
 
 16. The Amadis of Gaul is more modern than medieval in construc- 
 tion and characterization.* It was translated into the leading European 
 languages, and in Spain alone it had twenty-two editions from 1510-1587. 
 
 17. I find a partial parallel to my thought in John Garrett Underhill — 
 Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors, page 372; the Mac- 
 millan Company, published for the Columbia Press, N. Y., 1899. 
 
 18. Cf. A. Loiseau, P. 55, Histoire de la Litt6rature portugaise; Paris, 
 Ernest Thorin, 1886. Cf. also Southey, Preface of op. cit. in note 5; “The 
 romance of Amadis of Gaul was written by Vasco I^obeira, a Portuguese, 
 towards the close of the XIVth Century.” 
 
 19. Loiseau, P. 221, op. cit. in note 18. 
 
209 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 to obscure, the Amadis of Gaul. “Bien des gens,” says Professor 
 Loiseau, “ne le connaissent que par Cervantes; la parodie a donne a 
 I’oeuvre la vie au lieu de la mort. Si personne ne lit plue TAmadis 
 tout le monde a Don Quichotte.”^® This shows that books of chiv- 
 alry like Amadis of Gaul were still widely read by the educated, 
 talked about among the countless illiterate, and believed by all. 
 
 Anyhow, chivalry as an institution was lingering only in books 
 and these were demoralizing the individual, his home, his land, his 
 life. They so exalted the unreal, and endowed the remote with so 
 much charm that they decentered the average Spaniard. He ceased 
 to be practical, if he had ever been so; romance was a national 
 obsession; love was already an excuse for lechery; bravery for mur- 
 der, wit for rascality, freedom for license. He would not pay for 
 food or lodging and altho the innkeeper believed firmly in the chiv- 
 alry read to him, he believed not in impecunious knights of flesh and 
 bone. The innkeeper believed in giants well enough but “Don 
 Quioxte” must settle up with cash for the beheaded wine skiiv. 
 Everyday life was so honeycombed with magic, enchantments, charms, 
 miracles and unrealities as to make liars of the senses, a dupe of 
 human reason, and unfit men for this mundane sphere. . . . Poor 
 
 illuded, stubborn Spain ; its lack of fitness to see the truth, to rule itself 
 or lead the world is fundamental. Qualities other than hers are re- 
 quired to guide men or control the earth. The Arab, whose wont it is 
 to fold his tent and silently steal away, reached the Spanish shores in 
 an evil hour. He mingled his cultured blood with a barren, exalted 
 breed, only to be discredited and spurned without mercy by this ^ 
 fanatical, intolerant, and bull-fighting^^ Christian. The Spaniard has 
 fared accordingly. In his dash for glory, and renown, his native 
 thirst for immortality in the days of discovery and conquest, I often 
 think I see the last glow of the Moorish Crescent cooling in the far- 
 off Americas and finally going out! And Spain is hunger-stricken^^ 
 in the midst of plenty ; Spain is idle^^ in a world of great commercial 
 opportunity, which England eagerly seizes. ... A close stu- 
 dent of Spanish society in Cervantes’ day has it in a nutshell; he 
 says of the provincial gentleman of that epoch : “L’hidalgo vit chiche- 
 ment sur un lopin de terre, oisif et glorieux. Glorieux, car il est 
 
 20. Ibid, pp. 53, 54. 
 
 21. Bull-fig-hting is, like religion, only habitual in Spain. It is not an 
 instinct; it is due to cultivation and education and it is nation-wide. 
 
 22. On Spain dying of hunger — tho the greatest wheat country in 
 Europe — cf. Hume, P. 373, foot-note, op. cit. in note 5. 
 
 23. Hume, op. cit. in note 5. 
 
210 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 beau de se sentir noble, oisif, car it est deshonorant de travailler.”^^ 
 The proof of national improvidence is complete: is there in modern 
 history a more thoro or swift national decay and a more saddening 
 spectacle than Spain’s colonial failures and actual dispossession ? 
 . . . And Sevilla sleeps; its turreted docks and ebbing river 
 
 banks are silent. Only an occasional ship sights the Golden Tower 
 with cornelian stealth. . . . But Sevilla may waken. Its cathe- 
 
 dral and bull-ring, serpentine streets and carpet-hung thorofares, its 
 white Moorish fronts and red cascaded roofs, may yet start at the 
 name of Cervantes, and his call for patriotism. And, then, the gay 
 old city of plunder and privileges may shake off its lethargy and its 
 lone streets echo once more with the martial tread of the conquisto- 
 dors! And these will conquer at home, usher in the new order, ques- 
 tion the national aversion to progress, and cease living in isolation. 
 America will hail the new resurrection. For Spain lives in her exiles 
 of twenty nations,^® and its world dream is rounding into coherence. 
 Indeed, great national revivals are at hand. New Italy is risen, and 
 already in conflict with its traditional foes. New Spain is preparing 
 to follow France and Portugal. The great book under discussion may 
 here play an important role. . . . And it must, if the Spain of 
 
 Galdos, of Ferrer, and of Canalejas, heed the deeds that never die tho 
 the generations come and go! New Italy sprang out of Dante and 
 his “Wonderful Vision.” It dignified its political program with its 
 bold patriotism. New Portugal took flame from Camoes and his 
 “Lusiads.” New Spain may yet woo and win fickle political fortune 
 with Cervantes. His delectable “Quixote” was written for Span^ 
 iards. For it was not the literature of the day which was mad, it 
 was the people reading it. Thru his book Cervantes ultimately meant 
 to reach Spain, not books. Such a conclusion is inevitable if we 
 reach thru the book to the soul that created it. 
 
 Cervantes, before Dickens, foreshadowed the new order, the 
 proletariat. His great work is classic and of the past of course thru 
 “Don Quixote” and his “Kighthood” ; but it belongs to our tinies 
 thru Sancho Panza, the symbol of democracy. The civil status of 
 the people had gone by default as elsewhere in Europe, thru centuries 
 of ecclesiastical enterprise. And the Spanish people lay buried in 
 
 24. A. Morel-Fatio; Etudes sur I’Espag-ne; I. P. 337, Ch. V. Le Don 
 Quichotte envisagr6 comme peinture de la soci6t6 espagrnole du XVI et du 
 XVII sigcle. 
 
 25. The first Pan-American Cong-ress met in Mexico City, in 1901. Cf. 
 the “Boletin” of the South American Republics, published at Washing- 
 ton, D. C., for the reports, plans, and programs of the Pan-American 
 Union. — Bulletin of the Pan-American Union, — Official organ of the Union 
 of American Republics, Washington, D. C. Illustrated. 
 
2II 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 history for seven hundred years. Cervantes sounded a first reviving 
 note in his “Numancia.”^^ But in spite of its enthusiasm, Spanish 
 patriotism lay stone-dead in the spell of church altars. His “Nu- 
 mancia,” tradition says, was a literary clamor in the field of history, 
 an exercise in the classic fiction of ancient Rome, with so much 
 rhetorical warmth as to once kindle action and heroism. . . . 
 
 Once, is not a whole failure. But his “Numancia,” it is agreed, is not 
 the living prose of “Don Quixote.” The play in verse is not on the 
 democratic plane of a “squire” about to rule “Barataria” — without 
 patriotism ! . . . For even “Don Quixote” breathed his heroic day 
 oblivious of political liberty, as an abstract idea or social principle. 
 Sancho, his convivial squire — as little conscious of Spanish patriotism 
 — frets over his home, not his country. It was the wisdom born of 
 prudence and experience. Cervantes, like the Spaniard of his day, 
 takes Spain for granted, and the world as a matter of course; too 
 much so perhaps to inflame the patriots of New Spain, leaderless and 
 landless! What if a splendid racial egotism without roots in native 
 soil once made him a Spaniard at home on the globe? What if this 
 romantic Spaniard, long envied and imitated abroad, subdued em- 
 pires for the Friars? It was good for old Spain, but not for a rising 
 Spain, imbued with new thought. The odd citizenship of “Don 
 Quixote,” contagious in achievement, impervious to ridicule, oblivious 
 of defeat, is perhaps too much charmed with haunting security and 
 idle placidity, to overcome social inertia and economic stagnation. 
 But it was only the part of discretion. Nor would the Spaniard of 
 that day have sensed Lessing, who owned fraternity with mankind, 
 regardless of nationality, or creed, or landmarks. Cervantes was 
 always a Spaniard and a Faithful; to him the world belonged; over 
 it, he roamed its law-fiiver and final judge, like Don Quixote! 
 
 26. (a) Numancia, — a play, Translated by I. T. Gibson, London, 1885. 
 — Another translation in French is given in Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire. 
 (b) Theatre de Cervantes, by Alphonso Royer, 1862, 12 mo. 
 
 — Speaking of the “Numancia” — not given in the Rivadeneyra of 1864 
 — Ticknor says: “It awakened and still continues to awaken patriotism.” 
 . . . “With Cervantes the hapless Numancians are Spaniards.” Cf. P. 
 
 126, Vol. II, Spanish Literature, 3 vols., Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 
 1882. 
 
 — And Fitzmaurice-Kelly, after rating the exaltation of Ticknor — whom 
 he accuses of condoning the bad technique of the “Numancia” as a play — 
 says: “First and last, the play is a devout and passionate expression of 
 patriotism; and as such the writer’s countrymen have held it in esteem.” 
 Cf. P. 225, Spanish Literature, D. Appleton & Co., N. T., 1898. 
 
 — And Larousse, in the Grand Dictionnaire Universel, rehearsing the 
 critiques of his day, pronounces this play — written about 1584 (and pub- 
 lished only three hundred years later: — “L’un des plus beaux du Theatre 
 espagnol.” Cf. P. 1158 — art. Numance. In this article are given the 
 old verdicts of Sismondi, of Schlegel, and the judgment of Ticknor — so 
 warmly berated by Fitzmaurice-Kelly, quoted above. The old critics, 
 especially under the influence of French models, believe the Numancia 
 a good play; others, a bad play; but all agree on its flne patriotism. 
 
212 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 And much of this world is still Spanish and much of its virgin soil 
 still belongs to the denizens of “Barataria,” land for Don Quixote 
 to give and for “Sancho” to rule! What an alluring field for the 
 waking patriot and what tempting work for the student and the 
 scholar, the economist and the statesman 1 They, too, are contributing 
 to the national revival; the movement for nationality and democracy 
 is largely their work. In this time of need, their duty is no longer 
 purely academic; they labor to transmute feudal blood into modern 
 work, and social position into popular education. Perhaps the time 
 has come when the “Cervantes-Saavedra”^"^ may knit hands with the 
 “Dante-Alighieri”28 for Latin concord and unity! 
 
 It was an inauspicious day when early Christianity blazed the 
 way to heaven for a people without sufficient native stamina, enough 
 of the instinct of self preservation and individual dignity to react, 
 even in time, against the zeal of its material priestcraft and imbecile 
 royalty; nor indeed, able to rescue from these its rights to national 
 existence and terrestrial subsistence ! But the book is a little broader 
 — more philosophical as it were; it deals with the duperj^ of men, 
 the old humanitarian fraud exploited by the church, the old judicial 
 pretense executed by the State! “Men are like Sancho,” says Ste- 
 Beuve 'P “they whet their native sagacity on some folly in which they 
 half believe, as a grinder his knives on stone.” Most men indeed 
 sharpen only upon contact with, much of our useless and antiquated 
 hardened social organism. Like Sancho, they stick to, and believe in 
 this silly order of things, to the extent of a third or fourth of it, 
 just enough to keep it alive, especially if baited unto adherence with 
 some interest or humoured with a promise of reward; the bribe of 
 fame or of eternal life, an office, a sacristy, or a speakership, or an 
 “island,” as in this case. And when Sancho obtains the governorship 
 of his long coveted island he governs apparently as wisely and effec- 
 tively as any of the governors of his day — men he had seen — crafty, 
 irrational, incapable, ignorant, selfish, haughty, and dissolute — the 
 creatures of kings. But the pages of Cervantes on government are 
 little quoted nowadays; he says nothing of our burning municipal 
 problem or of methods of government; even less on reform tho he 
 prate, thru his Sancho, of justice, right, etc., in subtle parables; and 
 
 27. The writer has in mind “La Cervantes-Saavedra — Sociedad Inter- 
 nacionale hispano-Americana” — with a program much like that of the 
 “Dante Alighieri Society” of Italy. 
 
 28. La Dante Alighieri, Society nazionale per la diffuslone della lingua 
 e della coltura itialiane fuori del regno. 
 
 29. Ste-Beuve — Nouveaux Lundis, VIII. Reflexions on Don Quixote, P. 
 38, Calmann L§vi, Paris, 4th edition, 1885. 
 
213 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 I have no hesitation in saying that if he did he would hold — in spite 
 of his own administration of Barataria — the old aristocratic argu- 
 ment that the people need bread, not votes; work, not constitutional 
 amendments; money to pay house rent, not referendums; clothing, 
 not recalls; employment, not initiatives — representatives, not direct 
 election by the people — and modern literature would once more gasp 
 at this criminal indifference or supine ignorance of popular govern- 
 ment and its claims! But to Cervantes, government was an art, 
 not a science. 
 
 Thru the net-work of alternately literary and artistic currents 
 there runs a live undercurrent of social concern and philosophical 
 interest. Cervantes’ famous book thus combines social with literary 
 endeavor. His book is imbued with the spirit of modern things ; there 
 is not as in Rousseau, — who lived his own life but wrote for pos- 
 terity, — a constant out-cropping of the great modern traits; still his 
 book is live writing. His satire of the literature of chivalry bespeaks a 
 revolted mind, actuated by rational motives. From the point of view 
 of literary art his book is an advance over his contemporaries. Don 
 Quixote looms up gaunt, inalterable, immaculate, thru the author’s 
 thousand pages. . . . Sancho Panza, gross, matter of fact, seeking, 
 and loquacious, is a worthy squire to a most worthy knight. No one 
 but Cervantes, it seems, could have created two such figures, endowed 
 them with life, to say nothing of verisimilitude, and let them wander 
 with such ease — not in the wastes of La Mancha, but thru the treas- 
 ures varied and often delicate of his great book. . . . But Roci- 
 
 nante was sure-footed, and Dapple a wise Donkey. Moreover, this 
 book is remarkable for naturalness of speech and simplicity of con- 
 struction. There was need of it. Think of the men, women and 
 things which constitute Cervantes’ world. A patient man has reck- 
 oned six hundred and sixty-nine personages — ^without a villain among 
 them.^® You must not be deprived of the pleasure of making their 
 acquaintance yourselves, and pass on this villain question! But the 
 book has the additional interest due to international influences. Spain 
 had long been in political relations with Italy. Hume speaks of these 
 in no uncertain terms: “Most of the impetus in art and literature had 
 come from Italy, which country was closely connected with Spain 
 by common allegiance and constant intercommunications in war and 
 peace. Spanish soldiers, traders, officials and adventurers, were al- 
 so. On the personagres of “Don Quixote,” cf. P. 241, op. cit. in note 
 11. The book of Cervantes does not preclude villanous people. The 
 absence of a full-fledged formal villain in “Don Quixote” only shows that 
 Cervantes was not a conventional dramatist or novelist. 
 
214 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 most as familiar with Italian as with their own tongue and, on the 
 other hand, Spanish was the fashionable language in most of the 
 Italian cities.”^^ And Morel-Fatio speaks no less truly: “Cervantes 
 est avant tout un disciple de I’ltalie; un eleve enthousiaste de celui 
 qu’il nomme le divin Arioste (Galatea, livre VI). Ce maitre lui a 
 enseigne avec certains artifices de style, le procede qui a fait sa force 
 et sa gloire et dont vit le Don Quichotte; Tironie, aimable, enjouee, 
 presque indulgente, I’oppose de cotte ironie froide, cruelle, accablante 
 des premiers picaresques espagnols. Cervantes est tout penetre 
 d’ltalie.”^^ These are illumniating words on the relations between 
 Spain and Italy at this time. — Nor should we overlook in the style 
 of Cervantes the influence of the “Amadis of Gaul,” which is the 
 sturdiest literary antecedent in the evolution of “Don Quioxte.” 
 These relations and influence crop out betimes in the work of Cer- 
 vantes. The reader of “Don Quioxte” presently finds himself con- 
 fronted with names and products of Italian literature. Echoes of 
 Tasso’s Jerusalem Liberated, a witching epic; enchanting things from 
 Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso,^^ a mad pendant to “Don Quixote,” but 
 another entrancing court epic; pages of pastoral literature, the next 
 human literary foible that Cervantes would have ridiculed^^ had he 
 lived long enough ; and other borrowings from Italy of interest mainly 
 to the connoisseur unless perhaps we except the “short stories” in 
 the first volume. There are various opinions including that of Cer- 
 vantes in the second volume, regarding their literary merit, composi- 
 tion and introduction into the body of the work. — Here they lie, like 
 the Italian palace of Charles V, among the Moorish towers of the 
 Alhambra, tolerated with the tolerance of oblivion. This, at least, 
 is the feeling of dismay which overtakes the traveler who first climbs 
 the storied road to the Alhambra. I know of no like violation of 
 taste except the belfry of the Giralda — another conceit of Charles V, 
 which in its hybrid make-up lacks the force of the Florentine “pugno,” 
 on the ducal palace. Cervantes has knitted these short stories and 
 their Italian life to his purpose but, with too little gain of substance 
 
 31. Hume, P. 404, op. cit. in note 5. 
 
 32. Morel-Fatio, pp. 375-6. op. cit. in note 24. 
 
 33. Cf. The Orlando Purioso of Ludovico Ariosto, Translated into 
 English verse by Wm. Stewart Rose; 2 vols., London, George Bell & 
 Sons. Translation finished in 1831. 
 
 — For a good discussion of "Roland Furieux,” cf. the excellent book 
 of M. Henri Hauvette; Litt^rature Italienne, Ch. V., pt. II., pp. 227-246 
 (Ouvrage couronng par I’Acadgmie Frangaise) 2nd M., A. Colin, Paris, 
 1910. 
 
 34. Cf. Les Deux Don Quichotte — Etude critique sur I’oeuvre de Fer- 
 nandas Avellaneda, Paris, Didier, Nov., 1852, — Opuscule by A. Germond de 
 Lavigne, translator of the Celestina of Rojas, of the Tacano of Quevedo, 
 and of Avellaneda’s "sequel” to the "Don Quixote” of Cervantes. 
 
215 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 and too large a cost to his art, — in interest, suspense, and unity. Their 
 interpolation affords here another comparison and a few reflections. 
 They stand in relation to the purely Spanish work of Cervantes as 
 the restorations of the Alhamhra to the same art in the palace of Peter 
 the Cruel. It is the art of a different people of the same race. But 
 it speaks a staccato more pronounced in a tone less mellow; the light 
 of the Alcazar is less soft and the whole breathes an atmosphere less 
 intimate. For this Italian influence, read the story of “Cardenio”; 
 and then follow the life of the “Captive.” Altho both are wrought 
 with care, you feel no effort of style in the latter, the running text 
 is always more loose and also more largely constructed than that of 
 the short stories. These interpolated recitals invariably seem more 
 artificial tho they are more artistic. Their language and — as the 
 French call it, their feature (technique) — is more studied, compact, 
 and stilted, not to say stiff. It may be justly observed here that what 
 Cervantes makes up in style (largely under Italian influence), he 
 loses in taste and force (largely under that same influence). Nor 
 am I able to account for this artistic heresy in spite of the labors of 
 Bennett^^ and others on literary style and taste. That he can be 
 meticulous, however, many of his works reveal, as well as most of 
 his “Second Part,” or sequel to “Don Quixote.” And that these 
 foreign borrowings do not fit like square pegs in round holes is due 
 to sheer art in Cervantes. Still, they lack his native freedom, his 
 spontaneous, rambling style, his direct and large sweep of the pen, 
 the unadorned and vigorous exposition of the iconoclast! 
 
 It is fortunate for these interpolations that the book of Cervantes 
 is simple in construction. Indeed, no book could be simpler. The 
 work is complete in two volumes, or parts, — separated, historically, by 
 the lapse of many years, and philosophically, by the weight of many 
 cares. . . . Why this Second Part? Why this long silence? 
 Why this new stand if not a literary subterfuge? . . . Surely 
 not merely for artistic fulfillment! — Was the message of the first 
 part incomplete, uncertain, unconvincing? ... If so, the reader 
 is little served by the sequel! Why this grudge at Avellaneda — un- 
 known and unfound — ^with feints and thrusts, and strange parleys 
 with men-at-law? . . . Have we not here the new madness, 
 
 and “Quixstiz” and “Panzino,” their new sheepfold and new pas- 
 ture — with all the wolves thrown off the scent? . . . But, 
 
 enough of conjecture! . . . The first part shows what is done; 
 
 35. Arnold Bennett, “Literary Taste and How to Form It,” George H. 
 Doran Co., New York. 
 
2i6 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 the second tells what happens. The first is dynamic — direct, real, 
 •unadorned. The second is static and slow — and much of it is fantas- 
 tic pastoral stuff, — not the conventional Italian pastoral of the day^® ; 
 and, to vary the monotony of virtue in those blessed times, each part 
 contributes an occasional low story, or a facetious anecdote. The 
 first part of “Don Quixote” is in the vein of literary farce — the blows 
 received are exaggerated, the threshings numerous, the moods inten- 
 sified, the conclusions indifferent. The animals to which master and 
 servant have entrusted their wills, are rather conspicuous. The per- 
 sonages are real. Heroic deeds crack on the doughty knight’s bones 
 or armor; the events are probable, altho bound up with lowest ele- 
 ments of Spanish society. The bookish ideal and the earthly real 
 crash mightily. The wary Quixote shuns human habitations and 
 human comforts, and nature lends its dash of color in a life lived in 
 the open wilds of LaMancha. ... I say “lends” because Cer- 
 vantes is of his age regarding nature; he is out in nature but not with 
 nature, its moods and essentials; there is no special reference to the 
 air, the sunlight, the sky, in their vital significance. Cervantes’ feeling 
 for nature was perhaps more wanting than unrealized. In any case, 
 his expression of nature is conventional, if his Sierra Morena be taken 
 as an instance. It is inadequate, for the modern student, at least, 
 and of a card-board complexion which strongly suggests the stage- 
 art of his day. The wild splendor of the Sierra, its cumulative power, 
 did not invade his artistic consciousness if it moved his soul at all. 
 Schiller would have done better tho of course more happily served 
 by the imagination of his time. In this matter, however, Cervantes 
 may have yielded to the manner of the day. The vogue was Italian ; 
 it is found in the treatment of those subjects felt to belong to Italian 
 letters and art: as the treatment of nature largely stereotyped by the 
 pastorals of Italy. This same influence it was that we felt more es- 
 pecially in the short stories interpolated by Cervantes. 
 
 The Second Part, or sequel to “Don Quixote,” introduces the 
 principals to the rascals of high life — ^with a corresponding change, of 
 environment. Cervantes now proceeds to show the need of a new 
 society. The atmosphere has changed; life and events are staged as 
 in a comedy; the book is less real but more artistic, more compact 
 and literary; the actors are more sophisticated and have more lucid 
 moments. Don Quixote accepts shelter, comfort and leisure, and 
 Sancho grows more conventional and cultured from experience and 
 
 36. M. Lavigrne holds that the “sequel” of Cervantes is largely and 
 un-wittingly pastoral in atmosphere. Op. cit. in note 34. 
 
217 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 social contact. But such experience and such contact! It is a most 
 incredible phase of Cervantes’ work. Poor human victims, of design 
 and craft! — But, even here, the humorous vein is rich, and nothing 
 is more shrewdly conceived than Sancho’s penitential lash (diverted 
 by him to neighboring trees) in expiation of his master’s folly and 
 imaginary wrongs. — It is the craft learned in the school of life. 
 . . . The school of life gives experience, to meet experience; it 
 
 lends to the understanding a practical sense of the isms exploited by 
 countless charletans or obscured by the ruling few. This school of 
 life does not arm the soldier’s tongue for the scorn of position, 
 the abstractions of theology or the obtrusiveness of dialectics, 
 . . . nor the boor’s with subtle wisdom. . . . Nor is this 
 part of “Don Quixote” difficult to understand. In spite of 
 his desire to subtilize and theorize, Cervantes is clear. It does 
 not demand more historical knowledge than the other part to be 
 read with profit by the average reader. A large reality still pervades 
 the book; its external symbolism is intentionally merged with mock 
 internal mysticism, a combination exceedingly subtle and bold in the 
 artistry of his day. But Cervantes here succeeds admirably; he ac- 
 complishes the unteachable thing; the miracle wrought in the execu- 
 tion of this great work ; he fuses matter with style and leaves us to 
 marvel at that external question of style solved with off-hand alac- 
 rity by the practical genius of our day. 
 
 Another feature of the second part, not intended to be humor- 
 ous, is Cervantes’ literary wrath at Avellaneda, the harmless writer 
 of a “sequel”^'^ to “Don Quixote”; he was so bold as to poach on 
 Cervantes’ preserves long enough to “see thru” the “Don Quixote” 
 in its second part. From the 59th chapter to its close, thru 14 chapters, 
 the cynical “theft” and impertinent claims of Avellaneda haunt him 
 and disturb his wonted equanimity. And yet, it has been shown^* 
 that Cervantes actually copied this much reviled “Continuator” ; that 
 Cervantes was even surpassed^^ by Avellaneda in the execution of the 
 “logical” sequel or second part to “Don Quixote”; and that behind 
 the pseudonym lay not a “boor” but a well-intentioned gentleman^® 
 
 37 . The Sequel of Avellaneda may be found in its native idiom in 
 “Novelistas posteriores a Cervantes, — M. Rivadeneyra, Vol. XVIII of the 
 Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, Madrid, 1852, pp. 1-115, double column; 
 a literary curiosity, if of no other interest now. 
 
 38. This opinion is reached by Professor A. G. de Lavigfie after a 
 close study of the two orig-inals, P. 37, op. cit. in note 34. 
 
 39. About the respective merits of the two sequels, cf. chs. Ill, IV, 
 and V. Lavigne, op. cit. in note 34. 
 
 40. Concerning the identity of the writer of the Avellaneda “sequel” 
 and the name of Dr. Bartolome Leonardo de Argensola — Aragonese, 
 (1564—), cf. Ch. II., pp. 27-30, op. cit. in note 34. Regarding the “Avel- 
 
2i8 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 and a scholar — the belated ire of M. de Ste-Beuve^^to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. But this is a long story, the closing chapters of 
 which belong, I fear, to posterity. The controversy, fortunately, 
 cannot deprive us of the sequel of the one or of the other ; and, as the 
 world would be poorer, you will agree, without a sequel of any sort 
 by Cervantes, we owe it in truth to Avellaneda. Tho it accelerated 
 its completion, — there are signs of haste in the closing chapters of the 
 book, it compelled Cervantes as no other thing had, to publish this 
 second part, a promise of long standing and in the case of some of 
 his works, never fulfilled. This brought his wonderful career prac- 
 tically to an end. “Don Quixote” had been in the making for thirty 
 years, an old man’s book but abundantly nourished and singularly 
 well balanced, for its author was now at peace with the world. Yet, 
 latter day wizards have sought to read into it much political, ecclesi- 
 astical, and social symbolism, or diabolism, going so far as to pro- 
 nounce his Lady Dulcinea del Toboso a subtle grind on the virgin 
 Mary ; but there is nothing in this, altho mariolatry and other forms 
 of idolatry are rampant in Spain. There is nothing so subtly sym- 
 bolical in Cervantes’ great book, men having at all times idealized 
 the young woman, if not idolized her outright. 
 
 Many other wonderful claims are made for its genial author but 
 all quite as futile. . . . Cervantes’ book, I repeat, is the last of the 
 books of chivalry ; it rehearses by reference all the others ; it discred- 
 its these works of imposture on the credulous, their charlatanry, their 
 science of magic, sorcery, astrology, and enchantments. It ridicules 
 their view of life with deeds passing wonderful but probable, out-does 
 with native Spaniards both mad and sane the unearthly prowess of 
 enchanted foreign knights. It ruined, not the institution which was 
 dead, but its baneful lingering idealism, its out-of-date dogmatism, and 
 {pretended public utility. Tho still essentially literary and not yet a 
 transcript from actual life, this note of the probable, to say nothing 
 of the possible, makes Cervantes’ book the first modern book in Spain, 
 in spirit, in purpose, if not in contents. Its naturalness of speech and 
 contagious satire made all other Spanish books ridiculous. Spain was 
 a rich field for satire; it is still open to satire, and most hopelessly 
 
 laneda” Sequel, the “Rivadeneyra” editor, Don Cayetano Rosell, says that 
 the real author of this sequel is not known; 3rd note, P. 1 of Rosell’s 
 preface to the imitation (1864); also P. XXX of Vol, I., vida de Cer- 
 vantes. Note that these Spanish editors of the Rivadeneyra do not ac- 
 cept the conclusions of M, de Lavig-fie, arrived at twelve years before. 
 
 41. Ste-Beuve, P. 29 of op. cit. in note 29, squelches M. de Lavigrne 
 for his “Don Quichotte de Fernandas Avelleneda” — Didier, Paris (trans- 
 lation named in foot-note to P. 29), and bitterly criticizes Avellaneda for 
 his erstwhile impertinence! Truly amusing in M. de Ste-Beuve! 
 
219 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 in need of it, modern, wholesome, cogent, regenerating satire. And 
 yet, I doubt if Spain is much farther traveled on the road to reason ; 
 in spite of Don Quixote’s bruises, his moments of lucidity piercing 
 thru the national dementia, the Spanish character has not been phased. 
 Cervantes endowed his heroes with too much human sympathy to 
 challenge reflection and effect regeneration, — the Spaniard is “Quix- 
 otic” still and is not ashamed. Cervantes’ work is more like a vindica- 
 tion of the common Spaniard seeing ideals with native clarity, but un- 
 educated or educated falsely, a victim of his institutions, of antiquated 
 systems, and of men who by the most questionable methods have for 
 centuries deliberately converted the means of social emancipation into 
 a national self-complacent inertia. These motives are most apparent 
 in modern Spain; out of 19,000,000 (in 1900) people, only one third 
 today know how to read or write; out of eighteen provinces, only 
 one is industrially significant ; its few consumptive railroads have only 
 succeeded slowly to drain the rural districts and congest the stifling 
 city. And yet this social massing at vital points may open a new era 
 for the Spanish people coming as it does under the spell of the politi- 
 cal agitator and the popular socialist."*^ For even the instinct of self- 
 preservation has made the people resourceful in the lace of intolerance 
 and obscuration. Withal, the work of Cervantes survives. “Don 
 Quixote de la Mancha” remains a diversion as amusing to the un- 
 suspecting Spaniard as to the wary world. It is, unobtrusively withal, 
 full of moral significance and great in human interest. It did its 
 work unerringly against ridiculous literature ; to have coped with life 
 more effectively, to have struck at Spanish institutions more vitally, 
 would have required the laughter of Moliere, the pen of Voltaire, the 
 imagination of Rousseau, the critical sense of the French revolutionist. 
 To have done it would have required a different aim in XVIth cen- 
 tury literature, in Spain, and a different purpose in Cervantes ; writing 
 in those days was largely a society or court diversion, the cultivation 
 of an art, and only incidentally a public utility or a humanitarian in- 
 strument. That Cervantes had ideas on the pompous rhetoricians 
 of his day you will find delightfully shown in his prefaces and in the 
 body of the work. 
 
 In reading “Don Quixote,” you will need to be patient ; you will 
 find that Cervantes nods like the great epic poets, a fond characteristic 
 of literary greatness. But you will be pleased to find your objec- 
 tions anticipated, for when the interest of the story begins to flag, 
 
 42. For the movement of Spanish life to the city, cf. Havelock Ellis, — 
 op. cit. in note 11 (b) — Introduction, P. 3. 
 
220 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 Sancho frets and wants to go home. Can you imagine more father- 
 ly solicitude for the child of his brain or the “dear gentle reader” — 
 whom Cervantes always addresses in witching prefaces full of delight- 
 ful intimacies, freshness, and candor? — And the mirth, — and the 
 fun, — and the proverbs ! . . . Not the least inviting phase of “Don 
 Quixote” and withal characteristic of Spanish books, is the matter-of- 
 fact, common-place philosophy of Spaniards, as revealed by their 
 proverbs. They spring uninvited on every occasion, with Spanish self 
 assurance and self sufficiency. They constitute the hearsay science of a 
 stagnating people, the argument of the ignorant, the obsession of our 
 modern bromide. These snatches of self-evident truth are interjected 
 deliberately in “Don Quixote,” often, indeed, clothed in irony and 
 seldom without a tinge of malice or wit.. But the remarkable thing 
 in Cervantes’ book is not their inoffensive and sententious casual oc- 
 currence, but inordinate recurrence and accumulation by Sancho.^^ 
 Don Quixote is astonished at Spanish proverbs and fears some evil 
 end for Sancho. He would that Sancho might better heed things — 
 his counsels: “Hear them and remember them — these good counsels.” 
 But Sancho cannot remember special admonitions.* * Charged to keep 
 silence, a cruel restless ordeal, he breaks out again and again, and 
 without warning, into veritable fits of loquacity. Then Sancho is 
 in his glory. By the time we go with him to “Fraudville,” — his 
 “Island” of Barataria — these orgies of bromide have become so auto- 
 matic and impressive as to stand him in stead of genuine administrative 
 sagacity. . . . Still the greatest legacy or contribution of Cer- 
 
 vantes to the stock phrases of the world lies in the word “Quixote” it- 
 self. When we speak of a Quixote notion, a Quixote enterprise, or 
 Quixote scruples, we know or think we know the flavor. ... As 
 for Sancho, he lives; — he lives! I have heard him on the jetty of Al- 
 geciras, expostulating with his donkey, cork-laden from the groves of 
 Andalusia. I have watched him in the still hours of the breaking day 
 remove the traditional stones balancing his burden of cork, as if the 
 humor of the world had never questioned his rare good-sense in piling 
 stones on a donkey twin-packed with precious cork! I have met him 
 on the Roman bridge in Cordoba, muttering as he passed his “Vaya 
 Uste con Dios”t . . . oblivious of my interest in his sturdy in- 
 
 difference! He had not read M. Rostand’s poem^^ in which, in good 
 
 43. “Yo to asegruro que estos refranes to han de llevar un dia a la 
 horca.” II., Ch. 43. 
 
 * De que han de servir si de ninguna me acuerdo? 
 t God be with you. 
 
 44. Cf. note 1. 
 
221 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 romance, he deplores the naturalism of Sancho and his advent in the 
 world of polite letters. But he well knew, — as I inferred from his 
 hapless independence — that Don Quixote his old master . . . 
 
 had died ! ! ! 
 
 With all this, I have not told you the story of the celebrated 
 and discerning Knight of LaMancha — of his problem with the sheep ; 
 his self sacrifice in other fierce encounters; of Lady Dulcinea del 
 Toboso and her elusive ladyship’s subtle metamorphoses; of the good 
 squire Sancho and his efficient retainership in the three sallies of his 
 impeccable master ; I have refrained from analyzing the racial qualities 
 of Rocinante and the mute resignation of Dapple — who, except for 
 their occasional outbreaks of horse-sense, are silent witnesses of the 
 human comedy enacted by their respective masters. I have not told 
 you of the excellent precepts, and the sensible dissertations which 
 abound in this wonderful book, but this is not my purpose. I would 
 have you read the book. A first hand and a larger acquaintance with 
 “Don Quixote,” its genial author and his fallen land, will awaken a 
 new interest in literature, increase our knowledge of human nature, 
 and make world-wide our sympathy for mankind. — And yet, “Don 
 Quixote” has the defects of its qualities, ... as the goldsmiths say. 
 In this age of vogue and of the ephemeral, it is enduring; in this age 
 of adulteration, it is unalloyed; in this age of dogma and of ready- 
 made programs of action, it is inconclusive. Conceived in an age of 
 foreign imitation, it is real; produced in the full of the Renaissance, 
 it has little of that epoch’s artificial aim and pretentious style. Nur- 
 tured in a land of repression it flowered not out, like Shakespeare, 
 but in , — with all the misgivings of a soul longing to be free. It has 
 rather the national complexion of its Spanish life. But, Cervantes, 
 tho distinctly of his times, touched many of the problems of our own ; 
 yet his great book has nothing truly constructive, nothing wholly de- 
 structive, and nothing about scientific or rational living; only craft 
 to meet craft, harmless analysis and moral retrospect. This may 
 account for the life of this book in Spain ; it may account for the life 
 of Spain today. Cervantes was not an ideologue but a practical 
 thinker, without the social perspective of Rousseau. He was too 
 much a creature of memory and of books, like his “Don Quixote.” 
 And yet, in its retrospective phase, a large phase in the sequel, “Don 
 Quixote” staked much of its claim to enduring fame. “Some men 
 live their romances and some men write them. It was given Cer- 
 
222 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 vantes to do both.”^^ — Rousseau built upon his, and the world still 
 learns from him. But neither sounds a note of the actual for us, if 
 the light of a modern message on “time,” for instance, be flashed 
 across their peaceful quires.*^® Time, hitherto, had been viewed as 
 dawn-dusk for fame to bask in. Now, a ruthless modernism leaves 
 a chasm for all comment on the books of yesteryear. Ours is life 
 on the rock-bottom of a positive age. What can it use of the past? 
 To bridge across the contemplative gap separating Sancho Panza and 
 the “Social Contract” no less than the French Revolution was needed. 
 Since then many a social tempest has been irrevocably engulfed. How 
 can it borrow from the past? — The great ethical abstractions like 
 justice, honor, and mercy are coexistent with life itself, and with 
 the dawn of society. If there is any evolution, it is so only in degree, 
 or relative to time and clime, — and in the practice of these. With 
 rare exception the literatures of the world have been for the elect 
 and of the elect ; and since the beginning of time, the craft has prated 
 of virtue and ideals in pretty romance and lulling fiction. There is 
 little, before our day, of writing in terms of energy; the old litera- 
 ture is not made of such practical “stuff” ; nor are the essays of Ben- 
 nett written for the dawn-dusk of another day. Great literature is 
 becoming more incidental to large purposes than it was in Cervantes’ 
 day! But even so, “Don Quixote” is more than fine writing; yet 
 its theme is conventional except perhaps in his sympathetic treatment 
 of Sancho. The sordid traffic of his age had not passed into litera- 
 ture, either. And yet it was the day of commerce and booty; the 
 Golden Age was aglow with the glint of American gold and drenched 
 with the blood of continents. It was glorious with the Spanish 
 idealism of the times in terms of force, the faith, or extermination. 
 For the Spaniard was a confirmed idealist, tho of wrong ideals. His 
 institutions stimulated his imagination and his zeal; they gave him 
 the incentive to preserve that ideal at any cost, even of reason, thru 
 life, and regardless of experience. This is modern, withal. What- 
 ever else the astute Don may do, he always and inalterably holds the 
 viewpoint of preserving his self-respect to himself and of showing 
 his better qualities to his neighbors. He thus met the efficiency test 
 in the education of his day. It didn’t matter what occupation he 
 chose, — (there is no radical vocationalism or work in the education 
 
 45. James Pitzmaurice-Kelly’s — Lectures Given in America, edited as 
 “Chapters on Spanish Literature.” A. Constable, London, 1908. 
 
 46. Cf. P. 16 — “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day,” by Arnold Bennett; 
 W. Doran & Co., New York. 
 
Don Quixote — A Book 223 
 
 of Don Quixote) ; Spanish blood, a shrewd wit, and ideals, and 
 forth into the world he went ! ! ! ! 
 
 Cervantes is an idealist, too, in his contemplative view of woman. 
 His Dulcinea del Toboso testifies to his belated cult of Dante and 
 Beatrice. Her immaterial futility and personal nonentity outreach 
 the bounds of his native satire. Man fulfills in his struggle with 
 earth, in his commerce with men, in his winning of woman, and in 
 his conformity with nature, — divinity, immortality, and other delect- 
 able speculations to the contrary notwithstanding. But, tho stamped 
 with literary dilettantism, the book of Cervantes is rescued from the 
 worst features of this ism, — over-feminization. As in the life about 
 us, — and without fatalities, there are many women in this great book. 
 Yet, it is a strange counterpart in the evolution of literary forms that 
 “Don Quixote” — one of the first great novels of modern times, — 
 should have no heroine; whereas the novel of to-day has elected her 
 in particular. But, what if Marcela, Dorotea, the princess Micomi- 
 cona, Altasidora, the countess Trifaldi, the duchess of .... , 
 and his own peerless Dulcinea del Toboso do not make up a heroine! 
 Would they, in the world of his daily observation? Nor can ro- 
 mance, I venture to say, ever forgive Cervantes this bit of unchivalry 
 and cynicism! As for Sancho’s wife, Teresa, pathetic in her ignor- 
 ance, and clothed in homespun, poverty, and native patience, she is 
 too elemental and sane for pretty rhetoric. She 's the Spanish race- 
 force; she is the native hereditary stock; she is the one abiding and 
 genuinely great strain in the Spanish blood — the common strain. 
 “Don Quixote” is thus curiously enough a man-book; there is no 
 woman in the net-work of the book so great as to affect the personal 
 destiny of the romantic “Don.” The hero is not, as in Goethe, finally 
 absorbed by the ever impending female: — “das ewig weibliche!” It 
 is a curious anomaly, which here is of interest chiefly because of the 
 recurrence of the same phenomenon in the literature ot the day. M. 
 Rostand’s latest hero also emerges from the traditional order of 
 things in romantic literature, to answer the call of another destiny, 
 not nature but culture; which altho wholly artificial, is not only real 
 to him but actual, entrancing, heroic ! She, poor creature of fate, 
 nonetheless artificial for being real, the creature of man and of his 
 order, does not emerge from the conventional frame of books; she 
 does not transcend the limits of her life even at the expense of her 
 own identity, at least not in Chantecler! “Chantecler” emerges from 
 the traditional toils of life and love and sex, to pursue the light of 
 day and the glory of the world’s work! ... As if labor were the 
 
224 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 end of man, and living only an incident of time! Heroic fustian and 
 Quixotic Chantecler; is not Goethe nearer nature than Rostand, 
 romanticist and idealist tho he be in this with Cervantes? 
 
 Verily, “The nonsense of one age becomes the wisdom of another.”^'^ 
 But it were vain to sound the modern note in “Don Quixote” for 
 good or for ill, were it not for such manifestations of vitality. At all 
 times, the influence of this Spanish classic abroad has been felt, if 
 countless borrowings, from translations in many tongues be good 
 evidence. These translations, all more or less faithful to the origi- 
 nal, continue to spread its humor and contents. There are bits of 
 “Don Quixote” in Shakespeare.^^ Traces strongly appear in Field- 
 ing and other novelists; indeed, its influence in England lasted in a 
 quaint, satiric vein, — Cervantesque or picaresque, as late as “Dr. Syn- 
 tax” and “Mr. Pickwick.” This influence is found in French writers 
 from Scarron to LeSage. — They owe much to Cervantes’ genial and 
 ready cooperation. Dauder’s hero faced his lion. . . . Other 
 
 writers of our own day owe him no less. Jean Richepin has staged 
 his wonderworld; and M. Rostand, with racial intuition, once ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 “Je I’ai lu, 
 
 Et me decouvre au nom de cet hurluberlu.” 
 
 — Cyrano de Bergerac, Act II, Sc. VII. 
 
 Ultimately, I do not know that the author of “Don Quixote” 
 aimed at resucing philosophy, science, and much less religion, from 
 the theological discipline of the times. He has few philosophical 
 generalizations ; his manner is perfectly analytic. He discusses 
 neither principles, nor systems, nor personalities. He airs few opin- 
 ions; he rather offers abundant materials on the factors at work in 
 the social operations of his day. It must be remembered that Cer- 
 vantes was not a student but a soldier, discriminating rather than 
 critical, not a constructive thinker but a musing philosopher; tho a 
 university man, he was not a learned pedant but a man of letters — 
 in a new acceptation of the term, — a writer of polite literature, with 
 a moral aim as the censorship of the times has it. However, it can- 
 not be denied that in the things of the mind (weighed by intelli- 
 gence) he favors free inquiry and open research, champions inde- 
 
 47. Bracebridg-e Hall, illustrated by Caldecott, ”A Literary Antiquary, 
 by Washington Irving, P. 79. 
 
 48. Cf. Espana Moderna (March, 1911), for a readable general article 
 by James Pitzmaurice-Kelly, on “Literary Relations,” — which touches on 
 “Don Quixote,” its author, and Shakespeare; — “Relaciones entre las litera- 
 tures Espanola y Inglesa,” por Jaime Pitzmaurice-Kelly, 
 
225 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 pendent judgment and free will — as far as such was possible under 
 the Inquisition; he holds for the authority of human reason, and of 
 the animal life. At his best, the interest of Cervantes is more bound 
 up with things than with ideas, with social intelligence than with 
 philosophy. Unlike Dante, who sees better than he thinks (for Dante 
 thought in the abstract terms of medieval philosophy), Cervantes 
 thinks better than he sees, however paradoxical this may seen. He 
 is Spanish tradition personified in its metaphysical nullity and had 
 little commerce with speculative thought. No; he \vas not like 
 Dante — of whom Paleologue says: “Sa pensee aime a evoluer dans le 
 monde suprasensible en dehors du temps et de I’espace, dans le 
 domaine des realites absolues et des verites premieres. Cervantes 
 would not have appreciated, perhaps not understood, the speculations 
 of Dante, the scientific curiosity of Bacon, or of Galileo. Cervantes 
 lacked the speculative faculty and the sense of esthetic abstractions. 
 He entertained no misgivings as to the relative and the absolute; he 
 knew however the personal problem of daily living. Of time and 
 space, not a word ; on being and destiny, no new thought. Cervantes 
 was a psychologist in his own way. He was little concerned with 
 destiny since that bulwark of speculative thought had passed from 
 philosophy to religion. In the medieval alembic, destiny had become 
 fumes which the sixteenth century Spaniard presently transmuted 
 into fame, ... or theological smoke! ... In the realm of 
 thought, the church had always looked with a jealous eye upon the 
 inquirer, the innovator.^® Nevertheless, the author of “Don Quix- 
 ote” was thinking but his thinking was actuated by the more imme- 
 diate concerns of modern living. The father of “Sancho Panza,” tho 
 of his times, announces the present day sociologist. 
 
 Altho he says little of the leading institutions of his day( and 
 for a cause), it requires no rare penetration to discover what Cer- 
 vantes thought of the Spanish government and of the Romish Church. 
 Cervantes substitutes the native shrewdness of the unwashed Sancho 
 for the perverted statecraft of the gilded courtier. About the church, 
 unprogressive and parasitic, corrupt without hope of reform, “Don 
 Quixote” is reticent. Divided between his allegiance to the state 
 and his allegiance to the church, his interest and prejudices on one 
 side and his interests and superstitions on the other, Cervantes dis- 
 
 49. Cf. pp. 248-9 — Maurice Palgologrue’s Dante; Essai sur son caractfire 
 et son gremis, 3rd edition, Paris, 1909. 
 
 50. Cf. Castilian Days, pp. 47-48, by John Hay, quoted by C. F. Thwingr 
 in “Universities of the World” — The University of Madrid. The Mac- 
 millan Company, 1911. 
 
226 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 cerned that the church might not long remain the center of life in 
 Spain and that with the advent of modern science no enlightened 
 society (except perhaps in America) would again nucleate around a 
 religion. And it is a striking illustration of the intolerance of the 
 older generations for the progress and changing view point of the 
 new that Cervantes is not Spain’s national hero instead of “Don 
 Quixote.” But this was a delicate and burning question in Spain. 
 It is still arming the nations of the earth. So many of the things 
 that really matter and so many of the worthy aims of life are bound 
 up with this instituted superstition that it behooved the writer anc 
 thinker to proceed with caution. Cervantes did so; the fact that 
 his great work ignores the church as a Spanish institution proves how 
 much he discredited its pretenses. Only a survey of the literature 
 following “Don Quixote” shows how much of this old fustian he 
 brushed aside and how much more of it remains. . . . No; Cer- 
 
 vantes was not Dante, altho like Dante at unguarded moments. The 
 Spaniard holds a lower plane of idea, fortunately perhaps for the peo- 
 ple of Spain. Cervantes’ book was long the only source of homely 
 good, in a bigoted and dogmatic land. To this day it supplies the 
 average Spaniard with native sense and mother wit. And for this, 
 it could perhaps afford to hold nothing of the mental activity of its 
 age — its science, its invention, its industry, its trade, its history, its 
 knowledge, — and deal only with its book-Romance and its ruinous 
 social madness. 
 
 Withal the “Don Quixote” of Cervantes is not a universal 
 book altho its appeal is quite general. Like all the great books of 
 the world, it is essentially unmoral — ^so far as advocating any definite 
 system of living is concerned. Its materials are welded into an in- 
 strument intended to exhibit conduct struggling between character 
 and institutions. And it does this so effectively, so abundantly, and 
 with so keen a sense of the humor of a discredited nature, social and 
 physical, as to make it a matter of indifference to the average reader 
 that Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” did not compass the whole of mental 
 activity, the whole of social perversity, or the whole of natural stu- 
 pidity!. . . . 
 
 I conclude with a few helps on reading “Don Quixote.” They 
 may not come amiss; for, as this good book has it, — no wise struc- 
 ture can forever stand on a poor foundation. . . . 
 
 ^ « 
 
Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 227 
 
 — “Mas sabeel necio en su casa que el cuerdo en la agena.” 
 ... * “Don Quixote,” Vol. II, Ch. XLIII. 
 
 Ill 
 
 “DON QUIXOTE” should be read at thirty, says M. Mazel, 
 an omnivorous reader of France®^ in a curious book entitled “What 
 to read in a life time.” Cervantes should be read along with 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Calderon, Rabelais, Montaigne, Vol- 
 taire, Rousseau, Moses, and Plutarch. . . . These constitute his 
 
 second period of a reader’s life,^^ between the ages of twenty-five and 
 thirty-five ! 
 
 I cannot resist quoting^^ in M. Mazel’s simple French three 
 passages of more than passing felicity: i. He says of the book: 
 
 “Don Quichotte est un des chef s-d ’oeuvres de I’esprit humain ; I’enfant 
 y rit aux eclats, I’homme y sourit pensif; et le vieillard revient s’y 
 rechauffer en se frottant les mains.” 2. Of its language and its 
 ready mastery (for a Frenchman): “le text original est preferable 
 encore . . . ignorat-on I’espagnol . . . des le troisieme jour 
 
 on devinera presque tout, et des la fin du mois, on le lira couramment, 
 Faites-en I’experience vous- memes, si vous n’avez pas appris la langue 
 qu’il faut parler a Dieu” ! ! ! And of the greatest significance for the 
 average reader of “Don Quixote,” he then adds: 3. “L’oeuvre de 
 Cervantes est si lumineuse qu’on peut se dispenser de lire un de ces 
 guides critiques qui sont si utiles pour Dante, Goethe, et Shakes- 
 peare.” ... I am glad to have Monsieur Mazel’s corrobora- 
 tion in things so pertinent; and I hope that if the materials which 
 follow do not fit his texts to the letter, other wayfarers in the 
 Quixotic world will rise up, as in Dante, to bear witHness to my ob- 
 servations. 
 
 I. No one, I trust, approaches “Don Quixote” in the atti- 
 tude of mind requisite for the “Divine Comedy.” Each of these 
 masterpieces of literature was a man before it was a book, a life 
 before it was a monument, and a human soul before it was a national 
 asset! What I have said regarding “Don Quixote” must have re- 
 vealed as much; — a life allegiance and a life preparation, to meet a 
 life, — no less, is the requisite in the realm of great works. 
 
 * The fool knows more in his own house, you will agree, than the 
 wise man in another’s — Proverb 43 of Ormsby’s collection — Appendix I. 
 
 51. Henri Mazel, — Ce qu’ll faut lire dans sa vie, pp. 104 ff; Paris, Soc. 
 du Mercure de France, M. C. M. V. I. 
 
 52. Op. cit. — Index lists. 
 
 53. Op. cit. pp. 104 ff. 
 
228 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 2. I do not hesitate here to recognize two classes of people 
 in the world of books, — the reader and the student. The great hope 
 of writers like M. Mazel, — and often their one triumph, is to special- 
 ize a general reader and to throw upon his brow the burden of the 
 student. He will then read “Don Quixote” in the original and 
 will thank M. Mazel for having once heard of “the language of 
 the Gods.” 
 
 The student will find Ochoa’s,®^ all in Spanish, a handy one 
 volume edition. Personally, I prefer the David Nutt edition.^^ I 
 like to read “Don Quixote” in an edition to fit. . . . “There is,” 
 as Mr. Arnold Bennett says,^® “a distinct moral value in size.” . . . 
 Two generous tomes correctly edited — original text, good print, sub- 
 stantial paper — bespeak more adequately the personality of “Don 
 Quixote,” than any skilled volume of pigmy size. Nor do I favor a 
 graet edition in cheap array. The “Rivadeneyra”^'^ (Aribau, Mad- 
 rid, 1846), tho a national monument indispensable to the student of 
 Spanish literature, is not booked as it deserves. Its taste is wrong, 
 and its use is not inspiring in spite of its august scholarship! Nor 
 was the Rivadeneyra intended for the export trade like the Spanish 
 books of our own publishers. The Rivadeneyra is a national mis- 
 fortune, not a business crime. Our American houses, — caterers con- 
 fessedly to the South American market, have done little better^^ for 
 the reading people at their mercy in editions of the great ancestral 
 hero. Nor is it meet that I can lean more heavily than Burton 
 Holmes on the “Quixotics” of American business today 1 ^® If the 
 
 54 . (a) Don Quijote, Ochoa edition, with a prefatory essay (1852) on 
 
 Cervantes’ life and writings, pp. VI-XL, by George Ticknor, author of 
 the History of Spanish Literature, etc. . . . D. Appleton y Compania, 
 
 N. T., 1853. An American edition reprinted until the type is somewhat 
 worn; all in Spanish; one volumn, 12 mo., listed as No. 76 in Appendix 
 III, of Ormsby’s Translation (Crowell). 
 
 (b Another American edition, all in Spanish, in two volumes, is 
 that of Lee and Shepard, with the “Prdlogo” of Clemencin, — Notas his- 
 tdricas, grammdticales, y criticas, por la Academia Hspanola, — sur in- 
 dividuos de ndmero Pellicer, Arrieta, y Clemencin, — a rather noted Span- 
 ish commentator of the old school, Boston, 1867. Possibly a reprint of 
 Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1866. A convenient edition but little better than 
 other worn American editions. 
 
 55. T. y C. Constable, Edinburgo, Impresores de CAmara de su M!a- 
 
 jestad; David Nott, publishing editor. Londres, 1898. — This valuable 
 
 edition was prepared by two modern scholars, the late John Ormsby and 
 Mr. James Pitzmaurice-Kelly, who wrote the Introduction, pp. XV-LVIII. 
 — Menioned in the latter’s short History of Spanish Literature — Biblio- 
 graphical Appendix. 
 
 56. Mental Efficiency — Books, the Physical Side; P. 75, George H. 
 Doran Company, N. Y., 1911. 
 
 57. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, M. Rivadeneyra, publishing edi- 
 tor, with the assistance of the Scholars of Spain. Madrid, about 1864. — 
 Contains nearly 100 volumes in large 8mo size. 
 
 58. Cf. Ochoa, note 4a, P. IV., Advertencia (1865). 
 
 59. “With Burton Holmes — Thru the Land of Tomorrow,” pp. 11-12, 
 Ladies’ Home Journal, February, 1912. The Curtis Publishing Co., Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
229 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 somewhat archaic forms of the original hinder the student’s progress, 
 an edition for schools may prove a good introduction to this classic. 
 Parts of it have been carefully edited and annotated — the ever fasci- 
 nating story of Cervantes’ captivity among the Turks,®® and his won- 
 derful escape — quite authentic ; — the alert, opening chapters of the first 
 sally®^ — immortal chapters; and as much more is in promise as in 
 store.®2 American scholarship is on the wing. To the lull follow- 
 ing the initiative of Ticknor in Spanish, Longfellow and Norton in 
 Italian, and Lowell, also in the modern languages (it is odd to think 
 of these literary lights as professors in Harvard College) has suc- 
 ceeded an epoch of varied scholarship, of vast editorial undertakings,®^ 
 and of live, literary criticism. This intellectual production bids fair 
 to outlast the present day. The younger scholars, too, must forth to 
 their laurels; they crash into wide-open doors, according to a great 
 French savant,®^ but it is the American way, and they reach the 
 field.®® 
 
 The specialist, interested in sources and influences, fond of re- 
 search or controversy, and able to read several languages, will find 
 articles in the learned and popular periodicals of the literary world. 
 The work of the Italian Garrone is attracting attention. He has 
 taken “Don Quixote” for a series of studies of no little interest to 
 Italian and Spanish readers ; — ^while tracing its course to Italy he deftly 
 cleaves the lucid madness of Don Quixote from the murky wrath of 
 Orlando;®® in the work of a Paduan,®"^ he finds the delectable story 
 of the “Rival Asses,” strayed or stolen from Cervantes’ “Don 
 Quixote” (Part I) . . . on a brief excursion into Sicilian epic 
 
 poetry with Meli of Palermo, he meets Sancho now disciple of Vol- 
 taire.®^ . . . No, not all emprises could the great Manchegan exe- 
 
 60. El Cautivo, an Episode from “Don Quixote” (part I., Chs. 39-42), 
 edited for Schools by Eduardo Tolra y Pomes; D. Appleton & Co., 1905. 
 
 61. Selections from Don Quixote (more especially the “prolog-o” with 
 opening- chapters of Part I.; edited for collegres by Prof. J. D. M. Ford, 
 D. C. Heath & Co., 1909. 
 
 62. Part I of Don Quixote, long- promised by Professor Todd, is eag-erly 
 awaited. The “Noveljas Ejemplores” of Cervantes, are in the press. 
 
 63. Professor Ford, tireless editor and scholar, is at work on a Span- 
 ish-Eng-lish Etymolog-ical Dictionary, the first of its kind in American 
 Scholarship. 
 
 64. M. Paul Meyer, — Comptes Rendus, Romania, 1906, giving an esti- 
 mate of the work of our universities. 
 
 65: Cf. The Romanic Review (U. S. A.) in its fourth year; it de- 
 serves special mention not only for its important bibliographies, but 
 also for promising articles on Spanish and .Italian subjects. Published 
 by the Columbia University Press, New York. 
 
 66. “El Orlando Furioso” considerado como fuente del “Quijote,” by 
 Marco A. Garrone; La Espana Moderna, pp. 114-144. Madrid, March 1911. 
 
 67. “El Asno poema heroico-comico de Carlo Dottori y El Quijote,” 
 por M. A. Garrone; same review, pp. 60-73, August, 1911, 
 
 68. El “Don Quijote” Siciliano y el “Don Quijote” Espanol, por M. A, 
 Garrone; same review, pp. 132-158, September, 1911. The Sicilian title 
 is “Don Chisciotti e Sanciu Panza,” P. 135, foot-note. 
 
230 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 cute, nor be anticipated by him. Other times, other heroes of the 
 Quixotic Guest. New times require new chapters, and new mate- 
 rials are tempting. ... So thought Meli of Palermo. The world, 
 said Emerson, is always waiting f r its poet ; society, history shows, has 
 always hailed a new jester. America, leaning now on Sancho, now 
 on Quixote, is creating an immortal work on its “Mighty Hunter,” 
 like France her “Tartarian,” Mexico its “Don Peon,” or modern 
 Germany that “Hoch der Kaiser” king of Professor Knatschke’s! 
 
 3. M. Mazel is right. The way to make the acquaintance of 
 an author is to read him, in the original or in translation, — and with- 
 out commentary! But, curious readers, not wholly unsuspicious of 
 local allusions, and other “indiscretions,” will seek the counsel, or 
 the direction of those who, since its inception, have lived much with 
 a great classic. There are intimate recesses to a bo, ok; they open 
 only at the sesame of the elect. It is a pleasure, moreover, to ex- 
 change notes with writers who have visited the monuments of liter- 
 ature; — some have left us their impressions, others their wisdom; a 
 few have made discoveries, a fact, a thought, an overlooked detail, 
 things slight and light, but each a boon to the student. Amateurs 
 or artists, poets and musicians, scholars and explorers, seek a new 
 reality or open new vistas. Their humblest gift is worth having to 
 show the attitude of mind or the artistic spirit in which each has 
 communed with the genius of the great. But the introduction to a 
 great book should be private, and “Don Quixote” has had the suffrage 
 of a world of readers, and thinkers, and critics! “Don Quixote” should 
 be first read without vademecum, in the splendor of one’s best years, 
 in the privacy of one’s own mind. ... As when first seeing the 
 Alhambra, a talkative guide is hardly heard for the wonders offered 
 the eye, so is the reader too engrossed with Cervantes’ world to heed 
 cicerone, or critic. Yet, the time comes when you willingly fare over 
 your footsteps with a friendly help or a critic’s eye. You linger ab- 
 sorbed in each detail or scrutinize each learned remark. Many a 
 pilgrim to Cordoba has wandered thru its magic mosque, as thru a 
 maze of mottled arches and stained columns, only to issue forth 
 hungry for the tale of each bloody shadow in this coercive shrine. 
 
 . . . Then, the light of high noon dispels the alluring mist and 
 
 compels the genii of obscurity to yield the secrets of its architectural 
 charm. So with a great book; unless the commentary be seasonable 
 and reasonable, the forest may not be seen for the trees, the mirific 
 text for the notes, or the arabesques on the outer walls of the Cor- 
 dovan mosque for the medieval plaster of a bigot hand! 
 
231 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 But, if the student of “Don Quixote” may dispense with learned 
 commentators from Averrhors®^ to Clemencia, he may not wisely 
 eschew historians. It is essential that he know something of Spanish 
 society in the days of Cervantes to understand its power and glamor, 
 its economic order and national temper, its laws, institutions, and 
 customs. The fearless historian has laid low many a live bogey and 
 resurrected many a long dead truth. I have sought his aid in my 
 own work for the contrast between the book lore of XVI Century 
 Spain and the awful reality of the nation’s bloody sway. There is 
 no better way to test fact and fancy, the old insistence of romance 
 over reality, and the ethical nullity of Spanish letters when Cervantes 
 took up his pen. In these pages, as you know, I have often invoked 
 the help of Hume, and Kelly,"^® of Clarke,”^^ and of Lea. In them, 
 you will find, I suspect, the ultimate raison d’etre of “Don Quixote”! 
 Now, history is severe work. The reader who does not borrow his 
 opinions, but forms them for himself may yet care for good writing 
 outside of formal history. He will be unconsciously edified and 
 often refreshed in spirit, if he thirst for the best things, by those who 
 have left imperishable works on the hospitable margin of the mas- 
 ter’s canvas. We have the priceless essays of Woodberry, Ellis,*^^ 
 and Kelly'^^; the somewhat aged but large work of Schlegel and 
 Sismondi; of Philarete Chasles,'^^ and Puibusque'^® ; the reviews of 
 Merimee,'^'^ and Ste-Beuve; the able critiques of Morel-Fatio and 
 Martinenche, of Menendez y Pelayo, and Menendez Pidal ; the trans- 
 
 69. The XII. Century Cordovan commentator of Aristotle, named here 
 facetiously. 
 
 70. James Pitzmaurice-Kelly, A History of Spanish Literature, D. 
 Appleton and Company, New^ York and London, 1910. Ch. IX., pp. 227 ff., 
 interestingly discusses “Don Quixote” and its author. Cf. also the art. 
 Cervantes prepared by him in the recent edition of the Britannica (1911). 
 
 71. H. Butler Clarke, M.A., author of “Spanish Literature,” an ele- 
 mentary handbook, London, Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.; The Macmillan 
 Company, New York, 1893; — Cervantes, Ch. XIII. This work early directed 
 my attention to Spanish literature. His long awaited History of Spain, 
 completed before his death, has just been given to the public. 
 
 72. Cf. Great Writers. I — Cervantes, pp. 3-39. The McClure Co., N. 
 Y., M C M VII. This book contains a series of well-nourished essays by 
 Prof. G. E. Woodberry, of Columbia University, dean of American critics 
 and the father of many of our younger American scholars and writers. 
 
 73. For his excellent study of “Don Quixote,” cf. ch. VIII. Besides 
 the Introduction, Chapters II., III., and XVI., are the most thought-com- 
 pelling in this noteworthy book. Havelock Ellis: The Soul of Spain; 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston & New York, 1908. 
 
 74. Cf. note 70. 
 
 75. Chasles, Philarete, Works, Paris, 1847, — another entrancing critic 
 of the old school. 
 
 76. Puibusque, Adolphe de, Historei comparee des Litteratures Espag- 
 noles et Francaise; 2 vols., Paris, 1843. Old, of course, and written before 
 the “document took the place of endless argument.” 
 
 77. “Portraits Historiques et LittSraires” by Prosper Merim6e, art. 
 Cervantes (1826), pp. 1-55. Paris, Calmann L6vi. — Contains readable ma- 
 terials with interesting side-lights. Note especially what is said of the 
 “Buscapie” — a prospectus or “dodger” which Cervantes is said to have 
 gotten up “to get a footing” as it were, on the book-market (P. 33), and 
 which gave “Don Quixote” its vogue, according to M6rim§e. This “Bus- 
 capie” was once a thing eagerly sought and discussed by bibliophiles. 
 
232 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 lation of Ormsby'^^; the illustrations of Dore, and Vierge— to be sur- 
 passed only by Dulac, or some inspired “Cubist”; we have a drama 
 by Richepin,'^^ an opera by Massenet,*® the celebrated poems by Ros- 
 tand, an occasional lecture*^ a casual short story by a coy neophyte; 
 mount have been devoutedly followed, and no travel*^ is in vain in 
 — opinion, judgment, comment, poetry, music, art, what humble prism 
 is not aflame at a touch of the great light? The early haunts of 
 Cervantes are visited, the sierra explored, and the tracks of his lank 
 this dear land of the Romantic Guest! Withal the old and the new 
 linger side by side. A latter-day exploit of “Don Quixote,”** tho 
 a clever exposition of the most sordid traffic of the sentiments, is 
 only a modern version of the Quixotics of the old “Spanish Fraud.” 
 
 . . . And, as if to repeat history, a serial portion of the “Adven- 
 
 tures of Nick Carter” follows close in the same periodical after the^ 
 style of the first edition of “Don Quixote.” If not on a fool’s er- 
 rand in old Spain, the modern Don Quixote remains on the hacienda 
 of his ancestry; — a versatile American found him recently as “Don 
 Peon de Mexico”*^ — unaged and unchanged in the heart of the Sierra 
 Madre 1 
 
 I close with a page of memoranda — brief “Catalog of Ships” 
 that freight the burden of this great book: 
 
 Volume One 
 
 Don Quixote learns presently that matter exists, that a battle 
 is two-sided, in its victims, at least. He finds that Spanish maidens 
 do not wander about unaccompanied and in radiant virginity, up to 
 their eightieth year. Odd discovery, indeed, in the land of the “reja” 
 and of the “duegna” and still the home of chaperons and barred win- 
 dows! The ladies of the coach are certain that their noble rescuer 
 has learned his chivalry from a book; they cannot at once follow his 
 
 78. Cf. Title-page of this article (*). 
 
 79. Jean Richepin, — Don Quichotte; a la Com^die Frangaise, Oct. 16, 
 1905. Paris, Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1905. This delightful drama in 
 verses is full of the glee and go of the original. But M. Adophe Brisson, 
 — Portraits Intimes, Vol. II., Paris, 1896, — thinks that the play should 
 work out the philosophy of “Don Quixote” rather than its incidents. 
 
 80. “Don Quichotte,” an opera by Massenet, first given at the Casino 
 of Montecarlo, early in 1910. 
 
 81. “Don Quichotte, Sancho et Nous,” a lecture by M. Edmond Harau- 
 court, pp. 253-271, Journal de rUniversit§ des Annales, Paris, Feb. 25, 
 1909; with illustrations. 
 
 82. “Spanish Highways and Byways,” by Catherine Lee Bates; The 
 Macmillan Co., N. Y., M C M. 
 
 83. “Lapostrera Salida de Don Quixote,” by Luis Anton del Olmet, pp. 
 
 3-13, of “El Lector” — Magazine Mensuel de Cuentos Cortos, Ciudad de 
 Mejico, 1912. , 
 
 84. “Political Mexico Today,” by Frank Nason, in Tale Review, pp. 
 586-600, July, 1912. 
 
233 
 
 Don Quixote — A Book 
 
 meaning. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza show that when they 
 depend on the social habit for justice, and other living common places, 
 they are normal and sound. The goat herds do not understand 
 chivalry talk either. They stand amazed at the speech on the “Golden 
 Age.” The need of some acquaintance with the Italian Epics, to 
 understand “Don Quixote” now dawns upon the reader ; some knowl- 
 edge of the Italian Pastoral also is useful. The discourse on Arms 
 and Letters (Ch. XXXVIII) reveals that the famous autobiography 
 of the “Captive” (Chs. XXXIX — XLII), and the notable enchant- 
 ment of Don Quixote follow betimes among the lavished treasures 
 of the first part. The point of the pen is capped with the steel of 
 the sword; that all the institutions of peace are backed by the pro- 
 fession of arms! 
 
 Volume Two 
 
 The retrospective and introspective nature of the leisurely se- 
 quel of Cervantes leads to the suspicion that the spring of this mighty 
 work broke during the lapse of years. But the second part is nonethe- 
 less rich in materials. The reader will become conscious of a change 
 of social environment; he will now meet the rascals of high life. 
 There are indications that the polite society of Spain used bad oaths. 
 Don Quixote shows the hot temper of the Spaniard in evidence thru- 
 out his book; even our fearless knight is uncompromising, has not 
 the conciliating spirit of the true reformer. The poor vie with the 
 rich in the national thirst for power. Cervantes now turns to elegant 
 writing; he talks over, reviews, or recalls the tales he has told in his 
 first volume; but all his art cannot overcome the reader’s objection 
 to so much time, and ink, and copy, and energy spent in waiting for 
 inspiration. Then idleness breeds quarrels; Spanish punctiliousness 
 makes Cervantes disputatious — have priests a right to offend? But 
 this is dangerous ground for a layman, and particularly so for a 
 writer of mere literature. It is much safes to philosophize and 
 moralize than to inquire or criticize. Watch the puppet show (Ch. 
 XXVI) but don’t break the puppets! Watch your writing — ^watch 
 your manners — ^we are launched now on a veritable manual of good 
 breeding and of good government for the prospective mayor of Bara- 
 taria! The sin of digression — characteristic of part I is now cen- 
 sured in part II. Then come fine things on poverty; on usurped 
 titles; on eating; on the devil; on freedom; on omens. I might as 
 well have given another hundred pages to Sancho’s “Book of the 
 Courtier”! A pastoral entertainment interrupts the grave monitor 
 
234 
 
 The Quarterly Journal 
 
 who presently resumes on the fashions at court; on truth telling; on 
 love. Here, Cervantes comes to life again to spite Avellaneda! And 
 Don Quixote goes not to Saragossa; he spurs incontinent for Barce- 
 lona ! ! ! 
 
 But this spur to action is a mere will o’ the whisp ; a lucid mind 
 betokens a purposeful life and the old hero was trained in another 
 school. He plunges back into the madness of books. His dream of 
 chivalry is over ; he has exploded it, and himself with it ; but he can- 
 not live without a dream. The pastoral folly of the times is ready 
 to change the meddlesome knight into a sighing shepherd . . . 
 
 and Fate would have started him anew, had not merciful death vetoed 
 this new resolve.