Miguel de Cervantes

“ I am in the power of strangers; and if I did not know that they were Spaniards and gentlemen, the fear of that disgrace by which I am threatened would already have finished my life."
"Calm yourself, madam," replied Don Juan, "for the master of this sombrero is not dead, nor are you in a place where any increase to your misfortunes is to be dreaded. We think only of serving you, so far as our means will permit, even to the exposing our lives for your defence and succour. It would ill become us to suffer that the trust you have in the faith of Spaniards should be vain ”

“ The temperament of Cervantes was essentially sanguine. The portrait he draws in the preface to the novels, with the aquiline features, chestnut hair, smooth untroubled forehead, and bright cheerful eyes, is the very portrait of a sanguine man. Nothing that the managers might say could persuade him that the merits of his plays would not be recognised at last if they were only given a fair chance. The old soldier of the Spanish Salamis was bent on being the Aeschylus of Spain. He was to found a great national drama, based on the true principles of art, that was to be the envy of all nations ”

“ Cervantes was now at the height to which his ambition had all along aimed; he had no rival; for Lope de Vega was dead, and the literary kingdom of Spain was all his own. He was courted by the great; no strangers came to Madrid without making the writer of Don Quixote the first object of their inquiry; he reposed in honour, free from all calumny, in the bosom of his family. ”

“ The scorn of my radical friend did not prevent my copying the modest tablet on the wall:--
"Here was born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote. By his fame and his genius he belongs to the civilized world; by his cradle to Alcalá de Henares."
There is no doubt of the truth of the latter part of this inscription. Eight Spanish towns have claimed to have given birth to Cervantes, thus beating the blind Scian by one town; every one that can show on its church records the baptism of a child so called has made its claim. ”

“ This is a capital point, and one on which your common run of writers would be sure to blunder; but as for me I could not go wrong, for I have read the whole Roman ceremonial through, merely that I might be exact as to these dresses."
"But where do you suppose," said the other, "that our manager is to find purple robes for twelve cardinals?"
"If a single one is wanting," cried the poet, "I would as soon think of flying, as of letting my comedy be represented without it. Zounds! is the public to lose that magnificent spectacle! ”

“ Was it an unhappy life, that of Cervantes? His biographers all tell us that it was; but I must say I doubt it. It was a hard life, a life of poverty, of incessant struggle, of toil ill paid, of disappointment, but Cervantes carried within himself the antidote to all these evils. His was not one of those light natures that rise above adversity merely by virtue of their own buoyancy; it was in the fortitude of a high spirit that he was proof against it. It is impossible to conceive Cervantes giving way to despondency or prostrated by dejection. ”

“ Is not all this true, Andres my son? Didst thou not mark with what authority I commanded him, and with what humility he promised to do all I enjoined, specified, and required of him? Answer without hesitation; tell these gentlemen what took place, that they may see that it is as great an advantage as I say to have knights-errant abroad." "All that your worship has said is quite true," answered the lad; "but the end of the business turned out just the opposite of what your worship supposes." "How! the opposite?" said Don Quixote; "did not the clown pay thee then?" ”

“ What, then, is the secret of this unparalleled popularity, increasing year by year for well-nigh three centuries? One explanation, no doubt, is that of all the books in the world, "Don Quixote" is the most catholic. There is something in it for every sort of reader, young or old, sage or simple, high or low. As Cervantes himself says with a touch of pride, "It is thumbed and read and got by heart by people of all sorts; the children turn its leaves, the young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise it." ”

“ For his imagination was so wrought upon by the adventure he was going to accomplish, that it made him dream he had already reached the kingdom of Micomicon, and was engaged in combat with his enemy; and believing he was laying on the giant, he had given so many sword cuts to the skins that the whole room was full of wine. On seeing this the landlord was so enraged that he fell on Don Quixote, and with his clenched fist began to pummel him in such a way, that if Cardenio and the curate had not dragged him off, he would have brought the war of the giant to an end. ”

“ Having made her and her companions dance a little, he emphatically confirmed the encomiums bestowed on Preciosa; and putting his hand in his pocket he groped and rummaged about in it for a while, but at last drew his hand out empty, saying, "Upon my life I have not a doit. Give Preciosa a real, Doña Clara; I will give it you by and by."
"That is all very well, señor," the lady replied; "but where is the real to come from? Amongst us all we could not find a quarto to cross our hands with." ”

“ Don Antonio flew to the beaufet for some conserves, of which the lady ate a little; and having drunk a glass of water, and feeling somewhat refreshed, she said, "Sit down, Signors, and listen to my story."
The gentlemen seated themselves accordingly, and she, arranging herself on the bed, and covering her person with the folds of her mantle, suffered the veil which she had kept about her head to fall on her shoulders, thus giving her face to view, and exhibiting in it a lustre equal to that of the moon, rather of the sun itself, when displayed in all its splendour. ”

“ The pedigree of Cervantes is not without its bearing on "Don Quixote." A man who could look back upon an ancestry of genuine knights-errant extending from well-nigh the time of Pelayo to the siege of Granada was likely to have a strong feeling on the subject of the sham chivalry of the romances. It gives a point, too, to what he says in more than one place about families that have once been great and have tapered away until they have come to nothing, like a pyramid. ”

“ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the contemporary of Shakspeare, Galileo, Camoens, Rubens, Tasso, and Lope de Vega, was born obscurely and in poverty, but with good antecedents. His grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, was the corregidor, or mayor, of Ossuna, and our poet was the youngest son of Rodrigo and Leonora de Cortiños, of the Barajas family. On either side he belonged to illustrious houses. He speaks of his birthplace xxii as the "famous Henares,"—"Alcala de Henares," sometimes called Alcala de San Justo, from the saint San Justo having there suffered martyrdom under the traitor Daciamos. ”

“ Being asked if she could recognise the man to whom she had given the infant, she replied that she could not; but that when she had asked if he were Fabio, he had answered "yes," and that she had entrusted the babe to his care in the faith of that reply.
"All this is true," returned Don Juan; "and you furthermore bade me deposit the child in a place of security, and instantly return."
"I did so," replied the waiting-woman, weeping. But the duke exclaimed, "We will have no more tears; all is gladness and joy. I will not now enter Ferrara, but return at once to Bologna ”

“ No adventures more strange were encountered by any knight-errant. Not Amadis nor Esplandian, nor any of those whose fabled deeds had kindled his youthful imagination, displayed a loftier spirit of honour, or more worthily discharged his knightly devoir, than did Miguel de Cervantes when in duress in Algiers. A slave in the power of the bitter enemy of his creed and nation, cut off in the heyday of his fame from the path of ambition which fortune seemed to have opened to him; no lot could be more cruel than that which, in the fulness of his manhood and genius, fell to his share. ”

“ PREFACE. THREE hundred years ago this month the First Part of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha was published in Madrid, and the world was made the richer by a book which will last until “the silver chord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken”; until the earth relapses into its original silence and language is no more spoken or read. It is somewhat late to weave new laurels for the brow of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra—the last word on Don Quixote has been spoken. ”

“ The moment he said this the governor started to his feet, and seizing the chair he had been sitting on exclaimed, "By all that's good, you ill-bred, boorish Don Bumpkin, if you don't get out of this at once and hide yourself from my sight, I'll lay your head open with this chair. You whoreson rascal, you devil's own painter, and is it at this hour you come to ask me for six hundred ducats! How should I have them, you stinking brute? And why should I give them to you if I had them, you knave and blockhead? What have I to do with Miguelturra or the whole family of the Perlerines? ”

“ What Cervantes thought of Philip as a man and a ruler we can only conjecture. Twelve years after, in 1598, when the life of this monster of cruel bigotry had come to an end, and pompous funeral rites were everywhere being celebrated, we find Cervantes standing in the cathedral of Seville gazing on the astounding catafalque raised in honour of the deceased, and reciting with a roguish air that famous sonnet of his, beginning, "I vow to God this grandeur stuns my brain!" ”

“ The lads were both much burned by the sun, their hands were anything but clean, and their long nails were edged with black; one had a dudgeon-dagger by his side; the other a knife with a yellow handle.
These gentlemen had selected for their siesta the porch or penthouse commonly found before a Venta; and, finding themselves opposite each other, he who appeared to be the elder said to the younger, "Of what country is your worship, noble Sir, and by what road do you propose to travel?" "What is my country, Señor Cavalier," returned the other, "I know not; nor yet which way my road lies." ”

“ And what did I get my living by but by them?" "Now am I fully convinced," said Don Quixote, "of what I had many a time before believed; that the enchanters who persecute me do nothing more than put figures like these before my eyes, and then change and turn them into what they please. In truth and earnest, I assure you gentlemen who now hear me, that to me everything that has taken place here seemed to take place literally, that Melisendra was Melisendra, Don Gaiferos Don Gaiferos, Marsilio Marsilio, and Charlemagne Charlemagne. ”

“ But for them, there can be no doubt, “Don Quixote” would have come to us a mere torso instead of a complete work. Even if Cervantes had finished the volume he had in hand, most assuredly he would have left off with a promise of a Third Part, giving the further adventures of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza as shepherds. It is plain that he had at one time an intention of dealing with the pastoral romances as he had dealt with the books of chivalry, and but for Avellaneda he would have tried to carry it out. ”

“ I can't tell what I can earn with your worship, though I know a knight-errant's squire has harder times of it than he who works for a farmer; for after all, we who work for farmers, however much we toil all day, at the worst, at night, we have our olla supper and sleep in a bed, which I have not slept in since I have been in your worship's service, if it wasn't the short time we were in Don Diego de Miranda's house, and the feast I had with the skimmings I took off Camacho's pots, and what I ate, drank, and slept in Basilio's house ”

“ O honour and mirror of the Spanish nation! may God Almighty in his infinite power grant that any person or persons, who would impede or hinder thy third sally, may find no way out of the labyrinth of their schemes, nor ever accomplish what they most desire!" And then, turning to the housekeeper, he said, "Mistress housekeeper may just as well give over saying the prayer of Santa Apollonia, for I know it is the positive determination of the spheres that Senor Don Quixote shall proceed to put into execution his new and lofty designs ”

“ But on the curate observing that it was the books of chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had turned his brain, the landlord said:
"I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is no better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them, with other writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of plenty more ”

“ However, tell this good man to come in; but take care first of all that he is not some spy or one of my assassins."
"No, my lord," said the page, "for he looks like a simple fellow, and either I know very little or he is as good as good bread."
"There is nothing to be afraid of," said the majordomo, "for we are all here."
"Would it be possible, carver," said Sancho, "now that Doctor Pedro Recio is not here, to let me eat something solid and substantial, if it were even a piece of bread and an onion?" ”

“ The canon and his servants were surprised anew when they heard Don Quixote's strange story, and when it was finished he said, "To tell the truth, senor curate, I for my part consider what they call books of chivalry to be mischievous to the State; and though, led by idle and false taste, I have read the beginnings of almost all that have been printed, I never could manage to read any one of them from beginning to end; for it seems to me they are all more or less the same thing; and one has nothing more in it than another ”