bols of whatsoever he chooses, even of the most abstract terms. But in this case it is the book that is lending its names to the speculative dreamer; the man is not interpreting the book. We must endeavor to see Don Quixote as he is, and not regard him as an empty lantern in which we may put any candle that we choose, to give light to those that wander.
I cannot even see the literal Don Quixote as the mystics see him. He is not single-minded and disinterested enough for a supreme incarnation of idealism. He is by no means the Christian altruist that he is made out to be.
If he seeks to cast down the strong and to defend the weak, it is simply because that is the tradition handed down in the tales of knightly deeds. He is an imitator. He has before him a whole gallery of models. If Amadis had been pitiless and unfaithful, he too would have been pitiless and unfaithful. He is vain and proud, he thinks constantly of earthly glory,[1] he aspires to material conquests, he is capable of fictitious inventions.[2]
Nor can Sancho Panza be fairly regarded as the representative of common sense and materialism. Sancho has more actual belief than Don Quixote. Don Quixote believes (or professes to
- ↑ Instances in Part I, Chapters I and V, and Part II, Chapters V and XXXIX.
- ↑ With regard to the Cave of Montesinos “he said that he had invented it because it seemed to him in keeping with matters that he had read in his romances”: Part II, Chapter XXIV.
