But if Don Quixote had been so pure and sincere a Christian as ingenuous readers have believed, he would not have needed the camouflage of chivalry. He might just as well have dedicated himself to God and to the Poor (God’s other name) without helmet and lance. He might even have stayed in Argamasilla. He might have spent himself, with a martyr’s humility, in the service of those who suffer; he might have remedied injustice; he might have filled simple hearts with a renewing emotion. Instead of imitating knights-errant, he might have imitated the saints who brought salvation. Others had trod this path before his time. They had followed a model, and in their following they had been great and sad. St. Francis, who resolved to imitate Jesus, and willed to imitate him even in the wounds of his hands and his feet, was a purer Don Quixote. Rienzi, whose soul was fired with the reading of Roman history, who dreamed of being the consul of a new republic, was another Don Quixote, more unfortunate, but more authentic. And other great men, like these two, have been exalted by the examples of the past, and have given life and strength without reserve, resplendent even in defeat.
But Don Quixote is more modest and less serious. He is an artist, a charlatan. There are certain elements of sincerity in his behavior: he would really like to be something of a warrior,
