the driven snow,
should look to you like asses? As the Lord liveth, you shall pluck off
this beard of mine if it be so."

"I tell thee, friend Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "that it is as
certain they are asses, as that I am Don Quixote and thou Sancho
Panza;--at least, so they seem to me."

"Sir," quoth Sancho, "say not such a thing; but snuff those eyes of
yours, and come and pay reverence to the mistress of your soul." So
saying he advanced forward to meet the peasant girls, and, alighting
from Dapple, he laid hold of one of their asses by the halter, and
bending both knees to the ground, said to the girl: "Queen, princess,
and duchess of beauty, let your haughtiness and greatness be pleased to
receive into grace and good-liking your captive knight, who stands
turned there into stone, all disorder, and without any pulse, to find
himself before your magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire,
and he is that way-worn knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, otherwise
called the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure."

It is not courage, but rashness, for one man singly to
encounter an army, where death is present, and where
emperors fight in person, assisted by good and bad angels.

Good Christians should never revenge injuries.

A sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing.

At the conclusion of this drama of life, death strips us of
the robes which make the difference between man and man, and
leaves us all on one level in the grave.

From a friend to a friend,[7] etc.

Nor let it be taken amiss that any comparison should be made
between the mutual cordiality of animals and that of men;
for much useful knowledge and many salutary precepts have
been taught by the brute creation.

We may learn gratitude as well as vigilance from cranes,
foresight from ants, modesty from elephants, and loyalty
from horses.

Harken, and we shall discover his thoughts by his song, for
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.[8]

SONNET.

Bright authoress of my good or ill,
Prescribe the law I must observe;
My heart, obedient to thy will,
Shall never from its duty swerve.

If you refuse my griefs to know,
The stifled anguish seals my fate;
But if your ears would drink my woe,
Love shall himself the tale relate.

Though contraries my heart compose,
Hard as the diamond's solid frame,
And soft as yielding wax that flows,