own
ignorance, use to condemn with more rigour and less justice the writings
of others. It is my earnest hope that Your Excellency's good counsel in
regard to my honourable purpose, will not disdain the littleness of so
humble a service.

Miguel de Cervantes

CHAPTER I.

WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN DON
QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to
mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance
in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for
coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most
nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra
on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it
went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match
for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best
homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under
twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the
hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours
was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a
very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was
Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among
the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable
conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is
of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a
hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at
leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading
books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely
neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his
property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that
he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and
brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none
he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition,
for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in
his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and
cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason
with which my reason is