If we could have asked Cervantes what the moral of Don Quixote was to
his own mind, he would have told us perhaps that it was this: that the
force of idealism is wasted when it does not recognize the reality of
things. Neglect of the facts of daily life made the absurdity of the
romances of chivalry and of the enterprise of Don Quixote. What is
needed is not, of course, that idealism should be surrendered, either
in literature or in life; but that in both it should be made
efficacious by a better adjustment to the reality it would transform.

Something of this kind would have been, we may believe, Cervantes's
own reading of his parable. But when parables are such direct and full
transcripts of life as is the story of Don Quixote, they offer almost
as much occasion for diversity of interpretation as does the personal
experience of men in the world. That the moral of Don Quixote should
be doubtful and that each man should be tempted to see in it the
expression of his own convictions, is after all the greatest possible
encomium of the book. For we may infer that the truth has been
rendered in it, and that men may return to it always, as to Nature
herself, to renew their theories or to forget them, and to refresh
their fancy with the spectacle of a living world.

[Signature: G. Santayana]

TREATING OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF DON QUIXOTE

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, and 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), alt