He is not the merely technical gentleman of three descents--but the
_true_ gentleman, such a gentleman as only purity, disinterestedness,
generosity, and fear of God can make. And with what consummate skill are
the boundaries of his mania drawn! He only believes in enchantment just
so far as is necessary to account to Sancho and himself for the ill
event of all his exploits. He always reasons rightly, as madmen do, from
his own premises. And this is the reason I object to Cervantes's
treatment of him in the second part--which followed the other after an
interval of nearly eight years. For, except in so far as they delude
themselves, monomaniacs are as sane as other people, and besides
shocking our feelings, the tricks played on the Don at the Duke's castle
are so transparent that he could never have been taken in by them.
Don Quixote is the everlasting type of the disappointment which sooner
or later always overtakes the man who attempts to accomplish ideal good
by material means. Sancho, on the other hand, with his proverbs, is the
type of the man with common sense. He always sees things in the daylight
of reason. He is never taken in by his master's theory of
enchanters,--although superstitious enough to believe such things
possible,--but he _does_ believe, despite all reverses, in his promises
of material prosperity and advancement.
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