FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84  
85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   >>  
Villalpando's elements of logic; so if that be all, you may safely tell me what you please." "In God's name, then, senor," replied Don Quixote; "if that be so, I would have you know that I am held enchanted in this cage by the envy and fraud of wicked enchanters; for virtue is more persecuted by the wicked than loved by the good. I am a knight-errant, and not one of those whose names Fame has never thought of immortalising in her record, but of those who, in defiance and in spite of envy itself, and all the magicians that Persia, or Brahmans that India, or Gymnosophists that Ethiopia ever produced, will place their names in the temple of immortality, to serve as examples and patterns for ages to come, whereby knights-errant may see the footsteps in which they must tread if they would attain the summit and crowning point of honour in arms." "What Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha says," observed the curate, "is the truth; for he goes enchanted in this cart, not from any fault or sins of his, but because of the malevolence of those to whom virtue is odious and valour hateful. This, senor, is the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if you have ever heard him named, whose valiant achievements and mighty deeds shall be written on lasting brass and imperishable marble, notwithstanding all the efforts of envy to obscure them and malice to hide them." When the canon heard both the prisoner and the man who was at liberty talk in such a strain he was ready to cross himself in his astonishment, and could not make out what had befallen him; and all his attendants were in the same state of amazement. At this point Sancho Panza, who had drawn near to hear the conversation, said, in order to make everything plain, "Well, sirs, you may like or dislike what I am going to say, but the fact of the matter is, my master, Don Quixote, is just as much enchanted as my mother. He is in his full senses, he eats and he drinks, and he has his calls like other men and as he had yesterday, before they caged him. And if that's the case, what do they mean by wanting me to believe that he is enchanted? For I have heard many a one say that enchanted people neither eat, nor sleep, nor talk; and my master, if you don't stop him, will talk more than thirty lawyers." Then turning to the curate he exclaimed, "Ah, senor curate, senor curate! do you think I don't know you? Do you think I don't guess and see the drift of these new enchantments? Well then, I c
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84  
85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   >>  



Top keywords:
enchanted
 

curate

 

Quixote

 

master

 

virtue

 

wicked

 
errant
 
amazement
 

conversation

 
enchantments

Sancho

 

liberty

 
prisoner
 

malice

 

strain

 

befallen

 

attendants

 

astonishment

 
people
 
wanting

thirty

 

turning

 
exclaimed
 
lawyers
 

mother

 

matter

 

dislike

 
senses
 

yesterday

 

drinks


Brahmans

 

Gymnosophists

 

Ethiopia

 

Persia

 
magicians
 

record

 
defiance
 

produced

 
knights
 

patterns


examples

 

temple

 

immortality

 
immortalising
 

replied

 

Villalpando

 

elements

 

safely

 

knight

 
thought