DON QUIXOTE

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yourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and though
the imposition may be plain to see, because you have so little need to
borrow from them, that is no matter; there will probably be some simple
enough to believe that you have made use of them all in this plain,
artless story of yours. At any rate, if it answers no other purpose, this
long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look of
authority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to verify
whether you have followed them or whether you have not, being no way
concerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours has
no need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, from
beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of which
Aristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had any
knowledge; nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of astrology
come within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have geometrical
measurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything to
do with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things human
and divine, a sort of motley in which no Christian understanding should