DON QUIXOTE

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I tell you, as I do, that I am one of those knights who, as people say,
go seeking adventures. I have left my home, I have mortgaged my estate, I
have given up my comforts, and committed myself to the arms of Fortune,
to bear me whithersoever she may please. My desire was to bring to life
again knight-errantry, now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here,
falling there, now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again, I
have carried out a great portion of my design, succouring widows,
protecting maidens, and giving aid to wives, orphans, and minors, the
proper and natural duty of knights-errant; and, therefore, because of my
many valiant and Christian achievements, I have been already found worthy
to make my way in print to well-nigh all, or most, of the nations of the
earth. Thirty thousand volumes of my history have been printed, and it is
on the high-road to be printed thirty thousand thousands of times, if
heaven does not put a stop to it. In short, to sum up all in a few words,
or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha,
otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;' for though
self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is