DON QUIXOTE

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"Item, I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy
chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have
written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the
Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf
as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending
it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he
has written in it; for I am leaving the world with a feeling of
compunction at having provoked him to write them."

With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he
stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter
and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after
that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was
all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and
Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or
softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be
expected to leave behind him.