DON QUIXOTE

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a knight, he seems to me deliberately to pass it over in silence; which
is ill done and worse contrived, for it is the business and duty of
historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from passion, and
neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make them swerve from
the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, storehouse of
deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and
warning for the future. In this I know will be found all that can be
desired in the pleasantest, and if it be wanting in any good quality, I
maintain it is the fault of its hound of an author and not the fault of
the subject. To be brief, its Second Part, according to the translation,
began in this way:

With trenchant swords upraised and poised on high, it seemed as though
the two valiant and wrathful combatants stood threatening heaven, and
earth, and hell, with such resolution and determination did they bear
themselves. The fiery Biscayan was the first to strike a blow, which was
delivered with such force and fury that had not the sword turned in its