DON QUIXOTE

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ceased to be, veritable entities to the popular imagination. There was no
occasion for him now to interpolate extraneous matter; nay, his readers
told him plainly that what they wanted of him was more Don Quixote and
more Sancho Panza, and not novels, tales, or digressions. To himself,
too, his creations had become realities, and he had become proud of them,
especially of Sancho. He began the Second Part, therefore, under very
different conditions, and the difference makes itself manifest at once.
Even in translation the style will be seen to be far easier, more
flowing, more natural, and more like that of a man sure of himself and of
his audience. Don Quixote and Sancho undergo a change also. In the First
Part, Don Quixote has no character or individuality whatever. He is
nothing more than a crazy representative of the sentiments of the
chivalry romances. In all that he says and does he is simply repeating
the lesson he has learned from his books; and therefore, it is absurd to
speak of him in the gushing strain of the sentimental critics when they
dilate upon his nobleness, disinterestedness, dauntless courage, and so
forth. It was the business of a knight-errant to right wrongs, redress