Part 14 (2/2)

”Out of the city!” answered Sancho; ”are your wors.h.i.+p's eyes in the nape of your neck, that you do not see them now before you, s.h.i.+ning like the sun at noon-day?”

”I see only three country girls,” answered Don Quixote, ”on three a.s.ses.”

”Now, Heaven keep me from the devil,” answered Sancho; ”is it possible that three palfreys, or how do you call them, white as the driven snow, should look to you like a.s.ses? As the Lord liveth, you shall pluck off this beard of mine if it be so.”

”I tell thee, friend Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, ”that it is as certain they are a.s.ses, as that I am Don Quixote and thou Sancho Panza;--at least, so they seem to me.”

”Sir,” quoth Sancho, ”say not such a thing; but snuff those eyes of yours, and come and pay reverence to the mistress of your soul.” So saying he advanced forward to meet the peasant girls, and, alighting from Dapple, he laid hold of one of their a.s.ses by the halter, and bending both knees to the ground, said to the girl: ”Queen, princess, and d.u.c.h.ess of beauty, let your haughtiness and greatness be pleased to receive into grace and good-liking your captive knight, who stands turned there into stone, all disorder, and without any pulse, to find himself before your magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he is that way-worn knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure.”

It is not courage, but rashness, for one man singly to encounter an army, where death is present, and where emperors fight in person, a.s.sisted by good and bad angels.

Good Christians should never revenge injuries.

A sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing.

At the conclusion of this drama of life, death strips us of the robes which make the difference between man and man, and leaves us all on one level in the grave.

From a friend to a friend,[7] etc.

Nor let it be taken amiss that any comparison should be made between the mutual cordiality of animals and that of men; for much useful knowledge and many salutary precepts have been taught by the brute creation.

We may learn grat.i.tude as well as vigilance from cranes, foresight from ants, modesty from elephants, and loyalty from horses.

Harken, and we shall discover his thoughts by his song, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.[8]

SONNET.

Bright auth.o.r.ess of my good or ill, Prescribe the law I must observe; My heart, obedient to thy will, Shall never from its duty swerve.

If you refuse my griefs to know, The stifled anguish seals my fate; But if your ears would drink my woe, Love shall himself the tale relate.

Though contraries my heart compose, Hard as the diamond's solid frame, And soft as yielding wax that flows, To thee, my fair, 'tis still the same.

Take it, for every stamp prepared; Imprint what characters you choose; The faithful tablet, soft or hard, The dear impression ne'er shall lose.

The sorrows that may arise from well-placed affections, ought rather to be accounted blessings than calamities.

Good fare lessens care.

The rarest sporting is that we find at other people's cost.

Covetousness bursts the bag.

Other folk's burdens break the a.s.s's back.

There is no road so smooth but it has its stumbling-places.

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