In the Second Part, Cervantes repeatedly reminds the reader, as if it was

a point upon which he was anxious there should be no mistake, that his

hero's madness is strictly confined to delusions on the subject of

chivalry, and that on every other subject he is discreto, one, in fact,

whose faculty of discernment is in perfect order. The advantage of this

is that he is enabled to make use of Don Quixote as a mouthpiece for his

own reflections, and so, without seeming to digress, allow himself the

relief of digression when he requires it, as freely as in a commonplace

book.

It is true the amount of individuality bestowed upon Don Quixote is not

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very great. There are some natural touches of character about him, such

as his mixture of irascibility and placability, and his curious affection

for Sancho together with his impatience of the squire's loquacity and

impertinence; but in the main, apart from his craze, he is little more

than a thoughtful, cultured gentleman, with instinctive good taste and a

great deal of shrewdness and originality of mind.

As to Sancho, it is plain, from the concluding words of the preface to

the First Part, that he was a favourite with his creator even before he

had been taken into favour by the public. An inferior genius, taking him

in hand a second time, would very likely have tried to improve him by

making him more comical, clever, amiable, or virtuous. But Cervantes was

too true an artist to spoil his work in this way. Sancho, when he

reappears, is the old Sancho with the old familiar features; but with a

difference; they have been brought out more distinctly, but at the same

time with a careful avoidance of anything like caricature; the outline

has been filled in where filling in was necessary, and, vivified by a few

touches of a master's hand, Sancho stands before us as he might in a

character portrait by Velazquez. He is a much more important and

prominent figure in the Second Part than in the First; indeed, it is his

matchless mendacity about Dulcinea that to a great extent supplies the

action of the story.

His development in this respect is as remarkable as in any other. In the

First Part he displays a great natural gift of lying. His lies are not of

the highly imaginative sort that liars in fiction commonly indulge in;

like Falstaff's, they resemble the father that begets them; they are

simple, homely, plump lies; plain working lies, in short. But in the

service of such a master as Don Quixote he develops rapidly, as we see

when he comes to palm off the three country wenches as Dulcinea and her

ladies in waiting. It is worth noticing how, flushed by his success in

this instance, he is tempted afterwards to try a flight beyond his powers

in his account of the journey on Clavileno.




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