It is true that to do full justice to Spanish humour in any other

language is well-nigh an impossibility. There is a natural gravity and a

sonorous stateliness about Spanish, be it ever so colloquial, that make

an absurdity doubly absurd, and give plausibility to the most

preposterous statement. This is what makes Sancho Panza's drollery the

despair of the conscientious translator. Sancho's curt comments can never

fall flat, but they lose half their flavour when transferred from their

native Castilian into any other medium. But if foreigners have failed to

do justice to the humour of Cervantes, they are no worse than his own

countrymen. Indeed, were it not for the Spanish peasant's relish of "Don

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Quixote," one might be tempted to think that the great humourist was not

looked upon as a humourist at all in his own country.

The craze of Don Quixote seems, in some instances, to have communicated

itself to his critics, making them see things that are not in the book

and run full tilt at phantoms that have no existence save in their own

imaginations. Like a good many critics now-a-days, they forget that

screams are not criticism, and that it is only vulgar tastes that are

influenced by strings of superlatives, three-piled hyperboles, and

pompous epithets. But what strikes one as particularly strange is that

while they deal in extravagant eulogies, and ascribe all manner of

imaginary ideas and qualities to Cervantes, they show no perception of

the quality that ninety-nine out of a hundred of his readers would rate

highest in him, and hold to be the one that raises him above all rivalry.

To speak of "Don Quixote" as if it were merely a humorous book would be a

manifest misdescription. Cervantes at times makes it a kind of

commonplace book for occasional essays and criticisms, or for the

observations and reflections and gathered wisdom of a long and stirring

life. It is a mine of shrewd observation on mankind and human nature.

Among modern novels there may be, here and there, more elaborate studies

of character, but there is no book richer in individualised character.

What Coleridge said of Shakespeare in minimis is true of Cervantes; he

never, even for the most temporary purpose, puts forward a lay figure.

There is life and individuality in all his characters, however little

they may have to do, or however short a time they may be before the

reader. Samson Carrasco, the curate, Teresa Panza, Altisidora, even the

two students met on the road to the cave of Montesinos, all live and move

and have their being; and it is characteristic of the broad humanity of

Cervantes that there is not a hateful one among them all. Even poor

Maritornes, with her deplorable morals, has a kind heart of her own and

"some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her;" and as for

Sancho, though on dissection we fail to find a lovable trait in him,

unless it be a sort of dog-like affection for his master, who is there

that in his heart does not love him?




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