Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (ebook reader browser .TXT) 📗

Might overcomes.

Him to whom God giveth may St. Peter bless.

Diligence is the mother of success, and in many important causes experience hath shown that the assiduity of the solicitor hath brought a very doubtful suit to a very fortunate issue; but the truth of this maxim is nowhere more evinced than in war, where activity and despatch anticipate the designs of the enemy, and obtain the victory before he has time to put himself in a posture of defence.

The common adage that delays are dangerous acts as spurs upon the resolution.

There are more tricks in the town than are dreamt of.

Virtue is always more persecuted by the wicked than beloved by the righteous.

Virtue is so powerful that of herself she will, in spite of all the necromancy possessed by the first inventor, Zoroaster, come off conqueror in every severe trial, and shine refulgent in the world, as the sun shines in the heavens.

87 Fables should not be composed to outrage the understanding; but by making the wonderful appear possible, and creating in the mind a pleasing interest, they may both surprise and entertain; which cannot be effected where no regard is paid to probability. I have never yet found a regular, well-connected fable in any of our books of chivalry—they are all inconsistent and monstrous; the style is generally bad; and they abound with incredible exploits, lascivious amours, absurd sentiment, and miraculous adventures; in short, they should be banished every Christian country.

Just are virtue's fears where envy domineers.

Bounty will not stay where niggards bear the sway.

Fortune turns faster than a mill-wheel, and those who were yesterday at top, may find themselves at bottom to-day.

Every one is the son of his own works.

The mind receives pleasure from the beauty and consistency of what is presented to the imagination, not from that which is incongruous and unnatural.

Fiction is always the better the nearer it resembles truth, and agreeable in proportion to the probability it bears and the doubtful credit which it inspires. Wherefore, all such fables ought to be suited to the understanding of those who read them, and written so as 88 that, by softening impossibilities, smoothing what is rough, and keeping the mind in suspense, they may surprise, agreeably perplex, and entertain, creating equal admiration and delight; and these never can be excited by authors who forsake probability and imitation, in which the perfection of writing consists.

Epics may be written in prose as well as verse.

To assert that there never was an Amadis in the world, nor any other of the knights-adventurers of whom so many records remain, is to say that the sun does not enlighten, the frost produce cold, nor the earth yield sustenance.

The approbation of the judicious few should far outweigh** the censure of the ignorant.

An author had better be applauded by the few that are wise, than laughed at by the many that are foolish.

Our modern plays, not only those which are formed upon fiction, but likewise such as are founded on the truth of history, are all, or the greatest part, universally known to be monstrous productions, without either head or tail, and yet received with pleasure by the multitude, who approve and esteem them as excellent performances, though they are far from deserving that title; and if the authors who compose, and the actors who represent them, affirm that this and no other method is to be practised, because the multitude must be pleased; that 89 those which bear the marks of contrivance, and produce a fable digested according to the rules of art, serve only for entertainment to four or five people of taste, who discern the beauties of the plan, which utterly escape the rest of the audience; and that it is better for them to gain a comfortable livelihood by the many, than starve upon reputation with the few; at this rate, said I, if I should finish my book, after having scorched every hair in my whiskers in poring over it, to preserve those rules and precepts already mentioned, I might fare at last like the sagacious botcher, who sewed for nothing and found his customers in thread.

It is not a sufficient excuse to say that the object in permitting theatrical exhibitions being chiefly to provide innocent recreation for the people, it is unnecessary to limit and restrain the dramatic author within strict rules of composition; for I affirm that the same object is, beyond all comparison, more effectually attained by legitimate works. The spectator of a good drama is amused, admonished, and improved by what is diverting, affecting, and moral in the representation; he is cautioned against deceit, corrected by example, incensed against vice, stimulated to the love of virtue.

Comedy, according to Tully, ought to be the mirror of life, the exemplar of manners, and picture of truth; whereas those that are represented in this age are mirrors of absurdity, exemplars of folly, and pictures of lewdness; for sure, nothing can be more absurd in a dramatic performance, than to see the person, who, in 90 the first scene of the first act, was produced a child in swaddling-clothes, appear a full-grown man with a beard in the second; or to represent an old man active and valiant, a young soldier cowardly, a footman eloquent, a page a counsellor, a king a porter, and a princess a scullion. Then what shall we say concerning their management of the time and place in which the actions have, or may be supposed to have happened? I have seen a comedy, the first act of which was laid in Europe, the second in Asia, and the third was finished in Africa; nay, had there been a fourth, the scene would have shifted to America, so that the fable would have travelled through all the four divisions of the globe. If imitation be the chief aim of comedy, how can any ordinary understanding be satisfied with seeing an action that passed in the time of King Pepin and Charlemagne, ascribed to the Emperor Heraclius, who, being the principal personage, is represented, like Godfrey of Boulogne, carrying the cross into Jerusalem, and making himself master of the holy sepulchre, an infinite number of years having passed between the one and the other? Or, when a comedy is founded upon fiction, to see scraps of real history introduced, and facts misrepresented both with regard to persons and times, not with any ingenuity of contrivance, but with the most manifest and