The Portland daily press., 1879-06-10
Don Ouixote.

This was the first book read after l had
reached the age of intelligence, and had suffi-
GENTLY mastered my letters. can still vividly
recall that childish time when I stole away
from the house in the early morning, and ran
off to the Castle Garden, to read ''Don Quix-
ote" there, without fear of interruption. 1t
was beautiful May day, and the blossoming
spring lay listening in the morning light to the
nightingale, its sweet flatterer, who was sing
ing to it hymn of praise in tones so caressing-
ly soft, and with such fond enthusiasm, that
the most timid buds burst into blossom, and
the gay grass plots were kissed more fervidly
by the sunbeams, and trees and flowers trem-
bled for very JOY seated myself on an old
moss-grown bench in the so-called 'Sighing
avenue" near the waterfall. My young heart
found delight in the wonderful adventures of
the brave knight. In my childish honesty of
SOUL took everything for sober reality. How
ever ludicrous the pranks that fortune played
the poor hero, L imagined that it must necessa-
rily be so; that to be scoffed at was the fate of
heroism as well as to receive bodily wounds,
and the former vexed me as sorely as the latter
moved me to pity. L was a child, and knew
nothing of the happy irony which God had
interviewer in the web of life, and which the
great Cervantes had initiated in the world of
his own creation. 1 could have shed bitterest
tears when the noble knight received nothing
but ingratitude and blows for all his chivalry.
And as l was but little practised in the art of
reading, and had to pronounce the words aloud,
so that the birds and the trees, the streamlet
and the flowers, could hear it all, and as they,
like children are ignorant of the irony of the
world, they, too, must have taken it for sober
earnest, for they wept with me over the suffer-
ings of the poor knight. An old spreading oak
tree actually sobbed aloud, the waterfall shook
vehemently its gray beard, and seemed to rail
at the baSeneSS of the world. We, at least, felt
that the chivalrouS ardor of the knight was moi
the less deserving of admiration because the
lion turned his back upon him and refused the
combat, and that his achievements were the
more worthy of honor in proportion as his body
was frail and withered, his armor rusty, and
his steed reduced to skin and bone. We de-
spised the low-born mob that treated our poor
knight with such brutal blows; but still more
did we despise the high-born mobiles in their
gay satin cloaks, with their courtly phrases,
and their ducal titles, who jeered at one infin-
itely their superior in chivalry and grandeur of
soul. Dulcineas knight rose ever higher in my
esteem and gained ever more of my affection
the longer 1 read in that wonderful book,
which, indeed, 1 continued to do daily in that
same garden, so that by autumn had reached
the end of the history. Never shall 1 forget
the day when came to read of the woful COM
bat wherein the knight was so ANONYMOUSLY
vanquished. 1t was dismal day; dark, heavy
clouds sped across the sky, the yellow leaves
were falling mournfully from the trees, heavy
toardrops hung from the last flowers, whose
withered, dying heads dropped sadly; the
nightingales had long since ended their song;
on all sides images of decay were staring at me
and my heart almost broke as 1 read how the
noble knight, stunned and bruised, lay
stretched on the ground, and how, without
raising his visor, he said to his victor in voice
so weak and faint that it seemed to come from
the grave, ''Dulcinea is the fairest lady in the
world, and am the most unhappy of knights
but it becomes not that my weakness should
belle the truth-strike home with thy lance
sir knight" Alas the dazzling knight of the
White Moon, who overcame the bravest and
noblest man on earth, was only barber.-
Heinrich Heine.