may have reason to believe himself to be what he claims to be. They think him their fool, but they are the slaves of his fooleries.
But this makes little difference. Even from the point of view of that moment and that milieu, there is so much that is improbable in the story of the Manchegan that we cannot reasonably believe that Cervantes really meant to exterminate the absurdities of chivalry in the name of a new realism which, in the last analysis, is but partial and sporadic. Those who hold such an opinion have not reached even the understanding of the letter, and there is little hope of bringing them to admit the probability of other meanings.
Equally wide of the mark are those who see or seek some symbolism in Cervantes’ novel. The most frequent of these symbolistic errors, due to the fatuous desire for profundity, is the worn-out legend that the Don Quixote is a modernized version of the mediæval theme of the conflict betwixt soul and body. The lank master is supposed to be the spirit, the ideal, always contradicted by the rotund servitor who represents the flesh and base reality. All other mystic explanations of the Don Quixote are of this order: Don Quixote is the ascetic, holy and mad; his companions are sensible, Philistine and mundane.
To attribute a philosophy to the Don Quixote is the surest way to falsify it. Any one may take these creatures of the book and make them sym-
