II

Still more remarkable is the character of this wide diffusion. Don Quixote has been thoroughly naturalised among people whose ideas about knight-errantry, if they had any at all, were of the vaguest, who had never seen or heard of a book of chivalry, who could not possibly feel the humour of the burlesque or sympathise with the author’s purpose. Another curious fact is that this, the most cosmopolitan book in the world, is one of the most intensely national. Manon Lescaut is not more thoroughly French, Tom Jones not more English, Rob Roy not more Scotch, than Don Quixote is Spanish, in character, in ideas, in sentiment, in local colour, in everything. What, then, is the secret of this unparalleled popularity, increasing year by year for well-nigh three centuries? One explanation, no doubt, is that of all the books in the world, Don Quixote is the most catholic. There is something in it for every sort of reader, young or old, sage or simple, high or low. As Cervantes himself says with a touch of pride, “It is thumbed and read and got by heart by people of all sorts; the children turn its leaves, the young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old