Cervantes gave to the world a new adjective when he wrote his romance of _The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha_--a world in which the filibusters are those of commerce, the pirates those of trade. When we English call an action "quixotic," we do not exactly mean disapproval, but neither, certainly, do we intend admiration; unless it be that of other-worldliness which it is well to affect, however far we may be from practising it ourselves. It is, at best, something quite unnecessary, if acknowledged to be admirable in the abstract. The quixotic are rarely successful, and success is the measure by which everything is judged to-day. Be that as it may, the more intimately one knows Spain, the more one becomes aware that what is with us an amiable quality of somewhat dubious value, is one of those which go to make up the Spaniard in every rank of life. His chivalry, his fine sense of honour, are nothing if not quixotic, as we understand the word; and just as in Scotland alone does one appreciate the characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, so in Spain does one feel that, with due allowance for a spirit of kindly caricature, Don Quijote de la Mancha is not only possible, but it is a type of character as living to-day as it was when the genius of Cervantes distilled and preserved for all time that most quaint, lovable, inconsequent, and chivalrous combination of qualities which constitute a Spanish gentleman. Among her writers, her thinkers, her workers--nay, even now and then among her politicians--we come upon traits which remind us vividly of the ingenious gentleman and perfect knight of romance.