The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
In the article on Cervantes which appeared in the University for August,
[Footnote 2] allusion was made to his imprisonment and harsh treatment in a
certain town of La Mancha. It is the same whose name, he says, in the
commencement of Don Quixote, he does not choose to remember. It has been
ascertained that this village of unenviable reputation is Argamasilla; and
the very house where he resided against his will, and dreamily arranged the
plan of his prose epic, has been identified. The Infanta Don Sebastian has
purchased it, with a view to its preservation, and a patriotic and spirited
printer, Don Manuel de Ribadeneira, has obtained permission to work off two
impressions there of the Life and Adventures of the ingenious Hidalgo, Don
Quixote. One is, in the Paris idiom, an edition of luxury, intended for the
libraries and _salons_ of the great, the other a carefully executed
but low-priced edition for the populace.
[Footnote 2: See Catholic World for October, 1886.]
{27}
The English cannot be accused of having neglected their own Cervantes in
his need. He appears to have united to his comprehensive and mighty genius,
good business habits, consulted the tastes of his public while endeavoring
to improve them, watched the behavior of his door-keepers, and though
probably not a rigid self-denier, made his outlay fall far short of his
income, and enjoyed some years of life in respectable retirement. So his
countrymen feeling no remorse on his account, show their respect for his
memory by eating and drinking heartily on stated occasions, and boring each
other with stereotyped speeches. When suitable days for jubilees or
centenaries or tercentenaries arrive, they take more trouble on themselves.
They journey to a small town in Warwickshire, and celebrate the event in as
tiresome a fashion as if they were members of the "British Association for
bettering the Universe," under all the inconveniences of crowded rooms,
crowded vehicles going and coming, and dear hotels. They manage matters of
the kind in Spain with a difference.
Some years since a statue was erected to Cervantes in front of the Congress
building, and the historian, Antonio Cavanilles, took occasion to mention
the opinion of the ghost of the great Spaniard on the matter in a dialogue
held between them.
"During my life they left me in poverty. Now they raise statues which are
of no manner of use to me, and they never celebrate a mass for the repose
of my soul--a thing of which I have much need."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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