It is now eight years since I wrote the foregoing lines[14] for the Fourth Part of the _Reisebilder_, in which I described the impression which the reading of _Don Quixote_ had made on my mind many years ago. Good Heavens! how swiftly time flies! It seems to me as if it were but yesterday that, in the Avenue of Sighs, in the court-garden at Düsseldorf, I finished reading the book, and my heart is still moved with admiration for the deeds and sufferings of the noble knight. Has my heart remained constant in this ever since, or has it, after passing through a wonderful cycle, returned to the emotions of childhood? The latter may well be the case, for I remember that during each lustrum of my life _Don Quixote_ has made a different impression upon me. When I was blossoming into adolescence, and with inexperienced hands sought to pluck the roses of life, climbed the loftiest peaks in order to be nearer to the sun, and at night dreamed of naught else but eagles and chaste maidens, then Don Quixote was to me a very unsatisfactory book, and if it chanced to fall in my way I involuntarily shoved it aside. At a later period, when I had ripened into manhood, I became to a certain degree reconciled to Dulcinea's luckless champion, and I began to laugh at him. The fellow is a fool, said I. And yet, strange to say, the shadowy forms of the lean knight and his fat squire have ever followed me in all the journeyings of my life, particularly when I came to any critical turning-point. Thus I recollect that while making the journey to France, one morning in the post-chaise I awakened from a half-feverish slumber, and saw in the early morning mist two well-known figures riding by my side. The one on my right was Don Quixote de la Mancha, mounted on his lean, abstract Rosinante, the other on my left was Sancho Panza, on his substantial, positive grey donkey. We had just reached the French frontier. The noble Manchean bowed his head reverently before the tri-coloured flag, which fluttered towards us from the high post that marks the boundary line. Our good Sancho saluted with a somewhat less cordial nod the first French _gendarmes_ whom we saw approaching near by. At last my two friends pushed on ahead, and I lost sight of them, only now and then I caught the sound of Rosinante's spirited neighing, and the donkey's responsive bray.