But he viewed
these men of will as only one kind of men; he kept them in
their place, and I found that he, who could understand the
Roman, yet expressed in Hamlet a deeper thought.
'In CERVANTES, I found far less productive talent,--'indeed,
a far less powerful genius,--but the same wide wisdom, a
discernment piercing the shows and symbols of existence, yet
rejoicing in them all, both for their own life, and as signs
of the unseen reality. Not that Cervantes philosophized,--his
genius was too deeply philosophical for that; he took things
as they came before him, and saw their actual relations and
bearings. Thus the work he produced was of deep meaning,
though he might never have expressed that meaning to himself.
It was left implied in the whole. A Coleridge comes and calls
Don Quixote the pure Reason, and Sancho the Understanding.
Cervantes made no such distinctions in his own mind; but he
had seen and suffered enough to bring out all his faculties,
and to make him comprehend the higher as well as the lower
part of our nature. Sancho is too amusing and sagacious to
be contemptible; the Don too noble and clear-sighted towards
absolute truth, to be ridiculous.
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