In 1605 he published the first part of
Don Quixote, in which a country gentleman of La Mancha, full of genuine
Castilian honor and enthusiasm, gentle and dignified in his character,
trusted by his friends, and loved by his dependants--is represented as
so completely crazed by long reading the most famous books of chivalry,
that he believes them to be true, and feels himself called on to become
the impossible knight-errant they describe,--nay, actually goes forth,
into the world to defend, the oppressed and avenge the injured, like the
heroes of his romances.
* * * * *
=_James Hall, 1793-1868._= (Manual, p. 510.)
From "Statistics of the West."
=_188._= DESCRIPTION OF A PRAIRIE.
Imagine a stream of a mile in width, whose waters are as transparent as
those of the mountain spring, flowing over beds of rock or gravel. Fancy
the prairie commencing at the water's edge--a natural meadow covered
with grass and flowers, rising, with a gentle slope, for miles, so that
in the vast panorama thousands of acres are exposed to the eye. The
prospect is bounded by a range of low hills, which sometimes approach
the river, and again recede, and whose summits, which are seen gently
waving along the horizon, form the level of the adjacent country.
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