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He shows plainly enough, too, that "Don Quixote" and the demolition of

the chivalry romances was not the work that lay next his heart He was,

indeed, as he says himself in his preface, more a stepfather than a

father to "Don Quixote" Never was great work so neglected by its author

That it ritten carelessly, hastily, and by fits and starts, was not

always his fault, but it seems clear he never read what he sent to the

press He kne the printers had blundered, but he never took the

trouble to correct theress, as a man

who really cared for the child of his brain would have done He appears

to have regarded the book as littlebook, a thing, as he says in the "Viaje," "to

divert the melancholy moody heart at any time or season" No doubt he had

an affection for his hero, and was very proud of Sancho Panza It would

have been strange indeed if he had not been proud of the most humorous

creation in all fiction He was proud, too, of the popularity and success

of the book, and beyond htful is the naivete hich he

shows his pride in a dozen passages in the Second Part But it was not

the success he coveted In all probability he would have given all the

success of "Don Quixote," nay, would have seen every copy of "Don

Quixote" burned in the Plaza Mayor, for one such success as Lope de Vega

was enjoying on an average once a week