PREFACE.

A great authority once pronounced DonQuixote to be the saddest book ever written.The very word quixotic has come to implynot only unusual, but absurd action. Yet what wouldthe world be if all the Quixotes, secular or religious,were taken out of it? There are not a few of themamong the ranks of those of whom the highestauthority has pronounced that the world is notworthy. They generally come to be understood atlast—but it is often not till the next century.

This is the story of a Don Quixote who lived,fought, and died, five hundred years ago. Like hisprototype, he too tilted with the windmills and triedto liberate the captive lions. And the windmillsstood firm against his spear, and the lions turnedupon and tore him. It usually is so. The energyseems totally wasted—the heroism vain and lost.Yet now and then the windmill falls, discovered to bereally an enchanter's castle, revealing rottenfoundations and evil things: and then men remember thedead knight who gave the first stroke. Or, moreoften, they do not remember him.

He would be thought indeed quixotic who shouldset before him as his life-work what Roger Mortimerdid. Yet who can declare it impossible? Someday, the castle of the enchanter may fall, and thefree air of heaven may blow into the dark dungeonsand dispel the fetid mists. Ireland may be free withthat freedom which Christ only gives, and whichmany an English heart longs to secure to her. Butwill any one remember the hand which was the firstto strike the frowning portals of the fortress, andwhich has been dust for five hundred years in thevaults of the Abbey of Wigmore?

It is well for him that he has won the better rewardof his Father which is in Heaven. And we know, onthe word of our Master Himself, that the unfadinggarland will be all the fairer because no humanhand

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