Author: Margaret Coombs

“We are simple travelers and we’ve run out of wine (p. 64),” Quixote says, but corrupt and cynical authorities don’t believe in innocence, so Quixote and Sancho flee from El Toboso, and the end of the book draws near.

“You haven’t seen a man with a bullet hole through his right trouser leg and a false mustache?” (page 107) Things get dire fast, but they begin with this comical line. Sancho is so suspicious of the Guardia Civil that he doesn’t laugh when asked, though I would have.

Sometimes [Quixote] envied the certitude of those who were able to lay down clear rules–Father Heribert Jone, his bishop, even the Pope. Himself, he lived in a mist, unable to see a path, stumbling. (p. 99) This is Father Quixote’s self-assessment about adhering to Church Law. I doubt his parishioners in El Toboso ever guessed…

So many insightful passages in today’s reading. Of course, in Spain one finds that all the best people have been for a time in prison. (p. 79) Sancho’s values, like those of Father Quixote, contradict anyone who believes success is measured by popularity, power, and wealth. “How happy you must be with your complete belief….

What he found in The Love of God [by Francis de Sales] astonished him a little, but all the same it encouraged him. “Among the reflections and resolutions it is good to make use of colloquies, and speak sometimes to our Lord, sometimes to the Angels, to the Saints, and to oneself, to one’s own…