Go your ways, I thought, radical brother. You are not so courteous nor so learned as the rector. But this Peninsula has need of men like you. The ages of belief have done their work for good and ill. Let us have some years of the spirit that denies, and asks for proofs. The power of the monk is broken, but the work is not yet done. The convents have been turned into barracks, which is no improvement. The ringing of spurs in the streets of Alcalá is no better than the rustling of the sandalled friars. If this Republican party of yours cannot do something to free Spain from the triple curse of crown, crozier, and sabre, then Spain is in doleful case. They are at last divided, and the first
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two have been sorely weakened in detail. The last should be the easiest work.
The scorn of my radical friend did not prevent my copying the modest tablet on the wall:--
"Here was born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote. By his fame and his genius he belongs to the civilized world; by his cradle to Alcalá de Henares."
There is no doubt of the truth of the latter part of this inscription. Eight Spanish towns have claimed to have given birth to Cervantes, thus beating the blind Scian by one town; every one that can show on its church records the baptism of a child so called has made its claim. Yet Alcalá, who spells his name wrong, calling him Carvantes, is certainly in the right, as the names of his father, mother, brothers, and sisters are also given in its records, and all doubt is now removed from the matter by the discovery of Cervantes's manuscript statement of his captivity in Algiers and his petition for employment in America, in both of which he styles himself "Natural de Alcalá de Henares."
Having examined the evidence, we considered ourselves justly entitled to all the usual emotions in visiting the church of the parish, Santa Maria
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