May it not perhaps be that the philosophy of the
Conquistadores, of the Counter-Reformers, of Loyola, and above all, in
the order of abstract but deeply felt thought, that of our mystics, was,
in its essence, none other than this? What was the mysticism of St. John
of the Cross but a knight-errantry of the heart in the divine warfare?
And the philosophy of Don Quixote cannot strictly be called idealism; he
did not fight for ideas. It was of the spiritual order; he fought for
the spirit.
Imagine Don Quixote turning his heart to religious speculation--as he
himself once dreamed of doing when he met those images in bas-relief
which certain peasants were carrying to set up in the retablo of their
village church[65]--imagine Don Quixote given up to meditation upon
eternal truths, and see him ascending Mount Carmel in the middle of the
dark night of the soul, to watch from its summit the rising of that sun
which never sets, and, like the eagle that was St. John's companion in
the isle of Patmos, to gaze upon it face to face and scrutinize its
spots. He leaves to Athena's owl--the goddess with the glaucous, or
owl-like, eyes, who sees in the dark but who is dazzled by the light of
noon--he leaves to the owl that accompanied Athena in Olympus the task
of searching with keen eyes in the shadows for the prey wherewith to
feed its young.
And the speculative or meditative Quixotism is, like the practical
Quixotism, madness, a daughter-madness to the madness of the Cross.
Pages:
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438