"
But Bruno believed in the triumph of his doctrines; at any rate the
inscription at the foot of his statue in the Campo dei Fiori, opposite
the Vatican, states that it has been dedicated to him by the age which
he had foretold (_il secolo da lui divinato_). But our Don Quixote, the
inward, the immortal Don Quixote, conscious of his own comicness, does
not believe that his doctrines will triumph in this world, because they
are not of it. And it is better that they should not triumph. And if the
world wished to make Don Quixote king, he would retire alone to the
mountain, fleeing from the king-making and king-killing crowds, as
Christ retired alone to the mountain when, after the miracle of the
loaves and fishes, they sought to proclaim him king. He left the title
of king for the inscription written over the Cross.
What, then, is the new mission of Don Quixote, to-day, in this world? To
cry aloud, to cry aloud in the wilderness. But though men hear not, the
wilderness hears, and one day it will be transformed into a resounding
forest, and this solitary voice that goes scattering over the wilderness
like seed, will fructify into a gigantic cedar, which with its hundred
thousand tongues will sing an eternal hosanna to the Lord of life and of
death.
And now to you, the younger generation, bachelor Carrascos of a
Europeanizing regenerationism, you who are working after the best
European fashion, with scientific method and criticism, to you I say:
Create wealth, create nationality, create art, create science, create
ethics, above all create--or rather, translate--_Kultur_, and thus kill
in yourselves both life and death.
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