Don Quixote | The Soul of Spain

In the following excerpt, he favorably compares Don Quixote to other literary masterpieces and also emphasizes the indelibly Spanish nature of the work.

There can be no doubt, Don Quixote is the world's greatest and most typical novel. There are other novels which are finer works of art, more exquisite in style, of more perfect architectonic plan. But such books appeal less to the world at large than to the literary critic; they are not equally amusing, equally profound, to the men of all nations, and all ages, and all degrees of mental capacity. Even if we put aside monuments of literary perfection, like some of the novels of Flaubert, and consider only the great European novels of widest appeal and deepest influence, they still...

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