"The gesture was heroic. If his hand Accomplished nothing--well, it is not proved-- That empty hand thrown impotently out Were sooner caught, I think, by One in Heaven, Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in, And keeps the scythe's glow on it." ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. A great authority once pronounced _Don Quixote_ to be the saddest book ever written. The very word quixotic has come to imply not only unusual, but absurd action. Yet what would the world be if all the Quixotes, secular or religious, were taken out of it? There are not a few of them among the ranks of those of whom the highest authority has pronounced that the world is not worthy. They generally come to be understood at…
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