Chesterton,
G. K. The Return of Don Quixote
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927) 302 p.
The
librarian of Seawood Abbey is an eccentric scholar of Paleo-Hittite
civilization named Michael Herne.
The
librarian was certainly of the sort that is remote from the daylight,
and suited to be a shade among the the shades of a great library. His
figure was long and lithe, but he held one shoulder habitually a
little higher than the other; his hair was of a dusty lightness. His
face was lean and his lineaments long and straight; but his wan blue
eyes were a shade wider apart than other men's; increasing an effect
of having one eye off. It was indeed rather a weird effect, as if his
eye were somewhere else; not in the mere sense of looking elsewhere,
but almost as if it were in some other head than his own. And indeed,
in a manner, it was; it was in the head of a Hittite ten thousand
years ago. (p. 24-25).
When
Herne climbs up a very tall ladder to the top of a towering bookcase
a visitor plays a trick on him and removes the ladder. But Herne
becomes so absorbed in this reading that he forgets to come down and
is found perching atop the case the next day, book in hand.
When
asked to perform in a play about Richard the Lion Heart, Herne at
first declines, saying it is not his period. But then he embarks of a
study of medieval history and accepts the roll of Richard. After
performing he refuses to remove his costume and works to
revolutionize English society by bringing about a return to medieval
values.
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