CHAPTER XXXII 



ViTORiA, May 1 8. 

 The Moor's fetlock was better for his two days' rest and 

 wet bandaging. Before starting, I made a sort of boot, or 

 rather gaiter, for him, by folding a silk handkerchief square- 

 wise into a broad belt, which, wrapping it round the joint, 

 I lashed on with tape ; so that now, though he often clashes 

 his clumsy fore-legs together, he cannot cut his wound open 

 again. 



Our conversation, as we rode out of Burgos, treated of 

 literary thefts ; and how, after thinking some modern author 

 a clever fellow for a long while on the strength of some 

 excellent thing or two, perhaps the only bits of him which 

 stick in your memory, you find the very same excellent 

 things in some dark corner of Montaigne, or Rabelais, or 

 Quevedo. 



I take it, the law of literary honesty is something of this 

 sort. What is simply true and useful and solid information, 

 you acquire indifferently from the observation of yourself 

 and others. For what you borrow of this kind no acknow- 

 ledgment is necessary : it would be troublesome to the 

 reader, and almost impossible to the writer, to chronicle the 

 particular digging where he got each particular lump of 

 Sacramental mud, which scattered grains of wisdom made it 

 worth while to throw into his basket. 



But who that wanders with his mule and pickaxe and 



