H. J. Massingham’s “To Don Quixote” was published in the Modernist magazine Coterie, No. 1 (1919–20). In his book Letters to X (Constable & Company, 1919), Massingham writes of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, “Of what discoveries is the spirit of art capable, when we consider the significance of Don Quixote? Is he the scapegoat of Cervantes, as the narrative directs? No, he is his hero, his archangel a little damaged. He is ridiculous, not because his search for truth was too impetuous, but because the world, confusing the search with the impetuosity, so thinks him. There is of course a double edge to Cervantes’ masterpiece, but the edge that is not blunted by time is the forlorn idealism of Don Quixote. That meaning is what makes his recantation so terrible a comment upon life. For Don Quixote, if he did not wait upon opportunity (as every man should), waited upon God.”