The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane

BOOK I

THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS of Santillane. BOOK I. chapter i. Of the birth and education of Gil Blas. My father, Blas of Santillane, after having carried arms many years for the service of the Spanish monarchy, retired to the town in which he was born, where he chose a wife among the second-rate citizens, who, tho’ she was no chicken,1 brought me into the world ten months after her marriage.—They afterwards removed to Oviedo, where my mother became a waiting-woman, and my father Squire* to a lady: and as they had nothing but their wages to depend upon, I should have run the hazard of being very poorly educated, had it not been my good fortune to have a canon2 for my uncle, whose name was Gil Peres: he was my mother’s eldest brother as well as my god-father, a little man, three feet and an half high, excessively fat, with his head sunk between his shoulders; otherwise an honest priest, whose chief care was to live well; that is, to make good chear; and his living, which was no lean one, furnished him with the means. He carried me home to his house while an infant, taking charge of my education; and I appeared so sprightly, that he resolved to cultivate my genius. With this view he bought for me an horn-book,3 and undertook (himself) to learn me to read; a task no less useful to him than to me: for, in teaching me my letters, he had recourse to his reading, which he had always neglected too much, and, by dint of application, enabled himself to read his breviary4 without hesitation; a qualification he had never been possessed of before.—He had all the inclination in the world to instruct me in the Latin * Squire or gentleman usher, in Spanish Escudero, is a person that waits on a lady. Formerly, decayed gentlemen were entertained by the nobility, for this purpose; they took their appellation from those eminent squires whose office was to carry the shield (in Spain, called Escudo) of their master. ...