I Know
That At Any Rate We Found The Spanish Medicines Beneficial And Were
Presently Suffered To Go Out-Of-Doors, But With Those Severe Injunctions
Against Going Out After Nightfall Or Opening Our Lips When We Went Out
By Day.
It was rather a bother, but it was fine to feel one's self in
the classic Madrid tradition of
Danger from pneumonia and to be of the
dignified company of the Spanish gentlemen whom we met with the border
of their cloaks over their mouths; like being a character in a _capa y
espada_ drama.
There was almost as little acted as spoken drama in the streets. I have
given my impression of the songlessness of Spain in Madrid as elsewhere,
but if there was no street singing there was often street playing by
pathetic bands of blind minstrels with guitars and mandolins. The blind
abound everywhere in Spain in that profession of street beggary which I
always encouraged, believing as I do that comfort in this unbalanced
world cannot be too constantly reminded of misery. As the hunchbacks are
in Italy, or the wooden peg-legged in England, so the blind are in Spain
for number. I could not say how touching the sight of their
sightlessness was, or how the remembrance of it makes me wish that I had
carried more coppers with me when I set out. I would gladly authorize
the reader when he goes to Madrid to do the charity I often neglected;
he will be the better man, or even woman, for it; and he need not mind
if his beneficiary is occasionally unworthy; he may be unworthy himself;
I am sure I was.
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