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There is a pack of some of the most persistent beggars I have seen. Blasco Ibañez says they live on the English and American tourists who visit the Cathedral, and he sneers at the tourists' stupidity and credulity. But if the tourists ceased to come the beggars would not cease to be. This beggary is a disgrace to a rich country like Spain. That small boys should rush in to beg the sugar you have left over from your morning cup of coffee is unseemly and out of keeping with the otherwise stately ways of the people. In Spain thousands beg who could quite well be earning a living, and the mendicancy of these defeats the case of the paralyzed, the blind, the aged, from whom few would otherwise turn away.

In Toledo, however, lurks the great Cathedral, like some strange, rare monster of the past. It is horribly cramped, and seems to be trying to hide its vast, aged form from modern gaze. There lies the dust of kings, emperors, archbishops; undisturbed, unprovoked. It seems the low notes of the organ should never swell to anything clamorous and new. All is hushed as you walk around; gloom of unlighted centuries is upon you.