I remember no dwellings of the grade,
quite, of hovels; but neither do there seem to be many palaces or
palatial houses in my hurried impression. Whatever it may be
industrially or ecclesiastically, Toledo is now socially provincial and
tending to extinction. It is so near Madrid that if I myself were living
in Toledo I would want to live in Madrid, and only return for brief
sojourns to mourn my want of a serious object in life; at Toledo it must
be easy to cherish such an object.
Industrially, of course, one associates it with the manufacture of the
famous Toledo blades, which it is said are made as wonderful as ever,
and I had a dim idea of getting a large one for decorative use in a, New
York flat. But the foundry is a mile out of town, and I only got so far
as to look at the artists who engrave the smaller sort in shops open to
the public eye; and my purpose dwindled to the purchase of a little pair
of scissors, much as a high resolve for the famous marchpane of Toledo
ended in a piece of that pastry about twice the size of a silver dollar.
Not all of the twenty thousand people of Toledo could be engaged in
these specialties, and I owe myself to blame for not asking more about
the local industries; but it is not too late for the reader, whom I
could do no greater favor than sending him there, to repair my
deficiency.
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