In a previous edition of the Guide, we printed correspondence with a traveler that we felt bore directly on the question of authenticity. We are reprinting a brief extract in the current edition in the hope of clarifying what we feel to be one of the chief concerns of the questioning traveler.
“Let everyone,” the traveler wrote, “confess that there is not in all the world a more beauteous damsel than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso.”
While admiring the conviction of the writer, and having no cause to doubt his word, we replied that we were loath to pass judgment without meeting the woman.
“If I were to show her to you,” he wrote by return post, “what meat would there be in your confessing a truth so self-evident? The important thing is for you, without seeing her, to believe, confess, affirm, swear, and defend that truth.”
Ben