THE SCENE: In every profession, a distinction must be drawn between the high performers and low performers. And why should being a blind beggar be any different? In the passage below, we learn the skills and practices that separated an elite beggar from the casuals.
THE TEXT: Speaking of the good there was in my blind man, your Honour must know that since God created the world He has not made a being more astute and sagacious. In his own line he was unequalled. He knew a hundred or more prayers of the choir, he recited in a low and very tuneful voice, he put on a devout and very humble countenance when he recited, without making faces or gestures as others usually do. Besides this he had a hundred other ways and mean of getting money. He knew how to make prayers on different occasions, for women who were childless, for those who were about to bear children, and for those who had married unhappily, that their husbands might like them well. He foretold whether a woman would have a boy or a girl. In the matter of medicine he said that Galen did not possess half his knowledge for curing toothaches, fainting fits, or illnesses of mothers. Finally, no one mentioned what, pain or illness he or she was suffering from but he told them at once — do this, you should do that, gather such a herb, take such a root. In this way he went with all the world after him, especially the women. They believed whatever he said, and from them he drew great profits by the arts I have described, for he gained more in a month than a hundred other blind men would in a year.
– The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, 16th Century AD
