them to be strictly observed; an end most certainly generous and exalted, and worthy of high commendation; but not equal to that which is annexed to the profession of arms, the object and end of which is peace, the greatest blessing mortals can wish for in this wearisome life.”
The purpose of letters has never been placed on a higher standard, and militarism is robbed of its sordidness in his definition of its aims. Cervantes was a soldier and an author by trade, let us listen to his verdict when, granting that the end of war is peace, and that in this it has the advantage of the end proposed by letters, he weighs the labours of the scholar against those of the warrior, and decides on which side the balance turns.
“I say then,” he asserts, “that the hardships of the scholar are these: in the first place poverty; not that they are all poor, but I would put the case in the strongest manner possible; and when I have mentioned that the scholar endures poverty, no more need be said to evince his misery; for he that is poor is destitute of every good thing, he has to contend with misery in all its forms, sometimes in hunger, sometimes in cold, sometimes in nakedness, and sometimes in all these together. Yet his necessity is not so great but that still he eats, though somewhat later than usual, either by partaking of the rich man’s scraps and leavings, or, which is his greatest misery, by going a sopping. Neither does he always want the fireside or chimney-corner of some charitable person, where, if he is not quite warmed, at least the extreme cold is abated; and, lastly, at night he sleeps under cover. I will not mention other trifles, such as want of linen, deficiency of shoes, his thin and threadbare clothes, not the surfeits to which he is liable from intemperance, when good fortune sets a plentiful table in his way. By this path, rough and difficult as I have described it, now stumbling, now falling, now rising, then falling and rising again, do scholars arrive at last to the end of their wishes; which, being attained, we have seen many who, having passed these Syrtes, these Scyllas, these Charybdisis, buoyed up, as it were, by a favourable tide, have exercised authority from a chair of state, and governed the world; their hunger converted into satiety, their pinching cold into refreshing coolness, their nakedness into embroidered raiment, and their bare mats to beds of down, with furniture of fine holland and damask, a reward justly merited by their virtues.
“But their hardships, when fairly brought together and compared, fall short of those of the warrior, as I shall presently demonstrate. Since, in speaking of the scholar, we began with his poverty and its several branches, let us see how it is with the soldier in that respect, and we shall find that such is his lot poverty itself is not poorer, for he depends on his wretched pay, which comes late, or perhaps never, or what he can plunder, with great peril both of life and conscience. Sometimes his want of clothing is
such that his slashed buff doublet serves him both for doublet and for shirt; and in the midst of Winter, being in the open field, he has nothing but the breath of his mouth to warm him, which, issuing from an empty stomach, must needs be cold, against all the rules of Nature. But come, Night, and let us see whether bed will make amends for these inconveniences. If it be not his own fault, it will never offend in point of narrowness, for he may measure out as many feet of earth as he pleases, and roll himself thereon at leisure, without fear of rumpling the sheets.
“Suppose, again, the day and hour arrived of taking the degree of his profession. I mean, suppose the day of battle come, wherein he is to put in practice the exercise of his profession, and strike to gain some new honour, then, as a mark of distinction, shall his head be dignified by a cap made of lint, to stop a hole made by a bullet, or perhaps be carried off maimed, at the expense of a leg or arm. And if this do not happen, but that merciful Heaven preserve his life and limbs, it may fall out that he shall remain as poor as before, and must run through many encounters and battles, nay, always come off victorious, to obtain some small preferment—and these miracles, too, are rare—but, I pray tell me, if ever you made it your observation, how few are those who obtain due rewards in war, in comparison of those numbers who perish? Doubtless you will answer that there is no parity between them, that the dead cannot be reckoned up; whereas those who live and are rewarded may be numbered with three figures.
“It is quite otherwise with scholars, not only those who follow the lead, but others also, who all either by hook or by crook get a livelihood; so that though the soldier’s sufferings be much greater, yet his reward is much less. To this it may be answered, that it is easier to reward two thousand scholars than thirty thousand soldiers, because the former are recompensed at the expense of the public, by giving them employment, but the latter cannot be gratified but at the cost of the master that employs them: yet this very difficulty makes good my argument. Now for a man to attain to an eminent degree of learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences, which are the consequence of those, of which I have already in part made mention. But the rising gradually to be a good soldier is purchased at the whole expense of all that is required for learning, and that in so surpassing a degree that there is no comparison betwixt them, because he is every moment in danger of his life. To what danger or distress can a scholar be reduced equal to that of a soldier, who, being besieged in some strong place, and at his post in some ravelin or bastion, perceives the enemy carrying on a mine under him, and yet must upon no account remove from thence, or shun the danger which threatens him? All he can do is to give notice to his commander that he may countermine, but must himself stand still, fearing and expecting when on a sudden he shall soar to the clouds without wings, and be again cast down headlong against his will. If this danger seems inconsiderable, let us see whether there be not greater when two galleys shock one another with their prows in the midst of the spacious sea. When they have thus grappled, and are clinging together, the soldier is confined to the narrow gangway, being a board not above two feet wide; and yet though he sees before him so many ministers of death threatening, as there are pieces of cannon on the other side pointing against him, and not half a pike’s length from his body; and being sensible that the first slip of his feet sends him to the bottom of Neptune’s dominions—still, for all this, inspired by honour, with an undaunted heart, he stands a mark to so much fire, and endeavours to make his way by that narrow passage into the enemy’s vessel. But what is most to be admired is, that no sooner one falls, where he shall never rise till the end of the world, than another steps into the same place; and if he also drops into the sea, which lies in wait for him like an enemy, another, and after him another, stills fills up the place, without suffering any interval of time to separate their deaths, a resolution and boldness scarce to be paralleled in any other trials of war. Blessed be those happy ages that were strangers to the dreadful fury of those devilish instruments of artillery which is the cause that very often a cowardly, base hand takes away the life of the bravest gentleman; and that in the midst of that vigour and resolution which animates and inflames the bold, a chance bullet (shot perhaps by one that fled, and was frightened at the very flash which the mischievous piece gave when it went off) coming nobody knows how or from whence, in a moment puts a period to the brave designs and the life of one that deserved to have survived many years.”