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By Root 673 0

and toss and turn to his heart’s content without fear of wrinkling the sheets. Then, after this, the day and hour arrive when he receives the degree his profession offers: the day of battle; there he will receive his tasseled academic cap, made of bandages to heal a bullet wound, perhaps one that has passed through his temples or will leave him with a ruined arm or leg. If this does not happen, and merciful heaven protects him and keeps him whole and alive, it may be that he will remain in the same poverty as before, and he will have to go through one engagement after another, one battle after another, and emerge victorious from all of them in order to prosper only a little; but these miracles are not seen very often.

But tell me, Señores, if you have considered it: how many more perish in war than profit from it? No doubt you will respond that there is no comparison, that the number of dead cannot be counted, and those who have been rewarded, and survived, can be counted in three digits and never reach a thousand. All of this is the opposite of what happens to lettered men, for with their fees, not to mention the bribes they receive, they have enough to get by, so that even though the hardship of a soldier is greater, his reward is much smaller. But one can respond to this by saying that it is easier to reward two thousand lettered men than thirty thousand soldiers, because the first are rewarded by positions that of necessity must be given to those in their profession, and the latter cannot be rewarded except by the very wealth that belongs to the lord they serve; and this, being impossible, strengthens my argument.

But let us leave this aside, for it is a labyrinth difficult to leave, and return to the preeminence of arms over letters, a question that has not yet been resolved since each side presents its own arguments; among them is the claim that without letters arms could not be sustained, because war also has laws to which it is subject, and laws are subsumed under what are called letters and lettered men. The reply of arms to this is that laws cannot be sustained without arms, because with arms nations are defended, kingdoms maintained, cities defended, roads made secure, seas cleared of pirates; in short, if not for arms, nations, kingdoms, monarchies, cities, roads, and sea lanes would be subject to the hardship and confusion that war brings for as long as it lasts and has the freedom to exercise its privileges and impose its violence. It is a demonstrable truth that whatever costs more is valued, and should be valued, more highly. To become distinguished in letters costs time, sleepless nights, hunger, nakedness, headaches, bouts of indigestion, and other things of this sort, some of which I have already mentioned, but to become a good soldier requires everything required of a student, but to so much higher a degree that there can be no comparison, because at every step the soldier risks losing his life. How can the fear of want and poverty that troubles a student ever equal the fear of the soldier who, finding himself besieged in a fortress, or keeping watch or standing guard at a drawbridge or watch-tower, hears his enemies mining their way toward him, and he cannot leave for any reason or flee the danger that threatens him? All he can do is inform his captain of the situation so that he can remedy it with countermines, and he must be quiet, fearing and waiting for the moment when he will suddenly fly up to the clouds without wings or plunge down to the abyss against his will.

And if this seems an insignificant danger, let us see if it is equaled or surpassed when the prows of two galleys collide in the middle of the wide sea, for when they lock and grapple, the soldier is left with no more than two feet of plank on the ram of the ship; despite this, seeing that he has in front of him as many ministers of death threatening him as there are artillery cannons aimed at him from the other side, only a lance’s throw away, and seeing that at the first misstep he will visit the deep bosom of Neptune, despite this,