WHICH TREATS OF THE CURIOUS DISCOURSE DON QUIXOTE DELIVERED ON ARMS AND
LETTERS
Continuing his discourse Don Quixote said: “As
we began in the student’s case with poverty
and its accompaniments, let us see now if the soldier
is richer, and we shall find that in poverty itself
there is no one poorer; for he is dependent on his
miserable pay, which comes late or never, or else
on what he can plunder, seriously imperilling his life
and conscience; and sometimes his nakedness will be
so great that a slashed doublet serves him for uniform
and shirt, and in the depth of winter he has to defend
himself against the inclemency of the weather in the
open field with nothing better than the breath of
his mouth, which I need not say, coming from an empty
place, must come out cold, contrary to the laws of
nature. To be sure he looks forward to the approach
of night to make up for all these discomforts on the
bed that awaits him, which, unless by some fault of
his, never sins by being over narrow, for he can easily
measure out on the ground as he likes, and roll himself
about in it to his heart’s content without any
fear of the sheets slipping away from him. Then,
after all this, suppose the day and hour for taking
his degree in his calling to have come; suppose the
day of battle to have arrived, when they invest him
with the doctor’s cap made of lint, to mend some
bullet-hole, perhaps, that has gone through his temples,
or left him with a crippled arm or leg. Or if
this does not happen, and merciful Heaven watches
over him and keeps him safe and sound, it may be he
will be in the same poverty he was in before, and
he must go through more engagements and more battles,
and come victorious out of all before he betters himself;
but miracles of that sort are seldom seen. For
tell me, sirs, if you have ever reflected upon it,
by how much do those who have gained by war fall short
of the number of those who have perished in it?
No doubt you will reply that there can be no comparison,
that the dead cannot be numbered, while the living
who have been rewarded may be summed up with three
figures. All which is the reverse in the case
of men of letters; for by skirts, to say nothing of
sleeves, they all find means of support; so that though
the soldier has more to endure, his reward is much
less. But against all this it may be urged that
it is easier to reward two thousand soldiers, for
the former may be remunerated by giving them places,
which must perforce be conferred upon men of their
calling, while the latter can only be recompensed
out of the very property of the master they serve;
but this impossibility only strengthens my argument.
