“Do you know, Bassishaw,” I said, “I cannot sufficiently admire you military men. You are the outposts of a nation, who make all that is happy and peaceful at home possible. You sacrifice yourselves on inaccessible Indian hills, you scorch under African suns, while all you love is left behind you in England. You do not marry--that is, the true soldier thinks it inconsistent with his duty,--and you leave all you care for to fight the battles of a less devoted society. It is self-sacrificing; and when you return, it is to a bachelor’s old age, like the general there.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Butterfield,” he replied. “Lots of our soldiers marry, you know.”
I could feel Carrie’s arm trembling on mine. I continued:
“That is another instance of their nobility. It makes their duty all the harder. They have to leave their wives, and worship them only in the ideal sense. They see them, perhaps, only once in ten years, unless they have risen to responsible posts. It is a great devotion.”
“But, Rol,” said Carrie timidly, “lots of women are glad to go abroad with their husbands, and--and nurse, and that kind of thing.”
“Then,” I replied, “they but unnerve the warrior in the hour of his trial. He does not fight for his country, but for his wife. No. It is the bachelor soldier who has my veneration.”
“That’s all very well, you know, Butterfield,” protested the bachelor soldier uneasily, “but, confound it, it’s hard enough without that. Hang it all,” he broke out, “if you’ve got that fancy sort of thing in your head, why didn’t you join the army yourself? You’re a bachelor, you know, and it would be a jolly lot easier for you to be a hero than--the other poor beggars.”
I smiled. “It is just as necessary that the soldier should have worthy people to defend,” I replied. “No, Bassishaw, the soldier’s watchword is singleness. He is as great a solitary as that other one, who devotes his life to writing. The soldier knows he is doing some good--the writer takes the risk.”
“And soldiers----” said Carrie at the same time.
“Both cut themselves off in a voluntary abnegation,” I replied. “They scorn the smaller comforts; the one worships his art, the other his duty. Look at Loring and his wife, there. They look happy, and comfortable, and pretty; they have gentle, domestic pleasures. But they have no conception of the grandeur of duty. They do not know the stern joys of the warrior, they----”