"That is true," said Juanito laughing; "but without these things there cannot be an army, and an army is necessary."
"We are not discussing if it is necessary or no. I only wish to point out that you (or perhaps not you, as you enter on a good footing, but certainly your companions) are self-deceivers, and are preparing without knowing it the shipwreck of your lives, precisely like those other youths who, poorer, or perhaps less energetic, crowd to enter the Church. The Church has come to an end as there is no longer faith; military glory has ended in Spain as there are no longer wars of conquest, and our character as strong fighting men has been lost for centuries. If we have a war, it is either civil or colonial--wars that might be called disasters--without glory and without profit, but in which men die as at Thermopyle or Austerlitz, as a man can only die once; but without the consolation of fame, or of public applause, without in fact that aureole that you call glory. You have all been born too late; you are the warriors of a people who must perforce live in peace; just as those seminarists will be the future priests in a country where there are no longer miracles nor faith, only routine and utter stagnation of thought."
"But if we have no foreign wars, if conquests have come to an end, we serve at least to defend the integrity of Spanish soil, to guard our own homes. Is it that you think," said the cadet nettled, "we are incapable of dying for our country?"
"I do not doubt it; that is the only thing Spaniards are capable of doing, to die most heroically, but in the end to die. Our history for the last two centuries has been nothing but a tale of heroic deaths--'Glorious defeat in such a place,' 'Heroic disaster in some other.' By sea and by land we have astonished the world, throwing ourselves blindly into danger, showing a good front, without flinching, with the stoicism of a Chinaman. But nations do not grow great from their contempt of death, but through their ability to preserve life. The Poles were the terror of the Turks, and some of the best soldiers in Europe, yet Poland has ceased to exist. If any great European power _could_ invade us--you will remark I say _could_, for in these things the wish is not the same as the power, I know exactly what would happen; the Spaniards would know how to die, but you may be perfectly certain the invaders would not require more than two battles to sweep away entirely all our military preparations. And all this, which could be scattered in a couple of days, what sacrifices it costs the country!"