high praise,
but not such as should be given to that sought by arms, which have for
their end and object peace, the greatest boon that men can desire in this
life. The first good news the world and mankind received was that which
the angels announced on the night that was our day, when they sang in the
air, 'Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of
good-will;' and the salutation which the great Master of heaven and earth
taught his disciples and chosen followers when they entered any house,
was to say, 'Peace be on this house;' and many other times he said to
them, 'My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave you, peace be with
you;' a jewel and a precious gift given and left by such a hand: a jewel
without which there can be no happiness either on earth or in heaven.
This peace is the true end of war; and war is only another name for arms.
This, then, being admitted, that the end of war is peace, and that so far
it has the advantage of the end of letters, let us turn to the bodily
labours of the man of letters, and those of him who follows the
profession of arms, and see which are the greater."

Don Quixote delivered his discourse in such a manner and in such correct
language, that for the time being he made it impossible for any of his
hearers to consider him a madman; on the contrary, as they were mostly
gentlemen, to whom arms are an appurtenance by birth, they listened to
him with great pleasure as he continued: "Here, then, I say is what the
student has to undergo; first of all poverty: not that all are poor, but
to put the case as strongly as possible: and when I have said that he
endures poverty, I think nothing more need be said about his hard
fortune, for he who is poor has no share of the good things of life. This
poverty he suffers from in various ways, hunger, or cold, or nakedness,
or all together; but for all that it is not so extreme but that he gets
something to eat, though it may be at somewhat unseasonable hours and
from the leavings of the rich; for the greatest misery of the student is
what they themselves call 'going out for soup,' and there is always some
neighbour's brazier or hearth for them, which, if it does not warm, at
least tempers the cold to them, and lastly, they sleep comfortably at
night under a roof. I will not go into other particulars, as for example
want of shirts, and no superabundance of shoes, thin and threadbare
garments, and gorging themselves to surfeit in the