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.