Page 42 - RotalTutor

and she would have all the more against him. She held her composure as she spoke. “In what way?” Alexander looked thoughtfully into space as he reached up and scratched Lady’s ears. “Because I am born of royalty, I would go into the military as an officer. And who would I command? Let me tell you who I would command. I would command men who are far more experienced and know what they are doing. And thus the military runs. It is the inexperienced commanding the experienced just because of how they were born. What a way to defend the freedoms of our country. I don’t want to be the one to command men to their deaths due to the fact I am lacking in judgement.” Louise’s anger turned to shock - shock that Alexander’s attack on age-old customs made so much sense. “And furthermore,” he continued, “since a person’s rank is dependent on his birth, I would be the lowest of most officers, and just above the common soldier, in a place to be commanded and abused by those above me, and despised by those below me. If I have learned one thing in life, it is that the essence of a man is his heart and is the true measure of what he is. It shows in the way he lives his life, not in how he is born. It is not the nobility of his birth, but how nobly he lives his life that makes a man small or great.” Alexander looked at Louise and, seeing the look on her face, he must have felt he had already said too much. 40