133k views
2 votes
Read the following excerpt from Memoirs and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson, then find the correct answer:

And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing and sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year cannon were roaring for days together on French battlefields; and I would sit in my isle (I call it mine, after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of the men's wounds, and the weariness of their marching. And I would think too of that other war which is as old as mankind, and is indeed the life of man: the unsparing war, the grinding slavery of competition; the toil of seventy years, dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the perils and pitfalls, and the poor rewards. It was a long look forward; the future summoned me as with trumpet calls, it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and beseeching; and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a childish bather on the beach. There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we were much together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying to sail a boat and spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools of the roost. But the most part of the time we spoke of the great uncharted desert of our futures; wondering together what should there befall us; hearing with surprise the sound of or own voices in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and as hard, as it seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems now to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall justly that loath submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with which we stooped our necks under the yoke of destiny. I met my old companion but the other day; I cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I was wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed and sedentary in the world; and how much we had gained, and how much we had lost, to attain to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our best estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some experience, or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a western islet.

What does Stevenson think about in the first paragraph?

Two real wars from his parents' past that had waged for a long time
A real war and a "war" of learning to fall in love and get married
Two fictional wars from books he had read on his vacation
A real war and a "war" of fighting to grow old and successful

User TaylorMac
by
5.9k points

1 Answer

1 vote

Answer:

A real war and a "war" of fighting to grow old and successful

Step-by-step explanation:

Based on the excerpt, Robert Louis Stevenson was reminiscing about his days as a younger man and the internal conflicts he had.

In the first paragraph, he talked about the real war he witnessed where he heard the "loudness" of the battles and the "pain of men's wounds". He also talked about another internal "war" which had to do with "slavery of competition", toiling for years and which culminated to fighting to be old and successful.

User Andrew Eckart
by
5.2k points