|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: did not dare to show my face at a window, for fear of catching a
stray ball or being forced to enter the National Guard; [for] they
would have it I was a man full-grown, French, and every way fit to
fight. And my mamma was as bad as any of them; she that told me I
was a coward last time if I stayed in the house a quarter of an
hour! But I drew, examined the pistols, of which I found lots with
caps, powder, and ball, while sometimes murderous intentions of
killing a dozen insurgents and dying violently overpowered by
numbers. . . . .' We may drop this sentence here: under the
conduct of its boyish writer, it was to reach no legitimate end.
Four days of such a discipline had cured the family of Paris; the
|
