Reference no: EM131984601
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.
How does the line in bold demonstrate Stevenson's purpose?
(a) It describes people are cruel creatures.
(b) It describes the unfair price of food.
(c) It describes war as a kindness to all.
(d) It describes life as a kind of war.