The Battle of Life / Битва жизни. Книга для чтения на английском языке

�I don’t stand up for life in general,’ he added, rubbing his hands and chuckling, �it’s full of folly; full of something worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness, and all that! Bah, bah, bah! We see what they’re worth. But, you mustn’t laugh at life; you’ve got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! Everybody’s playing against you, you know, and you’re playing against them. Oh! it’s a very interesting thing. There are deep moves upon the board. You must only laugh, Dr.

�Well, Alfred!’ cried the Doctor, �what do you say now?’

�I say, sir,’ replied Alfred, �that the greatest favour you could do me, and yourself too, I am inclined to think, would be to try sometimes to forget this battle-field and others like it in that broader battlefield of Life, on which the sun looks every day.

�Really, I’m afraid that wouldn’t soften his opinions, Mr. Alfred,’ said Snitchey. �The combatants are very eager and very bitter in that same battle of Life. There’s a great deal of cutting and slashing, and firing into people’s heads from behind. There is terrible treading-down, and trampling-on. It is rather a bad business.’

�I believe, Mr. Snitchey,’ said Alfred, �there are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it – even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions – not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience – done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men’s and women’s hearts – any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law; and that’s a bold word.

Both the sisters listened keenly.

�Well, well!’ said the Doctor, �I am too old to be converted, even by my friend Snitchey here, or my good spinster sister, Martha Jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic trials ages ago, and has led a sympathising life with all sorts of people ever since; and who is so much of your opinion (only she’s less reasonable and more obstinate, being a woman), that we can’t agree, and seldom meet.