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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Buyck. Gravelines! Ha, my friends, we had sharp work of it there! The
victory was all our own. Did not those French dogs carry fire and
desolation into the very heart of Flanders? We gave it them, however! The
old hard-listed veterans held out bravely for a while, but we pushed on,
fired away, and laid about us, till they made wry faces, and their lines gave
way. Then Egmont's horse was shot under him; and for a long time we
fought pell-mell, man to man, horse to horse, troop to troop, on the broad,
flat, sea-sand. Suddenly, as if from heaven, down came the cannon shot
from the mouth of the river, bang, bang, right into the midst of the French.
These were English, who, under Admiral Malin, happened to be sailing
past from Dunkirk. They did not help us much, 'tis true; they could only
Egmont |
