Quotes from book
Across the Plains

Across the Plains is the middle section of Robert Louis Stevenson's three-part travel memoir which began with The Amateur Emigrant and ended with The Silverado Squatters.


Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception.”

Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. VII, The Lantern-Bearers.
Context: The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven for which he lives. And, the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“In real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is not valued; it is received from the hand of friendship, or it is resented.”

Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. IX, Beggars.
Context: We should wipe two words from our vocabulary: gratitude and charity. In real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is not valued; it is received from the hand of friendship, or it is resented.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties.”

Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo

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