Across the Plains, with Other Memories and Essays

“Everyone lives by selling something.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“[...] ignorance of his neighbours is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick about the life of others. In French colonies, and still more in the Dutch, I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact between the dominant and the dominated race, that a certain sympathy is begotten, or at the least a transfusion of prejudices, making life easier for both. But the Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride and ignorance. He figures among his vassals in the hour of peace with the same disdainful air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm for some foreign art or fashion may deceive the world [...]. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he will never condescend to study him with any patience.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“The first duty in this world is for a man to pay his way; when that is quite accomplished, he may plunge into what eccentricity he likes ; but emphatically not till then. Till then, he must pay assiduous court to the bourgeois who carries the purse. And if in the course of these capitulations he shall falsify his talent, it can never have been a strong one, and he will have preserved a better thing than talent - character. Or if he be of a mind so independent that he cannot stoop to this necessity, one course is yet open : he can desist from art, and follow some more manly way of life.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“[...] the vast mass of mankind are incapable of doing anything reasonably well, art among the rest. The worthless artist would not improbably have been a quite incompetent baker.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“John Bull is ignorant of the States; he is probably ignorant of India; but considering his opportunities, he is far more ignorant of countries nearer his own door. [...] His ignorance of the sister kingdom cannot be described ; it can only be illustrated by anecdote. I once travelled with a man of plausible manners and good intelligence, - a University man, as the phrase goes, - a man, besides, who had taken his degree in life and knew a thing or two about the age we live in. We were deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London ; among other things, he began to describe some piece of legal injustice he had recently encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things were not so in Scotland. "I beg your pardon," said he, "this is a matter of law." He had never heard of the Scots law: nor did he choose to be informed. The law was the same for the whole country, he told me roundly; every child knew that. At last, to settle matters, I explained to him that I was a member of a Scottish legal body, and had stood the brunt of an examination in the very law in question. Thereupon he looked me for a moment full in the face and dropped the conversation. This is a monstrous instance, if you like, but it does not stand alone in the experience of Scots.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“A Scotchman may tramp the better part of Europe and the United States, and never again receive so vivid an impression of foreign travel and strange lands and manners as on his first excursion into England.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“Of all stupid ill-feelings, the sentiment of my fellow-Caucasians towards our companions in the Chinese car was the most stupid and the worst.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“Equality, though conceived very largely in America, des not extend so low down as to an emigrant.””

— Robert Louis Stevenson