Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 3, 1895 - Travels and Excursions, Volume II

THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT
argument with all sorts of poor human creatures who
understood neither him nor themselves, and he had
had the boyishness to dissect and criticise even so
small a matter as the riddler's definition of mind.
He snorted aloud with zealotry and the lust for
intellectual battle. Anything, whatever it was, that
seemed to him likely to discourage the continued
passionate production of corn and steam-engines he
resented like a conspiracy against the people. Thus,
when I put in the plea for literature, that it was
only in good books, or in the society of the good,
that a man could get help in his conduct, he declared
I was in a different world from him. 'Damn my
conduct ! ' said he. * I have given it up for a bad
job. My question is. Can I drive a nail ? ' And he
plainly looked upon me as one who was insidiously
seeking to reduce the people's annual bellyful of corn
and steam-engines.
It may be argued that these opinions spring from
the defect of culture ; that a narrow and pinching
way of life not only exaggerates to a man the im-
portance of material conditions, but indirectly, by
denying him the necessary books and leisure, keeps
his mind ignorant of larger thoughts ; and that
hence springs this overwhelming concern about diet,
and hence the bald view of existence professed by
Mackay. Had this been an English peasant the
conclusion would be tenable. But Mackay had
most of the elements of a liberal education. He
had skirted metaphysical and mathematical studies.
He had a thoughtful hold of what he knew, which
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