Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME
support ; he goes on unafraid, laying down the law ;
and he is sure at heart that most of what he says is
demonstrably false, and much of a mingled strain,
and some hurtful, and very little good for service ;
but he is sure besides that when his words fall into
the hands of any genuine reader, they will be weighed
and winnowed, and only that which suits will be
assimilated ; and when they fall into the hands of
one who cannot intelligently read, they come there
quite silent and inarticulate, falling upon deaf ears,
and his secret is kept as if he had not written.
285