Robert Louis Stevenson

Prince Otto Robert Louis Stevenson

Book Excerpt: ...my way of thinking, justly despised. Here is a man with great opportunities, and what does he do with them? He hunts, and he dresses very prettily--which is a thing to be ashamed of in a man--and he acts plays; and if he does aught else, the news of it has not come here.''Yet these are all innocent, ' said Otto. 'What would you have him do--make war?''No, sir, ' replied the old man. 'But here it is; I have been fifty years upon this River Farm, and wrought in it, day in, day out; I have ploughed and sowed and reaped, and risen early, and waked late; and this is the upshot: that all these years it has supported me and my family; and been the best friend that ever I had, set aside my wife; and now, when my time comes, I leave it a better farm than when I found it. So it is, if a man works hearty in the order of nature, he gets bread and he receives comfort, and whatever he touches breeds. And it humbly appears to me, if that Prince was to labour on his throne, as I have laboured and wrought.