And here, with the aptest illustrative force, after I have laid down my part-truth, I must step in with its opposite. For, after all, we are vessels of a very limited content. Not all men can read all books; it is only in a chosen few that any man will find his appointed food; and the fittest lessons are the most palatable, and make themselves welcome to the mind. A writer learns this early, and it is his chief 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. NOTES This article first appeared in the _British Weekly_ for 13 May 1887, forming Stevenson's contribution to a symposium on this subject by some of the celebrated writers of the day, including Gladstone, Ruskin, Hamerton; and others as widely different as Archdeacon Farrar and Rider Haggard. In the same year (1887) the papers were all collected and published by the _Weekly_ in a volume, with the title _Books Which Have Influenced Me_. This essay was later included in the complete editions of Stevenson's _Works_ (Edinburgh ed., Vol. XI, Thistle ed., Vol. XXII). [Note 1: First published in the _British Weekly_, May 13, 1887.] [Note 2: Of the _British Weekly_.] [Note 3: _The most influential books ... are works of fiction_. This statement is undoubtedly true, if we use the word "fiction" in the sense understood here by Stevenson. It is curious, however, to note the rise in dignity of "works of fiction," and of "novels"; people used to read them with apologies, and did not like to be caught at it. The cheerful audacity of Stevenson's declaration would have seemed like blasphemy fifty years earlier.] [Note 4: _Mrs. Scott Siddons_. Not for a moment to be confounded with the great actress Sarah Siddons, who died in 1831. Mrs. Scott Siddons, in spite of Stevenson's enthusiasm, was not an actress of remarkable power.] [Note 5: _Kent's brief speech_. Toward the end of _King Lear_.] "Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer."] [Note 6: _D'Artagnan ... Vicomte de Bragelonne_. See Stevenson's essay, _A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's_ (1887), in _Memories and Portraits_. See also Note 3 of Chapter II above and Note 43 of Chapter IV above. _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ is the title of the sequel to _Twenty Years After_, which is the sequel to the _Musketeers_. Dumas wrote 257 volumes of romance, plays, travels etc.] [Note 7: _Pilgrim's Progress_. See Note 13 of Chapter V above.]