Excerpt from Exits and Entrances: A Book of Essays and Sketches From the lips of a common friend I first heard of Robert Louis Stevenson. This friend placed in my hand copies of "An Inland Voyage" and "Travels with a Donkey." The author was then but little known. A few delighted critics had indeed piped his praises, but the great world of readers after all pays but little heed to the newspaper oracle. It is fortunate for the writer of books that the reader of them reserves unto himself the privilege of having an opinion of his own. It was rumoured in those days that Stevenson was coming to California, and we wild Westerners who knew aught of him rejoiced thereat. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.