RLS

Of the hundreds of people (at least) on whose words I have rested my eyes in my life, there is no one for whom I feel more warmth and affection than Robert Louis Stevenson. If I had ever been in love with someone across the space of time, it would be him. As I read his preface to "An Inland Voyage" on my Kindle (just the preface!), my heart swells again at his pure and exuberant soul, as open as the autumnal sky, and I nearly wept with joy and tenderness. I love him. I love, love, love him. If he were alive today I would cross the continent in a wagon to kiss the ground he treads. About his book, he wrote in the preface:

It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written by some one else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warm of my sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite him in with a country cordiality.