The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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sweet will, attending classes where he cared to, interesting himself in
the subjects that appealed to him--Latin, French, and
mathematics--neglecting the others and bringing home no prizes, to
Cummie's distress.

Certain books were his prime favorites at this time. "Robinson Crusoe,"
he says, "and some of the books of Mayne Reid and a book called Paul
Blake--Swiss Family Robinson also. At these I played, conjured up their
scenes and delighted to hear them rehearsed to seventy times seven.

"My father's library was a spot of some austerity; the proceedings of
learned societies, cyclopaedias, physical science and above all, optics
held the chief place upon the shelves, and it was only in holes and
corners that anything legible existed as if by accident. Parents'
Assistant, Rob Roy, Waverley and Guy Mannering, Pilgrim's Progress,
Voyages of Capt. Woods Rogers, Ainsworth's Tower of London and four old
volumes of Punch--these were among the chief exceptions.