I'm glad we don't live in an age where people get offended at things like this. That was the worst (only?) stain on Stevenson's character.

The nature writing is so dense and rich and easy all at once that it's like prosy Keats. There are whole paragraphs that I should have marked up to learn by heart.

The climax was over too quickly for me—I wanted to have more reasons—but my wife says it makes for a good contrast with the tectonic build-up and anyway the reasons are obvious and don't need dwelling on. She's probably right.