[Ads-l] Quote Origin: Sooner or later we all sit down to the banquet of consequences (Probably not Robert Louis Stevenson)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The saying in the subject line has been attributed to the  Scottish
novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. Wall Street Journal reporter Jason
Zweig and quotation expert Mardy Grothe asked me to trace this saying.

Researchers have been unable to find this saying in the works of
Stevenson. A partial match appeared in Stevenson's essay titled "Old
Mortality" published in "Longman’s Magazine" in 1884. Stevenson
emphasized the value of reading books. The following passage contained
the phrase "game of consequences" instead of "banquet of
consequences":

[ref] 1884 May, Longman's Magazine, Old Mortality by Robert Louis
Stevenson, Start Page 74, Quote Page 75, Longmans, Green, & Company,
London. (Google Books Full View) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing
upon their minds the issues, pleasures, business, importance and
immediacy of that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic
temper, to excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing
the complexity of that game of consequences to which we all sit down,
the hanger-back not least.
[End excerpt]

During the following decades Stevenson's essay was widely reprinted;
hence, many readers saw it. I conjecture that the 1884 statement was
rephrased to yield the popular modern misquotation.

The earliest close match I found for the saying under examination
appeared in a 1928 essay by Robert W. Frank in the journal "The
Christian Century":

[ref] 1928 August 9, The Christian Century: A Journal of Religion, The
Pessimism of Jesus by Robert W. Frank, Start Page 974, Quote Page 975,
Column 1, Christian Century Press, Chicago, Illinois. (Google Books
Full View) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
In one of his typically neat and incisive sentences Robert Louis
Stevenson has reminded us that "Sooner or later we all sit down to the
banquet of consequences." We may temporarily escape detection and the
consequent disgrace. We may postpone indefinitely the payment of
interest upon our deeds. But neither we nor our generation can
ultimately escape the consequences of our motives and our acts.
[End excerpt]

Here is a link to the Quote Investigator article:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/09/22/sit-banquet/

Feedback welcome
Garson O'Toole

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