To Remember Robert Louis Stevenson

Alexander Stern

This monument to Robert Louis Stevenson is located in Portsmouth Square in San Francisco. Robert Louis Stevenson lived near Portsmouth Plaza at 608 Bush Street from December 1879 to March 1880. The monument was designed by Bruce Porter, landscape designer of Filoli Gardens and architect Willis Polk and unveiled 1897. On the top of the monument is a bronze Spanish galleon with bronze or brass sails. The inscription is from "A Christmas Sermon" in his book "Across the Plains." It reads:

To be honest, to be kind - to earn a little, to spend a little less - to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence - to renounce when that shall be necessary, and not be embittered - to keep a few friends but these without capitulation - above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself - here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.