to A. St. Gaudens

Vailima, Samoa, July 8, 1894.

MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,—This is to tell you that the medallion has been at last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my smoking-room mantelpiece.  It is considered by everybody a first-rate but flattering portrait.  We have it in a very good light, which brings out the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage.  As for my own opinion, I believe it to be a speaking likeness, and not flattered at all; possibly a little the reverse.  The verses (curse the rhyme) look remarkably well.

Please do not longer delay, but send me an account for the expense of the gilt letters.  I was sorry indeed that they proved beyond the means of a small farmer.—Yours very sincerely,

Robert Louis Stevenson.