About the middle of December he pushed on to San Francisco, and prepared
to settle down and work for an indefinite time. Though he had known but
few people in Monterey, nevertheless it was a social little place in
comparison to a great city like San Francisco, where Stevenson found
himself indeed a stranger and friendless and learned for the first time
in his life what it really meant to be lonely.

Funds were running low; so he secured the cheapest possible lodging and
took his meals at various small restaurants, living at the rate of
seventy cents a day.

On December 26 he wrote: "For four days I have spoken to no one but my
landlady or landlord or the restaurant waiters. This is not a gay way to
pass Christmas, is it?" But some days later, nothing daunted, he added:
"I lead a pretty happy life, though you might not think it. I have great
fun trying to be economical, which I find as good a game of play as any
other. I have no want of occupation and though I rarely see any one to
speak to, have little time to worry."

To make matters worse, letters containing money went astray and word
came that some articles submitted to his publishers in England, on which
he had depended for funds, were not satisfactory, and this forced him to
reduce his living expenses to forty-five cents a day. The letters from
home were most unsatisfactory and lacked the kind of news he longed for.
"Not one soul ever gives me any _news_," he complained to Sidney Colvin,
"about people or things, everybody writes me sermons; it is good for me,
but hardly the food necessary for a man who lives all alone on
forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work
and many heavy thoughts. If one of you could write me a letter with a