“When I lived in London I moved in circles in which it would have been just as eccentric not to dress for dinner every night as not to have a bath every morning. When I came to Borneo I saw no reason to discontinue so good a habit. For three years, during the war, I never saw a white man. I never omitted to dress on a single occasion on which I was well enough to come to dinner. You have not been very long in this country: believe me, there is no better way to maintain the proper pride which you should have in yourself. When a white man surrenders in the slightest degree to influences that surround him he very soon loses his self-respect, and when he loses his self-respect you may be quite sure the natives will soon cease to respect him.”
W. Somerset Maugham, “The Outstation”, 1926
Photo: R. Kennedy Stephen
