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 JavaScript Mini−FAQ
By Danny Goodman

All materials Copyright © 1997−2002 Developer Shed, Inc. except where otherwise noted.
This Mini−FAQ is posted periodically to the comp.lang.javascript newsgroup. It covers the language through
JavaScript 1.2, the version deployed in Netscape Communicator 4.0x, plus some compatibility items with
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0x. The focus here is on client−side JavaScript.

Where is the online documentation for JavaScript?

Current JavaScript docs (for Netscape) are available at:
• http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/3.0/handbook/javascript/index.html

A zipped set of Netscape's HTML documents is available at:

• http://developer.netscape.com/library/documentation/jshtm.zip

New JavaScript features in Netscape Communicator can be found at:

• http:developer.netscape.com/library/documentation/communicator/jsguide/js1_2.htm

Documentation for Microsoft's implementation of its core language (called JScript) is at:
• http://www.microsoft.com/JScript/us/techinfo/jsdocs.htm

Also be sure to download Microsoft's document object model description. You can find a link from:
• http://www.microsoft.com/JScript/

Documentation for JScript in Internet Explorer 4 is part of Microsoft's Internet Client SDK documentation:
• http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk/inetsdk/asetup/

Where is the official bug list for JavaScript?

Netscape has collected and published a list of bugs for Navigator 3.0x and Communicator. While not
necessarily 100% complete, it is quite extensive:
• http://developer.netscape.com/

Can JavaScript do any of the following?

• read or write random text files on the local disk or on the server?
• invoke automatic printing of the current document?
• control browser e−mail, news reader, or bookmark windows and menus?
• access or modify browser preferences settings?
• capture a visitor's e−mail address or IP address?
• quietly send me an e−mail when a visitor loads my page?
• launch client processes (e.g.,Unix sendmail,Win apps,Mac scripts)?
• capture individual keystrokes?
• change a document's background .gif after the page has loaded?
• change the current browser window size, location, or options?
• get rid of that dumb "JavaScript Alert:" line in alert dialogs?

No, however many of these items are possible in Communicator 4.0. Those items perceived to be security
risks (e.g., access browser settings) require "signed JavaScript". MSIE JScript version 2 (see below) can
read/write local files via ActiveX−−but only from server−side scripting.

1
 JavaScript Mini−FAQ
Why won't my script work under MS Internet Explorer 3 for the Mac? JScript is available on the Macintosh
starting with 3.0.1 (which is different from the Windows 3.01). I am still evaluating the Mac implementation,
whose object model and other support for JavaScript does not necessarily jive with the Windows version (e.g.,
the Mac version supports the Image object for mouse rollovers). MSIE 3.0.1 runs on Mac 68K and PPC.

Why won't my Navigator 3.0x script run under MSIE 3 for Windows 95?
Most language features and objects that are new in Navigator 3.0 are not supported in MSIE 3.0, although
several Navigator 3.0 items have been added to JScript version 2 (see below). Here's the quick list of items not
available in MSIE 3.0:

UNSUPPORTED OBJECTS

• Image −− this means no onMouseOver swappable images in MSIE 3

• Area −− no onMouseOvers
• Applet
• FileUpload
• Array −− hard−wired (JS1.0) arrays OK; implemented in JScript v.2.
• MimeType
• Plugin

UNSUPPORTED PROPERTIES / METHODS / EVENT HANDLERS OF SUPPORTED OBJECTS

• Window
onerror closed blur() focus() scroll() onBlur= onFocus=
• Location
reload() replace()
• Document
applets[] domain embeds[] images[] URL
• Link
onMouseOut=
• Form
reset() onReset=
• (All Form Elements)
type
• Navigator
mimeTypes[] plugins[] javaEnabled()
• String
prototype split()

One more item: the <SCRIPT SRC="xxx.js"> facility for loading external JavaScript library files runs on the
copy of MSIE 3.02 for Windows that I use (with JScript.dll versions 1 and 2). However there are also reports
that this is not working for some users. Try specifying a complete URL for the SRC attribute.

How is compatibility with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4?

2
 JavaScript Mini−FAQ
IE4 adheres closely to a standard called ECMAScript, which is essentially the core JavaScript 1.1 language.
This does not cover the document object model (another standard being studied). Navigator 3 document
objects not supported in IE4 are:
FileUpload navigator.mimeTypes[] navigator.plugins[]
The JScript.dll shipping with IE4 is version 3.

Why doesn't the document.cookie work with MSIE?

It does, but not when you access the HTML file from your local hard disk, as you are probably doing during
testing. Be aware, however, that MSIE limits you to one cookie name=value pair per domain, whereas
Netscape allows up to 20 pairs per domain.

What's new in Microsoft JScript version 2?

More than can fit here. Some items are compatible with Navigator 3.0+ (such as the Array object). Others are
unique to MSIE, such as the Dictionary and TextStream objects (acccessible via ActiveX). Additions are to
the core language, not the document object model. New functions let you determine the JScript version
installed in IE, but JScript version 2 must be installed to get this data. If you use version 2 language items,
see:
• http://www.microsoft.com/JScript/
for info about including a link button on your page to encourage visitors to upgrade their IE 3.0x to JScript
version 2.

How do I know if I have JScript version 2 installed on my PC?

Installation of MSIE 3.02 does not guarantee JScript version 2. Search your disk for 'jscript.dll'. Get the file's
properties, and click on the Version tab. The File version should begin with '2'. If not, download the latest
version from Microsoft (installer is 442KB).

How can I e−mail forms?

The most reliable way is to use straight HTML via a Submit style button. Set the ACTION of the <FORM> to
a mailto: URL and the ENCTYPE attribute to "text/plain". For security reasons, the
form.submit() method does not submit a form whose ACTION is a mailto: URL. Microsoft Internet
Explorer 3.0x does not e−mail forms of any kind.

How do I script a visit counter?

At best, a client−side script can show the visitor how many times he or she has been to the site (storing the
count in a local cookie). A count of total hits to the server requires a server−side CGI program. I have an
article on cookies in Netscape's View Source developer newsletter archive (in the "JavaScript Apostle"
section).

Why is my script not working inside a table?

There is a long−standing bug with JavaScript and tables. Do not place <SCRIPT> tags inside <TD> tags.
Instead, start the <SCRIPT> tag before the <TD> tag, and document.write() the <TD> tag through the
</TD> tag. I go one step further, and document.write() the entire table, interlacing script statements
where needed.

3
 JavaScript Mini−FAQ

After window.open(), how do I access objects and scripts in the other window?
First, be sure to assign an 'opener' property to the new window if you are using a version of JS that doesn't
do it automatically (Nav 3.0x and MSIE 3.0x do it automatically). The following script should be a part of
_every_ new window creation:

var newWind = window.open("xxx","xxx","xxx")

// u fill in blanks
if (newWind.opener == null) { // for Nav 2.0x
newWind.opener = self // this creates and sets a new property
}<

To access items in the new window from the original window, the 'newWind' variable must not be damaged
(by unloading), because it contains the only reference to the other window you can use (the name you assign
as the second parameter of open() is not valid for scripted window references; only for TARGET
attributes). To access a form element property in the new window, use:

newWind.document.formName.elementName.property

From the new window, the 'opener' property is a reference to the original window (or frame, if the
window.open() call was made from a frame). To reference a form element in the original window:

opener.document.formName.elementName.property

Finally, if the new window was opened from one frame in the main browser window, and a script in the new
window needs access to another frame in the main browser window, use:

opener.parent.otherFrameName.document.formName. ...

How do I use JavaScript to password−protect my Web site?

There are any number of schemes (I've used some myself). Most of them fail to deflect the knowledgeable
JavaScript programmer, because no matter how you encode the correct password (e.g., bit shifting), both the
encoding algorithms and the result have to be in the script −− whose source code is easily accessible. If you're
only interested in keeping out casual visitors, this method may suffice.

A more secure way is to set the password to be the name or pathname of the HTML file on your site that is the
'true' starting page. Set the location to the value entered into the field (unfortunately, you cannot extract the
value property of a password object in Navigator 2.0x). Entry of a bogus password yields an 'invalid URL'
error.

If the protected pages need additional security (e.g., an infidel has managed to get the complete URL), you
might also consider setting a temporary cookie on the password page; then test for the existence of that cookie
upon entry to every protected page, and throw the infidel back to the password page.

What does the IE4 "Access Denied" error mean when accessing a new window?
The "Access Denied" error in any browser usually means that a script in one window or frame is trying to

4
 JavaScript Mini−FAQ
access another window or frame whose document's domain is different from the document containing the
script. What can seem odd about this is that you get this error in IE4 frequently when a script in one window
generates a new window (with window.open()), and content for that other window is dynamically created
from the same script doing the opening. The focus() method also triggers the error.

In my experience, this occurs only when the scripts are being run from the local hard disk. You get a clue
about the situation in the titlebar of the new window: It forces an about:blank URL to the new window, which
is a protocol:domain that differs from wherever your main window's script comes from. If, however, you put
the same main window document on a server, and access it via http:, the problem goes away.

There is a workaround for the local−only problem: In the first parameter of the window.open() method call,
load a real document (even if it is a content−free HTML document) into the sub−window before using
document.write() to generate content for the subwindow. The loading action 'legitimizes' the window as
coming from the same domain as your main window's document.

(This solution does not affect scripts that load a page from a secure server into a separate window or frame.
An http: protocol in one window and https: in the other−−even if from the same server.domain−−yield a
security mismatch and "Access Denied." Setting the document.domain properties of both pages may solve the
problem (but I am unable to test it for sure).)

...............................................................................................................................................................................15
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stevenson at
Manasquan
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Stevenson at Manasquan

Author: Charlotte Eaton

Contributor: Francis Joseph Dickie

George Steele Seymour

Illustrator: Wyatt Eaton

Release date: October 9, 2017 [eBook #55714]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by ellinora, David E. Brown and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This
file was produced from images generously made
available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AT

MANASQUAN ***
 The Little Bookfellow Series

Stevenson at Manasquan
Other Titles in this series:
Estrays. Poems by Thomas Kennedy,
George Seymour, Vincent Starrett, and
Basil Thompson.
William De Morgan, a Post-Victorian
Realist, by Flora Warren Seymour.
Lyrics, by Laura Blackburn.
Pen and Ink Sketch of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Wyatt Eaton
Kind permission of Mr. S. S. McClure
Stevenson at Manasquan

By
Charlotte Eaton

With a Note on the Fate of the Yacht

"Casco" by Francis Dickie and Six
Portraits from Stevenson by George
Steele Seymour

CHICAGO
THE BOOKFELLOWS
1921
Three hundred copies of this book by
Charlotte Eaton, Bookfellow No. 550,
Francis Dickie, Bookfellow No. 716, and
George Steele Seymour, Bookfellow No.
1, have been printed. Mrs. Eaton's
memoir is an elaboration of one
previously published by Thomas Y.
Crowell Co. of New York under the title
"A Last Memory of Robert Louis
Stevenson"; Mr. Dickie's notes have
appeared in the New York World, and Mr.
Seymour's "Portraits" have appeared in
"Contemporary Verse" and "The Star" of
San Francisco.
Copyright, 1921, by
Flora Warren Seymour
THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS
IOWA
 STEVENSON AT MANASQUAN
When I came face to face with Robert Louis Stevenson it was the
realization of one of my most cherished dreams.
This was at Manasquan, a village on the New Jersey coast, where he
had come to make a farewell visit to his old friend Will Low, the
artist. Mr. Low had taken a cottage there that summer while working
on his series of Lamia drawings for Lippincott's, and Stevenson,
hearing that we were on the other side of the river, sent word that
he would come to see us on the morrow.
"Stevenson is coming," was announced at the breakfast-table as
calmly as though it were a daily occurrence.
Stevenson coming to Manasquan!
I was in my 'teens, was an enthusiastic student of poetry and
mythology, and Stevenson was my hero of romance. Was it any
wonder the intelligence excited me?
My husband, the late Wyatt Eaton, and Stevenson, were friends in
their student days abroad, and it was in honor of those early days
that I was to clasp the hand of my favorite author.
It was in the mazes of a contradance at Barbizon, in the picturesque
setting of a barn lighted by candles, that their first meeting took
place, where Mr. Eaton, though still a student in the schools of Paris,
had taken a studio to be near Jean François Millet, and hither
Stevenson had come, with his cousin, known as "Talking Bob," to
take part in the harvest festivities among the peasants.
These were the halcyon days at Barbizon, when Millet tramped the
fields and the favorite haunts of Rousseau and Corot could be
followed up through the Forest of Fontainebleau, before Barbizon
had become a resort for holiday makers, or the term "Barbizon
School" had been thought of.
Now, of all places in the world, the quaint little Sanborn Cottage on
the river-bank, where we were stopping, seemed to me the spot
best suited for a first meeting with Stevenson. The Sanborns were
very little on the estate and the place had a neglected look. Indeed,
more than that, one might easily have taken it for a haunted or
abandoned place—with its garden choked with weeds, and its
window-shutters flaunting old spider-webs to the breeze.
It was, of course, the fanciful, adventure-loving Stevenson that I
looked forward to seeing, and I was not disappointed; and while
others spoke of the flight of time with its inevitable changes, I felt
sure that, to me, he would be just Stevenson who wrote the things
over which I had burned the midnight oil.
He came promptly at the hour fixed, appearing on the threshold as
frail and distinguished-looking as a portrait by Velasquez. He had
walked across the mile-long bridge connecting Brielle and
Manasquan, ahead of the others, for the bracer he always needed
before joining even a small company.
Shall I ever forget the sensation of delight that thrilled me, as he
entered the room—tall, emaciated, yet radiant, his straight, glossy
hair so long that it lay upon the collar of his coat, throwing into bold
relief his long neck and keenly sensitive face?
His hands were of the psychic order, and were of marble whiteness,
save the thumb and first finger of the right hand, that were stained
from constant cigarette rolling—for he was an inveterate smoker—
and he had the longest fingers I have ever seen on a human being;
they were, in fact, part of his general appearance of lankiness, that
would have been uncanny, but for the geniality and sense of bien
être that he gave off. His voice, low in tone, had an endearing
quality in it, that was almost like a caress. He never made use of
vernacularism and was without the slightest Scotch accent; on the
contrary, he spoke his English like a world citizen, speaking a
universal tongue, and always looked directly at the person spoken
to.
I have since heard one who knew him (and they are becoming
scarce now) call him the man of good manners, or "the mannerly
Stevenson," and this is the term needed to complete my first
impression, for more than the traveller, the scholar or the author, it
was the mannerly Stevenson that appeared in our midst that day. He
moved about the room to a ripple of repartée that was contagious,
putting every one on his mettle—in fact, his presence was a
challenge to a jeu d'esprit on every hand. How self-possessed he
was, how spiritual! his face glowing with memories of other days.
He had just come from Saranac, Saranac-in-the-Adirondacks, that
had failed to yield him the elixir of life he was seeking, where he had
spent a winter of such solitude as even his courageous wife was
unable to endure.
His good spirits were doubtless on the rebound after good work
accomplished, for there, in "his hat-box on the hill," as he called his
quarters at Baker's, were written his "Christmas Sermons," "The
Lantern Bearer," and the opening chapters of "The Master of
Ballantrae." In this "very decent house" he would talk old Mr. Baker
to sleep on stormy nights, and the good old farmer, never suspecting
that Stevenson was "anybody in particular," snored his responses to
those flights in fact and fancy for which there are those who would
have given hundreds of dollars to have been in the old farmer's
place. But it was the very carelessness of Mr. Baker that helped
along the talking spell. This is often the case with authors; they will
pour out their precious knowledge into the ears of some
inconsequential person, a tramp as likely as not, picked up by the
way; the non-critical attitude of the illiterate seems to help the
thinker in forming a sequence of ideas; this explains, too, why the
artist values the lay criticism—it hits directly at any false note in a
picture, thus saving the painter much unnecessary delay.
Sometimes Dr. Trudeau, also an exile of the mountains, would drop
in professionally on these stormy evenings and would stay until
about midnight, having entirely forgotten the nature of his visit.
Stevenson had this faculty of making friends of those who served
him. To the restaurant keeper of Monterey, Jules Simoneau, who
trusted him when he was penniless and unknown, he presented a
set of his books, leather-bound, each volume autographed, and this
worthy man has since refused a thousand dollars for the set. "Well,"
he explained, "I do not need the money, and I value the gift for
itself." I think this friend of Stevenson's must feel like Father Tabb in
the library of his friend when he said:
"To see, when he is dead,
The many books he read,
And then again, to note
The many books he wrote;
How some got in, and some got out.
'Tis very strange to think about."
But to return to our story.
Stevenson's Isle-of-the-blest was calling to him, and hope lay that
way, where life was elementary and where a man with but one lung
to his account might live indefinitely. Not that he feared to die. Oh,
no! It takes more courage sometimes to live, but it was hard to give
up at forty, when one just begins to enter into the knowledge of
one's own powers. A blind lady once said to me, in speaking of a
mutual friend, "When Mr. B. comes, I feel as if there was a sprite in
the room," and this is the way I felt about Stevenson, for during
those moments of serious discussion when most people are tense,
he moved actively about, and his philosophies were humanized by
his warm, brown eyes and merry exclamations.
Another reason for the sprite feeling, was that he was consciously
living in the past that day, and each face was like reseeing a
milestone long passed, on some half-forgotten journey.
It was this sense of detachment that, more than anything else, gave
us the feeling that he was already beyond our mortal ken, that he
was living at once in the visible and in the invisible, one to whom the
passing of time had little significance. I think this is true, more or
less, of all those who are marked for a brief earthly career.
By this time the other members of the family had arrived. His
mother, Lloyd Osbourne, and Mrs. Strong, his step-children; "Fanny,"
his wife, was in California, looking after some property interests she
had there, and provisioning the yacht chartered for the voyage to
the South Seas. In all his enterprises she was his major-domo, and
her devotion no doubt helped to prolong his life. Their mutual
agreement on all financial matters reminded me of a remark made
by mine host at a country inn, who, in speaking of his wife, said,
"She is my very best investment," and so was Mrs. Stevenson to her
husband, Lewis, for so the family called him, and never Robert Louis.
I am inclined to think that yoking of contrasts is an important part in
Nature's economy of things. Ella Wheeler Wilcox said to me that she
owed her success to Robert—her husband—because in all her
undertakings he went before and smoothed the way; but Mr.
Wilcox's version of the case is another story. "I keep an eye on Ella,"
said he, "to prevent her from giving away too much money."
Stevenson was now seated before the grate, the flickering light from
the wood fire illuminating his pale face to transparency. Now and
then he relapsed into silence, gazing into the fire with the rapt look
of one who sees visions.
"Are you seeing a Salamander," I asked, "or do the sparks flying
upward make you think of the golden alchemy of Lescaris?"[A]
"A Salamander," he replied, smiling. "Yes, a carnivorous fire-dweller
that eats up man and his dreams forever."
"Gracious! But you are going to worse things than Salamanders, the
Paua,[B] they will get you, if you don't watch out."
And then, suddenly becoming conscious of my temerity in
interrupting the thread of his reflections, to cover my
embarrassment, I ran upstairs for my birthday-book.
An autograph!
Of course. And he wrote it, reading out the quotation that filled in
part of the space. It was one of Emerson's Kantisms, something
about not going abroad, unless you can as readily stay at home (I
forget the exact words). It was decidedly malapropos and called out
much merriment.
"Oh, stay at home, dear heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest."
Somebody quoted, to which another replied:
"Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits."
The autograph has long since disappeared, but how often have I
thought with regret of the amused expression in Stevenson's eyes at
the Salamander fancy! What tales of witchery might have been spun
from those themes worthy of the magic of his pen, the fire-dwelling
man-eater, or the discovery of the Greek shepherd!
Stevenson was amused over our enthusiasm, and the eagerness of
some of the younger members of the company to lionize him.
"And what do you consider your brightest failure?" inquired our host.
"'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,'" he replied, without a moment's hesitation,
adding, "that is the worst thing I ever wrote."
"Yet you owe it to your dream-expedition," some one reminded him.
"The dream-expedition?" he repeated. "Yes, that was perhaps a
compensation for the bad things."
Benjamin Franklin has said that success ruins many a man. The
success of "Trilby" killed Du Maurier, and many authors have had
their heads turned for far less than the Jekyll and Hyde furore that
swept the country at that time. But the Mannerly Stevenson carried
his honors lightly. Smiling over the popularity of the "worst thing he
ever wrote," he revealed that quality in his own nature that was finer
than anything he had given to print, the soul whose indomitable
courage could bear the brunt of adverse circumstance, and even
contumely, and hold its own integrity, becoming a law unto itself.
Here was the man who had passed himself off as one of a group of
steerage passengers on that memorable trip across the Atlantic on
his way to Monterey in quest of the woman he loved, the man
whose life was more vital in its love-motif than any of his own
romances, the man who, in spite of ill-health and uncertainty of
means, yet paid the price for his heart's desire.
"See here," said a lusty fellow, lurching up to him one day on deck.
"You are not one of us, you are a gentleman in hard luck."
"But," added Stevenson triumphantly, in telling the story, "it was not
until the end of the voyage that they found me out."
This points the saying that it was the great washed that Stevenson
fought shy of, and not the greater unwashed, with whom he was
always on the friendliest terms.
He talked delightfully, too, on events connected with his journey
across the plains, which he made in an emigrant train, associating
with Chinamen, who cooked their meals on board, and slept on
planks let down from the side of the cars.
"The air was thick," said he, "and an Oriental thickness, at that."
But this period of his life was a painful subject for his mother, who
was present, and some of his best stories were omitted on her
account.
He told us, however, about being nearly lynched for throwing away a
lighted match on the prairie. "And all the fuss," said he, "before I
was made aware of the nature of my crime." Both his mother and
Sydney Colvin had done their best to make him accept enough
money, as a loan, to make this trip comfortable. But he had refused.
He was, he explained, "doing that which neither his family nor
friends could approve," and he would therefore accept no financial
aid.
"Just before starting," said he, "being in need of money, I called at
the Century office, where I had left some manuscript with the
request for an early decision, but was politely shown the door."
Consternation seized us at this announcement, for all present knew
the editor for a man of sympathy and heart. But Stevenson himself
came to our relief with, "But Mr. Gilder was abroad that year."
After the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, it might not
come amiss to recount another little incident at the same office.
I mentioned one day to Mr. Gilder that some notes by Mr. Eaton
written during his last illness had been rejected. "You don't mean to
tell me that anything by Wyatt was rejected at this office," said he,
and going into an inner room, returned in a few minutes with a
goodly check. "There," said he, as he put it in my hand, "Send in the
notes at your convenience."
Stevenson laughed good-naturedly over the dilemmas the editors of
western papers threw him into, by their tardiness in paying space
rates for the stories and essays that now rank among his finest
productions. Indeed one wonders whether he would have survived
the hardships of those Monterey days, had not the good Jules
Simoneau found him "worth saving," a circumstance for which he is
accorded the palm by posterity rather than for the flavor of his
tamales.
In many ways it is given to the humble to minister to the needs of
the great. A distinguished author once said to me: "I could never
have arrived without the help of my poor friends."
As Stevenson went from reminiscence to reminiscence, we felt that
from this period of his vivid obscurity might have been drawn
material for some of his most stirring romances, and we were
rewarded as good listeners by the discovery of that which he
thought his best work, namely, the little story called "Will o' the Mill."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Sanborn, his eyes beaming, "if you live to be as
old as Methuselah, with all the world's lore at your finger-ends, you
could never improve on that simple little story."
We teased Stevenson a good deal on the hugeness of his royalties
on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," which, besides having had what the
publishers call a "run," was bringing in a second goodly harvest from
its dramatization, by which his voyage to the South Seas had
become a reality.
Remembering his remark that his idea of Purgatory was a perpetual
high wind, I asked him: "Why have you chosen an island for your
future habitat; or, if an island, why not Nevis in the West Indies,
where one is in the perpetual doldrums, so to speak?" "There will be
no more wind on Samoa than just enough to turn the page of the
book one is reading," he replied; and windless Nevis was British, you
see, and his first necessity was to get away where nobody reads.
Like Jubal, son of Lamech, who felt himself hemmed in by hearing
his songs repeated in a land where everybody sang, so he was
shadowed by the Jekyll and Hyde mania in a land where everybody
read.
The very essence of his isolation is felt in a playful little fling at a Mr.
Nerli, an artist, who went out there to paint his portrait, as well as
the boredom everyone experiences in sitting to a painter:
"Did ever mortal man hear tell, of sae singular a ferlie,
Of the coming to Apia here, of the painter, Mr. Nerli?
He came; and O for a human found, of a' he was the pearlie,
The pearl of a' the painter folk, was surely Mr. Nerli.
He took a thraw to paint mysel'; he painted late and early;
O now! the mony a yawn I've yawned in the beard of Mr. Nerli.
Whiles I would sleep, an' whiles would wake, an' whiles was mair
than surly,
I wondered sair, as I sat there, forninst the eyes of Nerli.
O will he paint me the way I want, as bonnie as a girlie?
Or will he paint me an ugly type, and be damned to Mr. Nerli!
But still and on, and whiche'er it is, he is a Canty Kerlie,
The Lord proteck the back and neck of honest Mr. Nerli."
Which shows that he was not altogether free from bothers even
after reaching his "port o' dreams" in running away from Purgatorial
winds, only to be held up by a paint-brush! Also, as most of us when
excited fall back upon our early idiom, so Stevenson, in jest or lyric
mood, drifted into the dialect of his fathers.
We found, much to our surprise, that Stevenson knew every nook
and cranny of the Sanborn estate, and told us of his trespassings—in
their absence—in search of fresh eggs for his breakfast, having
observed that the hens had formed nomadic habits, laying in the
wood-pile and in odd corners all over the grounds. This was during a
former visit when he stayed at Wainwright's, a landmark that has
since been wiped out by fire.
"One day, as I walked by," said he—meaning the Sanborn place—"I
heard a hen cackling in that triumphant way that left no doubt as to
her having performed her duty to the species. I vaulted the fence for
that particular egg and found it, still warm, with others, on its bed of
soft chips. After that, I had an object in my long, solitary walks. New
laid eggs for all occasions! And why not," he asked merrily, "seeing
there was no other proprietor than Chanticleer Peter, who had been
the victim of neglect so long that he would crow me a welcome, and
in time became so tame that he would spring on my knee and eat
crumbs from my fingers?"
The Sanborns were in Europe that year and, all things considered, is
it any wonder that he took the place for being abandoned?
"Nothing but my instinct for the preservation of property kept me
from smashing all the windows for exercise," said he.
"I am glad thee was good to Peter, said Mrs. Sanborn. Her extinct
brood was a pain still rankling in her bosom. She found Peter frozen
stiff on the bough on which he was roosting, after his hens had
disappeared by methods too elemental to explain.
They had left no servants in charge, and neighbors there were none
to restrain the attacks of marauders, and they were prize leghorns,
too. She almost wailed.
What a shame!
Well might all bachelors who are threatened with a wintry solitude
take warning by unhappy Peter.
But he is not without the honor due to martyrdom—is Peter, for Mrs.
Sanborn had him stuffed, and presented him to "Fanny," who took
him to California, where he survived the great San Francisco
earthquake.
"He must have been our mascot," said Lloyd Osbourne to me long
after, "for the fire that followed the earthquake came just as far as
the gate and no farther."
Since the cup that cheers is not customary in Quaker homes our
hostess proposed an egg-nog by way of afternoon collation and all
entered with zest into the mixing of the decoction. One brought the
eggs, another the sugar-bowl, while our host went to the cellar for
that brand of John Barleycorn that transmutes every beverage to a
toast.
Now, while Stevenson came to regard new-laid eggs as the natural
manna of the desert, he had his doubts as to the feasibility of egg-
nog, seeing that milk is a necessary constituent. He did not know,
you see, that a little White Alderney cow was chewing the end of
salt-meadow grasses in the woods nearby, and, even as he doubted,
Mrs. Sanborn and her Ganymedes had brought in a jug of the white
fluid, topped with a froth like sea-foam.
"It's nectar for the gods on Olympus," said I—meaning the milk.
"True Ambrosia of the meadows," agreed Mrs. Sanborn.
"Well, this is Elysium, and we are the gods to-day."
Elysium-on-Manasquan.
"To be more exact," said Stevenson, "it should be Argos; it was there
they celebrated the cow, as we are now celebrating——"
"Tidy," said Mrs. Sanborn.
"Io," corrected Stevenson, waving his fork, for he, too, was helping
to beat the eggs:
"Argos-on-Manasquan."
He lingered over the name Manasquan as though he enjoyed saying
it.
"The first thing that impressed me in travelling in America," said he,
"was your Indian names for towns and rivers. Temiscami,
Coghnawaga, Ticonderoga, the very sound of them thrills one with
romantic fancies. Why do you not revive more of these charming
Indian names?"
"We are too young yet to appreciate our legendary wealth," said Mr.
Sanborn, with an emphasis on the "legendary."
"Qui s'excuse, s'accuse," reminded Mrs. Low, who was a French
woman.
"Quite right," assented Mr. Sanborn, "it is not precedent we lack, but
valuations."
"To return to Argos," said Mrs. Sanborn—the peace-maker—"I
always feel in the presence of a divine mystery when I milk Tidy. No
one could be guilty of a frivolous thing before the calm eye of that
little cow."
Mrs. Sanborn possessed the reverent spirit of the pre-Raphaelites
which burned modestly in its Quaker shrine or flared up like lightning
as occasion required; and she delighted in the deification of her little
cow. And why not? Had not Tidy's worshipped ancestors nourished
kings of antiquity, and given idols to their temples, and stood she
not to-day as perfect a symbol of maternity?
I do not now remember whether it was referring to Samoa as
Stevenson's "port o' dreams" that brought up the discussion of
dreams. To some one who asked him if he believed that dreams
came true, he replied, "Certainly, they are just as real as anything
else."
"Well, it's what one believes that counts, isn't it, and one can form
any theory in a world where dreams are as real as other things, and
is it the same with ideals?" somebody ventured.
"Ideals," said Stevenson, "are apt to stay by you when material
things have taken the proverbial wings, and are assets quite as
enduring as stone fences."
"And was it a want of faith in the durability of stone fences, or
ignorance of their dream-assets, that accounts for the way that Cato
and Demosthenes solved their problems?" was the next question,
but as this high strain was interrupted by more frivolity, my thoughts
again reverted to the solidity of Stevenson's dreams, that now
furnished his inquiring soul with new fields for exploitation, as well
as a dominant interest to fill up the measure of his earthly span.
He regretted leaving the haunts of man, he told us, particularly the
separation from his friends, which was satisfactory, coming, as it did,
from the man who coined the truism that the way to have a friend is
to be one.
But this was his fighting chance, "and a fellow has to die fighting,
you know." What was civilization anyway to one who needed only
sunshine and negligée? Thus in no other than a tone of pleasantry
did he refer to his condition, and never have I seen a face or heard a
voice so exempt from bitterness. He told me, in fact, that he was
unable to breathe in a room with more than four people in it at a
time. This sounds like an exaggeration, or one of the vagaries of the
sick, yet things that seem trifles to the well, can be tragic to the
nervous sufferer. Mrs. Low has told me that at a dinner of only five
or six covers Stevenson would frequently get up and throw open a
window to breathe in enough ozone to enable him to get through
the evening.
He was embarking to the lure of soft airs and long, subliminal
solitudes, accepting gracefully the one hope held out, when the
crowded habitations of cities had become a torture. We felt the pity
of the enforced exile of so companionable a spirit, but we did not
voice it, feeling constrained to live up to the standard of cheerfulness
he had so valiantly set for us.
Mr. Eaton, who boasted that, in him, a good sea captain had been
spoiled to make a bad painter, encouraged Stevenson to talk freely
of his plans, and he dwelt at some length on the beauty and
seaworthiness of the yacht Casco, that had been chartered for the
voyage. This sea theme led, of course, to the inevitable fish stories,
and after some mythological whale had been swallowed by some
non-Biblical Jonah, I remarked, in the lull that followed, "Maybe the
waters of the South Seas will yield you up a heroine."
A laugh went around at this, for some present thought I had said a
"herring." But Stevenson had no doubt as to my meaning. "I am
always helpless," said he, "when I try to describe a woman; but
then," he added, brightly, "how should I hope to understand a
woman, when God, who made her, cannot?" As straws show how
the wind blows, so this little joke throws light on Stevenson 's state
of mind toward womankind in general. During this heroine
discussion, he remarked that he was always "unconscionably bored"
by the conversation of young girls. He had no desire, it seems, to
mould the young idea to his taste, as Horace, when he said:
"Place me where the world is not habitable,
Where the Day-God's Chariot too near approaches,
Yet will I love Lalagé, see her sweet smile,
Hear her sweet prattle."
Even as a school-boy he was unable to mingle with lads of his own
age. This, doubtless, is another of the precocities of the early-
doomed, who feel that every moment of life they have must be lived
to the full. A well-known artist, Who was suffering with tuberculosis,
once said to me, in describing his working hours at the studio, "I
must make every touch tell, and every moment count." So to
Stevenson the rounded out sympathies of maturity were more
attractive than the sweet prattle of girlhood, because, like the
painter, with his paint, he, with his life, had to make every moment
count. This, of course, explains his having chosen a woman so much
older than himself as a life-companion; a woman in whom he could
find a response on his own mental plane.
In the following little poem, which is perhaps his best known tribute
to his wife, he embodies in cameo clearness my own early
impression of the intrinsic qualities of her character:

"Trusty, dusky, vivid true,

With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer
Made my mate.

Honor, anger, valor, fire;

A love that life could never tire;
Death quench or evil stir,
The mighty master
Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,

A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart-whole and soul-free,
The august father
Gave to me."

It was at the Lows' Apartment in New York that I first met Mrs.
Stevenson. I called one afternoon to see Mrs. Low, who was
convalescing from an illness. She sent word that she would be able
to see me in half an hour, and I was shown into the living-room,
where, meditating by the fire, sat Mrs. Stevenson. She seemed
exceedingly picturesque to me, in a rich black satin gown, her hair
tied back by a black ribbon in girlish fashion and falling in three
ringlets down her back.
She told me stories of her first arrival in New York that were as
amusing as some of Stevenson's prairie experiences. She engaged a
messenger-boy to pioneer her through the great stone jungle, not
from fear of pickpockets or the like, but to save her from a helplessly
lost feeling she always had when alone on the streets of a strange
city. On arriving, she went directly to the old St. Stephen's Hotel on
University Place and Eleventh Street, registering thus:
"Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson (wife of the author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde)."
To those of the friends who smiled over it, she explained that, being
ill at the time, she had a horror of dying unknown in a hotel room
and being sent to the morgue.
I replied to this by telling her how my mother, being alone at a large
London hotel for a night, insisted on having one of the
chambermaids sleep with her, no doubt from the same sense of
hopeless wandering in a similar Dædalian Labyrinth.
Years after, some autograph collector hunted up that old St.
Stephen's register and cut the name from the page, which reminded
me of a little story I once told Mrs. Low.
As a boy Mr. Eaton one day mounted the pulpit of the church in the
little village of Phillipsburg, P. Q., Canada, where he was born, and
made a drawing on one of the fly-leaves of the Bible. When it was
later told in the village that he had exhibited at the Paris Salon,
someone cut the leaf from the Book of Books.
When one starts story telling to a good listener, little incidents dart
through the brain that for long have lain dormant, and to pass the
time, I told Mrs. Stevenson that on the day Mr. Eaton finished his
portrait of President Garfield for the Union League Club, he asked
the newly landed Celtic maid if she would wash his brushes for him
(an office that he generally performed for himself), to which she
exclaimed joyfully, "To think that I have lived to see the day that I
washed the brushes that painted the President of the United States!"
What the artist regarded as an added chore to her already full
labors, was to her willing hands a pride and an honor. It may be a
truism that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but
there certainly seems to be a good deal in a view-point. In looking
back, I know that I grasped, that day, something of what the later
years proved her to the world, for I read her then, as a highly gifted
woman who had submerged her own personality in the greater gifts
and personal claims of her invalid husband and in a recent reading
of her Samoan notes there was imparted to me, by means too subtle
to explain, those glimpses that insight bestows, that are called
reading between the lines—a realization of the hardship of much of
her life in the South Seas. I felt distinctly the under-current of
troubled restlessness beneath the apparent good time of an unusual
environment.
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