Scottish Bar about the same time as a brother-in-law; and last, as a
friend with many interests in common. In the Speculative he spoke
frequently, and read some papers. We recognised his brilliancy, and
we delighted in his vivacity; but we misread the horoscope of his
future. We voted him a light horseman, lacking two essentials for
success--diligence and health. We wondered where he had got the
deftness and rhythm of his style, not knowing that the labour out of
which it was evoked was of itself sufficient to refute our estimate
of his powers of work. As to his health, we forgot behind that
slender, angular frame was not only a father's iron constitution and
a mother's nervous vitality, but his own cheerful spirit and
indomitable will." The Sheriff, in this letter to me, recalls
several reminiscences of Stevenson-some in a playful or contrariwise
vein, and another memory illustrates, he says, "the sweet
reasonableness which mingled with his wayward Bohemianism"; but
space does not allow me to quote more than how, "It seems but
yesterday that I met Louis in the Parliament House, and said I heard
he had got a case. And I seem to see the twinkle in his eye and the
toss of his arms as he answered, 'Yes, my boy, you'll see how I'll
stick in, now that I've tasted blood.'"

Louis' mother showed this friend, Mr. Guthrie, a succession of her
boy's photographs, ending in wig and gown as an advocate. "That is
what I call from Baby to Bar," she said; and then added, beginning
with a smile, and ending with a break in her voice, "I said to Louis
once that the next collection would be from Bar to Baronet, and he
replied, 'It will be from Bar to Burial.'" Except at the "dear old
Spec.," he mixed little his equals in Edinburgh. As a writer in
Blackwood points out, at the period he had grown into swallow-tails,
Edinburgh was by no means devoid of intellectual company, which even