all parents of their position and very natural social
prejudices, it seemed a foolish thing for a man to turn seriously to
literature as a means of winning his daily bread. The Edinburgh of that
day did not think much of the profession of letters, and although the
memory of Sir Walter Scott, the 'Edinburgh Reviewers,' and the literary
lights of an earlier time was still green, all parents held the opinion
that, although a few authors had made for themselves fame and fortune,
literature was but a beggarly trade at the best, and one to which no
wise man would apprentice his son.

Only those who knew the elder Mr Stevenson's nature well could fully
understand how great a trial to him was his son's decision; and only
those very near and dear to him could quite appreciate the depth of the
father's love, the tenderness of the father's heart, which permitted no
tinge of bitterness, no lasting shadow of repining, to darken his
relations with his son or to lessen in the slightest his overwhelming
affection for him. Sensitive in the extreme, the son in his turn could
not fail to feel his father's disappointment, almost to exaggerate its
effect on the older man in his own tender-hearted remorse that he was
unable to fulfil his destiny in any other way than by following
literature, which was calling him with no uncertain voice. It was good,
therefore, to hear from the lips of the wife and mother, who was so
fully in the confidence of both, that no abiding cloud remained between
the father and the son, and that both quietly accepted the inevitable
when law, like engineering, was also laid aside to allow Louis to fulfil
his one strong desire. Lovingly and unselfishly the parents finally
accepted the fact that genius must have its way, and that in the dainty
book lined study, in travel by ways quaint and unusual, in prolonged
sojourns in search of health in distant lands, the younger Stevenson's
life-work was to be done.

When he found that his son would not be an engineer, Mr Thomas Stevenson
very naturally wished him to have a profession to fall back upon should
literature not prove a success, and it was agreed that he should read
for the Bar. Louis, therefore, about the end of 1871, entered the office
of the firm which is now known as Messrs Skene, Edwards, & Garson, W.S.
The late Mr Skene, LL.D., was then senior partner of the firm. Another
partner was the father of Mr J. R. P. Edwards, who has kindly supplied
the following very