ir, and laughing internally. How I admired him!
And now in the West Kirk.

I am trying to write out this haunting bodily sense of absence; besides,
what else should I write of?

Yes, looking back, I think of him as one who was good, though sometimes
clouded. He was the only gentle one of all my friends, save perhaps the
other Walter. And he was certainly the only modest man among the lot. He
never gave himself away; he kept back his secret; there was always a
gentle problem behind all. Dear, dear, what a wreck; and yet how
pleasant is the retrospect! God doeth all things well, though by what
strange, solemn, and murderous contrivances!

It is strange: he was the only man I ever loved who did not habitually
interrupt. The fact draws my own portrait. And it is one of the many
reasons why I count myself honoured by his friendship. A man like you
_had_ to like me; you could not help yourself; but Ferrier was above me,
we were not equals; his true self humoured and smiled paternally upon
my failings, even as I humoured and sorrowed over his.

Well, first his mother, then himself, they are gone: "in their resting
graves."

When I come to think of it, I do not know what I said to his sister, and
I fear to try again. Could you send her this? There is too much both
about yourself and me in it; but that, if you do not mind, is but a mark
of sincerity. It would let her know how entirely, in the mind of (I
suppose) his oldest friend, the good, true Ferrier obliterates the
memory of the other, who was only his "lunatic brother."

Judge of this for me, and do as you please; anyway, I will try to write
to her again; my last was some kind of scrawl that I could not see for
crying. This came upon me, remember, with terrible suddenness; I was
surprised by this death; and it is fifteen or sixteen years since first
I saw the handsome face in the Spec. I made sure, besides, to have died
first. Love to you, your wife, and her sisters.--Ever yours, dear boy,

R. L. S.

I never knew any man so superior to himself as poor James Walter. The
best of him only came as a vision, like Corsica from the Corniche. He
never gave his measure either morally or intellectually. The curse was
on him. Even his friends did not know him but by fits. I have passed
hours with him when he was so wise, good, and sweet, that I never knew
the like of it in any other. And for a beautiful good humour he had no
match. I remember breaking in upon him once