Mr. Frederic Myers were curious illustrations of his
subconscious activities--his Brownies, as he called them. They told him
stories of which he could not foresee the end; one led up to a love
affair forbidden even by exogamous law (with male descent and the
sub-class system), and thus a fine plot was ruined.

Throughout life, he always played his part, as in childhood, with full
conscious and picturesque effect, as did the great Montrose and the
English Admirals, in whom he notes this dramatic trait. He was not a
_poseur_; he was merely sensitively conscious of himself and of life as
an art. As a little boy with curls and a velvet tunic, he read
"Ministering Children," and yearned to be a ministering child. An
opportunity seemed to present itself; the class of boys called "keelies"
by the more comfortable boys in Edinburgh, used to play in the street
under the windows of his father's house. One lame boy, a baker's son,
could only look on. Here was a chance to minister! Louis, with a beating
heart, walked out on his angelic mission.

"Little boy, would you like to play with me?" he asked.

"You go to ----!" was the answer of the independent son of the hardy
baker.

It is difficult to pass from the enchanted childhood of this eternal
child, with its imaginative playing at everything, broken only by fevers
whereof the dreams were the nightmares of unconscious genius. He has
told of all this as only he could tell it.

As a boy, despite his interrupted education, he laid the foundations of
a knowledge of French and German, acquired Latin, and was not like that
other boy who, _Euclide viso, cohorruit et evasit._ He was a
mathematician! He never played cricket, I deeply regret to say, and his
early love of football deserted him. He was no golfer, and a good day's
trout-fishing, during which he neglected to kill each trout as it was
taken, caused remorse, and made him abandon the contemplative boy's
recreation. Boating, riding, and walking were his exercises. He read the
good books that never lose their charm--Scott, Dumas, Shakespeare, "The
Arabian Nights"; when very young he was delighted with "The Book of
Snobs"; he also read Mayne Reid and "Ballantyne the Brave," and any
story that contained _Skeltica_, cloaks, swords, wigs on the green,
pirates and great adventures. He lived in literature, for Romance.

His doings at Edinburgh University, and as a budding engineer, he has
chronicled; he took part in snowball rows, i