with the work and he cared for nothing
but to be able to write.

While at school his father had encouraged him to follow his own bent in
his studies and reading, but when it came to the point of choosing his
life-work, there ought to be no question of doubt. The only natural
thing for Louis to do was to carry on the great and splendid work that
he himself had helped to build up. That the boy should have other plans
of his own surprised and troubled him. Literature, he said, was no
profession, and thus far Louis had not done enough to prove he had a
claim for making it his career.

After much debate it was finally decided that he should give up
engineering, but should enter the law school and study to be admitted to
the bar. This would not only give him an established profession, but
leave him a little time to write as well.

CHAPTER IV

EDINBURGH DAYS

"I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.

"There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the island of Desire."

--RICHARD HOVEY.

In spite of the fact that his law studies now left him an opportunity
for the work he wanted so much to do, Louis was far from happy, for
between his parents and himself, who had always been the best of
friends, there were many misunderstandings.

Thomas Stevenson was bitterly disappointed that his only son should
choose to be what he called "an idler"--generous to a fault and always
out of money, dressing in a careless and eccentric way, which both
amused and annoyed his friends and caused him to be ridiculed by
strangers, preferring to roam the streets of old Edinburgh scraping
acquaintance with the fishwives and dock hands, rather than staying at
home and mingling in the social circle to which his parents belonged.
But his father was still more troubled by certain independent religious
opinions, far different from those in which he had been reared, that
Louis adopted at this time.

How any good result could come from all this neither his father nor
mother could see, and with the loss of their sympathy he was thrown upon
himself and was lonely and rebellious.

He longed to get away from it all, to quit Edinburgh with its harsh
climate, and often on his walks he leaned over the great bridge that
joins the New Town with the Old "and watched the trains s