My Lord Justice-Clerk was known to many; the man Adam Weir perhaps to none.

He had nothing to explain or to conceal; he sufficed wholly and silently to himself; and that part of our nature which goes out (too often with false coin) to acquire glory or love, seemed in him to be omitted.

He did not try to be loved, he did not care to be; it is probable the very thought of it was a stranger to his mind.

He was an admired lawyer, a highly unpopular judge; and he looked down upon those who were his inferiors in either distinction, who were lawyers of less grasp or judges not so much detested.

In all the rest of his days and doings, not one trace of vanity appeared; and he went on through life with a mechanical movement, as of the unconscious; that was almost august.
He saw little of his son.