V. PROGRESS AT THE BAR
His practice at the bar was improving, though not very steadily or rapidly. 'Those cases, like Snow's or Bacon's,' he observes (Dec. 17, 1859), 'do me hardly any good.... I am making a reputation which would be very useful for an older man who already had business, but is to me glory, not gain. I am like a man who has good expectations and little or no income.' Still his position is better: he has made 100l. this year against 50l. the year before; he is beginning to 'take root,' especially at sessions; and he 'thoroughly delights in his profession.' In March 1860 he reports some high compliments from Mr. Justice Willes in consequence of a good speech; and has had inquiries made about him by attornies. But the attornies, he thinks, will have forgotten him before next circuit. There never was a longer hill than that which barristers have to climb; but 'it is neither a steep nor an unpleasant hill.' In July 1861 he was appointed to a revising barristership in North Derbyshire by Chief Baron Pollock, and was presented with a red bag by his friend Kenneth Macaulay, now leader of the circuit. He makes 100l. on circuit, and remarks that this is considered to mark a kind of turning-point. In 1862 things improve again. In July he is employed in three cases of which two were 'glorious triumphs,' and the third, the 'Great Grimsby riot,' which is 'at present a desperate battle,' is the biggest case he has yet had on circuit. The circuit turns out to be his most profitable, so far. On October 20 he reports that he has got pretty well 'to the top of the little hill' of sessions, and is beginning, though cautiously, to think of giving them up and to look forward to a silk gown. In 1863 he has 'a wonderful circuit' (March 20) above 200l., owing partly, it would seem, to Macaulay's absence, and too good to be repeated. In the summer, however, he has the first circuit in which there has been no improvement. On October 25 he is for once out of spirits. He has had 'miserable luck,' though he thinks in his conscience that it has been due not to his own fault, but to the 'stupidity of juries.' 'There is only one thing,' he says, 'which supports me in this, the belief that God orders all things, and that therefore we can be content and ought to take events as they come, be they small or great. Whenever I turn my thoughts that way it certainly does not seem to me very important whether in this little bit of a life I can accomplish all that I wish—so long as I try to do my best. I have often thought that perhaps one's life may be but a sort of school, in which one learns lessons for a better and larger world, and if so, I can quite understand that the best boys do not get the highest prizes, and that no boy, good or bad, ought to be unhappy about his prizes. There are things I long to do; books I long to write; thoughts and schemes that float before me, looking so near and clear, and yet being, as I feel, so indistinct or distant that I shall never make anything of them. Small ties and little rushings of the mind, briefs and magazine articles, and their like, will clog my wheels day after day and year after year. Yet I cannot altogether blame myself. Looking back on my life, I cannot seriously regret any of the principal steps I have taken in it. Still I do feel more or less disquieted or perturbed—I cannot help it.' Some uncomfortable thoughts could hardly fail to intrude at times when the compliments which he received from the highest authorities failed to be backed by a corresponding recognition from attornies; and at times, I suspect, his spirits were depressed by over-work, of which he was slow to acknowledge the possibility. To work, indeed, he turned for one chief consolation. He refers incidentally to various significant performances. 'Last night,' he writes from Derby, April 10, 1862, 'I finished a middle at two; and to-day I finished "Superstition"' (an article in the 'Cornhill') 'in a six hours' sitting, during which I had written thirty-two MS. pages straight off. I don't feel at all the worse for it.' On Nov. 14 following he observes that he is 'in first-rate health.' He wrote all night from six till three, got up at 7.30, and walked thirty-one miles; after which he felt 'perfectly fresh and well.' On Jan. 13, 1863, he has a long drive in steady rain, sits up 'laughing and talking' till one; writes a review till 4.45, and next day writes another article in court. On July 17, 1864, he finishes an article upon Newman at 3 a.m., having written as much as would fill sixteen pages of the 'Edinburgh Review'—the longest day's work he had ever done, and feels perfectly well. On March 13, 1865, he gets up at six, writes an article before breakfast, is in court all day, and has a consultation at nine. Early rising was, I think, his commonest plan for encountering a pressure of work; but he had an extraordinary facility for setting to work at a moment's notice. He had a power of eating and sleeping at any time, which he found, as he says, highly convenient. He was equally ready to write before breakfast, or while other people were talking and speechifying all round him in court, or when sitting up all night. And, like a strong man, he rejoiced in his strength, perhaps a little too unreservedly. If he now and then confesses to weariness, it never seemed to be more than a temporary feeling.
Of the cases in which he was engaged at this period I need only mention two—the case of Dr. Rowland Williams, of which I shall speak directly in connection with his published 'defence'; and the case of a man who was convicted of murder at Warwick in December 1863. The fellow had cut the throat of a girl who had jilted him. The facts were indisputable, and the only possible defence was insanity. Kenneth Macaulay and Fitzjames were counsel for the defence, but failed, and, as Fitzjames thought, rightly failed, to make good their case. He was, however, deeply moved by the whole affair—the most dramatic, he says, in which he had been engaged. The convict's family were respectable people, and behaved admirably. 'The poor mother sat by me in court and said, "I feel as if I could cling to anyone who could help him," and she put her hand on my arm and held it so that I could feel every beat of her pulse. Her fingers clutched me every time her heart beat. The daughters, too, were dreadfully moved, but behaved with the greatest natural dignity and calmness.' After the conviction Fitzjames felt that the man deserved to be hanged; but felt also bound to help the father in his attempts to get the sentence commuted. He could not himself petition, but he did his best to advise the unfortunate parents. He used to relate that the murderer had written an account of the crime, which it was proposed to produce as a proof of insanity. To Fitzjames it seemed to be a proof only of cold-blooded malignity which would insure the execution of the sentence. He was tormented by the conflict between his compassion and his sense of justice. Ultimately the murderer was reprieved on the ground that he had gone mad after the sentence. Fitzjames had then, he says, an uncomfortable feeling as if he were partly responsible for the blood of the murdered girl. The criminal soon afterwards committed suicide, and so finished the affair.