d though not
especially intimate, they always maintained very friendly relations. The
impression made upon Wills in these early years was that Fitzjames was a
solitary and rather unsocial person. He was divided from his fellows, as
he had been divided from his companions at school and college, by his
absorption in the speculations which interested him so profoundly. 'He
was much more learned, much better read, and had a much more massive
mind than most of us, and our ways and talks must have seemed petty and
trivial to him.' Though there were 'some well-read men and good scholars
among us, even they had little taste for the ponderous reading in which
Fitzjames delighted.' Wills remembers his bringing Hobbes' 'Leviathan'
with him, and recreating himself with studying it after his day's work.
To such studies I shall have to refer presently, and I will only say,
parenthetically, that if Mr. Justice Wills would read Hobbes, he would
find, though he tells me that he dislikes metaphysics, that the old
philosopher is not half so repulsive as he looks. Still, a constant
absorption in these solid works no doubt gave to his associates the
impression that Fitzjames lived in a different world from theirs. He
generally took his walks by himself, Coleridge being the most frequent
interrupter of his solitude. He would be met pounding along steadily,
carrying, often twirling, a 'very big stick,' which now and then came
down with a blow--upon the knuckles, I take it, of some imaginary
blockhead on the other side--muttering to himself, 'immersed in thought
and with a fierce expression of concentrated study.' He did not often
come to mess, and when he did found some things of which he did not
approve. Barristers, it appears, are still capable of indulging in such
tastes as were once gratified by the game of 'High Jinks,' celebrated in
'Guy Mannering.' The Circuit Court was the scene of a good deal of
buffoonery. It was customary to appoint a 'crier'; and Fitzjames, 'to
his infinite disgust, was elected on account of his powerful voice. He
stood it once or twice, but at last broke out in a real fury, and
declared he would never come to the Circuit Court again, calling it by
very strong names. If he had been a less powerful man I am sure that
there would have been a fight; but no one cared to tackle that stalwart
frame, and I am not sure that the assailant would have come out of the
fray alive if he had.' The crisis of this warfare appears to