e 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 100_l._
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
200_l._, 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