In these essays what is most Interesting is what the author has. written about himself—a subject which, indeed, any man may be '28 a brimming river, but which not many men can illuminate from such an eventful experience. There are two chapters of "Law, Life, and Letters" that are worth all the rest)—the chapter entitled "Reality. and Opportonity," an apostrophe. to young men on the threshold of a [career; and the chapter called "Mile stones of My Life," in which Lord Birkenhead enlarges on the: turning. points in his own career. A8. to. the former, its counsels to the young, have all the impressiveness of the "There are times," says Lord Birkenhead, "when'a tendency chastise the experienced on the part, of those by whom: experience has yet to be gained. is one: of the most [distressing because one of thb most prevalent-of errors.
Which, would suggest. thab= the counsellor, in ceasing to: be "a Judge or even a lawyer," has ut off the old man'and put-on the new. Twenty years ago, who would have predicted that "FE." would become the apostle of defereyce—that his first exhortation to youth would be in praise of "the bump of There is certainly no evidence in the next chapter, "Milestones of My Life," that " sense of youth's limita. tions played any conspicuous part of the glittering story that is une rolled. The dominant mood was, much' more discernible in the words which Lord. Birkenhead spoke at the Liverpool Conservative Club on the occasion of the dinner to celebrate his elevation to the Woolsack, approach. the discharge of the high "duties which await me: in a spirit of anxious solicitudes but not, believe me, in one of morbid self-distrust
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.