The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• List of Illustrations.
• Errata.
• The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, Volume X
• Chapter I.: Introductory.
• Chapter II.: Langport and Its Surroundings.
• Chapter III.: Home and Family.
• Chapter IV.: Early Education.
• Chapter V.: University College.
• Chapter VI.: An Interregnum.
• Chapter VII.: Paris.
• Chapter VIII.: Author and Banker.
• Chapter IX.: Engagement and Marriage.
• Chapter X.: “the Arches” and London.
• Chapter XI.: India.
• Chapter XII.: “the Economist”
• Chapter XIII.: “the English Constitution.”
• Chapter XIV.: “physics and Politics.”
• Chapter XV.: “lombard Street.”
• Chapter XVI.: “economic Studies.”
• Chapter XVII.: Tributes From Contemporaries.
• Errata For Index.

CHAPTER IX.

ENGAGEMENT AND MARRIAGE.

It was late in the afternoon of the 24th January, 1857, that two of my sisters and I were walking in the woods of Claverton Manor. To the left of the house when facing it, is one of the avenues of beautiful beech trees which the notable Ralph Allen, Fielding’s “Squire Allworthy,” planted when he was the owner of Claverton. This particular avenue was called “the Beechery,” and led by a moss-grown path up to “the Rocks” on Claverton Downs, where Gainsborough wandered and sketched. On this afternoon we had struck by a smaller pathway into the woods on the right leading down the hill to a stream. I remember the moment as if it were yesterday. Certain moments of life lodge themselves ineffaceably in the memory without apparently any adequate cause. We heard sounds of wheels. We agreed “that Mr. Bag-hot must be arriving”. We did not know how to pronounce his name, and felt no interest in his arrival, so continued our walk. He had been introduced to my father as a “young banker in the West of England” who wanted to write in the Economist, and he arrived that 24th of January at Claverton Manor to discuss banking and political economy with my father, then Financial Secretary to the Treasury and member for Devonport. Unfortunately the day before his arrival my father’s mare “Beauty” had shied, and crushed his ankle against a wall, so he was confined to his bed. There was a dinner-party of neighbours and acquaintances from Bath that evening at which my father could not appear, but he interviewed Walter Bagehot in his room upstairs after dinner. One of the guests at dinner was the successor to the celebrated Beau Nash, and was reigning in his stead as master of the ceremonies at the Bath balls. The fact that he, Walter Bagehot, coming to Claverton to discuss the solemnities of banking and political economy with the Secretary of the Treasury and proprietor of the Economist, should be confronted by a gentleman whose vocation was of so frivolous a character, tickled his humour greatly he told us in after days. As two of my sisters and I were still in the schoolroom it was not till breakfast the next day that we first saw him. But then he made his mark. When breakfast was over, and our German governess had left the room, he turned big dark eyes quickly round upon us, of the schoolroom, and exclaimed: “Your governess is like an egg!” We at once saw she was like an egg! From that moment he rose in our eyes from the status of a political economist to that of a fellow-creature. He became one of us. Poor governess! My memory of her since is chiefly associated with the starting-point of the good understanding which from the first existed between Walter Bagehot and his five sisters-in-law. We were six sisters without a brother. It was something strangely new, delightful and nutritious that he brought into our lives. My sister Eliza whom he married was the eldest of the six, I the youngest. She did not come down to that first breakfast when Walter established his position with us, having a headache; but she had so far arrested his attention the evening before at dinner that he missed her. He left Claverton the next day, and my father with some of the family went to London a few days later, as Parliament was to open early in February.

To the young the appearance of a person is of great importance, and, after he had called our Fraülein “like an egg,” we closely inspected Walter Bagehot’s appearance. We were puzzled. We could not call him handsome, but decidedly he was not plain. He was like no one else. His strong individuality over-rode any classification. He was tall and thin with rather high, narrow, square shoulders; his hands were long and delicate and the movements of his fingers very characteristic. He held his fingers quite straight from the knuckles and would often stroke his mouth or rub his forehead when he was thinking or talking.

Dr. Woodrow Wilson gives this description of his appearance: “The very appearance of the man,” says President Woodrow Wilson, “was a sort of outer index to the singular variety of capacity which has made him so notable a figure in the literary annals of England. A mass of black, wavy hair; a dark eye, with depths full of slumberous, playful fire; a ruddy skin that bespoke active blood, quick in its rounds; the lithe figure of an excellent horseman; a nostril full, delicate, quivering, like that of a blooded racer; such were the fitting outward marks of a man in whom life and thought and fancy abounded; the aspect of a man of unflagging vivacity, of wholesome, hearty humour, of a ready intellectual sympathy, of wide and penetrative observation.”

Though President Wilson never saw Walter Bagehot, this description is particularly happy, except that “ruddy” hardly described Walter Bagehot’s complexion. He had a very fine skin, very white near where the hair started, and a high colour—what might be called a hectic colour—concentrated on the cheek bones, as you often see it in the West country. Such a colour is associated with soft winds and a moist air, cider-growing orchards, and very green, wet grass. His eyelids were thin, and of singularly delicate texture, and the white of the eyeballs was a blue white. He would pace a room when talking, and, as the ideas framed themselves in words, he would throw his head back as some animals do when sniffing the air. The way he moved, his voice, everything about him, was individual. To us Walter was ever Walter—and that meant something quite unlike anybody else.

The upshot of the talk at Claverton was a series of letters which he started at once in the Economist, signed “A Banker”. The first commences and concludes with the following passages in the Economist of 7th February, 1857:—

“The General Aspect of the Banking Question.

“To the Editor of the ‘Economist’.
“Sir,

“In addressing to you a series of letters upon banking, I do not pretend to have any perfectly new theory to advance. On a topic of which the literature is already so copious, absolute novelty would be scarcely a recommendation, but on a complicated question it is desirable that the various lights in which its details strike individual minds should be continually expressed. The history of science shows that you cannot otherwise be secure against hasty assumptions, a slavish following of able men, and an unthinking adoption of plausible and popular theories. . . .

“There appears, therefore, to be no reason for departing from the obvious view, that while the Act of 1819 is prima facie reasonable in enacting that promises shall be performed, that of 1847 is prima facie unreasonable in enacting that certain promises seemingly innocuous shall not be made. Of course this is not conclusive; many prima facie conclusions are wholly erroneous; but, as I observed before, it is a disadvantage if a legislative settlement is not in accordance with natural impressions, and the onus probandi is always on those who say that acts apparently harmless are very hurtful. With a criticism on the arguments by which this opinion is sought to be made out, I shall venture soon to trouble you.

“I am, yours obediently,

“A Banker.

“3rd February, 1857.”

This letter made its mark, eliciting the following letter from Lord Radnor—whose interest in the journal of free trade remained unabated since he and my father had invented the scheme of the Economist.

Very shortly after my father’s arrival in London Walter dined at our London house, 15 Hertford Street, Mayfair, where we lived during seventeen years when in London, and where I was born. This house had a special interest for my father, because Lord Grey, the statesman who greatly helped to pass the Reform Bill of 1832, had been born in it.

That week-end visit to Claverton resulted in a momentous change in Walter Bagehot’t life, and was to prove a fresh starting-point for him. The milieu into which he then entered was a new experience. He was introduced into the inner circle of political life, and was to make personal friends of some of the prominent men in this circle. Vividly alive to all stirring influences in social and public life, he had not yet tasted a full draught in that big world of London, in which life, in all directions, is filled up to the brim. His surroundings had not, except from an intellectual point of view, been such as to widen his outlook on Society. Bagehot’s visit to Claverton brought him personally into intimate contact with my father, one of the foremost leaders of the Free-Trade movement, and a member of the Government. He found a social life full of swing and vivacity, with notable people coming and going, a family of six sisters with whom he at once made friends,—all the more eagerly, perhaps, because he had never had sisters of his own. Mr. W. R. Greg almost lived with us at that time, and by his intellectual gifts and singularly pleasant manners added much to the charm of the life we were then leading; also Mr. Hutton, editor of the Economist, and Bagehot’s greatest friend, was constantly on the scene. From a mere acquaintance Mr. Hutton soon became one of our dearest friends. His friendship for my sisters, Mrs. Bagehot and Mrs. Greg and for myself, was felt, up to the day of his death, to be one of those strong props in life which never failed us. The fact that Walter Bagehot found, when he first came to Claverton, an intimate acquaintanceship existing between my father and this, his closest friend, naturally quickened his intimacy with us.

Claverton itself was an appropriate alighting spot for one who has become famous as a writer. It had notable literary associations. It was classic ground haunted by the memories of many great people who had come there as guests of Ralph Allen.1

The only remnants of the large “Gothic Mansion renowned in the Civil Wars” which now exist are the level grass site on which it stood, and the beautiful terraces and flights of steps in front. These remain intact, flanked on one side by the old church and on the other by the gardener’s pretty gabled cottage. The newer house on the hill is large, commodious, but architecturally uninteresting. When we lived there it contained a fine library, especially rich in illustrated works, from which I gathered my first knowledge of the treasures to be found in the great galleries of Europe. There was also a picture-gallery, used as a billiard-room, where hung Sir Joshua Reynolds’ “Puck,” a life-sized three-quarter figure by Paul Veronese, and some notable Dutch paintings.

Of the season of 1857 in London and Walter’s visits to Hertford Street I have no personal recollection, the sister next to me and I being left with the “Egg” at Claverton. In the Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor, the American, there is a description of a small dinner-party in Hertford Street when Walter was one of the guests.

“I dined with Mr. Wilson, a member of Parliament, Financial Secretary of the Treasury; owner, and formerly editor, of the Economist, and the person on whom the Government depends in questions of banking and finance. He never reads a book; he gets all his knowledge from documents and conversation, as Greg tells me—that is, at first-hand. But he talks uncommonly well on all subjects; strongly, and with a kind of original force, that you rarely witness. He has a young wife, and three nice, grown-up daughters, who, with Greg, a barrister [Walter Bagehot] whose name I did not get—one other person and myself, filled up a very luxurious table, as far as eating and drinking are concerned. And who do you think that other person was? Nobody less than Madame Mohl; who talked as fast and as amusingly as ever, full of good-natured kindness, with a little sub-acid as usual, to give it a good flavour. The young ladies, Greg accounts among the most intelligent of his acquaintance, and they certainly talk French as few English girls can, for De Tocqueville came in after dinner, and we all changed language at once, except the master, who evidently has but one tongue in his head, and needs but one, considering the strong use he makes of it.” It may have been true that my father at that time had not time to read a book, but in his boyhood and youth he was a voracious reader.

It was after the family returned to Claverton early in August that the courting began in real earnest. Walter was constantly coming and going, and every visit brought the climax nearer. Much vitality prevailed in our family life in those Claverton and Hertford Street days, vitality of many kinds—social, literary, political, artistic. There was a great deal of riding, a great deal of reading, a great deal of music, a great many visitors. Instigated by Mr. Greg, my elder sisters, chiefly my sister Julia, afterwards Mrs. Greg, wrote reviews of books in the Economist and in the National Review. My mother was a good musician, and having studied in Germany, we were perhaps more musician-like in our performances than many amateurs of that day. We all played the piano, my sister Matilda (Mrs. Horan) and I played the harp, and we all sang. My father was very fond of music, and also of pictures: I was always drawing. From childhood I was always at it in one form or another. In those days a master came out from Bath to teach me “the touch for an oak—ditto for a beech—ditto for a chestnut tree”— and such like theoretic interpretations of foliage.

The source of all this vitality was my father. In looking back to that past—and I think without partiality I may say it, my father possessed more than any one I ever met that special genius which instinctively discovers how to make something good for others as well as for itself out of every moment of life. I can only think of one person who possessed a like passion for work, the same fervour with which my father tackled the labour, however arduous, involved in carrying out everything he undertook to do, and the same delightful social qualities. That person was a friend of later days, Lord Leighton. Both had the same staying power, the same indomitable energy. Both my father and Leighton revelled in work. It was said of my father when he was Financial Secretary of the Treasury, that he spoilt all the clerks in the department because he did half their work for them.

In his memoir of my father, Walter Bagehot writes: “In the country, where his habits were necessarily more obvious, he habitually spent the whole day from eleven till eight, with some slight interval for a short ride in the middle of the day, over his Treasury bag; and as such was his notion of holiday, it may be easily conceived that in London, when he had still more to do in a morning, and had to spend almost every evening in the House of Commons, his work was greater than an ordinary constitution could have borne. And it was work of a rather peculiar kind. Some men of routine habits spend many hours over their work, but do not labour very intensely at one time; other men of more excitable natures work impulsively, and clear off everything they do by eager efforts in a short time. But Mr. Wilson in some sense did both. Although his hours of labour were so very protracted, yet if a casual observer happened to enter his library at any moment, he would find him with his blind down to exclude all objects of external interest, his brow working eagerly, his eye fixed intently on the figures before him, and, very likely, his rapid pen passing fluently over the paper. He had all the labour of the chronic worker, and all the labour of the impulsive worker too. And those admitted to his intimacy used to wonder that he was never tired. He came out of his library in an evening more ready for vigorous conversation—more alive to all subjects of daily interest, more quick to gain new information—more ready to expound complicated topics, than others who had only passed an easy day of idleness or ordinary exertion.”

My father’s natural gifts, together with an earnest, delightful nature, and the influence of his official position, made our home attractive to various kinds of interesting people. Walter Bagehot, among the number, found in its atmosphere stimulating conditions, besides the special charm which, from his first visit, my sister had inspired. It seems on looking back a little curious that a person of his notable ability and twice our age should have been treated by us of the schoolroom with so little awe. One explanation for this seeming irreverence lies in the fact, I believe, that my father’s personal influence so completely placed him in the position of great Llama with all his surroundings—without his meaning in the least to occupy such a position—that every one of the family and those who shared the intimate family life, such as Walter Bagehot, Mr. Hutton and Mr. Greg, gathered as mere satellites round a greater centre luminary. There was also Walter’s own strong repugnance to “mounting the camel” in any sense whatever. Never was there any person as wise and good as he, who more instinctively objected to posing as a “superior person”. As a family we interested him, and our lives were brightened, our interests intensified, and our horizon widened, by his becoming one of us. It may easily be imagined how great a gain was the invasion of such a brother, at once a sage, a wit, and a boy, into the home life of six hitherto brotherless sisters. He came and went, each time becoming more intimate. Long rides on the downs, long walks were taken; but for the walks a donkey had to be provided for my sister who was the heroine of the situation. She was not strong enough to walk far. Walter, in order to secure a tête-à-tête with her, was observed by the vigilant eyes of her younger sisters to kick this donkey and make it trot on beyond the walkers. I, as the chief artist in the family, immortalised one of these walks on the Claverton Downs by drawing a caricature in water-colour which exists unto this day. When shown to him at the time, it had a depressing effect upon the aspirant. He feared he had not much chance if my sister did not mind this, to him, anxious—almost solemn situation—being caricatured. He was desperately, poetically in love. My father had always been jealous of any one who seemed likely to rob him of a daughter, and though he entirely approved (theoretically) of Walter Bagehot as a son-in-law, the idea of one of his daughters leaving him made him ill. On the 5th November the proposal took place, but the answer was not given till three days later in London, where my mother and my two sisters, Eliza and Sophie went, en route for Edinburgh. A certain Dr. Beveridge, one of the first believers in massage, had been recommended by Lady Kinnaird as likely to cure my two sisters of ailments with which they were troubled, so to Dr. Beveridge at Edinburgh they went for three months.

I remember well the day of the proposal. I do not think any event, previous or subsequent, produced so much excitement among us. The news was brought up to the schoolroom by my sister Zoe, and we sat on the piano and talked!—talked!—talked! The “Egg” had returned to Germany and we were pursuing, or not pursuing, our studies by ourselves, certain remote professors in Bath being supposed to fill the gap.

On the 7th November, 1858, at 10 o’clock a.m. in the dining-room of 15 Hertford Steet, Mayfair, my sister and Walter Bagehot were engaged. He breakfasted with my father and sisters, then rushed off to Mr. Hutton with the good news. Mr. Hutton called the same morning to congratulate.

My sister’s diary relates:—

“11th November.—Got a letter from Mr. Bagehot (my first) from Langport, saying he was to return to London tomorrow morning to watch the crisis. Sent an answer to the Queen’s Hotel.”

“12th November.—Papa had a letter from Mr. Bagehot’s father and one from himself, the latter to thank him for the trust reposed in him. He came by morning express and called on Papa at the Treasury. He came to see me at 6 o’clock, and we talked together till dinner-time. He brought me Selections from Wordsworth. Mamma and Sophie went to the English Opera at the Lyceum. Papa did not come to dinner till 8.30, having been busy about the crisis. The Government sent letters to the Bank suspending Sir Robert Peel’s Bank Act of 1844. The Deputy Governor of the Bank of England called to discuss matters with Papa at 10 p.m.”

“14th November.—Mr. Bagehot came at 4. I introduced him to Susan.1 He read me Wordsworth’s ‘Lord Clifford’ and we had a very long talk after dinner. Mr. Hutton dined with us and told Mr. Bagehot in walking home that he is engaged to Miss Roscoe, a cousin of his first wife.”

“17th November.—Mr. Bagehot came at 9 and breakfasted with us and went with us to the station at 10.30—he and I together. Papa and Mr. Bagehot went to the British Museum after seeing us off to Scotland, to see the new reading-room and the new fragments of ancient statues from Halicarnassus.”

In this Victorian-era fashion were Walter Bagehot and Elizabeth Wilson betrothed. A fashion earnest, deliberate, closely under the chaperonage of parents, none the less exciting—thrillingly so—to all therein concerned.

The following quotations are from Walter Bagehot’s letters to my sister while she was in Edinburgh. The first written from Langport on the 10th November, began: “I have just rushed down here from Bristol and it appears to me that I shall rebound again to London to-morrow. I rather fancy I shall have to stay some days there, as the panic is getting worse and requires watching. . . . I cannot be in a panic at all myself. I have never felt such happiness as for the last two days, ever since our first walk in the Cemetery [Walter’s name for Hamilton Gardens]. . . . I do not quite believe in my happiness yet, one requires detail to make one believe in anything so strange. . . .”

Eight days later he writes from Yeovil: “. . . What do you think your father and myself did the moment you were gone? We went to see the antiquities of Halicarnassus!! They are a set of odd legs and bodies of great statues just arrived, and they alleviated our feelings very much. It happened in this way. We drove past the British Museum on our way home, and Mr. Wilson asked if I had seen the new reading-room, and as I had not, he forthwith took me to see it. We were ushered into old Panizzi who was doing nothing in a fine armchair, and he proposed we should see the venerable fragments just arrived from Greece. I am not sure, however, that we appreciated them. I have an unfortunate prejudice in favour of statues in one piece—at least in not more than six pieces, and these are broken up very small indeed—and it is a controversy whose arm belongs to whose body; but I believe real lovers of art admire these perplexities. On the whole, however, we spent our hour cheerfully, and, in consequence, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a heap of Scotch bankers were kept half an hour waiting. Seriously I felt pretty well although you were gone. I am so soothed by the last week . . . and it is such a rest. I believe too I am a little tired. The affections are always fatiguing; then there is the panic which is wearing, and really a trifle anxious, and your father’s conversation, and what I guess from it, lets me into the interior of matters in which I am so much interested that currency becomes an excitement, and altogether I am pleasingly tired, and though I think of you very much, about two minutes in three, it is nicely and mildly. I must brace myself more to my work in the morning, however, for it won’t do to be always thinking of our drive to the station and the fireside in Hertford Street. . . .

“Mr. Moffatt gave us a grand dinner, capital wine and excellent food. We talked currency till half-past one and then Mr. Wilson and myself walked to Hertford Street, and stood on the door-step ever so long talking of Michel Chevallier and the double standard in France. Mr. Moffatt is a sensible man, acquainted with money, and was really interested in what he was saying. There were only five of us, and a small party is always pleasanter. Mr. Robert Lowe, and the American Banker were the others; the latter was instructive. Mr. Lowe said he disapproved of subscriptions for windows. He thought they had better means of getting on than any one else, if they were proper people to keep alive, which I mention to you as a characteristic expression of the ‘masculine element’.

“I came down here (Yeovil) by the evening express to see one of my partners in the bank who lives here, named Batten, who would amuse you. . . . He is an intimate friend of mine. . . . Does the doctor seem a human being? I hate him. He will try to keep you in Edinburgh under pretence of curing you.”

On the 19th November he writes:—

• ORITHYIA.

• • What am I and where am I?
  • Why do I leave the city of my youth,
  • And the sweet streets where linger all I know,
  • And the fair home where I have lived and loved?
  • To mark how on Hissus gentle face
  • The eager north wind venteth his quick will,
  • Or how the long ribbed plane leaves vex the air,
  • And how subtle and calm the light clouds hang
  • In amorous poise upon the breath that wafts them?
• • I do remember me that in my youth
  • I strayed, where in Aeropolis the hills
  • Regard Eubœa, and the sweet air was hushed,
  • The distant waves Æolian music made,
  • The very hills were faint as the next world,
  • And all things murmured. Yet there was nought.
  • But all at once the breeze began to murmur
  • ‘Orithyia,’ and the calm hills remurmured
  • ‘Orithyia,’ and the fair waves re-echoed
  • ‘Orithyia,’ and in their hollow throat
  • The caves half muttered ‘Orithyia’;
  • Yet there was nothing save a too deep calm,
  • An overfulness and a weight in air—
  • Since then I have not loved what maidens love,
  • To me the winding dance, the hasteful words,
  • The gentle music and the gentler home,
  • The tranquil evening and the pleasant morn,
  • The flexile fancies and the talk of friends,
  • The converse low and sweet in evening time,
  • The taskless work and busy rest were nought,
  • Nor all the homely harmony of life.
  • Nor them that fain would love me could I love,
  • For ever unto me mine own heart seemed
  • Too awful to be spent on things of earth,
  • But walked I sole and consecrate, as doth
  • The moon in heaven. Yet were there longings strange.
  • Such as with lisping tongues of half-formed waves
  • The tranquil sea doth utter in its musing.
  • Longings for one immortal whom I knew
  • And yet knew not. And so in sooth was all.
  • Now I awake. The dream of this world ends,
  • A thickening cloud o’er-shadows all the world,
  • A mind is in the air:—for I am called.
  • At once a sudden thrill shakes earth and heaven
  • For He who rules the awful air doth call me.
  • Boreas, I come, I come, I pant and pause,
  • I faint, press on, and pause; for what am I
  • That He who rules the awful air should love me?
  • Yet He hath called me twice and now again,—
  • My shaking eyes turn dim; my breath beat thick;
  • And all my breast is filled with subtle love,—
  • Boreas, I come, I come.

Again on the 25th November he attacks the “rubbing”.

“I do not like this about gaslight, and you may depend upon it the horrid dullness you describe is exactly what you ought not to have. What is life worth relieved only by a piano? If you must not come home by yourself why not come home with Susan? I do not believe in patent rubbing. Anybody can rub. Perhaps Scotch hands are larger, but I doubt that being an advantage. What does your sister Julia mean by your being spoilt? It is all rubbish, you want to be made much off, . . . and you go away to a back street by a boys’ school and hope to be comforted by a piano and the wife of a Lord Advocate!!”

Walter—still Mr. Bagehot in the Diary—joined my mother and sisters in Edinburgh on 13th December, and on the 16th, my sister’s birthday, he presented her with eight volumes bound in red leather, containing the poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, and on that same day engagement rings were exchanged. My father arrived in Edinburgh on the day of these events; having been kept in London on account of the crisis. While in Edinburgh, Walter was occupied in writing his article on this crisis for the National Review.

During this winter Walter Bagehot put together his early essays and brought them out in a volume, calling them Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen. He wrote to my sister:—

Enclosed was the following letter from Matthew Arnold:—

“Wharfeside, Otley,
Yorkshire, 27th October, 1856.

“My dear Sir,

“I beg to thank you most warmly for your flattering proposals: I assure you the subject tempts me so much that the rate of remuneration would weigh very little with me in deciding whether to try it or not: but the real truth is I am so much occupied that I feel I could not do justice either to your Review or to myself by any article which I could produce for you under my present circumstances. I am therefore compelled gratefully to decline this offer from you as I have declined similar offers from others; but perhaps you will allow me to say that I have been so much interested by your Review that it is with unusual reluctance that I forego the opportunity which you kindly extend to me of contributing to it. It was only a day or two ago that I read the article on Shelley in the last number; that article and one or two others (in which I imagine that I trace the same hand) seem to me to be of the very first quality, showing not talent only, but a concern for the simple truth which is rare in English literature as it is in English politics and English religion—whatever zeal, vanity and ability may be exhibited by the performers in each of these three spheres.

“Believe me, my dear Sir, in much haste,
Your faithful and obliged servant,

“M. Arnold.

“R. H. Hutton, Esq.”

Addressed to Rosse Priory

(Lord Kinnaird’s).

From 51 Lombard Street, on 24th February, 1858, Walter writes: “I am amused at your finding a difficulty in writing to me at Claverton. Living in the sisterly world brings back all your old ideas and associations, and you have had no time at home as yet to get used to it. I quite feel as you do about general events. Real affection enters into our background of thought and heart. I confess to not caring as I used to do about the change of administration.1 I used to care more than suited the principles I used to maintain. I had a theory that one ought to attend almost exclusively to affairs around one. I used to say ‘I did not care how many wives the King of Siam had. I could not help him.’ Still until quite lately I did care about public matters an immense deal, and it seems to me quite strange that I do not do so more. I breakfasted with Mr. Wilson this morning. He seemed to anticipate glory in opposition and to have a sensation of freedom in having to maintain only what it pleased him to maintain, and to have no official etiquette to restrain him; but he will feel the non-arrival of the Treasury bag in a Long Vacation, if Lord Derby could live so long. I cannot dream that he will, still the political world is so strange that no case is ever desperate. If the opposition did anything factious, he might rise in popularity and dissolve.

“I astonished a heap of people by saying with positiveness that the 21st of next month was on a Wednesday. I think about that day rather too much I fear for getting through my work on other days. I hope I shall have a line from you in the morning. You take up so entirely my imagination that my mind seems poor of all dodges and inventions about everything else.”

During the weeks before his wedding day Walter was carrying on unremittingly the business of a banker at Bristol and Langport, thinking out original ideas in writing his essay on the “Waverley Novels” for the National Review, partly doing the work of editing the Review, settling the renting and furnishing of his future home, and—by his high spirits, wit, humour, and cordial comradeship, filling the position of an ideal future brother-in-law. This was a very animated comradeship with continual sallies of amusing criticism and undisturbing satire. Nothing he ever said could be resented. He always steered clear of the sensibilities that could get hurt. One of my sisters, whose guileless nature led her to be over-credulous at times, was inclined not only to theorise, but to take earnest flights in argument, starting from the ground of her own credulity, whereupon Walter would say, “——ought to be put on the chimney piece”. She was to be treated as an ornament, not seriously listened to. His own favourite seat was the china stove in the picture gallery looking down on to the billiard table where he would perch to read aloud to us poetry or prose; the Saturday Review, the National Review, anything that he wanted to read at the moment. Literature was a living companion to him, and his interest in it was contagious.

In Walter Bagehot’s essay on the “Waverley Novels,” written during those weeks, the kinship of his sympathies with those of Sir Walter Scott is evinced; the same “healthy and natural sense,” the same fellow-feeling with the instinctive inclinations of men; understanding well both their wise and their unwise inclinations. Both were to the core gentle-men, with humanitarian and merciful consideration for the feeble as for the strong. Neither could have been beguiled by any passion of partisanship into believing that any permanent benefit can be bestowed on any human creature by riding rough-shod over the feelings, customs, or prejudices of even the most uncultured and unreasoning of classes. Of Scott’s ideas of political economy Walter Bagehot writes that they “are equally characteristic of his strong sense and genial mind. He was always sneering at Adam Smith and telling many legends of that philosopher’s absence of mind and inaptitude for the ordinary conduct of life. A contact with the Edinburgh logicians had doubtless not augmented his faith in the formal deductions of abstract economy; nevertheless, with the facts before him, he could give a very plain and satisfactory exposition of the genial consequences of old abuses, the distinct necessity for stern reform, and the delicate humanity requisite for introducing that reform temperately and with feeling;” then follows the quotation from Guy Mannering describing the ruthless way in which the Laird of Ellangowan commenced his magisterial reform and the disastrous effects which followed this riding rough-shod over the old customs and feelings of the peasant class.

It was settled that the future home was to be at Clevedon. As aforesaid, when a student at the Bristol College, Walter went for week-ends to Clevedon on visits to certain cousins who lived there, and would write enthusiastic letters about the place to his parents. Sir Arthur Elton, the owner of Clevedon Court, a beautiful early fourteenth-century mansion under the hill, was a keen Liberal, and had sat at my father’s feet when he first entered the House of Commons. Clevedon Court was haunted by associations with Arthur Hallam, who was a cousin of the Eltons, and with Tennyson and Thackeray. Arthur Hallam lies buried in the old Clevedon Church by the sea, still an out-of-the-world, solitary spot. A few wind-blown trees and an open down lead to the walls of cliff above the Severn. The waves on a stormy day attack their rocky sides; but the lonely twelfth-century building has resisted, steadfast and strong, against all hurricanes. In a side chapel lie the bones of the modern Jonathan who inspired the wail of passionate love and loss “In Memoriam”.

• • The Danube to the Severn came
  • The darkened heart that beat no more;
  • They laid him by the pleasant shore,
  • And in the hearing of the wave.
• • There twice a day the Severn fills,
  • The salt sea-water passes by,
  • And hushes half the babbling Wye,
  • And makes a silence in the hills.

Sir Arthur Elton had built a house near the top of the hill above Clevedon to resort to in the autumn when the fall of the leaf made it damp and misty in the valley below; but he only lived in it one winter and subsequently let it. It was conveniently placed between Claverton and Herd’s Hill, the right sort of size—neither too large nor too small—so it was chosen for Walter and my sister’s first home. With Sir Arthur Elton’s permission, Walter changed the name from Bella Vista to The Arches, he having taken a fancy to the archways which supported the terrace running round two sides of the house.

The great event was fixed to take place on 21st April. My sister writes in her diary: “21st April. Our wedding day. Beautiful and hot. We started at 11.15. Church quite full. Used our pew for vestry. Walked on lawn after church. Hanoverian band playing. We drove to Frome, changed horses and took up luggage and got to Stourton at 7. Had rooms at the Inn—had tea dinner. The fête-champetre at Claverton kept up till 9th October , over 200. Great fun.”

It was not considered well for Mrs. Bagehot to attend so exciting a scene as Walter’s wedding, and Mr. Bagehot had remained with her at Herd’s Hill.

At Frome Walter posted a little letter written in pencil. (Post-mark) 21st April, Frome.

Frome (written in the carriage).

“My dearest Mother,

“We are married. Everything went off well and my wife sends her love.

“Yours with greatest affection,

“Walter Bagehot.”

Diary. “22nd April. Walter and I wandered into Sir H. Hoare’s park morning—afternoon read poetry and drove at 4.30 through the woods to Alfred’s Tower. Got out and looked over the country.”

This Alfred’s Tower is seen from the train between Frome and Bruton, reared high on a hill overlooking the woods of splendid timber in the grounds of Stourton, the property of the Hoares. The Cornish expresses now rush past it to and fro many times a day.

Another letter Walter wrote to his mother two days after the wedding:—

“Stourton, 23rd April, 1858.

“My dearest Mother,

“You will, ere you receive this, have heard some account of my wedding from somebody. I sent you a note in pencil from Frome to say that it had been achieved. I am scarcely an impartial judge, but it seemed to me a very bright affair, and that not only the persons married, but the others enjoyed themselves which generally they do not. Nobody shed a tear—Eliza was a most composed bride—a little anxious at the crisis, but very cheerful after it was over. Vincent Wood made a splendid ‘best man,’ only that the multitude would think he was the bridegroom. Mary (Walter’s cousin) was much admired, and all the bridesmaids were very animated and nice. There was wonderful oratory at the breakfast. A Mr. Moffat, M.P. for Ashburton, proposed our health in a copious and eloquent manner, and spoke of the ‘hundred of thousands’ who had read my writings,—whom I myself should wish to see particularly. Sir William Topham proposed the health of the bridesmaids in a very clever speech in a sort of Lord Palmerston style. He is a man about the Court, Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, and understands the ‘touch and go’ style of oratory rather well. My attention was rather distracted from what he said by wondering why ‘that man’ should be speaking at my wedding. Few people seem so far off my beat. I believe the dance, etc., after we went away, was also successful, and the day was so gorgeous that I think it made people cheerful. Mind will tell in life especially in the weather. We had a delicious drive to this place, and have done nothing but potter about it ever since. Eliza is a trifle tired by the crisis, but very well and seems able to endure futurity. The post is going, so I must leave off.

“With my best love to my father,
Ever your affectionate son,

“This is the first time I have signed my new name.”

A few short notes to his father were written during the honeymoon. With a great deal of reading of poetry, F. Denison Maurice sermons, Lyra Apostolica—posting from place to place in Devonshire, taking occasionally trains, the honeymoon was passed at Glastonbury, Dawlish, Teignmouth, Chudleigh, Bibbacombe Bay, Plymouth, Ivy Bridge, Bideford, Clovelly, Ilfracombe, Lynmouth.

Here the diary says, “Walter wrote his article on the ‘Sinking Fund’ for the Economist”. The same day a letter brings news from London: “Papa, Mamma, Zoë and Sophie went to Lady Palmerston’s where people were mad with excitement about political matters”. Again, “Posted from Minehead twenty-seven miles, St. Audrey , Williton, etc., and took the train at Bridgwater. We reached Clevedon at 5.20 and drove home. Went all over The Arches and garden before dinner. House quite ready.” The next day was Sunday and they passed the morning in the summer-house, Walter reading Matthew Arnold’s poems aloud, and going to Church in the evening.

I was sitting in that same summer-house but a few days ago. It is more than fifty years since I had last seen it. How the ghosts of the things and people of half a century back rallied round it! The beautiful blue Mendip Hills across over the plain on the horizon, alone take precisely the same forms as they did on that Sunday morning passed in the summer-house of Walter Bagehot’s and my sister’s first home on the 30th May, 1858. Trees have grown tall, creepers planted by my sister have covered in thick masses much of the stone work of the house. As I sat among the ghosts a whimsical feeling as of a dream haunted the whole thing. It was the place—and yet that past to which it belongs did not feel quite real! Certain moments, and what occurred at those moments, and the precise spot at The Arches where they occurred, are lodged in my memory as is lodged the exact scene in the Claverton Woods when we heard the wheels of the carriage that brought Walter Bagehot first among us; I can still find those spots at The Arches, I can still see vividly the scenes as they took place, and yet—how to explain this haunting sense that that past all belongs to dreamland! What happens in the brain that weaves a web across the former self and the self of the present. Is it that these ghosts we conjure up as haunting the old places are in reality there, in spirit with us, shedding over us an influence from their new existence? To them our whole world may have become phantom-like, as are those scenes of the past we are re-enacting in memory.

[Page 256, line 17,]for came read gave.

[Page 257, line 5,]for 9th October read 9 o’clock.

[Page 258, line 4 from foot,]for Bibbacombe read Babbacombe.

[Page 259, line 4,]for Audrey read Audries.

[1 ] In Mr. Skrine’s Rivers of England he describes Claverton as it was in Ralph Allen’s day: “About midway in this ascent, overlooking Warleigh and the river, the pleasing village of Claverton seems to hang, suspended, where its large gothic mansion (renowned in the Civil War) and its little Church, with the pyramidical tomb of the late much esteemed Mr. Allen, are striking objects”. Mr. Graves the Rector of Claverton from 1750 to 1800 in his account of this notable person writes: “After Mr. Allen had purchased Claverton in the year 1758 from Mr. Skrine” (his descendant bought it back shortly after my father went to India), “he was so much pleased with the romantic situation, and with the Manor House, that he brought most of his company to see it; and generally dined there once a week”. This “company” who visited Ralph Allen included Pope who “was almost a constant inmate of the family during the Bath Season for many years,” Fielding, Hurd, Dr. Warburton Bishop of Gloucester, and the great Pitt, and many other people of note. Pitt wrote of Allen: “No incident can make the least change in the honour and love I bear him, or in the justice my heart does to his humane and benevolent virtues”.

[1 ] Our old nurse who lived in the family for fifty-three years, and died at Herd’s Hill in 1885.

[1 ] “Jetty” was my inseparable, a black-and-tan toy terrier. I knew at the time that Walter took my part, he always took the part of children.

[1 ] During a ride to Orchardleigh my sister’s hair came down, and made Walter aware of the fact that he was in love.

[1 ] Mrs. Schwann, daughter of Mr. Edward Bagehot.

[1 ] This poor lady who Walter criticised so severely, was treated in like manner by his friend Mr. Hutton, as well as by Arthur Clough. Mr. Hutton wrote a nonsense verse about her which I illustrated:—

This aversion was a typical example of an inveterate antipathy which Mr. Hutton, Mr. Clough, Walter Bagehot and other men of their set entertained towards a certain flashy form of insincerity.

[1 ] Sir George Cornewall Lewis had written to my father saying that the article in the National Review (Bagehot’s) was the only good one he had seen on the Crisis.

[1 ] On 25th February, 1858, Lord Derby replaced Lord Palmerston as Prime Minister.