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 XII.

“THE ECONOMIST”

Bagehot was sworn in as Justice of the Peace for the County of Somerset at the Epiphany Session held at Taunton, and on 18th January, 1861, he attended Petty Sessions for the first time with Sir Arthur Elton. They drove together to Long Asheton , where Petty Sessions were held.

My father had appointed his brothers and Bagehot his executors. It was settled that Bagehot should undertake the Directorship of the Economist, to continue, in fact, to hold the same position my father gave him when he left for India. He was beginning to feel that the daily railway journeys were exhausting, and determined that it would be better for him and my sister to live in London. About this time Lord Ellenborough wrote to my mother offering to relinquish his lease of 12 Upper Belgrave Street which he had taken for five years, the term of my father’s Indian appointment. It was decided that she should accept this kind offer, and that the Bagehots should make their London home with us in Upper Belgrave Street. A change was made in Bagehot’s work in Stuckey’s Bank. He resigned the local management of the branch in Bristol and undertook to supervise the work of the Bank in London.

A change also was made in the staff of the Economist. Mr. Meredith Townsend, who was conducting the Friend of India in 1859, had obtained an introduction to my father while he was in Calcutta. Mr. Townsend wished to leave India and start a newspaper in England. My father advised him to obtain, if posible, the aid of Mr. Hutton. Much as my father and Bagehot valued Mr. Hutton, they agreed in thinking that his particular gifts would work better on the staff of a newspaper such as Mr. Townsend wished to start, than on that of the Economist. On arriving in England Mr. Townsend found that the Spectator was in the market. Following my father’s advice he made the acquaintance of Mr. Hutton, and together, as co-proprietors and co-editors, they revived the Spectator. The complete success of this venture is now well known.

Bagehot did not replace Mr. Hutton but undertook the work of editing as well as directing the Economist himself. By living in London he found this was possible, at all events, for the time being. The uprooting from The Arches took place in May, 1861.

In the July number of the National Review, 1861, appeared Bagehot’s essay on William Pitt, the text being “Life of the Right Hon. William Pitt by Earl Stanhope, author of the History of England from the Peace of Utrecht”. It was a subject after his own heart. Pitt’s commanding character, his courage, his fortitude, his singular good fortune, his unrivalled opportunities while he still possessed the fervour of youth, all appealed to Bagehot’s imagination. But perhaps what fascinated him most were certain characteristics in Pitt which cannot fail to remind those intimate with Bagehot of himself. “He (Pitt) was preserved,” Bagehot writes, “from the characteristic degradation of well-intentioned and erudite youth by two great counteracting influences—a strong sense of humour and a genuine interest in great subjects. His sense of fun was, indeed, disguised from the vulgar by a rigid mask of grave dignity; but in private it was his strongest characteristic. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he is said to have remarked, ‘of a man’s being able to talk sense; everyone can talk sense; can he talk nonsense?’ And Mr. Wilberforce, the most cheerful of human beings, who had seen the most amusing society of his generation, always declared that Pitt’s wit was the best which he had ever known. And it was likely to be; humour gains much by constant suppression, and at no time of life was Pitt ever wanting in dexterous words. No man who really cares for great things, and who sees the laughable side of little things, ever becomes a ‘prig’.” Again, how much of the following description of Pitt suggests Bagehot’s own moods. “In all descriptions of Pitt’s appearance in the House of Commons, a certain aloofness fills an odd space. He is a ‘thing apart,’ different somehow from other members. Pitt was spare, dignified, and reserved. When he entered the House, he walked to the place of the Premier, without looking to the right or to the left, and he sat at the same place. He was ready to discuss important business with all proper persons, upon all necessary occasions, but he was not ready to discuss business unnecessarily with anyone, nor did he discuss anything but business with any save a few intimate friends, with whom his reserve at once vanished, and his wit and humour at once expanded, and his genuine interest in all really great subjects was at once displayed. In a popular assembly this sort of reserve, rightly manipulated, is a power. It is analogous to the manner which the accomplished author of Eothen recommends in dealing with Orientals: ‘it excites terror and inspires respect’. A recent book of memoirs illustrates it. During Addington’s administration, a certain rather obscure ‘Mr. G.’ was made a privy councillor; and the question was raised in Pitt’s presence as to the mode in which he could have obtained that honour. Someone said, ‘I suppose he was always talking to the Premier and bothering him’. Mr. Pitt quietly observed, ‘In my time I would much rather have made him a Privy Councillor than have spoken to him’.” (In a letter to one of his sisters-in-law, Bagehot writes: “It is inconceivable to me to like to see many people and even to speak to them. Every new person you know is an intellectual burden because you may see them again, and must be able to recognise and willing to converse with them.”) “It is easy to conceive the mental exhaustion which this well-managed reserve spared him, the number of trivial conversations which it economised, the number of imperfect ambitions which it quelled before they were uttered. An ordinary man could not, of course, make use of it. But Pitt at the earliest period imparted to the House of Commons the two most important convictions for a member in his position: he convinced them that he would not be the king’s creature, and that he desired no pecuniary profit for himself. As he despised royal favour, and despised real money, the House of Commons thought he might well despise them.”

Lord Ellenborough did not at once find another London house to suit him, therefore our return to Upper Belgrave Street was delayed till the winter of 1861. Meanwhile my mother and the Bagehots took a house in Ennismore Gardens—belonging to a very great friend and admirer of my father’s, Mr. Bonamy Price, Professor of Political Economy at Oxford. There Madame Mohl spent most days with us. She was writing the Life of Madame Récamier and sought my sister Julia’s aid in correcting her proofs.

Bagehot was then writing the article on “The American Constitution” for the National Review, suggested by stirring events then happening in America. During that year he wrote no less than thirty-one articles in the Economist on the Civil War, and the main side issues resulting from it.

In the early days of August the death occurred of Lord Herbert of Lee, and a tribute to him by Bagehot appeared in the Economist. “Lord Herbert’s untimely death is one of those rare calamities,” he writes, “which all men of all parties unite not only in deploring as a public loss, but in feeling as a personal grief. We cannot say ‘we could have better spared a better man,’—for among our statesmen no better man was to be found; but assuredly we could have better spared a cleverer man,—and many cleverer undoubtedly exist. But Lord Herbert was an unique man; and unique men are of all the most difficult to replace. He was also an unstained and undamaged man—and such can seldom be met with among politicians who for years have taken a prominent part in the struggles of the Parliamentary arena or the toils of official life, and are perhaps scarcer than ever now. He was in the prime of his mature strength; he had the highest position in the State in almost certain prospect; and, what was more important still, he had great services yet to render to his country. He did much, but has left his special work undone. He was disinterested and sincere; he was not specially ambitious of distinction or of power; he was fortunate in that his position as to rank and wealth left him nothing to desire; more fortunate still in that this happy independence was in him combined with a public courage which is not always its concomitant. From his freedom, from his honesty, from his earnestness, he drew that proper spirit—half the inheritance of the English gentleman, half the endowment of the moral and religious thinker—which refused to fall in with popular prejudice or to bow to popular clamour. He sympathised largely and warmly with the people; he served them zealously and faithfully; but never for a moment would he either flatter them or yield to them. On the question of Reform his views were liberal as well as moderate; he repeated no party Shibboleth: he really studied the subject, and was one of the few public men who showed himself a willing and intelligent recipient of new ideas. Power, in his estimation, was too sacred a trust to be either neglected or abused: he could not, knowingly, have made a bad appointment; he could not have deliberately foisted into the public service an incompetent relative or friend; he could not, at the head of a great department, have suffered recognised abuses to survive, if a way of reforming them could be devised. He was above everything a man to confide in; you always knew where to find him; he had courage, but it was not aggressive; he had zeal, but it was according to knowledge. He has left no similitude behind him.”

The great event of the winter of 1861 was the death of the Prince Consort. Bagehot published a short article in the Economist of 21st December on this grave national calamity. “If our loss,” he wrote, “is not—as has been extravagantly said—the greatest which the English nation could have sustained, it is among the most irreparable. . . . The royal family of last week is still (and without change) the royal family of to-day; but the father of that family is removed. For such a loss there is not, in this world, any adequate resource or any complete compensation. In no rank of life can anyone else be to the widow and children what the deceased father and husband would have been. In the Court as in the cottage, such loss must not only be grief now, but perplexity, trouble, and perhaps mistake hereafter. The present generation, at least the younger part of it, have lost the idea that the Court is a serious matter. Everything for twenty years has seemed to go so easily and so well, that it has seemed to go by itself. There is no such thing in this world. Everything requires anxiety, and reflection, and patience. And the function of the Court, though we easily forget it when it is well performed, keeps itself much in our remembrance when it is ill-performed. The Crown is of singular importance in a divided and contentious free State, because it is the sole object of attachment which is elevated above every contention and division. But to maintain that importance, it must create attachment. We know that the Crown now does so fully; but we do not adequately bear in mind how much rectitude of intention, how much judgment in conduct, how much power of doing right, how much power of doing nothing, are requisite to unite the loyalty and to retain the confidence of a free people. . . . His (Prince Albert’s) circumstances and perhaps his character, forbade him to attempt the visible achievements and the showy displays which attract momentary popularity. Discretion is a quality seldom appreciated till it is lost; and it was discretion which Prince Albert eminently possessed.”

No quality was more adequately appreciated by Walter Bagehot than such discretion—the active principle of good sense.

In the month previous to the Prince Consort’s death Walter Bagehot lost his old friend Arthur Clough, the poet and the subject of Matthew Arnold’s “Thyrsis”. He died of fever at Florence on the 13th of November in his forty-third year. To quote afresh Mr. Hutton’s words: “Clough ever remained to Bagehot a theme of profound intellectual and moral interest which lasted him his life, and never failed to draw him into animated discussion long after Clough’s own premature death.” At the time, however, of Arthur Clough’s death Bagehot was engaged in work, the interest of which had, I think, somewhat freed him from this “intellectual fascination”. His admiration for my father had also tended to effect this.

Of my father Bagehot wrote: “His conscientiousness was of a plain but very practical kind; he had a single-minded rectitude which went straight to the pith of a moral difficulty—which showed him what he ought to do. On such subjects he was somewhat intolerant of speculative reasoning. ‘The common sense is so and so,’ he used to say, and he did not wish to be plagued with anything else.” I think Bagehot felt the simplicity of my father’s views had a wholesome effect upon his own mind. In the National Review of October, 1862, appeared Bagehot’s article “Mr. Clough’s Poems”. In it we find together with much subtle appreciation the following:—

“Mr. Clough’s career and life were exactly those most likely to develop and foster a morbid peculiarity of his intellect. He had, as we have explained, by nature, an unusual difficulty in forming a creed as to the unseen world; he could not get the visible world out of his head; his strong grasp of plain facts and obvious matters was a difficulty to him. Too easily one great teacher inculcated a remarkable creed; then another great teacher took it away; then this second teacher made him believe for a time some of his own artificial faith; then it would not do. He fell back on that vague, impalpable, unembodied religion which we have attempted to describe.”

Bagehot still continued to feel a reverence and admiration for his old friend; this he shows in his essay on his poetry; but circumstances no less than the natural trend of his own nature had, I think, changed his attitude towards what he called the peculiarity of Mr. Clough’s intellect. He felt more and more that this peculiarity tended to a hair-splitting in moral and religious speculation which led to no definite enlightenment.

During the years spent together in Upper Belgrave Street, between our returning there in 1861 and my marriage in 1868, we had much of Walter at his best. Ordinary conversation became extraordinarily stimulating. Constantly there was an unexpected charge of wit given out in a quaint restrained tone of voice, a twist of whimsical fancy turned on to a very commonplace matter, which made the hours spent with him a revelry of good things. No subject was needed to make a conversation notable, everything was a subject with Walter Bagehot. The discussion of serious matters, equally with those of a frivolous kind, was of no less original a quality. Everything he said carried with it that profound sense of reality which was so strong a characteristic of his mind. A passage in the essay on Shelley shows how he treats of the “higher air” which does not carry with it this sense. He writes: “Of course, all his [Shelley’s] Works contain ‘Spirits,’ ‘Phantoms,’ ‘Dream No. 1,’ and ‘Fairy No. 3,’ but these do not belong to this world. The higher air seems never to have been favourable to the production of marked character; with almost all poets the inhabitants of it are prone to a shadowy thinness; in Shelley, the habit of frequenting mountain-tops has reduced them to evanescent mists of lyrical energy.” Who but Walter Bagehot could hint with so neat a humour at the flimsy, dictatorial element in some of Shelley’s arrangements when he flies into this “higher air”?

The natural affinity of one side of Walter Bagehot’s mind was clearly for such wisdom and understanding as is taught us in the Book of Proverbs. In his Essay on Bishop Butler he applies Dr. Arnold’s expression, moral thoughtfulness to his subject. The expression partly suggests his own attitude of mind. But in him this attitude, though certainly existing, was mitigated in rigour by elasticity of temperament, buoyant spirits, and a general happiness of nature. He knew, through personal experience, that an attitude of moral thoughtfulness need not be allowed to overpower all other valuable qualities. He writes that it cannot but be doubted “how far such teaching as that of Arnold tends to introduce a too stiff and anxious habit of mind; how far the perpetual presence of a purpose, will interfere with the simple happiness of life, and how far also it can be forced on the ‘lilies of the field’; how far the care of anxious minds and active thoughts is to be obtruded on the young, on the cheerful, on the natural”.

The tenet which Walter Bagehot held, and consistently put into practice, was Live and let Live. This tolerance infused into the atmosphere of family life a singularly nutritious flavour. The saying “A gentleman is careful of the dignity of others” fits well into the memories of Walter Bagehot, recalling the invariable consideration he paid to every feeling or interest in those about him, however different from his own they might be, providing always they were real feelings and real interests. He writes: “we may admire what we cannot share; reverence what we do not imitate. As those who cannot comprehend a strain of soothing music, look with interest on those who can; as those who cannot feel the gentle glow of a quiet landscape, yet stand aside and seem inferior to those who do; so in character, the buoyant and the bold, the harsh and the practical, may, at least for the moment, moralise and look upwards, reverence, and do homage when they come to a close experience of what is gentler and simpler, more anxious and more thoughtful, kinder and more religious than themselves.”1 A strong sympathy and kindliness towards his fellow-creatures as fellow-creatures, especially towards the young and those with whom he was connected, made him highly sensitive to their interests. To those of his sisters-in-law he proved himself as keenly alive as if they had been sisters of his own. In family life, no less than in political and financial affairs, it was the sense of absolute trust inspired by Walter Bagehot which won confidence and secured the great influence he possessed. Even had he not inherited strict principles as to right and wrong, he was too wise not to have preferred the straight to the crooked paths. Intellectually as well as morally he was profoundly sound. He allowed no personal predilections, no inclination of his mind or of his feelings to over-ride his reasoned opinions. None of the “taking” qualities that inspire passing engouements and fashions in the public mind, no exciting movements, ever made his judgment swerve from the reality of truth. A friend of ours who had been a constant inmate of our home before and after Walter Bagehot entered it, would converse in a singularly pleasant and ingenious fashion on questions affecting the prosperity of the country; but was apt at times to indulge in eloquent flights of argument, aerial theories, and prophetic convictions, all based more or less on a cloud arrangement of his own creation. After a lively spurt of such ingenuity, I remember Walter, in a kindly, sarcastic, slightly speculative tone, opened his dark, round eyes very wide, turned his head a little on one side, and said quietly: “Most valuable information, if true!” much in the same spirit as he would—to quote Mr. Hutton—utter his satirical “Hear, hear!”—a formidable sound in the debating society, and one which took the heart out of many a younger speaker; and the ironical “How much?” with which in conversation he would meet an over-eloquent expression, was always apt to reduce a man, as the mathematical phrase goes, to his “lowest terms”. Walter Bagehot keenly felt the responsibility of eloquence, and how morally cheap it could be when let forth merely as an exciting game, or to support an unsound argument in too persuasive a fashion (see passages in his article “Mr. Gladstone”). He thought eloquence not safe unless it were the outcome of profound conviction and deep feeling. It was a power likely to do mischief and lead astray if not safeguarded by rigid conscientiousness and a power of true perception. His own mental survey embraced a wide horizon. He looked beyond the obvious expediency in a question, and from this wider outlook worked back, so to speak, on to the consideration of every-day practical matters. He recognised the importance of acting deliberately and wisely in these commonplace occurrences, for he knew the influence commonplace events can have on the lives of the great majority, who in this world lead commonplace lives. But, however far-reaching might be the ideas which Walter Bagehot brought to bear on daily concerns, they were conveyed invariably in a natural, familiar manner, without any alarming impressiveness.

In those Belgrave Street days he was especially talkative at breakfast. It was flattering to hear him say that he found it more amusing to breakfast with his sisters-in-law than to join breakfast parties to which he was asked, given by Gladstone and other notable people. At The Arches he had generally had before him the anxiety of catching his train. Here he had not, so would linger, wandering about the room, and continuing to talk, his mind fresh, his spirits buoyant. No attitude of “moral thoughtfulness” ever extinguished the boy in Walter Bagehot. It is exasperating to think of the many good things that came out while he paced up and down the Belgrave Street dining-room, and yet to have made no record of them. But there are warnings against the attempt to put them down on paper. Others have made the attempt. I think it is wiser to refrain. I feel with Henry Sawtell that it is useless to try to conjure up Bagehot’s wit for those who have no picture of Bagehot himself in their mind’s eye. President Woodrow Wilson, never having seen him, wrote a brilliantly understanding essay on Bagehot as “A Wit and a Seer,” inspired by his writings. His talk, however, was more amusing even than his writings. But the gist of it was evoked by the subject of the moment, by the person to whom he was speaking, by his or her peculiar interests or characteristics. The pith of it could not be conveyed without a vision of Bagehot himself, and the situation which evoked it. Egoism was totally absent. The last rôle he would have wished to play was that of a professional wit. He was never known to have been guilty of a monologue. Conversation never went beyond the limits of conversation proper. As Lord Bryce, in a letter to Mr. Hutton, after Bagehot’s death, wrote: “one seemed to gain more profit as well as pleasure from a talk with him [Walter Bagehot] than with almost any one else, all the more so because, however much one felt his superiority, it always remained conversation, and not, as so often with great talkers, a lecture or a declamation”.

The charm of his funny sayings lay in their unpremeditated quaintness, in their not being made up. He knew no more how his wit came out than did those who enjoyed it. It was inspired nonsense, and Walter’s nonsense would have satisfied Pitt, or any other, fastidious in the art.

Besides the breakfast-table at home another happy field for expansion in this art was the Spectator office. From early days Mr. Hutton was accustomed to get his full share. Bagehot soon became intimate with Mr. Townsend, his co-editor. “I go round to the Spectator Office,” he used to say, “to know what is going to happen. Townsend can always prophesy.” In after years, referring to his constant visits, Mr. Meredith Townsend writes: “Do you know I doubt if I ever received a letter from Mr. Bagehot in my life. If he had anything to say he ran in to the Spectator, and if I had anything to say I ran in to the Economist. I am quite sorry, for any letter of his was sure to be full of witty wisdom.” In a letter to my sister written in 1905, Miss Helen Gladstone records a saying of Walter’s, uttered about that time: “I think the only time I met Mr. Bagehot to speak to was a very long time ago when he came to one of my father’s Thursday breakfasts at 11 Carlton House Terrace, but we left that house over thirty years ago; I only remember distinctly one thing that he told us; that he knew what a nut felt like when it was going to be cracked, as he once got his head caught between a cart-shed and a lamp-post.”

To the world at large who did not know him personally, Bagehot was viewed as a sedate and reserved person, the grave director of the Economist, who interviewed statesmen on important questions; who went down to the City and was treated as a person of importance when he got there; who edited the National Review, and wrote essays which were thought much of by those whose opinion was of moment.

President Woodrow Wilson writes: “He [Bagehot] became editor of the London Economist and brought questions of finance to the light in editorials which clarified knowledge and steadied prediction in such fashion as made him the admiration of the Street. The City had never before seen its business set forth with such lucidity and mastery.

“Such a capital as London is a huge intellectual clearing-house, and men get out of it, as it were, the net balances of the nation’s needs and thoughts. Bagehot both took and gave a great deal in such a place. His mind was singularly fitted to understand London, and every complex group of men and interest. He had the social imagination that Burke had, and Carlyle,—that every successful student of affairs must have, if he would scratch but a little beneath the surface or lift the mystery from any transaction whatever. For minds with this gift of sight there is a quick way opened to the heart of things. Their acquaintance with any individual man is but a detail in their acquaintance with men; and it is noteworthy that, though they gain in mastery, they do not gain in insight by their contact with men and with the actual business of the world.” This was most aptly true of Bagehot, whose insight was singularly intuitive.

Notwithstanding a very full life of grave occupations, he found time to ride with his sisters-in-law in the park, to drive his wife nearly every day in their phaeton, and to join much in the social life of our family, keeping up the while with his old friends and early associations. He continued to pay constant visits to Herd’s Hill, combining these with the fortnightly meetings of the directors of Stuckey’s Bank, and quarter sessions held at Wells or Taunton. He occasionally stayed with his old friends Sir Arthur and Lady Elton at Clevedon Court, and with Mr. Freeman, the historian, who, in 1860, bought a place called Somerleage , near Wells. Walter and my sister did not as a rule pay many country visits, as most of the available time out of London was spent at Herd’s Hill. Mr. and Mrs. Bagehot were very generous in their invitations to all our family, and we constantly enjoyed their hospitality.

Much going out and much entertaining at Upper Belgrave Street went on in those days, drawing-rooms, state balls, political “At Homes,” dinners, luncheons, balls, the opera and theatres. Friends would come in every afternoon to five o’clock tea. Walter, however, never assisted at this function. Mr. Greg, who was then Controller of the Stationery Office, would come nearly every day straight from his office at five o’clock, and often returned to dinner. Our house was a second home to him, while his own, on Wimbledon Common, was at our disposal when any member of our family wanted change of air. There was a constant going to and fro between Park Lodge and Upper Belgrave Street. Mr. Greg wrote on political questions, and he and Bagehot discussed these subjects together. They had mutual friends notable in the literary and political world, and pleasant dinner-parties took place at both houses, remarkable for the intellectual distinction of the guests. It suited Bagehot to have social life going on around him, provided he was not responsible for the arrangements, and that he could join, or not, as he felt inclined. On the occasion of a ball my mother gave, my sister wrote to Mrs. Bagehot: “I think our ball went off well. It was very full (nearly 300 people) and spirited, and we kept it up till half-past three. Walter really enjoyed it, and behaved quite nicely, not retiring once till he slipped away to bed at a quarter before three.” My sister wrote almost every day to Mrs. Bagehot giving her an account of the doings of the family. All these letters were preciously preserved, and exist unto this day.

Every one consulted Bagehot about any event that happened in our family. Walter could always understand. He gave the best advice in an amusing form, and was never known to rub any one the wrong way. The romances of his sisters-in-law were subjects of interest to him; he never in fact seemed indifferent about anything concerning those about him. I remember going to him to air some grievance I had against “disturbing influences”.1 He was sympathetic and consoling; “Get to your Ruskin,—you will soon forget all about it. I have been through the same sort of thing over and over again, and books have always come to the rescue.” Throughout his life, books were as healing balm to Bagehot. He never smoked, and when, as a youth, a friend told him that his cigars cost him £30 per annum, Walter exclaimed, “But imagine how many books that would buy!”

On Sundays he would often lunch with his friends, Lord and Lady Carnarvon, and in the afternoons drive my sister to Hampstead to see his Uncle and Aunt Reynolds, or ride to the Priory, St. John’s Wood, where on Sunday afternoons Mr. and Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot) entertained their friends. His uncle was the chief supporter of the Evangelical newspaper The Record, and Mr. and Mrs. George Lewes were steeped in German philosophy of most unorthodox tendencies! The quaint contrast amused Bagehot. His power of detachment enabled him to feel an interest in all varieties of creeds and opinions, the while retaining complete independence of thought and belief.

When paying a visit to Mr. Chichester Fortescue and Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, Walter and my sister met the Duc and Duchesse d’Aumale, then living at Orleans House, Twickenham. This acquaintance with Bagehot the Duc d’Aumale furthered.

Bagehot seldom remained in London long at a time. If he had any special piece of writing to get through, he and my sister would go for a few days to the sea, or to any place where pleasant scenery tuned his mind to a happy key and stimulated the growth of ideas. He would carry about with him minute pocket-books and in very faint pencil marks dot down notes when he was travelling, walking, riding or driving, or lying down on a sofa to rest. He always preferred lying down or standing to sitting. He had high desks made at which he would stand when writing.

In September, 1861, the Bagehots were in search of a quiet out-of-the-way seaside place, not too far from London. In the Diary, 23rd September, is recorded: “We started for Christchurch at 3 and reached it at 7, and put up at Newlyn’s Hotel. 24th.—Drove till dark looking for watering places—to Mudeford, Milford and Kielhaven—nearly as far as Hurst Castle. 25th—Drove to Mudeford and took Mount Pleasant. Found Zoe and Emy arrived from London at hotel. 29th September, Sunday. Beautiful mild day. Walter and I sat on beach and he read me poetry from Palgrave’s Collection. Walter, Zoë and Emy walked afternoon to opposite hills across the ferry. 30th.—Walter, Zoe and Emy went to beach before breakfast. Afternoon.—I had a donkey and we all went to the opposite hills, taking the donkey in the ferryboat, and sat in the heather. Went round by sand hills, and donkey lay down with me and sunk in the mud. We were obliged to get assistance and leave Walter with the donkey boy, and got home in the dark. A sea-captain helped the donkey out.”

This is the plain statement of an event which lives in my memory as a very amusing picture. Walter’s boyish delight in a comical situation came out in full force. He had always enjoyed a joke against my sister for her preferring donkeys to more spirited animals. He entirely enjoyed the donkey’s behaviour on that evening. The sun had gone down behind the sand hills above us, and a deep shadow was cast over the group surrounding the passive animal, who did not seem to mind in the least how far down in the mud he sank. It was a lonely piece of country, without trees or houses in sight. Walter managed with difficulty to get the donkey to stand on its legs, but the legs began sinking into the mud. Then he sent the donkey boy to fetch boards, and scooped each leg separately out of the mud, and placed them on the boards. But boards and legs together began to sink, and were continuing to do so when we sisters fled, leaving Walter and the donkey boy to cope with the situation, as twilight was fast turning into darkness. How the “sea-captain” succeeded in extricating the donkey history does not relate, but Walter returned to Mount Pleasant saying that he had.

The October number of the National Review containing Bagehot’s article on “The American Constitution” came out while we were at Mudeford, and from Mount Pleasant, Walter wrote to Mr. Gladstone: “I have ventured to desire the publishers of the National Review to send you the last number, which contains an article of mine on the ‘American Constitution’ and its effects just now. It has seemed to me that these have been a good deal overlooked in the midst of the more striking facts of the present crisis, and yet that they are very important. I should not, however, send you my article if what I have heard called the ‘Plenary power of not reading’ did not place the remedy in your own hands.

“I am,
Yours sincerely,

Walter Bagehot.”

Mr. Gladstone wrote in answer from Hawarden:—

“Dear Mr. Bagehot—

I thank you very much for having favoured me with a copy of the National Review: and I have lost no time in reading your very able and highly instructive article on the American Constitution.

“I have always thought, and still think it, the greatest work that was ever struck off at a heat by the makers of such articles. Nor do I think the framers of 1787 are discredited by the failure of 1861, when we remember what has occurred between I am afraid the case stands much worse for their descendants than for them. Not the rupture but the work of meeting the rupture is damaging indeed. I agree, however, in all your strictures upon their work; but there is one point on which I am moved at any rate to a suspense of judgment. I am by no means clear that the secession is expressly forbidden by the Constitution, and think it arguable—as far as my recollection goes—that the present case is a Casus omissus in the document. If it be so, the South have much to say on the point of competency, however bad may be the result of their movement.”

In February, 1862, Bagehot delivered a lecture at the Langport Literary and Scientific Institution. His subject was Literature and he advised his audience to make it a rule of reading the whole of the Times every day, including the advertisements. It would know then, he said, what the world was really about.

In May, 1862, there is an entry in the Diary: “Walter dined at Mr. Crabb Robinson’s to meet Mr. F. D. Maurice, Dr. Martineau, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Cookson”. The day after this dinner it is recorded that the Bagehots left for Bognor in the afternoon. The following day Walter began writing his pamphlet on the “Great Expenditure in Preparation for War”. He had gone into retreat to Bognor for the purpose of writing this pamphlet. It was finished in two days and christened Count your Enemies and Economise your Expenditure.

During that visit to Bognor, Walter read to my sister Mr. Hutton’s “Tract for Priests and People on the Incarnation”. This “Tract” was Mr. Hutton’s declaration of faith, which severed him unmistakably from every grade of religious opinion outside the Roman or Anglican Church. He resigned the editorship of the National Review in June, 1862. Mr. Charles Henry Pearson, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, succeeded him. In 1862 Mr. Pearson wrote in The Story of My Life: “I was asked if I would take the editorship of the National Review, which Hutton had just resigned. He and Grant Duff recommended me for the post, and I indiscreetly accepted it, partly because I did not thoroughly understand the difficulties of the situation. Although not professedly an organ of Unitarian views, the National Review had been founded by James Martineau and a few friends who disliked the tone of the Westminster Review as too negative. Under the brilliant editorship of Hutton and Bagehot the Review rose to a circulation of 1,500 in England and America, and was able to pay its way. When the American war broke out the American sale stopped altogether, and the editors had to fall back upon the founders of the Review for support. This was forthcoming, but could only be looked upon as a temporary expedient. . . . Hutton, who had long wished to break off his connection with the Review, now definitely resigned. The intense conviction with which he held the doctrine of the Incarnation made even a neutral position on that point distasteful to him, and he chafed under the pecuniary obligation to a Unitarian benefactor whose views could not be represented in the Review. I saw no insurmountable difficulty in the situation. I could not have worked a Unitarian review, but the idea of inviting impartial criticism and discussion from men of all opinions appeared thoroughly satisfactory. I was reasonably confident that I could enlist several of the more liberal Anglicans in the service of the Review.”

A cordial feeling sprang up between Bagehot and Mr. Pearson. On 23rd May, 1863, the Diary relates that “Walter and I went to Oxford—dined with Mr. Pearson in the Fellows’ common room at Oriel College, and met the Master of Lincoln and Mrs. Pattison, Mr. Henry and Miss Smith, Mr. Grote, Mr. Hutton and Dr. Acland. 24th.—Walter breakfasted at Oriel with Mr. Pearson, the Smiths, etc. After service Mr. Pearson took us and Mr. Hutton to the Museum, Exeter Chapel, and Balliol, where we lunched with Dr. Jowett. Walter dined in Balliol Hall and I with Miss Smith, where the gentlemen joined us.”

Differences of opinion arose, however, between Mr. Pearson and Bagehot as to the proportion theology ought to take in the pages of the National Review. Mr. Pearson considered “that theology was the dead weight against which the Review had to struggle”. Bagehot thought that there ought to be at least two religious articles in every number. “I determined,” wrote Mr. Pearson, “to resign the editorship. My connection with the Review lasted altogether a year. (July 1862 to July 1863.) I felt giving up the National Review very much.”1

Bagehot remained sole editor till the end of 1864, when the Review died. Bagehot’s interest in it had been great. It had brought him congenial work when he had felt a special need of it. That need no longer existed, but he felt parting with it as from an old friend.

In the month of August, 1863, the Bagehots made a journey in France to visit some of the cathedrals and churches at Abbeville, Rouen, Caen, Vitre, Mont St. Michel. They came upon the Francis Palgraves making a similar tour. Bagehot writes to one of his sisters-in-law from Avranches: “We are here in Normandy, moving about and amusing ourselves in old French towns. It amuses me and is beautifully idle, as we do not see the monumens particularly or laboriously. I met here, however—that is in Normandy and not at Avranches—an old friend of mine, Palgrave,—the man whose artistic handbook to the exhibition was so much abused,—and he has expounded the cathedrals, and made us understand a little. He is just married to a young wife of a Unitarian family, after writing poetry about a million women, and publishing much of it.” During this tour the Bagehots paid a visit to M. Guizot at his Château Val Richer, near Lisieux. His daughters, the Mesdames de Witt and their husbands were living there with him at that time.

It was in 1863 that the friendship began between Bagehot and Lord and Lady Carnarvon. After paying his first visit to Highclere he writes in a letter: “I have been at Highclere, Lord Carnarvon’s, who is one of my sort, and has run to mind, and wanted me to help to keep his house more decently reasonable while the fast people were there. We had Lord and Lady Ashley, Lord Stanhope (Lady Carnarvon’s brother), Lady Dorothy Neville—a pretty woman with an old husband, and several young men. The women wore wonderful dresses, and we played cards rather high, always in the evening and sometimes in the morning—at least some people played in the morning.—I kept my character for wisdom and did not. Lord Carnarvon will be Secretary of State for the Colonies when the Tories come in. Lady Carnarvon is very clever and literary—at least with snaps of Literature. They will be people for some years to come, for they are both clever, very ambitious and have a beautiful place near London to entertain in.” The friendship formed at this time between Bagehot and the Carnarvons resulted in pleasant intercourse and frequent visits which continued up to the time of Bagehot’s death.

After this first visit Lord Carnarvon writes from Torquay: “Lady C. has just shown me your letter to her and I see by it that you are in the West of England. We hope to go to-morrow to our Somersetshire place, which my mother makes her head-quarters, and as you will then not be at any great distance I cannot resist pressing you to come over and let me show you what is—I need not scruple to say—a beautiful country, though it is somewhat out of the world. My mother will be delighted to make your acquaintance and you will like to know her. We propose to stay there till next Monday, 28th, and on any day between this and that day you will be welcome. I ought to warn you that you will have a rather long drive, though a very pretty one, from Tiverton. I have just finished Freeman’s Norman Conquest. It is by far to my mind the best thing he has ever done, and in my humble judgment I rate it very highly as a piece of historical criticism. If you come to us I shall look forward to talking some of the points over with you. I have educated myself too much on Sir F. Palgrave to accept one or two of his doctrines.”

His best energies Bagehot expended in writing. During the year 1862 he wrote the pamphlet Count Your Enemies and Economise Your Expenditure, three articles for the National Review—“Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,” “The Ignorance of Man,” and “Mr. Clough’s Poems,”—and at least two articles every week for the Economist. In its pages between the years 1859 and 1877 are found articles by him on all the events political and commercial of any significance that took place during that time. For these eighteen years he was responsible for everything that appeared in the Economist, and having regard to the special character of the journal, he naturally felt it to be all-important that nothing should appear, or be supposed to appear, without the full sanction of the one who was directly responsible. Frequently would he emphasise that it was the Economist and the Economist alone, that spoke. Glancing, however, through those old numbers, Bagehot’s own pen is very easily discerned, not merely from the style, but from the manner in which the matter is treated. The authoritative tone, denoting full knowledge and a deliberate judgment, the wide aspect taken of a subject, the general principles on which arguments were based, the realistic and humorous asides worked into most questions, distinctly mark the articles to be by him. Take, for instance, two characteristic articles headed, “The Emperor of the French,” in the issues of 28th November and 5th December, 1863, written at the time when Europe was alive with rumours of war. Since the days of the Coup d’État Bagehot had watched the career of Napoleon III. with keen interest, speculating on what would come next, what would be the dénouement of it all—whether or not, his own theories would be corroborated by events. Ending the first of these articles he writes:—

Bagehot felt very keenly the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis which occurred in 1863. “There has been no statesman in our time whom he [Bagehot] liked so much or regretted so deeply,” wrote Mr. Hutton. Sir G. C. Lewis felt a singularly warm affection for my father. It was rare in him to entertain any such distinct feeling for a colleague.1 It was this friendship which started in the first instance an intimacy between him and Bagehot. They met frequently. Sir G. C. Lewis’s intellectual attainments attracted Bagehot even more perhaps than his powers as a statesman, great as these were. As a study his unique personality was eminently interesting to Bagehot, as shown in the article which appeared in the October number of the National Review, 1863.2

In the Economist of 10th September, 1864, Bagehot wrote on “The Tribute at Hereford to Sir G. C. Lewis,” on the occasion of the uncovering of his statue. The article concluded with the following passage: “Sir George Lewis is gone, but he has left a remembrance in many minds which will not grow cold while they are still warm. For many years it will, to many, be much to have known one who was learned and yet wise, just but yet kind; considerate and observing, and yet never in the least severe.”

These words might justly be quoted of Bagehot himself.

In answering a letter from Mr. Gladstone, who had read the article, Bagehot writes: “I am very gratified to find that you think I have not entirely missed the mark in my estimate. There is no picture of Sir G. Lewis in the public mind, and I suppose there will never be. The Times said he was ‘a distinguished expositor of Niebuhr’s opinions,’ and I suppose if there was anything he wished not to have been said, this was it.”

In November, 1863, we were painfully reminded of our great calamity resulting from the Indian climate. We were seeing Lady Augusta Bruce and her sister, Lady Charlotte Locker, who were staying at St. James’s Place. In the Diary there is an entry: “27th November.—Lady Charlotte Locker called in the morning and lunched with us. Had a telegram from Lady Elgin stating that Lord Elgin had been very ill; but was better.” “28th November.—Telegraph published announcing Lord Elgin’s life despaired of on the 14th.” Lord Elgin telegraphed from Dharmsala his resignation of the Governor-Generalship, and “summoned to his bedside from Calcutta Dr. Macrae, the same physician who had attended James Wilson in his last illness”. He died before the month was out. Bagehot wrote a striking article in the Economist of 5th December, headed, “The Indian Vice-royalty,” in which he stated how universally the appointment of Sir John Lawrence to replace Lord Elgin had been approved, and explained the reason of this general satisfaction, both in England and in India. He describes the difference of the qualities required in an English Premier and an India Viceroy. “ ‘He’ll keep the horses straight,’ say the clubs of a Minister whom they expect to be efficient, the movement of the horses being taken for granted. ‘He’ll make the horses “club” ’ (go) will be the remark on Sir John Lawrence, the immobility of the steeds being the habitual starting-point. . . . Above all, the Viceroy has from the special necessity of his position, as representative of a civilised race among a half-civilised one, to keep a vast population which wants to recede, perpetually advancing. He must compel it somehow to become every year a little more orderly, a little more enlightened, a little more wealthy, a little more ready to keep step with the march of European ideas; and to do it he must have driving power. Wisdom, knowledge, originality, experience, tact, everything Englishmen value are, without this one faculty, simply valueless. Be the road laid out ever so well, the mass will not stir till it is pushed, and he who pushes hardest gets it along most inches. The single quality, in fact, without which an Indian Viceroy fails, is that which, for want of a better word, we must term ‘force’; and it is because Sir John Lawrence has force, and has it in an exceptional and most unusual degree, that he will make a better Viceroy than any of the many statesmen who in every quality, save that, may surpass him.”

During the autumn of 1864, various circumstances necessitated Bagehot’s remaining within easy reach of London. After staying a month at Herd’s Hill he and my sister settled at Great Marlow for six weeks in the Angler’s Inn on the river. The associations of the place with Shelley were attractive. From boyhood Bagehot had found a friend in Shelley. When at Bristol College, at the age of thirteen, he wrote to his father that he had found consolation in a fit of depression by reading Shelley. In 1849 he wrote a paper on Shelley which he sent to his friend Roscoe to criticise. This did not appear in print, though probably some of it was incorporated in the article which was published in the National Review in 1856. The intensity of Shelley’s genius fascinated Bagehot. “An idea,” he writes, “an emotion grew upon his brain, his breast heaved, his frame shook, his nerves quivered with the ‘harmonious madness’ of imaginative concentration.” The crystalline delicacy of Shelley’s verse awoke a thrill of delight; the strange tragedy in Shelley’s life aroused a pitiful speculative wonder. “It shows,” Bagehot wrote, “how the impulsive temperament, not definitely intending evil, is hurried forward, so to say, over actions and crimes which would seem to indicate deep depravity,—which would do so in ordinary human nature, but which do not indicate in it anything like the same degree of guilt. Driven by singular passion across a tainted region, it retains no taint; on a sudden it passes through evil but preserves its purity. So curious is this character that a record of its actions may read like a libel on its life.” In 1816 Shelley and his wife visited Thomas Love Peacock at Great Marlow, and in 1817 returned there for a year. They lived in Albion House, a dwelling now divided into two residences, making part of a street, but then a house by itself on a country road. Still can be seen the garden which Shelley describes, and the “mound surrounded by cypresses and yews with a cedar tree among them”. “My thoughts for ever cling to Windsor Forest and the copses of Marlow,” wrote Shelley from Lucca. In his boat The Vaga he had wandered up and down the reaches of the Thames. “I have often met him,” writes one of Lady Shelley’s friends, “going or coming from his island retreat near Medenham Abbey. . . . He was the most interesting figure I ever saw; his eyes like a deer’s, his white throat unfettered.”1 It was at Great Marlow, maybe in this island retreat, hidden by leaning willows and crowded quivering rushes, near the ancient Abbey, that Shelley wrote “Laon and Cythna” and “The Revolt of Islam”. In that year at Great Marlow the pamphlet “A Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote” and Mrs. Shelley’s “Frankenstein” also were written.

Soon after arriving at Great Marlow, the Bagehots asked me to join them there. It was a delightful visit. Much time was spent on the river, and there were many lovely things to draw. The ponies had arrived from Herd’s Hill, and Walter’s horse from London. Nowhere was he so happy as in the saddle, and driving the ponies came next among out-of-door pleasures. Everything connected with Walter Bagehot seemed to borrow something of his own individuality. His ponies, “Charlie” and “Fanny,” his horse “Plaything,” were somehow more distinctly his own than other people’s horses and ponies seem to be theirs. Most mornings Bagehot rode, most afternoons he drove us in my sister’s phaeton, most evenings we rowed on the river and much poetry was read.

At Great Marlow, besides writing articles for the Economist, he was engaged on his last contribution to the National Review: “Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning, or Pure, Ornate and Grotesque Art in English Poetry”. Poetry fitted well into the atmosphere of the place. The incidents of one afternoon I recollect very clearly. A lady friend of mine, also staying with the Bagehots, drove the ponies instead of Walter. He rode, and I walked by “Plaything’s” side. We went along paths by the river-side, out-of-the-way lanes, and through the copses immortalised by Shelley, talking as we went, Walter humorous and quaint, “Plaything” ambling and inclined to resent being restrained to keep pace with me. It was an afternoon when every colour was intensified. The sun struck with dazzling storm-heat on the river, a bright steely light flashed on the river reeds, the grass was aglow with gold shining through the green. We had wandered on for a couple of miles, not noticing that one side of the sky was inky purple. Then we saw drops like big black wafers fall at our feet; things began to move,—before, nothing had moved; a wind got up, fretting the surface of the water, sweeping the rushes flat with the stream, swaying the branches of the trees and whisking the foliage this way and that. Sheaves of silver willow sprays bowed low across the banks. Then the rain fell in torrents, the storm was there in good earnest, and we were two miles from the Anchor Inn. As at the Needles in the Isle of Wight, in the sea-storm, so, in this land storm, Walter’s spirits rose as the elements became turbulent. He was very happy and much enlivened. The return journey was hilarious. We were being pelted on and buffeted by wind and driving rain. “Plaything” was exasperated at having to go at foot’s pace. I did my best to hurry up. At last we got back to the inn,—in the highest spirits—drenched.

Early in January, 1865, while the Bagehots were paying their annual Christmas visit to Herd’s Hill, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Walter saying he should like to see him with reference to the Bank Notes Issue Bill which he purposed bringing forward. The bill caused much discussion. Many interests were at stake. It was altered and re-altered. Bagehot wrote exhaustively on it in the pages of the Economist, and took an active part in the discussions at the bankers’ meetings which took place in London, and by communicating confidentially with Mr. Gladstone, he appears to have acted as a medium between the bankers and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After seeing Bagehot in January, Mr. Gladstone writes from Hawarden the following letter marked Private:—

“On Friday when I had the pleasure of seeing you I mentioned that I had had under consideration last summer a plan which would have abolished all Banking restrictions for issuing banks, and would have imposed on them a moderate charge in consideration of the boon. I mentioned to you at the time that I was not clear in the recollection of particulars; and I have not had the means of correcting my recollection since I saw you by reference to papers. But I have it to a certain degree by reflecting on what occurred: and I am now desirous to beg you to consider what I send as good for no purpose but the precise one for which I quoted it, namely as supporting the view that the proper basis for a voluntary commutation would not therefore of necessity be the proper basis for a compulsory measure.

“The compulsory or general form was that in which the plan first occurred to me: but that I think had been altogether cast aside before the time when I had some communications with you on the subject of a voluntary arrangement. Forgive this trouble.”

In March Bagehot writes to Mr. Gladstone:—

Mr. Gladstone forwarded this letter to a colleague who, when returning it, adds this note:—

In April, Bagehot writes to Mr. Gladstone:—

A day later Bagehot writes to Mr. Gladstone:—

In the spring of 1865 Bagehot and Mr. Goschen (Lord Goschen) held consultations together on the proposed Consolidated Bank, a question which had been fully discussed in the Economist. The Goschen family had been for some years among our London acquaintances, but it was at this time that a closer intimacy sprang up between Mr. Goschen and Bagehot, and the esteem and liking each had for the other led to a frequent intercourse which continued to the end of Bagehot’s life.

At Highclere, Bagehot was frequently meeting Liberal no less than Conservative politicians. In this year, 1865, Lord and Lady Salisbury and Mr. Robert Lowe were fellow guests with Bagehot. Lord Carnarvon had no party prejudices. He was drawn towards Bagehot none the less because his creed in politics was opposed to his own.

[Page 348, line 5,]for Asheton read Ashton.

[Page 360, line 15,]for Somerleage read Somerleaze.

[1 ] Essay on Bishop Butler.

[1 ] I had been living with Ruskin’s Modern Painters and his Elements of Drawing for two years. Mr. Ruskin had kindly given me lessons, and I had through his advice been studying painting in Mr. Arthur Hughes’s studio, and was too much engrossed in these matters to care to go into society, and, not being strong, felt the constant sociability going on at home somewhat oppressive.

[1 ]The Story of My Life, Charles Henry Pearson.

[1 ] This friendship dated from early days. Kent House, Knightsbridge, where Sir G. C. and Lady Theresa Lewis lived in London, is associated with many memories of childhood. It was there my two sisters (Mrs. Orbey Shipley, and Mrs. W. S. Halsey) and I (aged eight) made our début at a children’s ball given by Lady Theresa for her two young daughters. She also arranged classes for singing and drawing in order that they should have companionship, which classes I joined. Every Saturday afternoon during the summer Alice Lister (Lady Borthwick) entertained us in the garden of Kent House. I remember well the grace and kindness of her elder sister (Mrs. Vernon Harcourt), and the delightful geniality of Lady Theresa. Sir G. C. Lewis I can only recollect as a grave figure, seen, if at all, in the distance.

[2 ]A Dialogue on the Best Form of Government, by the Right Hon. Sir G. C. Lewis, Bart., M.P., London, 1863.

[1 ] See quotation from Professor Dowden’s Life in Clement Shorter’s Highways and Byways in Buckinghamshire.