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-inlaw. 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 appear

ance : "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, cidergrowing 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'.

"In addressing to you a series of letters upon banking, I do not pretend to have any perfectly new theory to adOn a topic of which the literature is already so copious,

vance.

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.

"3rd February, 1857."

"I am, yours obediently,
"A BANKER.

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.

"COLESHILL HOUSE,
"HIGHWORTH, 8th February, 1857.

"Lord Radnor trusts that 'A Banker' will not think him impertinent, if he offers the expression of his great satisfaction at the perusal of the letter in the Economist of last night.

"It appears to Lord Radnor that to treat the subject of the Bank Charter Bill in the mere pettyfogging style of 's speech is simply ridiculous, and that the time is come when the question of Banking and of the right to issue notes, should be put on a fixed and intelligible basis consistent with the immutable principles of justice, public convenience, and political economy.

"Other questions of great importance both to the Bank and

the community, ought (as it appears to Lord Radnor) now to be settled: e.g. its freedom from, or connection with the Government: its duties, whether due in the first place to the public, or to the proprietors of stocks; its functions as Banker of the State, and as Manager of the Public Debts Monopoly.

"Lord Radnor hopes that if' A Banker' agrees with him, he will not omit to urge these topics in the same forcible manner. Lord Radnor has many apologies to offer for this intrusion."

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's 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.