July 9, 1913

As soon as we got back to Bath I was sent to a doctor, who told me that I was suffering from a very severe nervous breakdown, and that I must do literally nothing till September but laze. So I have parted from Radchester for ever. Once I was married he said I should probably become normal again. Elspeth and I spent our days shopping and making arrangements for the wedding. We went down to Marlton to find a suitable house to live in and found one about a mile from the school, right on the outskirts of the town, a semi-detached "villa," rather like the house in Stratford-on-Avon in which Shakespeare was born: it has a tiny stretch of garden and a superb view from the dining-room and bedroom windows of the park and the wooded hills of the south away towards the sea. £35 a year is the rent. We measured every nook of it for carpets and stairs and hall furniture, and made an inventory of everything that we should want. We spend many happy hours searching through catalogues for all that we shall require in the house. I have insured my life for £1000, so that Elspeth will not be left quite penniless if I die suddenly. We play tennis a good deal and I read a fair amount, but I haven't the heart to write very much. I don't quite know why.

July 30, 1913

Elspeth and I have had one or two minor tiffs over matters of judgment. She has a decided will of her own. It is going to take me a little time to learn the much-needed lesson that marriages to be successful must be largely a matter of give and take. We are both rather obstinate. I must learn to give in to her more readily.

August 30, 1913

As the time drew nearer to the day fixed for the wedding, people began to arrive from all over the country. A good many Radchester boys and masters, all my relatives, and friends of all sorts began to arrive in Bath. We had an amazing number of presents, but those which touched me most were from Heatherington's House and my form. So I'm not forgotten even yet at Radchester. They had a lively time after I left. In my place as a temporary substitute they got a parson who drank heavily and had to be carried out of chapel twice. Because I am so poor and because our house at Marlton is so small I was prevailed upon to sell all my books, which I now see was one of the grossest mistakes I ever committed in my life. At the time I thought of it as a piece of heroism and great self-sacrifice. The episode reminds me of Charles Lamb and the cake. As a matter of fact it was a piece of unmitigated foolishness. I only got £50 for the lot, and the notes that I had made in them might be worth that if I had kept and used them.

We were married with a great show of pomp and splendour on the sixth of August. I didn't at all like the gorgeous ceremony: there were too many people. It was too much of an orgie: far too much fuss was made of us. As I look back it appears now as a medley of changing clothes, cutting cake, drinking champagne, uttering platitudes to visitors, complying with endless superstitions, and never seeing Elspeth. I had no idea that there were so many million omens attached to weddings. They must be very unlucky things. It began to mean something when the day was nearly over and we found ourselves locked in a first-class carriage bound for Porlock.

We had a room in the Ship Inn looking over the bay, and met some of the most entertaining people it has ever been my fortune to come across. No one suspected that we were a honeymoon couple: we were purposely callous about each other's welfare in the presence of others and joined with every party that was got up for any purpose. Most of the time we spent in attending meets of the staghounds.

Every one in the hotel was there for the hunting, and the conversation was a refreshing change after that of Common Room at Radchester. One man in particular, called Monteith, who was up at Oxford with me, was very struck with Elspeth and used to bring her great bunches of white heather every night. I like to see her admired: it shows me that I chose circumspectly.

We bathed every day and explored the combes and rivers and villages in every direction. I know no more beautiful country than this for a honeymoon: you can get quiet when you want it. We lunched nearly every day among the whortleberries on the moor, far away from the sight of any living creature: when we wanted to mix with society we only had to drop down into Porlock, and there were always forty or fifty people in the hotel willing and eager to be friendly. It was the most consummately perfect setting for a wedding tour imaginable. There was not a speck or flaw cast upon our complete happiness once during the entire time. It was all too short: three weeks fled past like three days and we got to know each other's little foibles and idiosyncrasies and to make allowance for them.

We went as far afield as Ilfracombe, Lynton, Minehead and Exford: we went on foot, by steamer, in dog-carts and coaches, and we were as merry as crickets all the time. After it was over we went up home to see my people and to introduce ourselves in the married state to the villagers, who have known me since I was a boy. All this month I seem to have been walking on air. I've forgotten there ever was such a place as Radchester or that I ever nearly went mad because I had not Elspeth by me. What I should do without her now God only knows. I only hope and pray that we may live together to a ripe old age and die within a few hours of each other. Then our lives will have been rounded off completely, for as it is we are only happy in the possession of each other. Nothing else contents us.

We went on to London after this in order to buy the requisite furniture for our cottage. We accomplished this in a single day, spending about £150 in all in equipping ourselves with a complete outfit from "cellar to attic." We are now back again in Bath.

September 6, 1913

I don't like wasting all my days in this house in the Crescent. I seem to have lost all my wild ideals on education: I have no boys now to give my life for: all my hopes are centred upon one object, Elspeth, and if she fails me I am undone indeed.

I spend my energies on writing silly letters to the daily papers on the subject of the Olympic Games, of all footling things. Elspeth now cries through half the night because she says I have changed and no longer love her with that same passion that I once had for her. This is quite untrue, but I can't make her see it. I seem to be a mass of contradictions.

Bath seems to have lost its attraction for me now that I have nothing to do except wait for the opening of term at Marlton. I find myself pining for Radchester, the club, the cross-county runs, "Rugger," camp, bathing, boys to tea—and all the savage, healthy years of apprenticeship while I was learning my job. I've read very little except a novel called "Sinister Street," by Compton Mackenzie, which seems to me to be at once very good and very bad. I don't like it so much as "Carnival," but his pictures of his old Public School masters are extraordinarily vivid and probably true. I wish I could write such a book. I want to settle down to some serious writing, but I haven't the patience to begin on a book, partly because I should immediately begin to fear lest I should die before it was finished. I wish I could rid myself of this silliness.

September 11, 1913

I have just been up to the Board of Education to be interviewed for a lucrative post in India. I should dearly like to go and I have the job definitely offered me, £600 a year to inspect the teaching of English in Ceylon, but Elspeth is against it, so I shall have to refuse. I was also offered £7 a week to sub-edit the Daily Tatler, but I could not of course break my contract at Marlton, and they would not keep it open, so that's off. I should like to be a journalist. The work would suit me admirably.

I read "The Story of Louie," by Oliver Onions on my way south at night, and arrived at Marlton at nine o'clock and walked up the hill through the pretty narrow streets to my new home, which Elspeth and her mother had prepared against my coming. It certainly is a great change after Radchester. The only unfortunate thing is that I am no longer my own master. I now shall have to be careful about dirty boots. Elspeth has the last word as to where everything is to go. She and her mother went to bed early and I went round the house on a tour of inspection. The hall is really something to be proud of, with its bookcases and oak chest and grandfather clock. The drawing-room is small but dainty; most of the pictures are ordinary and cheap: we bought them at Boots' for very little. The silver that we had for wedding presents is all put out on mahogany tables, and there are photographs of Elspeth's friends but none of mine, which irritated me momentarily. I loathe the nondescript china ornaments on the mantelpiece. The dining-room closely resembles my own rooms at Radchester. All my old Oxford signed proofs of Blair Leighton and Dicksee take up the wall space and there are two bookshelves. The study contains my bureau and all my special treasures. In this room at least, I hope, that I shall be able to do as I like. Our bedroom is large and yet very cosy. I think I am going to love this house. At any rate I feel very proud at being a householder.

September 19, 1913

I have spent a week on my bicycle exploring the surrounding country before term begins. It is glorious to live where people hunt, and there are large houses, and cars passing the door (we are right on the main London-Hastings road) and the villages are all snug and picturesque, and there are heaps of ripping neighbours who call and look as if they were going to entertain us lavishly. It is possible, too, to get down to a real sea, how different from the so-called sea at Radchester, a sea of blue and green flanked by great white Sussex cliffs. I feel most extraordinarily at home and yet I funk the coming term: I don't know how these boys will take to me. They are sure to be very different from the Radchester boys. I doubt whether they'll be as boisterous or as healthy. Time will show.