The Henson Journals

[407]

Monday, November 5th, 1900.

This day was wholly wasted: beyond writing a few letters, & reading Boswell's Johnson, I did nothing but talk & fidget. My secret is now known sub sigillo to the

Warden,	Thesiger
Ker,	Pember,
Doyle	Bp. Of Colchester
Harrison	Kirshbaum
Davis	Molony.

This intermediate state is difficult to live in. The Queen returns from Scotland tomorrow. Probably she will attend to no business till she is settled in Windsor.

[408]

On my arrival in College on Tuesday, the 6th Nov: I found that my secret was out. A Balliol undergraduate named Ward, who lives at Hatfield, had got hold of the news there. In the course of the week I was required to pay a fee of £7.13.6 to the Home Office, & another of £20.2.0 to the Crown Office. And yet nothing appeared in the paper. My Birthday was enlivened by the visit of my young friend, Harry Walgrave, (v.p. 403) who spent the day seeing Oxford. At the age of 37 I am Canon of Westminster. It is, I suppose, judged by the ordinary standard, rapid promotion, but in the light of all the facts, it seems to me almost miraculous. It dawns on me that I have been very ungrateful. Certainly this opportunity has come to me, when I seemed to have reached the end of my tether. I could hardly go on here, so tied I was, & bruized [sic] in soul: & yet there seemed no loophole for hope. My utmost ambition had come to be the Preachership of Gray's Inn. And then at a stroke this is given. I pray God I may be enabled to answer to His purpose in sending me to that great Church. Meanwhile I make my own old Sam Johnson's Easter resolutions.

Vita ordinanda

Biblia legenda

Theologiae opera danda

Serviendum et laetandum

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