The Henson Journals

[103]

10th Sunday after Trinity, August 19th, 1906, Broadmeadows, Selkirk.

A fine day from start to finish. My wife went to the Episcopalian church, but I preferred to accompany mine hostess to the parish church, where I heard a rather thin & sentimental sermon on the great subject of Prayer. The minister, Mr Lawson, is said to be an excellent and popular parochus. As usual when attending the Presbyterian service I found the extemporaneous prayers disagreeable and unedifying.

In the afternoon Miss Lang headed a walk on to the adjacent hills, from the top of which the most beautiful views of the valley of the Yarrow were gained.

In the smoking room after dinner I exerted myself to extract his reminiscences of the South African War from Captain Maxwell of the Scots Greys, who went through Paardeberg & Bloemfontein, was badly wounded, and invalided home. He repudiated Burdett–Coutts' account of the hospitals with energy.

[104] [symbol]

"It is too much to say, perhaps, that Napoleon received the honours of apotheosis, but short of that point it is difficult to exaggerate. He received, at any rate, the most singular & sublime honour that has even been awarded to humanity. For he was known in France not as General, or Consul, or Emperor, or even by his name, but simply as "The Man" (l'homme ). His son was "the Son of the Man", he himself was always "The Man". He was, in fact, the Man of the popular imagination, and it was thus that Liberals swore by him. His intense individuality, even more than his horror of anarchy, had made him an absolute ruler. But, as the product of the Revolution, as the humbler of kings, a glamour of liberty grew round his name".

"Napoleon, the last phase"

By Lord Rosebery, p 215

(Arthur L. Humphreys 1900)

---