The Henson Journals

[266]

Saturday, August 19th, 1911. Antwerp.

We made tea with our 'machinery': After breakfast we went into the Rue de Meir, and changed a circular note for £10. Then we walked to the Musée Communal Plantin, and spent an hour in looking at a fine old house of the 16th century, preserved in its normal state as it served for residence & workship [sic] a rich & scholarly Flemish merchant of the Renaissance. The furnace for casting the type, and the whole of that process, was carried on at the top of the house: on the floor below the compositors, printers, & correctors did their several work: on the ground–floor were the sale–rooms &c. The house adjoined the workshop: its simple but solid furniture, with ornament rather massive than elaborate, reflected the strong simplicity of middle–class life: while the scale & material of its appointments, the long series of portraits, many by Rubens, & the objects of art, disclosed the ample means of the princely trader. The court–yard with its over–growing vine & simple architecture had much of the sober charm of an Oxford quadrangle.

After lunch we remained in the hotel until about 3.30 p.m. Then we went to the Cathedral, and saw the great Rubens, "The Descent from the Cross", & other [267] of his pictures. The vigour & brilliance of his work are manifest, but he is nowise devotional. We walked round the great church, admiring the painted windows, the carved pulpit & choir stalls, and the wonderful vistas of clustered columns which the six aisles provide. A gaudy image of the Virgin resplendent in golden robes, crown, & jewels is set out for adoration, for it is the Feast of the Assumption, & 'Diana of the Ephesians' is more than commonly great. The aspect of this painted doll thus gaudily bedizened suggested inevitably those pictures of Artemis, which now commonly illustrate classical manuals. Gross, almost incredibly gross, is the perversion of that evangelical Religion which the N.T. declares, yet such, & none other, is the goal to which historical Christianity has moved, & to which, as by some fatal necessity, it seems doomed to return even when for awhile it has broken away. For the Protestant Churches are everywhere treading the ancient cycle, developing the former superstitions in circumstances which seem to make the inevitable development monstrous. Of the numerous English clergymen, who make holiday in Belgium, how many there are who regard with loving envy these debased materialisations of the Gospel, and who would make immense efforts to graft them on to the system of the English Church! And, the bitterest thought is that 'my people love to have it so'.

[268]

We walked out, and took tea in a cleanly shop near the Rue de Meir. Then we chartered a carriage & were driven about the city. The Scheldt is an imposing river, and the docks are on a grand scale. We were shown the still smouldering debris of an immense fire, which consumed a vast collection of Australian imports a few days ago. Half–burned sheep–skins in great number were ranged as salvage around the walls of the ware–house.

We were driven through the Park, which swarmed with Jews & Jewesses keeping the Sabbath in amatory idleness.

After dinner we bought the English Paper. It is again filled with strike news. The response of the men to the summons of their leaders is but partial, but even so the paralysis of business is general, and the public discomfort immense. London seems to be better off than the rest of the country, thanks partly to the circumstance that its supplies come mainly from abroad, partly to the fact that the Southern Railway lines employ but few Union men, & are therefore working normally, & partly to the considerable numbers of soldiers which have been promptly brought to the city.

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