The Henson Journals

[334]

Wednesday, September 20th, 1911. Brussels.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.

Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art,

I warm'd both hands before the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor. 576.

We were duly called by the porter at 6 a.m.: but I had been already a long time awake, pondering the past & vainly essaying to forecast the future. The morning was dull, with rain falling intermittently from a heavy sky. Gusts of winded [sic] added fretfulness to gloom, and moved fears in us as to the condition of the English Channel. Our packing was now a facile & familiar thing, so that we were ready for the omnibus at 10 minutes before 8 o'clock. Our last francs were dispersed in the costly & thankless process of farewell, and we vanished from Brussels.

We found the sea disturbed, & the steamer crowded. The Lord Mayor & his party were on board, returning from their visit to Vienna. His Lordship was in high spirits, & talked much, assisting perhaps by his conversation to avert the 'mal de mer', which rather to my own surprise I escaped. Ella was not so fortunate. She retired below, & suffered in obscurity.

[335]

On arriving in my house I found a pencilled note from Beeching conveying two pieces of intelligence – that the Sub–dean died suddenly this morning, and that he himself had just accepted the Deanery of Norwich. Thus both my friends are removed at a stroke; & I am left in more complete loneliness than ever.

On Saturday the 23rd Sept: 1911, Duckworth was buried (i.e. the ashes brought from Golder's Green) in the Abbey near his stall. There was a numerous assembly of mourners, and, I think, very sincere regret at his loss. Yet who would not covet a departure so swift & easy?

The Swedish Professor Söderblöm from Upsala and his wife, dined here. So did Beeching & Sir F. Bridge. I was much interested in the Professor's account of the Reunion negociations between the English & Swedish Churches. He appears to have been the leading spirit on the Swedish side. I was at once surprised & interested to find that he welcomed my Scottish Lecture as likely to advance the cause in Sweden, by calming the fears of those who suspected in these flirtations with England the thin edge of the Sacerdotalist peril. I half promised to give some Lectures at Upsala.

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Issues and controversies: recognition of/reunion with non-episcopal churches