The Henson Journals

[129]

Saturday, January 23rd, 1915.

173rd day

I finished a poor little sermon for the troops tomorrow. If (which now seems unlikely) the weather conditions are favourable, the 'Pals' from Cocken will come in, and there will again be a large congregation of men, otherwise we shall have but a petty number. Gee came in to see me: he says that Hardy has found accounts of restorations in the Cathedral about 1730, & also other items of interest in the muniment room. The latter is in great confusion, the documents (a heterogeneous collection) being all mixed up, & uncalendared. Gee suggests that Hardy be requested to make a report on all this for the D. & C. After lunch Ella took her relatives in the car to see the German damage at Hartlepool. I called on old Miss Crawhall to see some books which she desired to present to the Cathedral Library. They were not of any great value, but perhaps worth our accepting. I was amused by the parade of circumlocution with which the virginal donor communicated the fact that one of the volumes (an illustrated edition of Ovid's Metamorphosis with Sir Joshua Reynolds's signature) contained some indecencies! I assured her as to the risks of it getting into the hands of babes!

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