The Henson Journals

[477]

Saturday, November 6th, 1915.

460th day

I presided at a brief and peaceful Chapter–meeting at 11 a.m.: and then, tempted by the sun, walked round Houghall Wood with Cruickshank. The autumnal colouring is superb. Later I shewed Dorothy the Library: attended Evensong: and wrote letters. Charles Parker arrived from London. He asked me in the course of conversation what I thought of the alleged apparitions of angels during the retreat from Mons, and seemed a shade disappointed when I acknowledged a brutal disbelief. After he had gone to bed I finished Watson's Life of Bishop John Wordsworth. It is, perhaps, a pity that the author has exercised such severe self–repression, for the materials on which his keen sarcasm might have been employed are abundant. He has been well advised in keeping his work within the limits of a single volume, for the public has certainly grown impatient of the swollen biographies of inferior ecclesiastics which have so frequently issued from the press during recent years. Certainly Bishop John Wordsworth poured out his great powers on many inadequate objects.

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Issues and controversies: Angels of Mons