The Henson Journals

[601]

Wednesday, January 19th, 1916.

534th day

I received the following from the Master of Trinity, dated yesterday.

My dear Dean,

I very much wish that I could answer your question far more fully, but my memory sadly fails me, not indeed as to grateful & reverent impressions but as to dates.

F. W. Robertson is one of the few contemporary Preachers, Lecturers, & Theologians to whom I feel that my debt is incalculable. He was one of my chief heroes in the years when the sayings and writings of original men make an easy and permanent conquest of the citadel of mind and soul.

My difficulty is to remember with anything like accuracy in what years this began and whether I was only one of many fellow–worshippers. I was here from Oct. 1851 to Dec: 1855: in London 1856–June 1857: abroad in the East for 4 months during which I resolved to be ordained: here again 1858–Dec. 1859: then at Harrow 1860–1885. While here, at both times I lived among our most intellectual men, such as Hort, F. V. Hawkins, H. Sidgwick; men scarcely interested in theological & social questions. Tennyson, Maurice, Charles Kingsley, Carlyle, Ruskin were among our leaders in their very different ways, and now your letter makes me ask myself whether F. W. R. was also one of them: or, in your own words, was he during his life–time ending in 1853, a generally [603] recognized power. I am ashamed to think that I cannot accurately answer this question. I think we must have been talking & thinking of him as one of our leaders. He was precisely of the type to have been so, both intellectually and spiritually, but yet I cannot be sure. Let me venture to name a few dates. Nearly all the works of his that I possess are the three series of his sermons published in 1859: the Fourth series, 1872, New edn: Lectures on Corinthians 1859: Lectures & Addresses, 1858. In the "Contents" of this last volume I see that the two "Lectures on Poetry" are dated 1852, and the one on Wordsworth, 1853. Now as to these two, I remember the delight with which I read them separately, probably when they first came out, certainly long before they appeared in the single vol. of 1858. I was constantly enjoying them.

As to the Corinthians 1859, I find I wrote in my vol. "Harrow, 1860"; I must have been studying it constantly in the first year of my Headmastership & long after, but probably not earlier.

If the first three series of Sermons were published before 1859, in fact just while I was preparing for Ordination in the Sept. of that year, I feel that I must have been then reading them, and not as at all a solitary individual.

[605]

When I went to Harrow in Jan. 1860, I found young Charles Boyd Robertson a boy in my house, bequeathed to me by Dr Vaughan. I was at once keenly interested in him for his Father's sake, but he left School at Easter and went, I think, into the Foreign Office. From time to time we kept up friendly communications, but I can remember no details.

After I came here, Dec. 1886, he came to stay with us more than once. His wife, as you probably know, was Ward, and, I think, niece of Prince Bismarck. His very clever and attractive son Donald was elected to our College scholarship in Oct. 1898. His fatal accident in the Welsh mountains was a grief to many. I enclose two letters from his Father of 1902, and again am obliged with shame to confess that I wholly forget having received them. What I remember is that both my wife and I enjoyed his visits, and that he gave me a very beautiful engraving of his father, F. W. R., which now hangs on a wall, next to J. Keble, Cardinal Newman, Westcott, Lightfoot, Benson, Maurice, G. A. Selwyn, Ld Shaftesbury. It is sad to think that this is all I can tell you of one of my greatest benefactors, and to be conscious that it is sadly irrelevant to your present purpose.

Failing memory at 82 1/2 might perhaps be leniently judged: but I am bound to confess that even 20 years [607] ago I could hardly have recalled more.

I do rejoice that it has fallen to you to recall his noble memory at his own Brighton. There are not many who merit a centenary, but he surely is one. Not many preachers have ever spoken so cogently to soul and intellect combined.

Do let me offer earnest good wishes to yourself and Mrs Henson for this momentous – hardly, I fear, very happy – New Year.

Believe me,

Most truly yours,

H. Montague Butler.

The enclosed letters from Charles Boyd Robertson, referred to by Dr Butler, are the following:–

38 Onslow Square, S.W.

10.12.02.

My dear Dr Butler,

I am sending you by post a copy of the "Century" of this month. It contains an article on my father which I am sure you will read with interest. The writer is an American Professor of considerable mark in his own country with whom I have had a good deal of correspondence in the course of the last few years, & what he says appears to me to be of unusual excellence both as regards matter & form: it is, indeed, in many respects the best study of the subject that has appeared since De Pressensé's [609] striking Essay on my Father which was published some 8 or 10 years ago. The latter was of course a master piece, & this account cannot enter into competition with it. But you must not let what I have said bias your judgment, as I am anxious for your impartial opinion.

The story about the picture is a legend only – a curious instance of the way in which myth accumulates after the death of a great man. The daguerreotype is a replica of one which my father gave to my mother, & which I still possess. But the reproduction in the magazine is by far the best that has been made. …

The second letter obviously answers one from Dr Butler:

Foreign Office.

22.12.02

My dear Dr Butler,

Very many thanks for your welcome letter. There can be little doubt that Mr Hewett's article is representative: I was told, upon what I believe to be good authority, that something like a quarter of a million of copies of my father's works has been sold in the U.S.: & that was some years ago. The sale exceeds our own.

In haste,

Yours vy. sincerely

Charles B. Robertson.

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