The Henson Journals

[665]

Saturday, February 19th, 1916.

565th day

"Iste archidiaconus" has anticipated me in asking the Judges to luncheon on March 5th, and my invitation is of course declined! It were a curious & useless task to discover why it is that so trivial a circumstance exasperates me (as it certainly does) out of all proportion to the injury (if any) which it inflicts. Perhaps it is the reminder which it brings that one is always being chivied [sic], & often under–cut, by a busy & unwearying schemer, for whom nothing is too small to interest, and nothing too considerable to abash! Well, well.

I presided at a meeting of the Chapter: there was not much business, and there was no quarrelling, though "iste archidiaconus" was extremely provoking. However I was not to be further humiliated into fresh rages!

After lunch I walked for an hour and a half. Falling in with Pool [Poole] I questioned him about the man B___y, & gathered that he had been required to leave the school mission for the habit and vice of secret drinking. As P. is not himself a total–abstainer, I incline to believe him: and shall strike B.'s name off my preferment list.

Thomas, the vicar of St Giles's, left the 2 vols. of 'Life & Letters of Rowland Williams D.D." edited by his wife (Henry S. King & Co. 2nd ed. 1874) for me to look at. There are a few references to Robertson of no great value. I read the account of "Essays & Reviews" with much interest. It is new to me that Thirlwall shewed himself so hostile to the writers throughout. On the whole it was a straighter issue than I had supposed. Williams must have been a born fighter, & probably very provocative: but his letters of advice & counsel give one a high opinion, both of his ability and of his character, and the private prayers suggest that he was a genuinely devout Christian.

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