The Henson Journals

[679]

Saturday, February 26th, 1916.

572nd day

The tremendous battle for Verdun still rages, & evidently the Germans are putting forth their whole strength. They claim to have taken 10,000 prisoners: & the French admit that they have fallen back considerably. Still, such immense exertions cannot continue indefinitely; & the position is far from being taken yet. The weather has become wintry: snow is reported from many parts of the country. This circumstance must also have no slight influence on the fighting, but whether to the advantage of the attacking or the defending army I know not. This afternoon about 30 of the young officers from Hatfield Hall came with me round the Cathedral. They are very silent & unresponsive, probably from shyness. I read through, (with some skippings of superfluous verbiage) Watson's Life of Bishop Warburton. The root of the man's faults lay in his lack of a regular education. Being mostly self–taught his intellectual achievment was altogether out of proportion to his actual attainments.

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