The Henson Journals

[640]

Thursday, May 4th, 1916.

640th day

Birrell has resigned. He announced the fact in a very dignified speech. Of course it was inevitable after Dublin had been wrecked. Asquith, Redmond, & Carson all spoke well & in excellent good taste. The House of Commons is at its best in this sort of business.

I wrote to Mrs Elizabeth Bannister, a relative of the traitor Casement, who had appealed to me to use my influence, so far as was possible, on his side. Of my letter I kept a copy, not knowing where it might be carried. No past services could reasonably be pleaded in face of treason so gross, so aggravated, & in some of its manifestations so base. Yet I am really very greatly distressed that the Hero of the Putumayo should have come to this.

I spent the morning in working on my Westminster Sermon, of which I wrote nearly half. I attended Evensong. The Archdeacon, who was at York for the Convocation, says that the Zeppelins came over York, & dropped bombs. He saw the air–ship at a great height. He describes the Archbishop (Lang) as wearing a wig, and having a pinched & elderly aspect, possibly due to some re–arrangements of his teeth. Thus time works havoc on us: but I recall with a start that his Grace is my junior by a whole year!

Ernest & I actually started on an expedition to Finchall Abbey [sic], but turned back when the rain began falling. Then we went into the Library for an hour, and looked at books. In a volume of Layard's Monuments of Nineveh, I found some water–colour pictures of the frescoes in the Galilee dated 1839, and signed by one Smith. That is an odd thing, to use the blank pages of a book in the Chapter Library for a purpose completely alien to the subject–matter of the book itself.

After dinner we sate in my study, and read to one another selections of poetry until bed–time.

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