The Henson Journals

[566]

Wednesday, June 14th, 1916.

681st day

I spent the morning in attending Mattins, and then shewing the Cecils and Miss Maxwell over the Cathedral. Sir Oliver Lodge in the 'Times' bids us read Browning's Prospice as a note on Kitchener's Passing:–

Prospice.

Fear death? – to feel the fog in my throat,

The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,

And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so – one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

The black minute's at end,

[564]

And the elements' rage, the fiend–voices that rave,

Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

Then a light, then thy breast.

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,

And with God be the rest!

Ella took our guests to Lambton to have tea with Lady Anne. Ernest went to tea with Mrs Little: and I stayed in and wrote letters. The Lambton party arrived home so late that dinner had to be postponed for a full half–hour. Gee & his wife, and the Bishop of Jarrow & Mrs Quirk dined here.

Fuller says that the rumoured intention of Mary Tudor to restore the monastic foundations, which her father had destroyed, caused the holders of the property to destroy the fabrics, and thus render the restoration more difficult. He gives an instance of this procedure.

"0ne Thacker being possessed of Repington (Repton) abbey in Derbyshire, alarmed with this news that Queen Mary had set up these abbeys again, (and fearing how large a reach such a precedent might have) upon a Sunday (belike "the better day the better deed") called together the carpenters and masons of that county, and plucked down in one day (church–work is a cripple in going up, but rides post in coming down) a most beautiful church belonging thereunto, adding he would destroy the rest, for fear the birds should build therein again." (v. Church History of Britain. vol II. p. 280.).

How far was this a representative proceeding?

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