The Henson Journals

[446]

Thursday, August 17th, 1916.

745th day

Godfrey and I had much talk after breakfast: &, then, I took him & his wife into the Cathedral, where we spent the rest of the morning. We all went to the police–station to see the bombs dropped by the zeppelins or sea–planes in the recent raid. They are most formidable. One which was unexploded contained explosives which (so the experts say) would wreck Durham Cathedral completely if it fell on the building! Mr Morant gave Ella a piece of the bomb–case, and a whole explosive bomb to the Charnwoods. After tea I wrote to Clarence Tait, and Reggie Still.

Godfrey called my attention to some lines in Wordsworth's Excursion (IV.296) which are curiously apposite to the history of the last few years:–

at this day,

When a Tartarean darkness overspreads

The groaning nations; when the impious rule,

By will or by established ordinance,

Their own dire agents, and constrain the good

To acts which they abhor; though I bewail

This triumph, yet the pity of my heart

Prevents me not from owning, that the law,

By which mankind now suffers, is most just.

For by superior energies: more strict

Affiance in each other; faith more firm

In their unhallowed principles; the bad

Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,

The vacillating, inconsistent good.

Olive & her mother arrived. Knowling, Fearne, & Bailey came to dinner.

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