The Henson Journals

[420]

Thursday, August 31st, 1916.

759th day

I finished the Article, but like it less than ever. There is so much that needs saying in order to make plain what I really think: &, though I have made prodigious efforts to speak sincerely, I am not sure that I have succeeded in making my meaning even moderately clear! I attended Mattins and Evensong, walked with Logic, & wrote a few letters.

In the afternoon a telegram arrived from Lord Stamfordham at Windsor Castle in these terms:– 'Would it be perfectly convenient for you to come here on Saturday the ninth till Monday the eleventh and preach in private chapel on the tenth. If public engagement prevent the king will of course understand, and perhaps you could come some other Sunday'. I wired a brief assurance that I could come, & followed up my telegram by a short letter to Lord S. to mitigate the crudity of my words! What a strange power Royalty extends over one's spirit! It is really a horrid inconvenience, & a regrettable expenditure to journey to Windsor, besides involving a horrid waste of time: & yet I not only consent to go, but consent with readiness! How different is the aspect of the world now, and in February 1913 when last I went to Windsor to preach to the King! Then the prospect of civil war in Ireland, and the outrages of the suffragettes filled our thoughts: now we are absorbed in the most tremendous conflict of human history. How well I remember the long talk with the King after dinner on Sunday evening! The dear Warden was living then and gave me authority to speak to H.M. about the Prince of Wales who was then an undergraduate at Magdalen. How far away all seems now!

[418]

Safety

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest

They [sic] who have found our hid security,

Assured in the dark tides of the world who [sic] rest

And hear our word. "Who is so safe as we?"

We have found safety, with all things undying.

The winds, and morning, – tears of men and mirth,

The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,

And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth –

We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.

We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.

War knows no power. Safe, safe [sic] shall be my going

Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;

Safe though all safety's lost, – safe where men fall,

And, if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

Rupert Brooke. 1914

This might be called the Pantheist's Creed.

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Issues and controversies: female suffrage