The Henson Journals
Sun 6 May 1917
Volume 21, Page 38
[38]
4th Sunday after Easter, May 6th, 1917.
1007th day
Before breakfast I wrote to Chelmsford, condoling with him on the death of his son. Letters of this kind are among the most futile compositions imaginable. Even when they are read in the freshness of bereavement they are rarely tolerable: when, as in this case, they must needs be read weeks after the event, they can scarcely be other than unwelcome, re–opening wounds that were beginning to heal, & carrying back the mind to thoughts, from which it was learning to withdraw itself.
"For myself, the sting of remembering troops of follies and errors, is best alleviated by the thought that they may make me better able to help those who have to go through like experiences, and who are so dear to me that I would willingly pay an even heavier price, to be of use. Depend upon it, that confounded "just man who needed no repentance" was a very poor sort of father. But perhaps his daughters were "just women" of the same type; and the family circle as warm as the interior of an ice–pail."
[Huxley to his daughter, May 5th 1892. v. Life & Letters iii. 259]
I wrote to Riches, Cremer, and Caröe before Mattins. At Mattins we had the service appointed for the King's Accession. The Archdeacon preached from the words "Honour the King!" His sermon consisted mainly of extracts from the speeches of the Kaiser, the King, Lloyd–George, Balfour, & others, largely irrelevant, & read with gesticulatory emphasis, though with so ill–managed a voice as to be almost inaudible. After the Benediction, I stepped out into the Chancel, & standing under the Chancel Screen, read the King's Proclamation, calling everybody to practice economy in the use of wheat. This is the first time in the 30 years during which I have been a clergyman, that I have been called to read a Royal Proclamation in Church. I attended Evensong, & afterwards walked for an hour with Ella. Then wrote more letters. The weather today has been bright, but the east wind has been keen, and a fire in my study was by no means superfluous.