The Henson Journals

[96]

Thursday, July 5th, 1917.

1067th day

Holt replies to my letter about George by sending back the indenture to have the inserted clause cancelled, and explaining the reason. I suppose it must be all right, so I caused the requisite change to be made, and returned the indenture. I finished the Eton sermon: wrote a number of cheques for quarterly bills: & attended Mattins & Evensong. Colonel Herne & his wife came to lunch: also Miss Cooper, & her one–armed brother. The good man has come out of the war with the loss of an arm, but he is cheerful, & becoming very self–sufficing. I lent him a volume of Symond's Italian Renaissance. After Evensong I went to Bow School, & looked on at a cricket match between the Cathedral Choir, & the boys of Bow School. The latter were altogether over–matched.

Before going to bed, I read through an effective though brief criticism of Sir Oliver Lodge's "Raymond" ("Reflections on 'Raymond', an appreciation and analysis" by Walter Cook – Grant Richards.). It conveys a vivid impression of the credulity & mental debasement into which a man of science can fall, when he allows himself to abandon the scientific habit, & dabbles in that amalgam of fraud & folly, Spiritualism. How any self–respecting man can tolerate the unspeakable gibberish of mediums, especially in connexion with their own relations, baffles me. Yet it is said that this book "Raymond" is becoming the "Bible" of a new religion.

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