The Henson Journals

[103]

Friday, July 13th, 1917.

1075th day

Whittuck said that he had been with Anson at Eton; that Anson was not a prominent person in the school: that his later success was a surprise to his contemporaries: that his law–books were admirable as text–books because his special ability lay in teaching, of which he was very fond; but that they nowhere disclosed the range of Dicey's knowledge, or the power of Dicey's mind. I walked to the Athenaeum, and spent the morning in writing letters to Gilbert, Ernest, and Holt. From the last I had received a long & informing letter on the shipping interest. I lunched in the Club, and then fell to reading the Hibbert Journal, which contains several articles criticising Sir Oliver Lodge. The foolish book "Raymond" is said to be selling like wildfire, and becoming the Bible of a new religion. Barnes, the Master of the Temple, had much talk with me on matters ecclesiastical. I walked back to the Deanery for tea, whereat Kitty had drawn together several of our friends. Mrs Gamble has some circumstantial ghost stories from 20 Dean's Yard. Mrs George Trevelyan, Mrs Roby Thorpe & her daughter, Miss Mundella, Mrs Belloc Lowndes & others were there. Ella & I dined with Charlie Parker at the Automobile Club, and afterwards went to the Apollo Theatre, & saw a performance of "Within the Lines". It was a pleasant & amusing play, of which the interest was well–sustained throughout, and the dénoûement, unsuspected & effective. Kitty & Linetta had been in the pit, and joined us outside the theatre. We walked home to the Deanery and got there about 11.30 p.m.

The "Church Times" has a rather violently worded, but anonymous, letter denouncing the Dean of Durham as the apostle of Erastianism & so forth. This presumably is a little bit of "tuning up" before the orchestra of autonomists strikes up in the Queen's Hall on Monday. It is plain enough that the determined clique, to which we owe the Report of the Archbishops' Committee, is resolved at all hazards to press forward during the distracting interval of the War.

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