The Henson Journals

[158]

Saturday, August 25th, 1917.

1118th day

A blustering day, with heavy clouds & a general look of imminent storm, the remotest possible from the harvest weather we long for. Ella insisted on reading to me as I finished my toilet the severe criticisms of the novelist Wells on the Churches, & specially on the National Mission. They bear an ominously close resemblance to my own thoughts. He parallels Cardinal Vaughan in the religious sphere with Horatio Bottomly in the secular. Of the Bishop of London's incessant vapourings about his income and "sex–issues" he writes with much vigourous scorn. In this, however, he does but represent the general attitude of "the classes". The question which must be answered before a just judgement can be passed on the Bishop's performances is this – How are the masses impressed? It is, of course, difficult to discover what the impression made on the multitude actually is, but I suspect that it is not permanently favourable. The Bishop has started with the advantage of his official position. There is a piquancy about the spectacle which he provides that wins much applause from the unthinking crowd to which he addresses himself; but familiarity soon wears away the impressiveness, & when some measure of reflection supervenes, even the crowd grows critical, doubtful, & contemptuous. He raises more questions than he answers. In becoming so frankly "one of the people" he destroys the raison d'être of his official position which lifts him so far above them. They cannot follow his bewildering finance, which deals with figures far larger than their experience makes intelligible. He destroys the mystery which had invested his office, and in becoming popular ceases to be respected. Having gone so far, they think he ought to go farther. A prelate they can understand: & an ascetic they can admire: but this odd blending of the prelate's magnificence & the ascetic's language perplexes them. Besides, they are not without commentators to assist them to appreciate the idyllic picture of the People's Bishop, which he offers them. The Socialist, the Radical, the Agnostic, the Atheist – all provide glosses to the Bishop's text; &, as is too often the case, the gloss is more studied than the text.

[159]

This has been a wasted day. I attended Mattins and Evensong, & spent some time over the Anson papers, but to little purpose. The total output of this week has been lamentably small. Sir Henry Craik arrived about 3 p.m.: and a little later we all drove to Brancepeth, had tea with the Glyns, and inspected the parish church. The weather, although threatening & clouded, was not prohibitive of an open carriage. We had little dinner party – Prof & Mrs Ellershaw, Bailey, Knowling & Fearne, and Hughes. Our conversation after the ladies had withdrawn turned largely on the question of Religion in France. I mentioned the Dreyfus case, & Craik declared himself more than half convinced of the unhappy man's guilt: but as the substantive facts have not been disputed, & the French government itself has admitted his innocence by reinstating him, I cannot see any real foundation for such a change of opinion. Craik has been visiting some of the Catholic families in France, & imbibing their prejudices, with which some of his own would not find it difficult to coalesce. I observe not without interest that judgement on Dreyfus both in England and in France is determined by the general attitude of the great allied interests, clerical and military. Dreyfus in his own person represented precisely what the clergy & the officer class in both counties most detest. He was a Jew and an "outsider": he forced his way to the front by ability & hard work: he conformed to none of the conditions conventionally prescribed for success. He was, to use the final & fatal phrase, "not a gentleman". The clergy saw in him the rebel against their creed: the officers saw the rebel against their class: both saw in him the enemy of their authority. Hence the relentless & resourceful malignity with which he was pursued, and which, after ruining his life will probably succeed in blackening his memory. That he was, as is confidently alleged, an unattractive man, of loose life & many unlovely faults, cannot affect the conclusion to which a just & discerning student of his misfortunes must necessarily be led.

---