The Henson Journals

[161]

Monday, August 27th, 1917.

1120th day

Rain all night, and a wet morning. It is most depressing and even alarming. I wrote to Radcliffe asking him to send my Will. There is no reason why he should retain it now that he has left Westminster. After breakfast Sir Henry Craik left for London. His visit would have been more successful if the weather had been more kindly. Then I showed Lady Craik over the Castle, & this squandered more than an hour of good working time. Henry Cecil Ferens came to lunch, and to bid me goodbye before joining the cadet school in Uckfield. I gave him a copy of "Robertson of Brighton". I attended Evensong, & then "languished" in the sultry afternoon till tea–time. The afternoon post brought me a letter from Sir Courtenay Ilbert about Anson, but so badly written that I could hardly decipher it, but it contributes something:–

"Anson's work as a pupil was more remarkable for neatness, care & finish than for vigour or originality, but he was full of interests, literary, artistic & philosophical. Doubtless the members of our reading party like those of others, at all events Balliol reading parties, discussed & argued about all subjects, human & divine, but I cannot remember what line Anson usually took on the controversial topics of the day. I remember him in his undergraduate days as a typical Etonian, of the better & more studious sort; quiet, reserved, refined, cultivated, clean in word and thought; always in the best college set, but not taking a prominent or leading part in College life. Nor was he an active member of the Union Society."

This coincides with the impression which his letters make on my mind. Ilbert thinks that no influence can be drawn from the absence of references to contemporary political events from his home letters & says (what I should think inevitable) that the undergraduates of that time (1862–6) took a keen interest in current politics. Anson would have been no exception.

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