The Henson Journals

164

Thursday, August 30th, 1917.

1123rd day

I received a very delightful and characteristic letter from Dicey promising help in the matter of the Warden's "Life". He adds a few words on the War:

"I agree with all you say as to the difficulties & dangers of the present time, but I am well assured, though not by nature sanguine, that patriotism & I think every other form of goodness require us to fulfil the "duty of Hope". Is it not the case that as suggested to me, this duty comes to us through Judaism & Christianity, & that every classical writer looked for the golden age in the past not in the future? You are more capable of keeping up men's hopes than any writer or speaker I know, & I trust you will use this gift strenuously at the present crisis."

This from a veteran of 82 is not without impressiveness.

I went to Newcastle to get my hair cut. Mrs Darwin & Col. Herne shared my railway carriage. The old hair–dresser, who reigned in the shop was very eager to tell me that he had heard the sermon which I preached in St Margaret's on the Sunday after the King's (Edward VII's) illness. He would greatly like to have the lines which I quoted at the end of my discourse. I attended Evensong: walked with Logic: worked at the Memoir. As I was returning from the purchase of the evening paper, I observed two girls in a novel kind of uniform, & stopped to ask what they were. They told me that they worked on the land, & had come into Durham to see the Cathedral, which to their great disappointment was closed. So I took them round myself, & really spent quite a pleasant ¾ hour with them. Their names, all that I can remember of them, were Edith & Rose, and they lived at Plawsworth. It pleased me to find that they had some vague notions about S. Cuthbert, & professed a great admiration for the Cathedral. "It's a great honour to pray to God in a church like this" observed Rose as it were to herself, as we stood in the Nine Altars. I shewed them the Kitchen, & dismissed them in great good humour.

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