The Henson Journals

[8]

S. Luke's Day, Thursday, October 18th, 1917.

1172nd day

A brilliant autumn morning. Ella and I went to the Cathedral at 8 a.m., & I celebrated the Holy Communion. In the bright sunlight the great Church looked very glorious. I attended Mattins, & then set myself to the task of cutting down & casting into suitable form Dicey's admirable but somewhat discursive & verbose appreciation of the Warden as a law–teacher & writer. The Mayor–elect, Mr Pattison, called to arrange for the service on "Mayor's Sunday", November 11th. I promised to preach to the City Fathers. Mrs Bell came to lunch. I attended Evensong: and afterwards attended a meeting of the University Lodge, where (with elaborate ceremonial & a plethora of grandiloquent hortation) the officers for the ensuing year were admitted to office. I was appointed Senior Warden. The afternoon post brought a letter from the Abp. of C., not marked 'private', &, I think, intended for me to publish. After dinner I read aloud to Ella Hadow's brilliant & learned paper on "Beethoven", read before the British Academy; and then I wrote & thanked him for it. I also wrote to George Nimmins, addressing the letter to Kobe, Japan: and to an unknown female who had written to me for "spiritual counsel". These appeals are very embarrassing, not because one is reluctant to give any help one may have it in one's power to give, but because one never has any better knowledge of the situation than the appellant himself, (or more commonly, herself) chooses to give. That is hardly ever sufficient to enable a trustworthy diagnosis of the trouble to be made.

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