The Henson Journals

[21]

Saturday, October 27th, 1917.

1181st day

Bitterly cold. I wrote to Carissima before breakfast. After Mattins I presided at a meeting of Chapter. Then Wilson brought to me the agreement about the advertisement hoarding, which I signed, & paid a year's rent (£12) in advance. I finished reading "The Loom of Youth" by Alec Waugh, who is said to be a lad of 17. The picture of an English Public School is very unpleasing, & must be lop–sided: for it is almost uniformly dark. That the cult of athletics had proceeded to mischievous extremes was notorious, but that athleticism should be foul–mouthed, impure, deceitful, & deeply irreligious was not so generally understood. I attended Evensong, and then, as the weather was hostile, abandoned my purpose of a walk, & went into the Cathedral, where I spent an hour in acting as guide to a Belgian soldier & his female companion. After dinner I read the new volume of Lord Acton's "Letters", and looked into Gwatkin's "Church & State". The latter has a clear note on that foolish tangle of the "Ornaments Rubrick", &, of course, comes to the only conclusion which a candid historian can come to viz: that the vestments are totally illegal. I wrote to Arthur Morgan. A letter from the Bishop of Manchester crossed mine. His Lordship suggests an amendment of Lord Parmoor's motion; namely, "to insert the words 'to consider whether that Report is consistent with the terms of reference under which the Committee was appointed, & generally to consider the recommendation thereof, and to prepare a Report". There is something to be said for this, but I suspect my own is better suited to carry the House.

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