The Henson Journals

[66]

Wednesday, December 5th, 1917.

1220th day

At breakfast (instigante diabolo) ^[at the instigation of the devil]^ I made an observation deprecating the action of the Mothers' Union on the matter of the Divorce Laws: and thereby evidently perturbed the Bishop. "On that subject you and I will be on different platforms", he said. The Archdeacon of Hampstead shared a cab with me to the station. I travelled back to Durham with comparative comfort, and arrived in the Deanery about 2.30 p.m. Prominently placed on my table was a cutting from the "Newcastle Daily Journal", in which the "London correspondent" repeated with precise confidence his statement that I was to be Bishop of Hereford; and among my letters was one from the Vicar of Leominster, actually addressing me as the Bishop designate!! Yet I have received nothing from Downing Street, & all this must be mere gossip.

The papers report the death of Lord Portsmouth, with whom I may be said to be in correspondence. He was a vain man, whose ambition was out of all proportion to his ability. His last craze was to assert himself in the sphere of ecclesiastical politics, which perhaps was as much an indication of his failure in the larger regions of political activity as an evidence of any real concern for the Church of England. His death removes what might have become a serious embarrassment. Lady Portsmouth is reported to have gone into the fashionable craze for Sir Oliver Lodge's nonsense. It is a revival of necromancy, & not a whit superior either morally or intellectually. We shall get to our witch–hunts in due course!

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