The Henson Journals

[94]

Saturday, July 20th, 1918.

1447th day

The post brought me from Mr Asquith a copy of his Romanes Lecture – "Some Aspects of the Victorian Age". It is slighter & more sketchy than I had expected, but perhaps this was inevitable. The conditions of the trust prohibited reference to the polemical subjects, theology & politics.

My infirmity paralyzed another day. The Archdeacon of the Seychelles, (E. A. Newton) lunched here – a large, prosperous–looking secular man, with a mighty notion of himself, & puffed up with the rather doubtful importance of having recently married a rich wife, too fine a lady for parochial activities, but able to reconcile herself to the languid comforts of the Seychelles. He is taking the duty at Ganarew, and is really troubled because whenever he preaches he "empties the churches for miles round”! He made me feel melancholy.

After lunch we motored to Canon Pyon, & there I had an interview with Mr Bulmer, the Rector, and with Mr Buckingham, the Curate. The first has had a stroke, & can't do his duty. I told him, as kindly as I could, that he ought to resign. The last, though rather feeble to look at, has been passed in Class A.1; I said that I would send his name in to the Archbishop for a chaplaincy. We called on Mrs Woodhouse at Burghill: a little round woman with a fish's eyes, who is patroness of the living, which is rather an important one, as the parish is said to contain more than 1300 souls. The doctor called again after dinner, & trussed me up ridiculously, but gave me no comfort.

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