The Henson Journals

[111]

Friday, August 2nd, 1918.

1460th day

A most melancholy, rain all the time. Perforce I kept the house in a state of much physical discomfort, and horribly depressed. Wynne–Willson came to see me. I gave him the M.S. of my address. & made him read it aloud. He is not a particularly good reader, so that the poor thing can hardly help falling flat! He has just returned from Oxford where he has been attending a meeting of "The Anglican Fellowship", a society in which the inevitable Willie Temple appears to play a suspiciously prominent part. Streeter presided. He has just come into residence. I wrote to Linetta, to Sir Frank Brown, Katherine Pember, and Carissima.

T. A. Page has an excellent letter in "The Times" on Lord Lansdowne's latest pronouncement. He point out that his Lordship ignores altogether the moral aspect of the conflict, & dwells solely on the enormous losses caused by it. Yet it is precisely the first which determined our entry into the war, and which now makes it impossible for us to cease from fighting until either we have conquered, or we are no longer able to continue the struggle. But neither of these contingencies had yet emerged. Germany is far from being beaten: & we are far from being reduced to powerlessness. The vast exertions which we have been compelled to make may not improbably ruin our economic supremacy, & reduce Great Britain after the war to a relatively inferior position, but we shall have served the purpose of our power, & saved our soul.

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