The Henson Journals
Mon 14 October 1918
Volume 23, Page 189
[189]
Monday, October 14th, 1918.
1533rd day
Again a fine day, though misty for the early hours. I lay in bed reading until noon, and then got up & wrote letters.
"One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations: that, in the long run, it is well with the good; in the long run, it is ill with the wicked. But this is no science; it is no more than the old doctrine taught long ago by the Hebrew prophets" – J. A. Froude.
"The address of history is less to the understanding than to the higher emotions. We learn in it to sympathise with what is great and good; we learn to hate what is base. In the anomalies of fortune we feel the mystery of our mortal existence, & in the companionship of the illustrious natures who have shaped the fortunes of the world, we escape from the littleness which cling to the round of common life, and our minds are tuned in a higher and nobler key" (Ibid.)
How far is all this true? How far did Froude believe it to be true? "The illustrious natures who have shaped the fortunes of the world" are by no means edifying company for the most part.
After lunch Mrs Spooner, Ruth, Ella, and I went to the camp, and were shown over it by General Smythe. We had tea with him very pleasantly. I was pleased to hear that a number of the young officers had been in the cathedral last night, and appear to have been impressed. After dinner Canon & Mrs Bickersteth came in to see us. He is pretentious, well–intentioned, & muddle–headed.