The Henson Journals

[51]

Saturday, January 18th, 1919.

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Another magnificent sunrise leading in a spring–like day. The rooks fell prematurely to resting, & the robins sang ardently. I wasted the morning over the 'Preface', & then motored with Ella to Holme Lacy, where we lunched with Lady Lucas Tooth.After lunch we walked in the garden which is extensive. The question rises inevitably on the mind, What will the future of these great houses be? They can only be kept up by an immense expenditure and an army of maids. Perhaps the money will be more easily found than the servants in the coming time, but both may very probably be lacking. We dined with the Bannisters. Fawkes & Mrs Lilley made up the company.

The papers report that Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered in Berlin yesterday by the furious crowds. Thus the Revolution already begins to devour its own children. It is impossible to forget even in the exasperation which his recent violences have provoked that Liebknecht stood alone as the advocate of justice in Germany, when the infamous war was started."Luther–Liebknecht" is the name he bears in one of Raemäcker's cartoons. Is it a case of oppression driving a wise man mad? or, is it rather the case that his rightness on the issue of the War was accidental? If Germany had been right, would he still have been in opposition?

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