The Henson Journals

Thu 22 January 1920

Volume 27, Page 5

[5]

Thursday, January 22nd, 1920.

"They that observe nothing in wise men but their oversights and follies, nothing in men of virtue but their faults & imperfections, (from which neither the wisest nor the perfectest have been free) what do they but propose them as matters of scorn and abhorring, whom God having endued with principal graces, hath marked out for very patterns of honour to imitate."

Sir Edwin Sandys. "Europae Speculum". 1599.

I resolved to attempt dictating a lecture, instead of writing propriâ manu. The truth is that by the latter method I make such slow progress that I shall not get my work done. In the course of the morning I dictated in about 1 1/2 hours enough to fill 13 foolscap type–written sheets, which I consider to constitute about one fourth of an hour's lecture. But it was very poor stuff, ragged, disjointed, & verbose.

Ella & I lunched with Mrs Clive. There was a very pleasant party. We called on old Mrs Partridge at Bacton, & then returned to the Palace, where I finished my letters.

Newman's "Loss and Gain" is full of good things, and has considerable value as a picture of the movement by its principal actor. Its description of Anglicanism, and the common apologies for it, is rarely inn any marked degree prejudiced or unfair. The Roman case, in its plausibility & in its intrinsic hollowness, is effectively stated.