The Henson Journals

[67]

Friday, February 27th, 1920.

I travelled to Oxford, and stayed there for the night with the Headlams in Christ Church. In the afternoon I took part in one of the most tiresome meetings I have ever attended. It was held in the interest of the Ladies Settlement in Bethnal Green: and was attended by an exiguous number of senior ladies. Nobody under 40 seemed to be present, & very few under 50! And this is a mighty movement into which the girls are to be carried! The post–war fervours run to jazzing and profanity, to anything rather than "good works"!

I dined in college at the Gaudy. It was a pleasant meeting. After dinner Lang, Hardinge, Bain, Amery, & I had a lively discussion over the eviction of the Turks from Constantinople.

After the meeting I called on Dicey, & had an interview with his wife. The poor old lady is evidently a subject of melancholia. Headlam & I walked twice round the Christ Church Meadow. He has made a good start with his Bampton Lectures. It is not without significance that the "Church Times" absolutely ignores them. These ecclesiastical journals have two notes – insult and neglect. The first is employed to ruin the comparatively weak & unknown: the last, to belittle & hamper the strong. Both have been plentifully used in my own case. Now – beyond spiteful allusions to "the Hereford Scandal" – I m generally ignored. Headlam showed me a correspondence which has passed between himself and the Archbishop on the subject of training candidates for the Anglican ministry. His Grace is evidently perturbed.

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