The Henson Journals

[188]

Tuesday, May 18th, 1920.

I left Hereford in pouring rain by the 9.55 a.m. train, & reached Paddington well to time at 2.45 p.m. I drove to Great College Street, & deposited my bags. Then I walked to St Margaret's & officiated with Carnegie at the memorial service for Charlie Parker. There was a considerable congregation, & the singing was excellent. After service I fell in with Sir George Younger, & asked him what were the prospects of the Divorce Bill in the Commons. He said that the Bill would be vigorously opposed, & that there was general disgust at the spectacle of F. E. Smith as the champion of the "spiritual" character of marriage. He thought it probable, in view of the state of government business, that the Bill would fall through. Then I encountered Lord Haldane, a squalid figure looking abjectly disreputable, & smoking a huge cigar. He said that the House of Lords was waking up to the true character of its performance in passing the Enabling Act, & that its present insistence on the Divorce Bill in the teeth of the Bishops was a belated essay in self–assertion. He waxed merry over the spectacle of George Curzon being ordered about by Lloyd George with a total disregard of his dignity. Then I went to 45 Cadogan Place, and had tea with Dorothy Parker. From her I went to the Athanaeum, & wrote letters. I dined in the Club with the new Archbishop of Wales, who told me that Wickham Steed, the Editor of the Times, is fully persuaded of the reality of the great Jewish conspiracy against Christendom. After dinner I sate with Glazebrook, and talked of the position created by the Divorce Bill. He meditates a letter to the "Times". Then I walked back to Great College Street.

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