The Henson Journals

[13]

All Souls Day, Tuesday, November 2nd, 1920.

"Uneducated people have most exuberance of invention and the greatest freedom from prejudice."

Hazlitt

Is there any truth at all in this preposterous paradox? What the author means is that an unwise education may depress natural faculty, and bind the understanding by artificial prejudices: but an uneducated man has his best faculties undisclosed, or so undeveloped as to be all but unknown: and there are no prejudices so cruel and disastrous as those of ignorance. He proceeds to illustrate his perverse proposition by an irrelevant example. "Shakespeare's was evidently an uneducated mind, both in the freshness of his imagination and in the variety of his views". This statement may stand along with the fantastic arguments of the Baconians based on Shakespeare's presumed knowledge of the classics, of the law, and of the Court. It is difficult to believe that so sublime a genius would not have enriched the world by its self–expressions had he been destitute of training, or subjected to all the rigours of academic system, but it is certain that we could never have received from him the gifts he has brought to us had he not been well taught at school the humanities, and been educated by the march & movement of life in the great world to which he betook himself so soon.

[14]

Today I have to receive addresses &c. from the people of Bishop Auckland and of course I shall have to make a speech. It is, perhaps, inevitable that I should refer to the vexed question of the great house, now hardly tenable by the bishop by reason of his poverty. On the one hand, I hate the common cant of our ecclesiastical reformers which, if it means anything, means that modern bishops should be ascetics like S. Cuthbert which, of course, is obviously impossible. On the other hand, I cannot shut my eyes to the hard facts of the situation viz: that the bishop has not money enough to maintain residence in the Castle, save in such meanness as to make residence there publicly useless, and personally, a little absurd. The Chapel at Auckland with its tombs and its memories adds a consideration of great moment. It would be indecent and profane to abandon that beautiful sanctuary, which Cosin constructed out of the old Hall, and Lightfoot magnificently restored. Something is due to history, and the normal modernness of society in Durham adds gravity to recognizing the debt. I can but repeat my determination to make an attempt to reside, and if experience clearly demonstrates that residence is really impossible, then to ask the diocese to face the new situation. But I hate even an approach to the vulgar fractions of ecclesiastical finance!

[15]

The Reporter brought back the notes of my Saturday's speech, & asked me whether I was still of the same mind on the subject of interviews. I replied that, as Bishop, I hoped to be as inaccessible to the interviewer as I had been when Dean. "Bishop Welldon takes the other line", he said. "Yes; I am aware of that fact, but it does not induce me to alter my mind." We motored to Bishop Auckland, & lunched. At 3 p.m. I went to the Town Hall, and received a number of addresses:

1. From the Urban District Council.

2. From the Parish Church.

3. From the Trades Council.

4. From the Nonconformists.

5. From the Salvation Army.

6. From the Discharged Soldiers & Sailors.

Then I made a speech in which I covered a good deal of ground, and touched on many subjects with respect to which I wanted an occasion for speaking. There was a considerable assembly of people, including a good many of the miners on strike, and I think they were interested.

I dined in College: and afterwards borrowed "The Times" from Colonel Lowe, and read it with a thoroughness which only the absence of books can either explain or excuse! Then I wrote to Elizabeth Smith, and made some preparations for tomorrow's function.

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