The Henson Journals

[42]

Saturday, November 20th, 1920.

I left King's Cross at 10a.m., and, after changing at York & Darlington, reached Bishop Auckland at 5.44 p.m. Both changes involved long waiting. William met me with the car.

That odd creature – E. S. Spicer – writes to offer hospitality when I have to come to town next year. He appears to share the general delusion that my entrance to the House of Lords will mean that I shall in some way exercise authority there. Whereas the truth is that it will hardly be possible for me to attend the debates at all, and the occasions on which it wd be fitting for me to address the House are extremely few.

Two requests to preach from Newcastle.–one from the Cathedral, and one from a Nonconformist Chapel.

I bought "Letters of Principal James Denney to W. Robertson Nicoll. 1893–1917", and read it through in the train. It is full of good things. In spite of his frantic zeal for total abstinence, and his narrow dislike of "establishment". I liked Denney, with whom I had much talk on ship–board when we returned from America in 1909. He shared my dislike of Canadian Religion. His judgements on men & books are always decided & generally sound. For shallowness he had little mercy. Thus his references to R. J. Campbell, whom he plainly despised, were uniformly severe. But these should not have been published.

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