The Henson Journals

[189]

Saturday, July 1st, 1922.

I walked to the Athenaeum; then went to the barber's: then had clothes tried on at Adeney's in Sackville's Street: then returned to the club & tried to adapt my sermon on Temperance for use at the '200th anniversary of St Peter's Vere Street!

I dined at the Athenaeum with Sir Charles Ballance. He had got together a pleasant company of surgeons and doctors. The Bishop of Truro was also of the party. Dr Tait was the only one whom I knew. I had much talk with several of them. Ballance said that during the war rather wonderful operations had been performed on the heart. He himself had held a man's heart in his hand, & extracted a bullet from it. We discussed the ever burning question of alcohol. He repudiated the total abstainers, & quoted Sir James Paget as saying of himself that his use of alcohol might conceivably abbreviate his life, but would certainly make him more efficient while he lived. He (Ballance) found champagne almost indispensable when he was very fatigued.

One of the company had just returned from America. He gave no good report of the situation there. He was himself a total abstainer, but he was definitely opposed to prohibition. I walked with the Bishop of Truro as far as Westminster Bridge, and then walked back to the Deanery by way of the Embankment. Beyond the loving couples, and the empty trams it was quite deserted.

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