The Henson Journals

[54]

Monday, August 21st, 1922.

[^written in Greek^]

Ambition is precisely the desire to be great & first among one's contemporaries, that is, since the world is very large, & our own contact with it is necessarily very restricted & brief, among those who constitute our set, in relation to whom & by whose verdict alone can we be declared great & first. Jesus does not disallow the ambition, but He insists on giving a new meaning to its objects. Power & Primacy are to be understood in terms of service and servitude. The conventional versions of Power & Primacy imply immunity from service & freedom from obligation. Not to have to work, and not to have to consider other wishes than one's own – these are the essential & immensely desirable characteristics of the men who is clothed with principal authority, & holds the first place. To desire power as the means of service & primacy as the symbol of the largest subordination does not come naturally to such men as we are. The idea has, indeed, secured acceptance, and, under the coercion of a publick opinion ever more hostile to authority and rank, that is, to everything which conflicts with the democratic dream of equality, there have been approximations to a practice congruous with the idea: but we are yet a very long way off the standard of the Kingdom.

[55] [symbol]

Mrs Dicey asks me to suggest some "simple & appropriate words for the grave stone" of the old Professor, her husband. This, however, is no easy thing to do. Something of this sort perhaps;

Sacred to the Memory of

ALBERT VENN DICEY

K.C, LLD, DCL, etc

Hon. Fellow of Balliol College

Born Died

Jurist, Political Philosopher, Patriot

He was honoured and loved

as a great Teacher and a true Friend

……………………………………………………….

"Then shall every man have his praise from God"

or "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

or "Out of weakness were made strong"

or "He that doeth the Will of God abideth for ever."

I think his connexion with All Souls should be recorded:– "Sometime Vinerian Professor of English Law & Fellow of All Souls College"

'He carried into old age the courage & energy of youth and pursued to the end of life the ideals which had inspired its beginning'

Mrs Dicey says that the Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon was marked in her husband's Golden Treasury Series of poems (of Wordsworth) with the date at Hereford" It is evident that the lines made a deep impression on the old man's mind.

[56] [symbol]

August 21st, 1922.

Dear Mrs Dicey

I think perhaps, something of the kind I have written on the enclosed would be fitting. In view of the fact that the Hon. Fellowship of Balliol was so recently conferred, and did naturally give him such legitimate pleasure, I think it might well be named. It would be advisable to make sure that the terms which I have used are technically correct viz. Jurist and Political Philosopher. That is how I should give his intellectual description, but I am not a lawyer.

There should be a text, and any one of the four I have suggested appears to me very suitable. He was one for whom one of the stately and well balanced epitaphs in which the XVIIIth century excelled would have been very suitable: but the feeling of one age is adverse to elaborate and formal eulogies: &, therefore, I limit myself to a reference to the two outstanding characters of Teacher and Friend.

I hope that Professor Rait will be able to bring together enough to form a worthy memorial of him.

My wife begs to send her kindest remembrances & I am, my dear Mrs Dicey,

Always affectly

Herbert Dunelm.

[57] [symbol]

Mr Donald returned from Blairquhan, where he had met an officer on leave from Ireland. This gentleman had been giving an interesting but reassuring account of the situation in Ireland. He thought that the civil war was no more concluded by the capture of Limerick than was the Boer War by that of Pretoria. The worst feature in the outlook was the cowardly submissiveness of the civil population, which, though generally opposed to the Republicans, yet gave no real assistance to the Free State troops, & submitted to all the exactions of the rebels.

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