The Henson Journals

[138]

Wednesday, February 21st, 1923.

"England surely is the paradise of little men, and the purgatory of great ones."

J. H.Newman

This is both acute and very true I judge.

There was more snow during the night, & it kept on snowing most of the morning. We were all startled by reports of a terrific accident to the Scotch Express near Birtley. It was asserted with confidence that there had been many persons killed, at least twenty according to the most moderate, more than thirty according to the most popular estimate. When the evening papers arrived, we learned that a few trucks had been derailed, & some disturbance of the traffic occasioned, but that nothing had happened worth calling an accident, & that nobody was a penny the worse. So much for rumours!

I worked at the Edinburgh Article, and finished it. It is less literary than such a composition ought to be, for my mind throughout has been directed to the possible effect which the Article might have on the course of Prayer Book Revision. I shall point this fact out to Harold Cox, and, if he doesn't care to have the Article on those terms, I will print it as a pamphlet.

After dinner I read aloud to Ella and Fearne the whole of the Article. It took all but an hour to read, & would have taken nearly twice as long to 'deliver'. I don't like it, but I think it says the main things that need saying.

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