The Henson Journals

[182]

Maundy Thursday, March 29th, 1923.

Lightfoot's mental interests lay almost exclusively in concrete facts or written words. He never seemed to care for any generalisation. No one can with advantage be everything; and he gained much by what was surely a limitation. He gained by it in clearness and force for thought and word; and he gained by it enormously in ready access to English people of all sorts, owing to do correspondence to the prevalent English habit of mind. But would it not be a pity to seem to suggest that the region which had little attraction for him is, in itself, a barren cloud–land, as so many people assure us it is?

Hort to Wescott. Jan. 9th, 1890 (ii. 410)

This is an acute and also a just appreciation of Bishop Lightfoot by one who knew him intimately. The 'barren cloud–land' which he avoided was sufficiently frequented by his successor, Bishop Westcott. Neither concrete fact nor mystical speculation had much place under my immediate predecessor, Bishop Moule. Pietistic sentiment obliterated everything.

The weather all day has been brilliant & mild. Mr Cheney, the temporary curate of Evenwood came to lunch; after he had departed, I played bowls with William. I wrote to Carissima for Easter.

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