The Henson Journals

[185]

Tuesday, August 28th, 1923.

The Pagets, Ella, and I made an expedition to Lynmouth and Lynton. The weather though cold and blustering, was fine; and the clouds which broke up & sometimes obscured the sun–light enhanced the amazing beauty of the country. The mingled and brilliant colouring of rock heather, turf, and sea made a wonderful spectacle. As we returned we fell in with the sight of a various huntsmen and huntswomen who were returning from what was said to have been a successful run. The justification of field sports becomes ever more difficult. The lady of this house , a noted shot, is said to have been so moved by the sight of a stag at bay in the Exe which runs through the valley, that she took her rifle and put the poor beast out of its agony. This action drew upon her the indignant protest o the Master against her"unsportsmanlike behaviour". Field sports perpetuate in the heart of civilised society, a habit and a mental attitude which belongs properly to barbarism: and these sports are only possible in a civilised society ordered on the principle 0f social equality. The priviledge of large land owners implied a sharp severance of classes, a severance so sharp that democracy in any true sense cannot be reconciled with it. There is a oral schism between the classes and the masses with respect to field sports. Slowly but surely the humaneness of the urban population is imposing its authority on the barbarism of the rustics. Every decade witnesses a narrowing of the range within which "sport" is tolleratedby public opinion.

Politicians are constantly complaining that they have no time to think, so oppressed are they by the routine of their employment, but the occasional spectacle of even a considerable politician thinking at leisure suggests that the disability is not only a safeguard of their own reputations, but a not inconsiderable security to the public.

Raymond "The Man of Promise" p.235

Substitute "bishops" for "politicians" and the sentence will not be less true or less pointed. Bishop Knox, Bishop Ryle, and perhaps Bishop Gore may serve as illustrations.

I finished Raymond's account of Lord Rosebery. It is an extremely acute analysis of an extremely elusive person. But the thesis hardly holds together for the important consequences deduced from Rosebery's political career forbid the conclusion that that career was unimportant or unsuccessful. Nor does the critic do justice to the distinction which Rosebery attained in the world of literature. It is, moreover, difficult to accept, the view, that first and last Rosebery was a Scottish noble. Was he in any notable degree a scot at all? There is some cruelty in publishing so ruthless a dissection of a politician who is yet living. Vivisection may be indispensable as a method of scientific research, but its practice as been straitly conditioned In the interest of humanity. So it should be with Biography

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