The Henson Journals

[68] [symbol]

June 9th, 1924.

Dear Lord Northbrook,

Your letter was sent on to me from Auckland Castle. I am very willing to add my name to "the Whip" which you propose to issue. It does seem to me important that a measure for cutting up the ancient diocese of Winchester should be treated as something more than a local matter, and that the implied policy of multiplying bishops should come under the direct cognizance and consideration of Parliament, before it is acted upon.

And I must needs think that, in the present state of politics, a special responsibility attaches to the House of Lords.

Believe me,

my Lord,

Yours v, faithfully

Herbert Dunelm:

The Rt Honble

The Earl of Northbrook

[69] [symbol]

June 9th, 1924.

Dear Mrs Rashdall,

I can quite understand, & sympathize with, the resentment you must needs feel at many things that are said about the Dean. But I do not think they are worth noticing. After all, the importance of compliments & censures turns on the quality of their authors: & the hurtful misunderstandings & even perversions of fact which distress you come from persons who have no title to speak about the Dean's beliefs, & no kind of weight, intellectual or moral. Your husband's reputation is quite secure: it has its attestations in his books which are accessible, & will be read long after the controversies which gathered about his name have been forgotten. Of my contemporaries I knownonerespecting whom there has been so remarkable a consensus of approbation as he has evoked.

I think it is certainly unnecessary to defend his memory: I think it might be unwise. Because his critics are mostly fanatics, & cannot see what fools they make of themselves when they enter a sphere in which knowledge & candour are indispensable conditions of reaching truth. Therefore they would seek to justify themselves by still more offensive writing. You know that I loved & valued him, &, therefore, that if I thought his fame was likely to be injured in the least by his[70] [symbol] post–mortem detractors, I would urge championship. But I see no reason whatever for thinking that his memory will be even temporarily injured by that kind of detraction.

With ever kind regards,

I am, ever yrs,

Herbert Dunelm:

Anonymous writing carries always its own disproof.

[70]

Monday, June 9th, 1924.

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I spent the whole morning writing letters in Lady Londonderry's room, which she abandoned to me with her usual kindness. After lunch Ella and I walked a little, & sate by the Lough. We noticed three herons fishing. There is a heronry on this property. At dinner I sate between Lady Ednam & Lady Dufferin, both pretty and pleasant young women, but their present manner of dressing is not beautiful! After dinner Carson and I talked together until we dispersed to our bed–rooms. He has known so many people, & has such an amusing manner of retailing his knowledge, that his talk is both informing and entertaining. But he evidently belongs to a world which is dead, and on the way to be forgotten: and he is not unconscious of the fact. He is in his 71st year, & speaks as a 'laudator temporis acti'.

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