The Henson Journals

[93]

Monday, November 24th, 1924.

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In trying to describe Richard Baxter I find myself often drawing on the stock of my own reminiscences & self–knowledge. For – greatness and sanctity apart – there is much resemblance between that eminent Puritan and myself. We certainly belong to the same physical, mental, & temperamental type; and our careers present a good many points of resemblance. Both of us were excluded from the normal experiences in youth, and both were permanently influenced by the fact. A self–educated man, (and that description is mainly true of us both,) is apt to over–value the knowledge he acquires, to take undue pride in his own intellectual effort, and to view with an excessive depreciation the work of others. A man, who has been trained neither at a public school nor at an University, emerges into manhood without contemporaries, and is therefore lonely and incomprehensible to his fellows. They may perforce acknowledge his superiority, but they chafe under it: and they are never at a loss for a reason why he should be condemned. The little loyalties, which form the substance of their social code, are mostly unmeaning to him; and they can neither trust nor understand him. The conscientiousness of these isolated individuals is a permanent obstacle to cooperation. They have the aspect of cranks, and are regarded with appropriate dislike.

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