The Henson Journals

[215]

Saturday, February 14th, 1925.

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Sir Charles Ballance came for me to the Athenaeum, and carried me off to his house (106 Harley Street). There I celebrated the Holy Communion in his wife's bedroom, and administered the sacrament to them both. Afterwards I talked with him for 3/4 an hour. He spoke interestingly of his experiences during the War, when he served as Superintendent of Surgical Operations in the Mediterranean Campaign. Sir Victor Horsley, who combined the characters of a distinguished surgeon and a fanatical total abstainer, was carried by his zeal for what he called 'temperance' into telling the troops in Gallipoli that if they abstained from alcohol they need not bother about putting on their sun–helmets! If he had been less rigid in his own habit, he might have lived through his experiences in Mesopotamia. Ballance spoke contemptuously of Freud's Psycho–analysis, but did not appear to have any real knowledge about it. From Harley Street I proceeded to King's Cross, where I took the 1.15 a.m. train to Darlington. By way of prophylactic on the train I lunched, but it is against my liking. The process of eating when one is being shaken by the motion of the train, and sickened by tobacco smoke, is by no means agreeable. Leng met me with the car, & I was in the Castle soon after 6.30 p.m.

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