The Henson Journals

[19]

Wednesday, April 29th, 1925.

[symbol]

I breakfasted at the Athenaeum, & then made a futile attempt to write an article for the Evening Standard. Then I walked to Westminster to recover the bag which I stupidly left at the House of Lords yesterday. After a vain attempt to see Canon de Candole, I lunched at the House, & then returned to the Club. Arthur Benson was in the Club, & I had some talk with him about Welldon. He agreed that he was a woeful problem, & suggested that a City living might be more suitable than the Deanery of Durham!

I called on Elsie Knowling, and spent an hour with her, and her three children. She describes her life with Harold since the war as quite intolerable, and I could not blame her for recovering her freedom. My godson, Rex, is now more than 9 years old, a very fat boy, but attractive. He goes to school at Eastbourne for the first time next week. How Haroldcould have cut himself adrift from his children puzzles and saddens me indescribably. Elsie thinks that he will marry again. In that case, I do not see how any contact can be maintained with him.

[20] [symbol]

I dined at Grillions for the first time. Probably on account of the Easter holiday being still for many of the members unfinished, the attendance was very small. Only four dined viz. Lord Middleton, Lord Haldane, Lord Donoughmore and the Bishop of Durham. Middleton's deafness is a disadvantage, but it was none the less a pleasant party. Haldane was the Mercurius, or 'chief speaker', & rightly for undoubtedly he was its most distinguished member. He said of Lord Haig, comparing him with the other generals who commanded during the War, that he thought. This is precisely what his appearance suggests that he did not: but Haldane speaks with knowledge on all military men & matters. He gave a most curious account of his visit to Ireland in 1898 when he sought to arrange with the heads of the Roman Catholic & Protestant communities some solution of the problem of Irish University Education. He was armed with a subsidy of £25,000 annually to both the interests, & with this douceur succeeded in winning their acceptance of a draft scheme, which, however, had to be abandoned in deference to Irish Protestant Opposition inside the Unionist Cabinet. The account of the cryptic methods by which he induced, first, Abp. Walsh, & then Cardinal Logua to consent to negociate was very entertaining.

---