The Henson Journals

[113]

Tuesday, June 30th, 1925.

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Charles told me with much vivacity & enthusiasm the story of the process by which he passed from the life of a curate in a poor London parish to resume at Oxford his earlier studies, & to become a scholar of European distinction. His Bible class on 1. Corinthians led him to go behind the Commentaries. He found himself unable to accept Dilmann's renderings of the Ethiopic text, & accordingly made himself master of that crabbed tongue. His corrections of Dilmann gained acceptance in the learned world, and Dilmann himself acknowledged their soundness. He became at a stroke a recognized member of the confraternity of European savants.

I came away from Little Cloisters after breakfast and transferred myself to the Athenaeum. The papers contain fairly long accounts of yesterday's service in the Abbey, but my name is omitted, though I must have been rather prominent as I took the precedence of my See. Charles assumed that the omission was intentional and waxed angry. I did not think it mattered.

I called at 10 Downing Street, & had a brief interview in a dark room with one of the Prime minister's secretaries. He was civil, but reserved &, as it were, embarrassed, very unlike the free and friendly manners of my previous interviews. I suspect that the influences now dominant at the centre are nowise friendly to the Bishop of Durham & his views.

[114]

After lunching at the Athenaeum, I went to Paddington and caught the 4.45p.m. express to Oxford. Gamble travelled by the same train, & we shared a taxi to our colleges. At 7 p.m. I attended evensong in Oriel Chapel, & afterwards dined at the Gandy. I proposed the toast 'Floreal Oriel", & my speech was quite nicely received. The company, about eighty in number, consisted mainly of middle–aged and old men, of whom many were parsons. I sate beside Professor Baldwin Brown, who proposed the toast of the Provost & Fellows, & I was interested in his speech. He said that he was the first undergraduate who, as a Nonconformist, availed himself of the abolition of tests, & that, for this reason, the Provost Dr Hawkins, took a special interest in him, & showed him much kindness. He described the old Provost as a man good to look at, with silver hair & a fine intellectual countenance. Phelps made an excellent speech, amusing & extremely well phrased. In the course of it, he announced that "Royalty" – by which he was understood to mean their Majesties – would attend the sexcentenary celebration of Oriel next ear. These college celebrations bring home to me my academic solitude very poignantly. I got back to All Souls shortly after 10 p.m.

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