The Henson Journals

[156]

Wednesday, July 29th, 1925.

In the case of men who have played a great part in public affairs, the best work is nearly always done before old age. It is a remarkable fact that although a Senate, by its very derivation, means an assembly of old men, and although in the Senate of Rome, which was the greatest of all, the members sat for life, there was a special law providing that no Senator, afer sixty, should be summoned to attend his duty. In the past centuries septuagenarian statesmen were very rare, & in parliamentary life almost unknown.

Lecky. Map of Life. p. 337.

This is disconcerting, for I am already in my 62nd year, and, so far as solid achievment goes, I have not yet made a beginning. Perhaps the law of disabling senectitude does not apply quite so soon to ecclesiastics as to politicians, but sooner or later it must apply even to them. The Civil Servants retire at 65: and the earliest age for clergymen's retirement as yet suggested is 70.

[157]

Ella and I motored to Ipswich, and lunched at the White Horse Hotel. The weather worsened as the day advanced, and when we went forth after lunch to view the town, the rain was falling. It fell steadily for the remainder of the day. However, we visited a church, which was nowise interesting, tried to enter another, which was fast–locked: & then went in to an exceeding fine 16th century house, with a very elaborate exterior on which the arms of Charles II were conspicuous. We saw the hidden chapel in the roof, and a finely panelled room. We then called on the Bishop, who was absent. His wife, a conventional parochial sort of parson's wife, with a lout of an adolescent son, received us civilly enough. Then we returned to Bramfield, calling on Denis Webster by the way. His cheerful Spanish wife gave us tea, & exhibited two pretty children. On returning to the house, I wrote a series of letters including one to Dr Jackson of Chester–le–Street, authorizing him to contradict the report that I had said that a shilling a day was sufficient for miners! We have already reached the revolutionary stage of praeternatural suspicion, in which no lie is too gross to be credited.

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