The Henson Journals

[79]

2nd Sunday after Epiphany, January 17th, 1926. All Souls.

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There was a heavy snowfall during the night, & this continued through most of the day. It was bitterly cold. I attended Chapel at 8.45 p.m., and was the whole of my religious observance during the day! I read through a disconcerting book, by Chizza Money, – "The White Peril", and lunched with the Warden & Mrs Pember. Lang also was there, & I found myself curiously outside the conversation. The difference between a Socius and a Quondam goes deeper, and its depth discloses itself more painfully as time passes. In Oxford I become increasingly an exile & an alien! During the afternoon I remained in College, reading rather promiscuously, and not at all Sabbatically! There was a pleasant party at dinner. I had a good deal of talk with Malcolm and Curtis about Kenya, and was rather confirmed in my suspicions, than relieved from them. It is, indeed, unjust to deny the extreme difficulty of the situation in which the white settlers find themselves, and extremely foolish to forget the exceeding untrustworthiness of most of the evidence which is accessible to us in England. Nevertheless, we may not forget that we have a measure of personal responsibility for whatever is done to those helpless natives within the Empire.

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