The Henson Journals

[161]

Monday, March 8th, 1926.

As I expected, I feel uncommonly fit this morning, & could travel quite well, but have to keep up the farce of illness by remaining until tomorrow! The "Times" has a fairly reasonable report of last night's performance, though the Heading – "The Bishop of Durham. Fainting Fit while Preaching" – has an alarming appearance. The "Morning Post" gives prominence to the interesting fact that the Bishop of D. had "a fainting seizure in a London Congregational Church".

Dr Price of 133 Harley Street came to see me. I did my best to convince him that physically I was the arrantest humbug in the world: & that, in spite of my ghastly aspect last night, I was "as fit as a fiddle" this morning. But he would have none of it. "The fainting fit you had last night was a very serious one, not an ordinary faint at all". He evidently has the notion of a possible stroke running in his head: & insisted on my going to him tomorrow to have my blood–pressure taken, & my heart examined. Yet he assured me that I was the kind of man to live to be 90! A fine prospect in such a world as this is becoming!

[162]

In the course of the afternoon a telegram arrived from Buckingham Palace in these terms:

"The King & Queen are concerned to hear of your illness but trust that you can give a good account of yourself today".

I wrote what I conceived to be a suitable reply to Lord Stamfordham.

Mrs Davidson called to inquire of my state, & there were other callers. The publicity of petty personal calamities adds enormously to their gravity. An announcement in the great London papers starts a journalistic snowball, which goes on waxing, until it becomes something actually alarming. Then there is the unfortunate impression of physical weakness which is conveyed, & which continues to hang about your name long after it has lost all justification. But, I suppose, this untoward episode is a warning which I ought not to neglect. Of course I am no longer young. My contemporaries are dying off quickly. And "in his 63rd year" would read normally in an obituary notice! It is a woeful reflection that I have no more to show for my life than this Journal presents.

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