The Henson Journals

[154]

Tuesday, September 7th, 1926.

I spent most part of the day on the Edinburgh Article, and finished it: but it does not content me. Indeed I had thought I could have done better, but it is far easier to perceive and parade the defects in the reasonings of others than to construct an argument of one's own! Yet, if I had time & space enough I think I could set out a thesis which would hold water. As it is, I can but put out a fragment which only half–discloses my meaning.

In the afternoon I walked in the Park, & talked with two sets of miners. All expressed their earnest desire to get back to work. The suspicion crossed my mind that they might be speaking as they thought I would like them to speak, but, save in the case of one man who, I thought "protested too much", & might have been connected with some anti–Communist association subsidised by the owners, I could not doubt that they were speaking sincerely.

An anonymous letter, indited from the Oxford Union, & written in an educated hand, called my attention to the number of idle parsons who might be seen in Oxford.

"Wherever you go they are in evidence, at the Hotels, at the Restaurants & Cafés, in the Gardens & Parks, & in these Rooms. There is no evidence of poverty for they are fat & cheery & in some cases accompanied by their wives (?) in the latest state of semi–nudity."

I judge my correspondent to be an evil–surmising Papist.

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