The Henson Journals

[181]

Saturday, September 25th, 1926.

There is a nip of approaching winter in the air, and this woeful coal stoppage shows no trustworthy sign of ending. I worked at the Lock lecture until 12 noon when together with Ella and Fearne I motored to Muggleswick, where we lunched with old Mr Ritson. He is growing disconcertingly deaf, but otherwise is in good health. We returned by way of Stanhope, in order to get a view of the moors, and got back to Auckland about 4.15 p.m. I sent the proof of my Edinburgh Review Article to old Sir Hugh Bell, inviting his opinion. [space] Is there one of these absurd "storms in a parochial tea–pot["] brewing in the parish of S. Peter's Jarrow? I strongly suspect it. The new Vicar, Chapman, is evidently a precipitate & self–willed person, eminently capable of making a mountain out of a mole–hill: and he has in one H. H. Spencer, a local solicitor, just the kind of man to improve for the worst any situation he may find to his hand.

The Bishop of Chichester having written to inquire whether there were any points in the Revision which I should desire to have re–considered by the Bishops, I wrote in reply to say that I desired to have the question of Anointing the Sick threshed out again.

I read Ralph's "Lay Thoughts of a Dean", which is just a collection of newspaper articles, but crammed full of wit, learning, wisdom, & observation all set forth with the unvarying felicity of style which distinguishes everything he writes. Most of it is new to me for I rarely read the newspapers in which they appeared. I cannot doubt that Ralph's writings are telling on the public mind, and affecting public opinion: but whether for good or for evil I cannot make up my mind to determine.

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