The Henson Journals

[362]

Monday, February 14th, 1927.

["]Thus there was everywhere unrest and a prolonged, as it were, moral earthquake. The old order of things was destroyed, and none could forecast the shape of the new order of things that would succeed to it. Something similar has been the state of Europe ever since the great French Revolution; only that her barbarians threaten her [new] form from within, not from without. The social state which had been in existence for centuries, & which had come to be accepted as if it were one of the great ordinances of nature, is either menaced or is actually broken up, & how the new democracy will rearrange itself in the seats of the old civilisation the wisest statesman cannot foretell.["]

Hodgkin, "Theodoric the Goth", p. 3

This was written in 1891. How much more apposite it is in 1927!

I wasted all the morning in writing a long letter to the Times on "Russia", the purpose of which was to recommend Karlgren's Book as a valuable instrument for counteracting the propaganda of our own Communists. Probably the Editor will not think it worth his publishing.

Then I walked round the Park with Ernest, and on returning to the Castle, had an interview with an Ordination candidate, Mr William Hartley, a man of 36 who has had no schooling to speak of, but has served at sea, first in the commercial, and then in the Royal Navy. I could not reach a decision, but postponed it, rather to his disappointment.

I prepared an abbreviated report of my Earl Grey Lecture for the Times, and sent a complete Report to the Editor of the Yorkshire Post, who had written to ask for it. I cannot do more in organizing publicity for the poor thing.

The evening paper reports an unusually fatal railway accident in Hull. No less than 8 persons have been killed outright, & many injured. The cause is as yet undiscovered.

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