The Henson Journals

[25]

Friday, August 19th, 1927. Brockham End.

To talk freely, even recklessly, in the presence of the young may have consequences which the talker never suspects, and assuredly neither desired nor intended. "I think the Bishop is very hard" observed the demure maiden, who is staying here, when, at the breakfast table, I was talking on Democracy with a freedom which lent itself easily to misunderstanding. Young minds are receptive, and young memories are retentive. Men of my type are too careless of their own reputation, and too reckless in their modes of expression to be safely listened to by the young. Like Socrates himself, they must needs appear to their slower–witted contemporaries to be no wise other than "corrupters of youth". Their conversation is a closer expression of their thinking than is the case with most men. They "think aloud," and all the many limiting conditions under which thought finds embodiment in action, are absent, so than an impulsion of recklessness and ruthlessness is conveyed, which is very far indeed from being true or just. Older persons have learned this in experience, and they can therefore make the requisite discounts, but the young are not able to do this, & they may too easily be deceived.

[26]

The post brought me a brief acknowledgement of my letter of congratulation from the Bishop–designate of Derby. He says: –

"I agree with you about E.W.: he seems to have gone sadly astray over P.B."

This is satisfactory enough, but does not surprise me. The services in the College Chapel were enough to disclose the Master's sympathies.

I wrote to Arthur and to Gilbert.

In the afternoon we were motored by John to Farleigh House, and had tea with the Earl & Countess Cairnes. Their garden was looking beautiful. I was especially interested in a great beach tree which had been successfully subjected to the process which the Americans call "arboreal dentistry". John is certainly a very reckless driver. We had a minor accident, & then very nearly ran over a small child. His indifference to his mother's alarm – indeed, he seemed to drive the more rapidly, the more she protested – made an unpleasant impression on me. The rising generation has certainly made a clean sweep of the old deferences.

The Times reports that the representatives of the Eastern Church presented to the Lausanne Conference a memorandum which reads like an ultimatum. I have ever held that the barriers between the older "Catholick" Churches and ourselves are insuperable. In the case of the East, there stand all the centuries which sever the age of the Councils from our own: in that of the West, there is the spiritual crisis of the XVIth century & its scientific epilogue in the later time.