The Henson Journals

[60]

Thursday, September 1st, 1927.

Ella and Fearne went off after an early lunch to Mount Grace to see Lady Bell's Pageant.

Braley came to see me with reference to Dann's accusations, and set out his case. I bade him go more gently, & swathe his iron glove in diplomatic velvet, & so dismissed him. Then Jimmie appeared, and I talked with him for an hour. When he had disappeared I resumed the rather futile business of collecting notices of the Quakers, with a view to the Edinburgh Article.

Is it the timidity of incipient senility, or a real decay of intellectual power, that explains my strange reluctance, perhaps inability, to put hand to any serious composition? Talking is far easier than writing: and if I could transfer to my M.S. the words that run from my lips when I am interested in conversation, I think it possible that something relatively respectable might result. But I am half–paralyzed by my dislike of committing myself to any definite statement of opinion on any subject: and increasingly fastidious in the form of such pronouncements as I adventure!