The Henson Journals

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Friday, August 17th, 1928.

A bright morning, cold, and with gathering clouds.

Lord Scarbrough sent me a kind letter.

Frankly the selections did not surprise me because I felt that your splendid independence would rule you out, for no Prime Minister – conservative as you say, or otherwise as I think – would like to have to face that, if he could avoid it.

That is a possible interpretation to other failures than that of gaining "preferment". After all, "splendid independence" is only a grandiose equivalent for what is plainly called 'pure cussedness'!

We left the house shortly after 10 a.m., & motored by way of Berwick & Dunbar to North Berwick where we lunched & spent the afternoon with the Parker–Smiths. Kathleen looked well, &, of course, radiantly happy. Her brother was less oafish than usual, but nothing could make him other than a very heavy young man. On our return journey to Wooler we turned aside to see the ruins of Coldingham. The buildings must once have been extensive, but there is little left. We reached the Vicarage at 7.15 p.m. having travelled altogether a distance of 126 miles. The weather was fine throughout, but chilly as the evening drew on.

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I was particularly glad to see the Bass rock. It makes a grand show, but is nearer the shore & less ragged than I had supported. In the spring it is white with the droppings of the sea birds which rest on it in multitudes.

I finished Rostortzeff's fascinating but most melancholy volume. The last chapter on "Cause of the decline of ancient civilization", though brief, is formidably suggestive. The final paragraph begins:–

Thus here again, the case of the Roman Empire, a steady decline of civilization is not to be traced to physical degeneration, or to any debasement of blood in the higher races due to slavery, or to political and economic conditions, but rather to a changed attitude of men's minds.

The change was due largely to the hopeless state of secular affairs, which turned men's thought away from the bankrupt world to religion. Of this mood Christianity took advantage in order to establish itself as the faith of the ruined empire, which, however, it was powerless to rescue from ruin.

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