The Henson Journals

[75]

Monday, September 17th, 1928.

Lawyers 'of all other professions seem least to understand the nature of government in general; like underworkmen, who are expert enough at making a single wheel in a clock, but are utterly ignorant how to adjust the several parts, or to regulate the movement.

Swift. 'The Sentiments of a C. of E. Man'

I think this is true of lawyers; & I think it is true also of theologians who hold in the Church a position analogous to that of lawyers in the State.

I worked all the morning at the S. Edmundsbury sermon. In the afternoon, Ella, Fearne, & I went to Windlestone where we had tea with Lady Eden, and were shown the house & gardens. It is a melancholy spectacle of departed greatness. The gardens were weed–grown & neglected, save the kitchen garden which is let to a market–gardener who grows cabbages on what was the herbaceous border, & fills the glass–houses with cucumbers and tomatoes.

Mrs. Gompers, a friend of Jim's who lives at Madras, came on a short visit.

[76]

["]Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction. By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its records, evidences, & titles. We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men; on account of their age, & on account of those from whom they are descended.["]

[Burke]. 'Reflections on the Revolution'.

(v. works. vol. iii. p. 276)

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