The Henson Journals

[162]

Saturday, November 10th, 1928.

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'Books that stand thin on the shelves, yet so as the owner of them can bring forth every one of them into use, are better than far greater libraries.'

F. Fuller, 'The Holy State' Ox. Books [p.191]

Accessibility of books is the condition of their usefulness, and it is a condition which migration from one house to another imperils, perhaps even more than the accumulation of the books themselves. I suffer from both these hostile factors. I have never really mastered the geography of my bookshelves in Auckland Castle, and the incoming of new books is for ever "snowing under" the books I want! Add an innate incapacity for tidiness, and the situation is yet further worsened. Warre of Eton once told me that it was his invariable practice always to set his study table in order before going to bed. Its orderly aspect always filled me with wonder, and envy. But he was not cursed with the 'literary temperament', nor did he write books. Had he possessed the one or attempted the other, he would have found his admirable rule almost incapable of adoption.

[163]

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A chilly damp day, depressing almost to the point of suicide! Lionel went with me to Darlington, where I took train for Oxford. I left at 10.34 a.m., & arrived shortly before 5 p.m. The carriage was unshared by any other traveller, so that I had no interruption to the melancholy ruminations which divided the time with the newspapers. The Times publishes photographs of the outgoing and the incoming Archbishops: and Lang looks older than Davidson.

I wrote to Ella before dressing for dinner. There was a pleasant dinner–party. Oman & his wife, Casson, the junior proctor, a Fellow of New College, & his wife, and Miss Agnew were the guests besides myself. I was particularly interested in Casson's conversation. He has been digging in Constantinople, and Asia Minor, & spoke with knowledge & intelligence about Kemal and the r&eacutegime which he has established. He said that a million & a half of Greeks had been blotted out, & as many were refugees in Greece. He spoke of the sudden & apparently complete collapse of Mohammedanism, before the hostile action of the Turkish Government. Kemal himself is a whisky–drinking atheist!

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