The Henson Journals

[164]

4th Sunday after Trinity, June 23rd, 1929.

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A bright morning, cooler, & with some vehemence of wind. I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 9 a.m. We only numbered six communicants. Collect, Epistle, & Gospel – all at their very best, searching & Divinely consolatory.

I took Mr Speed and Lionel with me to Burnmoor, when I dedicated a huge marble statue of Victory presented by the present Earl of Durham as a monument of the twins, his uncle & father, who both preceded him in the earldom. There was of course, a crowded congregation, and my sermon was closely listened to. It was not an easy sermon to prepare or to deliver, for I could not use the language of eulogy about two men, who had not made much mark on their generation. They were devoted twins, & and they had a real love for Durham. Voila tout! I preached on the Statue rather than on the Earls, pointing out the power of Christ to make His disciple victorious both over untoward circumstances and over the crowning disaster of Death.

[165]

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After the service we all l lunched at Lambton. I had much talk with the new Earl, who impressed himself with courtesy & intelligence. He said that by the sale of race–horses & the houses in London & Newmarket the position, which the enormous death–duties had created, was considerably relieved, that he desired to reside at Lambton, that he liked the house, & hoped to be able to make it his home. He said that he had been offered £152,000 for the beautiful picture, "Master John Lambton", but that he was resolved not to sell it.

I attended evensong in Durham Cathedral and afterwards had tea with the Dean. Speed was interested in the Deanery.

I learned to my extreme distress that my dear old friend, J. G.Wilson, had died at 1.30 p.m. He was a man of considerable ability, of rare personal attractiveness, and of large popularity. His acts of kindness were numberless, and always performed with a sympathetic tact which doubled their value. I think the sudden loss of his sight broke his heart, and he just petered out helplessly in a few months.

[166]

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I wrote a letter to Wilson's eldest son who now calls himself Luxmore: and then I wrote to Ella, and to William, giving them the ill news. Wilson had a strong liking for William, and often inquired after his progress in South Africa.

Then I dined alone with the painter. He talks a great deal about himself, and is perhaps a little too plainly bent on making an impression. More than once he told me that he had had no education, leaving school at 14 in order to attend art–classes. He gained a scholarship at 19 which enabled him to go to Italy. He is fond of talking about religion, respecting which he imagines himself to have original notions. He is 57 years old, and was much surprized to hear that I was 66. He has a clever, energetic, rather impudent face, a bold almost swaggering manner, and a freedom of language which does not always observe the limits of decorum. He finds my facial expressions so various as to be rather bewildering, which is to be taken as genuinely characteristic?

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