The Henson Journals
Mon 17 March 1930
Volume 49, Page 162
[162]
Monday, March 17th, 1930.
Mr Weekes came again to seem me, & was reassuring. Ella arrived with the car shortly after 11 a.m., and I returned forthwith to Auckland Castle.
The papers announce my indisposition more prominently than the facts justify: and the "Newcastle Journal" gives a fair account of my sermon, which, however, the Times ignores altogether.
Stephenson sends me a hymn entitled 'A Prayer for Russia', which was sung in Gateshead Parish Church to the tune of what was once the Russian National Anthem. His is a very good man, for whom I have a real regard, but he is not a poet. Gadd of Burnhopḙmoor̭ is also addicted to the vice of writing hymns, & from time to time, sends me cuttings from the local newspaper, containing his effusions. But he, as little as Stephenson, possesses any poetic gift. What is the malignant influence which drives good men to such folly? Is it just naked vanity? or, is it really an incapacity to distinguish between verses and poetry? They both possess a certain fluency, which enables them to string together these rhyming lines, and they fall into an admiration of their achievement, and forthwith hasten to the printer!