The Henson Journals

[223]

Friday, April 25th, 1930.

Rain fell heavily during the night, and the day was damp & clouded. I left Dargavel at 10.30 a.m. and motored to Auckland Castle, where I arrived at 5.25 p.m. The weather improved as I went south. At Appleby I had teas, & visited the parish church. I learned without surprize that the motor racing which had been arranged for Easter Monday had been postponed on account of the sodden stated of the ground. The Vicar had left a message for me conveying the information that McGowan, the Vicar of Hamsterley, had died. He was instituted as recently as 1927. I have now 3 livings in my gift vacant viz: Sedgefield, Evenwood, and Hamsterley. Per contra, I found a letter from the Rev Robert Wilson accepting the appointment to All Saints, Monkwearmouth.

The papers inform us Dean Welldon reaches the age of 76 today. He is rather older than I thought. He adds the garrulity of old age to the tactlessness, proper to his temperament: and charity suggests that we should be magnanimously indulgent to the exasperating outcome! His Easter Day sermon on the absenteeism & unspirituality of Bishops as the fontes malorum in the Church was_______ [sic]

[224]

April 25th, 1930

My dear K.

I returned from Scotland this afternoon. Your letter came into my hands at 8.15 p.m. However, I hope the enclosed will reach you in good time.

This is your last term at Oxford, and I shall not continue my assistance further. You have yourself limited our intercourse in the matter of 'giving & receiving', and therein, no doubt, disappointed me, the more since it destroys my power to befriend you further. I earnestly hope that you will get your degree, & get to work without delay. If you could overcome a morbid self–consciousness which makes friendship impossible, & wd address yourself to your duty in a manly spirit, you might yet play a man's part in the world. Anyway I wish you well.

Yours affectly

Herbert Dunelm:

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