The Henson Journals

[170]

Saturday, July 26th, 1930.

[struck through]Ella and I had accepted an invitation to spend the week–end at Royston, but I felt so ill in the morning, that we judged it prudent to cancel our arrangement: so I did not go to Lambeth, but remained in bed. Later I got up, & wrote several letters. Kenneth sent me the account from Wadham College (£27:2:10), which I paid. Dare I hope that this payment brings to an end the considerable & useless expenditure which I have incurred on behalf of the worthless youth? [end]

In view of our discussions next week, I read through again Lindsey's 'Revolt of Youth', noting particularly his statements of fact, and distinguishing them from his expressions of opinion. The last are interesting as one more illustration of the extraordinary religious and moral confusion of own age, the first are important as an authoritative testimony to the moral disintegration of American society. No doubt the anarchic theory is born of the anarchic practice, of which it essays to provide the formal justification.

[171]

The last week has been unusually filled with calamities. A typhoon in Japan has destroyed many thousands of people, & wrought wide havock: but Japan is so remote as almost to be outside our sympathy. Nearer home, an earthquake in Southern Italy has killed about 1500 people, & rendered twenty times that number homeless. Mussolini has prohibited private relief efforts, & accepts sole responsibility for the State. Even this disaster does not greatly move us. But the wrecking of an aeroplane in Kent, involving the death of half a dozen individuals of the upper class fills us with consternation. Among the victims were Lord Dufferin and Viscountess Ednam. I met them both at Mountstewart, and liked them. How thin is the partition between life and death! How futile and meaningless all our stirrings and aspirations appear beside the grim Contingency of sudden Death! Well may we pray with the Psalmist. "Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days that I may be certified how long I have to live": but it is a prayer that is rarely answered.

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