The Henson Journals
Mon 5 January 1931
Volume 52, Pages 5 to 6
[5]
Monday, January 5th, 1931.
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["]Being refused at Cambridge, & driven to foreign universities, I never had any contemporaries, but spent years in looking for men wise enough to solve the problems that puzzled me, not in religion or politics so much as along the wavy line between the two. So I was always associated with men a generation older than myself, most of whom died early – for me – and all of whom impressed on me the same moral that one must do one's learning & thinking for oneself, without expecting short cuts or relying on other men. And that led to the elaborate detachment, the unanimous unamiable isolation, the dread of personal influences, which you justly censure.["]
L. Acton to Mary Gladstone. 1881
This might be adopted by myself with little alteration, always of course allowing for the difference in circumstances and personality. Lord Acton came of a distinguished stock, & from the first moved in the great international world of diplomacy & learning. Moreover, he was a Roman Catholick. Yet the resemblance is true, & illuminating.
[6]
Ella's temperature was higher again, so I suggested to the doctor the advisableness of a second opinion. He agreed readily, & undertook to call in a Newcastle doctor, named Hume, whom he recommended.
I finished re–reading Acton's letters to Mary Gladstone. His almost fanatical admiration for the G.O.M. becomes rather tiresome, & all his references to current politics are disfigured by a partisanship, as thoroughgoing as it is intellectually and morally contemptible. But, apart from this, he is wonderful. His amazing wealth of knowledge, his insight, & power of expression make his criticisms almost uniquely valuable. His hatred of the Counter–Reformation is startling in a devout Papist. He had a "deep aversion for" Newman (p.135), & had no great respect for Liddon (p 179) although he pressed him hard for appointment to London.(p201). There is a long, detailed and very damaging criticism of "John Inglesant" which is noteworthy (p. 130 – 148). His intense admiration for George Eliot finds frequent expression, & is rather hard to understand.
Dr Brown Hume was, on the whole, re–assuring. He attributes the mischief to a bad state of the throat, & meditated cauterising a tonsil. This allows me to assume that there is no more recondite & serious trouble.