If in his undergraduate days he
had said a thing or two in the modern vein, affected the socialism
of William Morris and learnt some Swinburne by heart, it was out of a
conscious wildness. He did not wish to be a prig. He had taken a far
more genuine interest in the artistry of ritual.
Through all the time of his incumbency of the church of the Holy
Innocents, St. John's Wood, and of his career as the bishop suffragan
of Pinner, he had never faltered from his profound confidence in those
standards of his home. He had been kind, popular, and endlessly active.
His undergraduate socialism had expanded simply and sincerely into a
theory of administrative philanthropy. He knew the Webbs. He was
as successful with working-class audiences as with fashionable
congregations. His home life with Lady Ella (she was the daughter of
the fifth Earl of Birkenholme) and his five little girls was simple,
beautiful, and happy as few homes are in these days of confusion. Until
he became Bishop of Princhester--he followed Hood, the first bishop,
as the reign of his Majesty King Edward the Peacemaker drew to its
close--no anticipation of his coming distress fell across his path.
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