THE “GLOOMY DEAN”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21361, 15 June 1931, Page 14

THE “GLOOMY DEAN”

HIS UNPALATABLE TRUTHS. Although nobody would guess it from his writings. Dean Inge im aged 70 years. Very shortly after his appointment 20 years ago as Dean of St. Paul’s he told some unpalatable truths, and a journalist at once named him “ The Gloomy Dean.” “ Amicus,” writing in the Spectator, describes him as follows: —He has gloomy aspects. He walks about the world with eyelids lowered, his head on one side, apparently muttering to himself. And he has not the gift of being jocularly optimistic when it is considered good form to be so. Some years ago there was celebrated at St. Paul’s the tercentenary of the birth of Sir Christopher Wren. The cathedral Was full. The front rows were full of corpulent gentlemen covered with robes, chains, and badges. The Dean, preached. What did he say? Literally, I know not; but in effect this: “Well, we have met together to 'celebrate the tercentenary of Sir Christopher Wren. He" was undoubtedly a great mathematician and a great engineer. I don’t think he was a great architect; or, if he was, he certainly was not a great religious architect. This building is a triumph of engineering, but there is no spirituality about it at all; it might be a great town hall, but it is certainly not a great cathedral. It is nevertheless fine in its own way. However, we have just had one great war, and we shall probably soon have another. When the next great war comes, weapons of destruction will be far more efficient than they have ever been in the past, and probably .this building, together with every other physical thing that we value, will be blown into dust. And now to . . .” At which point one of the portly gentlemen in a gold collar turned to his neighbour, in front of me, and whispered: “ There you are; gloomy as usual! ” j Dr Inge is a born aristocrat. He believes in breeding (and supports eugenics); he believes in education (and opposes levelling democracy); he recognises the difference of races, and embraces the doctrine of the white man’s burden. A very sensitive man, he is peculiarly on his guard against sentimentality: the things he attacks meet bitterly ire the things he most ‘narrowly escaped, escaping, them through the power of his reason. As a scholar he was chiefly distinguished by his studies in mysticism; as, a propagandist he is akin to the bishop who wrote; “Things and actions are what they are; and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why then should we wjsh to be deceived ? ” Dean Inge is one of the' few men now writing who envisage the consequences of current legislation. Because he looks at facts and expresses himself with painful acidity, he differs from everybody about something. By the same token he agrees with everybody about something. “ I withdraw what I said about Dean Inge last Week” is a remark one frequently hears. Privately, he is sociable, and disdains neither his cigar nor his glass. And he has been intimate with most of the greatest men of his day—who have known their peer.