Letters of C. S. Lewis

by C. S. Lewis

  On our run that day we stopped at Stonehenge—a very fine morning and intensely quiet except for a battery practising over the next ride. It was the first time I had heard a gun fired since I left France, and I cannot tell you how odd the sensation was. For one thing it seemed much louder and more sinister and generally unpleasant than I had expected: as was perhaps natural for the general tendency of memory to minimize, and also from the solitude and quiet of the place.

  I thought (as I had thought when we revisited Watford) how merciful it would be if we could sometimes forsee the future: how it would have carried me through many a long working night in the trenches if I could have seen myself ‘seven years on’ smoking my pipe in the oldest place in the old, safe, comfortable English fields where guns fire only at targets. But on the whole, however, it would not be a comfortable priveledge: though I have no doubt at all that it is accorded to some—but like all these mysterious leaks through of Something Else into our experience it seems to come without rhyme or reason, indifferently chosen for the trivial or the tragic occasion. I don’t know why I have blundered into this subject, which may not interest you: you must put it down as a momentary eruption of that sense of irremediable ignorance and bewilderment which is becoming every year more certainly my permanent reaction to things. Whatever else the human race was made for, it at least was not made to know.

  This is my last term ‘in the bond’ at Univ. and there is still no word of the Fellowship. I begin to be afraid that it is not coming at all. A Fellowship in English is announced at Magdalen and of course I am applying for it, but without any serious hopes as I believe much senior people including my own old English tutor are in for it. If he gets it I may get some of the ‘good will of the business’: I mean some of the pupils at Univ., Exeter and elsewhere whom he will have to abandon. These continued hopes deferred are trying, and I’m afraid trying for you too. About money, if you will put in £40—if you think this is reasonable—I shall be on the pig’s back.

  My best pupil is in great trouble. He went down in the middle of last term to attend his father’s deathbed. He came up late at the beginning of this term, having been detained at home while his mother was operated on for cancer. To make matters worse the poor fellow has been left very badly off by his father’s death, and it was even doubted last term whether he would be able to go on with his course. It is really extraordinary how long troubles are in letting go when they have once fastened on an individual or a house. If only he had a decent chance he would almost certainly get a first: he is in addition a very modest decent chap. One feels very helpless in coming continually into contact with such a case. If I were an older man, or again if I were his contemporary I might be able to convey some sense of sympathy: but the slight difference in age, or some defect in myself makes an insurmountable barrier and I can only feel how trivial or external and even impertinent my ‘philosophy’ must seem to him at such a moment.

  I am sorry if this is rather a scrappy letter—and likewise rather smudged and meanly written. I have been writing in pauses between pupils, and odd moments. You must not think that I am forgetful in my long silences. I have often things to say to you day by day, but in the absence of viva voce conversation they die away and the time and mood for a set letter do not come so easily.

  I have been into Hall and common room afterwards and heard an interesting thing. Do you remember Mrs Asquith’s saying in that detestable autobiography that she once asked Jowett if he had ever been in love? He replied ‘Yes’ and being asked what the lady was like, replied ‘Violent—very violent.’112 Apparently the lady was really Florence Nightingale. Poynton and Farquharson both knew of it. For her ‘violence’ see Strachey in Eminent Victorians. The story—a strange tragicomedy—seems to have been common property. Both the parties were irascable and opinionated and quarrelled nearly as often as they met: and yet the affair hung on for a long time . . .

  [On 20 May 1925 Mr Lewis recorded the following incident in his diary:

  While I was waiting for dinner Mary came into the study and said ‘The Post Office is on the phone’. I went to it.

  ‘A telegram for you.’

  ‘Read it.’

  ‘Elected Fellow Magdalen. Jack.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I went up to his room and burst into tears of joy. I knelt down and thanked God with a full heart. My prayers have been heard and answered.]

  TO HIS FATHER: from University College

  26 May 1925

  First, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for the generous support, extended over six years, which alone has enabled me to hang on till this. In the long course I have seen men at least my equals in ability and qualifications fall out for the lack of it. ‘How long can I afford to wait’ was everybody’s question: and few had those at their back who were both able and willing to keep them in the field so long. You have waited, not only without complaint but full of encouragement, while chance after chance slipped away and when the goal receded furthest from sight. Thank you again and again. It has been a nerve racking business, and I have hardly yet had time to taste my good fortune with a deliberate home felt relish.

  First of all, as I told you, I thought that I had my own tutor Wilson as a rival, which would have made the thing hopeless. But that I found to be a false rumour. Then I wrote to Wilson and Gordon (the Professor of English Literature)113 for testimonials, relying on them as my strongest supports. Within twenty-four hours I had the same answer from both. They were very sorry. If only they had known I was going in for it . . . they thought I had definitely abandoned English for philosophy. As it was, they had already given their support to my friend Coghill of Exeter. Once more, they were exceedingly sorry, and remained mine sincerely etc.

  This was enough to make anyone despair: but mark how the stars sometimes fight for us. Two days later came news that Coghill had been offered a fellowship by his own College and had withdrawn from the field. Wilson’s testimonial—a very good one—came by the next post. Gordon said he wouldn’t write anything as he was going to be consulted personally by the Magdalen people, but he would back me. This of course was much better than the testimonial. Still, I hardly allowed myself to hope. Then came a letter from Gordon—‘CONFIDENTIAL’. ‘I was asked my opinion about the candidates yesterday and I put my money on you. I think your chances good, but of course one never knows what the spin of the coin may do in such things.’ This, I said to myself, is at least nearer than I’ve ever got before: but don’t hope, don’t build on it.

  Then came an invitation to dine at Magdalen on Sunday a fortnight ago. This showed only that I was one of the possibles. Then came the little problems that seem so big at the time. Was Magdalen one of the Colleges where they wore white ties and tails, or did they wear dinner jackets and black ties? I asked the Farq. and he advised white tie and tails: and of course when I got there I found every one in black ties and dinner jackets. These dinners for inspection are not exactly the pleasantest way of spending one’s evening—as you may imagine. You can hardly say ‘He’ll enjoy it when he gets there’. But I must say they carried off as well as could be asked a situation which must be irksome to the hosts as well as to the guest. So far so good.

  Then came a spell of thundery weather of the sort that makes a man nervous and irritable even if he has nothing on his mind: and the news that Bryson and I were the two real candidates.114 Bryson comes from home and knows Arthur: but of course I mention his name in the strictest possible secrecy. One afternoon, in that week, I saw the said Bryson emerging from Magdalen and (‘so full of shapes is fancy’)115 felt an unanswerable inner conviction that he had won and made up my mind on it.

  On the Saturday Warren (1) met me in the street and had a vague tho’ kindly conversation with me.116 On Monday I had a very abrupt note from him asking me to see him on Tuesday morning, with the curious addition ‘It is most important’. I didn’t like it at all: it suggested some horrible hitch. Was I going to be viva-d on Anglo–Saxon ve
rbs or asked my views on the Thirty Nine Articles? We had thunder that night, but a poor storm and not enough to clear the air: and Tuesday rose up a grey clammy morning when one sweats every time one moves and the big blue bottles settle on your hands. This sounds like writing it up to an exciting conclusion: but it was a nasty morning and it was quite exciting enough for me at the time.

  I got to Magdalen, and, would you believe it, he kept me waiting for half an hour before he saw me. The choir boys were practising in the tower close by. When he did see me it turned out to be all formalities. They were electing tomorrow and thought me the ‘strongest and most acceptable candidate’. Now if I were elected would I agree to this, and would I be prepared to do that, and did I understand that the terms of the fellowship implied so and so. The only thing of the slightest importance was ‘would I be prepared in addition to the English pupils, to help with the philosophy’. (This, I imagine, stood me in good stead: probably no other candidate had done English as well as philosophy.) I need hardly say that I would have agreed to coach a troupe of performing bagbirds in the quadrangle: but I looked very wise and thought over all his points and I hope let no subservience appear. He then gave me a long talk about the special needs of Magdalen undergraduates—as if they were different from any others!—all as if I had been elected, but without saying I had been. During the whole interview he was cold and dry and not nearly so agreeable as he had been on the Saturday. He finally dismissed me with a request that I would hang about Univ. the following afternoon in case I were called for.

  And then next day—about 2.30—they telephoned for me and I went down. Warren saw me, told me I had been elected and shook hands: since, he has written me a very nice letter of congratulations saying that he believes they may congratulate themselves. It is a fine job as our standards go: starting at £500 a year with ‘provision made for rooms, a pension, and dining allowance’. The election for five years only in the first case of course means only that in five years they have the chance of getting rid of you if you turn out ‘hardly one of our successes’. One hopes, in the ordinary course of events, to be re-elected.

  A cat ‘met me in the day of my success’ and bit me deeply in the right thumb while I was trying to prevent it from attacking a small dog. In fact, to go on with the Shakespearian allusion, I came ‘between the fell incensed points of mighty opposites’.117 By dint of poultices I have now reduced the inflammation, and this is the first day I have been able to write with ease. It would have been better sooner if I had not been forced daily to answer as best I could the kind congratulations which have reached me. I must cut it short now. It has been an egotistical letter, but you asked for it. Once more, with very hearty thanks and best love . . .

  (1) I mean the President of Magdalen of course, not Big Brother.

  TO HIS FATHER: from University College

  14 August [1925]

  The only other event of importance since I last wrote has been my formal ‘admission’ at Magdalen. It is a formidable ceremony and not entirely to my taste. Without any warning of what was in store for me, the Vice-President (a young fellow called Wrong whom I have since got to know on the Cambridge jaunt)118 ushered me into a room where I found the whole household—it is large at Magdalen. Warren was standing and when Wrong laid a red cushion at his feet I realized with some displeasure that this was going to be a kneeling affair. Warren then addressed me for some five minutes in Latin. I was able to follow some three-quarters of what he said: but no one had told me what response I ought to make and it was with some hesitation that I hasarded do fidem as a reply—copying the formula for taking your M.A. This appeared to fill the bill. I was then told (in English) to kneel. When I had done so Warren took me by the hand and raised me with the words ‘I wish you joy’. It sounds well enough on paper but it was hardly impressive in fact: and I tripped over my gown in rising. I now thought my ordeal at an end: but I was never more mistaken in my life. I was sent all round the table and every single member in turn shook my hand and repeated the words ‘I wish you joy’. You can hardly imagine how odd it sounded by the twenty-fifth repetition. English people have not the talent for graceful ceremonial. They go through it lumpishly and with a certain mixture of defiance and embarrassment as if everyone felt he was being rather silly and was at the same time ready to shoot the first man who said so. In a French or Italian university now, this might have gone off nobly . . .

  In a way I share your regret that when the opening came it did not come at Univ. I shall never find a common room that I did not like better: and every break in the continuity of ones associations is in some degree unpleasant. No one likes, even at my age, to see any slice of life being finally turned over to the past.

  As to the other change—from Philosophy to English—I share your feeling less. I think you are mistaken in supposing that the field is less crowded in Philosophy: it seems so to you only because you have more chance of seeing the literary crowd. If you read Mind and one or two other periodicals of the sort as regularly as you read the Literary Supplement, you would probably change your view. I think things are about equal in that way. On other grounds I am rather glad of the change. I have come to think that if I had the mind, I have not the brain and nerves for a life of pure philosophy. A continued search among the abstract roots of things, a perpetual questioning of all that plain men take for granted, a chewing the cud for fifty years over inevitable ignorance and a constant frontier watch on the little tidy lighted conventional world of science and daily life—is this the best life for temperaments such as ours? Is it the way of health or even of sanity? There is a type of man, bull necked and self satisfied in his ‘pot bellied equanimity’ who urgently needs that bleak and questioning atmosphere. And what is a tonic to the Saxon may be a debauch to us Celts. As it certainly is to the Hindoos.

  I am not condemning philosophy. Indeed in turning from it to literary history and criticism, I am conscious of a descent: and if the air on the heights did not suit me, still I have brought back something of value. It will be a comfort to me all my life to know that the scientist and the materialist have not the last word: that Darwin and [Herbert] Spencer undermining ancestral beliefs stand themselves on a foundation of sand; of gigantic assumptions and irreconcilable contradictions an inch below the surface. It leaves the whole thing rich in possibilities: and if it dashes the shallow optimisms it does the same for the shallow pessimisms. But having once seen all this ‘darkness’, a darkness full of promise, it is perhaps best to shut the trapdoor and come back to ordinary life: unless you are one of the really great who can see into it a little way—and I was not.

  At any rate I escape with joy from one definite drawback of philosophy—its solitude. I was beginning to feel that your first year carries you out of the reach of all save other professionals. No one sympathizes with your adventures in that subject because no one understands them: and if you struck treasure trove no one would be able to use it. But perhaps this is enough on this subject. I hope you are well and free from corns, sore gums and all other ‘crosses’ . . .

  [On Jack’s next visit with his father they got on better than they had in a long time. In his diary for 13 September Mr Lewis wrote: ‘Jacks arrived for holiday. Looking very well and in great spirits.’ On 1 October he wrote: ‘Jacks returned. A fortnight and a few days with me. Very pleasant, not a cloud. Went to the boat with him. The first time I did not pay his passage money. I offered, but he did not want it.’

  Following his return to Oxford Jack divided his time between Magdalen and ‘Hillsboro’. During term he slept in his college rooms—Staircase 3, Number 3, of New Buildings—and visited the ‘family’ at ‘Hillsboro’ in the afternoons. When term ended this was reversed and he spent his nights at ‘Hillsboro’ and came into Magdalen whenever there was a need to do so.]

  TO HIS FATHER: from Magdalen College

  21 October 1925

  When we discussed the question of furnishing my rooms before I left, I thought it a very remote contin
gency. It was rather a crushing blow to find that I had to get everything—and for three spacious rooms: the extent of College’s bounty being some linoleum in the smaller sitting room and a washstand in the bedroom. It is hard to say on what principle fellows are provided with washstands but left to provide their own beds: unless it is a symbol of the combined vigilance and purity which is so characteristic of their corporate life. Carpets, tables, curtains, chairs, fenders, fire irons, coal boxes, table covers—everything—had to be bought in haste. It has cost me over £90, although I was able to pick up some things second hand. It sounds an alarming total, but I do not think I have been extravagant; the rooms certainly do not look as if they had been furnished by a plutocrat.

  My external surroundings are beautiful beyond expectation and beyond hope. To live in the Bishop’s Palace at Wells would be good but could hardly be better than this. My big sitting room looks north and from it I see nothing, not even a gable or spire, to remind me that I am in a town. I look down on a stretch of level grass which passes into a grove of immemorial forest trees, at present coloured with autumn red. Over this stray the deer. They are erratic in their habits. Some mornings when I look out there will be half a dozen chewing the cud just underneath me, and on others there will be none in sight—or one little stag (not much bigger than a calf and looking too slender for the weight of its own antlers) standing still and sending through the fog that queer little bark or hoot which is these beasts ‘moo’. It is a sound that will soon be as familiar to me as the cough of the cows in the field at home, for I hear it day and night. On my right hand as I look from these windows is ‘his favourite walk’.119 My smaller sitting room and bedroom looks out southward across a broad lawn to the main buildings of Magdalen with the tower across it. It beats Bannaher!