by C. S. Lewis
I sometimes wonder if this country will kill the public schools before they kill it. My experience goes on confirming the ideas about them which were first suggested to me by Malvern long ago. The best scholars, the best men, and (properly understood) the best gentlemen, seem now to come from places like Dulwich, or to be wafted up on country scholarships from secondary schools. Except for pure classics (and that only at Winchester, and only a few boys even there) I really don’t know what gifts the public schools bestow on their nurslings, beyond the mere surface of good manners: unless contempt of the things of the intellect, extravagance, insolence, self-sufficiency, and sexual perversion are to be called gifts . . .
The first chapter of my book is finished and typed and the only two people who have seen it approve. The unfortunate thing is that nobody in Oxford really knows anything about the subject I have chosen. I may have made some elementary blunder which the French people—who have so far mainly studied the matter—would pounce on in a moment. However, my translation of some Old French into contemporary English (forgery is great fun) has passed Onions who knows more than anyone else about the English of that period . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from Magdalen College (after spending Christmas at ‘Little Lea’)
[3 February 1929]
I look in vain for any item of news fit to be extracted from the uneventful routine . . . The new President and his family have not yet moved into the Lodgings, where the work of putting in bathrooms which is now going forwards, throws a new light on the venerable domestic economy of the previous regime.
My current lecture (on Elyot, Ascham, Hooker and Bacon) has attracted as a distinguished member of its audience the Mother Superior of the local hostel for papish undergraduettees—I suppose because I fired off by an attack on Calvin. If you hear indirectly that the Church of Rome is hoping for a distinguished convert among the young Oxford dons, you will know how to interpret it.
The undergraduates have just brought off a good rag by getting a copy of the university seal and circularizing all the garages in Oxford with a notice purporting to come from the Vice Chancellor and Proctors and rescinding an order made last term by which all these places were compelled to shut for undergraduate use at eleven. Unfortunately this excellent joke was disclosed before it had had any time to run its course . . .
TO HIS BROTHER (in Shanghai): from ‘Hillsboro’
Postmark: 13 April 1929
I am ashamed of my long idleness, though indeed the gap between my last and your last was almost as long as the gap between your last and this. I must admit too, that I am moved to write at this moment by the selfish consideration that I heard last night a thing which you of all people ought to hear—you know how one classifies jokes according to the people one wants to tell them to—and am therefore uneasy till I have unloaded it.
The other night an undergraduate, presumably drunk, at dinner in the George covered the face of his neighbour with potatoes, his neighbour being a total stranger. Whether this means simply that he flung the contents of the potato dish at him or (as I prefer to think) that he seized him firmly by the short hairs and systematically lathered him with warm mash, my informant could not say. But that is not the point of the story. The point is, that being haled before the Proctors and asked why he had done so, the culprit, very gravely and with many expressions of regret, pleaded in so many words ‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do!’
I am sure you will share my delight at this transference of the outrage from the class of positive to that of negative faults: as though it proceeds entirely from a failure of the inventive faculty or a mere poverty of the imagination. One ought to be careful of sitting near one of these unimaginative men. The novel idea can be worked equally well from either end: whether one thinks of the mohawk bashing your hat over your eyes with the words ‘Sorry old chap, I know its a bit hackneyed, but I can’t think of anything better’—or of some elderly P’dayta exclaiming testily ‘Ah what all these young men lack now-a-days is initiative’ as he springs into the air from the hindward pressure of a pin . . .
By the by, I thoroughly agree with you about Scott: in fact I think that even his most fanatical admirers have ‘given up’ his heroines (with the exception of Die Vernon and Jeanie Deans) and his love scenes. But then one gives that up in all XIX Century novels: certainly in Dickens and Thackeray. And when you have ruled that out, what remains is pure delight. Isn’t it nice to find a person who knows history almost entirely by tradition? History to Scott means the stories remembered in the old families, or sometimes the stories remembered by sects and villages. I should say he was almost the last person in modern Europe who did know it that way: and that, don’t you think, is at the back of all his best work. Claverhouse, say, was to Scott not ‘a character out of Macaulay’ (or Hume or Robertson) but the man about whom old Lady so and so tells one story and about whom some antediluvian local minister’s father told another. Printed and documented history probably kills a lot of this traditional local history and what is finally left over is put in guide books. (When nothing else can be said about an old church you can always say that Cromwell stabled his horses in it.)
Scott was only just in time to catch it still living. This (so historians tell me) has had one unforseen result, that Scotch history has ever since been more neglected than that of any other civilized country: the tradition, once stamped by Scott’s imagination, has so satisfied curiosity that science has hardly ventured to show its head. It is a pity that no one similarly caught the tradition in England—tho’ probably there was less to catch.
I suppose the Scotch were a people unusually tenacious of old memories, as for example Mr Oldbuck. I am not sure that The Antiquary is not the best. Do you remember his efforts to get the hero to write an epic on the battle of? in order to work in his excursus on castramentation? . . . Nothing militates so much against Scott as his popularity in Scotland. The Scotch have a curious way of rendering wearisome to the outside world whatever they admire. I daresay Burns is quite a good poet—really: if only he could ever escape from the stench of that unmerciful haggis and the lugubrious jollities of Auld Lang Syne. What a world it opens upon—the ‘kail yard’ school—beside the bonny briar bush—Mansie Wauch.
I have just suddenly (as I write) seen what is the trouble about all this Scotchness. When you want to be typically English you pretend to be very hospitable and honest and hearty. When you want to be typically Irish you try to be very witty and dashing and fanciful. That is to say, the typical English or Irish mode consists in the assumption of certain qualities which are in themselves quite pleasant. But the typically Scotch consists not in being loud or quiet, or merry or sad, or in any recognizable quality, but just in being Scotch . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from Magdalen College
[19 May 1929]
I hope your recovery from the winter ’flu has been permanent. My own prolonged cold, having lasted out the term, worked up into a sore throat and temperature and a few days in bed about Easter time. This finally got rid of the trouble and was not unpleasant. It gave me the excuse to be idle and the chance to re-read some old favourites—including The Antiquary. Read the Antiquary. I think it contains the cream of Scott’s humour and very nearly the cream of his tragedy.
I also re-read Pickwick, but this, as you know, I can hardly call an old favourite. Indeed I have only read it once before. This time I hoped I had at last got the secret and become a real convert: but my second reading has broken the spell, I am a relapsed heretic. It won’t do. I like the Wellers, both father and son, and I like the trial: but Eatanswill and Mrs Leo Hunter and Bill Stumps, his Mark, seem to me laboured and artificial, and I can’t forgive him for showing us poor Jingle in prison and repentance. The whole spirit in which we enjoy a comic rogue depends on leaving out the consideration of the consequences which his character would have in real life: bring that in, and every such character (say Falstaff) becomes tragic. To invite us to treat Jingle as a comic character and then spring th
e tragic side on us, is a mere act of bad faith. No doubt that is how Jingle wd end in real life. But then in real life it would have been our fault if we had originally treated him as a comic character. In the book you are forced to do so and are therefore unjustly punished when the tragedy comes . . .
I have a capital story which is quite new to me. The hero is a certain Professor Alexander, a philosopher, at Leeds, but I have no doubt that the story is older than he. He is said to have entered a railway carriage with a large perforated cardboard box which he placed on his knees. The only other occupant was an inquisitive woman. She stood it as long as she could, and at last, having forced him into conversation and worked the talk round (you can fill in that part of the story yourself) ventured to ask him directly what was in the box. ‘A mongoose madam.’ The poor woman counted the telegraph posts going past for a while and again could bear her curiosity no further. ‘And what are you going to do with the mongoose?’ she asked. ‘I am talking it to a friend who is unfortunately suffering fom delirium tremens.’ ‘And what use will a mongoose be to him?’ ‘Why, Madam, as you know, the people who suffer from that disease find themselves surrounded with snakes: and of course a mongoose eats snakes.’ ‘Good Heavens!’ cried the lady, ‘but you don’t mean that the snakes are real?’ ‘Oh dear me, no’ said the Professor with imperturbable gravity. ‘But then neither is the mongoose!’ . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from Magdalen College
17 July [1929]
This week a curious thing has happened. I have had a letter from Malvern stating that ‘Malvern College Ltd’ has been wound up and the school has now been put under a board of governors, and asking me to allow my name to be put up for election as one of them. As they are to number over a hundred the honour is not so overwhelming as at first appears. In my first heat I composed a very fine letter declining on the ground of my ‘limited knowledge of public school life and, still more, my imperfect sympathy with the aims and ideals of public schools’. This I enjoyed doing: but then alas ‘the native hue of resolution was sickled o’er with the pale cast of thought’. I reflected that this would get about and that the great junta of masters and old boys of various schools would pass from one to the other the word—‘If you have a boy going to Oxford, I shouldn’t recommend Magdalen. Lot of queer fish there now. Cranks etc. etc.’ So I funked it, tore up my first letter, and wrote an acceptance. I hope I should have been able to hold out against the purely prudential considerations (‘funk’ is the simpler word) if I had not been supported by the feeling, as soon as I had cooled, that membership of such a huge board would be purely nominal, except for the ring of ‘insiders’, and that therefore if I refused I should be only making a storm in a teacup. But won’t Warnie be tickled?—if I remember you and I discussed this situation purely as a joke when I was last at home.
Try to let me have a line when you feel like it. Don’t be put off writing altogether because you feel unequal to an essay—just a note to say that you have made up your mind where we are going. I should also be glad to hear some news of the Colonel, and of when he is coming back. He is badly in my epistolatory debt.
[For some time Jack had been trying to take his father on a holiday away from Belfast. But this time Mr Lewis was avoiding a holiday because he felt too ill to go anywhere. One of the doctors attending him was his brother Joseph’s son, Dr Joseph ‘Joey’ Lewis (1898–1969), who had known Jack and Warren all his life. ‘Joey’ was a distinguished blood specialist in the Belfast Infirmary and he persuaded his uncle to have some X-rays made on 26 July. That evening Mr Lewis wrote in his diary: ‘Xrayed. Results rather disquieting.’ Jack had already heard from Mr Lewis’s brother, Richard Lewis, who had visited Albert 4–9 July, that his father was not well. He learned from ‘Joey’ about the results of the X-rays.]
TO HIS FATHER: from Magdalen College
Postmark: 5 August 1929
My dear, dear Papy,
I am very glad you have written. I had heard the news and was anxious to write, but hardly knew how to do so. I will, of course, come home at the first moment. Unfortunately I have to go to Cambridge on the 8th for this examining, but will cross to Ireland on the 12th. Don’t bother to write yourself if you are not up to it, but see that I am informed.
I gather from what I heard that there is much that is hopeful in the first photo. It would be silly to pretend that this can set worries at rest for either of us; there is surer ground—at least for you—in the wonderful spirit, as shown in your letter, with which you are taking it. I wish I could convey to you one tithe of the respect and affection which I felt in reading it. For the rest, what can I say to you that is not already understood? What can any of us do for one another except give a handshake and a good wish, and hope to do as well when our own time comes to be under fire. It has been a bit of a strain this last week to keep my mind on examination papers for nine hours a day, and I am specially glad that you have written. I was told everything in confidence, I didn’t know that you knew I knew, and I could do nothing. I wish I could come straight away but I can hardly get out of Cambridge now. I know what hospitals and nursing homes are like—there at any rate I can sympathize with some experience.
Whatever the next few days brings forth I hope you will make no decision about your treatment without letting me know. I don’t of course mean to postpone such decision (necessarily) till next week: but see that I am told. Of course if there is serious trouble, you will have other advice than that of the Belfast crowd.
With all my love and my best wishes—I wish there was anything more useful I could offer—your loving son . . .
TO HIS BROTHER: from ‘Little Lea’
25 August 1929
In the study, 8.30 P.M.
This is a line to let you know that P. is rather seriously ill. The first I heard of it was from Uncle Dick about a month ago when I was still in Oxford, and then, in answer to my enquiry, from Joey who is attending him. The trouble is abdominal. The first fear was of course cancer. Xray photos cannot apparently disprove this with certainty, but their evidence, I’m glad to say, is all against it and according to Joey the other features of the case render it very improbable. We must not of course kid ourselves by saying impossible. The present diagnosis is that he is suffering from a narrowing of the passage in one of the bowels. The ordinary cure for this is the operation known as short circuiting: but they had hoped that if he would go on a light diet he would manage to get along, not in perfect health but in tolerable comfort, without being operated upon—or at any rate that the operation would be indefinitely postponed.
I came home immediately after my Cambridge examining and found things at this point. He was up and pretty well. About a week ago however he had an attack in the night of a sort of convulsion and shivering—they call it rigor—of which I only learnt next morning. This was not regarded as a very serious symptom by either Joey or Squeaky, but they kept him in bed. Next night when I took his temperature about nine I found it 103 and got the surgeon McConnell (a colleague of Joey’s in the case from the start) out to see him about midnight. He was light headed but the temperature fell in the morning. Since then he has been monkeying up and down and of couse he has been in bed. This evening they have told him that it is pretty certain that he will have to have the operation. They are to consult again in a few days and we shall then know for sure. He is taking it extraordinarily well. I shall of course stay until the operation is over, unless they postpone it till Christmas. As for you, I suppose it would be (a) Impossible, (b) Useless for you to get special leave as the affair is pretty sure to be settled before you could get home.
I have a great many things on other subjects to say—on Liverpool Cathedral and the new Liverpool boat and so forth—but this is only a note for necessity. I have been up the most of a good many nights with the P’daitabird and can’t leave the house long enough to get decent walks, so am rather tired and do not feel in form for a letter. This is from the little end room at about 10. P.M. What a pity you’re
not here. In spite of the worrying situation we should find redeeming features about Leeborough under the present regime. When one is alone it is by no means so pleasant. Thanks for your last letter and excuse me for this scrawl. Remember I have the Leeborough demoralization on me as well as the cures of a patient. And by Gum, both ones morals and ones morale are hard put to it.
Of course the present emergency does not cancel immemorial rules. If your letter arrives P. may be—lets hope to goodness he will be—up again, and you must write therefore only what can be shown. When I am creeping about at night at present, or looking at his fire, I often derive a sort of whimsical pleasure from thinking of the long training in stealth for quite different purposes of which he is now the object in a new sense. I’m sorry that you have had an envelope in my handwriting, of which the contents will disappoint you so much as this. I am just going to creep on tiptoe to the cellar—the key being very sensibly in my charge—to get a mouthful of the whiskey.
TO HIS BROTHER: from ‘Little Lea’
29 August 1929
To be frank, you owe this second letter to a typically Leeburian situation. I had mentioned to the P’daitabird that I was writing to you, and this has provoked such a hailstorm of advice and warning—I must write on the thinnest paper and I must go to Condlin [his managing clerk] to get the right sort of envelope—and of questions—how am I getting on with my letter to the Colonel—that there is nothing for it. Sooner or later I must satisfy him with the touch and sight of a letter that by its size will not [be] too obviously a notification of his illness and therefore a cause of alarm to him. And I think it would be really too unkind to send you a wad of toilet paper.
