by C. S. Lewis
And, in another way, isn’t this splendid ‘Whenever, after the shortest relaxation of vigilance, reason and caution return to their charge, they find hope again in possession.’
What is the betting I forget to put that lyric in after all?—They keep sheep in Magdalen grove now and I hear the fleecy care bleating all day long; I am shocked to find that none of my pupils, though they are all acquainted with pastoral poetry, regards them as anything but a nuisance: and one of my colleagues has been heard to ask why sheep have their wool cut off. (Fact)
It frightens me almost. And so it did the other night when I heard two undergrads. giving a list of pleasures which were (a) Nazi. (b) Leading to homosexuality. They were, feeling the wind in your hair, walking with bare feet in the grass, and bathing in the rain. Think it over: it gets worse the longer you look at it.
More cheering is the true report from Cambridge of a conversation:
A. What is this Ablaut that K. keeps on talking about in his lectures?
B. Oh don’t you know, he was in love with Eloise . . .
TO OWEN BARFIELD: from Magdalen College (at the time of Munich and the approach of the next war)
12 September 1938
What awful quantities of this sort of thing seem necessary to break us in, or, more correctly, to break us off. One thinks one has made some progress towards detachment, some , and begin to realise, and to acquiesce in, the rightly precarious hold we have on all our natural loves, interests, and comforts: then when they are really shaken, at the very first breath of that wind, it turns out to have been all a sham, a field-day, blank cartridges.
This is how I was thinking last night about the war danger. I had so often told myself that my friends and books and even brains were not given me to keep: that I must teach myself at bottom to care for something else more (and also of course to care for them more, but in a different way), and I was horrified to find how cold the idea of really losing them struck.
An awful symptom is that part of oneself still regards troubles as ‘interruptions’—as if (ludicrous idea) the happy bustle of our personal interests was our real e’´πυον, instead of the opposite. I did in the end see (I dare not say ‘feel’) that since nothing but these forcible shakings will cure us of our worldliness, we might have at bottom reason to be thankful for them. We force God to surgical treatment: we won’t (mentally) diet . . .
Of course, our whole joint world may be blown up before the end of the week. I can’t feel in my bones that it will, but my bones know damn-all about it. If we are separated, God bless you, and thanks for a hundred good things I owe to you, more than I can count or weigh. In some ways we’ve had a corking time these twenty years.
Be thankful you have nothing to reproach yourself about in your relations with your father (I had lots) and that it is not some worse disease. The horror of a stroke must be felt almost entirely by the spectators . . .
TO OWEN BARFIELD: from Magdalen College
8 February [1939]
Two week ends of Feb. fall in term: the 5th–8th and the 12th–15th. If you choose the former you will be able to hear Tillyard and me finishing our controversy viva voce, but as I have to give him a bed perhaps the 12th wd be better. No doubt I shall be defeated in the controversy.151
I don’t know if Plato did write the Phaedo: the canon of these ancient writers, under the surface, is still quite chaotic. It is also a very corrupt text. Bring it along by all means, but don’t pitch your hopes too high. We are both getting so rusty that we shall make very little of it—and my distrust of all lexicons and translations is increasing. Also of Plato—and of the human mind.
I suppose for the sake of the others we must do something about arranging a walk. Those maps are so unrealiable by now that it is rather a farce—but still ‘Try lad, try! No harm in trying’. Of course hardly any districts in England are unspoiled enough to make walking worth while: and with two new members—I have very little doubt it will be a ghastly failure.
I haven’t seen C. W.’s play: it is not like to be at all good.152
As for Orpheus—again it’s no harm trying. If you can’t write it console yourself by reflecting that if you did you wd have been v. unlikely to get a publisher.153 I am more and more convinced that there is no future for poetry.
Nearly everyone has been ill here: I try to prevent them all croaking and grumbling but it is hard being the only optimist. Let me know which week end: whichever you choose something will doubtless prevent it. I hear the income-tax is going up again. The weather is bad and looks like getting worse. I suppose war is certain now. I don’t believe language is a perpetual Orphic song . . .
P.S. Even my braces are in a frightful condition. ‘Damn braces’ said Blake.
TO MRS JOAN BENNETT: from Magdalen College (Mrs Bennett had probably taken exception to the chapter entitled ‘Limbo’ in Lewis’s book The Pilgrim’s Regress [1933].)
5 April 1939
I’m sorry about the Athanasian Creed—the passage illustrates how important it is in writing to say what you mean and not to say anything you don’t mean. As the context suggests, I was thinking purely of the Trinitarian doctrine and had quite forgotten the damnatory clauses. There are however several palliatives. Residence in Limbo I am told is compatible with ‘perishing everlastingly’ and you’ll find it quite jolly, for whereas Heaven is an acquired taste, Limbo is a place of ‘perfect natural happiness’. In fact you may be able to realise your wish ‘of attending with one’s whole mind to the history of the human spirit’. There are grand libraries in Limbo, endless discussions, and no colds. There will be a faint melancholy because you’ll all know that you have missed the bus, but that will provide a subject for poetry. The scenery is pleasant though tame. The climate endless autumn.
Seriously, I don’t pretend to have any information on the fate of the virtuous unbeliever. I don’t suppose this question provided the solitary exception to the principle that actions on a false hypothesis lead to some less satisfactory result than actions on a true. That’s as far as I would go—beyond feeling that the believer is playing for higher stakes and incurring danger of something really nasty . . .
TO DOM BEDE GRIFFITHS, O.S B.: from Magdalen College
8 May 1939
It was nice to hear from you again. I think I said before that I have no contribution to make about re-union. It was never more needed. A united Christendom should be the answer to the new Paganism. But how reconciliation of the Churches, as opposed to conversions of individuals from a church to another, is to come about, I confess I cannot see. I am inclined to think that the immediate task is vigorous co-operation on the basis of what even now is common—combined, of course, with full admission of the differences. An experienced unity on some things might then prove the prelude to a confessional unity on all things. Nothing wd give such strong support to the Papal claims as the spectacle of a Pope actually functioning as head of Christendom. But it is not, I feel sure, my vocation to discuss reunion.
Yes, I do like George Eliot. Romola is a most purgative work on the facilis descensus, because the final state of the character is so different from his original state and yet all the transitions are so dreadfully natural. Mind you, I think George Eliot labours her morality a bit: it has something of the ungraceful ponderousness of all heathen ethics. (I recently read all Seneca’s epistles and think I like the Stoics better than George Eliot.) The best of all her books as far as I have read is Middlemarch. It shows such an extraordinary understanding of different kinds of life—different classes, ages, and sexes. Her humour is nearly always admirable.
I thought we had talked of Patmore. I think him really great within his own limited sphere. To be sure he pushes the parallel between Divine and human love as far as it can sanely or decently go, and perhaps at times a little further. One can imagine his work being most pernicious to a devout person who read it at the wrong age. But a superb poet. Do you remember the comparison of the naturally virtuous person who receives grace at
conversion to a man walking along and suddenly hearing a band playing, and then ‘His step unchanged, he steps in time’. Or on the poignancy of spring, ‘With it the blackbird breaks the young day’s heart’. Or the lightening during a storm at sea which reveals ‘The deeps/ Standing about in stony heaps’. That is sheer genius. And the tightness (if you know what I mean) of all his work. The prose one (Rod, Root & Flower) contains much you might like.
No, I haven’t joined the Territorials. I am too old. It wd be hypocrisy to say that I regret this. My memories of the last war haunted my dreams for years. Military service, to be plain, includes the threat of every temporal evil; pain and death wh. is what we fear from sickness: isolation from those we love wh. is what we fear from exile: toil under arbitrary masters, injustices and humiliation, wh. is what we fear from slavery: hunger, thirst, cold and exposure wh. is what we fear from poverty. I’m not a pacifist. If its got to be, its got to be. But the flesh is weak and selfish and I think death wd be much better than to live through another war.
Thank God, He has not allowed my faith to be greatly tempted by the present horrors. I do not doubt that whatever misery He permits will be for our ultimate good unless, by rebellious will, we convert it to evil. But I get no further than Gethsemane: and am daily thankful that that scene, of all others in Our Lord’s life, did not go unrecorded. But what state of affairs in this world can we view with satisfaction?
If we are unhappy, then we are unhappy. If we are happy, then we remember than the crown is not promised without the cross and tremble. In fact, one comes to realize, what one always admitted theoretically, that there is nothing here that will do us good: the sooner we are safely out of this world the better. But ‘would it were evening, Hal, and all well’. I have even, I’m afraid, caught myself wishing that I have never been born, wh. is sinful. Also, meaningless if you try to think it out.
The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes. They cannot sound otherwise to those who have not had the relevant experience: that is why there is no real teaching of such truths possible and every generation starts from scratch . . .
TO SISTER PENELOPE, C.S.M.V. (who had written to him about Out of the Silent Planet): from Magdalen College
9 July [August] 1939
The letter at the end is pure fiction and the ‘circumstances wh. put the book out of date’ are merely a way of preparing for a sequel. But the danger of ‘Westonism’ I meant to be real.
What set me about writing the book was the discovery that a pupil of mine took all that dream of interplanetary colonisation quite seriously, and the realisation that thousands of people, in one form or another depend on some hope of perpetuating and improving the human species for the whole meaning of the universe—that a ‘scientific’ hope of defeating death is a real rival to Christianity. At present, of course, the prospect of a war has rather damped them: which shows that whatever evil Satan sets on foot God will always do some good or other by it. I don’t think even ‘for believers only’ I could describe Ransom’s revelation to Oyarsa: the fact that you want me to really proves how well advised I was merely to suggest it.
You will be both grieved and amused to learn that out of about sixty reviews, only two showed any knowledge that my idea of the fall of the Bent One was anything but a private invention of my own! But if only there were someone with a richer talent and more leisure, I believe this great ignorance might be a help to the evangelization of England: any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under cover of romance without their knowing it.
I have given your God Persists a first reading with great pleasure. I value it particularly for its frank emphasis on those elements in the faith which too many modern apologists try to keep out of sight for fear they will be called mythical. I am sure this weakens our case. I like very much your treatment of Heathenism (my own debts to it are enormous—it was through almost believing in the gods that I came to believe in God) on p. 31. Also p. 33 on the seedling for special culture and the danger of reverting to ‘common’ weed. That continual narrowing out, selecting from a selection, does seem to be so very characteristic of God’s method. Can you tell me anything more about the ‘crossing’ of the nomadic and agricultural religions on p. 36? On p. 43 ‘God sat again for His portrait’ is a most successful audacity.
I think your task of finding suitable fiction for the convalescents must be interesting. Do you know George Macdonald’s fantasies for grown-ups (his tales for children you probably know already): Phantastes & Lilith I found endlessly attractive, and full of what I felt to be holiness before I really knew that it was. One of his novels, Sir Gibbie (Everyman), though often, like all his novels, amateurish, is worth reading. And do you know the works of Charles Williams? Rather wild, but full of love and excelling in the creation of convincing good characters. (The reason these are rare in fiction is that to imagine a man worse than yourself you’ve only got to stop doing something, while to imagine one better you’ve got to do something.)
Though I’m forty years old as a man I’m only about twelve as a Christian, so it would be a maternal act if you found time sometimes to mention me in your prayers.
[Following Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 Neville Chamberlain announced that England would support Poland should it be invaded. It was clear that war was inevitable. Warren, who was on the Army Reserve List, learned that he would be called back into active service. Men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one were liable for military service and for a while it looked as if Jack might have to go back into the Army as he would not be forty-two until 29 November. It had been announced that New Building would be required for government use and, as it seemed there would be no one to teach in any case, Jack and Warren had to move all their books into the cellar. Unfortunately, Jack had to lecture on Shakespeare at Stratford on 31 August and 1 September, and he arrived back home on 1 September to find that Warren had just left for an Army base at Catterick in Yorkshire. That same day Germany invaded Poland, and on 3 September England declared war on Germany. Children were being evacuated from London and, like many families, Jack and the Moores offered to look after those sent to them.]
TO HIS BROTHER: from Magdalen College
2 September 1939
Apparently I arrived at Oxford station yesterday very shortly before you left from it—however, this is perhaps a good thing for though a farewell tankard can just be carried off, a farewell cup of camp coffee is almost unbearable.
Our schoolgirls have arrived and all seem to me—and, what’s more important, to Minto—to be very nice, unaffected creatures and all most flatteringly delighted with their new surroundings. They’re fond of animals which is a good thing (for them as well as for us) . . .
My second lecture at Stratford was cancelled and my first went down very well. It was fully reported (the irony!) in the Times yesterday. I had a pretty ghastly time—a smart, nearly empty hotel in a strange town with a wireless blaring away all the time and hours and hours to get through without work compose perhaps the worst possible background to a crisis . . . The brightest spot was Right-Ho Jeeves which, in opposition to you, I think one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Fink-Nottle’s speech at the speech-day made me laugh aloud in an empty lounge.
I’ve just been to see the President who laughs to scorn the alarms raised in my breast by the announcement of liability to service up to 41. I hope he’s right . . .
Did you see that the enemy planes retreated from Warsaw(?) before Polish fighters & went to bomb a holiday resort in the neighbourhood instead!
God save you, brother.
TO HIS BROTHER: from The Kilns
10 September 1939
One of the most reminiscent features of the last war has already appeared—i.e. the information which always comes too late to prevent you doing an unnecessary job. We have just been informed that New Building will not be used by Govt.
and that fellows’ rooms in particular will be inviolable: also that we are going to have a term and quite a lot of undergraduates up. So you see—I had pictured myself either never seeing those books again or else, with you, and in great joy, unearthing them after the war. To-morrow, I suppose, I must start on the never envisaged task of bringing them up single-handed during a war. I daresay it’s the sort of thing you’d think funny!
Another quite unexpected blow is Bleiben’s announcement this morning that though ‘some of us would know’ he had been intending to leave the Parish, ‘in the present circumstances he feels it his duty’ to stay on.154 A non sequitur in my opinion. In the Litany this morning we had some extra petitions, one of which was ‘Prosper, oh Lord, our righteous cause’. Assuming that it was the work of the Bishop or someone higher up, when I met Bleiben in the porch, I ventured to protest against the audacity of informing God that our cause was righteous—a point on which He may have His own view.* But it turned out to be Bleiben’s own. However, he took the criticism very well.
Along with these not very pleasant indirect results of the war, there is one pure gift—the London branch of the University Press has moved to Oxford so that Charles Williams is living here.155 I lunched with him on Thursday and hope to do so again on Monday.
Life at The Kilns is going on at least as well as I expected. We had our first air raid warning at 7.45 the other morning when I expect you had yours too. Everyone got to the dugout quite quickly and I must say they all behaved well, and though v. hungry and thirsty before the all clear went, we quite enjoyed the most perfect late summer morning I have ever seen. The main trouble of life at present is the blacking out which is done (as you may imagine) with a most complicated Arthur Rackham system of odd rags—quite effectively but at the cost of much labour. Luckily I do most of the rooms myself, so it doesn’t take me nearly so long as if I were assisted . . .
