by C. S. Lewis
TO DOM BEDE GRIFFITHS, O.S.B.: from The Kilns
4 August 1962
By being an invalid I meant that even if the operation comes off and delivers me from the catheter and the low protein diet, I shall have to be careful about my heart—no more bathing or real walks, and as few stairs as possible. A very mild fate: especially since nature seems to remove the desire for exercise when the power declines.
Syriac too? I envy you the wide linguistic conquests you have made, though I hardly share one of the purposes for which you use it. I cannot take an interest in liturgiology. I see very well that some ought to feel it. If religion includes cult and if cult requires order it is somebody’s business to be concerned with it. But not, I feel, mine! Indeed, for the laity I sometimes wonder if an interest in liturgiology is not rather a snare. Some people talk as if it were itself the Christian faith.
I am deeply interested by what emerged from that Hindu-Christian debate, but not surprised. I always thought the real difference was the rival conceptions of God. A ticklish question. For I suppose we, by affirming three Persons, implicitly say that God is not a Person.
I am delighted to hear that there is some chance of seeing you in England again.
TO CHRISTOPHER DERRICK: from The Kilns
10 August 1962
Yes, I jolly well have read Gombrich and give him alpha with as many plusses as you please. The writers on art have hopelessly outstripped the writers on literature in our period. Seznec, Wind, and Gombrich are a very big three indeed. I am much better: still dieted and—well, plumbered, but otherwise almost normal.
TO HENRY NOEL: from Magdalene College (with reference to a theme central to The Great Divorce)
14 November 1962
About all I know of the ‘Refrigerium’ is derived from Jeremy Taylor’s sermon on ‘Christ’s advent to judgement’ and the quotations there given from a Roman missal printed at Paris in 1626, and from Prudentius. See Taylor’s Whole Works, edit. R. Heber, London 1822, Vol. V, p. 45.
The Prudentius says, ‘Often below the Styx holidays from their punishments are kept, even by the guilty spirits . . . Hell grows feeble with mitigated torments and the shadowy nation, free from fires, exults in the leisure of its prison; the rivers cease to burn with their usual sulphur’.
TO ‘MRS ARNOLD’: from Magdalene College
21 November 1962
I think I share to excess your feelings about a move. By nature I demand from the arrangements of this world just that permanence which God has expressly refused to give them. It is not merely the nuisance and expense of any big change in one’s way of life that I dread, it is also the psychological uprooting and the feeling—to me or to you intensely unwelcome—of having ended a chapter. One more portion of oneself slipping away into the past. I would like everything to be immemorial—to have the same old horizons, the same garden, the same smells and sounds, always there, changeless. The old wine is to me always better. That is, I desire the ‘abiding city’ where I well know it is not and ought not to be found. I suppose all these changes should prepare us for the greater change which has drawn nearer even since I began this letter. We must ‘sit light’ not only to life itself but to all its phases. The useless word is ‘encore’.
TO JAMES E. HIGGINS: from The Kilns
2 December 1962
. . . (5) I turned to fairy tales because that seemed the form which certain ideas and images in my mind seemed to demand: as a man might turn to fugues because the musical phrases in his head seemed to him to be ‘good fugal subjects’.
(6) When I wrote The Lion I had no notion of writing the others.
(7) Writing ‘juveniles’ certainly modified my habits of composition. Thus (a) It imposed a strict limit on vocabulary. (b) Excluded erotic love. (c) Cut down reflective and analytical passages. (d) Led me to produce chapters of nearly equal length for convenience in reading aloud.
All these restrictions did me great good—like writing in a strict metre.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES: from The Kilns
3 March 1963
On July 28 W., Douglas, and I will be at the Glenmachan Towers Hotel [Belfast], and on the 29th W. will go to Eire. Can Doug and you and I go off somewhere for a week or two beginning on that date? If you don’t feel up to driving us to wherever we go, I’ll hire a car & driver for the journey. Wd Castlerock or Glens of Antrim be any good? Portrush only as a last resource. But we want to be pretty quick about booking three rooms (it must be three) and about berths for Doug & me on our return journey to England.
I saw snowdrops for the first time last week.
[As far back as 1952 Jack had started writing a book on prayer. Not much was written because it was not turning out well. It was probably during this time, while planning a holiday in Ireland, that the idea of an imaginary correspondence about prayer occurred to him. Despite the difficulty of penmanship, he thoroughly enjoyed writing Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, which was completed in May of this year. After having a typed copy sent to his publisher, Jocelyn Gibb, he was asked to write a blurb for the book. While the actual books came easily to Jack, he disliked composing what he called ‘blurbology’.]
TO JOCELYN GIBB: from The Kilns
28 June 1963
I’ve thought and thought about the blurb but find I just can’t write it—apparently I can hardly write the word either! I’d like you to make the point that the reader is merely being allowed to listen to two v. ordinary laymen discussing the practical & speculative problems of prayer as these appear to them: i.e. the author does not claim to be teaching.
Will it be good to say ‘Some passages are controversial but this is almost an accident. The wayfaring Christian cannot quite ignore recent Anglican theology when it has been built as a barricade across the high road.’
I wouldn’t stress your point about my not having given tongue v. recently. It can’t feel like that to the public. They must get the impression that I bring out a book once a fortnight. And your denial, however true in fact, will, like the sculptor’s fig-leaf, only draw attention to what it wd fain conceal.
I enclose a new passage for the last letter. This will make that letter unusually long but that’s legitimate as a finale. Anyway, I like the new bit.
[The ‘new bit’ in the final chapter of Letters to Malcolm comes directly after the paragraph which ends ‘There is our freedom, our chance for a little generosity, a little sportsmanship’, and is a hauntingly beautiful passage about the resurrection of the body.
It is a fine thing to have on one’s mind when death is made unavoidably clear. When Jack went to the Acland Nursing Home on 15 July for a blood-transfusion he had a heart attack and went into a coma. He surprised everyone by waking from it the next day—asking for his tea. By 9 August he was well enough to go home, and a few days later he resigned his Chair and Fellowship at Cambridge.]
TO SISTER PENELOPE, C.S.M.V.: from The Kilns
17 September 1963
What a pleasant change to get a letter which does not say the conventional things! I was unexpectedly revived from a long coma—and perhaps the almost continuous prayers of my friends did it—but it would have been a luxuriously easy passage and one almost (but nella sua voluntade e nostra pace)197 regrets having the door shut in one’s face. Ought we to honour Lazarus rather than Stephen as the protomartyr? To be brought back and have all one’s dying to do again was rather hard.
If you die first, and if ‘prison visiting’ is allowed, come down and look me up in Purgatory.
It is all rather fun—solemn fun—isn’t it?
TO THE MASTER AND FELLOWS OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE (who had elected Jack an Honorary Fellow of the College): from The Kilns
25 October 1963
The ghosts of the wicked old women in Pope ‘haunt the places where their honour died’. I am more fortunate, for I shall haunt the place whence the most valued of my honours came.
I am constantly with you in imagination. If in some twilit hour anyone sees a bald and bulky spectre in the
Combination Room or the garden, don’t get Simon to exorcise it, for it is a harmless wraith and means nothing but good.
If I loved you all less I should think much of being thus placed (‘so were I equall’d with them in renown’) beside Kipling and Eliot. But the closer and more domestic bond with Magdalene makes that side of it seem unimportant.
TO MISS JANE DOUGLASS: from The Kilns
31 September 1963
Thanks for your kind note. Yes, autumn is really the best of the seasons: and I’m not sure that old age isn’t the best part of life. But of course, like Autumn, it doesn’t last.
My brother’s Autumn lasted, like the year’s, a few weeks longer; and on that note very characteristic of his last days—peaceful acceptance, combined with enduring grief for ‘mutabilitie’—I end my selection from his correspondence.—W.H.L.
INDEX
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Abraham, 318
Adam, 534
Addison, Joseph, 270 n.119
Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 323;
Prometheus, 323, 452
Agape, 560–61, 601
Albigensianism, 575, 578
Allen, Edward A., letters to, 495–96, 497
Allen, Edward A., Mrs, letters to, 504–5, 517, 551, 557, 563–64, 569, 577, 593–94, 605
Annie Louisa, C. S. M. V., Mother, 465
Anselm, Saint, 468, 474
Apollo, 390, 625
Apostle’s Creed, 527
Aquinas, Thomas, Saint, 452
Ariosto, Ludovico, 597
Aristotle, 227, 453
Arnold, Matthew, 282, 444; Scholar Gipsy, 173; Thyrsis, 173
“Arnold”, “Mrs”, letters to, 515–16, 518–19, 524–25, 528, 532–33, 535–36, 538, 543, 546, 546–47, 551–52, 583, 616–17, 633–34, 638, 641, 646–47
Ascham, Roger, 332
“Ashton”, “Mrs”, letters to, 548–50, 553–54, 560–62, 569, 570–71, 572–74, 581–82
Askins, Jane King, 74 n.16
Askins, John Hawkins, 149, 149 n.76, 197
Askins, Mary Goldsworthy, 149, 149 n.76, 197
Askins, William James, 74 n.16
Asquith, Margot, 260; The Autobiography of Margot Asquith, 260 n.112
Astor, Nancy W. L., 302
Athanasian Creed, 408
Athanasius, Saint, De Incarnatione, 471, 472
atomic bomb, 517
Atonement, 467–68
Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 483; Confessions, 636
Austen, Jane, 54, 173, 274, 477, 542, 567, 594; Northanger Abbey, 401
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 444, 583
Bacon, Francis, 332
Bagehot, Walter, 375
Bain, James, 99
Baker, Leo Kingsley, 160, 160 n.160, 168, 199, 203, 203 n.96, 210–11, 224
Balzac, Honoré de: Cure de Tours, 421; Pere Goriot, 421
Banner, Delmar, letter to, 625–26
Barberton, John, Other People’s Children, 88
Barfield, Arthur Owen, 10, 14, 199, 199 n.95, 203–4, 203–4 n.96, 207, 224–25, 226, 232, 289 n.127, 289–97, 365, 426, 433, 434, 437, 468, 479; letters to, 323–24, 347–50, 362–63, 388–91, 398–99, 402–7, 452–53, 480–81, 484–85, 493–95, 498–99, 503; Orpheus, 407; “Poetic Diction and Legal Fiction”, 494 n.167
Barth, Karl, 436
Batiffol, Pierre, 167 n.86
Bayley, Peter Charles, “The Martlets”, 123 n.30
Baynes, Pauline, letter to, 558–59
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent, 99
Beerbohm, Max, 151
Beeton, Mrs, letter to, 629
Belial, 102, 284
Beneke, Paul Victor Mendelssohn, 142–43, 143 n.69
Bennett, Joan, 402; letters to, 399–401, 408
Benson, Robert Hugh, Dawn of All, 482
Beowulf, 61, 372
Bergson, Henri-Louis, 220
Berkeley, George, 71, 71–72 n.12
Betjeman, John, 35, 276, 276 n.120
Bevan, Edwyn, Symbolism and Belief, 442, 635
Bide, Peter, 594, 610–11
Blake, William, 73, 225, 407
Blamires, H. M., 37–40
Bleiben, Thomas E., 415–16, 416 n.154, 436–37
Bles, Geoffrey, 566
Blunt, Herbert William, 204, 204 n.97, 205
Boethius, 380, 602
Boiardo, Matteo Maria, 274, 597
Borrow, George, Lavengro, 133
Boswell, James, 20, 71, 71–72 n.12, 90, 194, 273, 303, 381; The Life of Samuel Johnson, 71–72 n.12, 253 n.110, 352 n.135
Bradbrook, Muriel, letter to, 605–6
Bradley, Andrew C., 622
Bradley, Francis Herbert, 253
Brady, Charles A., letter to, 481–84
Breckenridge, Miss, letters to, 503–4, 523
Brett-Smith, Herbert Francis, 233, 233 n.108
Bridges, Robert, 67
Brightman, Frank Edward, 586
Brontë, Charlotte, 23, 73; Jane Eyre, 476
Brontë, Emily, 23
Brown, Curtis, 595
Browne, Thomas, 316, 370, 375, 393; Religio Medici, 443
Browning, Robert, 93; The Ring and the Book, 328, 476
Browning societies, 387
Bryson, John Norman, 263
Buber, Martin, I and Thou, 472, 633
Buchman, Frank, 321
Buddha, 387
Bunyan, John, 139, 500, 532, 608; Pilgrim’s Progress, 108, 636
Burke, Edmund, 23, 325
Burnet, Gilbert, 273
Burney, Fanny, Evelina, 303
Burns, Robert, “Auld Lang Syne”, 335
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 482
Burton, Richard, Anatomy of Melancholy, 87, 98, 101 n.37
Bush, Douglas, 567
Butler, Samuel, Erewhon, 600
Butler, Theobald Richard Fitzwalter, 70, 70 n.11
Butterfield, Herbert, 572
Caesar, Galius Julius, 594
Calvin, John, 332, 436
Campbell, Roy, 33
Capron, John Wynyard, 246
Capron, Robert ‘Oldie’, 18–19, 136, 136 n.62, 248
Carew, Richard, The Survey of Cornwall, 146 n.73
‘Caritas’ doctrine, 545
Carlyle, Alexander James, 144 n.70, 160–61, 282–83
Carlyle, Alexander James, Mrs, 160–61
Carlyle, Thomas, 318, 375, 401; Past and Present, 374
Carpenter, Humphrey: The Inklings, 365 n.139; J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography, 365 n.140
Carritt, Edgar Frederick, 137 n.63, 227, 237, 239, 242, 318
Carroll, Lewis, The Hunting of the Snark, 639
Cecil, David, 33, 559
Chalcidius, 602
Chamberlain, Neville, 413
Chambers, E. K., 488; Sir Thomas Wyatt and Other Studies, 402
Chambers, R. W., 430; Man’s Unconquerable Mind, 431
Charitable Reader, letter to, 530
Charles I, King of England, Ireland and Scotland, 166, 320
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 23, 56, 99, 217, 363–64, 396, 594;
Canterbury Tales, 60; Troilus and Criseyde, 59, 216, 437
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 442, 482, 500; Eugenics and Other Evils, 280; The Everlasting Man, 635
Childs, William Macbride, 206, 206 n.98
Chopin, Frederic, 54
Chrétien de Troyes, 632
Christian missionary work, 557–58
Christianity, 40–41, 366–69, 387, 441–42, 447–50, 553–54, 564, 572, 611–12, 633–36, 640
Christie, John Traill, 372, 372 n.143
Christina dreams, 203, 207
Cicero, 287
Clemenceau, Georges, 166, 167
Coghill, Neville, 46, 225, 225–26, 244, 262, 420
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 23, 136, 151, 233, 622
Collingwood, Robin G., 488
Collins, Churton, 619 n.19
1, 620
Collins, W. Wilkie: The Moonstone, 401; The Woman in White, 310
Colonel. See Lewis, Warren Hamilton (‘Warnie’) (brother)
Condlin, J. W. A., 342, 438
Confession, 552
Cowley, Abraham, Davideis, 38
Cowper, William, 271–72, 319, 375
Craig, E. S., Oxford University Roll of Service, 67
Croce, Benedetto, 444
Cromwell, Oliver, 60, 334
“D”. See Moore, Jane (‘Janie’) King
Dante, 195, 325, 373, 444, 483, 565; Divine Comedy, 392, 397
Darwin, Charles, 268, 286
Davey, Thomas Kerrison, 70, 70 n.11, 110 n.44
Davidman, Helen Joy. See Gresham, Joy Davidman (later Mrs C. S. Lewis)
Davies, B. E. C., 426
de Burgh, William George, 206, 206 n.98
de Forest, Florence, 310
de la Mare, Walter, 224
de Pass, Denis Howard, 70, 70 n.11, 110 n.44
de Quincey, Thomas, 23, 65
Derrick, Christopher, 10–12, 14; letters to, 586, 644
Descartes, René, Discourse on Method, 380
Devoteau, Daisy, 302
Dias, R. W. M., 626, 626 n.194
Dickens, Charles, 334, 559, 565; David Copperfield, 250, 476; Martin Chuzzlewit, 104 n.40, 311; Our Mutual Friend, 401; Pickwick Papers, 336–37
Dodds, Eric Robertson, 206, 206 n.98, 210, 211
Donne, John, 224, 400, 459, 487
Dostoevsky, Feodor, The Brothers Karamazov, 5, 377
Douglass, Jane, letter to, 651
Dowden, Edward, 619 n.191, 620
Dowding, C. S., 91
Dryden, John, 234, 327, 400
Dunbar, Maureen “Daisy” Helen, Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs, 7, 30, 74 n.16, 120, 134, 199, 212, 215, 227, 284, 310, 361, 417
Dunsany, Edward, 600
Dyson, Henry Victor (‘Hugo’), 365 n.139, 365–66, 368, 373–74, 418, 437–38, 467
Eddison, E. R., The Worm Ouroboros, 600
Edwards, John Robert, 66, 67 n.9, 122
Eliot, George, 431; Adam Bede, 84; Middlemarch, 90, 409; The Mill on the Floss, 84; Romola, 409
Eliot, T. S., 148 n.75, 397, 650; letter to, 643–44
Elyot, Thomas, 332
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 93
Erasmus, 319, 325
Evans, Charles Sheldon, 112, 126
Evans, I. O., letters to, 487–88, 567
Evelyn, John, 272–73
