by C. S. Lewis
5 Jack had failed algebra in his Responsions in March. Shortly after this letter was written he began tutorials in this subject with Mr John Edward Campbell (1862–1924) of Hertford College.
6 ‘Jo’, as everyone called this college scout, was Cyril Haggis.
7 Joseph Ernest Renan, La Vie de Jésus (1863).
8 H. G. Wells, God the Invisible King (1917).
9 John Robert Edwards (1897–) became a teacher after leaving Oxford. He was the Headmaster of the Liverpool Institute High School from 1935 until his retirement in 1961.
10 Charlotte Rose Rachael (‘Cherry’) Robbins (1888–1978), Lewis’s cousin, was with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at a military hospital in Oxford.
11 This group of friends, all born in 1898, were: Martin Ashworth Somerville, ‘Paddy’ Moore, Alexander Gordon Sutton and Denis Howard de Pass of Repton School, and Thomas Kerrison Davey of Charterhouse School. The ‘Sinn Fein’ friend was Theobald Richard Fitzwalter Butler (1894–1976) who had just taken his final examinations. He was to achieve great distinction as a lawyer.
12 Jack was deeply impressed at this time by the ‘Subjective Idealism’ of Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753) as propounded in his Principles of Human Knowledge (1710). The Bishop held that when we affirm material things to be real, we mean no more than that they are perceived. What annoyed Jack about ‘the ogre in Boswell’ was the famous remark of Dr Johnson’s recorded in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. On 6 August 1763 Boswell wrote: ‘After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”’ As Bishop Berkeley never met Dr Johnson, he had no chance of ‘standing up’ to him. Jack has confused the Bishop with his son, who was also named George. This George (1733–95) met Dr Johnson shortly after he came up to Oxford in 1752, and when Dr Johnson made fun of the Bishop’s abortive scheme for a missionary college in Bermuda the young George walked out of the room. He subsequently refused Dr Johnson’s repeated requests for permission to write a ‘Life of Bishop Berkeley.’
13 He must have misunderstood the name. There was no don named ‘Goddard’ at Trinity College in 1917.
14 Benjamin Jowett (1817–93) was the Master of Balliol College 1870–93). He was ordained a priest in 1845 but his theological liberalism, particularly evident in his essay ‘The Interpretation of Scripture’, was hotly debated. Jowett’s classical learning was, however, almost unrivalled during his years in Oxford. He was an Oxford figure and the subject of innumerable stories.
15 Algernon Charles Swinburne, Note on Charlotte Bronte (1877); William Blake (1868).
16 Mrs Jane (‘Janie’) King Moore was born in Dunany, Co. Armagh, in 1872, the eldest of the three daughters and two sons of the Revd William James Askins (1842–95) and his wife Jane King Askins (1846–90). Mrs Moore’s father was the Vicar of Dunany 1872–95, and in 1894 he was made Prebendary of Ballymore. In 1898 Janie married Courtenay Edward Moore (1870) from whom she had two children, ‘Paddy’ (b. 1898) and Maureen (b. 1906) who is now the baronetess, Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs. When Jack met the Moores in June of 1917, Mrs Moore had been separated from her husband for some time, and she had come to Oxford from her home in Bristol to see as much as she could of ‘Paddy’ before he left for the Front.
17 A colloquial term for Responsions.
18 On 25 September Jack was gazetted into the 3rd Somerset Light Infantry and given a month’s leave. It would appear from the next letter that he went with the Moores to their home in Bristol on Saturday 29 September.
19 ‘Who far from here before day .�.�.’
20 The proofs were of photographs of Mr Lewis taken with his sons. On Friday 16 November Jack sent the following telegraph to his father: ‘Orders France. Reporting Southampton 4 p.m. Saty. If coming, wire immediately. No need alarm. Shall be at base. Jack.’ Jack Lewis, having been commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, was suddenly transferred from the 3rd to the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and he crossed to France on 17 November.
21 Vivian Henry Bruce Majendie (1886–1960) had been educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst. As Commander of the Ist Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry he was eminently suited for writing A History of the 1st Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) July Ist 1916 to the end of the War (1921). He ended his long and useful career in the Army as a Major-General, and he retired in 1946.
22 By George Eliot (1859).
23 By George Eliot (1860).
24 ‘Alas! How the years fly by!’ He and Warren had gone on holiday with their mother at Berneval, near Dieppe, in September 1907.
25 This meeting of the extremely colourful Harris again after five years is worthy of a footnote in red ink. While I can understand Jack’s disenchantment with this man at this time, I have discovered enough about Percy Gerald Kelsal Harris to cause me to like him very much. He is the master at Cherbourg House whom Jack refers to as ‘Pogo’ in Surprised by Joy (ch. IV). Of his arrival at the school in May 1912, Jack wrote: ‘“Sirrah”, as we called him .�.�. was succeeded by a young gentleman just down from the University whom we may call Pogo. Pogo was a very minor edition of a Saki, perhaps even a Wodehouse hero. Pogo was a wit, Pogo was a dressy man, Pogo was a man about town. Pogo was even a lad. After a week or so of hesitation (for his temper was uncertain) we fell at his feet and adored. Here was sophistication, glossy all over, and (dared one believe it?) ready to impart sophistication to us .�.�. After a term of Pogo’s society one had the feeling of being not twelve weeks but twelve years older.’
P. G. K. Harris was born in Kinver, Staffordshire, on 31 August 1888. From King’s School in Taunton he went up to Exeter College in 1907. That he left Oxford without taking a degree may be explained by those very qualities which delighted his pupils at Cherbourg House. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry in February 1915, and had been promoted to Captain by the time Jack was assigned to his command. If Harris wasted his time in Oxford and made a flashy but poor showing at Cherbourg, he cuts an heroic and dashing figure in Everard Wyrall’s official History of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) 1914–1919 (1927). Wyrall describes the bravery at Verchain which caused Harris to receive the Military Cross with this Citation: ‘For conspicuous gallantry near Verchain on 24 October 1918. At the river bank, in the darkness, considerable confusion and difficulty were experienced in throwing the bridges, owing to the heavy machine-gun fire. It was entirely due to his example and efforts that the bridges were thrown and that the men were able to cross. He subsequently led his company to a further objective, and carried out a personal reconnais-sance across the open under heavy machine-gun fire, obtaining very valuable information.’ A bar was added to that Cross as a result of Harris’s gallantry at Preseau on 1 November 1918. Wyrall wrote of it: ‘“Preseau”—it was here that the 1st Somerset Light Infantry ended its glorious record of fighting in the Great War .�.�. Assisted by Company Sergeant-Major R. Johnson, Captain P. G. K. Harris rallied his men and ordered them to charge. The whole line sprang forward with a cheer and, with the bayonet, flung the Germans back’ (p. 356).
It is, however, in Lt Col. Majendie’s History of the 1st Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry that the Cherbourg ‘Pogo’ of uncertain temper is seen as a man, not less glossy perhaps, but far more admirable than the one Jack remembered. ‘During the clearing of Preseau,’ wrote Lt Col. Majendie, ‘Captain P. G. K. Harris, M.C., was the chief performer in an incident which gave rise to some merriment. He was standing at the top of some cellar steps collecting prisoners, when a German came up from below “kamerading” with such enthusiasm that he collided with Captain Harris and kno
cked him down. Captain Harris sat down violently on top of a dead German, and in his efforts to rise put his hand on the dead man’s face. This was too much for Light Company’s Commander; he leapt at the offender and, mindful of his Oxford days, caught him such a left under the jaw that the unhappy German did not recover consciousness for a long time’ (p. 120).
26 By John Habberton (1877).
27 The ‘Colonel’ referred to here is Warren. He had been trying to prevent Mr Lewis from worrying so much about Jack, and in writing to his father on 9 February 1918 he said: ‘I wish Papy that I could convince you that your depression is almost entirely due to your solitary life: Jacks is very seldom from my thoughts now, but still I am for some reason convinced that all will be well with him. Surely you are giving way to mere pessimism when you say that you can see no early end to the war .�.�. It is a pity you never played poker or you would appreciate the situation better: the Bosche holds a fairish hand, but not so good as ours: unfortunately for him however, he is so badly dipped that he CANNOT afford to pay up and drop it: therefore he is naturally bluffing all he can in the hope of frightening us out.’
28 John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869).
29 Mrs Lily Hamilton Suffern (1860–1934) was the sister of Jack’s and Warren’s mother. Warren described her as ‘an ardent suffragette’ who had quarrelled with everyone in her family, including his parents. Although the lady was constantly on the move, she was especially fond of Jack whom she bombarded with books and a pseudo-metaphysical correspondence.
30 The story of ‘Paddy’s’ part in the war was summarized, from information supplied by Mrs Moore, in his school magazine The Cliftonian, No. CCXCV (May 1918), p. 225: ‘2nd-Lieutenant E. F. C. Moore. He joined the Rifle Brigade after the usual training, and was in action in France in the great German attack which began on March 21. He was reported missing on March 24, and it is now feared that he cannot have escaped with his life. The Adjutant of his battalion writes: “I have to tell you that your very gallant son was reported missing on the 24th of last month. He was last seen on the morning of that day with a few men defending a position on a river bank against infinitely superior numbers of the enemy. All the other officers and most of the men of his company have become casualties, and I fear it is impossible to obtain more definite information. He did really fine work on the previous night in beating off a party of Germans who had succeeded in rushing a bridgehead in our lines. We all feel his loss very deeply, and I cannot express too strongly our sympathy with you.”’
31 Warren wrote to his father on 7 June saying: ‘It is splendid to know that our ‘IT’ [Jack] is safely home at last. I confess it made me very uneasy when I heard that those damned hounds had been bombing base hospitals. And talking about that, did you see that the fellow who was caught red handed was admitted into the hospital he had bombed, and had his wound treated. I’d have given him treatment forsooth.’
32 This occurred the day before Jack was wounded. Wyrall records in his History of the Somerset Light Infantry (p. 293) the taking of 135 prisoners: ‘As the leading Somerset men approached the eastern exits of Riez, the enemy launched a counter-attack from east of the village and the northern end of the Bois de Pacaut. This counter-attack was at once engaged with Lewis-gun and rifle fire and about 50 per cent of the attacking German were shot down: of the remainder about half ran away and the other half ran towards the Somerset men with their hands in the air crying out “Kamerad!” and were made prisoners.’
33 This was probably The Collected Works of William Butler Yeats in Verse and Prose in 8 volumes, published in 1908 by the Shakespeare Head Press.
34 Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872–98).
35 ‘I too have lived in Arcadia.’
36 Frank Winter Perrett (1898–) had known Jack at Malvern College where he had been a pupil 1912–15. He, too, had served with the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and he was wounded on 29 March 1918.
37 Richard Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621. Jack’s copy is one brought out by Chatto & Windus in 1907 and some of its many annotations were probably made at Ashton Court.
38 ‘It seemed otherwise to the gods.’ Laurence Bertrand Johnson was elected a Scholar of Queens’ College, Oxford, in 1917 but he was sent to the Front with the Somerset Light Infantry before he could matriculate. Jack says of Johnson in Surprised by Joy (ch. XII): ‘In him I found dialectical sharpness such as I had hitherto known only in Kirk, but coupled with youth and whim and poetry. He was moving toward Theism and we had endless arguments on this and every other topic whenever we were out of the line.’ Johnson was killed by the shell which wounded Jack.
39 Mr Lewis was trying to get Jack into the Ulster Volunteer Force, hoping this way to get him transferred to Ireland.
40 The mythical friend of Mrs Gamp in Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44).
41 Robert Hichens, A Spirit in Prison (1908).
42 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850).
43 For a detailed account of the Second Battalion of the Rifle Brigade with which Paddy Moore served see William W. Seymour, The History of The Rifle Brigade in The War of 1914–1918, Vol. II (1936).
44 Those who made up ‘the old set’ are mentioned in Jack’s letter of 10 (?) June 1917. Paddy Moore died at Pargny in March 1918. Martin Ashworth Somerville, also of the Rifle Brigade, served in Egypt and Palestine and he was killed in Palestine on 21 September 1918. Alexander Gordon Sutton, who was with Paddy in the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, was killed in action on 2 January 1918. Thomas Kerrison Davey, of the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, died of wounds received near Arras on 29 March 1918. Jack assumed that Denis Howard de Pass—‘our regnant authority on all matters of dress, who is reported to wear stays’—had died as well. He was reported ‘wounded and missing’ on 1 April 1918. As it turned out, de Pass of the 12th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, had been taken prisoner by the Germans. Following his repatriation in December 1918 he not only continued to serve in the First World War but he fought in the Second as well. From 1950 until his death in 1973 this once fashionable dresser was a dairy farmer at Polegate in Sussex.
45 1 Peter 3:19.
46 William Heinemann (1863–1920) had founded the publishing house which still bears his name in 1890. His manager at this time was Charles Sheldon Evans (1883–1944). The meeting took place in 20–21 Bedford Street, London.
47 ‘Squeaky Dick’, as Richard Whytock Leslie, M.D. (1862–1931) was known to many, was the Lewis family doctor.
48 The Master of University College, R. W. Macan.
49 Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford 1908–36. His translations of Greek plays are as notable as his interpretation of Greek ideas.
50 The Martlets somehow acquired the reputation of dating ‘from dim antiquity’ but their first meeting was in 1892. The Minute Books are in the Bodleian under the shelfmark MS. Top Oxon. d. 95/1–5. There is an article on ‘The Martlets’ by P. C. Bayley in the University College Record (1949–50). My essay called ‘To the Martlets’ in C. S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher, ed. Carolyn Keefe (1971), contains the minutes of the papers Jack read to the Martlets between 1919 and 1940.
51 ‘Smugy’ or ‘Smewgy’ was Harry Wakelyn Smith (1861–1918) who taught Classics and English to the Upper Fifth at Malvern College. In the tribute paid him in Surprised by Joy Jack speaks of this teacher as good ‘beyond expectation, beyond hope’.
52 The book is Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics which was published on 20 March 1919 under the pseudonym ‘Clive Hamilton’. Mr Lewis and Warren had read the manuscript of it, and on 28 January Warren wrote to his father saying: ‘While I am in complete agreement with you as to the excellence of parts of ‘IT’S’ book, I am of opinion that it would have been better if it had never been published. Even at 23 one realizes that the opinions and convictions of 20 are transient things. Jack’s Atheism is I am sure purely academic, but even so, n
o useful purpose is served by endeavouring to advertise oneself as an atheist. Setting aside the higher problems involved, it is obvious that a profession of a Christian belief is as necessary a part of a man’s mental make up as a belief in the King, the Regular Army, and the Public Schools.’ Spirits in Bondage was reprinted under Lewis’s name in the United States by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1984.
53 ‘Death in Battle’ from Spirits in Bondage appeared in Reveille, No. 3 (February 1919).
54 Warren, still stationed in France, was probably looking for the whole of the Duc de Saint-Simon’s Mémoires. In later years he was to write six books on Louis XIV and the Grand Siècle. So memorable was his discovery of Saint-Simon that forty-five years later he told me he could still recall buying an abridgement of the Mémoires at St Omer on 3 March 1919.
