C. S. Lewis
Page 44
But Joy had another reason for wanting to transplant. While she was spending Christmas at The Kilns, she had a letter from her husband saying that while he knew Joy would never be anything but a writer, ‘Renée has a different orientation; her only interest is in taking care of her husband and children and making a home for them.’ The ‘optimum solution’, as he saw it, ‘would be for you to be married to some swell guy, Renée and I to be married, both families to live in easy calling distance so that the Gresham kids could have Mommy and Daddy on hand’.15
‘Now this occurrence was, or at least seems to have been, so inevitable,’ wrote Douglas Gresham many years later, ‘that in honesty I must ask myself if in fact Mother saw Renée’s arrival in our household as an opportunity not to be missed and left for England, not only aware of the likelihood of their falling in love, but also hoping that they would, thus giving her the chance of escaping from a marriage which was fast disintegrating.’16 His elder brother took a similar view. ‘As far as I can recollect,’ said David Gresham, ‘the purpose of my mother’s trip to England was not to complete that … book of hers, Smoke on the Mountain, but to meet C.S. Lewis, with whom she had been corresponding.’17 From Staatsburg Joy wrote to Chad Walsh on 20 March 1953:
My cousin has left now – for Florida, to divorce her husband … whom she left a year or so ago. But for more than a month she and Bill and I were all here together, and she was tortured by guilt and embarrassment and worry, and would take to her bed with crying fits – whereupon Bill lectured me for my lack of Christian charity in not enabling her to enjoy her love affair more. I did tell her that I felt it would be a blessing for me in the end, was not jealous, and didn’t – knowing my Bill – blame her for what had happened between them.18
Meanwhile, Joy informed Lewis that her Christian faith had undergone a change, and in February 1953 she was confirmed as an Episcopalian in the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York. In Oxford Lewis was ill during the winter with sinusitis, but he managed to complete The Last Battle. Vera Henry, who had acted as housekeeper of The Kilns when Mrs Moore was alive, returned to Ireland in 1952, and on 17 April 1953 Lewis learned of her death. He advertised for a housekeeper in the local post office, and shortly afterwards he hired Mrs Maude Miller, who lived close by in Kiln Lane.
Finally, Lewis took exactly the holiday he had been craving. On 20 August 1953 he and Warnie set off for Ireland. On their jaunt, they visited Dundalk, Belfast and Rostrevor, a small seaport in the south of Co. Down. During their walks in the mountains above the Lough Jack told his brother that this was the countryside that came closest to his idea of Narnia. Jack rounded off his holiday by spending a week with Arthur Greeves, returning to Oxford on 14 September. Warnie’s first book, The Splendid Century, was published on 30 October.
The first week in November 1953 Joy sailed for England with her sons, David and Douglas. On reaching London they took rooms in the Avoca House Hotel, 43 Belsize Park, Hampstead. A few days later they moved into a flat in the annexe to the hotel, located at 14 Belsize Park. Joy managed to find places for the boys at Dane Court School, near Woking, Surrey, where they were to go in the New Year. Lewis naturally invited the family to Oxford for a three-day Christmas visit from 17 to 20 December. Writing to Bill Gresham on 22 December, Joy said the boys ‘were a big success with the Lewises’ and that the visit included ‘long walks through the hills, during which Jack reverted completely to schoolboy tactics and went charging ahead with the boys through all the thorniest, muddiest, steepest places’.19 While Joy was getting used to life in England, her cousin Renée Pierce divorced her husband.
Lewis had been corresponding with the poet Ruth Pitter since 1946, when she was living in London, and they had met for the first time on 17 July 1946. During the summer of 1952 Miss Pitter moved to Long Crendon in the hopes of seeing something of Lewis and other Oxford friends. Writing to her on 21 December 1953, Lewis said: ‘We have had an American lady staying in the house with her two sons aged 91/2 and 8. I never knew what we celibates are shielded from. I will never laugh at parents again. Not that the boys weren’t a delight but a delight like surf-bathing which leaves one breathless and aching. The energy, the tempo, is what kills.’20
The usual round of tutorials, lectures and faculty meetings had carried on at Oxford during the war, if in an attenuated state, and for several years after it they continued in a kind of suspended animation as ex-servicemen returned to finish their pre-war courses, and veterans in their late twenties rubbed shoulders with schoolboys ten years their juniors. When the ‘bulge’ grew slimmer Oxford began to consider what changes the unique conditions of the last dozen years had brought about and what further changes were now essential. More than anything else, the type of undergraduate was rapidly altering as Government-financed education threw open the universities to all; the changing background turned ‘the young gentlemen’ into ‘the students’ – and these increasingly demanded to be supplied with a training rather than an education, to leave armed with certificates rather than learning.
The older dons found it hard to adapt to the new conditions – and sometimes hard to accept the new and often revolutionary outlook of the young dons who were fast outnumbering them as the swelling numbers of students demanded an unprecedented number of new appointments to, or on the fringes of, the Senior Common Rooms and the Combination Rooms. Lewis, who was over fifty when the great change began to make itself evident, found it hard to accept much of what was happening; harder to see the Oxford that he had known and loved changing and passing away; hardest to feel that the old values with which he felt secure were being scrapped for new ones in which he could feel little confidence.
Not long after this, alterations were made to the syllabus of the English School which, Lewis felt, were the thin end of a wedge that would split off medieval and Renaissance studies into a mere shaving on the solid core of ‘modern literature’ for the inclusion of which the younger generation was beginning to campaign with ruthless vigour. Green encountered him after the meeting at which the first steps had been taken in this direction, and recalled how upset he was by what had happened and what was, he felt sure, bound to follow. ‘Even Tolkien didn’t understand what it means!’ he exclaimed. ‘He at least should have supported me!’ Disillusioned and disappointed with the English faculty at Oxford, Lewis probably felt that there would no longer be any disloyalty in leaving the university that had been the centre of his life for so long. Apparently others realized this too and – since a prophet is not without honour save in his own country – acted upon it, taking steps to do for one of her greatest sons what Oxford had failed to do.
Professor Tolkien and other friends had been hoping for years that Lewis would be made a professor at Oxford. Tolkien felt that he and Lewis would be ideally suited for the two Chairs at Merton College, the Chair of English and the Chair of English Literature. But while Tolkien was elected Merton Professor of English in 1945, when the Chair of English Literature became vacant in 1947 it went instead to Lewis’s old tutor, F.P. Wilson. Then, when the Goldsmith’s Professor of English Literature at New College was appointed the following year, Lewis was passed over for Lord David Cecil. Why this apparent prejudice against Lewis?
Dame Helen Gardner may have supplied the answer in the obituary of Lewis she wrote for the British Academy:
By this time a suspicion had arisen that Lewis was so committed to what he himself called ‘hot-gospelling’ that he would have had little time for the needs of what had become a very large undergraduate school and for the problems of organization and supervision presented by the rapidly growing numbers of research students in English Literature. In addition, a good many people thought that shoemakers should stick to their lasts and disliked the thought of a professor of English Literature winning fame as an amateur theologian.21
Or, as Professor Tolkien said to Walter Hooper in 1964: ‘In Oxford you are forgiven for writing only two kinds of books. You may write books on your own subject whatever
that is, literature or science, or history. And you may write detective stories because all dons at some time get the flu, and they have to have something to read in bed. But what you are not forgiven is writing popular works, such as Jack did on theology, and especially if they win international success as his did.’
Cambridge University proved less prejudiced. On 18 January 1954 the Council of the Senate of Cambridge University stated its need for a Professor in Medieval and Renaissance English because the King Edward VII Chair, held by Basil Willey, was mainly concerned with modern literature and thought. On 31 March a new Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English was announced, with applications to be made by 30 April 1954. The change in jobs would make a huge difference to Lewis. His salary would treble – from £600 per annum to £1,950, including rooms and meals in college – although, being newly established, the Chair was attached to no specific college. Better than anything, it would mean no more of the tutorials that had exhausted him after thirty years.
But Lewis did not apply. His main reason was that, if elected, he felt he would be abandoning Warnie – particularly with his problem with alcohol – and his gardener Paxford. Because of this, he encouraged the philologist G.V. Smithers of Merton College to apply.* Lewis did not know at this time that, under the terms of the definition of the Chair (‘That the Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English treat the subject on literary and critical rather than on philological and linguistic lines’), Smithers was ineligible.
The Electors for the new Chair – all very friendly towards Lewis – included Tolkien, Henry Stanley Bennett (University Reader in English and the Librarian of Emmanuel College), David Knowles (Regius Professor of Modern History), F.P. Wilson, Professor Basil Willey, and his old sparring partner E.M.W. Tillyard. Their meeting in May 1954 was presided over by Sir Henry Willink,* Master of St Mary Magdalene College and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. On 11 May 1954 Sir Henry wrote to Lewis to say that the decision to elect him was ‘unanimous with a warmth and sincerity which could not have been exceeded’. Lewis replied the following day:
I feel more pleased and honoured than I can express at your invitation; and the prospect (socially and academically considered) of migrating from Oxford to Cambridge would be more an incentive than a deterrent. The very regretful and very grateful refusal which I have to make is based on different grounds. Domestic necessities govern all our lives at present, and by moving I should lose an invaluable servant. I have, moreover, led another possible candidate to believe that I was not in the field. Thirdly, I come of a stock that grows early old and I already know myself to have lost a good deal of the energy and vigour which the first holder of this important chair most certainly ought to have. It is very difficult to say that the decision I have based on these reasons is now quite fixed without seeming to suppose, like a coxcomb, that you might press me. You will understand that my only motive is a wish to save you from any waste of your time.22
The Electors’ second choice was Helen Gardner, at that time Fellow of English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and who in 1966 was elected Merton Professor of English Literature. On 14 May Sir Henry Willink wrote to Lewis that he would not inform their second choice until June, hoping they could still persuade Lewis to accept. But Lewis, still afraid of leaving Warnie and Paxford to cope without him, replied on 15 May:
I am most moved by your extremely kind letter. But you offer persuasion to one who needs liberation. You knock at my door but I can’t unlock it because I haven’t the key. The more I look at it the less possible it seems to transport the peculiar domestic set-up of my brother, our man, and myself. There is a whole network of conveniences and life-lines already built up here (my brother, in your ear, is not always in perfect psychological health) which I really dare not abandon. I am assuming, of course, that your Chair involves residence at Cambridge, at any rate in term (as it certainly ought to).23
There seemed nothing the Electors could do after this, and in his letter to Lewis of 18 May, Sir Henry said: ‘It is abundantly clear that you have cogent reasons for not making the move which we had so much hoped would be possible.’24
Tolkien was determined Lewis should have the Chair, and in a conversation with Lewis on 17 May he convinced him that he would not let Warnie, Paxford or Smithers down by going to Cambridge. Tolkien wrote to Sir Henry on 18 May:
Besides being the precise man for the job, Lewis would probably be happy there, and actually be reinvigorated by a change of air. Oxford has not, I think, treated him very well, and though he is incapable of ‘dudgeon’, or of showing resentment, he has been a little dispirited. After our talk he said he would accept! It was as I thought: the chief obstacle is domestic. He has a house and some dependants – including his brother. He will not contemplate closing that establishment. But if he could be assured that Cambridge would provide him with the equivalent (more or less) of his rooms in Magdalen (which he will lose), in which to live during term and house a lot of his books – then I think you can have him.25
On 17 May Tolkien also wrote to another of the Electors, Henry Stanley Bennett, telling him Lewis had to ‘overcome his scruples about G.V.S. I felt able to say in confidence that he would not be doing S. down.’ He added that Warnie ‘backed me up’. Other friends, such as Basil Willey, wrote saying ‘Come over into Macedonia and help us!’
Tolkien’s great news arrived too late. Sir Henry Willink had invited Helen Gardner to accept the Chair. Lewis, unaware of this, wrote to him on 19 May reopening the matter:
It is I who should apologize as the cause of multiplied letter writing, the more so since I am now writing again, and in a strain which may make me rather ridiculous. Since my last letter to you I have had a conversation with Tolkien which has considerably changed my view. He told me, first, that the electors would in no case elect a philologist. This is to me important, for it sets me free (in honour) – I had thought myself bound to refuse it by certain words I had already said to another candidate. If, as now appears, he is not effectively eligible, then I am not bound. He told me, in the second place, that full residence, with an ‘establishment’ in Cambridge, was not thought necessary: that four days a week in term time (less or more – there wd. of course be periods of pressure when I might be there for a fortnight or so) would fill the bill. Tolkien’s lively mind sometimes leads him (with perfectly innocent intentions) to overstate things. Is his view correct? If so, it would remove my difficulty. As long as my normal housekeeping can be at Oxford, so that the life-lines I told you of are intact, and it is a question of rooms in Cambridge (could any College supply me with them?) I cd. manage well. I can both work and sleep in trains so that the prospect of spending much of my life on the Bletchley route does not alarm me. I have no right to assume these conditions – they seem too good to be true – but if they are the real conditions I shd. like nothing better.
I feel a fool in saying all this. But you know how it is when a man has a possible change before him. It is impossible not to toy with the idea of what you would do, or would have done, if you accepted. I have begun composing imaginary lectures and this has had a good deal to do with it: you know what good lectures those ones always are!
Tolkien also said all the Oxford members of the committee had warned you that I was not a great exponent of ‘Research’.
It wd. not be honest not to add that if I were an elector I shd. prefer a fully resident Professor to a semi-resident one even if he were slightly less desirable in other respects.
Whatever your conclusion, I shall always be grateful for your kindness and rather ashamed of the trouble I have given.25
Sir Henry Willink, who must have felt he knew Lewis well by this time, wrote in a friendly manner that ‘If Choice No. 2 refuses, I hope you will feel that it will be very well worth while for us to have a meeting and a talk.’26 Lewis, also relaxed, answered on 26 May:
Whatever the upshot (and unless No 2 is as trickily placed as myself, I can’t quite see him turning down the offer) I sha
ll long remember your inexhaustible kindness, and if I don’t reach Cambridge as a Professor I shall come to Magdalene as a week-ender at the first opportunity in the hope of making your acquaintance.27
As it turned out, Helen Gardner had been undecided about what to do as she had been offered a University Readership in Renaissance English Literature at Oxford. When the rumour reached her that Lewis had changed his mind, she turned down the offer from Cambridge. As she said in the obituary for the British Academy: ‘When first approached he was unwilling to leave Oxford and the Chair was indeed offered to someone else. Fortunately, the “second string” declined, partly on account of having heard that Lewis was changing his mind, for it was obvious that this ought to be Lewis’s chair.’28
Sir Henry Willink wrote to Lewis on 3 June: ‘No. 2 has declined, and I am filled with hope that after all Cambridge will obtain the acceptance of No. 1, in spite of the fact that No. 1 will appear to No. 2 – who will, I hope, be thoroughly discreet – to have been No. 2.’ Sir Henry, in his capacity as both Vice-Chancellor of the University and Master of Magdalene, went on to say: ‘I am sure that you can rely on rooms within the walls of a College, and I hope very much that you will feel disposed – in the event of your acceptance of the Chair – to write to the Master of Magdalene, as the head of your sister College, enquiring if there was a possibility of your making your Cambridge home within its walls, before accepting any of the other invitations which may not improbably come to you.’29
Lewis understood perfectly and on 4 June he sent Sir Henry two letters. He addressed the Vice-Chancellor: ‘Thank you for your letter of the 3rd. I feel much pleasure and gratitude in accepting the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English.’30 And to the Master of Magdalene he wrote: ‘Dear Master, The Vice Chancellor … has suggested … that I should ask if there is any possibility of my making my Cambridge home in Magdalene.’31