The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings

by Philip Zaleski

Logres: Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 191–92; Lewis’s character MacPhee quotes a line from Williams’s Arthurian poem Taliessin Through Logres.

  “one of the great … this desire”: C. S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring” [the annual Commemoration Oration, King’s College London, December 14, 1944], originally published in C. S. Lewis, Transposition and Other Addresses (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949); quoted here from The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 100–103.

  “to make man”: Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 40.

  “It is commonly done”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 717.

  “wasn’t meant to illustrate”: Ibid., 669–70.

  “drawn in”: Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 81, 112.

  Mr. Bultitude: Lewis told Sayers that “Mr. Bultitude is described by Tolkien as a portrait of the author, but I feel that is too high a compliment (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 682). More likely, Lewis is paying homage to F. Anstey’s Vice Versa, in which Mr. Bultitude is the father who under an enchantment exchanges bodies with his son and finds out what boarding school life is really like.

  “the last vestige”: Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 282.

  “so preposterous”: George Orwell, “The Scientists Take Over,” Manchester Evening News, August 16, 1945, reprinted in The Complete Works of George Orwell, ed. Peter Davison, Vol. XVII (1998), No. 2720 (first half), 250–51. This is Orwell’s review of That Hideous Strength.

  “opera-bouffe”: Owen Barfield, introduction to Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis, xvi.

  “I wish he’d dedicated”: Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide, 706.

  “has got a more unanimous”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 682.

  “That Hideous Strength”: Ibid., 701.

  “I have just read”: Ibid., 571.

  “the novel at present”: Ibid., 574.

  “I’m writing a story”: Ibid., 634.

  The Apostles: Members included F. D. Maurice; James Clerk Maxwell; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Henry Sidgwick; the mathematician G. H. Hardy and his Brahmin prodigy, Srinivasa Ramanujan; Roger Fry; Alfred North Whitehead; J.M.E. McTaggart; Bertrand Russell; G. E. Moore; Ludwig Wittgenstein; Leonard Woolf; Lytton and James Strachey; E. M. Forster; Desmond MacCarthy; Rupert Brooke; and John Maynard Keynes.

  “To set up as a critic”: I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1926; reprint ed., London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 54.

  “appetencies”: Ibid., 42–43 et passim.

  “stock responses … doctrinal adhesions”: I. A. Richards, Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgment (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929), 14.

  huge crowds: See John Paul Russo, I. A. Richards: His Life and Work (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 93.

  “Here, at last”: Christopher Isherwood, Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties (London: L. & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1938), 121.

  his reception was decidedly chilly: See Russo, I. A. Richards: His Life and Work, 795, note 28.

  “when Leavis read poetry”: George Watson, Never One for Theory: England and the War of Ideas (Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth Press, 2000), 72.

  “one man who has”: Wain, Sprightly Running, 174.

  “as if our very lives”: David Ellis, Memoirs of a Leavisite: The Decline and Fall of Cambridge English (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), 25.

  “cultivated to perfection”: Noel Annan, Our Age: English Intellectuals Between the World Wars—A Group Portrait (New York: Random House, 1990), 318.

  the future of civilization: Queenie Leavis’s 1932 Fiction and the Reading Public (based on the doctoral thesis she wrote under the supervision of I. A. Richards) traced the pathways by which mass culture—following Gresham’s Law—was driving out good culture. Q. D. Leavis, Fiction and the Reading Public (London: Chatto & Windus, 1932).

  “in several long conversations”: Wain, Sprightly Running, 176–77.

  “a distaste”: L. C. Knights, “Mr C S Lewis and the Status Quo,” Scrutiny 8 (1939): 92.

  “persistent nourishment”: E.K.T. Dock, “Mr. Lewis’s Theology,” Scrutiny 19 (June 1946): 53–58.

  “Rehabilitations was warmly received … Can anyone be so optimistic”: Q. D. Leavis, “The Discipline of Letters: A Sociological Note,” Scrutiny 12 (1943): 22–26, reprinted in The Importance of Scrutiny: Selections from Scrutiny: A Quarterly Review, 1932–1948, ed. Eric Bentley (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 51–55.

  William Empson: See John Haffenden’s magisterial two-volume biography of Empson: William Empson: Among the Mandarins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), and William Empson: Against the Christians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). A full-length study of the relations between Empson and Lewis is greatly to be desired.

  Seven Types of Ambiguity or The Allegory of Love: Kingsley Amis, “Bare Choirs?” [review of Empson, Argufying], Sunday Telegraph (November 29, 1987), cited in Haffenden, William Empson: Among the Mandarins, 3.

  gracious unsigned review: “Professor Lewis on Linguistics” [review of Studies in Words], The Times Literary Supplement 3057 (September 30, 1960): 627. Discussed in Haffenden, William Empson: Against the Christians, 709, note 28.

  “I wish I had seen more”: John Horder, “William Empson, Straight,” The Guardian (August 12, 1969), quoted in Selected Letters of William Empson, ed. John Haffenden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 142, note 3. See Empson’s review of The Allegory of Love, “Love and the Middle Ages,” The Spectator (September 4, 1936), reprinted in William Empson, Argufying: Essays on Literature and Culture, edited with an introduction by John Haffenden (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987).

  “The gossip is that C. S. Lewis is going to get it”: Haffenden, Selected Letters of William Empson, 145.

  “neo-Christians”: Haffenden, William Empson: Against the Christians, 331 et passim.

  “When I was an Oxford undergraduate”: John Wain, Preliminary Essays (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s, 1957), 192.

  “What seems to you”: Jose Harris, “The Arts and Social Sciences, 1939–1970,” in The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 8: The Twentieth Century, ed. Brian Howard Harrison (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 239.

  14. LOSS AND GAIN

  “I’m even more … I am always aware”: Williams, To Michal from Serge, 249.

  “I wish you … all I want”: Ibid., 239–45.

  “bitterly disappointed”: Ibid., 200.

  “I am”: Hadfield, Introduction to Charles Williams, 201.

  “for anyone I have ever loved”: Hadfield, Ibid., 208.

  “3000 words”: Williams, To Michal from Serge, 248.

  “I do love you … O sweet”: Ibid., 243–49.

  “I am very glad … There will be no black magic”: Ibid., 257–59. In regard to Williams’s mention of “one more novel,” fragments remain of a unfinished novel entitled The Noises That Weren’t There, set in post-WWII England, which he apparently started shortly before his death.

  “quite simple … “it’s very quiet”: Williams, To Michal from Serge, 258.

  “a girl I knew”: Wain, Sprightly Running, 152.

  “At 12:50 this morning”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 182.

  “choosing unfortunately the King’s Arms … there will be no more pints”: Ibid., 182–83.

  “I share a little … I shall have you all”: Tolkien, Letters, 115.

  “as little (almost) … We now verified for ourselves”: Lewis, preface, Essays Presented to Charles Williams, xiv.

  “I believe in the next life”: Quoted in Carpenter, Inklings, 204.

  “the group had begun”: Wain, Sprightly Running, 185.

  “a writer’s task”: Ibid., 182.

  “a permanent member”: Quoted in Carpenter, Inklings, 205.

  “Last time, you said”: Christopher Tolkien, quoted in John and Priscilla Tolkien, Tolkien Family Album, 58.

  “Father Gervase”: L
ewis’s clerihew is quoted in Luke Rigby, O.S.B., “A Solid Man,” 40. Carpenter cites a slightly different version, attributed to Tolkien: Carpenter, Inklings, 186.

  “there has always been something sinister”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 201.

  “dismay … an R.C.”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 193.

  “At the far side of the table … acquaintance turned to friendship”: James Dundas-Grant, “From an Outsider,” in Como, C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table, 229–31.

  “Wars are always lost”: Tolkien, Letters, 116.

  “There seem no bowels of mercy”: Ibid., 111.

  “the first War of the Machines … leaving, alas, everyone the poorer”: Ibid., 111.

  “grief … does not look kindly”: Ibid., 115–16. The Nazgûl are the monstrous winged steeds of the Enemy’s servants.

  “squandered … three weeks”: Ibid., 112–14.

  “incredible belonging … for the first time”: Ibid., 116–17.

  “I shall now have to study … before long”: Ibid., 118–19.

  345–46 “a brilliant … quite honestly”: Quoted in ibid., 119–20.

  “those that like this … written in my life-blood”: Ibid., 121–22.

  “a good meeting … We went on”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 188–93.

  346–47 “to dine … two she-tutors”: Ibid., 192.

  “Charles [Williams]”: Ibid., 192.

  “towards the end”: Ibid., 187.

  “blossomed out … treated the place”: Ibid., 199–200.

  347–48 “feeling very guilty … anxious and travel stained”: Ibid., 201.

  “the haunting fear”: Ibid., 203.

  “holy and very loveable … something grey and secret”: Ibid., 201–202.

  “This holiday”: Ibid., 207.

  “He is certainly a fool … Almost anyone”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 621–22.

  “a poor gentlewoman”: Ibid., 711.

  “The fund”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 31.

  “Bettiana”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 974.

  “there’s something v. wrong”: Ibid., 974.

  “a variety almost … I await”: Ibid., 872.

  “your absence … perhaps you will find”: Ibid., 704–709.

  351–52 “In this book … a fairly permanent nucleus”: Lewis, preface, Essays Presented to Charles Williams, v.

  “They are … concerned with story”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 655.

  “not quite an Inkling”: Fredrick and McBride, Women Among the Inklings, 20. For more on this issue, see pp. 20–24 in their excellent study.

  “might have been disturbed”: James Brabazon, Dorothy L. Sayers: A Biography (New York: Scribner, 1981), 236.

  “I conceived a loathing”: Tolkien, Letters, 82.

  “every Holy Week”: C. S. Lewis, “A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers,” On Stories, 93.

  “the first person”: C. S. Lewis, “Wain’s Oxford,” Encounter 20, no. 1 (January 1963): 81, quoted in Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide, 34.

  “Your Dorothy Sayers … I only hope”: Quoted in Dorothy L. Sayers, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899–1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist, ed. Barbara Reynolds (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 339–40.

  “was simply the most incomparable … nobody had taught him”: Dorothy L. Sayers, “‘… And Telling You a Story’: A Note on The Divine Comedy,” in Lewis, Essays Presented to Charles Williams, 2–4.

  353–54 “that quality without which”: Ibid., 15.

  “perhaps a trifle”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 817.

  “Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation … Enchantment”: Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” in Lewis, Essays Presented to Charles Williams, 66–70.

  “assist in the effoliation”: Ibid., 84.

  “Story itself … is there for the sake of the story”: C. S. Lewis, “On Stories,” in Lewis, Essays Presented to Charles Williams, 90.

  “deeper imagination”: Ibid., 96.

  “something other than a process”: Ibid., 103.

  “despite their free use”: Ibid., 104.

  “No book is really worth reading”: Ibid., 100.

  “these two, and Mr. H.V.D. Dyson”: Lewis, preface, Essays Presented to Charles Williams, vi.

  “with his pen”: St. Andrews Citizen, June 29, 1946, quoted in Duriez, C. S. Lewis Chronicles, 223.

  355–56 “slightly sour[ed] … for a while”: Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology, 305.

  “the smallest Inkling”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 212.

  “A very pleasant meeting”: Ibid., 216.

  “which I enjoyed”: Ibid., 218–19.

  a long letter: the letter is dated Septuagesima 1948, the third Sunday before Advent, which fell that year on January 25.

  “I regret causing pain … But I warn you”: Tolkien, Letters, 126–28.

  “Nay!”: Ibid., 128.

  “Hugo’s voice was booming”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 218.

  “lying on the couch”: from J.R.R.T.: A Study of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 1892–1973, directed by Derek Bailey, written and produced by Helen Dickinson, narrated by Judi Dench (VHS video; London: Visual Corporation, 1992).

  “Oh God, not another fucking elf!”: A. N. Wilson, in his biography of Lewis, records Dyson’s remark as “Oh fuck, not another elf!” (A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis, 217). In an article in The Telegraph, referring to Dyson’s words as “Oh no! Not another fucking elf!,” Wilson states that the “fucking elf” story came from Christopher Tolkien himself. A. N. Wilson, “Tolkien Was Not a Writer,” The Telegraph (November 24, 2001).

  “When Tolkien came through the door”: “John Wain,” in Contemporary Authors: Something About the Author (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1986).

  “I remember this very vividly”: From J.R.R.T.: A Study of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 1892–1973.

  “Shut up, Hugo”: From ibid.

  “the impression of … Don’t do that”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 97–98.

  “Councillor Brewer arrived”: Ibid., 220.

  “at a ham supper”: Ibid., 230.

  “freshness and vigour … sophisticated malice-flecked delight”: Alexander Pope, Pope: Poetry and Prose, with Essays by Johnson, Coleridge, Hazlitt, &c., with an introduction and notes by H.V.D. Dyson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), v–vii.

  “It is”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, 360.

  15. MIRACLES

  “Has Physics sold the pass?”: May 13, 1943, letter from Dorothy L. Sayers, quoted in Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide, 343.

  a miracle need not be seen as a violation: For Thomas Aquinas, “those things are properly called miracles which are done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed in nature (praeter ordinem communiter observatum in rebus).” Summa Contra Gentiles III.

  “the whole show”: C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, rev. ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 6.

  “no account of the universe”: C. S. Lewis, Miracles, A Preliminary Study, 1st ed. (London: Geoffrey Bles, Centenary Press, 1947), 26.

  “evolution is either an innocent”: Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 60.

  “the sceptics, like bees”: G. K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions (Dodd, Mead, 1911), 227.

  “has grown up gradually”: Lewis, Miracles, 42. Barfield’s remarks on a letter dated June 19, 1947, inserted in his personal copy of the first edition of Miracles (1947): Barfield Library Publications and Inserts, Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

  “Whether [a man’s] conclusions”: “A Reply to Mr. C. S. Lewis’ Argument that Naturalism is Self-Refuting” reprinted from The Socratic Digest 4 (1948): 7–15 as “C. S. Lewis on Naturalism,” in G.E.M. Anscombe, The Collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, vol. 2 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), 227. The exchange between Lewis and Anscombe—and its effect on Lewis’s subsequent revis
ion of Miracles—has been carefully analyzed by Lewis’s Dutch translator, Arend Smilde, in a special issue of The Journal of Inklings Studies devoted to this topic: Arend Smilde, “What Lewis Really Did to Miracles: A Philosophical Layman’s Attempt to Understand the Anscombe Affair,” The Journal of Inklings Studies 1, no. 2 (October 2011): 9–24. See also the supporting material Smilde provides in appendices on his website: www.lewisiana.nl/787olkien787/appendices.pdf (accessed August 17, 2014).

  “veridical” might have expressed his meaning: Lewis’s reply to Anscombe, from the Socratic Club minutes, The Socratic Digest 4 (1948): 15, reprinted in Lewis, God in the Dock, 146.

  “in general it appeared”: Socratic Club minutes, The Socratic Digest 4 (1948): 15, reprinted in Lewis, God in the Dock, 145–46.

  “the fact that Lewis rewrote”: G.E.M. Anscombe, preface, Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, x.

  notable defenders: Alvin Plantinga, “Is Naturalism Irrational?” chap. 12 of Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 216–37. For a sustained defense, see Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2003); for a critique, see Peter van Inwagen, “C. S. Lewis’ Argument Against Naturalism,” The Journal of Inklings Studies 1, no. 2 (October 2011): 25–40.

  “The rightful demand”: Lewis, Miracles, 97.

  363–64 “with real horror … had lost everything”: Derek Brewer, “The Tutor: A Portrait,” in Como, C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table, 59. Brewer also notes that five of those present when Lewis described Anscombe’s critique “had been infantry officers at the age of nineteen and had seen action”—which is, as he notes, “a curious commentary on English scholarly life in the twentieth century,” but may also help to account for why such language of defeat under siege would come naturally to Lewis.

  “My own recollection”: G.E.M. Anscombe, preface, Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, x.

  “The lady is quite right”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 35.

  “the subtlest of all the snares”: Lewis, Great Divorce, 74.

  “nothing is more dangerous … from Christian apologetics”: Lewis, “Christian Apologetics,” God in the Dock, 103.

  “like the old fangless snake”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 129.