All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  Saturday 1 July: Woke early with a dry and sore throat. Thinking that I heard the others stirring in the next room, I got up. From my small window (framed in thatch) I looked out on Brill Hill. Going downstairs I found nothing doing and walked to the pub to buy a packet of cigarettes. I had to wait a long time for the others and read a Study of Metre—I think by a man called Ormond.68 A badly written book. We breakfasted at about 9.30.

  Afterwards they read the new (IIIrd) Canto of ‘Dymer’ while I read the IIIrd part of Barfield’s ‘Tower’. His hero has got to France by now, and he describes waking up in billets. I thought it very fine. In the IInd part I was quite reconciled to the part about the telephone wires on a second reading.

  Barfield and Harwood both approved of the new canto, but found the position of things obscure and could not always make out exactly what was happening. This is an unpardonable sort of offence in this sort of poem. They promised to try and come here before they went down next week.

  I left at 12.15 and biked home through hurricanes of wind, feeling rather poorly. At lunch D reminded me that Miss Wiblin was coming, so I went into town to look up ‘Higher Certificate’ papers, but cd. find none . . . Arthur had met the Doc yesterday evening, and (of course) used him as a father confessor.

  After tea I went into College and again failed to see Poynton: walked home in torrents of rain under an umbrella lent by Frank. D making strawberry jam—a fine fruity smell pervading the house. Miss W. came for supper and afterwards I did Latin Unseens with her in the drawing room. I think my first ‘tutorial’ went off alright. She wanted to pay but D and I would not allow this.

  Sunday 2 July: My sore throat was much better this morning but my cold continued very heavy all day. I read Bernard Shaw’s Irrational Knot which I bought in June 1917 and have never read. Arthur, to whom I had lent it when last at home, brought it back. A crude, silly book, but rather interesting.

  The Malcomson woman, in a Ford car, called for Arthur soon after breakfast and he went off to Islip . . . In the evening D and I discussed our plans. It was hard to decide yes or no about the Reading job and D was so anxious not to influence me that I cd. not be quite sure what her wishes were—I am equally in the dark as to what my own real wishes are, apart from the mood of the moment . . .

  Monday 3 July: My cold was so heavy in the morning that I ‘allowed myself to be persuaded’ by D to stop in bed—i.e. I accepted her advice as a confirmation of my own sneaking wishes. I finished The Irrational Knot and read Dr Miller’s The New Psychology and the Teacher: a good little book, all about psychoanalysis really, and touching education in the first and last chapters. At about 12.30 I got up, shaved and dressed.

  Arthur now re-appeared and we had lunch. He was very full of his visit to Islip which he appears to have enjoyed: he had been taken to see Robert Graves. He went up to see Mrs Taunton in the afternoon. After tea it cleared up and I walked up and down Warneford Rd. in the sunshine.

  A letter arrived from Dodds to say that the Reading job has been given to someone with a name like Mabbot at Exeter.69 Our discussion of the problem must have nearly coincided with their decision which removed the problem. On the whole it is rather a relief to have the difficult alternative out of our minds.

  After supper we had an uproarous evening over Maureen’s, Arthur’s and my attempts to do a rider in Geometry. Later I read James’ Turn of the Screw aloud to D and Arthur in his edition. We all liked it immensely, though D called it ‘absurd’. The style certainly is wonderfully unnatural, but it gets there.

  Tuesday 4 July: I dreamed that I was in our room at Little Lea and Warnie was in bed, when my mother (or someone I called my mother) came in and announced with malicious triumph her arrangement of some marriage either for W. or for ‘my sister’. I was angry and said ‘God damn you’. P shortly afterwards came in and told me I was to be ‘prosecuted for scandal’ but I laughed at him and said ‘fiddlesticks’.

  After breakfast Arthur and I went into town: I called in College, while he went into Blackwells, in the hope of seeing Poynton, but found he was out of Oxford. I then went to the Union and looked round for a while. It began to rain heavily: when it was a little brighter I went to Blackwells and rejoined Arthur.

  Returning to the Union, I took out for him Jung’s Analytical Psychology and Rivers’ Instinct and the Subconscious at his own request, but of course he won’t read them. In the Corn he saw the Malcomson party and rushed after them: he is very anxious for me to follow up this acquaintance. We got home at about one o’clock.

  D had had a ‘board and lodging’ letter from Baker, describing his interview with Lilian Bayliss. She, apparently, is a ‘spiritual’ woman who regards her career as an actress-manageress [of the ‘Old Vic’] in the light of a divinely appointed mission: she had a soulful conversation with Baker. But she is also, he says ‘a very, very good business woman’ and ‘doesn’t always clearly distinguish between the temporal and the spiritual’.

  After lunch Arthur retired to his room with Dr Miller, Jung, Rivers and ‘Dymer’ to read. Later on he went to tea with the Gonners. D and I had a good deal of talk in the afternoon. After supper I continued reading out The Turn of the Screw. We were all much excited but held different views as to what had happened. This led to a general argument between Arthur and me about ‘obscurity’ in art. I couldn’t quite understand his point, nor cd. he explain it . . .

  Wednesday 5 July: Arthur was late in getting up and hesitated for a long time whether to go out in the morning or not. At last he made up his mind and we went out for a walk together. I took him up Shotover.

  We discussed Ireland, home, and fathers. He finds the thought of going home more intolerable each time and dreads, above all, business talks with the old man. The same old man has been trying to get him to make a will and seems to tell a good many lies.

  We first sat down on the nearer slope of the first valley: Arthur was in raptures over the flat plain towards Sinodin Hills and the Chilterns. We then went on to the gate on the left looking towards Forest Hill, where we surprised the usual congregation of rabbits. Next we went to within sight of my favourite grove above Horsepath Lane, and returned home by the path over the fields by the wood’s edge to Cowley Barracks. It was a fine morning with a soft air, rather windy, grey skied and a little warm at one time when the sun tried to break through. Arthur enjoyed the country immensely and it was quite like old times: he was collecting ideas for his competition picture under the title of ‘The Picnic’.

  After lunch he went into town. I read a little in Rivers’ Instinct and the Unconscious and chatted with D who is in good form. It now began to rain and continued for the rest of the day. Arthur returned for tea, having found no more answers for me at the Times office.

  We then settled down to draw pictures for the school sale. It became very dark. Furniture got moved into wrong places. The dining room does not comfortably hold four people. A lot of ragging. Arthur made a ghastly failure of a comic drawing in the Heath Robinson style: I made an equal mess of a symbolic thing in Indian ink.

  At eight o’clock Miss Wiblin arrived and we had supper. She gave Maureen a lesson and I looked over her Latin Prose. D and I very late in getting to bed. We talked over the awful time we had had the term before last: I said again that the Askins were not ultimately forgivable.

  Thursday 6 July: A grey and damp day. I took Arthur out for a walk, going as far as Carfax by bus: thence down St Aldate’s and by Lake St. over the water works. The dampness of the air began to thicken into rain. Beyond Hinksey the mud on the field path was almost continental. Arthur was very tired from the first, and soon began to lag, tho’ resisting for some time my suggestions that we should turn. Near the farm the rain became so heavy that we beat a retreat. Very tiring, but the tremendous wind, among so many fields of corn and trees, made it beautiful.

  I put Arthur on a bus at Carfax, did some shopping, and called in College. Here I found a notice saying that candidates for the Magdalen Fellowship might se
nd in a dissertation in addition to doing the exam. I was so engrossed in this news that I cannot remember whether I walked or bussed home. After lunch Arthur retired to ‘lie down’ according to his usual practice: D was hard at work for the sale: I began a ‘dissertation’ on the hegemony of the moral value . . .

  After supper we all settled down to work for the sale. I drew an Indian ink drawing of which Arthur approved parts. D slaving away at some wretched work for the same sale, and we were not in bed till nearly 2 o’clock.

  Friday 7 July: Another damp cold day. Set to work on a prose for Miss Wiblin after breakfast: as we had been very late in getting up, this took me until lunch time. Just before we sat down, Barfield appeared to ask if he and Harwood might come to tea. I of course gladly agreed—then realised that I must be in town and at the Sale before their arrival.

  Gobbled down some lunch and bussed into Oxford: left Livy back in College and took out a volume of Cicero for Miss Wiblin. Then, by bus to Headington where Arthur was to meet me. He turned up very late, a rather ridiculous figure on my bicycle with his knees coming up to his chin at each stroke of the pedal. We entered the sale—a very dull show, tho’ some of the paintings by the girls were interesting . . .

  Barfield and Harwood turned up, both tired with packing and distressed at leaving Bee Cottage, where a S. African lady is now installed. Sic transit gloria. D and Barfield hit it off splendidly and he remained with her while Harwood came into the drawing room and looked over the version I had done for Miss Wiblin. Coming back to the others we were joined by Arthur, who began to sketch Barfield, and fell into a long and strangely heartfelt conversation on happiness. We were rather pessimistic.

  It rained hard. D now found out that Harwood was sleeping at the House, and that Barfield was looking for a room for the night. He accepted her invitation to stay with us, and I put up the camp bed in my room. A 8 o’clock Miss Wiblin arrived, and we sat down seven strong to supper: all in good spirits now, and plenty of ragging. Afterwards the others played bridge, while I retired with Miss W. to the drawing room. We had about an hour and a half and stopped because she was dead beat: this plain and therefore unnoticed girl has all the pluck in the world and works for at least eight hours a day teaching, while reading for exams as well. After the lesson we had some tea and she and Arthur played to us. Barfield went to bed at about 12.30 and I at about 1.30. Harwood had to leave early.

  Saturday 8 July: We were all late getting up. Harwood turned up during breakfast to speak to Barfield for a minute and then went on to ride through wind and rain beyond Dorchester. We had some good talk over the breakfast table, but I cannot remember what it was about.

  A letter from Pasley offering to come here for £2–10–0 a week while we are at Mrs Raymond’s house which she is lending us for August. I did not notice his language much at the time and replied at once offering it for £2. Afterwards D drew my attention to a curious tone in Pasley’s letter which suggested that they were coming merely as a kindness to us and that with an ill grace. We decided to write another letter tomorrow explaining ourselves.

  Arthur went off to sketch on Shotover and Barfield left us at about 11.30. I did not go out, my cold being very heavy. We had lunch alone, leaving cold things for Arthur who was out till nearly four o’clock. In the afternoon I read Cicero’s De Finibus—a not very inspired work. Supper at about 8 o’clock, when Harwood came. A variety of subjects were raised. Harwood made a statement about blancs manges which D and I found very amusing. Afterwards, he, Arthur and Maureen played. Rather earlier to bed, thank goodness.

  Sunday 9 July: Set to work after breakfast to write a letter to Pasley explaining that we had meant to draw attention merely to the possible coincidence of his convenience and ours, not to ask him for a favour. D vetoed my first draft as offensive and likely to cause a quarrel—it reflected, tho’ not deliberately, the tone of Pasley’s letter, which I like less the more I read it. A friend dead is to be mourned: a friend married is to be guarded against, both being equally lost. I then wrote again in a more genial style and we let the second version go.

  I read the IVth Book of Paradise Lost through in the morning, with much enjoyment. It stopt raining at about noon and I walked up Shotover, where Arthur had gone earlier, but couldn’t meet him and came back to lunch at 1. Maureen was rather poorly with rheumatic pains. It was so cold that we lit the fire in the drawing room and sat there. A slack afternoon, D not in good form. Arthur came back for late lunch just before tea time and soon retired to his room. I tried my hand at a lyrical epilogue to ‘Dymer’ but with no success.

  Just as we were sitting down to supper, in came Jenkin who is up till Wednesday for his viva. We were delighted to see him. He has been bicycling in the Forest of Dean with Watling and goes from there to Cornwall. We discussed The Turn of the Screw: he agrees with me that the boy is ‘saved’ in the last scene. We talked of Emma: he liked it, but parts of it made him ‘writhe’. We then listened to him on mining. He said that 50 years ago when mines were beginning to be deep but before lifts were introduced, men, after eight hours work, used to climb up naked lengths of ladder in the shaft, to four times the height of St Paul’s, often hanging on their arms when the angle of ascent was this side of perpendicular. He went off, borrowing ‘Dymer’, at 10.30.

  Arthur said he enjoyed Jenkin’s conversation more than the others because it was about things you could understand. D and I were astonished, for Barfield and Co. had talked no literary shop at all, but general talk on subjects of interest to all men and women. Arthur is an incorrigible baby after all.

  D and I sat up late. She said it was strange that I liked Baker more than the Bee Cottage people: we concluded it must be because Baker liked me more than they did, also he is my equal, while Barfield towers above us all. D liked him and Harwood exceedingly . . .

  Monday 10 July: . . . After lunch (Arthur was out painting as usual) came Jenkin and we cycled together up Shotover, going as far as a gate on the bridlepath to Horsepath where we sat. It was a warm, miraculously quiet afternoon—sounds muffled by dampness, flies humming, and a hint of possible thunder in the air. The landscape eastwards over Wheatley to the Chilterns was very fine in the sunshine. We talked at random and most pleasantly, of the ‘stability’ of the English countryside, of philosophy, of 17th Century prose.

  On the way home Jenkin observed that there was more real humanity in the atmosphere of the 18th Century than in the ‘humanitarian’ romantics that came after Rousseau, for these first began to regard . . . the man in the street, the bourgeois as an alien to be shocked and mocked or disregarded . . . Such a view made my heart warm toward Jenkin, tho’ I pointed out that the man in the street was so much stronger than we and so ready to hit that one could not indulge one’s sympathy too much.

  Arthur was here when we came back, tired from his morning’s work. Jenkin departed soon after tea. I read River’s book with great interest, though many of the technicalities were Greek to me. I was struck with the idea that the ‘subconscious’ might sometime be an ‘alternate consciousness’ such as we get in dual personality and that such alternative consciousness might be normal say in amphibian animals . . .

  Tuesday 11 July: It was a perfect, pearly grey morning, cool and dewy, with a promise of much heat to come, and the strangest touch of autumn in the air, unseasonable but delightful . . .

  Arthur and I left at 11.30 and proceeded—after some hesitation—to the first gap on Shotover, where he settled down to paint. It was all delightful. I had Shelley with me and read some of the best parts of the IVth Act of Prometheus. Later I walked round the whole amphitheatre of the first gap, penetrating many bits where I have not been before. Arthur had brought sandwiches but I left him at 12.30 and came home to lunch . . .

  Arthur came home at about 6.30 in a state of exhaustion, having worked on Shotover all day and had no tea. This is a fine advance on anything he wd. have dreamed of two years ago. He had done a landscape in oils, which we all admired, unintelligently e
nough no doubt.

  After supper I read Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the garden. Miss Wiblin called and left a Latin prose—better style than the last, but shocking grammar howlers, poor girl. A letter from Pasley making it plain that it is all O.K. about his coming here . . .

  Wednesday 12 July: . . . It was a warm day. D hard at work on a petticoat for Lady Gonner. I worked on my dissertation in the garden until suddenly informed that it was 4.35 and that we must be at Meadowlands at 5.

  I dashed off on foot while Arthur followed on my bicycle: I finally arrived in good time. Mrs Hinckley, Veronica, Arthur and I had tea in the shrubbery beyond her hill—quite a pleasant time. Veronica is going to teach French at Maureen’s school next term. Mrs H. gave us a wonderful account of her cousin aged 78. This redoubtable old woman arrived before lunch, having biked from London, sleeping the night at High Wycombe. She then (after lunch) biked in to see a friend in Woodstock Rd., returned, had tea, walked all round Mrs Hinckley’s wilderness, and biked twenty miles next morning. She told them that she had enjoyed the last twenty years of her life more than any period which had gone before . . .

  Miss Wiblin came and we did about half an hour’s lesson before supper, to which Jenkin came. A jolly meal, improved by mushroom stew. Afterwards I finished Miss Wiblin’s lesson and we came back and all had tea and cakes in the dining room. Jenkin had told D about his father who died suddenly while riding with him, so that he had the awful job of telling his mother. He spoke very bitterly about the uselessness of his friends once they get married. He invited me to come and stay with him at St Ive’s, but of course railway fares make that impossible . . .