All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  My ‘other complex’ is the ‘Dymer’ myth itself. She told me that I had had at the age of six or seven a ‘little dog’ who hurt his paw and with whom I sat up all night: and that my father sent the dog away ‘because of Mr Patterson’. She must be referring to Nero who did hurt his paw. But he was a collie, not a ‘little dog’: I never sat up all night with it: he was sent away because he chased sheep: I do not remember feeling murderous about the subject—altho’ just as I write these words I remember a great deal more emotion than I thought I did: possibly this is paramnesia.

  The coarseness of ‘Dymer’ depended apparently on the word ‘wenched’ in the first Canto. She took this very seriously: excused me on the ground of having no mother or sisters and because Oxford men were notoriously coarse—coarser than those of Cambridge. I reminded her that it was Cambridge undergraduates who had torn down the gates of women’s colleges and jeered at them. She replied without hesitation ‘The young men are quite right to defend themselves.’

  She then told me a very disgusting story of two medical students here in Oxford, who she had seen dragging off a dog into the laboratories: and they were laughing together as they talked of the old man who had sold it making them promise to give it a good home and be kind to it. After that I no longer defended Oxford again nor ever shall.

  Of ‘Dymer’ she took a more favourable view than before, especially of the first canto. She said Shakespeare’s Theseus was the most perfect gentleman in all literature, and As You Like It the best comedy. She agreed with me that Keats would have been greater than them all, even perhaps than Shakespeare, if he had lived: for he had a perfect medium, but died before he found much to say through it. She praised Tirrell (Conservative member for the county) very highly for his honesty. She also told me how Asquith had completely broken down under the Suffragette campaign of 1913—and had wept before two women in Edinburgh (armed with parasols) until they had to hold him up. She knew one of these women intimately . . .

  Sunday 26 November: A heavy frost, a cold wind. We were rather late in getting up and after breakfast I walked out, taking Ben Jonson with me and began the Alchemist. I got far enough to enjoy the fine vigour of the first scene—like Corneille, tho’ so unlike, he gets something superhuman into his characters—tho’ mere comedy rogues—when it became too windy to read.

  I crossed the river at Iffley lock where they are building a pretty, new bridge, roofed like a lych-gate. On the other side it was delightful: a sky like steel with a very pale yellow sun that you could look at as easily as the moon, and the river all whipped up by the wind. There was a good deal of ice among the weeds. I walked as far as the weir just before Sandford lock: stood on the bridge and watched the water for a long time till the bridge seemed to move backwards.

  Walked home again and chatted till lunch. D was in very good form. Afterwards I read Henry V. Started by hating it because it is about a most inexcusable war lord, but was quite converted before I finished . . .

  Monday 27 November: Worked at Anglo-Saxon grammar and The Battle of Maldon till lunch time and after lunch till 3 o’clock. The Battle of M. is ripping and I am glad to have found the original of a passage I have known for years . . .

  On emerging at supper time I found that Mrs Taylor had called. D had wondered why and bided her time and presently out the cat came from its very miserable bag. Mrs Taylor is hoping to get Uncle Bunny’s (Kempshead of Magdalen)117 house. It is to be let and Mrs T. has seen over it. D had pooh-poohed the idea, telling her that we had been to see about it nearly a year ago: when the old man told us he wanted to sell, and if he did let he had already forty applicants.

  ‘Oh, are you looking for a house?’ asked Mrs Taylor, who knows well that we have been looking since 1919 and often talked to us of the matter in the days when we saw more of her. She is now greatly surprised to hear of our desire for a house: and after suggesting that we might go to Iffley and remarking, apropos of Lord knows what, that her sisters could not do without a servant ‘as they had never been brought up to that sort of thing’, she departed. It is an indignity to be angry with Mrs Taylor tho’ God knows she lied: she lied like a procuress.

  What really worried me was Uncle Bunny. He was a man of our own class with no ground in the world to bear us a grudge: and I began to have a sinister feeling that there is something really queer in us that makes us permanently unfortunate in these matters. Uncle Bunny, by the way, is the Headington mystery. Some say he lives in an incestuous amour with his niece ‘Peter’ Grimbly and pity his wife: others, that his wife is mad, and pity the poor old man. The story however seems to come from Wendy and I doubt if it has any evidence. D said she was quite convinced that she wd. never again live in a house of her own.

  All supper time we sat in judgement on Headington and its people (whom God reject) and perhaps felt the better for it. D had rather a bad headache. She had been disgusted to hear that Mary proposes to drag the unfortunate Doc to London next week to buy her a fur collared coat, tho’ he wears the cast offs of his friends and does not even buy himself a newspaper . . .

  Later on D and I fell to talking of all the people who had failed us as mysteriously as those who had turned enemy. As we turned over the list I could not help exclaiming that with few exceptions I loathed the female sex . . .

  Wednesday 29 November: D got an answer about a house in Woodstock Road and we decided to see about it at once. D said she was quite well enough to go. We all three set out after breakfast and bussed to Carfax, thence to 204 Woodstock Road. It was a beautiful frosty day with a blue sky: D was naturally delighted at being out again and we were all in good spirits.

  The house stood on the right side of the road and opposite it were open fields looking across to Wytham Woods—a delightful view, not spoiled to my mind by two tall chimneys and a sheet of water. The house, except for the smallness of the garden, was everything that could be desired, but of course we hardly dare to have hopes of getting it: and as the rent is £100 I consider it a very dangerous experiment.

  We had just come out from seeing it—we were shown over by a maid, the mistress being out—and were waiting for a bus, when a woman who had seen us came out and spoke to D. This turned out to be the owner, and D returned with her to the house, while Maureen and I walked up and down.

  As we passed a house with very large bow windows I happened to look up: and in the window I saw an old lady whom I thought I recognised as Cousin Mary.118 I could not be sure and did not risk a second glance. I returned alone on the far side of the road and kept out of sight until D came out again. This little episode was quite enough to spoil the blue sky for me, and I was rather poor company (I’m afraid) for the rest of the morning. D had been nicely received by the owner (Mrs Waters I think) and we have been promised first chance if the house is let: but of course they are thinking of selling it . . .

  This was my birthday and I am now twenty four: whether it was that, or the face at the window this morning, I don’t know, but I was depressed and remember this as rather a nasty day. On the other hand it was a great comfort that D was none the worse for being out and I think really the better. We had a horrible episode this evening (Tibbie being sick in the drawing room after a gorge of stolen fish wh. Dorothy had foolishly left within her reach). Late to bed.119

  Thursday 30 November: Poor D had a miserable night, first being kept awake by toothache and then woken again by an unusually bad nightmare. We were all late in getting up. I spent the morning starting my essay on Bacon and made very satisfactory progress . . .

  I showed Jenkin the end of Canto II of ‘Dymer’ which he had never seen since I put in what Barfield used to call the ‘PASH’. He pronounced it ‘simply splendid’. I then walked back with him to his rooms: listening to a diatribe against women. He said no woman under forty was to be trusted. We became very merry later on . . .

  Friday 1 December: . . . I . . . finished my work: thence to Gordon’s lecture at Schools where I met Jenkin. The lecture was excellent, tho’ the
best part was a long quotation from Lessing on the question of historical truth in drama. He also told us that this would be his last lecture for the term and referred humorously to the usual practice of lecturers who pretend to be very annoyed if anything prevented their lecturing. I like everything about this man . . .

  I walked in to Wilson and read him my essay on Bacon. He seemed pleased with it, and we had some good discussion: afterwards on Spenser, in whom he could find no foreshadowing of Milton tho’ afterwards he admitted some of my examples and even advanced others of his own . . .

  Maureen gave us an amazing account of lunch with the Raymonds today. Mr R. was drinking sherry and his wife asked for some. ‘This sherry is nearly finished,’ replied he ‘why not have some port?’ ‘That’s just like you,’ retorted mother Raymond, ‘you’re always getting wine for yourself and you’ll never let anyone else have any.’ This quarrel continued throughout the meal, while by a species of domestic counterpoint, the children kept up a separate one between themselves . . .

  Saturday 2 December: By the first post came a letter from Harwood, couched in the kindest terms imaginable—tho’ the saying that both he and Barfield thought my mock epistle one of my best things was rather a shaky compliment. He included two new poems of his own, ‘The soldier’s coat’ and a poem about an empty room and pocket Horace.120 These both seemed to me extraordinarily original. He has got hold of a queer little haunting province of his own. I was more pleased with them than with anything that my friends (including myself) have written for a long time . . .

  Ivy had called and presently D came in to tell me the shocking story of how Ivy had mentioned the death of her fiancé—sandwiched in between an account of some private theatricals and a description of hospital politics—apparently with no feeling. He died the day before yesterday. Ivy went still lower: she said it was hard luck, ‘I never even thought of any other man: I never flirted with anyone.’ She seemed to think she deserved the praise of a heroine because she had gone to see him at 4.30 a.m. when he was ill: I am very surprised and disappointed in Ivy: I had quite believed in her. Dorothy seems to have felt as D did.

  After lunch I biked to Forest Hill at top speed. Aunt Lily had not got my letter saying I would not come to lunch: so I forced myself to have some soup . . . She propounded a theory that genius resulted from a process the opposite of that which produced identical twins—from the coalescing of two ova: and remarked that this was supported by the fact that genius seldom reproduced itself—having already exchanged differences in its own person . . .

  We ended by discussing her philosophy. I said she urged us to co-operate with Life: I asked whether, remembering what Life might be really aiming at, there was any reason to help? Was the game worth the candle? She said there was the choice. It wasn’t her business to choose for anyone else. I showed her Harwood’s two pieces, which she pronounced with conviction to be real poetry . . .

  Sunday 3 December: . . . After lunch Maureen and I biked to the Sheldonian where we again got window seats in the upper gallery. We had a very complicated bill of fare and unfortunately could not get programmes. Sir Hugh [Allen] conducted: the orchestra being rather smaller than before. They gave Bach’s ‘Sleeper awake’ which I didn’t make much of, Besley’s ‘Dominus Illuminatio’ which I liked, and Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on Christmas Carols’. This was interesting, especially his device of making the chorus hum in places which produces a very fine effect.

  Best of all, they did some fragments of the Messiah, in which I got quite unexpected pleasure—for at one time it was quite staled to me on the gramophone and in my Wagner craze I despised Handel. The afternoon closed with some carols in which the audience lugubriously joined. In the whole, I enjoyed this show less than most—and what I really remember was the excellent view from the window we sat in—a kind of stage scene with Hertford Bridge for the backcloth and Clarendon Building and Old Schools for the wings . . .

  Monday 4 December: Found to my relief that D had had an unexpectedly good night so far as the face was concerned, tho’ she was and continued all day very poorly with indigestion. I spent the morning doing a paper for Miss Wardale . . .

  Jenkin came rather late to tea. He complained of the bad feeding in College. He said the kitchen committee was always composed of hearty people who dined out every night of their lives. Years ago it had been suggested that they might occasionally have baked potatoes. Since then they had had them baked for two years without a change! He then retired to work with Maureen. Afterwards I walked with him up the hill to the Asylum gate. He told me he was going to Italy this vac: oh the luck that men have!

  I then returned, had supper, and washed up. After this I wrote to my father and then continued the Judith which despite its bombast is really admirable—especially the march of the Hebrews. D was very poorly and depressed in the evening and we were afraid the tooth was going to start again. Luckily it did not and we were in bed fairly early . . .

  Tuesday 5 December: . . . I forgot to say that yesterday I met Fasnacht in town, when he again asked me to tea: I had to refuse, and as he looked rather vexed, I asked him to come here this afternoon . . . I thought little of Fasnacht: there is too much Oxford about him. I was not surprised to find that he admired Earp and Rowland Childe: I said pretty plainly that I did not.121 He said apropos of eugenics, that he would extend Pasley’s principle (i.e. ‘the same disgrace which now attaches to an illegitimate child shd. attach to a child too many’) to all children, on grounds taken from Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. Fasnacht is therefore a pessimist.

  We discussed the ideal of extinction for the planet: he admitted that it was hopeless, as you couldn’t destroy all life before you retired yourself, and even if you did, nature might still have something up her sleeve. He then went on to expound what he called Idealistic Nihilism—the theory [that] nothing at all exists . . . I attempted to give a serious answer to Fasnacht’s theory and this led to an argument on Nothing. I used the same line as in my essay to prove that there were no alternatives to the actual whole.

  He is a very close reasoner and I have seldom had the satisfaction of driving a sound adversary so consistently from position to position until he acknowledged that ‘there could be no pure nothing’. He took refuge in what he called an impure or imperfect nothing: I objected to this conception but he beat me by bringing in mathematics.

  Fasnacht was once more proof how little purely intellectual powers avail to make a big man. I thought that he had not lived a single one of his theories: he had worked them with his brain but not with his blood. I think I rather surprised him by remarking that he was a remarkable guest, for he had made me talk more solemn nonsense than I had done for two years.

  When he went I walked with him to the corner of the road. I said I believed the things I had said but he had been playing with counters. He admitted he could only clinch his view by committing suicide. He then left me. I forgot to mention that he referred to everything he liked—including Idealistic Nihilism—as ‘very sweet’. Faugh! He also professed to find my view of a Reality with no margins intolerable, expiating on the pressure: I said I loved it122 . . .

  Wednesday 6 December: . . . I went . . . to College [for the Martlets Society meeting] . . . Here I met Jenkin who led me to King’s rooms where the meeting was to be held. Present were King, Dawson, Curtis, Robson-Scott, Currie, Fasnacht, Ziman, Simpson, some freshmen whose names I have not yet got on to, a new don called Keir, and Carritt.123

  Carlyle was speaking on the relation of history to literature. It is a beautiful, dark panelled room. Carlyle’s lecture was rather in the nature of a polemic against the English school. He was very convincing, humorous, and full of knowledge as usual: but drove his case too far . . .

  The discussion afterwards was very lively. Ziman, Simpson and I led off by pleading in our several ways that Carlyle had gone too far, but we really made nothing of it till Carritt came in with the only good thing of the evening. He said that history, as such, was
quite irrelevant to literature: but you had to know a writer’s language, and that had implications. For instance did ‘wine’ to that writer mean an occasional luxury to the rich or the daily drink of the people? Did breakfast mean a cup of tea at eight or a roast of beef at eleven? Carlyle never really answered this: indeed as the discussion went on he became very sophisticated, tho’ exceedingly entertaining . . .

  Thursday 7 December: . . . At 6.30 I went to the Schools where Wilson had told me to go to the preparatory meeting of Gordon’s Discussion Class. Gordon saw twelve of us in the English Staff Room. Robson-Scott was there: so also was a perfectly enormous man whom I have often noticed—I saw him first in the Corn Exchange at the Ballet. He has a most striking face, and is, I should think, a man to reckon with: but he has a devilish supercilious look and I doubt if he is an aesthete. His name is Daroll or Darlow.124 I had settled that if asked to read a paper I should offer either Spenser or allegory but someone else said he hoped to hear on these very two subjects.125

  Everyone except Robson-Scott was marked down for a paper. I offered allegory but was deprecated by Darlow (rather aggressively I thought) before Gordon had time to reply. He said he was afraid ‘it would end in the Byzantine church’. Gordon said he thought symbols should be private. I hadn’t the least notion what they meant: but fixed on Spenser. I was very pleased to find an Indian in the class who was to read on Tagore . . .

  Tuesday 12 December: This morning I decided that the job of seeing the Bursars of John’s, Hertford, and Merton about houses must be tackled at last. I was very nervous about tackling these great men, and set off after breakfast as cheerfully as if I were going to a dentist. It was a mild grey morning. I walked first to St John’s where the clerk of the Estates Bursar was able to tell me off hand that they had nothing. From there I went to Merton—beautiful place—where a clerk again saw me. He said they had nothing, and if they had, it would go to people connected with the College. He had no objection however to writing D’s name on a bit of paper: it looked a convenient size to make a spill of. If was the same tale at Hertford . . .