All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  Darlow’s paper on the 18th century was really very good: above all it was spoken from notes and not read, for which I admired him. At the same time—such was my dislike—I was ashamed to find myself pleased that he had a vulgar accent, saying ‘taime’ for ‘time’. His paper was almost entirely historical. The discussion which followed was disappointing, as we were too large a party for informal conversation and tended to break up into groups.

  Gordon was sensible rather than brilliant. Some of the best things were said by a Scotsman (I think), a middle aged man whose name I didn’t hear. I had one or two passages with Darlow—opposing his view that Hume showed the extreme of reliance on reason and his stranger view that Johnson’s kicking a stone to refute Berkeley showed the same thing. He proved quite civil and even agreeable in argument. Sometimes I thought him a little bit stupid.12

  Got home in time for tea and read Donne and Ralegh till just before supper when I heard a knock and going out, found Barfield. The unexpected delight gave me one of the best moments I have had since the even better ones of leaving Ireland and arriving home. He had come up, he said, to give a dancing lesson, and was leaving next day. We went at our talk like a dogfight: of Baker, of Harwood, of our mutual news, of the Beacon which is now all but dead. He is working with Pearsall Smith who is genuinely trivisus and an utter materialist.13 He (Smith) and De la Mare are fast friends and imaginative philologists of a type which they have christened ‘milvers’—partly because it is a good word, partly because it ‘supplies a long felt want’ in rhyming with silver. Barfield hopes soon to meet De la Mare.

  He sees Squire fairly often. He says Squire is a man who promises more than he can perform, not through flattery but because he really believes his own influence to be greater than it is. I asked him if he knew Darlow. He did, and thought he was probably a homosexualist and was only eighteen: if so, he is certainly brilliant and may grow into a good fellow yet.

  Barfield showed me—or wrote out for me from memory—his new poem ‘Lama Sabacthani’ beginning ‘It is impossible to keep awake’. I pronounced it perfect and thought it one of the finest contemporary poems I have seen, perhaps the finest. His rhythm is remarkable.

  I showed him my ‘Requiem Mass’ and ‘What? Has the night’ etc. He approved very much of the ‘one spirit’ part in the Mass and liked the lyric fairly: he went on however to a very serious and honest review of my work in general. He said it always surprised him that my things were as good as they were, for I seemed to work simply on inspiration and did no chipping. I thus wrote plenty of good poetry but never one perfect poem. He said that the ‘inspired’ percentage was increasing all the time and that might save me in the end: the fact that I so often get there for a line or a stanza even, was, he thought, ‘promising’.

  I thought his insight was almost uncanny and agreed with every word, wishing that I could ‘chip’ more perseveringly and had time to do it. This led to a long talk about poetry and ended in his reading to me out of The Veil.

  D came in and pressed him to stay the night, but he had arranged to sleep at Wadham and we had to be contented with his promise to come to breakfast. I walked back to Wadham with him in the moonlight. He said that when one had accepted the materialist’s universe one went on and on to a point and suddenly exclaimed ‘Why should my facts be the only facts that don’t count?’: then came the revulsion and you took a more spiritual view till that too worked itself to its reaction and flung you back to materialism: and so to and fro all the days of your life . . .

  Saturday 27 January: D woke me this morning with the news ‘It’s half past eight and Dorothy hasn’t turned up and Barfield’s coming to breakfast at half past nine.’ All hands on deck forthwith: D naturally very angry, but soon restored to cheerfulness and wouldn’t allow me to do the grates. We got everything shipshape in time, and I was ready to meet Barfield when he came and fed him on bananas till breakfast was ready.

  After breakfast—at which he talked a great deal about music with Maureen—he asked to be shown ‘Dymer’. His verdict on the fourth canto was most enthusiastic: he called it ‘great’ wh. is a lot from him and pointed out how I had done things there which I had failed to do in the lyrics.

  He told us he was being married in April. I walked to Wadham with him, where he packed his case, and we then took a turn in the gardens—beautiful they are all the year. He said his first year at Oxford had been extraordinarily happy. We talked of Yeats, whom he considers ruined artistically by self love, tho’ his later poems were rather better. Finally I saw him off at the station and came home . . .

  Tuesday 30 January: . . . I reached the Senior Common Room just as the dons were preparing to move in to dinner. There were a good many present—an American pianist called Antony, Carlyle, Stevenson, Keir, a man unknown, Allen, Emmet, and Carritt. Farquharson, who was in the chair for the night, came in late and said he had been delayed by a lady who wanted him to explain Aristotle’s dictum about poetry being more philosophical than history. Carlyle talked about realism to Antony during dinner but from where I sat I could not hear all of it. I think he was being paradoxical and perhaps gently smoking his guest.

  When we retired to the Common Room Antony soon departed to Carlyle’s house and his hosts proceeded to talk about him. Farquharson had told him that Carritt was an eminent philosopher, wh. he said was exciting to a stranger who didn’t know that we had dozens in Oxford: and he boasted that he had added the finishing touch by whispering ‘ascetic’ in the poor man’s ear when introducing him to Carritt. Allen (who I think, but not for this reason, I dislike) observed that people were always rather shocked at a philosopher who was not a beaver.

  Carritt, Emmet and I fell into a conversation on the expressionist theory of art. I contended that two persons might be equally expressive, but in practice one preferred the one who had the better content. Emmett agreed with me. Allen was brought in on the question of whether any emotions were unfit for art and a lot of jokes wh. I did not understand passed between him and Carritt.

  The party broke up very soon, and I got up to go. Carritt followed me out and asked me to come up to his room. We talked about books chiefly. He explained to me his mysterious conversation with Allen. Nearly a year ago there had been an argument on the same subject and Allen had said, as an example, that the emotions of a man going to the —— could not be matter for art: Carritt had taken up the challenge and written a poem on that subject. He said it was not very good, but he thought it had proved his point.

  He happened to get on the subject of Matthew Arnold, and was surprised to find that I shared his flair for Arnold’s poetry. We became almost intimate over this, for he is the most reserved of men. He said he always felt in reading it that ‘this was a man I’d have got on with’: on my demurring he said what he really meant was ‘this is the kind of poetry I should like to have written myself’. Now I have often thought that Carritt must at one time have wanted and tried to write poetry. We talked also of Pearsall Smith and why there was no English sculpture . . .

  Wednesday 31 January: . . . After an early supper I bussed into College and went to the Martlets held in Dawson’s rooms. Present were Terry, Ziman, Curtis, Robson-Scott, MacCissack [McKisack], Rink, and another.14 MacCissack read a paper on Galsworthy, which I thought distinctly poor. As soon as it was over I approached him and said I believed he came from Belfast, and told him that I did so too. He said he never went there if he could avoid it and agreed (I think he said it ‘ultro’ before I had said it) with my own view that it was full of Forsytes. A fairly good discussion followed.

  In the pressure of conversation I discovered a new idea of my own which I think true: what we call the ‘philosophy’ of these modern novelists is a habit they have of attaching their characters to what they assume to be big movements of the Zeitgeist—as for example the revolt of youth in Walpole’s novels. But this is really a literary device: parallel to the King and Queen setting of tragedies or the supernatural—a means to avoid the purely
private and individual, wh. we don’t really like. I am surprised that they all with one accord condemned Galsworthy’s plays . . .

  Thursday 1 February: Up rather late and had a rush to get in to Onions’ lecture.15 After hearing this and buying some margarine I biked home again in wind and some rain. Maureen was having a violin lesson when I arrived so I went upstairs and worked at Milton’s prose, in a singularly uninspired mood . . .

  After lunch—we are having all meals in the kitchen these days—I went on with my work till 3.30 when I walked into town to have tea with Fasnacht. I met him in the Union alley talking to Robson-Scott and he took me to the Cadena. Rather a dull afternoon. We talked a little philosophy and a little about books. The most interesting thing that he told me was that the Mugger is definitely retiring in April: also how Rink had got leave off chapel by going to the Mugger and saying he had ceased to believe in a personal God. The Mugger had said ‘I hope if we fully discussed the matter I should show you that your opinion is not well grounded, but perhaps we had better not go into that.’ . . .

  Friday 2 February: . . . We were a very much smaller gathering [George Gordon’s Discussion Class]: the crowd last week having apparently turned up unbidden because they had seen the class on the lecture list and had assumed it was open to everyone.

  This afternoon a good looking fellow called Coghill from Exeter read a very good paper on ‘Realism’—as defined in his own special sense—‘from Gorboduc to Lear’.16 He seems an enthusiastic sensible man, without nonsense, and a gentleman, much more attractive than the majority.

  The discussion afterwards was better than last week’s. Coghill’s definition of realism was attacked: he claimed Hobbes’ immunity of definitions and I supported him: but Lloyd-Jones and I opposed his view that realism, in his sense, was not to be found in Corneille.17 Mr Singh, the Indian, made a lot of remarks which seemed to me foolish.18 Gordon said, apropos of something else, that one remembered the choruses in Aeschylus chiefly by their difficulty: of which remark the most charitable explanation is that he was trying to raise a cheap laugh.

  Oh for a sitting in full force in Bee Cottage or Wadham and how we could have blown away all these blindworms and got down to something! The best man in the class is the Scotsman (Strick, I think) from Wadham.19 Darlow was not there today, wh. was a pity as the secretary pulled his leg in the minutes . . .

  Sunday 4 February: . . . I . . . went off by bike to have tea with Miss Wardale. The sun was now going down very frostily and the town looked splendid. I found Miss W. alone. After we had talked for a few minutes I was pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Coghill. He was followed in a short while by a girl whose name I didn’t catch: she struck me as being quite nice but she was too shy and breathless to contribute much to the conversation. Miss W., apart from a few sensible remarks on Wagner, was content to sit back in a kind of maternal attitude with her hands on her knees.

  Coghill did most of the talking, except when contradicted by me. He said that Mozart had remained like a boy of six all his life. I said nothing could be more delightful: he replied (and quite right) that he could imagine many things more delightful. He entirely disagreed with my love of Langland and of Morris: the girl agreed with both.

  He said that Blake was really inspired: I was beginning to say ‘In a sense—’ when he said ‘In the same sense as Joan of Arc.’ I said ‘I agree. In exactly the same sense.—But we may mean different things.’ He: ‘If you are a materialist.’ I apologised for the appearance of quibbling but said that ‘materialist’ was too ambiguous. He gave a description of a ballet which he spun out much too long.

  When I rose to go he came with me and we walked together as far as Carfax. It was very misty. I found out that he had served in Salonika: that he was Irish and came from near Cork. He had had the appalling experience of being caught by an Irish mob, threatened with lynching, let go, called back again, stood up and pointed at with revolvers, and finally released. He said it was much more terrifying than any war experience. Apropos of my condemnation of Ulster he asked me if I were a Catholic which made me suspect he might be one himself.

  He said (just like Barfield) that he felt it his duty to be a ‘conchy’ if there was another war, but admitted that he had not the courage. I said yes—unless there was something really worth fighting for. He said the only thing he would fight for was the Monarchy, adding ‘I don’t mean the Windsor family.’ I said I didn’t care twopence about monarchy—the only real issue was civilisation against barbarism. He agreed, but thought with Hobbes that civilisation and monarchy went together. He returned abruptly to the duty of being a conchy: at all costs we must get rid of the bloodthirst and have more Christianity.

  He had read Stoddart and accepted his views. He agreed with me that Darlow was an egregious ass. Before parting I asked him to tea: he said he had just been going to ask me, and we finally arranged that I should go to him on Friday. I then biked home. I thought Coghill a good man, quite free from our usual Oxford flippancy and fear of being crude: much inferior to Barfield and Beckett in intellect and still a little undeveloped . . .

  Monday 5 February: . . . Biked into town after breakfast and duly attended the Cad’s lecture at 10 o’clock.20 All the usual old tricks—including the tirade against people who didn’t know the history of the language. How long has he lived and got no further than this?

  Afterwards I saw Robson-Scott and asked him if he could possibly get anyone to read to the Martlets instead of me. He said he couldn’t at such short notice. I felt that my paper on Spenser was quite unsuitable: and besides I had read once before on Morris and once on Narrative Poetry (or twice rather, for I read it again at Cambridge: its first reading here was on the night when Farquharson brought M. Goblet who chanted Breton epic songs to us): and to read again on Spenser would be to finally label myself as having only one taste.

  I biked home and found Mary in the kitchen. After I had been working for some time the Doc appeared and we had some talk. Starting from dissociation he went on to speak of the awful depths that one sometimes caught sight of underneath ones own mind. I agreed with him that most of us could find positive Satanic badness down there somewhere, the desire for evil not because it was pleasant but because it was evil.

  He expiated on the freedom of the Yogis, but confessed that Yoga was too hard for him. I read Barfield’s poem to him: he said it might have been written under the influence of a drug, wh. is ridiculous. He was much more cheerful today, but looking wretched, his eyes all sunken . . .

  After lunch I went out. I had decided to try and patch up some notes on Prometheus Bound for the Martlets: I took the book with me. The great point which struck me was the way Shelley sets out with the quite commonplace idea of a world ruled by a supreme devil and redeemed by love: then he runs up against reality, finds the whole thing much bigger, and so the inscrutable Demorgorgon (the IT-IS) becomes the real character: and the redemption is affected by inexplicable inspiration: i.e. Panthea doesn’t know what her own dream was. In other words Shelley throws the whole thing over to the untried forces of a logical situation welling up from the élan vital—and neither he nor we ever find out what really happens. It is much deeper than he meant it to be . . .

  Friday 9 February: . . . By the second post came back my ‘Waking’ from The Challenge, with the usual printed notice of rejection . . . I shall try The Spectator . . .

  Soon after lunch I set out on foot and went into town . . . I repaired to the Schools . . . The others gradually arrived and we began our meeting [of the Discussion Class]. The minutes, in verse, were really quite clever.

  I then read my paper on Spenser. Thank goodness my cough behaved decently. Gordon was pleased with the passage about yávos [inner brightness] and made me read it again.21

  The discussion was entirely dominated by Darlow, who talked great nonsense. He described Spenser as coming ‘at the end of a period’: that was why he had nothing strong and positive: nor had Catullus, who also came at the end of a per
iod. I think he was gambling on the chance of no one having read Catullus—which he obviously has not done himself. Of course he was contradicted at once by everyone. We asked him what about the passion and the friendship in Catullus. He took up the desperate position that passion and friendship were negative things: then suddenly asked me if one could afford to neglect the allegory in Spenser. I reminded him that the prohibition to discuss allegory came from himself.22

  He replied to this by proceeding, after a short sketch of Arisoto, to say that the great beauty in Spenser was that, despite the allegory, one could be quite interested in his characters: one could always go on working out what little was given. Several of us demurred to this preposterous view of Spenser. I forget how but it soon developed into a tirade from Darlow on the necessity of facing facts, the flippancy of the Victorians and the ‘moral earnestness’ of our own generation.

  The sight of Darlow with horned spectacles, aesthetic tie and white lily in buttonhole, looking eightyish to the last degree and putting himself up as representative of an earnest generation was too much, and we all roared.23 He went on however. I turned and whispered to Strick ‘Can’t you put an end to this nuisance?’ He came suddenly out of a brown study and hissed in my ear with quite surprising virulence ‘Yes! I will.’ His own contribution however was quite futile and only supplied a few moments obligato to the steady trombone of Darlow. All attempts to answer or interrupt him failed.