Clive Lewis - Collected Letters Volume Three - Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963

The old lady whom I call my mother is now permanently in a Nursing Home, and I visit her daily. It is my first experience of this stage of paralysis; and, do you know, I am rather cheered by it. It does look so like childhood, only working backwards: the mind gradually withdrawing from the body in the last years as it was gradually settling in during the first. She was for many years of a worrying and, to speak frankly, a jealous, exacting, and angry disposition. She now gets gentler—I dare to hope not only through weakness. Certainly, I think she is a little happier, or a little less unhappy, than she usually was in health. You’d know more about all this than I do. My brother also has been ill (his old trouble) but is now better.

Is there any chance of your visiting England this year? If you want to meet plenty of fellow countrymen Oxford is the place! Indeed, not only Americans at present, but all nations—Medes (or at any rate Swedes) Parthians and Elamites. 134 Also, torrential rain.

God bless you My dear friend. Have us all in your prayers.

Yours ever

C. S. Lewis

And thanks (which you forbid) for the hams (which I mustn’t mention). No two are quite alike and each has its individual beauties.

TO RALPH E. HONE (W): 135 TS

REF.50/287.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

29th July 1950.

Dear Mr. Hone,

I am sorry, but it so happens that you could hardly have struck a worse time. I am working at high pressure, and in the intervals have a Conference to attend, an invalid to look after, and several visitors. I’m afraid in the circumstances a meeting is hardly possible.

With thanks, good wishes, and regrets,

yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO CHAD WALSH (W): 136

Magdalen College

Oxford

5/8/50

My dear Walsh

Thank you for your letter of July 20th. I’m glad to hear about the ‘revolution’ in poetry, but I moderate my hopes. I think what really separates me from all the modern poets I try to read is not the technique, with all its difficulties, but the fact that their experience is so very unlike my own. They seem to be so constantly writing about the same sort of things that articles are written about: e.g. ‘the present world situation’. That means, for me, that they can only write for the top level of the mind, the level on which generalities operate. But even this may be a mistake. At any rate I am sure I never have the sort of experiences they express: and I feel them most alien where I come nearest to understanding them.

I am just back from attending a Russian Orthodox Eucharist. The congregation walk about a lot!

My brother joins me in all best wishes to you and yours.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO CECIL HARWOOD (BOD): 137

Magdalen College

Oxford

8/8/50

My dear Cecil

Thank you for your letter which is one of the most useful I have ever received. It brings home to me that aspect of Death which is now most neglected—Death as a Rite or Initiation Ceremony. And certainly something does come through into this world, among the survivors, at the time and for a little while after.

I am sorry about John’s Class 138 –and also that I feel I failed him badly at our last meeting. I had been wondering for about 24 hours whether the lightness of head and extreme lassitude that I was feeling were the beginning of an illness. After a day in which I had had no leisure at all and which had ended with a visit to the Nursing Home I had got back to College feeling ‘all in’. At that moment came his knock. It was the moment of all others (midway between his mother’s funeral and his own viva) at which a chap might expect some moral support from an older man even if that older man were not his tutor and a family friend. But I could make no response at all. I’m sorry.

A week end here, after your travels, can be arranged almost whenever you like. Of course you will be thrice welcome.

Yours ever

Jack

TO DON GIOVANNI CALABRIA (V): 139

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

xxv. Aug. 1950

Dilectissime Pater,

venerunt mihi nuper in manus exemplaria quaedam libri mei De Aenigmate Doloris francogallice versi. Illam linguam, puto, bene intellegis. Quocirca, si tibi placuerit, mittam ad te exemplaria tria, primum tibi, alterum Dom. Lodettio, tertium Dom. Arnaboldio. Fac me certiorem si hoc tibi cordi fuerit. Isagogem satis doctam et elegantem addidit quidam Mauritius Nédoncelle.

Omnia omina nunc infausta; placeat Deo haec in melius verti, spectanti haud nostra sed Christi merita. Vale, mi Pater, et semper habe in orationibus tuis

C. S. Lewis

*

Magdalen College,

Oxford

25th August 1950

Dearest Father,

Some copies of my book The Problem of Pain translated into French have lately reached me. 140 I think you know that language well. Therefore, if you so wish, I will send you three copies, one for you, another for Mr. Lodetti, and the third for Mr. Arnaboldi. 141 Just let me know if it is of interest to you. A rather learned and elegant introduction has been added to it by one Maurice Nédoncelle. 142

All the omens are, at present, unfavourable; 143 may it please God to change these for the better, looking not at our, but at Christ’s merits. Farewell, my father, and keep me always in your prayers.

C. S. Lewis

TO VERA MATHEWS (W): TS

REF.50/81

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

28th August 1950.

Dear Miss Mathews,

Many thanks for your letter of the 16th. August, and for the parcel of 17th. July, which ‘dead heated’ as the racing people say: and both are very welcome. No indeed, I can’t think of any item which I would like altered; I was going to say that we don’t want fruit, having plenty, but of course our fruit season will soon be over, and there is the winter to consider.

Eggs are off the ration, but the egg situation leaves us unmoved, as we, thank goodness, have our own fowls. According to what I read in the papers, their being off the ration does’nt help things much; by the time the innumerable hordes of inspectors have weighed and graded and stamped and sorted and packed them, they seem to be always stale and often bad by the time they reach the consumer.

I am glad you like the memoir on Charles Williams. 144 Most certainly you shall have a signed copy of the book as soon as it appears. 145 Are there any other of my books you have’nt got, and would care to have? If so, I might be able to get them for you.

I have been away for a few days in the Welsh mountains, and my brother—lucky man–is just back from a fortnight in Ireland, or Eire as they prefer to be called. He tells me that over there they are still living in a fool’s paradise; whilst the English—and no doubt American–papers were full of anxious discussion of the Korean war, the leading Irish paper carried banner headlines, WHAT IS WRONG WITH IRISH LUMPING? (It was Horse Show week). What is wrong with Irish THINKING would be more to the point.

With all best wishes,

yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

Jill Flewett and Clement Freud were married in St James Church, Spanish Place, on 4 September 1950. Jack was unable to attend the wedding, but Warnie was there. 146

TO BELLE ALLEN (W): TS

REF.50/19.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

5th September 1950.

Dear Mrs. Allen,

How nice to hear from you again! No wonder you feel disinclined for letter writing, with so many more attractive occupations out of doors. Your river sounds delicious, and I would much like to see it. I wonder is your King bird what we call over here a Kingfisher? Ours is a smallish bird of a very beautiful vivid blue, which flies low over the water, and at a great speed. Our bitterns are I think extinct, but I have often read of the ‘booming’ of the bittern. Do yours boom, and what sort of noise is meant?