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

That perfection of packing, parcel no. 184 has just arrived, and I have spent a pleasant ten minutes dismembering it. Normally we won’t open your parcels when we get them, but reserve them for that moment of domestic crisis which so constantly arrives–‘We shall have to open one of Edward Allen’s parcels’ we say. But I tackled this one at once on account of the clothes.

The suit is just the thing I want for the summer, if there should happen to be a summer, which at the moment looks unlikely. (My brother skilfully annexed the last one you sent, and is still wearing it: on the strength of which he has the impudence to recommend this one to me )! Very welcome too was the sugar, for we are reduced to saccharine at the moment. We of course have our sugar ration , but it is never sufficient, and has to be ‘nursed’. I’ve no doubt that during the course of the week I shall find a grateful recipient for the dress. In fact an excellent parcel all round, for which I thank you very much.

Term is nearing its end in a whirlwind of work, and I shall be very glad to see the last of it. I always am, but this time especially, because I hope to be able to fit two holidays into the vacation—a week by the sea in the extreme west, Cornwall, a county I don’t know at all well, but which is very lovely: and then three weeks in the north of Ireland, two of them also seaside. I don’t think I have had so much holiday since I was a young man. I suppose you and Mrs. Allen will be thinking of going back to that bathing beach of yours? I looked with much envy last year at the photos you sent of yourselves there. We have already had quite a considerable American invasion of Oxford, and I’m sorry that our visitors will take away such a dreadful impression of our weather–for it can be fine in England in the early summer though not often. Of course Americans in Oxford are no novelty, but what I notice this year is the absence of the obviously very wealthy ones—who are I suppose on the continent; we are getting the nice, homely, quiet not so rich type (between ourselves a much nicer type), attracted I suppose by the devaluation of the pound. (On second thought I believe I should’nt have used the word ‘homely’. Does’nt it mean ugly in American? We mean by homely, just ordinary folk of our own kind of income etc.).

War and inflation are still the background of all ordinary conversation over here, to which has just been added the railway jam; our new railway organization has succeeded, so far as I can understand, in blocking every goods depot in the country. The tradespeople are grumbling, and the effect is just becoming apparent to the consumer.

With many good thanks, and kind remembrances to your Mother,

yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO SISTER PENELOPE CSMV(BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford

5/6/51

Dear Sister Penelope

My love for G. MacDonald has not extended to most of his poetry. I have naturally made several attempts to like it. Except for the Diary of An Old Soul 106 it won’t (so far as I’m concerned) do. I have looked under likely titles for the bit you quote but I have not found it. I will make further efforts and let you know if I succeed. I suspect the lines are not by him. Do you think they might be Christina Rosetti’s?

I’m very glad to hear the work is ‘roaring’ (a good translation, by the way, of fervet opus!) 107 and I much look forward to seeing the results. As for me I specially need your prayers because I am (like the pilgrim in Bunyan) travelling across ‘a plain called Ease’. 108 Everything without, and many things within, are marvellously well at present. Indeed (I do not know whether to be more ashamed or joyful at confessing this) I realise that until about a month ago I never really believed (tho’ I thought I did) in God’s forgiveness. What an ass I have been both for not knowing and for thinking I knew. I now feel that one must never say one believes or understands anything: any morning a doctrine I thought I already possessed may blossom into this new reality. Selah! But pray for me always, as I do for you. Will there be a chance of seeing you at Springfield St. Mary’s this summer? 109

Yours very sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO MARTYN SKINNER (BOD):

As from Magdalen

June 11th 51

Dear Skinner—

I wouldn’t like you to think that Merlin 110 has been out all these months without being both bought and read by me. What happened was that I did both shortly after its appearance and then lent it to a man who returned it only the other day. Since then I have re-read it. Any poem of yours is always a refreshment and I think this is better than any you’ve done yet. Of course part of my pleasure consists in agreement– idem sentire de república 111 (and about a good many other things too)–but I don’t think it can be discounted on that score. I am sure if I had found half so much wit and invention in any of the dreary modern-orthodox poems which from time to time I try dutifully to appreciate, I should be praising it volubly.

I think you waste a little time in Canto I (though symbol and plot as wholesale and retail is good) but I am thoroughly carried away by II. ‘Mute magnificent cascades of stair’ 112 is heavenly—and the simile of that evening light in 6-8–and the entrance of Merlin. 113 St. 114 55 is a good ‘un, too. Frivolous and imperceptive reference to a great modern critic in III 4 is soon swallowed up in the perfectly obvious (once it’s been done) yet stunningly effective rendering of lasciate etc. by no exit: 115 wh. is grimmer than Dante’s own words. All the Tartarology—fiends being the perfect guinea pigs etc—good: and oh Bravíssímo at 40 (‘is still called “games’“).

But III 47 I don’t like. He couldn’t see the faces above him if he was in the front row of the dress circle, unless he turned round, could he? Well, a few at the sides. They wdn’t be the first thing. It just checked the formation of my mental picture for a second. In IV the inferred meeting is good: and ‘Macaulay’…of the wrong end (32) simply superb. St. 43 is real good thinking. You make a most dexterous use of the Miltonic background in V, especially of course at 14. I could have wished, not for less fun, but for more beauty about your angels. I thought we are starting it at 35 (splendid as far as it goes) but it died away too soon: and 37, like the fig-leaf in sculpture, rather emphasises than conceals the want. Or am I asking for impossibilities in such a poem. VI has a peculiar glory of its own: the relief and beauty of the transition from hell to earth in 45, 46.

I am longing to read the rest. I shd. think you are enjoying yourself. It is sickening to think how little chance of a fair hearing you have…and poor old Desmond Macarthy 116 dying at the wrong moment! Fire-spitting Rowse may do more harm than good: indeed I myself can hardly feel the right side to be the right (and he only feels it to be the Right) when it is sponsored by him. But all good luck. Finish the poem whatever they don’t say. Will the tide ever turn?

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

Magdalen etc

11/6/51

Dear Mrs. Van Deusen

Genia’s letter is not yet to hand. I wish it were on any other subject. My job has always been to defend ‘mere Christianity’ against atheism and Pantheism: I’m no real good on ‘inter-denominational’ questions.

Walsh’s ‘not wholesome’ 117 cd. certainly be a bit hard if one took the words in the popular literary sense—in which ‘unwholesome’ suggests a faint smell of drains! But in the proper sense it is, surely, quite obviously true. The mind, like the body, will not thrive on an unbalanced diet. But–granted health and an adequate income, appetite itself will lead every one to a reasonably varied diet, without working it all out in vitamins, proteins, calories and what-not. In the same way I think inclination will usually guide a reasonable adult to a decently mixed literary diet. I wouldn’t recommend a planned concentration on me or any other writer.