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

A retired naval captain whom you may have sometimes heard of in the papers (Bernard Acworth) tells me he was at Derryherk 181 shortly before us and says the fishing was just as bad as the food. I wonder what the Magic Major is really up to.

I’ve got a 100 Horsepower cold but feel mentally & spiritually much the better from our holiday. It—and you—have done me lots of good. All blessings.

Yours

Jack

TO JONATHAN FRANCIS ‘FRANK GOODRIDGE (P): 182

Coll. Magd.

22/9/52

My dear Goodridge

I’m going to give those lectures next term and cd. hardly separate myself from the notes at the moment. 183 But for the moment:–the trichotomy is not Hesperian, Aerial, or Celestial, but Terrestrial (Men), Aerial (Aerial Genii or daemons), Aetherial (Angels). At death Man goes from 1 to 2: from which, if they make the grade, they go on to 3, but if ploughed relapse into 1. 1 and 2 are mortal, 3 immortal. It’s at one’s second death (or an Aerial) that one either goes up or falls back.

Hence 11. 459-472 184 really mean (I believe) ‘Chastity carries us safely from terrestrial thro’ aerial up to aetherial, but sensuality draws us back to terrestrial. Ghosts are “ploughed” aerial longing to get back to their terrestrial state.’

The Attendant Spirit 185 is an aerial (i.e. a native aerial not an ex-human who has been promoted). For he lives not in the highest heaven but only ‘before’ its ‘threshold’ (l.) 186 among ‘aerial spirits’ (3.) 187 in ‘serene air’ (4.) 188 is called ‘daemon’ in Trinity MS., & returns to ‘suck the liquid air’ (980) 189 wh. Aerials live on, in a region still subject to mutability where Venus mourns Adonis (999-1002) and it is ‘far above’ (1003) his realm that Celestial Love consummates His marriage with human soul (1004-1011). That ought to keep them going for a bit! I am so glad you have a happy job.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO MARGARET SACKVILLE HAMILTON (BOD): 190

Magdalen College,

Oxford

23/9/52

Dear Mrs. Hamilton

The ancient books which put this view best are Plato’s Timaeus and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy , Book V. (The Loeb Library edition of the latter has a nice 17th century English translation on the right hand pages). 191 There is, however, no need to go back to the original sources. Modern statements will be found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: (in the part called ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’) 192 and in Von Hügel’s Eternal Life 193 – the latter, I think, far easier. From the scientific angle try Eddington’s Nature of the Physical Universe. 194 , There are what maybe regarded as evidences for the theory in Dunne’s Experiment with Time, 195 tho’ he (wrongly I believe) treats them as evidence for a different and unnecessarily complicated theory of what he calls Serialism. 196

The nearest we get to scriptural support is II. Peter 8-9 where St. Peter transforms the simple Old Testament saying that 1000 years are only one day to God (which in itself might mean only that God is permanent in time) by adding the new and important point that to God one day is like 1000 years. 197

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Joy Gresham at this time was a 37-year-old New Yorker who had begun a correspondence with Lewis in 1950. 198 Her marriage to the novelist, William Lindsay Gresham, was under strain, and in August she had left their two children, David (b. 1944) 199 and Douglas (b. 1945), 200 with their father and a cousin, Renée Pierce, to go to London for a few months, hoping during that time to meet Lewis .

During August and September she stayed in London with her old friend, Phyllis Williams. They invited Lewis to have lunch with them in Oxford, and on 24 September Lewis met Joy and Phyllis at the Eastgate Hotel, across the road from Magdalen College. A few days later Lewis invited them to lunch in his College rooms. Warnie was invited too, but when he withdrew George Sayer took his place. Sayer recalled the luncheon in Magdalen in his biography of Lewis:

The party was a decided success. Joy was of medium height, with a good figure, dark hair, and rather sharp features. She was an amusingly abrasive New Yorker, and Jack was delighted by her bluntness and her anti-American views. Everything she saw in England seemed to her far better than what she had left behind. Thus, of the single glass of sherry we had before the meal, she said: ‘I call this civilized. In the States, they give you so much hard stuff that you start the meal drunk and end with a hangover.’ She was anti-urban and talked vividly about the inhumanity of the skyscraper and of the new technology and of life in New York City…She attacked modern American literature…‘Mind you, I wrote that sort of bunk myself when I was young.’ Small farm life was the only good life, she said. Jack spoke up then, saying that, on his father’s wise, he came from farming stock. ‘I felt that,’ she said. ‘Where else could you get the vitality?’ 201

TO ROGER IANCELYN GREEN (BOD):

Coll. Magd.

26/9/52

My dear Roger–

I find Miss Graham’s criticism rather hard to understand. ‘Tone’ might conceivably refer to the emphasis on poaching or the poacher’s religious hypocrisy, but quite possibly masks some objection which she herself cannot understand. I don’t know what to advise, for the books you fail to publish seem to me sometimes better than, and sometimes no different from, your published ones. I shouldn’t be surprised if it all depends on the time of the month at which Miss G. reads the MS. I am old enough now to realise that one always has to reckon with that.

We also have had visitors. For heaven’s sake don’t let June increase her toils by bothering to write to me. But let me have her and your advice on my immediate problem wh. is the title of the new story. Bles, like you, thinks The Wild Waste Lands bad, but he says Night Under Narnia is ‘gloomy’. George Sayer & my brother say Gnomes Under N wd. be equally gloomy, but News under Narnia wd do. On the other hand my brother & the American writer Joy Davidman (who has been staying with us & is a great reader of fantasy and children’s books) both say that The Wild Waste Lands is a splendid title. What’s a chap to do?

Yours

Jack

TO MICHAEL IRWIN (P): TS

REF.52/373.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

26th September 1952.

Dear Michael,

Thank you for writing. I am so glad you liked the Voyage . Your idea of a story about Asian in England is a good one, but I think it would be too hard for me to write—it would have to be so different. Perhaps you will write it yourself when you are grown up,

Love from

C. S. Lewis

TO PATRICK IRWIN (P): 202 TS

REF.52/373.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

26th September 1952.

Dear Mr. Irwin,

I have written to Michael approving the idea, but saying it would be too difficult for me to do. I did’nt add that the story of Asian in this world (if not in England) has been written already. His letter gave me great pleasure, and so does yours.

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO VERA GEBBERT (W): TS

REF.52/103.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

30th September 1952.

Dear Mrs. Gebbert,

We are both delighted to hear that it is Proposition B, and are looking forward eagerly to your visit; and we note that, as one would expect from you, you come laden with gifts: which however you will have the novel experience of sharing with the recipients!

Yes, the dates suit excellently; I hope you will come down on one of the morning trains, in time for us all to have lunch here in my rooms before we go out to the house. Let me know in due course.