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

Is Andy the Antelope with you? Does he like iced water for breakfast? What brand of hay does he use?

With all best wishes to you both,

yours anticipatorily,

C. S. Lewis

TO CHARLES MOORMAN (L): 203

Magdalen

2/10/52

Dear Mr Moorman,

I am sure you are on a false scent. 204 Certainly most, perhaps all the poems in Williams’s Taliessin volume were written before the last novel, All Hallows Eve , was even conceived, 205 and there had been Arthurian poems (not of much value) in his earlier manner long before. I can’t tell you when he first became interested in the Arthurian story, but the overwhelming probability is that, like so many English boys, he got via Tennyson into Malory in his ‘teens. The whole way in which he talked of it implied a life-long familiarity. Much later (but even so, before I met him) came the link-up between his long-standing interest in Arthuriana and a new interest in Byzantium.

Everything he ever said implied that his prose fiction, his ‘pot boilers’, and his poetry all went on concurrently: there was no ‘turning from’ one to the other. He never said anything to suggest that he felt his themes ‘would not fit with ease into tales of modern life’. What would have expressed the real chronological relation between the novels would have been the words (tho’ I don’t think he ever actually said them) ‘I haven’t got much further with my Arthurian poems this week because I’ve been temporarily occupied with the idea for a new story’

The question when did he first come across the doctrine of ‘Caritas’ puzzled me. What doctrine do you mean? If you mean the ordinary Christian doctrine that there are three theological virtues and ‘the greatest of these is charity’ 206 of course he would never remember a time when he had not known it. If you mean the doctrine of Coinherence and Substitution, then I don’t know when he first met these. 207 Nor do I know when he began the Figure of A. 208 His knowledge of the earlier Arthurian documents was not that of a real scholar: he knew none of the relevant languages except (a little) Latin.

The VII Bears and the Atlantean Circle (in That Hideous Strength) are pure inventions of my own, filling the same purpose in the narrative that ‘noises off wd in a stage play. 209 Numinor is a mis-spelling of Numenor which, like the ‘true West’, is a fragment from a vast private mythology invented by Professor J. R. R. Tolkien. 210 At the time we all hoped that a good deal of that mythology would soon become public through a romance which the Professor was then contemplating. Since then the hope has receded… 211

TO PHOEBE HESKETH (W): 212

Magdalen College,

Oxford

Oct 4th 1952

Dear Miss Hesketh–

You will have given up expecting any acknowledgement of No Time for Cowards 213 which you so kindly sent me, and must think me no end of a curmudgeon. But you know what the alternative is—either to write a wholly perfunctory letter at once, or else to wait for that rare day and hour (it’s rarer as I get older) when one is receptive of a new book of poems. I now can really say Thank you, for I’ve got many real delights. You are a superb phrase-maker: ‘the bell-noised streams’ 214 and ‘infant fists of fern’ 215 on p. 8–‘Shack-Age’ 216 on p. 9–‘caged in comic bars of camouflage’ 217 on 39–and the really unbearable two lines about Time’s finger & the evening train on p. 81. 218 Ugh! The ones I liked best as wholes (wh. aren’t necessarily the ones from which I shall remember bits to quote) are Lion’s Eye –it has a perfect shape, couldn’t be either longer or shorter– The White Roe –the extra rhyming line added to some stanzas is delightful– I Am Not Resigned (I’d love to have thought of ‘greener centuries’) 219 – Strange Country , and (perhaps best of all) Second Birth. A painful book—I understand R. Church’s fears 220 –but then most good poetry (tho’ not the very topmost best of all like parts of Dante) is.

I really am very glad you sent it. Remember me most kindly to dear old Herbert Palmer and accept my very best thanks, good wishes, and congratulations. Perhaps if you are ever in these parts you will come and see me.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

Magdalen

11/10/52

My dear Arthur

James’s Letters vol. I arrived yesterday. I don’t know if I really ought to accept it, lames being so much more your kind of author than mine. On the other hand it is too big for an envelope and putting up parcels is one of the many things I can’t do. And there seems to be a good deal about books in it after all. Well, thanks very much indeed. Yes, I love my Father’s underlinings: the pencil (can’t you see him, with his spectacles far down on his nose, getting out the little stump?) so heavily used that, as W said, he didn’t so much draw a line as dig a line.

Term began yesterday, so I have now returned to harness after what has been perhaps the happiest year of my life. I began, appropriately, by cutting myself when I shaved, breaking my lace when I put on my shoes, and coming into College without my keys.

There have been some most perfect autumn days here lately and this is a well timbered country which they suit.

Love to l’Incroyable 221 and your good self and all blessings.

Yours

Jack

TO VERA GEBBERT (W): TS

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

11th October 1952.

Dear Mrs. Gebbert,

But hang it all, if you come on the 18th and 19th I shall see so little of you—being engaged to dine out on Saturday; and I can’t put it off because it is with people I’ve had to refuse on several other occasions. Would you think us Pigs if we adhered to the original date? Not if it means you’ll have to sleep on the Embankment of course!

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO HERBERT PALMER (TEX):

Coll. Magd.

16/10/52

My dear Palmer

I wrote a letter to Miss Hesketh 222 (I mean, a real one, not the mere acknowledgement) about the book 223 some weeks ago. As Heinemann is one of those accursed firms that don’t put their address on the title page I sent it c/o their old address and it came back as a dead letter. I then sent it c/o my own publisher. Has Miss Hesketh not had it yet?

I liked many of the poems v. much, especially the phrasing. Do let me know if the letter has ever arrived. As for helping the book, what can one do against the massive rampart of false taste in our times? That is the ‘railway line’: you and Miss Hesketh are the real unmacadamised road or immemorial Right of Way across the field. But they are stopping the Right of Way. How are you these days? It was nice to hear from you again.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO JOHN ROWLAND (TEX): 224 PC

Magdalen College

Oxford

16/10/52

Good. My Mon. evgs. are, unhappily, always filled up by the Socratic Club. The safest thing (for an unspecified week) is Lunch on Monday and as much talk as you can spare me afterwards . If you can fix which Monday I will book it. I much look forward to meeting.

C. S. Lewis

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (BOD):

Magdalen College

Oxford

17/10/52

My dear Arthur

I’ve finished vol. I of the Letters of HJ. I announce this not to hurry you but to show that I have enjoyed yr. gift. I’m afraid he was a dreadful Prig, but he is by no means a bore and has lots of interesting things to say about books. Was it you sent me the Northern ‘Whig’? 225 If so thanks.