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

The semi-Christians (in dog-collars) that you speak of are a great trial. Our College chaplain is rather of that kind. I’m glad you have something better in your own church.

I feel an amused recognition when you describe those moments at wh. one feels ‘How cd. I–I, of all people–ever have come to believe this cock & bull story’ I think they will do us no harm. Aren’t they just the reverse side of one’s just recognition that the truth is amazing? Our fathers were more familiar with the opposite danger of taking it all for granted: which is probably just as bad.

God bless you both: you are always in my prayers. I hope we may meet again one day.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO NATHAN COMFORT STARR (W): TS

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

25th April 1953.

Dear Starr,

By all means give Masato Hori an introduction, 120 but don’t give him the illusion that I’m a mystic or an authority on mysticism. Dozens of things in your letter are exciting, but this is the first day of term. In haste. We both send greetings.

Yours,

C. S. Lewis

TO I. O. EVANS (W):

Magdalen College

Oxford

27/4/53

Dear Evans

I am really very sorry. The Devil you Say 121 got put on a pile of ‘books received’-most of them (I don’t include yours) a major plague of my life–and I forgot all about it. I have now read a few pages: there was nothing to tempt one to go on. It certainly seems to be a gross plagiarism: I am writing to New York Macmillan to draw their attention to it. Thanks v. much for sending it. With all good wishes, and thanks also to your American friend.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W): TS

54/53.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

9th May 1953.

Dear Mrs. Shelburne,

There’s very little time today, so I must be short. I am afraid it is certainly true in England that Christians are in the minority. But remember, the change from, say, thirty years ago, consists largely in the fact that nominal Christianity has died out, so that only those who really believe now profess. The old conventional church-going of semi-believers or almost total unbelievers is a thing of the past. Whether the real thing is rarer than it was would be hard to say. Fewer children are brought up to it: but adult conversions are very frequent.

I’m so glad to hear you have had a more satisfactory talk with your daughter.

I enclose a copy of the only photo which I have at the moment; it’s only a passport one I’m afraid.

Yours most sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD): TS

28/53.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

9th May 1953.

My dear Bles,

Cunning man, you don’t say how long the MS is! If it can be read in a week-end and put up in a large envelope (I’m no good at parcels), I’ll read it. But I have honestly neither health nor leisure at present for more than very slight extra jobs.

All sympathy to Madame. I return Stewart’s letter.

Yours,

C. S. Lewis

TO RUTH PITTER(BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

May 12th 1953

Dear Miss Pitter

Or (to speak more accurately)

Bright Angel!

I’m in a sea of glory! Of course I haven’t had time to read it properly, and there’ll be another, more sober, letter presently. This is just a line to be going on with, and to assure you at once that the new volume is an absolute Corker. 122 I had feared that you might be one of those who, like poor Wordsworth, leave their talent behind at conversion: 123 and now–oh glory–you came up shining out of the font far better than you were before. ‘Man’s despair is like the Arabian sun’ 124 -I seriously doubt if there’s any religious lyric between that one and Herbert on the same level. And then my eye strays to the opposite page and gets the ‘dying-dolphin green’. 125 And ‘What we merit–A silence like a sword’. 126

I wonder have you yourself any notion how good some of these are?

But, as you see, I’m drunk on them at this present. Glory be! Blessings on you! As sweet as sin and as innocent as milk. Thanks forever.

Yours in great excitement

C. S. Lewis

TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD): TS

Magdalen College

Oxford

12th May 1953.

My dear Bles,

MS duly received: and end leaf returned with thanks. I had seen it, but forgot that end leaves naturally are’nt included in the paper-back proof, and thence foolishly wondered if it had somehow miscarried. Authors with book, like expectant mothers, have their wayward fancies.

Yours,

C. S. Lewis

TO RUTH PITTER(BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

May 15th 1953

Dear Miss Pitter

The brightness does not fade: appealing from Lewis drunk to Lewis sober, I still find this an exquisite collection. When I start picking out my favourites, I find I am picking out nearly all. Tree at Dawn is full of delight for eye and ear. Great Winter is extremely new and delightful in rhythm: and ‘storm of suns’ 127 is wonderful. The Other has, I think, a few flaws (the second stanza on p. 15 seems to use words that precious poets have sucked all the juice out of) but also v. great virtues. The noises all through Herding Lambs -not only at ‘rainlike rustle of feet’, 128 tho’ that is the most striking single aural image–are wonderfully conveyed. Captive Bird is pure gold all through: so lovely fair my ‘sense aches with it’: and I still think as I did about World is Hollow (A v. tough undergraduate to whom I showed it thinks the same as I). Cedar is, I expect, extremely good in imagery, but I’d need a real cedar before me by which to judge. That’s the trouble about very visual writing. On the other hand the colours in Hill & Valley came through really well. Penitence is taut & accurate as a Yeats poem. Narrow but Deep & Aged Man to Y.M. 129 show you in a v. different vein: not the one I like best, but v. good. May is a fine meaty, yet not heavy, meditation. The Five Dreams do, I don’t know how, build up to a whole greater than the parts. The only one in the book I don’t much like is Father Questioned . I think Rostrevor Hamilton (see The Tell-Tale Article) wd. justly have something to say about the stanza at the top of p. 24. 130

I do congratulate you again and again. I hope you are as happy about the poems as you ought to be.

Yours most sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO JOHN H. MCCALLUM (P): 131 TS

218/53.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

18th May 1953.

Dear Mr. McCallum,

I am greatly shocked at your news. My correspondence with Borst was so pleasant and even so intimate that I feel his death as, in some sort, a personal loss. I am sure it will be deeply felt by all of you in many ways. I will try not to give Miss Boxill as much trouble as I gave her predecessor.

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO ELSIE SNICKERS (P):

Magdalen College,

Oxford

May 18th 1953

Dear Mrs Snickers

No. I don’t think sin is completely accounted for by faulty reasoning nor that it can be completely cured by re-education. That view has, indeed, been put forward: by Socrates and, in the early 19th Century, by Godwin. But I think it overlooked the (to me) obviously central fact that our will is not necessarily determined by our reason . If it were, then, as you say, what are called ‘sins’ wd. not be sins at all but only mistakes, and would require not repentances but merely correction.