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

But far more important is your K. Arthur . 154 I read every word and think you have done, in general, a v. good job. The non-Malory parts are just as good as the Malory parts. You have managed the events, such as the begetting of Galahad, which present difficulties in a children’s book, with wonderful skill. The style is exactly right: no unwelcome modernity, so that only close inspection reveals the absence of archaisms. The only place where, I think, you go wrong is on pp. 275-6 where you use the word mysterious four times. It wouldn’t be a good adjective if used only once. I forget whether I have said before–and anyway I am going to say now -that Adjectives which are a direct command to the reader to feel a certain emotion are no use. In vain do we tell him that a thing was horrible, beautiful, or mysterious. We must so present it that he exclaims horrible! beautiful! or mysterious! There are exceptions but we must talk of that another time. Despite this blot, it’s a grand book: many, many thanks.

Love to all.

Yours

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

July 13/53

My dear Arthur

We have both of us been a little flustered, it seems. First you wrote a letter of wh. you sent me only part: at least, so I conclude from the fact that it had no signature and broke off in the middle of a sentence. Then I got it on a day when I was just going for a journey and lost it. So sorry. The facts are these.

Aug. 20th W. and I arrive Crawfordsburn.

Aug. 28th W. departs by L’pool boat.

Sept. 14th I depart

I hope this fits in with you?

R. L. Green has written a v. good Arthurian book for children in the Puffin series–not merely a re-telling of Malory, something much better than that, wh. he explains in the preface. I am sending you a copy when it comes out: if you want to refresh your memory of that cycle, you can get it all here with the ‘brasting’ left out. 155

Yours

Jack

TO VERA GEBBERT (W):

Magdalen College

Oxford

16 July 53

Dear Mrs. Gebbert

Pounds and ounces don’t need translating, for we use the same tables (plagues they were at school, too) over here. It’s babies need translating. Tho’ indeed, now that I come to think of it, I’m not much better on adult weights. I’ve no idea of my own, and can’t understand the interest of the question. I can understand people, and especially women, being interested in their shape (tho’ those who can mistake mal de mère for mal de mer 156 must be an exception) but there seems to be a non sequitur in relating shape to weight quite so directly as is commonly done.

Screwtape as a ‘stunt’ idea (like Swift’s Lilliput and Brobdingnag) is only good for a short use. I never showed more discretion, I believe, than in cutting that book short and never writing a sequel. The very fact that people ask for more proves it was the right length.

As to the reward for printed work (apart from money) one’s first good reviews are v. sweet-perhaps dangerously so–and fame has one really solid good about it in so far as it makes some strangers approach you with a friendliness they would not have felt otherwise. It may even win you their prayers (as I hope I have yours: you certainly have mine). The rest is all in the order of those things wh. it is painful to miss but not really v. nice to get. (It is painful not to be able to scratch a place in the middle of one’s back, yet scratching doesn’t rank v. high among our pleasures).

We are both well, thanks and go to Ireland in August. It is on the whole a cold and wet summer here. This last week it has been more like what we usually get in April: alternate sun and showers with high winds. As the man rightly said, ‘All weathers have their own beauty: if only people wd. enjoy that instead of always comparing it with some other weather.’ I hope Charles (and the play) will grow in goodness, intelligence, wit, and kindness.

All blessings. Love from both.

C. S. Lewis

TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

July 16/53

My dear Roger

Hail to the young Richard. 157 Give June my warmest love and congratulations.

Look: I think I must abandon the idea of an expedition on my way back from Ireland, for this year. It is becoming clear that I shan’t finish the proofs and horrible bibliography of my OHEL volume before we sail on Aug. 11th. That being so, every day between our return and the beginning of Michaelmas term becomes precious as gold: for if the job once drags on into another term, I don’t know what will become of me. Anyway, the jus trium liberorum 158 will be keeping you pretty busy. Do you know why liberi means both ‘freemen’ & ‘children’? Think it over and see if your historical imagination can solve the problem.

Yours

Jack

TO GEORGE SAYER(W):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

July 17/53

My dear George

It is I who shd. be shamed for I wrote asking you both to come & see Comus at Ludlow: but as I sent the letter to an address in U.S.A. you naturally never answered!

Thanks, George, for your prayers: I never doubted that I had them, as you both have mine. The catarrh phase of the sinus is quite gone: the pain remains, but never at night (which is a great mercy) and for a decreasing number of hours daily. And thanks also for the invitation. But we’ll be in Ireland in Aug. We were hoping you’d come to us for some days after Sept 15. Can this be managed: any time between then and your term?

I’m damned with doing Bibliographies for my OHEL vol. How goes The Isle of the Undead? 159 All love.

Yours ever

Jack

TO MRS JOHNSON (W):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

July 17/53

Dear Mrs. Johnson

There are many interesting points in your letter of June 8. I’m v. glad you’ve seen that Christianity is as hard as nails: i.e. hard and tender at the same time. It’s the blend that does it: neither quality wd. be any good without the other. You needn’t worry about not feeling brave. Our Lord didn’t–see the scene in Gethsemane.

How thankful I am that when God became Man He did not choose to become a man of iron nerves: that wd. not have helped weaklings like you and me nearly so much. Especially don’t worry (you may of course pray) about being brave over merely possible evils in the future. In the old battles it was usually the reserve, who had to watch the carnage, not the troops who were in it, whose nerve broke first. Similarly I think you in America feel much more anxiety about atomic bombs than we do: because you are further from the danger. If and when a horror turns up, you will then be given Grace to help you. I don’t think one is usually given it in advance. ‘Give us our daily bread’ 160 (not an annuity for life) applies to spiritual gifts too: the little daily support for the daily trial. Life has to be taken day by day & hour by hour.

The writer you quote (‘in all those turning lights’) was very good at the stage at wh. you met him: now, as is plain, you’ve got beyond him. Poor boob!-he thought his mind was his own! Never his own until he makes it Christ’s: up till then merely a result of heredity, environment, and the state of his digestion. I become my own only when I give myself to Another.

‘Does God seem real to me?’ It varies: just as lots of other things I firmly believe in (my own death, the solar system) feel more or less real at different times. I have dreamed dreams but not seen visions: 161 but don’t think all that matters a hoot. And the saints say that visions are unimportant. 162 If Our Lord did seem to appear to you at your prayer (bodily) what, after all, could you do but go on with your prayers? How cd. you know that it was not an hallucination?