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

C. S. Lewis

*

The College of St Mary Magdalen

Oxford

Aug. 10 1953

Dearest Father–

I have received your letter dated the 5th August. I await with gratitude the pamphlets–a specimen of your people’s printing skill: which however I shall not see for 5 weeks because tomorrow I am crossing over (if God so have pleased) to Ireland: my birthplace and dearest refuge so far as charm of landscape goes, and temperate climate, although most dreadful because of the strife, hatred and often civil war between dissenting faiths.

There indeed both yours and ours ‘know not by what Spirit they are led’. 178 They take lack of charity for zeal and mutual ignorance for orthodoxy.

I think almost all the crimes which Christians have perpetrated against each other arise from this, that religion is confused with politics. For, above all other spheres of human life, the Devil claims politics for his own, as almost the citadel of his power. Let us, however, with mutual prayers pray with all our power for that charity which ‘covers a multitude of sins’. 179 Farewell, comrade and father.

C. S. Lewis

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W):

Magdalen

Aug. 10th 53

Dear Mrs. Shelburne

I have just got your letter of the 6th. Oh I do so sympathise with you: job-hunting, even in youth, is a heartbreaking affair and to have to go back to it now must be simply–I was going to say ‘simply Hell’, but no one who is engaged in prayer and humility, as you are, can be there, so I’d better say ‘Purgatory’. (We have as a matter of fact good authorities for calling it something other than Purgatory. We are told that even those tribulations wh. fall upon us by necessity, if embraced for Christ’s sake, become as meritorious as voluntary sufferings and every missed meal can be converted into a fast if taken in the right way). 180

I suppose–tho’ the person who is not suffering feels shy about saying it to the person who is -that it is good for us to be cured of the illusion of ‘independence’. For of course independence, the state of being indebted to no one, is eternally impossible. Who, after all, is more totally dependent than what we call the man ‘of independent means’. Every shirt he wears is made by other people out of other organisms and the only difference between him and us is that even the money whereby he pays for it was earned by other people. Of course you ought to be dependent on your daughter and son-in-law. Support of parents is a most ancient & universally acknowledged duty. And if you come to find yourself dependent on anyone else you mustn’t mind. But I am very, very sorry. I’m a panic-y person about money myself (which is a most shameful confession and a thing dead against Our Lord’s words) 181 and poverty frightens me more than anything else except large spiders and the tops of cliffs: one is sometimes even tempted to say that if God wanted us to live like the lilies of the field He might have given us an organism more like theirs! But of course He is right. And when you meet anyone who does live like the lilies, one sees that He is.

God keep you and encourage you. I am just about to go off to Ireland where I shall be moving about, so I shan’t hear from you for several weeks. All blessings and deepest sympathy.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

The Silver Chair was published by Geoffrey Bles of London on 7 September 1953 .

On 8 September Warnie wrote to Geoffrey Bles:

REF.28/53 .

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

8th September 1953.

Dear Mr. Bles,

My brother will be in Eire until the 14th and I have just returned from that delectable land to find a heavy accumulation of mail. From you, I have to acknowledge on his behalf,

(1). Spanish Screwtape.

(2). Proofs of The horse and his boy, and

(3). Statement and cheque for £886-16-1. He will no doubt be writing to you himself after his return.

With all good wishes,

yours sincerely,

Mycroft

TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

Magdalen College

Oxford

14/9/53

Dear Mrs. Van Deusen

I am just back from Donegal (wh. was heavenly) and find as usual a ghastly pile of unanswered letters, so I must be brief. The important idea of a Christian sanatorium is worth a whole letter, but I want to use this one for another subject. I hope you won’t be angry at what I’m going to say–

I think that idea of Genia’s job being to concentrate on ‘bringing out the best of Eddie’ is really rather dangerous. Wouldn’t you yourself think it sounded–well, to put it bluntly, a bit priggish , if applied to any other couple? It sounds as if the poor chap were somehow infinitely inferior.

Are you giving full weight to the very raw deal he has had in marrying a girl who has nearly always been ill? Men haven’t got your maternal instinct, you know. To find a patient where one hoped for a helpmeet is much more frustrating for the husband than for the wife. And by all I hear he has come through the test v. well. But if just as she is ceasing to be a patient she were to become the self-appointed Governess or Improver–well, wd. any camel’s back stand that last straw? I don’t think Genia is at present inclined (or not much) to start ‘educating’ her husband. I am sure you will take care not to influence her in that direction. Because, really, you know, it wd. be so easy, without in the least intending it, to glide into the rôle (I shudder to write it) of the traditional home-breaking mother-in-law. All those old jokes have something behind them.

I do hope I haven’t made you an enemy for life. If I have taken too great a liberty, you have rather lured me into it. And I did feel signs of danger. And don’t you think in general that a girl who has a faithful, kind, sober husband (there are so many of the other kind) whom she has promised to love, honour, & obey, had better just get on with the job? Do forgive me if I misunderstand and put the point too crudely. At any rate, my prayers will not cease.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO PHYLLIDA (W):

Magdalen College

Oxford

14th Sept 1953

Dear Phyllida

Although your letter was written a month ago I only got it today, for I have been away in Donegal (which is glorious). Thanks v. much: it is so interesting to hear exactly what people do like and don’t like, which is just what grown-up readers never really tell.

Now about Kids . I also hate the word. But if you mean the place in P. Caspian chap 8, the point is that Edmund hated it too. 182 He was using the rottenest word just because it was the rottenest word, running himself down as much as possible, because he was making a fool of the Dwarf–as you might say ‘Of course I can only strum when you really knew you could play the piano quite as well as the other person. But if I have used Kids anywhere else (I hope I haven’t) then I’m sorry: you are quite right in objecting to it. And you are also right about the party turned into stone in the woods. I thought people would take it for granted that Asian would put it all right. But I see now I should have said so.

By the way, do you think the Dark Island is too frightening for small children? Did it give your brother the horrors? I was nervous about that, but I left it in because I thought one can never be sure what will or will not frighten people.

There are to be 7 Narnian stories altogether. I am sorry they are so dear: it is the publisher, not me, who fixes the price. Here is the new one. 183

As I say, I think you are right about the other points but I feel sure I’m right to make them grow up in Narnia. Of course they will grow up in this world too. You’ll see. You see, I don’t think age matters so much as people think. Parts of me are still 12 and I think other parts were already 50 when I was 12: so I don’t feel it v. odd that they grow up in Narnia while they are children in England.