Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963

ABBREVIATIONS

AMR = All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis 1922-27, edited by Walter Hooper (1991)

BBC = Written Archive Centre, British Broadcasting Corporation

BERG = Berg Collection, New York Public Library

BF = Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis, edited by Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead (1982)

BOD = Bodleian Library, Oxford University

CAM = Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

CG = Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide (1996)

CL I = C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters, Vol. I: Family Letters 1905-1931, edited by Walter Hooper (2000)

CL II = C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters, Vol. II: Books, Broadcasts and War 1931-1949, edited by Walter Hooper (2004)

CP = C. S. Lewis, Collected Poems, edited by Walter Hooper (1994)

EC = C. S. Lewis, Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, edited by Lesley Walmsley (2000)

HAR = Harvard University Library

L = Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited with a Memoir by W H. Lewis (1966); revised and enlarged edition edited by Walter Hooper (1988)

Lambeth Palace = Lambeth Palace Library, Lambeth Palace, London

LP = unpublished ‘Lewis Papers’ or ‘Memoirs of the Lewis Family: 1850-1930’, 11 vols.

M = Magdalen College, Oxford

MC = Magdalene College, Cambridge

OUP = Oxford University Press, Oxford Oxford DNB = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 60 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). There is also an online edition of this work

P = Private collection

PC = postcard

p.p. = per pro (through another). In this volume the abbreviation indicates letters signed by Warnie Lewis on behalf of his brother

Poems = C. S. Lewis, Poems, edited by Walter Hooper (London: Bles, 1964). All the poems in this volume are included in Collected Poems (CP)

PRIN = Princeton University Library, Princeton, New lersey

SBJ = C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (1955)

SLE = C. S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, edited by Walter Hooper (1969)

T = Taylor University, Upland, Indiana

TEX = University of Texas at Austin

TS = typescript

UCL = University College London

UNC = Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

V = Congregation of the Poor Servants of Divine Providence, Verona, Italy

W = Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois

WHL = W. H. Lewis’s unpublished biography of his brother, ‘C. S. Lewis: 1898-1963’. The greater part of the narrative was brought together as a ‘Memoir’ and it was published with most of the letters as Letters to C. S. Lewis, edited with a Memoir by W. H. Lewis (1966). There are two typescripts of ‘C. S. Lewis: 1898-1963’, one in the Bodleian Library and one in the Wade Center

1950

During the spring of 1949 Lewis began dreaming of lions and by May 1949 he had written the first of the Chronicles of Narnia–The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This was hardly finished when he had the idea for the next story, Prince Caspian–or ‘A Horn in Narnia’ as it was first called. By the time this volume of letters opens Lewis was at work on yet another Narnian story, The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’, the manuscript of which would be ready for Roger Lancelyn Green1 to read when he visited Lewis at the end of February 1950.2

TO JONATHAN FRANCIS ‘FRANK’ GOODRIDGE (P): 3

Magdalen College

Oxford

[1 January 1950]

There have been very few pupils in my 26 years’ experience as a tutor for whom I can speak so confidently as I can for Mr. Frank Goodrich.4 As a scholar he has quality which his actual degree did not at all represent. The year in which he sat for his Final was one of strange surprises for many tutors about many pupils: but apart from that, his failure to do himself justice can be explained by two factors.

(1.) He is really too conscientious a student, too determined to get to the bottom of every question, to make an ideal examinee: good at probing and not at all good at advertising: incapable of ‘bluff’.

(2.) He gave rather more time than he could afford to his duties as secretary of a philosophical club.5 I saw a good deal of him in that capacity and it was his Minutes which first convinced me that he had attributes quite out of the ordinary. He could condense, and slightly popularise, the arguments of speakers (often very erudite) with less loss than any man I have ever known.

This satisfies me that he will be a good teacher: he might very well turn out to be one of the great teachers. His personal character won my respect from the beginning and this respect steadily increased during the time he was with me. He is one of the most disinterested—I think I could say one of the most selfless—men I have ever met: and, in spite of his good humour and patience, which are unfailing, I should not like to be the boy who tried to ‘rag’ him. If I had a son of my own there is no one to whom I would entrust him so gladly as to Mr. Goodrich.

C. S. Lewis

Fellow & Tutor of Magdalen

TO GEORGE ROSTREVOR HAMILTON (BOD): 6

Magdalen College

Oxford

Jan 3./50

Dear Hamilton

O nodes cenaeque deum!,7 it was a glorious evening, and the underworld of that Hotel can claim as well as Pluto sunt altera nobis sideral.8 And now, to sweeten memory, firstly I find that Virgil does use planta9 and Owen10 accordingly owes me 2/6, and secondly the Masque.

They really were asses not to play it, for it is a lovely thing in a genre now infinitely difficult. For we have mostly lost the power (taken for granted by our ancestors) of fitting works of art into ceremonial occasions. In this you have succeeded and what I admire more than any particular moments, tho’ I admire many of those too, is the combination throughout of what is extremely local and English and fresh with what is classical or timeless. One loses a lot (as one should) by not seeing it actually performed, for then it would be a real

I’m not liking the new year much so far, but wish you very well in it. With many thanks.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO NATHAN COMFORT STARR (W):13 TS

REF.50/23.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

7th January 1950.

Dear Professor Starr,

We both thank you for your kind card, and wish you every happiness in 1950.

On Tuesday morning we hope to drink your health at the ‘Bird and Baby’: pity you can’t be there to join us!14

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis15

TO SARAH NEYIAN (T): 16

Magdalen College,

Oxford

9/1/50

My dear Sarah

Yes, I did indeed get the mats and was only waiting to be sure of the right address before acknowledging them. They were so like lino-cuts that if I weren’t such an unhandy and messy person I wd. have been tempted to ink them and try making a few prints. Thanks very much indeed.

I’m glad you like the Ballet lessons. I’m just back from a week end at Malvern and found an awful pile of letters awaiting me—so I am scribbling in haste. But I must tell you what I saw in a field—one young pig cross the field with a great big bundle of hay in its mouth and deliberately lay it down at the feet of an old pig. I could hardly believe my eyes. I’m sorry to say the old pig didn’t take the slightest notice. Perhaps it couldn’t believe its eyes either. Love to yourself and all,

Your affectionate

Godfather

C. S. Lewis

TO RHONA BODLE (BOD): 17

Magdalen

9/1/50

Dear Miss Bodle,

Yes. Charles Williams often used the words ‘holy luck’.18 Compare Spenser ‘It chanced, Almighty God that chance did guide’.19 Bless you.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO SISTER PENELOPE CSMV(BOD): 20

Magdalen College

Oxford

12/1/50

Dear Sister Penelope

The name of the graduate looks like KNIONAN, but this can hardly be right! It is embarrassing that as my own hand gets worse I also get worse at reading everyone else’s.

I am very sorry you have had no luck yet with the M.G.21 But many a book that afterwards succeeded has been rejected by several publishers.

I read Butterfield and gave it exactly the same mark as you; and am glad of your support, for most even of my Christian friends think it bad.22 All good wishes for St Bernard.23

My book with Professor Tolkien—any book in collaboration with that great but dilatory and unmethodical man—is dated, I fear, to appear on the Greek Kalends!24

I don’t quite know about those American veterans. Nearly all the books we shd. want to send are published in U.S.A. and there is a bad book famine in England.

Term begins on Sat. and there is a cruel mail today, so I am suffering incessant temptation to uncharitable thoughts at present: one of those black moods in which nearly all one’s friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there shd. be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil. A ‘mixed pleasure’ as Plato wd. say, like scratching?

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Britain had been so weakened by the effects of the Second World War (1939-1945) that, despite American assistance, rationing was still in effect when Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952. Clothes rationing ended in 1949, but food continued to be rationed until 1954. For this reason many of Lewis’s friends in the United States, such as Edward A. Allen, were still sending him food parcels.

TO EDWARD A. ALLEN (W):25 TS

REF.50/19.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

24th January 1950.

My dear Mr. Allen,

This is something like a New Year’s greeting! And I am most grateful to you for it. I had to look closely at the label to make sure that the gift was from you, for we are so bemused at the moment with high pressure election literature that I thought it might be from our own Mr. Strachey.26 I don’t know whether it has appeared in your Press, but he has opened the government campaign here by saying how grateful he is to the public for their thanks for the ‘best Christmas in living memory’. The odd thing is that I can’t find anyone who told him that this was how we felt about the extra ounce of bacon or whatever it was that he gave us!

I hope your mother keeps well, and you also. Thanks to the photos you sent me. I picture you both always on a sea beach. But presumably you are now travelling on snow shoes.

With all best wishes and thanks

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO VERA MATHEWS (W):27 TS

RER50/81.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

30th January 1950.

Dear Miss Mathews,

I was very sorry to hear about the miserable fiasco of your New York holiday. ‘Flu itself I don’t mind so much, especially in its later stages when the temperature has gone down, but the getting back to normality afterwards is beastly. I hope that by this time you are over the ‘wet rag’ stage, and feeling yourself once more.

Need I say how much we look forward to the parcel which you so kindly promise? It sounds most exciting, and will be very welcome: because, whether it blows fair and warm politically or not, it is anything but fair and warm in the literal sense. I suspect that in California you are exempt from such a day as we are having here—frost, followed by rain, followed by frost—every side walk converted by delighted small boys into an improvised skating rink—splendid opportunities of giving the passers by a good laugh every time you venture out!

With all best wishes for your health, and many thanks,

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO EDWARD T. DELL (P):28 TS

REF.50/79

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

30th January 1950.

Dear Mr. Dell,

I think we mean very nearly the same.29 Evil is certainly not a ‘Thing’. But many states of affairs, or relations between things, are regrettable, ought not to have occurred, and ought to be removed. And ‘Evil’ is an elliptical symbol for this fact.

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO SISTER MARYROSE (L): 30

[January 1950]

I am sorry if I misunderstood your letter: and I think that you misunderstood mine. What I meant was that if I replied to your original question (why I am not a member of the Roman Church) I shd. have to write a v. long letter. It would of course be answerable: and your answer would be answerable by me…and so on. The resulting correspondence would certainly not, of course, be in excess of the importance of the subject: but haven’t you and I both probably more pressing duties? For a real correspondence on such a subject wd. be nearly a wholetime job. I thought we cd. both discuss the matter more usefully with people nearer at hand. Even the two letters which we have exchanged have already revealed the pitfalls of argument by letter. With all good wishes.

TO NICOLAS ZERNOV(BOD): 31

[Magdalen College]

3/2/50

Dear Zernov

Your news is a great shock to me. I will write to Spalding.32 It was a great pleasure to meet your wife the other night and altogether a splendid evening, as yours always are. Cd. you come & dine with me on Thurs. March 9? Do.

Yours

C.S.L.

TO MRS FRANK L. JONES (W):33 TS

REE 50/18.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

7th February 1950.

My dear Mrs. Jones,

Many thanks for your long and interesting letter of the 24th of January. (‘And’ says my secretary-brother, ‘don’t forget to give her my grateful thanks for being one of the few people who quotes the number on your letter when she writes’).

Your husband may well be proud of his school chapel, a beautiful building, which–to pay a typically English compliment—would rank high amongst school chapels over here!

No indeed, there is no question of my not wanting you to send anything, though there are times when I am more than a little ashamed at the amount you do send. And I note with great pleasure what you say about the tea: also about specially marked parcels.

I stand appalled at the list of your activities. I thought myself a busy man, but…

Now for an attempt at answering some of your questions:–

(1) Why was Christ always talking over people’s heads?

Since all we know of his teachings is derived from the disciples and St. Paul, we are not in a position to say that they did finally misunderstand Him. With what other account of His teaching can we check theirs? That He was often temporarily over their heads, I agree. That is the way to get a class on, as every teacher knows.

(2) About God being Truth and Justice, and nevertheless creating this world.

I’m afraid I can’t add to what I said about this in the Problem of Pain.34

(3) Why did God make most people stupid?

Have you any evidence that He did? Some people are stupid through their own choice–laziness, and even fear of the truth—so have made themselves stupid. Others, through bad education etc., which is the fault of other humans, not of God.

(4) Neurotic.

My dictionary defines neurotic as one ‘having disordered nerves’. This would often mean in effect that the patient, with little or no moral guilt, does as the result of his disease the same things which would imply great guilt if a person in health did them—e.g. acts of cowardice, ill temper etc. (We all make the distinction in ordinary life when we excuse someone for being peevish because he is very tired, and therefore temporarily in bad nervous health). But no doubt f[r]iends and even doctors often flatter healthy but wicked people by attributing to neurosis what is really just wickedness. There is a great temptation to excuse oneself on the same grounds!

(5) What is a soul?

I am. (This is the only possible answer: or expanded, ‘A soul is that which can say I am’).

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely.

C. S. Lewis

TO MR LAKE (T):

Magdalen College

Oxford

8/2/50

Dear Mr Lake

I think the process is: Planets are gods in ancient poetry—and Intelligences in Aristotle—angels are ‘gods’ in O.T.35 and Milton–Cambridge Platonists (and Florentine Platonists) identify both Platonic daemons & ancient gods with Christian angels—why not accept the identification?36–and incidentally try to rescue the Angels from the feminine & sentimental associations that have grown round them. See the learned note from the (non existent) Natvilcius in Cap I of Perelandra.37

Yrs. sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO DAPHNE HARWOOD (BOD): 38

Magdalen College

Oxford

20/2/50

Dear Daphne

You must have been bad if you thought last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday—or else you hold some Columban and pre-Augustinian view on the date of Easter. (Your Gudeman39 will at a moment’s notice point out to you the passages in Bede which clear the whole thing up.)40 I hope you’re well now? Bronchitis is nasty enough.

Fry is shattering. I’ve seen none and only read The Lady’s not for Burning.41 The funny parts were funny enough to make me laugh; as for the poetry–the wealth of real genius in the imagery is beyond hope. Almost too much, and sometimes rather splashed about than used. But, by gum, it’s a good fault and one we’d almost despaired of ever seeing again. Can it be—dare we hope—that the ghastly mumbling and whining period in which you and I have lived nearly all our lives, is really coming to an end? Shall we see gold and scarlet and flutes and trumpets come back?

John is doing more this term.42 How is Sylvia?43 Give my love to Lawrence and all, including dear Woff.44 And take care of yourself: let the young people work!

Yours sincerely

Jack L.

TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD): 45

Magdalen College

Oxford

21/2/50

Dear Green

Cd. you dine with me (7 p.m. smoking room) on Wed March 8th? I have several books to return and the typed MS of the Horn story46 & MS of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.