Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931

At this time of the year especially, one sees how awfully the place misses its mark. The whole of our spare time is given up to the great business of our life–cricket. Cricket is played with intense seriousness, and the players are usually in a very bad temper with themselves and everyone else, owing to the strain put on their minds by such a stupendous affair. Now for me, work is the business of the term: I am tired when I come out of school, and should like some recreation. Unfortunately, I am frankly and desperately bored by the recreations that are forced upon me. And yet it is obvious that one must have compulsory games at school: but if you do, as it seems, they are given this ludicrous preponderance and become for some the absorbing interest of their life, and for others a bogie and an incubus.

I enclose a few verses in imitation of Ovid, which were top of the form last week and well spoken of by Smugy. Do you care for that metre? There are a great many rhymes in it, which makes it difficult; but the thing that I want to learn is ‘to move easily in shackles’ (I wonder who said that? Do you know?)

Before I close I must again make shift to bite the paternal ear; as the 10/-which you were kind enough to send has been absorbed in paying off old debts and buying back for the study things which had been sold in the days of extreme embarrasment. I hope you won’t think this extravagant.

See you take care of yourself, and write as soon as you are able.

your loving

son Jack

The following poem was enclosed with the letter above. The words underlined by ‘Smewgy’ are in capital type, and his remarks are in brackets.

‘Ovid’s “Pars estis pauci”’

(Metre copied from a chorus in Swinburne’s ‘Atalanta in Calydon’)

I. Of the host whom I NAMED As friend, ye alone Dear few!, were ashamed In troubles unknown To leave me deserted; but boldly ye cherished my cause as your own. (Yes.)

II. My thanks shall endure -The poor tribute I paid To a faith that was pure– Till my ashes be laid In the urn; and the Stygian boatmen I seek, an impalpable shade. (Yes, but not Ovid.)

III. But nay! For the days Of a mortal are few; Shall they limit your praise Nay rather to you Each new generation shall offer–if aught be remembered–your due.

IV.

For the lofty frame (hardly scans.)

That my VERSES ENFOLD,

Men still shall acclaim

Thro’ ages untold;

And still shall they speak of your virtue; your honour

they still shall uphold.

(Yes.)

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 192-3):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 29 June 1914

My dear Papy,

On Friday I got a letter from you for the first time since this trouble, and glad I was to get it. It has been a bad business, but I am glad to see that you are over the worst of it now. Be careful of yourself, and take care that you don’t go back to your ordinary routine until you are thoroughly fit.

My mental picture of home is disturbed to a certain extent by your mention of a fire. Here, we are in the middle of a magnificent summer: day succeeds day with the same cloudless sky and parched earth, and the nights are hot and comfortless. But on the whole, fine weather is agreeable, and has, I think, a certain effect on the spirits. Thank you very much for the money, which will enable ‘the firm’ to live ‘en prince’ until the time of our exile be over, and I return to a lovelier country to lead a happier life.

On the Tuesday of this week an unusual thing happened. Smugy asked myself and another boy in the same form and house, by name Cooper, to motor over with him to a little place called Birchwood in the country, where we had tea at an inn, and took a long delightful walk through fields and woods to a place where we were again picked up by the car, and thus home again. It was indeed very kind of the old man, as I am sure he sees quite enough of us in school hours. We went through a very beautiful piece of country, far, far away to the N. West of the hills where we could never go in an ordinary walk. To me, tired as I was of the flat, plain, and ugly hills of Malvern, this region, with its long masses of rolling hills and valleys, variegated by close mysterious woods and cornfields, together with one or two streams, was an enchanted ground. The Malvern hills loomed as a dark mass not far off the horizon: seen at this distance, they had lost their sharpness of outline, and looked weird and unreal, but very beautiful.

Here, in the middle of all this, we came upon the little cottage which used to be the summer resort of Elgar,17 the composer, formerly an intimate friend of Smugy’s. The latter told us that Elgar used to say he was able to read a musical score in his hand, and hear in his mind not only the main theme of the music, but also the different instruments and all the side currents of sound. What a wonderful state of mind!

This week I have taken a course of A.C. Benson’s essays, which have impressed me very favourably indeed. Do you know them? He has a clear, simple, but melodious style, second as I think only to Ruskin, and the matter is always suggestive, weighty, and original. He always makes you think, which a book ought to.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 196-7):

[Malvern College]

6/7/14

My dear Papy,

I was glad to get your letter on Saturday, as I was beginning to grow somewhat anxious about you. I am glad indeed to hear that you are on the mend, and hope that the term ‘mending’ will soon be out of place. So the report has come at last. Though I could have wished for something more effusive, still it is pleasing to note that it is an improvement on the last one, and I hope that the next in its turn will be a proportionate advance. Yes. I think the old man has some regard for me, but, it must be remembered that even if I were to return next winter, I should no longer be under him, as all our form are getting a shove to make way for the influx of new scholarship people.

This week I have enjoyed the doubtful privilege of having two teeth extracted, both of which had been bothering me a good deal off and on this term. The dentist, who is a thoroughly competent official, pronounced his verdict that as they had been tinkered with over and over again, and were now hopelessly rotten, they had better come out. So out they came, with gas, and I think it was a good job.

I am at present engaged in reading Newman’s poems:18 do you know them at all? They are very, very delicate and pretty, and are like nothing more than one of those valuable painted Chinese vases which a touch would destroy. I must except from this criticism the ‘Dream of Gerontius’,19 which is very strongly written. But the rest are almost too delicate for my taste: it is a kind of beauty that I can’t very much appreciate.

We have had two thunderstorms this week, and their combined efforts have left the ground pretty much under water, which is a great relief, as it puts an end to that eternal cricket. I wonder which is the more fatiguing, being made to play oneself, or watching others play it? We have plenty of both here, and both are compulsory.

But to turn to a better theme, do you realise that there is barely a month more this term; and I am already beginning to look forward to the end of it. That, I think, is one of the really priceless pleasures of youth–this joy of home coming, the gradual approach to the familiar surroundings etc.–as an old friend of ours once said on another subject, ‘it can’t be beat’.

Which reminds me, has Arthur got the gramophone mended yet?

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 197-8):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 13 July 1914

My dear Papy,

Although there has been no letter this week, I do hope that you have not had a relapse or anything, and that you are getting on all right.

This week we have had a Repton match here, and other things which must now be told. A nice impression truly these people will take back of Malvern and the Malvernians! One evening, during the game called ‘crockets’ (which is a kind of impromptu cricket played with soft balls on the stretch of gravel outside S.H.), two real knuts from Repton strolled up, and began watching at a distance: this is what they saw. Browning, whose ball had been hit over into Mr. Preston’s garden, turned round to an inoffensive person called Hamley,20 who has just been made a prefect, and demanded the latter’s ball. This request was very naturally refused: whereupon our friend Browning proceeds to take it by force, and with many blows and oaths, succeeded in ejecting the other down the bank. Then, noticing the not unnatural mirth of the Reptonians at the sight of two public school prefects fighting and rolling in the mud like street boys, he turned round and told them in terms which I cannot reproduce, ‘not to grin at him’, with a great emphasis on the last word.

So this is our public school dignity, politeness and hospitality which we are always hearing about! These are the institutions that all other civilised countries envy us for, and would imitate if they could. Bah! I for one, will be glad to be rid of them all, and would like to see the day when they are abolished. But as for this Browning, perhaps we judged him too harshly. It is very true that we never know the data for any case but our own. I hear he is not happy at home: so that, although it may be that he is such a beast that he cannot be well treated, yet on the other hand it may be that he has been made into a beast. One never knows.

Last week we had an essay on the difference between Genius and Talent, and mine has been ‘sent up for good’, the ceremony which I told you of.21 Only three weeks more now.

your loving

son Jacks

On Saturday, 19 September 1914 Jack arrived at Great Bookham to be met at the station by the man he’d heard about all his life, W.T. Kirkpatrick. ‘I came prepared,’ he later wrote in SBJ IX,

to endure a perpetual luke-warm shower bath of sentimentality. That was the price I was ready to pay for the infinite blessedness of escaping school…One story of my father’s, in particular, gave me the most embarrassing forebodings. He had loved to tell how once at Lurgan when he was in some kind of trouble or difficulty, the Old Knock, or the dear Old Knock, had drawn him aside and there ‘quietly and naturally’ slid his arm round him and rubbed his dear old whiskers against my father’s youthful cheek and whispered a few words of comfort…And here was Bookham at last, and there was the arch-sentimentalist himself waiting to meet me…He was over six feet tall, very shabbily dressed…lean as a rake, and immensely muscular. His wrinkling face seemed to consist entirely of muscles, so far as it was visible; for he wore moustache and side whiskers with a clean-shaven chin like Emperor Franz Joseph. The whiskers, you will understand, concerned me very much at that moment. My cheek tingled in anticipation…

Apparently, however, the old man was holding his fire. We shook hands, and though his grip was like iron pincers it was not lingering. A few minutes later we were walking away from the station. ‘You are now,’ said Kirk, ‘proceeding along the principal artery between Great and Little Bookham.’ I stole a glance at him. Was this geographical exordium a heavy joke? Or was he trying to conceal his emotions? His face, however, showed only an inflexible gravity. I began to ‘make conversation in the deplorable manner which I had acquired at those evening parties and indeed found increasingly necessary to use with my father. I said I was surprised at the ‘scenery’ of Surrey; it was much ‘wilder’ than I had expected.

‘Stop!’ shouted Kirk with a suddenness that made me jump. ‘What do you mean by wildness and what grounds had you for not expecting it?’ I replied I don’t know what, still ‘making conversation. As answer after answer was torn to shreds it at last dawned upon me that he really wanted to know. He was not making conversation, nor joking, nor snubbing me; he wanted to know. I was stung into attempting a real answer. A few passes sufficed to show that I had no clear and distinct idea corresponding to the word ‘wildness’, and that, in so far as I had any idea at all, ‘wildness’ was a singularly inept word. ‘Do you not see, then,’ concluded the Great Knock, ‘that your remark was meaningless?’…By this time our acquaintance had lasted about three and a half minutes; but the tone set by this first conversation was preserved without a single break during all the years I spent at Bookham…If ever a man came near to being a purely logical entity, that man was Kirk…Some boys would not have liked it; to me it was red beef and strong beer.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 212):

[Gastons,

Great Bookham,

Surrey]

Sept. 21st [1914]

My dear Papy,

I arrived, as you heard by the telegram, at Great Bookham in perfect safety and with all my effects. Today is Monday and you must excuse my not writing yesterday as some friends of Mine Host’s called in the afternoon when I had intended to do this.

Need I say how thoroughly satisfied I am with Bookham, Gastons, and their inhabitants. You already know all about Kirk–more than I do probably–and W. has spoken of Mrs. K., whom I like exceedingly.

The country is absolutely glorious. I took my first tour of exploration this afternoon, and went through the outskirts of a large forest. One was strongly reminded of ‘As you like it’.22 The village is one such as I have often read of, but never before seen. The little row of red roofed cottages, the old inn, and the church dating from the Conquest might all have stepped out of the Vicar of Wakefield.23 How Arthur would enjoy this place!

Another point of gratification is that I have at last, triumphantly, found a dirtier railway than the Co. Down. (I wonder have you any shares in the London & S. Western?) Kirk’s son,24 who is in a volunteer camp near here called for an hour or so last night. We get the ‘Whig’ here, which gives a touch of home. I hope you are keeping in good health and spirits and letting Tim sleep indoors. Of course there are sewing meetings and all the usual war codotta at Bookham. To finish up–it is a brilliant success.

your loving

son Jack

P.S. Any signs of the photos? J.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 212-13):

‘Gastons’

Grt. Bookham.

Surrey. Saturday Sept / 14 26 September 1914]

My dear Arthur,

If it were not that you could answer me with my own argument, I should upbraid you with not having written to me. See to it that you do as soon as you have read this.

And now–what do I think of it? After a week’s trial I have come to the conclusion that I am going to have the time of my life: nevertheless, much as I am enjoying the new arrangement, I feel sure that you would appreciate it even more than I. As for the country, I can hardly describe it. The wide expanse of rolling hill and dale, all thickly wooded with hazel and pine (so different from our bare and balder hills in Down) that is called Surrey, is to me, a great delight. Seen at present, in all the glory of a fine Autumn, it may be better imagined than described. How I wish that I could paint! Then I could carry home a few experiences on paper for my own remembrance and your information. But the village wd. please you even better. I have never seen anything like it outside a book. There is a quaint old inn that might have stepped out of the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’, and a church that dates from before the conquest. But it is no good enumerating things: I cannot convey the impression of perfect restfulness that this place imparts. We have all often read of places that ‘Time has forgotten’–well, Great Bookham is one of these!

I have only just discovered that you put my name in that book.25 If I had seen it earlier I shd. have sent it back. You have no right to be so foolishly generous! However–many, many thanks. When one has set aside the rubbish that H. G. Wells always puts in, there remains a great deal of original, thoughtful and suggestive work in it. The ‘Door in the Wall’, for instance, moved me in a way I can hardly describe! How true it all is: the SEEING ONE walks out into joy and happiness unthinkable, where the dull, senseless eyes of the world see only destruction & death. ‘The Plattner Story’ & ‘Under the Knife’ are the next best: they have given me a great deal of pleasure. I am now engaged in reading ‘Sense & Sensibility’. It is, undoubtedly, one of her best. Do you remember the Palmer family?26

In Greek, I have started to read Homer’s Iliad,27 of which, of course, you must often have heard. Although you don’t know Greek & don’t care for poetry, I cannot resist the temptation of telling you how stirring it is. Those fine, simple, euphonious lines, as they roll on with a roar like that of the ocean, strike a chord in one’s mind that no modern literature approaches. Better or worse it may be: but different it is for certain.

I hope everything went off successfully on the eventful Teusday, and also that you are now recovered from your cold. You know my address: you have no excuse for silence, Sir!! No Philip’s concerts this year at Belfast, I am told.

Yrs. (Expecting a letter)

C. S. Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 214):

[Gastons]

Monday.

Postmark: 30 September 1914

My dear Papy,

Thanks very much for the two letters which I received all in due course. Yes: I think that will be the best plan about the photos. Only, please send me two copies, as I want to give one to some one else at Malvern.

I am now at the end of my first week at Bookham, and can again tell you that it is everything that can possibly be desired. Both in work and leisure it is of course incomparably beyond any of the arrangements we have tried yet.

This week end an old pupil and friend of Kirk’s was staying with us–one Oswald Smythe, who hies from Bembridge and is about twenty five years of age. Do you know who that would be? We are going on with friend Homer at what–to my ex-Malvernian mind–is a prodigious rate: that is to say we have polished off a book in the first week. At Malvern we always took a term to read a book of that sort of stuff.

Today I did a thing that would have gladdened your heart: walked to Leatherhead (for Bookham does not boast a barber) to get my hair cut. And am now looking like a convict–Yes thanks I have plenty of underclothing, and the cold is a good deal better!

There is a good deal of war fever raging here, as is natural. I am glad to hear that those ‘five righteous’ have been found. But five thousand would be more to the point. What is all the local news? Tell Arthur the next time you see him that I am eagerly expecting a reply to my letter. I suppose the winter has closed in at home by this time: but we are still having quite summer weather here–which I rather resent. Mrs. Kirk plays the piano beautifully, which is one of the great assets of Bookham. There is also a movement on foot to make me learn to play bridge: but I am wriggling as hard as is compatible with manners.

your loving

son Jack

P.S. Who is the ‘Mr. Dods’28 that Kirk mentions?

War had been building up for some time, and it was now imminent. The heir to the Hapsburg empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Linking the assassination to the government of Belgrade, on 23 July Austria despatched to Serbia an ultimatum which could only be answered in two ways: Serbia must become for all practical purposes a conquered province of the Austrian Empire, or it must accept a declaration of war. On 28 July Austria declared war on Serbia, and on 29 July Russia mobilized her south-western army. That same day in London, Winston Churchill proposed to the British Cabinet that the European sovereigns should ‘be brought together for the sake of peace’.29 Germany refused, and on 31 July Russia mobilized against Germany. That same day Britain asked France and Germany to respect Belgian neutrality, to the maintenance of which Britain was committed by a treaty signed in 1839. France agreed to do so, but Germany gave no answer. Then, on 3 August Germany declared war on France. Hitherto Britain had stood aside, but the question of Belgian neutrality raised a problem and on 3 August Britain sent an ultimatum to Berlin demanding there be no attack on Belgium. On 4 August Germany entered Belgium, and that night Britain declared war on Germany. By midnight on 4 August five empires were at war: the Austro-Hungarian Empire against Serbia; the German Empire against France, Britain and Russia; the Russian Empire against Germany and Austria-Hungary; and the British and French Empires against Germany.

Because of war-time needs, Warnie’s training had been accelerated from two years to only nine months. On 1 October he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Service Corps and sent to the base at Aldershot in preparation for being sent to France on 4 November.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 225-6):

[Gastons]

Monday [5?] Oct./14

My dear Papy,

Thanks very much for the photographs, which I have duly received and studied. They are artistically got up and touched in: in fact everything that could be desired–only, do I really tie my tie like that? Do I really brush my hair like that? Am I really as fat as that? Do I really look so sleepy? However, I suppose that thing in the photo is the one thing I am saddled with for ever and ever, so I had better learn to like it. Isn’t it curious that we know any one else better than we do ourselves? Possibly a merciful delusion.

You ask about our church at Bookham.30 I thought I had mentioned it in my first description of the village. However, at the risk of repetition, you shall be informed. It is of pre-Norman structure, and is, like all these old churches, no particular shape. There are various plates of bronze dedicated by ‘So and so, gentleman, to his beloved ladye who etc., etc.’ The organ is out of tune: the singing execrable. The Vicar is a hard working, sincere and cheerful fellow, but, as Miss Austen would say, of ‘no parts’. It is, in its own way, very, very beautiful. Yes, I go every Sunday.

I wonder did you notice the article on Nietzche in last Sunday’s Times Literary Supplement,31 which demonstrates that although we have been told to regard Nietzche as the indirect author of this war, nothing could be farther removed from the spirit and letter of his teaching? It just shows how we can be duped by an ignorant and loud mouthed cheap press. Kirk, who knows something about N., had anticipated that article with us, and is in high glee at seeing the blunder ‘proclaimed on the housetops.’

I am very glad to hear that Warnie has at last safely arrived in that state of bliss, our British Army. What happens to him now, do you know?

The weather here is perfectly ideal: sharp frosts at night, and clear, mild sunshine in the day: this is really the nicest country I have ever seen, outside–of course–Co. Down. The places about here in the woods are alive with pheasants, as the usual shots are at the front: they are so tame that you can come within a few paces of them.

On Saturday the household went over to the famous Boxhill, which however I thought not nearly so pretty as some of the places nearer Gastons.

I can still say that a larger knowledge of our new stunt gives nothing but deeper satisfaction. We have at last struck the real thing in education, in comfort, in pleasure, and in companions. I could almost believe that Malvern had never existed, or was merely a nightmare which I am glad to forget. Paper and time at an end.