THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF

C. S. LEWIS

__________ VOLUME I __________

Family Letters 1905–1931

EDITED BY WALTER HOOPER

CONTENTS

Preface

Abbreviations

Letters:

Chapter 1 - 1905-1910

Chapter 2 - 1911-1912

Chapter 3 - 1913

Chapter 4 - 1914

Chapter 5 - 1915

Chapter 6 - 1916

Chapter 7 - 1917

Chapter 8 - 1918

Chapter 9 - 1919

Chapter 10 - 1920

Chapter 11 - 1921

Chapter 12 - 1922

Chapter 13 - 1923

Chapter 14 - 1924

Chapter 15 - 1925

Chapter 16 - 1926

Chapter 17 - 1927

Chapter 18 - 1928

Chapter 19 - 1929

Chapter 20 - 1930

Chapter 21 - 1931

Biographical Appendix

Index

Books by C. S. Lewis

Copyright

About the Publisher

PREFACE

‘A heavy responsibility rests on those who forage through a dead man’s correspondence and publish it indiscriminately.’ Thus C. S. Lewis wrote to his father, Albert Lewis, on 5 June 1926 about The Letters of Sir Walter Raleigh which both were reading. Sir Walter Raleigh (1861-1922), whom Lewis had known, was the first Professor of English at Oxford (1904).

‘The funny thing,’ Lewis went on to say, is that Raleigh’s ‘views on the things of the spirit…are not really in opposition to the atmosphere of Christianity. Whatever he thought about the historical side of it, he must have known…that the religious view, whether literally true or not, was at any rate much more like the reality than the views of the scientists and rationalists.’

It is surprising to find C. S. Lewis–the clearest of writers–attempting to create vagueness by his use of the phrases ‘not really’, ‘the religious view’ and ‘the historical side’. He was 28 and had been a Fellow of Magdalen College for nine months. But since he ceased to believe in Christianity at the age of 14, he had been hiding his atheism from his father. In trying to make Raleigh’s beliefs appear more orthodox than they were, ‘Jack’, as he was known to his friends, may have expressed the anxiety he felt about his father discovering his unbelief.

Only three years later, 1929, Albert Lewis died. Shortly before his father’s death Jack converted to theism, a change that did much to unite his private beliefs with his public face. Then two years after this came the step which did away with the need for subterfuge altogether. On 28 September 1931 Jack was taken to Whipsnade Zoo in his brother’s sidecar. ‘When we set out,’ he later said in Surprised by Joy, ‘I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.’

Family Letters is the first of what is to be a three-volume collection of C. S. Lewis’s letters. It covers the period November 1905 to 18 October 1931, from the first letter we have of Lewis’s, written when he was seven, up to his acceptance of Christianity as true. To prevent the book from being too long it was necessary to leave out a few letters, but the volume contains about 95 per cent of the letters from that period. Many of the letters I have omitted were weekly ‘regulation’ letters from Jack to his father from his various schools. I have also left out certain letters to Owen Barfield and Cecil Harwood. In these Lewis was primarily arguing philosophical points or criticizing his correspondents’ poetry. It was thought these letters would be of comparatively marginal interest to most people or of relatively small significance in the larger story.

When Albert Lewis died, Jack and his brother Warren, or ‘Warnie’, found their father had preserved masses of family papers going back to 1850. The papers were moved to Oxford, and Warnie spent much of 1933 to 1935 copying them. He undertook this enormous task using the hunt-and-peck system on his little Royal typewriter. Both brothers added valuable editorial notes along the way, and the papers were bound into 11 volumes entitled ‘Memoirs of the Lewis Family: 1850-1930’, now widely referred to as the ‘Lewis Papers’. The original of the Lewis Papers is in the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, with microfilms in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Any dubious spelling or dating in the Lewis Papers is impossible to check against the original manuscripts. When Roger Lancelyn Green and I borrowed the Lewis Papers for help in writing C. S. Lewis: A Biography, Warnie urged us (letter of 1 April 1967) to ‘take the greatest care of them–for there is only this one copy in existence, and the originals from which all material was drawn were burnt by Jack in 1936’. It is unlikely that Lewis would have thought publishing letters from this collection an ‘indiscriminate’ use because he helped to assemble them.

The Lewis Papers came into use when Warnie wished to commemorate his brother after Jack’s death in 1963. ‘I intend to see what sort of a hand I make at a “Life and Letters” of dear Jack,’ he wrote to me on 8 February 1964. ‘Not exactly a L. & L. in the usual sense, for of course I shall not use anything he has himself told us in Surprised by Joy. It will be more what the French 17th Cent. writers used to call Mémoires pour servir etc.’ That book eventually became Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited, with a Memoir by W. H. Lewis (1964). However, because Warnie originally set out to write a biography, not edit a volume of letters, he restricted his brother’s letters to what are, in effect, quotations. None of the family letters quoted in Letters of C. S. Lewis is complete. I hope those who enjoyed reading fragments of Lewis’s letters to his father and brother in the 1966 Letters and the Enlarged Edition of 1988 will be pleased to find them here in their entirety.

While the volume includes letters to Owen Barfield and other friends he met at Oxford, most were written to Albert Lewis, Warnie and his boyhood friend Arthur Greeves. Some of the best of those he wrote to Warnie arose out of Warnie’s long stay in South Africa with the Army Service Corps. He knew Warnie would be lonely so far away and that he found letters companionable. ‘As we talk a good deal of odd fragments out of books when we are together,’ Jack wrote to him in March 1921, ‘there’s no reason why we should not reproduce the same sort of tittle-tattle. Perhaps one of the reasons why letters are so hard to write and so much harder to read is that people confine themselves to news–in other words think nothing worth writing except that which would not be worth saying.’

The letters to his father are by no means all news, but they differ from the ones to Warnie and Arthur in being more or less obligatory reports from his various schools. There are times when news is very interesting too, and on occasions we find Jack begging his father for precisely that, news. One of the turning points in this volume comes soon after 1925 when his ideas are the news. Jack, now a don at Magdalen College, writes to his father as an independent young man and we see that seminal work of literary history, The Allegory of Love, taking shape before our eyes.

Jack Lewis was later to regret that he was so cavalier about dating his early correspondence, and my guess is that it was Albert Lewis who preserved the postmarks of many of his son’s letters. This helped Warnie when arranging them in the Lewis Papers. Sometimes he did not even have a postmark to guide him, and in some instances where he failed I had the advantage of comparing the family letters to those written to Arthur Greeves, and vice versa. In one of the many undated letters to his father (2? April 1919), Jack said, ‘Did you see the “very insolent” review of me on the back page of the Times Literary Supplement last week?’ I found the review in The Times Literary Supplement of 27 March 1919, and we are able to see almost exactly where the letter fits.

The letters to Arthur Greeves were published in 1979 as They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963), a book which has been out of print many years. The originals of all the Greeves letters in Family Letters are in Wheaton College, with copies in the Bodleian. Jack described Arthur as his ‘First Friend’. ‘I had been so far from thinking such a friend possible,’ he said of him in Surprised by Joy, ‘that I had never even longed for one; no more than I longed to be King of England.’ The letters to Arthur are exactly the balance needed for those Jack wrote to his father, not merely because they were young men of the same age with similar interests, but because Arthur was his confidant. The only clear statement we have about Lewis’s religious beliefs as a teenager was made to Arthur in October 1916. All religions, that is, all mythologies to give them their proper name,’ he wrote on 12 October 1916, ‘are merely man’s own invention.’ And when, following the death of his father, he began to look at Christianity, and himself, in a new light, he confided in Arthur. ‘You are my only real Father Confessor’, he said.

And it was to Arthur that Jack confided his teenage sexual fantasies beginning with the letter of 28 January 1917. Years later, when he re-read the letters in which this subject is mentioned, he told Arthur (1 October 1931): ‘I am now inclined to agree with you in not regretting that we confided in each other even on this subject, because it has done no harm in the long run–and how could young adolescents really be friends without it?’ Before his death, Arthur, as an old man, sought to make his friend’s letters more respectable by scribbling over those passages in which this particular excess of youth had appeared. In deciding what to do about this, I came to the conclusion that if I omitted these passages, but retained the letter of 30 January 1930 in which Lewis accuses himself of the deadly sin of Pride, I would be treating the teenage lusts of the flesh with a seriousness they don’t deserve. My solution in this volume is the same one I used when the letters were first published in 1979. The passages which Arthur, for whatever reason, scribbled through are found in brackets shaped like this–< >.

I should include an Editorial Note at this point. We have none of the letters Arthur wrote to Jack during the years covered in this book, but it is clear Arthur was always pleading with Jack to put dates on his letters. Jack rarely complied, and as a result the letters to Arthur were harder to date than the ones to his father. As I explained in the Editor’s Note I wrote for They Stand Together, I used various methods of dating, including comparing the various nibs Jack used in composing the letters. Lewis almost always wrote with an old-fashioned nib pen that is dipped into an inkwell as one writes. Each nib writes slightly differently and it is possible to see which letters were written with which nib. It is not a method to condemn. When Lewis dictated letters to me, he always had me read them aloud afterwards. He told me that in writing letters, as well as books, he always ‘whispered the words aloud’. Pausing to dip the pen in an inkwell provided exactly the rhythm needed. ‘It’s as important to please the ear’ he said, ‘as it is the eye.’

What Lewis was not concerned with was how the page looked. He preferred to save paper, and most of his letters were not divided into paragraphs. I have taken the liberty of introducing paragraphs, with the result, I hope, that Lewis’s clearly ordered ideas stand out and are more enjoyable to read. I have tried throughout to preserve Lewis’s spelling. This was easy when transcribing from the original letters to Arthur, but I suspect that Warnie silently corrected some of his brother’s frequent misspellings.

Following the name of every person to whom a letter is addressed I have indicated where the reader might consult the original letter, if there is one, or where in the Lewis Papers he will find the copy used in this book. Thus ‘To his Father (LP III: 82)’ means ‘Lewis Papers, Volume III, page 82’. In the case of the letters to Arthur Greeves the reader will notice that sometimes I refer to letters being in both Wheaton and the Lewis Papers (e.g. W/LP). This means that the original, from which the Lewis Papers version was copied, is now in Wheaton. Jack borrowed many of his letters from Arthur so Warnie could include them in the Lewis Papers. I am not sure what happened, but those dated 1 and 8 February 1916 and those which run from 7 March 1916 to 27 September 1916 seem to have got lost because these only exist as copies in the Lewis Papers. The initial ‘B’ means the original is in the Bodleian, and ‘P’ means it is in a private collection. It should not be difficult to consult the letters on either side of the Atlantic because the Bodleian and the Wade Center have a reciprocal arrangement which means each has copies of what the other has. Thus, those letters cited as in ‘W’ (Wade Center), such as the Barfield letters, may also be consulted in ‘B’ (Bodleian).

Nearly all the letters in this volume were written to people so important in Lewis’s life that I did not feel it would be enough to identify them with a mere footnote. The solution was to include short biographies in a Biographical Appendix.

I hope my friends will be as satisfied as I am by the appearance of this volume for I have been tireless in seeking their knowledge and advice. I wish to thank in particular Dr A. T. Reyes, Professor James Como, Father Seán Finnegan, Professor Emrys Jones, Dr Barbara Everett, Madame Eliane Tixier, Professor G. B. Tennyson, Dr Stephen Logan, Miss Priscilla Tolkien, The Rt Hon. David Bleakley MP, Michael Ward, Andrew Cuneo, Edward Nelson, Jonathan Brewer, Paul Tankard, Edward De Rivera, Fr Jerome Bertram, Brother Alexander Master and the Fathers and Brothers of the Oxford Oratory.

No editor could have been served so well by his publishers as I have been. I am very grateful to Kathy Dyke, managing editor of HarperCollinsReligious, for guiding the book through to press, and to many others. My thanks to all concerned.

Walter Hooper

27 March 1999

Oxford

ABBREVIATIONS

AMR = All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis 1922-1927, edited by Walter Hooper (1991).

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

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

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

‘Memoir’ = Memoir by W. H. Lewis contained in Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited with a Memoir by W. H. Lewis (1966), and reprinted in Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited with a Memoir by W. H. Lewis, revised and enlarged edition, edited by Walter Hooper (1988).

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

1905-1910

T he Lewises were a happy family. Albert Lewis¹ had prospered as a police court solicitor, and on 18 April 1905 the family moved from the semi-detached Dundela Villas, where Warnie and Jack were born, into a house Albert had specially built for his wife, Flora.² This was ‘Little Lea’, one of the new ‘big houses’ of Strandtown, a lovely area of Belfast. Outside, the family looked over wide fields to Belfast Lough, and across the Lough to the mountains of the Antrim shore.

Albert and Flora, like most Anglo-Irish parents, wanted their children to be educated in English public schools, and on 10 May 1905 Flora took Warnie,³ who was eight, across the water to Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. In complete innocence she was delivering her son into the hands of a madman. The headmaster, Robert Capron or ‘Oldie’ as the boys called him,⁴ ‘lived in a solitude of power,’ Jack was later to write, ‘like a sea-captain in the days of sail’ (SBJ II). In two years’ time he would have a High Court action taken against him for cruelty. For the time being Warnie joined the dwindling band of some dozen boys who lived in the pair of semi-detached houses which made up Wynyard School.

Meanwhile, Jack was tutored at home, his mother teaching him French and Latin and his governess, Annie Harper,⁵ teaching him everything else. He was almost eight when he wrote this first letter to Warnie:

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 63):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[c. November 1905]

My dear Warnie

Peter⁶ has had two un-fortunate aventures since I last wrote, however they came out all right in the end. No. 1, Maude⁷ was in her room (up there remember) heard Peter howling. When she came down, what do you think? sitting on the floor ready to spring on Peter was a big black cat. Maude chased it for a long way. I was not able to help matters because I was out on my bych.

The next adventure was not so starling, never the-less it is worth while relating that a mouse got into his cage.

Tim⁸ got the head staggers the other day while running on the lawn, he suddenly lay down and began to kick and foam at the mouth and shudder.

On Halow-een we had great [fun?] and had fireworks; rockets, and catterine wheels, squbes, and a kind of thing that you lit and twirled and then they made stars. We hung up an apple and bit at it we got Grandfather⁹ down to watch and he tried to bite. Maud got the ring out of the barn-brach and we had apple dumpling with in it a button a ring and a 3 penny bit. Martha got the button, Maude got nothing, and I got the ring and the 3 pence all in one bite. We got some leaves off the road the other day, that is to say the roadmen gave us some that they had got off the road, in fact they wanted them because they make good manure. I am doing french as well as latin now, and I think I like the latin better. Tomorrow I decline that old ‘Bonus,’ ‘Bona,’ ‘Bonum’ thing, but I think it is very hard (not now of course but it was).

Diabolos are all the go here, evrrey body has one except us, I don’t think the Lewis temper would hold out do you? Jackie Calwell has one and can do it beautifully (wish I could)

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 75-6):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[c. 1906]

My dear Warnie

I am sorrey that I did not write to you before. At present Boxen is slightly convulsed.¹⁰ The news has just reached her that King Bunny is a prisoner. The colonists (who are of course the war party) are in a bad way: they dare scarcely leave their houses because of the mobs. In Tararo the Prussians and Boxonians are at fearful odds against each other and the natives.

Such were the states of affairs recently: but the able general Quick-steppe is taking steps for the rescue of King Bunny. (the news somewhat pacified the rioters.)

your loving

brother Jacks.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 79):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

18 May 1907

My dear Warnie,

Tommy is very well thank you. We have got the telephone in to our house. Is Bennett beter again, as he has been ill you see that you are not the onley boy who stayes at home.

We have nearly seteld that we are going to france this summer, all though I do not like that country I think I shall like the trip, wont you. I liked the card you sent me, I have put it in the album. I was talking to the Greaves through the telephone I wanted Arthur but he was out and I onley got Thom.¹¹

I am sorry I can’t give you any news about Nearo, but I have not got anny to give. The grass in the front is coming up nicely. It is fearfully hot here. I have got an adia, you know the play I was writing. I think we will try and act it with new stage don’t say annything about it not being dark we will have it up stairs and draw the thick curtains and the wight ones, the scenery is rather hard, but still I think we shall do it.

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 80):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[August 1907?]

My dear Warnie

Thank you very much for the post-cards I liked them, the herald was the nicest I think, dont you. Now that I have finished the play I am thinking of writeing a History of Mouse-land and I have even gon so far as to make up some of it, this is what I have made up.

Mouse-land had a very long stone-age during which time no great things tooke place it lasted from 55 BC to 1212 and then king Bublich I began to reign, he was not a good king but he fought gainest yellow land. Bub II his son fought indai about the lantern act, died 1377 king Bunny came next.¹²

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 82):

[Pension Petit-Vallon,

Berneval,

Près Dieppe]

4th Sept. ’07.¹³

My dear Papy,

excuse this post-card being so dirty, but in our rooms everything is so dusty. It is still lovely weather still. I was sick and had to go to bed but am quite beter now. I hope you are all right. Are Tommy and Peter all right?

your loving

son, Jacks.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 105):

Tigh-na-mara,

Larne Harbour,

Co. Antrim.

[May 1908]¹⁴

My dear Warnie

how are you geting on. Mamy is doing very well indeed. I am sending you a picture of the ‘Lord Big’,¹⁵ I forgot until it was too late that she was screw not paddle, but of course there might be 2 boats in the same line that have one name. Did I tell you about going to chains memorial?¹⁶ It is a funny old place, one thing that struck me was the thickness of the walls. The light (as I suppose you know) is worked by gas, while I was there the man broct two mantles. Did you get my letters? one of them had a home drawn post card on it, I got yours and now I had beter stop, as there is nothing to say.

your loving brother,

Jacks

Flora Lewis had been ill for months and an operation on 15 February revealed she had cancer. The following month she seemed better, but during this period of uncertainty Albert Lewis’s father died on 24 March. The last letter from Flora Lewis in the Lewis Papers was written to Warnie on 15 June 1908. ‘I am sorry not to have been able to write to you regularly this term,’ she said, ‘but I find I am really not well enough to do so. I have been feeling very poorly lately and writing tires me very much. But I must write today to wish you a happy birthday’ (LP III: 106). Flora was very ill, and the impending tragedy at Little Lea resulted in Warnie being brought home at the end of June. Following another operation, she died at home on Albert’s forty-fifth birthday, 23 August 1908. The following month Jack accompanied his brother to Wynyard School in Watford, and the next letter is the first Jack wrote to his father after his arrival there.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 140):

[Wynyard School,

Watford,

Hertfordshire

19? September 1908]

My dear Papy,

I suppose you got our telgy-graph to say that we were all right.

It was rather rough crossing, poor Warnie was very sea sick, I was sick once. Unfortunately Warnie was sick again in the train, also the breakfast car was so full that we could not get anything to eat till a long way after Crewe, we were both very hungry but when at last it came Warnie could not eat any worth talking about. When we arrived at Euston we saw both our trunks and plaboxs, the side of mine was dinged in. When we got to Watford the play-boxs were missing, evedently (though Warnie gave him 3d.) the porter had omitted to put them in at Euston. The railways officials think they can find them.

I cannot of course tell you yet but I think I shall like this place. Misis Capron and the Miss Caprons are very nice and I think I will be able to get on with Mr. Capron though to tell the truth he is rather eccentric.¹⁷

Anything we want Warnie is telling you about in his letter.

your loving son,

Jacksie

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 147):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 29 September 1908

My dear Papy

Mr. Capron said some-thing I am not likely to forget ‘curse the boy’ (behind Warnie’s back) because Warnie did not bring his jam in to tea, no one ever heard such a rule before.

Please may we not leave on Saturday? We simply cannot wait in this hole till the end of term.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 149):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 3 October 1908

My dear Papy

We are getting on much better since Aunt Any’s visit.¹⁸ We went up to the Franco-British exhibition and enjoyed it very much, but I suppose Aunt Any has told you all about it.

Warnie was just a little sick last night and had to go to bed early and take 2 pills, he is quite well today but did not go to church. I do not like church here at all because it is so frightfully high church that it might as well be Roman Catholic.

You must excuse me writing a long letter as I have a lot of people to write.

your loving

son Jacks

The contrast between what was said of the church the boys of Wynyard attended–St John’s Church, Watford–and what it meant in retrospect is very great. In a little diary kept at Wynyard and dated November 1909, Jack said:

We…marched to church in a dismal column. We were obliged to go to St Johns, a church which wanted to be Roman Catholic, but was afraid to say so. A kind of church abhorred by respectful Irish Protestants. Here Wyn Capron, the son of our Head Master, preached a sermon better than his usual ones. In this abominable place of Romish hypocrites and English liars, the people cross themselves, bow to the Lord’s Table (which they have the vanity to call an altar), and pray to the Virgin. (LP III: 194)

Recalling it some years later in SBJ II, he said:

I have not yet mentioned the most important thing that befell me at [Wynyard]. There first I became an effective believer. As far as I know, the instrument was the church to which we were taken twice every Sunday. This was high Anglo-Catholic.’ On the conscious level I reacted strongly against its peculiarities–was I not an Ulster Protestant, and were not these unfamiliar rituals an essential part of the hated English atmosphere? Unconsciously, I suspect, the candles and incense, the vestments and the hymns sung on our knees, may have had a considerable, and opposite, effect on me…What really mattered was that here I heard the doctrines of Christianity (as distinct from general ‘uplift’) taught by men who obviously believed them.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 151):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 25 October 1908

My dear Papy,

Did you get my letter? Is Maud still with you, I hope so. How is your back?

I am very sorry you are so much annoyed at Mr. Capron’s letter, but it is quite untrue, Warnie is not lazy.¹⁹ How is Ant Any? And now you must excuse me writing such a short letter, but as every day is the same as the last I have little or nothing to say.

your loving

son

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 154):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 22 November 1908

My dear Papy,

There are only 3 more Sundays this term, next one is my birthday. The term brakes up on 17th Thursday. How is your back? We have thought of a splendid new idea; a book club, it is going to be started next term, Warnie is going to get the Pearson’s, and I the Strand. Field is getting the Captain.²⁰

I find school very nice but it is frightfully monotenis.

with love

from

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 155):

[Wynyard School

27? November 1908]

My dear Papy,

How are you feeling? As to what you say about leaving I cannot know quite what to say, Warnie does not particularly want to, he says it look like being beaten in the fight.

In spight of all that has happened I like Mr. Capron very much indeed. Have you still got Maud? How are they all down at Sandycroft? Give Joey my love and tell him I will write to him as soon as I have time.²¹

your loving

son Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 173):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 21 February 1909

My dear Papy,

According to certain authorities this is half term Sunday, others are inclined to think it will fall sometime during the week. But almost everyone is unanimous on the fact that next Sunday will be well over half term.

This week many things of interest are happening here, according to rumour, Peckover, Reis, and a few others are going soon. Peckover we know is for certain, we being in close privy confidence with him. Between us and the other boys great changes are taking place; a secret society got up by ‘Squivy’ included everyone but us. However Peckover (who has up till now been Squivy’s chum) does not seem to think that Squivy is the best of friends, so he more or less sided with us in preference. He contrived to make Jeyes and Bowser assume an aspect of friendship towards us, and enmity towards Squivy. So Squivy and his toady Mears remain together, under the blissful delusion that they are still popular, and in the case of a row would be staunchly supported by every boarder but us. I am delighted to observe Squivy’s popularity and power gradually disappearing. Peckover is leaving because Mr. Capron gives him such a bad time of it here (assisted by Wyn), and in reality, Peckover has been shamefully handled. John Burnett is leaving for a similar reason. Reis (being a day boy, and a nasty one at that), I have not bothered to look into his case.

I may mention that the day boys have taken no part in what I am telling about Squivy.

Thanks for the ‘1st men in the moon’,²² I have already finished it and enjoyed it very much. Is Aunt Annie any better, please tell me all about her, and your back in the next letter you write.

your loving

son Jacks

P.S. Peckover begs me to tell you not to tell anything about what I’ve told you.

J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 175):

[Wynyard School

28 February 1909]

My dear Papy,

Thank you very much for the note paper. Did you get the letter I wrote on Friday (at least I think it was Friday) night? A rather amusing incident occurred yesterday afternoon. We went for a walk in the afternoon and those day boys who wished, came with us too. And it so happened that Poppy, the brother of John, and Boivie (the sociable Swede) came with us. Now Boivie is a Swede, and therefore a good old northerner, and like us, hates anything that savours of the south of England: so I mentioned in the course of our conversation how intensely I hated the churches down here: ‘There’re so high’ said I. ‘Oh, yes’, replied Boivie ‘the ones in Denmark are much nicer, look there (pointing to a church across the road) look how high the steeple is’. And he didn’t mean it as a joke either.

Now as there is not much news I must stop.

your loving

son Jacks

On 28 July 1909 Warnie won his release from Wynyard School, and on 16 September he arrived in Malvern, Worcestershire, to begin his first term at Malvern College.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 185-6):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 19 September 1909

My dear Papy,

I arrived safely (as you heard in the telegraph), after a pleasant journey. Oldy met me at Euston as you said, but as his train was late, he was not at my platform. However, I got my luggage attended to all right, and met him on the Watford platform. Euston is not nearly so muddling as I thought, and coming back to here next term I don’t think Oldy need meet me here.

I am sorry to say that there are no new boys this term, but there is a rumour that Oldy is going to have a private pupil (whatever that may mean) later on. He is over sixteen and stands 6 ft. 2., according to Oldy, but then I don’t believe that.

There are thirteen weeks this term, which sounds a lot, but it will soon go past, at least I hope so.

Have you heard any more from Warnie, and if so how is the old chap getting on? I hope to send an epistle to him today. I have not seen the day boys yet, as school does not begin in earnest until tomorrow morning. ‘And now as the time alloted for correspondance is drawing to a close’ etc. But now I must stop, with love and good wishes,

yours loving son,

Jack

P.S. Don’t forget to write very plainly in your letter which I am expecting tomorrow.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 195-6):

[Wynyard School

16? December 1909]

My dear Papy,

This time next week I will be at home with you. Isn’t it just splendid? One of the causes of writing this letter to you is to remind you to send the journey-money (not that I think you would ever forget); but last time it came just in the nick of time, which made Warnie rather anxious.

I don’t think I will have the microscope for Christmas. In order to study entomological specimens, it would of course be needful to kill them: and to go about exterminating harmless insects, with no other motive in view than the gratification of one’s own whimsical tastes does not seem to me very nice, when I look at it in that light. Of course it must be said that death to the insect is painless and quick; and that certain kinds of beetles (and other insects as well), when turned on their backs, cannot move. One could study these species through the microscope without killing them. However, the arguments against practical entomology are, I think, much stronger than those for it. Consequently I have decided not to have the microscope for Christmas, and it would be nicer not to know what I am going to get.²³

Yesterday (Wednesday) we went for a paper chase. Mears and I were the hares, which was rather absurd, seeing that we are the two worst runners in the school, and know less about the country than the others. Both you and I know that I have got hardly any ‘puff, and so you will be surprised to read as I was to find, that I kept up all right. We ran for a good long way, and however got caught in the end. I can tell you I slept well afterwards. Today we are all very, very stiff.

As the end of term draws nearer and nearer, we must soon decide all about the journey home. I think I had better go by Liverpool; for if I could arrange to meet Warnie at Lime St. Station, it would no longer be necessary for you to come over.

Now I must stop: with much love,

your son,

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 209-10):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 21 May 1910

My dear Papy,

I am writing to you today (Saturday) because we are going to St. Alban’s to see Wyn ordained tomorrow.

We have quite settled down to the term here, and the time is beginning to fly: I hope it will go quickly with you too.

I have been thinking about the school question, but the more I think the more difficult it seems to arrive at any definite conclusion. Of course half formed, nebulous, impossible ideas will bubble up spontaneously.

Yesterday (Friday) we went to church in the morning and afternoon; in the afternoon a great many boy scouts were present. Somehow I don’t think ‘Wee Georgie’ (minus the Wood) will be very popular at first: but what is this to Shakespearian students like you and I who know what happens–

‘After a well graced actor leaves the stage.’²⁴

The other day we had a general knowledge examination: it was very exciting. I got 62 marks out of 100, and was second, Bowser was first. Thank goodness Squiffy came out miles below Bowser and I. If I cannot triumph over Squiffy in games and out of school, I will do my level best to triumph over him in work (which I can do), and which is perhaps a far better way of getting my own.

If you are ‘thinking long’ because this is a long term, remember that the holidays are long in proportion.

your loving

son Jacks

P.S. Have you seen the comet? We have not.

1 See Albert James Lewis in the Biographical Appendix.

2 See Florence Augusta ‘Flora’ Lewis in the Biographical Appendix.

3 See Warren Hamilton ‘Warnie’ Lewis in the Biographical Appendix.

4 See Robert Capron in the Biographical Appendix.

5 Miss Annie Harper was governess to the Lewis boys from 1898 to 1908.

6 Jack’s canary.

7 Maude and Martha were housemaids at Little Lea.

8 Tim was the family dog of whom Lewis said in SBJ X: ‘He may hold a record for longevity among Irish terriers since he was already with us when I was at Oldie’s [1908-10] and did not die till 1922…Poor Tim, though I loved him, was the most undisciplined, unaccomplished, and dissipated-looking creature that ever went on four legs. He never exactly obeyed you; he sometimes agreed with you.’

9 Grandfather was Richard Lewis (1832-1908), the father of Albert. See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

10 Boxen was a world invented by Jack and Warnie a year or so before this time, and about which Jack was to write many stories and histories involving the characters mentioned here–King Bunny, General Quicksteppe and others. Much of this juvenilia has been published as Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C.S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper (1985).

11 See the Biographical Appendix for Joseph Arthur Greeves, a boy who lived across the road from the Lewises.

12 This ‘History of Mouse-Land’ is found in Boxen, op. cit, pp. 39-41.

13 This was to be the last holiday Jack and Warnie took with their mother. They travelled to London, and from there they went on to Berneval in France, where they were on holiday from 20 August until 18 September.

14 Jack was here on holiday with his mother.

15 Lord Big, a frog, is the most memorable of the Boxen characters.

16 Warnie Lewis wrote: ‘“chains memorial” is a lighthouse at the entrance to Larne Harbour, erected to the memory of James Chaine, a prominent local landowner; he is buried in an upright position, in unconsecrated ground, overlooking the harbour’ (LP III: 105).

17 Robert Capron was assisted in his teaching by all the members of the family, his wife Ellen Barnes Capron (1849-1909), his son Wynyard Capron (1883-1959), and his three daughters, Norah, Dorothy and Eva. See Robert Capron in the Biographical Appendix.

18 Annie Sargent Harley Hamilton (1866-1930) was the wife of Flora’s brother, Augustus ‘Gussie’ Hamilton, who undertook much of the care of Jack and Warnie following their mother’s death. A Canadian by birth, she married Augustus Hamilton in 1897, and was thereafter Flora’s best friend. Lewis said of her in SBJ III: ‘In her I found what I liked best–an unfailing, kindly welcome without a hint of sentimentality, unruffled good sense, the unobtrusive talent for making all things at all times as cheerful and comfortable as circumstances allowed. What one could not have one did without and made the best of it. The tendency of the Lewises to reopen wounds and to rouse sleeping dogs was unknown to her as to her husband.’

19 On 22 October, Mr Capron wrote to Albert Lewis saying: ‘Not only is Clive an exceptionally bright, intelligent, and most lovable little boy, but he is also very keen and eager to learn. Would that I could write to you in the same strain of Warren! Ever averse to effort, physical and mental, he grows worse, and I am almost driven to regard his indolence in the light of a disease’ (LP III: 150).

20 These were three magazines for boys. Pearsons Magazine ran from 1903 to 1936; The Strand Magazine was an illustrated monthly which aimed at ‘cheap, healthful literature’ in the form of stories and articles–Arthur Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was among its first serials–and ran from 1891 to 1950; The Captain, another magazine for boys, ran from 1899 to 1924.

21 ‘Sandycroft’ was the Belfast home of Albert’s brother, Joseph Lewis (1856-1908) who died on 3 September 1908. He was a marine consulting engineer. In 1880 he married Mary Tegart, and they had five children, of which Joseph or ‘Joey’ (1898-1969) was at this time Jack’s best friend. See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

22 H.G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon (1901).

23 Jack apparently got over his scruples about the microscope, for he received one for Christmas.

24 William Shakespeare, Richard II (1595), V, ii, 24.

1911-1912

T hat was Jack’s last term at Wynyard. The school had been foundering for a long time, and now with too few pupils to provide him with a livelihood, it sank beneath the headmaster’s feet. Mr Capron wrote to Albert on 27 April 1910 to say he was ‘giving up school work’. After the boys left in July, Mr Capron was inducted into the little church at Radwell on 13 June 1910. It did not last. He began beating the choirboys, and had to be put under restraint. He died in the Camberwell House Asylum on 18 November 1911.

Jack spent one term, between September and December 1910, at Campbell College, Belfast. Then in January 1911 he and Warnie travelled together to Malvern, Warnie to Malvern College and Jack to the little preparatory school, Cherbourg School, which lay only yards from the College. It was made up of about twenty boys between the ages of 8 and 12, and had been founded in 1907 under the headmastership of Arthur Clement Allen (1868-1957). After the stultifying effects of Capron’s teaching, with its ‘sea of arithmetic’ and a ‘jungle of dates, battles, exports, imports and the like, forgotten as soon as learned’ (SBJ II), Jack experienced something like a renaissance at Cherbourg, which in Surprised by Joy he calls ‘Chartres’ after the most glorious cathedral in France. ‘Here indeed my education really began. The Headmaster, whom we called Tubbs, was a clever and patient teacher; under him I rapidly found my feet in Latin and English’ (SBJ IV).

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 226-7):

[Cherbourg School,

Malvern

January 1911]

My dear Papy,

Warnie and I arrived safely at Malvern after a splendid journey. Cherbourge is quite a nice place. There are 17 chaps here. There are three masters, Mr. Allen,¹ Mr. Palmer, and Mr. Jones, who is very fat.

It is only going to be a ten week term I think, so there are 79 more days.

Luckily we escaped all Pinguis’s Malvern friends and were able to travel alone.

Malvern is one of the nicest English towns I have seen yet. The hills are beautiful, but of course not so nice as ours.

Two or three chaps here remember Mears.

Are you sure you have packed my Prayer Book? I cannot find it anywhere. If you find it at home, please send it on as soon as possible, and some stamps.

The weather here is miserably cold, and the air is thin and rarified: one can see ones breath all the time. One good thing is that we have hot water in the mornings, which we didnt have either at Campbell or Wynyard.

I haven’t discovered the ‘small museum’ yet, and I am inclined to think it is a minus quantity.

Now I must stop.

yours affectionate

son,

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 228):

[Cherbourg School]

Postmark: 5 February 1911

My dear Papy,

Sunday come round again–hurray! We had great fun this week, we went to the ‘Messiah’.² It was only an amateur performance, but still it was simply lovely. I heard our old friends ‘Comfort ye’, and ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’. The former was specially well sung by a stout and hideous gentleman with an excellent voice.

On Wednesday we went for a walk across the flat side of Malvern and a funny thing happened. We were going through some fields when some one said ‘look out’, and we cleared off the path to make way for a college run which was coming. First came some big chaps with blue shields on their shirts, some distinction, I don’t know what. Then came a motley crowd, and then!: A familiar voice said ‘Hullo Jack’, and looking round, I saw Pinguis himself. There he was. Its rather a comfort to know that he likes running.

That reminds me, the College breaks up on the 4th of April, and we do not [leave] till some days later. I suppose however you will arrange that I always go home on the same day as Pinguis. Be sure and tell me in your next letter what you think about this: I am positive you will agree. So when it gets near April 4th, just write to Mr. Allen and tell him about my coming home early. If you don’t do this I don’t know how we shall manage, for I couldn’t face this complicated Malvern journey alone.

Last week we had some very bitter weather, but we did not feel it much as we wore our sweaters under our greatcoats. The other day we went off for a ripping walk over the hills, right across into Wales, a good step on the other side, and home through a sort of cutting.

Only nine more weeks if I come home on the 4th.

Yours loving

son,

J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 239):

[Cherbourg School]

May 14th [1911]

My dear P.,

Thanks very much indeed for the money. I certainly did have a great fright, I could not think what had become of it. However I realised that it must have got left behind. I am glad to hear that Warnie has got his shove, where is he in his new form? I was pained and surprised to hear that you were not producing ‘an old soldier and his wife’, they would have been a novelty if nothing else.

We have found this time that it is much more comfortable to have lunch at Shrewsbury and go on by a later train.

Thank goodness that old pig Jonah has left, so I shall be able to enjoy myself this term. In his place we have got a chap named Turner, he is quite decent. In fact he is a very queer fellow indeed, I do not understand him and I think there is a good deal more to find out about him than anyone guesses. He is very quiet. Next week we are going to see Benson³ in ‘The Merchant of Venice’.⁴ Of course Malvern has a rotten theatre, but it always gets very good things, I can’t think why.

I enclose a photo of the characters in our play (that we had last term), in their stage costumes. The people from left to right are back row, Clutterbuck,⁵ Nadin, front row, Me, Maxwell, Bowen.

your loving son

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 284-5):

Cherbourg.

Malvern.

Postmark: 5 May 1912

My dear P.,

We arrived safely here on the Friday as you know by our telegram, and found that Cherbourg, contrary to all expectations, had come back on Wednesday and I was late. I did not weep.

On the boat after you had gone, a solid phalanx of ‘young persons’ lined up on the quay and sang ‘let’s have a game of ring of roses’. You would have enjoyed it. The Malvern weather is exactly like the home–rotten. We have two new masters this term: the 1st a monstrosity of 6 ft., 6 ins height whom I don’t like at all, so far as I have any opinion yet. He is called Eden. The other is of reasonable height, and, so far as we can see, fairly decent. But that remains to be seen. There is a new matron, Miss Gosling, who seems to be passably inoffensive–but of course is not nearly as decent as Miss Cowie.⁶ The small master’s name is Harris.⁷ I hate starting a new term with an absolutely new staff, and such a new staff too.

We left Liverpool this time by the 2.40 instead of the 12, and I think we will do so next time; it is a better train. your loving son Jack

The Lewis Papers contain no letters from Jack written between that of 5 May 1912 and the one below. The lacuna is possibly explained by the fact that whatever letters he wrote have not survived. However, a more likely explanation is that his energies were being poured into writing of a different sort. His personal ‘Renaissance’ began when he came across the Christmas issue of The Bookman for December 1911 and saw the words Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, with a picture by Rackham illustrating the first part of Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung saga. ‘Pure “Northernness” engulfed me,’ he said, ‘a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer’ (SBJ V). This love of myth led him between the summers of 1912 and 1913 to write 819 lines of an epic called ‘Loki Bound’ which was Norse in subject and Greek in form. He was as well a frequent contributor to The Cherbourg School Magazine, in which his articles are remarkable achievements for one so young. But for the moment, however, he had his mind set on winning a Scholarship to Malvern College.

It was also at this point that Jack became an unbeliever. A major cause was the ‘Occultist fancies’ he had picked up from the matron of Cherbourg, Miss G.E. Cowie. He got into his head that ‘No clause of my prayer was to be allowed to pass muster unless it was accompanied by what I called a “realisation”, by which I meant a certain vividness of the imagination and the affections. My nightly task was to produce by sheer will-power a phenomenon which will-power could never produce’ (SBJ IV). There were also unconscious causes of doubt.

One came from reading the classics. Here, especially in Virgil, one was presented with a mass of religious ideas; and all teachers and editors took it for granted from the outset that these religious ideas were sheer illusion. No one ever attempted to show in what sense Christianity fulfilled Paganism or Paganism prefigured Christianity…Little by little, with fluctuations which I cannot now trace, I became an apostate, dropping my faith with no sense of loss but with the greatest relief. (SBJ IV)

1 Arthur Clement Allen (1868-1957), the headmaster, was educated at Repton and New College, Oxford, where he read Classics. After taking a BA in 1891 he was a teacher at Silloth School from 1902 until 1907 when he founded Cherbourg School. In 1925 he moved the school to Woodnorton, Evesham, and the school closed officially when he retired in 1931.

2 Messiah, an oratorio by George Frideric Handel, was first performed in 1752.

3 Sir Frank Robert Benson (1858-1939), English actor-manager, founded his own Shakespearean company. Beginning in 1883 he took his company on tours, producing all Shakespeare’s plays with the exception of Titus Andronicus and Troilus and Cressida.

4 William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (1600).

5 Jack Ernest Clutterbuck (1898-1975) went from Cherbourg School to Malvern College where he was a pupil from 1912 to 1915. After training at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, he received a commission in the Royal Engineers and served in the First World War. He went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and took a BA in 1922. After more than twenty years in the army, during which he reached the rank of brigadier, he was Chief Engineer of the G.I.P. Railway in Bombay, 1946-47. He retired in 1950. The photograph is reproduced in Walter Hooper, Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C.S. Lewis (1982), p. 31.

6 The school matron, Miss G.E. Cowie, had been forced to leave, and she was now replaced by Miss Gosling. Writing about Miss Cowie in SBJ IV, Lewis said: ‘No school ever had a better Matron, more skilled and comforting to boys in sickness, or more cheery and companionable to boys in health…We all loved her; I, the orphan, especially. Now it so happened that Miss C, who seemed old to me, was still in her spiritual immaturity, still hunting…She was…floundering in the mazes of Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism; the whole Anglo-American Occultist tradition…Little by little, unconsciously, unintentionally, she loosened the whole framework, blunted all the sharp edges of my belief. The vagueness, the merely speculative character, of all this Occultism began to spread–yes, and to spread deliciously–to the stern truths of the creed. The whole thing became a matter of speculation.’

7 We meet Percy Gerald Kelsal Harris again in the letter of 16 February 1918, but it should be noted that Harris is the master referred to in SBJ IV as ‘Pogo’ and about whom Lewis said: ‘Pogo was a wit, Pogo was a dressy man, Pogo was a man about town. Pogo was even a lad. After a week or so of hesitation (for his temper was uncertain) we fell at his feet and adored. Here was sophistication, glossy all over, and (dared one believe it?) ready to impart sophistication to us…After a term of Pogo’s society one had the feeling of being not twelve weeks but twelve years older.’ P.G.K. Harris was born in Kinver, Staffordshire, on 31 August 1888. From King’s School in Taunton he went up to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1907. That he left without a degree may be explained by those very qualities which delighted his pupils at Cherbourg. But he was to show an entirely different sort of mettle in the approaching war. For a photograph of Harris see Walter Hooper, Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C.S. Lewis (1982), p. 30. Harris is the man standing on the left in the back row.

1913

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 1):

Cherbourg.

Sunday.

Postmark: 6 January 1913

My dear Papy,

This scholarship question is going to be settled then once for all, in the coming week; the best or the worst will soon be known. It always seems to me a comforting fact before any important event concerning whose result one is anxious, that one’s own varying expectations about it can make no difference to the event. At any rate, I have tried, and the rest must remain to be seen. Tubbs was talking to our friend S.R. James¹ the other day about the affair, and we learn thence that Greek, which has been somewhat of a bugbear, is not a very important subject–that the most necessary things are French and English; my French of course is rather poor, but I think I can do alright in English. But perhaps we had better not think too much about the event until it is over. What shall happen shall happen, and in the mean time we hope.

I expect I shall see W. down at the Coll. when I am there, which will be a good thing, as I have not heard from him for a long time.

On Wednesday we went to see Benson’s company in ‘Julius Caesar’² which was very enjoyable. Benson himself as Mark Anthony acted as badly as anyone possibly could, overdoing his part exceedingly, and in places singing rather than speaking the words. Thus in the famous speech to the people we hear ‘all’ pronounced with four syllables in the passage–‘So are they all, all honourable men’. The rest of the company were however good, especially a man called Carrington as Brutus, and Johnston as Caesar. Although I do not join with Warnie in condemning Shakespeare, I must say that in a good many plays he has missed alike the realism of modern plays and the statliness of Greek tragedies. Julius Caesar is one of his best in some ways.

The cricket trousers arrived thank you, and fit excellently. Will you please send me some envelopes.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 26-7):

[Cherbourg School]

June 7, 1913

Saturday.

My dear Papy,

As you say, it was most unfortunate, more than unfortunate, that I should fall ill just now.³ I had, as I thought, discussed the coming exam with myself in every possible light, but just the one thing I had not taken into account happened. For a while I thought I should not be able to do the papers at all, so that even the chance of doing them in bed was a relief. I did not start till late on Tuesday evening when I did Latin and Greek grammar and Latin Prose: I am afraid I did horribly badly in the Greek, though tolerably well in that days Latin and in the Latin translation and verses which came on Wednesday.

That afternoon came the essay paper which was one after my own heart, the three alternative subjects being ‘The qualities of a successful soldier’ ‘The possibility of an universal language’, and ‘West is west and East is east, and never the twain shall meet’. I chose the last and applied it chiefly to the Indian question. It was much admired by Tubbs and by some masters at the College.

On Thursday I had a ‘General paper’ including History and Geography, Scripture and English, in which I got on alright but had not time to finish, a rather difficult French paper, and as a finale, Arithmetic and Algebra, which I think I did rather better than I anticipated.

Thus you have a brief schedule of my three days in bed. Not what one would choose for pleasure, but still what might have been worse. And I hear you have written something to our common respected friend on the subject of a scholarship elsewhere, to the effect that I have some objection to going to any other school than Malvern but that you keep an open mind.⁴ Very true. As a natural result I am honoured by the very well meant but rather importunate advice of the said respected friend that I should try for a scholarship elsewhere if I fail here. He is a great man for sticking to his guns; a man of purpose. I foresee that I shall find it very difficult to help taking his advice, which I by no means want to take. The good pedagogue has Uppingham at present in his eye for me. Now of this school I know absolutely nothing, good or bad. For this reason I do not like the idea of it–it is a leap in the dark. Of course for that matter Cherbourg, which has proved a success, was also a leap in the dark to a certain extent. But don’t write anything of this to the good pedagogue. I have so far looked with ostensible favour on Uppingham when talking with him of the matter, as, having been ill and working hard on scant food for some days, I do not really feel disposed yet to enter into a controversy which I know will prove sharp. I suppose by going in for an Uppingham scholarship I do not bind myself to go to that school.

I cannot help wanting to go to the Coll. For one thing for two years now–and two years recollect are quite a long time at the age of fourteen–I have been expecting to go to Malvern, not indeed with any great fervour, for I am happy here, but with as much pleasure as I look on any public school, and it has become rather a rooted idea. Then again, I know a good deal more of Malvern than I do of any where else, and it is in a sense familiar already. As well, I shall still be at the town of Malvern, and since I must needs spend the greater part of the year in England I had sooner do it here than anywhere else.

I am very glad indeed that Warnie has at last decided definitely on some career, as I know this will lift a great weight from your mind. I confess that I don’t know why you speak–as you have always spoken–so disparagingly of the Army Service Corps. It cannot be, can it, that you really liked the idea of putting W.⁵ into the L.N.W.R.? I admit that there are great and lucrative posts to be gained in this company; greater than in the Army Service Corps. But the depths of drudgery for the less successful are also greater. In the A.S.C., W., it is true, may not follow a great career, but, what is far more important, he will be always doing congenial work and mixing with other gentlemen; not with every railway clerk who may wear loud spats and button the last button of his waistcoat.⁶

I have got up today for a short time (Saturday), and am feeling almost all right. Hoping that your boils are better, and you are otherwise in good health, I am

your loving son,

Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 49-50):

Cherbourg.

Gt. Malvern.

[1? July 1913]

Dear old W.,

I have just heard from home the following statement, ‘I suppose you know that I am in further and worse trouble about Warnie’.⁷ What has happened? You haven’t been sacked have you? Whatever it is, I should be the last person to tell you that the plate is hot after you had burned your fingers, so we will look on the bright side as much as possible. After all we have always been justly famed for extracting the maximum of pleasure from the most depressing circumstances: let us live up to it.

I am afraid P. will be in a very cheerless mood for the hols. If we cannot have mental enjoyment from the atmosphere of Leeborough⁸ we can always fall back on our own resources and make the most of the physical comfort which, at their worst, the holidays always afford. Rows after tea and penitentiary strolls in the garden are not pleasant: but a soft bed, a nice Abdullah, a lazy walk with Tim, an occasional Hippodrome or Opera House, have their consolation and a sound gramophone can always refresh the jaded ear. But even now, in a rather dark hour, I do not dispair of P’s cheering up a bit for the hols; for, as good luck would have it, my scholarship has brightened things.

Please write soon (how often have I made that request and received no answer to it), and tell me exactly what has happened, and also tell me your arrangements for the journey home. We break up on Tuesday 29th July, and you as I understand, the following Wednesday. So I suppose we shall go on the Tuesday. Do write immediately and tell me about this matter. Don’t spend all your journey money. Cheer up.

your affect.

brother Jack.

P.S. Send a cab up for me first, and then down to S.H., and let it be in plenty of time. J.

In a letter to his father of 12 December 1912, Warnie told his father that, while he knew smoking was against the rules at Malvern College, he would like his permission to smoke ‘in moderation elsewhere (LP III: 317). Mr Lewis replied on 14 December, ‘School smoking I condemn unreservedly…But outside that–at dinners etc., where it would make you odd or uncomfortable not to smoke a cigarette– smoke it and smoke it with a clear conscience, knowing that you would not be ashamed to tell your father what you had done. But in school it is different’ (LP III: 318). No trouble seems to have come of this and Warnie was made a prefect on 9 March 1913. About this time he decided on a career in the army and, careless of College rules, he was involved in several escapades. In June 1913 he was degraded from the prefect-ship after being caught smoking at school. Warnie had hoped to remain at Malvern until Christmas 1913 so that he could be there for Jack’s first term, but while the headmaster, Canon S.R. James, was willing to reinstate him in his position as a prefect in July 1913 he would not allow him to remain another term. It was Warnie’s wish at this time to enter the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and pass from there into the Army Service Corps (ASC). For this Warnie would need to pass the entrance examination to Sandhurst and his father began considering how he might prepare for this.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 44-5):

Cherbourg.

6/6/13 [6 July 1913]

My dear Papy,

I have been extremely worried since I got your last letter. No: I do not know what has happened to W. I have had no news either of him or from him since the day when I heard that he had been degraded. What has happened? Surely he has not been expelled? I often had fears as to what he might do at Malvern, but I never thought it would come to this. It is of no use my writing to him for information, as he seems to consider the answering of letters a superfluous occupation. Of course I know that all this is worse for you than for me, but it is very unpleasant for both of us: what has he himself got to say upon the matter? However, please let me know as soon as you can what the exact position of affairs is: in the meantime I can only hope that my fears have no foundation; for after all, the great majority of the troubles which I have at one time or another anticipated, have never come to pass. But after all, the process of self consolation, if it were not such a terrible business, would be almost funny. We are ready to turn and twist the facts until they bear no resemblance to the original thing. Perhaps one could not go on at all without doing so. Perhaps however if W’s school career has been a failure, he may do better in the future.

Thank you very, very much for your kind suggestion about the present. You are really making too much of this scholarship.⁹ Nevertheless, there is nothing that I should prize more than a nice edition of Kipling, whose poems I am just beginning to read and to wonder why I never read them before–a usual state of mind, in the literary way, for me at Leeborough.

Today we leave our letters open and the authorities insert a printed notice of the date of breaking up. Its rather singular to notice the familiar landmarks–in a metaphorical sense–that cluster round as we reach the last weeks of the term–and there are only three more now. Nevertheless I hardly watch the flight of time with my usual eagerness. In spite of several rows both fierce and long drawn out, both with masters and boys, I have really been very happy at Cherbourg; and Malvern is unknown ground. More important than this is the fact that we shall see each other again in a short time.

Looking forward to which, I am,

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 45-6):

Cherbourg.

Gt. Malvern.

8/7/13.

My dear Papy,

I was more pleased than I can say to get your letter. Bad as the news is, it is not the worst, and it is always a relief to have certainty after a prolonged spell of suspense. I am afraid I cannot carry out your suggestion of letting W. speak first: shortly after I wrote my letter to you, I decided to write to him, partly because I hoped for an answer from the College which would naturally reach me before one from Belfast, and I could bear it no longer, partly to cheer W. up since no recriminations can improve the accomplished facts, and partly to settle arrangements about the journey home. In this letter I asked him of course, what exactly had happened, but I have received your answer. You are right in your supposition that I should resent being left in the dark, and I am very thankful that you wrote and told me everything.

Do not say in a letter that ‘you must stop, or else begin to pour out all your troubles, which would be unfair’. It would not be unfair; it would be wise. For, in the first place you would derive some comfort from the mere action of putting them into words, and, in the second place, I trust that they would be lighter after we had talked them over together in our letters. This small thing, this act of discussing and sympathizing over matters, is all the help I can give you at present, but, such as it is, I give it, as you know, very gladly.

Perhaps you will be somewhat cheered up by the visit of our Scotch relatives: but to be honest, I have spoken too fiercely and too often against society to endeavour now to preach in its favour.

I was very interested by what you told me about Jordan.¹⁰ Who knows but that I owe more to those early little essays in the old days than you or I imagine? For it is to this uneducated postman that I owe the fact that I was acquainted with the theory of essay writing, in however crude a form, at an age when most boys hardly know the meaning of the word. To him, of course, next to you and to the fact of my being born in a race rich in literary feeling and mastery of their own tongue, and in that atmosphere of culture which has always shrouded the study both at Dundela and Leeborough. Nowhere else have I met that peculiar feeling–that literary ether. Perhaps Archburn would have it were it not for the cats. No school ever had it, and libraries are too public. Thank goodness I shall soon be in it and with you.

Yet I do not enjoy saying goodbye to Cherbourg: a good many things happy and unhappy have happened there, and I like the place.

What a curious business about that post card. Thanks for sending it. Its rather alarming to think that our letters can go astray like that.

your loving

son Jack.

At the beginning of September Albert Lewis thought of asking his old headmaster at Lurgan College in County Armagh, William T. Kirkpatrick¹¹ (1848-1921) if he would prepare Warnie for the Sandhurst examination. Following his retirement from Lurgan in 1899 Mr Kirkpatrick had moved with his wife to ‘Gastons’, Great Bookham in Surrey, where he usually had one residential pupil each year whom he prepared for university or college examinations. He agreed to tutor Warnie and the latter arrived at Great Bookham on 10 September 1913.

Jack arrived in Malvern on 18 September to begin his first term as a scholar of Malvern College–or ‘Wyvern’ as he called it in his autobiography. Like Warnie before him, Jack was a member of School House.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 71-2):

[Malvern College,

Malvern.

21? September 1913]

My dear P.,

I arrived safely as you know by the telegram–reaching Malvern at about half past five. Most of the other new boys had arrived, but one or two didn’t come until the following day. So far everything has been very pleasant indeed.

Luckily I am going to get a study out of which the old occupants are moving today. There will be three other people in it–Hardman,¹² Anderson,¹³ and Lodge.¹⁴ The last of these is an intolerable nuisance, but the Old Boy manages these things and it can’t be helped.

I have seen quite a lot of W’s friend Hichens,¹⁵ who seems frightfully pleased at being head of the house; going about with a huge note book and a blue pencil, taking down quite unneccesary things.

Yesterday we made our first acquaintance of Smugie¹⁶–a queer, but very nice old man who goes on as if taking a form were a social function–‘a quaint old world courtesy’ as you read in some book. There is one other new boy from the School House in the Upper V–Cooper, who is quite all right.¹⁷ We begin ordinary work on Monday.

Could you please send me some plain socks, black, which are ‘de rigeur’ here. My size is rather uncertain, but get them almost as big as your own, for I have a large foot. I have not heard from W. yet. Hoping you are not ‘thinking long’, I am,

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 77):

Malvern.

28/9/13.

My dear Papy,

I hope you don’t object to the use of red ink, which is unavoidable, as our study has no black. Thanks very much for the money, note paper and socks. As you advise, I am being careful not to be rooked, and have already refused countless offers of utterly worthless merchandise. I have made the acquaintance of W’s friend Captain Tassell, who is quite an interesting study.¹⁸

Talking about W., I have heard from him since I came back. He seems to be settling down to the routine a la maison Gastons.

The work here is very heavy going, and it is rather hard to find time for it in the breathless life we lead here. So far that ‘breathlessness’ is the worst feature of the place. You never get a ‘wink of peace’. It is a perpetual rush, at high pressure, with short intervals spent in waiting for another bell. Roll is called several times each day, which of course helps to crowd up the time. However, I suppose this sense of being eternally hustled will wear off as things settle down. On the whole, it is very pleasant so far, and, which is a help, I like Smugie.

There is another thing that is worrying me rather. That is the fact that I miss Lea Shakespeare hours for drawing. Both of these subjects I should like to continue, but one must be dropped. What do you advise me to do? If we decide to give up the drawing, I suppose you can arrange that with the authorities.

I get on very well with the people in my own study, which is a great comfort. How is every thing at Leeborough?

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 78-9):

[Malvern 15?

October 1913]

My dear W.,

I was very glad to hear from you and acknowledge my remisness in writing, but honestly I am being worked to death by Smugy–with whom however I get on very well–not a moment of peace.

True, no 24 is rather near the pres. room, but both Hardman and I have extraordinary luck about fagging. One thing is that we are in the same study as that fat beast Lodge, whom everyone hates, so that if a pre. comes in he is sure to fag Lodge before us. I have only had to clean boots twice so far.

I have, among other things, written an article to appear in the ‘Malvernian’ under the name Hichens–whom I like best of the pres.¹⁹ I don’t see all the horrors which you heaped on Browning.²⁰ He’s always very decent to me. Bourne gets very much mobbed as a pre.²¹ I am in Walter Lowe’s math set.²² Were you ever there?

Two very exciting things have happened. A drawing of mine, which we had to do for Smugy as one of the questions in W.E., was pinned up on the Upper V door for a week, and the James came down and said it was spirited. Also an English poem of mine in imitation of Horace was ‘sent up for good’ to Jimmy.²³ Consequently I have to go down to South Lodge and copy the poem into his great book tomorrow.

Isn’t the Fish a glorious man?²⁴ Smugy keeps on asking about you. As he is so interested in O.M’s., you ought to write to him if you have time. He is a decent old Kod,²⁵ isn’t he? Recruit drill is at present the chief joy of my life. I got a Coll. pres. for skipping clubs the other day. Jervis I rather like,²⁶ but Bull II hasn’t come back yet.²⁷ It is a good business that I have got into a study with a decent lad. I like Hardman II very much.²⁸

By the way, you don’t enclose the Col. Rena May [list] whatever you may think you do. How goes the History? You must manage to come down to the House Supper. Everyone would be awfully bucked to see you. I shall write and tell P. that I am nervous about going home alone if you like. This is being written in the breathless interval between Supper and Prayers, so I must chuck it now.

your loving

brother Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 87-8):

[Malvern]

Postmark: 19 October 1913

My dear P.,

I hope you did not think that I was incurring reckless expense when I wrote to you for the money. The way you are rooked at Malvern by subscriptions, loans, and the fines which are shabbily arranged, is perfectly appalling. Thanks very much indeed for the five shillings.

The poem after Horace was, I am glad to tell you, somewhat in the nature of a success. It was top of the form and was sent up to the James. ‘Being sent up for good’ is a privilege enjoyed only by our form and the Upper Sixth and is rather a ceremony. I had to go down to Smugy’s house and copy the poem into a vast old volume of his, containing the works and signatures of all those who have been ‘sent up for good’ since 1895. I was of course greatly interested to read the other poems and things in the book: some of them are really very good. I enclose the poem which it may interest you to see. Smugy’s house is a queer little nook of the world, exactly typical of its owner.

I am inclined to agree with you that it will be a pity to lose Mr. Peacocke. He was neither a great preacher nor reader, but he was an educated gentleman, which is something to say in these times.²⁹

I hope this business of Aunt Minnie³⁰ will turn out all right. Coming on top of the trouble about Norman it is very hard lines, and I should imagine that the Moorgate household is one of the worst fitted to receive trouble, as there is always, even when things are at their brightest, a certain gloom there.

It certainly is a grievous pity that Shakespeare filled Romeo and Juliet³¹ with those appalling rhymes. But the worst thing in the play is old Capulet’s preposterous speech to the guests. Still, it is a very fine tragedy. So is the Greek play that we are doing. It is quite unlike all that stiff bombast which we are accustomed to associate with Greek tragedy. There is life and character in it.

your loving

son Jacks

‘“Carpe Diem” after Horace’ ‘In the metre of “Locksley Hall”’ (Tennyson)

When, in haughty exultation, thou durst laugh in Fortune’s face, Or when thou hast sunk down weary, trampled in The ceaseless race, Dellius, think on this I pray thee–but the Twinkling of an eye, May endure thy pain or pleasure; for thou knowest Thou shalt die, Whether on some breeze-kissed upland, with a Flask of mellow wine, Thou hast all the world forgotten, stretched be- Neath the friendly pine, Or, in foolish toil consuming all the springtime Of thy life, Thou hast worked for useless silver and endured The bitter strife: Still unchanged thy doom remaineth. Thou art Set towards thy goal, Out into the empty breezes soon shall flicker Forth thy soul, Here then by the plashing streamlet fill the Tinkling glass I pray Bring the short lived rosy garlands, and be Happy–FOR TODAY.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 90-1):

[Malvern]

Postmark: 26 October 1913

My dear P.,

I hope it did not seem that my act of sending you the poem was meant for a ‘draw’, which it was not. All the same, thanks very much for the P.O. which has restored ‘the firm’ to its pristine health and prosperity. Anderson, one of the people in our study, has just received a huge crate of pictures from home which will enable us to sell some of our older pictures and raise capital. I had not been able to see about the extra copies of the Cherbourg magazine, as I have not yet been up to see Tubbs. I think however that I am going up today, when I shall be able to transact all my business.

On Thursday we had our field day and it was really a great affair. We started for the place, which is quite near Malvern about an hours march, at ten o’clock. W’s friend Captain Tassell was in great form, mounted on a steed of which he was obviously terrified. Of course no one knew in the least what was meant to be happening, but we all dashed about, lying down and firing at intervals: on the whole it was very enjoyable.

You ask me what type of person one meets at Malvern: I will tell you. The average Malvernian may be, in fact usually is, a very good fellow in reality, but he always does his best to make himself out as bad as possible. Never believe his own account of his thoughts, deeds, or ideals. It is always far worse than the truth. Beyond this very childish and thoroughly British foible, there are very few faults in him. When you break through the shell of foolish affectation, you find him an honest kind hearted manly enough sort of fellow. At least that is how six weeks acquaintance of him strikes me. To use for once the phrase you have condemned, ‘I may be wrong’. But I think not.

Yesterday there was a lecture in the Gym by that man Kearton who came to the Hippodrome last holidays. I must confess that I thought him very poor indeed. So we did not miss much by leaving that ‘popular house of entertainment’ alone.

The mother of Stone,³² one of our House Pres., has died this week and he has consequently gone home. It is a very nasty business.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 96):

[Malvern 2?

November 1913]

My dear W.,

Although always quite ready to fall in with your wishes whenever they are within the bounds of possibility, I always like to point out some of the more glaring absurdities in the same. It has not occurred to you that this simultaneous attack on the paternal purse will savour somewhat too much of preparation. But to proceed. The following is what I intend to write home, coming at the end of a long and cheerful letter, when he will be bucked.

‘I have heard from W. again in the course of this week, and he seems to be comfortable with Kirk, although still working at high pressure. He mentions in this last letter, as he has done frequently before, that he entertains an idea of coming down here at the end of the term and travelling home with me as we did in the old times. This of course would be exceedingly pleasant for me, especially as most of the other new boys here have got friends coming down at the end of term; and it is undoubtedly pleasanter as well as more economical to travel in pairs than singly. The Old Boy, who by the way is one of the real good points about Malvern, has asked once or twice after W., and expressed a hope that W. will come down some time soon. Of course I am aware all this has nothing to do with me, but still he seems to have set his heart on it, and as I gather from the tone of his letter he has not mentioned it to you…’

As I said, it looks rather artificial, and can’t be made much better. How are you getting on, old man? I hope this thing will work, as I am looking forward to another journey in the good old style. As you will notice in my epistle, I have made it the Oldish and not the James who wants you to come down.³³ I think that his name will carry more weight.

So far I am having a very good time here. You ask me what I think about Jacks.³⁴ I’ll tell you. He’s always most awfully nice to me, spends half hall talking to me about you and Smugy and things, and never fags me or drops me; but all the same I can’t blind myself to the fact that he is an absolute ______ to most other people. But of course that doesn’t worry me.

We had field day on Thursday at Malvern. I have managed to get into my house section, ‘mirable dictu’,³⁵ although I mob all the recruit drill. I can’t go on now.

your affect.

brother Jack

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 101-2):

[Malvern 9?

November 1913]

My dear W.,

You don’t seem to be having a bad time at Gt. Bookham with your visits to ‘The Laughing Husband’ and the Hippodrome etc. I wouldn’t boom these diversions over loudly in the paternal ear, as, innocent though they may be in themselves, yet they would not convey an impression of ‘good hard work’. You may bet your boots I’ve heard enough about ‘warm singlets and drawers etc.’ to last me for a life time. P. tells me that ‘when I come home he’s going to take me in hand and see that that chest of mine gets as sound as a bell’. I wonder what that means?

I don’t really know that a house tie would be worn with a black suit, but we’ll see. Anyhow you must provide the tie as I am too ‘stoney’ for anything. I am amused to see that you have fallen into the excellent Marathon trap of spending 20/-where 5/-would do. As well, I wonder if ‘Miss Thompson’ would have heard about it. No one in T. Eden’s shop ever seems to have heard of anything, do they?

It’ll be a great weight off your chest when this filthy exam is over, so I am glad that it is comparatively soon.³⁶ I should think you ought to pass fairly easily if you’ve been oiling with Kirk. I am longing to find out from you in the hols what Kirk is really like. A kod of the first water I should imagine by all reports.

At the end of this term we really must get Jarnfeldt’s Preludium.³⁷ I heard it again at the Classical Orchestral Concert, and was more than ever charmed with it. Perhaps too you are right about this Marathon scheme. We can talk that over anon.

P. of course refuses to accept your scheme of taking the trip to Malvern as a birthday and Xmas gift. At least he writes to me, ‘W of course with his usual ingenuity says that this trip is going to be his Christmas and birthday present. But that is not quite the way I do things’. By the way, are we travelling home a day early or do you want to stay for the House Supper? I don’t mind staying a bit if you like, only it is so close to Xmas with that fearful problem of P’s present.

yours Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 104-5):

[The Sanatorium,

Malvern]

Postmark: 24 November 1913

My dear Papy,

I am sorry to hear that you are ‘thinking long’, but, as you know, there is a good reason for the absence of letters as this is the first day I have been able to write. As you say, I have a lot of things to talk about and the first is Smugy’s half term report.

I must confess that I was very disappointed in it. But I should have expected it all. For, the fact of the matter is about this Greek Grammar, that I know very little indeed: and the consequence of this is that what the rest of the form are running over in a sort of casual way for the third or fourth time, I am often learning for the first time in my life. This of course makes it rather difficult to keep up with the running. Then again, there are a lot of points of Greek grammar which I learnt up in furious haste at Cherbourg in the last few moments before the exam–and of course forgot again. These have to be faced with a half knowledge which is worse than ignorance, because it only muddles one’s brain. But all these things should come right in time; as I flatter myself I am not cursed with ‘an inability to grasp the elements’ of any reasonable subject. As for the place in form, I was prepared for it to be poor, as the general standard of the form is rather beyond me–seeing that with the exception of the other scholars it consists of people who have filtered through to Smugy’s care just at the end of their Malvern career. However, I get on well with Smugy and really that is half the battle.

You need not have been so worried about my temporary indisposition. It is only one of those trifling, although irritating chills to which I am subject in the winter months. Anyway, the worst of it is over now, as I am up in my room at the San. today. The San. is about the most curious place I have ever been in. I arrived here a week ago on Friday and was placed in a bed in a large and many windowed apartment, in one corner of which a fire was cheerfully engaged in belching forth dense clouds of smoke, which rendered it well nigh impossible to see or breathe. Conquering a natural terror of at once becoming unconscious in such an atmosphere, I resigned my self to sleep that night–but not for long. I soon discovered to my cost that the room in which I had been deposited was directly over the kitchen. I was apprised of this fact by the musical efforts of the domestic staff, whose vigorous and unwholesome concert was prolonged far into the night. But the funniest thing about this place is the noises that one hears in the morning. I really cannot imagine what the staff do. Judging from the loud peals of laughter and the metallic clangs which strike my ears before breakfast daily, they engage in hand to hand combat with the fire irons.

After a short period of the smoky room I was removed to a smaller but much more comfortable chamber where I still remain. Here my only trouble is the determined ‘quacking’ of a body of geese imprisoned somewhere in the neighbourhood.

As for your kind enquiries about the approaching natal gift, I have made up my mind that I should like ‘The Rhinegold and the Valkyries’ to match the ‘Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods’ which I have got.³⁸ I think however that the purchase of the book had better be deferred until Xmas when I can talk to my friend Carson in person.

I am glad to hear that W. is coming down at the end of the term as it is nicer travelling ‘in comp.’ than alone. I must stop now. How are you yourself keeping these days?

your loving

son,

Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 108-9):

The Sanatorium,

Thursday or Friday.

(I am not quite sure what

day it is today)

Postmark: 28 November 1913

My dear Papy,

I have advanced yet another stage and am now enjoying the priveledge of being downstairs in the San. That is, instead of sitting up in my bedroom, I have been moved to a sitting room where I can look out upon the hideously ugly garden of the San. And yet there is a homely touch about this garden. It is full of laurels that will never grow because of the wind: we’ve seen these before haven’t we?

I have been condemned by the school doctor, as soon as I go back, to join the ranks of people who do ‘special exercises for delicate chests’ in the gym. This is a piece of ‘sconce’ after your own heart, and I have no doubt that you will be more pleased to hear about it than I was. Your remarks about the sealskin etc. strike me as being both in questionable taste and the products of a fevered imagination rather than of a sane mind. But still, the human mind is so constituted that the bizarre must ever appeal more potently than the normal. Which is a consolation.

Congratulations on your victory at the Pattersonian musical festival. You’ll be becoming quite a noted Strandtown diner out if you are not careful.

Talking about social functions reminds me of some wild fantastic talk of another dance this year.³⁹ Don’t let us spoil the Xmas holidays by a chore as colossal as it is disagreeable, and as disagreeable as it is unnecessary. No one else gives a dance on two consecutive years. Nip this matter in the bud ‘which has a bitter taste’ and of which ‘sweet will not be the flower’. (Do you remember the quotation?) But seriously, I hope no such folly is really toward. It is quite bad enough having to attend the functions of others without adding to the nuisance ourselves. Please convey to Aunt Annie and the other conspirators that you are determined not to hear of it, as I am sure you are. For one thing it is a considerable and uncalled for expense, and an expense of the most annoying kind–namely where you get absolutely no return for your money: unless you derive any great pleasure from hovering about among the noisy and objectionable throng who have invaded the pristine seclusion of Leeborough. But I don’t fancy that you do. I am certain that I don’t.

One good thing is that there are only three more weeks or so this term. I suppose W. will have both tickets when it comes to travelling. Is it next Tuesday or the Tuesday after that his exam comes off?

As to your remarks about the school san., in spite of smoky chimneys and a villainous domestic staff, there are a good many worse places to spend a few weeks of a long winter term. There are plenty of books and fires, and I always derive a certain savage pleasure in sitting with my feet on the fender, watching through the window a body of my unfortunate fellow beings setting off for a run across that cold, dismal golf links that always reminds me of the moorland in ‘Locksley Hall’.

Talking about ‘Locksley Hall’, I have discovered a tattered copy of Tennyson’s works here, buried among the sixpenny novels and illustrated weeklies, with which I have spent a few enjoyable afternoons reading ‘In memoriam’⁴⁰ and some other things that one ought to know.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 111):

The Sanatorium,

St. Andrew’s Rd.,

Sunday.

Postmark: 30 November 1913

My dear P.,

I am now I think really quite better and shall be leaving the San. in a few days. It is funny, isn’t it, how soon you get accustomed to a new kind of life? I’ve been down here for a fortnight or so, and I have grown so used to it that I could almost believe that Malvern never existed. But I shall be amply reminded of its life shortly. I am beginning to go out now on those intensely dull convalescent walks–progressing at two miles an hour, muffled up like an arctic explorer, and getting in the bits of sunshine. Thanks very much for the postal order which arrived yesterday. One good thing about being down at the san. is that it prevents your spending money, which is always an advantage.

For three days during this week I have had a companion–one Waley⁴¹ of the School House, who had a boil on his arm and talked an amazing amount of agreeable nonsense. I pretended to be interested in and to understand his explanation of how an aeroplane engine works, and said ‘yes’ and ‘I see’ and ‘really’ at suitable intervals. I think I did all that was required very well.

However I am very pleased that he’s gone, as I find my own society infinitely more agreeable than his, and prefer Tennyson to lectures, however learned, on aeronautics. That’s just the perversity of fate. Anyone else who’d been down here alone for a fortnight would have been longing for a companion and of course wouldn’t get one, while I, who have been thoroughly enjoying the solitude, (so rare a blessing at school), must have not only a companion, but a talkative one, dumped down. However it was only for three days.

You were saying the other day that when you sat doing nothing of an evening you passed the time in day dreams. I used to day dream a tremendous lot, but these last few days I find when I sit down in a nice chair in front of the fire that I get up an hour later and realise that I’ve been thinking about absolutely nothing. Is this a sort of mental stagnation I wonder.

Have you seen to the quashing of that dance conspiracy yet? Don’t dare to answer in the negative. At any rate there must be no dance for me; nor for any other rational being I hope. So let that matter receive your immediate attention. You have your orders. Now we may go on.

I suppose the winter has set in at home by now, as it has here. But a very different kind of winter is the good old Belfast ‘rainy season’ from the English equivalent. Have you been winning any more musical laurels? That is a deed of daring do which should be set up in ‘letters all of gold’ (vide ‘brave Horatius’)⁴² under a statue in the hall representing you with a symbolical lyre and ‘plectrum’. (Look ‘plectrum’ out in a dictionary of classical terms).

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 115):

School House,

Malvern College.

Postmark: 8 December 1913

My dear Papy,

I am now once more safely ensconced in the house, and so my illness is officially dead and buried. Unfortunately I have missed the Lea Shakespeare exam., in which I think I might have done something. However, these things will happen. There are only two more weeks ‘and odd days’ as they say in Romeo and Juliet,⁴³ now. I suppose we shall revise this week and have exams. next, so that the routine is practically over. Write and tell me about W’s exam as soon as possible.

We have settled down into real winter weather here, which is always rather pleasing.

I notice in your recent correspondance an absence of any answer to my remarks re the quashing of the dance conspiracy. What is the meaning of this? Am I to understand that it has not been duly slain and buried? If not, why not? As I said before–‘you have your orders’. They were put before you in a plain and forcible manner so that you have no excuse for misunderstanding them. I hope to hear by return of post that the matter is now a thing of the past.

I can quite believe that the Peacockean platitudes were a come down after grandfather’s production.⁴⁴ Yes: that is a very appropriate text.

During the course of my walks abroad while I was at the San., I met Mr. Taylor, the old Cherbourg drawing master whom you met. He was very distressed because he had heard that I had given up my drawing at the Coll., but was consoled by my assurance that it was only a temporary fixture so long as it clashed with English. We had a very pleasant little chat indeed.

Today was the Repton match, and I suppose Cherbourg was there, but I didn’t notice them. It ended in a draw of one all after a very exciting game.

Allow me to observe that your noisy salutations to this insolent physician are not at all apropos and also were in somewhat questionable taste. I cannot write any more now.

your loving

son Jack.

1 The Rev. Canon Sydney Rhodes James (1855-1934) was the headmaster of Malvern College 1897-1914. His story is told in Seventy Years: Random Reminiscences and Reflections (1926).

2 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1623).

3 Jack fell ill on about 1 June and had to retire to bed. He nevertheless managed to take the exams in the infirmary between 3 and 5 June.

4 He was referring to Mr Allen who on 2 June wrote to Albert saying, ‘I believe you want him to go to the college here; if not, he might have a try for some other school which holds its Exams later’ (LP IV: 25).

5 Warnie was very often referred to in correspondence with family and friends as ‘W.’

6 Warnie had just begun thinking of entering the Army Service Corps, the one career he was always sure he wanted, while his father favoured a job with the London and North Western Railway

The Army Service Corps, which supplied food, weapons and other necessities to the troops, began in 1794 as the Corps of Waggoners. Over time it evolved until in 1888 it was recreated the Army Service Corps. In 1918, in recognition of its good work, it became the Royal Army Service Corps. It was renamed the Royal Corps of Transport in 1965. See John Fortescue, The Royal Army Service Corps: A History of Transport and Supplies in the British Army, vol. I (1930). Volume II by R. H. Beadon was published in 1931.

7 Albert’s letter to Jack of 30 June 1913 (LP IV: 41). Warnie had been caught smoking.

8 ‘Leeborough’ was Jack’s and Warnie’s private name for Little Lea. It had the advantage of yielding the adjectives ‘Leeburian’ and ‘Leborough’, as in a volume of their Boxen drawings called ‘Leborough Studies Ranging from 1905-1916’.

9 On 9 June Jack won a classical entrance scholarship to Malvern College.

10 In a little piece called ‘My Life During the Exmas Holadys of 1907’, Jack paid tribute to the postman: ‘Our postman is called Gordon [Jordan] and is a very nice and sensible man, and often sets me an essay to wright, the subject of which he provides’ (LP III: 90). In his letter to Jack of 30 June 1913, Mr Lewis congratulated Jack on his scholarship, saying: ‘I met Jordan the postman the other night, and as he used to set you essays, I thought I would tell him. He was as pleased as Punch. He said “Sir, the next time you’re writing will you say–Jordan is delighted.”’ (LP IV: 41).

11 See William Thompson Kirkpatrick in the Biographical Appendix. Mr Kirkpatrick had a number of nicknames, including ‘The Great Knock’, ‘Knock’ and ‘Kirk’.

12 (Sir) Donald Innes Hardman (1899-1982) was Jack’s study-mate in School House. On leaving Malvern he went to Hertford College, Oxford. While serving in the First World War during 1916-19 he joined the Royal Air Force and became a professional serviceman. He was promoted to wing commander in 1939, air commander in 1941, air commander of South East Asia 1946-47, and was chief of air staff and organization 1954-57, retiring in 1958.

13 Edward Anderson (1898-1928) was a member of School House 1913-17. After leaving Malvern he served in the war as a 2nd lieutenant. He later moved to Northern Rhodesia, dying there in November 1928.

14 Kenneth Ernest Lodge (1899-?) was a member of School House 1913-17. During the war he served overseas as a 2nd lieutenant with the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry. He was promoted to captain and remained in the army.

15 Fitzgerald Charles Cecil Baron Hichens (1895-1977) was at Malvern 1909-14 and was the head of School House when Jack arrived in 1913. From Malvern he went to Exeter College, Oxford, but soon left there for Sandhurst from where he passed into the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1915, becoming a captain in 1918. Following the war he resigned from the army and obtained a regular commission in the Royal Air Force, in which he became a wing commander. He retired in 1943.

16 ‘Smugie’ or ‘Smewgy’ was Harry Wakelyn Smith (1861-1918) who taught Classics and English to the Upper Fifth and for whom Jack was to have great affection. He had been educated at St John’s College, Oxford, and he joined the staff of Malvern in 1885. In SB/VII, Lewis said: ‘Except at Oldie’s I had been fortunate in my teachers ever since I was born; but Smewgy was “beyond expectation, beyond hope”. He was a grey-head with large spectacles and a wide mouth which combined to give him a froglike expression, but nothing could be less froglike than his voice. He was honey-tongued. Every verse he read turned into music on his lips…He first taught me the right sensuality of poetry, how it should be savoured and mouthed in solitude…Had he taught us nothing else, to be in Smewgy’s form was to be in a measure ennobled. Amidst all the banal ambition and flashy splendours of school life he stood as a permanent reminder of things more gracious, more humane, larger and cooler. But his teaching, in the narrower sense, was equally good. He could enchant but he could also analyse. An idiom or a textual crux, once expounded by Smewgy, became clear as day.’ This deeply loved man died in his little house in the school grounds, where he lived alone, on 13 November 1918, a victim of the influenza sweeping Europe that year.

17 Harry Richard Lucas Cooper (1899-1936), of Oxford, entered Malvern as a minor scholar in 1913. When he left in 1918 he ranked as the second boy in the school, head of School House, a cadet officer in the OTC and a football star. From Malvern he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his BA in 1922. He worked for the Imperial Bank of India, and in 1924 was employed in the Calcutta office.

18 Douglas Spencer Montague Tassell (1872-1956) took a BA in ‘Greats’ at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1894 and began teaching classics at Malvern in 1905. On the retirement of the geography master in 1928 he took over the teaching of geography. Perhaps his greatest work, and that which gave him most satisfaction, was with the Officers’ Training Corps. In 1909 he was put in charge of the Malvern contingent of the OTC, which he commanded until 1919 when he was awarded the Territorial Decoration. Warnie wrote of him: ‘In appearance he was a jaunty, dark haired, short mustached, dark eyed little man, very much the soldier with a permanent expression of busy irritation’ (LP IV: 73). It was he who first reported Warnie for smoking.

19 For whatever reason his article did not appear in The Malvernian.

20 Stanley Forrester Browning (1896-1917) became a member of School House in 1910 and by the time he left at the end of summer term of 1914, he had been a house prefect and in the second eleven at football. In 1914 he joined the Royal Flying Corps, and was a captain in that branch of the service when he was killed in action 3 May 1917.

21 John Arthur Watson Bourne (1896-1943) was at School House 1910-14, during which time he was a house prefect. During World War I he was a captain in the RAF. He then worked as an engineer in the technical and research department of a petroleum company. During World War II he served as a captain in the Royal Signal Corps. He died in March 1943.

22 William Walter Lowe (1873-1945) entered Malvern in the winter of 1888. When he left in 1893 he was junior chapel prefect, captain of the football eleven, and had been four years in the cricket eleven. From Malvern he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in 1896. He returned to Malvern as an assistant master in 1896, and was house master 1913-32. He retired in 1932 and died in May 1945.

23 i.e. Canon James, the headmaster.

24 ‘The Fish’ was Henry Geoffrey Curwen Salmon (1870-1933) who went up to Jesus College, Oxford, in 1888 on a Classics scholarship. He joined the staff of Malvern College in 1901 and taught French and German to the sixth form. In 1914 he helped prepare the third edition of the Malvern Register, and he was entirely responsible for the fourth edition of 1924. When he retired from teaching in 1929 he was appointed secretary of the Malvernian Society, which work he undertook with enthusiasm for the rest of his life.

25 In his Glossary of Words in Use in the Counties of Antrim and Down (1880), William Hugh Patterson (1835-1918) defined ‘cod’ as ‘(1) sb. a silly, troublesome fellow. (2) v. to humbug or quiz a person; to hoax; to idle about. “Quit your coddin.” ’ (p. 22). Warnie said, ‘It has however a third meaning, namely an expression of humourous and insincere self depreciation; an Ulsterman will say of himself, “Amn’t I the square oul’ cod to be doin’ so and so?”’ (LP IV: 306). Jack Lewis used the expression often, and he seems to have invented the diminutive ‘codotta’ or ‘Kodotta’ which appears occasionally in his letters. A notebook of his poems written about this time was entitled ‘Metrical Meditations of a Cod’.

26 Edwin Cyril Jervis (1896-?) was at School House 1911-15. On leaving Malvern he went to Sandhurst. He joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in 1916, was made a lieutenant in 1917 and during the war was seriously wounded. He received the Military Cross.

27 Charles Edward Bristow Bull (1900-77) was at School House 1912-15. During the war he served in the OTC. After the war he was private secretary to Aylesbury Brewery Co. Ltd, and also an actor.

28 This was the younger brother of Jack’s study companion. Wallace George Hardman (1897-1917) was at School House 1911-14. After leaving Malvern he was a 2nd lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment, and was killed in action near Kut on 9 January 1917.

29 The Rev. Gerald Peacocke, who succeeded Thomas Hamilton as rector of St Mark’s, was leaving. He was the son of the Most Rev. Joseph Ferguson Peacocke, Archbishop of Dublin, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin where he took the Hebrew Prize in 1892. He was ordained priest in 1894, and was curate of Carnmoney, Co. Antrim, 1893-6. After four years in Holywood, Co. Down, he was rector of St Mark’s, Dundela, 1900-14. He was prebendery of Geashill, Co. Offaly, 1914-23, and Archdeacon of Kildare 1923-44.

30 Aunt Minnie was the wife of Albert’s brother, William Lewis (1859-1946). See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

31 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597).

32 Noel Herbert Stone (1895-1918) was at Malvern 1910-14. After training at Sandhurst he joined the Worcestershire Regiment and was promoted to captain in 1917. He fought in France and was killed in action near Amiens on 27 April 1918.

33 ‘The Old Boy’ or ‘The Oldish’ was George Gordon Fraser (1870-1958), the headmaster’s assistant in the management of School House. He entered the College as a day boy in 1879 and remained until 1885. On leaving there he went to London University where he obtained a degree in 1889. In 1895 he became an assistant master at Lord William’s School, Thame, and in 1895 he went in the same capacity to Forest School. In 1901 he was appointed an assistant master at Malvern, and in 1917 he became house master of No. 9 House, which position he held until 1927.

34 Stopford Brooke Ludlow Jacks, JP, FRSA (1894-1988), son of Professor L.P. Jacks, entered School House in 1910 and left in 1915. During the war he served with the artillery, became a major, and won the Military Cross. He took a Diploma in Economics in 1920 from Balliol College, Oxford, and became a director of Messrs. Greg and Co., cotton spinners, Manchester. He served as a governor of the Royal College of Arts, chairman of HM Prisons for Women, president of the Prestbury Petty Sessions, and a governor of Malvern College.

35 Mirabile dictu, ‘Wonderful to relate’.

36 Warnie was preparing to take the entrance examinations (25 November-2 December) for Woolwich and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

37 Armas Järnefelt, Praeludium (1904).

38 Jack already had the last two parts of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, translated by Margaret Armour, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham (1911). For Christmas his father gave him the volume containing the first two parts, The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie (1910).

39 ‘Christmas will be here almost immediately,’ Albert wrote to Warnie on 9 November 1913, ‘and amongst other questions that must be decided is the all important one–are we to have a dance or not? No doubt our friends expect it. To me of course the thing is an expensive nuisance. But I don’t want you and Jacks to drop out of things here’ (LP IV: 99). ‘No dance!!’ replied Warnie on 10 October (LP IV: 101). Jack hated dancing, and years later he wrote in SBJ III: ‘It was the custom of the neighbourhood to give parties which were really dances for adults but to which, none the less, mere schoolboys and schoolgirls were asked…To me these dances were a torment…How a small boy who can neither flirt nor drink should be expected to enjoy prancing about on a polished floor till the small hours of the morning, is beyond my conception.’

40 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall (1842), In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850).

41 Reginald Philip Simon Waley (1897-1951) was a member of School House 1911-15. On leaving Malvern he served as a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal West Kent Regiment. In 1923 he went to work on the Stock Exchange.

42 Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome,‘Horatius’, LXVI, 6.

43 Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I, iii, 15.

44 Mr Peacocke, the rector, gave his last sermon at St Mark’s on 30 November. Remembering Thomas Hamilton’s farewell sermon from the same pulpit, Albert wrote to Warnie on 30 November saying that Mr Peacocke’s sermon was ‘an extraordinarily poor performance even for him. I remember an old man some thirteen years ago preaching a farewell sermon from the same place, and I have never been more deeply touched by spoken words in my life’ (LP IV: 110).

1914

The year began with anxiety about the entrance examination to Sandhurst that Warnie had taken in November. But more than that was at stake. Albert was worried about what his son could do with his life, and this had been a question he put to Mr Kirkpatrick more than once. After tutoring him for four months, in preparation for Sandhurst, Mr Kirkpatrick wrote to Albert on 18 December 1913, saying:

You ask me as to his abilities. They seem to be good enough. But observe, a question of that nature cannot be answered in the abstract, for the will power, the moral element is involved. You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to. Warren had a nice easy time, but no more so than the other fellows he associated with, many of whom were so well off that it did not matter from the economic point of view if they ever did anything or not. Years of association with such boys must have an effect in modifying the outlook. I do not see anything wrong with Warren apart from this slack, easy going quality. He has been blessed by Nature with two of her best gifts–good health and good nature. But it is too late now to make him interested in knowledge. The day for that has gone by. What he needs now is to be at work of some kind, and as soon as possible. I trust there can be little doubt of his passing, and if so, he should go to Sandhurst at once. The life may not be too strenuous, but it will be strenuous enough for him. The mere fact that he has set his mind on it is most important, and I think the army is now no bed of ease. Is he adapted for the life and will he succeed? These are questions very hard to answer. He does not want to go into any business, and dislikes exertion, drudgery, push and all the rest of it. He will probably discover that he cannot escape these things, even in the army. I should like to see a little more ambition in his composition–that is the main defect; but something of the kind may come in time. I have warned him that his present ideas may not be his ideas when he is a little older–a hard saying for a boy of course. (LP IV: 118-19)

On 9 January the Civil Service Commissioners published the results of the November examinations, and the Lewises were elated to learn that Warnie passed 21st out of 201 successful candidates for Sandhurst. The first 25 candidates were awarded ‘Prize Cadetships’ which secured them admission to the College at half fees, and a grant of £50 on obtaining a commission. On 3 February Warnie and Jack crossed, Warnie to the Royal Military College, Camberley, Surrey, for the first time, and Jack back to Malvern.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 130-1):

Gt. Malvern,

Sunday.

7th Feb. [1914]

My dear P.,

Thanks for the cutting which has been read with great interest. In addition to the natural unpleasantness of crossing on a bad night, I am annoyed at having broken my record, as I was sea sick on Tuesday for the first time in my life. It is not a pleasant experience. W. was very ill too, which is strange, as we both thought to have got over that danger.

The rest of the journey to Malvern was pleasant enough, and on my arrival I was pleased to find that Hardman and Quennel¹ had moved into the new study, which is a great success. Like somebody’s cocoa, it is ‘grateful and comforting’. So far, to my surprise, the weather has been quite mild and springlike, so I hope to get rid of the cold I had when I left home.

Smugy, I am sorry to say, waxed humorous over my illness, observing in that hoarse whisper of his that I must be ‘a very delicate flower’. He must be excused of course, as the opportunity was too good for him to miss. I suppose it is a priviledge of old age. Otherwise he has been very pleasant, almost effusive, which is an unusual state of affairs with him.

I find there are even less than eight weeks more this term, which of course is good news for both of us. Quennel has already disappeared from the arena with a cold and an ear ache. We hear to our inexpressible joy that the good matron is leaving this term. More than we dared to hope. And, in considering about future possibles, it is a comfort to know that whatever happens, we can’t get anything worse.²

There must be a lot of talk at home about the Greeves affair. What was the dinner like? When you write be sure and tell me all the latest developments. ‘The case’, as Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘is not devoid of interest.’

What is W’s address? I know it is Camberley, but there are a lot of codotta about companies and so forth, are there not?

I am afraid I must again ‘bite your ear’ for ten shillings. An unexpected outrage has occurred. A tax of five shillings a head is being levied for the Old Boy’s leaving present, and another five for that of the James. I consider this rather stiff, but I am afraid it must be done. Please send it as soon as possible. I suppose the hat will be going round for various leaving presents all through this term. Another of the fees one has to pay for the benefit of a Public School education. But I think these places are doomed. Books like ‘The Horrovians’ form the thin end of the wedge.³ It will end in a terrible debacle. I must stop now.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 137-8):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 16 February 1914

My dear Papy,

Thanks very much indeed for the unexpected donation and also for the exacted fund. An excellent thing–money’ as an old friend of ours is wont to observe.

Although others at Malvern have proved wanting in perspicacity with regard to Warnie’s brilliant successes, I was glad to see that Smugy was free from the general reproach. He lost no time in congratulating me warmly, and asking me to convey all the appropriate remarks to W. in my next letter. Such things are perhaps not great acts of kindness. But they serve to mark the difference between those who care for their old pupils and those who do not. Indeed the more I see of that remarkable old man, the more I like and admire him. I wish you knew him. If ever you come to visit Malvern again, you must not leave without making his acquaintance.

This week he has set us a job at which I hope to be able to do something. The alternatives were,

1 poem in imitation of Horace asking a friend to stay with you at the most beautiful spot you know.

2 A picture of a specified scene from Sophocles.

3 An original ghost story.

As you have probably guessed, I chose the first. I invited an imaginary friend to stay at Castlerock. As that would be impossible in verse I changed it to Moville, which is a little village near the former, as you remember. I treated the cliffs, seas, etc. at some length, and have taken pains over it. It is to be shown up tomorrow, and I hope it will be a success. I have written again in the metre of Locksley Hall; it is to be hoped that Smugy will not think that this shows a lack of invention or variety. If he does, I shall point out that some people like Pope and Addison wrote all their poems in the same metre. But of course Horace was a greater man than either of those. However, after a lot of thinking I came to the conclusion that no other metre would do as well. Horace is really impossible to translate: but I think we can imitate him in tolerable style. Everything so far is very pleasant in the Upper V.

How can people advocate a ‘modern’ education? What could be better or more enjoyable than reading the greatest masterpieces of all time, under a man who has made them part of himself? And against this some are foolish enough to oppose algebra and French verbs! The Greek Grammar has not yet put in an appearance. We are turning our attention to Latin where, of course I get on better.

I have seen Dr. Mackay who orders me to continue those annoying breathing exercises and not to play footer. The latter is a great comfort. The other a useful annoyance.

By the way I find I need another coat here. The present one is getting, not shabby, but tired looking, and the other is too small. Could you get Cummings to make me a new black coat to exactly the same measurements as the last. Only three buttons. Or, if it be more convenient, is there an old one of W’s that would do?

Hichens has been down at the Sanatorium and has just come back. On a walk today I met Tubbs who asked me to go up to Cherbourg tomorrow. I think I shall.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 152):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 18 March 1914

My dear Papy,

Please excuse my delay in answering your letter. But I have had no time for any of my private affairs for all this week. I think that your criticism on the report are perfectly just; but I would like to remind you that not only does this persecution get harder to bear as time goes on, but that it is actually getting more severe. As for the work indeed, things are now much brighter, and I have been getting on all right since half term.

But, out of school, life gets more and more dreary; all the prefects detest me and lose no opportunity of venting their spite. Today, for not being able to find a cap which one gentleman wanted, I have been sentenced to clean his boots every day after breakfast for a week. It is after breakfast that the form goes through their translation together. From this I am cut off. When I asked if I might clean them in the evening (an arrangement which you observe would have made no difference to him), I received a refusal, strengthened by being kicked downstairs.

So we go on. These brutes of illiterate, ill-managed English prefects are always watching for an opportunity to drop upon you. There is no escape from them, night or day. There is some consolation in knowing that every one else is in the same box: all my friends too, are utterly miserable and tired of life. Perhaps you ask why we don’t complain to the Old Boy. Sometimes a poor creature, driven wild by injustice and oppression, does try it. The Old Boy of course does his best: but what is the result? The prefects return to the persecution of the boy with renewed vigour. The place is systematically made uninhabitable for him, and he usually leaves. So that way is barred.

Please take me out of this as soon as possible but don’t, whatever you do, write to the James or the Old Boy, as that would only make matters worse. Thank goodness there are only 2 weeks more; that must be our wee bit of ‘silver lining’. You can’t think how I’m longing to get back to you and Leeborough again. See and keep quite well yourself.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 155):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 22 March 1914

My dear Papy,

What a good thing the police did not turn up to arrest Craig.⁴ If they had, I suppose you would be in the thick of it now.

No: I think I had better wait till the Tuesday and attend the House Supper. Not that I want to of course, but Maxwell and all the other Irish boys are waiting as it is Jimmy’s last term, and you can’t very well go early this time. So please book the berth for that night.

In common justice I feel that I ought to correct the notion which, very naturally, I have given you of Hichens. It is only fair to say that he is always ready to do anything he can for me or for anyone else. But the truth of the matter is that, though nominally head of the house, he has to mind his P’s and Q’s very carefully. The real head of the house is a splendid physical animal called Browning, who is one of the worst cads I have ever met. But he certainly has got ‘guts’ and bends the other prefects to his will with a rod of iron. They are all afraid of him. But Hichens, although neither clever or strong minded, is a kindly and gentlemanly sort of person. I have no complaints against him. But we are now so near the end of the term that I am beginning to take a philosophical view of things: all will soon be over.

Although the papers are full of it, the people here don’t seem to grasp the Ulster situation very much: one person asked me this morning if it was for Home Rule or against it that the volunteers were being formed.

Last night we had a lecture about Russia which was quite interesting.

your loving

son Jack.

Jack arrived at Little Lea on 25 March. His father, knowing how desperately unhappy he was at Malvern, was already in correspondence with Warnie about the matter. ‘Your news about Jack is unpleasant,’ Warnie said on 23 March,

but to me at least, not unexpected: from the moment he first came home and told me his opinion of the Coll., I was afraid it could only be a matter of time until he made the place too hot to hold him. I remember asking if it was not a splendid feeling at the end of a house match when you realised that your own house had won: “I saw a lot of boys throwing their caps in the air and making unpleasant noises: yes, I suppose it is an interesting study”…I had an idea that Malvern would weave its influence round Jacks as it did around me, and give him four very happy years and memories and friendships which he would carry with him to the grave…I am all in favour of sending him to Kirk. There would be no one there except Mr and Mrs K for him to talk to, and he could amuse himself by detonating his little stock of cheap intellectual fireworks under old K’s nose. (LP IV: 156-7)

Albert replied on 29 March:

I honestly confess that knowing Jack’s mind and character, I am not greatly surprised to find him and a Public School unsuited to one another. In saying that I blame neither the one nor the other. He is simply out of his proper environment, and would possibly wither and decay rather than grow if kept in such surroundings…What is to be done? For a boy like Jacks to spend the next three or four years alone with an old man like Kirk is almost certain to strengthen the very faults that are strongest in his disposition. He will make no acquaintances. He will see few people and he will grow more into a hermit than ever. The position is a difficult one and gives me many anxious hours. (LP IV: 160)

Albert asked Mr Kirkpatrick what he advised, and in his letter of 17 April he suggested that he send Jack back to Campbell College in Belfast. ‘The Campbell College is at your door,’ he said. ‘If he went there, he would be in contact with you, which ought surely to count for much at this period of growth…It is very kind of you to think of sending him to me, but do you not think it a little premature?’ (LP IV: 165). Mr Lewis persisted, almost begging Mr Kirkpatrick to accept him. ‘If he can hold on through this summer,’ Mr Kirkpatrick replied on 30 April, ‘I hope I shall be ready (if I am spared) to receive him in the autumn, if you are still in the same mind then. And here let me say that I feel almost overwhelmed by the compliment to myself personally which your letter expresses. To have been the teacher of the father and his two sons is surely a unique experience’ (LP IV: 167). Although Jack didn’t want to go back to Malvern for even one more term, Mr Lewis got him to agree to it as an ‘experiment’. If it became too bad, he would leave.

Sometime in mid-April, while this debate was going on, Jack came to know his ‘First Friend’. ‘His name was Arthur [Greeves]’ he wrote in SBJ VIII,

and he was my brother’s exact contemporary; he and I had been at Campbell together though we never met…I received a message saying that Arthur was in bed, convalescent, and would welcome a visit. I can’t remember what led me to accept this invitation, but for some reason I did.

I found Arthur sitting up in bed. On the table beside him lay a copy of Myths of the Norsemen.⁵

‘Do you like that?’ said I.

‘Do you like that?’ said he.

Next moment the book was in our hands, our heads were bent close together, we were pointing, quoting, talking–soon almost shouting–discovering in a torrent of questions that we liked not only the same thing, but the same parts of it and in the same way…Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder…as first love, or even a greater. I had been so far from thinking such a friend possible that I had never even longed for one; no more than I longed to be King of England.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 169-70):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 3 May 1914

My dear Papy,

I suppose, when I come to think of the matter, it was rather foolish of me to write and ask for ‘a coat’, without specifying what kind. One is apt to imagine at times that the person to whom you speak can keep up with your thoughts, whether they are expressed or not. What I want is a common or garden jacket coat, same measurements as the last, and with not more than three buttons on the front.

There are now only some five weeks more. Thank goodness!! For to tell the truth, Malvern is hardly the place for a long stay. I think it would be as well to stick to our original plan of leaving at the end of the term. It is rather heavy going; the ceaseless round of fagging, hunting for clothes and books that have been ‘borrowed’, and other jobs that have to be done in what is euphemistically known as your ‘spare time’, gets very trying. It is literally true that from the time you get up in the morning till the time you go to bed at night, you have not a moment to spare.

And the worst of it all seems to be that I am not getting on too well in form. It’s discouraging. Whether it is that I haven’t time to do it, or that I’m losing my mental faculties, or the fact that it is getting harder, I don’t know: but the fact remains that things aren’t as they should be. Goodness knows, I work as hard as I can. But it’s all uphill. For instance, if you are hoping to do some of your surplus work in the interval between breakfast and morning school, it is very hard to have to give up that time to cleaning boots for some great big brute of a prefect at the bottom of the school. Then of course, as all your arrangements have been thrown out of joint, you don’t know the lesson. And you can’t give Smugy the real explanation. My chief dread is that he may get a bad impression, and I prize his opinion as much as that of any one. Then again, the whole atmosphere of the place is so brutal and unsavoury. In one word, it won’t do.

Of course this is no new discovery. We both agreed last holidays that it was only an experiment, and I am now giving the result of that experiment. There is no need for you to worry or to do anything other than we have already thought of. But I consider it better to let you know straight away that this place is a failure, than to leave the botch over until it is irreparable. I suppose Kirk’s is the best place for me. At any rate one of these ‘English Public Schools’, so famed in song and story, is not. To get on well at one of these, one needs to have a constitution of iron, a hide so thick that no insult will penetrate it, a brain that will never tire, and an intelligence able and ready to cope with the sharp gentlemen who surround you.

But these places are doomed. Books like the ‘Harrovians’ are the thin end of the wedge: and I don’t mind saying that if you came back in a couple of hundred years, there would be no Public Schools left. That is a sort of consolation: for, among other things, one learns here a power of hating with an almost incredible intensity. However, I suppose this sort of education is found to be suitable for some people. But on others it comes rather hard.

To turn to a brighter topic, I am very pleased to hear that W. is getting on well at Sandhurst. His letters to me are very cheerful, and at the same time more serious than some of his communications have been. All these facts point in the right direction.

In the mean time, how are things in the ancient and honourable city of Belfast? Perhaps all this unpleasantness in a foreign land has its use, in that it teaches one to love home and things connected with home all the more, by contrast. I suppose the aggravation of the social nuisance, which always accompanies Xmas has now died down. And what are the attractions at the popular houses of entertainment? Among other things that I want to know, has the great fire mystery been solved yet? It destroys my mental picture of Leeborough if I am not sure whether there still be a wall between the hall and the study or not. However, I am glad to say that I shall be able to see the whole thing for myself at no very distant date.

It is now half term, and there are only four or five weeks more. They will not be long in the going. I wonder is there any truth in the idea that a wise man can be equally happy in any circumstances. It suddenly struck me the other day that if you could imagine you were at home during the term, it would be just as good as the reality.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 173-4):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 17 May 1914

My dear P.,

I must really apologise elaborately and profusely for having left you letterless this week: but the fact is that this has been my first opportunity.

First of all, you will be interested to learn that our friend Browning has not, as he anticipated, been raised from the position of House Pre. to that of School Pre. Instead, a humble and inoffensive person named Parker⁶ has been placed above him; at which you may well imagine his chagrin and my delight.

The new headmaster⁷ has created a good impression here already by making the servants clean our boots–thereby abolishing the most obnoxious source of fagging. So far he has spoken very little indeed, but when he speaks it is in a pleasant voice and in good English. He wastes no time. All this shapes very well, although (thank goodness) I shall not see much of his career.

Smugy’s wit on my late return did not exercise itself in my presence. But on the first day, as I am told, he expressed a fear lest I had been ‘killed in the war’. Ah, well! These people will soon learn that war is not a subject for joking; so for that shall we too.

The worst part of the summer term is the fact that we have to keep out of doors nearly all our time; but here one notices the great advantage of being in the Upper School, and therefore allowed to go into the Grundy Library at all hours of the day–it proves a great refuge when the ‘house’ is out of bounds.⁸

I have received a letter from Arthur Greeves. Intimate to him the fact that a suitable reply is being composed at our leisure. Note the royal plural. Well, it’s a good thing that two weeks at any rate have gone. How are the ‘rheumatics’ keeping? I suppose by this time you are in the depths of the house cleaning ceremony: have the study and hall been knocked into one, or any other funny thing happened?

This term in the Grundy I have discovered a new poet whom I must get, Yeats. I never read any of his works before, and both what he says and the way he says it, please me immensely. Do you know him or care for him at all?

Just one bit of ‘Kodotto’ before we stop. In the study or in your dressing room (not mine), you will find a little black book of Warnie’s, a Greek Testament. I should be very glad if you would send it here as soon as possible.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 179-80):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 31 May 1914

My dear Papy,

Many apologies again for these same ‘epistolary shortcomings’. But the days this term are so very full, and are spent so much out of doors that it is very hard to polish off the weekly letter with anything like regularity.

What a nuisance that old arm is to be sure. However, I expect that when the fine weather sets in it will improve. I am sorry that in asking you to procure my Attic pentateuch I was compelling you to embark upon a voyage at once perilous and disagreeable and arduous (Johnsonese again). I hope that by the time this letter reaches you, the study wall will have been replaced and the stately hall of Leeborough will smile upon guest and inhabitant with its pristine splendour and hospitality. Of course in restoring the ‘main library’ you are careful to alter the appearance of the room as little as possible. It would be a pity if I came home to a strange house. In the meantime I hope that the small library has been allowed to remain untouched?

This week I am glad to say that the Greek grammar has been going a good deal better; I hope this will continue, as it would be a pleasure to secure a good report of these people before I left. Happily Browning has been ill at the Sanatorium since last Monday, which has kept him out of mischief for one week at least. Last week I got out of the library the works of our present poet laureate, Bridges, who did not impress me a bit;⁹ but I have now struck better ground in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’,¹⁰ which although melodramatic like all her books, shapes very well indeed.

Before I close I must request you to forward a little of the ‘ready’ as owing to exorbitant subscriptions, fines, and the expenses of the summer term, our whole study has run out of cash. As long as one of us was flush the other two could live upon him, but when all three are in this condition it is impossible.

I hope that your arm will not remain ‘hors de combat’ very long.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 180-1):

[Malvern College

5 June 1914]

Dear Arthur,

I really must apologize for having kept such a long and unjustifiable–silence. But the readiest means of mending that fault are those of writing fully and at once–which I now propose to do. To begin at the beginning, you had hardly been outside Little Lea for twenty minutes when a chance of not going back seemed to be held out to me, only, as you may guess, to be snatched away again. When we came to pack up my last few belongings, what should happen but that no key was to be found for my trunk! High and low we searched, but not a sign of it. My father was in despair: how was I to go back? How long would it take to have a new lock fitted? For a few moments I had a wild hope of staying at home. What was my disgust, when, almost at the last moment, Annie¹¹ turned up with the required artical, and off I had to go!

Since then, I have lived or existed as one does at School. How dreary it all is! I could make some shift to put up with the work, the discomfort, and the school feeding: such inconveniences are only to be expected. But what irritates me more than anything else is the absolute lack of appreciation of anything like music or books which prevails among the people whom I am forced to call my companions. Can you imagine what it is like to live for twelve weeks among boys whose thoughts never rise above the dull daily round of cricket and work and eating? But I must not complain like this, I suppose. Malvern has its good points. It teaches one to appreciate home, and to despise that sort of lifelessness. If I had never seen the horrible spectacle which these coarse, brainless English schoolboys present, there might be a danger of my sometimes becoming like that myself. But, as it is, I have had warning enough for a lifetime. Another good point about Malvern is the Library, which is one of the best-stocked I have ever been in–not that anyone but myself and two or three others care twopence about it, of course! I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W.B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology. I must really get my father to buy his books when I come home. His works have all got that strange, eerie feeling about them, of which we are both proffessed admirers. I must get hold of them, certainly.

You can hardly tell how glad I was to hear that you were learning theory. It is a positive shame that you should go about with all those lofty strains running in your head, and yet never set pen to paper to perpetuate them. Of course, take the ‘Loki Bound’ MS.¹² over to Bernagh,¹³ anytime you feel inclined to compose a little operatic music. Thank you very much indeed for undertaking the job of the gramaphone. I suppose by this time it is restored to its former condition. It makes me furious to think of your being able to walk about your house and ours and all the beautiful places we know in the country, while I am cooped up in this hot, ugly country of England. Where is your favourite walk? I hope that by this time you are quite recovered and are able to go about freely without fear of injury. County Down must be looking glorious just now: I can just picture the view of the Lough and Cave Hill from beside the Shepard’s Hut. Sometime next holydays, you and I must make a journey up their before breakfast. Have you ever done that? The sunrise over the Holywood Hills, and the fresh stillness of the early morning are well worth the trouble of early rising, I can assure you.

Since I have touched on the subject of health, I must ask a few questions of a disagreeable nature, on a matter which I have very near my heart. I have now had no direct letter from my father for over three weeks, and I hear that he is very ill. I would be very thankful indeed if you would go over and see him sometimes, and try and cheer him up: then you could tell me exactly how he is, and whether what I have heard has been exagerated or not–although I really don’t deserve a reply to this after the shameful way I have treated you with regard to letters. But I feel sure you won’t mind writing just a few lines, to tell me about yourself and family, and the state of various other things, besides my father’s health. As I am sure you are tired by this time of a long and melancholy letter, I will stop.

Yours affectionately

Jack Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 190-1):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 22 June 1914

My dear Papy,

Since I last wrote to you, I received, with your knowledge as I gather, a letter from Annie, short and comfortless enough to be sure, but still something to keep me from alarm. The most promising thing about her communication was that she promises me a letter from you at no very distant date. Do not force yourself to write until you feel thoroughly fit–but when you can, let me have a rare budget of news and reflections to compensate for the weeks ‘that the locust hath eaten’.¹⁴ Above all, don’t forget to tell me all about yourself. I will spare you the trite expressions of sorrow and hope for your recovery; between those who know each other so well, such remarks are out of place, and I am sure you have had enough of that sort of thing. I should like to encourage you to cheer up if I thought I should have any success in that line; I must at any rate mention one consoling circumstance–namely that it is now half way through this dreary term, and is only five weeks till we shall be together again. This week you will get the report: and I hope and pray, not without confidence, that it will do nothing to add to your discomfort. I think I have now crossed the Rubicon in Greek Grammar, and am now happily arrived at the safe side of it. Mr. Smith [Smugy] has been very kind to me indeed, and I think we shall part friends.

This week I have been reading a most remarkable book which has created a great impression. It is ‘The Upton Letters’,¹⁵ a series of letters from a school master at ‘Upton College’ to a friend whose health confines him in Madeira. They purport to have been actually written on such an occasion and not for publication; and indeed the utter absence of plot, or in some cases even of connection, make this seem to be true, although their wonderful beauty argues against it. But to come to my point: the great revelation of the book is the statement made somewhere that we ‘ought not to write about our actions but about our thoughts’. How wonderfully true. We busy ourselves, you and I, telling each other about the weather and the little trivial happenings of each day, while the thoughts of our hearts, the really great experiences of our selves, are seldom spoken of. Of course this is rather rhetorical and letters written entirely on those lines would tend to become monotonous. But the saying struck me so forcibly at the time that I thought I would mention it to you.

This week the natural course of our life has been torn up as it were, by a cyclone in the form of speech day. I suppose you will be able to read Preston’s speech in the Times, and give your own verdict upon it.¹⁶ For my part, I did not see much merit in it–a few trite maxims, a few of the usual jokes, and that was all. In fact if the truth must be told, Preston is not a big man. He is, as far as I can see, a learned and courtly gentleman of captivating manners, but not the person who can save the ruin of a tottering school. Malvern would seem to be fated by the gods never to secure the right man as her headmaster. It is gratifying for me to think that I may live to see the end of this place. Perhaps that is an ungenerous thought: and I should hesitate to bestow my loathing so heartily on anything, even an inanimate object, if I did not think that it would be a real benefit for the country if this place were suppressed.

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.

yr. loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 214-7):

Gt. Bookham

[6 October 1914]

Dear Arthur,

I will begin by answering your questions & then we can get on to more interesting topics. The plot of my would-be tragedy is as follows: (The action is divided into the technical parts of a Grk. tragedy: so:)

I. Prologos.

Loki, alone before Asgard, explains the reason of his quarrel of the gods: ‘he had seen what an injustice the creation of man would be and tried to prevent it! Odin, by his magic had got the better of him, and now holds him as a slave. Odin himself now enters, with bad news. Loki (as is shewn in the dialogue) had persuaded the gods to make the following bargain with the Giant, Fasold: that if F., in one single winter, built a wall round Asgard, the goddess Freya should be given him as his concubine. The work is all but finished: the gods, repenting of the plan, are claiming Loki’s blood.

II. Parodos.

Thor, Freya & the Chorus enter. After a short ode by the latter, Thor complains that Loki, who is always the gods’ enemy has persuaded them to this plan, well knowing that it would come to no good. Loki defends his actions in a very scornful speech, and the two are only kept from blows at the request of Odin & Freya. Odin, though feeling qualms on account of their ancient friendship, agrees to Loki’s being punished if the latter cannot devise some way out of the difficulty by the next day, (when ‘the appointed Winter’ is up). The others then withdraw leaving Loki alone with the Chorus. He has been cringing to Odin up till now, but on his exit bursts out into angry curses.

III. Episode I.

The Chorus pray to the ‘spirits of invocation to help Loki to find a plan. His only desire is to be able to save his own head and plunge the gods into even deeper morasses. A long dialogue ensues between him & the Chorus, the result of which is this plan: that Loki will send a spirit of madness into Fasold’s horse which always accomplishes the greater part of the work. (Vide ‘Myths of the Norsemen). The Chorus agree & Loki sets off to Jarnvid (Ironwood) to instruct the spirit.

IV. Episode II.

It is now quite dark. The Chorus are singing a song of hope & fate, when Fasold enters with his horse, dragging the last great stone. He stops & converses with the Chorus. In the dialogue which follows, the genial, honest, blundering mind of Fasold is laid open: and his frank confession of his fears & hopes for Freya, and his labours, forms a contrast to the subtle intrigues of the gods. At last he decides to move on. He urges the horse: but at that moment the frenzy siezes it: it breaks from its traces & gallops off, kicking its master and leaving him senseless in the snow. Presently he recovers, and after a very sad & indignant accusation of the gods, goes off to mourn ‘his vanished hope’. He cannot now hope to gain the ‘dear prize’ for which ‘he laboured all those months’! The morning is all ready at hand

V. Episode III.

Loki, Thor & Freya return. All are in high spirits, and exult over the success of the plan. To them enters Odin. By the appearance of the god, we guess that something is wrong. On being questioned his explanation (greatly condensed) is this. ‘The gods’ empire rests on treaties. Therefore on honour. When that honour is broken their doom is at hand. Loki has conquered the Giant, how? By Fraud. We have broken faith and must prepare for the twilight of the gods.’ As soon as the general shock has passed off, Thor turns upon Loki and says that he is the cause of all this. Loki, seeing that he has accomplished his design, throws off the mask of humility that he has been wearing, and, confessing that it was all his plan, bursts forth into fearful [cursings?] upon Thor and Odin. Since Loki cannot be killed by any known weapon, Thor purposes to pinion him on an adjacent boulder (etc. Vide ‘Myths of the N’s’) as a punishment. Odin, though without enthusiasm consents, and he is bound. (Thor, Freya, Odin go off).

VI. Exodos.

Loki, bound to the rock, is indulging in a satyric dialogue with the Chorus, when Odin returns. As soon as Loki sees him he bursts into violent abuse. Odin has come to offer him pardon & release: ‘He (Odin,) is a lonely god: men, gods, & giants are all only his own creatures, not his equals & he has no friend–merely a crowd of slaves. Loki, who had been brought forth with & (not by) him by Fate, had supplied one. Will he be reconciled?’ Loki, however, casts his offer back in his teeth, with many taunts. Seeing that they can effect nothing Odin & Chorus withdraw & the tragedy ends.

Such then, in brief, is the skeleton of my poor effort poor indeed in its intrinsic worth, and yet not so poor if you could set it to soul-stirring music. As an opera the parts would be like this.

LOKI | Tenor (?)
ODIN | Baritone
THOR | Basso (of course)
FREYA | Soprano
FASOLD | Basso
LEADER of the CHORUS | Contralto (she has quite a lot to do, here & there)

Of course you would readily see what musical points could be made. Nevertheless I cannot refrain from giving you a few of my ideas. To begin with, Loki’s opening speech would be sombre and eerie,–expressive of the fire-god’s intrigueing soul, and endless hatred. Then (Parados) the first song of the chorus would be bright and tuneful, as a relief to the dramatic duet that precedes it. The next great opportunity for ‘atmospheric’ music comes (Episode I) where the theme of the ‘spirit of madness’ is introduced. You can well imagine what it ought to be like. Then (Episode II) we would have a bluff, swinging ballad for the huge, hearty giant; and of course the ‘madness motive’ again, where the horse breaks lose. Then some ‘Dawn’ music as a prelude to (Episode III) and Odin’s speech about their position! What an opening for majestic & mournful themes. But the real gem would be some inexpressibly sad, yearning little theme, where (Exodos) Odin expresses his eternal loneliness. But enough!, enough! I have let my pen run away with me on so congenial a subject & must try & get back to daily life.

As for my average ‘Bookham’ day, there is not much to tell. Breakfast at 8.0, where I am glad to see good Irish soda-bread on the table begins the day. I then proceed to take the air (we are having some delightful, crisp autumn mornings) till 9.15, when I come in & have the honour of reading that glorious Iliad, which I will not insult with my poor praise. 11-11.15 is a little break, & then we go on with Latin till luncheon, at 1.0. From 1.-5.0, the time is at my own disposal, to read, write or moon about in the golden tinted woods and vallies of this county. 5-7.0, we work again. 7.30, dinner. After that I have the pleasant task of reading a course of English Literature mapped out by Himself.³² Of course, that doesn’t include novels, which I read at other times. I am at present occupied with (as Eng. Lit.) Buckle’s ‘Civilization of England’,³³ and (of my own accord) Ibsen’s plays. Hoping to hear from you soon, with all your views & suggestions for Loki, I am.

Yrs. sincerely

C. S. Lewis

P.S. If you begin composing in earnest you’ll find the libretto in my study upstairs. J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 229-39):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 13 October 1914

My dear Papy,

I am astonished to hear that the Glenmachonians³⁴ are still so foolish as to stick to the Russian delusion: as Kirk has pointed out several times, this extraordinary rumour, and the credit paid to it, is a striking illustration of the way in which a mythology grew up in barbarous or semi-barbarous ages. If we, with all our modern knowledge fall into an error so ludicrous and so unfounded, it is hardly to be wondered at if primitive man believed a good deal of nonsense.

Our household has an addition this week in the person of Mrs. K’s theatrical friend Miss MacMullen, who is staying here for a week or ten days. ‘Soul! She’s a boy!’ Altho’ perfectly well she sees fit to travel down to Gastons with a bath chair, a maid, and a bull dog. However, they are the only faults, and they are amusing Kodotta.

This is the most extraordinary place I have ever seen for weather: we have had bright sunshine, frost, and not a spot of rain ever since I arrived. The touch of frost, unaccompanied by any wind to blow the leaves off their branches, has converted the country into a veritable paradise of gold and copper. I have never seen anything like it. Everyone at Bookham is engaged in a conspiracy for ‘getting up’ a cottage for Belgian refugees:³⁵ a noble scheme I admit: carried out however in a typical fussy ‘Parishional’ way. Some of Kirk’s comments are very funny.

Any news from the Colonel?³⁶ When is he off to the front? Did you ever at Lurgan read the 4th Georgic?³⁷ It is the funniest example of the colossal ignorance of a great poet that I know. It’s about bees, and Virgil’s natural history is very quaint: bees, he thinks, are all males: they find the young in the pollen of flowers. They must be soothed by flute playing when anything goes wrong etc., etc.

I hope that your dental troubles are now gone and that you are quite well in other ways (Yes–it is a bad cold Joffer!) I am scanning the horizon for a brown suit. I suppose you have settled down to winter weather and customs by now at home.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES: (W/LP IV: 220-2)

Wednesday

14 October 1914]

Bookham

My dear Arthur,

Although delighted, as always, to find your letters on my plate, I was very sorry to hear that you were once again laid up: I hope, however, that it is nothing more than a cold, and will soon pass away.

I was very glad to hear your favourable criticism of ‘Loki’ (and I hope it is genuine) and to see that you are taking an interest in it. Of course your supposed difficulty about scoring is a ‘phantasm’. For, in the first place, if we do compose this opera, it will in all probability never have the chance of being played by an orchestra: and, in the second place, if by any chance it were ever to be produced, the job of scoring it would be given–as is customary–to a hireling. Now, as to your budget of tasteful and fascinating suggestions. Your idea of introducing a dance after the exit of Odin etc, is a very good one, altho’ it will occasion some trifling alterations in the text: and, speaking of dances in general, I think that you are quite right in saying that they add a certain finish to both dramatic & operatic works. Indeed, when I was writing them, there were certain lines in the play which I felt would be greatly ‘helped out’ by appropriate movements. Thus the lines

‘The moon already with her silvery glance,–

The hornèd moon that bids the high gods dance’

would suggest some good moonlight music both in motion and orchestra.

Turning to your remarks about illustrations, I must confess that I have often entertained that idea myself; but, thinking that, since you never spoke of it, there was some radical objection on your part, I never liked to suggest it. Now that I am undeceived in that direction, however, need I say that I am delighted with the idea? Your skill with the brush, tho’ by no means superior to your musical abilities, has yet a greater mastery of the technical difficulties. I have only to cast my eyes over the libretto to conjure up a dozen good ideas for illustrations. (1) First of all, the vast, dreary waste of tumbled volcanic rock with Asgard gleaming high above in the background thrown out into sharp relief by the lurid sunset: then in the foreground there is the lithe, crouching figure of Loki, glaring with satanic malignity at the city he purposes to destroy. That is my conception of the Prologos. (2) Then Odin, thundering through the twilit sky on his eight footed steed! (what a picture.) (3) Again, Freya, beautiful, pathetic and terrified making her anguished entreaty for protection. (4) A sombre study of the moonlight choral dance that you so wisely suggested. (5) The love-sick Fasold raging in impotent fury when he discovers that he has been cheated. And (6) last of all, Loki, bound to his rock, glaring up to the frosty stars in calm, imperturbable and deadly hatred! And so on & so on. But you, with your artist’s brain will doubtless think of lots of other openings. I do sincerely hope that this idea will materialise, and that I shall find on my return a whole drawer full of your best.

I am afraid this is rather a ‘Loki’ letter, and I know that I must not expect others to doat on the subject as foolishly as do I. I am going to ask for ‘Myths and legends of the Celtic Race’³⁸ as part of my Xmas box from my father: so that, as soon as I put the finishing touches to ‘Loki Bound’, I can turn my attention to the composition of an Irish drama–or perhaps, this time, a narrative poem.³⁹ The character of Maeve, the mythical warrior Queen of Ireland, will probably furnish me with a dignified & suggestive theme. But, we shall see all in good time.

Mrs Kirkpatrick, the lady of this house, had not played to me at the time of writing my last epistle. But since then she has given me a most delightful hour or so: introducing some of Chopin’s preludes, ‘Chanson Triste’,⁴⁰ Beethoven’s moonlight Sonata,⁴¹ Chopin’s March Funebre,⁴² The Peer Gynt Suite⁴³ & several other of our old favourites. Of course I do not know enough about music to be an authoritative critic, but she seemed to me to play with accuracy, taste & true feeling. So that there is added another source of attraction to Great Bookham. For the value of Mrs K’s music is to me two fold: first it gives me the pleasure that beautiful harmonies well executed must always give: and secondly, the familiar airs carry me back in mind to countless happy afternoons spent together at Bernagh or Little Lea!

Strange indeed is my position, suddenly whirled from a state of abject terrorism, misery and hopelessness at Malvern, to a comfort and prosperity far above the average. If you envy my present situation, you must always remember that after so many years of unhappiness there should be something by way of compensation. All I hope is that there will not come a corresponding depression after this: I never quite trust the ‘Norns’.⁴⁴

I have come to the end now of my time & paper and, I daresay, of your patience. While I remember; it would be as well for you to keep that sketch of the plot of Loki, so that we can refer to it in our correspondence, when necessary.

Yrs. very sincerely

Jack Lewis

P.S. Have the Honeymooners come home from Scotland yet? (J.)⁴⁵

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 232):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 18 October 1914

My dear Papy,

Although fully alive to the gravity of the situation and grateful for the kindness of your suggestion, it was not without a smile that I read your last letter. I hardly think that the siege of Bookham will begin before Xmas, so that I need not come home just yet. And seriously, why not study the lilies of the field?⁴⁶ All your worry and anxiety will not help the war at all: and the truest service that we who are not fighting can do is to conduct our lives in an ordinary way and not yield to panic.

The good ladies of Bookham are now in the highest state of felicity, having secured a formidable family of seven Belgian refugees, which they have duly installed in a cottage selected for the purpose. Luckily the mother of the family speaks French, so that the educated ladies of Bookham can talk to her: but the rest of the family speak nothing but Flemish. Yesterday I went with Mrs. K. to see them: tried my French on the mother and bombarded the others out of a phrase book with subtile converse like ‘Good morning: are you well: we are well: is the child well: it is fine: it is wet: is it wet etc.’ Of course they are not gentlemen; but very respectable and intelligent bourgeois.

Young Kirk was employed at his camp the other day in unloading a train of seriously wounded soldiers from the front: from whom he learned that the newspaper stories of German atrocities (mutilation of nurses, killing wounded etc.) were not in the least exaggerated.

I hope the dental troubles are a thing of the past. I suppose the Scotch Greevous honeymooners have returned by now, and that Arthur is back to work. He tells me that there is some talk of his going to Portrush with Mrs. Greeves,⁴⁷ which I should think was a chilly operation at this time of year.

The Gastonian arrangement continues to give every possible satisfaction that anybody could ask for: and the country is lovelier than ever. The theatrical lady is still here, so that when young Kirk comes down from his camp to spend the week end, we are quite a pleasant sized party. I am off to bed now, so good night.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 222-3):

[Gastons

20 October 1914]

My dear Arthur,

Many thanks for the letter, which I hope is becoming a regular ‘institution’, and apologies for my comparative slackness in replying. When I read your description of the boring evening I thought for a while of writing you a letter full of ‘war’–to hear your views afterwards. But, to be serious, what would you? Is the trivial round of family conversation ever worth listening to, whether we are at war or no? I can promise you that it is not at Little Lea and if Bernagh is different it must be an exceptional household. The vast majority of people, too, whom one meets outside the household, have nothing to say that we can be interested in. Their circle of interests is sternly practical, and it is only the few who can talk about the really important things–literature, science, music & art. In fact, this deadly practicalness is so impressed on my mind, that, when I have finished Loki, I am resolved to write a play against it.

The following idea has occurred to me: in Irish mythology the ruling deities are the light & beautiful Shee: but, we are told, before these came, the world was ruled by the Formons, hideous and monstrous oppressors. What are the exact details of the struggle between the two parties I do not know. But it ought to make a good allegorical story, in which the Formons could be taken as typical of the stern, ugly, money grubbing spirit, finally conquered by that of art & beauty, as exemplified by the lovely folk of the Shee. However, of course, this is only a castle in the air.

I sympathize with your difficulty in drawing a horse, as I have often made the attempt in the days when I fancied myself in that line. But of course that counts for nothing: as the easiest of your sketches would be impossible for me. But there are heaps of pictures in which you need not introduce the animal. I hope the music has started in real earnest by now. The longer I stay at this place, the better I like it. Mrs. K., like all good players–including yourself-is lazy and needs a lot of inducement before she performs.

yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 234):

[Gastons 25?

October 1914]

My dear Papy,

You have surpassed yourself. The popular press, of whose reliability the Russian rumour is an example, remarks on the possibility of an invasion: the idea, after being turned over in your mind, appears in your next letter, clothed as ‘it is absolutely certain that he is going to invade England’⁴⁸ Surely, Joffer, this is rather hyperbole? The one thing that Britain can depend upon is her fleet: and in any case Germany has her hands full enough. You will perhaps say that I am living in a fool’s paradise. ‘Maybe thon’. But, providing it only be a paradise is that not preferable to a wise and calculating inferno? Let us have wisdom by all means, so long as it makes us happy: but as soon as it runs against our peace of mind, let us throw it away and ‘carpe diem’.⁴⁹ I often wonder how you came to have such a profound and genuine philosopher for your son, don’t you?

I received and duly posted your letter to the Colonel: though why it should reach him any more easily from Bookham than from Belfast I don’t know. It seems to me outrageous that you can’t get a letter through. I suppose he is still at Aldershot and that they are allowed to receive letters? I think the ‘my bankers’⁵⁰ wheeze is immense. The brother of that Smythe fellow, who was staying here some days ago, has lost his arm and is coming home. It begins to come home to you as a personal element, doesn’t it? At present the only solution which Kirk will allow probable, is the absolute exhaustion of one, or more likely both parties: and that is a revolting prospect, is it not?

Last week I went up to town with Mrs. K. and the theatrical lady to the Coliseum to see the Russian ballet, which was very good: but the rest of the show seemed to me to be neither better nor worse than an average bill at our own old Hippodrome.

I hear from my Malvern correspondent, in the thankfulness of his soul, that it is half term. How different is his lot as he counts up the tardy lapse of hard, dreary, cheerless week after week, to mine: where the weeks slip away unasked and unobserved as at home. I am glad to see that the Captain was mentioned in despatches, and cannot see that there would be anything wrong in congratulating Hope.⁵¹ I am giving up the usual end of the letter tag about Gastons ‘giving all satisfaction’, as you may safely assume that things continue better than I could describe.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 233-4):

Gt. Bookham

Wednesday

28 October 1914]

Dear Arthur,

You ask me what a shee is: I reply that there is no such thing as ‘A’ Shee. The word (which, tho’ pronounced as I have spelled it, is properly in Irish spelled ‘Shidhe’) is a collective noun, signifying ‘the fairies’, or the gods,–since, in Irish these powers are identical. The common phraze ‘Banshee’, is derived from ‘Beän Shidhe’ which means ‘a woman of the Shee’: and the gods, as a whole, are often called ‘Aes Shidhe’, or ‘people of the S.’ The resemblance between this word ‘Aes’ and the Norse ‘Aesir’ has often been noted as indicating a common origin for Celtic & Teutonic races. So much for the etymology. But the word has a secondary meaning, developed from the first. It is used to indicate the ‘faery forts’ or dwelling places of the Shee: these are usually subterranean workings, often paved and roofed with stone & showing an advanced stage of civilization. These can be seen in a good many parts of Ireland. Who really built them is uncertain: but scholars, judging by the rude patterns on the door posts, put them down to the Danes. Another set say that they were made by the original inhabitants of Ireland, previous even to the Celts,–who of course, like all other Aryan people primarily came from Asia.

I am sorrey that my epistle is rather late in arrival this week: but what with people bothering from Malvern, and letters to be written home, I have not had many free evenings. I feel confidant of your always understanding that, when my letters fail to arrive, there is a good, or at least a reasonable explanation. Now that I have threshed out the question of Shee, and apologized, I don’t know that there is much to write beyond hoping that ‘Loki’ is proceding expeditiously in music & illustration.

Last week I was up with these people to the Coliseum: and, though of course (which by the way I see no prospect of) I had sooner have gone to some musical thing, yet I enjoyed myself. The Russian Ballet–and especially the music to it–was magnificent, and G. P. Huntley in a new sketch provoked some laughter. The rest of the show trivial & boring as music halls usually are.⁵² At ‘Gastons’ however, I have no lack of entertainment, having been recently introduced to Chopin’s Mazurkas, & Beethoven’s ‘Sonate Pathétique’.⁵³

No: there is no talk yet of going home. And, to tell you the truth, I am not sorry: firstly, I am very happy at Bookham, and secondly, a week at home, if it is to be spent in pulling long faces in Church & getting confirmed, is no great pleasure–a statement, I need hardly say, for yourself alone.

Yrs.

Jack Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 239-49):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 3 November 1914

My dear Papy,

If suddenly there descends upon innocent Leeborough a monstrosity of brown paper containing school books from Malvern, don’t lose your head: or in other words, Porch⁵⁴ having asked me what to do with some books I had forgotten, was asked by me to send them home, which he may do at any time. I do not want you to send them on.

This fellow Smythe who lost his arm at the front, has been telling all sorts of interesting things to Mrs. K., who was up to town to see him last week. I think they ought to be collected and published under the title of ‘The right way to get shot’. One is relieved to hear that it is not painful at the time.

What do you think of this latest outrage perpetuated by the slander, ignorance, and prejudice of the British nation on those who alone can support it? I mean of course the shameful way in which Prince Louis of Battenberg has been forced to resign.⁵⁵ He is, I hear, the only man in the Admiralty who knows his job: he has lived all his life in England: his patriotism, loyalty, and efficiency are admitted by all who have a right to judge. And yet, because a number of ignorant and illiterate clods (who have no better employment than that of abusing their betters) so choose, he must resign. This is what comes of letting a nation be governed by ‘the people’. ‘Vox populi, vox Diaboli’,⁵⁶ we might say, reversing an old but foolish proverb.

I suppose things in Belfast are much in the same condition as usual. I hope a few people are clearing off to the front. Some of those people one meets on the Low Holywood Road would be improved by shooting. Any news from our representative in the Army? I suppose he will hardly be out of England yet? I am so pleased at not forgetting to post the letter you sent to him that I shall be furious if you don’t get an answer. Has it ever struck you that one of the most serious consequences of this war is what Kirk calls ‘the survival of the unfittest’? All those who have the courage to do so and are physically sound, are going off to be shot: those who survive are moral and physical weeds–a fact which does not promise favourably for the next generation.

We are beginning to make a feeble attempt at winter here, but the weather is still beautifully mild. I hope you are keeping fit and in good spirits–(Yes thank you Papy, my cold is a good deal better!)

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 236-7):

[Gastons

4 November 1914]

Dear Arthur,

I suppose that I should, as is usual in my case begin my epistle with an apology for its tardiness: but that form of adress is becoming so habitual as to be monotonous, so that it may be taken for granted.

I was, if I may say so, not a little amused to hear you say in an offhand manner ‘The Celts used to retire to them in time of war’, when antiquarians have been disputing for ages: but of course you have grounds for your statement I admit. Your souteraines are, I imagine, but another variety of the same phenomena as my Shidhes: when I said ‘doorposts’ I did not imply the existence of doors, meaning only the stone pillars, commonly (I believe) found at the entrances to these excavations.

Great Bookham and the present arrangement continue to give every satisfaction which is possible. But there is one comfort which must inevitably be wanting anywhere except at home–namely, the ability to write whenever one wishes. For, though of course there is no formal obstacle, you will readily see that it is impossible to take out one’s manuscript and start to work in another’s house. And, when ideas come flowing upon me, so great is the desire of framing them into words, words into sentences, and sentences into metre, that the inability to do so, is no light affliction. You, when you are cut off for a few weeks from a piano, must experience much the same sensations. But it would be ridiculous for me to pretend that, in spite of this unavoidable trouble, I was not comfortable. Work and liesure, each perfect and complete of its kind, form an agreeable supplent to the other, strikingly different to the dreary labour and compulsory pasttimes of Malvern life. The glorious pageant of the waning year, lavishing her autumn glories on a lovely countryside, fills me, whenever I take a solitary walk among the neighbouring hills, with a great sense of comfort & peace.

So great is the selfishness of human nature, that I can look out from my snug nest with the same equanimity on the horrid desolation of the war, and the well known sorrows of my old school. I feel that this ought not to be so: but I can no more alter my disposition than I can change the height of my stature or the colour of my hair. It would be mere affectation to pretend that sympathy with those whose lot is not so happy as mine, seriously disturbs the tenour of my complacence. Whether this is the egotism of youth, some blemish in my personal character, or the common inheritance of humanity, I do not know. What is your opinion?

I am reading at present, for the second time, the Celtic plays of Yeats.⁵⁷ I must try & get them next time I am at home. Write soon, and tell me all that you are doing, reading & thinking.

Yours,

C. S. Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 240-1):

[Gastons

8? November 1914]

My dear Papy,

If bounty on the part of his weary audience could stop the sermon of the philosopher, I should be compelled to close our controversy of the paradise and inferno: but even the four, crisp, dainty postal orders (for which many thanks) cannot deter me from exposing the logical weakness of your position. The arguments, as you will recollect, upon which I based my theory, were briefly as follows: that when evils cannot be averted by him who suffers them, i.e. you and I, who cannot go into the army–he would do well to shut his eyes and pretend that they do not exist. For the evil, being in itself a fixed quantity, can neither be multiplied or diminished when it actually descends: but the agony of anticipation may be attenuated to nothing. Bearing these facts in mind, your imaginary dialogue, lively and picturesque tho’ it may be, is irrelevant: since your two friends are presumably in a position to volunteer, and their case therefore offers no parallel to our own. In short, you have shifted the ground of argument by substituting the description of a satanist for the demonstrations of a philosopher.

I carried out to the letter your directions about Warnie: or in other words, as he arranged nowhere I met him nowhere. A pity. But who are we to cavil at the arrangements of this great man. Seriously however, I know what your feelings must be when, to the annoyance arising from his shipshod methods at such a moment, is added the anxiety of his present position at the front.⁵⁸ Let me offer however such consolations as the case permits of. If, by the Grace of God, he returns unscathed from this hideous masque of death, it will be a sadder and wiser Warnie than he who went away: the indiscretions of a raw Malvern school boy. If, as we both hope and pray, this turns out to be the case, we may indeed feel, that in one home at least, this outburst of the primitive savagery of man will not have been without a compensation.

In the meantime, your worry about Palmes⁵⁹ need not be of much importance. I had the honour of meeting this gentleman on one of W’s visits to Malvern: he is a harmless, amiable idiot who will make no fuss, and the sum that he lent is, I believe, trifling. Surely too, it is rather hard to call a man a cad, just because he demands his own money back: even if he does so (I am convinced through sheer empty headedness) on a P.C.

Hoping that this will find you in good health and tolerable spirits, I remain,

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 239):

[Gastons

10 November 1914]

Dear Arthur,

It is the immemorial privilege of letter-writers to commit to paper things they would not say: to write in a more grandiose manner than that in which they speak: and to enlarge upon feelings which would be passed by unnoticed in conversation. For this reason I do not attach much importance to your yearnings for an early grave: not, indeed, because I think, as you suggest, that the wish for death is wrong or even foolish, but because I know that a cold in the head is quite an insufficient cause to provoke such feelings. I am glad Monday found you in a more reasonable frame of mind.

By the way, I hear nothing about music or illustrations now! Eh? I hope that this can be accounted for by the fact that both are finished. I suppose the former has been performed in the Ulster Hall, by this time, and the latter exhibited–where? Here the sentence comes to a stop: for I have suddenly realized that there is no picture gallery in Belfast. It never occurred to me before what a disgrace that was. I notice, too, that you answer my questions about ‘doing’ and ‘reading’ but keep a modest silence about ‘thinking’. It is often difficult to tell, is not it? And seldom advisable: which makes me think about the hard question of truth. Is it always advisable to tell the truth? Certainly not, say I: sometimes actually criminal. And yet, useful as it is for everyday life, that doctrine will land one in sad sophistries if carried to its conclusion. What is your view?

The other day I was in Guildford (it is a glorious old English town with those houses that [get] bigger towards the top; a Norman castle; a street built up a preposterous hill; and beautiful environments) where I picked up a volume of Wm. Morris’s lyric poems in that same edition in which you have ‘The Wood at the Worlds end’.⁶⁰ So delighted was I with my purchase, that I have written up to the publisher for the same author’s ‘Sigurd the Volsung’:⁶¹ which, as I need hardly tell you, is a narrative poem, dealing with Siegfried (=Sigurd) & Brünhilde, as described in the legends of Iceland, earlier than those of Germany. What is your opinion of Ainsworth? I see you are reading his ‘Old St. Pauls’.⁶² I must confess I find him dreary–a faint echo of Scott, with all the latter’s faults of lengthiness and verbosity and not of his merits of lively narrative & carefully-welded plots.

When you talk about the difficulty of getting the necessary materials for one’s pursuits, I am thankful that, in my case, when the opportunity is at hand, the means–paper & pen–is easily found. Whereas you, unfortunately, need a piano or a box of paints and a block of drawing paper.

I hope there will be some relics of us left when we have settled that question of souteraines.

Yrs sincerely,

Jack Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 244-5):

[Gastons

13? November 1914]

My dear Papy,

I was glad to receive your letter this evening (Friday) as I was beginning to get anxious: and thought that I would write my reply at once while your words were still in my head. I must admit that my defence of Palmes was founded on a misconception of his plans–which is excusable, in as much as, if you saw the gentleman in the flesh, you would never imagine that he had the intelligence for such an idea.

After this magnanimous confession of my defeat, I cannot refrain from observing that there is no reply to my last step in the ‘Paradise-Inferno’ controversy. But as no further disputation is possible after my crushing and exhaustive demonstration, that is not much to be wondered at.

Although perhaps the occasion demands a graver view, I cannot restrain a smile when I think of the colonel staying at a first class hotel in ‘Haver’ and strutting about in his uniform like a musical comedy hero.

It seems a great pity this confirmation should occur when it does, thus cutting out at least a week of valuable time. Although fully sensible that it is of course of more importance than the work, yet if it could possibly be managed at some more convenient date in the near future, I should think it an advantage. I believe there is one held at Easter, which I might attend with less derangement of our plans. I would ask you to consider this point before mentioning the matter to Kirk. I am not quite clear from your letter as to what you propose to do. As I read it, three interpretations are admissable.

1 That you bring me home for the necessary time and send me back for the odd weeks.

2 That you add from Dec. 6th–Xmas on to the ordinary holidays.

3 That you have ordinary length holidays, only beginning on the 6th and ending earlier.

Of these alternatives, (a) is practicable enough, but necessitates a tiresome and expensive amount of extra travelling: (b) is agreeable, but wasteful of time and quite unthinkable. (c) is not only extremely alien from all our usual plans, but would also put Kirk to a great deal of trouble and annoyance. So that none of the three is really satisfactory. However, you will discuss the point in your next letter. If this Kodotta about cross channel boats goes on much longer, the matter will not rest in our hands.

Hoping for a continuance of health on your part, as well as an improvement in spirits, I am

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 282):

[Gastons

17 November 1914]

My dear Arthur,

Do you ever wake up in the morning and suddenly wonder why you have not bought such-and-such a book long ago, and then decided that life without it will be quite unbearable? I do frequently: the last attack was this morning à propos of Malory’s ‘Morte D’Arthur’, and I have just this moment written to Dent’s for it. I am drawing a bow at a venture and getting the Everyman two-shilling ‘Library’ edition.⁶³ What is it like, do you know? As for the book itself, I really can’t think why I have not got it before. It is really the English national epic, for Paradise Lost⁶⁴ is a purely literary poem, while it is the essence of an epic to be genuine folk-lore. Also, Malory was the Master from whom William Morriss copied the style of his prose Tales.

Which reminds me of your criticism of the ‘Well’. I quite see your point, and, of course, agree that the interests of the tale reach their climax in the great scene at the World’s End: my reply is that the interest of the journey home is of quite a different nature. It is pleasant to pick up all the familiar places and characters and see the same circumstances applied to the heroe’s new role of ‘Friend of the Well’. The Battle-piece at the end is very fine, and the ending, tho’, as was inevitable, conventional, leaves one in a pleasant, satisfied state of mind. The only part that I found really tedious was Roger’s historical survey of the Burg & the Scaur. In fact, Roger was only a lay-figure brought in to conduct the Ladye’s machinations with Ralph, and why he was not allowed to drop into oblivion when they were over, I cannot imagine.

How I run on! And yet, however many pages one may fill in a letter, it is only a tithe of what ten minutes conversation would cover: it is curious, too, how the thoughts that bubble up so freely when one meets a friend, seem to congeal on paper, when writing to him.

I wonder what you, who complain of loneliness when surrounded by a numerous family and wide circle of friends, would do if you could change places with me. Except my grinder and his wife, I think I have not spoken to a soul this week: not of course that I mind, much less complain; on the contrary, I find that the people whose society I prefer to my own are very few and far between. The only one of that class in Bookham, is still in the house, though they tell me she is up and about.⁶⁵ Of course, as they say at home, this solitude is a kind of egotism: and yet I don’t know that they are right. The usual idea is that if you don’t want to talk to people, you do so because you think they’re intellectually your inferiors. But its not a question of inferiority: if a man talks to me for an hour about golf, war & politics, I know that his mind is built on different lines from mine: but whether better or worse is not to the point.

My only regret at present is that I cannot see Co. Down in the snow: I am sure some of our favourite haunts look very fine. We have been deeply covered with it all week, and the pine wood near hear, with the white masses on ground and trees, forms a beautiful sight. One almost expects a ‘march of dwarfs’ to come dashing past! How I long to break away into a world where such things were true: this real, hard, dirty, Monday morning modern world stifles one. Progress in health and spirits and music! Write soon and give all your thoughts, actions, readings and any local gossip, for the benefit of

yours sincerely

Jack Lewis

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 246):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 20 November 1914

My dear Papy,

I received your answer this evening and decided to be guided by your views, or in other words my objections to the ‘Monstre’ holiday are not insuperable. Break the news gently to Kirk, as I am not sure he will relish the interruption.

I hope you will enjoy prosecuting dear Mr. Russell:⁶⁶ he will probably give you ‘something to be going on with’ in the way of back chat. Tell me any news of Warnie as soon as you hear it. I will stop now, as this is only a ‘letter extraordinary’.

your loving

son Jack

Lewis returned to Belfast on 28 November and was confirmed in St Mark’s on 6 December. Writing of this in SBJ X, he said: ‘My relations to my father help to explain (I am not suggesting they excuse) one of the worst acts of my life. I allowed myself to be prepared for confirmation, and confirmed, and to make my first Communion, in total disbelief, acting a part, eating and drinking my own condemnation.’

TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 276-7):

[Little Lea,

Strandtown.

22 December 1914]

⁶⁷–but perhaps I’d better write in English. This has become such a habit you know, but I beg your pardon.

It is a pity that you happen to be at the front just now, as–at last–an Opera Company came to Belfast while you were away. It was the ‘Moody Manners’, but that you have heard P. talking about. They were quite good, though somewhat early Victorian in the way of scenery and gestures. We went to ‘Faust’⁶⁸ and ‘Trovatore’.⁶⁹ The former was perfectly glorious, well sung and everything. It is a very good opera and of course knowing a good deal of the music and having read Goethe, I enjoyed it very well. Of course I have discovered that it is no use expecting to hear the overture or preludes to the acts at Belfast, as everyone talks all the time as if nothing were going on. Il Trovatore, as we have always agreed, is a very mediocre thing anyway, and, with the exception of the soprano and baritone, was villainously sung. I don’t want to hear it again.

On the following Friday we got badly let down: the Glenmachonians Greeves’s and I had made up a party to go to ‘Samson and Delilah’,⁷⁰ which we were all looking forward to immensely. Imagine our feelings when the cod at the door told us it has been changed to ‘Fra Diavolo’–a very inferior comic opera of Auber’s!⁷¹ I seem to be fated never to get fair treatment from that theatre management. Fra Diavolo impresses on one how very badly the comic opera needed reform when Gilbert and Sullivan came to the rescue:⁷² it is the old style–bandits, a foolish English earl, innkeepers ‘and sich’. It was without exception the greatest drivel I ever listened to. There has been nothing worth noticing at the Hippodrome lately. Those two people–I’ve forgotten their names–who do the sketch about the broken mirror, were at the Opera House last week. The Opera House is now in the grip of that annual monstrosity the Grand Xmas Panto. I suppose I ought to be reconciled to it as fate by now. One good thing is that Tom Foy is coming, but of course the whole thing will be awfully patriotic.

I like your asking why I didn’t go to meet you in town. You omitted the trifling precaution of telling me your address–or did you intend that I should go up to a policeman in Piccadilly and ask, ‘Have you seen my brother anywhere?’

The new records are a most interesting and varied selection, comprising ‘The calf of gold’ from Faust, with a vocal ‘Star of Eve’⁷³ on the other side: the Drinking and Duel scenes from Faust: Saint Saen’s ‘Danse Macabre’:⁷⁴ Grieg’s ‘March of the Dwarfs’:⁷⁵ and ‘Salve Minerva’ from Faust. There are also several new books, but most of them are not in your line: the only two you might care for are the works of Shelley and Keats.

We were up at Glenmachan yesterday (Monday) evening to a supper party of Kelsie’s where you went representing a novel.⁷⁶ All the usual push were there of course, and I quite enjoyed it. A number of people besides, whom I had never seen before, also turned up. There was one rather pretty thing whom Lily⁷⁷ is arranging as ‘suitable’ for Willie Greeves⁷⁸–in opposition I suppose to the Taylor affair. Of course it is all very nice, but don’t you thank the gods you haven’t got a sister?

One other piece of local gossip is so funny that you really must hear it. Do you know a vulgar, hideous old harridan on the wrong side of 40, a Miss Henderson, who lives at Norwood Towers? She’s just the sort of creature who would live there. Well the latest wheeze is that you meet her every time you go to Glenmachan, running after Bob.⁷⁹ And the beauty of the thing is that she makes Bob bustle about and talk to her and flirt with her. I know you can’t imagine Bob ‘courtin’. I promise you it is a thing of beauty. While admiring the creature’s energy in getting a move on anyone like him, I don’t want her to get into the connection even as remotely as the sister in law of my second cousins.

You’re becoming quite a hero in your absence, and I can always command a large and attentive audience by spinning yarns about ‘The other day my brother, who is at the front etc.’ Hope is here now, and the Captain was home for a few days–I suppose you saw that he is now a Major? Why couldn’t you manage to get a few days off? You would at any rate have a change of clothes and diet if you did. Last week we went to the Messiah with Carrie Tubb⁸⁰ as soprano–she can sing, but she’s as ugly as the day is long. The contralto, altho she hadn’t much of a voice, was an improvement in that way–really quite a magnificent creature. Rather like the woman whom we met in France going about with the Katinarsky’s. I wondered if it was the same, but I suppose not, as the other would be younger. Of course Handel is not your ideal or mine as a composer: but it is always fair to remember that he wrote in the days of spinets and harpsichords, before anyone had discovered that there could be any point in music beyond a sort of abstract prettiness. Of course the inappropriateness of his tunes is appalling–as for instance where he makes the chorus repeat some twenty times that they have all gone astray like sheep in the same tone of cheerful placidity that they’d use for saying it was a fine evening.

Yes: the Kirk arrangement is absolutely it. The war is mainly interesting to him as illustrating some remark he made to ‘Mr. Dods’ fifty years ago. The only trouble about Bookham is our dear Mrs. Crutwell. I don’t know if it was the same in your time, but she has lately developed a mania for ‘seeing young people enjoying themselves’–and you know what that means. Write some time.

Yours, Jack

P.S. Did you ever get the letter I wrote from Larne?

1 William Eyre Hamilton Quennel (1898-?) entered School House the same term as Jack, and left Malvern in 1916. From there he went to Sandhurst, and in 1917 was gazetted into the 7th Dragoon Guards. He was promoted to lieutenant the same year. After the war he trained to be a doctor at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. During World War II he served as medical officer in the Essex Yeomanry

2 ‘The good matron’ was Miss Backhurst, of whom Warnie wrote: ‘She was better known and abominated by many generations of School House boys under her usual appellation of “The Old Bitch”. She was a weak, spiteful, fussy, prying old woman, absurdly sensitive on the point of dignity, and like so many stupid women, always seeing ridicule where none was intended’ (LP IV: 131).

3 Sir Arnold Lunn, The Harrovians (1913).

4 James Craig, first Viscount Craigavon (1871-1940), statesman. He was born in Belfast and was the MP for East Down 1906-18; MP for Mid-Down 1918-21; parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Pensions 1919-20 and to the Admiralty 1920-1. He was chief secretary to Sir Edward Carson in opposing home rule, and was active in organizing means of resistance in Ulster. He was the first prime minister of Northern Ireland 1921-40. Captain Craig, as he was in 1914, was a very popular figure in the North of Ireland, and his house was about a hundred yards from Little Lea.

5 H.M.A. Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas (1908).

6 Gerard Parker (1896-?) was in School House 1910-14, and was school prefect. After leaving Malvern he went to Sandhurst, passing from there in 1915 into the Devon Regiment. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1917 and during the war he was mentioned in despatches. He made captain in 1926, and retired in 1931.

7 Canon James had been succeeded as headmaster by Frank Sansome Preston (1875-1970) who had been educated at Marlborough College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was an assistant master at Marlborough 1899-1914, and headmaster of Malvern 1914-37.

8 In SBJ VII Lewis said that while ‘Smewgy’ was the major blessing of Malvern, the other ‘undisguised blessing of the Coll was “the Gurney”, the school library; not because it was a library, but because it was a sanctuary As the negro used to become free on touching English soil, so the meanest boy was “unfaggable” once he was inside the Gurney.’

9 Robert Bridges (1844-1930), Poet Laureate from 1913. His poetry appeared in a single volume in 1912, and this was probably what Lewis was reading.

10 Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847).

11 Annie Strahan was the cook-housekeeper at Little Lea, 1911-17.

12 The tragedy, Norse in subject and Greek in form, which Lewis was writing.

13 The Greeves’s home in Circular Road was directly across from Little Lea.

14 Joel 1:4.

15 Arthur Christopher Benson, The Upton Letters (1905).

16 The Times (2 June 1914), p. 9.

17 Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), composer, who rose to international fame about 1900 through his choral and orchestral music. He was living in Worcester at this time.

18 John Henry Newman, Verses on Various Occasions (1868).

19 Newman’s Dream of Gerontius depicts the journey of the soul to God at the hour of death. In 1900 it was set to music by Elgar, who regarded the work as his masterpiece. Lewis came to like the Dream very much in later life and in a discussion of Purgatory in chapter 20 of Letters to Malcolm (1964) he said ‘the right view returns magnificently in Newman’s Dream.

20 Cedric Edwin Hamley (1899-1997) was an exact contemporary of Jack Lewis in School House, having arrived in the third term of 1913. He left in 1915 and served in the war with the London Rifle Brigade. He was afterwards a 2nd lieutenant in the RAF, and a captain in the 3rd London Fusiliers from 1922-28. He worked in the family business, C. Hamley Ltd. in London.

21 It is reproduced in LP IV: 198-200.

22 William Shakespeare, As You Like It (1623).

23 Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).

24 George Louis Kirkpatrick (1882-1943) was the only child of Mr and Mrs Kirkpatrick. He was born 23 May 1882 when his father was still headmaster of Lurgan College, and educated in England at Charterhouse 1896-99. From there he went to work for the electrical engineers, Browett, Lindley & Co., English Makers of Patricroft, Manchester. When Mr Kirkpatrick retired from Lurgan he and Mrs Kirkpatrick moved to Manchester to be near him. Now Louis was in a camp near Great Bookham. He was general manager of Bruce Peebles & Co. (Engineers) in Edinburgh from 1932 until his death in 1943.

25 Arthur had given him H.G. Wells’ The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories [1911].

26 In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811).

27 Homer, the Greek poet generally believed to have lived in about the eighth century BC, is famous for his two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Mr Kirkpatrick wasted no time preparing Lewis to undertake these Greek masterpieces. ‘We opened our books at Iliad, Book I,’ Lewis wrote in SBJ IX. ‘Without a word of introduction Knock read aloud the first twenty lines or so in the “new” pronunciation, which I had never heard before…He then translated, with a few, a very few explanations, about a hundred lines. I had never seen a classical author taken in such large gulps before. When he had finished he handed me over Crusius’ Lexicon and, having told me to go through again as much as I could of what he had done, left the room. It seems an odd method of teaching, but it worked. At first I could travel only a very short way along the trail he had blazed, but every day I could travel further…I was beginning to think in Greek. That is the great Rubicon to cross in learning any language.’ Lewis was using Gottlieb Christian Crusius, A Complete Greek and English Lexicon for the Poems of Homer and the Homeridae: Illustrating the Domestic, Religious, Political, and Military Condition of the Heroic Age, and Explaining the Most Difficult Passages. Translated with corrections and additions by Henry Smith. New Edition revised and edited by Thomas Kerchever Arnold (1862).

28 Eric Robertson Dodds (1893-1979), classical scholar, was from Banbridge, County Down. He was educated at Campbell College, and University College, Oxford. At this time he was reading Literae Humaniores at University College. He took his BA in 1917. Dodds was Lecturer in Classics at University College, Reading 1919-24, Professor of Greek at the University of Birmingham 1924-36 and Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, 1936-60. See his autobiography, Missing Persons (1977).

29 Martin Gilbert, First World War (1994), p. 25.

30 St Nicolas Church, the earliest parts of which were built in the 11th century, is mentioned in the Domesday Book. The Reverend George Shepheard Bird was rector 1905-26. Jane Austen went to St Nicolas often when her godfather was vicar.

31 ‘The Nietzschean Way’, The Times Literary Supplement (1 October 1914), p. 442.

32 i.e. Mr Kirkpatrick.

33 H.T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England (1857; 1861).

34 The Ewart family who lived in nearby Glenmachan House. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix.

35 For some weeks the Germans had been intent on reaching the Belgian and French coastline. In an attempt to prolong the defence of their port city, Antwerp, the Belgian government appealed to Britain for troops. Thousands of British troops rushed to the aid of Antwerp, but by 10 October it was impossible to hold it against the Germans. By this time tens of thousands of Belgian refugees had arrived in England.

36 A nickname given Warnie by his father and brother.

37 Virgil (70-19 BC), the greatest Roman poet, wrote four ‘Georgics’, which are didactic poems in hexameters on Italy and traditional ways of rural life.

38 T.W. Rolleston, Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (1912).

39 Whether Arthur Greeves ever attempted any part of his share in the musical drama is not known, but Lewis’s lyric text of ‘Loki Bound’ filled 32 pages of a notebook. The only part of this which has survived consists of 819 lines reproduced in LP IV: 218-20.

40 Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste was first performed in 1878.

41 The nickname of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonata No. 14 in C sharp, Opus 27, No. 2 (1802).

42 Frédéric Chopin’s Marche Funêbre was first performed in 1827.

43 Edvard Grieg’s piano solo, the Peer Gynt Suite No. 2 (1893).

44 The female Fates of Norse mythology.

45 The ‘Honeymooners’ were probably Arthur’s brother, Thomas Greeves, and Winifred Lynas, who were married on 22 September 1914.

46 Matthew 6:28: ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.’

47 This was Arthur’s mother, Mrs Mary Margretta (Gribbon) Greeves. See Arthur Greeves in the Biographical Appendix.

48 The rumour that Germany would invade England persisted for a long time and worried Albert greatly. It may have started with an article in The Times (15 October 1914) entitled ‘Will Invasion be Tried?’ in which the war correspondent said: ‘Now that the war is reaching the climax of its violence we must anticipate that all the living forces of Germany will be thrown into the conflict, and that the German navy will no longer remain inert. We must expect to be attacked at home, and must not rest under any comforting illusions that we shall not be assailed. As an attack upon us can have no serious object, unless the intention is to land an expedition in England for the purposes of compelling us to sign a disastrous peace, it is well that we should look the situation calmly in the face, and reckon up not only Germany’s power to do us harm, but also our power of resistance and means for improving it’ (p. 4).

49 ‘Seize the day’. Horace, Odes, Book I, Ode 11,l.8, in which the poet urges Leuconoe to take thought for the present and not to worry inordinately about the future.

50 In a letter of 12 October, in which Warnie asked his father for a loan, he explained that he was owed money by Sandhurst and that ‘I have communicated with my bankers’ (LP IV: 229).

51 Their cousin, Hope Ewart (1882-1934), married Captain George Harding (1877-1957) in 1911 and they went to live in Dublin. Harding joined the army in 1900 and had been a member of the Army Service Corps since 1901. He was promoted to major in October 1914. He gained the DSO during the war and retired in 1928 with the rank of colonel.

52 The programme at the London Coliseum between 19 and 24 October included the Imperial Russian Ballet’s performance of Fleurs d’Orange and G.P. Huntley acting in Eric Blore’s A Burlington Arcadian.

53 Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata No. 8, ‘Pathétique’ (1799).

54 Robert Bagehot Porch (1875-1962) was a pupil at Malvern College 1888-94. From there he went to Trinity College, Oxford, receiving his BA in 1898. He joined the staff of Malvern College in 1904 and taught there most of his life.

55 Prince Louis of Battenburg (1854-1921) was born in Austria. He moved to England when he was a boy and had risen through the ranks of the Royal Navy to become First Sea Lord. Despite all that Winston Churchill could do, as first lord of the Admiralty, Prince Louis was forced to resign. He relinquished his German titles and the family name was changed to Mountbatten.

56 ‘The voice of the people is the voice of the Devil’.

57 W.B. Yeats had published many Celtic plays. Lewis may have been thinking of his Plays for an Irish Theatre (1911).

58 Warnie crossed to France with the Army Service Corps on 4 November. They were part of the British Expeditionary Force stationed at Le Havre.

59 Guy Nicholas Palmes (1894-1915) entered Malvern in 1908, and left in 1911 for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He joined the Yorkshire Light Infantry at the beginning of the war and was promoted to lieutenant in 1915. He was killed in action near Ypres on 9 May 1915.

60 He meant William Morris’s The Well at the World’s End (1896).

61 William Morris, Sigurd the Volsung (1876).

62 William Harrison Ainsworth, Old St Paul’s (1841).

63 Le Morte D’Arthur is the title generally given to the cycle of Arthurian legends by Sir Thomas Malory, finished in 1470 and printed by Caxton in 1485. The version Lewis began with was Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, with an introduction by Professor Rhys, 2 vols., Everyman’s Edition [1906].

64 John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667).

65 This was probably Mrs Kirkpatrick’s ‘theatrical’ friend, Miss MacMullen, whom Lewis mentioned to his father on 13 October.

66 Mr Russell was a harmless, but terrifying, lunatic who was for many years a well-known figure in and around St Mark’s.

67 ‘O dearest brother, I am sorry not to have written.’

68 An opera by Charles Gounod, based on the Faust of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and first produced in 1859.

69 Il Trovatore, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, was first performed in 1853.

70 Samson et Dalila, an opera by Camille Saint-Saëns, was first performed in 1877.

71 Daniel Auber’s opera Fra Diavolo was first performed in 1830.

72 W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911), playwright and librettist, and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), composer, together wrote many very popular operettas. They include The Pirates of Penzance performed in 1879, The Mikado performed in 1885, and The Yeoman of the Guard performed in 1888.

73 ‘Bright Star of Eve’ is from Charles Gounod’s New Part Songs (1872 or 1873).

74 Camille Saint-Saëns’s orchestral work Danse Macabre was first performed in 1872.

75 ‘March of the Dwarfs’ is a piano piece in Edvard Grieg’s Lyriske Stykker (1891).

76 Their mother’s sister, Mrs Lilian ‘Lily’ Suffern (1860-1934), wrote to Warnie on 3 February 1915 about the book party. ‘On 21st Dec.,’ she said, ‘Kelsie gave a book party which was very amusing… Some of the books were very good–too good for me, for I couldn’t guess them. Your father’s was Edged Tools, a fan and a knife. Clive’s was The Three Musketeers– a bit of paper with “Soldier’s Three” on it, it made us all mad because it was so plain, and we did not (many) guess it. Miss Murray’s was a cutting from that day’s Newsletter of the birthdays–The Newcomes. Another cutting from the Newsletter won the prize–Advt. of rise in the price of coals–The Sorrows of Satan. No one hardly guessed Hugh McCreddy’s–yet it was very good–a picture of a man with his mouth wide open in a laugh–L’’Homme Qui Rit. I had a picture of the Kaiser, nicely framed in ribbon–The Egoist (Meredith). Everyone guessed it The Lunatic at Large. Three old ladys sitting talking (picture of), tied with green ribbon was Gossips Green. Willie Jaffe’s was bad–a black African with a white line down it–Across the Dark Continent’ (LP IV: 289-90).

(Henry Seton Merriman wrote With Edged Tools (1894); Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers (1844-5); William Makepeace Thackeray wrote The Newcomes (1853-4); Marie Corelli wrote The Sorrows of Satan (1895); Victor Hugo wrote L’’Homme Qui Rit (1869); George Meredith wrote The Egoist (1879); Joseph Storer Clouston wrote The Lunatic at Large (1899); Alice Dudeney wrote Gossips Green (1906); and Sir Henry Morton Stanley wrote Through the Dark Continent (1878).)

Kelso Ewart (1886-1966) was the fourth child of Lady Ewart, the cousin of Flora Lewis, and her husband Sir William. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix.

77 Mary Elizabeth ‘Lily’ Greeves (1888-1976) was Arthur Greeves’s sister. She married Lewis’s cousin Charles Gordon Ewart (1885-1936) on 15 December 1915. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix.

78 This was Arthur’s brother, William Edward Greeves (1890-1960).

79 Robert Heard Ewart (1879-1939). See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix.

80 Carrie Tubb (1876-1976) was an English soprano much in demand as an oratorio singer. She was a favourite singer of operatic excepts, notably the final scene of Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.

1915

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 285-6):

[Gastons

24? January 1915]¹

My dear Papy,

I have arrived and settled down here in due course, and everything progresses favourably, including the German. We had it snowing hard all day on Thursday, beautiful snow and bright frosty sun until Saturday, and are now enduring the thaw. (Yes; I did change my socks. No; there are no holes in my shoes. Yes, thanks, I have plenty of warm underclothing.) I hope you have by this time got rid of your cough, and, did I not know the utter futility of so doing, I should advise you to be careful. However, as you will doubtless reply, my playing the anxious adviser of a patient who will not obey orders, is rather like Satan rebuking sin.² But all joking apart, do take any care of yourself that you reasonably can, and don’t refuse harmless precautions for no reason.

That Smythe boy, the brother of the one who lost his arm, was home for a few days and lunched at Gastons on Wednesday: he tells us that his brother is going out again as soon as he is better–so hard are we pressed that even cripples whose worth is known will be taken in some departments! What this argues as to the paucity of our troops in general, and the old officer’s contempt for the new volunteers who are to come, you will readily imagine. Smythe also directly contradicts the reports of the newspapers about the Indian troops whom he declares to be worthless, and absolutely unfitted for trench fighting: they have too, an unpleasant habit of not burying their dead, which contributes a good deal to the discomfort of European men anywhere near. But of course this is only one man’s story, and the longer this war goes on the less credulous we become. Kirk has many amusing reflections, as usual, on the present crisis, especially when the curate came in yesterday at afternoon tea and told a number of patriotic lies about Germany and the Germans. Kirk then proceeded with great deliberation to prove step by step that his statements were fallacious, impossible, and ridiculous. The rest of the party including Mrs. K., Louis, and myself enjoyed it hugeously.

Thanks for my Classical Library which I have received. In the course of the week I shall return Munro’s Iliad I-XII³ which was not asked for: after which fact has been explained gently to Carson you will tell his remains to give you in exchange Merry’s Odyssey I-XII,⁴ which was asked for. Kirk also tells me to ask for ‘Tacitus’s Agricola’,⁵ any edition except Macmillan’s.

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 286-7):

[Gastons

26 January 1915]

My dear Arthur,

I wonder would hunting be good sport? The matter ocurred to me, not because I am really interested in it, but because I have just returned from a compulsory chase–trying to find out where the bit at the top of page 2 of your letter was meant to come in. Now, faint & perspiring, I am enjoying the fruits of my labours.

By this time you will probably have finished ‘Villette’.⁶ What do you think of the ending? I can just hear you saying, ‘Cracked–absolutely!’. It certainly is most unsatisfactory, but yet a touch of genius. I fancy it is the only novel in existence that leaves you in a like uncertainty. Merriman is a far cry from the Brontes. Both of course are good, but while they should be sipped with luxurious slowness in the winter evening, he may be read in a cheap copy on top of a tram. And yet I don’t know: of course his novels are melodrama, but then they are the best melodrama ever written, while passages like the ‘Storm’ or the ‘Wreck’ in the Grey Lady, or the Reconciliation between the hero and his father in ‘Edged Tools’, are as good things as English prose contains.⁷

The remark about the Maiden Islands was really quite smart for you. You might have it framed? Also such gems of orthography as ‘simpathise’ and ‘phisically’ which appeared in your last correspondance, tho’ of course I, being almost as bad, have no right to complain.

The weather here is perfectly damnable, there having been scarcely a couple of hours’ sunshine since I left home. Now that my friends have gone, there is nothing to do but sit & read or write when it rains, and consequently I have nearly finished The Morte D’arthur. I am more pleased at having bought it every day, as it has opened up a new world to me. I had no idea that the Arthurian legends were so fine (The name is against them, isn’t it??) Malory is really not a great author, but he has two excellent gifts, (1) that of lively narrative and (2) the power of getting you to know characters by gradual association. What I mean is, that, although he never sits down–as the moderns do–to describe a man’s character, yet, by the end of the first volume Launcelot & Tristan, Balin & Pellinore, Morgan Le Fay & Isoud are all just as much real, live people as Paul Emanuel or Mme Beck.⁸ The very names of the chapters, as they spring to meet the eye, bear with them a fresh, sweet breath from the old-time, faery world, wherein the author moves. Who can read ‘How Launcelot in the Chapel Perilous gat a cloth from a Dead corpse’ or ‘How Pellinore found a damosel by a Fountain, and of the Jousts in the Castle of Four Stones’, and not hasten to find out what it’s all about?

To obey my own theory that a letter should tell of doings, readings, thinkings, I will conclude by saying that I am trying to find some suitable theme for my Celtic narrative Poem: there are heaps of stories but mostly too long. Fare-thee-well.

yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

N.B. This was written on the same day as I got your letter, but I forgot to post it. Mille pardons. J.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

2 February 1915]

Dear Arthur,

The first essential point for a letter writer to master is that of making himself intelligable to his reader. Or, to come down from my high horse, what was the (it?) in brackets meant for? A thousand pardons for my dulness, only I utterly failed to follow your wheeze: please explain in your next epistle.

I am deep in Morte D’Arthur by this time, and it is really the greatest thing I’ve ever read. It is strangely different from William Morris, although by subject & language they challenge comparison. One is genuine, and the other, tho’ delightful, must, of course, be only an artificial reproduction. You really ought to read your copy of it, or at any rate parts of it, as the connecting chain between book and book is not very tightly drawn. I don’t think it can be the Library Edition, that those people have sent me, as it does not agree with your description at all, being bound in plum-coloured leather, with pale-blue marker attached. However, partly through my keenness to read the book & partly because it was a very handsome binding, I did not send it back.

By the way, is there anything the matter with my father, as I have not heard from him for some time now? Or perhaps it is only this submarine nonsense that makes the conveyance of letters uncertain: which reminds me, that, though I do not usually take much interest in the war, yet it would be unpleasantly brought home to me if I had to spend my holydays in England.⁹

Your remarks á propos of loneliness are quite true, and I admit that what I said before was rather not, as uncongenial companions produce in reality a worse desolation than actual solitude.

I am glad to hear you have read Esmond:¹⁰ it is one of my favourite novels, and I hardly know which to praise most, the wonderful, musical, Queen Anne English, or the delicate beauty of the story. True, I did rather resent the history, and still maintain, that when a man sets out to write a novel he has no right to ram an European War down your throat–it is like going back to Henty!¹¹ Did you ever try that arch-fiend?

I am surprised that there is no snow in Ulster as we had a week of good, thick, firm, ‘picture’ snow–and very much I enjoyed it. And other things too! She is better now, up & about, and we have progressed very rapidly. In fact the great event is actually fixed–fixed!–do you realize that? I don’t think I’ve ever been so bucked about anything in my life, she’s an awfully decent sort.¹² But I suppose this is boring you, so I must cut short my raptures–& my letter.

Yours

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 292-3):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 3 February 1915

My dear Papy,

As you will be by this time accustomed to my using ‘this week’ as synonymous with ‘next week’, I will make no further mention of that matter than to say that the Iliad which you are to exchange is being sent by the same post as this. I must confess to extraordinary dullness in failing to catch any point–if point there be–in your remark, ‘now for a nasty one’: ‘I found a Homer’. Why a nasty one? The fact that you have begun to suffer from a mania for sending poor, unnecessary unoffending books about the channel is nothing which should disturb the peace of mind of the philosophers of Gastons.

Talking about the channel reminds me of this morning’s news. Of course the really important feature of this submarine work is not so much the actual danger to goods and individuals as the inevitable ‘scare’ which it will cause, and the injury to business arising from that. I suppose this was their intention. As for the Zepplin talk, it seems to me to be rather childish folly on the part of the Germans: a few babies and an odd chimney stack cannot afford a recompense proportionate to the labour, expense and danger of managing an aerial raid. The only point is the moral influence, which again depends entirely on the amount of ‘guts’ of the victims.

I am glad to hear that the new Kiplings are poems, as we have had none of them yet. The question as to whether he was a greater poet or proseur is one of those everlasting things. Perhaps however, we may admit that someone else might possibly have written his best poems, but there is only one man alive who could have written ‘Kim’ or the ‘Jungle books’ or ‘Puck’.¹³ I am not sure whether I have read the Seven Seas or not. Is it there that the ballads about the prehistoric Song-Man and Picture Man (the story of Ung) occurs?¹⁴ I remember they make a very interesting criticism on artists and their public, ancient and modern, and impressed me greatly.

We have had one day of spring and are now paying for it by a wind and a rain that would take you off your feet. My German is progressing with such alarming success that I am rather afraid they will put me under suspicious as a spy! Keep well.

your loving son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 296-7):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 13 February 1915

My dear Papy,

As Spenser naively remarks at the beginning of about the thousandth canto of his poem,

‘Oh, what an endlesse work I have in hand’,¹⁵

so might a parent doomed to supply an ignorant philosopher with the forgotten necessities of life echo the sentiment. Or in other words there is ‘still one river to cross’, and I really do think this will be the end. What I want is a copy of the Helena of Euripides,¹⁶ which you will find kicking its heels somewhere in the little end room. The shoes have just arrived, for which many thanks: and by the way, when I want to pay for anything, we’ll let you know boss, don’t worry.

I am very annoyed that an opera company should come while I am away from home, although indeed it is a common enough state of affairs. Perhaps we are accustomed to regard John Harrison as an oratorio singer and it would be rather a shock to hear him in opera, although I have often seen records of him in operatic songs. I think you would be wise if you raised the energy to go. Perhaps Uncle Hamilton and Aunt Annie would care to take you–do you think so?

They must be having a rotten time at Glenmachan: ‘les jeunes maries’ particularly are making a bright start, aren’t they? What one always feels about these troubles is that they are so hard on poor Bob.¹⁷ Is it not cruel when a poor fellow is doing his best, working away at his music all night and slaving like a nigger to make things bright and cheerful for everyone else, never letting his conversation flag, saving many a dull hour from ennui and always unselfishly making his wishes subservient to the comfort of the household–is it not hard that he should meet trouble like this? And yet–you will hardly believe it–I have heard people so brutal as to suggest that this ‘angel in the house’ ought to be at the front!

Everything here is pretty much as usual. The weather is delightful and Kirk’s thoughts turn even lightlier than of old to agriculture. His chief ‘stunt’ at present is to point out the fact that he is the same age as Balfour,¹⁸ and ask whether he (K) would stand any chance of getting a job as Headmaster now: and if not, is he to understand that the care of a few schoolboys calls for more qualities of youthful energy and intellect than that of the British Empire? Well, perhaps he’s right; we have often heard him say so at any rate.

I have been reading this week a book by Swinburne from the Library, a ‘Study on Shakespeare’.¹⁹ This is my first experience of his prose, and I think I shall make it the last. ‘Apt alliteration’s artful aid’ may be all right in verse, but it is undoubtedly vicious in prose, as also are words like ‘plenilune’, ‘Mellisonant’, ‘tautologous’, ‘intromission’. And yet at the same time there is great force in the book, and his appreciation of the subject is very infectious.

your loving son,

Jack

P.S. You might give me the Colonel’s address in your next letter. J.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

16 February 1915]

Dear Arthur,

When I received your epistle, which certainly did not weary one by its length, I was in one of my black moods: like Saul, my evil spirit was upon me.²⁰ Having just had a sufficient glimpse of home and of my brother to tantalize but not to satisfy:²¹ having lost, if not for good, at least for this term, an unparalleled opportunity: and finding a very objectionable visitor in possession of my grinder’s house, you may well imagine that I was in no mood for an extra irritation. I had just, too, been out for a walk, mon dieu, a nightmare! Splashing thro great puddles beneath a leaden sky that rained and rained! However, enough of this.

You ask me what was the matter with me when I was at home. Thank you: I believe I enjoyed excellent health. Of course it is true, that we saw a good deal more of our relations than we wanted, and had none too much time to ourselves: but of course, you, or any member of your household, are always welcome.

As to the other grievance, it really is phenominal ill luck. Of course, like all the rest of her sex she is incapable of seeing anything fair, and when she had been persuaded after a good deal of difficulty to do this, and then I failed to turn up, it is only to be expected that I am ‘left’. In any case, it would be impossible now; as she has gone with her mother for a week to visit some other Belgians in Birmingham.²² But perhaps you are tired of my ‘affaires’.

To go back to the question of holydays (I started to try and write an ‘essay-letter’, but can’t keep it up; excuse me if I meaunder a bit), the last straw came on Sunday afternoon when we were snatching a few moments rest before going off to visit our various relations: who should walk in–but–but–but–Henry Stokes!!!! Dear boy! How thoughtful of him! How kind! What a pleasure for us all! After that, my brother suggested that if ever he got another week’s leave, we should spend it on the Maidens.

You must imagine me writing this in my bedroom at about 11 o’clock, as that damned guest makes it impossible to be comfortable downstairs. Although it was quite spring weather before I went home, a thin snow mixed with rain is falling outside. In spite of all my troubles, I am quite bucked with life to night, and if only the water were hot enough for a bath I should be in heaven. I wonder what you are doing just now?

Which reminds me, you are drifting into a habit of morbid self-pity lately: all your letters are laments. Beware of the awful fate of growing up like that. I never, for my part, saw what was meant by such terms as ‘the releif of confiding ones troubles’ and the ‘consolations of sympathy’: my view is, that to mention trouble at all, in a complaining way, is to introduce into the conversation an element equally painful for everyone, including the speaker. Of course, it all depends on the way it is done: I mean, simply to mention them, is not wrong, but, by words or expression to call for sympathy which your hearer will feel bound to pump up, is a nuiscance.

What a good friend I am, to sit up writing all this stuff to a creature who, just because he ‘doesn’t feel like it’ gives me no more than a couple of lines. Write soon, like a good friend, and tell me all about yourself, and all the local gossip. I am damnably tired, and there’s something the matter with the gas, and I’ve come to the end of my paper. So I must dry up.

Yours

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 302-3):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 3 March 1915

My dear Papy,

I hope this pause in your correspondence does not mean a pause in your health; it is now, in the words of the poet, ‘a long time, in fact a ver-ray considerable time’ since your hand writing appeared on the hall table. One might write a paper on characters according to different days of the week: how a Monday table is associated with a letter from Arthur and a Tuesday table with one from you: although, as it would appear sir, in this case it has lately joined

‘The inheritors of unfullfilled renown ²³

and become as blank and barren as its surly brothers of Saturday and Sunday. Of course we would not forget Wednesday with its ‘Punch’ or Thursday with its Literary Supplement, which is getting by the way poorer and poorer every week (like chalk, you know.)

I don’t know that anything of world shaking importance has happened here: we have had snow and thaw, snow and thaw alternately, with plenty of rain, wind and frost thrown in to make things pleasant. Since Saturday however, there has been some sunshine, and we are hoping for better things.

The good ladies of Bookham still come regularly to tea, and I have the priviledge of hearing what Mrs. Grant-Murray would do if she were in Kitchener’s place,²⁴ and all about Miss Milne’s new maid. The discovery of German spies too, is an art in which they excell: how I wish I knew enough German to let drop a few words occasionally, just as if I had slipped into it by accident! It is a great pity that Kirk won’t come in to afternoon tea, as his commentaries on the whole kodotta would be great.

I essayed a new author the other day whom we have often heard praised and of whom I hoped great things–Landor: but the book I got, a series of imaginary letters called ‘Pericles and Aspasia’²⁵ proved rather disappointing. Indeed I am afraid my appreciation of English prose is very limited, and I certainly cannot fatten on mere prose when the matter is not interesting. However, as the Colonel said in his essay on ‘Kenilworth’,²⁶ the ‘book is not wholly without merit’. I forget whether you said you had ever read him or not?

I suppose we must soon begin to make arrangements about the Easter Holydays–I will not give up that spelling: however there is no hurry as the actual feast comes very late, and it is better to take off the summer term and add on to this. One might observe in passing–purely as a matter of general interest of course–that we must by now have got past half term.

Write soon if you are alright, and tell me all the gossip.

your loving

son Jack

P.S. Has that English word ‘got’ ever struck you? In reading this letter I couldn’t help thinking of it. It is made to mean almost anything–J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 303):

[Gastons

7? March 1915]

My dear Papy,

In the bad old days when I was still in the gall of bitterness at Malvern, we used sometimes to hear of schools that had a mid term holiday, and congratulate ourselves on being superior to such kodotta. But it proves to be no bad institution after all. Of course it is short: but then how pleasant to feel at the end that one has only half a term to get through. And one appreciates a week at half term more than the same time in the middle of the holiday. I have not heard from the Colonel since we parted at Euston, but I suppose he arrived at Saille all right–(if that is how you spell it.)

That Gerald Smythe of whom I told you, who lost an arm in the war, was staying with us last week. He is really wonderful: he has only been out of bed about a month and is going back to the front again next week. It does one good to see a person thoroughly cheerful under circumstances like his, and actually eager to be there again. Even in so short a time he has learnt to be quite independant, and can cut his food, light his pipe, and dress–tho’ how a man can tie a tie with one arm, I don’t know.

Did you read Lloyd George’s speech the other day introducing the remark about the German potato bread–‘I fear that potato bread more than all Von Kluck’s strategy’.²⁷ Although, as you have seen, I don’t often read the newspapers, I was glad when Kirk pointed that out to me. Most of the people one hears rather laugh at that bread ‘wheeze’, but I rather think Lloyd George’s is the wiser view. In the way of reading, I have been taking a course of ‘Poems and Ballads’, which, with the exception of the ‘Coign of a cliff’²⁸ I had almost forgotten. It is rather pleasant to discover a book which is already at home for future use.

The weather here is very miserable, and I don’t think there has been an hour’s sunshine since I came back. Kirk asked me to write for Aeneid VII and VIII, published at 1/6 each by Cambridge University Press, editor Sedgwick.²⁹ I am afraid these requests for books are rather numerous, but of course it is Kirk’s to command, mine not to question why, etc.

I have heard nothing from you now since the holydays, except the scant note of which you so rightly said ‘This is not a letter’. I sincerely hope you are not hors de combat. Do drop me a line soon and let me know.

your loving son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 304):

[Gastons

21? March 1915]

My dear Papy,

In connection with the ‘question before the house’, I have, as you may have anticipated, only one answer. Apart from the natural inclination to go home if possible, it occurs to me that there is no knowing where such a period of non-homecoming might end. If we could be sure that this policy of frightfulness would be over by midsummer, I should not hesitate to spend Easter in England. But it would be illogical to stay here now on account of the submarines and cross then in spite of them. So that there is the frightful prospect of living on opposite sides of the channel for two, five, or six years.

That of course is unthinkable; and it is on that ground chiefly that I should recommend going home.

A minor point to be considered is that it would be as well to make use of my return ticket while it is still available. The same idea would make me inclined to travel by Fleetwood–for which my ticket is available–in preference to Larne and Stranraer. The difference in the length of the crossing is, I should say, by no means commensurate with the extra expense, and in comfort Fleetwood is probably superior. If these ideas fall in at all with your own, I should suggest that I leave Bookham on Thursday week (the 1st April), which would mean arriving home on the morning of Good Friday. That just leaves a comfortable space of time in which you can write to K. about it.

Last week end was busily employed in reading through De Quincey’s ‘Confessions’³⁰ as a whole, for the first time, from which I derived great satisfaction. How much of it is true? The whole thing reads so like a novel that I am rather incredulous. Anyway it is certainly a splendid piece of English prose, especially in the rhetorical passages where he shows such a happy knack of getting pleasantly off the point. Thanks for the Aeneids: though, with the holydays near, if I had thought, I might have let it stand over.

As you say, our inability to cope with the submarine menace is a very serious thing; but not half so far reaching, so degrading, so essentially rotten as the behaviour of our working classes, who, tho’ so highly paid that they can afford to have three days off per week when nominally at work, yet because of some petty jealousies of their own are refusing to turn out the goods necessary to the military operations which the country is engaged upon. As K. points out, we are the only country which when the war broke out was ‘free’ from militarism, and yet about to engage in civil war: and we are now the only one that cannot secure peace among its working classes. But enough of all this. The weather, as usual of late, is disgusting except for one ‘pet’ day on Sunday. Hope to see you next week.

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

30 March 1915]

Dear Arthur,

How I pity you people who never have known the pleasures and the pains–which are an integral part of the pleasures–of a regular interchange of home-coming and school going. Even the terrors of Malvern were almost justified by the raptures with which one hailed the periodic deliverance. Here, where the minor disadvantages of my sojourns at Bookham are just enough to act as a foil to the pleasures of home, but not so great as to make the earlier part of the term unhappy, the arrangement is ideal. The satisfaction with which a day boy looks forward to a period of rest from his work, can be but the faintest shadow of a boarder’s feeling towards his return from temporary exile.

These last few days! Every little nuiscance, every stale or tiresome bit of work, every feeling of that estrangement which I never quite get over in another country, serves as a delightful reminder of how different it will all be soon. Already one’s mind dwells upon the sights and sounds and smells of home, the distant murmuring of the ‘yards’, the broad sweep of the lough, the noble front of the cave hill, and the fragrant little glens and breazy meadows of our own hills! And the sea! I cannot bear to live too far away from it. At Belfast, whether hidden or in sight, still it dominates the general impression of nature’s face, lending its own crisp flavour to the winds and its own subtle magic to horizons, even when they conceal it. A sort of feeling of space, and clean fresh vigour hangs over all in a country by the sea: how different from the stuffiness of Bookham: here the wind–that is to say, the true, brisk, boisterous irresistable wind–never comes.

And yet, I would not for a moment disparage the beauty of Surrey: these slumbering little vallies, and quaint farmsteads have a mellow charm of their own, that Ulster has not. But just now my End-of-Term feelings will not allow me to think of that. ‘But why’, you will ask ‘am I treated to these lyrical raptures?’ Indeed, Sir, I hardly know. My father wrote a few days ago, and asked if we should risk the submarines and come home, or not. I of course said that we should,–advancing many sage arguments thereto, and suggested leaving here next Friday. I have not been answered yet, but hope to goodness it is coming off. Anyway, a wave of End-of-Terminess came over me to night, and, as I had to communicate with someone, so you, poor fellow, got let in for this!

I had a letter from ‘Her’³¹ the other day, which is all satisfactory, Must shut up now.

Yours

Jack

Jack arrived in Belfast for his Easter holidays on 1 April and was there till 30 April. During this time he wrote the first poems he considered worthy of preservation. One of those written during this holiday was ‘The Hills of Down, and it is found in his Collected Poems (1994). From this time until he went up to Oxford in 1917 Lewis wrote 52 poems which he copied into a notebook bearing the name ‘Metrical Meditations of a Cod’. Fourteen of the ‘metrical meditations’ are found in Spirits in Bondage.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

4 May 1915]

Dear Galahad,³²

I am surprised! Have you actually come down to enjoying such stuff as ‘The Breed of the Treshams’?³³ I never (for which the gods be thanked) saw or read it, but the name is enough. I admit, I should like to have seen The Shrew,³⁴ and novelties in the way of staging are always rather interesting. I much prefer on the stage–and everywhere for that matter–quiet, tasteful, plain decorations, to tawdry, splendid things.

I feel my fame as a ‘Man-about-the-Gramaphone’ greatly put out by your remarks à propos of Lohengrin Prelude Act III,³⁵ as, I must confess, I never heard of it on Columbia. I do hope it is a good record, as I should like to have it very much: what is the Venusbury music like?³⁶ Is it that wild part that comes at the end of the Tannhaüser overture? Of course you know the Columbia edition of Schubert’s Rosamunde³⁷ has long been at Little Lea, but when last I played it to you, I seem to remember a non favourable verdict from you. I am so glad that you have gotten (That’s correct, you know. ‘Got’ isn’t) the Fire Music,³⁸ as I have been hesitating over it for ages, and your success or failure will decide me. Oh! I had better stop writing about this, as it makes me ‘think long’: not, if you please, in a sentimental way, but with a sensible desire for my books and you and our Gramaphones etc.³⁹

However, I have gotten (notice–again) one great addition to my comfort here, in the discovery of a ‘Soaking-machine’, which conveniences are very scarce in England, owing to the strict customs which prevent the mildest trespassing. My new palace, is at the foot of a great oak, a few yards off a lane, and hidden therefrom by a little row of shrubs and small trees. Completely private, safe from sun, wind or rain, and on the ridge of the only rising ground (you wouldn’t call it a hill) about here. There, with a note book and pencil, I can be as free to write, etc, as at home. So if your next letter comes in pencil, on a sheet torn from a pocket book, you needn’t be surprised. I must find some more of these places as summer goes on, for it is already too hot to walk far.

I bought yesterday a little shilling book about Wm. Morris, his life and his work,⁴⁰ which is rather interesting. To me, at least, for I am afraid you have given up that old friend of ours.

To say that you have something ‘sentimental’ to say, and not to say it, is to be like Janie McN.⁴¹ with the latest scandal, that everyone is told about and no one is told. I don’t quite follow your letter in places. What is the connection between all the rubbish about ‘that nuiscance Arthur’ (you know how all your friends ridicule and dislike that sort of talk) and the wish that I should become sentimental perforce? By the way, I am perhaps more sentimental than you, but I don’t blow a trumpet about it. Indeed, I am rather ashamed of it. Feelings ought to be kept for literature and art, where they are delightful and not intruded into life where they are merely a nuiscance.

I have just finished ‘Shirley’; which I think better than either ‘Jane Eyre’⁴² or ‘Villette’. You must read it. What a letter; every sentence seems to begin ‘I’. However, a good healthy dose of egotism is what you need, while you might pass on a little of your superfluous modesty to Bookham. Sorry you’ve returned the old Meistersingers,⁴³ but think the Beka better value.

Yours

Jack

P.S. What is the name of the ‘Galloping Horse’ piece by Chopin,⁴⁴ I want to make Mrs K. play it.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 316-17):

[Gastons

11 May 1915]

Dear Galahad,

Tut! Tut! Must I change your soubriquet? From being the spotless knight of the Grail, are you going to turn philosopher and meet me on my own ground to dispute my shadowy quibbles about the proper sphere of sentiment? Galahad becomes Merlin: who knows but that you may ‘grow besotted of a damosel’, like him, and like him, I may find you when I come home bound fast under a great stone, making a piteous wail to all who pass. And what a relief for the neighbourhood! I think I shall nominate a suitable damosel–say Miss Bradley or Sal Stokes–to besott and bind you. By the way, à propos of Miss Bradley, has she yet recovered (or better still died) from that peculiarly interminable complaint of hers, which prevents the gramaphone being played up at Glenmachen?

But to go back to the sentiment controversy, your objection is nonsense. You argue that sentiment is delightful in art, because it is a part of human nature. Quite right. From that, you deduce that it ought not to be confined to that sphere of human nature where it is delightful–viz. art. That is almost as sensible as to say that trousers are delightful only because they are a part of human clothes: therefore they ought to be worn, not only on the legs, but every where else. Do you maintain that it is a highly commendable and philosophical act to wear trousers, say, on your head? My point is that art is a recepticacle of human thought: sentiment, emotion etc make up that section of human thought which are best suited to fill that definite receptical–and no other. For why, when we have found the best place to keep a thing, should we keep it in other places as well, or instead? By the analogy of the trousers I have shown how ridiculous that would be. As for your idea that to be young, one must be sentimental, let us go into it. Young children are practically devoid of sentiment: they are moved only by bodily pain: young men are a little more sentimental, middle aged ones considerably more so, and old ones the most mawkishly so of all. Sentiment, you see, is a distinct mark of age.

Ah! Having gotten (N.B.) that off our chest, we can proceed to other matters. That little book about Wm. Morris has interested me so much–or re-awakened the old interest–in him, that I have just written up for ‘The Roots of the Mountains’ in Longman’s pocket edition:⁴⁵ it is about the Goths, and is praised in that book as one of the best of the prose Romances. What is the good of getting Anderson in Everyman?⁴⁶ It is true, the tales have considerable merit in ipso (that’s Latin and means ‘in themselves’, Ignorant!): but yet, if any book ever needed or was greatly improved by fancy binding, that is it.

The word Soaking-Machine can hardly be styled ‘slang’, being, as it is, coined by myself for private circulation: I thought you knew what it meant. The word ‘soak’ means to sit idly or sleepily doing nothing, and a S’ing machine is [a] place for this operation, i.e. a comfortable seat. Surely I must often have said to you in the course of our walks ‘Let’s find a soaking-machine’ or ‘Here’s a good soaking-machine’?

I despair of making head or tail of any of your gramaphonic talk, where your extraordinary loose and obscure use of words like ‘latter’ etc makes havoc of the sense. Do you mean that you had another record of the Venusburg music, before you heard it with Lohengrin, à l’autre côté? Or do you know what you mean? Or, lastly, do you mean anything at all. I write such enormous letters (which you probably never read to the end) that, from the way Mrs K. keeps looking at me, I believe she fancies it a billet doux. Why didn’t you give me the number of the Polonaise: and what cheek to say ‘I think it is in A Flat’, when a journey downstairs would make sure.

It has been raining for almost 36 hours here, which is not very cheerful. The idea of spelling melodrama ‘mello-drama’ is really quite ‘chic’: I should take out a patent on it, if I were you. I hope you are in good spirits these days, and that the lady of the office window is kind & in good health. Write soon: you’ve know idea how welcome your letters are. By the by, you might tell the girl in Osborne’s to send on the monthly catalogues to my address here, which you can tell her–Columbia, H.M.V., Zono, Beka, are the chief. Valde.

Yours

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 312-13):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 13 May 1915

My dear Papy,

I suppose I must apologise for being a little behindhand with my bulletin; but I confess I don’t understand the remark about ‘punishing accidents’. I am really sorry if you have been nervous, but I thought the telegram would suffice to set you at ease. However, let me assure you here and now that I and my luggage arrived quite safely at Bookham: there has been no question of accidents at all.

Hard times these must be at Leeboro: I have managed to escape the spring gales both at home and here. Thanks for your exertions about my room, which I hope will prove successful in keeping it from shifting. Perhaps ‘key-lashing’ as an extreme measure would be advisable.

I think the idea of permanent Sunday luncheon at the Rectory is excellent:⁴⁷ perhaps a series of weekly lectures under the title of ‘Anticipation and Realization; their genesis, distinctions and development: together with an excursus on their relations to the Greenshaketything’, would contribute greatly to the gaiety of the occasion. With that disinterested devotion to science, that noble generosity which has always characterised my actions, I not only place the material at your disposal but actually relinquish all claim to authorship. It would be but folly to deny that I experience some natural pangs–but no! Far be it from me to divert the publication of philosophical enlightenment into a channel for the aggrandisment of personal glory. No! Not even when, from the stately halls of Purdysburn⁴⁸ conferred upon you by a grateful and adoring country, you watch the fame of my achievements heaping its most succulent favours upon your own head–not even then, I say, will a sigh of regret escape from the gullet of self sacrifice.

We had some real summer weather for a few days after I came back, but it has seen fit to pour in torrents today. There is nothing of much interest here except that I have heard a nightingale for the first time. I think I mentioned before that they are as common as sparrows about here–in fact they are rather too numerous. In my conceit (Elizabethan), the song of these birds is one of those few things that does really come up to its reputation: at any rate I never heard anything else at all like it.

‘But enough of these tropes’ (as Bacon says at the end of an essay about Masques and stage plays.):⁴⁹ let me soon have another letter as long as a Lurgan spade. The coat has arrived.

your loving son,

Jack

P.S. That cat about accidence, I guess has cold feet about jumping, eh?

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 323-4):

[Gastons

25 May 1915]

Dear Galahad,

B-r-r-r! Behold me coming with locusts & wild honey about my loins (or is it sackcloth & ashes) to kneel and tremble and apologise for my letterless week. However, qui s’excuse, s’accuse, as the French say, and if you want to seek the real author of the mischief you must go up to heaven, and find the four and twenty elders sitting in a row, as St John says, falling on their faces on the sea of glass⁵⁰ (which must hurt rather but apparently is the ‘thing’ up yonder), and William Morris in white raiment with a halo.

Or, in other words, ‘The Roots of the Mountains’ is the chief cause of my silence. It is not, however, in spite of all this, nearly so good as the first volume of ‘The Well at the World’s End’, although the interest is better sustained throughout. To begin with, I was desparately dissapointed to find that there is nothing, supernatural, faery or unearthly in it at all: in fact, it is more like an ordinary novel. And yet there are many compensations: for, tho’ more ordinary than the ‘Well’, it is still utterly different from any novel you ever read. Apart from the quaint and beautiful old English, which means so much to me, the supernatural element, tho’ it does not enter into the plot, yet hovers on the margin all the time: we have ‘the wildwood wherein dwell wights that love not men, to whom the groan of the children of men is as the scrape of a fiddle-bow: there too abide the kelpies, and the ghosts of them that rest not’,⁵¹ and such delightful names as The Dusky Men, The Shadowy Vale, The Shivering Flood, The Weltering Water etc. Another thing I like about it is that the characters are not mediaeval knights but Norse mountain tribes with axe & long-sword instead of horses & lances and so forth. However, though it is worth having and well worth reading, I don’t know if its really worth buying. The next time I get a Morris Romance it will be one of the later ones, as the ‘Roots’ is one of the first, when, apparently, he hadn’t yet found his feet in prose work.

On Saturday last we were over at a little village near here, where Watts the painter lived:⁵² there is a little gallery, a lovely building, designed by himself, containing some of his quite famous pictures like ‘Orpheus & Euridyce’, ‘Endymion’, ‘Sir Galahad’ etc, which I always thought were in the Louvre or the Tate or some such place. Of course I don’t really quite understand good painting, but I did my best, and succeeded in really enjoying some myself, & persuading the other people that I knew a tremendous lot about them all.

What a grand dialectician, our Little Arthur is!!⁵³ You reply to my elegant tirade against sentiment by stating your old thesis that it ought not to be suppressed, without a single reason. You don’t admit my arguments, and yet make no endeavour to answer them. And because I choose trousers for an example you say that it is ‘very funny’. Moi, I didn’t know trousers were funny. If you do, I picture your progress from the tram to the office something thus: ‘Hullo! Good lord, there’s a fellow with trousers over there! And there’s another. Ha-Ha–Oh this is too screaming. Look–one-two-three more–’ and you collapse in a fit of uncontrollable merriment. Doesn’t this sort of truck fill up the paper? But in point of fact, I’ve lost your last letter, and so don’t quite know what to talk about.

Thanks for carrying out my message to Miss Whatdoyoucallher? about the monthly catalogues, which are now arriving in due order. That’s rather a pretty girl, the H.M.V. infant prodigy 18 year old soprano, but she doesn’t seem to sing anything worth hearing. Hear your brethren are going to join a friend’s ambulance corps, whatever that may be. Give them my congratulations and all the usual nonsense one ought to say on such an occasion. I hope they will get on famously and come back with Victoria crosses and eye-glasses, which seem to be the two goals of military ambition.

It is hot as our future home down below, here, but the country is looking delightful, & I have found one or two more SOAKING MACHINES (I will use that word if I want to) and so am quite comfortable. I hear you have taken to getting heart fits in the middle of the sermon at Saint Marks and coming out–I only wish you’d teach me the trick.

And now, the kind reader, if there still is one, is going to be left in peace. Do write soon, and forgive your suppliant

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 313-14):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 25 May 1915

Dear Papy,

I don’t seem to have heard from you for some time now, but I suppose I am a little behindhand myself. There has been great excitement here this week end: when I came home from Church on Sunday morning I found a note waiting for me to say that Kirk and Mrs. Kirk had gone to Bristol where they had heard by a telegraph that Louis was in hospital. It appears he got a mild species of sun stroke while working with big guns down there at a place called Lydd. It was not very serious–in fact I gather somewhat of a mares nest–and K. is back this evening while Mrs. K. is staying at Bristol for a few days.

We have started our real summer here, and it is pretty warm. How does the weather suit the home farm, where I hope the tragic gardeners are in good form? What between pigeons and gardeners and white Homburg hats, Leeborough must present quite a seasonable spring idyll (with a double ‘l’.)

Mrs. K. and I were over at a place called Compton beyond Guildford on Saturday, where the attraction is a little pottery for fancy tiles and sich, founded by my friend William [Morris], who, as you know, besides being a poet was a wall paper designer, a potter, a hand loom weaver and everything else you can think of. Nearby is a gallery of Watts’s pictures. He, it appears, was one of that same set, and there are a lot of quite swell things there, such as his ‘Paolo and Francesco’, ‘Orpheus and Euridyce’, and ‘Found Drowned’ etc., which I always imagined to be in some big place like the Louvre or Tate. It was quite interesting.

Any news from the Colonel lately? I have not heard from any one except Arthur for a long time now, so do try and raise a letter soon. Or is this silence a result of a literal obedience to my last advice a propos of lectures to the members of the Select Vestry? I hope the doctors don’t think it serious.

There are plenty of nightingales about now, and in fact they are rather a nuisance. I am afraid this is rather a scrappy letter, but I am writing rather late at night, just before going to bed, and am a bit sleepy. I should like to know what is going on at Leeborough just now. I suppose these are the days of no fires, and sunset on the seat behind the laurels, with the crows coming home overhead, and Tim on the look out for wasps.

I hope you are keeping well and cheerful. Write again soon.

your loving,

son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 322-3):

[Gastons

28? May 1915]

My dear Papy,

I am sorry to hear that the mental digestion of my parent is so weak, and blame myself for giving it such strong meat. Perhaps a course of ‘Decalettes, pure and simple things’, or nursery rhymes would meet the case. (Now we can proceed to the letter.)

Of course it is a very good thing that Bernagh is contributing to the forces, but one cannot help thinking that a better choice than the ‘Friend’s Ambulance Corps’–which really does sound rather sleepy–might have been made.⁵⁴ However, I suppose ‘those also serve’⁵⁵ though the trenches impress the outside spectator more than an ambulance corps. A propos of conscription, I sincerely hope that one of two things may happen. Either that the war may be over before I am eighteen, or that conscription may not come into force before I have volunteered. I shouldn’t fancy going out to meet the others–as a conscript. I see the Daily Mail is being burnt everywhere for advocating the plan.⁵⁶ How excellent a proof of the necessity of a petty little plan like sending an envelope full of ashes–or most likely it was a woman. There is absolutely no news here, and the weather is very hot. Mrs. K. has now returned again from Bristol where she left Louis getting on all right.

I like your garden picture. I can imagine the whole scene, and especially the conversation with the Greeve’s on the road, we have heard so many like it before. The country at home must be looking delightful now, and I wish I could see it, but most of all the sea. If Bookham were not so far inland it would be delightful too–and indeed to do it justice it is very pretty. The remark about the fates is excellent from a literary point of view, only I don’t like to think of you thinking those sort of things in such a place–and with a white Homburg hat too. And yet I remember that Swinburne has some remark about the impossibility of changing ‘wings for feet, or feet for wings’. I suppose if we Lewis’s are made in that mould of reflective gravity which troubles deepen into melancholy, it is the price which we pay for a thoughtful and feeling mind. About the question of retrospect and anticipation (dangerous word for you, sir), there is a sentence in one of W. Morris’s prose tales that I am reading at present, which tho’ perhaps not strictly in point, is yet well worth remembering in its archaic charm and quaint nobility:–‘Thus then lived this folk in much plenty and ease of life, though not delicately nor desiring things out of measure. They wrought with their hands and wearied themselves: they rested from their toil and feasted and were merry: tomorrow was not a burden unto them, nor yesterday a thing that they would fain forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make them afraid.’⁵⁷ There is another way of looking at life: impossible it may be in a sophisticated age, and yet I think he would be a happy man who could do so.

What time do my letters reach you in the day? In letter writing one ought to know when and where the other person reads, as it makes more of a semblance to real conversation. I must dry up now.

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

1 June 1915]

Dear Galahad,

Your interesting epistle which I have read with wonder and delight, contains the following gems of Arthurian style

1 ‘I don’t suppose you will object to my coming with me’

2 ‘Read this with discust’

3 ‘I am talking now of sensulity.’

Dear old Galahad! That’s an unusually good budget even for you: I am afraid this ‘sensulity’ of yours–I never saw the word before but I suppose you know what it means–must be beginning to tell on you.

As to your first question, the only holyday I propose to take is a week or so with my relations at Larne, and my father’s offer, which I take to be purely formal, I would not much care to accept. I hope you will be sensible enough to spend your holydays at home with me, seeing each other and talking & going for long walks over the hills, instead of going off to some godless place by the sea. My point is that I should be going to my Aunt’s in any case, and 1 week or so from home is quite enough for me: as well, I don’t think it very decent to leave my father any longer. But don’t let this prevent your going somewhere. All I want to point out is, that my refusal of a joint holyday, is not from a design to avoid you, but because I don’t want to be away from home too long. Of course, if you would condescend to honour Larne with your presence while I am at my Aunt’s, I should be very bucked to see you: but you might be bored. However, we can talk all this over when we meet at the end of July.

Odeon records are the most fascinating and delusive bait on the Gramaphone market. Cheap, classical, performed by good artistes, they present a jolly attractive list: but they wear out in a month. Of course there are exceptions, and I can play you some selections from Lohengrin which I have on that make, and which have worn well. On the whole however, I wouldn’t advise anyone to get Odeon records, as a short-lived record is one of the most dissapointing of things. I foresee, by the way, that your way of getting records is like Jane McNeil’s way of getting books–that is you use a shop like a free library: whenever a record is worn out, back it goes to the shop, and you have a new one in its place. Which reminds me, my monthly catalogues for this month haven’t turned up yet, so you must shout at Miss Thompson.

With reference to your remarks about sensuality–je vous demande pardon–‘sensulity’, I don’t know I am sure, why you have been suffering especially in this way just now. Of course when I was particularly so last term, there was a reason, about whom you heard perhaps more than you wanted. You ought to be past the age of violent attacks of ’EPΩTÍKA (Greek); as well you are Galahad the spotless whose ‘strength is as the strength of ten, because your heart is pure’. Perhaps you would understand now, what you didn’t understand when I started the subject last hols, <what I mean by the ‘sensuality of cruelty’: again perhaps you would not.>

Last week I got a copy of that little book of yours on Icelandic Sagas, which I found very interesting, and as a result I have now bought a translation of the ‘Laxdaela Saga’⁵⁸ in the Temple Classics edition. I never saw a Temple Classic before; did you? In binding, paper, & ‘forma’ (by which I include the aspect of a typical page, its shape, spacing, lettering etc) they are tip top, and justify the boast of ‘elegance’ made in their advertisements. They are, I think, far better value than Everyman’s at the same price.

As to the Saga itself I am very pleased with it indeed: if the brief, simple, nervous style of the translation is a good copy of the original it must be very fine. The story, tho’, like most sagas, it loses unity, by being spread over two or three generations, is thoroughly interesting. Just as it was interesting after the ‘Well at the World’s End’ to read the ‘Morte’, so after the ‘Roots’, a real saga is interesting. I must admit that here again the primitive type is far better than Morris’s reproduction. But that of course is inevitable, just as Homer is better than Vergil.

Sorry to hear my father is so low, but I write to him regularly, and the last was really rather a long and good effort. Hope you’re all well at Bernagh.

Yours

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

8 June 1915]

Dear Galahad,

I seem to have trod on somebody’s corns over this question of a holyday: I expressly said that I did not wish to keep you at home on my account if you wished to go elsewhither. To be brief, my whole answer was that I refused your kind proposal because I was already booked, adding that I should not care to take another holyday in addition to that at Larne. Now what is your grievance–for grievance you must have or you would not write such good grammar. Is it because I won’t throw up my previous invitation in favour of yours? That would be rude. Is it because I will not accompany you on another holyday? That is selfish of you, to expect me to give [up] my fleeting sojourn at Leeborough for your amusement. Is it because I mildly suggested that you need not go for a holyday? There was never any obligation on you to accept such a scheme. And as for your hot weather–je me moque de cette là, it is bitterly cold to-night! How funny that I always prove everything I want in argument with you but never convince you!

Now, having despatched our inevitable weekly dialectical passage-at-arms (by the way, you have never replied to my theory of trousers), we may proceed to the letter. I admit that the ‘I hope you are all well’ is a blot on my character that can hardly be wiped out: I didn’t think I had sunken so low as that, and will try to reform.

I thought you would agree with me about Mansfield park:⁵⁹ I should almost say it was her best. I don’t remember the names very well, but I think I rather liked Edmund. Do get a Temple Classic. You will bless me ever after, as they are really the best shillings worth on the market. I hope I may prove a false prophet about the Odeon records, and that you will have better luck in them than I. Now that it is drawing a little nearer my return, I begin to hanker again for my gramaphone: but I am not consoled even with the catalogues, so you must stir up the damosel again. I am still at the ‘Laxdaela Saga’ which is as good as ever, and I insist upon your reading it too.

On Saturday I met the prettiest girl I have ever seen in my life (don’t be afraid, you’re not going to have to listen to another love-affair). But it is not her prettiness I wanted to tell you about, but the fact that she is just like that grave movement in the Hungarian Rhapsody (or is it the ‘dance’?) that I love so much.⁶⁰ Of course to you I needn’t explain how a person can be like a piece of music,–you will know: and if you play that record over, trying to turn the music into a person, you will know just how she looked and talked. Just 18, and off to do some ridiculous warwork, nursing or something like that at Dover of all places–what a shame!

By the way, that would be a rather interesting amusement, trying to find musical interpretations for all our friends. Thus Gordon⁶¹ is like the Pilgrims chorus from Tannhaüser, Kelsie a bit like the Valkyries⁶² only not so loud, Gundred⁶³ like the dance-movement in Danse Macabre, and Bob like a Salvation army hymn. We might add yourself as a mazurka by Chopin, wild, rather plaintful, and disjointed, and Lily like, well–a thing of Grieg’s called ‘The Watchman’s Song’⁶⁴ that you haven’t heard. I think I must write a book on it.

By the way (all my sentences seem to begin like that) I am very sorry this is a bit late, but I was writing to my father and brother last night. Now, good night, Galahad, and be good and talk sense the next time you do me the honour of arguing with me.

Yours

Jack

P.S. What about the question of ‘sensulity’?

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 319-20):

[Gastons]

Friday [18 June 1915]

My dear Papy,

I am writing this immediately after reading your letter, but I mean it to belong to next week. Perhaps I shall not post it till Monday to equalize the dates, but at any rate it is much easier to write to you just after reading yours. I somehow seem to be unable to write to you properly now-a-days: perhaps because we make jokes nearly all the time when we are together, and household humour, though the funniest of all things to those who understand (a propos of which, read the first Roman story in ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’),⁶⁵ can’t really be written down. Whereas if I try to be serious, I merely succeed in being ‘stuffy’. The last word describes exactly what I mean. However, as Plato says, the written word is only a poor faint shadow of real conversation, in which, among people who know each other well, the merest suggestion explains a train of thought which the most elaborate written explanation leaves obscure, lifeless and formal.⁶⁶ Still, as it would be expensive to telephone to you every week with trunk calls–do you remember the lady in ‘The Whip’?⁶⁷–we must do the best we can.

I think we may reasonably hope that the war will be over before it begins to concern me personally. At the same time, the knowledge that I had gone as soon as possible to the front would not, I fancy, be a very substantial comfort to me if I arrived there as a conscript. All the people on whom that name has fallen would be lumped together without distinction in the minds of our Tommies–who indeed might be excused for feeling some warmth in the circumstances. Then there is the other possibility that Europe will be at peace before I am eighteen. In that case I believe my career at Oxford would be, if anything, a little easier than usual, owing to lack of competition. It would be ghastly however to reckon up that condition as an advantage–when we remember what it means. I am sorry for your sake that ‘Mr. Carr’⁶⁸ has gone, but after all, from his point of view, it was inevitable. There is not much objection made to the teeth now, it seems!

I will certainly write to the Colonel as soon as you send me his address, which I am not quite sure of. I don’t think I will make it a birthday letter, which–from me at any rate–would not appeal to him: I may find some ‘crack’ however to interest him. Isn’t it interesting to note the different things we expect from different people? If I imitated your style exactly, and could write a letter to the Colonel almost the same as a typical one of yours, the result would be merely irritating: if you tried the same experiment with my style, or absence of style, the result would be the same. Yet both, I believe, would be acceptable from the right authors.

This is a digression: to go back to Warnie, it certainly must be very depressing to see so many of the Malvern lot–for whom he had a regard as genuine as it was inexplicable–dropping off like this. ‘It is an ill wind’–the proverb is rather old. But one result of the war to us seems to be that you and W., if I may say so, understand each other better than you have done for some time.

I am learning lots of things here besides the Classics–one of them being to take cold baths: and such an artist I am becoming that you will hardly know me when I get home for the brevity of my sojourn in the bath room and the prodigious amount of noise I make over it. The weather is still hot and a trifle oppressive here, but agreeable in the morning and evening.

I have been devoting this week to the reading of Othello,⁶⁹ which I like as well as any Shakesperian play I have read. The part of Iago, to my mind, is something of a blemish, and the fact that his pitiless malignity has absolutely no motive leaves him rather a monster (in the Classical, not the newspaper sense of the word), than a human character. But then of course Shakespeare at his best always works on titanic lines, and the vices and virtues of Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Desdemona, etc., are magnified to a pitch more splendid and terrible than anything in real life.⁷⁰

If I leave here on the 30th July, so as to arrive home on the last Saturday of that month, the exact half of the term ought to have fallen about four hours ago. That will make the usual twelve weeks. Only six more now! That sounds perhaps too like the old days at Malvern, but don’t suppose that because I will be glad to see you again, I am not happy and more than happy at the K’s.

your loving,

son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

29 June 1915]

Dear Galahad,

Did the Norns or Dana holy mother of them that die not, weave for us in that hour wherein our mothers bare us, that never should we write to each other without the first page being occupied by argument? Because, whether by the decree of fate or no, this has always been the case. First it was Shee v. Souteraines, then Tears v. Trousers, and now Larne v. Leeborough–which by the way means Little Lea. How you can have known me so long without picking up the words & tags which I use every day passes my understanding–unless I am to conclude that you are asleep half the time I am talking to you, which is very probably so.

Well about this infernal holyday: as your infantile brain–for which I have catered on this envelope–is incapable of swallowing my previous very elementary argument, I will explain my position once more in very simple terms, as follows:–

I have eight weeks vacations.

I have been invited to stay 10 days with Mrs Hamilton.⁷¹

I have accepted her invitation.

I intend to keep that promise

I don’t want to be any longer away than 10 days.

I don’t want to keep you at home on that account.

I therefore decline your kind proposal.

I am very sorry

I hope you understand. How’s that?

It may be true that it is easier to assign music to people we know, than to conjure up people to fit the music, but I deny that anyone’s character is really unlike their appearance. The physical appearance, to my mind, is the expression and result of the other thing–soul, ego, ψυχη, intellect–call it what you will. And this outward expression cannot really differ from the soul. If the correspondence between a soul & body is not obvious at first, then your conception either of that soul or that body must be wrong. Thus, I am ‘chubby’–to use your impertinent epithet, because I have a material side to me: because I like sleeping late, good food & clothes etc as well as sonnets & thunderstorms. The idealistic side of me must find an outlet somewhere, perhaps in my eye, my voice or anything else–you can judge better than I. And the other side of me exists in my countenance because it exists also in my character.

‘But’, I hear you saying, ‘this is all very well. Only what about the practised flirt with the innocent schoolgirl face & the murderer with a smile like an old woman?’ These are only seeming exceptions. The girl has or imagines she has that sort of disposition somewhere in her, or it wouldn’t be on her face: as a matter of fact, it is always ‘innocent’ (which means ignorant) people who do the most outrageous things. The murderer too, may be really a peaceful, kindly ‘crittur’, and if circumstances drive him to violence, the initial mould of the character and therefore of the face remain just the same.

I remember reading in a book called ‘The open Road’⁷² an extract from Hewlet’s ‘Pan and the Young Shepherd’⁷³ which I thought splendid. Thanks to our Galahad’s detestable handwriting I can’t tell whether your book is the ‘Lore’ or the ‘Love’ of P. In any case I have never heard of it before, but, from your description, am very eager to read it. I also saw a copy of this author’s ‘Forest Lovers’⁷⁴ in Carson’s last hols, but it did not attract me much. Is this new one in a decent edition?

I am glad to hear that you are keeping up the ‘illustrative’ side of your art, and shall want you to do some for my lyric poems. You can begin a picture of my ‘dream garden’ where the ‘West winds blow’. As directions I inform you it is ‘girt about with mists’, and is in ‘the shadowy country neither life nor sleep’, and is the home of ‘faint dreams’. With this Bädekers guide to it, you can start a picture. You remember, I scribble at pen and ink sketches a bit, and have begun to practise female faces which have always been my difficulty. I am improving a very little I think, and the margins of my old Greek lexicon as well as my pocket book now swarm with ‘studies’.

Only four weeks now till I shall be home again! Isn’t that a buck, at least for me–and no one else in the world really counts of course. What nonsense you talk about that ‘poor man’, my father. I am afraid it is true that he must bore Lily, but there is no fear of her boring him. I sympathize however, with the havoc which he must have wrought with a serious musical evening.

How is your gramaphone progressing, by the way, and how many records have you listed up to date? I am so sorry if this Liliputian writing has blinded you for life, but we have run out of the other sort of note paper.

Well (Farewel)

Jack

P.S. Have begun the ‘Proffessor’⁷⁵ and as read far as the heroe’s arrival at Brussels. It is shaping very well. I believe you have read it have you not–J.

Warnie arrived in Bookham from France on 4 July 1915 and Jack, after some resistance from Mr Kirkpatrick, was permitted to accompany him home. He returned to Bookham on 9 July.

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 1-2):

[Gastons

10? July 1915]

My dear Papy,

In reply to your note which has just this minute been handed to me, I suggest to your notice the following considerations. In the first place you ask ‘why were you told £1-10s?’ I am not aware that I ever told you anything at all about the subject: the sum of money–whatever it was–was handed by Kirk to Warnie at the request of the latter, who took charge of it throughout, together with both tickets and every other arrangement. It never passed through my hands, and I am not prepared to say with any certainty what it amounted to. I do not remember mentioning the matter while at home. You have therefore applied to the wrong quarter.

Secondly, supposing for purposes of argument that I did tell you that it was £1-10s, what then? As I have already pointed out, I had nothing to do with the money, and Warnie not I, was responsible for its being borrowed. It follows that I could have had no conceivable motive for misrepresenting the amount. If there was to be any blame attached, it was not I who incurred it: I need never even have mentioned it. Accordingly, if I said anything untrue, it must have been through a mere error–and even at that an error by which I could gain nothing.

Thirdly, do not be annoyed if I descend to a rather crude, a fortiori line of argument. The tone of your letter, no less than the haste with which it was dispatched, suggests an ugly suspicion. This can of course be very easily answered. Setting aside all question of honour, I ask you to credit Warnie and myself with commonsense. Granted then, that for some inscrutable reason we wanted to conceal the amount he borrowed from Kirk, would we have been such fools as to have told a lie which must inevitably be detected as soon as the latter wrote to you? And of course, we would have known that K. must write to you to get his money back.

And so, it follows that either Kirk is wrong, or else if Warnie gave you the wrong figures it must have been by accident. That I knew nothing of it, and was not concerned in the transaction, has already been shown.

Last of all, if anything in this letter should seem to indicate that I am hurt or offended, I assure you it is not the case. I am perfectly convinced that your note was not meant to be insulting, though, from its nature, it could hardly help it. In any case it is as well to make things clear, even at the risk of some little superfluous violence. I am,

your loving son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 321-2):

[Gastons

19? July 1915]

My dear Papy,

I sincerely hope this silence of yours doesn’t mean anything wrong with your health. Arthur says you didn’t seem very well the last time he was over at Leeborough, so I am not quite easy in my mind. If however anything is wrong, you might tell Aunt Annie to write to me with particulars, and also to forward W’s address, which since I wrote for it in my last letter has become even more necessary as he has now written to me. I should not like him to think that he is forgotten or that his letter has not reached me, but I cannot reply to him until I hear from you.

Not even in Bookham can one be safe from the hoi polloi; a stubborn refusal to learn tennis is no longer a protection among people who will inflict croquet instead. I was out on Wednesday for tea and croquet and again today (Saturday) for the same entertainment, plus a great deal of conversation. However, this I suppose is part of the curse inherited from our first parents: my private opinion is that after the words ‘In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread’⁷⁶ another clause has dropped out from the original text, running ‘In the exasperation of thy souls shalt thou attend social functions’. On the whole, though I do not of course know anyone as well as at home, I like a good many of those I meet: the world indeed (as you have reminded me on innumerable occasions), is full of nice people. And if it must be full at all, I suppose it is as well that they should be nice.

Talk, of course, runs mostly on the war. I have always thought it ridiculous for people to talk so much on a subject of which, in the majority of cases, they are really very ignorant. Books, art, etc., passing trivialities and even gossip are topics on which everyone can speak with more or less authority. We prefer however to pass our time in criticism of politics, or at present the war–subjects on which only specialists should speak. This endless criticism by ignorant men and women of public men, whose positions they do not understand, I always hear with annoyance.

The Colonel writes to me cheerfully though briefly, and wants an answer. I suppose he tells me nothing that you don’t know already. Bathing and a sack of books seem to be his chief consolations in ‘this detestable country.’

I have been reading nothing since Othello but a translation from the Icelandic, and stray articles etc. In Greek we have begun Demosthenes. Of course oratory is not a sort of literature that I appreciate or understand in any language, so that I am hardly qualified to express an opinion on our friend with the mouthful of pebbles. However, compared with Cicero, he strikes me as a man with something to say, intent only upon saying it clearly and shortly. One misses the beautiful roll of the Ciceronian period, but on the other hand, he is not such a—blether.⁷⁷

Do try and write soon, or, if the worst comes to the worst, get Aunt Annie to do so.

your loving,

son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP IV: 299-300):

[Gastons

24 July 1915]

Dear Galahad,

I have debated more than once as to whether you would prefer a tired and perfunctory letter written in good time during the week, or a fresh and willing [one] a few days late on Saturday evening. Thinking that you would choose the latter, and knowing I would–here we are.

What on earth are you doing reading the Sowers?⁷⁸ A Russian mystery-story full of wise diplomatists and impossible women–it ought to be clad in a bright red cover, with a crude picture of Steinmitz saying ‘The Moscow Doctor–and your prince!!!’ from the head of the stairs, and set on a railway bookstall. But, perhaps I am wrong. Of course it has points, but you are worthy of better things. Never read any George Eliot⁷⁹ Myself, being no great hand at novels but admire your energy in that line.

Talking about books, I am determined to teach you to like poetry, and will begin next hols. on Coleridges ‘Christabel’. Don’t be put off by the name. It is exactly the sort of romantic strangeness and dreaminess you & I like, a sort of partner to the Ancient Mariner,⁸⁰ as Danse Macabre is to the March of the Dwarfs.

Also–I hope all these schemes aren’t boring you–you are going to help me to improve my drawing next hols. Figures I can do tolerably, but from you I must learn the technique of the game–shading, curves, how to do a background without swamping the figures etc. Of course this will all be in pen and ink which is the best medium for my kind of work–I can imagine your smile at my calling such scribbles ‘work’, but no matter. I am longing to get home again now, and expect I shall arrive next Saturday.

Yes Mrs K. has played the Polonaise; we found the right one without difficulty, and tho’ she made some remarks about the hardness of it I at length persuaded her. Now, you know, I never flatter: so you may take it as solemn truth when I tell you that, if I admired your playing before, I understood its true value far better when I compared [it] with Mrs K.–by no means a contemptible craftsman. To hear the lovely galloping passages rendered correctly, even well, but without your own frank enjoyment of the work, your sympathy with the composer and your inimitable fire and abandonment (this sounds like an essay but I mean every word of it), was a revelation. You threw yourself into it, and forgot yourself in the composer: Mrs K sat there, amiable, complacent and correct, as if she were pouring out tea. Now, while they’re not all as bad as she, still you alone of the people I have heard play set to the matter properly. And for that reason, a piece, by you, if it were full of mistakes (tho’ of course it wouldn’t be) would be better than the same piece faultlessly played by–say, Hope Harding.⁸¹ This is a rare gift of yours: you should yet do great things with it: you are a fool if you don’t cultivate it. Perhaps, because you paint and read as well as play, you realize the imagination of a composer’s mind perfectly, and can always bring out to a sensible (in the old sense of the word) listener anything at all that there is in the notes. Of course, all this is the praise of an amateur: but the praise of an honest amateur who has a genuine, tho’ non-techniqual taste for music, is worth something at least.

I agree with you that the music of Lohengrin, so far as I know it is delightful: nor do I see what is wrong with the story, tho’ of course the splendid wildness of the ‘Ring’⁸² must be lacking. On the whole, however, I am not sure that any music from it I know, is not perhaps cast in a lower mould than ‘Parsifal’⁸³ & the ‘Ring’. Although, indeed the prelude–which you wouldn’t listen to when I played it–is quite as fine I think as that from ‘Parsifal’.

What is your opinion of W. Jaffe–little Vee-Lee?⁸⁴ He did one thing for which he can never be forgiven–dropping in and staying till eleven on the first night of my brother’s leave. The Hamiltons came over on another, so we had only one evening alone together in peace and comfort. On the whole, tho’, he is a decent crittur, I suppose. Have you ever heard their gramaphone? I wonder what its like.

Which reminds me, did you hear the new Glenmachen record–a solo by the Russian base–Chaliapin⁸⁵ from ‘Robert Le Diable’.⁸⁶ The orchestration is absolutely magnificent and the singing as good. I only wish I could afford ‘the like of them’, don’t you?

I shan’t write again this term now–jolly glad it’s so near the end.

Yours

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 9):

[Gastons]

Moon Day.

A good codotta that.)

28 July 1915]

My dear Papy,

I was very glad to get both your letters, and sorry if I worried you at a busy moment. Willie’s absence must be a great discomfort, and of course I shall understand if letters are short or overdue just at present. No. A registered letter is no equivalent to ‘speaking sharply’ to one, and I am therefore in no need to the German gentleman’s remorse–or ‘again-bite’ to be Teutonic. But at sixteen we will do much for excitement, a new experience. ‘What’ said I to myself ‘tho’ the shades of Plato and Sophocles wait upon my pleasure, the treasures of Rome, the brilliance of France, the knowledge of Germany attend my nod? I am out of the world here. While the great war of all histories, nations and languages is waged hard by, shall I remain like a dormouse, inactive, apathetic. A thousand times no’, (as a friend of yours in Punch said on a memorable occasion), ‘I will have excitement I will taste of new experiences, soul-stirring adventures’–and gripping my hat with a cry of ‘D’audace et toujours d’audace’⁸⁷ I rushed out into the night and–sent a registered letter!

I don’t know that there is any news here: that Macmullen girl, the theatrical lady, is staying here just at present. The summer here is one of the worst Kirk remembers, being very wet and making a special point of raining whenever the poor people are trying to mow or make hay. Fortunately the amount of corn we grow at home is insignificant as regards the country’s needs. All the same, at a time like the present every little counts, and if this sort of thing is going on all over England it is rather a pity.

(Later on.) I have spent a ghastly evening being used as a lay figure by Miss Macmullen for bandages–as she is going to volunteer to something or other. I have been treated successively for a broken arm, a sprained ankle, and a wound in the head. This, with the adjoining complement of pins, small talk etc., is a good night’s work. I can now sympathise with your attitude towards the excellent game of ‘hair cut or shaved’. Ah well, I suppose half an hour’s codotta with some bits of lint is not a great sacrifice to the war. Still, I am really too exhausted to write any longer, and everyone is going to bed.

your loving

son Jack

Jack arrived in Belfast on 31 July and was there for the next eight weeks. Mr Kirkpatrick expected him to continue with some work, and he wrote to him on 17 August saying:

I suggest you should order…the following: Plato: The Phaedo, if you have not got it. Demosthenes: De Corona. Tacitus: The Annals. Aeschylus: The Agamemnon…I expect you are browsing at present on the pastures of general literature, and this of course is as it should be. If however you find English too easy and sigh for more worlds to conquer, I recommend the perusal of any German book you may happen to come across. (LP V: 12)

During this time Lewis added six more poems to his ‘Metrical Meditations of a Cod’, at least two of which are included in his Collected Poems.

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 128-9):

[Gastons 17?

September 1915]

My dear Papy,

After a week of mutual waiting for a letter, I suppose it is my duty to take up the pen. Things have been so developing here in various ways that I have not really had time to settle down. A wonderful thing has happened–yesterday I got a fellow pupil!⁸⁸ It is a nephew of Mrs. Howard Ferguson’s who is to come and read with Kirk for the paymaster’s department of the navy, and is about my own age. Of course it is just a bit of crumpled rose leaf to have this inroad, but as he will spend nearly all his time at Leatherhead taking special classes for chemistry and solid mathematics–whatever that name of terror may mean–one cannot complain. He seems a decent poor creature, though of course not wildly interesting. Mrs. Ferguson came down with him on Saturday and went away the same evening. I suppose you have met her? I thought she was exceedingly nice, and was interested to hear all the Lurgan and Banbridge gossip which Mrs. K’s questions called forth, until Kirk could stand it no longer and broke in with a fifteen minute lecture on the Budget.

The boy himself was at Campbell before he came here, and I can still remember enough to pick up acquaintance in common and to criticise ‘the old place’. I hear to my surprise that Joey⁸⁹ is a ‘knut’ cricketer in his House Eleven: one never hears these tit-bits at home.

It is a good deal warmer here than in Ireland and my cold is consequently getting better–you will be relieved to hear. Kirk is still going strong and Bookham is looking its prettiest. Any sign of the new overcoat yet? But of course it will not really be needed till much later in the year. Tell me too if you hear anything from W. I must now stop and go to bed, which I feel justified in doing because I am one up on you in the way of letters.

your loving

son Jack

P.S. Don’t forget to tell me when you write, how that cold of yours is. Jack.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP V: 21-2):

[Gastons

5 October 1915]

My dear Galahad,

I can’t really see why you have any more right to grouse at my not writing than I at you, but we will let it pass. And in the meantime, what do you think? It is a bit thick when one has fled from Malvern to shun one’s compeers in the seclusion of Surrey wilds, to be met by a damned fellow pupil of my own age–and sex!⁹⁰ Isn’t it the limit? Moreover he is a hopeless fellow with whom I despair of striking up any friendship that can be at all amusing–you know, the usual sort with absolutely no interest in any of the things that matter. Luckily, however he spends the greater part of his time taking special classes at Leatherhead, so that I still have my afternoon walk alone. Indeed, I suppose it is easier to put up with one philistine at Bookham than with five-hundred at Malvern, but still, the thing is a nuisance on which I had not counted.

I wish indeed that I had been with you at Portrush, of which your description sounds most attractive. I once visited Dunluce Castle years ago when I was staying at ‘Castle Rock’, but being a kid did not of course appreciate it as much as I would now.

It is very annoying that after waiting all the holydays for those Columbia records, I should just manage to miss them: mind you tell the girl to send me on the monthly lists of Zono, Columbia & H.M.V. I noticed by the way that the Zono list contains an attractive record with the ‘Seranade’ and ‘Church Scene’ from Faust.⁹¹ Do you remember the latter–that magnificent duet outside the Church, with organ accompaniment where Gretchen is hunted about the stage with Mephisto behind her? You must hear it and tell me your impressions.

I thought you would enjoy ‘Shirley’. Don’t you see now what I meant when I said that love, apart from physical feelings, was quite different to friendship? If not you must have a brain like a cheese. There is not really much resemblance either between Louis & Gordon or Shirley & Lily. Can you imagine G. behaving to Lily the way Louis does at times to Shirley? I am afraid that, much as I like him, G. hasn’t got it in him. Lily of course is not unlike S., but not so much of a ‘grande dame’, if you know what I mean.⁹² When I said that K.[elsie Ewart] was like a valkyrie I meant of course in her appearance–or rather in her open-air appearance. When however you see her in artificial light, both in clothing & natural colouring she is like some thoughtful, exquisite piano piece of Chopin’s–you’d know which better than I.

By the way, tell your sister that I have already written to thank her for the boot-bags, and that when the love she says she’s sending arrives I will write and thank her for it too.

I have been reading the ‘Faerie Queen’ in Everymans both here and at home ever since I left you and am now half way thro’ Book II.⁹³ Of course it has dull and even childish passages, but on the whole I am charmed, and when I have made you read certain parts I think you will appreciate it too.

Talking about poetry, if you have not done so already, go over to Little Lea and borrow Swinburne’s ‘Poems and Ballads’ 2nd Series at once. Read ‘The Forsaken Garden’, ‘At Parting’ (I think that is the name, it begins ‘For a day and a night love stayed with us, played with us’)⁹⁴ ‘Triads’ ‘The Wasted Vigil’ and ‘At a month’s End’. The latter especially you must read from end to end as a commentary on the love parts of ‘Shirley’, only that in this case the man who tried to tame some such fierce & wonderful character failed instead of succeeding. Then you will relish all the lovely verses at the end, especially that beginning ‘Who strives to snare in fear and danger / Some supple beast of fiery kin’.⁹⁵ Then tell me your impressions. Hope this hasn’t bored you.

I am jolly glad to hear that you are at last starting with Dr Walker⁹⁶ and shall expect to find great ‘doings’ in your musical line when I come back. Write soon and don’t forget the catalogues

Yours

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

12 October 1915]

My dear Galahad,

I am frightfully annoyed. I have just been to Guildford to hear Ysaye⁹⁷ and enjoyed it no more than I do the barking of a dog. The apalling thought comes over me that I am losing by degrees my musical faculty: already, as you know, I cannot enjoy things that used to drive me wild with delight, and I suppose in the course of time I shall become absolutely insensible–just like Henry Stokes or my brother or anyone else. There was also a woman called Stralia, a soprano, who sang one lovely thing from ‘Madame Butterfly’⁹⁸ and lots of stuff I didn’t understand. I havenot the faintest idea what Ysaye played, and I never want to hear it again. I listened as hard as I could, shutting my eyes and trying in vain to concentrate my attention, but it was all just meaningless sound. Of course violin solos were never much in my line but even so, it should not be so bad as this. Now I suppose I have lost your sympathy forever and am set down–who knows but it may be rightly–as a Goth and philistine. But it really is torture to feel things going out of you like that. Perhaps after all, the taste in music developed by a gramaphone is a bad, artificial, exotic one that dissapears after a certain point…The Lord knows!

You ask me how I spend my time, and though I am more interested in thoughts and feelings, we’ll come down to facts. I am awakened up in the morning by Kirk splashing in his bath, about 20 minutes after which I get up myself and come down. After breakfast & a short walk we start work on Thucydides–a desperately dull and tedious Greek historian⁹⁹ (I daresay tho’, you’d find him interesting) and on Homer whom I worship. After quarter of an hour’s rest we go on with Tacitus till lunch at 1.I am then free till tea at 4.30: of course I am always anxious at this meal to see if Mrs K. is out, for Kirk never takes it. If she is I lounge in an arm chair with my book by the fire, reading over a leisurely and bountiful meal. If she’s in, or worse still has ‘some people’ to tea, it means sitting on a right angled chair and sipping a meagrue allowance of tea and making intelligent remarks about the war, the parish and the shortcomings of every-ones servants. At 5, we do Plato and Horace, who are both charming, till supper at 7.30, after which comes German and French till about 9. Then I am free to go to bed whenever I like which is usually about 10.20.

As soon as my bed room door is shut I get into my dressing gown, draw up a chair to my table and produce–like Louis Moore, note book and pencil. Here I write up my diary for the day, and then turning to the other end of the book devote myself to poetry, either new stuff or polishing the old. If I am not in the mood for that I draw faces and hands and feet etc for practice. This is the best part of the day of course, and I am usually in a very happy frame of mind by the time I slip into bed. And talking about bed, I wish you and your family would have the goodness to keep out of my dreams. You remember my telling you that I dreamed that you and Lily & I were walking along North Street when I saw a ghost but you & she didn’t? That was at Port Salon. Well, last night found the same 3 walking somewhere in town, only this time the place had been captured by the Germans. Everyone had escaped and we were hurrying along in terror through the deserted streets with the German soldiers always just round the corner, going to catch us up and do something terrible. Dreams are queer things.

You ask me whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not quite such a fool as all that. But if one is only to talk from firsthand experience on any subject, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the thing they call love, I have what is better–the experience of Sapho,¹⁰⁰ of Euripides of Catullus¹⁰¹ of Shakespeare of Spenser of Austen of Bronte of, of–anyone else I have read. We see through their eyes. And as the greater includes the less, the passion of a great mind includes all the qualities of the passion of a small one. Accordingly, we have every right to talk about it. And if you read any of the great love-literature of any time or country, you will find they all agree with me, and have nothing to say about your theory that ‘love=friendship+sensual feelings’. Take the case I mentioned before. Were Louis & Shirley ever friends, or could they ever be? Bah! Don’t talk twaddle. On the contrary, the mental love may exist without the sensual or vice versa, but I doubt if either could exist together with friendship. What nonsense we both talk, don’t we? If any third person saw our letters they would have great ‘diversion’ wouldn’t they?

In the meantime, why have no catalogues reached me yet? By the time this reaches you, you will I hope have read your course of Swinburne I mapped out, and can send me your views. So glad you too like the ‘Faerie Queen’, isn’t it great? I have been reading a horrible book of Jack London’s called ‘The Jacket’.¹⁰² If you come across [it] anywhere, don’t read it. It is about the ill-treatment in an American prison, and has me quite miserabl. Write soon.

Yours

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 24-5):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 22 October 1915

My dear Papy,

The state of our library at Leeborough must be perfectly apalling: how such a collection of ignorances and carelessnesses could have got together on the shelves of our room passes my comprehension. As well, where is the beautiful quarto edition? What is a quarto? I don’t believe you have the vaguest idea, and should not be surprised if the edition in question is merely an 8vo., (-no, that doesn’t mean ‘in eight volumes’, though I too thought so once.) In fact there are a whole lot of things in your letter that I don’t understand. What are ‘vagrom’ men might I ask? I have consulted all the dictionaries at Gastons and failed to find the word. ‘But enough of these toys’ as Verulam remarks.¹⁰³

Kirk has just called my attention to an amusing article in the papers which I daresay you have read.¹⁰⁴ It appears that a Radley boy who had been allowed home for a day to see his brother who was going to the front, overstayed his leave by permission of his father, and on his return was flogged by the Head. If you remember, there was good reason because it turned out that the journey was out of joint or something, so that the fellow couldn’t get home and back in time. Moreover, the father sent a telegram. Well the boy and the father have brought an action, and now we come to the point. One of the witnesses called by the schoolmaster to defend his conduct was a certain Canon Sydney Rhodes James, sometime headmaster of Malvern. As Kirk points out, it is amusing to see that he alone was picked out of all England to defend a pedagogue from the boy he had flogged: so far he ‘outshone millions tho’ bright’. Unfortunately the judge, who I fancy must have known his man, decided that Jimmy’s theories of school management would be off the point, and did not call him. The evidence I suppose would have consisted in an illuminated discourse on ‘the young squirm’s’ conduct.

The chief amusement here is the Zeppelins. We saw the bombardment of Waterloo station going on that last time they were here: at least that is what we were told it was. All you could see were some electrical flashes in the sky caused by the bombs, and of course it was too far away to hear anything. Now that people know that they are about, we are always hearing them going over at nights, but it usually turns out to be a motor byke in the distance. Once we heard the noise of the thump of a hammer at Guildford, and people said that was the dropping of bombs, but I have my doubts.

Isn’t Jimmy good this week in Punch? I am glad to hear that Lily and Gordon are not going out of the neighbourhood, as they would make a bad gap. The sponge etc. must be having a long journey, but I hope they are like the mills of the Gods.¹⁰⁵

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 31):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 11 November 1915

My dear Papy,

As sole companion on a desert island, as a friend to talk to on the night before one was hanged, or, as in the present case, for a helper when one lies stunned in a muddy road, whom would we choose rather than Bill Patterson?¹⁰⁶ Ah! Bill. He is a joy for ever, is he not?–to himself. When you talk about the collision as you do, I take it to be mostly codotta: if I thought otherwise, I would be seriously alarmed. In any case, you must not allow this tendency to dissipation to run away with you at a time like the present when one sees the angel of death flapping his wings from the shores of Totting to hordes that dwell in the skirts of the rising sun, and things of that sort–instead of which, you go about indulging in debauches at the dentist’s. Is this not worthy of the severest censure?

I see no reason to congratulate the Times on its recruiting supplement in any way, nor the country on the necessity (which it allows to remain) for such publications being made. I am afraid that we must admit that Kipling’s career as a poet is over. The line to which you refer is the merest prose, as well as very bad metre. And why is the word ‘stone’ introduced, except to rhyme with o’erthrown?¹⁰⁷ On the other hand, if his career be over, we may say that it is creditably over, and if I, for one, had such a record of poetry behind me I should be well satisfied. I conceive that Kipling is one of those writers who has the misfortune in common with Longfellow, of always being known and liked for his worst works. I mean his poetry to the agaraioi means merely the Barrack Room Ballads,¹⁰⁸ which, however original and clever, are not poetry at all. ‘The brightest jewels in his crown’ as the hymnal would say, are, I suppose, ‘The Brushwood boy’,¹⁰⁹ ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’, ‘The jungle book’ and various of the scattered poems, among which I should place first the dedication piece about ‘my brother’s spirit’ and ‘gentlemen unafraid’. ‘The last rhyme of true Thomas’, ‘The first and last Chantry’ and several others which I forget.¹¹⁰ He is less of a scholar than Newbolt,¹¹¹ but he is also freer from conventional and obvious sentiment: his metres are often too clever. With it all however, I think he will survive, if any of the present crew do. Except Yeats, I don’t know of any other who is in the least likely to.

I myself have been reading this week a book by a man named Love Peacock, of whom I had not heard, but who seems to be famous. He was a contemporary of Lamb, Hazlitt, Byron etc., and an intimate friend of Shelly. The book is a farcical novel called ‘Headlong Hall’,¹¹² and very amusing.

As to the overcoat, I agree with you that it will be better to leave the business till the holydays, as the effort to make Bamford understand anything at all under any circumstances whatever is by no means child’s play. I hope you have not any urgent desire for the other one. According to my computations the half term was about three days ago. As I must now go and add to the glories of Greek literature by a very choice fragment of Attic prose, good night.

your loving son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 22):

[Gastons

15? November 1915]

My dear Papy,

The youth’s name is Terence Ford, and I know nothing more about him except that he lived in the suburbs of Manchester during his father’s lifetime. As I never see anything of him except on Sundays–for he spends all day at Leatherhead–I am quite reconciled to his presence and even enjoy hearing his talk about Campbell, which makes me by contrast more sensible of my present good luck. By the way, who is your friend Lord Bacon? I don’t remember any such name in English literature: in fact the name Bacon itself never occurs, to my knowledge, except as the family name of Lord Verulam. (Ahh! A body blow, eh?).

I am sorry to hear about your gums. Are you sure your dental artist is a competent man? A change of advisers often works wonders in medical matters. I always envy the Chinese for their excellent arrangement of paying the doctor while in health and, on falling ill, ceasing it until a cure has been effected. Perhaps you might suggest such an arrangement to the dentist.

I am still busy with my ‘heavy winged Pegasus’ as you call Spenser, and still find him delightful. He is a very lotus land, a garden of Proserpine to people who like pure romance and the ‘stretched metre of an antique song’.¹¹³ You should give him another trial some time, though not in our abridged edition which leaves out a lot of valuable stuff. I have also been reading in library copies, Schopenhauer’s ‘Will and idea’,¹¹⁴ and Swinburne’s ‘Erectheus’ which is another tragedy on Greek lines like ‘Atalanta’,¹¹⁵ though not so good in my opinion. Schopenhauer is abstruse and depressing, but has some very interesting remarks on the theory of music and poetry.

Kirk, I need hardly say, is strong on him, and will talk on the subject for hours–by the way, the real subject to get him on just now is the Mons angels.¹¹⁶ You should drop him a cue in your next letter: you know–‘a man was telling me the other day that he had seen with his own eyes’ or something of the kind. And while we are on the subject of the war, I am sure you have noticed the excellent blank verse poem in this week’s ‘Punch’ entitled ‘Killed in action’.¹¹⁷ I read it with great pleasure, and thought at the time that it would appeal to you.

The weather here is a perfect joke, warmer than July, bright sunshine and gentle breezes. Personally I have had quite enough summer, and should not be sorry to bid it goodbye, though Kirk persistently denounces this as a most unnatural state of mind. I am rather curious to know what the new case of books at home contains. Tell Arthur if you see him, that there is a letter owing to me.

your loving

son Jack

P.S. Was there any talk about Lord Bacon?

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W/LP V: 23-4):

[Gastons

16 November 1915]

My Furious Galahad,

Horace has pointed out that if you buy an article after knowing all its defects, you have no right to quarrel with the seller if you are dissatisfied.¹¹⁸ In the present case, since I told you how slack I was, and openly admitted that I could not promise to keep up a regular correspondance, you have no ground for grumbling if you find that I was speaking the truth. Should you, however, show any disposition to a brief exercise in that fascinating art, I have another excellent excuse: your letters are always shorter than mine: so much so that if I remain silent for a week or so, my amount of letter-writing for the term will still be a good bit bigger than yours.

As a matter of fact I have really had nothing to say, and thought it better to write nothing than to try and pump up ‘conversation’–in the philistine sense of the word. I have read nothing new and done nothing new for ages. I am still at the Faerie Queene, and in fact have finished the first volume, which contains the first three books. As I now think it far too good a book to get in ordinary Everyman’s I am very much wondering what edition would be the best. Of course I might get my father to give me that big edition we saw in Mullans’ for a birthday or Xmas present: but then I don’t really care for it much. The pictures are tolerable but the print, if I remember, rather coarse (you know what I mean) and the cover detestable. Your little edition is very nice, but rather too small, and not enough of a library-looking book. How much is it, and what publisher is it by? I believe I have heard you say that it can be got in the same edition as your ‘Odyssey’, but then that is rather risky, because the illustrations might be hopeless. Write, anyway, and tell me your advice.

By the way those catalogues have never come yet; you might wake the girlinosborne’s up. I hope you are right about my music not being a whim: could you imagine anything more awful than to have all your tastes gradually fade away? Not a bad subject for a certain sort of novel! And talking about music, how did you enjoy Ysaye:¹¹⁹ you don’t say in your letter. Yes: his brother did play when they were at Guildford: one of his things was a Liebestraum by Liszt, which I did appreciate to a certain extent. Mrs K. has got a new book of Grieg’s with a lot of things in it that I am just longing to hear you play: the best is ‘Auf den Bergen’,¹²⁰ do you know it? A lovely scene on mountains by the sea (I imagine) and belled cattle in the distance, and the snow and pines and blue sky, and blue, still, sad water. There’s a sort of little refrain in it that you would love. You must try and get hold of it.

Since finishing the first volume of Spenser I have been reading again ‘The Well at the World’s End’, and it has completely ravished me. There is something awfully nice about reading a book again, with all the half-unconscious memories it brings back. ‘The Well’ always brings to mind our lovely hill-walk in the frost and fog–you remember–because I was reading it then. The very names of chapters and places make me happy: ‘Another adventure in the Wood Perilous’, ‘Ralph rides the Downs to Higham-on-the-Way’, ‘The Dry Tree’, ‘Ralp reads in a book concerning the Well at the World’s End’.

Why is it that one can never think of the past without wanting to go back? We were neither of us better off last year than we are now, and yet I would love it to be last Xmas, wouldn’t you? Still I am longing for next holydays too: do you know they are only five weeks off.

By the way, I hope you have read ‘your Swinburne’ by now: anyway, when you go up to night to the room I know so well you must go and have a look at the ‘Well at the W’s End’. Good-night.

Yours

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 33):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 19 November 1915

My dear Papy,

By all accounts I have missed a treat by being lost in a Surrey village during these recent ‘elemental disturbances’ as the man in Bret Harte says–or was it Mark Twain? I love this sort of melodrama in weather, and a night when the cross-channel boats can’t put out is just in my line. Of course we never have any real wind here. The winter however has now set in for good, and ever since Monday there has been a hard frost with a little snow. They have been glorious days all the same, mostly without a cloud in the sky, and a blazing sun that is bright and dazzling but quite cold–grand weather for walking. I love the afternoons now, don’t you? There is something weird and desolate about the perfectly round orange coloured sun dropping down clear against a slatey grey sky seen through bare trees that pleases me better than all those cloud-cities and mountains that we used to see in summer over the Lough in the old days when the crows were going home. There never seem to be such sunsets latterly, do there?

Your friend Byron is not (I devoutly hope) immortal, though his poem about the Assyrians unfortunately is.¹²¹ It shares that rather deluding longevity with about half a dozen other nightmares such as ‘The village clock has just struck four’, ‘It was the schooner Hesperus’, ‘Under the spreading chestnut tree’¹²² etc.: to which list one might add the poems of Ovid, the novels of Dickens, and the complete works of Wordsworth.

Many thanks for the welcome postal order. Talking about money, when you next write to Warnie you might remind him of a business matter which seems to be rather hanging fire, and tell him that I am not only like Barkis, willing but also waiting.¹²³ I have acted upon your excellent advice and at last written to Arthur. There is, as yet, no answer, but in the meantime I am investing in a very good suit of sackcloth reach-me-downs and a dozen bottles of best quality ashes.

I am glad that you have been installed as a member of the permanent staff of St. Mark’s, and hope that ‘the management will continue to secure the services of this enterprising artist during the forthcoming season’ as the critics say in another department of life.¹²⁴ Yes: I am sure you will read the lesson as it has not been read in St. Mark’s for some time, although perhaps as you say, you appreciate it too well to do it justice.

I am rather sorry to hear that I have missed an opera company at all, even if a bad one. I suppose it is useless to ask if you have patronized it–unless perhaps you have been compelled to by Uncle Hamilton on the look out for a free stall.

Hoping the results of the accident are disappearing, I am

your loving,

son,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 33-4):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 24 November 1915

My dear Papy,

I am sorry if my intentional silence on this subject in my last letter has proved, as it well might, rather provoking. You will readily understand however my motives for not wishing to take any unnecessary responsibility in so delicate a point. My position, like that of Gilbert’s policeman, ‘is not a happy one’.¹²⁵ While really anxious not to add in the least to your worries, at the same time I have no wish to do anything that Warnie would afterwards consider mean or unpleasant. Since however you ask my opinion, I reply that the new point of this being the last leave he is likely to get certainly makes a considerable difference from our point of view as well as from that of K. It is no business of mine to sit in judgement on Warnie’s actions, and from that it seems to me to be hard luck that he should not get a few days at home with us both before settling down to–an indefinite period. Of course, as you say, he may be exaggerating, but I can only go upon the information that we get.

You will understand I am sure that it is almost entirely for his sake that I should suggest such an arrangement. A few rather breathless days at home are not such a prize that I should make much exertion to secure them on my own account. In the absence of any authority from you I have judged it better not to make any mention of the matter to K. I hope this was right as I was not at all sure what I ought to do.

Believe me Papy I am very sorry indeed that we are all worrying you in this way. I have told you what I feel about it, but it remains really a question between you and him. I wish only to act, if possible, in a manner agreeable to you both, or failing that, to help you as far as I can and fall in with your wishes. I am not at all sure that I have said exactly what I wanted in this letter, or made my position perfectly clear. The post with your letter came in very late, just as I was going to bed, and I am writing this rather hastily. It cannot be posted till tomorrow morning (Wednesday). I hope your side is getting better, as also the teeth.

your loving

son Jack.

P.S. I need not of course point out to you that I should hardly like to have any of this letter quoted to Warnie–but of course you understand that. J.¹²⁶

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 36-7):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 4 December 1915

My dear Papy,

This has been a week of surprises. As Chaucer says,

‘One might a book make of it in a story’ ¹²⁷

On Thursday, having a faint suspicion that things wouldn’t pan out as we expected, like Dido ‘Omnia tuta timens’¹²⁸ I made no preparation beyond walking down to the station to meet what I judged a likely train (excuse the ‘ation’ jingle in that sentence). Today however, being convinced that Warnie would really turn up, I clothed myself in glad rags, packed my handbag and was just putting on my shoes preparatory to a second walk to the station when your telegram arrived. So we must expect him on Sunday week!

Kirk advised me to make an arrangement about meeting him in town, since it will be a Sunday and the trains therefore different, he might not find time to come down here between his arrival in London and the departure of the boat train. Entre nous I don’t think such a plan desirable–I hate meeting people in strange places, and especially W., as we always manage to bungle things in between us. Nor indeed should it be necessary: on the last occasion, as you will remember, he crossed on a Sunday and found no difficulty. Moreover, even if you wrote to arrange it with him as soon as you get this, your letter would scarcely reach him in time, and he would certainly have no time in which to reply. If you think otherwise, of course you will arrange accordingly and let me know.

It has rained steadily for several days now, and in spite of the unsettled conditions I have been reading a lot. I have now finished the first volume of the Faerie Queene and am going through an English Literature of Kirk’s by Andrew Lang.¹²⁹ Lang is always charming whatever he does–or ‘did’ as we must unfortunately say, and this book is very good. More a rambling record of personal tastes than a set handbook, but all the better for that reason. There has also been from the London Library a book called ‘Springs of Helicon’ by Mackail¹³⁰–you know, Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the man on Wm. Morris. This is a study on Chaucer, Spenser and Milton and I enjoyed it immensely. He has quite infected me with his enthusiasm for the former, whom I must begin to read. He talks of other works, ‘the legend of good women’, ‘Troilus and Cresseide’ as being better than the tales.¹³¹ It is from Troilus and Cresseide that he quotes that priceless line to which I treated you on the first page: I think it is rather great, don’t you?

There is also a ‘Greek Literature’ by Gilbert Murray,¹³² the bad verse-translator, which I have read with dire anger, as he degrades Homer from a poet into a ‘question’ and prefers that snivelling metaphysician Euripides to Aeschylus.

I suppose the great wedding is over by now? Or shall W. and I be let in for it? I hope you have not let the news of the coming visit trickle through to the ears of the sociable άγοραοι?¹³³ Thanks for the ‘crowns for convoy’, which I am sure will be quite sufficient.

your loving son,

Jack

Jack was home from 21 December 1915 until he returned to Great Bookham on 21 January 1916. Warnie was on leave from France, and Mr Lewis had both his sons home together.

1 Albert Lewis, like so many others, had for some months previously feared that England would be invaded by the Germans, and this explains why his son was not allowed to return to Great Bookham until 16 January 1915.

2 Mark 3:26: ‘If Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.’

3 Homer, Iliad, Books I-XII, with an introduction, a brief Homeric grammar, and notes by D.B. Monro (1884).

4 Homer, Odyssey, Books I-XII, with an introduction, notes, etc. by W.W. Merry (1870).

5 Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 55-117), the greatest historian of ancient Rome, in AD 98 published Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law, Julius Agricola.

6 Charlotte Brontë, Villette (1853).

7 Henry Seton Merriman, The Grey Lady (1895); With Edged Tools (1894).

8 Paul Emanuel and Mme Beck are characters in Villette.

9 There were, in fact, a good many German submarines operating in the Irish Sea at this time. Lewis’s father was particularly upset over the raid near Fleetwood on 30 January 1915 when the Germans sank the Kilcoan, a collier designed by his brother Joseph.

10 William Makepeace Thackeray, Henry Esmond (1852).

11 George Henty (1832-1902), while serving with the army in the Crimea, became a war correspondent. Following this career in many countries, he became successful as the author of stories for boys mainly based on military history Out in the Pampas (1868) was followed by some 35 other titles.

12 A family of Belgian refugees were evacuated to Great Bookham in the autumn of 1914. Lewis began visiting them with Mrs Kirkpatrick, and became infatuated with one of the young girls in the family He doubtless discussed his feelings for her with Arthur Greeves during the Christmas holidays. As to how much truth there was in what he wrote and said about the Belgian girl, see Lewis’s letter of 1 October 1931.

13 Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901), The Jungle Book (1894); The Second Jungle Book (1895); Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906).

14 Albert Lewis had just acquired Kipling’s The Seven Seas (1896), which contains ‘The Story of Ung’.

15 Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596), Book IV, Canto xii, 1.

16 Helena, a play by the Greek poet Euripides, was produced in 412 BC.

17 Lewis is mocking his cousin Robert Heard Ewart.

18 Mr Kirkpatrick and Lord Balfour (1848-1930), were born in 1848, making them 67.

19 Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Study of Shakespeare (1880).

20 1 Samuel 16:23: ‘The evil spirit from God was upon Saul.’

21 Warren had only just returned from France, and having a week’s leave, he and Jack spent part of it together at home. Jack returned to Great Bookham on 9 February.

22 Presumably the Belgian girl he had written about in his previous letter.

23 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais (1821), XLV, 397.

24 Lord Kitchener (1850-1916) was Secretary of State for War.

25 Walter Savage Landor, Pericles and Aspasia (1836-7).

26 Sir Walter Scott, Kenilworth (1821).

27 David Lloyd George (1863-1945), Minister of Munitions, gave a speech on 28 February in which he appealed for an end to labour disputes. ‘We laugh at things in Germany,’ he said, ‘that ought to terrify us. We say, “Look at the way they are making their bread–out of potatoes, ha, ha.” Aye, that potato bread spirit is something which is more to dread than to mock at. I fear that more than I do even von Hindenburg’s strategy, efficient as it may be. That is the spirit in which a country should meet a great emergency, and instead of mocking at it we ought to emulate it.’ The Times (1 March 1915), p. 10.

28 Algernon Charles Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, Second Series (1878). The poem entitled ‘A Forsaken Garden’ begins ‘In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland’.

29 Publius Vergili Maronis Aeneidos: Liber VII, edited by Arthur Sidgwick (1879); The Aeneid of Vergil: Book VIII, edited with notes and vocabulary by Arthur Sidgwick (1879).

30 Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822).

31 i.e. the Belgian girl.

32 Lewis has borrowed the name from Malory. In Le Morte d’Arthur Galahad is the son of Launcelot and Elaine, and destined because of his immaculate purity to achieve the Holy Grail.

33 John Rutherford, The Bread of the Treshams (1903).

34 William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (1623).

35 Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin was first performed in 1850.

36 The title Richard Warner had chosen for his opera was The Venusberg, but he changed it to Tannhäuser when he learned that certain wits were making a joke of it. The opera was first performed in 1845.

37 Franz Schubert’s Rosamund was first performed in 1823.

38 The ‘Fire Music’ is the Interlude to Act III, scene 3 of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre, or The Valkyrie, first performed in 1870 and part of his Ring of the Nibelung cycle.

39 For information on music recorded on gramophone records see Francis F. Clough and G.J. Cuming, The World’s Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music (1952).

40 Arthur Clutton-Brock, William Morris: His Work and Influence (1914).

41 Jane (‘Janie’) Agnes McNeill (1889-1959) was the daughter of James Adams McNeill (1853-1907), headmaster of Campbell College 1890-1907, and Margaret Cunningham McNeill. Mr McNeill had at one time been Flora Lewis’s teacher, and he and his wife and daughter lived near the Lewises in ‘Lisnadene’, 191 Belmont Road, Strandtown. When he was young Jack Lewis both liked and disliked Janie. As time went on he realized that Jane, who would have liked to have gone to university, had remained home to look after her mother. He came to admire her much, and in time they became devoted friends. He was also close to Mrs McNeill, whose company he greatly enjoyed. That Hideous Strength is dedicated to Janie. See her biography in CG.

42 Charlotte Brontë, Shirley (1849); Jane Eyre (1847).

43 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, an opera by Richard Wagner, was first performed in 1868.

44 Arthur did not seem entirely sure what this ‘Galloping Horse’ piece was. In Lewis’s next letter of 11 May, he said to Arthur, ‘Why didn’t you give me the number of the Polonaise: and what cheek to say “I think it is in A Flat”–when a journey downstairs would make sure.’ If he had looked carefully Arthur might have discovered that it was not one of Chopin’s Polonaises, but one of his Mazurkas.

45 William Morris, The Roots of the Mountains (1890). The Longman’s Pocket Library edition was published in two volumes in 1913.

46 Hans Christian Andersen, The Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales, translated by Mrs Edgar Lucas, with coloured illustrations by Maxwell Armfield, Everyman’s Library [1914].

47 Albert and his sons were delighted with the new rector of St Mark’s. This was the Reverend Arthur William Barton (1881-1962) who was born in Dublin and had gone, like Warnie and Jack, to Wynyard School. He took his BA from Trinity College, Dublin in 1903, and his BD in 1906. He was ordained in 1905 and was curate at St George’s, Dublin, from 1904 until 1905, and curate of Howth from 1905 to 1913. From 1912 to 1914 he was head of the university settlement at Trinity College Mission in Belfast. He was instituted as rector of St Mark’s, Dundela, on 6 April 1914, and remained there until 1925 when he became rector of Bangor. In 1927 he was made Archdeacon of Down, and in 1930 he became Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh. In 1939 Barton became Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, which post he held until his retirement in 1956. In his description of Barton Warnie said, ‘There must have been few who met him and did not like him, and he was soon to become a constant and welcome visitor at Little Lea. He was a man of sunny temperament, with a great sense of fun, and a caressing voice; he brought into the rather narrow air of a Belfast suburb the breath of a wider culture and a more humane outlook; his society was refreshing. What was of more importance, he was an excellent and conscientious Priest, who found the religion of his parish sunk into mere formalism under the regime of his slothful predecessor, and who set on foot a renaissance’ (LP IV: 178).

48 Purdysburn was a lunatic asylum.

49 ‘But enough of these toys’, Francis Bacon said in ‘Of Masques and Triumphs’, Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral (1625).

50 Revelation 4:4-10.

51 Roots of the Mountains, op. cit, vol. I, ch. 3, pp. 24-5: ‘Therein are Kobbolds, and Wights that love not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as the sound of the fiddle-bow unto us. And there abide the ghosts of those that may not rest; and there wander the dwarfs and the mountain-dwellers, the dealers in marvels, the givers of gifts that destroy Houses.’

52 The painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) who lived for some years at ‘Limneslease’ near Compton in Surrey

53 Presumably a reference to the notorious Victorian children’s lesson book Little Arthur’s England (1835) by Lady Calcott.

54 Several generations of the Greeves family had been members of the Society of Friends (Quakers). However, Arthur Greeves’s grandparents had been converts to the Plymouth Brethren and it was in this denomination that Arthur had been brought up. The family retained its connection to the Friends.

55 John Milton, Sonnet 16, ‘When I consider how my light is spent’ (1673): ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’

56 The letters columns of the papers had been filled with talk of the pros and cons of conscription. However, the Military Service Act, which brought in conscription, did not come into being until 10 February 1916.

57 Roots of the Mountains, op cit, vol. I, ch. 1, p. 13.

58 Laxdaela Saga, translated by M.A.C. Press, Temple Classics (1899). This 13th century Icelandic saga is the tragic story of several generations of an Iceland family, and in particular of Gudrun who causes the death of a man she loves but fails to marry.

59 Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814).

60 He had in mind Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1, first performed in 1851.

61 Charles Gordon Ewart (1885-1936) was the second son of Sir William Quartus Ewart. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix.

62 He means her character was like Wagner’s Die Walküre.

63 Gundreda Ewart (1888-1975) was one of the daughters of Sir William Quartus Ewart. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix.

64 From Edvard Grieg’s Lyriske Smaastykker (1867).

65 i.e. ‘A British Roman Song’.

66 He is referring to Plato’s Phaedrus, 278a

67 The Whip, a play by Cecil Raleigh and Henry Hamilton, had been performed for the first time in 1909 and was having a revival.

68 Willie Carr, Albert’s managing clerk, apparently after being rejected for the army on account of his teeth in the earlier days of the war, had now been accepted.

69 William Shakespeare, Othello, The Moor of Venice (1622).

70 These are the central characters in William Shakespeare’s plays King Lear (1608), Macbeth (1623), Hamlet (1603) and Othello.

71 This was Jack’s maternal grandmother, Mrs Mary Hamilton, then living at Archburn, Knock. See The Hamilton Family in the Biographical Appendix.

72 The Open Road, compiled by E.V. Lucas (1905).

73 Maurice Hewlett, Pan and the Young Shepherd (1898).

74 Maurice Hewlett, Lore of Proserpine (1913); Forest Lovers (1898).

75 Charlotte Brontë, The Professor (1857).

76 Genesis 3:19.

77 Demosthenes (383-322 BC) was a great Athenian orator and statesman, and Cicero (106-43 BC) a great Roman orator and statesman. Neither, however, attracted Lewis, who writing years later in SBJ IX said: ‘Kirk did not, of course, make me read nothing but Homer. The Two Great Bores (Demosthenes and Cicero) could not be avoided.’

78 Henry Seton Merriman, The Sowers (1896).

79 George Eliot (1819-80), the English novelist whose real name was Mary Ann Evans.

80 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel and Other Poems (1816); The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798).

81 i.e. Lewis’s cousin, Mrs George Harding (née Charlotte Hope Ewart, 1882-1934).

82 Lewis loved all Richard Wagner’s music, especially the Ring of the Nibelung cycle comprising Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) first performed in 1869; Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), first performed in 1870; Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (The Dusk of the Gods), both performed for the first time in 1876.

83 Parsifal, an opera by Wagner, first performed in 1882.

84 William Jaffé, a friend of Albert Lewis, was the son of Sir Otto Jaffé who was twice Lord Mayor of Belfast.

85 Chaliapin was Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyalpin (1873-1938) who was generally considered the greatest singer of his day

86 Robert le Diable, an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, was first performed in 1831.

87 ‘“Boldness and ever more boldness” from G. J. Danton in Le Moniteur (4 September 1792).’

88 The fellow pupil was Terence Forde (1899-?), the ward of Mrs Howard Ferguson. He had been brought up in Manchester, and after moving to Ireland he attended Campbell College, from which school he was sent to Mr Kirkpatrick.

89 This is Jack’s cousin, Joseph ‘Joey’ Tegart Lewis. See note 21 to letter of 27 November 1908. Joey entered Campbell College, Belfast, in 1906, and was still a pupil there. See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

90 i.e. Terence Forde.

91 i.e. the opera by Charles Gounod.

92 The comparison is between Louis and Shirley, characters in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, and Gordon Ewart and Lily Greeves who were to be married on 14 December 1915.

93 Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 2 vols., Everyman’s Library [1910].

94 Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, op. cit. ‘At Parting’ begins: ‘For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us.’

95 The lines from ‘At a Month’s End’ are: ‘Who snares and tames with fear and danger/ A bright beast of a fiery kin.’

96 Dr Lawrence Walker of Belfast was a teacher of music.

97 Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931), the Belgian violinist and conductor whose style of playing was considered unconventional and highly original.

98 Madame Butterfly, an opera by Giacomo Puccini, was first performed in 1904.

99 Thucydides (c. 460-c. 400 BC) wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War which is one of the greatest historical works of all time. One of its most noteworthy passages is Pericles’s Funeral Oration over the Athenians who had died in the war.

100 Sappho (b. c. mid-7th cent. BC), a poetess born in Lesbos. Only 12 of her poems have survived.

101 Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84-c. 54 BC), one of the most versatile of Roman poets, who wrote love poems, elegies and satirical epigrams with equal success.

102 Jack London, The Jacket (1915).

103 This is from the essay by Francis Bacon referred to in the letter of 13 May 1915. Bacon was the Baron of Verulam.

104 See The Times (21 October 1915), p. 4 and (22 October 1915), p. 5.

105 ‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.’ Friedrich von Logau, Sinnegedichte (1654), ‘Desz Dritten Tausend, Andres Hundert’ no. 24 (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

106 William H.F. ‘Bill’ Patterson, the son of William Hugh Patterson (1835-1918) who wrote A Glossary of Words in Use in the Counties of Antrim and Down (1880), was addicted to puns and was a recognized Strandtown wit. He published a volume of verse under the initials W.H.F., Songs of a Port (Belfast, 1920).

107 Included in The Times of 3 November 1915 was The Times Recruiting Supplement, on page 16 of which was a poem Rudyard Kipling composed for the occasion. The first verse of the poem, ‘For All We Have and Are’, is as follows:

For all we have and are,

For all our children’s fate,

Stand up and meet the war,

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away

In wantonness o’erthrown.

There is nothing left today

But steel and fire and stone.

108 Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses (1892).

109 ‘The Brushwood Boy’ is one of the stories in Kipling’s The Day’s Work (1908).

110 The ‘dedication piece’ which refers to ‘my brother’s spirit’ and ‘gentlemen unafraid’ is the dedication poem to Wolcott Balestier in Barrack-Room Ballads; ‘The Last Rhyme of True Thomas’, ‘The First Chantey’ and ‘The Last Chantey’ are found in The Seven Seas.

111 Sir Henry John Newbolt (1862-1938) was educated at Clifton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is remembered particularly for his nautical ballads published in Admirals All and Other Verses (1897).

112 Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall (1816).

113 William Shakespeare, Sonnet 17 (1609).

114 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea (1883-6).

115 Algernon Charles Swinburne, Erechtheus (1876); Atalanta in Calydon (1865).

116 The Battle of Mons, on the Western Front, began on 23 August 1914. For the whole of that day the British held the line against the Germans with greatly inferior numbers. A legend began within two weeks of the battle that an angel had appeared ‘on the traditional white horse and clad all in white with flaming sword’. Facing the advancing Germans the angel ‘forbade their further progress’. Martin Gilbert, First World War (1994), p. 58.

117 ‘Killed in Action’ by R.C.L. is found in Punch, Vol. CXLIX (13 November 1915), p. 310.

118 Horace, Epistles, 2. 2. 17-19.

119 This is Théo Ysaÿe (1865-1918), a pianist and composer, brother of Eugène.

120 ‘Auf den Bergen’ is a piano solo from Edvard Grieg’s Folkelivsbilleder (1872).

121 George Gordon, Lord Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib (1815), l. 1: ‘The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold’.

122 ‘It was the schooner Hesperus’ is l. 1 of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Wreck of the Hesperus (1839); ‘Under the spreading chestnut tree’ is l.1 of Longfellow’s The Village Blacksmith (1839).

123 Barkis is the character in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (1849-50) who sent a message by David to Clara Peggotty that ‘Barkis is willin’.’

124 Albert had been appointed a church warden at St Mark’s for the third time.

125 W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Act II.

126 Albert replied on 26 November 1915: ‘I was glad to get your kind and sympathetic letter. I have done as you would wish. I have just written to Warnie to say that inasmuch as he says he will not get leave again until the end of the war, I have altered my decision and have written to you to hold yourself in readiness to leave when he calls. I shall write to K. and send your travelling money later. You may tell K. what is impending if you like’ (LP V: 34).

127 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, bk. V, l. 585: ‘Men mighte a book make of it, lik a storie!’

128 Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 298: ‘Incline to fear where all was safe…’

129 Andrew Lang, History of English Literature (1912).

130 John William Mackail, Springs of Helicon: A Study in the Progress of English Poetry from Chaucer to Milton (1909); The Life of William Morris, 2 vols. (1899).

131 i.e. Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde are better than his most popular work, The Canterbury Tales (composed 1387-1400).

132 Gilbert Murray, A History of Ancient Greek Literature (1897). Murray (1866-1957) was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford 1908-36, and a distinguished translator of Greek plays.

133 People who frequent the agora (market place), i.e. the common people.

1916

Jack was at Little Lea when, on 8 January, The Times published the Military Service Act, which was expected to come into effect soon. In a section concerning the ‘Obligation of unmarried men to serve’ it stated that included among those who would have to serve were: ‘Every male British subject who, on the fifteenth day of August nineteen hundred and fifteen–(a) was ordinarily resident in Great Britain; and (b) had attained the age of eighteen years and had not attained the age of forty-one years; and (c) was unmarried or was a widower without children dependent on him’ (p. 8).

In a ‘Service Act Proclamation published in The Times on 4 February 1916 King George V ordered that the Military Service Act come into operation on 10 February 1916. Even then, Jack had reason at this time to think he might not be required to serve. The Times of 8 January had published, along with the Military Service Act, notification of ‘A Bill to make provisions with respect to Military Service in connection with the present war’ (p. 8). ‘Exemptions,’ it declared, would include ‘Men who are resident in Great Britain for the purpose only of their education or for some other purpose.’

While the Military Service Act went into effect on 10 February, the question of exemptions for Irishmen was debated by the Government for many months, during which time Jack did not know whether he would qualify for exemption or not. By the time it was clear that exemption would apply to him, and that he was not required to serve, he had decided that he should serve nevertheless.

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 48-9):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 31 January 1916

My dear Papy,

One of the small consolations that a long experience of the continual change from term to holidays and vice versa brings, is the ability to settle down at once. I feel now as if I had been here for several months and have quite got into the old routine again. Everything at Bookham is of course in statu quo–I believe it would still be a hundred years hence. It is beautiful spring weather, as it was at home when I left you, and if only one could have that matutinal cup of tea, life would have nothing more to offer.

I spent the afternoon last Saturday in town, at the Shaftesbury, where there was a matinée of Carmen:¹ the singing was very poor, especially our friend the bass, whose rendition–I fancy that is the correct term–of the Toreador song was a thing to make the angels weep. Carmen herself however was quite good, and the tenor tolerable, so that on the whole I might have fared worse. With the opera itself, apart from the performance, I was very pleased. Just about the right percentage of the tunes was (it ought to be ‘was’ not ‘were’ oughtn’t it?) familiar to me, and the ones which I had not heard before ‘discoveries’.

This afternoon I have been a long walk to a perfectly delightful village² that I had never found out before, and I wish you could see it. It is rather like some of the places described in the ‘Upton Letters’ only more so. One old house–a thing as thick as a cottage and a good deal longer than Leeborough, all built on different levels, bears the legend ‘1666’. The best things however are the dragons and other monsters on the roof. Another most excellent codotta is the White Horse where you can drink tea, and a parlour that was used in the coaching days, and has not, by the look of it, been furnished since. If only they would dust the butter it would be quite ideal.

The ‘Faerie Queen’ which I told Mullens to send here as soon as it came has now arrived, and I am very pleased with it. If a bill comes from Osbornes for those records, please send it on at once as I have a cheque of W’s. made out (or whatever the phrase is) to T.E. Osborne to pay it withal. However, no bill ought to arrive as I am asking Arthur to tell the ‘young person’ to send it here. And by the by, talking about cheques, I am not sure whether I asked you to take the cheque out of my cash box in the little end room and turn it into money some time before next holidays. Would you please do this? Hoping you are carrying on all right.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 50-1):

[Gastons

1 February 1916]

Dear little Archie,

Oh Gods of friendship, has such devotion ever been witnessed as mine! I am just at the beginning of a heavenly new book, I am just at the end of a long day’s work, and yet I spend my spare time in writing letters. I hope you duly appreciate the sacrifice of a fresh young heart offered up on the savage altar of³–well to get on.

On the Saturday⁴ in London I wasted 7/6 on going to a matinee of Carmen. There was no one in the cast of whom I had heard before and no one whom I want to hear again. Carmen herself was tolerable, but the rest, especially the Toreador, were fiendish. With the opera too I was awfully disappointed, although there is certainly a lot of beautiful music in it–particularly in the preludes to the acts (oh, one thing was good–the orchestra: they played that intermezzo that I have exquisitely) and in the scene among the mountains. But one does get so sick of all the tedious melodrama, all the blustering orchestration, and sticky tunes of good old fashioned operas. Then too there are a pair of villains in it who have a ghastly resemblance in their clownings to that other pair in Fra Diavolo–do you remember those awful creatures? So on the whole I was very fed up with this world by the time I reached dear Bookham. I find–of course–my beloved fellow pupil.

Since then I have been cheered up by the arrival of my new ‘Faerie Queen’ in the red leather Everyman. I can’t see why you so dislike this edition: and if you have noticed the effect that their backs have when two or three are together in a shelf I am sure you do really appreciate them. I have read a good chunk of this and have also re-read Jane Eyre from beginning to end–it is a magnificent novel. Some of those long, long dialogues between her and Rochester are really like duets from a splendid opera, aren’t they? And do you remember the description of the night she slept on the moor and of the dawn? You really lose a lot by never reading books again.

The other book–which I am denying myself to write to YOU, yes YOU of all people–is from the library by Blackwood called ‘Uncle Paul’.⁵ Oh, I have never read anything like it, except perhaps the ‘Lore of Proserpine’. When you have got it out of your library and read how Nixie and Uncle Paul get into a dream together and went to a primaeval forest at dawn to ‘see the winds awake’ and how they went to the ‘Crack between yesterday and tomorrow’⁶ you will agree with me.

It was most annoying not getting my new records before I came back, wasn’t it? Tell the girlinosbornes–the next time you go to see Olive–to send the bill for them to my address here at once. I do hope my Caruso⁷ ‘E lucevan e stella’⁸ is going to be a success. Talking about that thing, does it convey anything to you? To me it seems to be just abstract melody. The actual scene I believe is a man on the battlement of a castle writing a letter–but you have probably read Tosca in that beastly potted opera book.

I was interested in what you said about the ‘Brut’.⁹ You ought to get it in Everyman.

Yours

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 51-2):

[Gastons

6? February 1916]

My dear Papy,

Thanks very much for the cheque, which I enclose, signed as you told me. I am afraid however that I must trouble you again: one of my pairs of shoes has finally given out ‘beyond the hope of uttermost recall’ and I want you please to get me a new pair, or else tell Annie to do so. The mysterious piece of paper which I am sending is a map of my foot so that the knave in the shop will know what size to give you. I am very sorry if this is a nuisance, and will take care next term to set out well equipped with hats, coats, shoes and other garments, like the men in the furnace.

That business about Warnie’s commission, though of course important in itself, is as you say a nice example of war office methods. If big things are managed in the same way as these small ones, it promises well for the success of the war doesn’t it? Another thing also struck me: we have often wondered and laughed at some of the people who have commissions. It becomes even funnier when one reads the formula, ‘reposing special trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage, and good conduct’: we remember that the Jarvey¹⁰ who drove the Colonel up to the office last time was one of those who hoped soon to enjoy this ‘special trust and confidence.’

By the way, you should get that ‘Spirit of Man’, Bridge’s anthology,¹¹ that everyone is talking about. Mrs. K. has it from the library at present: it is one of the prettiest little books I have seen for a long time, and there is a lot of good stuff in it. One ‘nice point’ is that the names of the authors are printed at the end of the volume and not under each piece: it is very amusing–and somewhat humiliating–to see how many you know.

This business about matriculation and enlisting is ‘very tiresome’, as the Mikado said.¹² Are you [sure] that it applies to those who are under age, and who are also Irish? If so, as you say, we must think it over together. Of course in dealing with such a point we must always remember that a period of something more than a year elapses between the time of joining up and one’s getting any where near the front.¹³ However, it can wait until we are together at Easter.

And now my dear parent, as the time alloted to correspondence is drawing to its close, I fear I must relinquish–or in other words it is time for Church. You will observe that this is one of those houses where we rise so early on Sundays that there is a long interval between breakfast and our Calvinistic exercises.

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 53-4):

[Gastons

8 February 1916]

My dear Arthur,

You lucky devil! It makes me very envious to hear of all these good things going on at home while I am languishing in the wilds of Surrey.

I am surprised to hear that you never heard of Barkworth,¹⁴ as I have seen his name in the musical part of the Times and other papers: I believe he is one of the promising musicians of the day–that is if there are ever going to be English musicians and an English school of opera. Personally I should have been very much interested to hear his ‘Romeo and Juliet’. If the only fault is that it is blustering, you might say the same of the ‘Flying Dutchman’¹⁵ or the ‘Valkyrie’, mightn’t you? What did poor Willie Jaffe think of it? (I suppose you mean him by W.J.–) Hardly in his line I should fancy. I am sure ‘Pagliaci’ and ‘Cavalleria’ were lovely, and I would especially like to have seen ‘Rigoletto’, because I know the plot.¹⁶

I quite agree with you that a gramophone spoils one for hearing opera: the real difficulty is to find for what a gramophone does not spoil one. True, it improves your musical taste and gives you opportunities of hearing things that you might otherwise never know: but what is the use of that when immediately afterwards it teaches you to expect a standard of performance which you can’t get, or else satiates you with all the best things so that they are stale before you have heard them once on the stage? Or in other words, like everything else it is a disappointment, like every other pleasure it just slips out of your hand when you think you’ve got it. The most striking example of this is the holiday which one looks forward to all the term and which is over and gone while one is still thinking how best to enjoy it.

By all this you will gather that I am in a bad temper: well, so I am–that bloody little beast my fellow pupil has sneaked upstairs for a bath and I can now hear him enjoying it and I know there will be no hot water left for me. They only raise hot water here about once a month.

However. Let us proceed: do you read Ruskin at all? I am sure you don’t. Well I am reading a book of his at present called ‘A joy for ever’,¹⁷ which is charming, though I am not sure you would care for it. I also still employ the week ends with the Faerie Queene. I am now in the last three books, which, though not much read as a rule, are full of good things. When I have finished it, I am going to get another of Morris’ romances, or his translation of one of the sagas–perhaps that of Grettir the Strong.¹⁸ This can be got either for 5/-in the Library edition (my ‘Sigurd the Volsung’¹⁹ one) or for 3/6 in the ‘Silver Library’ (like my ‘Pearl Maiden’).²⁰ Which would you advise?

By the way, why is your letter dated Wednesday? It has arrived here this evening–Tuesday–am I to understand that you posted it tomorrow, or that you have been carrying it about in your pocket for a week?

Isn’t it awful about Harding? I hear from my father that Hope is going out.²¹ I suppose that by this time the jeunes mariés have got into Schomberg.²² Why are your letters always so much shorter than mine? Therefore I stop.

Yours,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 56-7):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 26 February 1916

My dear Papy,

‘Well I calls it ’ard’ as your friend used to say of the ’alf hour: I am accustomed, nay I am hardened to missing opera companies: but that I should be exiled in the wilds of England while Robin W. Gribbon and Lucius O’Brien²³ are visiting Belfast–this is too utterly all but. But why might I ask are these nonconformist canals reciting in the school house of Saint Mark?²⁴ What have they to do with us? Let them get behind us. Joking apart, one might get a ‘running river of innocent merriment’ out of their efforts, ‘extremely stretched and conned with cruel pains’. Perhaps however you have your own reasons for reverencing the school house. Is it not the theatre of an immortal rendition of that ‘powerful’ role of Gesler,²⁵ and also of an immortal brick-dropping re an immortal preacher? There too the honey tongued tenor of Garranard–but we will draw a veil over the painful scene.

There is a certain symmetry of design in your list of books, a curiosa felicitas, a chaste eloquence and sombre pathos in the comments, ‘See no. 40’ and ‘see no. 2’ which I cannot but admire. I don’t know how they have bungled it, but so long as I actually have two copies of the ‘Helena’ it will be all right, as Mullen’s will make no difficulty about exchanging the unused one. If however the second copy exist (not exists) only on paper–why there we have the sombre pathos.

I am rather surprised at your criticism on ‘The Spirit of man’, and consider the reference to ‘rescuing’ both otiose and in doubtful taste. Of course it must be read, not merely as an anthology, but in the light of its title and avowed purpose, and we must not be disappointed when we find certain favourites left out because they could not rightly claim a place in such a scheme. In this sense indeed the book is rather an original work than a collection of poems: for just as the musician may weave together a symphony by using the melodies of others arranged to express himself, so I take it Bridges is here working out an idea of his own: and the medium he chooses–as one might choose marble and another chalk (which you know is deteriorating terribly)–is the collective poetry of his predecessors. Or indeed, if I am reading too much into him, this would be a plan for a better anthology than has yet been written. One thing in the book I admit is indefensible–the detestable translation from Homer, which, though you may hardly recognise it, is meant to be in the metre of ‘Oh! let us try’. For this Bridges ought to get ‘something with boiling oil’.²⁶

After a January so warm and mild that one could almost have sat in the garden, we have suddenly been whisked back to winter. It has snowed all day today, and is freezing hard tonight on top of it. I am very sorry to hear what you tell me about Hope: as you say, it must be terribly lonely and trying for her out there, and I am afraid the patient brings a very second rate constitution to the struggle.

your loving son,

Jack

P.S. I forgot to say the list of books, with one exception, is correct. J.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

[Gastons

28 February 1916]

Monday

My dear Galahad,

I suppose that by this time there is wrath and fury against me: however, there is no excuse, and you must just thole, as they say.

I don’t know what it is like with you, but for this last week we have had the most lovely snow here. There is no wind, so where the snow ‘falleth, there shall it lie’:²⁷ which means that when you walk through the woods every branch is laden like a Christmas tree, and the mass of white arranged in every fantastic shape and grouping on the trees is really wonderful. Don’t you love to walk while it is actually snowing? I love to feel the soft, little touches on your face and see the country through a sort of haze: it is so exquisitly desolate. It reminds one of that scene in ‘The Lore of Proserpine’.

Poor thing! I do like the way, because a fellow asks you to join a corps, that you complain about ‘your troubles’. May you never do worse! It reminds me of the story of Wellesly and his rich friend: W. had been going on one of his preaching tours round the country, riding alone in all weather, being put in the stocks, insulted, & stoned by the mob, in the course of all which he stayed for a night at the luxurious mansion of the friend. During the evening, a puff of smoke blew out of the grate, whereupon the host exclaimed ‘You see, Sir, these are some of the crosses which I have to bear!’²⁸ Indeed, however, I ‘can’t talk’ as you would say, for of course I am an inveterate grumbler myself–as you, of all people have best reason to know.

By the way, do you know a series of rather commonplace little volumes at 1/6 each called the Walter Scott Library? I have just run across them: they are not particularly nice–though tolerable–but the point is that they sell some things I have often wanted to get: among others Morris’ translation of the ‘Volsunga Saga’ (not the poem, you know, that I have, but a translation of the old Icelandic prose saga) which cannot be got in any other edition except the twelve guinea ‘Works’, of which you can’t get the volumes separately.²⁹ If only the edition were a little decenter I’d certainly get it.

Perhaps you laugh at my everlasting talk about buying books which I never really get: the real reason is that I have so little time here–indeed only the week-ends as I spend all the spare time on week-days in reading French books, which I want to get more fluent in. However, I am now nearing the end of the ‘Faerie Queene’, and when that is done the Saturdays & Sundays will be free for something else. Really, whatever you say, you have much more time than I.

I wonder why Osborne’s have sent no bill to me yet? I am not sure whether I asked you to give them my adress and tell them to send in the account or not: anyway, be a sport, and do so–AT ONCE. I have had a grisly dissapointment this week: Mrs K. said she was going away for a fortnight & I was gloating in the prospect of privacy & peace. But it has turned out a mare’s nest. Ochone!

be good,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 58-9):

[Gastons

7 March 1916]

Tuesday

My dear Galahad,

I was very glad to get your interesting letter–which was fortunately longer than some of them–as I was beginning to wonder what had become of you; I think your ‘lapse’ this term puts you on a level with mine last, so that we can cry quits and admit that we are both sinners.

I have had a great literary experience this week. I have discovered yet another author to add to our circle–our very own set: never since I first read ‘The well at the world’s end’ have I enjoyed a book so much–and indeed I think my new ‘find’ is quite as good as Malory or Morris himself. The book, to get to the point, is George Macdonald’s ‘Faerie Romance’, Phantastes,³⁰ which I picked up by hazard in a rather tired Everyman copy–by the way isn’t it funny, they cost 1/1d. now–on our station bookstall last Saturday. Have you read it? I suppose not, as if you had, you could not have helped telling me about it. At any rate, whatever the book you are reading now, you simply MUST get this at once: and it is quite worth getting in a superior Everyman binding too.

Of course it is hopeless for me to try and describe it, but when you have followed the hero Anodos along that little stream to the faery wood, have heard about the terrible ash tree and how the shadow of his gnarled, knotted hand falls upon the book the hero is reading, when you have read about the faery palace–just like that picture in the Dulac book–and heard the episode of Cosmo, I know that you will quite agree with me. You must not be disappointed at the first chapter which is rather conventional faery tale style, and after it you won’t be able to stop until you have finished. There are one or two poems in the tale–as in the Morris tales you know–which, with one or two exceptions are shockingly bad, so don’t TRY to appreciate them: it is just a sign, isn’t it, of how some geniuses can’t work in metrical forms–another example being the Brontes.

I quite agree with what you say about buying books, and love all the planning and scheming beforehand, and if they come by post, finding the neat little parcel waiting for you on the hall table and rushing upstairs to open it in the privacy of your own room. Some people–my father for instance–laugh at us for being so serious over our pleasures, but I think a thing can’t be properly enjoyed unless you take it in earnest, don’t you? What I can’t understand about you though is how you can get a nice new book and still go on stolidly with the one you are at: I always like to be able to start the new one on the day I get it, and for that reason wait to buy it until the old one is done But then of course you have so much more money to throw about than I.

Talking about finishing books, I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say ‘at last’, I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he hoped to do–so much have I enjoyed it. The two cantos of ‘Mutabilitie’ with which it ends are perhaps the finest thing in it, and if you have not done so already, you should read them whenever you have the time to spare.

I am now–by the same post–writing for a book called ‘British Ballads’ (Everyman)³¹ in the chocolate binding of which I used to disapprove: so you see I am gradually becoming converted to all your views. Perhaps one of these days you may even make a Christian of me. Yes: I have at last heard from the girlinosbornes: but like the minstrel in Scott,

‘Perhaps he wished the boon denied’ ³²

as the bill is rather a staggerer and my finances are not very blooming at present–I am thinking of sending it out to my brother to pay.

I well remember the glorious walk of which you speak, how we lay drenched with sunshine on the ‘moss’ and were for a short time perfectly happy–which is a rare enough condition, God knows. As Keats says ‘Rarely, rarely comest thou, spirit of Delight’.³³ I do hope we shall have many more pleasant hours such as that the days are running in so fast now, and it makes me so sad to think that I shall have only two more sets of holidays of the good old type, for in November comes my 18th birthday, military age, and the ‘vasty fields’³⁴ of France, which I have no ambition to face. If there is good weather and you get some days off next hols., we should go for some walks before breakfast–the feel of the air is so exquisite. I don’t know when I can expect to come home.

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 60-1):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 10 March 1916

My dear Papy,

‘I wonder’ said Demetrius, and so do I. You know it is a terrible thing for a young boy to get into the hands of a rascally old firm of solicitors to be cajoled into signing all sorts of mysterious documents. How do I know to what I have committed myself? Perhaps my three moors are being made over, or you are putting an entail on my little place in Rome. (What is an entail) Ha! Ha! The missing heir. Indeed the whole proceeding savours of the novelette: you must cut your moustache shorter and call yourself Richard or Rupert. However, I herewith enclose the enigmatic slip of paper, with the forged signature inked over ‘avec d’empresment’ (French language). By the way, I see that I have acknowledged £16-13-10. Well what became of this…this…business…this tea business?

I hope you have read your Times Literary Supplement this week: do you see that the commonwealth of letters is the richer by a great new poet? Now let the stars retire for the sun has risen: let Hemans and M’Kitrick Ros³⁵ be silent, for Mr. Little has come! It is really too good to be missed. I love the fine impassioned address to the sea, as much greater than Tennyson’s ‘Break, break, break’³⁶ as that is than the one in the Prometheus, the one you will have noticed beginning

‘Oh, wave! Thy clemency is open

To shrewd suspicion’.³⁷

What melody! What masterly phrazing and gorgeous imagery! We may pass over such minor beauties as the lioness which becomes the ‘formidable sultaness’ and go on to the last piece which contains the gems about the ‘golden brawn’ of the sunrise, the ‘various viands of the rainbow’ and nature ‘gorgeous, great, gratuitous’. Why this is a more exquisite song than the other about ‘Presumption, pride, pomposity’, though there is a certain likeness. This I suppose is the modern school that has got beyond Tennyson. Well perhaps they have: but I for one had sooner walk on the earth than soar on any Pegasus which bears such a disquieting resemblance to a rocking horse.

St. John’s, the school at Leatherhead whither my fellow pupil is wont daily to repair for gentlemanly and vertuous discipline and schooling in the humane letters, has got an epidemic of influenza and is breaking up for the term. So I suppose we shall have our well beloved Ford more in evidence now. Tell Arthur to write. I am sorry to hear what you say about Grandmother: I feel that we ought to have seen more of her, but it was not easy.³⁸ Your loving,

son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 63-4):

[Gastons

14 March 1916]

(You ought to know the date.)

My dear Galahad,

It must have been a very old Everyman list on which you found ‘Phantastes’ as one of the new ones, since, to my knowledge, the copy I got had been on the bookstall for weeks. Everymans with us have gone up 1d. in the shilling: I suppose it is just the same at home? By the time you get this you will probably have finished Phantastes, so you must give me your verdict on it as a whole: when one has read a book, I think there is nothing so nice as discussing it with some one else–even though it sometimes produces rather fierce arguments.

I too am rather disappointed. The ‘British Ballads’ has come, and though I am awfully bucked with the edition–I can’t think why I didn’t appreciate it before. This must be a triumph for you–the reading matter is not nearly so good as I expected. For one thing, instead of being all made up of real old ballads as I hoped, it is half full of silly modern imitations and even funny ones. Don’t you loathe ‘funny’ poetry? However, as it is not your style of book, I suppose I am boring you.

All the same, when you begin to write a letter you just go on babbling–at least I do–without thinking whether the person at the other end is interested or not, till you come to the last page and find that you haven’t really said what you wanted to. But perhaps that sort of rambling is the right kind of letter. I don’t know whether you personally write that way or not, but the result is charming, and you can’t think how eager I am to see the atrocious but familiar scroll waiting for me on the hall table. And yet, every letter is a disappointment: for a minute or two I was carried back to your room at Bernagh–don’t you remember rooms by their smells? Each one has its own–and seem to be talking to you, and then suddenly I come to the end and it’s all only a little bit of paper in my hand and Gastons again. But come. We are being mawkish. I think you and I ought to publish our letters (they’d be a jolly interesting book by the way) under the title of lamentations, as we are always jawing about our sorrows. I gather it was that beastly girl in Mayne’s who ‘flared up’ as you say. Aren’t they rude in that place? I think we ought to start a movement in the neighbourhood to boycott them. Only we’d have to join in it ourselves, which would be a pity.

No: I have never yet seen Kelsie’s book. I daresay she doesn’t know that I take an interest in such things, and you are lucky in having a reputation as a connoisseur which makes you free of every library in Belmont–tho’ there aren’t very many to be sure. I am afraid our Galahad will be growing a very stodgy mind if he reads nothing but Trollope and Goldsmith and Austen. Of course they are all very good, but I don’t think myself I could stand such a dose of stolidity. I suppose you will reply that I am too much the other way, and will grow a very unbalanced mind if I read nothing but lyrics and fairy tales. I believe you are right, but I find it so hard to start a fresh novel: I have a lazy desire to dally with the old favourites again. I think you’ll have to take me in hand and set me a ‘course’ when I come home.

By the way what about the piano and the gramophone these days? We don’t seem to talk of music so much now as we did: of course your knowledge on that subject is so much greater than mine that I can really only express a philistine’s taste. Are you still going to Walker? For my part, I have found my musical soul again–you will be relieved to hear–this time in the preludes of Chopin. I suppose you must have played them to me, but I never noticed them before. Aren’t they wonderful? Although Mrs K. doesn’t play them well, they are so passionate, so hopeless, I could almost cry over them: they are unbearable. I will find out the numbers of the ones I mean and we will have a feast next holidays.

By the way, you speak in your last letter of the difference between music and books: I think (to get back to an old argument) it is just the same difference as between friendship and love. The one is a calm and easy going satisfaction, the other a sort of madness: we take possession of one, the other takes possession of us: the one is always pleasant the other in its greatest moments of joy is painful. But perhaps I am rating books and friendship too low, because poetry and great novels do sometimes rouse you almost as much as music: the great love scenes in Shirley for instance, or the best parts of Swinburne etc.

I am sorry I always make the mistake about your address. Hullo–I’ve done it again.

Yours,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 64-5):

[Gastons

21 March 1916]

My dear Galahad,

So here we are at the weekly letter, and very glad I am too; but Heavens!–how the weeks run on don’t they? While I was at Malvern I used to count the days and long for the end of term, so of course time crawled; now-a-days when I am quite comfortable the whole thing goes on far too quickly. And it’s all so many days, months etc., not of the term or the year, but of one’s life–which is tiresome. ‘Help!’ I hear you muttering, ‘Is he going to moralize for four pages?’ (Cheer up, I’ll try to hold it in.)

I’m awfully bucked to hear that you think the same about Phantastes as I, though if you only began to enjoy it in the eleventh chapter, you must have missed what I thought were the best parts–that is to say the forest scene and the faery palace–or does that come after chapter XI? You will gather that the book is upstairs and that I am too lazy to go and get it. I hope that by this time you have bought ‘Sir Gibbie’³⁹ and will be able to advise me on it. Some of the titles of his other books are, to me at least, even more alluring than the one you quote: for instance ‘At the back of the north wind’.⁴⁰

Isn’t it funny the way some combinations of words can give you–almost apart from their meaning–a thrill like music? It is because I know that you can feel this magic of words AS words that I do not despair of teaching you to appreciate poetry: or rather to appreciate all good poetry, as you now appreciate some. This is however off the point: what I meant to say was that lots of his titles give me that feeling. I wish there were more in Everymans, don’t you?

Talking about Everymans, do you know what their 1/6 binding is like? I can’t remember whether you have anything in it or not, but I have been thinking of trying it, so tell me what you know on the subject. What? you ask, still new books? Well really the length of the Faerie Queene was a godsend, because so long as I turned to it every week-end with the regularity of clockwork I could keep my money in my pockets: now however the temptation to get a nice new book for the longed for Sunday rest is overwhelming.

I am glad to hear that you have moved into Lily’s room as I think you–or ‘we’ shall I say in selfishness–will be more comfortable there: at the same time I have a sort of affection for the old one where we have had such good times: we should call it ‘joyous garde’.⁴¹ Still, I am longing to find myself in your new quarters with all the old talk, the old music, and the old fingering of rich, friendly books.

You know, Galahad, that though I try to hide it with silly jokes that annoy you, I am very conscious of how unfair our friendship is, and how you ask me over continually and give me an awfully good time, while I hardly ever bring you to us: indeed though he is a good father to me, I must confess that he–my father–is an obstacle. I do hope you understand? You know how I would love if I could have you any time I liked up in my little room with the gramophone and a fire of our own, to be merry and foolish to our hearts content: or even if I could always readily accept your invitations without feeling a rotter for leaving him alone. I don’t know why I’ve gone off into this discussion, but perhaps it is just as well. Indeed the only thing to be done is to get my father married as quickly as may be–say to Mary Bradley. Or lets poison old Stokes and give him the widow. In which case of course our imagined snuggery in the little end room would be brightened up by a charming circle of brothers and sisters in law.

I know quite well that feeling of something strange and wonderful that ought to happen, and wish I could think like you that this hope will some day be fulfilled. And yet I don’t know: suppose that when you had opened the door the Ash had REALLY confronted you and turning to fly, you had found the house melting into a haunted wood–mightn’t you have wished for the old ‘dull’ world again? Perhaps indeed the chance of a change into some world of Terreauty (a word I’ve coined to mean terror and beauty) is in reality in some allegorical way daily offered to us if we had the courage to take it. I mean one has occasionally felt that this cowardice, this human loathing of spirits just because they are such may be keeping doors shut? Who knows? Of course this is all nonsense and the explanation is that through reading Maeterlink,⁴² to improve my French, too late at night, I have developed a penchant for mystical philosophy–greatly doubtless to the discomfort of my long suffering reader.

By the way, is the girlinosbornes beginning to ask about my bill yet–which is not paid? Write soon AND LONG mon vieux, to,

yours,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 70):

[Gastons]

Postmark: 1 April 1916

My dear Papy,

The little plans of mice and men, it would seem, must a gang aft aglee.⁴³ You ask me when I am thinking of going home. Well I was thinking of the 15th, as instructed by the Colonel, so that his next leave would fall nicely at the end of my holydays. Mrs. K. suddenly turns up with the pleasing news that Terry is going on Tuesday the 4th., and Osbert Smythe with mother is coming down on the same date to convalesce from a wound, and–ah–when was I thinking of going home? Or in other words, after a little pow-pow, I have been ‘kicked out’ (Perhaps they were right to dissemble their love, but why–).⁴⁴ So I fear me Tuesday it must be. I hardly think a letter from you can reach me before that, so I shall borrow from K. By the way, Terry tells me that all the Belfast boats are off; if this is so, will you please wire and tell me, as in that case I shall have to go by Larne: I suppose the same ticket and payment of difference will do–or is the fare by Larne just the same? Of course if Liverpool and Fleetwood are still running, I will go by either–whichever is running on Tuesday night. In any case please wire and tell me. I am sorry to be such a nuisance, but it is quite as annoying for me, and more so for W. Sunt lacrimae rerum.⁴⁵

your loving son,

Jack

P.S. On second thoughts, Monday would be better if you get this in time; if I go on Tuesday I shall have to travel with Terry and a lot of his friends, which would be terrible–for one thing I know they don’t want me. So Monday be it: please wire. J.

Lewis was at home from 5 April to 11 May 1916. Writing to Albert about him on 7 April 1916, Mr Kirkpatrick said:

The very idea of urging or stimulating him to increased exertion makes me remind him that it is inadvisable for him to read after 11 p.m. If he were not blessed with such a store of physical health and strength, he wd. surely grow weary now and then. But he never does. He hardly realizes–how could he at his age–with what a liberal hand nature has bestowed her bounties on him…I notice that you feel adverse at present to let him enter the university at the close of next Autumn…But as far as preparation is concerned, it is difficult to conceive of any candidate who ought to be in better position to face the ordeal. He has read more classics than any boy I ever had–or indeed I might add than any I ever heard of, unless it be an Addison or Landor or Macaulay. These are people we read of, but I have never met any. (LP V: 74)

Mr Kirkpatrick wrote again on 5 May 1916:

The case of Clive is very perplexing, but let us make a few points clear. I think he ought to be able to gain a classical scholarship or exhibition at entrance in any of the Oxford Colleges next Novr. or Dec, when the exams are held. But suppose I gave my opinion that he could with advantage do another years work with me. Do you not see what you are in for? Clive will be 18 in Dec, and if he remains in this country after that date, strictly speaking one month after that date, he will be liable for military service. There is no escape from that now…Ireland is exempt from the Act. Will it be brought in, as Carson⁴⁶ before, and now Captain Craig have asked? I find it hard to believe it. But we shall see. At any rate we may give up the idea that the war may be over before Jany. 1917…What is to become of the Eng. Universities under this new Conscription Act? I cannot say, but I do not see how they are to go on. Suppose Clive gained an entrance exhibn. next Decr. He would not be able to attend lectures. At the end of one month he would be liable to conscription. (LP V: 78-9)

Albert replied on 8 May 1916: ‘Clive has decided to serve, but he also wishes to try his fortune at Oxford’ (LP V: 79).

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 80-1):

[Gastons

16 May 1916]

My dear Galahad,

I wonder what you are doing tonight? It is nearly ten o’clock and I suppose you are thinking of bed: perhaps you are at this moment staring into the good old bookcase and gloating over your treasures. How well I can see it all, exactly as we arranged it a few days ago: it is rather consoling for me to be able to follow you in imagination like this and feel as if I were back in the well-known places.

Now let us get on with what you really want to hear; no, I did not go to the ‘Starlight Express’⁴⁷ nor could I see it in the ‘Times’ list of entertainments. Perhaps after all it is not an opera but a cantata or something. What I did go to see was a play called ‘Disraeli’⁴⁸ which I liked immensely, though I am not sure the Meccecaplex would have cared for it. It’s about the real Disraeli⁴⁹ you know, the part being taken by Dennis Eadie–whom you saw in ‘Milestones’⁵⁰ didn’t you; he looks exactly like the pictures of the said politician in the old Punches. However, it is a thoroughly interesting play and I shall never repent of having seen it:

I think you agree with me that a good sensible play is far better than a second rate opera, don’t you?

By the way, you have really no right to this letter, old man: that one of yours which you have been talking about all the holidays is not here, and Mrs K. says that nothing came for me while I was away. So now I shall be no longer content with your continual ‘as I said in my letter’, but will expect it all over again–especially the remarks about ‘The Back of the Northwind’ (by the way doesn’t it sound much better if you pronounce that last word ‘Northwind’ as one word, with the accent slightly on the first syllable?).

Talking of books–you might ask, when do I talk of anything else–I have read and finished ‘The Green Knight’,⁵¹ which is absolutely top-hole: in fact the only fault I have to find with it is that it is too short–in itself a compliment. It never wearies you from first to last, and considering the time when it was written, some things about it, the writer’s power of getting up atmosphere for instance, quite in the Bronte manner, are little short of marvellous: the descriptions of the winter landscapes around the old castle, and the contrast between them and the blazing hearth inside, are splendid. The last scene too, in the valley where the terrible knight comes to claim his wager, is very impressive.

Since finishing it I have started–don’t be surprised–‘Rob Roy’,⁵² which I suppose you have read long ago. I really don’t know how I came to open it: I was just looking for a book in the horribly scanty library of Gastons, and this caught my eye. I must admit that it was a very lucky choice, as I am now revelling in it. Isn’t Die Vernon a good heroine–almost as good as Shirley? And the hero’s approach through the wild country round his Uncle’s hall in Northumberland is awfully good too.

In fact, taking all things round, the world is smiling for me quite pleasantly just at present. The country round here is looking absolutely lovely: not with the stern beauty we like of course: but still, the sunny fields full of buttercups and nice clean cows, the great century old shady trees, and the quaint steeples and tiled roofs of the villages peeping up in their little valleys–all these are nice too, in their humble way. I imagine (am I right?) that ‘Our Village’⁵³ gives one that kind of feeling. Tell me all about your own ‘estate’ as Spenser would say, when you write.

Have you finished ‘Persuasion’⁵⁴ and has the De Quincy come yet, and what do you think of both? Have there been any particular beauties of sun and sky since I left? I know all that sounds as though I were trying to talk like a book, but you will understand that I can’t put it any other way and that I really do want to hear about those kind of things.

This letter brings you the first instalment of my romance: I expect you’ll find it deadly dull: of course the first chapter or so must be in any case, and it’ll probably never get beyond them. By the way it is headed as you see ‘The Quest of Bleheris’. That’s a rotten title of course, and I don’t mean it to be permanent: when it’s got on a bit, I must try to think of another, really poetic and suggestive: perhaps you can help me in this when you know a bit more what the story is about.

Now I really must shut up. (That’s the paper equivalent of ‘Arthur, I’m afraid I shall have to go in a minute’.) Oh, I was forgetting all about Frankenstein.⁵⁵ What’s it like? ‘Really Horrid’?, as they say in ‘Northanger Abbey’.⁵⁶ Write soon before I have time to feel lonely.

Yours,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 82-4):

[Gastons 22

May 1916]

Monday. 10 o’clock.

My dear Arthur,

Many, many thanks for the nice long letter, which I hope you will keep up for the rest of the term, in length. I see that it has taken four days to reach me, as it came only this morning, so I don’t know when you will be reading this.

I am rather surprised at your remark about ‘Persuasion’, as it seemed to me very good–though not quite in her usual manner. I mean it is more romantic and less humorous than the others, while the inevitable love interest, instead of being perfunctory as in ‘Emma’⁵⁷ and ‘Mansfield Park’ is the real point of the story. Of course I admit that’s not quite the style we have learned to expect from Jane Austen, but still don’t you think it is rather interesting to see an author trying his–or her–hand at something outside their own ‘line of business’? Just as it is interesting to see Verdi in ‘Aida’⁵⁸ rising above himself–though I suppose I have no right to talk musical criticism to you–or indeed to anybody.

I am glad that you are bucked with your De Quincy, and am eager to see the paper. By the way I suppose you notice that the same series can be got in leather for 5/-. I wonder what that would be like. I am thinking of getting the two volumes of Milton in it, as soon as I am flush or have a present of any sort due to me: one wants to get a person like Milton in a really worthy edition you know. Tell me what you think about this.

On Wednesday I had a great joy: I went up to town with the old woman⁵⁹ (by the way I have just seen the point of your joke about ‘byre’ and liar. Ha! Ha!) to see the Academy.⁶⁰ I have never been to one before, and therefore cannot say whether this year’s was good as they go: but anyway I enjoyed it immensely and only one thing–your company–was lacking to make it perfect. How I wish we could have been there to enjoy some things together–for there were ones that would have sent you into raptures. Particularly there was a picture called ‘Nature groaning’ that exactly reminded me of that wet walk of ours, although the scene was different: it represented a dull, gloomy pool in a wood in autumn, with a fierce scudding rain blown slantways across it, dashing withered leaves from the branches and beating the sedge at the sides. I don’t suppose that makes you realize it at all, but there was a beautiful dreariness about it that would have appealed to you. But of course it is really no good trying to describe them: I wish you would get that Academy book which one always finds in a dentist’s waiting room so that we could compare notes. If you do, you must particularly notice ‘The Egyptian Dancers’ [‘A Dancer of Ancient Egypt’], ‘The Valley of the Weugh or Sleugh’ or something like that [‘The Valley of the Feugh’] (a glorious snow Scene), ‘The deep places of the earth’, ‘The watcher’ and a lovely faery scene from Christina Rosetti’s ‘Goblin Market’. It costs only a shilling I think and tho’ of course the black and white reproductions lose a lot, still they are quite enjoyable.⁶¹

Talking about pictures etc., I was very pleased with your description of the mist and the night sky: you are by no means such a contemptable artist in words as you would like people to believe–in fact to be honest, if you weren’t lazy you could do big things–and you have brought a very clear picture to my mind: one does get topping effects over the Lough sometimes, doesn’t one? Really, after all, for sheer beauty of nearly every kind, there is no place I know like our own good county Down.

I am still at ‘Rob Roy’ which I like immensely, and am writing by this post for the first volume of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ in the Everyman 2/2 edition:⁶² am I wise? I have dipped into them very often latterly in the Kirk’s horrible old copy, and think I shall like them, while, as I told you before, the paper of that Everyman is especially nice. I have also got a French prose romance of ‘Tristan and Iseut’⁶³ which promises very well as far as I can see: in the meantime however since like all French firms’ books it is paper back, I have sent it away to be bound in a very tasty binding of my own choice. Tell me more about ‘Frankenstein’ in your next letter so that I may decide whether to buy it or no. Any new records? I imagine that the success of your late venture may buck up your taste for your gramophone may it not?

This brings you the next chapter of my infliction. By the way I don’t know how I actually wrote it, but I certainly meant to say ‘The quest of Bleheris’ and [not] ‘of THE Bleheris’, since Bleheris is a man’s name. However, as I wrote to you before, that title is only waiting until I can get another better one. Your advice as to fighting and brasting exactly falls in with my own ideas since like Milton I am,

‘Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wars………’ ⁶⁴

I am afraid indeed that like ‘Westward Ho’⁶⁵ my tale will have to dawdle about a bit in the ‘City of Nesses’ before I can get poor Bleheris off on his adventures: still you must do your best.

Oh vanity! vanity! to think that I can waste all this time jawing about my own work. Oh, one thing: I can’t agree with you that Kelsie is at all like Diana Vernon: for if–to talk like Rashleigh,⁶⁶ ‘My fair cousin’ has a fault, it is a certain deadly propriety and matter-of-factness that will creep in even when she’s at her best, don’t you think so.

And now I’ve scrawled for a whole hour (it’s just striking) so good night.

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 81-2):

Gastons,

Great Bookham.

28/5/16.

My dear Papy,

I hear from the colonel that you are expecting a letter:⁶⁷ so, as they say of a sheep in a picture book, ‘here it is’, although, to be exact, I don’t see why I should owe you one–the score so far this term being exactly equal on both sides.

Well, how have things been since I left home? I hope the laurels are coming on nicely. Everything here is of course very much the same, and the weather is glorious. On my way back I went to a play that would have appealed to you–‘Disraeli’, which you will remember to have seen reviewed in Punch’s ‘At the play’.⁶⁸ If the real man was at all like the character in the piece he certainly must have been a prince of cards. I suppose that most of the bon mots that I heard at the Royalty are actual historic ones, preserved in his letters and so forth. I wonder too whether it be true to life when, having said good thing, he is represented as making his secretary take a note of it ‘For Manchester next week: that’ll just about suit Manchester’. Which reminds me how are you getting on with the fourteenth–or is the twentieth volume of his life?⁶⁹

The only other excitement I can think of was a jaunt up to town with Mrs. K. to see the Academy, last Saturday. I had never been to one before, and therefore cannot say whether this was good, as they go, or not. At any rate it seemed to me that there were a lot of very nice things there, while even watching the other watchers was a great amusement.

My reading at present is very sober and old fashioned–‘Rob Roy’ and the ‘Canterbury Tales’, both of which are most satisfactory. The former I suppose you have read years ago: at least I have tracked to its lair one of your favourite quotations, ‘Do not mister or Campbell me: my foot is on my native heath and my name is MacGregor’.⁷⁰ But what a pity it is to see such good ‘yarning’ as Scott’s spoilt and tripped up at every turn by his intolerably stilted and pedantic English. I suppose we must thank Dr. Johnson and ‘Glorious John’⁷¹ for first making such prose possible.

I met Warnie on Friday, according to instructions, and saw him go off by his 4.0 troop train. I am sorry to hear from him that you are bothered with some sort of rheumatism, and hope that it is now on the mend.

your loving

son Jack

P.S. I am one up in letter now: so don’t forget to write soon. J.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP XI: 259-60):

[Gastons

30 May 1916]

My dear Galahad,

I don’t know whether you quite realized how mysterious your last letter was: on page III I read ‘have just begun a tale called “Alice for short”’. Very good, say I, remembering William de Morgan’s novel of that name:⁷² but you are ‘doubtful whether you’ll finish it’: remembering the size of the volume on our landing book case I am not surprised: then I read on a bit and see that you ‘daren’t let it out of your hands, even to me’. Ah! Ce devient interèssant (is there an accent on that word?), I think something tremendously improper. But imagine my even greater confusion on learning that de Morgan’s long and heavy looking novel is a continuation of Alice in Wonderland!⁷³ Of course as soon as I turned the page I saw that you meant ‘began to write’ and not ‘began to read’ as I had naturally thought, being as you know cracked absolutely.

Well as to the information itself: I cannot urge you too strongly to go on and write something, anything, but at any rate WRITE. Of course everyone knows his own strength best, but if I may give any advice, I would say as I did before, that humour is a dangerous thing to try: as well, there are so many funny books in the world that it seems a shame to make any more, while the army of weird and beautiful or homely and passionate works could well do with recruits. But perhaps your ‘Alice’ is not so much humorous as lyric and fantastic? Anyway, you might as well send me along what you have done and let me have a look at it: at the worst it can’t be more boring than ‘Bleheris’ and of course it’s much easier to criticise each other’s things on paper than viva voce: at least I think so.

And by the way, while I’m on this subject, there’s one thing I want to say: I do hope that in things like this you’ll always tell me the absolute truth about my work, just as if it were by someone else whom we did not know: I will promise to do the same for you. Because otherwise there is no point in sending them, and I have sometimes thought that you are inclined not to. (Not to be candid I mean). So I shall expect your MS–‘Alice’ or anything else you have done–next week.

‘Rob Roy’ is done now, and (to pay you out for your remarks about ‘Persuasion’) I must admit that I only skimmed the last three or four chapters: the worst of a book with a plot is that when the plot is over, the obvious ‘fixing up’ is desperately tedious. On the whole however it was jolly good, and some of the scenery passages, as you say, are gorgeous: particularly where Frank is riding ‘near the line’ with the Bailey and the latter points out the Highland Hills–do you remember? That bit is almost as good as the scene where Clement Chapman shows Ralph the Wall of the World. But I suppose you would think it sacriledge to compare Morris to Scott. So would I for that matter, only the other way round.

You ask about the binding of my ‘Tristram’: well of course, apart from the binding itself, all French books are far poorer than ours: this one for instance cost 2/- (2fr.50) although it was only a paper back, of about the same size as my Gawain: the binding will come to another 2/- or perhaps 2/6. That sounds a lot: but after all if you saw a nice leather bound book in a shop of that size and were told it cost 4/-, I don’t think it would seem very dear. Of course it is true I may very likely be disappointed in it, but then, not being a prudent youth like you, I have to take risks occasionally.

With the Chaucer I am most awfully bucked: it is in the very best Everyman style–lovely paper, strong boards, and–aren’t you envious–not one but two bits of tissue paper. When I’ve collected enough in that way, I shall be able to put tissue in all my better class Everymans. As to the contents, although I looked forward to them immensely, they have proved even better than I hoped: I have only had time so far to read the ‘Prologue’ and ‘The Knight’s Tale’ (that’s Palamon and Arcite you know), but I adore them. The tale is a perfect poem of chivalry, isn’t it? And the pathos of Arcite’s death is really wonderful, with the last broken appeal,

‘Forget nat Palamon that gentil man⁷⁴

and the cry of ‘Mercy Emelye’.⁷⁵

But God! there I go on talking like a book again, and you a poor invalid who ought to be consoled. Seriously though, I hope you’ll be quite alright by the time you read this: I don’t like to hear of your being in bed so often, especially as it affects your spirits so. However, cheer up, and whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.

I quite appreciate what you say about my father, to whom I wrote on Sunday: but after all he hasn’t written to me, and as he had Warnie with him I thought he could ‘thole’. Still you are quite right in what you say and I must be more regular in future.

I thought you would like De Quincy, and hope you will go on reading him: it is always nice to feel that one has got a new friend among the book world, isn’t it? What an old miser you are though. I suppose I shall have to buy the Academy book myself now: and rest assured that you will never see one page of it. It is strange that ‘Frankenstein’ should be badly written: one would expect the wife of Shelley to be a woman of taste, wouldn’t one?

As to my brother’s talk about another ‘E Lucevan le Stelle’ I’m afraid the front must have turned the poor boy’s brain: considering how I pined after your copy for over a year it wasn’t very likely that I should have forgotten one if I had it. What put the idea into his head I can’t think.

Have been to Leatherhead baths for a swim today and am terribly stiff, as I always am after the first bathe of the year. Sorry this is not much of a letter this week, old man, but it’s after 11, and everyone is going to bed. This brings you the next instalment of Bleheris–criticise freely.

Yours,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 84-6):

[Gastons

6 June 1916]

My dear Arthur,

I was rather surprised to see the note paper of your last letter, and certainly wish that I could have been with you: I have some vague memories of the cliffs round there and of Dunluce Castle, and some memories which are not vague at all of the same coast a little further on at Castle-rock, where we used to go in the old days. Don’t you love a windy day at a place like that? Waves make one kind of music on rocks and another on sand, and I don’t know which of the two I would rather have.

As to your remarks about my ‘promise’ to join you on some future holiday, I must call your attention to the fact that all I promised was not to contract any engagement with my Aunt that could stand in the way of it, always warning you that I might not go anywhere. However I hope to do so, and will certainly try my best.

By the way, in future, if possible, don’t write your letter on so many different ‘levels’, so to speak: I keep them all on a pin now, and so far, all being written the same way up, I have been able to turn to any one I wanted, like a book: the latest one is a hard nut to crack. Always grumbling you see.

You may well ask ‘when’ my ‘Tristan’ is coming: I have asked the same question myself more than once, and it’s beginning to be like those famous Columbia records the holydays before last. As to the binding, if it is what the girl in the shop told me, it will be boards with leather back, and those little triangular pieces of leather on the corners. I don’t know if you understand this description, so I have drawn it for you: though perhaps indeed you find the picture quite as hard. In other words it is a glorified edition of the 2/- Everyman. The reason I’m not quite certain is that the girl showed me a much larger book done in the same style, only red. As I didn’t care for the colour, she said she thought it could be done like that in brown; so I’m still waiting the result.

With my last parcel–the Canterbury Tales–I got Macmillan’s and Dent’s catalogues, where I find much of interest: I suppose you know it all already however. For instance I never knew before that Macmillans would send you–through a bookseller–books on approval. Of course when things are so out of joint as you’re only allowed to keep them for a week, perhaps you could hardly manage it over in Ireland. Being so near town myself, I think I shall try it, wouldn’t you? I also notice that Dents have a series of ‘Classiques Francaises’ corresponding to the English Everymans Library. Does that mean that they’d be bound the same way? Among them I’m very pleased to find a rendering of the ‘Chanson de Roland’ into modern French:⁷⁶ this, as you probably know, is the old French epic, equivalent to our Beowulf,⁷⁷ and for years I have been wondering how to get it. Now, as things sometimes do, it just turns up. Of course talking about Beowulf reminds me again what hundreds of things there still are to buy: if you remember it has been ‘the next book I’ll get’ ever since you have known me.

I know very well what you mean by books getting tiresome half way through, but don’t think it always happens: for instance ‘Phantastes’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Shirley’ (which in fact only begins to get interesting about then) might be cited–good word that–as examples. Tell me more about ‘John Silence’⁷⁸ when you write, and also let me know the publisher and price, as I have forgotten again and may want it one of these days.

I don’t like the way you say ‘don’t tell anyone’ that you thought ‘Frankenstein’ badly written, and at once draw in your critical horns with the ‘of course I’m no judge’ theory. Rot! You are a very good judge for me because our tastes run in the same direction. And you ought to rely more on yourself than on anyone else in matters of books–that is if you’re out for enjoyment and not for improvement or any nonsense of that sort. Which reminds me, I came on a phrase in Maeterlinck the other day which just suits my views about youth and silly scientific learning. ‘L’ignorance lumineuse de la jeunesse’,⁷⁹ the luminous ignorance of youth is exactly our strong point, isn’t it?

Great God, how I must be boring you! But you ought to know by now that your friend Chubs with a pen in his hand is a very dangerous object: that extemporising goes a bit far at times: though seriously, to harp back to the eternal subject of self–I think Bleheris has killed my muse–always rather a sickly child. At any rate my verse, both in quality and in quantity for the last three weeks is deplorable!! Before you get any further in the aforesaid romance, let me hasten to warn you that when I said [of] the first chapter, that Bleheris was like you, I hadn’t really thought of what I should make him. However I take that back, so that in future when my poor hero does anything mean you won’t think I am covertly preaching at you.

In odd moments last week I read an excellent novel by–you’d never guess–Bernard Shaw. It is called ‘Love among the Artists’, and is published in Constable’s shilling series.⁸⁰ I want you to get it: there are one or two extraordinary characters in it, and I think the whole gist of the thing, all about music, art etc. would appeal to you very strongly. Tell me if you do. I wonder what the good author who takes his own works so seriously would think if he knew that he was read for pleasure to fill up the odd moments of a schoolboy. If you do get the book, don’t forget to read the preface which is very amusing.

I can’t understand why you are willing to let me see your tale in the holydays, but are unwilling to send it by post. I refuse point blank to read it in your presence: that means that you spend your time thinking of what the other person is thinking and have no attention left to give to the work itself. So you may as well send it along.

Since I last wrote to you I have found the thought of a book done and yet not done intolerable, and therefore gone back and finished ‘Rob Roy’. I am very glad I did so, as otherwise I should have missed the very vigorous scene in the library, and the equally satisfactory death of Rashleigh.

I have written from 10 to quarter past 11 and the others are going up; so good night my Galahad,

from yours,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 89-90):

[Gastons

14 June 1916]

My dear Arthur,

I must begin by apologizing for being a day late this week: I suppose by this time you have worked up quite a flourishing grievance. However, you will be glad to know that there is a genuine excuse this time–not just laziness. The reason is that there were visitors here last night, and tho I don’t usually turn up on these occasions, I was so warmly urged ‘just to come into the drawing room for a minute or two when I had finished my work’ that I really couldn’t refuse. So the hour between 10 and 11 which on Tuesday nights is usually taken up with your letter was lost.

The reason why Mrs K. pressed me was that the visitors were some neighbours of ours and with them a girl who is staying with them–that’s an elegantly arranged sentence for a literary man–who has a voice and is being trained for opera. Well I am certainly glad I didn’t miss it, as she has a very fine contralto and sang two good songs–your record from ‘Orfeo’⁸¹ and a very queer thing of Debussy’s which I would like to hear again. Of course with that exception she sang rubbish, as the fools asked for it: horrible old ballads like ‘Annie Laurie’ etc. Still it was worth sitting talking about the war and wasting my time even for two good things. Why are singers always so plain I wonder?

I can’t help smiling at the thought of your sitting in the garden on Sunday morning, as we have had nothing but thunderstorms for the last week and it has just now turned so cold that we’ve gone back to fires. There, I’m talking about the weather! By the way I don’t know if you ever noticed how topping it is to see a fire again suddenly in the middle of June: it is so homely and cozy and is like having a bit of the good old Winter back again.

The remark about the cows with which you credit me really comes from your newly made friend De Quincy. I think it is just before the description of the flood–the ‘Bore’ as he calls it. Look it up and see if I’m right.⁸² Anyway I quite agree with it: but perhaps even nicer is a humorous looking old horse, living contentedly in a field by himself, it’s those little things that keep one from being lonely on a walk–there is one horse here that I have got to know quite well by giving him sugar. Perhaps he may save me from a witch some day or lead me home in a fog?

You will be amused to hear that my Tristen’ has not YET come: that is nearly three weeks now, and I am beginning to get angry. You ask at what shop it’s being done: well you see it’s being worked indirectly through the village stationer here who will send books to be bound for you in London, I don’t know where. The reason for its taking so long, I imagine is that the wretch really waits until he has several to do and then makes one parcel of them so as to save himself the postage. In any case I shall not give him another opportunity, as there are people in the neighbouring town of Leatherhead who bind books themselves.

I am glad you like ‘John Silence’ and must get it too. I have now read all the tales of Chaucer which I ever expected to read, and feel that I may consider the book as finished: some of them are quite impossible. On the whole, with one or two splendid exceptions such as the Knight’s and the Franklin’s tales, he is disappointing when you get to know him. He has most of the faults of the Middle Ages–garrulity and coarseness–without their romantic charm which we find in the ‘Green Knight’ or in Malory. Still, I only really expected to enjoy some of the Tales, and feel that the book was worth getting for their sake. I am not sure whether you would like him or not, but you should certainly not start poetry with him.

Which reminds me, have you ever carried out your plans of reading ‘Jason’?⁸³I am wondering what I ought to get next, or whether I ought to save money and read some of the Gastons books–perhaps finish the Brontes or take up another Scott. I have found that Sidney’s romance the Arcadia’⁸⁴ is published at 4/6 by the Cambridge University Press (what are they like?) and am strongly tempted to get it. One thing that interests me is that Sidney wrote it for his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, sending it to her chapter by chapter as he wrote it as I send you ‘Bleheris’. Perhaps we were those two in a former state of existence–and that is why your handwriting is so like a girl’s. Though even my self conceit will hardly go as far as to compare myself with Sidney.

What a queer compound you are. You talk about your shyness and won’t send me the MS of ‘Alice’, yet say that you are willing to read it to me–as if reading your own work aloud wasn’t far more of an ordeal. By the way I hope that you are either going on with ‘Alice’ or starting something else: you have plenty of imagination, and what you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire next minute, I am so much further on. And you too who have been so disappointed at the technical difficulties of composing, won’t you find it a relief to turn to writing where you can splash about, so to speak, as you like, and gradually get better and better by experience? Or in other words, I shall expect an MS of some sort with your next week’s letter: if I don’t get it, I may have recourse to serious measures.

I like the way you say ‘why don’t’ I ‘take’ a day in town! As if I could just stroll down one morning and say that I wasn’t going to do any work today: no Galahad, that sort of thing may do in Franklin Street, but where people WORK–note that word, you may not have met it before–it can’t be did.

I am being fearfully lacerated at present: thinking that Pindar is a difficult author whom we haven’t time to read properly, Kirk has made me get it in the Loeb library–nice little books that have the translation as well as the text.⁸⁵ I have now the pleasure of seeing a pretty, 5/-volume ruined by a reader who bends the boards back and won’t wash his filthy hands: while, without being rude, I can’t do anything to save it. Of course it is a very little thing I suppose, but I must say it makes me quite sick whenever I think of it.

In case you despair of ever getting rid of the ‘City of the Nesses’, I promise you that in the next chapter after this one Bleheris actually does get away. Don’t forget the MS when you write, and tell me everything about yourself. Isn’t this writing damnable?

Yours,

Jack

The time had come for Lewis to apply to an Oxford college, and it was to this end that Mr Kirkpatrick had been preparing him. Seventeen colleges then made up the University of Oxford, and the question before Lewis was which to apply for. The practice at the time was to list at least three on the entry form, stating one’s order of preference. The ‘big group’ of colleges mentioned in the following letter to his father included New College, Corpus Christi, Christ Church, Oriel, Trinity and Wadham, and of these New College became Lewis’s first choice. Before being accepted by a college, Jack had to sit a scholarship examination in the subject he wished to read, Literae Humaniores, or Classics, to be given in December 1917. If accepted by an Oxford college, this would not make him a member of Oxford University. For that he would need to pass Responsions, the entrance examination administered by the University. Meanwhile, in preparation for the scholarship examination, Mr Kirkpatrick obtained some of the examination questions used in previous years so that he and Jack would have a better idea of how to prepare.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 93-5):

[Gastons

20 June 1916]

My dear Arthur,

I do wish you would be serious about ‘Alice’: whatever else is a matter for joking, work–in this particular sense of the word–certainly is not. I do really want to see something of yours, and you must know that it is impossible to write one’s best if nobody else ever has a look at the result.

However, I told you I would proceed to serious measures, so here is my manifesto. I, Clive Staples Lewis, student, do hereby give notice that unless some literary composition of Arthur Greeves be in my possession on or before midnight on the last night of June in the year nineteen hundred and sixteen, I shall discontinue from that date forward, all communication to the said Arthur Greeves of every kind, manner, and description whatsoever, until such composition or compositions be forwarded. ‘So there’ as the children say. Now let us go on.

‘Oh rage, Oh desespoir’! Alas I am undone. All men are liars. Never, never get a book bound. You will gather from this that ‘Tristan’ has arrived and is a complete and absolute failure. When I told them to bind it in brown leather, with corner pieces etc., I imagined that it would look something like Kelsie’s Dickens or like a 2/- Everyman. Wouldn’t you have thought so? Well as a matter of fact, though in a sense they have done what I told them, yet the total effect, instead of being booky and library like, is somehow exactly like a bank book or a ledger. For one thing the leather–though I must say excellent in quality–is very dark and commercial looking, and the cloth between the back and triangular bits is the absolute abomination of desolation. As if this wasn’t enough–the edges of the paper were before nice, and artistically rough. Well what do you think the brutes have done? They have smoothed them down and coloured them a horrible speckled red colour, such as you see in account books. You can imagine my absolute fury.

True, it is some consolation to find the book itself good beyond what I had expected: it gets the romantic note (which the French don’t usually understand) very well indeed. One or two little descriptions are full of atmosphere. In particular, what could be better for Lyonesse–glorious name–as we imagine it, than this simple sentence: ‘Climbing to the top of the cliff he saw a land full of vallies where forest stretched itself without end.’ I don’t know whether you will agree with me, but that gives me a perfect impression of loneliness and mystery. Besides its other good points, it is very, very simple French, so that if you think of starting to read that language this would make a very good beginning.

I am sorry to hear about the ‘Beowulf, and if it is at all like what I imagine, surprised as well. Of course you were always less patient of the old fashioned things than I, and perhaps it is not a good translation. However (seriously) I may buy it from you at a reasonable price, if I like the look of it, just to match my ‘Gawaine’–that is unless I get Morris’s ‘Beowulf’⁸⁶ instead, which is rather too dear at 5/-.

Your remarks about music would seem to lead back to my old idea about a face being always a true index of character: for in that case, if you imagined from the music of the soul either of Gordon or of this mysterious ‘fille aux cheveux de lin’⁸⁷ one would be bound to imagine the face too–not of course exactly, but its general tone. What type of person is this girl of whom Debussy has been talking to you? As to your other suggestions about old composers like Schubert or Beethoven, I imagine that, while modern music expresses both feeling, thought and imagination, they expressed pure feeling. And you know all day sitting at work, eating, walking etc., you have hundreds of feelings that can’t (as you say) be put into words or even into thought, but which would naturally come out in music. And that is why I think that in a sense music is the highest of the arts, because it really begins where the others leave off. Painting can only express visible beauty, poetry can only express feeling that can be analysed–conscious feeling in fact: but music–however if I let myself go on such a fruitful subject I should take up the rest of this letter, whereas I have other things to tell you.

What is nicer than to get a book–doubtful both about reading matter and edition, and then to find both are topping? By way of balancing my disappointment in ‘Tristan’ I have just had this pleasure in Sidney’s Arcadia’. Oh Arthur, you simply must get it–though indeed I have so often disappointed you that I oughtn’t to advise. Still, when you see the book yourself, you will be green with envy. To begin with, it is exactly the sort of edition you describe in your last letter–strong, plain, scholarly looking and delightfully–what shall I say–solid: that word doesn’t really do, but I mean it is the exact opposite of the ‘little book’ type we’re beginning to get tired of. The paper is beautiful, and the type also.

The book itself is a glorious feast: I don’t know how to explain its particular charm, because it is not at all like anything I ever read before: and yet in places like all of them. Sometimes it is like Malory, often like Spenser, and yet different from either. For one thing, there is a fine description of scenery in it (only one so far, but I hope for more) which neither of them could have done. Then again the figure of the shepherd boy, ‘piping as though he would never be old’⁸⁸ rather reminds me of the ‘Crock of Gold’.⁸⁹ But all this comes to is that Sidney is not like anyone else, but is just himself. The story is much more connected than Malory: there is a great deal of love making, and just enough ‘brasting and fighting’ to give a sort of impression of all the old doings of chivalry in the background without becoming tedious: there is a definite set of characters all the time instead of a huge drifting mass, and some of them really alive. Comic relief is supplied by the fussy old king of Arcadia–rather like Mr Woodhouse in Emma–and his boor, Dametas. The only real fault is that all the people talk too much and with a tendency to rhetoric, and the author insists on making bad puns from time to time, such as ‘Alas, that that word last should so long last’.⁹⁰ But these are only small things: true, there is a good deal of poetry scattered through it which is all detestable, but then that has nothing to do with the story and can be skipped. I’m afraid this description won’t help much, but I am just longing for Saturday when I can plunge into it again. (I mean the book, not the description.)

So much have I chattered that I have hardly any more room left. No, I have never yet read any of Christina Rosetti’s poems, though, as you have heard me say, I love her brother Gabriel Rosetti. I believe she is very good, and a faery picture illustrating the ‘Goblin market’⁹¹ which I saw in the Academy attracted me very much. That is certainly a lovely edition of Lily’s, though of course not worth [getting], unless somebody presented it to you. A nice sentiment truly! But you understand.

I see that I have scribbled a note about illustrations on this week’s instalment (of course each is written a fortnight before you get it). Well do have a try: or rather that is a patronizing thing to say: I mean, do exert yourself. I am afraid my poor description won’t inspire you much. I wonder do you really know what Cloudy Pass⁹² looks like?

Well, they’re going to bed now. It is eleven o’clock so I suppose you yourself are already in that happy place. Don’t forget my manifesto.

Yours,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 86-7):

[Gastons

23 June 1916]

My dear Papy,

There is certainly something mysterious about the ‘machinations of the Knock’, as one might put it in the title of a novel; because, though I had not thought of it before, his success with Warnie is an unanswerable point against him. As to the Smythe business, however, I understand that mathematics were taught by him at some school in Manchester to which he went every day. But still, we are not flying so high as Woolwich. Tell me what Kirk says in answer to your letter. I do not think that there is anyone at Malvern whose advice I should prefer to Kirk’s on the question of Oxford: unless indeed I were to amuse myself by writing to Smugy and asking in an off-hand way whether it was Oxford or Cambridge he was at!

No; to be serious, I think we must rely chiefly on K. and on our own judgement. There is of course a considerable temptation to risk it and try for a Balliol: it was Balliol we always thought of, before we knew as much as we do now, and I must admit there is still a glamour about the name. On the other hand, Dodds says in his letter that the prestige of Balliol is on the decline, and quotes as Colleges in the big group, New, Corpus, Christ Church, Oriel, Trinity, and Wadham. Of course these are all merely names to us both, but the first three and Trinity are generally admitted to be in the first rank, while Dodds speaks with particular admiration of New, and Kirk assures me that now-a-days Christ Church is little if at all inferior to Balliol in scholarship. Bearing all this in mind I am afraid we should hardly be well advised in following,

‘The desire of the moth for the star’⁹³

when the star in this case is so perilous, and perhaps after all does not differ from another in glory so much as we have been led to expect. A further point to remember is that New College–of which Kirk has got a prospectus–substitutes for verse a paper of French and German translation instead of prose; which of course is far better from our point of view.

If then we decide to enter the big group, as I think we must, it remains to consider in what order we shall put down our Colleges. I should suggest Christ Church first, as undoubtedly the biggest name of the six, and after it perhaps New: and then the others in any order, keeping Wadham to the last.

It is a great relief to hear your news about the exact terms of the Military Service Act, as in this case I ought to be able to get a commission of some sort at home, or even a nomination from Oxford. At any rate, since there is no hurry–detestable expression, but let it pass–we can leave the matter to be discussed at ease in the seclusion of Leeborough.

If you have had even two hot days at home, you need not complain of the weather. We have had,

‘Clouds instead an ever during dark’⁹⁴

continual rain, and such bitter cold that on one or two evenings we have been obliged to light the fire: I believe it is just as bad all over England.

I am at present enjoying a new literary find in the shape of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia’, which I got at a venture and found better than I expected: though like De Quincy’s and Southey’s epics, ‘I expect that I enjoy the priveledge of being the sole reader of this work’. Talking about books, I hope you noticed the leader in this week’s Literary Supplement–on Edgar Allen Poe?⁹⁵ I never heard such affectation and preciosity; the man who thinks the ‘Raven’ tawdry just because it is easily appreciated, and says that in ‘The choice of words Poe has touched greater heights than De Quincy’ ought–well, what can we say of him?

I am sorry to hear what you say about Cousin Quartus:⁹⁶ he seemed to be as brave and cheerful as usual last holydays.

By the way I have had to expend 6/6 on a Pindar and a Lucan which K. wanted me to get from London, thinking that Mullan’s would be too slow. If a kind parent would like to refund–!

your loving son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 97-8):

[Gastons

28 June 1916]

My dear Arthur,

For some reason your letter didn’t reach me until this morning (Wednesday) so I am afraid that this will be a day late. I have been longing to get to my answer all day: and now that the time is come I hardly know how to collect my thoughts–they have been buzzing so in my head ever since breakfast.

First, ten thousand thanks for the enclosure. You know that I never flatter my friends–in fact my faults are in the other direction: so you may accept as a truth how this first sample of your work has knocked me all of a heap. Really, Galahad, I had no idea you could do anything like this: it is splendid. The only fault I have to find is that there is not enough of it. The idea of all the things round the river being in love with your hero–and I suppose the river too–showing their affection–is beautifully suggestive: I am longing to see it worked out–for by the way, on no account must you think of giving up after so happy a beginning. What I like particularly is the way which–according to the advice of friend Horace–you get straight into the middle of your theme right away, without any such dull descriptions as open Bleheris. The whole description of the river, etc., is done (in my poor opinion) with great skill: it sort of carries you away from the world into a dim, summery dream in some landscape more lovely than reality. Isn’t the very word ‘punt’ very descriptive of summer and cool green reaches?

And now I am going to be so bold as to make a few suggestions: not that I think I am better ‘up’ in such things than you, but because it is good for both parties to be criticised, and I wish you would do the same to me. Well then, I don’t know if it be true with other people, but in my own case, I have always found that if you are in at all good form when you write, corrections made afterwards are usually for the worse. Certainly most of yours are not improvements: for instance in several cases you have changed the word ‘that’ to which, as

that) happened long ago.

which)

Of course it is a small point, but don’t you think ‘that’ is more simple, natural, and dignified than ‘which’? The latter is indeed rather business like. Nor do I see why ‘extremely old’ should be written over the plain ‘very old’. The second point is this: does your own judgement approve the sentence, ‘shook her silvery sheen’? The alliteration, I think, would be a bit daring even in verse, and I am sure cannot be allowed in prose.

Now, I suppose you think me meddlesome and impudent. Well, though perhaps I am given to finding spots in the sun, I still appreciate its brightness: I repeat, though my opinion of you as a friend could not be higher than it was, my opinion of you as an author has risen by leaps and bounds since this morning. You MUST go on with this exquisite tale: you have it in you, and only laziness–yes, Sir, laziness–can keep you from doing something good, really good. By the way, before we go any further, I must say in fairness, that when you find those roses playing a more prominent part in the life of my Bleheris, it is not cribbed from your willow tree! I had thought out my plot–what there is of it–before I left home.

I am very glad to hear that you have bought C. Rossetti’s poems: partly because I want to be able to look at it myself in the comfort of your sofa–mind the springs–and also I am glad you are beginning to read poetry. Which reminds me, a propos of your tale, you should read the bit in Morris’s ‘Jason’ about Hylas and the water nymphs. I think it is in Book II–at any rate you can see from the headings–and it would not take you more than half an hour. As to the illustrated edition of his early poems, I believe we once saw it together in Mullen’s, but so far as I remember, weren’t greatly impressed; or am I thinking of something else? You don’t tell me what you are actually reading at present, for you can’t be living entirely on lyrics: have you finished ‘John Silence’ yet, and what is your final verdict on it?

In the mean time the ‘Arcadia’ continues beautiful: in fact it gets better and better. There has been one part that Charlotte Bronte could not have bettered: where Philoclea the heroine, or rather one of the heroines, is beginning to fall in love unconsciously with a man disguised as a girl: and she does not know the secret: the delicacy and pathos of her wrestlings with a feeling which of course she can’t understand, as told by Sidney are–well I can’t explain what they are like: there is one scene where she goes out by moonlight to an old grove, an haunted place, where there is an altar to ‘the wood gods of old’,⁹⁷ and lies looking up at the stars and puzzling about things, that is equal to if not better than the scene where Jane Eyre wakes up on the moor–do you remember? On the other hand, of course there are parts YOU might not have patience with: in the old style, where people relate their own adventures with no direct bearing on the main story: yet even this, to me, is interesting–so quaint and so suggestive of the old romantic world.

Besides this, I have read nothing lately, except a foolish modern novel which I read at one sitting–or rather one lying on the sofa, this afternoon in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm. I think, that if modern novels are to be read at all, they should be taken like this, at one gulp, and then thrown away–preferably into the fire (that is if they are not in one’s own edition). Not that I despise them because they are modern, but really most of them are pretty sickly with their everlasting problems.

I am glad to hear that you have started illustrating my tale: your criticism about not making long conversations is a very sound one, though I fear I can’t keep up to it. For instance, after this chapter the next two are, I am afraid, taken up with a conversation between Bleheris and the people he meets at an inn. Still, as it is necessary to what follows, you must try and get through it. This chapter is a failure: I particularly wanted to show what sort of a person he is and how he develops, but have only made him ridiculous.

I am interested in what you tell me of the Bronte country. Fancy a real living original of Heathcliffe?⁹⁸ What must he have been like.

Now it is time for bed, so good night mon vieux, and don’t forget another instalment in your next letter.

Yours,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 91-2):

[Gastons

30? June 1916]

My dear Papy,

I can’t understand why Kirk has not answered your letter. He never mentioned it to me, and until I heard from you I did not know that you had written: perhaps it has gone astray–like your subscription to the chocolate fund!

At any rate, after reading what you said, I asked him whether a modern language could be substituted as you suggest: he replied that he thought this was so, but pointed out that of course this did not include mathematics, and that the latter would consist of a good deal of graphical work and other things which he–though goodness only knows why–does not feel fit to teach. If the worst comes to the worst, I suppose I could grind mathematics in the holidays: but all things considered I think we should look on the Sandhurst scheme as a “pis aller”⁹⁹ if it be found impossible to get a commission by influence or any other way.

You see the difficulties of entrance, though not insurmountable, are still serious, and it is well to remember that, as Harding told us, if I get a permanent commission, it may not be easy to leave the army immediately after the war. Do you think we could manage to work the business through our political friends? Kirk assures me that even now this is not difficult, and if it could be done, it would certainly be far the best plan. Failing this, I should suggest some volunteer institution from Ulster if any of these are still in existence.

Since we last wrote, I have been in communication with Oxford: missives have been elicited from Balliol, and I was glad to hear that if you go in for a scholarship, you are not expected to matriculate as well. It is rather a question however whether Balliol should be our mark: in order to prevent it getting the pick of the candidates, there is an arrangement by which Balliol and one or two insignificant colleges stand in a group by themselves outside the ‘big group’ which, like ‘Pooh-Bah’¹⁰⁰ comprises ‘everything else’ worth talking about. Now in each of these two groups you put down the Colleges in the order you wish, and are put into one of them according to your place in the exam. You are of course ‘stuck’ in the group for which you enter. Under these circumstances, unless you are absolutely sure of success, it might be better to leave Balliol alone, seeing that if I miss it I have only a very few fall-backs, and those not of the first water. Tell me what you think? At any rate it is one comfort that Kirk’s talk about matriculation was all moonshine: the scholarship exams take place in December. What between Oxford and the Army I am beginning to think that we would be better advised to sell all we have, take a cottage in Donegal, and cultivate potatoes for the good of the nation. Still, I suppose we really have very little to grumble at.

If it is not strange to say so, I am glad to hear that Dick is safely wounded:¹⁰¹ it is by far the best thing that can happen to a man in the trenches, and the really unlucky ones are those who ‘bear the labour and heat of the day’¹⁰² unhurt for over a year–always it would seem in the long run to be killed after returning from a leave.

Things look pretty black at present, don’t they? The North Sea battle, though perhaps not so bad as we thought at first, is certainly a very serious business, and our attitude towards the ‘rats’ was rather that of friend Tim than of the sportsman ‘digging them out’. What exactly will the loss of Kitchener mean?¹⁰³ ‘De mortuis…’¹⁰⁴ now of course, and for my own part I never approved of arm chair criticism.

How noble of poor Bob to give up his sister to the war!

your loving

son Jack

As we have seen, for some time now letters had been passing between father and son, and father and Mr Kirkpatrick, regarding Jack’s future. All were agreed that he should try for a place at Oxford, and Jack was due to sit for a scholarship examination there on 5 December. However, with one son already in the army, and the war growing worse every day, Albert Lewis was very anxious to keep Jack out of the service. According to the Military Service Act ‘every male British subject who had attained the age of eighteen and ordinarily resident in Great Britain was liable for enlistment in the army. On the other hand, the exemption mentioned at the beginning of this chapter–that of a man resident in Great Britain ‘for the purposes of his education only’ was now in effect. Jack was Irish, and the exemption applied to him. But contrary to his fathers wishes, Jack insisted that he would not apply for the exemption, and he was determined not to be talked out of it by either father or tutor.

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 103-5):

[Gastons

4 July 1916]

My dear Arthur,

So you feel hurt that I should think you worth talking to only about books, music, etc.: in other words that I keep my friendship with you only for the highest plane of life: that I leave to others all the sordid and uninteresting worries about so-called practical life, and share with you those joys and experiences which make that life desirable: that–but now I am getting rhetorical. It must be the influence of dear Sidney and his euphuism I suppose. But seriously, what can you have been thinking about when you said ‘only’ books, music, etc., just as if these weren’t the real things!

However, if I had thought for a moment that it would interest you, of course you are perfectly welcome to a full knowledge of my plans–such as they are. Indeed I imagined that you had a pretty clear idea about them: well, ‘let us go forward’, to quote from a certain romance: being Irish, I hear from my father that the fact of my being educated in England will not bring me under the new act. I am therefore going to remain as I am until December when my Oxford exam comes off. After that, I shall of course join the army: but in what exact way, I don’t at present know any more than you do. So there you have the whole yarn.

I may just remark in passing that you should by this time know better than to waste pity on your friend Chubs for ‘worrying’ about it: did you ever see him worrying about anything? I have learnt by now that whatever plans you make in this world, everything always turns out quite differently, so what is the use of bothering? To be honest, the question has hardly crossed my mind once this term. Now I don’t mind in the least telling you all this, and if you wanted to know I don’t see why you never asked before. But then I am a coarse-grained creature who never could follow the feelings of refined–might I say super-refined?–natures like my Galahad’s.

The annoying part is that you have taken up your letter (and here am I taking up mine!!) with this, to the exclusion of all sorts of interesting things that I wanted to hear: for instance, you must tell me more about Hardy. We have all heard of him till we are sick of it, and so I should like to hear the opinion of someone I know. What sort of a novel is it? Would I like it?

But of course the first thing I looked for in this evening’s letter was to see if there was an instalment there. I have now read it over again with last week’s to get the continuous narrative, and with the same pleasure. Did you quite realise what a splendid touch it was for Dennis to hope ‘nobody would steal his clothes’? Somehow the practical, commonsense realism of that, increases the fairy-like effect of what follows enormously. I don’t know if I can explain it, but it sort of brings the thing just enough in touch with reality to make it convincing, without spoiling its dreaminess. Also the idea of his seeing her face not directly, but in the water, is somehow very romantic. By the way, I hope you don’t really think that I hinted for a moment that your willow was borrowed from my roses: how could you know what my roses were going to do about five chapters ahead? Above all, don’t change anything in the plan of your tale on that account. Perhaps, as you say, we both took it unconsciously from ‘Phantastes’, who in his turn borrowed it from the dryads, etc. of classical mythology, who are a development of the primitive savage idea that everything has a spirit (just as your precious Jehovah is an old Hebrew thunder spirit): so we needn’t be ashamed of borrowing our trees, since they are really common property.

Your reply to my criticism is typically Galahadian: but though in your case I am sure it is more sincere than it looks, still this excessive modesty is rather absurd. You may be dissatisfied with it (though I don’t see why), you may be uncertain of yourself, but still in your heart of hearts you don’t think of ‘The Water Sprite’ as ‘that rubbish of mine’, now do you?

Do you know what your tale has done? It has made me sorry that I began Bleheris in the old style: I see now that though it is harder to work some effects in modern English, yet on the whole my way of writing is a sort of jargon: however, we must do the best we can. I was very glad to hear that you liked the Sunken Wood, especially as the next two chapters are stodgy conversation. I am afraid Bleheris never gets into the wood: but you ought to know that the ‘little, hobbling shadow’ doesn’t live more in that wood than anywhere else. It follows nervous children upstairs to bed, when they daren’t look over their shoulders, and comes and sits on your grandfather’s summer seat beside two friends when they have talked too much nonsense in the dark. I hope you have an illustration ready for this chapter?

I am still at the ‘Arcadia’, which you will gather from this is a long book, though not a bit too long. I won’t make you sick of it before you see it by starting to sing its praises again: I only promise you that I am still as keen on it as when I began. By the way, now that we are both writing, and know how much work there is in a short instalment that can be read in a few minutes, you begin to realize the labour of writing a thing say like the ‘Morte D’Arthur’.

I gather from your silence that you are doing nothing in the gramophone way? Ask the Girlinosbornes whether my new record of ‘Is not His word like a fire’¹⁰⁵ (ordered last holidays) has come yet or not. I hope it will be waiting for me when I get home: which event–do you realize–will happen in about a month. This term has gone terribly quickly and been very pleasant, but all the same I shall not be sorry to take up my other life again.

What new books are there of yours to see? I am longing to have a look at your De Quincey and ‘Rossetti’. By the way, I suppose you never looked up the passage about the ‘bore’ nor the one in William Morris about Hylas and the nymphs? I have now finished my Tristan, which is really delightful: it is the saddest story on earth I think, don’t you? I have written for the French Everyman translation of ‘Roland’ which ought to have come by now, but hasn’t. I am interested to see what the binding is like, aren’t you?

You will see by the scrawl that I am trying to write about a million miles an hour as everyone has gone to bed. So goodnight old man: send another instalment next week, I am so interested in your adorable fairy.

Yrs.,

Jack

P.S. By the way, one criticism just to keep you from getting your head turned. Don’t talk about Dennis as ‘our young friend’ or ‘our hero’–the last is like a newspaper: at least you may take it as a suggestion just for what it is worth.–J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 102-3):

[Gastons

7 July 1916]

My dear Papy,

Your ‘essay’ and letter arrived, and Kirk read me a great part of the former. I think what you say about Christ Church is probably right, although Kirk tells me that there is most certainly a reading set, which one could live in. However, Dod[d]s specially recommends New, and as you say yourself, both it and Oriel are in the first rank. On the other hand, I am afraid that there will be no more ‘Guards Regiments’ anywhere by the time I reach Oxford: the old ‘bloods’ have mostly been shot, and the atmosphere of an after-war England will not be conductive to the birth of a new generation. Fortunately, there is no hurry about the question, and we can talk it over together in comfort next holidays.

Yes! It would be true irony if we ran upon something of the James or Capron type again; our little portrait gallery for that never-written novel is already getting crowded. By the way, what do you think of the new arrangement about Ulster? Kirk has talked about it for nearly a week: not that he has any views on either side, but he seems to find a pleasure in balancing off all the arguments for and against the proposal: so well has he succeeded that I am beginning to think ‘That way lies madness.’¹⁰⁶ No sooner have we made up our minds on one side, than we are immediately floored by a new point that he brings up on the other. What do you think about it?

I must deprecate those very questionable references to my unfortunate last term’s exodus from Gastons: if I saw that the goodwife of the house was, like Martha ‘careful over many things,’¹⁰⁷ and then tactfully suggested that I might go home, what do you find extraordinary in such an action? At any rate, though we have our faults, we don’t make ourselves ridiculous in an open carriage, nor lose our way in a country we have known from childhood. To be sensible, I suppose the term will end, as you say, at the end of July.

Many thanks for both your enclosures. The letter was from my old Malvern study companion Hardman: he is going to be conscripted at Christmas, and wants to know what I am going to do. I am writing to say that I don’t know yet, but will tell him as soon as our plans are settled. Of course if it turned out to be convenient, I should like to have a friend with me in the army, but it is hardly worth while making any special provisions for so small a matter. We shall see how it all works out.

Your reference to the two books is tantalizing. I quite agree with you that they should be put in a safe place: and the safest place in Leeborough is a certain ‘little end room’ where all the footsteps point one way. I for my part am still at my ‘Arcadia’ which I find excellent.

The weather here is ridiculous: wintry colds alternating with hot, close fogs, and an occasional thunder shower. I don’t know what the farmers will do.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 106-8):

[Gastons

11 July 1916]

My dear Arthur,

I am very glad to hear that you are getting to like Jason: I agree with you that the whole description of Medea–glorious character–going out by night, and of her sorceries in the wood is absolutely wonderful, and there are other bits later on, such as the description of the ‘Winter by the Northern River’ and the garden of the Hesperides, which I think quite as good. Curiously enough I have just started the Argonautica’¹⁰⁸ the Greek poem on the same subject, and though I haven’t got very far–only in fact to the launching of Argo–it is shaping very well. It will be interesting to compare this version with Morris’s, although indeed the story of the Golden Fleece is so perfect in itself that it really can’t be spoiled in the telling. Don’t you find the very names Argo’ and ‘Argonauts’ somehow stirring?

I thought a person like you would sooner or later come to like poetry: by the way, of course you are quite right when you talk about thinking more of the matter than of the form. All I meant when I talked about the importance of form was to carry a little further what you already feel in prose–that is how some phrases such as the Wall of the World, or at the Back of the North Wind affect you, partly by sound partly by association, more than the same meaning would if otherwise expressed. The only difference is that poetry makes use of that sort of feeling much more than prose and produces those effects by metre as well as by phrase. In fact, the metre and the magic of the words should be like the orchestration of a Wagnerian opera–should sort of fill the matter by expressing things that can’t be directly told–that is, it expresses feeling while the matter expresses thought. But I daresay I have given you my views on the subject before. I am very flattered that you remember that old line about the ‘garden where the west wind’ all these months, and will certainly copy out anything that is worth it if you can find me a shop in dear Belfast where I can buy a decent MS book: I have failed in that endeavour so far.

So we are to be treated to more and more modesty? Indeed Arthur if I could get a little of your diffidence, and you a little of my conceit we should both be very fine fellows. This week’s instalment is quite worthy of the other two, and I was quite disappointed when it broke off. The reeds ‘frightened out of their senses’ and shouting in ‘their loudest whisper’ are delightful. ‘Our Lady of the Leaf might be kept in mind as a possible title if you don’t care for the present one.

You are rather naive in telling me that you ‘have to sit for a minute thinking’ and ‘find the same word coming in again’ as if these weren’t the common experiences of everyone who has ever written. I haven’t noticed any smallness in the vocabulary you employ for your tale, and anyway that’s just a matter of practice. By the way, even if you didn’t mean it, I hope you see now what I am driving at about the remark of Dennis as to his clothes. As to the ‘sitting for ten minutes’, I don’t believe that good work is ever done in a hurry: even if one does write quickly in a burst of good form, it always has to be tamed down afterwards. I usually make up my instalment in my head on a walk because I find that my imagination only works when I am exercising.

Can you guess what I have been reading this week? Of all things in the world ‘Pendennis’!¹⁰⁹ Isn’t this the one you find too much for you? I am nearly through the first volume and like it well so far: of course one gets rather sick of Pen’s everlasting misbehaviour and the inevitable repentance going round and round like a mill wheel and there doesn’t seem much connection between one episode and another. All the same, it has a sort of way with it.

That feast the ‘Arcadia’ is nearly ended: in some ways the last book is the best (though a little spoiled I admit by brasting) and here the story is so like the part of Ivanhoe where they are all in Front-de-Boeuf’s castle, that I think Scott must have borrowed it.¹¹⁰ Your remarks about C. Rosetti’s poems are very tantalizing and I am longing to see them. How I do love expensive books if only I could afford them. Apropos of which, do you know anything of the artist Beardesley?¹¹¹ I fancy he was the man who started the modern school of ‘queer’ illustrations and the like: well I see you can get for £1.5s. a 1 vol. edition of Malory with his illustrations, published by Dent. What do you think it would be like? I only wish it was Macmillan and so we could have it on approval.

You are quite wrong old man in saying I can draw ‘when I like’. On the contrary, if I ever can draw, it is exactly when I don’t like. If I sit down solemnly with the purpose of drawing, it is a sight to make me ‘ridiculous to the pedestrian population of the etc.’. The only decent things I do are scribbled in the margins of my dictionary–like Shirley–or the backs of old envelopes, when I ought to be attending to something else.

I am quite as sorry as you that I can’t see my way to working Bleheris back into the Sunken Wood, for I think the idea might be worked a bit more: but don’t see how it is to be done without changing the whole plan of the story.

The immediate prospects of my getting married ‘agreeably or otherwise’ as you kindly suggest, are not very numerous: but if you are getting uneasy about an invitation, rest assured, when the event comes off, if you behave you shall have one.

It was strange that Mrs K. should get Hardy’s ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’¹¹² out of the library last week, though I never got a chance of looking into it: somehow I don’t fancy Hardy is in my line, but then I always have a prejudice against people whom you’re always hearing about.

You say nothing about music now-a-days, and I am afraid I scarcely think of it: it annoys me hugely to think of the whole world of pleasures that I used to have and can’t enjoy now. Did you see a long article in the Times Literary Supplement¹¹³ about the ‘Magic Flute’¹¹⁴ which is on at the Shaftesbury? How I wish I could go up and hear it and also ‘Tristan and Isolde’¹¹⁵–though if I did it would be a disappointment in all probability.

I am furious because in answer to my order for the ‘Chanson de Roland’ I am told it is out of print, which is very tiresome. Here I enclose another chapter, really all conversation this time, but can promise you a move next week. Don’t forget your own instalment which I look forward to very eagerly. Good night.

Yours,

Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 105-6):

[Gastons

14? July 1916]

My dear Papy,

This must be nipped in the bud: there can be no question of that. Get your lady friend’s visit over before the end of this month, at all costs, or else bid them avaunt till the winter.¹¹⁶ What should I do, left alone all day to face a situation of that sort? As well, the whole thing is tyranny, extortion, infliction, profligacy and arrogance of the worst sort, and therefore not to be borne. Have they not already taken more than their fair share of reprisals for our own visit so long ago? This ‘breakfast is a charming meal’ business can be overdone: however, a man can but die once, so I suppose destiny must take its course.

This is big news from the front, though whether it will have any permanent effect or not, of course we can’t say. The Ulster Division–what there are of them now–must have silenced the yapping politicians for ever.¹¹⁷ I suppose the losses are felt very heavily in Belfast: here, nobody seems to have noticed anything.

Yes, that wheeze about ‘pulled through’ ought to ‘supply a long felt want’: it can be used on every occasion and ought to live for a very long time. I am sorry if any obscurity on my part gave rise to the ‘savage emphasis,’ but then his ordinary style of conversation is so–I think the word is ‘nervous’ in its 18th Century sense, that best describes it–that we must not pay too much attention to such things. I think, as you say, that things point to New, but of course we will keep an open mind in the meantime.

The literary event of the week is our respected laureate’s ode in the Times Literary Supplement:¹¹⁸ truly a most remarkable production, though I am afraid like the honest Major in ‘Patience,’ I must confess that ‘it seems to me nonsense’.¹¹⁹ To do the man justice, the lines about Homer, the ones about the birds, the beginning of the vision, and a few other passages, are rather fine. But the habit of throwing in an odd rhyme here and there is rather uncomfortable: still, if you can lay your hand upon it (the Pattersonian pun is quite a mistake, owing to haste, as it is getting late and the others are going up) you might keep this number.

I am at present in the middle of a book called ‘Pendennis’ which I should advise you to read unless I knew your prejudice against the author: however, one of these days you will come round and ‘see my point.’

your loving,

son,

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 111-13):

[Gastons]

Tuesday evening, the I

don’t know whath,

18] July /16.

My dear Arthur,

I can’t understand why you should want to know the dates on which these gems of wit were written: if you should ever happen to look at them in the future, a date is a meaningless thing and it won’t really help you to see a few numbers written on the top. For my part, when I read your old letters, I don’t think about such nonsense. I classify them not by time but by the stage in our thoughts at which they were written: I say ‘Ah, that was when we were talking about Loki, this was when we talked much about music and little about books, we didn’t know each other so well when this was written’ and so on. Which is far more sensible than saying, ‘This was September 1914, that was August 1915.’ As well, the fact that everyone else puts a date on their letters is to me an excellent reason for not doing so. Still, if you are really concerned about it, I suppose I must ‘bow myself in the house of Rimmon’.¹²⁰ Since I have gone so far as to put a date however, you can’t be so unreasonable as to suggest that it should be the right one.

I am awfully bucked about ‘Twelfth Night’:¹²¹ I thought at the time you remember, that Heath Robinson’s illustrations were absolutely perfect–quite as good as Rackham’s, though of course in a different style. If I remember aright there is a splendid one on the line ‘How full of shapes is fancy’¹²² and also some fine evening cloud effects–not to mention the jester in the rain and the delightfully ‘old English’ garden scenes.

I am longing, as you say, to be at home and to go over all our treasures both old and new:–so of course we shall be disappointed in some way. As you say, you are extravagant, but I too at present buy one book as soon as I have finished another.

The Arcadia’ is finished: or rather I have read all there is of it, for unfortunately it breaks off at a most exciting passage in the middle of a sentence. I will not praise it again, beyond saying that this last 3rd. book, though it has no such fine love passages as the 2nd., yet (despite the brasting), for really tip-top narrative working the interest up and up as it goes along, is quite worthy of Scott.

This week’s new purchase consisted of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’–in the same edition as my Mandeville¹²³–and ‘John Silence’ in the 7d. edition. Just as one sometimes has a spell of being disappointed in new books, so at other times you keep on getting one treat after another. For the first few pages of John Silence I was hardly in the right mood: but after that it fairly swept me off my feet, so that on Saturday night I hardly dared to go upstairs. I left off-until next week end–in the middle of the ‘Nemesis of Fire’–Oh, Arthur, aren’t they priceless? Particularly the ‘Ancient Sorceries’ one, which I think I shall remember all my life. Oh, that evil dance, and the ‘muttering the old, old incantation’! The feeling of it all chimed with a lovely bit of ‘Paradise Lost’ which I read the same evening where it talked of the hounds that,

’…Follow the night hag, when, called In secret riding through the air she comes Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Leopard witches, while the labouring moon Eclipses at their charms.’¹²⁴

Don’t you like the Leopard witches? How you will love Milton some day! By the way we may remark in passing that John Silence is one of the nicest 7d’s in paper and so forth that I have ever seen. I wonder how people would laugh if they could hear us smacking our lips over our 7d’s and Everymans just as others gloat over rare folios and an Editio Princeps? But after all, we are surely right to get all the pleasure we can, and even in the cheapest books there is a difference between coarse and nice get up. I wonder what a book called ‘Letters from Hell’ published at 1/-by Macmillan would be like?’¹²⁵

This week’s instalment I enjoyed especially: the idea of the hair so beautiful to the eye so coarse to the touch is very suggestive, and you keep us in fine doubt as to whether your faery is going to turn out good and benevolent or terrible. You complain that your tale is commonplace, but I don’t know anything that you think is like it, and I hope that you will really never think of giving it up unfinished–all the same, if you do–for which I can see no earthly reason–don’t be discouraged, because we very rarely succeed in finishing a first work. If you saw the number of ‘beginnings’ I have made! By the by, there is one little point I must grouse at this week. You say that the faery resumed her ‘normal’ size. What was her normal size? We saw her first as a little figure on a leaf, and she hasn’t changed since. Do you mean that she took on human size? Of course a few trifling changes when you revise will make this quite clear. The point of names is rather difficult: ‘Dennis’ I like, but the old Irish attractions of ‘Desmond’ are very strong. I really don’t know what I should advise.

I am sorry you disapprove of my remarks in the romance. But you must remember that it is not Christianity itself I am sneering at, but Christianity as taught by a formal old priest like Ulfin, and accepted by a rather priggish young man like Bleheris.¹²⁶ Still, I fear you will like the main gist of the story even less when you grasp it–if you ever do, for as is proper in romance, the inner meaning is carefully hidden.

I am really very sorry to hear about your new record, but so many of your Odeons have been successful that I cannot reasonably have the pleasure of saying ‘I told you so’. Talking about music, I have at last found out the exact number of the Chopin piece I like so well–it is the 21st Prelude. Look it out, and tell me if it is not the best music in the world?

I am afraid it is mere foolishness to praise that rhyme of mine as you do. Remember, you know exactly the occasion that gave rise to it, and can read between the lines, while to others it would perhaps be scarcely intelligible: still it is nice to be able to please even one reader–as you do too, for all your talk. In a way that sort of double-meaning in the title ‘Lady of the Leaf would be rather fascinating I think.

I am glad to hear your remarks about the different pleasures of painting, writing etc. I quite agree with you, ‘work’ of this kind, though it worries and tortures us, tho’ we get sick of it and dissatisfied with it and angry, after all it is the greatest pleasure in life–there is nothing like it. Good night old man.

Jack

P.S. Is Dennis in bathing things all this time, or ‘au naturel’? The point is not without interest.

P.P.S. Up in my room I have just read over the whole ‘Watersprite’ again. I have not done it justice in this letter, the whole story is topping and the air of mystery that hangs about Her makes one very keen to go on. I am not putting this in because I want to pleasure you, but because it just strikes me at the moment and must come out. Go on and prosper–there goes half past. So gute nacht du lieber kamarad, bon soir mon vieux.

J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 114-15):

[Gastons]

21st July 1916.

My dear Papy,

I was just beginning to get up what I considered a very legitimate ‘grouse’, but must admit that you offer the best of reasons for the offence. I am glad that you enjoyed their visit,¹²⁷ and wish that I could have been one of the party:–at least so I may now say with safety when ‘the tyrranny is over past’.¹²⁸ Many thanks for your indulgent permission to take a Scotch trip–never fear, we’ll keep your place in order.

Kirk tells me he has sent you a list of the Scholarships and Exhibitions at colleges in the big group, which we will be able to go over together in the holidays. It is cheering to see that we have some fifteen to come and go over, most of them in the first rank.

My fellow sojourner at Gastons is going home this day (Friday) week, so I think it would be best for me to choose the following Monday. I forget what state the cross-channel routes are in at present, but if Fleetwood is going I had sooner travel by it: failing that by Liverpool with Larne as a pis aller. So if you could book a stateroom for the 31st, and forward a few ‘crowns for convoy’ I shall do myself the honour of waiting on you at Leeborough on Tuesday morning the first. (You may notice the phrasing of the last sentence, the insidious influence of that excellent man, Major Pendennis.)¹²⁹

I had not heard before about Dick¹³⁰ and was very glad and proud of the news. As you say, he has plenty of ‘guts’ if only he has the luck to stick out. Things look a little brighter at the front now, though I am afraid it will need many such successes to bring the business to an end. Kirk went up to London on Wednesday to see the elder Smythe boy, who is at home wounded, for the third time.

‘Summer is a-cummen in’¹³¹ here at last, and we have actually had no rain since Saturday.

your loving

son Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 115-17):

[Gastons]

July 25 1916 and be d-d to you.

My dear Arthur,

That thrice accursed fellow pupil of mine is at present sitting up in the work room so I cannot go and steal a page from his exercise book to write on, as I have been doing all the term–you must be content therefore with these odd scraps: indeed I don’t see why I should write at all, as by writing both the first and the last letter of this term I have treated you to two more than you deserve; however, I will make a note that it is your turn to begin after the holidays.

You are quite mistaken if you suppose that in asking about Dennis’ bathing things I suggested that he OUGHT to have them on–I only wanted to get a perfectly clear picture: still I don’t see any parallel between him and Bleheris in knickerbockers (a very funny word–that or Bickerknocker would be a good name for a dwarf if either of us should want one), because I take it your story is modern. But of course I quite agree that your hero is far better without them. It seems rather unnatural though to pass over any question of embarrassment in absolute silence: the fey of course, as a non-human being, may be excused, but poor Dennis might at least be allowed to blush when he comes round. Handled delicately and without any foolish humour–I am quite serious–the point might be worked a little more: what think you? Morris–who I always think manages to be as good as gold and at the same time beautifully sensuous, would have revelled in it. This week’s instalment is excellent, and your references to the Sea and the sea gods give me great anticipation of what may happen next: that next number which I am longing to get–from your own hand.

You must be easily satisfied if you think that I flatter you–when I scarcely let a sentence go past without pricking holes in it: you must also have funny ideas about my rate of composition if you think I have already finished Bleheris. As a matter of fact I write one chapter every Sunday afternoon, and having started before I came back, am always two instalments ahead of the one you get: the general course of the story was mapped out from the start, but of course is changed pretty freely whenever I like. When I said that you wouldn’t like the ‘gist’ of the thing, I meant nothing to do with what you call ‘shocked’ or ‘immodest’ (though I admit that when the heroine turns up she is in fairly sharp contrast to Alice the Saint), but that the meaning of it all is somewhat anti-Christian: however, the story and not the allegory is the important part.

I have now finished that adorable (to quote our friend Ch-anie)¹³² ‘John Silence’: I still think ‘Ancient Sorceries’ the best, though indeed all, particularly the ‘Fire’ one, are glorious. In the last one the opening part, all about those lovely Northern Islands and the camp life–wouldn’t you love to go there?–is so very beautiful that you feel almost sorry to have the supernatural dragged in. Though the idea of the were-wolf is splendid. At what point of the story did you begin to guess the truth?

My last budget of books includes a French Everyman copy of a poet called Chenier¹³³ (a poet you might perhaps like some day, when you come to read French verse) and a 13d. Macmillan copy of Walter Pater’s ‘Renaissance’,¹³⁴ in the same edition as the ‘Letters from Hell’ I suppose. That book (Hell) by the way is not by Dostoevsky I think, because I fancy I read somewhere that it is translated not from the Russian but from the Swedish: I have noticed too (did I tell you before) that this edition has a preface by our friend Macdonald, the author of Phantastes. We must certainly get it, as the Macmillan 1/-series are, to my mind, very nicely got up. The French Everyman is quite different from the English one–I am not sure yet whether I like it more, or less–you must judge for yourself.

It is a terrible responsibility to have to guide my Galahad in poetry: a false step might turn you away altogether! I don’t think I should advise Milton: while there are lots of things in him you would love–the descriptions of Hell and Chaos and Paradise and Adam and Eve and Satan’s flight down through the stars, on the other hand his classical allusions, his rather crooked style of English, and his long speeches, might be tedious. Besides it is written in blank verse (without rhymes) and people who are beginning to read poetry don’t usually care for that. But of course you are different, and for all I know you might. You must have a good look at it in my copy and see what you think.

Endymion¹³⁵ is top-hole in places, in fact nearly all the time, though somewhat ‘sticky’: it would be a very good thing to try, I think, if you would not scruple to skip whenever you found it dull: the third book especially, where he wanders at the bottom of the sea, would appeal to you strongly. The only other poems I can suggest are Arnold’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’ or ‘Balder Dead’¹³⁶ (though this is in blank verse) or some of the stories in Morris’ ‘Earthly Paradise’¹³⁷ or perhaps some of the other Rossetti’s pieces; these of course you could finish in a few hours, and some of them are not really very good. If you get an edition of Keats perhaps you would like ‘St Agnes Eve’¹³⁸–it is shorter than Endymion, written in Spenser’s metre, and very romantic–though perhaps rather ‘sticky’ also. In sympathy with your new investment, having finished ‘Pendennis’ of which I am heartily sick by now, I have begun to read ‘Twelfth Night’ which is a charming little romance, don’t you think? The opening speech about the music is the best.

Can’t understand it being ‘too hot to practise’ as it is absolute winter here. Bah, there you see I am talking about the weather, like any fool! If I can get away–I haven’t promised, mind–I should be pleased with all my heart to go to Portsalon: indeed whenever (correctly used in this sentence) I have thought of a holiday with you, that place has come into my mind: however, we can discuss all this when we meet–next week. Can you realize? I am so looking forward to seeing you again old man, and I do hope and pray that nothing will turn up to disappoint us. I expect to arrive home on Tuesday: there is some faint danger of my father’s staying at home, but if not, perhaps you could get a day off? Oh, how we will look over all these new books together: I have something ravishing to show you in the way of paper, but that can wait.

I am writing at present a rather lengthy (for me that is) poem about Hylas, which you shall see if it is a success: but perhaps it will never be finished. By the way, I have come to the Hylas part in the Greek Argonautica. He doesn’t go into it nearly as fully as Morris, but in some ways it is better. In this version the various nymphs–mountains, Oreads, wood nymphs etc., are dancing by moonlight when they hear a mortal blundering through the wood. So they all scatter to their various trees, streams etc., and this particular one, as Hylas bent down to fill his pitcher, caught him round the neck and pulled him down; and so to bed, bon soir tu excessivement pudibonde.

Jack

TO ARTHUR GREEVES (LP V: 121-2):

[Little Lea,

Strandtown,

Belfast]

18/9/16.¹³⁹

My Dear Galahad,

It seems a mockery to think that we were talking so lately about how much better we were in our letters than in conversation–I don’t feel like that when I actually sit down to write for the first time. Somehow my being at home instead of at Bookham makes it seem strange to be away from you: it is only so few days ago that we were ragging about together in your bedroom. And now you must brush your teeth alone!

But first of all I will answer your questions. The journey home was absolutely damnable: I had to wait an hour at Letterkenny, and an hour and a quarter at Strabane. You may judge of my boredom when I tell you that I was reduced to buying a ‘Novel’ magazine¹⁴⁰–because everything else on the bookstall was even more impossible. My father seemed in very poor form when I got home, and fussed a lot about my cold: so everything is beastly, and I have decided–of course–to commit suicide again.

This morning I visited Mullans on your little job, but their copy of the Kaleva¹⁴¹ was much too old and shop-soiled to satisfy you, while I couldn’t find one in Maynes at all: this being so I didn’t know quite whether you meant me to order one or not–at any rate I did NOT. I am sending you–as a peace offering–a little present, which may arrive by the end of this week: change it if you don’t care for it–or when you have read it.

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