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Thank you for your letter dated 3rd September
(#ulink_9e5e59e9-a4e0-59e9-97ef-49af9422cc47) and also for the copy of the book entitled The Renewal of All Things in Christ.
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Regarding the moral condition of our times (since you bid me prattle on) I think this. Older people, as we both are, are always ‘praisers of times past’.
(#ulink_19e81dc0-a98e-531c-b14c-92fe9aed0ad7) They always think the world is worse than it was in their young days. Therefore we ought to take care lest we go wrong. But, with this proviso, certainly I feel that very grave dangers hang over us. This results from the apostasy of the great part of Europe from the Christian faith. Hence a worse state than the one we were in before we received the Faith. For no one returns from Christianity to the same state he was in before Christianity but into a worse state: the difference between a pagan and an apostate is the difference between an unmarried woman and an adulteress. For faith perfects nature but faith lost corrupts nature. Therefore many men of our time have lost not only the supernatural light but also the natural light which pagans possessed.
But God, who is the God of mercies,
(#ulink_7efce1fd-0f86-536b-b6c0-bc2d5efae42f) even now has not altogether cast off the human race. In younger people, although we may see much cruelty and lust, yet at the same time do we not see very many sparks of virtues which perhaps our own generation lacked? How much courage, how much concern for the poor do we see! We must not despair. And (among us) a not inconsiderable number are now returning to the Faith.
So much for the present situation. About remedies the question is more difficult. For my part I believe we ought to work not only at spreading the Gospel (that certainly) but also at a certain preparation for the Gospel. It is necessary to recall many to the law of nature before we talk about God.
(#ulink_2fc644f6-c830-59df-a1a0-b774938b8d4e) For Christ promises forgiveness of sins: but what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned? Who will take medicine unless he knows he is in the grip of disease? Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism. I would almost dare to say ‘First let us make the younger generation good pagans and afterwards let us make them Christians.’
These are ravings? But you have what you requested.
Always you and your Congregation are in my prayers.
Farewell,
C. S. Lewis
TO WILLIAM L. KINTER(BOD):
Magdalen etc.
15/9/53
Dear Mr. Kinter
I have been away in Donegal (which is glorious beyond all my dreams) and have only just got your letter of Aug 23d. It was nice to hear from you again. Yes: it is great watching these images of the Mountain, the Wood, the Island etc. as they pass from one man’s work to another’s. I don’t know Read’s Green Child,
(#ulink_d38c2179-e89e-5a23-95e4-adbe084e1097) but have no difficulty in believing what you say of it. There is a deal of really Hellish literature going about at present. I am also interested in what you say about Messiaen (an odd name, by the way).
(#ulink_838da598-be84-5a4e-9d0f-78324fce2fa1) But if I heard the works they wd. only probably be quite beyond me. Please remember me to your wife and accept my kindest regards.
Yours,
C. S. Lewis
P. S. Harding is exciting, isn’t he?
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TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD): TS 28/53.
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
17th September 1953.
My dear Bles,
Thanks for yours of the 16th. I am glad you pointed out that passage.
(#ulink_de5850a5-119c-55d2-bd5f-de7bba33fbb2) No: it won’t do. Of course the children (except Aravis when telling her story in the grand manner)
(#ulink_81c68f02-fed5-55f0-aba8-a6b3ef801019) don’t talk Arabian Nights style anywhere: but they must’nt, I agree, go so far in the other direction as ‘rot’. I’ll mend it.
I hope you both had as good a holiday as I.
Yours,
C. S. Lewis
TO PHYLLIDA (W):
Magdalen College
Oxford
19/9/53
Dear Phyllida
I feel as one does when after ‘showing up’ one’s work one realises one has made the very same mistake one got into a row for last week! I mean, after sending off the book, I read it myself and found ‘Kids’ again twice. I really will take care not to do it again. The earlier part of Rilian’s story, told by the owl, was meant to sound further-off and more like an ordinary fairy-tale so as to keep it different from the part where I get on to telling it myself. I think the idea of making some difference is right: but of course what matters in books is not so much the ideas as how you actually carry them out.
All good wishes and love to both.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO RUTH PITTER(BOD):
Magdalen College
Oxford
Oct 1st 1953
Dear Ruth,
Rachel has been ready for a long time: you know I am of the generation who was brought up to hold that the initiative must come from you.
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Long Crendon–long since endeared to me because Owen Barfield used to live there–will now have a second good association. I shall be among the first etc–but this sounds rather like Mr. Collins!
(#ulink_61cda739-0ac7-5e9b-9f0a-31dd7c5a6611) Warnie joins me in our duties and warm welcome to these parts. It is, as you have seen, a lovely village.
Yours in all service
Jack Lewis
TO NELL BERNERS-PRICE (W):
Magdalen College
Oxford
Oct 3. 53
Dear Nell
My correspondence has lately been in much the same state as yours: that is, on coming back from a holiday in Ireland I found about 60 letters to deal with.
I had a lovely time over there: the best part in Donegal, all Atlantic breakers & golden sand and peat and heather and donkeys and mountains and (what is most unusual there) a heat wave and cloudless skies. Walks were much interrupted by blackberries: so big and juicy, and sweet that you just couldn’t pass without picking them. Some funny hotels, though. One has often found bathrooms with no hot water but I found one with no cold! You’ve no idea how tired one gets waiting for a bath to cool. In fact, with all the steam round you, it really means having a Turkish bath before the ordinary one!
I’m delighted to learn of your good year: how cosmopolitan you have become! Also thanks for telling me about Penelope and the books: give her my love.
You were a shrew to come so near without looking me up–and then, God bless my soul, to expect me to go to you! I’ll try one of these days all the same: it’s too nice to miss. I agree about prison–at least for Mrs. Hooker. She has so often been there, for similar offences, that it ought to be quite clear the treatment doesn’t work. Have you been having, like us, the most exquisite autumn? Love to Alan & yourself.
Yours
Jack
TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):
Magdalen College
Oxford
3/10/53
Dear Mrs Van Deusen
I was extremely glad to get your letter. I was beginning to feel that my own had been presumptuous and intolerable and had been praying not that it might do good but that it might not do harm. Whether I was right or wrong, you came out of it with flying colours: if few can give good advice, fewer still can hear with patience advice either good or bad.
About your Project (it was, wasn’t it, for the founding of a sort of rest-home where people in psychological difficulties could get Christian advice, sympathy, and, if necessary, treatment?), the whole thing–as with most conceptions either practical or literary–turns on the execution. All depends on the quality of the individual helpers. I suspect you will find them only by what seems chance but is really an answer to prayer. No ‘machinery’ of committees and selection & references, however well devised, will do it, I imagine. And perhaps it is just by your discovering, or failing to discover, the right people, that God will show you whether He wishes you to do this or not (Beware here of my unsanguine temper, more tempted to sloth than to precipitance, and ready to despond: take my advice always with a grain of salt).
It is hard, when difficulties arise to know whether one is meant to overcome them or whether they are signs that one is on the wrong track. I suppose the deeper one’s own life of prayer and sacraments the more trustworthy one’s judgement will be.
You ‘get me where I live’ about Van’s Aunt. I have been in v. close contact with a case like that. It is harrowing. My doctor (a v. serious Christian) kept on reminding me that 50 much of an old person’s speech & behaviour must really be treated as a medical not a spiritual fact: that, as the organism decays, the true state of the soul can less and less express itself thro’ it. So that things may be neither so miserable (nor so wicked, we must sometimes add) as they seem. I sometimes wonder whether the incarnation of the soul is not gradual at both ends?-i.e. not fully there yet in infancy and no longer fully there in old age.
The first syllable of Donegal rhymes with FUN, the last with ALL, there are 3, and the accent is on the last-Dun-i-Gaúl. Blessings on all of you.
Yours (most relieved)
C. S. Lewis
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (BOD):
Magdalen College
Oxford
Oct 6/53
My dear Arthur
I have ordered Blackwells to send you a copy of Barfield’s (‘G. A. L. Burgeon’s’) book.
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I enclose one wh. I found worth reading but don’t want to keep. If you don’t like it, pass it on to someone else. You’ll agree with the author about Noise! I think you’ll find in him an approach to Christianity wh. you haven’t v. much met yet & wh. is worth knowing about; it is fairly widely spread here. Of course parts of it are too explicitly R.C. for us but a lot of common ground remains.
Here are some C. M. Yonge titles, all good books: The Daisy Chain and its sequel The Trial; The Pillars of the House; The Three Brides; The Two Sides of the Shield; Dynevor Terrace. Not so good (but W. differs from me) is Nutty’s Father.
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I wish you had enjoyed our holiday as much as I did! But I expect you’re enjoying yourself all the more now. All blessings.
Yours
Jack
TO JOHN RICHARDS (BOD):
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449/53.
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
13th October 1953.
Dear Mr. Richards,
Thank you for your kind and encouraging letter of the 11th. Tolkien’s great romance, The Lord of the Rings, of which the first volume will soon be published, just skirts the theme of the True West. You’ll find it immensely worth reading on other accounts as well.
Yours sincerely,
