C. S. Lewis: A Biography. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ ideal little estate was duly purchased that July for £3,300, and £200 more set aside for building on two additional rooms – one of which became the new ‘little end room’. The remainder of the lease of Hillsboro was sold fairly satisfactorily in August, and the Lewis brothers, with Mrs Moore and Maureen, and Mr Papworth the dog, moved into The Kilns on 11 October 1930.

Shortage of money unfortunately prevented them from buying the adjoining field for £300, and a few years later an unsightly row of small houses was built on it. The rest of the Kilns environment, however, remained in almost unspoilt beauty until after Lewis’s death, though by then the area at the end of their lane, in a square from the bypass to the London road, was a solid block of development, joining on to the suburbs of Oxford.^*

^* Dr John Hawkins Askins (1877–1923) – ‘the Doc.’ – was Mrs Moore’s brother. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained his Bachelor of Medicine in 1904. During the First World War he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and he was wounded in 1917. His health seems to have been broken by the war. He was married to the former Mary Emmet Goldsborough, and they had one child, Peony. About 1922 they moved to Iffley, just outside Oxford, to be near Mrs Moore. Lewis was writing about Dr Askins in Chapter 13 of Surprised by Joy where he said he spent ‘fourteen days, and most of fourteen nights as well, in close contact with a man who was going mad … And this man, as I well knew, had not kept the beaten track. He had flirted with Theosophy, Yoga, Spiritualism, Psychoanalysis, what not?’

^* Sir Michael Ernest Sadler (1861–1943), educational pioneer and patron of the arts, read Classics at Trinity College, Oxford. He was Professor of Education at the University of Manchester, 1903–11, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, 1911–23, and Master of University College, 1923–34.

^* Herbert David Ziman (1902–83) took a Second in Greats and received his BA from University College in 1924. He was leader-writer for the Daily Telegraph, 1934–9, and literary editor, 1956–68.

^† All these pupils were reading Greats at University College. Robert Remington Ware, George Lawrence Capel Touche, and John Hill Mackintosh Dawson took their BAs in 1925.

^† Frederick Henry Lawson (1897–1983), academic lawyer, was Lecturer in Law at University College, 1924–5, at Christ Church, 1925–6, Junior Research Fellow of Merton College, 1925–30, and official Fellow and Tutor in Law, 1930–48. Lawson was Professor of Law and a Fellow of Brasenose College, 1948–64.

^§ David Lindsay Keir (1895–1973) was a Fellow of New College, Oxford, 1921–39, President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s College, Belfast, 1939–49, and Master of Balliol College, 1949–65.

^* John Norman Bryson (1896–1976) was born in Belfast and educated at the Queen’s University, Belfast and Merton College. He was a lecturer in English at Balliol, Merton, and Oriel Colleges, 1923–40, and Fellow and Tutor in English at Balliol College, 1940–63.

^† ‘For five years’ was a mere matter of form. Re-election was almost certain, provided the Fellow fulfilled his duties satisfactorily.

^* The favourite walk of the essayist and poet, Joseph Addison (1672–1719). When he was a Fellow of Magdalen, living in New Buildings, he greatly enjoyed the walk that runs northward from the College buildings. On 13 May 1998 a stone tablet was erected in Addison’s Walk to mark the centenary of Lewis’s birth. On it is inscribed Lewis’s poem about the walk – ‘What the Bird Said Early in the Year’ – which can be found in The Collected Poems of C.S. Lewis.

^* (Sir) John Betjeman (1906–84), Poet Laureate, was Lewis’s first pupil in Magdalen. He would not work, and in the end he failed the University’s Divinity examination and left Oxford without a degree. At first he blamed Lewis for not supporting him, and in some of his poems Lewis is made a figure of fun. However, in time Betjeman admitted that he was himself to blame for his troubles. He was a devoted member of the Church of England. His many volumes of poems include Ghastly Good Taste (1933), Old Lights for New Chancels (1940) and A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954).

^* Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), poet and novelist. His Songs of Childhood (1902) was followed by a large output of poems, novels and other books. Among his best known are The Return (1910), Peacock Pie (1913) and Behold the Dreamer (1939).

^† Alfred Leslie Rowse (1903–97), poet, biographer and historian, was born in Cornwall and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford.

^† William Francis Ross Hardie (1902–90), educated at Balliol College, was the Fellow of Philosophy at Magdalen College in 1925, Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1926–50, and President of Corpus Christi College, 1950–69.

^* Lascelles Abercrombie (1881–1938), poet and critic, was educated at Malvern College. He was Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds, 1922–9, the University of London, 1929–35, and Goldsmith’s Reader at Oxford, 1935–8. The works of this distinguished ‘metaphysical poet’ include Mary and the Bramble (1910) and The Sale of St Thomas (1931).

^† Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965), poet, playwright, critic and publisher, was born in St Louis, Missouri and educated at Harvard. He intended to be a philosopher, and he spent 1914–15 at Merton College, Oxford on a fellowship. After meeting Ezra Pound he decided to become a poet and he settled in England. In 1925 he became a director of the publishing firm Faber & Gwyer (later Faber & Faber), and in 1927 was baptized in the Church of England. His poems include Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), Poems (1919) and Four Quartets (1935–42). In 1922 he founded a review entitled The Criterion, the first volume of which contained The Waste Land, the poem that established him as the voice of a disillusioned generation. Lewis feared the effect of his verse on modern poetry, and he never liked Eliot’s poetry or criticism. Years later, however, when they were brought together to work on a revision of the Psalter, Lewis came to like him very much. See his biography in CG.

^* Henry Vincent Yorke (1905–73), who wrote under the name ‘Henry Green’, is considered one of the most original prose writers of his generation. He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, and worked for a while in the family business in London. His first novel, Blindness (1926), was begun while he was still at Eton. His other novels include Party Going (1939), and Caught (1943). He wrote an autobiographical work, Pack My Bag (1940).

^† ‘limit’. СКАЧАТЬ